Hey all,
A whole lot of good commentary just went down! I think I've dealt with the substantive issues but, if I've missed anything, I'll spot it and come back to it later. I'm glad you enjoyed the report, in any event. I'll admit that I'm having a serious amount of fun with the new set-up. Who'd choose a second repeater bolt thrower over the Banner of Sorcery, and High Magic over a rulebook lore? I think it might have some legs, so more games are on the way.
Now then, down to business...
Battle Review - High Elves v Lizardmen
SpellArcher wrote:On High Magic, it does make some sense if you have just the one caster. In that it has a defensive buff, a good missile, a unit-hurting spell and a shooting buff, plus the fun stuff. In some ways my list is like a less efficient version of yours Seredain and while I've been tempted to try other Lores, I still think it's the best single option for this style of list.
Enjoying the High
It's only my first game with High Magic, so I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I was so so pleased with the way it worked. Even when I had low rolls for power dice, I was still getting 3 casts made a turn - and these casts are so effective for their points, given my unit choices. Unlike my recent experience, where Life has toughened up the swordmasters and threatened Dwellers on wherever the enemy general was, I felt much more able to inflict damage during the early turns
where it was needed. Dwellers is a powerful spell, no doubt, but its character-sniping ability encourages you to pick targets containing characters, not the targets that might actually be the most useful to lay damage on. With High, since it's got Vaul's, you can keep that pressure on the enemy characters
and lay down an awesome amount of fire power, for very little, with some combination of Flames Fury and, of course, Arrow Attraction. I think you'll agree, the repeaters have made a welcome return.
Just wait until they bag their first Bloodthirster...
SpellArcher wrote:When you dropped the White Lions back 2 1/2, were you aware that you could have moved 3? Specific example given in the rulebook of this, so obviously you round up in 8th edition. I speak as a 6th edition Wood Elf player whose archers spent much of their time moving backwards!
Actually I was! But a recent opponent told me I was wrong and, since I didn't want to bother checking the book again while playing Mal, I just took the 2.5. Thanks for clarifying, though - I'll remember in future. On reflection, that's quite an advantage to the elves, isn't it, having a whole extra inch of backward movement? Useful for units in the lions' position, for sure. I was actually quite looking forward to combat with them, though. I'd planned to slide them east for the next turn, get another round of shooting into the saurus and then, if they charged the lions, flank them with the 18 archers on Turn 6. Ah, well.
wamphyri101 wrote:Hi Bud,
I like your list. Its different to most things you see nowadays. Only Thing I would like to add is I would personally try and squeeze in 2 lion chariots. They can really pack a punch and could add to your list. Only thing you could really drop would be the sword masters or white lions though due to points.
Thanks Wamp. I should say, two lion chariots is not the sort of thing you can just squeeze in - it's 280 points! I've spent plenty of points in fast attack and honestly I feel that another great dollop of it would make the list just a little too brittle. Curu found something similar back when he was running a dual-cavalry hammer: having the big charge is great, but if you haven't got some ranks or some decent close combat attacks for Round 2, you'll bounce off a few too many armies out there. Infantry are great in the attack but also keep hitting, can take more hits and can stand just as well in defense as they can offense. For me, a truly all-comers list needs them.
Mind you, the helm bus, plus two lion chariots, plus the spear column is probably one of the baddest combo-charges out there. If you can pull it off and keep it rolling (ie avoid stubborn/unbreakable units), it'll chomp a whooole lot of stuff. Just take it philosophically when cannons blow your chariots apart!
Swordmaster of Hoeth wrote:Hi Seredain!
That was a much more difficult match up for Mallas. With more shooting (and spell augment) he had to close the distance fast only to meet your elites and cavalry. I think it was his mistake to deploy on the flank. Both armies moved on a spiral but your cavalry was much faster and while he didn't clear any units while doing so, you killed Stegadon and his skirmishers.
Nicely summarised Swordmaster.
