Before I begin I'll just add that I'm not a little gurl who becomes a sour loser at every chance possible. I hate losing like as much as everyone else, but I do get somewhat frustrated when I see no real/proper solution. Anyway so here's my story: I got several friends to play against, however, one of them tends to field a heavily armoured army. He doesn't do this to deliberately roflstomp, but because he considers his regular core units crap and thus relies a lot on his inner cirlce knights. He also always have a steamtank, some reiksguards (more cavalry ) and some demigryps. Generally speaking not fully fledged AS1+ army (he refrains from using 2 x steamtanks because even he considers that too competitive for our small group). Oh and yeah we play at 2500pts. So... Last game I lured his IC Knights into a sad spot. They tangled with 40 cohort skinks and were pretty much set up for quite some time. This time, however, he were the one who tricked me. He placed his cannon and reiksguard in the one side of the deployment zone and basically the rest in the other side. His idea was to seperate some of my stuff and annihalate one of the sides. Needless to say he succeeded, but he had also turned up the volume of the heavy stuff. Today he came with: 6 Demigryphs in one units. 14 IC knights with great weapons + general. Steam tank. 2 x spearmen (uncertain of the exact amount, but I think 35 in each) 2 lvl 2 mages. A wagon giving +1 to hit and +1 PD. All that was in the one side of the deployment zone. I figured I'd try out the razordons. Bad move. I also came with 2 x 30 saurus and 40 skink cohort unit along with 5 COR w/ scar vet, a lone oldblood cowboy, high magic etheral slann, stegadon, beast priest, Even though he started he failed both his magic AND shooting phase and in my magic phase I more removed something lik 30 spearmen. In the following round he charged my one saurus unit with his IC knights and skinks with demigryps (razordons could now not shoot any targets so they joined the fight the turn after, bad move). His wagon was just behind his IC knights and demigryphs. Let me put it this way. The unit with skinks was OBLITERATED. I mean, sure, fine, they were steadfast, until it was my turn. Then they disappered into thin air. My saurus unit lasted a little better, but without steadfast they ran. Fortunately for him because my steg was about to flank charge his knights, unfortunetely for me it died in the following round because it got charged. Oh and yeah the one kill it made? Came from a skink. FFS. With my other saurus unit and oldblood I ruined his reiksguard. No worries there, but after the mess in the other side of the battle we stopped the battle at round 3 in my turn. At that point in the game I had lost everything, but my COR unit (who was about to have a very bad day), my slann who would also be in the same situation as my COR. The only viable units I had left was my oldblood (1 wound left) and saurus warriors. Fair enough though. I'm not mad at this, because ultimately a WoC player turn up with something similar, just worse. The fault is on me. I need to get better and learn how to deal with stuff like this. I mean, sure the army I faced today was way more competitive than I usually meet, but I still need to learn to deal with this. Other players might come with even more BS. So, we talked after the fight (as we always do) about how it went, how things could've turned out and what we could've done differently. It's hard though, for me, to come up with something properly. In terms of magic I have a very limited time before contact and with 3 (4) heavily armoured units it can be hard to pick the right one. Searing doom on the Stank will give make it more risky to use. On IC knights they easily become useless if they lose too many and the Demigryphs can probably still throw out a good amount of attacks whatever I do. In terms of units (not characters) everything I put up will take a HEAVY beating. If I don't pick the right target with magic or if magic fails me I'll survive 2 combat phases with 30 sword/shield saurus, maybe 3 if I'm lucky. Templeguards is the same issue. Skink cohorte die even faster, same with Skrox. Skink skirmish will do zero damage against these units. Kroxigors are dependable of getting a flank charge, same with stegadon. So all in all I feel like I need to rely on magic, not to gain an advantage, but level the playing field. Characters appear to be our ace when all else fail. An oldblood can take a heavy beating and throw even higher strenght attacks back. Scar vets, to some degree, the same. The thing is, I know this can be dealt with, I just don't want my strategy to rely on magic going my way. In the battle I just descriped my friend was unlucky with magic and both his cannon and Stank misfired on the first round of shooting (lol). The cannon misfired again in the following round and got destroyed. However, I cannot rely on stuff like that happening - his Stank could've been lucky to either seriously wound my stegadon or just outright kill it. No amount of cameleon skinks, terradons, skink chief on terradon will stop it from that. And yes I realize I didn't take them with me today, but that was a gamble I didn't mind taking (today). My biggest issue with this fight is that I cannot stay back and wait. He'll shoot me with magic (he's fond of dwellers bellow or meteor) and cannons. So I'm uncertain what to do here? Preferably something that is not reliant on magic and something that can hold out just a little longer. Personally I feel that I need big units (30+) to take the beating. This, however, feels like it limits me to what I can do. Say 30 saurus, 40 skinks and 30 templeguards will easily cost 1000pts, characters another 800pts which, along with anti-cannons units will leave me with little to use on stegadons, COR etc. So uhm yeah.. Help?
Oh.. I just realized that we played the demigryphs wrong. Since they're basically just mounts they don't to attack in the second row. That could've changed things quite a lot since my units probably would've been steadfast and if nothing else it would've changed the way they would've been used against me.
