[Tarendal]

Greets! I'm new here, just returning to the games (Warhammer and 40k). I've got a match coming up and am looking for some advice. This is going to be my first game of Warhammer in over a decade, and is against a person who plays regularly. I'd like to give a good showing.

Here's what I know about my opponent.. He plays Vampire Counts. I watched him play a match recently, and he loves his ghouls. What he fielded was a horde sized block of ghouls, a unit or two of skeletons, a small unit of mounted wights, a 20 or so strong unit of grave guard. A vampire lord and 2 other vampires, one tooled up for magic, one for combat.

After the battle, he talked a lot about how awesome the ghouls were in a horde, so I expect to see that popping up again. I also know he focuses on the raising dead and danse macabre spells.

Revised, again:

Lord
Slann
Battle standard bearer, Focus of mystery (Lore of Light), Focused Rumination, Becalming Cogitation, Cupped hands of the Old Ones

Hero
Skink Priest
Cube of darkness

Saurus Scar-Veteran #1
Hand weapon, light armor, shield

Saurus Scar-Veteran #2
Hand weapon, light armor, shield

Core
Saurus Warriors
24 with full command, hand weapons and shield
Saurus Scar-Veteran #1 with this unit

Saurus Warriors
24 with full command, hand weapons and shield
Saurus Scar-Veteran #2 with this unit

Saurus Warriors
25 with full command, hand weapons and shield

Skinks
12 with javelins and shield

Skinks
12 with javelins and shield

Special
Temple Guard
20 with musician and standard bearer
Slann with this unit

Rare
Salamander
Salamander with extra handler

Salamander
Salamander with extra handler

removed all the formatting off this post- it was trebbling the length of the entry... please leave size, colour and font as standard for the main parts of your posts, especially if you are coding it so that the size and colour are exactly the same as everyone else's (it just wastes hard drive space and increases load times).
- T/S

 

[Lord Sven Kittyclaw]

Ok, off the bat this list looks solid to fight undead, a few problems though, 1) Make the slan a bsb, just incase you fail those all important fear tests, and you might even with cold blooded! that saurus will not last long at all vs. a vampire made to fight. Even with -1 to hit, at the least give him an enchanted shield, for a good save, not entirely familiar with lizardmen book, but see if you can get a ward save too.

 

[Darksider]

I agree with the BSB (battle standard bearer) comment, since you'll be taking a lot of fear tests.

I like the list but make sure you have a good idea what lore of magic you want;
Light is good since you get a good deal more hits from your offensive spells when playing undead.
Life is good because it means you can also revive dead models and/or make them tougher. You can also capitalise on the low strength value of many undead model with The Dwellers Below and kill off huge numbers at a go. Finally Life gives you the Throne of Vines spell, which is better then Cupped Hands since it remains in play
Hope I have been useful and good luck

 

[Lord Sven Kittyclaw]

Well if this list is purely for vs Vampire counts then it should be ok. Lore of light would be best for vs Vamps. All in all, looks good. Only thing I would say is, to make this a all comers list, drop the skinks, add the sun standard of chotec on the temple guard, to protect from the inevitable shooting, and see about razordons or salamanders.

 

[Tarendal]

Yeah, this will be solely against his vampire counts. I'll have to come up with a more general list later on, but need to pick up some more miniatures. Most of what I have right now is more rank and file, and old.

Note to Tim/Steve: Sorry about the color issue, I was pasting the post from Word, and it was coming out as black on black background, thought I needed to change it. Can see now it's best to just type it in.

 

[hippypancake]

Go to the forumhammer and look at my list...THEN DON'T DO ANYTHING I DO I'm getting raped by VC and must say that the Black Coach is evil during magic phases, and ghouls aren't to be scoffed at when they have great weapons...that is all

 

[Arli]

The key with VC is killing his Vampire lord. Once you do that, his units will start to fall apart. Another thing to do on the slann is take becalming cogitation (removes 6s from a caster withing 24 inches), this will destroy his casting attempts and make your dispels much easier. Also, I would combine the two units of skink cohorts and add those 3 krox back into them. The skinks are a throw away unit and little more than a Krox delivery unit. He cannot target the krox in combat, he has to kill all the skinks first. Use this unit (6 base movement) to flank for the saurus.

