Lost colony vs. Lizardmen (ETC)Lost Colony:Dreadlord, pegasus, ogre blade, cloak of twilight, dragonhelm: 301
Supreme sorceress, lvl 4 heavens, obsidian lodestone: 265
Master, pegasus, sword of might, dragonbane gem, potion of strength: 177
Master BSB, pegasus, great weapon, 4++ talisman, charmed shield: 211
Sorceress level 2, dispel scroll: 140
2x 5 dark riders, shields, crossbows, musician, champion: 2x 120
20 spearmen, FCG: 210
10 witch elves, FCG, banner of eternal flame: 150
4x bolt thrower: 4x 70
2x 10 executioners, musician: 2x 130
5 harpies: 75
5 shades, ahw: 90
This is exactly the list I used against dwarves in the last report, just with charmed shield and dragonbane gem swapped to make the BSB's loadout legal.
Lizardmen:Slann, lvl 4, knows all signatures, channels on 5+ throwing three dice, 4++ ward, both BSB and general
Skink priest, lvl 1 heavens, dispel scroll
Skink priest, lvl 1 heavens, cube of darkness (dispel scroll on 2+)
Skink chief, 2+ armour, 2++ against fire, egg of quango
Skink chief, 2+ armour, 2++ against fire
Hero on cold one, 1+ rerollable, S6
24 saurus warriors
28 temple guards
4x 10 skink skirmishers, champions
2x 8 chameleon skinks
3 terradon riders
This is meant as a defensive list. There are enough skinks to shoot down chaff, they cost only a couple of points themselves so even by clearing all of them one cannot expect a big win. And the big blocks are not that easy to get points from.
Knowing all signatures, the slann can do all sorts of unpleasant things to his opponents; besides, he can use the skink priests' line of sight for his spells. It seems to me he might be a bit vulnerable to death magic (ld9, only a 4+ ward, defences against the other spells are probably not that well either), but otherwise, it is very hard to get to him as he can be hidden in the second rank of his temple guard bodyguards. And death magic is probably not that problematic, either, as everyone and the mother of their dogs wants to play it in ETC and so the list surely has some kind of answer built in.
On the other hand, this matchup should be hard for him as my flyers can hunt down his skinks quite effectively. Rallying them on Ld5, even if cold blooded Ld5 (roll three dice, use two lowest), is hardly guaranteed but on the other hand if they are held near the general they can block their own troops.
All in all, a fun game with much positioning was to be had.
My spells: blizzard, comet, chain lightning, thunderbolt on lvl 4; wildform and curse of anraheir on lvl 2.
One skink priest had blizzard, the other comet. The slann knew all signature spells.
DeploymentI knew the big lizardmen blocks would try to cover each other's flanks. The position showed on diagram was probably the only one to achieve this. Therefore, I deployed my combat units across: should they come to me, only one unit could make it between the house and impassable terrain and that could get tag-teamed easily; should they stay, I needed to be near to reach them.
At the same time, I did not want to engage as long as there were skinks in the way as they could ruin a combined charge badly. This was the reason to place my infantry further back instead of on the 12 inches line.
As you can see, my western bolt thrower was quite exposed. I should have probably placed something between the hill and the table edge to protect it better.
Western dark riders forfeited their vanguard: they retained the possibility to charge on turn 1 instead and there was no pressing job they would have to accomplish.
The PoS master partly restricted scouts from going behind my lines, partly tried to scare off terradons.
Lost Colony, Turn 1Dark riders used the option to charge some chameleon skinks. Other units tried to cover as much space as possible to restrict the movement of skinks. Spearmen advanced to get my sorceresses in range for some nice casting. The remaining infantry shuffled cautiously forwards, not wanting to engage to early.
In magic I got through a blizzard on the slann's unit in expectation of many panic tests. Not much else happened; I think there was a dispelled comet involved.
Then a rather successful shooting phase came. Terradons suffered three wounds (one and half models) and panicked, some skinks died as well.