Ultimately, both armies here were trying to do the same thing- refused flank- but mine was much better designed for it. Even before combats hit, I'm dominating the midfield with my shooting, gaining me the advantage for the big combats but also, as you saw, forcing the lizardman skirmishers to throw themselves away for fear of just being shot to death. We elves don't like skinks, but very few of my units had to worry about them here because I was just wiping them off the field with arrows. In the end, only one unit got within (long) range of one of my repeaters before it was killed by the eagle (hiding behind the archers so gaining protection from the stand-and-shoot). That they chose to shoot the lions was a blessing, though they'd only be hitting the bolter on 6's with single shots and, to memory, about four of them weren't even in range- not good odds.
In summary, repeaters are only vulnerable where you leave them so. Get to work clearing the skinks with arrows, use eagles leaping from cover behind friendly units, and you can protect the machines very well from these skirmishers and use them to shoot at harder targets.
Swordmaster of Hoeth wrote:
Just two things about the game:
1. Artillery dice has no "9" on it, so it must have been 8 or 10
But the main thing is that salamander shot over the heads of Lions
Haha, roger that! I was still thinking of the range on the engines blast when I typed that. Edited...
Swordmaster of Hoeth wrote:
2. Why did you accept challenge from the skink shaman with the Prince? BSB could do the same job while the Prince could hack the Stegadon.
This has been dealt with fully below but it's an important point to highlight for anyone facing a ridden monster (even one with other crew on it): where the character challenges, the monster also fights in the challenge and the crew do nothing. So, ideally, you want your best character fighting this thing.
What I did
not know was that a monster stayed in a challenge even after the rider is dead. That is a tasty piece of knowledge...
dabber wrote:GhostWarrior wrote:Was the Stegadon still in the challenge after the Priest died? This is an 8th Ed change, the monster stays in the challenge even if the riding character dies, until the monster (or opponent) dies/breaks/etc.
Wow, I had not noticed that one, but you are correct. Page 103, for everyone else. So the Dragon Prince charge could not hurt the Stegadon, and Seredain probably should have been allocating on the Stegadon exclusively, and popping the Talisman of Loec to ensure it died before the Engine could explode again.
Now THAT is worth knowing. Dang! Thanks GhostWarrior - never ever think that I don't want to know the rules inside out. Look back through the reports and you'll see that I usually make at least 1 rules mistake per game. Seriously, I need them pointing out! To be honest, you miss things in the book and only stumble upon proper memory when you attach it to an event like this:
mental note - steg stays in challenge.
The Tactics of challenging an Ancient Stegadon
Lovely game sense here, Dabber. And I think it's a good shout. Seredain was easily capable of taking the steg out in two rounds before it got a chance to blast the engine again and, on balance, I think this would have been the best use of my time. One other consideration, though, is the cube of darkness the skink was carrying. At the time of the challenge, I wouldn't have known what my next magic phase was going to be like, so there would have been a decision to make as to whether or not I wanted the Cube to be still alive when my phase came about. On balance, I would probably have taken that risk – my magic phase is cheap as chips – but heavier, more expensive magic phases than mine might think again about taking on the steg first – as I might if I felt my next magic phase was likely to be crucial. One reason, I suppose, for committing the dragon princes to the fight even where Seredain was locked in a challenge, would be to pursue the skink when he ran. That way the helms could still reform and be threatening the field with a charge should the cohort get frisky and move out (again, though, this scenario was probably better suited to the helms pursuit, freeing up my dragon princes to charge the salamander a turn earlier.
Anyway – a good rule spot by you Ghost and good nous from you Dabber. Based on your thinking, a good rule of thumb for taking out ancients
even when they're near Life slanns, is to receive, rather than make, a charge. That way you have two rounds to kill him before the engine goes off and wounds go on the stegadon. Taking a charge as a tactic with knights? Who'da thunk it.
Ultimately, I wanted the engine dead much more than I wanted the steg dead and, since there was nothing else blocking my knights apart from the stegadon, I'd figure I had the time to cut it up. I'd look at it like this: would I rather the extra turn of movement, or an extra handful of unburned silver helms? In principle, unless time is urgent, I'd go with the latter. Finally, apart from anything else, killing the skink did weaken the lizard magic phase and bag me a cube of darkness, so it was probably a good move even in the event of a properly run challenge.
GhostWarrior wrote:Love how much damage you did to the Cohort with shooting, though I'm surprised none of the Krox had died to shooting up to that point - were you randomizing?
