Having a tournament in a few days, am wondering what all the people here think of this list. I am expecting a lot of WoC and DE, mainly WoC. I really think i need Unforging against Unkillable BSB's and Princes, this really led me into spending boatloads of points in my Slann. I also think i sortoff mastered the whole swapping out spells ordeal now, so that also gives me an advantage on that front. The list is weaker against DE mainly due to having no points for warmachine hunting. I think of skipping out on the COC, letting the Scarvet run free, but that does make him very vulnerable against especially the DE with their bolt throwers. Another small consideration is that the model with the highest amount of points in a single magic item (not masteries) is worth 3 points out of 20 in a game, that would be my scarvet. I would rather have that on my Slann, but i do not really see anything i would want for 25, i cannot take a scroll due to the channeling combo and points. I might swap Convergence and the Staff for Reservoir and a Scroll, then i have extremely strong anti magic and a better first game because i can throw away my scarvet easier, but i still feel it is slightly weaker. I am also exactly on core, so i cannot skimp really anything on that front. Most of the points will be won with VP, i hope to deny a lot with my TG and Slann. I am also iffy on the Sharpened Horns, i feel like i can maybe invest 40 points better. I know i am really focussing on details here as i think i already have an ok list, but i would still like to improve more. Anything i missed, could have done better? Thanks! Lords Slann BSB. B O Discpline. Channeling Staff. Cogitation. Soul of Stone. Convergence. Focus of Mystery Heroes Scarvet Cold One. GW. LA. Dawnstone. Dragonhelm Core 20 Saurus Warriors HWS. Banner. Music 11 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields 11 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields 11 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields 10 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields 10 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields Special Stegadon Sharpened Horns Stegadon Sharpened Horns 5 COC Music 26 Temple Guard Music. Banner. Swiftness Rare Salamander Snack Salamander Snack
Well my advice would be that your saurus unit is in dire need of less or more models, in my experience you need at least a 10 saurus buffer zone for them to work really well and that means at least 30 in a unit, once you get over that they outperform almost any other infantry (40 would be perfect). I would also give the ruby ring to your slann adding in a cheap fireball to help clear out the DE or other chaff threat and also making him the 3 point character. I would do this by removing 2 units of skinks or one unit and a sally
Have been thinking about that as well, but it is hard to see the space for more Sauri. Skinks are simply necessary against WoC and DE, against both these armies i do not expect the Sauri to do much. They are more of a backup block and something to anchor a battle line around, i would like to make them bigger but there is nothing i see that can be replaced for them. Taking away a Sally is once again bad for odds and bad against the expected matchups, i always take 2 because with 2 of them paired, you can almost guarantee that one shit will hit, and one shot is often all they need to get their points back. I see where you are coming from, but i feel that i just lack the points to do things with it, mainly because of the expensive Slann. Taking a ruby ring would be nice, but i cannot cut back on Skinks to get it as i then do not get my core tax.
So how do your skinks fair against WoC? I've played against that army a lot and never have skinks gotten their points back. They are expensive for being so bad in combat, their shots do almost nothing to warriors, knights, crushers, chariots, etc. they are decent against DE but are still outclassed in shooting and survivability. Saurus are harder to use due to lower mobility, but are time and again my game winners. It is all about deployment and the first two movement phases
They fare quite poorly, i must say. I still think that Skink skirmishers are our most proficient core choice against most matchups. The problem is that the last version of WHF 8.0 left us with one overpowered army, WoC, with only one real contender, DE. Arcane Unforging combined with the lore of Metal signature spell makes a mockery of most Daemon Princes, but that is really the only thing we can do against them. Without tournement special ruling, i think if you want to win, you should play WoC. So yeah, if i am really judging my Skinks, i should not take them,, but then i should play another army. Against WoC, my Skinks are mostly harrasment and charge redirectment. They do sortoff well in that role, but they do not often get their points back. Do Sauri in your games against serious WoC players?
