Hi! A friend of mine that I havent played in a while is coming down for the weekend. He's been playing Bretonnians for maybe 3 years now, and he wants a shot at the lizardmen. I'm trying to devise the best way to take down his knights (barding, heavy armor, shield, lance) and other units. Any advice would be very well appreciated
Burning alignment on your engine can cut through even his toughest knights. A scar vet on a cold one with burning blade of chotec and enchanted shield in some cold ones or saurus is good too. If going oldblood go for either mass attacks on a carno I guess. I'd go for a slann with metal. Use your terradons and skinks well to make sure he can't get important charges off.
Without their charge with lance formation Bretonnians are crap. My friend plays me with them all the time and its either to results, Solid Victory for me or Massacre against me. Why? Because he got his charges off. Use your Slann with Lore of metals targeting his Lord with the 6th spell. (Can't remember the name of it) But It'll hit him with a Strength 7 hit with no armor save. His armor save is most likely going to be 2+ or 1+ because of magic. He'll Probably fail that ward save he's got. Then it'll hit the unit he's with with 2D6 S4 hits. Fun! Use Terradons and Skinks to outmanoever him and hit his flanks with whatever you can. If he's got men-at-arms smash them up and crash the flank of his army because most likely they will be protecting the flanks of the knights. Honestly if he charges your Saurus with anything but Grail Knights, you should hold. Your best bet if he's using Grail Knights is to take the charge with your TG.
ok well so far he's told me he's using knights of the realm, men-at-arms, and peasant bowmen, but other than that, i have no idea. Oh and he's using Bohemond for a lord. But he is playing on my lizard terrain, which is thick with swamps and other water featurs, plus a couple ruins i've added. so hoepfull that will cut his LoS down and i can hit him in the rear or flanks with my CoC or something like that, or get him with a stegadon. I do have a couple hard cover castle ruins that i might just deploy scouts into as well.
Against Brets I would seriously consider the Lore of Death. The Drain Life spell hits everything within 12" of the Slann with D6 str 3 NO ARMOR save. This is better than the EotG effect simply because you don't have to worry about rolling 4 inches for range and not hitting multiple knight units. The Steal Soul spell is awesome as well, and if you put Bane Head on your Slann you can be sure to one-shot kill one of his hero level characters. Then you have the ever popular Doom and Darkness, -3 to Ld followed up by a Salamander-induced panic check means that at best he is testing on Ld6. Walking Death is another good one because it can turn that same Salamander model or any kroxigor model into a terror causer for a single turn. Think of this.. your Salamander rolls up 6" from your intended prey in the movement phase, terradons land behind the target. Slann casts steal soul on a character in some unit, and the Bret player uses up defense trying to stop the spell. Then you cast Doom and Darkness on the bret unit in front of the Salamander, followed by Walking Death on the Salamander (3 dice per spell, so you'll need Focused Rumination). If the last two spells go off, that Bret unit will have to pass two tests at Ld6, one from the Salamander panic check (with a little luck you should kill one model in the shooting phase) and at the very least they'll test for terror from the Salamander at the start of their turn. In either case, the Terradons can be waiting in the wings (so to speak) so that the lance runs right through them and is destroyed. Death also has a couple of magic missiles... I would take a skink priest so you can channel the spells through him to take down those annoying Pegasus Knights, who will fly behind your army at earliest opportunity. Using the Doom and Darkness terror/panic trick will be even more effective on these guys, since they probably won't be in range of the general's leadership.
So far everyone has talked about Character combos and such, which definitely valid, but the number one thing that will bring you victory here is good use of skirmishers. This site is a very good graphic explanation: http://www.remanlegions.com/images/detachment_tactics/archers_only_flee/1.html
ahh so what size should my skink units go? oh and what would be the best strategy for halting their charge/counter-charges?
Ranked Skinks are better redirectors as they can force the angle of the charge. When charging skirmishers the charger gets to choose the angle, so if he had enough movement he coud come in at an angle tht would allow the overrun.
Completely untrue. If you actually read the link he posted and actually try it out in a game or two you will see that skirmishers are actually far more flexible and therefore better redirecters as the enemy are forced to charge in the direction of the nearest skirmisher, which is something you decide.
I did read the link, but if you read the rule book you would see that skirmishers have to line up on the line of the charger, where when charging a ranked unit the charger lines up on the charged unit. Just cause you see it on the Internet doesn't make it true.
Wrong again. Read the GW FAQ, which is both on the internet and true: http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m470856_Warhammer_FAQ_2008-02_Edition.pdf (page 4) It may well be in the BRB too, as I suspect your are confusing the lining up rules once in combat, but I see no need to go look it up as the FAQ is just as official.
