Alright so a friend of mine is attending an 1800pt tournament in January and is trying to figure out which army and what kind of list he wants so I said I’d give him some practice games over the next few weeks as well as some feedback after each one. This week he played tomb kings using an Arkahn the Black list. For those who don’t know Arkahn is a tomb king who also counts as a lvl 5 wizard and knows spells from the Lore of Death and also counts as the army’s Heirophant. He also has a magic item which allows him to store up to three power dice and use them as dispel dice in the next magic phase and vice versa. I decided to play a balanced army, it had a bit of everything and I think its reflected of what I would actually take to a tournament. Over the next few weeks I want to change up my list to try out other styles of play like hording up or going points denial, things which my opponent may face in his tournament so any suggestions on the types of (Lizardmen) lists you’d like to see just leave a comment!! Here are the lists: Lizardmen Slann Rumination Loremaster Light Cupped Hands Plaque of Protection BSB Flamming Banner Scar Vet Burning Blade of Chotec Gamblers Armor Dragon Bane Gem Shield 20x Saurus Warriors HW&S FC 20x Saurus Warriors Sp&S FC (Scar Vet in here) 10x Skinks Cohort 10x Skink Cohort 10x Skink Skirmishers 10x Skink Skirmishers 6x Chamo Skinks Stegadon Salamander + snack Salamander + snack Tomb Kings Arkahn the Black (on foot) Spells: Spirit leech, doom & darkness, soulblight, fate of Bjuna, Purple Sun Tomb Herald Armor of Destiny Great Weapon BSB 40x Skeleton Warriors HW&S 40x Skeleton Archers (Arkahn & Herald in here) 3x Chariots 3x Chariots War Kitty poison & fiery roar Casket of Souls Screaming Skull Catapult, flaming, skulls of the foe We rolled the Watchtower scenario and I won the role to occupy it. I decided to start my 20 HW&S warriors in the tower. The other terrain didn’t really have an impact on the game so I won’t mention it. Pre-game thoughts: Sarus in a building are pretty hard to shift so I think I’m off to a good start here. I want to try and get my Slann and Scar Vet into the building as quickly as possible to keep them safe and give the unit some extra hitting power. The Slann gives the unit flaming attacks, so rerolls to wound in the building and Scar Vets are solid fighters no matter what. You may also notice that his only wizard has lore of death which means no resurrecting. So once something is dead it stays dead. This is huge as it makes plinking wounds off his kitty with my skinks viable and his large blocks of infantry even nicer targets for my salamanders. On the other hand, purple sun….so well see Anyway enough blabber, more Warhammer!!!! Deployment Chamos………Casket..Skullapult……….Archers……………………….. …………………….Kitty………………Warriors…………………………………. ……….Chariots..Chariots………………………………………………………… …………………………………………Tower……………………………………….. Skirmishers.Cohort.Cohort.Steg.Slann.Saurus.Sala.Sala………. …………Skirmishers……………………………………………………………….. Tomb Kings 1 No charges. His chariots move up to threaten my left flank. The warriors move to the left to keep the tower in between them and the salamanders. The kitty moves up behind the chariots. Everything else stays still. His magic phase sees 11 PD to 6 DD and I brace myself for whats to come. He leads with 5 dice at the small version of Purple Sun but roles terribly and fails to meet the casting value so Arkahn is done for this turn. Next he throws 6 dice at the caskets bound spell to try and kill off my chamo skinks but fails to IF and my Slann easily dispels it. In shooting he targets my Steg with the catapult but it drifts off onto the Slann and fails to wound him. His archers fire at the saurus in the building and one brave son of Lustria dies. Lizards 1 No charges from me this turn. My Chamo skinks shoot forward into range of the casket. My left most skirmishers move up shoot at the left most chariots. The Cohorts move up one behind the other followed behind by the other skirmisher unit so that no matter what way the chariots charge in they will overrun into another skink unit and can be flanked by my Steg next turn. The Slann moves his full 8inch forward to get to where he can enter the tower next turn and mu saurus move up beside him within 3inch to give him a look out sir role. The salas circle around the right of the tower trying to get around to his flank for a good shot. In magic I role a 3 but thanks to a channel and the extra dice from rumination I get a really good phase. I start with the lower version of Shems Burning Gaze on to the leftmost chariot unit. Thanks to the lore attribute I get 9 hits and kill a chariot out right and wound another twice. Next I finish off the unit with Banishment. I round off the phase with Net of Amyntok on the remaining chariot unit. My opponent decided not to try and dispel any of these and instead save store his dice to use as power dice. In shooting the Chamos destroy the Casket (Wooh!). The resulting explosion killed three of the crack shot chamos and also killed a few skeleton warriors. The chamos pass their panic check and set their sights on the Skullapult. This was huge as it forced my opponent to deal with the chamos running around in his back line. Tomb Kings 2 He passed the strength test on his chariots to charge the cohort unit which stood and shot and put two wounds on the chariots. Nothing else charged this turn. He continued to move his warriors around the left side of the building which look