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So i have a bit of a problem. I think my friend learned somewhat from the stuff i've been telling him from you guys and got a slann and some razordons (he wasn't too thrilled about the strength of the salamander's attacks even if they're flaming). He takes lore of life and in our last game he used 'dwellers' to torch over half of a 100 model clanrat unit and killed all 3 heroes which got no sort of 'look out sir' saves or anything of any kind. He also learned from me talking about skink heavy forces that often shoot in their turns, flee when an enemy charges them and then re-groups with cold-blooded only to keep shooting at me more.

Being skaven i have a couple really good random movement models (doomwheel and hellpit abomination). I have magic which will be almost entirely negated by the slann if i get too close. I have shooting but it probably couldn't handle all those skinks considering the negative modifiers i'd get with them being skirmishers and it'd probably be a losing fight considering they have quick to fire weapons that are poisoned for very cheap (and longer ranged than my quick to fire units) and cold-blooded. My problem is i want a unit which might be cheap enough for what it does and yet do enough damage to kill these skinks without trouble. The hellpit and doomwheel could help a ton with this considering skinks are just small units and my stuff is either armored or has regeneration.

I think magic is going to be hard to do against a lizardmen player with one or more slann and shooting back at skinks won't be easy to do in a worthwhile cost effective way. Some may suggest i use units like giant rats (rat darts) but if they panic and hit my other units then i'll take other panic tests and making small units of giant rats panic doesn't sound hard. I've been thinking of using slaves and quite possibly 20 man units of slaves with sling and 2 and a half points a piece for a grand total of 50 pts units that can harass small weapons teams somewhat and kill things like fanatics or maybe even swamp a field to get around to war machines like cannons as a cheap close combat raiding party (talking about uses for fighting other armies). The good thing about slaves is that they're cheap like giant rats but they only panic other slaves so if they keep their distance from other slaves then i should be fine. That said if i am forced to shoot they'll almost never hit but that may not be needed if i have a ton of small units of them sniping weapons teams. Night runners are also a possibility to kill skinks but they have the same BS and are rank and file as opposed to being skirmishers which can shoot easier.

--------------

Not sure what to do about this but as odd as it sounds i've seriously been considering skaven-slaves with slings of all things (go figure). I also may try out my doomwheel and hellpit against him more which should be helpful (random movement prevents enemies from fleeing from you and they can only elect to 'hold'). That said skinks are still very mobile and annoying to kill.

Don't try to counter the Slann magic, use it to obliterate the skinks. Use an offensive lore to cause hits, since skinks are T2.

Jezzails tear up lizardmen pretty well. I hate dealing with them.

The Poison Wind mortar is GREAT against skinks. Template into a T2 unit? Fire that up.

IIRC, Random Movement doesn't allow for charge reactions because you aren't declaring a charge. Use those units against the skinks.

My friend uses a pile of engineers (no spell levels!) just to spam little offensive magic items.

I have no idea how you would consistently LOSE against a skink list. I stopped using skinks at all due to their frailty because at some point, they need to get into combat.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/512809.page

He pretty much did this with his lizardmen only probably not as effectively as this player though my opponent had better luck with magic (basically a slann and lots of shooting, fleeing and regrouping with that stupid cold-blooded rule). He did have cold ones and saurus warriors to help back him up along with the slann, skinks, 3 terradons and 2 razordons. In fact razordons work really well with this list as i couldn't really charge them for fear of facing 2 artillery dice worth of shots per razordon though the chance of misfire would be high (though i didn't have a numerous unit to face that). He also took the 'lore of life' which is really disgusting.

I won't really shoot your advice down but poisoned wind mortars wound on a +5 or +4 with no armor saves on the template's hole and though they can fire blindly i'd rather use something like that for killing cavalry or heavily armored infantry with a good toughness (saurus cavalry is a better idea for this to shoot).

