8th Ed. Puzzle vs Tomb Kings

[hdctambien]

I played against the Tomb Kings yesterday. This is how the game started. Let me know what you would have done for Turn 2! (or better in Turn 1)

Deployment (left to right)

Tomb Kings:
10 Archers
10 Archers
10 Horsemen (with 2 low level wizards)
Screaming Skull Catapult
Necrosphinx
Necolith Colossus (He called it a Bone Giant)
20? Tomb Guard w/ Tomb King
20? Skeletons w/ Lv 4 Hierophant (and a Herald whose will would be done)
10 Archers
10 Archers
11 Horsemen (with Mummy?)

The two units of Horsemen vanguarded forward their max move.

Lizardmen:

10 Skinks w/ Javs
10 Skinks w/ Javs
30 Temple Guard w/ Full Command, Razor Banner, and
Slann (Light Magic, Skavenpelt Banner, Channeling Staff, Iconcurse Icon, Convergence, Cogitation)
Scar Vet (Enchanted Shielf, Light Armor, Gold Sigil Sword, Dawnstone)
Skink Priest w/ Dispel Scroll (behind Temple Guard)
Ancient Stegadon w/ Engine of the Gods
49 Skink Cohorts w/ Poison attacks, Full Command, and 1 Kroxigor
Scar Vet Cowboy w/ Crown of Command, Light Armor, Charmed Shield, Dragonbane Gem
Salamander w/ 4 handlers
3 Ripperdactyls
10 Skink Javs
5 Chameleon Skinks deployed in the middle of hte table, between the Catapult and Necrosphinx

The Ripperdactyls vanguarded backwards behind the nearby Skink Javs and the Blot Frog was palced on the Skeletons w/ the Heirophant.

Magic:
Slann: Speed of Light, Net of Amyntok, Shem's Burning Gaze, Banishment
Skink Priest: Wyssan's Wild Form

Tomb Kings: He at least had: Cursed Blades, Incantation of Protection, Righteous Smiting, Vengence


Lizardmen went first and pretty much just advanced.
All the Skinks went 12" forward and Temple Guard went 8". I kept my Stegadon a few inches back from the front line of the Skink Cohorts and Temple Guard.

I almost moved the Slann to the other side of the Temple Guard, but ultimately decided not to becasue I wanted to keep him away from the area of the unit that would likely end up involved in a combat.

The Ripperdactyls moved closer to the middle of the board, and kept behind the main lines. I also put them in a single file formation to get them out of the charge arc of the Skeleton Horsemen.

The Salamander moved up 6" and spit at the Horsemen. I think he killed 1 or 2.
The Camo Skinks moved into range of the Catapult and killed 2 of the 3 crew.
On the left flank 20 skinks shot at the Horsemen and killed 2 of them.

In Magic I shot Shem's and Banishment at the Bone Giant. Banisment was dispelled and Shem's didn't cause any wounds.

On Tomb Kings first turn there was some charging.

The Necrosphinx charged my Ancient Stegadon. Stand and Shoot did nothing. But this put the Sphinnx in a precarious situation where I would be able to get a charge on either (or both) flanks with my Temple Guard and/or Skink Cohorts next turn.
On the Left flank the Horsemen charged one of the units of skinks. They stood and shot but killed nothing.
On the right flank the Horsemen charged teh Slamander, but he fled so they redirected into the Skink Skirmishers which stood and shot but killed nada.

I burnt by dispel scroll in the magic phase stopping Vengeance from being cast on my Temple Guard.

The Catapult killed 3 skinks from my Cohorts.

The Archers on the left flank wiped out my chameleon skinks (moved, long range, skirmish, chamo = -4 to hit ... so they hit on 5+ kthnx bye.) And also took out 2 of my Skink Javs.

The archers on the right flank fired 20 shots at my Rippers and only delt 1 wound (I expected a lot more destruction)

Combat... oh boy.

The skinks in both combats lost, fled, and were overrun. On the right flank the Horsemen overran off the board

The Stegadon was hit by the Necrosphinx' Heroic Killing blow attack, but was only regularly wounded by it. I lost combat then failed by stubborn Ld 9 break test. Then failed by stubborn Ld9 break test reroll. Then fled 2 inches... the Necrosphinks blew threw he center of my line and out of hte charge arc of my Frenzied Temple Guard and my Skink Cohorts. My units didn't panic, but I can't say the same about myself.

This is what it looked like at the end of Turn 1:



To be continued....

What would you guys do for Turn 2? And just for giggles, lets assume that the Scar Vet cowboy fails his Stupidity check for turns 2 and 3... (But the Salamander rallys in turn 2 and the Ripperdactyls pass their Frenzy test so are not required to charge the Archers that are exactly 22" away)

If you have ideas on how Turn 1 could have been played better, lets hear those too!

