29 replies to this topic

[Skinny]

Hey guys, I'm still very new to Warhammer Fantasy and the site but I thought I'd post my latest encounter against a guy from the school I go to. It was a 1,000 pt. game with my Dwarves against his Lizardmen.

This is only my fourth game ever and the first against someone other than my best friend who started WHFB when I did, so I'm branching out slowly lol. I knew I would have to take advantage of the terrain and hope for first turn. Luckily I got the two terrain pieces I wanted and I got to set them up right where I wanted with the two tier hill in the bottom left corner and a long hill on the right side to protect my flank. I won the deployment and opted to go second.

Matt's Lizardmen:
20-22 Saurus Warriors with Champion & Banner (wasn't counting how many there were but I'm almost positive there were twenty)
18 Temple Guards with Champion & Slann Priest
18 Skinks with Javelins

Skinny's Dwarves:
16 HwS Warriors & FC
16 GW Warriors & FC
16 Thunderers with Veteran & Shields
Rune Priest with MRoBalance & RoSpellbreeaking with GW (deployed with GW War. block)
Organ Gun
Cannon with Rune of Forging & Engineer



He first deployed his 20 or so block of Saurus Warriors on my right flank above the long hill. I then sat down my 16HwS Warriors back about 3 inches from the tables edge to be used as an anvil against the Saurus Warriors. Next he placed his Temple Guard block with Slann Priest square in the middle of the table. I chose to put down 16 GW Warriors on my left flank below the hill. His final deployment was 18 Skinks with javelins on my left flank. (All of his units were at the maximum distance allowed from the table edge). With all his units out I dropped my Thunderers in between the Warriors in the middle of the table and placed my Cannon on the second tier of the hill and the Organ gun on tier one out front.

RD 1
Now to see who goes first, we both roll double ones lol. We roll again, he gets five and I get seven so I lucked out and got to go first. I skipped straight into shooting and my Cannon took off four Saurus Warriors, but the the Thunderers and Organ Gun were out of range. No Close Combat.

He moves up all his units and during his magic phase he chooses to cast some big bad spell (can't remember which one) and gets a miscast and blows up TWELVE Temple Guards! Man did I get lucky lol....Skinks aren't close enough to shoot. No close combat.

RD 2
Once again I skip into shooting and my cannon takes off three Saurus Warriors after rolling a misfire, I re-roll and get a hit this time. The Thunderers pick off four Skinks. Organ Gun misfires and can't go the next turn.

He moves everything up and tries to charge with Suarus Warriors but gets a lousy roll and comes up two inches short. Temple Guards move up and so do Skinks. Tries to cast a bunch of "I Swear too much" and only one buff gets through to his Saurus Warriors. The Skinks shoot and take off one GW Warrior. No close combat still.

RD 3
This time I pivot my Cannon and Organ Gun and charge with the HwS Wars. In shooting I let the Cannon rip up one Temple Guard while the Organ Gun still cannot fire. The Thunderers blast another three Skinks or so. I manage to kill one Saurus Warrior and he takes out four of my guys. I pass my leadership test. Can't remember what happens for sure but I didn't do good.

He casts some more spells and one gets through which made me have to roll a 4+ before I can shoot with a unit. He butchers some Dorfs and I kille one Lizard.

RD 4
Pivot the Cannon and Organ Gun again and move up GW Warriors. During shooting the Organ Gun rolls a 3 and can't shoot while the Thunderers and Cannon roll a 5 and a 4. Thunderers take off more Skinks while the Cannon splatters one more Temple Guard. During Close Combat his Saurus Warriors wipe off four of my guys while I only manage to kill one of his again (doh!). He wins the Combat Res. but I pass my leadership test.

The Skinks stay where they are but the Temple Guards keep chugging along and attempt a charge but he fails again with a lousy roll and gets within one (ouch). A Magic Missle lands amidst the GW Wars and takes out three. This time he kills five of my HwS Warriors and get none of his. Once again my brave boys hold firm.

RD 5
I pivot the Organ Gun and Cannon once more and my GW Warriors charge the Temple Guards. My Organ Gun and Thunderers blast away the last of the wretched Skinks while three more Warriors fall prey to the Saurus Warriors whilst taking none of the scaly buggers with them.

His turn I dispel all his magic and use my RoSpellbreaking. In close combat he destroys my HwS Warriors and is ready to charge my Thunderers. He kills four GW Warriors with his Temple Guards while the Runesmith takes out one and a Warrior takes out another (two Temple Guards left).