No! That was my fault I think. We'd had quite a few vodkas but I think I remember Mal saying
"do we randomise hits?" and me saying
"nah..". Oops. Good to know there's some way to put hurt on those kroxigor, though. Something (else) to remember.
GhostWarrior wrote:@Mallas:
Deploying the Ancient Steg on the flank was a bold and risky manuevre, but I think you might have been able to make it work if: You'd charged the Dragon Princes - Would you say that the distance was about eqaul here (the picture of deployment showed them as closer, but I can't say it stayed that way)?
I described my Turn 1 cavalry moves, but a photo would have made it clearer. The dragon princes did not advance at all Turn 1, but only shuffled left (east) toward the board edge to choke off the advancing salamander and have a counter-charge against the steg if it attacked. The silver helms then marched about 13 or 14" through the gap and stood out well ahead of the princes. At the beginning of Turn 2, then, the stegadon (close to the helms), could not avoid the silver helms but was not at all within comfortable charge range of the princes. When the Engine went off Turn 2, it was a 9” roll and only just caught the princes, so a charge against them wasn't really feasible. And rightly so! No commander should leave 5 dragon princes within reach of an ancient steg. That's just asking for trouble!
Brewmaster_D wrote:Another great game, Seredain!
Cheers D!
I'll deal with your points in turn, if I may.
Brewmaster_D wrote: Deployment is a huge advantage that High Elves have over most other armies, with a well designed list being able to retain the committal drops much longer than most. Recently I've been trying to put myself in the shoes of the opponent and run through in my head how I would go about mitigating this advantage. My thoughts are that to truly compete with the High Elf deployment advantages, the opponent must be proactive instead of reactive. For example, the Saurus block drop was reactive - he had deployed the rest of his force waiting for you to drop something that would tip him off regarding your strategy. The problem is that this plays into the advantage of the High Elves; we can usually wait longer than the opponent. I think to effectively deploy against a list like yours, Seredain, your opponent must conceptualize a deployment in their head that makes a cavalry approach difficult (I'd use the board edge to cover one flank, for example) and stick to that, as opposed to reacting to your drops. What are your thoughts on this? What do you feel is the most effective method for an opponent to deploy vs. your list?
How should these Lizardmen deploy against the Cavalry Prince List?
This is a very good question but also a very difficult one to answer since it totally depends on the opposing army list and the scenario. If you were a dwarven gunline fighting battleline, you'd obviously just want to sit in a corner and fire away, forcing me to bust through your units front-on. I can do this, mind - I can close ground quickly and the army is good in combat - but it is far from ideal since, in general, I can combine many more attacks into one enemy unit when I'm in its flank. So a decent principle against my army would be
guard your flanks!
In this instance, though, I'm not sure the 'hug board edge' idea is a good one. The problem that lizards have right off the bat against High Elves, after deployment, is that their range is really short. If the High Elf list has decent magic and shooting, it can be eroding the lizards away from Turn 1 and, until they get close, there's not much they can do about it. This creates a problem for any army trying to stand defensively (and where, crucially, Dwellers isn't in range of anything decent) since, if they stand their combat units back but send forth their skinks, the skinks are just going to get magicked to Hell, shot to death and run down by eagles and horses. I think, for the lizards, the best bet is to bring the slann within Dwellers range of my general, force me to get stuck in and build a good defence against that attack. In so doing, though, you want to get your big units in combat pretty quickly because, once my shooting phase is done with the skinks, it really hurts the combat units, as you saw.
Thinking about the above then, you don't really want to hug a board edge, since I can just do exactly what I did here to the saurus warriors but more so: my missile base can stand safely far away and my knights can close the open ground quickly. If you (the lizard) stand too defensively, I'm happy to shoot and magic you, so I think you'd need to be a little more proactive. Apart from anything else, the Life slann only has Dwellers for long-range action, and that only has a range of 24”, so deploying him on a board edge, where I can keep out of his range for half the game, isn't a great idea. Of course, advance too rashly and my knights have your flank. If in doubt, I'd say go semi-central with the slann, stand the steadfast blocks before and either side of him (the knights have to get in somehow); and rush my machines with all the skinks and hope they don't get shot and/or charged by eagles (they're rubbish at holding up the cavalry). Honestly, though, it's a toughy! I think my army's quite well suited to fighting lizards.