like a great target for my Steg. His Kitty turned around and headed towards my chamo skinks. In his magic phase he got off Purple Sun with IF and sent it 24inch forward. It went through the building and over my Slann and Steg. The vortex only gets one saurus in the building who actually passes his inititive test but my Slann and steg both fail and are removed. I just lost my general, BSB and Lvl 4 which is a huge blow but I think I can still hold this tower. The miscast was the large Str10 template which killed a lot of archers but didnt wound Arkhan who also did not get sucked into the warp. At least he lost the rest of his power dice. In shooting he managed to kill a the left most salamander outright which then paniced the right salamander. His Kitty let loose the fiery roar which killed two more chamos and the last survivor of the unit passed his panic test. His chariots destroy my cohort unit with impact hits alone and he tries to restrain from over running and reform instead. He passed his leadership test but failed his strength test and took 2D6 Str4 hits which killed two chariots and left the last one alive with two wounds. It was small but it made me feel better that the Slann essentially took out both chariot units by himself. Lizardmen 2 No charges from me. The salamander ralies and turns around. My chamo skink moved towards my board edge out of the charge arc of the Kitty. My Skirmishers move up to alongside the chamo to lend some shooting support. My other skirmisher unit moves up to face northwest at the incoming skeleton unit but also keeping the last remaining chariot in line of sight. The cohort stays still to accept the chariot charge. The saurus warriors move around the right of the tower trying to get to arkahns unit. In magic I dispel the Purple Sun and he uses Arkahns fancy do-da to store 3 dice. In shooting I fail to wound the last chariot but do plink a wound off of the War Kitty. Tomb Kings 3 He charges the skeleton warriors into my skirmishers and I hold as it’s a fairly long charge and at least there not going into the tower so I stand and shoot and kill one or two but he makes it. His chariot charges my cohort and I stand and shoot and kill it before it can get to me. His War kitty doesn’t want to dance with the skinks so turns around to aim a charge at the tower next turn. His archer unit backs up a bit. In magic he puts a Doom & Darkness on my Tower saurus and also soulblights them, miscast again and takes a Str6 hit which fails to wound him but he losses the rest of his dice. In shooting the Skullapult kills a saurus in the tower, forcing a panic check at -4ld but thank the Old Ones I hold. The skeletons kill three skinks who break and run away and he passes his leadership test to reform to face the tower. Lizardmen 3 My fleeing skinks rally. My saurus warriors keep moving round the tower and my salamander finally gets into a good position to shoot at the archers. My last chamo skink moves round to in front of the Kitty to block him from assaulting the tower in the next turn. My skirmishers move closer to the kitty so that they were in close range. My cohort moves up to within firing distance of the skeletons. I dispel Doom & Darkness and he stores three more dice. In shooting I kill a few skeletons and knock another wound off the War Kitty. The salamander roasts some archers. Tomb Kings 4 He assaults the tower with the skeletons and charges the heroic chamo skink who passes his terror test and everything!! In magic he gets off Doom & Darkness on my Tower Saurus again and then goes for the big version of Purple Sun and gets it with IF. He sends it towards my Spear saurus block nut it only goes a couple of inches but leaves it right between my warriors and his archers and who knows which way its going to drift!! In the miscast he forgets three spells, Soulblight, Spirit Leech and Purple Sun but he still gets to be a lvl5 because it’s a magic item which makes him a wizard. In shooting he tries a skullapult at the spear saurus which gets a kill but they pass their panic check and failed to wound with his archers. In combat I fail my fear test against the skeletons but lay the smack down on them anyway and win combat, repulsing them from my tower. The chamo skink got decapitated by the Tomb Guard on the War Kitty. Lizardmen 4 So at the end of this turn we start rolling to see if the game ends. The vortex drifted off to the right slightly. My skirmishers that rallied last turn moved up to behind the Kitty and the other group moved to in front of the kitty once more making sure it couldn’t overrun into the tower. The salamander moved further down the flank to behind his archers. The spear saurus turned around and started moving back towards my board edge afraid that the purple sun would drift into them. In magic I dispel Doom & Darkness and he saves up some more dice. I pick another wound off his War Kitty which is getting quite worn down by now. The salamander kills a few more archers. I roll to see if the game ends but it keeps on going. Tomb Kings 5 The purple Sun Drifts over to where my spear saurus had been the previous turn. His kitty charges the skirmishers who pass their panic test. Arkahn and the Herald move out of the archer unit and head towards the skeletons. His archers turn to shoot the salamander. In Magic he gets another Doom and Darkness off and tries to Bjuna my Tower unit champ but cant do any wounds. In shooting the Skullapult kills a Tower saurus who fail their panic check and