8th Ed. So I just bought a load of Lizardmen!

[Espace]

Hello There!

First post here and im a new Cold Blooded General! My friends and I are long time warhammer players (probably about 15 years) but we have taken a few years out of it what with Uni and getting our first jobs post graduating. So here we are in 8th edition and iv got quite a few games under my belt with my WoC army but iv gotten very bored with the play style (No shooting, boring magic, push forward and sleep!) and have a good grasp of the new rules.

So since we are all earning decent amounts now (no idea how I afforded it at high school! Must have been alot of hoarded lunch money and paper rounds) we have all bought new armies and have started assembling them ready for this weekend. Got my flat to myself this weekend so they're all coming round to finish assembling and play a few games. My friends have the following armies: Empire, Dwarfs, Vampires and High Elves. I have no idea what units they have and haven't bought so you guess is as good as mine. We all agreed a point limit of 2000pts (I know this isnt standard anymore but its a good starting point).

We are all casual but competitive gamers and only one of us is prone to cheese (well apart from me and im trying to be good!) who is playing the High Elves. So anyway the basis of my post, iv bought an army and tried to make it as varied as possible with as many units as I can. What do you think of this for an all comer list which isnt over the top:

Slann Mage Priest, BSB, Focus of Mystery, Focused Rumination, Lore of Life (Or light? or???)
(I felt cupped hands/feed back scroll and cogitation was too OP for our first few games and probably would be no fun for anyone!)

21 Saurus Warriors, spears, full command (7x3 Formation)

10 Skink Skirmishers (blow pipes)

10 Skink Warriors (Javs n Shields) (5x2 Formation)

10 Skink Warriors (Javs n Shields) (5x2 Formation)

10 Skink Warriors (Javs n Shields) (5x2 Formation)

5 Cold One Cavalry, Standard Bearer

14 Temple Guard, full command (Slann Here) (6 frontage, 3 ranks, slann in the middle, rear exposed.....)

3 Terradon Riders

5 Chameleon Skinks

Stegadon

2 Salamanders, +1 extra handler

2 Razordons, +1 extra handler

Now I know the razors are inferior to sallies and its probably a bit MSU for 8th but im struggling to fit all the juicy fun stuff I want!?

Iv got some 20 more temple guard, 11 more cold ones, several skink characters, 2 Saurus characters, Kroq Gar/Old one on Carnasaur, 5 more chameleon skinks and another unit of 20 Saurus warriors with hand weapons.

Any suggestions for improvement/toning down? How would you feel if this army was dropped opposite you by a friend? Any help will be mucho appreciated!

 

[Battlehamster]

Here are my thoughts:

-Slann is fine though I would suggest if you don't get cupped hands, at least put a dispel scroll on him for magic protection (or forbidden rod to make a ho-hum magic phase become really awesome). I would suggest life for your first game. It is very forgiving for new LM players. Getting throne of vines up first is essential to having a good magic phase so even though you could one or two dice it, try 3-4 dice to ensure it is harder to dispel. Miscast protection is nice and all your other spells get boosted. Regrowth is phenonmenal and with regeneration and +toughness, your TG will be an immovable beast.

-That being said, up your temple guard to at least 16, preferrably 20. Having the rear of your slann exposed shouldn't be too big of a problem since you really shouldn't be letting the opponent into your rear anyway but having more troops is always good for your slann unit. Remember if you lose that unit, you have pretty much lost the game (this unit is worth about 1/3 - 1/2 your pts).

-Take the spears off your saurus. You are barely at 3 ranks so if you lose even 1 model you are no longer 100% effective. Spears need at least 4-5 ranks deep to make them worth it. Use regular hand weapons to save points and see if you can up it to at least 25 or 30 saurus. Or try and get two units of 20 (5x4).

-skirmishers are fine.

-Don't take 5x2 regular skinks. They will die easily and achieve nothing. Either use the points to buy more skirmishers and/or use the points to up your saurus unit.

-stegadon is fine

-replace your razors with another unit of sallies. I know you want to try them out but for 75 pts instead of a razordon you could takea unit of 10 skirmishers who will on average fire more shots then the razordon (but with poison and no chance of a misfire).

 

[n810]

Meh, or you can just have the razordons count as salamanders.
might want to get some more saurus, but otherwize looks like a decent army.

