Page 1 of 1

How to beat Lizardmen Army and Fiery Convocation

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:28 am
by cultofkhaine
Seeking some advice on how to beat Lizardmen army and Fiery Convocation spell

I have played a couple of social games now against a Lizardmen army (low points) 1000pts and been smashed twice by this painful spell.

Does anyone have any recommendations on how to counter it??

The last game I played this spell wiped out half my block of 40 spearmen in the first turn. :cry:

Re: How to beat Lizardmen Army and Fiery Convocation

Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2021 4:04 pm
by Red...
8th edition was always a game of Scissors, Paper, Stone:

- Small units get beaten by big units
- Big units get beaten by magic users
- Magic gets beaten by small units

Your first mistake was taking a block of 40 spearmen in a 1000 point game - that's a huge chunk of points, especially as I assume you had characters in there too. The trick in 8th ed, back when I played, I found to be to take multiple strong (but not overly expensive) units. If one gets burned by a big spell like fiery convocation, you can still carry on and win.

Some of the question comes though from what army you are playing against? Is your opponent running mammoth units and that's why you responded in kind? If so, you've got the wrong answer - Dark Elves do not go toe-to-toe in mammoth matches particularly well due to how brittle our forces are.

Typically, the best anti-Mammoth Dark Elf armies have either a) lots of small and medium units that can dance around his mammoth units and score cheap points while bleeding him dry (and also hopefully sniping/assassinating his high level characters) or b) a hammer and anvil build that allows you to bog down the enemy's mammoth(s) with your anvils and then smash them from the rear or flank with your hammers (or root out their vulnerable units while your anvil holds their mammoth up). In the latter build, your hammer and anvil units should still not be points-syncs.

Re: How to beat Lizardmen Army and Fiery Convocation

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2021 12:27 pm
by cultofkhaine
Hmm okay - thanks for the thoughts.

He had 2 x Lv 2 Sorcerers, 20 Saurus Warriors, 10 Temple Guard, 2x10 Skink Skirmishers and a Razadon I think

I had a Block for 40 Spear (thought this would be fun) Lv2 Sorcereress, 2x 10 Corsairs with Handbows, 5 harpies

My plan was to send the harpies over the to the mages to harrass unitl I could get there with my units.

He got Firey Convocation off in the first round and killed half my block of 40 in one stirke. Kinda took the fun out of the game at that point.

The Previous game I had a block of 20 Black Guard they didnt do quite as well either with this spell. In my view it is way to OP. I would love to know a way to counter it (I have every Dark Elf unit at my disposal :-)

Re: How to beat Lizardmen Army and Fiery Convocation

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2021 4:31 pm
by Red...
In both games, you had a huge amount of points bound up in a big infantry block. 20 Blackguard means that you have a minimum of 300 points in a single unit (and I'm guessing that you also had a full command on it, maybe with a banner, and maybe with a character or two - netting you at more like 400 to 500 points). 40 spears runs you even higher. In a 1000 point game, that means you have something like one-third to one-half of your army in a single unit. The rest of your army at that stage is, necessarily, weak and unable to win out if the big unit gets destroyed.

The risk with points-sync units is that if it gets crippled or killed, your game is effectively over. As you say, that is not very fun. Yes, he was lucky to get Fiery Convocation off, but there's no shortage of nasty big spells that will quickly end your game if you run big points-sync units like that. Effectively, if you run a points-sync unit against any magic decent army, you really are putting it all to risk during the magic phase - hoping each turn that he doesn't cast and/or you can dispel, because if he gets a big spell off, you're toast.

The way to counter big spells is to avoid having an overly costly single unit that can be targeted by them. Against his army, you could - for example - run two or three medium strength units (e.g. a unit of 12 executioners, a unit of 20 spearmen, and a unit of 12 black guard). Then you could add something like a hydra as a nice distracting force and a couple of units of fast troops to harass and mage-hunt. I would not bother with missile troops because Lizardmen are T4 and you're just going to bounce off his armour.

Re: How to beat Lizardmen Army and Fiery Convocation

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2021 11:38 pm
by cultofkhaine
Thanks Red you have been most helpful I will give it a try next game round - good to see you are still active on the board :D