Yes and they do very well against almost every army list I come up against, I do agree that in 8th edition WoC is overpowered, but I do not believe that they are so overpowered it can't be overcome with tactics. I would bet my lizardmen against almost any other players WoC and bet dollars to dimes I would win, but that also comes with a lot of experience and some really ruthless decisions. A while ago I wrote a poor excuse for a saurus tactica when I found out most lizardmen players believe saurus to be underpowered and hardly ever field them in competitive lists. When I showed my opponents the posts on this site they all had a very good laugh and said that it must mean every other lizardmen player just doesn't know how to use them, because I field them in droves and have had great success crushing the most tricked out DE and WoC lists with them. The short story is that lizardmen players are fielding saurus like elite infantry instead of like the core infantry they really are, it's ludicrous how a lizardmen player will field 24 saurus and run it up against an irongut unit with 2 characters and whine when they are destroyed. Of course a 1,000pt unit will wipe out a 280pt unit, or they cry when their 18 saurus are crushed against a white lion deathstar without hardly even hitting back, duh. Field saurus like you would empire infantry, 40+ in horde formation and run the numbers, they crush almost everything by a stupid wide margin, savage orcs, white lions, etc don't even come close. There are only a couple things that I try not to engage with saurus, hellpits and monstrous calvary, everything else gets fed to Sotek. I almost never run a slann anymore, after dozens of games running the numbers and calculating his points earned it was obvious to me he is a flashy point sink and he hamstrings the units I need to perform. Instead I run 2-3 lvl1 skink priests, I focus on defense and 6 dice wyssans all the time, suddenly my 40 saurus horde of CORE infantry are now crushing everything which allows all of my special and rare choices to run to flanks and disrupt enemy plans. Unbuffed saurus can easily deal with everything except characters and the two items I listed, buffed they can now take on everything except the most powerful tooled out characters, and even then they have a chance. Side note, I am undefeated when I field only core in an army list, I haven't met anyone yet who can match 200+ saurus marching down the field. But all those characters and special/rare choices look so cool and powerful, when point for point they are not better than saurus.
BTW, I have an 8k WoC army and a 12K DE army, so I know them very well and will say that lizardmen are better than DEs but not when you fill core with skinks. I almost always go way over 25% for core when building lizard lists, unless I'm doing a just for fun or themed list.
Ok, i am still not really enchanted by the idea of big, expensive and slow infantry blocks moving up on the board. I know that they make a mockery of things, the only problem is that an opponent worth his salt will never get into combat with you. The standard DE meta in my club is Dark riders, Warlocks, Bolt Throwers and 2 of those assholes on Pegasi or another flying equivalent. When you fight against that, your Sauri will just be ignored, and there is very little you can do about that has been my experience. With a lot of Skinks, and i mean a lot, like 8 units, you can box them in, do some damage, and generally just keep up with them. With sauri i see no way to do this. Even if you get something like Walk Between Worlds off, they will just walk to the side of the unit, or flee from the charge. I ill try it out a few times in practice because i do not just want to throw your advice to the wind, mindhammer is one thing, working it out in practice is another. In the new list, i am just lacking the 10 points for a musician in the COC unit. Maybe thinking of dropping the Sharpened Horns for extra skinks and the musician? Think this list really has come down to flavour..List will be something like this: Lords Slann BSB. BO Discpline. Channeling Staff. Cogitation. Soul of Stone. Convergence. Focus of Mystery Heroes Scarvet Cold One. GW. LA. Dawnstone. Dragonhelm Core 30 Saurus Warriors HWS. Banner. Music 13 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields 13 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields 13 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields Special Stegadon Sharpened Horns Stegadon Sharpened Horns 5 COC 26 Temple Guard Music. Banner. Swiftness Rare Salamander Snack Salamander Snack
And remember that traditional unit formations are not your friends, be open to running those saurus 13 wide if it makes those most sense in the moment. The thing about saurus is that they are incredibly hard for that DE list to kill, I have personally played 6 games in a row against that DE list with anywhere from 80-180 saurus. I won every time, the absolute key to victory is the movement phase, do not let them bait a charge on you, just keep moving forward directly in their face until turn 4-5, by that time you should be able to back them against an edge and complete a charge. To break your saurus he is going to have to combo charge with all his characters, so if he sets that up have a way to capitalize on the after effects, otherwise he doesn't have a way to take your saurus unit out. I highly recommend the ruby ring on your slann, a good fireball can wreck some riders, and if you absolutely need to keep the slann instead of going for some skink priests then take some miscast defense and don't be afraid to 6 dice damage spells.
