Hey everybody. Sorry, there are no dwarfs in this report, but I hope you can forgive me as I didn't want to keep you waiting for another picture-licious (what kind of word is that?!) battlereport. I made 116 photo's and I'm currently plucking out the good ones, so I'll add the table, deployment and turn 1 of both armies in the first post, as well as the armylists and edit the rest in. The past few weeks/monts I've been playing a lot of games with my lizardmen again and finishing up the army (I'm pretty far with it, and I can't wait for the finecast slann!) and I'm going to my local GW every thursday and friday to play games. The past weeks I've squared off frequently against dark elves and this report is no exception. A dark elf expeditionary force clashes with an army of lizardmen on the edges of the southlands in the desert of Khemri.

My armylist is thus:
Lord:
Slann Magepriest Tehe'Xa'Qua (loosly translated "scholar of vengeance and fate")
• Becalming Cogitation ( Discipline )
• Focused Rumination ( Discipline )
• Plaque of Tepok
• Battle standard bearer
• Standard of Discipline
• Level 4 (Lore of beasts)
380

Heroes:
Saurus Scar veteran Loq'Gar
• Burning blade of Chotec
• Dragonhelm
• Light armour
• Shield
123

Skink priest Ti'qe'tok
• Level 2 (Lore of heavens)
• Dispel scroll
125

Core:
24 Saurus
• Spears
• Full command 318

10 skink skirmishers 70

12 skink skirmishers 84

10 skink skirmishers
• Javelins & shields 80

12 Skinks
• Musician
• Skink brave
• Kroxigor 129

Special:
25 Templeguard
• Full command
• Ironcurse Icon
• Banner of Swiftness 450

3 Kroxigors 165

5 Chameleon skinks 60

Rare:
Ancient stegadon 275

2 Salamanders
• 1 additional handlers 165

1 Salamanders
• 1 additional handlers 80

Dark elves
Lords
Dreadlord Ruarc Damodred
• Cold One
• Sword of Might
• Dawnstone
• Crown of Command
• Shield
• Heavy Armour
• Sea Dragon Cloak
260

Sorceress Lanfir Darknova
• Dark Pegasus
• Tomb of Furion
• Pendant of Khealeth
• Level 2 (lore of shadow)
235

Sorceress Moraine Blackwind
• sacrificial dagger
• Level 2 (lore of shadow)
160

Death Hag Lhunara Ithil
• Cauldron of Blood
• Battle Standard Bearer
225

Core
Dark Elf Warriors
• Full Command
• Shields
295

10 Dark Elf Repeater Crossbowmen
100

5 Dark Riders
• Musician
• Repeater Crossbow
117

Special
30 Witch Elves
• Full Command
• Banner of Eternal Flame
• Manbane
360

11 Cold One Knights
• Full Command
• Banner of Hag Greaf
372

Rare
War Hydra
175

The table:
dark elves invaded the continent just north of the boundaries of the jungly southlands and landed on the shores of the Khemrian desert, intent on stealing magical treasures from the tomb kings and lizardmen. Their arrival had long been foretold in the sacred plaques of the southern templecities and when the dark elves were spotted, Slann magelord Tehe'Xa'Qua was roused from his meditations. An army rushed out north to intercept the elves before they disappeared into the jungle canopy and on the desert near ancient human ruins the forces clashed

Here we hae the table. 3 forests, a temple (the temple is impassable, the rest counts as a hill) and some ruins that count as soft cover for the purpose of shooting modifiers but are otherwise ignored.

We decided to make a little change (houserule) in the victory point rules. Units that have half the number of models left they started with or less give away half of their points worth in victory points, just like they used to do in 7th. We don't want 1 templeguard standing around being worth 450 points. Having him worth 225 points is more than enough 😉

Deployment:
I let the dark elves go first as he had less drops anyway. After deploying our small units (his crossbows, my skinks) I just plumped down the templeguard, because it was rather obvious where I'd put them anyway, and I put the saurus down as well. Putting down those obvious drops left me room and mystery for deploying my last small units: My stegadon (which I did not want across the witch elves with their poisoned attacks and neither wanted it to fight the hydra, because the hydra hits like a ton of bricks compared to the steg's paltry 3 attacks), my kroxigors (which I had basically planned from the very beginning to go on the right flank and circle the temple, to clean up his crossbows) and my skink-krox unit (which went on the left opposite of the dark riders, in order to chase them away and throw javelins and stuff).

Deployment in progress. You can see I haven't deployed those couple units who's location I wanted to keep secret.

Deployment finished
The dark elves deploy from left to right: 2 units of crossbows, 40 spearelves with the dagger sorceress, and the cauldron behind them, the 11 cold one knights with the dreadlord, 30 witch elves, 10 crossbows, the hydra and 5 dark riders

In my side from left to right ( or, looking at the picture, from below to above: ) 12 skinks with krox, 10 skinks, 1 salamander, 12 skinks, 24 saurus with scar veteran, 25 templeguard with Slann, ancient stegadon with giant blowpipes, 2 salamanders, 10 skinks, skink priest, 5 chameleons and 3 kroxigors.

