Congrats on the victory mate!
Thanks!
That’s a beautiful battlefield there, was the scenery yours or your opponent’s?
It's mine
It's a proper, fold-out gaming table (6' by 4') with a gaming mat on it. It feels like a mousepad and is also 6' by 4' so fits the table nicely and does wonders for the ambience.
I've been steadily building up terrain (I can't claim to have made any of it, I'm pretty hopeless that way) and was a joy to finally have a full table of decent terrain, using the special rules no less! Made it a lot more interesting.
I 100% agree with this, 5 Skirmisher units plus Chameleon Skinks was rather excessive, especially as you had only 1 unit of Saurus Warriors. Personally I think Skink Skirmishers are overrated because they have awful range, Skirmishers can no longer change shape as a fluid mass of men, they have front, flank and rear arcs in this edition like normal units rather than being able to shoot in any direction and in this particular case your opponent deployed his army all across his deployment zone so there were no open flanks to exploit, meaning your Skirmisher units had to attack your enemy from the front. I also noticed you let your Skirmishers stand and shoot once or twice instead of getting them to flee - they’re going to die anyway if they’re attacked in combat with a dedicated melee unit, but fleeing them gives them a chance to escape and fight another day. Even then, though, they’re in a rocky place because they can always roll a poor roll that lets the enemy catch and destroy them (especially against enemies with Swiftstride) or they could fail to rally and run off the board. A couple of units is still decent against any army with loads of monsters with no saves like this one, but against armies with lots of Cavalry and/or heavy armour they will do pretty badly. For redirection I prefer Fast Cavalry to Skirmishers in this edition, though of course Lizardmen don’t have access to the former.
Yeah. They were useful on the Giant and would have been useful on the Manglers. Otherwise, they did serve their purpose on redirecting/pulling units out of line with the Black Orcs so not a huge loss.
I also realized that I had paid the points for two Chamo units...
so didn't even get the full gaming out of them! And, yes, next time will definitely do another Saurus unit instead.
Along the same lines I think Saurus are underrated combatants against any army except Warriors of Chaos (who are ridiculously OP), and Orcs and Goblins is one of the better armies to use big units of Saurus against as most of their melee troops have fewer attacks and poorer Leadership. Against any stronger opposition like the Big’Uns and Black Orcs you came up against I recommend adding a Bastiladon with Solar Engine and fitting it between two units of Saurus to boost their Initiative to 2 so they can attack the Orcs at the same time. Combining the points of the big unit you did have and the 160 points from cutting out two Skirmishers units (assuming you gave them champions) I’ve found that you could have had two units of 26 with spears, and adding a character into each would have allowed you to deploy them in 9 x 3 formation. Such a formation would give each unit 33 attacks plus the attacks of the Saurus characters, giving you more ability to take on the melee units he had without risking your Stegadons and support Kroak’s Temple Guard. Bringing a Solar Engine Bastiladon would also have given you a spell that works very nicely at damaging enemy units as long as you roll a 4+ which you could have saved after your opponent would waste his dispel dice trying to dispel the spells from Kroak and the Priests.
Yes, it's unfortunately true that with the low WS they are lot less effective then you think on first looking them over. I think they're fine if backed up. I like the idea of fielding them seriously wide. I'll try that if I face O&G again, as they are the army most likely to go so wide themselves.
I have reservations about the Solardon, but I may try it next time anyways since I have the model.
Other than that though, can’t argue with your army list choice, and you won anyway so I shouldn’t complain. Once again well done for winning a mighty victory for the Lizardmen!
Oh, my army choice could definitely be argued.
I think I had a nice mix of good and bad luck and consider that I planned it well, even if I fluffed the first movement phase a bit by having everything cluttered up.
I appreciate your data and insight mate. Cheers!
