8th Ed. Suggestions Accepted and Wanted for Lizardmen.

[Duke McCoy]

Hello guys and girls. I know that there are not a lot of Lizardmen players here on the forums according to what I was told in the intro, but I will seek your council reguardless. I've set up a general plan for myself, but I did not know how well I had done with it. I know that 2000 to 2500 are the standard for games these days, so that is what I set for myself. I have purchased models, and will have enough to build the list below (I had some debate and set this as the base line). I hope to learn what I could tweak perhaps here are there. As an aside, besides this, I will have another 10 skinks/chameleons and 16 saurus cold one riders not being used in the models I ordered, wanted to have them for progressing, but according to some sources the riders can be lackluster.

REVISED LIST
Lords:

Slann Mage-Priest (General, BSB)
Lore of Life, Deadem of Power, Ironcurse Icon, Focus of Mystery, Becalming Cogitation, Focused Rumination

Heroes:

Skink Priest
Cube of Darkness, Lore of Heavens

Core:

Saurus Warriors
-20 Warriors w/ full command

Saurus Warriors
-20 Warriors w/ full command

Skink Skirmishers
-16 Skinks with Javelin & Shield

Special:

Temple Guard
-20 Temple Guard w/ Musician, Standard, Standard of Discipline

Stegadon

Chameleon Skinks
-7 Chameleon

Chameleon Skinks
-7 Chameleon

Rare:

Salamander Hunting Pack
-2 Salamander, 6 Skink Handlers

Salamander Hunting Pack
-2 Salamander, 6 Skink Handlers

Ancient Stegadon

2497/2500 total points.

Thoughts? Something you would do differently? I based this off of buying 2 Lizardmen Batallions, a Slaan and 2 Stegadon boxes to make the best with what I had, welcome to tweaks and such.

 

[Scalenex]

That looks like a very solid list capable of performing well in an all comers environment.

The following critiques are very minor and motivated by my personal preferences more than anything else and should not be taken as holy writ.

If you are building your strategy around Life you the goal is to have your Temple Guard Slann bunker survive battles rather than win them. I would swap the Slann’s War Banner for the Standard of Discipline. This will boost his Ld to 10. With the BSB, Cold Blooded Leadership tests pass with a near 100% success rate. It’s also save you 15 points versus the Warbanner.

I would drop the extra handlers on the Salamanders. When you have a pack of two Salamanders you spread the risk of misfires. As long as you have one handler the unit will be find. Six handlers for two Sallies should keep a pair of Salamanders ready to fight most of the time.

BS based shooting is not a major threat in 8th edition. The Banner of Chotec overpriced against most armies save maybe Wood Elves. You are probably better off with a champion with the Iron Curse Icon (or giving the Icon to your Slann). At only five points, it'll pay for itself if it saves a single TG from death. If you want to give the TG a magic standard, I would suggest the Standard of Discipline (this boosts the Slann’s Ld to 10 for the whole army) or the Banner of Eternal Flame (it’s cheap insurance against flammable and Regenerating targets).

I like Skink Skirmishers with javelins and shields over blowpipes. Blowpipes are great for Chamo Skinks but a little weak on normal skinks. Skink Skirmishers move and shoot almost every turn. In order to get the multiple shots and not have them be difficulty 7 to hit (negating poison) you have to be within six inches of the target so you can stay in short range. Skinks that keep within six inches of their enemy tend to die. I would suggest going with 10 Javelin Skirmishers rather than 20 blowpipe skirmishers.

I think you need more Temple Guard. You are investing a lot in your Slann. Most players will be gunning for your Slann big time. This means whatever that the Temple Guard will be attracting most of your enemies mass destruction spells like Dwellers, Pit of Shades, and Final Transmutation as well as non-cannon artillery (the cannons will be aimed at your Stegadons). Even with Regrowth your Temple Guard will be whittled down. I would suggest taking the points you freed up cutting down the number of Skink Skirmishers, getting fewer handlers, getting cheaper magic banners and funnel all those points into buying more Temple Guard. For a 2500 point game, 21 Temple is the base line I aim for. 26 if I’m not taking Lore of Life.

I’m on the fence whether I’d suggest to leave the Scar Veteran as is, add a Cold One for a better AS and more hitting power, or drop the Scar Veteran altogether to buy more rank and file Saurus. Do whatever makes you happy.

