So I usually don't do much magic at all with my other Fantacy armies ( Wood Elves ) and I thought with Lizardmen I would try to go magic heavy initially before I expand it. Advice would be more than welcome and much appreciated. General: Slann as BSB and following diciplines (sorry but I don't have my book and don't remember names); Reroll miscast table 1 extra power dice know all spells in one lore non-magical attacks don't hurt 1 x Scroll, 1 Power stone, ixie grubs Heros: Tetto-ecko - I just love the idea of a skink priest on a palaquin with a body guard of skinks Lvl 2 Priest on A. Steg w/ EotG 1 x scroll, staff let's me have Uranon's thunderbolt Lvl 2 Priest unknown magic items (help? Cloak of Feathers?) Core; 30 Skinks w/ FC (Tetoo-ecko's guard) 2 x 15 Saurus w/ HW & Shield, Mus. Special; 20 Temple Guard w/ FC Basically it's a small list but with huge magic that would overwelm the enemy. I would probably castle my forces in a corner, preferably on a hill if possible. My TG would be centered with my skinks to one side and the two Saurus to either flank. I'd give my Slann the Lore of Fire for offensive and my skinks the Lore of Heavens. I'm thinking if I don't have to worry about shooting I could use my priest w/ cloak of feathers to get into the flank or rear and direct slann's magic missles through him. Advice? I'm thinking about perhaps dropping my second priest and going either with only three heros or grabbing a cheep saurus for better CC.
The reroll miscasts is not very good, you rarely want to take the chance of rerolling a miscast as you have a good chance of getting something worse. Id only reroll snake eyes, which should happend around once every 35 games (assuming you miscast once per game, pretty standard). If you want protection against miscast the Cupped Hands of the Old Ones is a far better choice, as it both prevents you from being harmed as well as possible hurting an enemy caster. +1 dice, all spells and etheral are all good choices tho, but you hardly need etheral when you got a big unit of temple guard protecting him. +1 Dice and all spells is enought and frees up 100 pts. 30 skinks is a pretty big unit, and I dont see why they need FC, anything that engages them in CC will destroy them. 20 Temple guard is also a little much, a unit of 16 can form a 5x4 unit with the Slann which is enought. You have a decent base of an army but you overstacked the magic phase too much, producing around 16 powerdices per magic phase. If you fight something where your magic won't be effective, or if you roll bad spells on your skinks (happends a lot with only 2 spells from heavens) you dont have any real punch in the close combat phase or the shooting phase. You also lack harassers, getting at least 1-2 units of blowpipe skinks is almost essential.
I think you have gone to far in your magic'ness. I know that here in Australia you are pretty much termed a "banned" army with any 2 digit number of powerdice. I would think that a Slann and 1 EoTG is the maximum (of course maybe in your region there are lots of 15 PD horror armies in which case, fair game). Obviously the no brainer overpowered choice is 1 Slann and 3 lv 3 EoTGs. The performance enhancing Grubs* and "reroll miscast" things should be dropped for Cupped Hands of the Old Ones IMO. The "non-magical attacks don't hurt" is really a waste when you have 20 TG in front anyway. I was going to say the power stone doesn't achieve much, but with "know all spells" and "extra dice" it could be a good suprise 'look ma, no powerdice' 2D6 S4 magic missile. *I am stealing this pun from someone else on the internet Meh. The staff is 1 use only bound 6, a waste of points. You don't need him really. IMO strike him completely or replace with a scar vet. Needs terradons, skink skirmishers and salamanders (http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/salamander-tactica-101.3010/). Also the skink-death-star does not work.
While I agree with everything else you said, I completly 100% disagree with you on this point, I never build an army without Rod of Storm. You always save it until he has no DDs, getting it off on a unit of knights usually kills between 50-150pts worth of knights on avarage, a bargain for 25 pts. Its also an excellent way of dealing with armored troops that skinks and terradons don't do well against and it works wonders when combined with a burning alignment.
Maybe so. I myself won't give up Plaque of Tepok (and a better chance of getting the spell for real) for it. Do you play in closed lists? That would make it godly.
i really can't see any other way of playing warhammer, if both players know each others tricks it kills the purpose of half the magic items wich are ment to surpirse the oppnent... bound spells, ASF, and quite a few more
Just let your opponent know you're playing closed lists before you start so that when you pull out that surprise they don't get too peeved. Aka, when their best unit gets smashed by some special rule you have that you didn't tell them about when they spent 20 minutes revealing all their magic items to you.
I preffer games where the winner is the one who played the best, not the one that played the suprise card.
the whole point of a magic items is to suprise your opponent, well some of them at least. i can't see the point of bound spells (one use only) if they are revealed at teh start, same with dispell scrolls and power stones. if you know how many scrolls/stones an oponenet has you will play both magic phases differently as opposed to being carefull when you don't know when a scroll can pop up. another example would be the jaguar charm... if your opponenet knows you have it he will only let you use it when it is to his advantage, other wise you spent your points on a useless item. every game i played (except total beginners) and every game i will play it will be with closed lists
I agree with the Plaque is better but with 2 priests he can fit in both. Swedish tournaments does use closed lists however, so its much better than it would be in an open list of course (also agree that open lists is far better, skill > surprise card). The thing with closed lists are that those who really know the game can pretty much figure out every single magic item your opponent has anyway (hmm Black Guards with ASF? Nobody uses that !), while beginners or players that can't be bothered to memorize every single common magic item set up for every army will suffer.