Skaven don't have terribly much in the way of super offensive magic if you mean like direct damage or magic missile spells. An even bigger problem is slann can take abilities and he constantly takes the one that allows him to make my main wizard have his 6's discounted when trying to cast spells. We have warp lightning which kind of sucks D6 str 5 hits if it goes through with 24" range and on a roll of 1 for hits you hurt yourself once with it and then there's scorch which is kind of good and is a small blast template of strength 4 that does fire damage with 24" range. Most plague magic is incredibly short ranged. Once again i need to keep my wizard away from his and honestly i should probably try to do spells like skitterleap and death frenzy (which needs to happen fast) rather than things that need close range or only last till the next magic phase. Also i'm finding that i should probably only take a couple warlocks with stuff like a doom rocket and a brass orb and the others will just have items that help a unit if at all possible.

Jezzails panic easily supposedly and it makes sense as to why considering they don't benefit from added leadership and can get a max of 7 or so. I'd need to keep them in towers just to matter and they won't help vs skinks and i can't really snipe something with a +2 ward save against magical attacks and basically is invulnerable to everything else. Jezzails cost 20 pts each and are once again armored unit and good toughness killers. Shooting these against skinks which would add another -1 to my BS is a bad idea esp. considering i may be at long range.

Random movement is a good idea however and i will use it with the hellpit abomination and the doomwheel but it may not be enough.

The engineers might help but most of the stuff is powerful in the way of the doom rocket and the brass orb. The brass orb has failed me the last 2 times horribly. Last game it killed like one dude and the other rolled a 1 for his initiative test i think even though i aimed it at the slann. The doom rocket is actually insanely good if you skitterleap it into the side of your opponent's army early on.

I probably should've kept my wizard far out of the slann's range of 12" but we'll see. The random movement units and such should be good for his list though.

So yeah once again this is not just a skink list. He has a slann, 2 razordons, 3 terradons (which don't do much), a bunch of saurus warriors and some saurus cavalry too.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
. An even bigger problem is slann can take abilities and he constantly takes the one that allows him to make my main wizard have his 6's discounted when trying to cast spells.

Keep in mind it only works for enemy sorcerers in 24''. 24'' from the Slann (!!!). If you want to e.g. cast at the Slann's unit, stay within 24'' from the unit but e.g. 25'' or 26'' away from the Slann and you can still cast at full effect. Also keep in mind that the Slann has the Infantry type. Dreaded 13th and stuff.

I'd take a pair of grey seers.
Take 13th spell on both.
If he gimps one, just use the other.

Also, if the shooting is tearing up your army, try the storm banner. -2 to shoot for a turn or two will cripple lizardmen firepower.

Clanrats should be beating down skinks in combat, slaves will give them a run for their money.

You could try spamming slaves to run off all the skinks, protected by the storm banner, while the seers pump magic in. Even when the slaves lose and break, they will hurt nearby skinks with the hits they cause.

Not sure how you use multi-quote if it actually works but i'll try answering each of your posts.

@sigvatr: Crap that's a huge range. He also takes the ability that allows his slann to roll an extra free dice for each casting he does as long as he doesn't fail to cast. This ends up equaling out to a ton of spells and not a whole lot of dispell dice to handle it even if i have a dispel scroll. He takes the slann by itself which you may say is a huge weakness but he takes it with the +2 ward save vs magic and the ability to only be hurt by magical weapons and effects.

I could try doing initiative test or die weapons on him like before with the brass orb after skitterleap or a cracks call after skitterleap but i may not be able to do it.

@hawaiimatt: I've only got one grey seer so far but i may get a second. I figure a slann costs a lot of points with all those abilities and wargear items. Normally i might spam low level wizards against it but it's harder to beat him dispeling it due to his wizard level.

I could take the 13th spell on both but then i wouldn't have skitterleap deliver a warlock with the doom rocket. I think i may even just have one warlock and one grey seer now that i think about it. My grey seer is the main wizard and if i do have more warlocks they'll either be for augment magic items or similar (like one will carry skavenbrew possibly).

The 13th spell is nasty yeah but it's hard to get it off if he prevents 6's and even if the one that isn't 'calmed' gets no negative modifiers it's still a fairly high level spell to cast even with a level 4 wizard. It's basically a ton of magic dice lost that i can use with other spells. It's not a horrible spell and would negate pretty much anything he has to the point he could have a unit of chimeras instead of toughness 8 saurus warriors but skitterleap on a dude sounds better if one guy can't get it.

