Thus begins the beginning of my anti army tactics. Keep in mind this is designed just to help you prepare and be ready for facing them on the field of battle. Also keep in mind that every army has a bit of their own flair, that might not be covered in my tactica.
KNOW THY ENEMY!
Every army fights differently. Because of this we have to adjust our tactics
accordingly. Still some steps are common
no matter what you face. The first thing
to do is to look at the enemy army and ask yourself: "How will this army
beat me?" Do they intend to swamp
me with numbers? Hard hitting
units? Stubborn and flank? Basically all armies narrow it down to
either: Kill them, or break them.
Lizardmen,
When playing lizards they come in 3 different groups. Skinks, warriors, and dinos, each have their
own strengths and weaknesses. Before
battle begins take a look around and see what is coming your way.
Types of units
Skinks, are deployed in either skirmish or ranked
formation. In skirmish they pose little
threat in combat, even bowmen can defeat them in an equal numbers combat on
average. Their damage comes from
shooting and due to poison they produce a decent number of wounds. Against our knights they pose little threat
but against our peasants they are rather dangerous in shooting but are terrible
in close combat. In skirmish formation
bring them into combat quickly if you can do so without risking a return
charge. They provide few points but also
pose little risk, they are generally used to screen things. Your back lines must be careful and don't be
afraid to charge with bowmen.
Skinks in ranked units are not dangerous... except for
kroxigars. Being able to hide such a
powerful model inside a rather weak unit boosts the combat damage
considerably. They have numbers and the
kroxigars provide power. They are a
legitimate combat unit. The weakness being is that you can kill the
kroxigars with shooting. Both trebuchets
and bowmen, the kroxigars don't get a look out sir save against trebs, and with
randomizing with bowmen can help.
Without Kroxigars skinks provide little threat to knights and destroying
them is worth about 200 points. That is
enough to swing the game. Take advantage
of the rather low leadership.
Special caution must be taken with the skink riders. While not as dangerous as our pegasus knights
they are a similar use. The back lines
must be careful and dropped rocks are annoying but not terrible. If they get into combat with any knight
combat they die, against peasants they will probably die. The hard part is catching the flyers since
shooting is ineffective against them.
Pegasus knights are quite good at catching them.
Warriors. These are
the guys that the most common unit. It
also includes the temple guard unit. These units have decent attack strength,
decent toughness and decent armor. The
biggest weakness comes from WS 3 and terrible initiative. They get quite a few attacks at S4. They key to defeating these unit is to
overwhelm in one turn. Getting caught up
and stuck in is generally a bad idea with these guys. They cost a good chunk of points and are well
worth killing. Be warned they can be
equipped with spears to further their damage output. They are seldom taken as more than 25 strong.
There are not enough numbers there to truly be a risk with steadfast. I find these units to be rather easy to kill
and worth the points to do it.
Temple Guard on the other hand are considerably more
powerful and yet weaker. This is the
unit you will most likely want to kill ASAP.
The reason being the Slaan hiding inside. He is a potent force and often the keypin of
the enemy army. If there is a unit of
temple guard victory is often determined by the elimination of the unit. They will (almost) never break as long as the
slaan is in the unit and the slaan himself is often ethereal for protection. This requires heroes to go in and end the
slaan, which is fine. It focuses your
firepower on this unit. On the bright
side they use halberds so they have a lower armor save. On the other hand... They use halberds and
are stronger because of it. Expect to
have to kill about 17 before the slaan become vulnerable to your heroes. M@A with the blessing are surprisingly
effective against them. If you can flank
and bring the slaan into combat sooner you should do so. He is what keeps the unit there and if you
can kill him the battle is all but over.
Cold one riders are powerful cav but at the end of the day
we play the cav game better. Seldom seen
in units bigger than 5 they are worth a lot of points and are worth sending a
unit of knights to eliminate them. Treat
them as any other cav battle and you should do fine. One thing to keep in mind is they are stupid
and can aimlessly wander forward into a safe charge range for you.
Dinos. There are only
2. Stegadons and carnasaurs. Stegadons first, there are 2 levels but in
essence they play about the same. What
changes is stegadons can be ridden by a hero level skink. The stegadons themselves are not terribly
dangerous to our knights. They do cause
impact hits so we should certainly be aiming for the charge; but what else is
new? Outside of that you can sit in
combat for several turns doing little damage to each other. Most often I break the stegadons and run them
down even though they are stubborn. It
may take a few turns but I suffer little damage and eventually he will fail his
check and flee. With a character things
change a bit. Every normal attack should
be directed at the character if possible until he is dead. A skink chief can still be dangerous after
the charge and if you kill the skink priest then there is no more area of
effect blast to kill our knights. They
are valid targets for Trebuchets since the template hits everything and archers
may be able to knock a wound off of the character. All in all handled correctly they are points
for the taking. Peasants should avoid
combat.