Do you have any scar vet or old blood with the saurus unit? Could possible help a lot killing them knights. With a great weapon they get 5+ save right?
You're correct, mounts don't make supporting attacks, just the riders. So only the front 3 demigryphs get to attack or stomp, while all 6 knights get to attack. That said, a unit of skinks will be roflstomped by them in a fight either way. They will evaporate into a pale blue mist Here's a short list of units that can potentially beat 6 demigryphs in a straight fight: - 9 Kroxigor - 40+ Temple Guard in Horde formation w/ Razor Standard - Battle Slann - Fully kitted Oldblood Cowboy (eventually...) - Scar-vet character bus Pretty much the only other option I know of is to tarpit them with a large brick of steadfast Saurus, and then get a flank charge with something beefy to break them through combat res. Inner-circle knights are easier to deal with, IMO. 4-5 Ripperdactyls in the flank or rear will take them out, along with everything on the list above. They're also devastated by searing doom, can be held up by a cowboy, etc. Steam tank is a pain in the butt. The units in the above list all still work, but it takes for freaking ever to kill the thing.
Fight fire with fire. Send your 1+ AS high movement guys against them (but not the tank). You will receive less attacks, and probably wont kill your guy and you can heal him with your slann. Its very important that your cowboy doesn't run. Tarpit the Knights with your skink cohort if you can get the charge even better (you could boost their movement in turn 1, and surprise him with a 6+1d3 +2d6 charge). With no lances, they are just 1 S4 1 S3 attack per model, and you can save with 6+ AS 6++ parry. That left one single thing to deal with magic or kroxigors. Steamtank. Remember that if its your turn the tank cannot generate Steam Points. So only the engineers attack is made. If you crush the tank with 4 or more Krox the tank will be heavily damaged. So the good match up against empire is the following (WoC any kind of match up is grim) Knights: Dont get charge or receive it with a big cheap infantry block. Flank charge with Krox/Stegadon in order to get 1 or 2 models b2b instead of the whole front rank. You can also charge in the front with the cowboy. Demigriphs: Use 1+ AS cowboys with further protection. Just hold the unit until you can set a counter charge. If you cannot set up this match, use skinks redirectors to get time. Steam tank: Searing doom or big block of Kroxigors. Dont send a cowboy here, too much d3 impact hits can kill your guy. Hope it helps you.
I play Empire as my 2nd army, and I play a similar list to your friend. I hate the regular core except knights and bowmen. I never take demigryphs though. I don't like their forced fluff, models, or how they are auto-include. Booring. All of the suggestions above are quite good. I would stick with magic to counter the steam tank, otherwise its combined forces or grinding out his heavy armored units. Rippers are probably a good shout in this (as mentioned) because they can definitely make a flank charge if you tarpit, other they can overkill WM's and wizards. Good luck!
Step1: Ancient Steg Step2: sharpen those Horns! Step3: tarpet or redirect those chickens Step4: charge those chickengs with angry Steggie Step5: enjoy
Unfortunately, ancient steg is not a great counter to 6 demigryphs. His impact hits only average 3.75 wounds vs. them, and he does almost nothing in future rounds. So basically, he kills 1 demigryph and then sits there. Meanwhile, they will win combat every successive round until the steg breaks. Ancient steg works a lot better against 3-4 demigryphs than against 5-6.
1 a-steg without sharpened horns + 6 krox or 2 a steg with sharpened and no Krox vs a mix of various AS1+? (and not just demigryphs)
I'm also pretty sure empire have cannons.. That would be my first include as an empire player against lizzies
I love ancient stegadons, but they're only OK versus AS 1+. They're also big cannon targets. But if you're going to bring one, definitely bring the sharpened horns, because it won't do anything at all to the demigryphs or the steam tank without it.
Everyone once in a while the Empire forum does a battle via committee as a Tactical Exposition Game. The Empire list was pretty much 100% cheese and was beaten with mostly Skinks. It might be worth reviewing.
Saurus characters with Great weapons are the most reliable answer to heavy armor in the Lizardmen book. I use an oldblood on foot with a great weapon, armor of destiny, and dawnstone and a scar vet with either a 4+ ward and charmed shield or Dragonhelm and a 5+ ward.
Necrothread!: It's actually not that I have the same issues as I used to. Our skills are matching more and more. So, still though if we think back on empire and what they can field what do you think about the following: @2500pts Kroak Oldblood: sword of bloodshed, LA, shield, dragonhelm vs WS10 swords, dawnstone, LA?? Scar vet BSB on CO, armour of destiny, great weapon. Heavens priest with iceshard, scroll. 30 saurus with spears. 3 x 10 skink skirmishers, javelins. 10 skink cohort. 38 templeguards, full command, razorbanner 10 cameleon skinks 6 ripperdactyls. Alternatively: Kroak Oldblood: sword of bloodshed, LA, shield, dragonhelm vs WS10 swords, dawnstone, LA?? Heavens priest with iceshard, scroll. 30 saurus with spears. 3 x 10 skink skirmishers, javelins. 10 skink cohort. 38 templeguards, full command, razorbanner 10 cameleon skinks 8 kroxigors + champion This build Can probably save enough points to include a skink chief BSB