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View Full Version : Game 2 of WOOD ELVES vs. LIZARDMEN series ongoing - 1500 points.



ElectricPaladin
11-04-2013, 01:40 PM
Last Thursday, jberrysf and I were able to play the second game in our ongoing series of 1500 point learning games. Here's a brief "battle summary." jberrysf - feel free to chime in if I get anything wrong.

Lists

Lizardmen:
• Slann General (Lore of High Magic), Ethereal Discipline
• Skink Priest (Lore of Beasts)
• 20 Saurus w/Full Command
• 20 Skink Cohort w/Full Command
• 20 Skink Skirmishers w/Full Command
• 10 Cold One Cavalry
• Salamander w/Extra Skink
• Stegadon

Wood Elves
• Spellweaver lv 4 w/Wand of Wych Elm, Resplendence of Luminescence, Longbow
• BSB Noble w/Hail of the Doom Arrow, Asyendil's Bane, Battle Standard Bearer, Light Armor, Dragonhelm
• 15 Winter Glade Guard w/Musician
• 10 Summer Glade Guard w/Musician
• 8 Dryads
• 5 Wardancers
• 3 Treekin
• Great Eagle
• Treeman

Deployment

Jacob definitely won the deployment game. I allowed a building Jacob had placed in the middle front of my deployment zone to split my army - actually, I should have just sucked it up and deployed on one side or the other. As a result - as you will see - Jacob was able to play games with me, kiting my units back and forth across the field. He was able to pit each half of his army against whichever half of my army he chose. However, as you will also see, the raw power of Lustria was able to hold its own against Athel Loren's trickery.

Other important elements of deployment were that my Slann and my Skink priest were on opposite ends of the battlefield - the Slann floating ethereally near my Skinks, the priest hanging out with the Saurus infantry block.

Lizardmen got first.

Turn One

Lizardmen: mostly march into position, with the Skinks taking up residence behind cover and in some lakes placed on my left flank. Some of my skirmishers - who can march and shoot - take pot shots with no result. No appreciable spellcasting, and we're far too far apart for combat.

Wood Elves: More of the same, except that the shooting is marginally more effective.

Turn Two

Lizardmen: More advancing and maneuvering. My skinks shoot, but it's largely ineffective. Thanks to a well-placed Hand of Glory, my stegadon shoots at the treekin and kills one of them. I - quite smartly, I think, opt not to forget Hand of Glory. I do, however, kill off a few archers with the High Magic magic missile spell and chose to forget it, learning the Lore of Life spell Flesh to Stone. The cold one cavalry attempts to charge the wardancers, but fails and merely ambles forward a few inches.

Wood Elves: The most striking thing Jacob did in this turn was fly his giant eagle behind my lines, directly between the Saurus warriors and the stegadon. This was a move calculated to distract me, and it worked. As you will see in the following turns, I spent a lot of time maneuvering back and forth, trying to make sure that I didn't take an eagle to the general.

Turn Three

Lizardmen: My right flank - scared to death by that freaking eagle - maneuvered around so as to not take a flank strike. The rest of my army advanced - except for my skirmishers, who shot ineffectively - and my Skinks charged into his dryads. Much more interesting was the long-range charge that my cold one riders made, charging across the battlefield to slam into the wardancers, who they eliminated in a single turn of combat. They then continued their charge and slammed into the treekin. I tried to magic missile the eagle to death, failed to kill it, and decided that since I was likely going to take an eagle to the face soon, I'd be better off with some spells to enhance my durability and traded the High Magic spirit-sucking spell for a Life Magic spell, ending up with Flesh to Stone. Luckily, on my shooting phase, my stegadon (enhanced by Hand of Glory) was able to bring the eagle down.

Wood Elves: For me, the most striking part of my opponent's turn was that my cold one riders continued their vicious charge, cutting down jberrysf's treekin and closing in on one of his squads of archers! The pansy elves turned and ran, and my luck at dice finally failed and my cavalry failed to catch them. For Jacob, the highlight was probably when his dryads finished demolishing my poor, decimated Skinks and charged at my Slann. With their magical attacks - capable of cutting through his Ethereal state - it was looking bad for the Lizardmen! He also charged his treeman into a protracted combat with my Saurus, effectively keeping them out of the main fight... forever.

