Tactics against Lizard men

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Kuwanger23
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Tactics against Lizard men

Post by Kuwanger23 »

Hey guys,

I am new here to the forums and have just recently returned to Fantasy after more than 4 years away. I have many friends who play but my main adversary has chosen lizard men as his army. Very cool looking army if you tell me. We have both just come back to the game and will be having our first 2500pt battle this Friday. We have been reading the rules over the passing months and have been playing GW games both for over 15 years so we should do fine rules wise.

My question here is, other than debuff with shadow magic, how do we compete with a lv 4 slann with the lore of life? His PD pool will be even larger than mine believe it or not. This is what I own as of now but we can proxy the first couple weeks or so until the rest of our stuff comes in.

126 warriors
50 crossbow
25 cold one knights
60 corsairs
3 bolt throwers
1 cauldron
3 sorceress
1 hydra
1 chariot
35 WE's
30 executioners
5 black guard
6 dark riders
6 harpies
3 assassins

Keep in mind we can proxy and build up units to whatever until we have more time to collect the rest of our forces. I have a lot of core due to Bartertown and such. So how should I go about being competitive against all that magic? Toughness 8 sauress warriors are not fun :)
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Lord tsunami
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Post by Lord tsunami »

As a veteran player of both DE and LM i might have some insight, though i almost never play the actual matchup.

Do not touch the temple guard if you do not absolutely have to. The possibility of T8 AND 4+ regen is just too much unless you have mindrazor, and i wouldnt bet on that. even if you did, you would need multiple rounds to grind them down, since they usually have Ld10 with stubborn and reroll AND they can be healed back with life magic.

Normal sauruses with T8 are bad too ofc, but not nearly as bad as the TG. they wont have regen, and wounding on 6s instead of 5s is only a 50% reduction in kills. Witches will have an even "easier" time due to poison. If possible (and it should be) you should gang up on a block of sauruses with at least two units, one in the flank (or both if you are really fancy) and kill it. You will only have to win combat by a few points since you should be able to deny steadfast if you have two units.

His salamanders are a real bother tbh and they need to be dealt with quickly. Harpies are maybe not ideal but they should be able to cut it down to size fairly quickly. on average 5 harpies will lose combat by a few points, but with the general nearby you could tie him down for a round of two. enough for you to close in with the other units. if he does get to fire it WILL hurt alot. You will rarely be able to trade efficiently with salamanders since they are grossly underpriced, but you will have to accept small losses to be able to win the larger battle. Shooting the sallies are an option, but you would pretty much have to use reapers to put a dent in them, and that is chancy at best. The safest way would be a chillwind to the face. you are bound to cause at least one wound, and then he cant shoot at all.

His skinks needs to be dealt with by your own fast units too. if not, you wont be able to divert his TGs. Many many LM players will use blowpipes on their skinks for sheer volume of shots, but this will force him to stay at long range if he wants to be able to stand and shoot against your harpies/DRs. both units are fairly safe against such vollies. you will lose a model or two (make sure you have the general to help the harpies with panic) but you will eat him up in CC the round after. Once his skinks are gone, the battle should be yours assuming you still have some fast units left.

I find stegadons fun against DE, since we do not have any cannons to kill them with. They can grind with our warriors basically forever if combined with a life slann for healing the odd wound. they are stubborn but only at Ld 6. if you can separate it from the general you have a good chance of running it off if you fight it with a ranked unit of warriors. you may do a wound and he will do around 4-5. with a bit of luck you can at least force a draw and win on musician. even with cold blooded there is a chance that he will run. in either case you should never flee in such a fight. stegadons are not super fast (no swiftstrider) and unless he can combine the stegadon charge with another unit it is not a huge threat. you may have trouble scoring any VPs from it, but you should be able to prevent him from scoring any VPs off you either. if it comes to a battle of the titans (stegadon vs hydra) the hydra should be able to prevail due to superior attacks and regeneration, but your hydra will do much better elsewhere. eating salamanders is a fun job for him :) remember that 3 sallies are more expensive than 1 hydra.

Beware of solo scar veterans on cold ones. they can do the same job as our "unkillable dreadlord" but at a much lower cost. T5 and a 1+ save will be enough to survive most of our units.



By looking at what models you have at your disposal i would say you will need to proxy a little bit. i would never venture in to the jungle without at least 4 "fast units" (harpies, DRs or shades in any combination). you simply MUST kill his fast units to take control of the movement face. if you do not you will have to fight him head on and that is seldom a good thing. we have very strong elite units but with T4, 2 attacks and a 4+ save his saurus warriors are atough nut to crack in such a fight. best not to give him one ;)
Kuwanger23
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Post by Kuwanger23 »

Good read Lord Tsunami,

I will probably be proxying a bit Friday. I was thinking of running my witches 7x4 and giving them the banner of murder. I will be taking a cauldron for sure. Taking out the fast units first seems like a solid idea to me and it was an approach I was thinking of taking anyways. I would like to run 2 units of 5 harpies and one unit of 6 dark riders. Not sure if I can afford to take my Shades. When taking shades should I equip great weapons on them or use them for another roll entirely? If I eventually do equip great weapons on them what is a good way to model this? I will try to post my list I come up with here and in the list section this week sometime.

