Nuances of Terrain If we knew which side of the tables both players would get and we could place every single terrain piece, placing terrain would be easy. That would unrealistic and unfair though. I always feel like I get the short end of the stick during terrain placement. The sad part is I place half the terrain pieces myself so I can’t blame anyone but myself. The hard part is figuring out where to place terrain in way that will help Lizardmen when you can’t be sure which side of the table you are getting. So I’m opening things up to the other forumites, inviting general discussion one terrain piece at a time. Once I get some good insights on one terrain type, I’ll move on to the next. Then I can compile a summarized Tactica when everything gets finished. Subject One: Rivers This is my Achilles heel. It seems the rivers are against me in every game I play. I’m going to summarize the key facts about rivers as I see them. Lizardmen have several units with River Strider: This matters very little, this means our Aquatic units don’t have to take dangerous terrain tests from rivers but are still at the mercy for everything else rivers do. Only Necrotic Ooze and Raging Torrent count as actual dangerous terrain. Strider does not prevent damage from a Boiling Flood or the damaging spells from a River of Light. I usually play wit house rule that makes special rivers less likely so Strider becomes even less valuable since normal rivers are not dangerous terrain. Rivers prevent marching: In my opinion this is the most significant BRB rule relating to rivers. This applies to everything, even our aquatic skirmishers. In most cases this is bad for us. We don’t have long ranged shooting, so we usually have to advance towards the enemy more than they have to advance towards us. Against a low shooting army, we CAN use this to our advantage by slowing an en enemy down via magic. A river splitting the table on the short side will make it harder for to maneuver armies left to right which would lead to compartmentalized battles as one section of troops has trouble reaching the other. Rivers across the long side of the table will tend to slow down the main advance of both side. If a river forks it can really slow down almost any unit (friendly or enemy) trying to advance. I have yet to figure out where a LM player should WANT rivers to be, especially against a high shooting army like Dwarves or Wood Elves (where they have an incentive to slow down marching and you don’t). Against an army of similar playing style with LM, I kind of figure rivers will help and hurt both sides about equally. If anyone has any wisdowm on tactical river placement versus different army types let me know. Rivers negate rank Bonuses: Obviously if one side can force the other into the river and the other side can’t they gain a substantial advantage. If both fighting units are in the river the river will favor the side Bridges and Crossings: So they should hopefully be wide enough to let five Saurus cross. I still have no idea where the tactical place to put them against different kinds of armies.
I equally am at a loss on how do deal with rivers, for being fabled aquatic beasts, they do seem to rarely help us and usually hinder us. The no marching is the real kicker, even when aquatic this still counts and it can really screw up a salamander or skink attack if the river ends up in the wrong place (or the right place for the enemy) The only time I have found them useful is when playing armies with large units of many ranks, negating ranks and causing the loss of steadfast can be of use in certain situations So I am also with you in that I don't know how do deal with rivers well