RD 6
The Cannon and Organ Gun pivot again and the Organ Gun rolls a 10 and annihilates the rest of the Saurus Warriors and subsequently saving my precious Thunderers. In Close Combat the Runesmith kills one more Guard and another Warrior kills the last. All that is left is his mage and I have no magic weapon to kill it with so the game is over and I am vicotorious.



In this game my rolls were good and my cannon was unstoppable. When the Organ Gun finally decided to work it was worth the wait as it decimated his Saurus Warriors. Also on my side was my two extra dispel dice I was getting every turn and the fact that his rolls were "I Swear too much" all game. If he had not of self-destructed with the spell in the beginning I don't think I would have won the game. While I left out lots of little details I apologize because I didn't think of writing all of this down but I will next time. Next time we play he said he will definitely use Lore of Metal lol. He has never played against Dorfs before.

Edited by Skinny, 11 March 2012 - 06:11 AM.

[Torendil the Slayer]

Thank you for reporting, it's good to see you're getting the hang of the game!

A few thoughts :

- To see who rolls first you only roll one D6.

- Good to see his magic punishing him, only cowards use the fickle winds of magic.

- It's not clear if you did this, but a failed charge results in the charging unit moving up only the result of the highest of the two D6 that where thrown to determine the charge range.

- Saurus are very good infantry, I'd never take them on with SH Warriors as these lack the punch to do anything about them. Also Skinks can be anoying if used correctly, but better to ignore them and put the OG on them (auto-hit, so no 6's for skirmishers and such) and put the Thunderers into his CC blocks.

- Magic weapon to kill the mage? Did he get an item/spell that gave him ethereal? Otherwise you can kill it just like anything else in the game.

Cheers!

Torendil

[Wendersnaven]

What Torrendil said. Good fight, I also have a Lizzie opponent I frequently go up against. If you like to use the HWShield models consider making them Longbeards, thus giving them S4 but retaining their defenses. They defend well against the spear-saurus maniac attacks (horde+spear+bite).

[Skinny]

Thank you for reporting, it's good to see you're getting the hang of the game!

A few thoughts :

- To see who rolls first you only roll one D6.

- Good to see his magic punishing him, only cowards use the fickle winds of magic.

- It's not clear if you did this, but a failed charge results in the charging unit moving up only the result of the highest of the two D6 that where thrown to determine the charge range.

- Saurus are very good infantry, I'd never take them on with SH Warriors as these lack the punch to do anything about them. Also Skinks can be anoying if used correctly, but better to ignore them and put the OG on them (auto-hit, so no 6's for skirmishers and such) and put the Thunderers into his CC blocks.

- Magic weapon to kill the mage? Did he get an item/spell that gave him ethereal? Otherwise you can kill it just like anything else in the game.

Cheers!

Torendil

I thought that we only use one dice to roll for turns but I wasn't going to argue about it since he has played more than me. But he has said that the guy who he played with before liked to cheat and change things which is why he stopped playing in the first place because he was tired of getting jerked around.

Yes, we took the highest of the dice for failed charges.

He had a magical augment on the mage, not sure what though.

Thanks for the advice Torendil, I would upgrade my Shield Warriors to Longbeards but I was already at 998 pts so there was nothing else I could've done. Plus I'm limited as to what models I have as the only other units I have are a Dwarf Lord, 5 Ironbreakers, and 20 Miners. I really need to get some more units.

[Skinny]

Any other advice against the Lizards? We're supposed to play again maybe next Tuesday @ 1000 pts. again.

[Hortennse]

Thanks for posting the report. On Lizards:
-Skinks are a big factor that you can prepare for. How? Invest in armor saves all around. This is one matchup where I greatly prefer Ironbreakers to hammerers in this matchup alone. That huge armor save will stop a lot of poison darts that would kill a hammerer. They also match up well against saurus, though not so well against Temple Guard (that strength 5 is getting a bit too heavy for our armor).
-Normally I would want my general to be a runelord on anvil of doom but obviously you cant afford that in a 1000 point game.
-Avoid two handers this once, except for troops who would normally have a strength of 3, as that is not enough. Take Longbeards with shields and and ironbreakers, avoid hammerers and only give your normal warriors great weapons.
　
　
　
Is your next game 1000 points as well?

