After playing Dark Elves the last 3 tournaments I decided to get my lizard out for a big tournament in may. For those who read my last Lizardmen Tourny army 9/10 swedish tournaments uses a WPS comp system which heavily restricts what you can take with the top armies (Skaven, LM, DE, DoC, VC). A list has a pre-calculated comp score between 15 and 25. Each difference in the comp score gives a 100 VP bonus at the end (so a comp 15 list playing against a comp 25 list would mean the comp 25 list starts with 1000 VPs, a pretty huge advantage). In the scenarios units with Standards are very useful, which is why I have so many. Lords & Heroes Slann Mage-Priest - Mystery - Becalming Cogitation - Rumination - Consciousness Rod of the Storm Scar-Vet Battle Standard Bearer Cold One, LA, Ench Shield, Piranha Blade Skink Chief Ancient Stegadon, War-spear Core 12 Saurus Warriors FC, Spears 12 Saurus Warriors FC, Spears 14 Saurus Warriors FC, Spears 12 Skink Skirmishers Blowpipe 12 Skink Skirmishers Blowpipe 13 Skinks (Cohort) Special 5 Cold One Cavalry Standard 3 Terradons 3 Terradons Rare Salamander Extra Handler Comp Score: 15.01 (i.e. extremly hard in this environment) Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Any feedback except "drop the banners" is greatly apprecieted.
I know you do not want to drop the banners, so I would agrue that dropping the champion on the two small Saurus block might be a good idea. Also, if you want access to another banner you can always throw one on a mobile ranked skink unit. That would allow you to keep it our of trouble and use it for the scenarios. The list looks good, though I would be a little afraid of having that much of a comp score in this environment. I am not sure how WPS comp works, but if it does not penalize so of the other lists you could have some nasty lists coming from the weaker armies. I would almost drop the Skink Chief and just have a regular or Ancient Stegadon in their by themselves. The Chief could work, but he might be a little squishy, so maybe a regular Stegadon might just be best. The list looks good though, and looks very similar to what I would play.
I've always been a big fan of Saurus champs, they offer a lot of tactical flexibility with the challange option, and they can make a conga-line where enemys can only strike at the champion and thus score a max of one kill. Here is one of many uses for champs: 6 Dragon Princes OO OO OO =======> XOOOOOOOOOOO OO Charge!.....Champ + 11 saurus OO OO The saurus have reformed in the previous turn to make sure the knights only get into contact with the champ. Unless the Knights have a champ that can issue a challange they will only get 3 knights in BTB and have to strike all attacks at the champ as they are not connected with anything else. They get max 1 CR from the kills as overkill is only for challanges. The saurus have Banner and Outnumber vs 1 kill, so they win by 1. A unit winning combats gets a free manouver and can increase the models in the front rank by 5, resulting in a 6x2 formation (with 1 missing from the last rank. In the next turn 11 saurus gets to strike and the Lance bonus is gone, resulting in a mere 12 S3 attacks from the knights. Everything nasty is penilized, everything soft grants a bonus. The WPS systems goal is simply to put all armies at the same power level, or at least at a similar power level, a comp 25 army is going to be super soft no matter what race it is, just like a comp 15 army is gonna be hard no matter what race it is. I might drop the Chief, depending on how he does in the test games, but 2D6+1 S6 impacts is a looot of fun ^^
With respect to Xlcontiqu's wise advise, if your going to take a Chief on a Steg I wouldn't go any other way than an ancient. However, I am of the opinion that perhaps dropping it would give you not only a little better comp score but also you'd be eliminating a possible point sink. Of course if your careful in deployment and use of the beast then you should likely have a good chance of it surviving. The unfortunate side to removing the Chief/Steg combo is that your losing a good hammer unit which you don't really have besides your CoC. Other than that I think it's a good list. It's unfortunate that a list which seems standard to me is so heavily comped! Other than all this I think your list is an excellent way to go. Perhaps you'll be able to bring back the 1000 vp. If the 25 comp lists are so soft then you shouldn't have much of a problem I'd think.
Yeah the Chief will obviously be on an Ancient (as you can see in the list). Its true that I get better comp score, and free up some pts to add something else in the list, but its very true that I get rid of one of my biggest pt sinks so the enemys will have less viable targets, didnt think of that. Yes I need redundancy for hammers, so dropping the chief would mean taking a regular ancient or normal steg without a charcter instead to maintain 2 hammers. I also have a ton of diverters and redirectors so I should have no problem picking the combats I want to fight. Yeah a standard top tier list gets comped heavily, but DE & DoC are much worse off, their regular lists aren't even allowed and they have to go infantry heavy to even get in. A comp 25 Army usually consists of ~1000-1500 pts of FC infantry and almost no toys at all, and they're not really that common, so Im usually looking at a 0-500 VP handicap. To he honest I dont really think a comp 15 list is the optimum choice in this environment, but I don't have enought quality painted models at the moment so I wanted a smaller army instead of a high-comping saurus horde.
