This is a re-match from last week. My friend is gearing up for a 2250 tournament with his Warriors of Chaos. He has wanted me to play him to work on his tactics and list. So, I was happy to oblige. Last week he massacred me (I didn't check the points, I only had my Slann and maybe 5 Temple Guard left and he had, well, too many units.) Of course I let him get away with a failed stupidity roll on turn on so he could get his Chaos Lord on Dragon into contact and I failed to move in the first turn before I started on magic and so I left it at that. I stayed bottled up in my deployment zone the entire game. I also hadn't checked the FAQ on Rule of Burning Iron to see that you could indeed fire it at a model engaged in Close Combat. In other words, he got off light last week. I wanted to see what his Army could do if everything went his way anyway, so it was cool. I claim I was massacred. He claims it was a draw since I was nice. This week I was going to show him how it would go if we played by the rules all the way. The Legion of Zec-Xa 1 Slann Mage-Priest General Battle Standard Bearer War Banner Cupped Hands of the Old Ones Dispel Scroll Disciplines: The Becalming Cogitation, Focus of Mystery, The Focused Rumination Lore of Metal 1 Level Two Skink Priest Ancient Stegadon Engine of the Gods 1 Level Two Skink Priest Plaque of Tepok Cloak of Feathers 16 Temple Guard Musician, Standard Bearer 18 Saurus Warriors Full Command, Spears (I chose full command because his characters have to challenge. That's a lot of wasted wounds!) 10 Skink Skirmishers 10 Skink Skirmishers 4 Terradon Riders 1 Razordon Extra Handler (his units are all pretty much immune to Psychology, Frenzied) 1 Razordon Extra Handler 1 Saurus Scar-Veteran Light Armor Piranha Blade Enchanted Shield Cold One 5 Cold One Cavalry Full Command, Scar-Vet goes here. Total Roster Cost: 2248 His Army, Frenzied pretty much all around, only his warshrines were Tzeentch 1 Chaos Lord General Helm of Many Eyes Hellfire Sword Chaos Dragon Mount (He got a nice roll off the shrines so he did a total of 15 attacks with this set up) 1 Level Two Chaos Sorcerer Daemonic Mount 2 dispels scrolls Lore of Shadows 1 Level Two Chaos Sorcerer Chaos Steed No idea on magic items Lore of Shadow 10 Chaos Knights 10 Marauders Great Weapons 10 Marauders Great Weapons 10 Marauders Great Weapons 1 Warshrine of Tzeentch 1 Warshrine of Tzeentch Roster Total: Something around 2250 He rolls a 6+1 to go first, so I didn't even have to roll! I Bane Head his General. So, he makes his stupidity check for his Chaos Lord and fails just like last week. This time, I let him stay put not pulling any punches. His sorcerer on Daemonic mount tries a spell, I forget which, rolled 3 dice and got snake eyes! That happened to me last week, so I figure it was karma or the Old Ones just sticking it to Chaos. He rolls two dice for the Miscast table and... whoops! Snake eyes again! I chuckle knowing he loses all of his scrolls as the sorcerer implodes taking 4 Chaos Knight with him. He also wounds his other Sorcerer. The other Sorcerer tried to cast something with three dice but fails. I never even use a dispel die in the first turn and my scroll never got used the entire game! Clearly the Old Ones are smiling on the Legion of Zec-Xa this day. He advances all of his units forward, Dragon in the middle (stupidly lurching forward) flanked by the War Shrines of Tzeentch with a unit of Marauders on my right and a forest next to them. On my left of the other War Shrine is the Chaos Knight unit, what's left of it anyway, with one Sorcerer which has two Marauder units further left of it bordered by some impassible terrain. I was set up from left to right thusly: Razordon, Skirmishing Skinks in front of my Priest on Stegadon and Cold One Cavalry, Saurus Warriors, Skink Priest with Cloak of Feathers, Skink Skirmishers screening my Temple Guard, and a Razordon out front on my right hand flank. I move my skirmishers on both sides forward about six inches, keeping them out of charge range of the marauders, I move my razordons up on their outside flanks to cover them, move my Cavalry up real close behind the Skirmishers and get the Stegadon out on his own and on the flank of his Knights. I move the Saurus up slightly and move the lone Skink Priest with Cloak of Feathers up in front of everything, knowing his Lord on Dragon