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.