At least 2 grey seers would allow me have one with spells of ruin and the other with spells of plague. Having 8 of the 13 spells covered with D3 warpstone tokens base per grey seer and multiple other stuff is pretty good actually.

I may try the storm banner again but as was stated by warpsolution it can end up hurting you if you have more shooting. I often take a couple warp lightning cannons but sadly one glorious shot i had which would've killed 5-6 ogres till i remembered the storm banner was still active and prevented the shot in the first place. Now i'm unsure if it's worth it. Against skinks with poisoned shooting it'd ruin their shooting enough but that's mostly just 1 turn of shooting modifiers which can hurt my cannons too. I don't know if it's worth that. It would keep his flyers grounded too though but they usually don't bother me much anyway. Surprised that the skaven spell of ruin that i never use (-BS to shooting and no flying for enemies) may actually be a good weaker version of the storm banner. Then again if the slann calms the grey seer with this then there goes that plan.

It's not the clanrats beating skinks in combat that i'm worried about so much as the shooting, fleeing when i charge them (getting me out of position), regrouping with cold-blooded and the slann (which is a large target and therefore 18" leadership general) and then just shooting me some more. I try to re-direct charges if i can but sometimes but if the only other target is razordons i might not want to. Really in the end he just casts down a huge spell like he did with 'dwellers' and takes off half my clanrat unit while destroying the rest with shooting or something.

I think i'll try random movement units like the hellpit and doomwheel since he can only elect to hold as a charge reaction from that. As odd as it sounds i probably will take units of slaves with slings or maybe just small units of slaves to get an enemy out of position. That said they explode in combat if they fail and weapons teams may be wedged between units so some slaves with slings may be just what the doctor ordered. Also using the small units of 20 slaves with slings as raiding parties in melee would be nice against weaker war machines. I mean small 50 pts units that are worth nothing to anybody and only cause panic in the same units as they are is generally good if you space them far apart enough. It'd give me a lot more to roam around with without fearing i lose a big expensive unit that could panic my more important stuff and it'd threaten his weapons teams and war machines somewhat. Double grey seers or weaker wizards with augments is also a good idea i think. I'll give this some serious thought.

Hey mate, could you put up his list? I've got some ideas based on what I'd hate to deal with using my skink cloud.

Cheers

He gave me the list just now and according to him it's 3 terradons, a slann, cha'kax, a skink chief, a skink priest, 2 razordons (in one unit), 2 units of 20 skink skirmishers each (for a total of 40), 8 saurus cavalry and about 20 saurus warriors.

He basically used the tactics i mentioned for running around and shooting me in the back running some more and then shooting me till he hugged his corner. Pretty mobile army from what i saw. He also had lore of life on his slann with the 'calm' ability (re-roll 6's on a wizard of mine of his choice within 24"), the ability that allowed his slann to add a free magic dice with each of his spells he used on him, an ability that allowed him to throw a miscast on my wizard and basically the ability to only be hurt by magical attacks and to only be hurt by magical abilities and effects with a +2 ward save. I figure if nothing else that slann has a huge chunk of points invested into it. I tried combat res'ing it to death twice with my clanrats though he succeeded to pass leadership twice and barely did so the first time. Then my clanrats got flanked by saurus and butchered. Seriously thinking about getting stormvermin to replace clanrats as my main fighting force and then using slaves as fodder, units i can shoot into and prevent panic from reaching other guys.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'd probably run:

Greyseer, power scroll, tokens
Greyseer, tokens

Spam naked warlocks

2 clan rat bunkers

Spam units of 40 slaves

3 units of gutter runners with poison slings

2xdoomwheel
HPA w/ spikes

Roll double dreaded 13th and force it through onto the saurus. Your other cast is Plague every turn. THe gutter runners can ambush and come in behind him and delete the saurus and take control off the board off him.

Use the spam of naked warlocks to declare charges. He can either waste his stand and shoot to kill a 15 Pt model, or risk getting stuck in combat. Either way he won't be able to stand and shoot and get away when your slaves charge. It also means you can charge fleeing units over and over so he's completely out of position and gets massacred by the gutter runners in his back line.

The doom wheels target his cav, or clean up skinks on the flanks, while the HPA goes straight for the slann, who he can hurt since he has warp stone spikes.