I know this, i am not afraid to reform on the fly, that is also one of the main reasons to take Musicians. I see how taking that many sauri is somewhat of a counter to that DE list, the main problem that i see is that they will just pedal back, try to take some shots at you, and maybe nickle and dime some skinks for a minor victory. Against a truly good DE enemy, your Sauri will never see combat. I am also thinking about the Ruby Ring as a waste in therms of that you can simply switch out to damage spells if you need them, i mean, rolling a random spell on the lore of Fire or Heavens seems better then paying 25 points for the only the weakest version of the Fireball. Ill try some things out, will tell you how the tournament went!
With that all said, i still think it is worth having my Slann as the dude with the most expensive item, so i will give him the Ring. One might say that i fell for the Burning Ring of Fire. Having 4 units of Skinks instead of 3 might also be massive, and i want some music, so i dropped the 40 points i paid for the Sharpened Horns because they do not hit often enough to get to this list. Lords Slann BSB. Discpline. Channeling Staff. Cogitation. Soul of Stone. Convergence. Focus of Mystery. Ruby Ring Heroes Scarvet Cold One. GW. LA. Dawnstone. Dragonhelm Core 30 Saurus Warriors HWS. Banner. Music 10 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields 10 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields 10 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields 10 Skink Skirmishers Javelins and Shields Special Stegadon Stegadon 5 COC Music 26 Temple Guard Music. Banner. Swiftness Rare Salamander Snack Salamander Snack
Hi! Well, i won the tournament, so i guess your help did really well, help! Having 30 sauri is a massive difference, the tournament i played in used the dead or fled rule, and in all my games i had like 5 to 10 sauri left at the end, so that saved me a lot of points. I had the luck that i played 2 Empire Knight lists, i could do massive ammounts of grinding damage with my big blocks, and in both games i managed to delete some units of Knights with Searing Doom. Both lists barely had magical levels in them, both had 2 Archlectors, so my Slann with his +4 could really reign supreme. The last game was the hardest, against WoC with a Daemon Prince and an unkillable BSB. I managed to get Arcane Unforging off on the Daemon Prince to kill a magic item, his Sword of Striking. I then had Searing Doom, he did not have the Dragonbane Gem so he sortoff fled into a charge with my Scarvet. Over 2 turns of combat, my Scarvet was an ultimate boss, taking down the Daemon Prince solo. At the end of turn 3, he had no magic left, and i managed to grind it out once again due to casting a lot of effective buffs on my monsters and CC blocks, i really could do what i wanted in the magic phase. Even had Flames burning for 3 full turns on a block of Chaos Warriors, did a number on them. Was a great day, with all close games, all of them could have gone either way, but i managed to pull it of in the end .
Congrats! I'm very glad to hear that you not only won but had a great time with each match as well, for me personally I love games where my units can really get into the middle of the fight and where some games are won or lost on a single combat phase instead of redirecting and shooting, also why I love saurus so much. Sound like the slann was the MVP, good job with him, he is hard to use right without blowing up your own forces, but when he does work it makes a massive difference.
He certainly was, i played 3x6 turns, cast spells on every single turn, and only had a single miscast the entire day, which was the S6 hit so it was totally fine. Was lucky in that regard indeed. I do like the more directional and manouvering game, but it was fun so thats what counts.