A Carnasaur must be ridden by a powerful lizardman
character. I place these guys just
slightly below a dragon in threat level.
Fast power and tough to kill. I
find the guy on top is often more dangerous than the monster. I consider these my highest target priority
for killing. Peasants should avoid
combat.
Army builds.
There are three configurations for this army. The first is
the dino horde. Max out the giant
monsters, while this is effective against infantry our knights tend to be able
to run right through this list with little effort. Make sure you get the charge
and all things should be well. You
should outnumber him with units so outmaneuver him whenever possible.
The second is big infantry blocks. As with every infantry based army focus your
force and use tactics to overwhelm where possible. Lizardmen infantry is not as durable as others
and most knight units can go straight through the average unit.
The last one, and the most common, is the magic
gunline. A Slaan is one of the most
powerful wizards in the entire game and can easily wreck whole armies on his
own. A bodyguard unit and the slaan
himself can easily cost half an armies points.
This leaves few other units that can be easily swept away. It is unwise to expect the slaan to miscast
and kill himself, the best way to assure victory is to hit the wizard as hard
as possible as quickly as possible.
I have also seen a skink horde but it was a list designed
for fun and died very easily. Here are a
few things to expect from the average lizard army. Generally the most dangerous things are the
characters.
Powerful characters. Both
Slaan and Saurus characters are very dangerous.
Large monsters. Stegadons are quite common monsters that
work like chariots.
Small screening units. Skinks can be blown right through.
Toughness. Lizards are usually hard to kill high toughness
works in their favor.
Average infantry.
Saurus blocks are not taken in horde units and seldom bigger than 25.
No back line. Long
range is rather limited in the lizard army.
This means that either they advance together or stay stationary
together. Flanking is generally easy.
Wood Elves!
When playing against wood elves it is important to realize
that there are two distinct flavors of wood elf. Tree spirits and the elves proper. They fight completely differently and should
be handled differently. Important to
note about the entire army is that they do not have a good armor save but try
to make up for it with ward saves. All
in all expect them to get one save rather constantly.
Types of Units
Woods. The trees themselves fight against you with
dryads, treekin and the treeman. They
all have a ward save of 5+, however this can be negated by magic attacks and
they all cause at least fear. Needless
to say our grail knights get some potent use against these foes. Starting at the bottom of the power list are
the dryads, a light skirmish unit. Since
it is a skirmish unit shooting is ineffective.
With a T4 and the ward save they can be surprisingly tough to kill,
however they have no ranks and inflict rather little damage to knights. A full lance charge of 9 will very likely
wipe out an entire unit and they are rather pricey as well so it is often worth
it. If they are inside of a forest then
avoidance should be used unless it is a small unit of 10 or so. They are stubborn in trees and we gain no
ranks and may very well lose some knights charging terrain. They are often deployed as a counter assault
unit but they lack the power to threaten our knights outside of the trees. Peasants will die horrible, horrible, deaths
to them however. This unit tends to be
one that is killed by being broken.
Next is the treekin.
Basically ogres with an armor and a ward save. They can be tough and larger units can
certainly ruin your day. Decent damage
output individually and in a full unit of 6 will even pose a serious threat to
our knights killing about 2-3 a turn.
They do however have a weakness to fire so if you have any flaming
bowmen then the treekin should be a high priority target. Another disadvantage of treekin is the
cost. They are quite expensive and as such
will normally be fielded in smaller numbers.
This plays into our knights strengths.
On the charge we have ranks and will cause similar damage, often enough
to kill a treekin or if you're very lucky two.
If there is a character in the unit with magic attacks he may very well
be able to knock off a treekin before they get a chance to swing. Grail knights will blow straight through the
unit. At the end of the day they are the
single most effective unit in our army against treekin. Grail knights and characters are your best
bet for damage while using your normal knights for combat resolution to break
the unit and run it down. Handled
carefully these can give you a chunk of points, handled poorly and they will
earn a lot of points. Win by breaking
the unit and running them down.
Last is the treeman.
He has an upgraded version which is a character and as such is capable
of killing champs in challenges to prevent a full lance from hitting him. Overall they are basically a tough version of
a giant and should be treated as such.
Heroic killing blow and trebuchets are the easiest way to deal with it,
flaming bowmen may be able to knock off a couple wounds from time to time. It is stubborn and will on average kill a
knight a turn. With the high toughness
and good armor save it is difficult to flat out kill and breaking it is difficult. If it is an ancient treeman then a challenge
with a character could be disastrous due to the item that allows you to only
hit on 6's in a challenge. All in all these
are tough nuts to crack without heroic killing blow and shooting. If you have lore of Beasts then it is a good
target for amber spear, as well as other magic missiles. On the subject of range treeman have the
ability to cast treesinging, which moves forests and have a ranged attack in
stranglethorn. Both of which can be
nasty and should not be forgotten.
