Tutorial Saurus Warriors.. The tactica?!

So I was at my local store today. To guys who'll both be at the tournament this month played. I'll be participating the tournament as well.

One of the guys had what is basically his standard nurgle list: 2 blocks of plaguebearers, 1 blocks of beasts and a couple of cannons and a couple of mages. Besides the fact that he had an awful lot of magic (rolled 4 dice for 3 different magic so that confused me), it didn't worry me that much. Well except that he rolled purple sun so I know what he'll be aiming for.

Anyway the other player had 2 terrorgheist and a vamp lord on dragon. Since we don't allow 50% lord choice he was low on magic. When I first looked at the flying monsters I thought to myself they'd be unbeatable, but the strange thing is that the dragon lord came off as being fairly manageable. I can see him with two different item combinations: the usual 4+ ward and +2S sword OR nightshroud and talisman. Well unless he want to gamble and have no ward by going nightshroud and sword. I'd actuslly prefer the nightshroud combination because that would leave him at S5 which doesn't do sh1t on our OB. I could challenge him and flank charge with something else and crumble him to death. With ward and sword the OB will target the dragon, put two wounds in it, likely win combat resolution by 1-2 depending on received wound or not. Both will then take a wound from crumble. Right?

So dragon lord Is as said fairly manageable with the fully kitted OB. My concern, however, lie with the terrorgheists. I'm going with lore of metal slann and tetto'eko so thunderbolt should target a gheist, but they'll be up in my face regardless.

What to do about these fvcker? If I can pick off some wounds on it my BSB scar vet can likely take one by himself, but not before the scream have been reduced in effectiveness. What are the odds of removing 4 wounds before close combat? Seems low. With that said if I charge it in my turn, deal a wound, take none myself it'll lose CR by 3 (due to being a BSB, charge and wound) and thus effectively lose 4 wounds. Not bad if the stars align.

Any other suggestions? 3 flying monsters are tonight. The rest of the list is a bunch of skellies and a graveguard horde.

 

While I realize Lore of Light is the preferred lore amongst most other LM player on this forum to want to try out Metal. Although the chance of knocking off 3-4 wounds on a terrorgheist with Shem's is interesting. I'll be play-testing my list before the tournament, so we'll have to see. Currently I'm quote pumped for metal even though I realize it's not preferred as much.

But I do have one comment - lore of Light doesn't remove all weaknesses. Lore of metal cam give both +1 To Hit along with armour piercing to the saurus and minus WS1/amour on the opponent. Not the same as WS10/I10, but definitely not bad when used in conjunction with plague of rust which is a permanent spell =]
Point is that while light is good against some enemies metal is good against others. Who will I meet the most? No clue =]

Thanks for the input though ^^

 

Ah yes I hadn't actually thought about castling up. Terrorgheists do, however, have a 28" threat range.

I'll likely have something of this kind:

Metal slann, channel dice combo, reroll one failed dispel attempt.

OB with AoD, Dawnstone, cold one, GW.

Scar Vet BSB with spear, light armour, talisman of preservation, charmed shield and cold one.

Tetto'eko.

40 saurus warriors.
2 x 10 Skink Skirmishers.
1 x 10 Skink cohort.

30 templeguards.
7 CoRs /w spears.
2 x 5 cameleon skinks.

I could likely dump spears and a single templeguard and gain the jaguar banner. Templeguards can flat out remove a terrorgheist in a single turn of combat. They'll do 4 wounds in combat, only lose 3 themselves and have 3 ranks + banner and win combat by a lot. Even if he dual charged me with both he'd lose out lol.

I think the scary part is actually catching the terrorgheists. You'll want to be in combat with them in your own turn to avoid the screams.

 

Hmm.. I just looked up the statistic thread. Templeguards have 80% chance of doing a charge on 11" range. That's actually quite good and will surprise people. Will see if I cannot incorporate the banner.

 

Yeah my thoughts exactly. It's basically a make or break list, but his dragon lord is a trap for him. He'll want to reach close combat, but once he's locked in close combat my OB can zero in on him, challenge him and I'll with due to ranks, banner etc he'll die to CR/crumble even if he's in close combat.