This all assumes 2400 points. The main vulnerability is dead warlocks causing panic tests. But using gen and LoS you should be okay.

Thoughts?

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

The 13th spell is nasty yeah but it's hard to get it off if he prevents 6's and even if the one that isn't 'calmed' gets no negative modifiers it's still a fairly high level spell to cast even with a level 4 wizard. It's basically a ton of magic dice lost that i can use with other spells.

At least 2 grey seers would allow me have one with spells of ruin and the other with spells of plague. Having 8 of the 13 spells covered with D3 warpstone tokens base per grey seer and multiple other stuff is pretty good actually.

I may try the storm banner again but as was stated by warpsolution it can end up hurting you if you have more shooting.

It's not the clanrats beating skinks in combat that i'm worried about so much as the shooting, fleeing when i charge them (getting me out of position), regrouping with cold-blooded and the slann (which is a large target and therefore 18" leadership general) and then just shooting me some more. I try to re-direct charges if i can but sometimes but if the only other target is razordons i might not want to. Really in the end he just casts down a huge spell like he did with 'dwellers' and takes off half my clanrat unit while destroying the rest with shooting or something.

13th spell goes off on a 25. With a level 4, you need a 21. Average on 6 dice is 21.
The Triad Council build is:
Grey Seer, Power Scroll
Grey Seer, Power Stone
Warlock, Forbidden Rod (level 1 wizard).
You get 2D3 warp stones, a 1 use +2 power dice, a 1 use +D6 power dice (which is likely to kill the warlock in the process, what isn't skaven about that?), and a 1 use cut the casting value in half.
And 3 channels.
If you get 8 power dice, you can use the power stone and warp stones to have both wizards throw 6 dice at 13th spell. If you ever rolls low for dispel dice, pop the Rod and the power scroll. Now you've got plenty of power dice, your spells are easy to get off, and your opponent has very limited dispel options.

You can still get skitter leap and 13th spell. Skitterleap is #1 on the Ruin list. With 4 dice, it's pretty rare to not roll a 1 or a pair. Honestly though, against a skink list, I'd go for Plague. With 2 level 4's, you're get the whole lore, and 13th spell twice. Plague tears apart T2 models.

On the storm banner, if your swapping your rares for doom wheels and/or abominations, gimping shooting is an obvious choice.

Slaan: He's not "Large". His leadership bubble is 12". It's not tough to get a lot of units outside the bubble. If he flees a charge, check to see if you've got anything within your max charge range (17"). If so, charge them again, and make them flee again. If you might run them off the table do that, otherwise angle them away from the general. Failing a charge isn't horrible. You're going to move D6" out of position, which isn't all that much. When you're looking at redirecting, it isn't a bad idea to try and charge something that you most likely won't hit. My vargeists will often redirect into an enemy 21 or 22" away if the path looks good, as long as I don't roll an 11 or 12, I fail in a direction I like.

-Matt

A lot of good stuff here. A few other comments:

- you'll want several decent sized blocks. Enough to absorb some darts, but none of them more tempting than others for Dwellers.

- against a ton' o Skinks, the Storm Banner is worth it. Let him take a turn moving into position (especially with those Terradons), prepare some charges, and then activate the banner on his next turn.
With such a limited offensive force, you won't need to pack much yourself. I'd take Rat Darts and Slaves in force. Focus on one cloud of Skinks at a time, pushing them right off the board when you can.

- Plague will devastate Skinks.

- I don't really get why he's using Razordons. Sure, S4 > S3, but an average of 6 hits < 20+ with that flame template.

- Get some units in the Saurus' way, so they either have to charge into a weird angle or keep the Slaan out of your Seer's way.

- if Life continues to be a big problem, consider the Bell. You'll benefit a lot from the Seer's 18" IP, with the MS(and/or M)U thing you'll have going on. Scorch is cool, extra movement and building-destruction is cool. But D3 Wounds to all T7+ models? That equals one dead unit of Flesh to Stone'd Saurus.
Also, those Clanrats'll never panic from poison darts.

- Two Doomwheels and an A-bomb will give 'em serious problems.

- Nightrunners with slings might work pretty well, actually. They'll shred skinks in close combat, and with their special move, they might be able to get to cover and pose a serious threat at range, too.

