Nice pick up on stomp/AP I hadn't noticed that Kroxigor's charge should happen through skinks, or after skinks have been charged and wiped out. Will take some practice but I think they should be able to get the jump on cav some of the time. Will still strike last usually but will avoid lances
Kroxigor charge now is around 10” , it was 12 with double movement. A 7” cavalry has around 14” or even better rolling 3 dices. So unfortunately since 8ed has become more difficult for both kroxigor and Stegadon da to charge. That was one di the reason why I stopped to play
I honestly would disagree about Skink Skirmishers being that good - I'd much rather take Jungle Swarms as an Unbreakable charge-blocker that doesn't cause Panic when destroyed and is a significant threat to unarmoured units due to Poisoned Attacks, than play the silly game of Skink Clouds that regularly trigger Panic tests on themselves whenever an enemy kills 25% of the unit, suck in combat and trigger Panic tests on other friendly units when they're destroyed entirely, and will struggle to rally when they choose to flee from enemy charges (OK, Panic isn't so much something for us to worry about given Cold-Blooded still works against it, but we're not entirely immune to it in the way that Undead, Daemons, Warriors of Chaos with Chaos Undivided and Beastmen are, and if you're going to spam Skink Clouds you're making it pretty easy to screw over the combat portion of your army with Panic tests all over the place). I'd also say the Oldblood is better than the Scar-Veteran when riding a Carnosaur - when you're up against War Machines or enemy characters riding Monsters, that extra Wound, Attack and point of WS can easily spell the difference between winning and losing. With regards to your dumping on Saurus, isn't it rather unfair that you compare them to enemy Special and Rare choices? Of course the latter are going to fare better against them... that's why they're Special and Rare choices! Saurus are great for holding down and defeating enemy Core units so your elite units don't have to, that's their job, and one they actually do, rather than just annoying the units as Skink Clouds do. In the case of a Slann, it's easy to make him good - Higher State of Mind makes him immune to all non-Magical attacks thanks to Ethereal, and no longer incurs the penalty of him not being able to join units because he can't join units anyway. Just give him a good Ward to deal with Magical Attacks and he'll be a mobile and dangerous spell-chucking threat. I'd also rate Razordons above Salamanders... yes they have worse damage output but still a significantly longer range that allows them to chip away at enemy units alongside our other missile troops. I'd say Salamanders are our worst unit now with having to get well within an enemy's charge range to be able to do anything and their flame templates being significantly less effective now that TOW units have bigger bases pretty much across the board and partially-covered models are only hit on a 4+.
Do very much disagree with most you say. The panic tests really do not matter that much. Do not forget skirmishers do not cause panic into non skirmishers, so they are only doing themselves. So you never screw over the combat part of your main army due to skink panic checks. Also you only make a full flee if you are under 50%, you fall back in good order if you are above 50%, a rule that i have seen gone wrong very often. Do also note you only ever have to make panic checks in the shooting phase from 25%, not in other phases (have seen this going wrong with moving Vortexes etc), and you only ever make 1 panic check per phase so if you make it once you are good. If you regroup you have full movement and shooting, so it only matters if you fail it twice. Getting to 3 dice it with an 18 inch bubble from your general makes it very likely you are ok, it is either a LD 9 from the Slann or you get an extra roll with Rallying Cry. 1 unit of Swarms is 24 skinks, that is just too much. The swarms never do damage, the Skinks for sure do. Panic reallllyyy isn't that bad in this edition, if you are playing it like it is 8th it is much worse. Oldblood is an ok upgrade, but as i said before, 1000 point char limit is the real issue, i think we have better upgrades, but it is definitely ok. It is still in the A tier after all. Just think the Meteoric Iron, GW, Talisman of Protection scarvet carno is the best setup we have. Higher state of mind is a trap if you ask me. You are frankly pushing even more points into a model that is already too expensive. He should already be untargetable from shooting so it only really helps you in close combat, where you can very much still lose combat due to static CR, run away and be down a Slann. I guess the discussion about Sallies or Razors is pretty moot, you never take any of them at the end of the day so yeah maybe they have somewhat of a niche maybe sometime, but i think not.
So I've only had a few games, and most at 500pts (escalation league) so not a great judgement of normal games... but it feels like Lizardmen will be difficult to play well. Today my Saurus warriors got carved up by Chaos forsaken easily. It really feels like having MANY skirmish units dancing around with poisoned shooting would be the way to go. Hard to tell when we only really have TWO core combat formation troops. I know they weren't great in combat but at least skink cohorts gave some variety + kroxigor ablative wounds.
