Hobby Update – More Lizards

I am on fire this month. No sooner have I finished one thing than another rolls off the table. It’s something about these big lizards. I am really enjoying painting them. It seems to suit my fairly basic style but with big bold colours – happy days!

So the next one to come off the production line is a Scarvet on Carnosaur. I again went with some striking colours for this chap. The belly was averland sunset and yriel yellow with a wash of Casandora yellow. The scales were Teclis Blue, a wash of Drakenhof and drybrush of skink blue. (I forget what the highlights were done with). The scarvet was primarily blazing Orange (the oldschool hex pot) and a carroburg crimson wash. The shield was Xerus Purple with a druchii violet wash.

Again I took advantage of the good weather to take the shots in the garden!

I also realised I never posted any shots of the first big gribbly I painted last month. An Oldblood on Carnosaur! That’s right, there are two…

This one was a simpler colour scheme with Khorne Red being the main ingredient and the ridges in Caliban Green (with various washes). This is one i’m definitely going back to once I pick up some more drybrush paints (red and green are on the list). When I took these shots I hadn’t done the base as I wasn’t sure on what to do with them. His base is now similar to the one above. They do need redoing but I couldn’t stand the thought of not at least flocking them and as it’s only held on by pva it’s easy to scrape off.

How do they play?

The 220pt monsters alone are powerhouses. They have 4 attacks as standard and as soon as they cause a wound, gains an extra attack as it gets frenzy (which it can never lose). It only has weapon skill (WS) 3, so will rarely hit on better than a 4+ without help (more on that in a bit). Where it shines, is its massive strength of 7. This is enough to reduce armour by a modifier of -4 and each wound caused, multiplies into D3. On top of that it gets D6 Str 7 thunderstomps. It is a character and monster killer.

A movement of 7 is fairly average for a monster and toughness 5, with 5 wounds and a 4+ save is respectable but it will have to beware of great weapon armed troops. It does cause Terror, so there is a chance that foes charged will flee and when in combat, any failed fear tests will mean that the foe will have their weapon skill drop to 1 (so it will hit on a 3+ rather than a 4+ and the foe will only hit the carnosaur and rider on a 5+).

It has two upgrades available to purchase. The first is called Loping Stride. This makes it so you roll 3D6 when charging (rather than 2D6), discarding the lowest. This makes it far more likely you will make the charge and so is fully worthwhile for the 15pts.

The second is called Bloodroar. This makes an opponent roll 3D6 when taking their terror or fear tests (discarding the highest). It makes it far more likely they will flee or get their WS reduced. This is also a great ability, if a little pricey at 25pts. It also has no effect vs many foes as there are quite a few that are immune to psychology.

So that covered just the monsters stats and abilities. The Carnosaur can only be taken as a mount for a Saurus Lord (the 140pt Oldblood) or a Hero (the 80pt Scar Veteran). In terms of stats, they are both Str and toughness 5, which is as good as it gets for any standard character choice. The lord has 5 attacks vs 4 for the hero, with each able to generate extra attacks if the roll a 6+ to hit. Weapon skill 6/5 respectively is not very good (especially if some of them are meant to have a thousand years of fighting under their belt!). The Oldblood has a 4+ save and he can wear armour (on top of the +1 save for being mounted), so it is very easy to reach the pinnacle 1+ save. The Scar Vet has a 5+ scaly skin save so it is also quite easy do do the same for him. On top of that they can get 100/50pts of magic items, so you can give them wards and other abilities to boost them. If you make them your general and battle standard bearer, the bubble of those benefits jumps from 12″ to 18″.

Now all this doesn’t come cheap. All in, you are looking at 500 odd points for the mounted Oldblood and 450pts for the Vet, not inconsiderable amounts considering they could be one shotted by a cannon!

Tactics

As with any monsters in 8th edition, Carnosaurs are susceptible to cannons. There is little you can do about that. With 5 wounds each, an opponent will need to roll fairly well to kill one in one go (cannons roll a D6 for the number of wounds they cause). My plan is to run a list called a monster mash. It will have two carnosaurs, a Stegadon and a Basildon. 4 monsters means that unless someone has a large number of cannons, it will be difficult to kill them all. Adding in some flyers will mean they can get up and over the lines very quickly to attack the warmachines and help to reduce the risk of them being shot. This is because the flyers get vanguard (the ability to move 12″ before the first turn) added to their normal march move of 20″ they can get behind an opponents lines pretty quickly.

They probably work best on a flank where foes are outside of a general’s leadership (making the chance of them fleeing more likely). The other two monsters in the list will go next to the combat blocks to provide close support.