7th Ed. New Player

[harreh]

Hey everyone,

I've been wanting to get into fantasy for a while now, 40k is getting a bit repetitive! So i ordered myself a nice little army of lizardmen. I've ordered A battallion, an scar vet on foot and a skink priest. I thought this would give me a good starting force, and a not too powerful caster to keep magic nice and simple for my newbie brain.

What I was wondering, was with the units that I get in the battleforce (ie the saurus and skinks) what weapon options would be best for a begginner? Spear Saurus? Blowpipe skinks? I really have no idea so any advice would be a great help!

Thanks!

harreh

 

[Stegadeth]

In a new battalion box you should get:
20 Saurus Warriors
10 Temple Guard
8 Cold One Cavalry
12 Skinks

I would build the Saurus as spears with full command. Chances are you may not use the unit champ, but he can always be in the back rank. If you have no intention of running a Slann anytime soon you could easily convert a Cold One Cavalry rider into an Oldblood/Scar-Veteran on Cold One. I prefer my Skinks with blowpipes but you will be two blowpipes shy of making all of them have them, which really is no big deal.

The really good news is that with the purchase of a Stegadon you will get a Skink Chief on foot (assuming you set the Steg up as an Engine of the Gods) and an extra skink. If you added a Slann at that point you'd have pretty close to 2000 points. We're one of the cheaper armies out there!

 

[harreh]

So what are the advantages of spears over HW/SH? Is it just the extra attacks? I was thinking that for a new player the HW/SH combo might be better simply because the extra armour save might make them a little more forgiving? Not that I am trying to go against your advice, just want to weigh up my options.

I'm not sure about running a slann as yet, but the conversion up to an old one/scar vet on a cold one to go in the unit of saurus riders sounds pretty awesome.

A stegadon is definitely on the cards in the future!

Thanks for the help!

 

[spacelizard]

Have you gotten the army book yet?

The thing about spears on saurus is that they become VERY hard for most units to break on the charge simply because they swing back with so many more attacks. Saurus with spears are a REALLY good anchor unit, especially for their cost. The HW/Shield combo is actually better suited to offense, so it all depends on what you want the unit to do.

Given how many are in the battalion box I might actually suggest the pipes, since you've only really got enough skinks for a skirmisher unit (instead of the ranked variety) and people who run the skink skirmishers seem to prefer blow pipes. That said, I prefer the javelins for the accuracy. I'm sure somebody on here has already math-hammered that one so feel free to search the forums.

By the way, the cold one riders you'll probably want to give spears just for the in-game bonus.

Edit: I might also add that the stegadon includes BOTH a skink priest and skink chief. Rather nice, that. I might also suggest magnetizing the howdah weapons and engine so you can switch out stuff. Also, putting the priest and chief on their own bases is both feasible and recommended.

 

[harreh]

Yeah the army book I ordered just came today actually, so I haven't had a chance to give it a good read yet. Hopefully I'll be able to sit down with it for a while over the weekend (four day weekend! gotta love australian public holidays)

I'm kind of glad I don't have enough skinks to rank them up, the more types of unit i can get used to using the better! And poisoned darts are just awesome.

 

[Ninjastone]

Are you in Sydney by any chance? I'm just starting Lizzies and we could have a little throwdown when weve both got some stuff

By the way, I <3 Blowpipes

Ninjastone

 

[harreh]

I'm up in queensland actually, so unfortunately no game for us, sorry ninjastone.

 

[Ninjastone]

Hehe, no worries

 

[spacelizard]

I'm kind of glad I don't have enough skinks to rank them up, the more types of unit i can get used to using the better! And poisoned darts are just awesome.

Just be sure to model them so that they can be ranked if the situation arises (i.e. if they get into combat) since skinks are a little tricky in that department .

 

[harreh]

Thanks for the tip! I can guarantee I would not have done that, and then been really sad that I couldn't rank them up if I needed to haha

 

[Bibamus]

the sucky part about skinks is that you only get 10 blowpipes for the 12 models wich sucks a bit, nothing to worry about tough.
saurus with spears are absolotuely amazing and i would never field them without spears.
if you don't plan on using a slann you can convert all the TG's into command for 3 saurus units and 1 into a scar-vet/oldblood on foot.
8 CoC's are a lot so you should convert a scar-vet/oldblood (mounted) aswell sicne you will still have enough to play with.
regarding the segadon box: you get 1 stegadon 1 priest 1 chief and 5 skinks. i used them to make 1 priest on stegadon, 1 skink handler for salamanders (you get 2 handed spears) and i converted the skink chief into a priest by making his spear (lance) into a staff and his shield into a plaque of tepok. now i have a skink priest on horned one

 

[spacelizard]

Thanks for the tip! I can guarantee I would not have done that, and then been really sad that I couldn't rank them up if I needed to haha

You'll find several units in warhammer that take a little pre-planning when you assemble them for exactly that reason. I hear khorne blood letters are the worst. For the lizardmen, those tricky units would be skinks, terradons, and possibly temple guard (wouldn't know as I haven't tried putting them together yet). If you ever get kroxigors, be sure you leave room for the skinks to hang over its base in case you run a mixed unit, otherwise krox's rank up easy.

 

[Stegadeth]

Yeah, my skink skirmishers rank up horridly. I don't care though, they look great all dramatically posed. I also used a pin-vice to drill out the barrels of the blowpipes so they look pretty good aimed and poised at the lips.