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I have been a huge fan of Lizardmen for quite some time, but could never find a good way to use them as I don't like fantasy. So I've decided to convert them into a Tau army after seeing a great example of it in the gallery.

I need to have:

Shadowsun
Crisis Suits
Fire Warriors
Devilfish
Tetras
Hammerheads
Skyray

My ideas are to use:
Saurus Warriors for Fire Warriors
Cold Ones for Crisis Suits
Carnisaurs for Tetras

Tau weapons will be used, so I don't need to subsitute those.

I'm also fine with using things other than Lizardmen, I just want to use what I have to the best of my ability.

Past what I've said, I don't really know what to do. What do you think?

Well I'm not intimately familiar with lizardmen, but I can notice some problems first off:

Skyrays are a terrible idea. Everything about them is bad. They don't offer enough markerlights, they carry all of their non replacable weapons on a single platform, their secondary weapons are meh like all tau vehicles, and their expensive to boot. If you want mobile markerlights take marker drones and attach a commander, if you want seeker missiles attach 2 to each of your vehicles, if you want secondaries you'll get the same schtick on your hammerhead and your firewarriors, and you'll save all those points on something actually useful.

Hammerheads and devilfishes are gonna be tricky to convert into a believable tau force. While the Lizardmen do have a transport lizard, it's this big hulking thing that looks more suited to be an ork trukk, meaning you'll really need to mess with it. As far as the hammerhead goes, the Lizardmen don't really have something evocative of the raw power a hammerhead possesses, in addition to its standard problem of finding a believable vehicle.

Tetras could be easily converted from Terradon Riders or Saurus Cavalry

I suspect you could better convey Crisis suits with Mounted cold Ones, strapping guns onto the rider rather than just a giant lizard.

Use lizardmen as Kroot.

a challenging endeavor, but not without reward
lizardmen and tau models dont pose the same so modelling them would be a bitch
i suggest you make taus as saurus warriors cuz skinks too puny.
get saurus body and add tau legs and arms to it, then maybe try to attack the tau breatplate onto them by gs or something
then maybe gs a helmet or whatnots to its face
that should make you some good firewarriors, pathfinders, stealthsuits, etc
HQs and crisis then maybe what i just said but with temple guard and crisis suits, but i have a feeling that the size ain't good for comparison
if so just stick temple guard head on crisis, cut off the lower arms of crisis and replace them with temple guard, cut off the guns of crisis and stick em onto those spear things and make them hold it, oh and add that shield somehwhere
honestly thats all i can see working, tau are too anime fan for anything else thats fantasy, if you want to make their vehicles chariots or whatnots then people will praise ur work and accept it, but i think tau should stay anime fan
just me though

Search for e.g. the Naga and Tarellian races part of the Tau Empire and you will find rich sources: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Tarellians and http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4001
Lizardmen auxiliaries are a rather common project:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-13443-2080_Naga.html

As far as lizardmen skimmers you'd be best served lookIng at something drawing from that floating stone platform used by slann. Like a floating incan building.

Thank you very much for the sources Kroothawk! I actually had envisioned the second picture almost exactly, and I'm really glad to see that it can be done. Granted, it's going to take a lot of work, but I need a new project anyways


To clarify, I fully intend to have riders for the mounts I listed above. The weapons will be carried by them if small enough, or mounted on a kind of turret if too big.


Though I understand that a lot of people hate Skyrays and many will disagree with the list I have, it is not meant to be competitive. I know there are much better choices in the book, but this is a list I think I will enjoy playing.


Lastly, I'm very willing to go away from Lizardmen models to try to represent the tanks. I actually think that if I make the models right, the army will make sense even with the stock Tau vehicles. I'd rather do a totally converted army, but I know that may not be possible.

I made some auxiliaries using lizardmen models, they do turn out very nice:

those are some SWEET FIGS!!!!