A Razodon has to roll to hit and, unless a hand of glory boosts its BS, it will hit at best using BS3 50% (in close range) of its shots with an average number of shots of 5 (plus 1/6 chance of eating a skink) in the normal shooting phase and around 6 shots hitting on 5+ or 6+ depending on short or long range in the stand in shoot phase. Against some of the 1+ AS and high armour save models and units becoming common, razordon shooting just doesn't do enough , nor does skink shooting for that matter.
As I posted elsewhere this week, razors are kind of squeezed out of the army list by better options to fill the same roles:
On shooting: There is no poison, so they must roll to wound at S4. Most of the time they will be hitting on 5's and 6's unless one spends a hand of glory cast on them. That means 1 to 2 hits on average per razor and on average 1 wound which may or may not be saved. The problem is that you can end up with no shots and eating skinks to 10 shots from a single razor. A unit of 3 razors will eat one skink on average per shooting phase. I'd take S3 with poison over S4 without poison, especially with the utility of march and shoot of skirmishers allowing one to get better into range and avoid certain charges or being targetted. If you just want to stand and shoot and move and shoot to take out chaff and take on and redirect charges and movement or deter charges and screen stuff, then I think 10 skink skirmishers with javs will do better on average just becuase of the poison and guaranteed 10 shots (at least until they die). They will die faster but also have far more wounds and the same armour save. Razors have effectively 4.5 wounds with the monster and handlers rule 5+ allocation of unsaved wounds to the skinks but even that only goes so far and taking a monster reaction test at LD4 cold blooded is likely to nerf the unit's effectiveness. A skink skirmisher unit has 10 wounds with the same armour save and a parry save in combat but dies faster at T3. However, some lore of death spells witll take out razors real fast. If the razors get targetted, which they should, by magic missiles, certain direct damage spells, and certain shooting (when you don't have things like stegs or carmosaurs or basti's) then some more skink handlers wiill go down with the allocation of some wounds to handlers and one can end up with no handlers and a monster reaction test or will require a panic test if one loses just one razor even in a unit of four.
In combat, a base razor gets only 2 atacks at WS3 and S5 and maybe a stomp at S5. S5 is great but not with only 2 attacks at WS3, it is not much. The 3 handlers, while they live, have WS2 and S3. The monster and handlers rule makes the model almost equivalent to having 4.5 wounds (as long as one has the handlers alive). I really struggle with some point of refereence as to what one would pay for the razor as a unit to deal with chaff and act as a chaff/redirector unit without the shooting. Remember that one can buy in this army a scar vet on a cold one with light armour and shield for just a bit over 100 points with 4 S5 attacks at WS5 and 2 S4 attacks at WS3 with LD8 that has stupidity (which is almost a benefit at LD8 given the ITP), 2 wounds but with a 1+ AS.
All in, I might pay up to 45 points for a single razor witout the shooting given alternatives, but the best alternatives also have interesting shooting options. and the shooting abilities are probably worth enough to justify spending the points if I have the points to spend left over. There are some armies where I would pay even more points for what a razordon does, but not LM where one can have decent chaff and shooting out of the core slot and has salamanders as an alternative. Thus, a razor, in simulating game scenarions, ends up being a fair value. But does it fit a role that another unit cannot perform that is already in the army list? If I want a chaff unit or redirector unit, I can get ten wounds with 10 WS2 and S3 attacks for a lot less with a shkink cohort with a parry save, that unit has a chance of holding due to being steadfast at the end of combat when facing an unranked unit or skirmishing unit given that often 5 will survive the first round of combat. against light unitts. I would also be willing to spend 40 to 50 points on 10 skink skirmishers without shooting in the core slot. and can get 10 skink cohorts with shooting in a ciore slot for a cheap price. If I want quick to fire shooting and movement flexibility, then skink skirmishers with javs will do usually be a much better choice for the points, especially when dealing with most monsters, light cav, ligh chartiots, chaff units, and war machines. Against larger ranked units, both skink units and razor units will likely lose combat and flee or die anyway. The skink units, with ten models, have a greater chance of surviving with enough models to flee and maybe play some role later on or at least not given up VPs so easily or force a pursuit that exposes the larger unit to something I want to kill. Additionally, I can get those benefits in small packages, whereas running the razors in larger units makes them a target and too many VPs to fit in the army list given the core minimum and characters and othre units I want to/need to run to make a balanced all-comers army.
A salamander, properly placed, will often get its firee thrower shot off and there is no roll to hit and no long range penalty. But it does not get to stand and shoot. With horde units so common with elite infantry and some regen (lore of life especially being common), the utility of a mobile fire thrower is something worth considering in the army. I figure on average a sally will get 4 to 6 hits with sometimes a much larger amount and occasionally nothing. Thus, a salliy will do a lot more damage on average when it shoots but will get to shoot about half as often as a razordon will get to shoot. Any unsaved wounds leads to a panic check due to the fire thrower rules (per the LM book and BRB). Sallies are potentially winners and far superior to razors against the most competitive builds for a number of common armies [skaven (slaves, plague monks, giant rat "dart" units, and clan rats), lizardment (saurus, temple guard, and even skink units which are vulernable to panic and templates with the loose formation rules), daemons (plague bearer blocks, khorne bloodletters, and beasts), high elves (white lion hordes, spears and even archers later in the game), dark elves (corsairs, dark riders, witches, executiones , and black guard), vampire counts (zombies, skellies, ghouls, grave guard, even crypt ghouls to deal with regen), infantry heavy empire (halberdiers and great swords), tomb kings (skellies and tomb guard) bretts (flame template down a deep bret cav unit)], Against monsters and solo models (chariots, eagles, for example), sallies are only going to do at most one wound, which really limits their utility and is the way I often dealt with them playing against LM. Given the new points cost of sallies and the loss of march and shoot ability, I view them as fairly priced and useful but no longer undercosted and no longer as essential to the army as they were in the old army book but in small hunting units they can still decimate the large elite infantry blocks and light cav units many common and most competitive armies run.
