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Hi All,

Recently a few of my friends have started playing WHFB again and I'm looking to join them with an army of my own. I have a Tau army for 40k (although I'm more into the painting and modeling side) and I've got it narrowed down to two choices: Empire and Lizardmen. I'm really not sure how they play tactics wise though. I like the Empire since everyone says how versatle they are. Although I really don't know much about how either army plays past that. I've only played one game before using my friends Brittonian army, I did like how well they perform in close combat. I'm leaning towards a close combat type army as a nice contrast to playing Tau in 40k. Doesn't have to be pure close combat though. I like the sound of having some good close combat guys with some ranged behind them backing them up. I'm guessing this could be done with either Empire artillery or a Slann priest. Just a thought though. So what's your suggestions? How do these two armies play?

I cant say much about Empire (never even bothered reading their army book yet sorry T-T) But i can tell you that Lizardmen however , have some of the most solid troops in the whole Fantasy game.

First of all, they are cold blooded.
Saurus are TOUGH as well as they hit extremely hard ( 2 attacks each ) Give them spears and they'll do even more damage.

Skinks are very good skirmishers as well. ( jungle poisons can take very very high toughness enemies down )

Skink Priest and Stegadons: The priests uses heaven magic , so they can start summoning comets while at range. Engine of the gods have many different (modes)
that can function differently from a distance till you get close to the enemies.

Once your saurus locks up enemy in melee , the Engine can start doing its AOE magic supported by heaven magic 's reroll on 1's i believe for the saurus warriors's spam of attacks.

Both, Empire and Lizardmen, are quite versatile and varied armies.

Both of them...:
-Can have decent infantry backbone (state troops with detatchemnts and sauruses respectively).
-Can have decent magic phase, altough the Lizzies have an edge here due Slann
-Can have shooty stuff, altough the Empire has an edge here due to a nice variety of warmachines
-Can have several fast elements in the army (ie cavalry, terradons etc)

...Sooo, pick the army which models you like the best.

Lizards are a short range army. Saurus are average speed, but everything else is M6. Most shooting is 12' range or less, but with the exception of the Razordons/Sallamanders it is poisoned, so even a giant can be taken down by enough blowpipe darts.

Skinks are weedy, but fast and have javelins or blowpipes so they can screen your saurus as they move up. Saurus are slow but tough and have 2 attacks each, so they will beat out most other armies core with the exception of chaos. Supported by the stegodons, which are slow living chariots, and razor/sallies, which are mobile fire units, they can push through other blocks.

The other item is that lizards must make a choice, slann or old blood as general. You can have magic or close combat, but not both.

What do you mean by short range army? I'd probably prefer an the army with more mobility if it came down them being so alike.

As far as which models I like the best, that's too hard to pick. Although from the looks of it, Empire looks a lot harder to paint than Lizardmen.

Thanks for the input all, it's nice to hear how these two armies play, keep it coming .

Lizardmen:

Although many people might disagree, Lizardmen rely heavily on their giant dinosaurs to win games (Stegadon, Kroxigor, Sallies, etc.)

These units are built around the core of Saurus Warriors, who are too slow to keep up with them. Though, not to say that they are bad of course. Good combat ability and magic.

Empire:

Not good at anything in particular. But, they can do anything. For example, they beat Dark Elf shooting, can field detachments (which are AWESOME), and can beat Dwarf combat as well as Dwarf Magic. Average to above average everything.

By short ranged, it means that they cannot fire down the field whilst standing in the back. They must move their shooters up to get into range to be deadly (also not a bad thing)

Empire is much more varied in the type of army you can make imho. Lizardmen is a solid army but seems a bit boring for my taste and I agree with cryonicleech that they rely around using giant dinosaurs to win games.
Saurus are a great unit just not for killing things, they are good as an anvil for flank charges by giant dinosaurs or cold one knights however i feel like this is pretty much all lizardmen are about and the whole charge and then flank thing is a bit bland to me.


I think if you are going for the CC backed up by good shooting you should go empire. They get a great cannon for 100 pts and the hellbaster...and rocket battery..and get stanks...and the popemobile

Empire have ALOT of big guns, Decent troops and good cavalry.
I myself have never played Empire but my brother used to and I have nabbed his codex.

I'm an Empire player for 12 years now and I can really recommend it for its versatility.

However, if you want good close combat then Empire may not be the one for you. With the Empire the individual units tend to be a bit weedy. Most combat troops are bog standard. The knights don't have the Bretonnian flashy Lance formation that enables them to do so many attacks on a small frontage, the characters are very average in terms of combat ability etc. etc.
Empire still wins combats though but it does so through combined arms. So shooting to weaken units, combining charges, units supporting each other, luring enemy units in bad positions which you can exploit tactically etc. You get the idea. Empire does have great shooting though, player just have to be carefull they don't go overboard with that aspect.

