8th Ed. New to lizardmen/8th edition, have questions

[youknow12]

Long story short, I played about 5 years ago and am getting back into warhammer. I misplaced all my old armies and so I am starting over with lizardmen.

I have a few questions and would like everyone's input.
1. Do most people take spears with saurus warriors automatically, or is it situational?
2. How viable is having a lot of 10man skink skirmisher units to just shoot poison and hope for 6's?
3. I imagine I will be playing mostly 1k games to start, how many heroes, and which do you prefer to play with in these games?
4. For cold ones, is having a 2nd rank an uncommon thing?

I imagine I will have more questions down the line, but will leave it with those for now.
Thanks for reading my post and I imagine I will be a frequent visitor to these forums from now on.

 

[cyanhawk]

Welcome back!!!!

1) Spears are situational. Some people love them. I personally prefer the hw/shield for the 6+ parry, but the extra rank of attacks can be nice.

2) I don't put tons of faith into skink skirmisher shooting. Rolling 20 dice and going for sixes with a 10 man skink squad is nice, but even if you get some wounds its only str 3 and most armies are getting a 50/50 to make an armor save. I do take 2 10 man squads and use them mostly as redirectors. Chameleon skinks on the other hand are worth their weight in gold. That extra point of BS makes all the difference in the world.

3) I would take at least 2 heroes. One scar vet tooled out for killing, and one skink priest at lvl 2. If you can squeeze in a 3rd to have a bsb with a magic banner thats super, but I just make the scar vet the bsb. At 1000 points he is pretty dang hard to kill.

4) I think you almost have to have a second rank of cold ones. You want to be flank charging with them, and when you get into the flank you need the second rank to break the opponents ranks. I usually take 8 or 9 and put a scar vet or two in the unit with full command. Its a pretty hard unit but its very expensive.

 

[Lord Cedric]

Greetings and welcome to Lustria-Online! Looking forward to reading more posts about your return back to the game.

Welcome back!!!!

1) Spears are situational. Some people love them. I personally prefer the hw/shield for the 6+ parry, but the extra rank of attacks can be nice.

Spearmen also have shields and the weapons are single-handed, thus getting their 6+ parry save as well.

- Lord Cedric

 

[Coatl]

incorrect. the 6+ parry save applies to the hand weapon and shield combo only. just because a spear is a 1-handed weapon doesn't mean it's a "hand weapon"

 

[Lord Cedric]

incorrect. the 6+ parry save applies to the hand weapon and shield combo only. just because a spear is a 1-handed weapon doesn't mean it's a "hand weapon"

Gah! You're right and I am incorrect. Spears are single-handed weapons, yes and can use sheilds. However, on page 88 of the BRB under Special Weapons, it mentions that if a weapons is listed under this heading (which spears are) they are not considered Hand weapons. Wow... ok - We've been playing that part wrong in our club. lol! At least it was a universal wrong. hehe.

Going with common sense/fighting spear ability though.. I can honestly say from personal experience that you can very well successfully parry with a spear. I have fended off several medieval fighters.. some 2 at a time, with a spear.. as a parry.

Ah well.. I'll strike this up as another learned 8th rule. Thanks for the clarification!

- Lord Cedric

 

[n810]

1. Do most people take spears with saurus warriors automatically, or is it situational?
it's a pretty balanced choice now.
2. How viable is having a lot of 10man skink skirmisher units to just shoot poison and hope for 6's?
you got it.
3. I imagine I will be playing mostly 1k games to start, how many heroes, and which do you prefer to play with in these games?
one to three.
4. For cold ones, is having a 2nd rank an uncommon thing?
somewhat.

 

[MI_Tiger]

Obviouslly, you'll get some different opinions on these questions, but here's my input:

Long story short, I played about 5 years ago and am getting back into warhammer. I misplaced all my old armies and so I am starting over with lizardmen.

I have a few questions and would like everyone's input.
1. Do most people take spears with saurus warriors automatically, or is it situational?

This is really just a matter of personal taste. In 7th, it seemed like spears were practically automatic, but in 8th, both spears and HW&shield can be good choices. I run one one unit of each, but I admit that is mostly based on the models I have rather than any tactical decision.

2. How viable is having a lot of 10man skink skirmisher units to just shoot poison and hope for 6's?

I think its great, but it depends on your opponent. As cyanhawk pointed out, even poison shots aren't much good against a well-armoured enemy, but nothing beats skinks for taking out high-toughness, low-armored foes, like monsters. And even if your opponent doesn't have any particularly juicy targets, skink skirmishers can be great harassers since their extra mobility means they can often stay out of Line of Sight. Sure the enemy can reform and shoot back, but any effort they expend fighting your cheap skink unit is a bonus for you since they are not shooting at anything more important.

Note that both blowpipes and Javelin & Shield are viable choices for skink skirmishers - there are several threads pointing out the advantages/disadvantages of each.

3. I imagine I will be playing mostly 1k games to start, how many heroes, and which do you prefer to play with in these games?

Since Saurus are tough by themselves, I think Lizardmen can be successful with fewer heroes than many armies. At that size, I would probably only take a Skink Priest for some magic/magic defense and trust my troops to do the fighting. A Scar Vet general would not be a bad idea, but I don't think its necessary. You probably shouldn't consider Skink Chiefs in most games.

CAUTION: If you do go light on heros, watch out for ethereal enemies. I recently played in a small tournament where 2 of my 3 games were against Vampire Counts. The ethereal Wraiths tied up part of my army for the entire game since I couldn't touch them without magic weapons.

4. For cold ones, is having a 2nd rank an uncommon thing?

It depends on how you plan to use them. With 2+ ranks, they can fight many units on their own, and can provide very heavy support in a combo/flank charge since they will disrupt enemy ranks. BUT, this takes a lot of points, and to be sure of success you will probably need more than 10 models to account for any losses you take on the way to combat.

For me, the best way to use Cold Ones is in 5-man flanker units. They won't disrupt ranks, but will still hit hard and will provide plenty of combat resolution from kills. And a unit like this can cost less than 200 points and will be less of a target for enemy shooting.

Note however, that Cold Ones are becomming less popular with most players, although they can still be effective.

EDIT to fix horrendous typos.

 

[youknow12]

Thanks for the many replies and advice. Hopefully I can get my units painted soon and start learning from experience.

 

[Landjorden]

1. Do most people take spears with saurus warriors automatically, or is it situational?

I usually go with hw+shield for the extra ward save but it´s just personal preference, spears work as well

2. How viable is having a lot of 10man skink skirmisher units to just shoot poison and hope for 6's?

I love my skinks, I run them with javelins and in my last game against warriors of chaos my puny group of 10 skinks caused 8! casualties on a group of warriors in two turns winning me the game, I will never leave home without them again

3. I imagine I will be playing mostly 1k games to start, how many heroes, and which do you prefer to play with in these games?
I usually go with two at 1k, or even one, I usually don´t bother with a bsb in the smaller games and rely on my cold blooded to save the day

4. For cold ones, is having a 2nd rank an uncommon thing?
Again this comes down to personal preference and how you plan on using the unit, if you plan on using them as flank disruptors then a second rank is really useful but it will set you back a fair amount of points

 

[The Hunted]

I only have 1 more thing to add:

If you start playing 1k battles, I'd strongly suggest not to add the 2nd rank to the cold ones. It's just way to many points that way. Use 5-7, some skinks a saurus unit add some heroes and see what you have left after that.

And welcome back!

The Hunted

edit: post nr.666! So this is probably advice from the devil himself