# The Scaly Legion- Core choices for Lizardmen



## sir_m1ke (Dec 7, 2008)

Howdy all

Ill get this out of the way tonight so this weekend i can get into the juicy special and rare choices. I also have some COD to play tonight (one more bullet pen and i have mastered every primary weapon in the game :biggrin

So we have covered our characters, now we have to look at the core choices available to us. Unlike in 40k, core choices arent necessarily the game-winning units that you MUST have to win the game, but they perform the role of providing numbers and expendibility to the army.

The lizardmen have the 2nd best core choice in the game in the saurus warrior (Warriors of Chaos are the best stats-wise, but the army sucks ass) and you will want plenty of these guys.

Some points to consider when forming your saurus units:

1) ignore horde. Horde is a gimmick to sell more models, it has very little value in a game. You tried wheeling 10 models whilst staying 1" away from all the other models? This unit moves like a morbidly obese woman in a toilet cubicle. 6-wide is ideal, so try and get your units in multiples of 6

2) a lot of lizardmen players cried and gnashed teeth at supporting attacks nerfing the spearman saurus (whine-seer was one of the worst). I missed a lot of 7th and stil remember the days of 6th edition, where saurus with spears only ever got one attack from the second rank. Now with spears they get to attack in 3 ranks! so quit with the whinging. 

3) related to that, to spear or not to spear is entirely down to your personal preference, there is no right or wrong. spears give you and extra 6 attacks a turn, whereas hw+s is a cheaper unit plus has a little bit extra survivability

4) standard and musician should ALWAYS be taken, but you all knew that already :wink: if not, get back to 40k and go pew-pew some guys to death

5) the only unit i ever run a champion in is one with a supporting scar-vet (see my heroes tactica for this loadout) to accept the challenges that fly about. otherwise, i find him to be a waste of points

6) best unit size? personally i find 24, 6x4, works the best. large and sturdy enough to take damage, easy to move and wheel and still packs a punch in cc. others may have different opinions

a tips: if you are running SLann with Lore of Life (as i recommended) then make sure to give one unit Flesh to Stone and charge them straight at the enemies hardest, killiest unit. T8 saurus (you DID remember throne of vines, right?) will not be going anywhere fast. you dont need expensive elite infantry because....well...you dont have any  this is the best you have!

in my 2250 list i run 3 units of 24, one with spears and 2 with hws (and a scar vet in each hw unit). one solid block of reptilian muscle

there isnt much more to say about saurus, they are just all-round good and should be taken in as large a number as possible

the other big ranked unit you can have is a skink cohort. i just know SOMEONE is going to try and argue that they have a place in the army, that they are a good flanking unit who serve as a kroxigor-delivery unit and that dey rulez ok?

2 words- TOUGHNESS TWO

ill repeat that. TOUGHNESS. FRICKIN. 2.

what idiot thought that a skink is less tough than a goblin? fuck me i have eaten steaks that are tougher than that.

That is why cohorts will always fail. even a small unit of skirmishers can kill enough skinks to mitigate the damage of the krox, and once you drop down to 6 skinks less your Kroxigor have toughness 2!!

dont get it? let me explain

when the unit is down to 6 skinks, these form the front rank and the 2 or 3 krox form the back rank. the enemy strikes at the skinks still, hitting their WS3 T2 ireful2 opponents. These wounds are then transfered to the BACK rank. Look at your rulebook, these are the rules people. once you hit 6 skinks (and you will!! 2 krox=16skinks, 3=24...) your krox are just 3 wound skinks.

now do you see why these are useless? yeh, thought so. leave them at home


Skink skirmishers, on the other hand, are an essential part of the army. gone are the days of endless re-directing and march blocking with them, those days of "moving half an inch to avoid a charge"-hammer are gone and WARhammer is here. They can stil do a nice flee reaction to pull an enemy out of position for a strike next turn, but their main job is taking out chariots, monsters and lone characters. remember that they can march and shoot now, which will give a unit 10 poisoned shots at 24" or 20 poisoned shots at 18". thats a lot of hurt from a 70 point unit. i have managed to wipe out 3 chariots with them in 2 games, and monsters will learn to fear them.i stil prefer blowpipes over javelins just for the extra flexibility of the 1 or 2 shot. They really are the best way of dealing with monsters that we have, short of magic of course

if only the Old ones, in their might and wisdom, had shown their servants how to make a bloody cannon (rolls eyes in disgust.....)