that exactly the reason closed lists are better... in a tournament scene the same items usually appear so its not so much memorising the items as memorising the stats with the item included: blackguard come with ASF, bloodthirsters have 4+ armor save and ignore magic weapons, etc i, however, don't play on any tournament scene mostly becasue there are no tournaments in romania except those small ones organised either by our store or the one in bucharest... not too many players show up and the sight of a "very" coptetitive player is rather rare. in this case closed lists are more fun since you can surpries the opponeent with an uncommon magic item wich makes the game less repetitive when one plays every game with a rod of storm his opponenets start to expect it and prepare for it, if that players swaps it for a scroll it wil lthrow the opponenet off balance because: a) he expects the rod every turn, possibly saving a scroll for it b) he will not expect that extra scroll i guess its a matter of oppinion but i'm on the side of closed lists. i can see the advantages of an open list (skill>surprise) but that renders some items useless and "surprise" is a skill itself, it makes a big differens if you pop that BSoS in teh 1st turn or the 3rd after close combat begins (just one example of many)
I'm grateful for all of your suggestions. Here is my revised list that I've taken from everyone's suggestions. General; Slann w/ BSB and following diciplines- Extra Power Dice and Know all spells in one lore Dispel Scroll Heros; Tetto-eko (Yup, still like this guy) Lvl 2 Priest on EotG w/ Plaque of Tepok and Rod of Storm Core; 30 Skinks 2 x 15 Saurus w/ hw&shield and Mus. 2 x 10 Skink skirmishers w/ blowpipes Special 16 Temple Guard w/ FC I probably have some points left over. If that's the case I will hopefully give the War Banner to my Slann. Perhaps increase the number of Saurus or (for pure fluff reasons) give command to Tetto-eko's guards.
I see your point bibamus, the reason why I like open better is probably because Im tired of closed lists and want something new, and I agree that closed lists make those less popular items decent due to the surprise effect. But back on topic: New lists looks slightly better. 30 Block of skinks is rather ineffective, whats the point of those guys? If you want a bunker for your special character then 16-20 is enought, they never want to see combat anyway and a unit of 30 is gonna be very hard to manouver. You can't take both Plaque and Rod of the storm on your skink, as you can't have 2 arcane items. Your Slann doesnt have an arcane item except scroll tho so he can take the Rod isntead.
Blast my lack of army book in hand!!! Well I think your right, give the rod to my slann. I guess your probably right about the bodyguard unit being too big. I suppose I was getting a little overzelous. I'll reduce it to just twenty and free up fifty more points, that should allow me to add that War Banner and increase the sizes of my saurus units a few models each.
Just added the points, and you've got points for a bit more than a warbanner. Anyway, some suggestions... Give the saurus units standards, not so much to help them win combat as to help them BREAK things. Also, spears are great. The Temple guard champion is only worth it if you give him a magic item, of which there are several good options. Otherwise, I'd drop him. Also, by all means, give Tetto's unit a full command. It's not that effective on paper, but I'm sure such a fluffy choice will curry favor with the dice gods and inspire those skinks to feats of pure awesomeness .
Ok, so I crunched the numbers this morning on Army Builder and was very surprised to find that I had a bit over 200 points to play with. I'm sure you all can imagin my glee at this so I've adjusted my list thusly; General; Slann w/ War Banner BSB and following diciplines- Extra Power Dice and Know all spells in one lore Dispel Scroll, Rod of Storm Heros; Tetto-eko Lvl 2 Priest on EotG w/ Plaque of Tepok Core; 20 Skinks w/ FC 2 x 20 Saurus w/ hw&shield and Mus. 2 x 10 Skink skirmishers w/ blowpipes Special 18 Temple Guard w/ Mus. & Standard 3 Terradon Riders Ok here are the thoughts on this creation. As Spacelizard said giving the Skinks full command for this special character might proke them to feats of martial prowess. Plus I like the simple fluff of a full skink bodyguard unit for this guy. Play testing will see if they stick around...haha! I was able to increase my saurus units to twenty and give them musicians and standards so that they had more staying power and better ability to break units. I'd though about a unit of spears and I've got one in the works. I think I'll likely switch out using a spear unit with a hand weapon/shield unit. Give each play style about a half dozen games to see where I like it. I was pleased to increase my temple guard a few more and as suggested I dropped the champion. The full command was more for fluff and I might end up going back to it for fluff reasons. But generally I'm not a big fan of Champs. I just don't think you get what you pay for. I was also pleased to not only add the two units of blowpipe skinks but add three terradon riders! I like these guys with their rules and I think they will go a long way to taking out war machines and just being a general nusance. So there is my list! I think, paper-wise, it's pretty solid. Some tweeking here and there will likely occur. As I've said before, suggestions and comments are definately welcome. And for those who might be curious the gang I play with use closed army lists. For the most part we run campaigns and so we are competatively friendly gaming. Cheers!
I don't I kinda like the TG champ, since he has the ability to use magic weapons or items. giving the flaming sword or the hornet sword is a prety nasty surprise for your oponent.
That's a pretty good suggestion n810. When I get home today I'll crunch some numbers and see about getting that worked in. Likely I'll just have to cut one or two saurii out.