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Grey Templar wrote:Why are people worried about the Lizardmen speed?

Me neither, if anything their speed is a nice ballance to most of their other stats.

Here's another newb problem. Looking at the GW website, the Lizard army book cover has a saurus warrior on it. As I search Amazon, I see only Lizardmen book covers showing a Slann.

Are these two versions of the latest book, or is one (the Slann, I'm guessing) an outdated version?

The one with the Slann cover is the 6th ed book. The one with the Saurus is the (current) 7th ed one.

I asked this at Lustria Online but I'll ask here too:

I've ordered my first lizard unit but I have no army book yet. Even the 8th edition rule book hasn't shown up. I have no idea how useful the champion, musician, or the banner are. Should I assemble these guys - or just build 16 warriors?

I personally do not use champions. paying the same cost as another Saurus for one more attack? I'd rather just have another Saurus. Since Saurus have 2 attacks already, increasing the front row attacks by 1 isn't a huge deal. I find it more worth it to have another body to kill off if need be.

Musician and Standard are a MUST for pretty much any unit, though.

Mattlov wrote:I personally do not use champions. paying the same cost as another Saurus for one more attack? I'd rather just have another Saurus. Since Saurus have 2 attacks already, increasing the front row attacks by 1 isn't a huge deal. I find it more worth it to have another body to kill off if need be.

Musician and Standard are a MUST for pretty much any unit, though.

Champions are great at challenging those uber characters to save your other dudes. Or prevent your characters to get challenged.

Champions are a waste of points unless you have something to protect. Challenging uber characters will leave you open to overkill; you might have saved some dudes but did they do enough damage back to balance it out? Or are you going to be facing a lost combat no matter what?

Taking a challenge is usually only there for a BSB in the unit, you should never have skinks or Slann in saurus unless unavoidable; skink characters should go with skirmishers to avoid combat and Slann should go with Temple Guard or gear to go solo (Immune to Non-magical Attacks being the main discipline).

Champions just plain aren't worth it most of the time.

Well often it's not so much about losing combat as it is about keeping steadfast. A champion's challenge can buy you a turn to bring in supporting units.

But how often will Saurus be steadfast? Regular saurus units run anywhere from 15 to 30 strong, with 30 being played around 2k-2.5k+ when other troops like Chaos Warriors will also be fielded in large groups.

Avatar 720 wrote:But how often will Saurus be steadfast? Regular saurus units run anywhere from 15 to 30 strong, with 30 being played around 2k-2.5k+ when other troops like Chaos Warriors will also be fielded in large groups.

You get 3 Saurus warriors for every 2 chaos warriors.
You have nobody to blame but yourself if you are not steadfast for a few turns.

-Matt

Saurus are steadfast against say, swordmasters, greatswords, chosen, or other elite infantry, and lets face it they will not need it against enemy core as they won't loose combat against that (usually). Point is saurus will get steadfast when they need it, since stuff that outnumbers thum usually cant beat them unless it hasa a character... oh wait we have champs for that.

You might get 3 models for the same price as your enemy gets two, but does that translate to killing power? Warriors are WS5 S4 T4 and I5 with access to a lot more weapons than Saurus and better upgrades.

Is WoC your only argument?
Because i believe it is a known fact their core is some of the best in the game right now.

Avatar 720 wrote:You might get 3 models for the same price as your enemy gets two, but does that translate to killing power? Warriors are WS5 S4 T4 and I5 with access to a lot more weapons than Saurus and better upgrades.

I haven't run the numbers, but I'd bet on saurus. WS3 S4 T4 and init 1 is plenty hard to kill while dishing out enough death on their own.
I think the warriors have a ~1 kill per turn advantage, but with 50% more saurus, it will take a good chuck of the game for equal points of warriors to strip steadfast.
So you've got a steadfast advantage, along with cold blood, and you'll be sticking around more than long enough.
In the character match up, Lizard heroes pull ahead with the T5 compared to the exaulted T4.
Also, since the exaulted MUST challenge, the lizard hero is swinging on rank and file while the exaulted it tied up in a challenge with the unit champ.

I'd be a lot more worried to see 36 saurus warriors than I would be to see 24 chaos warriors.
-Matt

It sounds like "Banner and Musician definitely, Champ sometimes."

Avatar 720 wrote:Champions are a waste of points unless you have something to protect. Challenging uber characters will leave you open to overkill; you might have saved some dudes but did they do enough damage back to balance it out? Or are you going to be facing a lost combat no matter what?

