7th Ed. How good are Lizardmen

[jgibbs2]

I was wondering how well Lizardmen armies do against all the races in the WHFB game? I went down to my game shop and a friend was saying that right now there are certain armies are the best in the game, and some aren't that great (I think he said choas and vampires were the best).

So when you guys are playing with lizardmen, how often are yall winning?

 

[Eagleblaze]

In the spirit of fairness it is assumed that all armies are balanced.
However as they say "to assume is to make an ass of u and me" and so it should be said that some armies are techincally more powerful than others. At this time it is simply a matter of balancing the rules which needs to be done by Games Workshop as they failed to do it properly the first time around because they were much too hasty.

At the present time the armies that are considered imbalanced or "IMBA" are predominantly Vampire Counts and Daemons of Chaos. Depending on the composition of the army list at hand the same can be argued for Warriors of Chaos and also Dark Elves however if you really want to get down and dirty you can argue that there is atleast one IMBA combo for all armies, be it the multi-hydra DE list, the Stegadon rampage LM list and so on.

As I mentioned above it can depend on the army list at hand, it also depends on the player and the setting. All armies are beatable. None are sure wins, if it were ever the case that one army was miles better than the rest then games workshop would be forced to reassess that army as the majority of other players would not stand for such an unbalanced system and so GW would soon start to lose it's audience and its income.

To get back on topic, the Lizardmen are (as far as I am aware) the best suited force for dealing with these slightly IMBA armies. The new rules gives us a bonus against undead and daemons, saurus have got even tougher and as a whole we have gained more than we have lost.

Morale of the story?

It comes down to the player and the lists at hand, and even when those lists are slightly IMBA because of the way they were produced by GW, Lizardmen still have an edge.

Hope this helps.
-Eagle

 

[jgibbs2]

awesome, thanks a ton eagle. You completed answered my question above and beyond what I was looking for . I figured something it would be pretty close to what you were saying, and a big amount of success depending on the player behind the army.

-jordan

 

[strewart]

Not only the player is important, probably more important is the army list. But a huge amount of the game is in deployment.

Definitely some armies are easier to overpower than others, with the most powerful being daemons, VC, then probably skaven and dark elves, though DE can be quite balanced they are easy to power up.

LM are probably right in the middle and pretty well rounded and balanced.

 

[Alesh]

Lizardmen are good all-rounders. We have some shooting, a lot of magic, and oack a huge punch in Close Combat (Temple Guard, Kroxigors, Carnosaur, need I go on...). And as far as VC being overpowered, that's not entirely true. They're just easier to make an abusive army list with. The army as a whole is pretty balanced if those combos (Helm of Command with Drakenhof, bus of 20 Black Knights, etc.) are avoided.

 

[strewart]

It isn't neccesarily combos that are powerful, it is the massive amount of magic and the fact that their basic necromancy spells can be cast so easily and unlimited times. Basically all the characters are magic users, they can throw out a rediculously amount of raising enough so that if you don't destroy a whole unit in a single turn it will be back to full strength the next turn. Even the grave guard can be raised back very easily and they are tough. The thing about all the potential raising as well is there is very little you can do to stop it, and often by the time combat is reached there is nothing else useful for the mages TO cast besides raising, so they either ignore their magic phase or be too powerful.

 

[Alesh]

Shouldn't wizards who have been raising things for hundreds of years be pretty good at it? It's comparable to a Slann with magic missiles.

 

[WheelR]

Aren't Slann supposed to be better at casting than any other creature in warhammer? It is the only thing they can do.. Vampires hit pretty hard in combat aswell.. and are able to heal themselves up or raise his entire unit back with just a few rolls. Spamming one spell that is able to re-raise a unit is way better than knowing a whole lore..(which vampires can pick too if they want to for a few points)
Slann can't spam Magic Missiles.. come back with VC not being OP when that happens.

But back to topic... I can't really complain about playing Lizardmen.. Nice stats.. balanced heroes/lords...And a whole army full of dinosaurs.. Everyone loves dinosaurs.

 

[strewart]

Shouldn't wizards who have been raising things for hundreds of years be pretty good at it? It's comparable to a Slann with magic missiles.

Absolutely they should be good at it, but multiple times in a turn is taking it a bit far. I mean even a necromancer who may only be 100 or so can cast raise 3 times if he wants to use the pool dice. Their magic is far better than a Slann's, it is more useful to the army. And as WheelR said they can hit hard in combat too.

Keep in mind I am not whinging, just stating the facts of the VC army. I have played them lots of times and had my fair share of wins as well as frustrating losses where they had basically everything raised back at the end of the game, and in some cases the numbers even grew from the start of the battle.

But yes, we should probably get back on topic.

