The Lizardmen menace

[Ferrum]

Yeah I think tonight I will draft up a third army list to counter armies with strog dispel.

I'll post it as soon as I can.

To redirect the thread back to it's original topic how worried should I be about a slann dispelling? Is he going to be ruining magic phase every turn?

 

[_Revan_]

Other than being a level 4 Wizard, the main thing that will spoil your Magic Phase is if he chooses one of the Disciplines (Slaanspecific special rules) that forces you to throw out any rolls of a 6 that you get when casting.

Unfortunately, there is not a hard counter to this, luckily you need to be in 24" and it can only target one Wizard per phase, so you can mitigate its effectivness with a bit of, maneuvering. It may even need Line of Sight, but this I'm not sure on.

 

[Ferrum]

So just kill the slaan it seems (how do you spell that? I've seen many ways!) and the problems are solved, i'd probably just send danced BKs and the coach at them, maybe even the GG to soak up the majority of the temple guard's attacks.

Since I'm using shadow lore would it be a good idea to try and use a pit of shades before I commit units?

 

[Lord Fear]

On the plus side with Becalming Cogitation, it means you can happily lob 6 dice at a particular spell with your Lord with zero worry about a miscast happening. For example if you have 6 dice and your opponent has 3 and you really want VHD going off, then you can lob all 6 at the spell, and unless you roll 2 or more 6s, you're going to roll so high he won't be able to dispel it (normally).

 

[Dklyn]

So just kill the slaan it seems (how do you spell that? I've seen many ways!) and the problems are solved, i'd probably just send danced BKs and the coach at them, maybe even the GG to soak up the majority of the temple guard's attacks.

Since I'm using shadow lore would it be a good idea to try and use a pit of shades before I commit units?

It's slann mage-priest (looking at the book). I think I've been misspelling it, but I haven't really checked before now. One thing to remember is that the slann stays in the second rank of TG, keeping him out of reach. He stays that way until he only has a few TG or unless you get a flank attack off (and even then he has to have too few TG to cover the slann). They're also stubborn, so the first charge isn't likely to break them. Point is I think it'll take a little more than a coach or a unit of BKs to take the slann down. Usually I try for a R&F troop on the front and then something smaller on the flank ideally with KB (which BK or coach can go for). Although thanks to the 4+ ward save, I've never had a KB go off successfully against that toad :swear:.

 

[TobinRoss89]

do you know what lore the slaan is taking? if its life then...good luck

 

[Ferrum]

No I have no idea what lore he uses most, the group I'm in isn't super competitive so he might not run the most powerful list because of that.

What would I have to do to fight against a life LM army? From your post Tobinross it sounds like I'd need to kill the slann immediately!

@Dklyn, so let me get this straight, I need to tie down the tg with a unit like skeles or something tough that i can easily heal, and THEN hit them with my cav? It seems like I could just send my GG at them and they'd be killed off after a few rounds of being killed and my GG regaining all their loses.

 

[Count Lasombra]

The weiner dog is correct.Against an equally canny opponent w/ LM it's gonna be uphill,especially w/ LIFE.Pit of shades/purple sun FTW.Every round the frog lives your odds of winning decline.I'd run double VGs,and ethereals.
Remember to have a healthy contempt for your opponent,IMHO LM is a better army this edition,but war is not a thing of absolutes

 

[Ferrum]

Agreed. I'll need to use every dirty trick in our considerably tricky book to gain the upper hand in such a scenario.

So you'd recommend dropping as many AoE death spells on his Slann as I can? It won't be easy to do that with my cutter list since it's pretty much kitted out for cambat at least as far as the vamps are concerned. If I was going to face a life LM army would you see switching my combat vamps (maybe just the lord) for magic centric ones so I can take command of the magic phase and get a purple sun off all the sooner? Or just stick it out and tear him to pieces in cc?

 

[Dklyn]

@Dklyn, so let me get this straight, I need to tie down the tg with a unit like skeles or something tough that i can easily heal, and THEN hit them with my cav? It seems like I could just send my GG at them and they'd be killed off after a few rounds of being killed and my GG regaining all their loses.

What I described is ideal, but not required. You can have GG just pound them from the front and that could work all right. The advantage of having a flank attack is that the toad is easier to expose. My main point was having a black coach or unit of knights charging TG alone is probably not a good idea.

