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I've decided to begin an army of those servants of the Old Ones, the Lizardmen, and I have a few questions.

Slann. What's the kind of points before fielding a Slann becomes viable? They are expensive after all.

Skinks. What's the best loadout for them? I've started to assemble them with blowpipes and plan to use them to guard my temple guard/Slann unit's flanks. This sound OK?

Cold One Cavalry. I've heard they suck for their points? Shame if they do, they have really nice models.

COC are a bit rubbish.

Saurus are some of the best infantry in the game.

Slann is uber but a points sink - options are eggs in a basket approach with some hoard o'temple guard or hide him and use mobile eye's in the form of skinks. I would say 2500pts for a slann. Saurus heroes are pretty awesome as are the saurus lords. Carnisaur is ok but a cannon magnet.

Skinks - it depends what you're doing. 6+ parry save is annoying with javelin, hw + shield but they shouldn't be in melee however it also has no range or movement penalites.

The blowpipes essenitaly need to stay still as you want to be hitting on sixes (4 -1long range -1 rapid fire = 6's) to autowound. I tend to take 1 unit of blowpipes as scouts if I'm not taking chameleons and then the rest javelins and shields. They are flankers and skimishers although the 8th ed skirmish rules gimp them a little.

So, what hero should I use at low levels?

I'd prefer some kind of magic, but that would leave me with a Skink Priest, and I dunno if I'd just get more benefit with a Saurus hero.

If you want it then get it. Forget being competitive. Actually looking over the book, they can only use Lord of the Heavens, which appears to be a little meh. You could use Tehenhauin a character lord he is 250pts so you can take him in a 1k game and he uses Lore of Beasts and looks pretty cool


But this is on a 40mm base, the caption on GW website for him, found under the collector's section does note a skink priest can be used to represent him.

I guess a level 2 skink priest is only a little bit more expensive than a scar-vet. Plus I love their models.

Now I just need to get my army big enough to fit a Slann

I'm no lizardmen expert just what I've read in here in the forums you could shoot for a 1k list like this and give you a better idea how to expand:

Tehenhaiun 250

Skink Priest
-Lvl2
-Plaque of Tepok
-Diadem of Power 140

27 Saurus Warr
-FC 327

21 Skinks
-Musician
-Standard B. 119

Salamander
-Extra Handler 80

Salamander
-Extra Handler 80

Hargus56 wrote:Actually looking over the book, they can only use Lord of the Heavens, which appears to be a little meh.

That appearance is deceiveing, trust me. Lore of Heavens can given many good times even with the rather lame attribute rarely coming into play, wind blast is especiually sneaky – Charge me with those kninghts, how can you charge with them when your own warhounds are now in the way

Yeah I can see all lores being viable given the right situation and luck with rolling for the right spells. The wind blast seems cool but using it strategically is highly situational up to D6+2inches would have been better if you could decide which direction they are pushed not just directly away from the caster. It would be very lucky to have both your units and your opponents in the right position for that to do anything like push a enemy particular unit in the way of a potential enemy charging threat.

It's worth pointing out, an ethereal Slaan with magic resistance could probably manage without an escort. For crying out loud, I've seen entire army lists that couldn't kill that.

Lore of Heavens isn't the worst, as far as I can see. Chain Lightning looks like a laugh to use, and Wind Blast, situationally, could win a game through charge denial. Plus, with Skink Priests, I can keep them in the army once I do get a Slann to use for the Slann's LoS.

Too bad the LoS only works for magic missiles.

Well they are all pretty damn good, but on paper the Lore of Heavens just does not impress me personally that much. I know there are some good spells in there but I would prefer beasts, life or light for buffing Saurus

HoverBoy wrote:Too bad the LoS only works for magic missiles.

Bah, didn't know that. Ah well.

I hear life is great for slann, thanks to throne of vines meaning he can just roll through miscasts.

I might be a bit biased, since I despise Lore of Heavens, but it is far too situational for my liking. Iceshard Blizzard is the only real spell in there that will help against most armies most of the time.

The re-rolling 1s assumes you roll 1s in the first place, when you could just as easily fail on 2s and 3s with not a 1 in sight.

Wind Blast is very situational in it's raw form, and you need the more powerful version to have any real chance of doing something other than pushing a unit back 2" ("Hmm, that was a minor inconvenience..."), unfortunately the more powerful version will sap power dice.

Curse of the midnight wind is also very situaional. It excels against units with poison or killing blow, but against units who hit our saurus on 3s, one re-rolled result won't matter a whole lot.