It seems LM are a tough army. A good test for my DE's indeed. Thank you again for some good advice and I will be checking back in later.
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Omnichron
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Post by Omnichron »

Interesting read there Lord Tsunami.

I'm not that familiar with the lizardmen in 8th, but from my one experience in my last battle, was that you need something to take care of chaff and lots of small units of shooting skinks. I'd recommend not taking a big unit of witch elves with that in mind.

What did really well for me, was actually harpies and I think 3 smallish units of shades (7-8 of them) would be excellent (with additional hand weapons, not great weapons at all).

If you also include a death sorceress in the fray, you can block his more dangerous units with your chaff and snipe his slann down over several rounds.

If you want to try it out, a shade star would be nice for the job, with magic resistance and ring of darkness on a master. That'd mean the skinks won't hit and poison on 6'es anymore, and his magic won't wipe the unit out just like that... but then you put a lot into one basket and you have to play it carefully.
Personal quote: "It's better to do little damage and lose nothing than to do lots of damage and lose everything."
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Tyrannus deathbringer
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Post by Tyrannus deathbringer »

Nice round up, Tsunami :D
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Post by Cold73 »

There is no way for me to add anything more to the excellent post Lord Tsunami has already given.

But as for
My question here is, other than debuff with shadow magic, how do we compete with a lv 4 slann with the lore of life? His PD pool will be even larger than mine believe it or not.


Magic is always a bit of psychological warfare. Make your opponent sweat before the battle even begins. If you are afraid of his magic phase, try to see if you can even it out a bit more. If you use Shadow Magic that is easy, if you have both Withering and Enfeebling Foe even more so. Everytime he needs to use dice to dispell stuff, or recast Throne of Vines is one less he can use to cast the spells he really wants.

And if you have a 2nd caster with Dark Magic, he will begin to see the need to get rid of Remains in Play spells like that very quickly. Enfeebling Foe and Black Horror combination mean anything
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Thanee
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Post by Thanee »

Yeah, it is usually a good idea to dispel Throne of Vines. :)

If it gets through... dispel it again on your turn.

Bye
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Saintofm
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Post by Saintofm »

Sourus Warriors will be a pain.

While they have I 1, they also have S and T 4, and WS 4. Thank heaven they are expensive point wise...Oh wait, one unit takes up the core requirements of a quarter of the points.


Sourous Cavalrey won't be too much of a problem. Charge them with your own and have some fun.

Hydras can do some dammage now that the flaming breath attack can be used in close combat.

Probably want corsairs, 30 in ranks of 10 to get horde formation for the attacks.

Normal sized minies: 1 attack each rank, first 2 ranks. Spears add a rank, horde adds another.

So in the case of corsairs, 50 attacks with 2 hand weapons.

Give them Killing blow via the cauldron and you have it made in the shade.

Assassin with Rending Stars and Manbane can be fun, especially when fighting the stegadon as the manbane makes your base strength 6, and the rending stars are thrown at S7 (may want 2 hand weapons if you get charged).
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Drachau
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Post by Drachau »

long time since i have posted here....

anyway i have played lots of games against lizardmen and came to find that a few tings work.

keep youre LV4 24" away so he cant delete youre rolls of 6 on attempting to cast a spell with his toad.

masted amount of shooting worked wonderfull for me.

had used shadow magic
( 3x10 xbows, 2x5 darkriders, 2x15 shades, hydra )
if you get withering off then its the end off the story for that unit.

another tip. if he has a life slann then you must always dispell throne of vines.... his spells that he will cast after that spell will be twice as nasty.

i saw that you had executioners. together with metal magic and bsb hag with asf banner should mop up his templeguard. a magic banner of eternal flame should do well if his temple guard get regen from his life lore.

what has been said before. clear the chaff to control the movement face. but massed fire should have no problem there.

that all said end done i do not have any other advice.
Kuwanger23
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Post by Kuwanger23 »

Well my friend and I ended up playing a our first game in over 5 years. His list wasn't as good as it sounded come to find out. I had my lv 4 within 24" of his Slaan the entire game. He set his temple guard up in the middle and had one block of saurus to his right and a stegadon, skinks with Kroxs and a 5 man cav unit. Also off to the right flank was 2 salamanders. He was bunched up in the middle so I flanked him with witches on the left and a hydra on the right. Long story short I lost a unit of 6 harpies that game and he lost everything. It was a blood bath and a lot of leather boots were brought back home that day. I think he learned the importance of int as well. Here is what I took:

lv 4 shadow with dagger
lv 2 dark with extra PD
hag BSB cauldron
30 warriors
28 corsairs with frenzy banner
28 witches with banner of murder
1 hydra
2 bolt throwers
10 crossbow men
6 harpies
6 harpies
2 assassins

I hope that fantasy isn't always this one sided and that there are games that are a little more fun and or close. I play my other friends orks this week. This should prove to more of a challenge (hoepfully).
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