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So I played my first game using the new lizardman armybook. 2250 against Warrior Of Chaos.

Woc:
sorceror Lord on Disk, Tzeentch, extra spell from fire, ward save from ranged attacks.
Sorceror on steed of slaanesh
Exalted on Jugger with BSB
2 small squads of Marauder horsemen
1 big squad of marauder horsemen with flails
5 x Knights of Khorne
1 small dog unit
War shrine
Giant of Slaanesh
4 dragon Ogres
chariot of slaanesh

Lizards:
Slaan with free dice, 2 scrolls, bsb, diadem of power
2 scar-vets with sword of might and enchanted shield
1 skink priest, level 2, on engine of gods with grubs, plaque of Tepok
2 x 20 saurus with full command and spears
16 temple guard with warbanner
1 stegadon
2 x 10 skink skirmishers

Warriors take North table side, I take south. Forests west and east, middle of the table. Hill in the southwest, obstacle in the north east. He overloads the east flank with giant, warshrine, big marauder horseman unit with sorceror, dragon ogres, then lord. Center is both small horsemen units with Knights/bsb behind them. To the west, dogs and chariot.
I deploy saurus in the center, with temple guard and slaan taking the very middle. Scar Vet in each saurus squad. Skink squad on each flank. Stegadon takes east flank, Engine stays behind Temple Guard. He goes first.
Turn 1:
He moves the majority of his forces towards me on the east flank. Lord flies to the southeast. warshrine hides behind forest. small marauder horsemen move forward as do Knights. Dogs move forward. I keep most of his magic down, dispelling some pot shots at my skinks/stegadon on the east flank. He irresistably casts Pandamonium.

I march skinks to the west up into the forest. I do the same with the skinks on the east flank. Saurus move forward but stagger and shift to face the east. Engine stays behind my saurus blocks. Stegadon backs off to stay out of range of Dragon Ogres and Giant. My magic fails miserably as Slaan miscasts and loses conflaguaration of doom, and skink priest miscasts and lets Warriors cast super Tzeentch doom spell, Infinity Gate or something like, so I lose a scroll to stopping it. Engine puts up the 5+ Ward against ranged attacks. I miss with my shooting.

Turn 2:
He continues to position his forces on the east, moving the giant, warshrine, big horsemen squad, and dragon ogres further down the flank. He moves out his smaller marauders, unblocking the knights and chariot is now ready to hit saurus on the west. Mangled marauders set up in front of east saurus, blocking them from charging giant. Dogs move down more. He gets off a fireball and bolt of tzeentch on my stegadon, but engine keeps the damage minimal. Unproductive turn.

I reposition, trying to brace for the impact of the knights and set up a counter charge I move my engine and stegadon away from his giant and dragon ogres. Magic is slightly better. I fireball down a marauder squad and do a wound to the giant, Engine keeps up ward. Shooting takes down the dogs on the west flank and does some damage to the large marauder unit. Bolt thrower misses giant again.

Turn 3:
Knights/chariot charge saurus unit to the west. Big horsemen unit chases down skinks to the east but end up blocking his other horsemen unit. Magic wounds the stegadon again and Engine but nothing major. Scar Vet one dies horribly to BSB, rolls low on impact hits. Lose only 7 saurus and do 2 wounds to chariot. Pass leadership test and hold.

I charge temple guard into knights. Engine charges marauders blocking east saurus and catches them luckily. Saurus charge giant. Magic is alright, getting 3 rerolls and reroll ones and doing no damage. Big victory is Engine doing AoE blast and killing 4 knights and wounding the giant. My temple guard bounce off BSB and surviving knights and he continues to chew through my western saurus unit. Lose combat by 5 but pass leadership test. Saurus put 4 wounds on giant through wonderful rolling.

Turn 4:
He charges dragon ogres into my eastern saurus in the flank. Big marauder unit tries to untangle and charge temple guard next turn. Warshrine gives dragon ogres +1 strength (ouch). Magic nearly kills my engine, wounding the priest, killing all but 1 crew, and dropping the ancient stegadon to 2 wounds. BSB continues to eat saurus in the west. I do no wounds to the chariot, bsb, and last knight. I still manage to pass leadership test thanks to good static res. My saurus to the east get chewed up by dragon ogres but manage to kill the giant. Saurus flee and get run down by dragon ogres are just shy of hitting my Engine of the Gods and are in range of my stegadon.

I charge steggie into dragon ogres. I move my engine back away from the now ready to charge big marauder unit. Engine AoE's again and kills the chariot, BSB, last knight, a dragon ogre, the last small marauder squad, and two more from the big marauder unit. Other magic is just rerolls. Shooting kills a few more marauders. Steggie rips through dragon ogres and chases them down, overruning into warshrine.

Turn 5:
He runs his big marauders away as now my Temple guard and last saurus unit are unengaged (and my temple guard and still mostly fresh). His Lord is flying around, trying to get the big Tzeentch spell off on my Temple Guard but failing. Stegadon wounds warshrine but it stays.

I reposition, moving my Engine forward to try and blast the marauder unit. Magic is utter fail. engine AoE snake eyes for a 2" effect. Stegadon and warshrine slap each other.

Turn 6:
His marauders now claim the northeast table quarter, far away from engine. Lord continues to try and kill temple guard but last scroll shuts it down. Warshrine and steggie discuss politics.