Turn Four

Lizardmen: Luckily, I'd had the presence of mind to swap out some High Magic for some durability-enhancing Life Magic. I cast Flesh to Stone, enhancing my Slann's durability to the point that I no longer feared for his safety. In fact, the dryads would fail to harm my Slann for the rest of the game. The rest of my turn involved my cold one cavalry turning around to face the battle, my stegadon setting itself up to charge into that same combat and come to the rescue, and my Saurus continuing to be ground away, model by model, by the treeman. An important note is that I chose to forget another High Magic spell - I think I finally chose to lose Hand of Glory, but I can't remember anymore - and grab a spell from the Lore of Shadow, because the Lore of Shadow's attribute would allow my Slann to swap places with my Skink priest and escape this miserable combat.

Wood Elves: Jacob's warlord forgot the principle rule of being an evil overlord - don't turn into a giant snake, it never helps. In his case, though, it was a giant dragon that he turned into, using the Transformation of Khadon spell. Having turned into a dragon, he flew over and flamed out all over my poor Skink skirmishers, finally eliminating them. Other various combats continued to grind away. We both knew that the endgame was rapidly approaching.

Turn Five

Lizardmen: My turn was a doozy! 1) my lizardmen charged his warlord, beating him in combat and failing to catch him because he fled behind a squad of archers. 2) my Slann successful cast a Shadow spell and traded places with the Skink priest. 3) My stegadon charged into combat with the dryads, killing several.

Wood Elves: Things continued to deteriorate for Jacob on this turn. His general managed to get out of the way, but his archers - including his BSB - were swept away by the advancing cavalry. He began to maneuver some of his other models in an effort to get on my Slann in his new position... but we both knew it was all over but the dying.

Turn Six

Lizardmen: Just for show, my Slann used Walk Between Worlds to teleport my cavalry into position to charge Jacob's treeman in the rear. My stegadon finished off Jacob's dryads, but final squad of archers managed to run away.

Wood Elves: Jacob got his archers and general-turned-dragon onto my Slann and successful caused him to flee, but he managed to roll very well (while Jacob rolled poorly) and escaped.

Robbed of his final opportunity to earn any more points, Jacob agreed that the game had ended on the last turn.

Final Score: Victory for the Lizardmen! 524 to 466

jberrysf
11-04-2013, 06:25 PM
So I've done some serious unpacking of this fight and I've come to the following conclusions for Wood Elves.

1. Eagles are an unparalleled combination of speed and distraction, on a budget, which Wood Elves sorely need. However, I can't only use them to distract, I have to use the redirections that I create to make an advantage. In this game I thought distracting and creating space and time for my units to breathe was enough, when really I should use the space to create more pressure on units I want to take from behind (ha.)

2. Charging works as follows. 90° free wheel, move full charge distance, free unlimited wheel to make contact. The charge from the Cold One Riders was screw-y.

3. Dont Transformation of Kadon unless you use the pumped up version. To be honest, I'm over Lore of Beasts. Gonna try Life. I don't think I used Wildform that whole game. Huge waste of opportunity.

4. I meandered the Treeman for turns 1, 2 and 3 in fear of the stupid Salamander, which I think was doing myself a huge disservice. He's super powerful, I shouldn't leave him (her?) out of range to create threats/pressure/fear of a large target.

5. I think I need to be more Aggro, less responsive. I didn't capitalize on you letting your army be divided at the onset, which ended up being a problem. I got stalled up in the middle and for some reason, thought that the woods in the middle would be of benefit to me to be in, but then suddenly, I was halted and stagnant.

I also came up with some thoughts for your squad EPal.
1. Saurus need to create pressure. They aren't terribly good, but they will distract and take up board space and mental space.

2. Don't *****foot around with that Stegadon. He hits hard and has good range on his charges, and is more effective on the charge than he is with the Bolt Thrower, so charge him in and get those impact hits and his Stomp.

3. I think the Skinks are a very good shock troop short range shooting force. They aren't very accurate, but they dont have to be. They scare the **** out of me.

Looking forward to a week off to try playing with L2 (haha, that'll be fun) and then back again to try our 2000 point lists.

Chronowraith
11-04-2013, 07:31 PM
@ jberrysf

1. Bingo. Eagles are there for redirect. If you want a distraction, take a small unit of waywatchers (or to a lesser degree, scouts).

2. Heh, I remember the days of trying to figure out how charges worked... fun times. All I can say is laugh at the mistakes, learn from the mistakes, and thank the random gods of gaming that you didn't have to learn the previous edition's charge rules.

3. As a rule I'd say NEVER transform your general. That being said, Lore of Life is the way to go for Wood Elves until they get their new book.

