Last weekend I played two games against the new Lizards army. The lists were far from tuned as my opponent was rather wanting to test all the new rules and abilities of the army so had pretty much one of every unit type. The first game he had something along the lines of -
Scar vet on cold one
skink chief on steg
Skink priest on ancient / engine of gods
8 x skinks
1 x cohort, 1 krox
20 x ranked skinks (steg ancient joined unit)
20 x saurus with spears
10 x saurus with spears
4 x terradons
2 x salamanders
1 x razerdon
Second game he had much the same but made the following changes -
1 Steg
Slann
2 razerdons
1 salamander
The biggest weakness I noticed with the stegadons was that the skinks on top were so fragile. Even with the 2+ save from the ancient, his weapon skill and toughness is so low it's easy to throw engouh wounds agains him that he's bound to fail some armour saves. This pretty much removes the ability for the stegs to join skink or saurus infantry to make them stubborn as once they are without the character obviously they are forced out. My standard battle plan was to double charge my wyvern and one hit wonda hero on wolf into a steg infantry block and have my hero knock the skink off the top while my black orc and wyvern wailed on the unit.
Razerdons weren't as nasty as I expected purely for the fact that when they do the double artillery shots for their stand and shoot, if either of the two dice rolls up a misfire all shots are cancelled for that particular razerdon. It means on average a unit of 3 razerdons will do 4 artillery shots worth of spikes (15 approx). Another thing to take notice of when charging Razerdons is that while they don't receive many 'to hit' penalties for moving and shooting, long range or stand and shoot they do receive penalties trying to hit models in cover, or skirmishers. If you need to charge these guys, charge them with squig hoppers (preferably charging out of a forest!)
Anyway, I ended up with two wins agains the new lizards, one by about 500, one by about 350. I think they have the potential to be a tough army, but the direction GW has given the new lizards is quite different to the old one, so i'm guessing many players will struggling until they find the new playstyle associated with them.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Is magic defence really worth it?
After a small time running my Vampires and to a lesser extent my Savage Orcs, i've been inspired to bring the army of Gobwarts out again for another bash. This time they will be used in the 2100 point April Tournament Empire in Flames.
I've always found my goblins a real struggle to make work since the release of High Elves and Vampire Counts. High elves are difficult thanks to ASF which renders my squig hoppers useless (my favourite unit) and VC obviously have a world of advantages over the greenskins in the magic and pyschology areas. The MOAB tournament was my first attempt at running a very magic heavy /defensive greenskin list (10 power dice, 7 dispel 2 scrolls) to see if it would improve my chances against the troublesome armies. Unfortunately, it did nothing but make my list less effective as magic is very fickle and dangerous in the hands of a greenskin shaman. Multiple times over the tournament did I miscast and blow up from rolling a 4 on the miscast table (which still amazes many non O&G generals that you die from rolling a 4 or less). Plus I only faced the one magic heavy army, the rest were mostly gunlines.
This has got me thinking, is magic defence really going to save you in a goblin army? Is it really worthwhile investing in two level 2 shaman with the staff of sneaky stealin' and 2 scrolls? Every time I face VC or TK they always manage to get the spells through they need by single spamming their dice over and over. Once scrolls are burnt, it's game over the question just lies whether it happens on turn 2 or turn 4.
So in an attempt to try something new, i'm running my greenskins now with 4 combat characters and 0 magic defence. I'm currently 2 wins from 2 with it so far, so my fingers are crossed I can continue this good form. I believe the army design can definitely work, it just involves you planning out the assassination of enemy wizards as early as turn 2. I'll be having a few more games and i'll post my thoughts on it a little later in the week.
I've always found my goblins a real struggle to make work since the release of High Elves and Vampire Counts. High elves are difficult thanks to ASF which renders my squig hoppers useless (my favourite unit) and VC obviously have a world of advantages over the greenskins in the magic and pyschology areas. The MOAB tournament was my first attempt at running a very magic heavy /defensive greenskin list (10 power dice, 7 dispel 2 scrolls) to see if it would improve my chances against the troublesome armies. Unfortunately, it did nothing but make my list less effective as magic is very fickle and dangerous in the hands of a greenskin shaman. Multiple times over the tournament did I miscast and blow up from rolling a 4 on the miscast table (which still amazes many non O&G generals that you die from rolling a 4 or less). Plus I only faced the one magic heavy army, the rest were mostly gunlines.
This has got me thinking, is magic defence really going to save you in a goblin army? Is it really worthwhile investing in two level 2 shaman with the staff of sneaky stealin' and 2 scrolls? Every time I face VC or TK they always manage to get the spells through they need by single spamming their dice over and over. Once scrolls are burnt, it's game over the question just lies whether it happens on turn 2 or turn 4.
So in an attempt to try something new, i'm running my greenskins now with 4 combat characters and 0 magic defence. I'm currently 2 wins from 2 with it so far, so my fingers are crossed I can continue this good form. I believe the army design can definitely work, it just involves you planning out the assassination of enemy wizards as early as turn 2. I'll be having a few more games and i'll post my thoughts on it a little later in the week.
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