Taking a challenge is usually only there for a BSB in the unit, you should never have skinks or Slann in saurus unless unavoidable; skink characters should go with skirmishers to avoid combat and Slann should go with Temple Guard or gear to go solo (Immune to Non-magical Attacks being the main discipline).

Champions just plain aren't worth it most of the time.

So he overkills, big deal, he would have done the same amount of wounds if you dont challenge anyway, but with challenge you end up losing just the champion.
And if the character went before his mount, say like a dragon, the dragon cant attack this turn!

champion is good if you have a scar vetran let the champion challange and the scar vet can butcher up the unit, if your not putting a charactor in dont bother with the champion

HoverBoy wrote:Is WoC your only argument?
Because i believe it is a known fact their core is some of the best in the game right now.

Meh only WS 3 hurts them somewhat, I wouldnt say best in the game, but its up there.

My vote for best core in the game would be

Chaos Warriors, Bloodletters, or Skaven Slaves.

I always take champs, they charge your unit with a bloodthirster, Guy on dragon or other big killy thing you probably kept a rank for an extra turn. Max overkill is 5, my bloodthirster has taken out 10+ models in one round of combat before. So, in my opinion, that champion is worth it for the 9 less models you lost, and probably another turn of steadfast.

Warriors are WS5.


sure marauders are WS3, but they are dirt cheap. they are cannon fodder and have stats and prices to match.

Well, if you don't mind, I'll just jump on in here...

1. Champions: they're conditional, but quite handy when they prove themselves. Champions are good against big, scary characters, saving a few more models so you can (1) hold a little longer in anticipation of that flank-charge and (2) maybe not lose all your models, thus keeping the points for the unit. It does not happen very often, to be sure. But it's a little something.
Champions are bad against large blocks of crappy models. You're paying as much to double a model's worth for one extra attack, which might be lost anyway (anyone who doesn't allocated at least one attack to the unit's champion is either silly or forgot to do so).
So...what about scary characters in big units of crappy guys? This just doesn't happen.

2. Gonna' look back a bit: Spears vs. Hand weapon/Shield-
Spears are better. Always better. You trade 5-6 attacks for (which will probably kill 1-2 more guys) for saving 1/6 of your guys (so...1 to .5 models/turn?).
If a unit's one and only job is to hold for as long as it can, the Parry save will help. But that's it. If your unit needs to do some killing on it's own, or even if it just might need to do so, spears are better.
But then, spears are more expensive, so I'd say that makes sense. With some units, like Clanrats, this upgrade is sort of a toss-up; a 10% increase in cost for an extra WS3 S3 attack isnt' quite the same as a Saurus' 8% increase for WS3 S4. Especially considering that Clanrats don't do much of the killing in Skaven lists, whereas Saurus are the workhorses (worklizards?) of their army.

There. I'm done now.

spear need a big unit to be worthwhile. Otherwise you lose their benefit to quickly.
The problem is big blocks of Saurus arent cheap and I can generally use those points for something else.

If by "big" you mean "have at least a third rank" then yes, they need to be big.

But 18 Saurus isn't what I'd consider huge, and I'd happily spend a whopping 18pts to get them spears. Three such units (which you'll probably have, if you run them 18-strong) eats up 44pts worth of upgrades, but even then I'd say it's well worth it.

I mean, where else are those points going? A handful more Saurus, or two handfuls more Skinks? If I have to choose between something awesome, like the Cupped Hands on my Slann, then I'll drop the spears. But at that point...I'd sooner drop unit size or number (to a point) if I'm strapped that badly. It's 1pt/model.

Warpsolution wrote:If by "big" you mean "have at least a third rank" then yes, they need to be big.

But 18 Saurus isn't what I'd consider huge, and I'd happily spend a whopping 18pts to get them spears. Three such units (which you'll probably have, if you run them 18-strong) eats up 44pts worth of upgrades, but even then I'd say it's well worth it.

I mean, where else are those points going? A handful more Saurus, or two handfuls more Skinks? If I have to choose between something awesome, like the Cupped Hands on my Slann, then I'll drop the spears. But at that point...I'd sooner drop unit size or number (to a point) if I'm strapped that badly. It's 1pt/model.

You need more than 18, AKA 24 or more, since you ll very likely suffer casualty along the way.
By the time you are running 2 blocks of 30 its a lot of points, 60 pts is another Cham Skink unit.

Generally I dont think you need it, if you are fighting things that Saurus might struggle against (WoC and such), then you are probably not gonna have 3 ranks or more after 1 turn, if its something Saurus will just chew through then there's no need for spears.