8th Ed. Evolving Army List help. 500+

[FlaktheFox]

Good evening peoples!
Got myself involved a little local campaign and being so burned out on GW recently this is potentially what I need to get going again. Being that I have now played a game in almost a year now I'm a little bit rusty, and now that the new Lizard book has been digested I was looking for some help to get my army list sorted. There ARE some rules however:
- The first 500pts must be painted by the end of January, the armies will then grow by 250pts a month
- Your general is allowed to start with 1 magic or runic item
- No rare choices first 500 pts
- No lords choices until 1500pts
- 50% will not take effect until 2k
- At 500pts the minimum units sizes are halved rounding up.

With this in mind would anyone be able to help me get a good starting list? Bonus points if you give recommendations of how to expand over the months. Thanks in advance!

 

[teufelhund]

I had a similar campaign that fizzled before we got too far, but my original list was a scarvet cowboy, bastiladon, salamander and saurus filling out the core at a bare minumum. Since you aren't alloted rares right off the bat you could do a unit of skirmishers... Not as much damage as the template, but more reliable. Something like this would work fairly well:

Scarvet on CO, light armor, GW, dragonhelm. 1+/2+ vs flaming is big because lore of fire is very popular at low points levels for the fireball; that and ruby ring. He's a beast plain and simple. Most guys can't field a decent cav hero for these points.

12 saurus standard and musician, sword and board. They're more survivable this way with the parry and you won't have the third rank for spears.

11 skink skirmishers. The -1 to hit and skirmishers rules make them versatile as chaff and ranged damage. I'd go javs and shields for the extra armor and quick to fire. Less shots than blowpipes, but you won't lose your poison and it'll be easier to hit.

Bastiladon with solar engine. Gives you something for the magic phase and it draws a lot of attention since most guys don't bring a monster at 500 pts. Just throw max dice every time. The only down side is his leadership, but it can hold up a flank or act as chaff too.

Units utilizing multiple roles in low points is killer. You even have the option to do double fleesand pull units out of postion. Lizardmen have the distinct advantage of being coldblooded which is huge since I doubt you'll see a BSB on many lists. As far as building up; I think the list would end up looking like the first plus a dawnstone (1+ re-rollable on the scarvet/2+ flaming), 2 sallies, and 5 chameleons at 749 pts.

If you don't have to incorporate the previous list you can swap out your skinks for more saurus since you have more chaff or you can ditch the saurus for more of a skink cloud. I honestly wouldn't bother with a BSB until until you get your slann. If you can build independent lists a skink priest would be nice around 1000 pts. Best of luck.

 

[FlaktheFox]

Thanks alot for that! Really helps give me some focus.