I am new to fantasy, been playing 40k for 15 years and eventually decided to give this fantasy thing a go. I chose to collect a lizardmen army mainly because of the models. I have played 6 games so far for 3 wins and 3 losses. All of the losses have come against a Strigoi vampire counts army. I am set to play him again in the next couple of weeks and wondered if you could offer any advice. The 2000 point army I take as follows.

Oldblood on Carnasaur,Light Armour, Blade of Tzunki, maiming shield, BS of Sotek, Itzl, Tepok

Scar Vet, Grt Weapon, Shield' Light Armour, Charm of Jaguar, BS of Sotek, Quetzl

Skink Priest Level 2, Dispel Scroll

20 Saurus Warriors with Spears and Shields + full command

13 skinks with Javalins and Shields

12 skinks with Javalins, Shields and Scout

3 Kroxigors

8 Saurus Cavelry with full command

stegadon


His army consists of roughly the following:
Vampire Lord
2 Vampire Thalls
Unit of Skeletons
Unit of Ghouls
Unit of Dire Wolves
Unit of Grave Guard
Unit of Black Knights
Unit of Spirit Host
Banshee

I have tried various tactics but nothing seems to work and no matter how much I try, I can't get rid of that Strigoi Vampire Lord,he is nasty.

Any suggestions please?

Kai Gar Gor

Well, if you want to build a list specifically to beat him... never the best idea really, but perhaps worth it for a little revenge... then here are a few ideas for you to pick and choose from.

1. Take the Bane Head and the Piranha Blade on your Oldblood, charge the Count. One wound should kill him.

2. Increase your magic defence a little. Another scroll, or some marks of Tepok. if that vamp is level 3, you don't have enough dice to shut down his magic phase, which is something you have an opportunity to do and should pounce on.

3. Try and build a more coherent list. Right now, your army seems to me a mass of disjointed elements. Try to work out an army that will be able to function together on the battlefield, the units moving and deploying in a way that allows them to support each other rather than becoming isolated and fragmented.

I can't really help you much more until you tell me the points values you're working with.

ok. lets see, what would i do with thay list? um, put your scar vet on a cold on. and bump up all your saves. first thing, kill his lord. fly up his rank with the carny(i love those things :wub: ) and kill. i would also say, get rid of some skinks. and take 2 units of 15 saurus. sadly i would disagree LordChilipepa and have to say. ditch the priest. hes not worth it. one priest isnt going to help much, take another vet on a coldone. he can cause much pain, trust me, they CAN and will hold there own. magic probly will cause mass damage, so target them first. and and thats all i got.

Vargo

Well you might want to consider more saurus with the BS that makes them immune to phycology. I'd prefer Salamnders over a Stegadon, Steggies are L5 and are very likely to run. Plus Salamanders are great against weak skeletons because of their auto-hit and AS modifier. To free up some points you might also want to drop your carny for a cold one instead, or you could mount up youron a cold one by droping the unit down to 7

As I said 2,000 points.

What do you think would make it better? I have so far found it to work OK. The plan I have used is to have the saurus warriors in the middle with the scar vet, next to them is the kroxigors behind a skink screen, this forms my centre block to hold up the enemy with the scar vet jumping out to pick up those loose characters. I use the stegadon with the help of the scouting skinks to secure one flank and send the cavalry and the carny down the other killing everything in their path and then sweeping on down the line. I have read in the Tactica on this site that you don't like the cavalry, but apart from the VC they have done well.

I'll tell you what happened last time we played. The cavalry got held up by the spirit hosts which they cant hurt, very annoying, so had to send the oldblood in to help as he as a magic weapon. Meanwhile behind the spirit hosts is the banshee which does that nasty scream thing causing instant wounds on my carny and oldblood. By the time I've killed her the carny is dead and the oldblood only had 1 wound left. In the middle I made a bad judgement with the JSoD and he was 1" short of his charge to one of the Vamp thralls. The rest were slowly being whittled down without the support from the flank and eventually broke. The scouting skinks got charged and failed to hold and ran away leaving the stegadon seriously outnumbered until he ran away. The nasty Vamp Lord managed to charge the and finish of the Oldblood and the game finished with the cavalry as the only ones left, in combat and about to be swamped.

I might try the Pirahna Blade and Bane Head combo, but I don't like to tailor lists for one army. How have the rest of you gone against them? What worked and what didn't? Is there a trick to getting rid of the Etheral creatures quicker?