Strangle thorn in particular can cause some nasty damage, thankfully it
is short range. This one must be flat out killed for the
points.
Elves. The biggest
thing about the elves is that they wear little to no armor. In combat our knights make short work of the
average unit and even the tougher units will most likely die, even to horse
attacks. In the newest rules elves are
turning out to be rather scarce but I will list them for completeness.
Where the elves shine
is in the shooting phase. With quite
possible one of the greatest shooting phases in the game glade guard are fast,
accurate and at close range, S4 with their shots. Being able to move with no penalty means that
they often will move and since they ARE wood elves they will likely deploy in
the woods meaning danger to us charging in.
Either divert a large unit of M@A to deal with the units, ignore them or
suck it up and charge in. Losing a
knight to terrain always hurts but the combat will go in their favor. If possible charge from beyond 15
inches. This prevents them from gaining
the bonus of additional strength at close range as well as the penalty for long
range. They are rather pricey for a
unit that we can eliminate easily so are often worth the risk.
Eternal guard. They
get lots of high WS high I attacks that bounce off our armor for the most
part. Expensive and poorly armored, this
unit is just begging to be shot by bowmen then charged. Lots of points for surprisingly low
risk. Should be easy to shift as they
are normally deployed 20-25 strong, Knights can burn through that in no time.
Wardancers. The only
elf that poses a threat to our knights in fighting. Being able to change their dance every turn
gives them versatility. With killing
blow posing a threat to our knights or a 4+ ward save to survive the hits they
can be quite tricky, in addition shooting does little against them. However they have no ranks and outside of
trees can be blown apart with a solid knight charge.
Waywatchers. Glade
guard on steroids. Instead of +1 at close range they gain killing blow. It can be quite painful but like all the
elves in close combat they will die quickly.
Often pricey and since they're scouts often close they make prime
targets to drop in the opening phase.
Warhawk riders/ glade riders. I list them together because they play about
the same. As hard to catch as a pegasus
knights they provide surprisingly little threat to knights and even bowmen have
a chance in combat. With little armor,
few attacks at a low strength and low toughness, most units will hold easily
against them in combat and may even be able to repulse them. Once again their danger is from
shooting. It is a lot of points to pay
for the archer on top but it is points that are hard to take down. These guys are the epitome of harassing
units. If you can bring them into combat
they will die but it is not worth chasing them with any sort of combat unit. Stick to shooting them, hitting them with
magic and preparing a defense for your trebuchets.
Wild riders. This is the unit that tries to give our knights
a run for their money. Tries. While they are S5 on the charge with a high
WS they are not well protected. Prime
targets for bowmen, trebuchets, magic missiles.
Even in combat on the charge they kill on average 2 knights with a full
10 man unit. Not pleasant but not
terrible as we will often retain our steadfast. If we charge then it is no
contest. They do have a longer charge
range than we do and a ward save so a risky long charge may very well be called
for.
Characters. Wood elf
wizards are giant point sinks that are easy to kill in combat and have little
magic prowess but decent magic defense, much like our own damsels. Expect them to cast from the Lore of Life and
for them to be able to prevent most of your magic until they die. As for nobles
they are a giant pain due to the magic bows and arrows they can take. Most die in close combat outside of the
aforementioned only hit on 6's in challenges item so Close combat is where you
want these lightly armored warriors.
Alter Kin can't join units and often will make your life miserable with
shooting, consider them targets well worth killing and quickly. They fulfill the same role that warmachines
fulfill in other armies and they are mobile.
Other than that they can take a dragon.
Army Builds
While there are technically three builds but only 2 are
mentioned here because they are the most common and the last build, "heavy
shooting elves" doesn't fare well anymore, especially against Bretonnia with
our high armor saves.
Mixed build. Some elves and some trees running around. Use smart target priority and be clever with
target selection to reduce risk to yourself before you launch your counter
attack to get to his lines. If he is
playing defensive hit him in his support base.
Tree horde. The most
common list now. It is surprisingly
dangerous just taking trees. Keep your
force together, focus your fire on a unit until it is at a point where the
knights can handle it. You should
actually outnumber the WE when they field this style of list.
Things to expect.
Lots and lots of shooting.
Wood elves have a lot of shooting.
Making a lot of armor saves.
Most attacks from the elves lack armor penetrating abilities.
Stupid tree rush.
Trees provide the damage in close combat.
Lone heroes. Though
on their own they are still difficult to kill.
Hard to catch. The
average elf is going to play guerilla warfare.
Few points killed.
Wood elves win by killing just a little bit and preventing you from
killing more.
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