Ulthuan

Hey folk I need some advice dealing with Lizardmen. I play them fairly regularly and almost ALWAYS in tourneys. I just cant seem to beat them, the army has no weakness that I can see. In the most recent tourney I faced off against two of them and was wiped out to the last man. What types of units and tactics do you employ against them? How can I use Spearmen effectively? What lore of magic is best?

I play lizards all the time. Here are my thoughts:

1) The Slaan. There are two ways they will serve up a Slaan. He'll either have a 16-20 temple guard retinue or be solo with Ethereal and the 2+ ward against shooting. Expect Lore of Life. Expect Cupped Hands. Expect Becalming Cogitation. Expect the Slaan to be the BSB. With Cold Blooded Saurus on a LD 9 reroll, expect to have to kill every saurus to the last man. Don't worry, HEs can do this. If you have the points, I highly recommend a Chicken Noble with Star Lance. If he does have a solo slaan, you can insta win by hunting him down with the star lance noble.

2) Kill the slaan. This is priority Alpha. No matter how they kit it out, a Slaan is super expensive. In a temple guard unit, its basically a full third of his points. Get the Slaan and you win.

3)Your Magic. Keep your wizards more than 24 inches from the Slaan (probably very doable since he won't want that space frog on the front lines, even if he is in a TG unit) and out of the Slaan's LOS if possible. This will stop him from doing Becalming on an important wizard. Assuming you have one of the premier lores, Purple Sun, Pit of Shades or Dwellers are all worth casting on the Slaan's unit. If the Slaan is solo, bomb him with the same. Still worth it.

4) Your Dispel priorities - Do not let him get off Throne of Vines. Dispel that, even if it means he gets off Dwellers. If he has Cupped Hands, its one use only. After that, a miscast will mean doom. He's in base with about 12 models in that Temple Guard unit. If you are in CC, don't let him get off Stone to Flesh either. Prioritize those two spells to the exclusion of others.

5)His units - Salamanders are a pain, kill them with missle fire or even a pair of Eagles. Stegs are not such a big deal ranked up spears can probably handle one just with sheer static CR. Saurus units are superior to our core, but only marginally so. You should expect to kill about the same amount of models he does per round. With some magical augments/hexes you can decimate him in CC. Skinks are annoying, but that is it. Use Eagles to sweep them out of the way so your other main units can advance. Lizards are weak in the unit department. They have no worthwhile elites to field. Nothing that they have can match up with our PG, WLs or SMs. Get our all-stars into combat with his main units and you will butcher them, badly.

6) Deployment - Deploy heavily on one flank. Use Eagle drops to spread out his deployment. Overload on a single flank and move quickly. You want CC as soon as possible. Life magic becomes far less usefull once you hvae hit melee. Just don't let him get Throne off and you will have him over a barrell magically.

Hmmmmm. I like that advice. What would you do against a lizardmen army of lots of saurus, solo slann with light, chameleon skinks, terradon riders, and some salamanders?

Ptolemy wrote:5)His units - Salamanders are a pain, kill them with missle fire or even a pair of Eagles.

Agreed - Salamanders are always a top priority for our T3 High Elves. Assuming your opponent doesn't kill your Eagles with poisoned skink shooting, they could be used to attack a Salamander. This could be an uphill fight though, especially if the Sallies are within range of the Slann BSB. Two Eagles against a single Sally I can be done. Two on two (or more) will probably struggle. Dragon Princes are a natural answer to Sallies with their quick movement and Dragon Armor.

Ptolemy wrote:Use Eagles to sweep them out of the way so your other main units can advance.

Maybe my regular Lizardman opponents realize the utility of Eagles, because against Lizards mine rarely survive turn two. As stated previously they go down to poisoned skink shooting either during a stand and shoot, scouting chameleons, or marching skirmishers (which can still shoot).

Terradons are a priority target for me as well - at least until they drop rocks. My opponent likes to drop them on Dragon Princes or elite infantry blocks.

Arcsheild, what sort of list are you planning? Or are you literally starting from the ground up?