Another thing to think about is using those chameleons (you will have to proxy one or two skinks as chameleons for the base 5). Chameleons are awesome in 8th edition. These guys can start 12 inches away from his troops (in the open) and march 12 inches and still fire 12 inches (hitting on 6s with poison, 5s at short range). You will want to avoid charges (by moving them outside of any forward arcs). But any time that he wastes on these guys will be time that you can get you're saurus into place.

Definitely take Lore of Light as well. Any of the light spells that inflict hits on his unit will cause an extra D6 hits (i.e. 2d6 becomes 3d6) for undead.

That plus Speed of light and Briona's time warp are awesome.

 

[Tarendal]

To add back in the kroxigor, I'd have to drop my saurus groups down a bit.

I can drop the plague of dominion (wasn't thinking, that's a bad choice to have in there), take becalming cogitation, and then add the cube of darkness to the skink priest.. plan on using the cube early on, before he gets killed off, and deprive him of one magic phase if I'm lucky.

Or do the becalming, skip the cube, add 5 chameleons, and drop both regular skink units back down to 10.

Thoughts?

 

[CoNnZ]

personally i would drop both the scar vets. They dont really have any role in your army asides being glorified unit champions. Dropping them would allow you to give your saurus spears which will give the unit more killing power than the scar vets.Your slann really outta have banner of discipline, this will make the TG stubborn at ld10, on 3d6 and rerollable pretty much making them unbreakable. Also give him becalming cognitation. Add a skink priest. With him and the slann you should outclass his magic. Cube of darkness generally isnt that good.You want as little of your game to be based on luck. Add the chameleons if possible, they are so good atm

 

[Lord Sven Kittyclaw]

If he drops the scar vets he has NOTHING to fight a vampire. Thus his saurus will get owned.

 

[Crimzzen]

Thanks for the tips. Here's the revised list, so far:
Lord
Slann
Battle standard bearer, Focus of mystery, Focused Rumination, Plaque of Dominion, Cupped hands of the Old Ones
Hero
Skink Priest

Saurus Scar-Veteran #1
Sword of swift slaying, light armor, shield
Saurus Scar-Veteran #2
Gold sigil sword, light armor, shield

Slaan: Don't need the plaque as he will be in the temple guard and you already get a 2+ LoS followed by a 4+ ward and 5 wounds. I would recommend the disciplines that let you know the entire lore, the one that gives you an extra PD for each spell, and the one that removed enemies 6s. Make sure he is a BSB as well

Skink Priest should be on an engine of the gods. Park that thing adjacent to those ghouls and start throwing out burning alignments. Just keep it out of LoS for charges. This thing DROPS undead units quickly. I would also consider a dispel scroll.

2 Scar-Vets is probably overkill. I'd take one and stick it with the temple guard to make sure that unit can munch through nearly everything. I would probably build mine something like this: Sword of Strife, dragonhelm, shield, light armour. 2+ save and 6 attacks I believe, great for mowing down RnF. Our scar vets won't stand up to combat vampires so don't bother.

Core
[Saurus Warriors
24 with full command, hand weapons and shield
Saurus Scar-Veteran #1 with this unit

Saurus Warriors
24 with full command, hand weapons and shield
Saurus Scar-Veteran #2 with this unit

Saurus Warriors
25 with full command, hand weapons and shield

Looks good, I assume your running 6x4. Remember, if you plan on including characters, you can drop a model from the unit and still have full ranks. Might be able to cut a few points to add some goodies elsewhere.

Skinks
12 with javelins and shield

Skinks
12 with javelins and shield

I still think blowguns are better but if these work for you. Why 12? 10 will save you a few more points. They're throw away so you probably want to give you enemy as few VP as possible.

Special
Temple Guard
20 with musician and standard bearer
Slann with this unit

I'd add the champion, just for the extra attack. Personal preference though. If you throw in your scar vet like I advised above, then def. include champ.

Rare
Salamander
Salamander with extra handler

Salamander
Salamander with extra handler

Good, don't need the extra handler though. You'll need at least 2 misfires to statistically make then take a reaction test. Most likely you'll only get 2 rounds of shooting (less if ghoulkin around) and hopefully not misfire both times.