Personally, I don't like to try for anything that takes a few rounds as it increases the likelihood of things not going my way (due to flank attack, big buff etc), but if that's the best the situation gives you, then go for it. As described, taking out the toad is pretty much the focus.

On magic stuff: remember that he gets a 2+ Look out sir save whenever you hit him with AoE (as I was corrected earlier), so it's not a reliable way to take the general out. It is an easy way to decimate his Saurus (init 1) or TG. Even if you kite out for casting, the slaan is still going to have a good magic phase and will be a thorn in your side about yours. IIRC, you already have some decent magic in your ranks (including a character with lore of death). While a magic centered general can work quite well against LM (or anyone really), I don't think it's required. A combat general can work well too. It's more of a matter of preference than anything.

 

[Ferrum]

Yeah I have a forbidden lore vamp who'll either take shadow or death. And possibly metal vs. Empire.

Your suggestions on how to engage the tg make a lot of sense, especially the advice to not engage them over long periods of time, especially with a valuable unit.
I hadn't thought about the possibility of the Slann buffing his tg and making them too strong even for a GG with regen!

I would try to engage the Slann with my lord if at all possibly simply because he will be the most effective at smashing the tg especially with another thrall and his BKs smashing into the flanks.

How well guarded will the tg be? Are they going to be in the rear guard where I'll have to cut through all his saurus to get them? Or will they anchor his line?

 

[TobinRoss89]

honestly his temple guard should be winning most combats against the grave guard if the slaan takes like because he is going to get at least 3 spells off a turn that you cant stop. There is nothing you can do about it with or book because we just dont have the magic defence to deal with. Stop the spells that are going to be more painfull over all, never let thrown of vines get off ever.

 

[Ferrum]

Okay I'll make sure to throw my dispel dice at that one then.

If he'll be beating my strongest unit consistently without mch challenge then it seems like i could use it better elsewhere where it can kill saurus units, and I can just tar pit the tg unit my coach and cavalry hit their flanks and rear.

But then again that also puts the tar pit at risk because tg are very powerful and with a slann they are ridiculous, so they might just be able to tear through my skeles.

This is going to be a very tough battle

 

[Muttenmaster90]

It sounds like it is going to be a really fun and challenging battle! Make sure and make a battle report and let us know when you have it done! Good luck mate

 

[Ferrum]

It'll be another week or so before I can even field anything, as I'm not one to play with a primer army!
But I promise i'll post a detailed battle report and test out as many of your suggestions as I can during this campaign! :konrad:

Thanks for your help everyone!

 

[Dklyn]

It's helpful to know a bit about TG: They are a lot like Saurus. The main differences are they have one more WS, halberds (so effectively S5), stubborn with slann, and light armor (I know there's other stuff, but that's the big part). Since halberds cannot be used with shields, the light armor gives them the same armor save as a saurus. They also cost 4 points more.
I honestly can't think of too many times I lost against combat to a unit of TG, and I played a 2500 point game once a week from May to Aug (using 8th edition right when the book came out). Working out the math, your GG hit on 3+ (with burrows), wound on 2+ (with GW), negate armor (giving you a little higher than 50% chance to kill/attack), compared to them hitting on 3+, wounding on 3+, negating armor and dealing with a 4+ regen save (giving them 22% kill/attack). That puts the odds in your favor. The number of attacks should be about the same since you'll be running horde formation, something I don't think he'll do.
Assuming all life spells that aid combat go off (except throne of vines), the only changes would be that you now wound on a 4+ due to extra toughness and they have a 5+ regen save (22%). That makes the battle about even, but then add in your combat lord and everything should still swing in your direction.
Unless I'm forgetting something, your GG should be good against TG. I don't know why they would beat you without much of a challenge in CC. If you get lucky and he has a bad magic phase, you could really cream through a lot of them. The damaging spells are pretty weak (esp against your regen) except for the ultimate spell which he can't cast at you while you're in CC.

Good luck!

 

[Ferrum]

Okay that's really reassuring! Base on what you said though it seems like saurus will eat my skeles for breakfast, even though my elite units are better his core has the advantage. It seems like my use of a character in each unit was a good choice because it'll turn most of the combats in my favor. Tbh I'm not really worries about this battle anymore. I just didn't really know what to expect and all I'd heard we're horrifying rumors!