You might want to switch to 1 unit of 4 terradons and have a group of 6 Cham skinks. If I remember your comp system, that would be good for comp. Would the comp bonus per game be worth the lowered utility? I'm in the anti-cheif+steg camp. It really does violate your original MSU philosophy. It is vulnerable to missile fire/magic missiles and is also very dependent on getting the charge. However, theory is one thing but actual play experience is much different. It will be interesting to hear how your play testing goes. Why 14 Saurus? Is 14 a magic number for your comp? If 14 is a magic number, why are the cohort only 13 strong? How do you envision yourself deploying?
If I may answer this one...I think I probably know the answer. 14 Saurus is where he'll stick is BSB Scar Vet. With 14 + SV he'll have three even ranks of five saurus. The thirteen skinks is likely because he had fifteen spare points and just fleshed out his skink cohort unit. Nothing magic about it (except probably the 14 saurus...symetry is a beautiful thing).
Your both kinda correct, I needed a small comp boost to reach 15.01 and you gain comp according to the cost of the saurus/skink cohorts. I also wanted some extra saurus for the BSB unit to add some survivability. With 14 saurus + scar vet deployed in 6x2+4 I can loose 4 saurus without loosing any attacks. I also had some pts to spare so I just beefed up the Skink bunker and main fighting block. I worship terradons, and in this rulespack they are a scoring unit due to their US, which is pretty awesome (especially for missions like having most scoring units in forests or enemys deployment zone). Dropping the Chief of the steg and just taking a regular ancient steg would free up the pts to get a unit of cammos tho, and I have the models for it so why not! Great feedback guys, brought up some valid points I hadn't considered, especially with the War Spear. Will probably drop him for a regular ancient + some chaff, maybe boost the saurus to 16 to make a 3x6 unit.
I was thinking about your list some more since I've been thinking about 12 vs 18 Saurus for my own list. And I was wondering why you were using spears on 12 strong Saurus. I realize that spears are the rage now on the boards but I don't see them being especially needed in an MSU format. You generally aren't expecting to grind out long combats and even if you were the low numbers in each unit means the number of attacks are quickly diminishing. If you get charged by a non-elite block (for unknown reasons), they'll drag a minor loss to a tie approximately and against elites you'll likely kill 1 or 2 back which would have been saved by the extra AS. So a push on CR. Spears don't give you anything on the charge. I guess I'm just not seeing any real return from using spears on MSU saurus. But I might not be really understanding the uses of MSU saurus either.
Dave you've made some good points there! I agree that if your using a small unit of ten or twelve Saurus spears probably wouldn't be quite as effective. Especially since MSU tactics demand a very agressive play style. I would suggest a heavier unit of perhaps 15 saurus with spears. Having an anvil unit in any army is a boon no matter which way you look at it.
I disagree completly, my MSU lists usually revovle around shoot & avoidance, this list is not exception. I rarely ever charge with my saurus unless I get a favourable charge or a flank/rear charge, which is fairly rare with M4 infantry. I find spears to help immensly when holding, they often kill an extra 2-3 enemys, and rolling on a -3 instead of -6 is a gigantic difference. Its also 12 pts per unit to add the hit power of 6 saurus (66 pts). There is also the modelling aspect, all my saurus have spears and I don't feel like breaking them off =P I have a unit of 14 with spears and BSB, adding that extra saurus wouldnt make that much of a difference, dont you think? Play-tested the list twice since I posted it against WoC and DE. I won both games, but my list was pretty effective against both those particular lists, and the dice was definitly in my favour. WoC could get a single Gateway off due to unlucky dice and being under the influence of cogitation whenever he accidentaly put himself within 28", and without a decent magic phase I just Spirited his knights down and danced around and shot everything else to bits. The war spear guy died from a flail swinging fast cav charge (which broke the steg and it got run down) so I'll definitly be dropping him, as he is toast when he faces stuff with M7-8 . DE would've been tougher, but the War Spear killed 11 ASF Black guard on the charge (the champ struck with 4 hating S6 AP attacks, killing the chief again......), and his ~700 pts of shooting diddn't get to do much when they got bombed and charged by terradons in round 2. Spears payed off in every game, scoring lots of kills, especially against the elves.
Sounds like your list is doing you justice. I'm not at all surprised your chief got attacked and killed by his champion. I usualy don't attack hero's during friendly games but in tournaments and other competative gaming it's almost madatory so it's good they didn't slack off on your during your tests.