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So i play HE and want to try to get another army. I like playing against the lizardmen army and I enjoy a lot of their models. I also really like their Saurus so i would like to use them. I made a basic list using army builder (cheating i know, but it gives me points) and using my basic knowledge from playing them. So all comments are immensely helpful. The only thing i would really like is the 2-3 blocks of Saurus (of course i dont know the size that works best...)

Hero
Saurus BSB, Cold One, Shield of Mirrored Pool, Burning Blade of Chotek Light armor, 185
EOG Diadem of Power, Scroll 440
.... Dont know

Core:
18 Saurus w/ Spears, Champ Standard 240
18 Saurus w/ Spears, Champ, Standard 240
18 Saurus w/ Spears, Champ, Standard 240
10 Skinks 50
10 Skinks 50
10 Skinks 50

Special
3 Terradons 90 (maybe i thought i would need a warmachine hunter?)

Rare:
2 Razordons 150
2 Salamanders 150

1885 but right now my general is a skink priest... I really wanted 2 EOGs but need to drop a lot to get that in. I like both the salamanders and Razordons, though i admit i have not seen the Razordons just seen them described and in the book. I could drop a champ and get another saurus on a cold one with a cheap magic item.
Anyways skinks stop shooting at saurus from magic/shooty armies, otherwise they redirect and throw javalins, terradons to hunt warmachines and drop rocks once. I have minor magic protection (5dd scroll + shield).

Anyways please help. I have not purchased anything but i am very interested and would like something different from HE.

Razordons are worse then Salamanders are, especially with the ruling on Stand and Shoot misfires for Razordon's. Skink Skirmishers are also a lot better then the regular Skinks are.

Your Magic Defense is fine (it's 6DD and a Scroll). However, if you aren't taking any Offensive Magic, then you really need some faster combat units, as those Saurus Warriors will be fairly easy to avoid.

I would drop at least one of the Saurus Warrior units, drop one of the Skink units and upgrade the other 2 to Skink Skirmishers. I would drop the Razordons as well. This will give you some points to field two faster hammer units (Stegadons / Saurus Cavalry / Kroxigor).

The Lizardmen player in our gaming group always includes his Slann Mage Priest if he wants to be competitive. Lizardmen just rely on their Magic and Shooting to force the enemy into combat with the Saurus Warriors / Temple Guard. Without offensive Magic, your slow troops will need to bring the fight to them and will be easily avoided, forcing you to take suboptimal units (because you need their higher Movement value).

I was trying to stay away from a Slann as i can already go pretty magic heavy with my HE and to be honest i just don't like the model. Would an Oldblood on a Carnisaur be a decent hammer model? Drop razordons, maybe a saurus block (or reduce to 12).

To be honest i kinda like the skink cohorts with their shield and javalin, but I will wait to make that decision based on points (they are not that crucial to my list). Also i like them to redirect charges which is much easier with ranked models than skirmishers.

Really dont want to field Kroxigors, i think they suck mainly and after seeing them in battle i hold that opinion.

Maybe Saurus Cavalry goes along with the theme.

That would mean

Hero
Oldblood Carnisaur Magic items~100 points, light armor, shield 471
Saurus BSB Cold One, Shield of Mirrored Pool, Burning Blade of Chotek, Light armor, 185
EOG Scroll, Diadem of Power 440

Core
18 Saurus Champ, Standard 240
18 Saurus Champ, Standard 240
10 Skinks 50
10 Skinks 50

Special
5 Saurus Cavalry 175
3 Terradons 90

Rare
2 Salamanders 150

2086... darn, drop terradons? (although now i really want a warmachine hunter)
also how to equip the Oldblood, i figure the carnosaur can rip through monsters and other knights, so make the oldblood decent against infantry, give him carnisaur pendent, +2 attacks and either magic shield of +1 attack (9 s5 ws6 attacks!) or 5+ ward or something else, idk help?

Don't drop the Terradons, they are a very good unit. I'd consider dropping the Saurus Warriors to 12 each (6x2 formation) with Spears, but without the Champions and Standard.

There are really two ways to field the Oldblood: a Monster hunter with the Blade of Realities or a rank and file killer with as much attacks as possible (Scimitar of the Sun Replendant + Maiming Shield).

As I mentioned before, in our area, people aren't really impressed by the faster Lizardmen combat units (from Stegadons to Kroxigors, Saurus Cavalry and even the Oldblood on Carnosaur).

Lizardmen rely heavily on their Magic to force the enemy into combat. If you haven't bought any of the stuff from the army yet, and you are looking for an army that can work well without Magic, I'd suggest you look for a different army.

Out of curiosity (not that i dont respect your opinion) but does everyone feel this way, that you have to go magic heavy for lizardmen to work. I know the 3 that i see dont, but then again we play a lot of 1999 (big difference).

If you play under 2000 points alot, then a Slann Mage Priest isn't an option anyway.

However, at 2000 points and above, the Slann Mage Priest is near mandatory for competitive play. This is all just my opinion though, I don't really know what most people think about this subject.

Yeah and there is only 1 rare and 3 special, usually see a lot more core running around, unless your HE of course

Anyone elses opinion, is it go slann or go home?

Were I play you definetly dont need a Slaan to be competitive (at least I dont). I almost always run my Carnosaur Lord because everyone in my area think that only the Slaan can be competitive and I love to prove them wrong. Having 8 str5 attacks and 4 Str7 coming in on an opponents flank can be quite devastating. I find that people normally don't have an answer for him and he does well against most armies. I normally use the Old Blood with Scimitar Sun Replendent, Maiming Sheild, Enchanted Sheild, Light armour and Carnosaur and in the list I'll have 1-2 scroll caddies, 3x16 saurus with spears, 1x5 Cold one Cav, 3x10 Skink Skirmishers and then you can just bulk it out with whatever you want but I find that that works fairly well, just remember to flank units with you're carnosaur.

