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 HawaiiMatt wrote:

Actually, Saurus are pretty bad.
If you take them in large enough units to break steadfast in opponents units, you can a very expensive combat block that loses to elite infantry.

No, they aren't.
And yes, you can always find a unit/situation you will lose. If you didn't, the unit in question is what we like to call, "broken." Saurus are a Core unit. They are inherently not hammers nor anvils. But vs. about 90% of the core in the game they do fine. To break a tarpit of goblins they would need a million billion points--but so what? Saurus are Longbeards with +1A and no option of GW, with + and - some less important abilities, at about 15% cheaper. That's a really solid unit.

You can say in your local meta they suck, and maybe they do. But then Longbeards suck worse. And anything HE and DE suck WAAAY worse.

You mentioned being average, which they aren't, they are merely good at offense AND defense. But you are also assuming you can take your pile of Core who are better at defense and maneuver it so it meets its perfect opponent. Saurus, because they are good at offense and defense, can be on the bad side of maneuvers and still scrap with enemies.

Also, I think Saurus become better and better the the less points you have. The more points you have the more you want specialist units who can adjust to the perfect situation. At 2K and less points, generalists are more viable because you still have to build units and you can't always get the best man for the job.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

Actually, Saurus are pretty bad.
If you take them in large enough units to break steadfast in opponents units, you can a very expensive combat block that loses to elite infantry.

No, they aren't.
And yes, you can always find a unit/situation you will lose. If you didn't, the unit in question is what we like to call, "broken." Saurus are a Core unit. They are inherently not hammers nor anvils. But vs. about 90% of the core in the game they do fine. To break a tarpit of goblins they would need a million billion points--but so what? Saurus are Longbeards with +1A and no option of GW, with + and - some less important abilities, at about 15% cheaper. That's a really solid unit.

You can say in your local meta they suck, and maybe they do. But then Longbeards suck worse. And anything HE and DE suck WAAAY worse.

Major tournaments disagree with you.

90% of the core? That's a BS stat, and being a generalist and Slow is horrible. It means your opponent will have a much easier time matching up against the weaker side of your unit and exploiting them.
Witch Elves absolutely Murder saurus, at less points per model. If you're running saurus instead of skinks, you'll have dark riders shoot the piss out of saurus without them seeing combat.
Saurus do pair off well against high elf core, but not the other 75% of the points spent in the army.
Dwarf Warriors with shield can bounce a charge (4+ armor, 5+ parry), or charge in a S4, and hitting on 3's (for 80% of the cost). Dwarf warriors are better generalists, but I'm not seeing dwarf armies with tons of warriors, because generalists suck; especially slow moving generalists.

After fighting every army with lizards, skinks are almost always the way to go:
If you look at costs of models, and kills per attack, you can get a feel for what's a better tarpit. It's very Rarely saurus.
The only units where Saurus work out to be a better tarpit is against WS3 models, who are S4 or worse, and don't have poison, and don't have re-rolls to hit.
That gives you a very short list of things in the game that saurus are better at tarpitting. Against everything else, you would have been better off spending those points on skinks.

It doesn't matter how good you think saurus are, when the other core choice is better. The only army where saurus have a favorable match up (over the other lizard core choice) is high elves.
If they aren't better tarpits, then the only reason to take them is for killing (because they are slower, and don't have poisoned quick to fire shooting, nor the redirecting ability).
Sadly, the killing power also falls flat. They don't do enough damage to kill enemy tarpits, or enemy elites. That leaves lizard players using the other 75% of their lists to kill, and core to tarpit/redirect.

Major tournaments are usually 2500ish points.

You again are cherry picking scenarios. Witch Elves running straight into units with nothing happening ever will beat most enemies on points. So every fight ever should lose to DE, right? Oh, wait, that's not the way the world works. If you're going to make up unrealistic scenarios, at least make them up uniform across the units you're comparing. Saying, "OMZ if a meteor hits Saurus, they suck, whereas, if a rabbit kisses Skinks, they will totally kill it." Yeah, good job on that.

Again, generalists suck in your meta. And that's cool.

No one ever said Saurus were a tarpit. Why would you ever tarpit with an 11pt model? Be serious. They are terrible war machines too. Though again, I find it lol-y you're using Skinks as a...wait for it...generalist in that they will do dmg and tarpit. When I have it from good authority (you) that generalists suck.

It doesn't matter how good you think saurus are, when the other core choice is better.

And it doesn't matter how good you think the other choice is when you make up imaginary scenarios in which they always come out behind. You oddly bring up WS and charges but don't point out that Skinks are T2 and LD5. In another thread you pointed out how crippling such a low LD is, but I guess that logic doesn't apply to Skinks, who are LIVING GODS.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Major tournaments are usually 2500ish points.
You again are cherry picking scenarios.

Odd, you said:

But vs. about 90% of the core in the game they do fine.
But then Longbeards suck worse. And anything HE and DE suck WAAAY worse.
You brought up DE core, not me. Don't be so obtuse.