Kai Gar Gor

hi
wat u should do is get rid of his magic useage and he will die and also take big units and no shock troops or cav cause they will die straight away

Right, well, having heard a bit more about the specifics, I'd make the following recommendations:

1. Give your JSOD the Venom of the Firefly Frog. Voila! - he can now hunt Banshees. Do so, as they are worth quite a bit and can be very dangerous.

2. Attacking those Spirit Hosts without a decent magic phase is going to be difficult. I'd recommend upping your skink to level 2, and, if you can bear it, losing the Carnosaur to get another Level 2 skink. Then you will be able not only to shut down his magic phase, but to blast his ethereal nasties with Lightning Bolt spells and Storm of Cronos.

3. Try teaming the Carnie with the Steg rather than the Cav. The reason: it's a scarier prospect for the enemy, and the Steg needs more help than the Cav, as they have some non-kill CR (banner, rank, outnumber). Furthermore, having the general within range can help with the Steg's Ld5 - on the opposite flank you can compensate for the Carnie's loss by switching the Krox out of your "central formation" to work with the Cav, where they will function best - Kroxigor are excellent at flanking undead regiments, as they are hitting on 3s a lot of the time. A single flanking unit of Kroxies will chew through 25-30 skeletons in a few phases of combat.


4. A radical proposition here: swap out the Saurii for a larger proportion of skinks, and some Salamanders. At the moment, your Saurii are the slowest thing in your army, impeding your strategy as a whole and also representing a juicy hamper of points to the opponent. For the 310pts they represent, you could bag yourself 3 Salamanders (195pts) and 1-2 units of skinks. As a result, your army will be faster, it will be more difficult for your opponent to grab points off you by attacking static infantry units that he can swarm and run down due to Fear, and you'll have a solid central firebase to replace your spear line. The Salamanders will rip through Skeletons and Zombies like nobody's business - they are also the perfect tools for obliterating units of Ghouls and Dire Wolves trying to mess with your plans in one volley, and for providing a handy flank charge (the unit has US 18, giving them the +1 CR bonus even if as skirmishers they're not allowed to negate ranks) with 6 S5 attacks from the beasties.

Well he has no necromancers so you should do very well in the magic phase. I still stick with my previous post, instead of dropping your saurus, drop the carnie for a cold-one and drop one CoR to even out the unit. This gives you enough points to buy 3 salamders. Remember to keep your JSoD close to your steggie.

After reading a lot of the other posts on here, I will probably pick up some salamanders next. With all those benifits I don't know why I didn't get them to start off with. I suppose the first problem I had was not knowing much about fantasy and secondly, I just love the Carnosaur model, it's the main reason I picked Lizardmen to start off with and my tactics and first choice of models just evolved from imaging it supported by the cavalry rampaging through the enemy lines.
Thanks for the help guys, I will let you know how I go when we meet again this week.
I have looked around the web for a while and this is by far the best Lizardmen forum I have found.

Good hunting

Kai Gar Gor

Well after another long absence I have decided to put in yet another word of wisdom, I think I am quite in my element as I play both Counts and lizzies, well enough of that, my main reason for posting was to make some more ruckus about my lizzie-list, which by a coincidence revolve around a carnosaur :clap:, so without further adou:

Oldblood
-Carnosaur
-Light Armor
-Scimitar of the Sun Resplendent
-Maiming Shield
-BS of Sotek
-BS of Quetzl
--478pts--

Scar-Vet
-Great Weapon
-Light Armor
-Shield
-Charm of the Jaguar Warrior
-BS of Sotek
-BS of Quetzl
--148pts--

Skink Priest
-2x Dispel Scroll
--115pts--

Skink Skirmishers (13)
-Javelin and Spear
--78pts--

Skink Skirmishers (13)
-Javelin and Spear
--78pts--

Skink Skirmishers (13)
-Javelin and Spear
--78pts--

Skink Skirmishers (13)
-Blowpipes
-scout
--91pts--

Skink Skirmishers (13)
-Blowpipes
-scout
--91pts--

Terradons (3)
--105pts--

Kroxigors (3)
--174pts--

Kroxigors (3)
--174pts--

Salamander Hunting Pack (3)
--195pts--

Salamander Hunting Pack (3)
--195pts--
_________
--2000pts--

I think I have posted some basics about how to play it in some earlier post but I didn't have the strength to check it out... nut you can look for it if you want ^_^
It is a really fun and rewarding deck to play and when you win(and belive me, when you know the ins and outs, you WILL win) you will know it was by pure skill and L337(always wanted to write that :D ) micro management