4. With as much shooting as you had you should have been able to pin-cushion his salamander in a turn or two. Keeping the treeman/treekin away from them is good for a turn or two, but if you don't mitigate the threat with something else, they aren't doing you any good (other than points denial) sitting in the backfield like trees (har, har, har). Tip - Hail of Doom on the Salamander. It might seem like a waste but you stand a very good chance of killing it or all of the handlers. Given that the Salamander could easily burn through your hammer units... it's a safe bet that you should target everything at this unit until it was dead and then charge in the trees.

5. Wood Elves are a mobile glass cannon army. They function like Eldar/Dark Eldar in 40k in that they put alot of pressure on a single point in the enemy's lines and then fade away. Playing defensively when you have T3 models with minimum armor saves will proof rather unproductive.

On your points for EPaladin:
1. Saurus are great! They key is synergy. Saurus benefit more from Lore of Shadow than any other unit in the book (Miasma in-particular). I'm a huge fan of this combo. Life magic for Temple Guard death star, Shadow for Saurus blocks, and High Magic for versatility.
2. Agreed. 100% Agreed. The Stegadon shouldn't be used for ranged combat unless it stands little change of making it into combat.
3. Skinks scare the crap out of everyone thanks to their cheap cost and poison. Just ask a Tomb Kings, Skaven, or Ogre player what unit is the most frustrating for them to deal with and you'll get skinks/skink skirmishers/chameleon skinks as a pretty regular response.

ElectricPaladin
11-04-2013, 08:39 PM
Re: Eagles

I've got to tell you... I'm over eagles. The next time an eagle lands in my deployment zone, I'm just going to ignore his ***. This is Fantasy - there's no such thing as hit-and-run, and he hasn't got any shooting. Let him charge something in the butt. Lizardmen have really reliable leadership. He isn't likely to kill anything in one turn, and he isn't likely to cause enough wounds to actually wipe something, so who cares? The next time his feathery butt lands next to my Saurus, they will take it like (Lizard)men and grind his beak into the dirt.

Re: Aggro

You and me both, brother. I have got to be more aggressive and play more forward.

Re: Stegadon

Also agreed.

In our next game, this will be easier for me. As you can see in my next list (http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?36588-2k-Lizardmen-The-Wrath-of-the-Old-Ones!), I plan to go ancient stegadon with engine of the gods! There's no long-range bow to distract me. Charge in and unleash horrible death spells at close range. Raaaaargh!

Re: Skinks

My next list has 15 Skink skirmishers (30 Poisoned shots!) and a 16-strong skrox unit. That will be fun.

Additionally...

I'm looking forward to playing a dual Slann list. My current plan is to go one High Magic loremaster Slann playing back with Ethereal, one jack-of-all-trades Slann playing forward in a unit of Temple Guard. Also a skink priest somewhere to channel spells through. Should be fun.

jberrysf
11-04-2013, 09:50 PM
Firstly, I'm amused and a bit surprised at the mod-ing. I totally get it, but it caught me off guard.

@Chronowraith: I'm so ready to learn to play these Wood Elves like I do my Dark Eldar. I get the balance and nuance, for the most part with them, but with Wood Elves I dont get the mechanics and strategies of the game nearly as well. Target Prioritization is a lot harder with Wood Elves that with Dark Eldar.

Also, How do you tackle Skinks? My Dryads were effective and my shooting goes alright against the blocks of skinks, but against the skink Skirmishers it was tough. I guess Waywatchers, Wardancers and Eagles would be pretty effective too... Not worth spending a Treeman or the squad of Treekin on though.

Question for you: do charging skirmishers get -2 to hit on stand and shoot (-1 for being skirmishers and -1 for stand and shoot) or just -1?

Chronowraith
11-05-2013, 12:15 PM
Skink skirmishers you just throw chaff at them... so eagles, dryads, wardancers, etc. For skink units (the ones who frequently have kroxigors) you really need to have ranked units and go after the easier to kill skinks and hope the kroxigors don't do too much damage.

Well Dark Eldar work better because they are a mobile force with good shooting in a game that favors shooting and mobility (for grabbing objectives). Wood Elves are a shooty army in a decidedly melee biased game. But that's okay... I've seen hem work wonders at national tournaments and I have every hope that GW will bring them up to par with the rest of the 8th edition books.

Charging skirmishers are hit at a -2 for the exact reasons you stated.

ElectricPaladin
11-05-2013, 12:21 PM
Charging skirmishers are hit at a -2 for the exact reasons you stated.

Huh... I thought that because skirmishers ranked up before the charge they would lose that benefit.

Smellofwetdog
07-11-2014, 12:31 PM
Great read and batrep. I played old lizardmen back in the day against a friend and through some campaigns and had a ton of fun so this was nostalgic. Thanks.