 

[Screamer]

Failing ld9 reroll isn't really anything that you can plan for...

But probably should have angled skinks and steg differently. I usually try.to avoid risking the salamander at half-crappy shots. When forced to flee he effectively looses at least one round of fighting, possibly more because he's in the wrong spot.

He doesn't really have anything that can threaten your TG in cc, and they should get there turn 2 or 3. The rippers should also be able to kill of the archer-units, even without toad. You should kill around 6 if them, and at most loose 1W back.

Use the skink skirmish and maybe cohort to take out the sphinx, salamander to wittle down the graveguards and magic for the giant or something like that. The rest should be crushed by your tg, rippers and cowboy. The only unit not to engage is his king-unit.

 

[Pinktaco]

Well it's hard to deal with being unlucky, but when that is said I feel like you could've done a lot better in terms of your list.

I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I have a very simple principle when making an army list: Make the list simple. Bam. There, you just made yourself a lot more efficient army IMO. Let me elaborate.

You currently have:

* A scar vet with CoC
* A single salamander.
* 3 ripperdactyls.
* 5 cameleons.
* An engine of the gods.

I'm not saying that what you've chosen is bad, not at all, but it could definately be better.

So lets start from the top:

Personally I believe the CoC is much better suited for the Oldblood. The OB can still field a lot of nasty stuff whereas your scar vet IMO feels slighty squishy. He's AS+1 alright, but no ward and no reroll armour and just a sword. I mean, sure he can hold up a unit if spearmen and if that was your goal I suppose it's fine, but I think we could use our cowboys for much more. For instance several large monsters are present from your opponent, how about armour of destiny and a great weapon? You're immune to thunderstomps, can dish out S7 attacks and the best they can do is modify your armor with 3 and you still have a 4+ ward save. Personally I'd just go all in an have an oldblood with the dawnstone as well as the above mentioned. He might not take the T8 models down in one go, but they won't do sh1t to him either.

Why is this important? Because when you're all out of luck as you appear to have been you can have a back-up in the cowboy and not go in panic mode. A lone cowboy is quite mobile.

So.. about the salamander, rippers and cameleons just consider this: would it be much better to have 2 salamanders and 10 cameleons than the 3 different units? Or 6 rippers and 10 cameleons? Or.. or.. yeah you get the picture. Be simple in your strategy and make strong units. Don't just have 3 rippers flapping around and *hope* they will be alright. Get 6 and get those bad boys out there and roflstomp (well at least stomp.. <.<) those skeletons. Have you seen the math on those guys? They could probably tear through most of the tomb guards if given the chance, just get a flank charge off and enjoy winning the combat.

So, in other words: look at the lists that you make and consider if the focus is too wide and sort of lacking. Focus on a few units and have those be good. Make the list simple for you because that way it'll be much more efficient and much easier to excecute. You could've had 2 x 5 (no reason to have 10 in one unit) of cameleons. That would've made sure that your cameleons would've stayed there, killing the catapult.

The engine.. well I just find it to be utter waste of 45pts.

I actually also find your frenzy banner a bit overkill compared to the match-up. 30 templeguards will stomp all over his and the razorbanner might not be needed either. Tomb Kings doesn't really have a lot of armour do they? So if you removed those 3 things

You've just gained 155pts. Just let that sink in for a moment. Enough points for a scar vet on CO, with GW and armour of destiny. Or a bastiladon, or another 3 rippers, almost 2 salamanders. Lots of things. Or upgrade the cowboyd to an OB cowboy.

So, if I had to remake your list I'd probably take:

Lords: 596pts
Slann w/ Light Magic, BSB, scroll
OB on CO w/ GW, armour of destiny, dawnstone

Core 626pts
10 Skinks w/ Javs
10 Skinks w/ Javs
10 Skinks w/ Javs
48 Skink Cohorts w/ Poison attacks, Full Command, and 1 Kroxigor

778pts
27 Temple Guard w/ Full Command
6 Ripperdactyls
10 (5x2) Chameleon Skinks

500pts
Ancient Stegadon /w sharpened horns
Ancient Stegadon /w sharpened horns


I decided to shrink the point investment of the slann to fit in another steg and the OB . I'd rather rely on raw power than the unstable magic phase. Stegs provide a lot of raw power and OB is awesome.

The OB is your swiss army knife. Where ever he goes destruction will follow. He's very tanky and can dish out himself. Just consider him + 2 stegs near each other. Yeah your opponents will be scared sh1tless for that side of the board. Just consider it, what is a tomb king player supposed to do with a list similar to what your opponent had?

