Cracking a Spear equipped Saurus block

[Didymus13]

Hi All,

Two things are the banes of my VC army. 1) The EotG, which has beed discussed at length and won't be mentionned anymore, and 2) 15 strong spear equipped Saurus blocks.

I ran some mathhammer to get a general picture of what Spear Saurus were capable of on the charge, and recieving one against a block of 20x Skellies, and 18x Great Weapon GG (6x3). Let me say that the CR results burned like the sun.

Is there an effective way to crack a Spear Saurus unit on the charge? It seems that I have to throw a *lot* of points at such a unit just to break even on CR (on average). I really can't afford to wait for him to charge me, when he can just sit back and magic me to death.

I have 2 to contend with on a regular basis, and would like to crack them both before I'm blasted to oblivion by an EotG. (If the slaan decides that I have reached my Invokation Quota for the day at the 2250 points level). Thoughts?

SD

 

[Vic]

As far as I remember they have no way to get magical attacks themselves, so sending a group of 5 wraiths supported by helm will pretty much have them loosing by at least 2-3 every turn.

Another efficient way to chop them down is a fighty vampire lord. Sword of Might, Infinite Hatred and Red Fury. With these 3 you'll be killing 5+ saurus a turn, he'll win the battle against Spears even with a Skeleton regiment.

Summoned Zombies - that's a bit harder and might req a better magic phase, but summoning a new unit of zombies and macabring it into their flank is pretty effective. On average they make 3-4 wounds to the zombies (and don't have spears), so as long as zombies have like a rank or two and flank, you'll need one or two successful invocations per turn to keep them alive. And if you fill them to 3 ranks, outnumber and flank you'll even autobreak them!

Knights - if they really are 15 strong, sending a heavily supported unit of 6 Black Knights has a huge chance to autobreak them (actually when supported with helm the most common result would be 4 or 5 wounds for knights, 0 for saurus, CR being wounds + outnumber + banner for knights vs. 2 ranks + banner for saurus, meaning they loose as 11 US vs. 12). To make sure that happens, I'd add a character in the unit, but if you feel like rolling average dice, they'll be fine

That's pretty much everything I can think of for now. Might be able to make up some more ways to deal with them, but I'm being late so it'll have to wait.
glhfgg


Edit: The knight example uses Helm of Commandment from Lord, which makes your opponent hit your Knights on 5+. If you don't have 7WS helm (and you are making a match specific list) getting a 7th Knight pretty much seals the deal, because even if he kills one, you still get to auto-break him.

 

[Didymus13]

Summoned Zombies - that's a bit harder and might req a better magic phase, but summoning a new unit of zombies and macabring it into their flank is pretty effective. On average they make 3-4 wounds to the zombies (and don't have spears), so as long as zombies have like a rank or two and flank, you'll need one or two successful invocations per turn to keep them alive. And if you fill them to 3 ranks, outnumber and flank you'll even autobreak them!

Oh my! You've just enlightened me more than you know. My opponent (I never use spears) attacked me in two *files* when I flanked him with zombies, giving me horrible CR. I'm suddenly less apprehensive of the spear blocks now.

SD

 

[Le Duc de Mousillon]

Actually, you'd be sort of lucky if he fields 15... I'd go for 18, that's a lot of extra attacks! The problem probably isn't the turn they charge, they do only half their potential attacks then. The problem is the turns after that. With 18 saurus (3x6), you'd face 24 attacks, resulting in about 7 dead skeletons on average. I agree with the solutions didymus mentioned, but I would personally use blood knights against the saurus. Even with a frontal charge you'll win!

 

[Ergo-Sum]

Yep, Vic seems to have covered all the major counters. On the Ethereal front, even Spirit hosts could be decent, especially if you can get them by Wind of Undeath (assuming you get at least two bases), place them behind the unit and charge a flank or rear. Like flanking Zombies, you'll need one or two invocations to keep them going. If you get a flank or rear attack with spirit hosts, you'll be getting close to drawn combats or having one crumble wound a turn.

I'd second Le Duc's suggestion of blood knights, they will rip apart such a unit. However, you'll need to be very careful about being kited by all his fast moving and fleeing units like skinks and terradons. If the blood knights work, it'll be great, but you do need to be careful with them against Lizardmen.

As has been mentioned, a helm wearing caster lord can really help, because his WS 7 means the sauraus are only hitting on 5's. Thus, on the turn they charge, they should only do about 1.5 wounds to your skeletons. A 20 skeleton unit, with no characters or magic banners, should then still auto break them as you have an extra rank at the start of combat and out numbering. Start throwing in a magic banner or a vampire/wright hero, and it looks even better. However, as Le Duc said, you'll be in quite big trouble if they get to fight you for a second round!

 

[Onikaigo]

I've never really had a problem with Saurus blocks. Even with spears, I send a fighty vampire hero with Hatred inside a skeleton block, and that's eaten through them in one to two turns. My opponent even runs his saurus in blocks of 20! Custom movement trays and everything.