will have to charge it and knowing darn well I was going to flee back into range of my Slann bunker which moved slightly up and angled itself to make sure Chaos Lord would be in arc of sight in case the Priest didn't turn back around. At this point the Engine of the Gods can only do a buff, so I give it to my skirmishing skinks allowing them to reroll ones to hit and wound. My solo flying Priest is within 24" of his Lord on Dragon so I open up. I got off Forked Lightning and he let it go. I ended up with one wound on his Lord and not a scratch on the Dragon. Next came the Slann. I threw 3+free dice at Bane of Forged Steel. It wasn't the greatest roll. He threw all of his dispel dice at it and beat my roll. I had him right where I wanted him. No dice left and no scrolls, I cast rule of burning Iron with 1+1 free dice. I get enough hits and I get one wound and with Bane Head that's enough to kill his General in turn one. I then cast Distillation of Silver at his Dragon, which passed its Leadership test, hit but failed to wound. End of Turn 1 Turn two see things going my way still. He advances forward moving several units into range of blowpipes and Razordons as well as the Burning Alignment if I get a lucky roll on the range. His Dragon, free of his stupidity check and since he is Frenzied has to charge the only thing he is in range of, a lone Skink Priest. I gleefully declare a flee and move back 3 inches leaving the Saurus out front of him but not screening. Two turns and he hasn't actually engaged anything and has lost a Sorcerer, 4 Knights and his General. Now he is in range of shooting and has to take another round of magic. I am getting cocky. Never get cocky. The Old Ones will remind you that you are a mere gnat to them. My Skink priest rallies and turns around. I might have charged the dragon with my Saurus, but I was hoping to get his Knights into them, or maybe a Warshrine at least. I know exactly where his Dragon is headed, so angle my bunker a bit more. I cast all kinds of crap at his Dragon. I get all kinds of hits. Wounds, however, not so much. Rule of Burning Iron, Distillation of Molten Silver, Bane of Forged Steel, Forked Lightning. Not one stinking wound. As I said, never get cocky. By some miracle my leftmost unit of Skinks wounds the dragon with a blowpipe. Only five more to go. My rightmost unit of skinks and the Razordon over there all get to shoot at his marauders. I drop 4 of them. Out on my left flank my Razordon kills another. Now I know I am going to have to fight and I am not looking forward to it so much. My opponent sees this as his last chance to really turn this around. End of Turn 2 This turn sees the Warriors of Chaos getting to do what they do best, Close combat on the charge. Dragon again charges the Skink Priest. As luck would have it, I flee again to within one inch of the edge of the table. Poor Dragon is hungry and cannot eat. His Knights charge my Saurus, one Warshrine just moves into range to charge something next turn, his Marauders try their luck with the Razordon on the right, One Warshrine can't hit anything because it's pretty congested and on my left the two units of marauders think they can handle the Razordon over there. The combats go about as you would expect. I am really fortunate because the rightmost Skirmishers are within range of the Slann's Leadership. The Stand and shoots are atrocious for the Marauders. The leftmost decimate his unit but get charged, beaten and the two surviving skinks flee and stop right beside my Cavalry keeping them out of a very favorable charge. I lose four skinks on the right and the razordon on that side actually misfires, killing a skink. The close combat actually saw the rest of the unit hold. My Saurus hold and actually kill two Knights. At this point the Dragon is set up for another charge on my skink Priest who rallied again, somehow. I decide that now that my Cold One Cavalry are blocked from charging the Knights by two Razordon Handlers, who rallied, that they will simply move up a little out of the way of the Marauders and that my magic would have to deal with them. I magic away two more knights and manage to get a wound on a Warshrine (seriously, T6 with Armor AND Ward saves?) My Stegadon goes in for the kill on the leftmost Marauder units and tears them up. They end up outnumbered by Terror, flee into combat and