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OK, so I'm starting a Lizardmen army, that will consist of a Scar vet, skink shaman, 2 blocks of 15 saurus, 2 x 12 skinks and some saurus cav.  Not an ideal list I know but its building very slowly.

I hate building and painting something only to realise that it doesn't work then having to rebuild.  So should I put spears or HW on my saurus and are blowpipes better than javelins.  I'd also like to hear your reasonings too.

Also am I right in assuming that the skink sprues only come with 5 blowpipes for 6 skinks?

 

Just a quick response-

Check out: http://invisionfree.com/forums/Thee_Forsaken_One
It's a decent lizardman forum, though mainly populated by non-tourney folks afaik.

For skinks, scouting ones will do just fine with blowpipes, but if you envision the unit moving, then give them javelins. A skink unit that moves, and shoots twice needs 6's to hit before any modifiers for range and tree's/skirmishers/terrain/etc. Once you need a 7 to hit, no more poison. Having at least 1 unit of scouting skinks is helpful. Warmachines are not your friend and anything you can do to eliminate them faster is a good thing, especially if it's a 70pt core choice doing the eliminating. I've seen some folks say that 10 scouting skinks do just as good a job as 5 chamaeleon skinks for 5 less points and saving the special choice for other options. As I've just started playing my LM army after a long, long time and my chamaeleon skinks aren't fully painted yet, I don't have any personal evidence.

I personally prefer HW on my saurus for the improved close combat armor save (the most important reason in my book), the points break, and because I like putting a scar vet in my saurus units. With the basic 2 attacks at str 4, and the scar vet's 4 str 5 attacks they can normally break a unit without the additional help of a 2nd rank.

It's been a very long time since I built a box of skinks, so I don't rememeber how many blowpipes are on the sprues.

Ultimately, you may want to fill out your saurus blocks to 20-25 guys. Getting the +3 rank bonus is key to winning combats, even for saurus warriors. A basic block of 15 WS 3, STR 4 saurus with 2 attacks will still only kill roughly 2-3 enemy models per CC phase (assuming T3, 4+ armor save enemy, which represents most core infantry). If your opponent has 1 additional rank, outnumbers you, and killed one of your guys before you could attack, then you'll lose combat nearly every time.

SteveW

Thanks for the advise. At this stage it is just about 1000 points and I'm building it slowly so your comments are very helpful.

Hand weapons for Saurus because you will really like that armour save and the extra points to spend on other units. Skinks should always have blowpipes because it's a more versatile ranged weapon with more damage potential, and because Skinks don't need crap like shields. Because of their puny WS and T they will lose every combat anyway. If you're moving and shooting to long range you can just decide to fire single shots instead of multiple shots so that you'll still hit on sixes. Against large targets and when firing at short range the blowpipe is a wonderful weapon. Remember that the short range of a blowpipe is only 2" less than the maximum range of a javelin.

The Skink box strangely doesn't have as many blowpipes as you would like, but it's an easy fix. Take a javelin arm, cut the spearhead off from the weapon and make the shaft of the javelin the length of a blowpipe. Finish the weapon by drilling a small hole to one end. It now looks almost exactly like a normal Skink blowpipe and tiny differences really do not matter as you'll only have a few of these in your two units. I've done this for my Skinks and I've yet to encounter a person who would notice the difference.

Let me know if you need any advice in building an ideal Lizardman list later.

I might take you up on that ideal lizard list next week if you don't mind Mr T. I haven't played Fantasy for a almost two years now, but have signed up for a tournament next month, and could use some thoughts on how lizzies function in 7th edition.

My initial thoughts are 2g Slann with the crown, dispel scroll priest, scar vet (possibly on cold one, maybe jaguar), 6 saurus cavs with standard of always charging, 3 kroxies, 3 salamanders and the rest in skinks. I'll pop up a list when i have the book to hand for pts etc.

I have a 2nd gen Slann army list that I like and I could post it for you now but I'll let you build one first.

I am doing very well in the local tournies with my Lizardman list, I actually stopped using the skinks because of the local enviroment didn't really make them worth it.

The 2nd Gen Slaan is very nice and works very well if you choose the right lores, I first believed that the Lore of Life was key to using him but I since have learned, (and went undefeated for my last 12 games) that if you take the extra spell item, the +1 casting dice/dispell dice and grab as many of the fire ball type spells he works wonders. Make a list of the spells you will get here is mine as ,uch as I can remember.

Lore of Fire
if I roll Sword of Rhuin, take fireball and switch lores.

Lore of Light
Burning Gaze, and switch lores

Lore of Shadows
Steed of Shadows: any other spell I take this and then switch lores

Kore of Death
Dark hand of Death only

Lore of Metal: Bolt of Molten Silver?, Burning Iron, Spirit of the Forge, occasionally againt warmachines I will take Commandment of brass.

hand weapons are the best for saurus. if you give them spears they lose their second attack due to the Predatory Fighters special rule.
spears can be useful tho! since i use skinks primarily (sp?) as a screen, spears can help. if you give one unit spears you can put a unit of skinks some where else or put some of the points for not taking the skinks into another unit. the saurus with the spears, you're going to want to have charged (if you charge with spears you lose the Fighting in Two Ranks bonus). when that unit gets hit you can move up with other units and make a nice flank attack.

i usually take a mix of the two weapons over the skink units. blow pipes are better for those skniks that will be doing more shooting and hanging back more, whereas javalins are good for those that will be in combat faster and also gives them a sort-of-handy 6+ save for said CC.

Btw, only the back ranks of Saurus lose the second attack. The front rank still has their 2 attacks.

i phrased that poorly i guess. i still stand with my point tho. you want them to get charged so they get all their attacks. rather than losing the second rank of attacks.

This thread is over a year old....

There has been a spate of threadomancy going on in the forums as a whole the last week or so.

Just start a new thread, don't go looking for dead threads.