 

[Duke McCoy]

I could do that, drop the skinks to one unit of 16 with javelins and run them 8 wide so they could throw in double ranks (assume javelins work as ranged weapons do in the rule book) and drop the handlers to the minimum 6 per unit. I can take the Temple guard to 20 as those are the only temple guard I own, drop the veteran for 2 priests, one with a dispel scroll, and the other with a diedem of power (may switch out with the cube the slaan has so he can do his job once and not be a loss if he dies). Here is what I would do with the suggestions you gave me:

Slaan - drop magic banner, pick up Ironcurse Icon, switch Cube for Diedem of Power

Veteran - drop completely, replace with 2 skink priests one with dispel scroll, other with cube

Skinks - drop to one unit of 16 with javelins and shields

Temple Guard - bump to 20 and give standard of discipline

Salamander Packs - down to 6 handlers each

would put the list at 2499

Think it would change things for the better? With your opinion I understand, I know next to nothing to be quite honest outside of articles I have read.

 

[Eladimir]

Two skinks priests is a little excessive, you don't really need a second scroll caddy.

I'd keep the one with the cube and drop the other one.

You could spend those points on a couple more saurus for one of the blocks and I'd try upgrading one of the stegs to an ancient. I find it much more effective since the bolt thrower is a move or fire weapon with a BS of 3.

Your pretty close though. I would just respend the 65+25 points for the second priest.

Std of Disc - If I remeber correctly you want it on the Slann - Gives the slann LD 10 which gives your entire army leadership 10. The TG get stuck with leadership 9 stubbron rerollable (not bad)

This means you can put banner of flame on the TG for 10 points and then you'll have a unit with flaming attacks.

 

[Arli]

I would also split the unit of chameleons into 2 units of 5 (good) or 2 units of 6-7 (better). That way, you can still go after your target, but you make your opponent have to pick which threat to try to eliminate. You also have the ability to take out 2 sepearte warmachines in one turn (potentially).

 

[Duke McCoy]

Two skinks priests is a little excessive, you don't really need a second scroll caddy.

I'd keep the one with the cube and drop the other one.

You could spend those points on a couple more saurus for one of the blocks and I'd try upgrading one of the stegs to an ancient. I find it much more effective since the bolt thrower is a move or fire weapon with a BS of 3.

Your pretty close though. I would just respend the 65+25 points for the second priest.

Std of Disc - If I remeber correctly you want it on the Slann - Gives the slann LD 10 which gives your entire army leadership 10. The TG get stuck with leadership 9 stubbron rerollable (not bad)

This means you can put banner of flame on the TG for 10 points and then you'll have a unit with flaming attacks.

I will certainly take a look at these suggestions and see what I can work in. I am using almost all the models I own as I referenced in the beginning (2 batallions, slaan, 2 stegadons, 1 box of skinks, and 4 salamander packs takes a big chunk out of your wallet so don't want to buy a whole lot for a little while heh).

Also you mentioned the Great Bow could not move and shoot, but I read in the army book that it can move and shoot, it just can not march (p.57 of Lizardmen Army Book), and it was my understanding from the rule book that armybook trumps rulebook on specific rules.

EDIT: Also, Standard of Discipline says the unit gets +1LD, so would the slaan being in the unit not gain the bonus?

 

[Scalenex]

The great bow can move and fire if you don't march. You get -1 to hit and with BS3 you won't hit very often. Ancient Stegadons are better at shooting because you get more shots and there is a greater chance of hitting something. The giant blowpipes can be used for a stand and shoot and the great bow cannot. The 3+ Armor Save and S6 is nice too.

I still prefer two Stegadons over one an Ancient Stegadon though. Against troops of T3 S6 is unnecessary. Also cannons don't differentiate between Ancient Steggies and vanilla Steggie. If I'm facing Steggy killing artillery, I'd prefer to risk 235 points than 275 points.

If models are a limiting factor, you could put regular Sauri in the back ranks of your Temple Guard. Few players would begrudge you that. Also the army boxes have extra Temple Guard heads so you can put some on Saurus if you want and basically make cheap TG.

Speaking of model limitations, I would suggest buying magnets. You can convert a Steggy between regular and ancient by swapping the great bow for giant blowpipes if you use magnets instead of glue for that part. You can also use magnets on the whole howdah if you want to swap back and forth between a regular unit Steggy and the Engine of the Gods. This will give you more options with the same models.

 

[Duke McCoy]

Thanks for the info on magnets, I have seen people do that alot around here. I will fidget around to see if I can make some more wiggle room for my army, and may wind up buying another unit of Temple Guard or Saurus Warriors (as much as I don't want to at this point, it will be in the future trying to keep a budget for myself).

Were there other tweaks or mods you could suggest? I just want to make the old ones proud XD