- I would not do weapon teams at all. 10 Skinks will kill any of them in one round, even needing 6's to Hit.

- also, why is he running them 20-strong instead of 10?

Thanks for the help guys. The last few posts seem very informative. I'm going to try out some of this. Dunno if i have any of this or the money to handle it though. I do find it hard to drop warp lightning cannons sometimes. They aren't always awesome but vs things like monstrous infantry and monsters they are.

@warpsolution: Just gonna be short with a couple of the things you said.

Yeah i notice that with the weapons teams and yeah i told him about that with razordons but he just wanted to roll with that. I guess he prefered the range and strength.

I've seriously considered the bell. Normally i think about ruin spells and while plague is good i feel i might reach the slann's range to 'calm' me.

I may do the double seer list but i dunno. I feel like at least one will get 'calmed'.

I think i will use the storm banner now. I realize it's good esp. considering his flying units too.

I don't think any of my guys panicked last game. The awesomeness that is a grey seer, SiN and a BSB.

The sad thing is i had an item which i could've used but didn't know its exact details and thought it needed to be to retaliate against a spell that targets the magic wielder's unit. My plague priest had a rulebook scroll that when read instead of attempting a dispel you get a +4 ward save against its target. I'm guessing this includes all targets even if a unit but that said it is dwellers so no save.

He's running his skinks 20 strong because we're both not the best of players and barely get to play. In the case of other things we also don't have that much money in both of our cases.

Auto-magic from the best might be nice though. It'd keep his slann from being a constant de-buffer and pain in my *ss.

I don't totally want to make a list geared to stopping his and his alone. Just throwing that out there too.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I don't totally want to make a list geared to stopping his and his alone.

That's the ticket! Tooling up your list to destroy his leads to a back-and-forth "if I'd have taken this, I'd have pwned you" dialogue I'm not fond of.

Two Seers feels like too aggressive a move for my tastes; I'd never run it. You're paying out a minimum of 240 more points for what basically amounts to a few more Warptokens and another chance to cast the Curse, which I don't consider the Be-All-End-All of spells anyway. I feel like it'll either be awesome and not very much fun for your opponent or a complete waste.
Then again, I try not to dominate any one phase entirely. I'd much rather dabble in everything, so I get a chance to do lots of difference stuff in every game. That, and I'm one who prefers to put up a fight at every turn than roll over half the time and rise up to crush the opposition the other half. It just feels more sporting and more dynamic.
With all that said, though, if you think one of your two Seers will be Becalmed (a stupid, stupid power), that's definitely not a point against the idea. 'Cause that means that the other is fine.

The Scroll of Shielding (or whatever it's called), by the way, does nothing against Dwellers. No saves means no saves. It is, in my opinion, the best spell in the game. It thins most units by half while also threatening any of the characters within with insta-death (especially if they're a S3 Wizard character), and it happens to be part of the Lore with the best defensive magic in the game. Too versatile, too powerful.

Really, the simplest over-all advice (that's good against Skink lists without being designed specifically for them) I can offer is:

- take a lot of decent-sized blocks.
- deploy your Grey Seer a bus of Slaves or Clanrats between him and your opponent's Slann to avoid being Becalmed.
- pop the Stormbanner when his shooting is in range/flyers are in position.
- focus on one unit at a time. Declare multiple charges, and try to come in at an angle that isn't head-on.
- don't be afraid to charge those Razordons! 2 Artillery Dice might have potential to get ugly, but you'll be okay (4 wounds on an average shot, and even if he rolls double 10's, that's still only 7).
- take your time with the skinks. Weather the storm, line up your shots, and take 'em out!

Hey, you know what else would be cool? A Plague Furnace. Billowing Death could cause some serious issues for Skinks. And then you'll have the classic Pestilens-versus-Lizardmen thing going on.

This is a bit old but i'm still trying to figure out how to beat said lizardmen opponent. On an interesting note i've found that his 'calm' ability for his slann is only if he's within 24" of my wizard at the start of my magic phase. If i should put my grey seer out of range and then skitterleap the grey seer within range i could probably get in some nice magic esp. if i cracks call him. I figure i'll use a power scroll to force my grey seer to cause any doubles to give a miscast and irresistible force when i skitterleap around his lines. It's a risky maneuver but it might pay off. I'll see what i can take including a +4 ward save though this ability might be suicidal. There's also the idea of the flying carpet item. If nothing else this should prove useful as a way to absolutely destroy his monsters and almost all his cavalry in one cracks call.

