Had a pretty fun, fast-paced battle today. I got lucky and my opponent got unlucky, but it was still pretty balanced at points. The deployment was: LEFT FLANK- 10 Skink Skirmishers, 30 Saurus (Spears) w/ Scar-Veteran (Fencer Blades) & Stegadon (VS) 10 Chaos Hounds, 10 Chaos Hounds & a Giant CENTRE- 3 Salamanders & Temple Guard (w/ Slann) (VS) 40 Marauders (w/ Flails & Chaos Hero), Chaos Lvl. 2 & Lvl 4 Wizards. RIGHT FLANK: 10 Skink Skirmishers, 20 Saurus (w/ Oldblood & Scar-Veteran) & Skink Priest (w/ Engine of the Gods) (VS) 22 Warriors of Chaos (w/ BSB Hero on Juggernaut) & 10 Knights of Khorne I used the Lore of Life, and Chaos used Lores of Nurgle & Shadows. Our magic was fairly ineffective at first (though he used a LOT of Toughness-drains on the Engine, which cost me most of my Dispelling and 2 wounds on the Steg). The Hounds killed my Skinks and lost 5 of their number, but overran SUPER-far and ended up in the corner of the field. The Salamanders failed most of their breath attacks but STILL killed 11 Marauders over 2 turns before being charged and broken- this sent them into the T.Guard, but a charge from the Stegadon actually caused them to flee in Terror! VERY lucky roll, as I then ran down the Horde. The Chaos Giant then charged the 30 Saurus and did quite well, but the Stegadon's Impact Hits the next turn killed HIM. By this point, the Hounds sorta made their way over, but the Steg dealt with the 5 in one unit easily, and the others never got over in time (they failed a charge). On the other flank, the Knights charged into the Skinks with the Chaos Lord, and both overran (the Knights disappeared into a corner for a couple turns while the Lord overran into my 20 Saurus and then fled when he lost combat). This allowed my Saurus (w/ characters) to fly into the Warriors unit and they did well. The Engine soon charged in and finished the unit off w/ TONS of death. The Knights & Lord soon found their way back in, and killed the Saurus unit, but the overrun into the Engine led to my T. Guard jumping THEM in the flanks. Despite that, and my Slann casting a TON of augments, the sheer killiness of Knights left me VERY bruised. A lucky roll saw the Lord flee with only -1 to a break test, and once my 30 Saurus made their way over, I was able to kill off all the Knights. Meanwhile, my other Stegadon had killed a Sorceror Lord. In Total, it was 3600 points to 1670 points, with my Lizardmen winning pretty handily.
Some notes: * Unit of the game was actually my normal Stegadon- the Engine drew most of the fire, and the Steg saw off a unit of Marauders just by existing (I would've beaten them with TG, 30 Saurus AND a Steg, but 30 Flails are nothing to sneeze at), killed a Giant without drawing returning fire, and killed a Sorceror Lord with Impact Hits! Next up was the 20 Saurus with both Characters in it- they saw off a Chaos Lord (who returned to kill them), then did a ton of damage to Chaos Warriors. The Engine of the Gods withstood a lot of fire (my units weren't hampered by magic at all), killed off the Warriors, and even lasted against the Chaos Knights (though that one required the Throne of Vines boosting Stone Skin & a Regenerate save). * Chaos Lords- believe the hype. His Hellfire Sword got only one wound on a 1+ Armour, 4+ Ward Oldblood, and got D3 wounds and killed him in a challenge. The same sword also killed the Toughness 10 Engine by taking away the Regenerate. That thing is INSANE- worth every bit of his 400-ish points. The only way to really beat it is with CR, much like Vampire Lords. * Knights of Khorne managed to wipe the floor with Skinks, 20 Saurus (w/ characters), an Engine of the Gods, and easily trounced my Temple Guard (who got a Flank Charge on the Knights), despite all my buffs and a -1 to Hit hex from the Skink Priest. That is a KILLER unit. * Skinks are excellent for just redirecting stuff- I never used to do this (or realize it was a viable tactic), but it definitely works- the Knights of Khorne, the best unit in our game, ended up charging on Turn 2 or 3, and got stuck back there for a turn, by which point I was (mostly) ready for them and had dealt with the rest of the army. In all, not a bad game at all. I got lucky at points (the Terror test, often my opponent got bad magic, the Lord failing two break tests at bad times), but my tactics were solid, and none of my units did overly poorly (the ones that died redirected units).
Oh yeah, and fun note: I was 100 points under budget, because I accidentally wrote down my Salamander unit cost as 325 points instead of 225 . So I kind of got a handicap victory, too. I also had the worst miscast of my Warhammer career (I'm normally totally immune to them, which is odd), rolling only three dice and setting off a Strength 10 Small Template Blast over the Slann and his unit, dropping SIX Temple Guard in one go! Thankfully I already had the Knights of Khorne on the ropes, with help coming in, or that would've sucked.