Or Sauras Knights to go by the warscroll. But, I would like the opinion of others as I'm rebuilding my old Lizardmen as an AoS force. The Lances hit on one less than yhe basic weapon and have the special rule that allows mortal wounds on the charge on 6+. My question is, how often have you been able to make the lances more useful than the regular weapon? How many times can you usually get your knights to charge something? And finally, less of a tactics question, what do you think sauras on dark elf cold ones rather than the barnies they have had for.... Years.
I very much doubt anyone will say hand weapons as the lances are just deadly. And everyone will say "DO IT" get the dark elf cold ones, were are secretly hoping for a new cold one and one of the posters on here @woogity is in the final stages of his creation. http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/woogity-lizard-tribe-wips.16403/page-11#post-150006
I'm actually going to buy a box of DE cold ones for each 5 saurus cavalry I have, and use those as their mount. Less of the Aztec'ish gold, but I don't mind that at all - giving rapors armor feels like giving a lion a sword. Anyway, I'd use lances, as I plan to use my cavalry as shock cavalry. If I were to run cavalry, I'd run them in pairs of 2; charge with one unit, leave the other one out of combat. Next turn, retreat the one in combat, and charge the other one in. You'll gain maximum benefit of the lance rule. Watch out for fast units and/or flyers though, as they could get in combat with your "backup" unit. I'd use hand weapons if you plan to stay in combat for a prolonged time - but I wouldn't use cavalry for that anyway.
It gets more extreme when you consider the Firelance Starhost, which doubles the Mortal Wounds you cause with lances. Sure it only works on the charge, but if you charge one unit in at once with Mystic Shield and Starlight (and some venom bites because why not) active then you'll have enough survivability so that in your next turn you can retreat and send in a second unit of knights, having your guys work in tandem like that to hammer the enemy line. Plus you'll want Curse of Fates on them to give you an extra Mortal Wound so you can use the Starseer's rerolls to rerolls armour saves. And with a Sunblood you can give your Knights rerolls To Hit, meaning you'll get more chances to wound with a 6+ for two wounds each, with one 5+ thanks to Curse.
Thanks for the replies, really helpful. I was still thinking in terms of block units, rather than skirmishing small detachments of cav. Also, woogity's sculpts are what brought me here, and they truely are amazing.
There are four primary builds you can make your army out of and one of them is Knights. If you want a tonne of knights, you can realistically make them your main infantry. And they're powerful, they make effective Line-Breakers who specialise in busting up defensive lines.
Obviously, it was already answered. I can see the doubt for saurus warriors, but for knights you shoud take lances 100%. Especially with the Firelance Starhost.
I see a good deal of debate when it comes to large units of saurus vs small. Small units get hand weapons, and larger units with the bonus attacks get spears. The question came about mostly because I was looking at the warscrolls and viewing them through the lens of locked in combat = can't retreat. Quite happy to hear I can pull my Cav out and recharge them in, makes the lance much more effective of a choice.