Urannon's Thunderbolt used to ignore armour saves, it now relies purely on S6 to do that, and with only D6 hits in a game where hordes and large units are everywhere, 3-4 hits average can be a drop in the ocean.

Comet is the only other really good spell apart from Iceshard Blizzard; really good for forcing warmachines to move and buying your army time to move up the field, or just for placing in front of a unit to stop it dead in it's tracks until the comet lands and danger is cleared... that is, if it does land; they could take the risk, forcing your opponent to weigh it all up can be a gamebreaker.

Chain Lightning is very unimpressive. It relies on having a unit within 6" of your target, and a roll of 3+, before it becomes anything more than a glorified Urannon's Thunderbolt.

Again, possibly biased

Aye, after considering it, my hero for low-level (i.e. until I can plausibly run a decent outfitted Slann) is probably going to be a Scar-vet, as I've just seen how much hurt they can put out. Plus, as you said, being locked into lore of heavens isn't ideal.

If you can, take a level 1 priest purely for magic defence. Just default his spell to Iceshard Blizzard and give him cube of darkness or a dispel scroll. It's only 90pts for a level 1 with a scroll, and whilst you can't expect him to do a whole lot, he can still save you from a powerful spell and/or hinder any warmachines or ranged troops.

Don't forget iceshard blizzard drops LD too, try taking two (or even three) lvl 1s and pamming it, it's super fun to have the enemy hit you on 6s and at -2 LD, it makes combat a breeze.

Right, just back from buying more units. 2 boxes of saurus and a scar-vet/oldblood. Added to what I have, this brings me to 3x16 saurus, 24 skinks and an Oldblood. Sounds like a decent core of an army to me. Now to push on to Slann levels

I would recommend some salamanders next, and possibly a temple guard if you plan to go that way with your Slann. I like Stegadons personally, but I know they aren't as popular as they once were.

Yeah. I was going to pick up Sallies too, but they had none of them in the store. Will order online.

If you don't want to order expensive sally models, consider a box of flesh hounds instead; all it takes a little different paint and a bit of minor GS work if it really bothers you; leftover skinks from other boxes can be used as handlers, or you can buy another skink box, use them as handlers and convert any remaining ones into chameleons.

Salamanders are BRUTAL to hordes. I fried over 40 Skaven in a single turn with 3 of them. LOVE them.

I am biased AGAINST Cold Ones. I am a MASTER at failing that Stupidity check, I've had games where the unit moved (where I wanted) ONCE.

I don't like wrapping points up in things I have to rely on luck to even use.

Lore of Heavens isn't bad, it just isn't the most powerful lore out there.

Scar-Vet on a Horned One is a solid warmachine hunter at low points.

I agree with you about the Jungle Cow Riders; they lost whatever effectiveness they had in 7th when 8th rolled in, and that wasn't much. I too am a master at failing stupidity checks, which is why i'm still not very trusting of my Chaos Lord and his Helm of Many Eyes, even though he is Ld9.

Hm, never thought I'd have THIS problem. Added up, this army so far only comes to roughly 700 points.

So what do I add from here? A Stegadon? MORE saurus? Kroxigor? I'm not seeing the point of Temple Guard sans a slann.

From what I've read, Salamanders you want em. I like your Saurus forces but 48 is such a hard number, split in 2 24 IMO is small but can still work and 48 is too big for 1 unit (you don't have to take them all though). Since you seem to like your forces Saurus heavy you may want another box, 2 units of 32 would be nice. But at 1k not necessary. I highly recommend a priest or 2 for some anti magic, and some casting, they are cheap and you may as well have 2 and having 2 means you can get most of the spells from the Lore of Heavens. I think Salamanders are a must.

I'm not even too fond of Saurus, I never planned to make it saurus-heavy, but they get the job done in a decent point cost.

So, a Skink Priest or 2, and 2 salamanders? Sounds alright. I was thinking about a unit of chameleon skinks too, to deal with warmachines.

Kroxigor are not worth their price. Both points and money. New ones are really pretty, but not $23 pretty.

Mattlov wrote:Kroxigor are not worth their price. Both points and money. New ones are really pretty, but not $23 pretty.

Quite wrong. I actually like Kroxigors under the new rules for Monstrous Infantry, and I've always been a fan of the "new" models. I have 6 of 'em.

I guess the price cash-wise depends on the person buying it; I dislike the Kroxigor and the Terradon models, but others disagree.

If you wanna save cash on priests just use the ones that come with the stagadon kit and do some minor convertin – different hands modified heads a snazzy staff.