Take a look at various weapon skills and strengths. A unit of 5 point skinks survives better than a unit of 11 point saurus warriors.
If you look at army lists (again, not my meta) people running saurus are sticking characters in the unit to give it hitting power.
If you stick that same character in the skink blocks, you're better off.

So you're saying Skinks + a Hero > Saurus. So that's not a Skink is it? Even if you just added a Chief, that's around 4 Saurus and he hits weaker than 4 Saurus. And he's still going to have a whopping 6LD. You have to pull out the big guns and then you're not comparing Skinks and Saurus you're comparing a bunkered Hero.

A unit of 5 point skinks survives better than a unit of 11 point saurus warriors.

But they don't. Saurus come out ahead.

At WS3 they come out more than double (what they need to be about as efficient) at every strength level. At WS4+ where they're taking the same hits, only at S5 or higher do Skinks get ahead. At higher Strengths the Skinks come out ahead as there's really only toughness and parry. And this is using round numbers.

Skink Saur skink armor + parry || saur armor + parry || 2.2 = total needed for saurus to be equal 10 ATTACKS WS3 6.6 5 S3 4.356 1.65 2.4149664 || 0.693 || 3.4848 S4 5.544 2.75 3.9118464 || 1.5246 || 2.565818182 S5 5.544 3.3 4.65696 || 2.32848 || 2 (skinks better) WS4++ 6.6 6.6 S3 4.356 2.178 2.4149664 || 0.91476 || 2.64 S4 5.544 3.63 3.9118464 || 2.012472 || 1.943801653 (skinks better) S5 5.544 4.356 4.65696 || 3.0735936 || 1.515151515 (skinks better)
If it's a flank/rear when both give up their parry, or missile weapons or spells, or whatever, Saurus come out further ahead of course.

So, as might be expected, for tarpitting big S enemies, Skinks are better. High WS, high S. But S3 or 4, Saurus are better, though not at WS4+, but that's close.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
If you're running saurus instead of skinks, you'll have dark riders shoot the piss out of saurus without them seeing combat

Saurus would only be losing piss because they would be pissing themselves laughing. It would take the Dark Riders literally all game and some strong dice rolling to put any kind of significant dent in a standard sized unit of Saurus.
Im with Duke on this one. Saurus are not bad.

alex87 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
If you're running saurus instead of skinks, you'll have dark riders shoot the piss out of saurus without them seeing combat

Saurus would only be losing piss because they would be pissing themselves laughing. It would take the Dark Riders literally all game and some strong dice rolling to put any kind of significant dent in a standard sized unit of Saurus.
Im with Duke on this one. Saurus are not bad.

Saurus are bad. They're a combat unit that dies in combat.

As for dark riders, that happens. I played lizard men with 40 Saurus a few days ago. The Saurus never saw combat and were 10 strong by turn 3. Due to 3 units of dark riders.

PF doesn't do enough to make Saurus viable. They absolutely need light magic to survive in this edition.

So your opponent was allowed to concentrate 3 units of dark riders on the Saurus and nothing else for 3 turns?

 thedarkavenger wrote:
Saurus are bad. They're a combat unit that dies in combat.

But they're not. I proved they aren't. Vs. WS3 S3/4 units they are better than Skinks. S5 they are slightly worse. WS4->10 Saurus are better vs. S3/ about same S5 and lose at S5.

If you are throwing your core troops regularly against WS6 S6 enemies, they will get slaughtered. The Skinks help tarpit. And they are faster. And since they are tarpitting they can also make hits with poison, which the Saurus are probably too weak to do. Those are all good jobs.

But they are core. Whole books are WS3 with S3/4. I'd guess it's like 75% of the core of the game. Certainly within WS3-4 and S3-5. Concentrating at the lower ends. Of which Sauris is better at fighting. I got the numbers there. It's not just saying, nuh-uh!

I have a suspicion for attacks it will work the same but inverse. The weaker the unit the more Saurus tears it up and the Skinks fail. At higher values the skinks become more effective on defense AND offense. As their normal attacks become useless.

But again, GW has the same numbers as I have. And presumably someone who knows how to type.

alex87 wrote:
So your opponent was allowed to concentrate 3 units of dark riders on the Saurus and nothing else for 3 turns?

No. I just know how to use fast cav. With the 24" range and 18" move, they can get into position and out of trouble easily. Unless the opponent has enough skirmishers. Which, with 40 Saurus. He didn't.

Apologies, I misread that and thought you were playing the lizardmen.

In any case assuming each of the three dark rider units was 5 strong, you clearly rolled phenomenally well as repeater crossbows absolutely suck at killing Saurus.

Yeah ... as you're probably moving and at long range, you need about 13.5 shots (not double-tapping) to kill a saurus ... Even if you manage to be at short range it's still 6-7 shooters per kill

Shooting at saurus with nearly all non warmachine weapons is an exercise in futility. even when i was hexed to be t3 the repeater crossbows still did nearly nothing.

