7th Ed. Razordons Worth It!

[Nosreme]

I am going to go against the grain here and state the Salamanders are awesome in certain situations, but Razordons are also worth the cost as well.

Case in point, I played a recent game against the Dwarfs, and my Sallys really underperformed. They did manage to do some damage, but the TO4 was hard to get around. The -3 to armor really helped, but with their high LD, no panic tests were failed, either. They eventually got charged and killed. That was my mistake for putting them in a bad position, but that can happen. I discussed it with my opponent afterwards, and he would have been more scared of the Razors. The ST4 and the potential 30 shots a turn would have been more damaging. Plus, he agrees that he never would have charged them had they been Razors, for fear of taking 10-60 worth of shots.

I'll try them in my next few games, but I am beginning to see more value for them. I think it really depends on the opponent, though.

 

[WheelR]

I am really curious.. How did you get them charge your Sallies? Isnt it like.. Sallies always near flank just in case you want to charge him there for extra push?
I got half a unit Longbeards down in 2 rounds of shooting.. after that i had 10 Organ Gun hits on them because he got scared. Not that longbeards are that tough..

I still think that the Razors either should have Poison hits or work like an Organ gun.. Until then i'd rather take an extra Skink Skirmisher unit for 10 points less .. But perhaps you can convince me to buy them beside the fact they look nice.

Looking forward to hear about the results.

 

[ilnar]

yey first post
razors are not heavy troop killers like sallies, obviously. ive never gone too far wrong thinking of them as heavy skinks
but i've never regretted taking mine, they take out things my saurus would rather not play with,
mainly small annoying things that its not worth charging a saurus block at,
squigs, giants, light cav,
ohh... or you can dump a unit of 3 them in front of something realy scary and casually say, ohh yer, these guys can stand and shoot averaging 30 strength 4 shots hitting on 4's

differnt use to sallies, but still usefull as long as your group is happy to have a single stand and shoot misfire not affecting the other one...
wouldnt take them to a tourny untill that FAQ though

 

[hellbreaker]

yey first post

not really.

well razors are appealing to me since I tend to roll very bad when it's 5+ and artillery dices don't like me to much... But multiple artillery dice do!

I gotta try them out more thou.

 

[ilnar]

my first post
razordons are'nt nearly as bad as people keep saying
they get a decent number of shots compared to most cheap archer units, they get on average 5 shots each at strength 4 and nearly always hit on 4's! Compare that to a unit of bog standard archers,

 

[WheelR]

Throw them at units not worth charging with a saurus block?.. Dont you got skinks for that?

I dont really think they are useless.. there is just better for the same cost.. If i want to take out let's say fast Dire Wolves then i just use skinks for 10 points less.. i'd rather kill one than eating my own skinks. For useless units you also got Terradons. I think the problem with Razors is.. you need more than 1. 1 Salamander can take out a quarter or even half a unit out if used properly.. i don't think you can pull that off with a razordon.. well Slayers perhaps but like i said.. you got skinks for that.

 

[ilnar]

sure, skinks charging..... hmmmm
maybe not

shooting
unit of 10 skinks, 10 shots, moved, long range, (usually) 6's kill, 1.666666 dead dire wolves
average razordon, 5 shots, 2.5 hit, 1.66666 dead dire wolves
lucky razordon, 10 shots 3.333333 dead dire wolves
unlucky razordon 0, kills, eats 2 5 point skink,s


stand and shoot,
10 skinks, long range, standing, 6s to kill 1.666666 dead wolves
average razor, ( assuming one misfire doesnt affect the other) 10 shots 5 hit 3.33333 dead wolves
lucky razor. 20 shots 10 hit 6.666666 dead
unlucky razor, (1 in 6 times) , 5 shots, 2.5 hit, 1.66666 dead dire wolves 2 dead skinks
REALY unluck razor 1 in 36 times, 4 dead skinks


hmmm
theres potential there

 

[WheelR]

Can't really say im impressed by those "Calculations" Since Dire Wolves got no AS you get instant kills with just rolling a 6.. I don't say they are better than Razors in S&S. I personally prefer Blowpipes.. Rolling more dices work for me wich most of the time result in more than 1.6(?) kills on an AS-less model.

 

[Caneghem]

Razordons might be worth taking against armies that pack a bunch of support units in there. I might take a unit of 2-3 for example against wood elves just to plaster all of those annoying little units. Against Daemons they are great! Daemons are Immune to psych and have very little armor, so the main strengths of the sallies are not as useful (except against the regenning nurgle blocks). Strength 4 attacks in a high volume would be useful, because the best bet with Daemons is to usually avoid combat and shoot the ever living crap out of them. So if there are lots of Daemon and Wood Elf players in your area, by all means go nuts with the razordons!

However, there are some armies I just don't see them being very useful against. This combined with needing to take more of them prevents me from endorsing them OVER salamanders. If salamanders didn't exist, I'd likely include some razors. They give some mobile, fairly reliable shooting and can't be taken out nearly as easily as your average crossbow unit can be. However, salamanders have a larger variety of uses and so I'd take them more for a "take all comers" list. Also the fact that they can be taken alone with an extra handler helps immensely in list creation.