On the specific matter of the ancient steg; Dabber's suggestion to keep it near the slann is a very good one. The anti-shooting bubble helps the army, and the slann's spells heal the steg.
That's what I really don't want - getting stuck in a never-ending combat against T10 regenerating stegadons!
Brewmaster_D wrote: - I'm not sure how your local gaming community has ruled on the 7th edition spells being cast into combat, but opening that floodgate sets the stage for all sorts of ridiculous nonsense. Unless it has been resolved already, I think I'd avoid setting that precedent due to us standing to lose more than we gain. Things like the Dreaded 13th into combat makes me sick to my stomach lol.
Rules for 7th Edtion spells - my local metagame
I'm with you here but, unfortunately, the decision has already been made for me in my local group. The rule followed is that, "if it doesn't say you can't, you can", so 7thEd army book spells are all treated this way. There's nothing I can do about gateways in combat, for example, or (and this is really sick), a double-shrine Tzeentch chosen unit toting the Eye of the Gods manipulation item and the Terror banner. In this instance, the controlling player (who's actually a really cool guy and excellent player, by the way, though you might hate him for this!), deliberately chooses Eye gifts he already has (using the item), so that he can keep rolling on the Eye table until he gets what he wants (the +1 attack, +1 toughness or ward save). I've literally stood there for 5 minutes and watched him roll these dice. He knows it sucks, but apparently there's no rule against it so he's free to take advantage.
So, in these conditions, I'm casting my Flames into close combat. Thankfully, no regular skaven players in this group, so that's something. And I'm never looking to get anything bar the prince (or the robed archmage) into combat with the chosen (I've played them once so far and they never saw combat), so their beefcake bonuses I can live with.
Brewmaster_D wrote:I'm also surprised those repeaters lasted as long as they did with the amount of poisoned shots he had available. I'm guessing he underestimated the effectiveness of your shooting phase when paired with Curse of Arrow Attraction.
Repeater Bolt Throwers and Skink Skirmishers
I've covered this above but it's worth repeating (wayhay): remember, repeaters don't die automatically just because there are skinks on the board! They have to be moved against and shot at. For three skink units, marching through a load of arrow fire while simultaneously trying to hold of a cavalry attack doesn't leave much room for surviving in enough numbers to attack and kill centrally-deployed repeater bolt throwers. Having the eagle sat behind the archers to charge off the unit that
did make it close (but not close enough to get even 10 long range shots off at the machine- hence it targeted the lions), sealed the deal. In short, I had multiple threats, and my repeaters were deployed back, were well protected and weren't easy to take out.
Brewmaster_D wrote:All in all, another great match-up. I know all too well how fickle the magic phase can be, and this game really showed that a good general should be able to adapt and play on despite some critical outlying rolls.
Thanks D. A possible problem with the slann, I wonder, is that which maybe some High Elf players suffer when they go for big magic phases: Dwellers brain! (also known as Mindrazor mind). I got it in that last lizard game didn't I? Too tempting just too try and win by waiting for that one chance to Dwellers the enemy general to death, forgetting that you've got a whole army of troops who need support from their mages. High Magic does that well, there's no doubt.
As you say, though, it's worth remembering that magic is fickle and to try and play as if you won't ever get a big phase. That way it doesn't bite you in the ass as much when things go wrong. God bless my scroll, though. I really didn't want to be testing my characters to death on Turn 4!
dabber wrote:Definitely a game won in deployment. He did not even put his combat units on the 12" line, costing them a few inches of movement. I hugely disagree with putting the Engine out on the flank like that. It cannot guard a flank by itself, and its value goes down greatly when away from the Slann.
Fielding the Ancient Stegadon against the Cavalry Prince
I agree in principle that engines should stay close to slanns- lifebloom is just so powerful for them. However, as you've shown, a steg charging the helms is going to be killed by the Str 7 loec'd prince in two rounds,
before the slann has a chance to put any wounds back on it. And, since the engine itself will die in one round in any case (if I have to charge the engine, I'll kill the priest first), you really should be charging knights with the stegadon rather than the other way around, as it's the best way to smash them up and cause some casualties with that Str 6. Best plan then is to follow up with some infantry and try and grind the cavalry down.
