8th Ed. Lessons learned fighting the New Dark Elves with the New Liz

[hdctambien]

Lessons learned fighting the New Dark Elves with the New Lizardmen.

1. Lesson: It doesn't matter how many attacks you have, if you only roll 1's and 2's you can't kill anything.

I charged a unit of 5 harpies with a unit of 3 Ripperdactyls. 12 attacks later I only killed 2 harpies. Next combat round they killed 1 Ripper and I killed nothing with 8 attacks. Next combat round the harpies killed another Ripper and I killed 1 harpie...


2. Lesson: RBT's are scary.

Turn 1 DE obliterated 5 of 6 Cold One Cav with 2 repeater bolt throwers.


3. Lesson: Don't charge the Witch Elf block. Ever. With anything. Not even with Everything.

By my turn 2 I had pretty much given up hope that I had any change so I charged his horde of Witch Elves/Cauldron/Special Witch Elf character (Khrone?) with 25 Saurus Spearmen, 2 Swarms + Tehenhauin and an Ancient Stegadon with the Engine of the Gods just to put a quick end to my mysery. The witch elves killed everything except about 12 Saurus who ran just far enough away to survive.


4. Lesson: Skinks are awesome.

10 Skinks with Javs connected with 6 poison his agaisnt a Hydra and killed it.


5. Lesson: WTF Rippers?!

The RBT Crew killed my last Ripperdacyl in hand to hand.


6. Lesson: If you roll a million 1's and 2's early in the game, you may have a million 5's and 6's coming your way later in the game?

A Unit made up of an Old Blood with the Blade of Realities, a Scar Vet BSB with Armor of 4+ Ward, and a single CoC Standard Bearer can survive a horde of Spearmen in the flank AND a Hydra in the rear at the same time.


7. Lesson: Don't give up so early and try to throw the game. Giant, scary Frenzy units can be neutralized (refer to lesson #4)

If you kill EVERYTHING in a DE army except the horde of witch elves/Cauldron/Special Character you can still lose if you stupidly charge your General & Stegadon & Saurus into that block in the beginning of the game.


8. Lesson: Word of Pain SUCKS for Lizardmen.

 

[Eladimir]

Re: Lessons learned fighting the New Dark Elves with the New

Yeah I had the same experience except it was a big block of corsairs and a master. Hit him in the flank with CoC, rear with TG and front with my remaining saurus. He throws 6 dice at mindrazor and takes all three units off.

ASF with high init means he hits with 95% of attacks, and then wounds on 2+ but rerolls ones so wounds 98% with no armour save. Its almost number of attacks = number of models removed. Insane.

And here I am hitting on 4's all day long.

 

[Jabroniville]

Re: Lessons learned fighting the New Dark Elves with the New

I find it bizarre that a unit of Saurus with all that extra stuff in it would lose so badly to Witch Elves. WE are very accurate troops with a TON of attacks, but only at S3. Saurus are LETHAL to low-Toughness, no-Armour troops, not to mention what a Stegadon could do to a unit like that with Impact Hits & Thunderstomp. The only reliable way for Witch Elves go kill in that situation would be to focus a ton of attacks on the easy-to-kill Swarms for the Combat Resolution.

That must have been some REALLY bad rolling to lose all of those troops.

But as a Dark Elf player myself, I like seeing that they can be very elite still- too bad it had to happen to my beloved Lizardmen, though...

 

[hdctambien]

Re: Lessons learned fighting the New Dark Elves with the New

That must have been some REALLY bad rolling to lose all of those troops.

I rolled more 1's and 2's in this game than I've ever rolled in my life, combined!

The Witch Elves has some special Witch ELf character that had a billion attacks. She killed my Stegadon after it failed to do any wounds with it's impact hits (rolled 2+1 hits, then 1, 1, 6 to wound and he rolled a 6 to save)

Half of the Regular Elves killed Tehenhauin (I *almost* Transmogrophied him into a Mountain Chimera in the magic phase...) and put 2 wounds on the Swarms.

The other half slaughtered the unit of Saurus.

I killed his BSB off of the Cauldron and 2 or 3 Witch Elves (He rolled 5's and 6's as much as I rolled 1's and 2's). He killed me in combat res so the swarms popped and I was on double 1's with my BSB as far away from the Witch Elf block as I could get him so the Saurus ran (11 inches and the Witch Elves only pursued 10... so *everything* didn't go their way) and the elves pursued into my skink priest scroll caddy.

All in all, the battle went exactly as I expected it to. What I didn't expect was my other unit of Saurus, 10 Skinks, 5 Chamo, and 3 man (Old Blood, Scar Vet BSB, CoC BSB) Cav unit to kill everything else (Swordmen w/ mage, 2 hydra, 2 repeater bolt throwers, 5 harpies). If I had thought that was going to happen I probably would have charged the swarm into the Witch Elves and walked right by them with the Steg and Saurus. Even just pulling Tehenhauin out of that combat and hiding him in a corner would have gotten me the win. (we ended up tying)

So the big take away is, don't go for it on 4th down in the 1st quarter. Keep kicking those field goals and save the heroics for the 4th quarter.

 

[Sleboda]

Re: Lessons learned fighting the New Dark Elves with the New

I had an experience against Dark Elves last night. My lessons echo yours but I want to scream the following from the mountaintop:

Murderous Prowess is amazing. It is especially amazing because of all the re-rolls to hit the army gets. If you are re-rolling misses and re-rolling several of your failed wound attempts, you are going to get an insane damage output even with lowly S3 attacks.

 

[Pofadder]

Re: Lessons learned fighting the New Dark Elves with the New

Hellebron is that nasty piece of work if not mistaken... 8 or 9 str10 attacks with ASF and MP will shred you. Thugh she does not have much in defense her damage offload can be insane.

I think the bottom line is that sheer amount of S3 poison, AP, attacks from the witches with ASF rerolls and MP rerolls gets such crazy amounts of wounds that you will fail butt loads of asv still, kill a couple of witches and then realize 18 of you saurus is dead and even if you have a good combat round you have a mountain of CR against you, to not break from that combat will need stubborn. They will hit the steadfast out of your saurus warrs every time.

I can only think salamanders will ruin their day

 

[Ratlizardelfguy]

Re: Lessons learned fighting the New Dark Elves with the New

Or feed them skink units with awkward angles to funnel them away?

 

[hdctambien]

Re: Lessons learned fighting the New Dark Elves with the New

Hellebron is that nasty piece of work if not mistaken... 8 or 9 str10 attacks with ASF and MP will shred you. Thugh she does not have much in defense her damage offload can be insane.

Yeah, that's the character. She was only in base to base with my Stegadon and my General. Not exactly the things you want her to be base to base with...