I did somehow move in such a way in my game last friday as to make it hard for his skinks to move around my guys and then i got within close range of his units before trying to charge them so that if he fled poorly he might get run down (perhaps 6 or 7 inches away from my guys and considering skaven have base move of 5 and he was fairly near his table edge it was a bit of a gamble with his units). My grey seer died immediately and most of my units got dweller'd by i did snipe out his stegadon and kill most of his stuff including all his saurus and 6-8 of his saurus cavalry. Go figure that plague monks with the plague banner and with poisoned attacks from being in a river could utterly annihilate some saurus ;P (though it does kind of make sense that i did 16 wounds before saves and about 8 died and i lost one plague monk in the close combat and then ran his saurus down in a fluffy fashion). Anyway i still lost and almost gave up early on due to the insane casualties of dwellers and the temporary power outage making things incredibly hot and dark for the GW but i did push through and end up throwing out a bunch of damage to where i gave him a bit of a run for his money. Dwellers is stupid though. He used it so much and just banked almost everything on it. That spell needs to be toned down quite a bit.

Crack's Call will still allow a Look Out, Sir! roll, so it's more than a bit of a gamble. But that is a very important distinction you made!

I wouldn't bother with the carpet; 50pts for Fly and an inability to join units is less than a good deal for a Grey Seer.

Good job in your last game, though. Poisoned Plague Monks equals one sick unit.
And yes, Dwellers is stupid. Dumbest spell in the game, as far as I'm concerned. The best horde-thinner should not also be the best character-sniper, and neither should be in the best defensive Lore in the book.
On the other hand, it encourages you to keep your characters out of the big units, which is refreshing, but it's all still stupid.

Warpsolution wrote:
Poisoned Plague Monks equals one sick unit.

Not sure if intentional pun or not

Warpsolution wrote:

And yes, Dwellers is stupid. Dumbest spell in the game, as far as I'm concerned. The best horde-thinner should not also be the best character-sniper, and neither should be in the best defensive Lore in the book.
On the other hand, it encourages you to keep your characters out of the big units, which is refreshing, but it's all still stupid.

Dwellers encourages me to max out on long-range shooting and passive playing above everything else. It's just too good of a spell and let alone the fact that it's in the same lore that allows you to cast at IF w/o miscast.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Warpsolution wrote:
Poisoned Plague Monks equals one sick unit.

Not sure if intentional pun or not

Warpsolution wrote:

And yes, Dwellers is stupid. Dumbest spell in the game, as far as I'm concerned. The best horde-thinner should not also be the best character-sniper, and neither should be in the best defensive Lore in the book.
On the other hand, it encourages you to keep your characters out of the big units, which is refreshing, but it's all still stupid.

Dwellers encourages me to max out on long-range shooting and passive playing above everything else. It's just too good of a spell and let alone the fact that it's in the same lore that allows you to cast at IF w/o miscast.

If dwellers was in lore of fire, or lore of beast, it would be a lot more balanced. Of course, the name would have to be changed; but it's got no place in lore of life.

-Matt

Warpsolution wrote:
Crack's Call will still allow a Look Out, Sir! roll, so it's more than a bit of a gamble. But that is a very important distinction you made!

I wouldn't bother with the carpet; 50pts for Fly and an inability to join units is less than a good deal for a Grey Seer.

Good job in your last game, though. Poisoned Plague Monks equals one sick unit.
And yes, Dwellers is stupid. Dumbest spell in the game, as far as I'm concerned. The best horde-thinner should not also be the best character-sniper, and neither should be in the best defensive Lore in the book.
On the other hand, it encourages you to keep your characters out of the big units, which is refreshing, but it's all still stupid.

He doesn't yet have temple guard so i should be ok....for now anyway.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Warpsolution wrote:
Crack's Call will still allow a Look Out, Sir! roll, so it's more than a bit of a gamble. But that is a very important distinction you made!