Dark riders lost one to stand and shoot and then killed four skinks for no casualty in return. Their enemy broke but they stopped their pursuit in front of the forest while skinks continued behind the saurus warriors.
Lizardmen, Turn 1Three units of skinks decided to use dark riders instead of practice targets. Fourth one hid behind a hill. A skink chief on terradon flew over my BSB and threw a rock on him but did not wound. Chameleon skinks moved in the open to shoot at the nearest bolt thrower while the scar-veteran covered they flight. Last but not least, the skink chief with egg of quango flew right in front of my unit of executioners.
Winds of magic allowed one of the skink priests to summon a comet in front of my battleline. He gathered more power than he could handle, though, and a miscast caused him to forget the spell and drained all remaining dice from the pool.
Shooting killed two dark riders from one unit and all from the other. Besides, the western bolt thrower was destroyed.
Lost Colony, Turn 2BSB decided not to care about some lousy saurus hero and chased the chameleon skinks off board, exposing himself to countercharge. PoS master charged another unit of skinks who fled: while the dreadlord would almost surely catch them I wanted my opponent to roll some panic checks. He passed all of them but I tried. Subsequently, dark riders chased them further away.
Then I tried to flee from the comet. Executioners were still able to get in position to support my BSB but witches had to go away from the enemy. The other executioner unit backed off to give my eastern bolt thrower a clear shot. Harpies and dreadlord flew forwards as they wanted to chase skinks from another angle than the rest of my army.
In the magic phase, the comet landed and hurt nothing as it only had a radius of 7 inches or so. Then I managed to cast a cheat lightning™: it started on Skinks 3 and hopped clockwise to all the units in vicinity. It killed the remaining chameleon skinks outright and severely depleted skinks 2; otherwise the results were not that spectacular. Still quite a success.
My shooters managed to down the egg of quango skink chief and probably some other skinks as well.
Lizardmen, Turn 2The scar-veteran charged my BSB.
Some skinks tried to shoot at harpies, others at dark riders. The remaining chief threatened my bolt thrower. Temple guard reformed so that my dreadlord was unable to flank charge his slann and saurus warriors advanced to protect the guard's flank. Terradon riders, having rallied the turn before, flew forwards to threaten my backfield once more; in the process they managed to wound my PoS master once with a thrown rock.
Shooting only killed one harpy and magic did little, too. I saved some dispel dice by letting a spirit leach on my dreadlord through.
The combat between my BSB and saurus hero was tied as each combatant wounded his adversary once.
Lost Colony, Turn 3Executioners were sent to support my BSB. Harpies spotted a vulnerable skink priest and flank charged the saurus warriors in a suicide mission.
Spearmen left the house again as they were in a reasonable charge range from the saurus. Witches and execs closed to the enemy cautiously and the other units tried to deny options for skinks and terradons. Notable are dark riders who could have charged the skinks right in front of them but would be in great danger afterwards.
Magic did little (sorceresses had a bad forwards arc this turn and my opponent used his scroll as this was his last opportunity to do so) but shooting destroyed the remaining terradons as well as the skink chief.
What is more, combat saw no wounds but the impressive flag of my BSB and chearing of his new fans caused the opposing hero to lose his nerve. The pegasus hero ran him down, executioners reformed. I think it would have been probably better to pursue with them as well, though, as it would have helped to encircle the saurus warriors.
In the other combat, harpies killed the skink priest. Three of them died, then, but the last one stuck.
Lizardmen, Turn 3The cold bloods were running out of units capable of crazy shenanigans. One unit of skinks hid behind impassable terrain and remained there for the rest of the game. The other tried to shoot at BSB without success.
The slann had sufficient supply of magic missiles to destroy the remaining unit of dark riders, though. The last harpy was killed in combat. Pity, a pursuit (that is mandatory for saurus not joined by any skink) could have led the warrior unit out of position.
