Ok I meant to write this a week ago and I wish I had as I've played 3 games of Warhammer this week meaning I have even more to write. But following is Part 1 of a breakdown of the 11 games I've played so far in 8th edition, all with my Lizardmen.
Games 1 & 2
These were both 600pt games against Simon, a trainee manager working in the Poole store who was kind enough to give me a couple introductory games. I was using a unit of 18 Saurus, 5 Cold ones and some Skink skirmishers with a Champion model representing my Scar Vet. The first game was against Skaven using the Watchtower scenario. Not the most useful 1st game, Skaven struggle with watchtower at best of times. Basically my Saurus got in the tower they were occupying and didn't budge. Only other thing of note was my 5 Cav (no command btw) battling a Doomwheel, they successfully chased it off but provided no other useful part in the battle before it ended.
The Second Game Was against High Elves, his army was something along the lines of two Units of 10 or so Sword Masters, a noble and some Sea Guard filling up the core. This was the Dawn attack scenario but only playing on a 4' by 4' board meant it didn't have much effect. Long story short, I lost this one. One unit of Sword Masters chopped up my cav without an attack back. My Saurus soaked up enough casualties to be able to return attacks against the same unit destroying it. However, there were now too few of them to be able to deal with the second unit and were horribly butchered.
Things I learnt: Stupidity, Fear! Must remember both. Don't think I made a single stupidity check, I'm a lot better at this now and always tell my opponent at the start so hopefully he can remind me if I get. Same with fear, it can be a long shot especially against high leadership units like High Elves, but you can take so many leadership checks over the course of a game that they're bound to fail it sometime. My Cold ones may not have died if I had remembered this against the Sword Masters (although I wouldn't be willing to put money on it).
I had intended not to use my Temple Guard until I got a unit of 20, in fact I hadn't even assembled them at this point. After seeing the Elven units run effectively at 10 models, after these games I decided to use them to get my army up to 1000pts as opposed to my original plan of getting a Stegadon at this point.
Games 3
This was my first 'proper' game, and I can't remember the guys name. I played him in game 4 as well...I want to say Matt. I apologise to him anyway, on the off chance he sees this. Once again it was against High Elves but this time at 1000pts in Battleline. Relatively new player as well and after the game realised he had made a mistake on his army list, taking a Mage on his list but treating him as a level 4 Archmage. He had also taken a Prince. I did question this early in the Battle but he assured me the mage only cost 100pts, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He had warned me before hand he wasn't good at maths and didn't have a 1000pt list prepared so had to write one quickly before the game. He definitely didn't make this mistake on purpose, but it did teach me that I should have trust my instincts and checked his army book there and then. Never mind I can't remember the mage doing anything spectacular anyway apart from making my priest completely irrelevant.
Anyway, I had just brought a Scar Vet model and a Skink Priest so at 1000pts my army consisted of a bare bones Scar Vet and Lvl 1 Priest, 20 Saurus, 10 Skink Skirmishers, 10 Temple Guard, and 7 Cavalry. Basically everything you saw in the pictures in the previous posts. His Army if I remember right was 20 Sword Masters with Prince, 20 Sea Guard with the Archmage in the centre and 2 Bolt Throwers one on either flank. I feel like I'm forgetting something. Anyway my Skinks and Cav advanced on opposite flanks and quickly neutralised his bolt throwers. I took out his Sea Guard pretty easily, I forget now with which unit, I think it may have been the Cold Ones before they reached the bolt Thrower. However, his Sword Masters managed pretty much destroy my whole army piecemeal, first the temple guard, then the Saurus (who had been whittled down by magic) then my Cavalry once they had turned around and returned to the main battle.
What I learnt: I lost this one, I would like to say that was due to his points advantage but it really boiled down to me not effectively dealing with his Sword Masters, I should have dealt with them first, ganged up on them and then mopped up the rest of his army after as opposed to trying to do it the other way around.
Game 4
The following week I played against the same guy this time using Ogres. This was the first game in a new Campaign being run by the GW store, a Border Princes Campaign from the old Generals Compendium. The scenario was Battle for the Pass, I was using the same army as the previous week. His army was a Unit of Bulls, a Unit of Iron cuts (I forget exact numbers I think maybe 6 in both, maybe 8 in the Bulls) a Tyrant in the Larger Unit, and two units of two Lead Belchers.
This was a really close game, my Cold Ones took out one unit of Lead Belchers, and my Skinks took out the other unit (finishing them in close combat no less!). Our two mainline units paired off against each other in the centre. His Tyrant led unit killed my Temple guard along with my General. My Saurus and his Iron guts whittled each other down. The Tyrant and unit, after chasing down my Temple Guard managed to turn a rear charge my Saurus. My Saurus Lost and fled through his Iron Guts but neither unit caught them and they managed to rally. My Cold One cavalry were manoeuvring to get back into the fight leaving their flank exposed, however due to all of our units being bunched up at this point I knew he wouldn't be able to charge them as there wasn't room. However, I forgot to account for my magic and shooting, killing enough ogres, the unit was now small enough to charge through the gap. His Tyrants unit charged my Cold ones and the remaining Iron Guts charged the newly reformed Saurus. The Saurus won finishing off the Iron Guts unit. The Cold Ones survived and reformed to face the Ogres. At this point all he had left was his Tyrant and 2 Bulls. After their success against the Lead Belchers I charged the Skinks into the Flank of his unit, gambling on their high Initiative, decent numbers and the fact that only one Ogre could attack them to see them through. The following turn I managed to get the remainder of my Saurus into their rear.
At the end of the game the Saurus had been killed, the Cold Ones and Skinks were still alive, the Tyrant was still there and all that remained of the unit was a single Ogre on a single wound!
I lost the game by literally 99 points making it the closest draw possible. If I could have taken just one more wound off of the Ogres I would have won, if I hadn't charged the Saurus in...well I may have just lost the Cold Ones instead but if not I would have won also. Once I got home I realised that I had in fact lost as we had forgotten to factor in the 100pts for killing my general...still very close game.
What I learnt:I also made a pretty large rules mistake to the detriment of the ogres. I thought that to work out 25% of a unit you counted the number of wounds in the unit but its not its whole models. This didn't have massive effect although I got one of his Leadbelcher units to take a panic check (which they passed) when they should have. More importantly his surviving Leadbelcher on the opposite flank, which the Cold Ones had chased off but not chased down, was only rallying on double 1's when it should have been normal leadership. I would have killed it quick enough anyway I'm sure but it would have prevented the Cold Ones getting back to the main fight for at least a turn.
I also decided after this fight I needed a better general, for two reasons. First for fighting things like the Tyrant which in this game I really had no answer for. Although I almost wiped his unit out, I think I only managed to take one wound off of him. The Second reason is that although he is T5 with a 3+ save he only has two wounds, so even though he's only 93 points, its a pretty easy 193 points to give away to the enemy.
So after this game I upped the Points of my army to 1200pts, made the Priest a level 2 (as the level 1 wasn't doing all that much) and Upgraded my Scar Vet to an Old blood loaded with Magic Items. He has Glittering Scales and Talisman of protection and the Sword of Anti-heroes. Ok so he costs 251 pts now so a potential 351 Victory Points but with -1 to hit in Combat, T5, a 2+ Armour Save, a 4+ ward and 3 wounds so those are 351 victory the enemy shouldn't be getting.
Come back soon to see how this new Build gets on, I've talked long enough for now.
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