Hi everyone. Life has been crazy busy so I haven't had time to really play much or paint my army. I have A LOT of models unpainted (multiple almost everything available that isn't already painted). I've been playing games at about 2500 points. So, my question is should I expand my Core so I can play bigger games or expand everything else so I can field lists with more diversity? I would love to do some themed lists (PF, CO Bus, Cloud, Monster Mash, etc) but my main gaming buddy can field about 5000 points of several armies. Here is what I have: Characters Slann Saurus on Carnosaur Saurus on foot Saurus on Cold One Skink Priest Core 39 Saurus Warriors with spears 20 Skinks with blowpipes 24 Skinks with javelins Special 5 CoC 3 Krox 10 chameleons 26 TG 1 Solar Bastiladon Rare 4 Salamanders 1 Ancient Stegadon 1 EotG Ancient Stegadon Opinions?
Re: how should I expand my army now? I think diversity's the way to go. If I were to suggest any more purchases, I'd say pick up another box of Cold One Riders and then maybe some special characters. Tetto'eko will let you try out some lighter magic games while still giving you some punch in the magic phase. I'd also pick up Gor-rok. He's worth the points just for the fact that he makes his combat block stubborn.
Re: how should I expand my army now? I would go for one of our fliers. Terradons and Rippers are pretty good at what the do. Cold Ones are only worth buying more of, if you need more bodies for a character Bus. More Core isn't a bad idea either. That would both add more flexibility (so you don't have to field exactly that core setup every time), while also allowing bigger point games. I'd personally go with more saurus, but that's a matter of taste.
Re: how should I expand my army now? +1 for the fliers... I prefer rippers for the combat power, but terradons have their drop rocks and are really fast excellents re-directors. Depends on your play style.
Re: how should I expand my army now? Personally I would up your core. Big games are extremely entertaining! It's rare that my gaming group plays a game smaller than 3k. The problem I have with small point games is that you really don't get to field very many units at their full potential. Slann are great, but a jacked up slann is awesome and terrible to behold, and you just can't really amp them up with small point games. Plus, the larger your core is, the more potential diversity you can have in bigger games. Once you have a good cushion, you can really expand your strategies and have fun playing big point games. It really falls down to who you play with though. If your gaming group has a lot of points to play with in their armies, then go big. If you're all just starting up or new to the game, go small. No point in having a massive army that you can never play.
Re: how should I expand my army now? Seems like the consensus is "both are good ideas." I've got 4 boxes of flyers, Tetto, and pretty much everything else you guys have mentioned barring Gor-rok. I do like Saurus more than skinks. I'm a pretty straight forward general and haven't gotten the hang of redirecting. Also, my skinks never seem to rally... I tend to field my Saurus in a very deep unit of 5x6 or 6x6 with their spears. If I was going to boost up my Saurus, I'd like to have the new unit be HW rather than spears. What do you guys think would be a good size to start the unit at? 25, 30?. It's been my understanding that you can field a smaller unit because of the parry save.
Re: how should I expand my army now? As suggested, I would add more core troops and some flyers. Being able to play in larger point games can be fun. I was also sitting at 2500 Pt. armies due to limitations in the number of core troops I had. I now have more skinks and saurus that I need to put together so that I can have larger armies. I also bought my first box of flyers, so that will give me more flexibility in army building.
I've had good experiences with 30+ Saurus at 1.5k+. They're decent Core, but they're very expensive. Any less than 30 has usually been a bust, unless designed as a Stubborn tarpit.
In my opinion, it all depends on who your fighting. Saurus are pretty solid, but like many core troops, going against high strength opponents can be nasty. For example, I play against an Ogre player every now and again who loves his bullstar (if you don't know what that is, it's a massive horde of bulls supported by characters). I thought that I would try out a saurus horde of my own with a few characters in it. Bad idea. He got his uber charge and some boosting spells and spanked my poor horde. What I should have done was divide my troops into smaller, 25-30 units and sacrifice one while hammering him with supporting units. Generally I would say 30 is a solid group, but in smaller games 20-25 work.