Lost Colony, Turn 4Now was a time to prepare some nice multicharge. I decided that the temple guard was probably too tough to defeat and so I wanted to destroy the saurus and to keep temple guard out of the equation. To this end, I moved executioners and witches up, hopped BSB to them and swift reformed spearmen to go around the house. Dreadlord went to the side so that he could charge the saurus without landing in the forest (though it would have been probably better to do a normal ground move of 8 inches right to their back – but he would have still needed to make that DT test should he have tried to charge temple guard after all).
I am not sure about my intentions with the PoS master, though. He could have assumed a nice position in the back of the temple guard.
Magic was unimportant, shooting killed some lizards.
Lizardmen, Turn 4Skinks shot two execs. Temple guard backed off a bit to make flank charges more difficult to pull off; I think the warriors actually backed away as well.
This time, the unit of shades was destroyed with magic.
Lost Colony, Turn 5Dreadlord charged saurus. Thanks to this, they were pinned in place and could have neither retreated nor charged any of my units separately.
All my units closed to the two blocks, BSB joined spearmen in the process. Executioners reformed to three wide as there were only eight of them remaining and more were likely to fall before finally engaging. It was not possible for the TG to charge in the south-eastern direction as it could not squeeze in the gap between house and impassable terrain.
My dreadlord killed the saurus champion with glorious overkill but the unit held on steadfast.
Lizardmen, Turn 5My opponent reached for desperate measures and reformed his temple guard to a really long line, two wide. This way I was unable to charge his saurus with anything.
The combined might of shooting and magic destroyed my western executioners.
More importantly, dreadlord killed a skink priest in challenge but lost combat anyway (three wounds versus banner + two ranks means losing on musician). He broke and was run down. I should breed swifter mounts, it seems.
Lost Colony, Turn 6Glorious last turn charge! PoS master drank his potion and aligned to the slann, spearmen and executioners both made it to the side of temple guard, witches to the front.
I had a very nice magic phase. I got off wildform on witch elves and probably curse of anraheir on the lizards. Blizzard got dispelled.
Many lizards died, the slann lost three wounds but the unit held on stubborn.
Lizardmen, Turn 6They were stubborn and did not run.
Due to shrinking numbers of the enemy I was not able to attack with everyone: for example, my PoS master got released from combat the turn before.
One interesting thing was that my opponent cast earthblood on his unit. It helped only against a few spearmen attacks, with witches being flaming, but it healed the slann a bit at least.
In tourney scoring I would have achieved a narrow 11:9 win.
After battle thoughts: This time I am more or less pleased with myself as I do not see any major mistakes. One could find many smaller things that could have been better, though.
This matchup was quite hard for the lizardmen. Dark elves in general have lots of shooting – get enough arrows in the air and even skirmishers are going to fall – and with all the fast stuff at our disposal we can clear their skink clouds very fast. And it would have been even faster if I had two units of warlocks like any proper power player as doombolt is deadly here.
I was surprised how well the fight against temple guard went. Of course, they were not in an ideal formation and I had a good magic phase but still, there were some six of them remaining after two combat phases. I should have not feared them that much, they are tough but beatable.
It would have probably been better to launch the assault on turn 5 instead of the last one as it would have given me two more combat phases to finish the job. I should have tried to keep my units far closer to the big blocks probably: in this game when I decided to rush for the kill on turn 4 but needed two turns to set it up. I should have moved the PoS master towards the enemy one turn earlier, too.
Another thing that would have helped would have been to walk the dreadlord right behind the saurus block as I have mentioned. This way he would stall their retreat without risking his life in combat and he could have attacked the temple guard if needed. A dangerous terrain test is actually not that bad as the dreadlord would have only suffered one wound at maximum this way. He would have survived the game provided he would have only fought enemies from the flank or rear.
Leaving the house with spearmen might have not been needed. The saurus would have won but I would have been steadfast and even if I would have been broken (possible on Ld9 without reroll) I would have had enough time for rallying. And the saurus would then have been open to retaliation. I am not sure if I could have really positioned my units to a nice countercharge – if the lizards would have stayed outside the house they would have been quite far from my troops – but it is worth considering as an option.