go bye bye. Stegadon gets close to a Warshrine, not close enough. End of Turn 3 The Dragon again charges the Skink Priest (at this point my opponent was desperate to take away any magic and VPs he could) which again flees right off the table. I figured the failed charge was worth not holding as it kept the Dragon on the table for some magic. The poor Dragon is now back pretty much behind everything I have, not having had a single combat and down a wound. Combats go about as expected. His Knights beat on my Saurus who end up beaten and flee off the table. However, he is flanked by those two lone Razordon Handlers and he didn't put one attack on them. He's stuck in Close combat and I have set up the Cold One Cavalry for the charge previously. At this point, I'll sum up for your sanity and mine. I keep getting tons of hits with spells and few wounds. A Dragon charges the Temple guard on turn five. His Knights get hammered and he loses his last sorcerer as he gets crushed under an angry Stegadon. Slann manages a miscast! Woohoo, Cupped hands of the Old Ones and not a single enemy wizard on the table, much less Line of Sight. Slann blows up 6 Temple Guard (apparently I can only wound myself!) and gives himself a wound. Now I feel even less guilty for his Wizard blowing up on Turn One since I have had four miscasts against this guy in two games! The Stegadon ends up against a Warshrine and the Priest gets murdered but the four crew all survive. I got one more Burning alignment off against both warshrines before the Priest bit it and cause a couple of wounds. The Dragon ends up getting charged by my Cold One Cavalry and those two skink handlers. Yes, it was lame. He was flanked and rear charged, the Scar Vet did some wounds and he lost combat and fled into another unit. Dead Dragon. The Final turn saw me trying to kill the warshrines. They both fled and got either run down or ran into enemies. Aftermath and Victory He was tabled but had ended up with a banner, all my Saurus, plenty of Skinks, Razordons, both Priests and I think I may have lost some more TG along the way, giving my opponent half points. I had two table quarters, barely. Final Verdict was a Massacre. That miscast cost me dearly. If my opponent had gotten 101 more points I would have only had a Solid Victory. In the end I was grateful for a really fun game. I think my opponent has decided to tweak his list a bit more before the tournament too, which I am glad for. I really felt like it was a bad list but he felt good about it last week. He is now thinking about taking out the Chaos Dragon. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this.
Re: Legion of Zec-Xa vs. WoC 2250 Friendly/Competitive Good report, and well played battle. Handled the dragon and the knights = win (atleast vs this army) You got some luck on the stupid/miscast in the beginning but paid for that in the end. Just one question: IIRC, the Rule of Burning iron only does 1 wound. Which multiplies into 2...meaning no dead (lord level) General. Did you manage to wound him with another spell AND the ROBI? And, why the choice of Razordons over Sala's? Do you always use them? or did you swap them out, as his frenzy troops don't care about panic..? Again, good report and good battle. The Hunted
Re: Legion of Zec-Xa vs. WoC 2250 Friendly/Competitive Yes, in the report I mention that I already had a wound on his Lord so only needed to hit once with the Bane Head. I picked Razordons over Salamanders this go 'round because last week I found out that nothing on his list could be forced to panic. I went for Razordons and intentionally threw them at his Marauders with their complete lack of an armor save. In a tournament setting I would always use Salamanders for the panic check.
Re: Legion of Zec-Xa vs. WoC 2250 Friendly/Competitive panic may be nice, but salamnders modify armor by 3, even if it means wounding on 5's, warriors and knights will fall to them and 2 knights make up for 1 salamander + extra handler points wise and he loses models from his hammers. marauders can also be targeted as they tend to come in big units and the flame template loves big units
Re: Legion of Zec-Xa vs. WoC 2250 Friendly/Competitive Actually he was running them 5 wide, 2 deep. I knew he would be. I played the exact same list the week before. Razordons were the better choice. I did more wounds with them.