Do not worry, 500 points really says nothing about our army. You cannot run the units that make our army good, those being characters on stegadons and carnosaurs, at that point level. Everything below 1000 points is basically yahtzee if you ask me.. even though it can still be fun of course.
Yeah I fully get that, it just seems like we won't play as a "normal" army (ie mainly infantry blocks of differing specialities), it's certainly much more a composite of all sorts of stuff but even then not much variety of stuff. Just makes me sad to compare to the full blown armies, especially when some stuff seems very bad ie sallies and razors who could/should be almost like our war machines.
I can see what you mean. I think the I1 really fucks our Infantry, that makes it really hard to take them. Even I2 would have made a big difference, but we simply do not have it. If you want infantry id go stuff like High Elves or Beastmen, it seems we are the monster faction this edition!
Skirmishers don't panic non-skirmishers? I must have missed that. Initiative 1- the only unit I'm bitter about is temple guard. Theirs should be 2. But low initiative is part of our army. Knights and Kroxigor. I take your point. I'm.not sure how it will be play out but I feel as though having the skinks in front will mean they can flee a knight charge and our krox can charge next turn. Krox can be be trapped behind them if they mobile knights decide to wheel and run elsewhere.
Skirmishers don't panic non-skirnishers if they run through them. They still panic other units from things like breaking. But we are cold blooded, stegs are immune to psychology, gen and BSB have 18" range. Basically doesn't matter.
Just to reinforce the theme of the thread, I took first place in the tournament today. My list involved 5 units of skinks, an oldblood on carnosaur as general, and a skink chief on Stegadon as BSB. I had no magic at all. Oldblood fought a TK on Necrolith Bone Dragon and killed it, and also ate a Steam Tank.
Congrats! List sound solid and it's evident that I need to start painting more skinks for my army. Did you face magic heavy armies? Every game I've seen that has a big miss match in magic has ended pretty poorly for the lower magic lists. (e.g. Crystal Column to stop the meanest unit, Miasmic Mirage to stop the meanest monster and suddenly your army is down 600+ points in efficiency)
Congrats man, cool result! What was the rest of your list, did you run basties or more stegs? Was it a 1500 or 2K, with 2 monsters it sounds like a 2K?
Serious question - Was your play mostly just dancing skirmishers around chipping wounds? I'm not even a good for-funsies player so I'm asking legitimately. IF that's the case then it's very sad for having a "normal" smash blocks of dudes together style games.
I don't know that I'd call it "dancing skinks around". Skinks mostly belong up in the opponent's face, throwing Javelins at them and daring them to charge. You position the skinks so that if they do charge, it will draw them into the middle of the table (or towards the edge, as is your preference) and off center. They are also good at doing various odd jobs, like cleaning up war machines, engaging enemy skirmishers, etc. My first round opponent had 2 vanguarding tomb scorpions, for example, that just got shot down by all the skinks before they could get near my monsters. 2nd round scenario was command tower, and I used a unit of skinks to garrison the tower. Etc. Were there magic heavy armies? Every army I faced had a level 4. The most magic heavy I played against was one of the TK players, who had a lvl 4, a lvl 2, and a casket of souls. I don't know if you consider that magic heavy or not. Stuff like crystal column isn't really all that dangerous. First, it doesn't "shut you down" - you might still fated dispel it, and even if it blocks line of sight to one target, there are often others you can still charge, depending on your range to the caster and where they can put the template. Also they can't put the template on a unit, so you can somewhat deny them a good place to put it by screening with skinks. Even if they do get the spell off, you fail to dispel it, you couldn't successfully screen, and it blocks your one and only decent charge lane, it's still only one monster for one turn. More monsters are coming, and in the meantime he's just going to walk around and close the distance further. As for the other vortexes, most of them you can just move through, and they'll barely hurt your t6 4+ 5+. Oldblood has ogre blade and talisman of protection. No bastiladons for me, this was a stegadon party. I also upgraded the required unit of saurus all the way and brought it up to 18 models. The saurus were fine, but the stars were clearly the Oldblood, the BSB, and the skinks.
1 carnosaur and 3 stegadons? 2 ancient and no engine of gods? (let me guess). What did you have against cannons? Scouts?Chameleons?
That is the main thing i think the people who are still on the Slann do not see, yes you get to maybe cancel one monster, but that Slann costs more than a monster, so you end up with more stuff in the end. And you still have the fated and other things as you are saying to deal with stuff. Magic is also very short ranged now, it makes it seem stronger than it often is in games.