I wouldn't bother with the carpet; 50pts for Fly and an inability to join units is less than a good deal for a Grey Seer.

Good job in your last game, though. Poisoned Plague Monks equals one sick unit.
And yes, Dwellers is stupid. Dumbest spell in the game, as far as I'm concerned. The best horde-thinner should not also be the best character-sniper, and neither should be in the best defensive Lore in the book.
On the other hand, it encourages you to keep your characters out of the big units, which is refreshing, but it's all still stupid.

He doesn't yet have temple guard so i should be ok....for now anyway.

The slaan still gets a look out in Saurus units. What I have done before is to garrison a building with skaven. Without ranks, they are easy to push out. After I took the building, at the start of my opponents turn, I said, "Oh gak, those guys don't have ranks, they're only stubborn 6 in the building, they will be easy to knock out".
My opponent promptly charged into the building with 24 saurus and knocked them out, then garrisoned the building.
On my turn, I just smiled and cast cracks call into the building, bringing the roof down on the saurus, killing most of them.

-Matt

Your friends list really is not very optimal

pteradons usually dont accomplish much

cold one cav are way over priced

skinks in units of 20 are less tactically useful than units of 10

salamanders just rule against T3 armies and only one wound caauses a panic check, razordons are very mediocre, even poor, they have short range, cant move and shoot and usually do fewer wounds than the same points in skinks. Compared to salamanders, they absolutely suck.

I don't know skaven well but if slaves don't cause panic in anything even other slaves what about weighting a flank with 3 to 5 units of ten strung in lines.
You can just wave after wave to tie up stuff block shooting just cut the board down to force him to fight what you wish to fight. Combine that with some gitter runners an plague furnace or bell.
Just a potential out of the box thought.

They cause panic in nobody but other slaves. Also they have a rule where if they're in melee they can be shot into by your other guys as long as it's just skaven-slaves. It used to be the 'life is cheap' rule where everything could be shot into. Now it can only be done against slaves or with poisoned wind globadiers i think (which should make up for their crappy as h*ll range but more likely you're taking them for the death globe and poisoned wind mortar anyway rather than the odd 1-2 wounds from the other guys).

Used to harpies w dark elves they don't even panic themselves can use 3 units of 5 layered about 4 inches behind each other to control a fair chuink of realestate.

Slaves can only be taken in units of 20+, and multiple units will probably end up outside the general's Ld, so you'd be looking at Ld2-3 on Panic checks.

But a few units of 20 are surprisingly durable to shooting. 20 Wounds for a unit that costs lest than 50pts is a good deal, especially since your opponent won't want to wast time on them.

Warpsolution wrote:
Slaves can only be taken in units of 20+, and multiple units will probably end up outside the general's Ld, so you'd be looking at Ld2-3 on Panic checks.

But a few units of 20 are surprisingly durable to shooting. 20 Wounds for a unit that costs lest than 50pts is a good deal, especially since your opponent won't want to wast time on them.

I was thinking of using skavenslaves with slings to panic or kill small units of flanking units and weapons teams. Then again everything i can do with skavenslaves with slings i could probably do with a grey seer that has 'cloud of corruption'. Problem with that is it would throw a grey seer out into the open but i've used it to clear out fanatics insanely well in one game. Very potent for clearing those landmines (fanatics and weapons teams) that's for sure!

It still sounds like using slaves with no upgrades in a huge block sent to soak up casualties is still my best bet though even if i was facing fanatics and i'd get 2d6 hits (which wound on 2's and avoid my armor) per fanatic i ran over.

I still think vs this slann i have to use initiative tests or other similar characteristic tests that allow no saves of any kind. It's really my only choice besides combat resolution. I mean i checked that slann have like 5 wounds and if he takes his as only harmed by magical weapons and effects and only on a +2 ward save with a wargear item with all his other expensive crap then i can't do a whole lot. If nothing else it's a huge chunk of points to plop down for a lord choice and is probably nearly his entire points in lords that he can take at 2.2k pts.

