Tutorial The Old World Lizardmen Army PDF is out and free

Do you want comments in your tactica in the thread or so you want to keep it clean until you're finished?

I just read this and you're completely right but I think it's worth mentioning you can actually get a level 1 "oracle" as part of your rare points allotment if you have it on a troglodon. So for example a 1500 point army could easily have an old blood on a carnosaur and a level 1 skink caster on a troglodon. Fun!

Now I think about it, at 2000 points you could have:
- old one on carnosaur
- skink priest on stegadon
- skink oracle on troglodon
- stegadon

^ I am almost certainly going to do this... Also 4 bastiladons...

 

Small correction, Impetous trigger distance for Rippers is 18", not 21" (9 move + 3 Swiftstride + 6 dice). But still really annoying to play around due to Skirmishers being able to charge 360°. And Terradons are not really looking that hot either, so using a unit of them to box in a unit of Ripperdactyls seems like a sunk cost fallacy.

re: Skink Cloud - have never played WHFB, can anyone elaborate? Hordes of Skinks with Ld5 and a 12" ranged attack don't really seem viable, am I mssing something?

re: Storm Call spell - trap choice, imho. Only 9" range and not castable on units in combat just kills it. Pairing Saurus/TG with Basti seems solid, trying to get charges off brings you to I5, which should be ok.

Any thoughts on Kroxigors? 3,6 Roentgen - not great, not terrible?

Skink Chief on Terradon as a War Machine hunter?

 

well
1- its 12" range, not 9"
2- slann are flying fast bois now. Get 'em where you want.
3- arcane vassal is a thing. So a skink priest or or trog within 12" of your slann really opens up the range of the spell.

Yeah you can't hit units already in combat, but point is a target you are going to charge, and especially if they have the countercharge reaction. Countercharge can cut your charge by up to 4" and likely will cut it by at least 3", meaning 1 less initiative. And it counts the TARGET as charging, so if they roll a 2 or 3 on the d3, they will also get +1I.

Keep in mind solar engines are a 6" range as well so you have to be aggressively positioning and managing them to make sure you have them to support.

IMO having Storm Call on hand is just a great backup. And at 7+ casting, it's easy to get off

 

Agree yeah sorry I seem to have had a daft moment

I think the idea is to stand and shoot when charged. 6 points per model thowing two poisoned attacks at anything that charges it. Kroxigor charged a unit they would take 4.5 wounds on average.

Am very curious myself as to what people think... Love the models but I am not sure they fit well compared to the large monsters we have which seem to be quite good.

Can't think of any other way to do it...

 

Well I'd have thought you can still block charging any unit to their front with a unit of Terradon Riders (particularly if the Terradons are spread out as far as they can go), then fly both units over the enemy lines and into their rear.

I have noticed the Oracle's new-found Wizard status, and will get round to mentioning him in time, as soon as my Monsters post is up

 

Hmm, being able to charge 360° may scupper my Terradon screen idea for Ripperdactyls. But Travel Mystical Pathway can potentially be used to teleport them over interfering chaff units. Potentially these two things could still work together to make them workable.

Skink Cloud specifically refers to Skirmishers (rather than the now-extinct Cohorts), and lots of players like to use Skirmishers as march-blockers, for baiting Frenzied units and generally being an overall nuisance. I'm not so much a fan of it (I like to get stuck in with Saurus and dinosaurs when I play Lizardmen) but there are a good few people who are.

Kroxigors fill a good slot as an anti-Monstrous Infantry/Monstrous Cavalry unit, which is important as the Carnosaur now only benefits from its Multiple Wounds (D3) against other monsters and can no longer do the above job.

 

Depends on a tactics/block size.

Init 1 basically means that we always act last. So, not all saurus warriors will survive to fight back. So, if we are using large "anvil" block of sauruses - 5x5+ -- spears will be preferable.
But if we are using multiple small blocks - 5x2 - hand weapon will be more reliable.

 

How do people think armies will go without the Slann? This is mostly a model idea for me but I'm thinking as I build I might like a old blood on carno as a HQ and oracle on trog plus as I push 2000 a skink priest on stegadon.

Dinosaurs.

 

@discomute Well damage for Skinks would be dependant on unit size obviously. Not sure if I would want units of more than 10, might become too annoying to move them even as Skirmishers. For Stand and Shoot, a lot of the time the damage output will crash because you need 7s to hit (stand&shoot -1, multiple shots -1, long range -1). Not 100% sure how the additional roll works, but should be 4+ to confirm the hit, so blowpipes are only better than Javelins when there is no long range modifier. I'd rather take the shield at that point. Blowpipes might be good for Chameleon Skinks?

re: Slann. Mandatory, as it's the only way to get a level 4 wizard. Also it's a large target, as such it gets a 18" command range. Which at least solves the Skink leadership problem. And helps out your Saurus blocks, every point counts. Giving the Slann the Batte Standard is also great for Break test rerolls within 18".

 

Trying to make lists today and fitting in alot of dinos is tough

 

From what I am seeing, at in the early "meta" as it were- armies with Level 4 Wizards are "better" than armies without. So you either need a really robust plan to be able to handle the enemy bullying you with their magic, or just take the slann.

But who knows, maybe we can all relive the infamous dual carno tactica glory

 

Unpopular opinion: 2x Carnosaur are better than Slann + TG (if you are fighting an army w/o cannons or you can shut them down fast with ripperducks and chamo skinks)

Spoiler: thoughts about armies and balance

To win a game we need to dominate at least 2 stages out of 4. i.e movement, shooting, magic, and fighting. The most reliable stage for any army is movement, no dice rolls - except charges. Pure strategy and movement characteristics of your army. But most of our models are sloooow, so at best - we can counter the opponent's movement, but we can't out-maneuver them.