The dark elf player rolls a 4 (+1 for finishing deployment first), so the result is 5. I pompously declare "lolz, I'll just roll a 6" and promptly procede to in fact roll a 6 thereby going first!

Before we begin, here are the spells we rolled for our wizards:
Dark elf level 2 with dagger: Okkam's mindrazor and Melkoth's mystifying miasma
Dark elf level 2 with pendant on flying steed: The penumbral pendulum, the withering and pit of shades

Slann: Wyssan's wildform, The flock of doom, the amber spear, the curse of anraheir and the savage beast of horros
Skink priest: Iceshard blizzard and Harmonic convergence

Turn 1: Lizardmen
I take the first turn and slowly and carefully move forward with my saurus units and stegadon, barely using my full normal move, let alone my march-move. On the right flank the kroxigor and chameleons race forward around the temple, but the rest of the line remains careful apart from the 2 salamander units who both spurt 12" forward. (note that the witch elves on have moved on the picture and the salamander has fled. I forgot to take pictures of it during my turn, so this is taken right after the first charge in the dark elf turn)

shuffle-shuffle

darn, they're fast!

The winds of magic grant a paltry 3 dice but with the slann's ability to add a powerdice to every spell attempted I still manage to cast 2 spells: Flock of doom at the sorceress with the pendant, which does 2D6 str 2 hits (so that the pendant is only the equivalent of a 5+ wardsave), but does not do any damage. The curse of Anraheir is cast on the knights, making it extremely perilous for them to move because they risk taking dangerous terrain tests that wound on 1 and 2, instead of just a 1.

The salamanders do considerable damage. The single one on the left fires dead on (10 inches if I recall correctly) and slays 9 witch elves in a blazing inferno. The other 2 manage to burn an entire rank of the spear elf horde. The chameleons on the very right kill a crossbowelf.

mexican stand-off

Turn 1: Dark elves
The witch elves attempt to charge the salamander, who wisely flees to behind the saurus. The hydra attempts to charge the skinks with kroxigor who stand and shoot but cause no wounds, but the hydra fails the charge. The sorceress flies forward to get closer to the templeguard. Does she have a sneaky plan..?

Not much happens in this magic phase, but it appears the sorceress flew closer in order to be in range of the 2 salamanders, at who she casts wither and whose toughness drops by 3! toughness 1 salamanders! Like shooting at paper! In the shooting phase the dark elf crossbows fire a large number of bolts at the unit. Luckily they're hard to hit due to all those modifiers: Long range, skirmishers, multiples. Nevertheless a salamander is slain. 1 skink with javelin is slain on the left as well by the repeater crossbows.

Turn 2: Lizardmen
My skinks with kroxigor charge the dark riders, who flee, and then redirect to the hydra but fail to make it. On the other side of the field the 3 stooges.. erhm.. 3 kroxigors charge a unit of crossbows who decide to flee, but lady luck decides to make things problematic for the dark elves as they run 12" and just tip over the edge! On the left my skinks move in to fire at the hydra and sorceress.

The templeguard, saurs and stegadon carefully move forward again and the salamanders backs up a little.

In the magic phase my Slann buffs the saurus with Wyssan's Wildform, knocks a wound off the sorceress with The Flock of Doom and pierces 2 cold one knights with The amber sear. A succesful magic phase I'd say. The javelin skinks manage to do another wound on the flying sorceress, but because she's monstrous cavalry she uses the highest number of wounds in her profile (in this case that is the wounds of the steed) which is 3, so she still has a wound left. Darn.. close. The blowpipeskinks manage to do a wound on the hydra and the chameleons kill 2 crossbowelves.

Turn 2: Dark elves
Only one exciting thing happens in the dark elf turn.. which isn't exactly exciting to be honest. The hydra attempts to charge the blowpipe skinks, who flee, and it then redirects to the skink-kroxigor unit but doesn't make it. The sorceress flies up and lands next to the templeguard.

The sorceress attempts to cast pit of shades but because the Slann is able to steal all 6's she rolls, she does not make the casting value. Crossbowelves fire at the javelinskinks, but only manage to kill two despite being so close. The other crossbows near the cauldron fire at the salamander and bring it down to one wound, as well as killing a handler.

Turn 3: Lizardmen
Now all hell breaks loose and the action truly begins. I nonchalantly declare a 15" charge on the cold one knights with my templeguard. They have the banner of swiftness, so movement 5, but it's still a 10" charge. It was a charge that didn't have anything depending on it. There were no greater designs for this charge other than "if it works it's a nice bonus". And behold, I roll double 5 and make the charge! Now that's a staggering charge I totally did not expect.