Since multiple people have asked, my lists for both of the last two events are below. The ancient stegadons have been fine, but it is the characters who are putting in most of the work. I am actually considering replacing one steg in the 2000 point list with a troglodon, even though it is an almost strictly inferior unit, to get some more dispel options without having to sacrifice fighting power in the character slots. The ancient stegs are good but don't feel mission critical. It also helps a bit with rule of 3 comp, some places count character mounts against rare, some don't. But I'm not sure yet. Regarding cannons, like magic I think they are not as big a threat as everyone thinks. Many things have to go right for them to actually hurt your monsters - there has to not be terrain in the way. They have to not misfire. They have to bounce through you. They have to not roll a 1 to wound you. You have to fail your ward save. And even then, they might roll poorly on multiple wounds. The odds that something somewhere goes wrong and your monster just shrugs it off is pretty high, and after 2 turns of shooting, you're probably in combat. So if my skinks can't get to them, I mostly just believe in the math and move forward. === 2000 [1998 pts] Warhammer: The Old World, Lizardmen === ++ Characters [1000 pts] ++ Carnosaur w/Old Blood - B'ahss Ilisk (GEN) [407 pts] - Hand weapon - Heavy armour (Scaly skin) - Shield - General - Carnosaur - Ogre Blade - Talisman of Protection Stegadon w/Skink Chief - Oroh B'Oross (BSB) [324 pts] - Cavalry spear (if appropriately mounted) - Light armour (Calloused hide) - Battle Standard Bearer [War Banner] - Stegadon - Enchanted Shield Stegadon w/Skink Chief - Oroh Chi [269 pts] - Cavalry spear (if appropriately mounted) - Light armour (Calloused hide) - Stegadon - Charmed Shield ++ Core Units [538 pts] ++ 18 Saurus Warrior [278 pts] - Hand weapons and shields - scaly skin (counts as heavy armour) - Spawn Leader (champion) [Charmed Shield] - Standard bearer - Musician 10 Skink Skirmishers [55 pts] - Javelins and shields - calloused hides (counts as light armour) - The Vanguard - Hand weapons 10 Skink Skirmishers [55 pts] - Javelins and shields - calloused hides (counts as light armour) - The Vanguard - Hand weapons 10 Skink Skirmishers [50 pts] - Javelins and shields - calloused hides (counts as light armour) - Hand weapons 10 Skink Skirmishers [50 pts] - Hand weapons - Javelins - Shields - Light armour (Calloused hides) 10 Skink Skirmishers [50 pts] - Hand weapons - Javelins - Shields - Light armour (Calloused hides) ++ Rare Units [460 pts] ++ Ancient Stegadon [230 pts] - Great horns and giant bow - Skink Crew (x5) with hand weapons and Javelins (required) Ancient Stegadon [230 pts] - Great horns and giant bow - Skink Crew (x5) with hand weapons and Javelins (required) === 1500 [1499 pts] Warhammer: The Old World, Lizardmen === ++ Characters [731 pts] ++ Saurus Oldblood [407 pts] - Hand weapon - Heavy armour (Scaly skin) - Shield - General - Carnosaur - Ogre Blade - Talisman of Protection Skink Chief [324 pts] - Cavalry spear (if appropriately mounted) - Light armour (Calloused hide) - Battle Standard Bearer [War Banner] - Stegadon - Enchanted Shield ++ Core Units [538 pts] ++ 18 Saurus Warrior [278 pts] - Hand weapons and shields - scaly skin (counts as heavy armour) - Spawn Leader (champion) [Charmed Shield] - Standard bearer - Musician 10 Skink Skirmishers [55 pts] - Javelins and shields - calloused hides (counts as light armour) - The Vanguard - Hand weapons 10 Skink Skirmishers [55 pts] - Javelins and shields - calloused hides (counts as light armour) - The Vanguard - Hand weapons 10 Skink Skirmishers [50 pts] - Javelins and shields - calloused hides (counts as light armour) - Hand weapons 10 Skink Skirmishers [50 pts] - Hand weapons - Javelins - Shields - Light armour (Calloused hides) 10 Skink Skirmishers [50 pts] - Hand weapons - Javelins - Shields - Light armour (Calloused hides) ++ Rare Units [230 pts] ++ 1 Ancient Stegadon [230 pts] - Great horns and giant bow - Skink Crew (x5) with hand weapons and Javelins (required) --- Created with "Old World Builder" [https://old-world-builder.com]