 

[Revered_Guardian]

skinks are good at charging... they are very good assassins

(you will see in my next battle report..... just need the notes from my friend...)

 

[strewart]

The need to roll to hit hurts them a lot. Certainly against some armies they will perform better than salamanders, but for an all round army you can't really justify them over salamanders.

They may be very useful for the psychological factor on opponents though, it is clear opponents don't like them even though we underrate them. They are very random, some battles they will destroy half a unit and other battles they will do nothing but eat themselves. I think salamanders, even though they can misfire, are a bit more reliable since they autohit and you know how big the tamplate is, plus chances are they will cause a panic test with every shot barring misfire.

It will definitely be interesting to see how some razordons go though. GW seem to be bringing out a new unit for every army, and some are great while others are terrible. Razors may go the same way as the HE lion chariot, theoretically it was way overpriced for what it did and the cheaper tiranoc alternative was just as good, but after some experience with it, it has performed far better than expected and I always field one.

Certainly if you want one monster in a pack, go salamander. More than one... Up to debate.

 

[lupercal]

The need to roll to hit hurts them a lot. Certainly against some armies they will perform better than salamanders, but for an all round army you can't really justify them over salamanders.

They may be very useful for the psychological factor on opponents though, it is clear opponents don't like them even though we underrate them. They are very random, some battles they will destroy half a unit and other battles they will do nothing but eat themselves. I think salamanders, even though they can misfire, are a bit more reliable since they autohit and you know how big the tamplate is, plus chances are they will cause a panic test with every shot barring misfire.

It will definitely be interesting to see how some razordons go though. GW seem to be bringing out a new unit for every army, and some are great while others are terrible. Razors may go the same way as the HE lion chariot, theoretically it was way overpriced for what it did and the cheaper tiranoc alternative was just as good, but after some experience with it, it has performed far better than expected and I always field one.

Certainly if you want one monster in a pack, go salamander. More than one... Up to debate.

i agree and was just thinking that against some armies they might be better in one off games i was reading another post and saw someone who was going against tyrion and a horrible unit of high elf dragon princes i think a large unit of razors or two would do well against this unit since sallies can't hurt them because of their armor but razors could do some decent damage and are small enough to manouver around the table effectively unlike the comparable amount of skinks it would take to get the equivelent amount of shots but that is only one situation overall for say a tournament army i would still take sallies but...

 

[ilnar]

my "calculations" above were with skinks using blowpipes,
and if you can get your skinks to multishot then you are very lucky!
sadly, you cant do it oftern while standing and shooting unless you have a chief in there with them armed with a javilin or the enemy is exactly 5/6 inches away from you
if you dont belive me, crunch the numbers yourself



how many large infantry bases can you realy get under a flame template?

lets say you get realy lucky with your sally and get a perfect hit against a large infantry horde,
thet nets you say 4 hits and 8 partials
so, 8 hits
most large infantrybases are toughness 4
so, 4 wounds, kills as its -3 to AS
or against T3 5.333 kills

ok its more effective against small bases, which also tend to have lower leadership, but to be even reasonably effective, they need to be on the flank of an enemy battleline, with multiple units in a straight line to fire against. if you can get that every game, then your opponent is doing something wrong

but look at it this way, the template is 8 inches long, adding an artilery die to that gives you an effective range of 18" which is awsome, and an average scatter of 5 inches means that on your sallies should be about 8 inches away from whatever they are fireing at for maximum impact
at that distance, a scatter of 0 (misfire) 2" or 8-10" means you get very few hits, less even than the razordon!

its not that people are talking down razors, its that people seem to be getting very lucky with sallies!

 

[strewart]

I wouldn't say most infantry blocks are t4... Hard to say really. In t4 you have Dwarfs, chaos, orcs, some LM. In t3 you have humans (empire and bret), all elves, goblins, most undead blocks. I think I have covered most things.

Anyway, the true strength of salamanders is the autopanic. If you shoot a unit of 20 models, it doesn't matter if you kill 1, 2, 3 or 4, you are still going to panic them. And by the same token, as a support unit (salamanders) I don't really think they are aiming to burn entire units, or they would cost a few more points. If you shoot a 5x4 infantry block and cause a wound, suddenly they have 1 less rank and no longer equal numbers with your saurus 20 man block so you immediately have +2 static combat res. If you can damage and take small chunks out of a unit, and force them to take a panic check at the same time, I think this is a good use of a support unit.

Razordons can do the same except without the panic, and without the -3 AS which makes salamanders also good for crippling heavy cavalry. A unit of 4 heavy cavalry is almost useless, compared to the unit of 6 it may have started at.

 

[ilnar]

a solid leadership 9 general will fail what? 16% of the time. yey salamanders

dont get me wrong, they are good, but they only realy excell against low leadership troops. which a saurus block should be able to break on the charge anyway , or against heavy CAV whee they might kill 2 models

 

[Sart]

For all your blather of do the math I dont think you fully comprehend how math hammer works Ilnar.... A solid leadership 9 unit or general only needs to FAIL once.... To get that chance to fail you need to cause the panic hence why the auto panic rule for the salamander makes it so much better then the craptastic Razordon of crapness........