 

[lupercal]

i have to say i was supprised that nobody called out brets on the overpowered list i always thought they were a little too powerful but it is good to see that others are having success against them i have not had problems with the new VC when i have played them and i have yet to play the WoC i did not think that the daemons were to over the top i can see a case for the skaven and DE mabye HE with ASF but like i said i have always had the most trouble with the brets they just seem broken to me but hey what you gonna do

 

[strewart]

Brets are an unfortunate one trick pony, they seemed to have it all when they first came out but it is true they are broken. Not neccesarily overpowered, just unbalanced. They are neither fun to play for or against due to their one-dimensionality.

People can and do make peasant heavy armies which are still reasonably effective and more balanced, but obviously the all knight lists are most common. A very newbie army, they are forgiving and easy to play, a new player with Brets will most likely beat other new players. Once you realise the knight lance formation has massive flanks, and you always know exactly what they are going to do, they are actually not that hard to beat.

 

[mortetvie]

to beat VC, you must kill their characters, not thier units so, all that discussion is moot!

 

[Glorystorm]

Unfortunately it seems everyone is going down a road of picking every army list and stating how powerful they are.

Every single army has the room to be overpowering, even the beasts of chaos mega tzeentch list with 'x' chariots can still be devastating,
and anyone ever played ogres with a tyrant and three hunters? its not pretty 'qwuhdoosh, qwuhdoosh, qwuhdoosh' "whats that? your knights are dead mate" then 6 dogs come running after you.

And i noticed someone talking about high elves being dodgy with their asf? well too right, regardless of what super weapon they have an elf is a squishy t3 girl, and they always will be, if they didnt asf then they would lose power to a tremendously low point.
Daemons have their ward save, undead are 'unbreakable', lizardmen are cold blooded, high elves strike first, skaven get their rank leadership... the list goes on. Every army has something which makes it an individual army, and if every single army was the bog same then this would be the most boring game ever.

Particularly on the tournament scene at the moment, for example i am attending one in warrington this september the comp rules are:

-no more than six levels of magic (i.e slann and level 2 engine is allowed)
- only one double of each special
-no double rares

and daemons suffer a -1 to their ward save for magical attacks, not to mention the 10 hardest lists play eachother in the first round.

Particularly on the tournament scene you cant make an army list which plays itself out (which is the definiton of a imbalanced list), for example daemons are bringing more and more slaanesh into the picture, i myself am using an oldblood on cold one with BoR

You've got to think outside the box with any army, every single army is balanced in terms of playability, its the army lists that can be so simply powerful that it takes a mindless drone to march it, but in general tournaments comp wont allow that anyway.


At the end of the day...You just do pit of shades

 

[strewart]

to beat VC, you must kill their characters, not thier units so, all that discussion is moot!

Killing a t5 vampire that almost always has good armour and a ward save, that can heal itself easily, that can have ASF from corpse carts and generally hits hard in combat even when not designed for combat is no easy task. In fact, the easiest way is to destroy the unit and make the character crumble from combat res. So all that discussion is not moot.

 

[lupercal]

to beat VC, you must kill their characters, not thier units so, all that discussion is moot!

Killing a t5 vampire that almost always has good armour and a ward save, that can heal itself easily, that can have ASF from corpse carts and generally hits hard in combat even when not designed for combat is no easy task. In fact, the easiest way is to destroy the unit and make the character crumble from combat res. So all that discussion is not moot.

advantage strewart

p.s. not to mention grave guard and blood knight units he might be in

 

[Caneghem]

to beat VC, you must kill their characters, not thier units so, all that discussion is moot!

Killing a t5 vampire that almost always has good armour and a ward save, that can heal itself easily, that can have ASF from corpse carts and generally hits hard in combat even when not designed for combat is no easy task. In fact, the easiest way is to destroy the unit and make the character crumble from combat res. So all that discussion is not moot.

advantage strewart

p.s. not to mention grave guard and blood knight units he might be in

Add in regen banner, and it becomes impossible to even crumble the grave guard.

 

[strewart]

That point is when they become a touch cheesy... The unit can get close to 1000 points, but GG with vampire and some magic/raising abilities plus the sword to heal a model for every kill, then a BSB with regen banner.... Nothing is going to scratch the unit. Luckily, my opponents don't like making cheesy armies/units.

 

[Revered_Guardian]

We of the lizardmen are a pretty short ranged race, our saurus are the second best non elite fighters in then game, and even though skinks have an incredibly short range, they are so fast, versatile, and there poison kicks ***. We have alot of rules that go against the regular ones, we harldy ever flee dew to cold blooded and our Slaan mage priest is arguably the best mage in the game. If you want a combat lord, we have the amazing old blood on a carnosaur combo, it can't fly, but it does do D3 wounds at str 7....and causes terror

 

[Barotok]

Those VC armies are more than a touch cheesy. I've heard about HE sword master units with similar levels of 'cheese' although never fought one.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean when you say '2nd best non-elite fighters in the game'?

 

[Revered_Guardian]

Think about it, as core infantry units, saurus are really only beeten by chaos warriors