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A friend of mine wants to start WHFB with Lizardmen, so I figured I'd put together a solid all-comers list. The main thing here is to offer a variety of options while still putting up a fight, and avoiding those common combos that you see in every list.

1- Slann Mage Priest (Battle standard, Cube of Darkness, Sun Standard of Chotec, The Focused Rumination, Higher State of Conciousness) -430

1- Skink Priest (Dispel Scroll) -90

31 Saurus Warriors (spears, full command) -402
27 Skinks (Brave, musician, standard bearer, 3 Kroxigors) -322

26 Temple Guard (Revered Guardian, musician, standard bearer, Ironcurse Icon, Warbanner) -481

1 Ancient Stegadon (275)

Total: 2000
Models: 87
Units: 4
Fortitude: 7

So, obvious character placement. Life or Death for Slann. Each unit should be able to handle bulk and elite units with some effectiveness, with the Stegadon lending some bulk. I feel like 30 is a good number for the Saurus and Guard, but I'm not sure. Is the Ironcurse Icon going to do something in this unit? Thanks guys.

Definitely should be using Life with the Slann, you aren't taking Cupped Hands so you need Throne to help mitigate the miscast table, particularly the massive damage the TG will take as a result. Death on a Slann in a TG unit is asking for trouble with misfired Purple Suns and doesn't give you much in the way of buffs for your Saurus/TG.

Not sure if the Sun Standard is worth it, its pretty expensive for what it does and there are plenty of other nasty banners you could be taking (Flaming would be a good one for much cheaper). Mostly you are going to be worried about war machine shooting rather than direct BS shooting. If you find you need some help against BS shooting then just take a unit of skirmishing Skinks, not that much more expensive but will give always give a -2 to hit can be positioned to cover the units you want (people will just shoot the other units if you use the Standard) and gives you another unit for added tactical options. It would also give your Skink Priest somewhere better to hide, he doesn't really want to be in a big combat unit unless he has to.

Not sure if you need both a Dispel Scroll and the Cube, you won't run in to that many super powerful magic phases at 2000pts and most of the mega spells you can't stop anyway (IF). Personally I would run the Cube or just a standard Scroll (on the Priest) and take Becalming if you want plenty of magic defense.

Ironcurse is definitely a good choice, like most of the new 5pt items its a steal and always worth it in a unit which will be the number 1 target for any war machines. I normally put it on the Slann rather than the TG Champ to make sure it sticks around longer though.

Not sure if I would bother with taking a single Stegadon as they just become obvious targets. A Life Slann + 2+ Stegadons would be very interesting but that requires you to build your list around it. I would suggest a couple of Salamanders instead, they make decent flankers and can help you thin out Steadfast horde units which would otherwise tarpit your massive killy blocks. The other thing you probably need is some war machine hunters/disruptionn units as the rest of your list isn't that fast, Chameleon Skinks and cheap and probably your best bet, but Terradons can work as well.

I would echo a lot of what Powerguy is saying. Though the stuff like don't take Cube, take cupped hands doesn't matter for what he actually buys.

As for models, I would say you want more skink skirmishers and chameleons. They may not be as simple to use but are very important to a fun and effective lizardmen force. Skink/Krox blocks can be fun - but they have never been as effective for me as the equivalent saurus block. Or skirmishers and a stand alone block of krox. It does sneak those points into core but you aren't at a loss for good core choices.

Ditto on the single stegadon vs. salamanders. Stegadons are fun but better together or when you have other stuff they want to shoot at first (lone non-ethereal slanns or something).

enjoy

Thanks for the feedback. You make a lot of good points. I sort of stuck the Sun Standard on him without much thought, sort of a "if he can, why not" sort of thing, without looking much into the BRB.
I also wanted to avoid using the Lore of Life with the Slann, since it's almost mandatory at this point. I was thinking that the Lore of Death would assassinate characters and maybe give a -3Ld to a steadfast block, but I'm starting to think that Shadow might be a good way to replace Life (hexes/kills should equal buffs/resurrection, even if it doesn't work out that way). Either way though, I wasn't going to go for the Big Spell each time; want to use the Focused Rumination to maximum effect. From what I've seen, people are so used to waiting for the Bomb to go off that they sit on their dispel dice just in case.
And I've heard a lot of talk about how a single monster becomes a target for shooting, but I'm not quite convinced. In 8th, monsters aren't nearly the threat they used to be (which is why they used to get shot so much; they'd single-handedly eat your army), and big blocks of infantry are much scarier. If I were to face a force like this, my cannons and stone throwers would be aimed at the Temple Guard, not the Stegadon.