If the skirmishers are going to HOLD as their reaction to the charge, then it is possible for the charger to influence his own angle of charge. If the charger has sufficient movement to still reach the closest skirmisher, he can wheel even if not necessary. So the charger doesn't need to go straight at the skirmisher, he can wheel right or left a bit if he can still reach the skirmisher, then they line up to the charger. This is handy to remember when charging warmachines, so you can set up some more favorable overruns. But I don't think we're talking about the skirmishers holding, but rather fleeing. If the skirmisher is obviously out of range, the charger must take the most direct path in pursuit of the closest skirmisher.
Of course, the whole discussion was about using skinks to redirect, which is done through fleeing. Even if caught the enemy have to pursue in the direction the skinks flee anyway.
One of my main opponents is a bretonnian player, we've played dozens of games in 6th edition, and one in 7th edition, with more to come. In 6th I used many different races, from O&G, Skaven, VC, Ogre Kingdoms, Wood Elves, Dark Elves, High Elves, Lizardmen, Bretonnia, Beastmen, and Dwarfs... (i couldn't make up my mind, did alot of paper-hammer) My friend has used only Bretonnia for about 3 years now, he loves them to death. He has only beaten me, maybe twice in 3 years... The secret, already disclosed above, is their charge. Control when, and where, or stop it before it starts and you destroy the one trick pony. The best way to describe 90% of bretonnian players is "Wind up the knight blocks, and watch them barrel forward." I like bretonnia, and think it is a wonderfully colorful and fun army, it requires skill to beat anyone with half a brain, which I enjoy. Surprisingly the times I've lost is when my friend decides to wait for me to come to him (obviously only works against one of my more melee designed armies) where I have to charge him. Its easy to setup several small 9 man knight units in such a way that charging one results in a flank charge by another. Setting this up puts the other player (me) in a hard place, because if I charge i'll get flank charged which will destroy me, if I don't he can take his time to set up a flank charge anyway, or just charge with two units which is powerful as well. Beware the smart bretonnian general... As a lizardmen specific way to beat Bretonnians...Skinks, ranked or skirmishers, doesn't matter. Just control his charges if he's being offensive. If he is playing defensive, since we have little range he can do this fairly easily, you can either try to use magic if you have a slann, or your going to have to use a little something extra. Most of the time a direct saurus assualt may end up winning, saurus are kicka$$. To be safe, flank a unit with terradons right away, or try and threaten his flanks with a salamander or something, seperate his knight units. If they work in pairs or worse, three's, they can kill just about anything. Good luck...
I've heard it said that the best Bret players charge in the third turn, not the second. Second turn charging typically means just charging straight forward instead of setting up more dynamic charges and angles. They also need to rely heavily on mounted yeomen, their fast cav, in order to setup their own bait and flee situations... a Bretonnian newb mistake is neglecting fast cav thinking that just straight up lances can win in all situations. One more thing vs. brets... it is probably not worth going 6 wide on saurus blocks.. those lances are pretty darn narrow and you probably won't get the extra attacks from the sixth file anyway. There is of course a "dual charge" scenario, but in that case you'd probably want to turtle up with HW+shield and maximize rank bonus, hopefully with your BSB nearby!
Just played him for the first time. It was LM vs. Brets vs O&G 1000 pts I set up my saurus as the anvil, and he took it, charged and killed 1 saurus. Tried to move my CoC into flanking as hammer 2nd turn, but they failed stupidity Then he managed to score no wounds, and by turn 3, i had him flanked with my CoC. With 10 saurus+champ fighting, as well as my scar vet, 10 Coc, i had a combined total of about 40 attacks (15x CoC+4x scar vet+21x saurus). Ended up with 1 unsaved wound due to his 2+ save. I won combat res easily, and he rolled 3D6, and fortunately fled just 5''. With jag standard, i had 4D6 pursuit with my CoC, and easily detsoryed his knights. From there my 2 sally units obliterated his peasant bowmen in one shooting phase, with 11 unsaved wounds on his bowmen. Then the O&G player destroyed his men at arms and a lvl 2 damsel, and my skink priest killed the other damsel. From there, he was easily beaten. The O&G player retreated into some ruins, and managed to kill my priest and a unit of skinks before I reached him. My saurus destroyed his spider riders, CoC took out a troll, and my remaining skink unit scored 9 lucky wounds on his last unit of gobbos, sending them into panic and runnign them off the board. I was down just...... 1 unit of 12 skinks + 1 1 skink priest 1 single Saurus Warrior Enemies slain by the lizardmen: 16 peasant bowmen 1 damsel 8 knights of the realm 10 spider riders 1 night goblin shaman 1 troll 2 night goblin big bosses 50 night goblins Solid Victory For The Lizardmen!!!!