Spears suck, yes. One early game against them they singlehandedly decimated my army. But, A fighty -hero- took out most of them, and with WD to boot added to the CR enough to break them. For every saurus you kill on the charge, that's two attacks they don't get back at you. So my Hero taking out two to three Saurus before striking back took out easily 4 to 6 attacks, and my skeletons usually account for one more.

minus 8 attacks, and with my Skeletons still receiving a decent AS, skeletons to the front haven't failed me yet.

 

[Pulimuli]

Ethereals or knights will probably mow them down easily?

 

[Le Duc de Mousillon]

It has already been said pulimuli.

One thing I'd like to add though: if you plan on outmanouvering them, go for the flank, not the rear... Even if you charge in the rear (with a weak unit), it's quite probable that you still loose the combat, because of the huge number of attacks they have at S4. Go for the flank, you'll probably face only 2 or 3 saurus there!

Btw, if you're really scared of them, use your banshee's howl on them. (normally I'd prefer to use it on stegs or salamanders/razordons)

 

[Ithurel]

If you are auto breaking your opponent then they are playing nice. Most lizardmen I know run thier 2 Saurus blocks each with a hero on a Cold One and the Slaan bsb in the middle of them with the Cold One stubborn banner. You now have 2 suarus blocks that are immune to fear and stubborn.

Blood knights can do some damage but that EotG is going to love eating those points up, same with wraiths. New lizzies are a tough nut to crack for VC, but we are still able to grind them down. Get into the flanks of those units with Zombies/skellies and they will sit there. They are worth a good amount of points and ours arnt so it pays off. Then go around killing everything else. I have found the varghulf a good way to deal with the EotG, just keep swinging at that 2+ armor save skink on top and he will die eventually.

 

[Ergo-Sum]

I'd suggest three wraiths helm'ed. or four wraiths unhelm'ed to go after the skink priest on an EotG rather than a Varghulf, as you really need to be pretty certain you'll take it out in one turn, and on average a varghulf won't do it in one combat turn. Or you use the blood knights to take out the EotG first.

To be fair, if slann is taking that cold one stubborn item, isn't it 100 points? So at least your casting will not be effected by things liked cupped hands or have to deal with loads of powerstones. If they are going to do this then I'd try to cut the head off by going after then slann, although thats usually not as easy as it sounds!

 

[Ithurel]

I agree ergo, but usually that engine is behind those blocks so trying to get a unit of knights back there isnt too easy. And my wraiths seem to die from the engine all day long, I just found the varg capable of hitting it, enduring the next pulse and killing it the following turn.

 

[Ergo-Sum]

Ha, yeah, very true Ithurel. it's always easy to say things like get the knights to attack the EotG, rather than to actually make it happen!

However, wouldn't the blood knights have a pretty decent chance of taking down said stubborn suarus hero, thus removing both stubborn and fear from the saurus block, along with still killing a significant amount of warriors?

 

[N1AK]

Spear armed Saurus are the current top dogs of basic infantry. For their points cost they have a balance of resilience and killing power that no other choice matches at this time. For that reason alone, you won't find a 'like for like' match up in the VC's favour.

Fortunately, being VC we rarely have to fight things on an even footing. Relying on characters is risky as Saurus Heroes are combat monsters who will be more than happy to take on a Vampire who charges their unit. Instead you should be using march blocking to frustrate and slow them, positioning to exploit flanks and combined charging to ensure first turn breaks. Using units of Zombies to flank tarpit is another good move, if you get the chance.

 

[Bilk von Pancakes]

When fighting saurus I find they stand well when fighting more costly units. So what works for me is a front of zombies, a flank of ghouls and a rear of dogs to CR them to death.

 

[N1AK]

I'd by happy like a pig in muck if someone did that to me von Pancakes

At 2 attacks per Saurus they can expect to kill 13 Zombies, and 3 Dogs. Even with 3 ranks, banner, flank & outnumber you'd still be relying on killing 10 T4 4+ save models just to draw combat. A ranked unit of Ghouls in the flank is likely to do far better without the Dog or Zombie help.

 

[Ergo-Sum]

Yep, I agree with N1AK, once you get zombies into something, it's best just to let them tar pit the unit. Alot of support units you send in will not have the killing power to make up for all the zombies killed. Even stuff like blood knights on the flank would have a hard time counter-acting that much CR generated against the zombies.

 

[Jnr]

The best way in my opinion is take wraiths or blood knights, or GG with the regen banner will do great.

Though you have to kill the engine firts when using blood knights and wraiths

 

[Undying]

Arew, but have u ever considerd 25 spear sarus? or 25 temple gaurd? or 50 sarus? or for a dewath star 89 temple gaurd with gold slann?

 

[123birds]

Have you tryed flank chargin with a dragon lord. They should be testing on LD 0 if you do it right.