8th Ed. I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some help?

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

Ugh, yoo are playing agains a very nasty list, I can see why you are frustated.
yea, those demigryphs are aboung the best units in warhammer and the steam tank isn't too far behind.
since he seems ti run a lot of armor, pehaps try out the lore of metal ?
as far a targets, ye harlbredrs where a poor choice for our cav, stay away from high strengh units if possible, they will negate a lot of your armor. better to throw kroxogors against them.
Try and get the charge against the knight to get rid of their lance bonus (happen when they charge).
Perhaps add some ripper dactal units to take care of the knight...
as far as the steam tank goes... that is one seriously tough unit to kill, you might have some luck
with a scarvet with a high strenght weapon and a bunch of armor and ward saves.

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

My brother plays Empire with a steam tank. I've had some luck with temple guard and the razor standard, but you are screwed if it charges you and delivers it's impact hits.
I agree - he will find lore of metal scary!

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

Well first of all, your opponent is fielding a fairly competitive list, Demigriff knights and the stank particularly are petty overpowered, and we all know about the cannon, so don't feel too bad about getting beat.

What spells are you taking on your Slann? I would advise wandering deliberations, searing doom will be vital for taking out high armour save units like the steam tank and IC knights and miasma will be able to swing combats in your favour.

You will need a strategy for dealing with the cannon, my favoured approach would be either 8-9 chameleon skinks, scouting forward and shooting them full of poison, or a squad of ripperdactyls to vangard up and tear into it in combat.

In terms of army construction I personally dislike 2000pts because it feels like one Saurus block is not enough, but you don't really have enough points to bring a second, I usually end up with two units of 24.

The other things I would strongly advise would be ancient stegs and Salamanders, a couple of sallies can wreak utter havoc in his troop blocks and ancient stegs with sharpened horns can make a mess of any Monstrous cavalry, and even the stank.

If you ask me your list looks ok, in terms of deployment I would put the Saurus & temple guard in the centre and post the Saurus cavalry and stegs on the flanks. Don't slam the Saurus cavalry into the front of an enemy unit, send them round the flanks instead, that way you'll only take a single rank of attacks rather than 2-3. If there are any characters in the fighting rank be sure to challenge them with your scar vet, or in the case of the runefang lord challenge with the champion to contain him.

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

As far as tactica for playing redirector or double flee with your chaff units I suggest reading the Ulthuan.net eagle tactica, maybe someone has the link to post in this thread.

You can use the same principles with your skinks, only make adjustments to compensate for the fact their positioning is for a flying unit, so they place their eagles pretty close to enemy units. I use my skinks a bit further away in case I am planning to flee & rally (hopefully).

Also remember not only skinks, but sallies, razordons in single units can be awesome at redirecting if you are in a pinch and need to prevent the 2nd unit from completing a double charge against you as example.

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

I believe so.

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

Yes, the order goes: hit-wound-multiply wound

So if the first hit is from a cannonball, its discarded on a 2+

If he were to shoot at say a slamander and the shot was transfered to a skink handler ,the cannonball would wound the single skink handler and then multiply. since the handler only has a single wound any additional wounds casued by the cannonball (d6) would be lost

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

which would kill the handler, and let the cannonball bounce on, right?

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

No, frenzy is ripper only.

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

I agree lore of metal is a logical solution to the stank and empire knights (demi and ic an reik). However, you should learn to play an all-comers list and beat empire heads up. That would suggest choosing knowing all signature spells (Wandering Deliberations) instead of loremaster High Magic (which is cheaper anyway and easier to cast with lower casting costs). The base lore of death spell and lore of metal spell will both be very effective against the stank and demigryphs. Miasma at the boosted level can be used to cut down the range and reduce ability of the demigryph knights to hit. Earth blood gives the TG or Saurus unit regen and can recover a lost wound. Wyssans is awesome on saurus or TG units.

Also, Lizardmen are very good at 2400 or 2500 points but a bit weaker at 2000 points especially in a matchup with Empire.


Temple Guard are quite effective if they can either survice the first round of combat or get the charge.

I like the idea of running a skink priest with lore of beasts and a dispel scroll in a unit of skink skirmishers. he can extend the range of the slann's direct damage and magic missle spells and the free reform and march and shoot abilities of the skirmishers is very useful in getting them where they need to be without them getting charged. They are still vulnerable to magic spells but you cna learn to deal with that as well. Look at a Lore of Beasts with the signature spell to boost them or the saurus unit to be able to max wound rates and cut through the Armour save better. A lvl 2 skink priest with amber spear is also quite effective, especially boosted. You need at least S5 or S6 to really hurt knights and the stank.

Learn to use cheap units of skink skirmiishers or skink cohorts in small units to move and shoot and bait and flee and force failed charges by the knights or to take charges to set up the knights for being charged. Also, skink cohorts are useful in taking a charge and redirecting or holding up something.

Charging a small unit of skrox into a steam tank is a good option both for tying it up and wearing it down with wounds and runinig a skink cohort unit with a single Krox is an interesting option.

As for $$$, I try to buy some from the FLGS but also recommend ebay. Sometimes you can pick up models on a discount there. and whole armies for half off.

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

Given the wording of the rule,

The monstrous beast (salamander) is hit
The MB is not slain
Therefore the cannonball stops

Even though a skink took the hit and the fluff doesn't really support that, the rules do

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

That is my understanding as well, bc the sally is not slain the skink handler basically pulls out his catchers mit and takes one for the team

cannon -> <- Skink handler

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

Saurus aren't great flankers, due to their movement 4. So I don't really recommend the strategy you described.

The Ancient Stegadon, on the other hand, is a great flanker. So is a unit of 6 Kroxigor (as they are also movement 6, and their S7 attacks tear through armor). If you ran one of each, you could pair them with your two Saurus blocks. Then when something challenges your Saurus, the associated flanker can mince it.

Incidentally, I disagree about running 24 Saurus arranged 6x4. I would run 25 Saurus arranged 5x5. The reason is, the Saurus aren't going to win combat by killing the opposing unit - that's what your flankers are for. The extra couple of attacks is less important than being steadfast for longer, and breaking opposing steadfast more reliably. The combat doesn't end when your Saurus have killed off all the opposing models, it ends when the Ancient Stegadon slams into the side of the opposing unit, doing impact hits, stomps, S6 regular attacks, and giving you a charge + flank bonus. When that happens, if the opponent has fewer ranks than you, he will not be steadfast and will break. It doesn't really matter how many Saurus he kills in the meantime; as long you have more ranks, you will hold due to steadfast.

My advice is to use your Scar-Vet to hold off the Demigryphs for a few turns, and sic your Slann on the Steam Tank. Send the salamanders after anything squishy, send the chief after any artillery. For the rest of the units, try to create at least 1 combat when you break the opponent as described above. After 1 unit breaks and gets run down, it creates a domino effect, because your newly freed up units can now regroup to help the guys still in combat.

 

Re: I apparently have no clue how to play, can I get some he

That's quite close to what I normally run. The advice to run blocks of 25 for the Saurus and TG is quite good. Also, I might take another look at Lore of Metal. I'd be tempted to run a LoM Slann in a take-all-comers list. There are better lores, but it is by no means the worst one for us. All but two spells in the list can be highly effective and those other two are situational at worst. Glittering Robe buffs our Skinks a little bit and Golden Hounds has some situational uses. (For example, it would be perfect for messing up an Empire Captain on Pegasus.)

Padre