Of course,
ideally the steg could avoid combat and just engine away. The problem there is that the knights are much faster than the engine, while the range of Burning Alignment is pretty modest. So, as long as I manoeuvre the cavalry properly, it's very difficult to blast the knights and not be charged by them - making a charge by the stegadon itself very tempting. Ultimately, there's no getting around that a Giant Blade Loec prince is a very tasty solution to ancient stegadons and, since the prince will be aiming to carve his way to the Slann, the beast will often have to stand in the way and probably get killed. Otherwise, best thing to do with it is to keep it out of combat, wait for the knights to hit something steadfast and then start blasting the engine away. Deploying it by itself, against my list particularly, gets it killed.
dabber wrote:Could the Terradon not drop rocks on something before dying? With a total of 32" of movement, they should be able to reach something, and probably reach the Swordmasters.
Why do Terradons never drop rocks on me?
Unfortunately for the lizards, they were unable. In this game, as always, I deployed back with my infantry so that, even after vanguard moves, the terradons had nowhere to land at least 1" behind my infantry. Since they needed to complete this move to drop rocks, they were unable to do so without spending at least one turn moving over open ground and, as planned, this was all I needed to be able to bolt-thrower them into the ground. Bolt throwers are
excellent at killing terradons. Until you get that shot off, keep in mind that the enemy has terradons and eventually you'll automatically start deploying against them just as you do scouts.
dabber wrote:Slann cannot throw 6+1=7 dice at a spell. The extra dice are defined as power dice, so the cap of 6 applies.
Now THIS is good news, and something I suspected for a long time but was told otherwise. Thank you, Dabber, I shall remember this well and breath a little more easily when I face my next Dwellers cast, scroll in hand!
dabber wrote:Can anyone point me to a detailed battle report where a small sized Temple Guard unit is useful? I have read several where under 15 TG are pretty much useless, and that fits my own paper thinking (my Lizardmen don't run TG).
Honestly? No idea. The point of the unit is to act as a few extra wounds and a leadership bunker (Std of Discipline gives the BSB Slann Leadership 10 - mighty indeed in a cold-blooded army). It isn't ever meant to see combat and the idea, really is to sit it in the middle of the steadfast infantry blocks. It doesn't do anything by itself.
Curu Olannon wrote:Good game sir!
Deploying refused flank with M4 infantry against an army which has vastly better shooting makes no sense to me whatsoever. Additionally, sacrificing the Stegadon so early helped to really seal the deal.
Thanks Curu!
Mallas' Deployment - the differences between the last battle and this one
What you say is true, but I have some sympathy for Mallas, here. Last time he played me, he formed a shield wall which I bashed my head against (albeit due to a 7-dice Flesh to Stone) and nearly lost to. I wasn't surprised to see a similar formation turn up for this battle but I think, for his part, he'd underestimated (as many of us would- how many of us take repeater bolt throwers?) the impact that only a very few changes can make to the way my army plays. One repeater, High Magic, and the archers switched from two units of 14 to one of 10 + one of 18. Small, small differences in the list, and yet a massive difference on the table top. The field was also a lot more open this battle than our last one so, unlike before, it was far less obvious which way my knights were going to run and, ultimately, this allowed me to avoid his big anvil of saurus. Being able to put all that hurt on with the shooting and force the lizards to march forward left the army a bit schizophrenic: they wanted to march forward and get into combat to avoid being shot, but they didn't want to advance for fear of letting my knights into a flank.
I think the big mistake was not the stegadon's placement (though it was not ideal), because the damage had already been done in deployment by this point and it was placed there to try and plug a massive gap that had been left open for me. The big mistake, for me, was not deploying relatively centrally with the slann. For the first two turns, he was too far away to influence the game at all and, perhaps more importantly, his position in the east meant that one of Mallas' big units had to be deployed there or else just allow my knights to deploy east themselves and run straight at him. Really, it was the slann that dragged the whole deployment that way for fear of losing him.
Anyway, great comments everybody - a really useful discussion all round.
Ulthuan's a pretty good forum, eh?