My forgotten skinks to the west claim the northwest table quarter. Nothing really happens. Game over. I come away with a pretty solid victory.


Thoughts:
Spears on saurus are nice, the better armor save and full attacks from second rank make it a pretty ok unit. Probably best against skeletons/zombies, since at a 5 frontage that's 21 attacks. They couldn't hurt heavily armored stuff and relied on the slaan being next to them. Engine of the Gods is amazingly good. The early 5+ ward kept my causalities low and the AoE is mind-numbingly good. Spamming Engine of the Gods (although that's expensive in many ways) may become popular. Slaan is cheaper but without miscast protection, they are more vulnerable. Overall, a pretty solid performance. I am eager to try out ranked skinks, terradons, super-impact hits lance, and the carnosaur.

(written late at night so possibly not coherent)

Very good read, cheers. No you made it very clear and concise. Not over the top but informative, would love to read more.

The EOtG sounds like it works as a great support at the start of the game and serves better sitting in the middle/back to maximise the hurt on mass combats in the middle. As long as your saurus blocks don't crumble to the charges (which it looks like they wont).

If this tactic becomes mainstream do you think you'll see the spear saurus in action or will people be playing for the attrition and thus take the 3+ save in hth with hand weapon and shield?

OR will we just see temple guard units spammed as they are better all rounders for slightly more points? I like the idea of a large temple guard anvil flanked by two spear saurus units with EOtG in behind the temple guard, and perhaps backed up by the 2D6 impact hits steggie ancient also following up for counter attack (dropping the normal steggy for this plus shaving points to fit).

I'd probably sink more points into the Slaan as well trying to prevent miscast by transferring it to the enemy wizard, as well as the reroll if there isn't one in range. I'd drop the diadem as it sounds like you wanted to have offensive magic in your phase (which goes well with the build helping to force them to come to you) and didn't use it at all?

I'd drop one of the saurus scar vets as well for points and give the other the bound item jag charm, great weapon and armour to still use as chariot etc... mitigation. Combined with your nasty magic phase you may as well throw in bound items or two to help.

so whats the difference in the new codex?

Are you actually using the new book (I assume not because it is not set to be released for another 3 weeks) or are you just using rules gleaned from rumors and sneak peeks?

From your list it definitely looks like you're using the new 'dex- glad to hear that the spear-saurus came out on top! Woohoo =)

New book is out- just not for sale yet.

Spear saurus are like cold blooded Chaos Warriors with more attacks at lower I and WS. They are not bad at all!
EotG is amazing, bordering on broken. It savagely kills good AS things. And there is no reason it can't charge in for support, either! I am not sure an EotG+spearskink is better than 2 EotG. 2d6 unstoppable S4/5 no AS wounds to everything within ~7 inches? Yes please!

I am jealous that you got to play with the new list. I am looking forward to the release to get my own game in. The battle report was nice and easy to read. Congrats on your victory, especially against WoC.

Wait, the burst is no armor save? WHOA, definitely didn't see that caveat ... No idea how my planned WoC army deals with that thing, with 0 shooting and up against 6 dispel dice from the engine alone ...

Nice report though, nice to see the new lizards tearing it up. Got to give the new book credit, lizard armies are quite different from the krox / sally spam we saw for the last how many years. Though I'm not sure if I like the steg / terradon spam that could replace it ...

- Salvage

The engine of the gods in the battle reports i've seen so far seems to be insane when it does AoE.

It just sits in the middle of the battle line and smashes anything nearby (usually the enemy main combat units).

Everything shooty in my army will have it as my target when I play against them (and I'm having a game this weekend with the awesome NGs )

Seemed like a very fun battle. i feel sorry for the WoC player. his list wasn't that solid, plus i would never take maruader horsemen over 5 men. and infernal gateway isn't everything.

U cant have muiltiple magic items in one army list IE both your scar vetrans cannont have enchanted shields and swords of might limit one per army list. good read though

Hmmm, from the way the EoTG is affecting the game it's no wonder that GW made them a special choice, and the changes with the spears too will make 'em extra fighty in combat. Sounds like you had a ball though with your game and that's great! I'm just curious to hear what you think about the new-ish Slaan and what he can do?

Where does it say that the EotG takes a special slot?
Slann isn't as cool. It lost it's +1 Cast/dispel bonus, and the option to take spells from multiple lores. Slann Gen are gone, too, to be replaced by "States of Mind". you get 1 for free, but any others cost 50 points.

My mistake, stegadons are a special choice, engines of the gods are hero mounts.

Sad to see the Slann weakened in such a way, miss the uber magic they could put out.

Hey, EotG's are quite nasty

I must have been the ONLY player to only net 1 kill per EOTG's AOE burst.. Then again, my dice hated me in that game. Also, don't count the slann out, they can still be very powerful, the only real loss was the ignore miscasts, which in the last book you had to devote a ton of points toward anyway. Now, you can tailor him a bit better to fit in your point limits while still keeping a lot of his nastiness. 390 for for a lvl 4 wizard with T4, 5 wounds, 5 spells, 1 free die per spell, magic resistance (3) and immunity from non-magical attacks? yes please.

nieto666 wrote:U cant have muiltiple magic items in one army list IE both your scar vetrans cannont have enchanted shields and swords of might limit one per army list. good read though

I was wondering if that was a typo myself while reading his army list..