8th Ed. 2400, triple cowboy, the most cheddar of cheese i can come up with

Hello everyone. I found myself discussing with someone in my playgroup how many cowboys are acceptable to take in what situation. They are the strongest unit in our book, i would say only the Slann is in contention with them but as every list of 2400 points in 8th takes a level 4 wizard i figured that was more part of the system of warhammer 8th than really the Lizardmen list. We came to the conclusion that one was fine for a normal game, as it feels weird to not being allowed to take a unit in a normal game, two was into the tournament realm and if you are playin friendly or narrative games, zero is expected, as it is a very (i would say overly) point effective unit. It got me thinking if i could push 3 into a list, and that made me think how cheddar i could make a Lizardmen list while keeping it all comers. I came up with this filth. It would play maximum point denial, while having one unit of TG to bolster the Slann. What do you think, how would you make this list better (or worse?) .

Lords
Slann Bsb. Discipline. Channeling staff. Harmonic Convergence. Soul of Stone. Cogitation, Focus of mystery
Oldblood Cold one. GW. Sacred Stegadon Helm. Talisman of Preservation.

Heroes
Scarvet Cold one. GW. Dawnstone. Gamblers armour
Scarvet Cold one. GW. Armour of destiny

Core
10*10 Skink skirmishers

Special
34 TG Banner, music

Rare
Salamander Snack
Salamander Snack
2397

 

I'm assuming this is 8th Edition?

Who is the army going up against? This is kind of the key question unless this is a tournament list?

 

I wrote this as a tournament list, so all comers.

 

Nice.

Okay, so firstly I too am a huge fan of cowboys (+2 armour save, Movement 7 and 2 more attacks, plus can't be stomped? For 20 or 30 points that doesn't come out of magic items?!?!?What's not to like?)

I feel that you should exchange some of your Skink Skirmishers for a Saurus unit. Currently, you only have the TG as a combat unit. In my opinion, to make it a balanced list you should have another saurus unit so that as needed you can stick the OB and a SV in there and a put the other SV with the TG. Greatly increases the damage output of the units and also helps to sheild from missile fire.

Remember that they can leave at any time and run off to do their own damage.

One unit would still give you a respectable amount of Skirmishers (who I am also a great fan of).

If you want a good list, in my opinion you HAVE to have a Steg, either baby or ancient. I do believe that the ancient is better with the higher strength for impact hits and the 2 giant blowpipes for causing havoc. They can multi-task as a tarpit killer, flanker or monster killer combined with the cowboys.

I would say drop one SV and adjust to include an Ancient Steg and a unit of Saurus.

 

I agree scarvets are great, and just too cheap for what they do.

To be frank, when considering your changes to the list i think it is important to know how i would play this list. In an ideal game with this list, i would do all my damage via shooting and magic, and some cc with just the Scarvets. I would not even want to engage the enemy in close combat, especially not in blocks, unless it is against my TG (which would not be killable by most units, especially with the buffs from the Slann. The whole point of this list is to run around the enemy, shoot at them, be out of line of sight, and annoy the heck out of them, only while using small units of 7 point skinks while i am killing their monsters and actually good units. I think Stegadons are ok, but in this list, i have no good targets for cannons (i am hiding my cowboys behind cover against cannons and i am planning to take out cannons around turn 3-4 with my skinks, freeing my cowboys completely), putting in a Stegadon would make their cannons actually useful while now they are not. Another very important part of the list is that i get to drop 10 units of skinks before deploying anything actually worth any points. I should know where my enemy strong units are before i put down my TG, which will be far out of harms way. I would compare this list to the Dark Elf Dark Rider spam, if you have ever played against that, maximum denial, while doing damage in return. A unit of Sauri or a Steg would not help me further my goal of running circles around the enemy, it would just give them targets for their 40 man halberdier unit for example, which would otherwise be completely dead in a game against this list.

 

Fair enough. I'd love to see a battle report when you've played it. I had the idea of running this but depending on who you are facing it could be a great tactic or have major drawbacks.

 

I will see if i can get an opponent for this list, i don't know if i can get anyone to play against this as it is pretty demoralizing to play against. Will let you know if i get to do that though!

 

Yeah... I understand the lack of opponents! Especially during lockdown! Good luck!

 

Wait... Have you already tried this list out? And if so, what happened?

 

I would need double my current number of skinks to try this list xD

 

I have enough skinks to do it, but would really like to know how it has been played.

I don't feel secure without 3 decently-sized close combat units personally. Either 3 Saurus or 2 Saurus and 1 TG.

But i'm not a fantastically successful general either, so....

Real life beats theory any day of the week. Would love to know how it went and how he played it.