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Hi all. As a 40K-er considering WFB, I really like the Lizard's Aztec theme and heavy use of magic. From what I've heard they're middle-of-the-road in competitiveness in the new edition, and that's fine (if true). My questions:

Should I buy their current book, or are they slated for a new one soon?
Is the Battalion box a good place to start, or does it have too many trash units?

Thanks!

they are high/middle of the road.


certain Slann builds are absolutly devestating.


they probably won't be getting a new book soon so thats safe.


the Battalion is a great place to start. the only unit that isn't super is the Cold One Cavelry, and even then, they are a decent support unit.

I agree with GT there.

I think the Lizards are one of the most multi-dimensional armies. You can play an absolutely magic-devastating force and be highly competitive, and alternately, you can play with almost no magic and still be a good army.

The battalion is good as well. I personally don't like Cold Ones, but that is because I can't roll a Stupidity check worth gak. No matter how many dice you give me with cold-blooded.

That is another big advantage to the army: Cold-Blooded. Pretty much all of your Leadership tests are taken on 3d6, drop the highest die. You can pass LD tests even if you lose combat by 4 of 5 in some cases.

Drawback: Saurus are SLOW. only speed 4 (average) but Initiative 1. You have to get used to everyone punching you in the face before you get to strike back. But you do almost always hit back harder than you get hit.

Matt, you've touched on my one tactical concern - speed. In 40K I moved from Orks to Eldar and I'm very much enjoying the speed of the mechanized elves. In WFB, what makes a fast army - one with high-movement infantry, lots of cavalry, both? Something else?

D'Ork wrote: In WFB, what makes a fast army - one with high-movement infantry, lots of cavalry, both? Something else?

Yes.

But seriously, that's one of the things Lizardmen just can't pull off too well. There is a build that involve lots of flapasauruses, stompapotomuses and saddle-raptors. It's a bit unwieldy though.

If you liked Eldar, any of the elf armies will fit that play style. If you don't want eldar (Gee, I dunno, maybe because you already have an eldar army) but still want speed, I'd put my money on Skaven.

When playing Lizardmen, Speed isn't a major concern.


your movement is decent for the average block. Dwarves are stomping a mighty 3"

your Saurus just arn't as fast as Elves, Skaven, or Ogres. or an all cavelry army, which actually sucks in 8th.


in 8th, the name of the game is proper placement. speed helps, but isn't cruicial and Staying power is really the winner, something Sarus have in bundels.

Lizardmen arent as slow as people think, everyone whose not a Saurus on foot or a Slaan has M6 or more, so you can get some pretty mobile support for your main blocks.

Agreed, while Saurus will form the major battle lines of Lizzies- anything else that matters is M6. Lizards are not slow by any means.

Lizards are a toptier army for many reasons.

Do you find you saurus slow, has the cold of the jngle nights caused the mto be sluggis, is it difficult for you to keep them focused in the fight?

Well today for limited time only all your fighting needs can be solved – just call us at 555-BRIGHTSTAR and get your very own...
LORE OF LIGHT™.
It's a must have for any cold-blooded overlord!

Available whyle supplies last, call within the next 20 minutes and get a free STANDARD OF DICIPLINE™.

HoverBoy wrote:Well today for limited time only all your fighting needs can be solved – just call us at 555-BRIGHTSTAR and get your very own...
LORE OF LOGHT™.[/color].

This is what I like to imagine a "loght" is

Mattlov wrote:That is another big advantage to the army: Cold-Blooded. Pretty much all of your Leadership tests are taken on 3d6, drop the highest die. You can pass LD tests even if you lose combat by 4 of 5 in some cases.

This is by far my favorite rule in the game EVER, combine this with the new BSB rules and you might as well not even roll leadership tests

@Squash:
I take your "grammar nazy" card and raise my "not a native english speaker card"

@Warboss Imbad Ironskull
Hell yea and standard of discipline makes it even better, our troops can reliably pass LD5 tests with the same frequency others make LD7.