[quote="Ptolemy"] Saurus units are superior to our core, but only marginally so. You should expect to kill about the same amount of models he does per round. With some magical augments/hexes you can decimate him in CC.[quote]

They are strenght 4 toughness 4 w/ 2 attacks and better armor. Thats a little more then marginally when compared to Spearmen or Seaguard don't you think?

Blackmoon wrote:They are strenght 4 toughness 4 w/ 2 attacks and better armor. Thats a little more then marginally when compared to Spearmen or Seaguard don't you think?

Agreed.

Ptolemy's breakdown was excellent. I happen to rate skinks, however, since they can throw down loads of shooting and totally mess up our movement phase. My approach is basically as follows: shoot his support units (skirmishers, terradons, salamanders) first and hold up his Slann's TG unit (if he's got one). Apply a round of shooting to the TG and then apply swordmasters. 14 swordmasters with my prince have ripped an entire unit apart in one round.

As Ptolemy says, get our elites fighting his on even terms and they'll kick arse. Make that your aim.

And kill the Slann! We've got lots of options for mobile power-house models (eagle noble, mounted prince, big monsters). If his Slann is solo then he's vulnerable to these things.

Blackmoon wrote:

Ptolemy wrote: Saurus units are superior to our core, but only marginally so. You should expect to kill about the same amount of models he does per round. With some magical augments/hexes you can decimate him in CC.

They are strenght 4 toughness 4 w/ 2 attacks and better armor. Thats a little more then marginally when compared to Spearmen or Seaguard don't you think?

Um, try a unit of 25 Saurus vs a unit of 20 spearelves, without any command;

The Saurus have 5 model frontage engaged and so do the elves. Also let us assume the Lizards got off the charge so they get +1 to combat resolution already.

The elves have 20 attacks hitting on 3+ with a re-roll to hit so about 13.3 hit on the first roll and another 4.4 gets added to that making it about 17.7 hits. Strength 3 vs toughness 4 sucks so with wounding on 5's the elves get a bit sadder with only an aproximate 5.9 wounds that are then whittled down by armour and the +6 ward save to something like 2.78 kills.

Saurus have 10 attacks from the front and 5 from supporting attacks in the next rank, hit on a +4 so 7.5 hits are made. They wound on a 3+ so roughly 5 wounds are made as the strength 4 negates the light armour.


So we get a difference in the averages with 2-3 wounds.

Natio broke it down perfectly. Our Core, crappy statline as it is with poor armor still hits most everything on 3s or 4s and rerolls misses. This cannot be underestimated.

I'll say it again, the new ASF rules makes HE the premier close combat army in Warhammer. God forbid you get even a single Withering off on that saurus unit and its going to turn into a bloodbath quick.

The best defense in all of Warhammer has always been (in any editon) the To Hit chart. The lack of any 2s on the chart makes the ability to flub attack roles the true weakness of any army. Who hasn't seen the chaos lord whiff on 4/5 attacks? Remember that your enemies will hit your elves 50% of the time and you can out class them regularly. Throw Miasma on them and watch them hit only 33% of the time. Elves with superior WS hit on the order of 80% of the time. I don't care what his strength/toughness is, you will win more combats than you think.

Basic, unbuffed spears have taken down Ancient stegs and Varghulfs for me.

I happen to rate skinks, however, since they can throw down loads of shooting and totally mess up our movement phase.

I rate them also, with the only issue being that there are so many points being poured into the Slaan that there is often very little left for the Lizzie player to field in large numbers. If he is devoting another several hundred points into redirectors and pray-for-poison shooters, its all the easier to get to the Slaan and end the game.

What would you do against a lizardmen army of lots of saurus, solo slann with light, chameleon skinks, terradon riders, and some salamanders?

Light is a fantastic lore. Highly underestimated. Here are your options - Eagle Assassin =chicken noble with star lance. Charge the solo slaan (who is quite slow) and end the game. Tricksters Pendant - He will miscast eventually, make him pay for it. Lore of Fire - Flaming Sword of Rhuin - laugh like a school girl when your seaguard/archer fire takes down his 500 pt Slaan.