At 1000 points I would take:
Note: This is purely a response to the list your opponent took last time. He may well change his list. However, his temple guard are too strong in combat, so you have to go ranged in my opinion, they will kill the rest in hand to hand with their 2 attacks, especially if you cannot afford hordes for yourself.

*Runesmith with MRoBalance & RoSpellbreeaking and Shield - Your rune smith is right on in runes, but give him a shield, the general needs to survive and rune priests are only toughness 4. I would not deploy him in any unit, I would keep him near the war machines and protect them. His leadership isnt helping anyway. The runes are awesome and should slow down any magic at a good low points cost. His attacks of 2 are not enough to be good with a great weapon and he needs to survive.

*30 Great Weapon Quarrelers Dont bother with any command you need more bodies, they cant move and shoot anyway so the musician doesnt do much. Deploy them so every one is able to shoot (15x2) and blast away until your opponent gets into charge range, then reform to a normal horde. This will cost you a round of shooting, but you will be in a nice horde for combat and still get a nice wide stand and shoot. This would really own both those saurus and temple guard.

*Cannon-Rune of Forging (need to be able to kill a stegadon and try some shots at that slann or just kill temple guard.

*Organ Gun-always mandatory in any game. Use him against the skinks because he doesnt care that they skirmish he auto hits.

16 Ironbreakers (with standard) - I know it's not many of them, but these guys need to be your 2nd unit to watch your GW quarrelers back while they do major killing. Just deploy 5x3 and engage his lowest strength melee unit with these and they should do just fine if they've been withered by fire. Lots of armor means they dont lose much to skink fire and stick around a while.
Exactly 1000 points

[Hortennse]

Last thing, take 3 runes of spellbreaking instead of the rune of balance. Balance is nice but 3 auto dispells will serve you better in that size game. Use them when he goes for big casts. I really am surprised he doesnt go lore of life. Thats the best for slann in temple guard.

[Skinny]

Thanks for posting the report. On Lizards:
-Skinks are a big factor that you can prepare for. How? Invest in armor saves all around. This is one matchup where I greatly prefer Ironbreakers to hammerers in this matchup alone. That huge armor save will stop a lot of poison darts that would kill a hammerer. They also match up well against saurus, though not so well against Temple Guard (that strength 5 is getting a bit too heavy for our armor).
-Normally I would want my general to be a runelord on anvil of doom but obviously you cant afford that in a 1000 point game.
-Avoid two handers this once, except for troops who would normally have a strength of 3, as that is not enough. Take Longbeards with shields and and ironbreakers, avoid hammerers and only give your normal warriors great weapons.
　
　
　
Is your next game 1000 points as well?

At 1000 points I would take:
Note: This is purely a response to the list your opponent took last time. He may well change his list. However, his temple guard are too strong in combat, so you have to go ranged in my opinion, they will kill the rest in hand to hand with their 2 attacks, especially if you cannot afford hordes for yourself.

*Runesmith with MRoBalance & RoSpellbreeaking and Shield - Your rune smith is right on in runes, but give him a shield, the general needs to survive and rune priests are only toughness 4. I would not deploy him in any unit, I would keep him near the war machines and protect them. His leadership isnt helping anyway. The runes are awesome and should slow down any magic at a good low points cost. His attacks of 2 are not enough to be good with a great weapon and he needs to survive.

*30 Great Weapon Quarrelers Dont bother with any command you need more bodies, they cant move and shoot anyway so the musician doesnt do much. Deploy them so every one is able to shoot (15x2) and blast away until your opponent gets into charge range, then reform to a normal horde. This will cost you a round of shooting, but you will be in a nice horde for combat and still get a nice wide stand and shoot. This would really own both those saurus and temple guard.

*Cannon-Rune of Forging (need to be able to kill a stegadon and try some shots at that slann or just kill temple guard.

*Organ Gun-always mandatory in any game. Use him against the skinks because he doesnt care that they skirmish he auto hits.

16 Ironbreakers (with standard) - I know it's not many of them, but these guys need to be your 2nd unit to watch your GW quarrelers back while they do major killing. Just deploy 5x3 and engage his lowest strength melee unit with these and they should do just fine if they've been withered by fire. Lots of armor means they dont lose much to skink fire and stick around a while.
Exactly 1000 points

That's some great advice Hortennse! I will make sure to keep the Rune Smith in the backfield next time. I hope to get some Quarellers soon, depends on what funds I have available in the coming weeks. I will try and get my Ironbreakers into the fray this next time.