But oh wait, the rest of the army is basically still just as strong as the previous, it pretty much fullfills the same job, it's just more specialized and not too much all-over-the-place-ish. It's also the same units with the exception of a few less banners, some disciplines, a priest and a scar vet. Point is that I didn't suddenly take out the guards and put in 8 kroxigors instead or in some other way completely alter the vision you had about your army. It can still do the same job as I mentioned.

That army have:

- Swiss army knife
- lvl 4 mage
- anvil from core + skirmishers
- anvil from special while they can dish out some
- a lot of good hammers (rippers, no less than 2 ancient stegs who both does multiple wounds - colossus be aware!)
- anti warmachine.

You don't face any big hordes so in this case you can be fine without salamanders, if you care however you can switch out the rippers and get a couple of salamanders + some left over points (more guards).

I hope this helps because that tomb king army looked somewhat weak compared to what we can field.

 

[hdctambien]

'm not claiming to be an expert, but I have a very simple principle when making an army list: Make the list simple. Bam. There, you just made yourself a lot more efficient army IMO. Let me elaborate.

I'll definitely take into consideration the suggestions you made, however a lot of your points of list design seem to assume that I know what I will be fighting against. That is not necessarily the case.

The Tomb King player could just as well brought his Wood Elfs or Beastmen (talk about a poor combination of army choices...) or I might have ended up playing someone that has both Dark Elfs and Chaos Dwarfs. Or there is the guy that brings Brettonia and Beastmen. Or one of the other two guys that plays Lizardmen. Or the guy that brings Empire, Dark Elfs, and Beastmen. Other players bring Orcs & Goblins, High Elfs, Skaven, Warriors of Chaos, and Demons...

I could end up playing pretty much any army (once the new Dwarfs book comes out I'm sure a few of these guys will suddenly have Dwarf armies that I've never seen before) and I don't know which one I'll end up playing against. So sometimes I have things in my list that seem like overkill vs the army I play (the Razor standard vs Tomb Kings) and sometimes I have a unit that doesn't seem entirely useful (SV on Cold One with Dragonbane Gem is for the K'Dai Destroyer, and the Scar Vet with Gold Sigil Sword is for Elfs)

It's up in the air which of these players will show up for Tuesday night games, but pretty much all of them come to the monthly tournaments. So the best list for me is a list that is flexible enough to handle any of them. So, I'm ready to accept that some parts of my army will be more/less effective against different match ups.

You did pick up on part of my list that I'm still experimenting with. The Salamander, Chamos, and Rippers. I probably do need to drop one of those and beef up one of the remaining two. I'd also like to fit in my Bastiladon (I dropped it to make room for the Scar Vet cowboy)

As for the Engine. I really like the 6+ ward for my Temple Guard and Skinks to defend against the barrage of shooting I take from Tomb Kings, all the Elves, and Chaos Dwarfs. I may try dropping that to make my Chamo or Ripper units bigger.

This particular game against the Tomb Kings I did eventually win. It was a bloody battle and came down to the last turn. But there was nothing he could do against my Temple Guard and my Skink Cohort unit held up all his units until my Temple Guard got in charge range.

 

[Pinktaco]

That's fine, but what I wanted to point out was: try and make your army simple. It doesn't matter what your face because you can still field a similar army. For instance you could've switched out the rippers in my list with 2 salamanders, have a few points left and be good.

Sure some opponenets might have more ways of killing off the stegadons so that's obviously something to consider. You could also switch out the OB with a SV, have high magic (high magic can be taken without the discipline), switch out the rippers with salamanders and be good against anything.

High magic will allow you to heal and move your ancient stegadons, fiery convocation along with salamanders can take out hordes/criple them and the rest of the army will work exactly like before.

So in other words the list can very easily be made into more of an all-comers list, but in that case I'd consider keeping the razorbanner since S5 + AP will cut through most cavalry units.

I just want to point out though - I'm NOT saying your current army was bad, just that it could've been optimized some more (even if you don't know who you'll be facing) - also what I suggested wasn't far off what you came up with, however, do keep in mind that we all have our preferences so only take it as suggestions and not the absolute truth.

I'd wager that winning the game, especially as lizardmen, requires a proper strategy, army list and deployment. If you can get those right you'll have a lot easier time winning.

 

[Screamer]

When it comes to cowboys I always want them to be durable more than heavy hitters (but preferably both!).
The most durable, at least if you want more than one, is the old-blood with glittering scales and dawn-stone. Against ws3-6 troops they need about 600A/W at S3, and 300A/W at S4.
Then the scar-vet can use Armour of Destiny, and they can both have GW for those juicy S7 attacks.