Finally we have Jungle Swarms

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

I know, im a joker! 45 points for the equivalent of 5 skinks on one base? Think it through, son

SO there you have it, the core choices for us are nothing exciting (as there is only really two....) but have a lovely balance of brute power matched against speed and ranged threat.

something that WoC wished they could say.....

ill try my best and do special choices tomoro, and then rare at the weekend. Then ill take everything together and try and show you what i feel is the best way to build a lizardman army. That doesnt mean i will show you the BEST army, because that is just stupid talk- there is no BEST army for any race. But there are building blocks, out of which a fortress can be made

or a crappy wall

as always questions/comments/criticisms/personal attacks are welcome

For the glory of the cold-blooded ones, back to my heated rock in a glass cabinet i go.....

Mikeza-bitza-nutzi


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## Arli (Mar 4, 2010)

Excellent post! I looked for days (when I first started playing Lizardmen) for information just like this. You should post this on http://www.lustria-online.com/ as well.


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## Crimzzen (Jul 9, 2008)

Very useful. My only recommendation would be to ask a Mod to put them all in one thread - that way they're all easy to find.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

I think there should be a sticky with links to threads like these. You should talk to a mod about it, this article looks quite good. k:


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## sir_m1ke (Dec 7, 2008)

Thanks for the kind comments guys, makes me feel that at least some people care what i think lol ill complete the series with my next 3 articles and then maybe try and get them all combined into one thread, no point starting it when i am half-way through

feel free to throw your own thoughts into the threads as well, the more viewpoints the better to help people build their lizard army


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## WarlordKaptainGrishnak (Dec 23, 2008)

it's good to hear a decisive opinion on Spears, as I was really throwing around what was more effective HW/S or S/S.

Grish


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## Crimzzen (Jul 9, 2008)

Quick question, 

With regards to the skink skirmishers. What do you mean by 10 shots at 12" or 20 at 18". Do blowguns have different firing modes?


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Crimzzen said:


> Quick question,
> 
> With regards to the skink skirmishers. What do you mean by 10 shots at 12" or 20 at 18". Do blowguns have different firing modes?


I believe that with poisoned attacks you have to require at least a 6+ to hit, 7+ doesn't have an effect. Therefore, Skink skirmishers, which have a low BS as I recall, when they move would require a 7+ to hit with multi-shot, so would choose to not multi-shoot. Hope I've got this correct.


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## Arli (Mar 4, 2010)

Yes. Blowpipes can double tap (fire twice). When they double tap, there is a -1 to hit. So, essentially what he is saying is you can move 6 inches and fire the 12 inch range with a double tap at just -1 (20 shots here). The other option is to march the 12 inches and fire 12 inches (giving a 24 inch range), but only shooting 1 time due to the added -1 for moving and -1 for double tapping modifier, you could lose the poison ability altogether (hitting on 7+).


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## Nurgle...nurfed (Jul 15, 2010)

I thought Blowpipes were "Quick to fire" therefore don't suffer -1 for moving so will hit on 6+ if there Fire Twice and are at long range? Therefore you would be able to get 20 poisoned shots in a turn.


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## Arli (Mar 4, 2010)

Nope! Not mentioned in the faq or the rule book (even though there is a picture of a skink with blowpipe next to the quick to fire special rule). It stands to reason that they would be quick to fire, maybe GW will update them that way.


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## sir_m1ke (Dec 7, 2008)

Arli said:


> Yes. Blowpipes can double tap (fire twice). When they double tap, there is a -1 to hit. So, essentially what he is saying is you can move 6 inches and fire the 12 inch range with a double tap at just -1 (20 shots here). The other option is to march the 12 inches and fire 12 inches (giving a 24 inch range), but only shooting 1 time due to the added -1 for moving and -1 for double tapping modifier, you could lose the poison ability altogether (hitting on 7+).


Bingo. The poisoned shots are the whole point of takin the skinks. Without them, they are nothing but a bunch of wet paper bags running around spitballing and running from anything resembling a light breeze

toughness 2.....my word....


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## Asmodeun (Apr 26, 2009)

Mmmm, excellent. Sure as hell hope my mate doesn't get his hands on this. The number of saurus he fields is annoying enough without realising how good they are.


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## boreas (Dec 4, 2007)

Great reading!!