[Skinny]

Last thing, take 3 runes of spellbreaking instead of the rune of balance. Balance is nice but 3 auto dispells will serve you better in that size game. Use them when he goes for big casts. I really am surprised he doesnt go lore of life. Thats the best for slann in temple guard.

I will try and work that in too. Thanks again...

[Hortennse]

Yeah honestly if he doenst go life magic then you should beat him.

If you get 3 runes of spellbreaking you should be able to stop his lifemagic and beat him anyway. I would get great weapon warriors if you cant get crossbowmen and that would allow you to field more ironbreakers, but great weapon crossbow dwarfs are so great in that they kill so many saurus before they get near, and hit just as hard as the warriors. They really are the ideal core unit in small points games in my opinion, in larger games a few missile casualties has a lesser effect so people elect for more bodies with warriors, but in a small game I would take a full-core requirement sized unit of great weapon crossbowmen every single time.

[Wendersnaven]

Yeah honestly if he doenst go life magic then you should beat him.

Which reminds me of the greatest piece of advice I can give you about fighting Lizzies- Don't! let a Slann cast Throne of vines- ever. Ever.

[Skinny]

Yeah honestly if he doenst go life magic then you should beat him.

Which reminds me of the greatest piece of advice I can give you about fighting Lizzies- Don't! let a Slann cast Throne of vines- ever. Ever.

Sounds nasty, what's that do?

[the bearded one]

Last thing, take 3 runes of spellbreaking instead of the rune of balance. Balance is nice but 3 auto dispells will serve you better in that size game. Use them when he goes for big casts.

That's a matter of opinion. I think balance and spellbreaking is better than 3 spellbreakers because you nip his ability to cast spells at all in the but.

[Wendersnaven]

Yeah honestly if he doenst go life magic then you should beat him.

Which reminds me of the greatest piece of advice I can give you about fighting Lizzies- Don't! let a Slann cast Throne of vines- ever. Ever.

Sounds nasty, what's that do?

Throne of vines gives him a 2+ save against any mistcast and augments every spell in the lore that he casts. They essentially need to cast Throne in order to protect themselves and then they rolls so many dice at Dwellers below they get IForce, and thus we can't dispel it and die horribly. After it has been cast we can't dispel it and in the FAQ it says that they get the wardsave even if they miscast the Throne itself.

Essentially, blocking this spell makes them a little more vulnerable, but really it controlls the amount of hurt they dish out to your troops.

[Hortennse]

Yeah honestly if he doenst go life magic then you should beat him.

Which reminds me of the greatest piece of advice I can give you about fighting Lizzies- Don't! let a Slann cast Throne of vines- ever. Ever.

Sounds nasty, what's that do?

Throne of vines gives him a 2+ save against any mistcast and augments every spell in the lore that he casts. They essentially need to cast Throne in order to protect themselves and then they rolls so many dice at Dwellers below they get IForce, and thus we can't dispel it and die horribly. After it has been cast we can't dispel it and in the FAQ it says that they get the wardsave even if they miscast the Throne itself.

Essentially, blocking this spell makes them a little more vulnerable, but really it controlls the amount of hurt they dish out to your troops.

Is this true? My interpretation is that even if it gets cast with IF, you can just dispell it with your power dice on your next turn. It's a great spell, but a dwarf should not let it last more than one magic phase.

[Targ Ironfist]

Hortense: you are right, but he is too. He is speaking about the 2+ save against miscast. You about dispelling it. If I am correct.

[Skinny]

Fought a Dark Elf army for the first time in a friendly match. I managed to eek out a draw in the end but now I have questions.

I could have sworn that if you add an Engineer to a war machine it gets an additional wound, but ...since I was not able to find where I saw that I kept my cannon at 3 wounds and my buddy's Bolt Thrower took it out with three wounds in one round. Another question on cannons, I'm not seeing that it has a stat profile like the others do, does it just go off of the crews stats? I have never faced opposing artillery 'til this game so I was ill prepared lol.

I managed to run his 25 spear men off the board after a thorough volley from my Thunderers. They never could rally in two turns and ran outta' sight.

Miners came in on turn two without a hitch rolling a 4 and a 5. The 2 units of 10 Miners were upon the Bolt Throwers in a heartbeat. But they were toughness 7 so I didn't get much done there, inflicted a wound on each and that was it.