 

[Zakharov]

A very varied army, should be good against just about anyone. I have to agree with n810 and battlehamster; put some more saurus in there and take away their spears. Parry is excellent with a 4+ armour save!

If you want to try out razordons, go for it. There are occasions where they are useful and it looks from your opponents choices that you could see some light cav (empire and HE) which die to razordons nicely. But then again, they die to skinks too! But nevertheless, I bet after two games you'll be proxying them into salamanders!

CoC are pretty average, in my experience. Especially without Huanchi's totem. If you're sure you want to spend the points on them (points that could get you more shooting or killing elsewhere) then bump them to 6 and give them the totem. Opponents are constantly surprised by it as you can shift your knights a really damn long way!

Your slann is good, life is a wonderful lore. Really, it's life or light when you're looking at an all comers list but I encourage every Lizzie player to try a fire slann at least once. Preferably versus elves. Wood elves. Yes.

Your temple guard need to be a bit bigger. These guys are your rock and have won me more games than I care to count. Even when things have collapsed and the entire enemy line is facing your one unit of TG, you can pull a win out of the bag! Another choice is to drop the TG altogether and take an ethereal slann with a 2+ save versus ranged attacks. With careful placing, he can play a very safe game without the need for the expensive TG and you can use the points elsewhere for more saurus/skinks/sallies/ etc.

 

[Espace]

Thanks for the feedback guys so here's the re-worked list, thoughts?



Slann, BSB, Focused Rumination, Focus of Mystery, Lore of Life

30 Saurus, with Hand Weapons, Command

10 Skink Skirmishers

10 Skink Skirmishers

20 Temple Guard, Full Command

5 Cold One Riders

5 Chameleon Skinks

5 Chameleon Skinks

3 Terradons

Stegadon

2 Salamanders +1 Extra Handler

2000pts on the nose

Lord choices 350pts
Core Choices 500pts
Special 995pts
Rare 155pts

My one concern is that I realise that it seems to be that the consensus that hand weapons are better than spears but im still not 100% convinced. Can anyone talk me through the logic? Am I right in saying that the second rank of saurus' get 2 attacks as well? If that is so then a hypothetical unit with 6 frontage and 3 ranks deep of spears with a champion would get 31 attacks where a unit of hand weapons would only get 19 attacks? So what im getting at is 30pts (for the 30 model unit) for 12 additional attacks for a loss of a 6+ ward save worth it?

Math hammer time if the two units were fighting each other then:

Spear Unit Damage against HW Saurus
(((31*(0.5))*(0.5))*(4/6))*(5/6))=4.3 Dead Saurus per turn (44pts)

HW Saurus Damage against Spears
((19*(0.5))*(0.5))*(4/6))=3.17 Dead Saurus per tun (36 points)

So thats 8 points of more kills per turn, over 4 turns of combat the spears are better. Now I understand that this was a flawed method of analysis as I am presuming fighting an almost identical opponent with a set points value but I think against a softer target the spears would preform much better but I could be wrong? Or is it swings and roundabouts as I could be fighting lower point value units or tougher targets? IS four turns of combat an unreasonable length and therefore a pointless point of view? Or does it mean that I will break the opponent quicker due to more kills and breaking steadfast quicker?

Anywho bottom line if it is better to go Spears then where do I get the 30pts? one idea is drop the second unit of chameleons and increase the other to 7 models and then split the salamanders into 2 units and add a handler to the smaller unit bringing in the army at 1999pts.

On a side note am I tailoring this army too much for a friendly round and should I instead be trying to have fun lol!

 

[Battlehamster]

No your math is incorrect because of one important difference: second and third rank only get one attack each. Only monstrous infantry gets more than one supporting attack per model. So with your 6 frontage spear saurus unit (w/ champ) you are getting 25 attacks, not 31. Also you need to make sure your unit is big enough to absorb losses to shooting, magic and the opponent attacking first (you are initiative 1 after all) so your unit needs to be bigger to benefit from spears. Also you don't get that spear rank in the turn that you charge either (rank does attack in subsequent combat rounds though) so spears are a more defensive item.

So while the 6+ parry wardsave is nothing special (and I routinely get no saves with this in an entire game due to crappy rolling) I consider HW better because they are cheaper. All things being equal, go for cheaper core so you can afford more special and rare goodies (like chameleons, steggies and sallies!).