Based on feedback here and on other sites, as well as my thoughts while tweaking the list, I made the following changes to the original:

Dropped the dispel scroll on a skink shaman.
Ditched the second skink shaman with Tepok.
Beefed up both the temple guard, and the third unit of Saurus.
Dropped two groups of ten skinks, raised remaining units up to twelve.
Dropped the three kroxigor.
Split the salamanders into two units of one.
Added a second scar-veteran, and gave each magical weapons to get initiative against his vampires.
Made the slann the BSB and beefed him up a bit.

It's sounding like I should be using Lore of Light, is that going to be best for this? I considered putting the skink priest into a unit of the skinks to help keep him safe, but I shouldn't be facing any missile weapons. Good idea? Bad idea?

I sort of made the list an all-comers list. I would look at taking lore of life still. The shield of thorns can really help whittle down the larger blocks you're stuck in combat with. The increased T helps against combat vampires chewing through your RnF. and being able to revive your temple guard/warriors is just win. An IF dwellers coupled with giving your miscast to their vampire can decimate his horde unit of ghouls and neuter one of his casters. Having regen somewhere helps as well. All in all, its the best lore for lizards and it helps getting use to it wherever you can.

Also, I would look at throwing in 2 units of chameleon skinks (6-8 models each) to deal with future warmachines/solo casters. To find points, I would probably cut the third unit of warriors.

Hope this helps.

 

[CoNnZ]

If he drops the scar vets he has NOTHING to fight a vampire. Thus his saurus will get owned.

Any smart VC player will deploy a bunker unit for his vampire and place him at the back of his army meaning the 2 scar vets will be be contributing nothing much as they wate several turns clearing everything out the way. Besides vampires will outclass the scar vets given what they currently have The better option is going to be to add the extra saurus and add spears. 8th is much more about killing potential and combar res so the extra numbers and spears would go juch further. As long as you have the extra skink and all the anti magic stuff to go with the slann the vampire won't be getting many spells off. If your set on scar vetsonly go for the one but you will want to tool him up more

 

[Tarendal]

Updated the list with a couple of small tweaks (on the items/disciplines). Really not sure about taking out the scar veterans. I'm thinking towards three possible cases:

1. They run into a unit without a vampire in it - I should be able to rack up some extra kills with the scars, win the combat by more, and cause more of a crumble.

2. They run into a unit with a vampire in it - The odds seem against the scars, but they do have the same strength, toughness and attacks as a vampire lord. One less wound, and lower initiative, but will also end up with a 5+ armor and 6+ ward save. Decided against the magic weapons, but could drop a few troops to put something on them. At any rate, if I can get the Time Warp or Speed of Light cast, they would have a decent chance. In the meantime, the champion and rest of the saurus can keep chewing up the rank and file undead.

3. They run into a unit with a vampire in it - The vampire challenges, I accept with the unit champion, and let the scar veteran tear up the rank and file.

The banner of discipline might be good, I'm hoping I wouldn't need it though. Instead of LD10 stubborn with a reroll, as it stands the unit will still be LD9, stubborn with a reroll.

And right now none of my saurus have spears on the models. They'd probably be okay with me proxying, but haven't really thought a lot about it. That's something I'll have to consider.

Thoughts?

 

[CoNnZ]

I would only take the 1 priest as a level 4 and 2 is enough. Those points could be invested in beefing up the slann or adding saurus.
It really depends on your style. If you play aggressively it could be worthwhile taking the scar vet but perhaps consider a great weapon or something to give asf. You will also want to tak lore of death on your slann. Focus his attention of the vampire lords unit and wear it down. This will force your opponent to choose between buffing up other units that will fight your saurus or to run the risk of the vampires unit being wiped and his lord being left alone in the open.
The most popular setup is the defensive style. This will involve dropping one priest and taking spears for your saurus. The slann goes lore of life to keep the tg and saurus alive
The banner of discipline is always worth taking for the slann. Some would even go so far as to call it cheesy on him.

 

[Tarendal]

Sorry, I revised one copy I had up, but not the other, I think you were seeing the older one. I revised the original and deleted the other so as to be less cluttered.