Re: Legion of Zec-Xa vs. WoC 2250 Friendly/Competitive Great report! Miscasts suck. (When you do them) I havent played against WoC with the lizards yet so very good info. (VC are my sparing opponent most of the time) Good luck in future battles. Your Friendly Thunder Lizard
Legion of Zec-Xa vs. Beastmen 2250 Not having faced the Beastmen yet and my normal opponent wanting to try them after the new Army Book, we played a 2250 game today. I took my standard "balanced" build. The Legion of Zec-Xa 1 Slann Mage-Priest General Battle Standard Bearer War Banner Cupped Hands of the Old Ones Bane Head Dispel Scroll Disciplines: The Becalming Cogitation, Focus of Mystery, The Focused Rumination Lore of Fire 1 Level Two Skink Priest Ancient Stegadon Engine of the Gods War Drum of Xahutec Plaque of Tepok 16 Temple Guard Musician, Standard Bearer 18 Saurus Warriors Musician, Standard Bearer, Spears 10 Skink Skirmishers 10 Skink Skirmishers 4 Terradon Riders 1 Salamander Extra Handler 1 Salamander Extra Handler 1 Saurus Scar-Veteran Light Armor Sword of Might Enchanted Shield Cold One 5 Cold One Cavalry Full Command, Scar-Vet goes here. Total Roster Cost: 2246 Beastmen Gorthor, General 20 Bestigors with full command and character, so special banner 20 Ungor unit, Full command and a Sorcerer 10 Ungor Raiders 10 Centigors 5 Warhounds 1 Tuskgor Chariot 1Chaos Spawn 1Chaos Spawn 1Giant I never know how to really set up versus this guy. He literally packs everything into the middle of his deployment zone. There's not much finesse. He makes sure his flanks are covered with terrain and marches right up the middle. His Bestigors were in the middle, flanked by Spawn to either side on my right of that was a Chariot, the Ungor herd, the Ungor Skirmishers. Left of the Spawn on my leftmost side was the Chariot carrying General Gorthor, Giant and Warhounds. Behind the Ungor and angled was the Centigor herd. I set up wfrom my left to right with a Salamander, Skink Skirmishers, Cold One Cavalry, Saurus, Skinks Skirmishers, Stegadon and Salamander with Terradons out behind it and Temple Guard and SLann bunker behind the skinks next to my Saurus. We roll a tie for first turn three times in a row and finally he wins. Turn One I use Bane Head on Gorthor. He moves everything up, tries some spell with Gorthor which I dice away. His Sorcerer tried some other spell which he rolled two sixes on and he got mad about Becalming Cogitation. His Ungor Raiders move out into the forest on my right hand that literally stretches from his deployment zone to mine. His Centigors move up on that flank. I can't do much but do manage to draw a dispel scroll and get him to dice down another spell. I put Wall of fire up on his Ungor Herd and kill 4 guys. I move up my units as best I can and fly the Terradons into the Forest behind his Ungor Raiders, just to make him feel some pressure. Turn Two He makes a couple of charges at my Skink Skirmishers and I flee, everything else he moves forward, charges fail and his Ungor Raiders fire a few shots at a Salamander. Since his Ungors decided to charge they take massive wounds. He loses about 9 more guys and his Sorceror takes a wound. His magic phase is diced down. I rally everything. My Cold One Cavalry with Scar-Veteran charge his Giant. Priest on Engine charges his Tuskgor Chariot (exposing a flank, but I feel ok about that as I have Terradons near and a Salamander squad near). I draw out his last Dispel scroll, Burning Alignment hits some Centigors and kills one and I wall of Fire his Bestigor unit, killing a couple. My Cold One Cavalry do 5 wounds to his giant. Uh-oh. He gets Jump Up and Down and proceeds to do just that. He wipes the entire unit except for the Scar-Veteran who actually flees. His Tuskgor Chariot is splintered to pieces with ease and no attacks back. Turn Three Charges galore! I dice down his magic again except for one spell which he rolled well on which I scrolled. His Ungor Raiders shoot at my Salamander and his Centigors charge my Engine of the Gods. His Giant decides to charge the fleeing Scar-Vet who, of course, flees (to within one inch of the edge of the table). Bad news for the giant is he charges a full unit of Skink Skirmishers who stand and shoot. Bye bye Giant. The other Skirmishers take out one Chaos Spawn. His Bestigors charge my Saurus and lose the third rank from Wall of Fire. They also come into base to base with my Skirmishers. Due to some crazy rules like Primal Fury and a banner that added plus one strength to the unit the Bestigors obliterate two ranks of Saurus and they flee. His Centigor