I'm gonna mull over my other options. I'm thinking about taking warlocks as place-holder units with some items like skavenbrew and other stuff that non-wizards can take that boost units ('shadow magnet trinket' possibly). I still need to take care of those skinks and i feel clogging the field with bodies will at least make things more complicated with his hit and run tactics. I'm also thinking about double skitterleap grey seers that substituted said spell for skitterleap if the skaven spells of ruin grey seer doesn't roll up skitterleap anyway. Then i can go around skitterleaping and throwing out plague and cloud of corruption or cracks call and other stuff. I feel like once the slann is dead things will be much easier but a lot of my tokens are in one pot here. I don't have too many ways to handle slann if it stays out of the way esp since it can only be hurt by magical weapons and effects. That means even gutter runners with poisoned slings won't be able to hurt the d*mned thing.

I've tried Slaves with slings. Hit on 5's base is not so good. Ten-wide, you're looking at 2.2 Wounds to Skinks. And that's assuming you haven't moved and are at short range...

Warpsolution wrote:
I've tried Slaves with slings. Hit on 5's base is not so good. Ten-wide, you're looking at 2.2 Wounds to Skinks. And that's assuming you haven't moved and are at short range...

That's not what i'd use it for probably. Thing is they're 50 pts each and can swamp the field. Against lizardmen they're not so good but 40 (2 units of 20) vs fast cavalry, war beasts and weapons teams might be sweet and it's 100 pts. That's still probably not a lot but against small things that do a lot of damage but can take almost none (fanatics, skaven weapons teams, etc.) it would do a lot. 50 pts for a dead fanatic and possibly some other nice shots isn't too terrible. It's not great but against units weak units that'd damage mine and make mine less effective in numbers it's definitely a good way to put down the fanatics once and for all and i don't have to charge them to do it either. All that said 'cloud of corruption' is still probably infinitely better at clearing those sorts of weapons teams if combined with 'skitterleap' that's taken for free on a grey seer. Although that's quite a few points to lose if it leaves a grey seer too much in the open.

It's certainly not an awful idea. I like using Slaves for more than fodder. They just have a very, very limited use. Three units of 20 Slaves deployed 10-wide, either moving or at long range, will do 5 wounds to T3 models before saves.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Warpsolution wrote:
I've tried Slaves with slings. Hit on 5's base is not so good. Ten-wide, you're looking at 2.2 Wounds to Skinks. And that's assuming you haven't moved and are at short range...

That's not what i'd use it for probably. Thing is they're 50 pts each and can swamp the field. Against lizardmen they're not so good but 40 (2 units of 20) vs fast cavalry, war beasts and weapons teams might be sweet and it's 100 pts. That's still probably not a lot but against small things that do a lot of damage but can take almost none (fanatics, skaven weapons teams, etc.) it would do a lot. 50 pts for a dead fanatic and possibly some other nice shots isn't too terrible. It's not great but against units weak units that'd damage mine and make mine less effective in numbers it's definitely a good way to put down the fanatics once and for all and i don't have to charge them to do it either. All that said 'cloud of corruption' is still probably infinitely better at clearing those sorts of weapons teams if combined with 'skitterleap' that's taken for free on a grey seer. Although that's quite a few points to lose if it leaves a grey seer too much in the open.

BS2, -1 for range, -1 for movement, -1 for skirmish/fanatic.

At best, it's 1 shot each on a 6. Most likely, you'll need to move or fire at long range, so you're looking at a 6+ followed by 4+ to hit, and 4+ to wound. If you go 12 wide, and 2 deep, on average you'll do a single wound to a T3 fanatic. But if you need 7's, you might as well go for 8's and fire twice. Then you only need 18 shooters (9 wide) to do 1 wound.

Anything that the slings might hit you'd be better off just charging. Going wide to get the volume of shots you need means losing out on ranks, which costs you leadership.

-Matt

The point is they're 50 pts units and if the enemy targets them with anything that's a unit i can use to have flee and get out of position anyway and it costs almost nothing. Alternatively i can use them to get rid of fanatics and weapons teams which generally die easily and have no armor for the most part. Also if they bother to shoot at a slave unit it will only make said slaves flee and at most panic other slaves but only if they're close enough. For a 50 pts unit that is not a big deal and they'll be wasting shooting or magic or similar killing 50 pts slaves that are just there for killing weapons teams or to re-direct the enemy.