I went up against a High Elf army yesterday and had the best two magic phases ever: in one, my Slann got Irrisistable Force casting Dwellers Below, killing 9 Seaguard. My opponent had an item forcing me to roll twice on the miscast table and picking the result - which would have ended up in a Calamitous Detonation on my Slann and Temple Guard, but for Cupped Hands of the Old Ones. The dice roll bounced on a 1 but fortunately landed on a 2, allowing me to transfer the miscast to a level 2 wizard sat in a second unit of Seaguard, wounding him and killing 7 more. In my next turn, I got 7 power dice and tried to be clever in drawing out my opponent's dispel dice. My skink priest on Engine of the Gods attempted to cast Iceshard Blizzard to reduce the effectiveness of a nearby archer unit, so as not to get peppered with arrows. He cast it alright - with Irrisistable Force, blowing himself up (he had already lost a wound to shooting), along with the rest of the crew. The Stegadon promptly failed its Monster Reaction test, became Stupid, and to top it all off, I then lost 4 magic dice from my power pool, reducing it from 5 to 1. My opponent still had his 6 dispel dice. Bloody magic.
After gaming today with another servent of the olf one and some unwitting warmblood pawns (high elves) i have concluded the following No more than 2 wizards are required saurus are pointless unless in combat (kind of obvious but hey) Ancient stegs with eog are uselesss under the folowing they take you over 2 mages per side you forget about the eog and you roll 1 2 and 3 for magic and the steg dosent fight salamanders dont work vs the dragon helm Sword masters are (for warmbloods) really quite good and skaven(still) cant hit the side of a stegadon with a spear oh and the prophet of sotek kicks sweet a** in a challange (he killed luthor russ the (spits) sigmarite)
I learnt this yesterday myself. Never having played against them, and trying out Skaven for some strange reason I casually charged them with clanrats, hoping to bog them down. Well it didn't work as the poor rats got cut down by 3 ranks, legged it and were ran down without even inflicting a single casualty. In the turn they charged too. The next game I took them out from afar, but hey. That was Skaven. So since I don't use magic besides a single Skink priest I'll have to use Salamanders against them, or be generally careful when dealing with them. Cheers!
Take lore of shadows against gun lines. So far I am 3 for 3 sniping steam tanks with pit of shades and having them instantly die. It also works just as well against war machines.
Yeah... got to hope they change that, now that the steam tank can be affected by spells without a Str. value. I'm thinking they just forgot to delete that entry, as there's no reason it should be immune any more. Till then, gotta live with it I suppose.
I have some more general knowledge, having not played any games with Lizardmen so far, but a fair few with some of the other races. 1. Horde units are not as effective as one would think, mainly because an additional ten attacks at WS3, S3 are usually not that much more effective. 2. Musicians are almost a necessity. 3. BSBs are not a necessity, though I am sure they still help out a bit. 4. Less characters and more units seems to be more effective than a lot of high point characters. (Makes me want to try out a Scar-Vet/Skink priest army with no other characters.) 5. The new Skaven are fairly good, but the HPA cannot break a ranked unit very well. I will add some more Lizardmen specific ones when I get some more games in with them.
This is probably the most significant lesson. I've played three games so far: using a lot of characters against a few character Wood Elf army (lost), using few characters and lots of units against a Vampire Counts army with lots of characters and few units (won), and finally few character and lots of units against a few character few unit Wood Elf army (won). To me it seems that large amounts of rank and file with few characters with specific roles (one magic level 4, one magic level 2, one combat hero) is the way to go now.
I would almost say the second level 2 is not even necessary. One level 4 should pump out enough magic to be able to compete in the magic phase.
Unlike in 7th edition... Terror is now a test only when you are charged by a Terror causing creature not if you want to charge a Terror causing creature ... I assumed it was similar to the way Fear tests worked last edition. When a unit breaks in combat, the defeated unit rolls for distance then the winner rolls for distance and then you remove the broken unit if you roll higher. You do not move the defeated unit in that cause so they do not get a chance to run behind friendly unit to them and escape because you charge into that new unit. Yes you could still charge into that new unit but the defeated unit will not escape... subtle difference but important!
I have a Big Tourney next weekend, and I've being playing a lot...so: 1) 1xLvl 4 Slaan is enough to dominate the magic phase with Full Lore & extra dice. 2) No combat Character needed in a Saurus/TG army 3) Saurus are good, but they tend to work better in a big unit (30+... I use 40 ), rather then 2 small unit of 20/25. 4) Spear Saurus...are a personal choice. Parry is really good...but I already have 40+ Spear Saurus. 5) Horde Saurus is nice...but sometimes, you would prefer to have a 8xfrontage...extra rank, and smaller to abuse the 12" Genereal/BSB bubble 6) Skinks Skirmishers, Chameleosn are good! Terradons are Ok, but 1x3 plus 2x6 Chameleons will do the trick! 7) Stegadons will die!...Quickly. So keep them cheap. I use 2 RegStegs as Hammer, and they will roll over almost everything they charge. Remember to use both as a "single hammer" (if they survived...) and not as a separated units. Impact Hits, Thunderstomp + Steg Attacks will do the trick. 8) Salamander are ok. I prefer to keep them cheap and run them in 2x1 units + extra handler. They will cause havoc in Heavy Cavalry (Sv1+)...but the relatively low range of the "breath weapon" will make them be charged, unless you can maneuver them from the front arc. 9) With this kind of build, Life is mandatory. Heal Stegs, Sallies and Slaan, Regrowth on TG, +4T ou Reg 4+ will save your day and Dwellers From Bellow will be your best friend (...especially against Warmachines, Elves/ T3 units and Steam Tanks...yeah!). 10) Hydras/Trolls will trample your TG...Give them the Banner of Eternal Flame and they will have a chance! My 0.02€!
8 Kroxe's will make short work of any thing (except maybe 8 treekin), especially when backed up by a life slan.
Just a quick question concerning BSBs. Do you get to reroll every test no matter where you re, or do you have to be in range. I thought there was a certain range, but the last post seems to say that you can reroll any leadership with no range needed.
In all the games I have had, (which are admittedly not too many), BSBs just have not played much of a roll. I have never felt that it would be awesome if I had one, and the times I took them, they just did not do much. That being said, I am taking one in my next game on the Slann, so I will post my opinions after that.
With cold-blooded and a Slann it takes us passing a LD test from 95% to like 99% (approximate percentages), so nice but far from necessary. For every other army it is extremely necessary. And it boosts horde armies like skaven insanely, before they would flee all the time, now its a rarity if they are in range of the BSB.
Can you name a better 25 point investment? The first time it saves your 800+vp TG/Slann bunker or a block of Saurus from a triple 6 break test roll you'll never leave home without it.
my few lessons: -Giants are not scary! Played against Ogre Kingdom, he fielded two giants. I put up two units of 14 skink skirmishers with blowpipes. One for each giant. I got in close and pinncushioned one to death with poisened attacks. The other one was almost dead and finnished off by a unit of saurus warriors. Other one: I think life is a bit overrated. I prefer light any day. LM lack I and a lot can die before we can strike. I had a unit of TG with a slann, boosted it with two light spells (cant remember the names), they got I 10 WS 10 +1 attack and always strike first (and so also reroll failed to hit). His unit of ogress charged anyway (very brave or very stupid) and his entire unit was wiped out by my TG only some characters remained. Also: 40 saurus with spears is awesome, just not against grave guards with regeneration... use sallys!!! (I wish I had) that's it for now