I withered his Corsairs down to 5 with Thunderer fire but his repeater crossbow unit and it's 30 dice finally got the Thunderers.

His 10 Cold One Knights smashed into my GW block of 20 and I flank charged with both my 6 man Ironbreaker unit and a 16 strong HwS block, but those things were so tough he would've eventually chewed through all of them because the hero unit he had was pretty beefy. His spellcasting was pathetic as my Runesmith batted everything down. I need to read through the Dark Elf information thread and see what's what. Any tips? I think he's sticking with Dark Elves from now on, he seems to really like them.

[Skinny]

Also, next time when we play a serious match I will take notes and pictures.

[ralstonite]

The engineer if it is an upgrade he is added to the warmachine a crewman/ champion. If it was a Master engineer adding to a unit was 7th edition. It has been changed now. I think you mean the first one though. shooting attacks against a warmachine use the machines toughness as the crew is assumed to hide under it. so the bolt thrower would be str 6 vs the machines toughness 7. 5+ to wound. if wound then d3 wounds. with the engineer as above your machine would be alive with one wound left if he rolled the three wounds.
A warmachine in close combat is a little different. the crewmwen defend the machine so your miners got ripped off attacking the Bolt throwers. you nominate 6 miners to attack the machine and his crewmen defend it. use the crews statlines for the fight. so your hits would be str5 vs the DE toughness 3, not the machines.
DE are a decent army so I can see why your friend likes them but Dwarves are usually the bane of them. In my opinion low point games give DE a little advantage but in higher it swings to Dwarfs.
his cold one knights are obviously his best unit, I hope he didn't forget to test their stupidity every turn. that can be a bit of a downfall for them. 10 and a beefy character must be a huge point sink so shoot the heck out of them!! killing that unit alone will win the game at a small point level.
One of my favorite things against DE are longbeards with HW shield.give them rune of grungni as well and you can absorb str 3 shooting all day from double that amount of crossbows. give a thane a MR of challenge and watch your opponent cry when you force his crossbows to charge you and if he flees your miners charge them off the board.
if you like your thunderers give them the shield, for one point extra it is a huge amount of protection on your already 14 points per model investment.

[Skinny]

The engineer if it is an upgrade he is added to the warmachine a crewman/ champion. If it was a Master engineer adding to a unit was 7th edition. It has been changed now. I think you mean the first one though. shooting attacks against a warmachine use the machines toughness as the crew is assumed to hide under it. so the bolt thrower would be str 6 vs the machines toughness 7. 5+ to wound. if wound then d3 wounds. with the engineer as above your machine would be alive with one wound left if he rolled the three wounds.
A warmachine in close combat is a little different. the crewmwen defend the machine so your miners got ripped off attacking the Bolt throwers. you nominate 6 miners to attack the machine and his crewmen defend it. use the crews statlines for the fight. so your hits would be str5 vs the DE toughness 3, not the machines.
DE are a decent army so I can see why your friend likes them but Dwarves are usually the bane of them. In my opinion low point games give DE a little advantage but in higher it swings to Dwarfs.
his cold one knights are obviously his best unit, I hope he didn't forget to test their stupidity every turn. that can be a bit of a downfall for them. 10 and a beefy character must be a huge point sink so shoot the heck out of them!! killing that unit alone will win the game at a small point level.
One of my favorite things against DE are longbeards with HW shield.give them rune of grungni as well and you can absorb str 3 shooting all day from double that amount of crossbows. give a thane a MR of challenge and watch your opponent cry when you force his crossbows to charge you and if he flees your miners charge them off the board.
if you like your thunderers give them the shield, for one point extra it is a huge amount of protection on your already 14 points per model investment.

Thank you for the clarification Ralstonite! I was intending to use my HwS Warriors and Longbeards but I just wasn't able to work them in for a 1400 pt battle (not sure why he chose 1400). As far as the Thunderers go I would much prefer quarellers but I have none. I guess next time I will just have to break down and say "these are Quarellers this time, not Thunderers."

Here was my list for that game:

Runesmith w/shield & MRoBalance & RoSpellbreaking

20 GW Warriors w/ FC

16 HwS Warriors w/ FC

6 Ironbreakers w/ Standard

16 Thunderers w/shields & vet

10 Miners w/ Standard

10 Miners w/ Standard & Steam Drill

Cannon w/ Engineer & RoForging

Organ Gun