I've really just been wanting to use that picture for a while.

Assuming I don't get the Battalion box set, I'm thinking of buying units in this order: Warriors, Slaan...skinks? or Temple Guard? I would like to get up to 800 points or so pretty quickly.

Getting to 800pts? Dump the Slann and Temple Guard, as you can't use the Slann at that points level and Temple Guard are usually a giant points sink without a Slann to protect.

Warriors and Skinks are a good start and form the core of any Lizardmen army. Depending on what you want to do, you may need more of one than the other. If you want a quicker army, then you'll want more skinks, similarly so if you're planning on using cohorts a lot. If you want ruggedness and more combat ability, any skinks you buy are likely to go into skirmisher/chameleon units of around 10 and 5-8 models respectively, with Saurus making up your combat blocks.

You'll also want to invest in salamanders, as they're always worth having. If you don't like the thought of the salamander blisters (I know I don't, not for that cost) then consider using a box of Chaos Daemons Flesh Hounds; they're scaly and monster-looking, are around the same size (I believe), and you get 5 for significantly less than you'd be spending on 5 salamander blisters. You might also want a box of skinks to use as handlers; any spares can beef up other skink units.

Since chameleon skinks are also expensive, a little green stuff can turn plastic skinks into chameleons, rolling the curled tails is generally quite easy, with the eyes optional (the tail should be enough for most people) but giving a better effect. If you think you'll have trouble with the tails, try it on some blu-tack (or the American equivilant) first, but it's easy to get the hang of.

A general 750pt list (or thereabouts) usually contains:

A scar veteran.
A skink priest (some people take level 2s geared for magical offense, others prefer level 1s with a simple dispel scroll or the cube of darkness for spell defence (my preference), either way, the signature spell of heavens can help dampen our main weakness; being shot at from a distance).
A reasonable saurus warrior block (around 15-18 saurus, 15 if run with HW/S or 18 with spears, both with at least msuicians and standard bearers) OR two smaller (10-12) blocks, again with Mus. and Std. Bearer.
1-2 units of 10 Skink Skirmishers - Braves are useless. Javelins can be taken if modelled that way or if the situation calls for accuracy over numbers of shots.
0-2 units of 5-6 Chameleons. Stalkers generally aren't worth upgrading to.
1-2 Salamanders - the extra handler is usually taken to avoid a nasty D3 roll if you misfire and eat/chargrill your default 3 handlers at the same time.

Regular 5pt skinks generally aren't worth it at this points level (in my opinion at least). They're only really effective in large numbers and supported by kroxigors, which are quite expensive (cash and points), and usually rely on a Slann to buff them; without a Slann to improve them, they're not going to do a lot.

Go for 1500 it's the lowest you can use a slaan without too much trouble.

Beautiful, thanks for the help!

As an aside, I happen to have some temple guard sprues from the Lizardmen Black Box collecting a lot of dust in my closet by now. I don't know how many are good in a unit, or whether to put the halberds or whatever on the sprues on them, so the 10 of them are just sitting.

If you want them I can shoot them your way; Ifalna's blog had been inspiring me to paint them up and sell them, but I am down with just selling them as is too. (The thought of having to pack up all my hobby stuff squirreled away around the house when we move is horrifying.)

So what does the hive-mind say about special weapons on saurus/temple guard? Is the 6+ parry save worth using hand weapons, or are spears preferred for the extra attacks?

most people have their Temple Guard with halbards.

I don't know about Saurus, but the Spears seem like a nice option as they are Str4 and can still benifit from the shield.


the Parry save is nice too though.

most people have their Temple Guard with halbards.

Considering that they are armed with halberds and it's the only weapon they can currently use, this makes sense.

Back in 7th when you had the ability to choose between HW/S and Halberds on your TG, they were occasionally useful without a Slann, but now they're forced to use halberds (which means their shields never come into play unless they're being shot at), without a Slann they're pretty pointless.

