7th Ed. Lizardmen in Space!!!

[To-neh of LaTigra]

As many of you may have noticed, 40K and Fantasy armies often have similar themes. For example, Eldar=High Elves, Dark Eldar=Dark Elves, Chaos=Chaos, and the list goes on.

Well, the other day I was reviewing my Tyranid codex and having reluctantly sold my army for various reasons, I began to miss the little buggers. So I tried to figure out a cost effective way to make a small force, but having little income I couldn't do it. However, the process made me remember how similar the Lizardmen and Tyranid models are (I was comparing Gaunts and Skinks for price).

Since I still have a good sized Lizardmen army, it hit me. Lizardmen in Space!!!!!. The fluff in the Necron codex talks about the Old Ones (creators of many 40k & Fantasy races including the Eldar & Lizarmen). The Necron codex even goes so far as to suggest using Lizardmen models in games to recreate ancient battles between the C'tan vs. the Old Ones.

Fluffwise, the army would be Lizardmen and no sci-fi conversions would be necessary as the Old Ones used Web Way portals (having taught the Eldar how). So the army would be a magical (or rather warp atuned) kind of psychic denizens of the Old Ones. Rules-wise the army would be Tyranids. Here's a unit breakdown of models I can use and why the rules are appropriate to their fluff.

Winged Hive Tyrant=Oldblood on Carnosaur. The OB on Carnie is fast (winged) and a big scary CC thing (Montrous creature).

Leaping Warriors=Cold One Riders. Both are T4, fast and CC

Lictors=Kroxigors. Both S6 and Crocodiles are ambush predators that use camo. nuff said.

Guants=Skinks. Fast little critters and easy to kill. The blowpipe skinks can easily be said to be twinlinked (Spinegaunt) because they multi-shoot or have living ammo (Termagaunt) because they are poisioned. Skinks with shield/javelin are more CC, thus would make great Hormagaunts.

Genestealers=Suarus. Both are T4 and purely CC. The weapons Suarus carry can easily be rending/scything talons, etc.

BroodLord=Saurus Character on Cold One. Same reasons as Warriors & Genestealers.

Raveners/Gargoyles=Terradon Riders. This one is a little more tricky. The leathery winged thing and shooting is definelty Garg, but the base size and multi-wound thing is more Ravener.

Carnifex=Stegadon. This is a no-brainer. Big scary beast that can have long range shooting (Giant bow for Steg, Venom cannon/Barb strangler for Fex), short range shooting (Giant blowpipes, TL devourer), or just all out CC. Heck, a Tusked Fex kinda has impact hits like a Steg.

Zoanthrope=Slann. Big floating thing with psychic or magical powers.

There are other equivalents like Rippers=Jungle swarms, but the above are all I'm concerned with. Synapse and Cold-blooded even have a similar effect on their respective armies.

The other great thing about this is that I wouldn't have to change the bases as 40k allows players to put models on bases larger than they came on (within reason) and doesn't really care about round vs. square (where Fantasy does). All the equivalants I listed have bases roughly equal to their 40k partner (20mm square has the same area as 25mm round, which in turn fits perfectly within a 25mm square), or have a base bigger (50mm Chariot base is slight bigger in area than a 60mm round).

Other than the obvious inability to use this in a tournament, what do you guys think?

 

[TheAncientOne]

Cool!
I always knew the elves-eldar, etc., but the idea of using lizards as tyranids never occured to me... i already have an eldar army(smalll, but it's there) but I like the way you think!!!
You da man!!
(Is there any way to add rep, or is that just other forums )

 

[hellbreaker]

At first I thought you had realized that LM and 'nids are similar and was going to leave the topic, reading on it sounded kinda cool... Always wondered how to incorporate LM into 40k vs necrons...

As I myself collect 'nids I'm curious on how you'll incorporate bio-plasma, if you'll do that at all...
Probably not...

Extended carapace is obviously shields, so...
Toxin sacs is probably something you'll have to skip, like bio-plasma, as well as feeder tendrils and such...
However, how would you go about on the broodlord=genestealer retinue?

I suppose you'll ignore that since you're not using other stuff like flesh hooks, bio-plasma and toxin sacs...

Will you even use magic items instead of bio-morphs?
And the lores of magic instead of hive mind powers?

This is interesting, I'm up to help if needed. ^^

Cheers!

 

[strewart]

Wow the slann sure takes a hit there, zoanthropes are nowhere near as good.

Pretty cool idea, might be a bit hard for your opponents to keep track of what is what if you don't do any conversions at all but I guess it would kinda be a part time army wouldn't it.

 

[To-neh of LaTigra]

Any upgrade like Toxin sacs, Adrenal glands, etc are easily explained as "experience", or age since most reptiles never stop growing and get tougher/stronger as they age. Bio-plasma would be some form of psychic/magic attack given that the Old Ones were masters of Warp Energies. Broodlord and Retinue would be a Saurus character on a Cold One with a retinue of Saurus.

These Lizardmen would obviously not function the same as their Fantasy counter parts. They would regiment up and it is possible for units like Saurus to be super fast (like Genestealers) rather than slow and lumbering.

Another fluff similarity is that Tyranids are born in huge hive ships in the same way that Lizardmen are spawned.

 

[beardedgecko]

except for the fact that there were originally "Space Slann" in rogue trader, it'dbe a good idea

 

[To-neh of LaTigra]

Upon further contemplation, I started to have some ideas for conversions that would help my Nid army, without effecting the Fantasy look of my LM.

For my OB on Carni, I could put bird wings on it just like my Terradons.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_b1VmD9xlLxI/SSJhaQZzHQI/AAAAAAAAAMo/qryyVwRQ3DA/s1600-h/Terradons.JPG

This would look cool for LM and accurate to a winged Tyrant. Devourer arms could be magnetized. The same goes for my StegFexes and Warrior Cold One Riders. Magnets might just help me pull this off in more people's eyes.

I am not sure if anything could (or rather needs to be) done for the skinks. A blowpipe seems to be an accurate representation for either spinefists (multi-shot=twin-linked) or fleshborers (poison dart=living ammo). And Javelin+Hand weapon seems a good rep for scything talons on Hormaguants.

Same goes for Saurus=Genestealers. Shield=Ext. Carapace, Spike Sword=Rending claws and/or Scy Tals.

For my Broodlord, I could use the Warrior rending claws on my Saurus Character's Cold One and this would work fine even in Fantasy.

For my Zoanthropes, I think magnetizing my Skink Priest onto floating bases would work fine. This shouldn't be hard as my Priests are already magnetized to their EotG and their bases are painted to look like a wooden palanquin. They would be my only Synapse not mounted on another creature.

It seems that all my Synapse creatures (except the Zoans) are on mounts. Tyrant=Carnosaur, Warriors=COR, Broodlord=Saurus on CO, etc.

That should cover the biggest issues without having to compromise my LM models. One thought I had was to give my Skink models actual Spinefists and my Saurus feeder tendrils and say that my LM army was cursed by Chaos when they attempted to recontruct a Warp gate to contact the lost Old Ones.