I would ignore the chameleons. I don't use RBTs so i don't care what they do. They will kill about 2-3 models per round. They'll have two rounds of shooting, max before I'm in combat. If your opponent lacks sense, he will charge my unit's flank and give me free combat res on his T2 skinks.

Terradons - I've had little experience against them. My impression is they are almost always run with a brave. I would use my Lore of Death Prince to spirit leech him off his perch for free points and thank my opponent.

Salamanders - Chicken noble again. With Dragon armor, he laughs. Failing that, go with basic archer/RBT fire. They go away fast enough. Failing that, send in the infantry. They can't stand and shoot and aren't worth much in CC. As others have said Dragon Princes are perfect for this task and, considering they have few other juicy targets against lizards, I would happily let them excel in this role.

Large Blocks of Saurus - I would push my models forward and win. With even marginal magical buffs, my WLs and PG will face rape them.

Great discussion and advice in here.

One thing that I notice with Deathstar players is that their huge point investment tends to dominate their focus during the game. It often becomes very easy for them to become fixated on buffing/preserving their primary point investment, while not properly supporting the rest of their force. As has been mentioned, look for the easy opportunities to pressure and eradicate those support units, since they're all vulnerable to Strength 3 arrows, magic or charges from our quicker stuff.

I also agree that a good, well supported unit of our elites can do quite a number versus Temple Guard. As has been mentioned, the To Hit chart works in our favor; you mentioned that Lizardmen don't seem to have any weaknesses, but Initiative and Weapon Skill are definitely two of them. If you're taking Lore of Shadows, virtually any spell in that Lore will make a Lizardman player panic. Debuffing their Weapon Skill means that virtually all their units hit elite infantry on 5+, while Withering/Mindrazor will make him panic at the sight of Swordmasters, Phoenix Guard, Spearmen or Archers . Pit of Shades, of course, can be a game-breaker with a single cast.

As has been mentioned though, it's critical to remember that the Slann will do his best to shut down your caster, so take advantage of the ability to freely measure distance by making 100% sure you're keeping your caster outside of Becalming Cogitation range while trying to stay within range of the spells that you want to cast. Don't underestimate the value of items like Sigil of Asuryan too; I've started taking it in every game because the possibility of erasing a major spell is simply too good to ignore.

Just to recap: High Elves excel at hunting support units, so try to thin his support so you can turn your attention on his big blocks. Make good use of your magic phase, but be aware of the Slann's capabilities in shutting you down and take the necessary precautions.

Lastly, in case you're building a list from the ground up, consider Dragon Princes. Not only are they excellent for scaring off Salamanders and Terradons, but they have great survivability versus the Strength 4, Strength 5 and Poison attacks that Lizardmen can field in abundance. After they use their lances for an initial charge, their multiple attacks and re-rolls to hit keeps them very nasty in extended combats with a bit of support from Shadows, especially if you feel like springing for the Razor Standard. Once again, armor helps ensure they survive return attacks from the Strength 5 you're likely encounter. With Amulet of Light, they can even hunt down a lone Ethereal Slann and possibly force an opponent into a game-breaking mistake if he doesn't suspect they have magical attacks.

I normally don't endorse building a list to counter a specific opponent, but since Dragon Princes are fairly useful versus everyone, you're not losing out by experimenting with them.

I seem to have overlooked how good the lore of shadow is against pretty much everyone. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

Tethlis wrote:Great discussion and advice in here.

One thing that I notice with Deathstar players is that their huge point investment tends to dominate their focus during the game. It often becomes very easy for them to become fixated on buffing/preserving their primary point investment, while not properly supporting the rest of their force. As has been mentioned, look for the easy opportunities to pressure and eradicate those support units, since they're all vulnerable to Strength 3 arrows, magic or charges from our quicker stuff.