Simply look at what each unit gives....
Salamanders
-Possible Mass Auto Panic, destroys armour, good range.

Razordons
-Double shots when charged, Strength 4.

Now the Downsides

Salamanders
-Range is random to an extent, useless vs Draogn princes and dragon armour.

Razordons
-Need to roll to hit, Useless vs Skirmishers, fairly easy unit to ignore due to ineffective shooting and range.

Over all the Salamander point cost vs potential point gain is better by a massive margin and if you cant even comprehend why that is then you should give up ever winning at this game and go play something like hungry hippo.....

Cheers can we now let this debate die people are gonna take what they want and 90% of the time it comes down to either Hey that model looks cool or they did something spectacular for them once.....



Oh and Ilnar a 25 night goblin unit with nets and full command will beat a saurus unit and guess what I would rather make that unit panic and run then charge it with anything paticualry if its packing fanatics. (Trust me I have done it all the time)

Peace out

 

[strewart]

a solid leadership 9 general will fail what? 16% of the time. yey salamanders

dont get me wrong, they are good, but they only realy excell against low leadership troops. which a saurus block should be able to break on the charge anyway , or against heavy CAV whee they might kill 2 models

1. Salamanders hang on the flanks, ie. out of the general's range

2. That is 16% chance every turn it fires which I sure hope will be more than once a game

3. It is a flame template, thus if aligned properly it can hit more than one unit in one shot thus increasing the chance of panic

4. 16% sure beats the razordon's.... 0%! Sure it might cause 25% casualties, but that is even less likely isn't it

5. It has already been established that razordons need to be in a pack of more than 1, so you are comparing a single salamander to several razordons. What about when several salamanders shoot?

 

[Sart]

I love when a good arguement comes together

 

[ilnar]

Peace out

not gonna bother making people reread all of that again
ask any long term tourny player what makes a unit "good" and you'll get one of two answers
1, because I like it
2, because it does the job i want it too

if your charging a unit of NG without checking if theres fanatics in there i think tis you that needs to go play hungry hippo
im not saying sallies arnt effective, they are, but razordons are just as effefctive, even if they preform a differnt role,
to say that razors are useless Vs skirmishers is , frankly, worrying, yes they hit on 5's, and?
thats a LOT better than most things are going to hit on

in fact, looking at your list of upsides and downsides, it is woefully incomplete, but fine
i had thought that a lizardman forum might actually be interested in comparing the newbies in the book but ohh well,
i'll go elsewhere

 

[Nosreme]

I think we need to stop playing mathhammer and actually use the units a few times before making assumptions and declarations about their effectiveness. Honestly, this is supposed to be a firendly community, so before we start calling each names or saying they should start playing Hungr Hungry Hippos, let's remember that we are all here to help each. If we can't even behave civilly what's the point?

I like both units, and have been playing a few games to test them out. So far, I am just testing the Sallies, and I have to say that I am not that impressed. The -3 armor is the best thing they have going for them, but the ST 3 has been crippling them unless the unit is low toughness and low LD as well.

Case in point, last night I played a game versus WoC. I fired my three Sallies into a unit of warriors for three turns (9 times). The variable range limited their usefulness, but in the end I manage to kill something like 4 guys. With 9 shots, mind you. I even nailed both of his war shrines along with the warriors one turn, but failed to wound either of them (high TO + ward save). The partial hits hurt, too. It's not like you just lay down the flame template and hit everything - you will miss a few on the partials. Even with -3 AS, TO 4 units are very hard for sallies, and either I would fail to wound or they would on occasion make their AS. As for the claim they can "auto panic", well, I can attest that after 3 games with them I've failed to panic a single unit. LD 9 means they will rarely panic anything, not "auto panic" everything. I would not count on the panic test if I were you. It's great against goblins, but not a whole lot else. If you do manage to panic, then that's just cream on the pie. Just don't expect it every turn, because it won't happen very often. I'm not saying Sallies aren't effective. I'm saying becareful not to blow their usefulness out of proportion.

Now, would Razors have been better in the same game? Maybe, maybe not. I believe they would have done a little better in one sense simply becuase they had the higher ST needed to wound. It's possible the armor save would have prevented the wounds anyway, but like skinks, it's the sheer number of shots that means they might just fail a few. That's their strength. Plus, I believe Razors are meant to be used more strategically than the Sallies. I could have blocked my Slann's unit with them, for example, something I never would do with Sallies.

This is not to say that either one of them is better than the other just that they have different uses, and possibly the Razors are as good as the Sallies. They are just different.

My next three games I will use the Razors and report back here about their efectiveness. So far, the Sallies haven't done a whole lot to earn their keep. But i believe since all three games were versus TO4 armies, Sallies are looking like they are better versus elves, humans, and goblins, while Razors might be better at Lizards, Warriors, Dwarves, etc. But again, I'm not sure we should even be compring them, as they truly look like they are used differently vs different opponents. That's just my take anyway. I'll report back over the next games.