They have 4+ Armour Saves, no ward save and strike at I2. They're only better than saurus at one thing, their strength due to the halberds, but paying 4-5pts more for more expensive Command models and an extra point of strength is not great.

Outfitting your saurus depends on a couple of things. HW/S are preffered in anvil units because of the parry save; coupled with T4 and a 4+ AS, it makes Saurus blocks quite hard to shift.

Spears are usually used to overwhelm your opponent with attacks, and are more often used in units of anything from 18 to 30 saurus running 6x3/4/5 or even 7x3/4. They have a T4 and a 4+ save, but they don't have the parry save and rely on a lot of S4 attacks to negate the saurus you lost to the enemy (who will most likely be striking before you most of the time).

As well as these broad reasons, they can also be down to other aspects. If you're taking a Slann with a buffing lore, then spears are usually better, especially with Lore of Life where the casualties sustained can normally be regained and their toughness can be buffed so that they don't take as many casualties. This works well with HW/S saurus too, but you risk being over-defensive and sacrificing killing power for unnecessary defensive buffs.

Lore of Light also works well, allowing your spears to strike before an enemy or simultaneously with them. Agaian, this works well with HW/S, but they lack to killing power to capitalise on the buffs.

Spears are also good against hordes. They're usually there to hold you in place, but because you are less defensive than HW/S, you will be killed quicker (hence combat will end sooner) but you also take more of them down with you. At the end, you may lose your unit, but the enemy horde will be severely depleted in number, allowing you to swiftly finish them off and regain some victory points or a banner kill.

HW/S do have their place, however, usually acting as anvils in lower point games (where you don't have Slann buffs) for other saurus to flank charge or rear charge or just to hold a tough enemy in place for a while (Skinks take this role in later points levels where a Slann can help with their survivability).

It sounds like the first Saurus regiment should be HW/S, with spears perhaps coming later.

Avatar 720 wrote:They have 4+ Armour Saves, no ward save and strike at I2. They're only better than saurus at one thing, their strength due to the halberds, but paying 4-5pts more for more expensive Command models and an extra point of strength is not great.

Actually, they have a 3+ Armour Save, as Shields can be used just fine alongside Halberds.

No they can't, halberds are two-handed weapons and disallow the use of shields.

Except against shooting.

HoverBoy wrote:Except against shooting.

Already covered:

Avatar 720 wrote:

most people have their Temple Guard with halbards.

...(which means their shields never come into play unless they're being shot at)...

D'Ork wrote:Matt, you've touched on my one tactical concern - speed. In 40K I moved from Orks to Eldar and I'm very much enjoying the speed of the mechanized elves. In WFB, what makes a fast army - one with high-movement infantry, lots of cavalry, both? Something else?

You can run an army of Cavalry, Skinks and Kroxigors for speed, but it might not be a very good army. And when you figure Kroxigors at $22 a piece, it ain't a cheap one either...

Speed is, IMO, the Lizardmen's failing. You COULD make a fast army from mainly skinks, but only if you like fleeing from charges.

Why are people worried about the Lizardmen speed?


They arn't much slower then Elves and Skaven while being much tougher.



With having T4, good armor, and very good magic it doesn't seem that having M4 is a problem.

I2 might be a problem, but thats the trade off.

Mattlov wrote:You can run an army of Cavalry, Skinks and Kroxigors for speed, but it might not be a very good army. And when you figure Kroxigors at $22 a piece, it ain't a cheap one either...

I've made my peace with the speed. Saurus warriors have been ordered and are in the mail. I'm not interested in Elves so much; Rats are tempting, since there's nothing like them in 40K and the starter box has an army of them, but the prospect of painting scores of rats is too much.

Yep, that's why I given up on skaven. Somewhere in the midst of painting my fourth box of clanrats, my spirit died.