But here's a revised list, considering all the things you've said:

1 Slaan Mage-Priest (Battle standard, Ironcurse Icon, Cube of Darkness, The Focused Rumination, Higher State of Conciousness) -390

1 Skink Priest (Level 2, Glyph Necklace, Ancient Stegason with Engine of the Gods) -420
1 Skink Chief (Staff of the Lost Sun) -90

30 Saurus Warriors (Spears, champion, musician, standard bearer) -390
12 Skink Skirmishers (Brave) -89
10 Skink Skirmishers -70
10 Skink Skirmishers -70

26 Temple Guard (Revered Guardian, musician, standard bearer, Warbanner) 481

Total: 2000
Models: 91
Units: 6
Fortitude: 6

Not sure about the Engine, but...meh. The Chief goes in the 12-skink unit to make them more threatening (to either kill more guys, or to draw some fire. Hopefully both). Shadow or (sigh) Life for the Slann.

Needs 2 sallamanders.

...what a convincing argument, good sir. What would you cut out, to do so?

The other good option for Slann aside from Life is Light. It can turn your Saurus/TG into killing machines just with the WS10 I10 spell (both stats are weaknesses of the otherwise solid Saurus/TG statline), if you get Timewarp off as well then there aren't any units which will stand in your way. It also has very good defensive spells with Pha's Protection and Net (which can auto shutdown a war machine) which really help keep Stegadons safe and some decent magic missiles for basic damage output.

If you don't take Life then you really should take Cupped Hands or at the very least an Earthing Rod. Without any miscast protection your TG are going to get hammered when your Slann explodes as he is in the middle of the unit.

If you ran into a Dwarf/Empire gunline with this list I would be very surprised if the first few cannon/bolt thrower rounds (as in turn 1 shoot phase) didn't go into the Stegadon simply because its such as easy target. 1-2 hits from a Cannon will almost certainly kill the Priest (which removes the magic threat and the main EoTG effects) and kill or at least badly cripple the Stegadon itself. Considering its probably going to be giving out a 5+ ward to both the Saurus blocks it makes sense to kill it off first. After that every thing is going to hammer your TG and hope your Slann fails a LoS (which he will eventually).

I agree Salamanders would be nice, but imo you need some war machine hunters more urgently. The most obvious place to cut points is to drop the Skink Chief (who won't do much), which would get you 1 unit of Chameleon Skinks. Personally I would also change your core around a bit so you have 2 units of 24 Saurus and maybe 1 unit of Skink Skirmishers so you can squeeze in a second unit of Chameleon Skinks.

Warpsolution wrote:...what a convincing argument, good sir. What would you cut out, to do so?

Considering their uber high points cost he would have to shuffle quite a lot of things...

Warpsolution wrote:...what a convincing argument, good sir. What would you cut out, to do so?

You have 510 points of heroes in a 2,000 point list. I'd start with that, since you have to cut some anyway.
Chaemeleons would help too; you really do need the warmachine hunting.

-Matt

Thanks for that. Microsoft Excel doesn't seem to have a problem with it, but I'm pretty sure 420+90 > 500. The chief was just an attempt at something a little different anyway.

Powerguy makes a good point about the stegadon, but I will say that the main problem there seems to be that it has an Engine and a Wizard on it's back, not that it's a stegadon. Here's a question, then: would this list be a'ight with just the Slaan for magic?

If so, I'd probably ex-out both of the heroes and the larger Skink group to grab some Chameleons a (regular) stegadon, and some salamanders.

The main problem I see with the Priest is what unit to put him in. If you guys think I could get away with it, I'd just drop him all together.

With Rumination and a full Lore to pick from your Slann will use all the dice 99% of the time anyway, the main reason to take the Engine is for the AoE effects. The Priest is there in case you want to bring along an extra item which can't fit on the Slann (Dispel Scroll etc), gives you an extra channel attempt (don't underestimate this), can make a dispel attempt if the Slann fails one and possibly throw some dice at a spell if the Slann fails to cast/miscasts (maybe once a game or so).

I usually run a Priest, Lvl 1 or 2 with Cube of Darkness or Dispel Scroll at lower points, (as the Slann already had an arcane item) who always takes the default spell for added shooting protection if needed but very rarely uses it. He usually runs in a unit of 10 or so skirmishing Skinks which keeps him fairly safe, but as long as he gets to use the Cube before he dies I don't really mind.

The Engine/Wizard on the back of the Steg only compounds the issue really, because Cannonballs hit everything Stegadons are always going to be tempting targets. I'm not saying they won't work at all (cause to be fair not everyone has war machines) but I would only suggest taking them if you are going to take more than one.

Yeah, I was considering the Priest mainly due to loss of concentration.

That's what I'm talking about with the Engine; a big unit of Temple Guard is a better target than a stegadon in 8th, but if that stegadon also has a level 2 wizard who's giving the Temple Guard a 5+ Ward on his back, the priority changes. So, in short, I think one stegadon can and is an all right choice in 8th, so long as he's not packing an Engine.

I'll be changing it up again. Thanks, everyone.

Have a pair of priests on foot lvl 1 with a dispel scroll and cube of darkness (other gear optional), if they roll up useless spells you can still fall back to the rather nice signature spell, and the 1:3 chance to get comet on gunlines is allways fun.