1st Foray Into 8th Edition (part 1)

Two weeks ago I had my first foray into 8th edition. Unfortunately, as always, I failed at taking pictures.

The first game I played was against Sam and his Daemons of Chaos again. I took my Lizardmen. I used a list very similar to my standard 7th edition list with a few tweaks to scale it up to 2500 points.

My list:
Slann Mage-Priest
- Focus of Mystery
- Focused Rumination
- Becalming Cogitation
- Cupped Hands of the Old Ones
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Lore of Light
Skink Priest
- Level 2
- Engine of the Gods
- Plaque of Tepok
Skink Priest
- Level 2
- Cube of Darkness
11 Skink Skirmishers
11 Skink Skirmishers
11 Skink Skirmishers
20 Saurus Warriors
- Full Command
- Spears
20 Saurus Warriors
- Full Command
- Spears
20 Temple Guard
- Full Command
12 Chameleon Skinks
3 Terradon Riders
2 Salamanders

Sam's list (guesstimate):
Kairos Fateweaver
Herald of Khorne
Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut
Herald of Slaanesh
3 Nurglings
20 Bloodletters
20 Bloodletters
20 Daemonettes
3 Bloodcrushers
5 Flamers
6 Flamers

We rolled Battle for the Pass. Our terrain setup had a watchtower on both sides of the board near the deployment line. One side had a town with a handful of obstacles, a Sigmarite Shrine, and a Mysterious Forest. Off to the side in the middle was a hill and the other deployment zone had a Magic Circle and an Arcane Ruins. Sam deployed on the side opposite the town and won the roll to go first.

His deployment was very simple, place everything as far forward as it could go and stick the nurglings behind my Temple Guard unit. My deployment put a unit of saurus ready to move up and man a wall on the first turn with support from the Engine of the Gods and two unit of Skink Skirmishers (one deployed in the shrine). Another unit of skinks containing the on foot priest was placed ready to move into the watchtower. The temple guard were placed next to the tower with a unit of saurus, a unit of warriors, and the salamanders to support. I placed my terradons behind the watchtower and promptly forgot to make their vanguard move.

With his first turn, Sam moved everything up, killed some temple guard with some flamers and didn't do much else. He rolled poorly on the winds of magic and Kairos was close enough to the slann to lose his 6 rolls.

On my first turn I moved the priest and skirmishers into the tower. I moved my one unit of saurus up to the wall hoping to take the charge from the bloodcrushers and hoping the wall would give me what I needed to win combat, I moved the terradons towards the engine planning to fly them over the enemy and use the chameleon skinks to hunt down Kairos in the backfield. I moved the skinks supporting the wall saurus up to take a charge from the daemonettes. My saurus supporting my TG moved up to take the charge from one of the bloodletter units and my salamanders moved up and positioned on a slant to take a charge from the other bloodletters (and force an overrun towards the board edge.

In the shooting phase, one of my salamanders misfired and ate 3 skinks. The other successfully landed the template on bloodletters and flamers killing one flamer and several bloodletters. In the magic phase I rolled a 10 for winds of magic and channeled an additional dice. This was followed by a successful magic phase that resulted in me casting Net of Amyntok on the Nurglings (I was worried about them charging my temple guard in the rear), placing a Comet of Cassandora in the middle of the demon line (next to the Bloodcrushers and Flamers). You can see the comet market in the picture below. I also successfully cast either Shem's Burning Gaze or Banishment (can't remember which, might have been both) to do some extra wounds.

In the daemons phase, he charged bloodletters into salamanders, bloodletters into warriors, brought bloodcrushers around to set up the charge on my temple guard, and charged daemonettes into skinks. The below picture was taken just after his movement phase. He also attempted to charge the nurglings into my temple guard but the net of amyntok held and they took damage instead.

From 2010-07-24

From 2010-07-24

When his magic phase hit, I rolled for Comet of Cassandora, and it went off. The marker is the dice next to the bloodcrushers. It dealt severe damage to both flamers and crushers killing one flamer, wounding the herald, and killing one crusher. He rolled double 6s for his winds of magic and I became very worried. He cast the first spell with enough power that it would have taken most of my dispel dice to stop it so I used my Cube of Darkness. I rolled a 6 and ended what could have potentially been a really bad magic phase for myself. His shooting took out a couple of guys (not many). In close combat, his daemonettes killed my skinks to a man and overran into the fortified building where they had to stop (can't overrun into combat with a fortified building). His bloodletters fighting my warriors won combat but I maintained enough ranks to keep my steadfast and held. My salamanders were massacred but one barely survived and fled. He either went off the board or was caught but the bloodletters who pursued were pulled out of position.

On my 2nd turn I charged my stegadon into the daemonettes, my wall warriors into the daemonette flank, and my temple guard into the flank of the bloodletters fighting the warriors. My shooting from chameleon skinks killed some flamers. My skinks in the watchtower unloaded 22 poisoned shots into the remaining bloodcrushers and killed off the herald and another bloodcrusher leaving only a single lone crusher. In my magic phase I was able to successfully cast The Speed of Light and Birona's Timewarp on my temple guard unit giving them an extra attack, WS10, I10, and Always Strikes First. I believe I also got some other spells off.

With it being clear that Sam was about to rapidly lose a full unit of daemonettes and bloodletters, his bloodcrushers had mostly been annihilated, and my chameleon skinks and terradons were closing in on Kairos, while my lizards had taken minimal casualties, Sam conceded.

Lessons learned:
Steadfast is pretty great. Normally my saurus would have booked it after losing to bloodletters they never got to attack. My salamanders not having partials are also pretty awesome now. I love the lore of light, but magic is VERY finnicky now. Sam had no backup plan in the even of bad Winds of Magic rolls and I had pretty good magic defense. This meant I was able to shut down his magic for a full two phases with ease. Cube of Darkness is an excellent item. Now that dispel scrolls are one per army, these items that can end an entire magic phase are suddenly infinitely more useful. My slann can alleviate the risk of a bad roll somewhat through the use of his extra power die discipline. March and shoot on skirmishers is incredibly useful. Terrain is important as if used properly, it can provide several major benefits. There are also some really cool synergies between Lore of Heavens, Lore of Light, and Lizardmen that I picked up on during the game. I think both lores can really complement Lizardmen well.