So, just started up my Lizardmen army. Bought 2 battalion boxes last Saturday. Got to play against a High Elf army, and it went far beyond my expectations. This is my first WHFB game ever, but I've watched a lot previously, and I have to say, I was really surprised about some of the things I saw in this game. I'll note that the terrain rules we used are of a home-brew sort. We are a casual group, and if we all agree that some rules, like the terrain, are too weird, we change them. But anyway, on to the rapport: Battle rapport Lizardmen VS High Elves Points: 1000 Initiative: High Elves won, Lizardmen did not seize the initiative. Battle Type: 1 Battle Line Terrain: 8 pieces of terrain. 2 magic forests (1 gave units inside it fear, the other did nothing), 2 hills, 2 magic rivers, one did nothing, the other was never relevant. 1 normal river and 1 normal marsh Lizardmen army list: - Scar-vet on cold one, with great weapon, armor of destiny and light armor - Skink priest level 2 with Lore of Beast rolled Amber Spear and chose my signature instead of Flock of Doom. - 20 Saurus with full command - 20 skink skirmishers with javelins - 5 cold one cavalry with full command - 10 Temple Guard with full command, BSB Banner of Discipline, with the Skink Priest placed inside. High Elf army list: - Mage level 2, lore of fire, got spell 4 and 6 (Storm of Fire), as well as a power scroll. Placed in an archer unit. - 16 archers, full command and light armor - 5 Reavers with spears and bows - 21 Sea Guard with full command - 17 sword masters with full command group High Elves turn 1 Vanguards his reavers along the flank, and moves his sword masters towards my cold one unit and temple guard unit. Reavers fires at my unit of skinks. Kills nothing. Archers shoots at my Saurus, kills 2, sea guard fires at my Saurus, kills nothing. HE gets 4 dice to casts, LM get 3 to dispel. He attempts to cast Fire storm, but fails the power roll with all 4 dice. Lizardmen turn 1 Marches Skinks into the marsh, and fires at the archers, killing 2. Saurus follows besides them, but stays out of the marsh. Skinks have moved out of the sight range of sea guard and reavers, placing them in the dead center of his troops. Cold Ones and temple guards moves slightly closer, but out of range of possible charges. Cold ones positioned so they are ready to charge at the sea guard. LM gets 8 power dice, HE gets 6. Casts amber spear on his sea guard unit, succeeding without miscast, and kills 3. High Elves turn 2 Reforms his reavers and sea guard to face the skinks, and shoots at them. Reavers hit nothing, sea guard kill 2, the archers kill 1. His sword masters move closers. He gets 9 power dice, LM gets 6. Dispels his storm of fire. Lizardmen turn 2 Charges his sword masters with my temple guard, and makes a lucky long-charge with my cold ones against the sea guard, flanking them. Saurus moves closer, but are still out of reach. Skinks shoot at his archer units, killing 5. Cold ones take no wounds from the sea guard, and kills 6, which breaks the unit. They are routed, and overrun, over a river which did nothing to my cavalry, and stops just shy of his archer unit, containing his mage. LM gets 5 dice, HE gets 3. Casts Wyssans Wildform on his own (temple guard) unit. The temple guard takes 4 wounds from the sword masters, and then kills 7 of them. It fails its leadership test, runs, and is routed and overrun. High Elves turn 3 His reavers charge the flank of the skinks, and he casts Fire storm on my Saurus unit. He uses Power Scroll with 6 dice, and gets irresistible force. It scatters into the skinks, killing 12 of them, and causing them to flee. The Reavers pursue and overrun, into the Saurus unit. On his miscast, he rolls a 4, killing 3 of his archers, 3 of my cold ones, and deals 1 wound to my Scar Vet. The archers shoot at the Cold ones, but do nothing, and the reavers, attacking the flank of the Saurus, does nothing. Lizardmen turn 3 The Saurus reform to face the reavers, and the cold ones charge the archers. They stand and shoot, but does nothing. Magic is skipped, and the Saurus takes 2 wounds, before wiping out the reavers. The archers focus all their attacks on the Scar Vet, but do nothing, after which they are killed, removing his last unit from the board. Post-game thoughts on events and the units He made few “bad” moves, such as turning his sea guard to face my skinks, but the roll needed to complete the charge was 8, making it pretty lucky that I managed it, even with 3d6 drop lowest. The Cold ones are surprisingly effective against low-strength units, and are easily capable of tearing through the more squishy ranged units. Aside from that, their good movement allows them to get there in the first place, with little fear of getting killed from the stand-and-shoot, thanks to good toughness and great AS. I was afraid of the Sword masters, and buffed my temple guard with Wyssans, before charging them myself. Predatory Instincts made a huge difference in this fight, and Wyssans did enough of a difference that I managed to win combat. Truly a great spell, and even a signature at that, making it one I'll likely take every game if I have a Beast Wizard. Luck was, in the end, the greatest factor. He rolled incredibly low, and failed 2 leadership tests he should have passed, allowing me to overrun them. He also spend way too much time on my skinks, who worked surprisingly well at taking his eyes off my cold ones, a unit he thought would be fighting the sword masters. The Sword Masters, as well, ended up being surprisingly ineffective. My fear of facing them was mostly unfunded, it seems, because while they did do a lot of damage, they died like flies the moment they were attacked themselves. I was skeptical at his power scroll, as it is generally not an item I would consider using myself. But being able to effectively force a spell through, on top of forcing a miscast in the way he did, certainly changed my mind. It was a stroke of sorely needed luck that gave him a low roll on the miscasts-table, allowing him to cut my cold one unit in half and wound my scar-vet, as well as being the reason my skinks died. Clever use of an otherwise not-so-good item, that most certainly gave him more use than he had paid for. End result Lizardmen: 1175 points scored (All units killed gives 1000, 100 for his general and 25*3 for his 3 standards. High Elves: 140 points scored Any hints, ideas or pointers are much appreciated. If we did something that looked wrong, feel free to point it out! We were both very new players, and spend half the battle looking at rules to play "correctly", so hopefully we didn't do TOO much wrong
>> Scar-vet on cold one, with great weapon, armor of destiny and light armor Armor of Destiny replaces Light Armor. But u can use LA with other magic armor items, such as Dragon Helm or Stegadon Helm.
Arg, just read up on the rules for Armour of Destiny and saw that it counts as heavy armour. Thought it just gave a straight Ward save, and nothing else. Oh well, didn't change the outcome at all. The only thing that hit and wounded my Scar-Vet was a strength 10 hit, that would have ignored my armour anyway. And Light Armour is practically free. One thing I did notice, and something I'll most certainly change, is that 1 Skink Priest is not enough. With only 1 wizard, any roll of 6 made the magic phase impossible to use, unless you were willing to risk miscasts. No matter what you do, the dispeller can just throw all 6 dice at the dispel, and be pretty much sure that the spell will be dispelled, unless you get irresistable force, which causes a miscast, which risk causing more damage to you, than it did to him. That's kind of a shame. I'll probably look to getting another Skink Priest on the table, though I am contemplating whether or not to take both at level 2, and whether or not I should go double Beast, or one of each. Heaven looks lackluster compared to Beast, as it relies a lot more on luck. Wyssans is pretty powerful by itself, and being a signature, I find it hard to justify the risk involved in Heaven. Might just be me.