Lizardmen on the other hand have some very powerful units in the form of their big Dinos and also Saurus that can do stuff on their own. Saurus characters are also great in CC
Saurus troops may be a bit slow but work better in a Slann led army as these tend to be more defense oriented so the enemy needs to come to them, not the other way around.

As you are starting out I'd say go with Lizzies from the point of view that they are much, much more forgiving and cold blooded makes them hugely reliable.

Before VC, daemons and DE books were released I would have said empire for the 'averageness' of the army helping you to play really well. BUT it is a different game we are in now and noone likes to have their ass handed to them every game when they start out.

Detachments are generally underestimated, but awesome. A unit of 20 Swordsmen, FC, and two 10 man detachments of Free company will run you 245 pts. If the Swordsmen are charged by a unit the Swordsmen will strike last, but you have 20 attacks going into the flanks before the charging unit gets to attack. You are negating ranks and will have a minimum CR of 6 (3 ranks, banner, flank, outnumber+ wounds). Of course it rare to pull off, but can be awesome.

I would suggest Empire just because of the choices, but Lizardmen are a lot of fun as well.

If you are looking for more individual, characterful and eccentric minis Empire are the ones for you. Once you get over the tight wearing, big bearded and big codpieced-ness of it all. As people have already said an Empire army can be geared towards anything, be it cavalry, horde or gunline and aswell as the detatchments being beautiful. They can be quite hard to get to grips with because of their troops being avaerage at best and not really excelling at anything.

I've never played Lizzies but what little I do know is that the saurus are rock hard in combat and skinks are excellent skirmishers.

Rossko wrote:What do you mean by short range army? I'd probably prefer an the army with more mobility if it came down them being so alike.

Most of the Lizardmen ranged weapons have pretty pathetic ranges. Thrown Javelins only go 8 inches, and blowpipes go 12 inches. The only other range they have is the bolt thrower and machine gun blowpipes on the Stegadons.

As far as which models I like the best, that's too hard to pick. Although from the looks of it, Empire looks a lot harder to paint than Lizardmen.

Not really true. Lizzies have a TON of little details on them. If you want to pick out all of them, it takes a while and is pretty time consuming. Empire has a lot of armor and clothes, which can be done REALLY fast.

Lizardmen are pretty tough to paint well. I might just have that opinion because they're so much different than everything else that I've painted (orks, imp guard, space marines, chaos, vampire counts). "Standard" painting techniques don't lend themselves well to a lizardmen army.

Besides that they're a great army. Empire seem cool and all but lizardmen are good enough to hang with the top armies. They've got some of the best core troops in the game. They have a very strong magic phase. They can go light on magic and still be competitive. It's a very well balanced army and it's pretty easy to build an "all comers" list. This is a big benefit when you just want to put together a good looking army without spending too much money that you can put on the table and actually win with.

Cryonicleech wrote:Lizardmen:

Although many people might disagree, Lizardmen rely heavily on their giant dinosaurs to win games (Stegadon, Kroxigor, Sallies, etc.)

I hate to say it (Carnosaurs FTW), not really. As a Lizzie player, you've got to have balance in yor army. I've tried a monster army, and it was ripped apart by war machines+skirmishes. Monsters have their place, but most Lizardmen playersrely mosty on their rock-solid core choices to bring victory, with everything else working in support, (this bit was mine. Can't figure out how to work the damn quotes )

artyboy wrote:Lizardmen are pretty tough to paint well. I might just have that opinion because they're so much different than everything else that I've painted (orks, imp guard, space marines, chaos, vampire counts). "Standard" painting techniques don't lend themselves well to a lizardmen army.

I'm thinking with the progression of Washes LM are easier than ever to paint. Granted it is a departure from HEs, WOC, and Empire, but you can still use Washing and Drybrushing very effectively.

I bought my lizzie army yesterday, and built a 2250 army with 2 units Sauras, some skinks, a unit of knights, slann and temp guard and a steggie with skink priest and engine of gods, less then 300 dollars, with army book


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so it may be a little less money to field a competitive army, also empire can have a lot of models to paint.


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Not that any of the above is bad against the empire, which from everything I can tell can make a great colourful army, just some factors that may sway your desicion.

Empire, but I'm biased. I'm not a skink fan

Lizards are a magic/close combat army. The Empire is all about artillery, numbers, and tactics (detachment system/TVI style lists). Either could be enjoyable to a Tau player. If you are tired of your Tau, do Lizards for something new and different. If you really like the gunline firepower aspect of Tau, play Empire. Simple as that.