I found this exactly in my last round of Lizardmen games. My opponent put so many dice into ensuring that his Slann's Temple Guard unit had extra toughness and shield of thorns (he was scared of my RBTs and Silver Helm Bus), that he completely ignored the fact that I was actually most concerned with wiping out all of his support units so I could surround and crush his blocks in the later turns. Which I did. After ignoring these magical exertions, I easily had enough dispel dice to get rid of the more worrying spells.

BTW what is a "chicken noble" and "deathstar player"?

Blackmoon wrote:BTW what is a "chicken noble" and "deathstar player"?

A noble riding a Great Eagle and a player that puts most of his points into a single, powerful unit that is nearly impossible to break and owns in combat and magic or shooting.

How do you defeat a Stegadon with Spearmen?

You don't, you just make sure to keep your BSB nearby so the unit will be steafdast until there's less than 5 models left, and try and get help in other ways, e.g. Mindrazor on the Spearmen, Dragon Princes in the flank, etc.

Blackmoon wrote:How do you defeat a Stegadon with Spearmen?

Luck.

Blackmoon wrote:How do you defeat a Stegadon with Spearmen?

Well, you can...

1. Use the spearmen to lure the Stegadon out of position, so that you can flank charge it with your White Lions/Dragon Princes with Greatsword wielding Prince while it's distracted.

2. Use the spearmen to lure the Stegadon out of position to put it in range of a Spirit Leech from your RGOH prince, which makes the Stegadon cry.

3. Flank charge it with your spearmen after buffing them with a Mindrazor spell on it.

4. Use the spearmen to lure the Stegadon into range of your Archmage, so that he can cast Miasma on it, drop the initiative of the Stegadon and crew, and then cast Penumbral Pendulum on it (a combination referred to locally as Skink-bowling)

5. Flank it with the spearmen after your Archmage has dropped the Stegadon's toughness a lot via hexes.

What you can't generally do is have a fresh Stegadon charge into a unit of un-buffed Spearmen and expect much other than a lot of dead spearmen through impact hits, thunderstomp and the like. Although you might kill a few of the crew if you get lucky.

Nuthromil wrote:
4. Use the spearmen to lure the Stegadon into range of your Archmage, so that he can cast Miasma on it, drop the initiative of the Stegadon and crew, and then cast Penumbral Pendulum on it (a combination referred to locally as Skink-bowling)

Interesting, the spell resolves and acts like a cannon ball when determining hits that everyone of the skink riders and the stegadon each make a test. Templates, cannon ball shots being included in this, hit every model on a base. I like the local appellation quite a fair bit, to use a colloqualism, I lol'd.

To be fair, dropping Miasma on the Stegadon and then hitting it with the Pendulum doesn't tend to kill it off quite as effectively as something like dropping Miasma on the Stegadon and then going in with something like Pit of Shades. However, the Pendulum is ideal for hitting Stegadons with, because of that template rule - every skink on board is going to be dodging hits. The Pendulum has quite a long range; even better, it means that Pit of Shades is probably still available to cast on another unit. That's one reason I like the combination so much - it puts my opponent in the position of dispelling the Pendulum, and possibly not having enough dice to dispel the Pit, or letting the Pendulum through and probably losing the Stegadon crew. A single hit won't kill the Stegadon because of the number of wounds these critters have, but leaving a Stegadon in the middle of the board with no riders can cause some interesting problems, and I do like still being able to drop Pit on another Stegadon or a nice tempting unit of Saurus.

Ya don't need the spears to affect the Stegadon with spirit leach, it's not like it can borrow the Slann's LD...

Stormie wrote:Ya don't need the spears to affect the Stegadon with spirit leach, it's not like it can borrow the Slann's LD...

That's not the point for using the spears - the spears are simply a tasty lure to pull a Stegadon forward until it's in range of a Spirit Leech spell.

Will you really be able to get off that many spells against a Slann player though?

I play both Lizzies and HE, most of the best advice has already been given. One thing I will add though is ignore Skinks, they are annoying littkle buggers but their cheapness makes them an ideal "burn" unit. Shooting or charging at them is almost always a waste of time. Concentrate of the bigger problems.