Again, thank you all

 

[Fluffytemplar]

So, this is something that was just brought to my attention a few days ago. I didn't notice if anyone else mentioned this or not so I will. I had some trouble against a LM opponent a little while ago and a friend of mine suggested this tactic. Take a combat orientated vampire with the flying power, a lord works best if the points are there otherwise a hero level vamp should still be able to pull it off. Fly him overtop of the unit and then charge with a unit in the front, GG or whatever, offer up a challenge with whatever wight king or vamp you have in the unit. A smart LM player will no doubt accept with his unit champion to avoid the Slann getting destroyed. This will be no match for whatever you have sitting in the GG unit and will make sure whatever character you used will survive as well. Then following turn charge the flying vamp into the rear of the TG and challenge again. As you are in the rear of the unit there is no where for the Slann to run to refuse the challenge and he therefore MUST accept. And I would be very sad the day a Slann bests a Vampire in CC. It takes a little bit of coordination and luck, but it's a fantastic way to assassinate a Slann from within his TG deathstar.

 

[Ferrum]

Ahaha that is a dastardly plan :devil2:

I don't run a flying lord right now, but I might just have to try this out to see the look on his face when his slann is dragged screaming to his death!
This would work in other situations too I think, a slann is probably the best example of an easy kill general for a vampire lord, but I think others could be used too. For example lesser combat heroes such as warrior priests who really muck up our battle plans would be ideal targets as well!

Thank you for posting this tactic!

 

[Lord Fear]

That won't work until the TG unit is REALLY small as the Slann is happy to sit in the second rank doing nothing and refusing a challenge.

 

[_Revan_]

If the Slaan refused though, wouldn't he be forced to the back rank? Where the Vampire or whatever other unit coould attack him normally (i.e. not as a challenge) by being base to base?

 

[Lord Fear]

If he refused, he would be moved to a place in the unit out of base contact with the enemy. A Vampire's base is 20mm wide. The Temple Guard will probably be at least 125mm wide- the Vampire can't cover all that space now, can he? However if there's 11 or fewer Temple Guard left you should be able to get into base contact with the Slann- although, don't count on killing it, a 4+ ward save goes a long way (combined with lots of wounds and potential lore of life).

In any case, you're honestly much better off just killing all the Temple Guard, and then when the Slann breaks he's dead (if he's a BSB). On the other hand, getting Grave Guard into Temple Guard likely won't be easy either way, and a lone flying Vampire is very likely to die with all the poison shots/ dropped rocks/ Slann magic coming his way.

Combined charges in rears with powerful units/ characters is always a good idea though and if yu can pull it off, well played :konrad:

 

[Fluffytemplar]

I'm pretty sure the rules go that if you refuse a challenge you move to the back rank. If you're being challenged from the back rank you have no where to run and must accept. I suppose I should look this up for myself, but it came from a friend of mine I trust with the rules a fair bit.

 

[Lord Fear]

Even if you don't have your book to hand, that's no excuse for not thinking! If you chuck a single 20mm model in the rear of a unit with 25mm bases that is 5 wide, he literally CANNOT contact the entire back rank, meaning there will always be a space for the Slann to retire to (unless the unit is quite small, as noted). Look here:

__v__
TTSST
TTSST
TTTTT
GGGGG
GGGGG
GGGGG
GGGGG

See if you can place the Vampire anywhere that will result in there being nowhere for the Slann to retire to. You can't do it. As there's a spot in the unit he can go where he is out of contact with the enemy, he can refuse the challenge.

Don't blindly trust your friend on the rules... don't even trust me

 

[Dklyn]

I'm pretty sure the rules go that if you refuse a challenge you move to the back rank. If you're being challenged from the back rank you have no where to run and must accept. I suppose I should look this up for myself, but it came from a friend of mine I trust with the rules a fair bit.

Never a bad idea to look up rules in b/t games . p.102 BRB under refusing a challenge "move the model into a rank where he's not in base contact with the enemy...A character cannot refuse a challenge if his model cannot be placed so that he is not in base contact with an enemy model" Doesn't say it has to be the back ranks, just out of base contact. But hey, if he refuses that's one less ldr... which almost sorta helps so why not eh?