On the right flank the kroxigors move further up and are ready to threathen the crossbows. The stegadon moves in to protect the flank of the templeguard.

On the other flank the kroxigor and skink yet again charge the dark riders, who flee again and the skink unit redirects into the hydra again, but fail to make the charge, again. Mmhmm.. The javelin skinks move into the forest behind the hydra and the skink skirmishers from the right flank move in on the sorceress to poison her with their darts. At the end of the movement phase it turns out that the forest where the javelin wielding skinks are, is a wildwood! The trees trash and smash about and inflict a painful 6 hits, wiping out the skinks except for 1 survivor, cowering in the water.

In the magic phase the Slann casts Wyssan´s Wildform on the templeguard, making the unit considerably tough and hard as they are now toughness 5 and have strenght 6 with their halberds.

In the shooting phase the dark elf sorceress finally meets her end as she is peppered with poisoned darts. 20 shots are fired, 1 hits and takes away her last wound. The sorceress succumbs to the poisoned darts and her trusty mount bears her body away from the battlefield. Wether to take it back to the Black Arks.. or simply to eat it, we do not know.

The knights lash out at the charging templeguard, and despite their boosted resilience the dreadlord manages to slay many. Most of the knights´ blows are deflected by toughened scales but a couple more succumb. 5 templeguard are killed. Then the templeguard hack and slash at the cold one knights and cause a staggering number of wounds, but the blessing of khain is upon the knights (no, literally. There's a cauldron of blood behind them) and the survive the majority of the blows. 3 knights are still slain. The knights easily hold thanks to the crown of command worn by the dreadlord.

Turn 3: Dark elves
The dark elves start this momentous turn with the thunderous cries of three charges. The hydra finally manages to charge the skinks & krixogr, the witch elves charge into the fray and flank the templeguard and the dark elf warriors charge the stegadon.

The way I deployed my Slann in the templeguard certainly came back to bite me in the "I swear too much". I deployed him on the side so that if he miscasts he won't kill too many templeguard in the explosion, but that does leave him exposed to flank attacks. I should've seen this coming! Or.. maybe I did?

The magic phase was pretty uneventful. I managed to dispel most, but was forced to let the withering through on the stegadon. Luckily it only took off 1 toughness so went from T6 to T5, so the dark elves would still have to wound it on 6's.

In the shootingphase the dark riders fire at skink skirmishers with blowpipes, but only manage to slay 1

On the other side of the field the crossbow elves are clearly more succesfull as they shoot down one of the lumbering kroxigors.

The combat in the center is most certianly bloody and many templeguard are slain in the first few moments defending their liege. The Slann is wounded three times and left with 2 wounds against a horde of angry with elves. In return the templeguard slay several witch elves and two knights. They lose horrifically, but stand their ground without wavering for even a moment, due to being stubborn.

Meanwhile the skinks and kroxigor are overrun on the left flank without really having any effect. They would have been steadfast if the thunderstomp hadn't killed exactly all the skinks, and the kroxigor ran off the field.

The stegadon smites warriors left and right, and thunderstomps like there's no tomorrow, but the warriors are relentless and keep swarming over the stegadon, and pass their breaktest.

Turn 4: Lizardmen
The kroxigors charge up the hill, but suffer wounds from the stand & shoot reaction.

The saurus charge in to save the slann (and get tasty food as reward, yes?) and come crashing through the forest. Skinks run about all over the field in general excitement and move into positions everywhere.

The magic phase goes well and the Slann and skinkpriest cast a number of buggs and hexes. The witch elves are hexed by the priest with Iceshard Blizzard and inflicted with a -1 to hit penalty, while the Slann hexes the knights with the Cure of anraheir, inflicting a -1 to hit penalty on them as well. Finally the scar veteran in the saurus unit is augmented with the savage beast of Horros. Luckily the scar veteran was placed in the position where he was, because if he had stood on the other corner of the unit he would have been inside the forest, which was a bloodforest, and the spell would have triggered it's raging frenzy.

The shooting phase is relatively minor. 2 dark riders are killed, and a salamander misfires and kills all but 1 handlers.

In combat the crossbowelves manage to kill a kroxigor and leave the last one with 1 wound left! The remaining kroxigor does shatter 2 elves, but the combat is a stalemate.

The great centre combat is tense and all eyes are centered on the Slann's fate! Despite the blizzard the witch elves manage to inflict 4 wounds on the magepriest! Resigned to having lost my general, BSB and primary spellcaster I get ready to remove the model and roll the 4 4+ wardsaves.. but manage to pass 3, leaving the Slann with a single wound left! Damn, that's lucky! The dark elf player was less amused.

After the onslaught caused by the charging saurus and augmented scar veteran, the witch elves break from my flank, but the saurus only stumble a few inches as the Slann's footprint blocks part of the saurus unit