Here's why I let Predatory Fighter work on all attacks.

Let's say 30 Sauruses are attacking. That's 40 attacks... and MAYBE 7 PF attacks tacked on. Against most elite units, that's 3.5 hits, 1.75 wounds, and 1 dead model after saves. (Needless to say, if I'm throwing chaff in, I expect a lot more to die... but then dying is what chaff is for).

If I can't survive one extra dead model, I did something wrong.

Why not give predatory fighter to all Core in every army then? And gnoblars stomp? It's not like they'll do much with that low strength. And war machines could have river strider, because that won't ever matter much.

Hey, I just said I allow it. If you don't want to, no skin off my back.

Play it how you like, but until there's an official ruling (either for whatever tournament I'm in or GW finally gets off their butts) I prefer to let the game proceed a little faster. I just don't think the one-wound difference is worth forcing my Lizardman opponents to drag things out by rolling attacks for the front rank separately.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Why not give predatory fighter to all Core in every army then? And gnoblars stomp? It's not like they'll do much with that low strength. And war machines could have river strider, because that won't ever matter much.

...yeah... coz giving rules to units that don't have them is totally the same as letting Saurus use their rule for rear ranks.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Why not give predatory fighter to all Core in every army then? And gnoblars stomp? It's not like they'll do much with that low strength. And war machines could have river strider, because that won't ever matter much.

...yeah... coz giving rules to units that don't have them is totally the same as letting Saurus use their rule for rear ranks.

You're changing the rule to allow saurus to get it on all the attacks.

The point he was making is, 'why stop there?'.

 Vulcan wrote:

until there's an official ruling

There's no official ruling that slann can't go on a bellyflop rampage and kill everything on the table rolling a 1. Nowhere in the rules does it explicitly say you can't do that. There is, however, a rule that says supporting ranks can only make one attack max.

You based your interpretation not on RAW, not on RAI, but on "it's only one dead model." Which is a pretty odd justification.

Yeah, I'm just giving you the business and such. But in YMDC usually has a little more backup than that.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Why not give predatory fighter to all Core in every army then? And gnoblars stomp? It's not like they'll do much with that low strength. And war machines could have river strider, because that won't ever matter much.

...yeah... coz giving rules to units that don't have them is totally the same as letting Saurus use their rule for rear ranks.

You're changing the rule to allow saurus to get it on all the attacks.

The point he was making is, 'why stop there?'.

I understand the point, however the uneccessary hyperbole was a bit uneccessary and hyperbolic Obviously some people think PF should give bonus attacks to rear ranks. It's not the same as simply giving additional rules to units that obviously don't have them,

An argument was made over on Warseer that the extra attack rule for supporting ranks reduces a Saurus Warrior to 1 attack when rolling initially and that the second (potential) attack from PF triggers after the state of the Supporting Attacks rule has been checked.

If that were the case the condition of "1 supporting attack" is satisfied and then PF kicks in only in specific circumstances, allowing an additional attack (not a supporting attack, necessarily)

Still thin... just will have to wait for the FAQ/ approve it with opponents.

Pervertdhermit wrote:
An argument was made over on Warseer that the extra attack rule for supporting ranks reduces a Saurus Warrior to 1 attack when rolling initially and that the second (potential) attack from PF triggers after the state of the Supporting Attacks rule has been checked.

If that were the case the condition of "1 supporting attack" is satisfied and then PF kicks in only in specific circumstances, allowing an additional attack (not a supporting attack, necessarily)

Still thin... just will have to wait for the FAQ/ approve it with opponents.

That doesn't really make sense. The exact wording in the rulebook, for supporting attacks:

"To represent this, he can only ever make a single Attack, regardless of the number of Attacks on his profile, or any bonus attacks he might otherwise be entitled to because of special rules or other unusual effects"

Predatory Fighter is allowing a model to make extra attacks using "special rules or other unusual effects", so from that, no, you wouldn't get extra attacks.

Though IMO GW should have just added a sentence in the PF rule to state whether or not supporting models get an extra attack to avoid confusion. It would be nice if it was added to a FAQ/errata, along with a bunch of other vague Lizardmen rules.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

until there's an official ruling

There's no official ruling that slann can't go on a bellyflop rampage and kill everything on the table rolling a 1. Nowhere in the rules does it explicitly say you can't do that. There is, however, a rule that says supporting ranks can only make one attack max.

You based your interpretation not on RAW, not on RAI, but on "it's only one dead model." Which is a pretty odd justification.

Yeah, I'm just giving you the business and such. But in YMDC usually has a little more backup than that.

Okay, you've made your point (ad nausium). I've made mine. I think we can let it rest here, because it's a GAME and not worth getting worked up over.

You don't actually have to make a post to say people can let it rest. You can just...let it rest. Unless you were just trying to get the last word. In which case:

word