champion challenged the Skink Priest on the Engine and did a wound. The Skink Priest (first time ever for me!) killed the champion outright. The Stegadon whiffed every attack back so no overkill. Stegadon stays put. Lizardmen are perplexed here. I had no idea how tough the Bestigors were. They negated my armor saves completely! Saurus Rally, Scar-Vet just rides off into the sunset. Skinks on my left shoot the lights out of his Chaos Hound unit and the last one flees. Salamander overshoots Gorthor but the skinks manage a wound on the chariot. What's left of the Centigor herd get flank charged by a Salamander and a handler and rear charged by all four Terradons (who dropped rocks in turn two on Ungor Raiders dropping them to 3). Centigors are no more. The Skinks in base to base with with the Bestigors get shredded into Skink jerky and the BEstigors follow through into my Temple Guard/Slann Bunker. Fireball hits Gorthor, yay! Two wounds. Conflagration of doom doesn't go off and Wall of Fire hits Gorthor's chariot not doing much. Rest of Game Someone else is wanting to use the table at the Game Store. We rush through the next turns. The one Chaos Spawn on my left never did anything. Random movement was too little. Gorthor went down to a hail of poisoned darts. My Temple Guard got tore up in two rounds of Close Combat and My Slann bit it on Turn Six. Those Bestigors are not to be underestimated! In the end he had 10 Bestigors on the table, a Chaos Spawn and I had a Skink Priest on Engine of the Gods, two Salamanders, 4 Terradons and Ten Skinks. Since the War of the Ringers were chomping at the bit we didn't figure up Victory Points. I imagine it was a draw and at best I got the Minor Victory but my opponent assures me I have a Minor Victory, so: Minor Victory for the Legion of Zec-Xa! Closing Thoughts Beastmen are pretty good. My Salamanders were pretty useless. Razordons would have done slightly better. Terradons were great. They decimated his Raiders and the rear charge on his Centigors just helped to wreck them. My Saurus were little more than a speed bump to those Bestigors. In hindsight Wall of Fire should have been on them and not the Ungors, but I literally had no idea which unit was even core or Rare. If I could have charged them it would have been a different story. Also, my Cold One Cavalry missed a lot on the Giant. I really should have won that and gotten a blow through, so I don't think I'd change that. Once again, Skink Skirmishers prove invaluable for being charge bait that flees and sets up a counter charge. Also the poisoned shots are priceless. I think Next time I will try and set up the Slann a little better and maybe give him a better screen. He was out of range on a couple of spells on units I would have preferred to hit. I also think I could benefit a great deal from knowing other Army Books. I could have caught a few "mistakes" by my opponent before someone else came along and read his book after he saw the result of the Bestigor shredding me. That Primal rule that allows re-rolls takes a Leadership test. Not the first time this opponent has made mistakes either. I prefer to play him with other people around. All in all, a fun day with a fun and tough battle!
Hey, I'm thinking about starting up beastmen as my second army and I've already got two groups of 5 centigors and a Gorros on the table. I've got them just about put together and will hopefully be painting by the end of the week. Would you recommend them? Did you see any strong/weak units or anything that stuck out in the army in general?
If you read the report you'll see that Bestigors were insanely powerful. With the Primal Rage (or whatever it is called) rule they re-roll misses on a leadership check. They also had a banner of +1 strength and great weapons. They literally negated my armor saves with my Saurus and Temple Guard. I mean if they wounded, no save, just a dead Saurus. That's a pretty strong unit in my book!
Yeah, they are contenders for my Gorebull hero. Any of the Minotaur heroes has an ability that gives the whole unit it's attached to frenzy... so that 6x2 unit (4 beastigors + the Mino hero) pumps out 8 str 5 attacks with all the attacks from the minotaur... Huge. I don't see the need for the +1 str banner but if you put it in there they all become str 6. Or, the cheaper way would be to stick him in with some gors which would make them all have 3 attacks if they had hand weapons. Two groups of centigors with Gorros would be my core slots then fill up the specials and rares. I could see myself taking some skirmishers or chariots though.