The Stegadon is a strange kind of a Warhammer
"all rounder" on the battlefield.
It is not brilliant at any one thing but it does bring with it some flexibility in tactics which may be difficult for your opponent to second guess.As you would expect from a Warhammer Fantasy version of a Triceritops (I hope I spelt that correctly) the Stegadon is tough. As tough as your regular draon in fact at T6. Not only that, it has a 4+ scaly skin save so it won't be easy for a standard rank and file unit to kill.
The Stegadon is crewed by 5 skinks, they also benefit from the Stegadon's howdah (like a small wooden castle turret) that provides a very handy 2+ armour save.
What all this means is that you can expect the Stegadon to stick around in a fight.
If your giant beast of burden does get hurt (keep him away from Great Weapons !), you can have a moderate degree of confidence that he will stick around and not 'leg it'. Thanks to being stubborn he will always roll against a leadership of 5, ordinarily this would seem rubbish but with Lizardmen special rules of cold bloodedness it's more like having a leadership of 7.
I guess the important thing is to not put the beast in a position against an enemy who is likely to win the combat resolution.
The stegadon has quite a few special rules and attributes giving it some interesting battlefield options:-
1) Mobile fire support
With the giant bow mounted on your Steg (which is treated just like a bolt thrower) you can go hero/monster hunting. At short range you'll hit 50% of the time with S5 causing D3 wounds. You can see over units too, so can keep your Steg in reserve behind the rest of your army.
2) The Mobile Skink Castle
Mount a skink chief or a skink priest in the howdah and give him the...
Sacred Stegadon Helm
It will cost you 40 pts but it will crucially add +1 to the skink's (and therefore Stegadon's) leadership. If you take a skink chief his Ld will become 7 which is the equivalent of about 9 when you take into consideration cold-bloodedness.
This is quite a big gain for a stubborn Stegadon ! Actually, it's a very big gain although you will lose your giant bow and the 5 skinks who usually crew the howdah.
Remember though that while a skink chief is never going to be as hard as most enemy characters, he will be harder than most rank and file troops.
So, if your Steg steams into combat first you'll get D6+1 Str 5 impact hits. 4 str 5, Ws 3 attacks from your Stegadon and 3 str 4, Ws 4 attacks from the skink chief.
That won't quite win you any wars but it can cause routs amongst even highly ranked standard rank and file. If you can't rout them then your stubborn stegadon should be able to hold the enemy up long enough to get in a flank charge to eliminate their rank bonus.
A big unstoppable mount for your Skink Priest Assassin
How about this... Mount a skink priest on a Stegadon, give him the...
Staff of the Lost Sun
....which is a 3x shot short bow with a strength of 5 and the...
Bane Head
...which allows you to double unsaved wounds which your priest causes against an enemy character. You have to nominate that character at the start of the battle. Then go and assassinate that enemy character :)
Obviously, the enemy can easily counter this tactic because his character can simply join one of his units for missile protection so choose one which is likely to be impeded by joining another unit.
Remember your priest can use his magic aswell and that will also cause double damage on the nominated enemy character. A skink prieest always uses Lore of the Heavens, make your priest a level 2 wizard and then pray !
If your prayers are answered then you will have got either :-
Uranon's Thunderbolt
...which you can cast on any enemy in sight (no range limitation) D6 str 4 hits with no armour save and then double the damage done !
or
Forked Lightning
...which does the same as above but allows an armour save.
How cool is that ?!
Don't forget that on top of your Stegadon your priest will be able to see possibly the whole battlefield.
3) The Stubborn Mule
Because your Stegadon is so great at sticking around, you could always launch him right into the enemy core and let them fight it out with him. They will converge on him, trust me, they always do.
Let them, it doesn't matter if you lose your Stegadon, you just need to mess up those enemy lines and use the rest of your forces to get in those flank charges.
With a toughness of 6, armour save of 4 and 5 wounds your Stegadon will not be easy to shift. He just needs to survive long enough for the rest of your cavalry and hard hittin saurus to turn up.
You may aswell leave normal skinks in the howdah because there's a high chance of death but you should be able to deal out some damage using this stubborn mule tactic before you go off Warhammer's version of a Jurassic graveyard.
I hope you found some of that interesting and/or useful.
In Summary, the only thing I have against Stegadon's is.....nothing really. They're reasonable value and a handy addition to your tactical choices.
Note:
3 other things that might add to the persuasive power of Stegadon's are :- cause terror, immune to panic and unit strength of 8. All very useful, especially the terror.
Stegadon miniature © Games Workshop Ltd 2008. All rights reserved. Used without permission
