Well, now that plenty of us have had time for a game or two, I'd like to know what has worked for you. I'd prefer not to clog this thread up with what we think is bad. I just want to know what has actually worked. What units/strategies have, so far, proved useful? Why was it effective, and what army/units did it work against? I would start of with my own inclusion since I've gotten 2 games in, but they were completely inconclusive due to incredibly long odds on dice rolls and things. I'll be trying to get another game before this week is out to properly contribute! Thanks in advance for any contribution!
the filthy, gold thieving,stunty bas****ds are invading the shores of the jungles of lustria not content with the wealth that they have accumulated in there vast mines of the old world they have turned their eyes on the golden cities of the lizardmen the slann stirred in this deep meditation the skink priests noticing the change in the magic resonating from his meditative state and have sent a scouting patrol force to investigate the dwarf incursion on to there sacred jungles and push them into the sea (in other words me and my mate Thomas are having a 2000pts battle My Lizards vs Toms Dwarfs ... i will try to take some picture and post the out come of this battle later) we played the watchtower ....the game was awesome the whole game i had the upper hand ( tetto'eko givng me D3 vanguards (rolled a3 ) was so good my 5coldones a steg and 26Saurus were 12" closer meaning ahell of a lot harder to deal with before they hit) the rippas and the chief on a rippa did really well deffo will take again so fast a toadrage really kicked ass the chief on rippa took a challenge by the bsb i rolled and fluffed all the attacks just about work the combat res and i remembered that the rippa has frenzy so i got 1 more attact roll to hit then roll a 6 and killing blow his ass and he fails the ward and goes down. I'd killed all his war machines and both xbow dwarves his iron breakers for the loss of one salamander and one unit of skink skirmishers but all was lost because he managed on the last turn to get his lord in the watchtower in my last turn i charged my steg in and kill the rest of the unit bar 1 hammerer and the lord steadfast in building Ld 10 he rolled snake eyes keeping him in the building Meaning I lost the game So beast priests with wild form work well Rippa's were fun and made there points back quite easily and the skink chief on rippa made his points back killing a bolt thrower the bsb and helping kill a unit of iron breakers
I had a game against Skaven yesterday, though we didn't end up finishing because I had to leave, I had the upper hand. Things I noted: - Swapping out spells for other Lores is great, I got off a Soul Quench and swapped it for the Lore of Life signature, which enabled me to give Regen to my Saurus and heal my Bastiladon at the same time. - An ancient stegadon charging with Sharpened Horns is not in any way guaranteed to kill a Hellpit Abomination, as I found to my detriment, it did put 3 wounds on it in the end, but that Regen just makes the thing stupidly hard to kill. - Chameleon Skinks are still amazing, taking out his cannon easily - Predatory Fighter gave me more attacks than I thought it would - Bastiladons are great at anything with str 3 base, even if they have a lot of attacks. One of mine was charged by a unit of 30 plague monks and didn't take a wound, killing 5 in return, all thanks to its natural 2+ save. - The solar engines never got to fire, mainly because I'd built up how good they are in my opponent's mind and he always kept dice back for when I tried to use them, which was fine because it meant I had free reign to cast my other spells without restraint. - Having access to two "dispel scrolls" is great, since most of the time the enemy will have one spell he really needs to get off in a phase, on the turn he charged me I managed to prevent him from casting anything. - The 3 dice channel + channeling staff combo didn't work very well for me, mainly due to my inability to roll a 5+ on 3 dice, though the skink priest managed to channel on a 6 with no trouble. - Hand of Glory is an excellent utility spell, since you can pick a bunch of different attributes to boost depending on the situation. That's what I can remember, it was pretty good.
I played a game with a terrible list (one of each new unit besides troglodon) just to see how stuff would do. Impressions: This list sucked, moderation is key with new lizardmen. The main lesson I learned is that you need multiples of any of our 'supporting' units, otherwise they can shut them down and they arent worth it. Just as before 1 unit of skinks was almost worthless, while 3-4 was scary, same goes for Swarms, Dactyls, Pred Fighter, and to a lesser amount the Bastilodon. Swarms I loved, let my saurus tear apart his treekin AND Flesh to Stoned Dryads. however, if you are going to run swarms, run 2+ units of 2. Bastilodon never did anything, though that was mainly because it was too small for me to run a Slann, so he could save dice for the laser. Running a Slann, it would be something I would save one dice for at the end unless I needed to cast something. Overall jury is still out. Rippers I cant comment on since I see them as elite high armor killers. (like old Salamanders) and I was playing Wood Elves....