Why the +1 save and not charm of the carnosaur for another +1 attack out of curiosity.

also can people explain why the skink skirmishers are worth 7 points, i would think that normally they are moving and at long range so they hit on sevens with multi shot, so its a better idea to just go for single shot anyways to get poison. They are worse at redirecting (have to flee and die, instead of hold, march block and then die). Against shooting they are better cause -1 to hit compared to 6+ save but that is about it. Please correct my wayward thinking.

The Skink Skirmishers have more uses then regular Skinks do. Regular Skinks just redirect and sometimes march block. Skink Skirmishers can also deal some damage. They are, for example, great counters to march blockers (as most march blockers tend to die when shot at, Great Eagles being a good example). Certain monsters are also a good target for them due to their poison (Keeper of Secrets, Manticores or Stegadons for example). Due to being Skirmishers, they are also a lot easier to use for LoS blocking purposes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Muffinman wrote:I almost always run my Carnosaur Lord because everyone in my area think that only the Slaan can be competitive and I love to prove them wrong. Having 8 str5 attacks and 4 Str7 coming in on an opponents flank can be quite devastating. I find that people normally don't have an answer for him and he does well against most armies.

What kind of armies do people in your area field? Around here, everyone makes sure to have something in his or her list that is a good Monster killer, as a lot of people field Monsters in their armies (War Hydra's, Dragons, Varghulf, Stegadons, Treemen, Hell Pit Abominations, Greater Daemons & Steam Tanks). For this reason, I think it is weird that noone around your area has an answer to your Carnosaur, as he is not more difficult to deal with then most of the Monsters I just mentioned.

Airmaniac wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Muffinman wrote:I almost always run my Carnosaur Lord because everyone in my area think that only the Slaan can be competitive and I love to prove them wrong. Having 8 str5 attacks and 4 Str7 coming in on an opponents flank can be quite devastating. I find that people normally don't have an answer for him and he does well against most armies.

What kind of armies do people in your area field? Around here, everyone makes sure to have something in his or her list that is a good Monster killer, as a lot of people field Monsters in their armies (War Hydra's, Dragons, Varghulf, Stegadons, Treemen, Hell Pit Abominations, Greater Daemons & Steam Tanks). For this reason, I think it is weird that noone around your area has an answer to your Carnosaur, as he is not more difficult to deal with then most of the Monsters I just mentioned.

The thing is that I know how to protect it. Because It's not a large target people cannot pick it out if it's behind Skink Skirmishers which are one of the reasons it's so great. I just run it up behind them and I'll normally only need them 1-2 shooting phases since I normally get a charge 2nd turn. And Normally by that time I hope that my Terradons have done at least some damage to the enemy war Machines. The reason i don't take the carnosaur pendant on him is because he'll already have frenzy once the carnosaur causes a wound so I find that it's pointless.

oh if the carnosaur gets frenzy its goes on the oldblood (knew the other way around worked, didn't realize it worked both ways, although that makes sense when i think about it) Also i did not realize he is not a large target... cool!

Hmm well that would save me 20 points for skink skirmishers...

Also at Airmaniac how uncompetitive is the list, because most players around here have 2 lists, a tournament ready list and a lets play a game list. Would this do fine in a lets play a game situation (still using great units and great strategy, but not necessarily min maxing on everything, no 6 steg armies or 2 hydras, 2 stanks, 8 bolt throwers with thorek etc) or is it still going to fail.

The Lizardmen are by no means a bad army, even without the Slann Mage Priest. I'm just saying that I find the Lizardmen army to be more competitive with a Slann Mage Priest, then without him.

If you are playing a less competitive list (but still strong) then you could do without the Slann Mage Priest. Just make sure to have at least 2 decently fast hammer units.

The majority of the lizardmen lists I've seen at Texas Indy GTs this past year have all pretty much had the same thing in common. Keep in mind the point limit is 2250 for tournaments, but all pretty much contain:

Slann
Temple Guard
Skink Priest on Engine of the Gods
Multiple units of Skink Skirmishers
Skink Chief on Ancient Steg with Warspear
At least 1 unit of Terradons

I've seen 1 or 2 lists that have the Old Blood on Carnosaur, but usually those will get baited and removed from the main course of battle so they never make up their points. Or the everpopular cannonball takes care of them.

Why do folks run the Slann? Couple of reasons.
1. Makes the temple guard stubborn. Having the Slann be your BSB saves you a character spot, and rerollable LD8 on 3 dice is about 98% guaranteed.
2. Best LD in a lizardmen army of 9.
3. Highly customizable with disciplines, automatic Lvl 4 - potentially give you 12 casting dice with pool and free casting dice.
4. Points denial. When you figure in the cost of a tooled up Slann and a temple guard unit that protects him, your opponent has to beat that unit or at best they're looking at a tie.

Skrox units aren't all that bad - I've seen alot of players running them with an EOTG or Warspear steg attached to the unit - both charging in, counting impact hits, kroxigors swinging - can do alot of damage. Then when you figure in ranks, standard, unit size, etc. etc. it becomes plain nasty. Sure skinks die quickly, but on the charge they probably won't get to swing back with that many.

Stegs are popular not just for the impressive model, but Stubborn 6 on 3 dice - combine with a BSB is pretty nasty as well. Causes terror, High Str and Toughness - its a good unit. Engines can wreck someones day if they run in pairs plus they boost a Lvl 2 up to basically a Lvl 3 priest on top (more important for the dispel dice).

Just my two cents, but most competitive ones I see have a Slann.