The gheists can be taken down easily. As I mentioned my templeguards can in theory take on two of those fuckers and still come out good. On average two gheists will do 6 wounds including the thunderstomps. Guards will do 4-5, have 3 ranks and a banner so total worth of 8-9 CR. By the second round they'll be gone obviously not counting any screams so this is where I'll have to charge and not be charged lol.

Assuming he runs straigh up to my face he'll leave the rest behind. With luck I can take out the monsters before the rest hit.
The crucial part, with the exception of getting the charge myself, is to not be charged by all 3 at once. So I'll have to separate them. <.<

 

But this is where I see things differently. Even removing 1 point of armour on any unit with heavy armour (white lions, grave guards etc) will boost my saurus warriors. Plague rust is a permanent hex. Transmutation of lead is.. Less than ideal, but -1 armour and WS can come in handy. There are plenty of WS3-4 models to engage (gors, plaguebearers, Savage Orcs, grave guards etc). Transmutation of gold I'd obviously good. Searing Doom isn't only good against 1+ models, but any good armoured monsters (mostly dragons and treemen?). In fact it can be used against chimera and pop a wound or two. The most important fact here though is that with tetto'eko I can allow myself to experiment.

Is metal the most optimal? No of course not, but like using saurus warriors I cannot turn it down without properly trying it out. I can personally find plenty of examples where metal will be average to good.

Besides there is plenty of armour in the game:
CoK, IC knights, Bretonnia, Dragon Princes, WoC, other LM players, reducing armour on dwarfs, chariots from Beastmen, treemen, dragons, doom wheel and likely more.

Again there's no doubt that having WS10/I10 is good against all armies, but there are plenty of targets for me to consider metal. Claiming "herp derp only 2 factions have 1+ save knights" is imo foolish. We take sword saurus just for that parry, why wouldn't we want to do the opposite and remove the possibility for our opponent to save on 6+?

Also just the possibly to reduce any 2+ knights to 3+ before combat is HUGE. Do that and remove they're down to 4+ against saurus warriors. Add either the AP buff or armour save hex on top and they're down by another point. Plague rust can be cast in first turn of the game and pay itself back for the rest of the game.

Different opinions? Definitely! But I like to experiment and tetto'eko allow just that

Ps yes I will try out light as well ^^

 

it's not about outright killing. When you're on combat the overall combat resolution is still accounted for. The OB have plenty of saves to survive a vamp lord for some time (we did the math in another thread and the OB and VL was actuslly equal).
If I can reduce the incoming wounds to 0-1 I'll automatically win due to combat res.

Unless of course I've misunderstood how challenges and CR work?
At any rate I'm fairly certain that if two blocks engage and you challenge the opponents character with your and win the overall combat the challenge will break if the opponent lose the combat. Since they're undead they don't break, but lose crumble.

 

I just need to get off plague of rust off once for it to work. If I'm not allowed to get spells off neither is my opponent. The thing about plague PF rust is that it's permanent. Besides arguing that Light >Metal and then arguing Dispels > me is kinda silly? Why should metal be any more dispelled than light? Besides I still got other spells from heaven most people would priorities.
Just to be clear I am aware that I can't guarantee that spells go off neither can my opponent. I'm not basing my army directly on magic - if you look at my strategy concerning the dragon lord/terrorgheist no magic was involved.

Also do be aware that I have tetto'eko. He might screw me over 1/6 magic phase, but those other phases I'll be off with a very good (unless I IF) buff and thus be able to potentially get more spells off ^^

And just to be clear - I don't want to come off as arrogant or unwilling to listen. I'm very must listening to everything you guys say. I take it all with me and will eventually try it all out.

 

That build - without red fury - is 614pts. Getting off 1 spell at Lvl 2 vs Lvl 4 who can reroll failed dispel attempt? Thats somewhat unlikely.

S7 (lance) will on average do 1,2 wound. Without Lance he'll do 0,8 wounds. Either way I lose 1 wound, Dragon do 0,20 wound. I don't need to do any wounds on it and all of this is assuming he'll charge me. Without the charge both will do zero wounds.

I'm not spewing sh1t here. Check the math. Mine could be wrong ^^ if I can lock the dragon lord in a challenge anything charges buff my CR with ranks, banner and charge.

Please do tell if I've misunderstood anything. I want to have my facts straight

**EDIT** please remember this is without 50% lords since we don't play with that.