One thing, though:



> when the unit is down to 6 skinks, these form the front rank and the 2 or 3 krox form the back rank. the enemy strikes at the skinks still, hitting their WS3 T2 () opponents. These wounds are then transfered to the BACK rank. Look at your rulebook, these are the rules people. once you hit 6 skinks (and you will!! 2 krox=16skinks, 3=24...) your krox are just 3 wound skinks.


Although casualties are taken from the back rank, the opponent still targets skinks, so in the case of 6 skinks in front of 3 krox, the "back" rank of skinks is the front one and skinks dies leaving room for the krox to step up... In the next round, the opponent will be able to target either skinks or Krox (provided the unit is still there!). 

Phil


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## sir_m1ke (Dec 7, 2008)

boreas said:


> Great reading!!
> Although casualties are taken from the back rank, the opponent still targets skinks, so in the case of 6 skinks in front of 3 krox, the "back" rank of skinks is the front one and skinks dies leaving room for the krox to step up... In the next round, the opponent will be able to target either skinks or Krox (provided the unit is still there!).
> 
> Phil


You see this is an awkward point. Your argument seems logical and is what i think SHOULD be the case

but until it is FAQ'd, we HAVE to use the rules in the rulebook. the rulebook states in the "Removing Casualties" section of the Close Combat section in the rulebook that "Casualties will therefore be removed straight from the unit's rear rank". The Kroxigor are the rear rank, and therefor wounds must be taken on them. HOWEVER hits are taken against the front rank, so yeh....those krox become WS2 T2 6++ wimps. Sucks to be us but the whole "Krox in the front rank" diagram in the army book only applied to 7th edition

So yeh. leave the cohorts at home.


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## boreas (Dec 4, 2007)

But in WFB (comparing to 40K), there is no "majority toughness" or attaking a unit. Models attack models and casualties must be taken from those models. In the same way, if a hero refuses a challenge and you place him in the back rank he still won't be removed as a casualty. Since the rules tell us that "Normally a model can only strike blow against an enemy model in base contact. The most common exception is if he is making a supporting attack"..."supporting attacks are made against models in base contact with the front rank model that is being fought "through".

So, by RAW, a unit of 2 krox behind 6 skinks receiving 15 attacks by WoC with great weapons would be hit 10 times, wounded 8-9 times and only lose the 6 skinks since the Krox (under 8th ed. and the Lizardmen FAQ) are not in BtB contact and as such cannot be attacked. I guess a weird exception would be, for example, that same unit of WoC with 2 Chaos Lords. If the 2 lords killed all 6 skinks at their Ini, then they would be removed and the Krox would be in BtB with the WoC and then be targeted by the attacks

Phil


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## sir_m1ke (Dec 7, 2008)

boreas said:


> But in WFB (comparing to 40K), there is no "majority toughness" or attaking a unit. Models attack models and casualties must be taken from those models. In the same way, if a hero refuses a challenge and you place him in the back rank he still won't be removed as a casualty. Since the rules tell us that "Normally a model can only strike blow against an enemy model in base contact. The most common exception is if he is making a supporting attack"..."supporting attacks are made against models in base contact with the front rank model that is being fought "through".
> 
> So, by RAW, a unit of 2 krox behind 6 skinks receiving 15 attacks by WoC with great weapons would be hit 10 times, wounded 8-9 times and only lose the 6 skinks since the Krox (under 8th ed. and the Lizardmen FAQ) are not in BtB contact and as such cannot be attacked. I guess a weird exception would be, for example, that same unit of WoC with 2 Chaos Lords. If the 2 lords killed all 6 skinks at their Ini, then they would be removed and the Krox would be in BtB with the WoC and then be targeted by the attacks
> 
> Phil


I can see the logic you are using here, but the issue is that you are arguing that models in base to base are those that are taking casualties. that isnt the case, as it states that the *UNIT* takes casualties from the rear rank. in the case of the skinks and the krox, the krox are as much as part of the unit as the skinks. so if the krox make up the rear rank, then all wounds caused against the unit are taken by the krox. but the combat is being resolved between the skinks and the enemy, so any hits are against ws2 T2 models. but the wounds are taken from the rear

until it is FAQ'd, this is the rules as i see them


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## boreas (Dec 4, 2007)

Took it to "rules" sub-forum! 

Phil


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