Shooting stage - lol. We are not elves, we do not have dorf cannons. Our skinks can harass, but - the lizardmen army is not a shooty one.

Magic - and that is the reason why we are always slightly below average. In theory - Slanns are the best mages in the entire game. But the problem is that when we are operating with random - on large numbers/dice - it's reliable. I mean that when we roll 10-20 dice - the result is +/- predictable. But with a low amount of dice during the magic phase - it's pure luck sometimes. And as a result - sometimes we can dominate the magic phase. But sometimes... We just suck, lol.

Fighting phase - traditionally - we had a tough army with strong lords that were able to grind through enemies. Not sure about our current stage - nerfs hit us hard. But, let's imagine that we are still strong and we can dominate this phase.

As a result - 1 out of 4 in 50%+ of games.

So, I would say, that the most resultative games that I played were with lots of monsters and saurus warriors (don't forget that carnosaurus and heavy cav/monster army is fast and can try to win a movement phase), and only skink priests as casters and (mostly) dispellers.

Ofc, it's just an option, but it worked for me

 

Not sure if I agree with most of that on a theorycrafting level. Only thing would be fight phase, serious case of being whelmed.

You need a level 4 wizard to not be dominated by an opposing level 4, so you can at least call the magic phase a draw instead of a win for the opponent. Or you can really lean into it, with the deny discipline and High Magic (Drain Magic is a nasty spell). For us, the opportunity cost of using a Slann is less than for most other factions because the Slann is so good. Ld9 plus being able to be the Battle Standard bearer, and being a Large Target... 18" command range for both the functions of the standard and as a general is just amazeballs. The giant 38" bubble of Ld9 rerolling most psychology stuff also enables stuff like Skink hordes, and makes Saurus/TG very reliable and hard to shift.

Which brings us to movement and shooting... Skink Cloud. Yeah I understand now how that might work. Their Ld5 is not an issue when you are using the Slann's Ld9 anyways. Their shooting is short range, but pretty strong. Skirmishers with ranged weapons are just nice. Also Jungle Swarms.

 

I really disagree with your assertion that LM are not a shooty army. Skinks are the most efficient skirmishers in the game at 7 points per model, now that they are 5 they are crazy good. Combined with spells, Fiery Convocation is very good, Giant Bows, Salamanders, Bastiladon lightbeam makes us a very good shooting army. Cannons aint that great now.

 

All interesting stuff, thanks.

I have to say that all of our large dinosaurs look great. How would you rank them? (Carnosaur, Stegadon, Bastiladon and Troglodon)

Additionally - what is the best version of each one? Seems solar engine to me but hard to tell for the steg I'm thinking standard?

 

I'd rank them as:

1. Carnosaur
2. Bastiladon
3. Stegadon
4. Troglodon

The Carnosaur is easily the best now, tougher and more durable, and hasn't lost much of it's monster-fighting capability. Plus it makes the best use of the new Frenzy (not getting it until it's reached combat, meaning you can pick your chosen target beforehand).

The Bastiladon is next, both the Ark and the Solar Engine are useful now. I would rank the Solar Engine top as it keeps the Initiative buff which is a lot more useful now and its shooting attack is much more reliably strong than in 8th (plus bound spells are overall better now). However with Jungle Swarms being decent again the Ark is also a good pick.

Then the Steg, it's rather had the wind knocked out of its sails with the weakening of both the Engine of the Gods and its Giant Bow but it's combat ability is still solid (particularly its Impact Hits and Stomps). I'd rank Giant Blowpipes top (can't go wrong with massed Poisoned Attacks), then the Giant Bow, and the Engine of the Gods dead last.

The Trog is still at the bottom, but it's not openly bad now like it used to be. It being a Level 1 Priest with a Monster profile is pretty useful and helps us bypass our Priest limit, and while its once-per-battle ability has a terrible range it is at least a solid bonus now.

 

Yep my uneducated take is what you have written with me not being able to seperate 2&3.

Do you think the ancient is worth the upgrade? I'm sort of thinking not...

My main issue is the order in which I want to paint the models has the trog at #1!

In fact I'd say the desire to field then because they are cool is about the inverse order of how effective they look...

 

The Trog is also an Arcane Vassal with the Oracle

With Priests and Old.Bloods directly competing for spots, this vassal attribute may cause the trog to have more play in terms of a role to fill in the army-list than before.

However he comes at a high cost due to riding a Trog... which as far as big dinosaurs go... well it's not a carno.

In the lists I'm making I find I have no room for cowboys if I take a trog, so unsure what is really important to the army in this Edition yet.

Really makes me wish people were leaning towards 2500 than 2k.

 

This I actually like, as new models do not appeal to me and they are insanely expensive. And I really like cold ones.

I have my own cons:
- no Kroak, no Tehenhauin, no Oxyotl

(no Mazdamundi as well, I do not list this as a negative, as he was really playable just for fun).

This all ffects "fun play next to a been" which is basically "my way". Lizies went one step closer to "boring army".

 

Yes at 2000 I think I can only take two dinosaurs and I want three. I think I'm saying goodbye to cowboys.

I don't like the new cold ones either as they look like small carnosaurs instead of raptors. I might consider one for a unit if it was an old blood or scar vet.

In terms of fun, that was my initial reaction too because rippers were unplayable, mass nerf to cold blood and other fun army fluff like scales and predator.

But overall I think we all need to take a breath, there is a lot to like. Dinosaurs are as good as ever. Cold ones are now high risk high reward which I think is fun (and can not be taken if you don't). Saurus/TG blocks with a Slann in range will be as unmovable as it gets in TOW. So overall I think it's just a shift in the meta and the army will still be loads of fun, just in different ways...

Block infantry/swarms holding on, massive dinosaurs charging in, and big magic going wild. Sounds fun to me.