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I need some suggestions on countering the dreaded night goblin fanatics.

In our 2,000 pt game, my lizards got their asses handed to them by my son due to them.

We're relatively new to FB, having played about a half dozen games each, between each other and my 2 brothers' undead armies.

A summary of my list:

-Oldblood on carnosaur
-ScarVet SB on old one
-ScarVet on foot
-skink priest (lvl 2)
-12 saurus (spears)
-12 saurus (HW)
-12 skinks (blowpipe)
-12 skinks (javelins)
-3 kroxigors

His list (roughly estimated from memory)
-Black orc warboss
-20 black orcs
-5-6 units of night goblins (20-25 each, all but one had 2 fanatics)
-Bolt thrower
-Doom diver

The orc list has an obscene amount of dispells, due to that totem thing, so the skink priest was pretty much impotent.

We were playing on featureless terrain, which is the way we've been doing it, until we're pretty comfortable with FB rules. This does favor the fanatics, though. It's awful hard to use the skinks' missiles, since they have to get fairly close and the inevitable balls and chain go ripping through them. He never rolled less than an 8 each time, and often went through the formation and one inched into the next formation bumped with the first one.

I fed an intel report to one brother who's got a khemri army. We figure opening the lost ark would help there, along with all his archers. but apart from sacrificing skinks, I don't know how the lizards can cope.

ZF-

We were playing on featureless terrain,

Well, there's your problem. The best way to deal with Fanatics involves baiting them out from inside terrain features (something your scouting skinks are great at). They won't be launching at your skinks, if doing so kills the fanatics. And once they're in the open, you shoots them.

You can also try some sneaky teradon tricks - fly to release range, but in a direction where sending the fanatics at your dinobirds results in fanatics hitting his own units.

In any case, once they're out in the open, apply skink shooting until dead.

You need to find the 'gap' where skinks moving will trigger a fanatic charge out of two units.

Yes, the skinks will die...that's ok. Once the fanatics are out, night goblins are very very squishy.

I know, I just played my first game with my night goblin army and it was hilarious.

Oh and get some terrain. Even 1 or 2 pieces does change things quite a bit.

but apart from sacrificing skinks, I don't know how the lizards can cope.

Why are you afraid of feeding them skinks? The three fanatics they pop are worth more than a unit of 10 skinks. If you are going to be a lizardmen player you need to get over the fact that your skinks are going to die. A lot of the army tactics revolve around sacrificing them for the great good of the army.

Also to kind of parrot others, play with some terrain, since terrain rules are important to know as well and help you better learn how armies fight.

We've been keeping it open until we're comfortable playing FB. I'll be working on some terrain this week.

Mulling over it, the low sarus count is what's hurting. My brother is taking on this list this weekend with the VC army. He'll be running an obscene amount of skeletons, so I guess the effect of fanatics goes away when the losses become a drop in the ocean.

Meanwhile, I'll be painting more lizards.

ZF-