Bibamus said:
i'm sure nobody will see an oldblood on foot with a jaguar charm coming. i mean there is no way to fool somebody.
lizardmen don't usually surprise people, its an all cards down army that kills things. the only surprise you can pull are good dices in your favor
I fully agree with the last sentence. Not much surprises we can pull of.
Except maybe: "What?! You chief on ancient stegadon does NOT have the war-spear!?"
But that isn't all that strong
We do not have enough magic items to make the opponent guess what 'build' we use for our hero.
In fact, we only have a few effective.
Scar-Vet on Cold one, with Sword of Might, BBoC, SoSS. Variating with the maiming shield or the shield of the mirror pool. Sometimes BSB, but rarely with a magic banner.
For foot scar-vets: its the jag-charm 87% of the time, and some other Hide of the Cold Ones builds...
Skink priest has: Scroll caddy, caddy+diadem, EotG magic offensive, EotG magic defensive, EotG priest protection (Amulet of Itzl). And that's it.
Chief: war-spear on stegadon. Sometimes on terradon with staf of sunny shooting.
That's it for our heroes. Let's compare that with Dark elves.
Their master: unkillable. Cheap on dark steed. Caledors bane and potion of strenght for some nice easy kills (on CO or Dark Steed). BSB with good selection of banners. On pegasus for: light troop hunt, or Ring of Hotek. Ring of Hotek build. Stone of midnight (something like that

, against shooting. Usually found in ASF black guard).
Their sorceresses have no such thing as an EotG (thank god!) but do have:
pegasus, dark steed and cold one options. Sacrificial dagger. caddy. LvL 2 caddy that tries 1 big spell a turn. All varying.
Hag is the most limited (I think), with
Cauldron. Cauldron BSB. Or cheap hag in witch elves, the latter isn't used much; if at all!
Assasin (technically not a hero, I know!),
Varying killy builds. Do you want to
a) Ordinary kill things.
b) Kill things with high armour.
c) Kill things with high toughness.
d) Kill a lot of things.
or e) You (the assasin), your master BSB and your ASF black guard kill everything that dares to touch them?
You pick.
No, I would not say our hero builds have much surprise effects...
In our units? not so much.
Our units do what they say on the tin.
Saurii? Hold, then strike back with loads of spear attacks.
Skinks? harass, then die because of the cold wind.
Slann? Rain destruction upon the enemy.
Jungle Swarms? Not so much....
The opponent can also read the same tin. He will just read:
Saurii? Overwhelm, shoot, ignore.
Skinks? Get rid of them, but not with too much attention too them.
Slann? Pray for no IF. Deal with him the best you can.
Jungle swarms? Congratulate my opponent for using them.
Ofcourse, wacky movement can always surprise your opponent! Let's say, charging some skinks in a steam tank? Bet you didn't see that one coming!
...
Oh, right.
The Hunted