flee from the tower In combat the kitty kills 7 skinks and chooses to restrain, passing his ld test. Lizardmen 5 Purple Sun drifts to the right a bit. My skinks fail to rally and keep running as do my HW&S saurus. My last group of skirmishers cant make to to infront of the War Kitty so move up to shoot it at short range. My spear saurus walk into the vacant tower. The salamander moves towards the Skullapult. In magic I dispel Doom & Darkness from my fleeing saurus. In shooting I take off one more wound from the Kitty , 1 left!! We roll again to see if the game ends but we go another round!! Tomb Kings 6 His War Kitty charges the tower and I hold. Arkahn and the herald join the Warrior unit. He gets Doom and Darkness off again on my Tower Saurus. He shoots up my fleeing Skink unit but one skink remains. So this is the combat which will decide it all, If his war kitty wins then I have a good chance of breaking I’ll flee the tower and have nothing which can retake it on my next turn. If the game ends then he’ll win on victory points if it doesn’t hell occupy it with the warrior block and I’ll never be able to retake it. Scar Vet and the Tomb Guard riding the Kitty go simultaneously. I fail my fear test so im hitting on 5’s. The Scar Vet gets 2 hits. I need 6’s to do a single wound to kill the Kitty before it attacks my unit. At this point I reveal My Burning Blade which grants me re-rolls and both my opponent and I are on the edge of our seats. I role a 1 and a 6 the Kitty is slain!!! Of course the tomb guards get to go and target my scar vet but fail to wound so I win combat and the tower is mine for another turn. As the Kitty died everyone in the store sang Soft Kitty, true story. Lizardmen 6 Purple Sun is off in a corner somewhere. My skinks fail to rally and my saurus also fail and go off the board. I move all my skinks into range of the skullapult along with my salamander. In magic I forget to dispel doom and Darkness and instead remove purple sun and he stores three dice. I shoot up his catapult which dies. We role to see if the game ends and it does VICTORY TO THE LIZARDMEN!!! For fun we decided to play one more turn which saw arkahn and his unit assault the tower. My saurus fail their fear test but my scar vet kills the Tomb Herald in a challenge before my unit kills Arkahn twice over. Well what a game that was. It was certainly an uphill struggle from turn 2 on but that good magic phase in the first turn really helped. If theres one thing you can say about Lizardmen it’s that theyre reliable. I cant count how many leadership tests I passed in this game, especially with no re-roll. Kudos to my opponent he played a strong game. I myself am not a big fan of the big number 6 spell but in a tournament setting anything goes so that’s the way we played and it was still a really great and enjoyable game. Fair play to my opponent for making it such a fun game. As far as lists go I think his is definitely strong but could use some more chaff killers so maybe split up the big archer block into several smaller blocks. I also think it could benefit from a lvl1 with lore of Nehekara for some resurrection. So next week we have another game and hes going to be using an entirely different army, wood elves or vamp count I believe so I was thinking of going for the horde approach, big block of saurus with a slann kitted defensively to protect the horde from magic. This kind of play is fairly popular in the current meta so might be a good idea to get some practice. In later games I was thinking of going Lifestar points denial and death slann Ld bomb As always please leave any comments or feedback its all welcome and any suggestions you have of any styles of armies youd like me to try and report back just let me know!! I am also taking suggestions for names for my amazing Chamo Skink who kept me laughing this whole game. Thanks fr reading hope you enjoyed.
Bold move on your opponents part taking a special character like Arkhan in a game <2000 points! Good job with the win, but a lot of that was luck. Here's some 20/20 hindsight. When you have a Light Slann and you are facing off against a foe with Purple Sun or Pit of Shades, the bubble version of Speed of Light will protect most/all of your army from being removed from the board. After casting bubbled Speed of Light, next I would put a Net of Amytok on Arkhan's unit. The TK army does not have good spells so it would stand a good chance of stopping his magic phase altogether. Then I would use remaining dice to throw Shem's Burning Gaze and Banishment at the archer unit, then concentrate all your shooting phase at the archer unit. His whole strategy was centered around Arkhan so if you could take down Arkhan's unit you win right there. I learned the hard way in my last Watchtower scenario that you need to identify which troops threaten the watchtower and which ones don't. Unfortunately this list had little that wasn't a threat at least after your lost your Slann. Arkhan could hex your men in the tower so he and his unit was a threat. The Sphinx had a flaming attacks and many strong regular attacks so it was a threat. The Casket was a threat because it augmented your enemies magic phase The catapult was only a threat after you lost your BSB. The chariots had no real chance of taking the tower from you and could have easily been mostly ignored. The warriors had little chance of disloding you from the tower unless the Saurus were hit by Soulblight, Doom and Darkness AND rolled below average.