Nuthromil wrote:That's not the point for using the spears - the spears are simply a tasty lure to pull a Stegadon forward until it's in range of a Spirit Leech spell.

Again, why? 24" range means you don't really need a lure...

If I am running spirit leech it is on a RGoH Prince on a great eagle who can hop around the battlefield casting it on anything he wants. I normaly put a JotD on him as well to ensure I have plenty of dice...

Stormie wrote:

Nuthromil wrote:That's not the point for using the spears - the spears are simply a tasty lure to pull a Stegadon forward until it's in range of a Spirit Leech spell.

Again, why? 24" range means you don't really need a lure...

Only if you buy the higher spell. 12 for the original cheaper version.

All great advice, it'll actually help me in further battles. One thing i hate about skinks is that they took down a unit of shadow warriors with alith anar in it, and were in range of a fleeing unit, so they kept fleeing, after i shot them with a bolt thrower that hit, but somehow failed to wound.

Now this is all good advice, but something you have to learn is, Lizardmen are DEADLY. Lore of life for lizardmen = defeat (if your good enough). Lore of LIGHT with lizardmen with bironias timewarp and speed of light = weapon skill 10, inititive 10, movement 8, +1 attack lizardmen. Enough for a basic unit of them to SLAUGHTER 10 swordmasters. I killed one unit, they killed all of them. Thanks to some bad dice rolls...

Hi all. I am a new player (played three 'tutorial games') and having bought my HE army I am about to play my first more serious games this weekend against a Lizardmen player so this advice is all very useful.

I would appreciate any further input ppl have for my upcoming game although I am not trying to tailor my list in any way towards lizardmen, I just want it to perform well. At 2000pts my list will be:
Teclis: Shadow (sorry - we play competitively(ish))
BSB: GP, AoC
20 spearmen
20 LSG
20 WLs
19 PG
5 DPs
2 GEs

Last time we played he had a Slann with the standard no 6s & extra dice, TG, 40 saurus 6 krox terradons and some skinks. I really expect 2 salamanders though this time.

At the moment my basic plan is stick Teclis in the LSG and BSB in the PG. Deploy spears and LSG in middle and hold whilst WLs & PG go up a flank to get into CC. I expect then to be trying to hunt the salamanders with my GEs and DPs as said on this thread.

As mentioned I am very new so aside from reading the Eagle tactics thread I am sure there are loads of subtle tricks I will be missing, I would be grateful for anymore input of any kind regarding using my army just so I can avoid getting mercilessly crushed.

Cheers.

Your magic is going to be very, very good here. Pit, Pendulum in the opening turns will cause tremendous damage on this big Saurus blocks. Your other priority spells are up to you; Withering will make arrow fire very effective, and reducing Movement or Ballistic Skill can counter the effectiveness of skinks or make Salamanders easier for your Dragon Princes to cast.

Once you make it into combat, it will be all about debuffing those Saurus as much as possible. Rob their WS to they need 5+ to hit, drop their Toughness so your Phoenix Guard wound on a 2+, debuff Strength to help your troops last longer.

Shadows is brilliant versus Lizardmen because many of their stats are already so low that it doesn't take much to really sabotage their effectiveness, and poor Initiative in all their heavy combat units means you can destroy whole swathes of Saurus quite easily.

Do your very best to keep Teclis outside of 24 inch range of the Slann, measuring every turn and adjusting Teclis' positioning so the Slann doesn't shut down those important 6s.

Your combat troops can walk over his in melee, but it's important to keep them supported, so pay heavy attention to the magic phase in order give your units that important advantage.

Thanks for the hints Tethlis - in particular the one about reducing reducing stats like movement to limit the skinks usefulness. Hadnt considered before I could take away between 20 and 60% of movement I guess?

Ensuring Teclis is outside the 24' will be difficult but I guess it is key to avoid hamstringing my magic. I can see I will have to put a lot of extra thought into where I want the combats to take place so I still have the range to cast lower strength/toughtness into them without being in range of the slann itself..

Cheers