Nonetheless, surely the Rippers would have torn apart Glade Guard and Waywatchers; had a good go at Dryads, and should've shreded things like Wild Riders, Glade Riders, Eagles, etc? Don't get me wrong - I think they're designed to kill armour as well. But it seems that with their multiple attacks, stomp, and 4+ armour, then they should've had a field day with light infantry.
One idea cyberhawk94, If I ran bastilidon with a Slann, I'd probably throw my 1 dice at the bound spell first. 1 reason would be so that if I roll two 6s on a big spell I need, I don't lose my die from miscast results. Another would be to try to draw out dispel dice if you want to. Just food for thought. It's situational I suppose though.
Played a dwarf army tonight. The cold one unit of 13 with a scar-vet and oldblood took out a unit of hammers, two units of longbeards, a unit of warriors, and the anvil of doom. The rest of my army had nothing to fight. Oldbloods with sword of bloodshed, and steg helm are really good at killing things.
Yea the Rippers did have a field day once they got through stand and shoot, but so would anything else so I cant comment on their particular strengths. Ill play my WoC sometime soon and let them eat some Knights. Using the Blasterdon as a DD burner is a nice Idea, but a lot of times id rather have that go off than just burn some dice, Like against DE or Skaven.
I really like that idea sirkently. You give the Scar-Vet Sword of Strife for for 14S5 attacks + impact hits? mmmm, that's tasty. I was thinking of something similar, but I tend to equip my characters with GWs to break through heavy armor. I suppose that kind of splits the unit into high Strength and mid Strength though, making its roll less definable. Thoughts?
I can imagine cold ones would excel against things with lower initiative... but I would love to see how that unit would fare in a cav charge on other cav... or against elite inf with higher initiative.
You can still do this. Feint with a few of the Slann's spells - Walk Between Worlds, Unforging or Fiery Convocation will really make a Dark Elf or Skaven player think twice - then chuck a bunch of dice at the bound spell. You do not have to use just 1 dice: you can throw six at it if you like.
Skrox units aren't the amazing unit they were before, They still look cool tho, Bastiladons were amazing! For the cost of 10 PD I got 8 magic missiles! 2 dispelled, 3 were the 2D6 S5 version. One 2d6 S6 And with a metal slan waiting to cast, opponent was wary about wasting DD. the I boost was nice, but the one time one charged was disappointing, s4 thunderstomp is lousy. , but the tail attack did kill a cavalry model. Rippers are lots of fun, I might make room for 2 units of four.
First game was against Wood Elves and I did get some bad dice for most of the game (it started to get ridiculous actually!) but good lessons were: - Since we lost the good magic items like venom, I took the Trickster's Helm on a Scar Vet on foot for 2+ armour save, reroll those killing blows and 6+ parry. Gave him AHW for 5 attacks and he didnt go down all game. Could work just as well with a great weapon. - I dont rate the bastiladon with either option. Did get a few swarms up but like was suggested earlier, it's probably best to have 2x 2+ units of swarms, I only had 1. Solar engine never got a chance to do any damage, it was either dispelled or I used the dice on more important casts. - Need to swap out lore spells straight away if possible, I often didn't get another chance to get a spell off. - 2x lvl 1's is great for scroll caddies and good for vassal. Got a couple of direct damage spells off through them and they make the short range lore weakness a bit less annoying. - Beasts is definitely a lore for a lvl 4 caster, not lvl 1's. Skink priests would 3-dice wildform (admittedly I never failed it) while Slann was only 2 dice. Wildform is really good for our lizards. Opponents tend to stay away from S5, T5 Saurus . Also kept the Slann alive for a solid round of combat. - Large monsters still aren't competitive, even when there aren't war machines. They are fun and cool though. I'm switching to a unit of 6 Cold Ones with a Scar Vet (1+AS and talisman of preservation) to make them more killy. - Need something to beef up Slann's unit as it went down quick in both games - more than in previous edition. Switching to life earlier would have been good for this or even getting wildform for Slann's spells. Heavens works better for me with skink priests. -1 to hit FTW. - Sallies are still good against infantry including skirmishers. They still 'soften up' those hordes . I havent tried against Cav yet... that's for tomorrow's game. So I lost first game. Second game was against VC. I won this one but only just. It came down to his BSB and General vs my Slann and I happened to save all 3 wounds on the Slann's 4+ ward in the final turn. Could have easily gone the other way. Please keep posting. I'm keen to see things that are working and things that can be improved.