Thanks for the advice but a few points, Characteristic tests are taken on the value that's on the profile of the model do speed of light will not help lizardmen survive purple sun or the like. We even stopped the game and had a chat about it a d both agreed that's how it's played. Your right about netting Arkhans unit and I did toy with the idea but the reason I didn't was because he's got a tomb king stat line and had a very good chance of passing a Str test at Str 5. It was definagely a gamble running my slann up so fast to within range but if I got him in the tower he would have been safe. It didn't pay off but that's the fun of dice games. I agree with you about targeting Arkahns unit but unfortunately my slann did not have line of sight to his unit on the first turn. I think this turned out to my advantage though because my chaff survived and allowed me to dictate the movement of the sphinx while also weakening it. If I played this again I probably would have held back the slann 12 inch from the tower and just blasted away
I use Light all the time and was terrified that I was misapplying the rules this whole time. While it's not crystal clear, the preponderence of evidence seems to suggest that you would take Purple Sun tests on Initiative 10 (still-utofailing on a 6). Ability tests say they use the characteristic (and does not say base or unmodified characteristic), Light of Battle modifies the whole characteristic, it doesn't say just for close combat. Purple Sun does not say unmodified Intiative. Spirit Leech does say unmodified Leadership. Since one Death spell mentions unmodified specifically and Purple Sun does not, I believe it is safe to assume that when it just says take a test that you would take it based on the current trait net of modifiers.
I was going off pg 10 of the rule book"To make a characteristic test, role a D6 and compare the score to the relevant characteristic in the model's profile. If the score is equal to or less than the number in the profile, the test is passed with no ill effect. If the score is gretear than the number in the model's profile, the test has been failed, and something nasty will occur, as detailed in the rule that called for the test" Seeing as how it specifically mentions the number on the profile 3 times I would say that the inititive test is taken at I1 for a Speed of Light buffed Saurus. I think why Spirit Leech specifically says unmodified Leadership is because it is not a characteristic test Purple Sun is a characteristic test and doesnt specifically mention unmodified characteristic because the rules for characteristic tests are already covered.
i made the same mistake with pit of shades on slann, ever since than i put him in skinks units and get a look out sir rol
http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/buffs-and-hexes-affecting-characteristic-tests.10053/ Well I have two people who agree with me that buffs change characteristics and thus characteristic tests.
Fair enough and I'm happy to agree to disagree but I will keep playing it as value on a model's profile. So what about other things which affect a models characteristics that are not buffs/hexes like chaos knights ensorcelled weapons? Do they take strength tests on a 5 or 4
I finally found the reference which backs up your argument, pg5 Rulebook FAQ. No more worrying about purple sun for me!!
If we weren't able to buff charactersits, i'd shelve my whole LM army, as ALL my opponents know that Init tests are the only reliable way to kill me. Part of what happens when you go 13/1/2 at your LGS w/ LM. Looks like a well fought battle! Light is my preferred lore as well, ASF doub atk Saurus are just plain nasty!
Congrats on the win! Also the battle report was a really nice read, your style is easy to follow. What it comes to the content of the armies... To be honest, I think your opponents list is really weak. He was lucky to give you such a hard time. He has virtually no heavy hitters, 2x3 Chariots are extremely weak against almost everything, as you demonstrated by wiping them out with a couple of spells. 40 Skeletons can only slow things down, at best, if he can get them to charge something that actually matters. Which isn't going to be easy, if your opponent knows what he is doing and he doesn't have the Desert Wind spell from Lore of Nehekhara, that allows the unit to move again. And as Scalenex pointed out, he is completely relying on Arkhan. Take him out, and there's nothing that can win him the game. Also, Death lore is really effective against Lizardmen, which means he's going to face even more trouble against other armies. I do agree with you that he should split the Archers into smaller groups. I would use 2x20, but 1x20 + 2x10 is also an option. I'm not bashing your friend and would happily play a list like his in a friendly environment, but as a mainly Tomb Kings player, and from a tournaments point of view, I don't think he can gather much success. Again, these are just my insights. Maybe he is much better player than I am and/or has found ways to make that army work for him. If that is the case, I really dip my had to him! Anyway, thanks for the report and good luck to your future games!
Hi is your reroll to wound of the scar vet from the flaming attacks in buildings rule? if so, i think u only get it for being outside the building attacking the occupants inside the building. supporting docs: BRB pg69 for flaming attacks "Every Model with flaming Attacks rerolls failed To Wound rolls when shooting at or ASSAULTING a building..." BRB pg 127 "ASSAULTING A BUILDING: "The only way to take an OCCUPIED building ..... storming in with one of your units. This is called an ASSAULT" ... "The assaulting unit must declare a charge against the unit in the building" key word here is assault
Good catch, your right only the assaulting unit would get the rerolls, just aswell I didnt need it in the end!! Thanks for pointing that out pgne.