I just want to say that I really appreciate everyone's contributions so far. This has turned into a really great thread for me at least. Carry on.
I disagree on the last part Im quite sad that the new book didnt offer any anti-cannon stuff (besides the EotG wardsave) ...hopefully 9th edition will bring some changes to cannons. Whenever that will be. what works for me is that I can do pretty much everything with my slann now. Focus of Mystery is an absolute auto-include for me, everytime. that and Harmonic Convergence + Channeling Staff Had a game with a mate where I rolled snake eyes in winds of magic, but due to two channels from harmonic and 1 from resovoir of eldrich energy it was pretty much up to me what I wanted through with 5PD against his 1. It actually made me wish for low rolls. also: remember that if you are using both EotG and Saurus, you might wanna swap for spears (Free), since they will get their 6+ wardsave anyway. I'd like to +1 on the Cold One + OB/scar-vet .. its expensive but very worth it! In my current list im running 2 scar vets. 1 on a Cold one and one on a Carno (I love I can have both a Carno and a Frog now). The Cold one goes into a CoC unit and the big guy just follows them around. Its tempting to play the "benny hill theme" when you see the enemies try to get out of the way
Ok so third game with lizards tonight vs Bretonians this time, I'm getting better... slowly. Tried the cav and they worked really well as a hammer. I deployed them too far on the flank and needed Walk Between Worlds to get them back into combat but they did well for the last part of the game. The only thing that killed them was the Bretonian general with heroic killing blow. Normal attacks just bounced off. I dont think they would do too well against a charge as their armour drops considerably. The 4 attacks per model is nice and the general kept challenging my my hero and seeing what he did to the previous scar-vet I decided against accepting it. I'm actually finding the skink cohorts are working better than skirmishers at the moment. I'm tending to flee less and the 5+ armour, 6+ ward can be real effective because it gives them the ability to hold up units close by the slann and stop them reaching the main unit/s. It happened a couple of times tonight.
what size cohort units are you using? I am having trouble fitting everything I want into an army. And it feels like at 2k points I really dont have much in my army
Cohorts size 10, nice and manageable and doesnt matter if they die in droves. Their parry even lets them take a knight's charge in the face and still hold on with one or 2 models. Skinks are expendable, especially with Ld5. I played a game where 2 skinks left in the cohort took on 12 knights and my opponent was getting discouraged because I kept passing the wards and armour saves vs horses. Of course they didnt hold out against a full unit of knights for long but it gave me a new appreciation for the skink cohort. Ahh, yeah I'm playing at 2500 points. I don't bother with tournaments now that are under 2400 in this edition, I like to play a "real" game of warhammer
I had a game vs another lizardmen army yesterday. Both our slanns ended up miscasting, getting dimensional cascade, and being zonked into the realm of chaos, mine on turn 2, his on turn 5. Gor Rok is amazing, rerolls plus predatory fighter made him get about seven or eight hits each turn, and roughly five kills. Chakax isn't really worth it as far as I can see, my opponent was using him and he never really stood out. Never underestimate the power of stand-and-shoot giant blowpipes, 4d6 poisoned shots saved Phil (one of my ancient stegadons) from a charge by my opponent's stegadon. Always sub out tempest as soon as you can when using high magic, it is not very good.
agreed...early turn chaff removal or archer disable...then wyssan, spirit leech, searing doom or miasma