Ooh, that's a hard one... On the one hand, I love skinks... they are adorable little lizard bois. On the other hand: saurus. They are the quintessential lizardmen to me. Dangit... I'mma have to flip a coin... Skinks, for the adorableness!
I like all the subspecies, Lizardmen in general is by far the faction I like the most and I more or less like every part of it, at least the idea of it, not necessarily every rule incarnation. With that said I've chosen Saurus. I like the feral-ness tempered by the coldblooded logic and, lorewise their instinctual sense of combat. I suppose it's almost robotic, logical and efficient nature, that speaks to me. Furthermore I find the saurus more aesthetically pleasing in artwork and with the range refresh that is now also the case for models - and speaking of models, nothing tops an angry dino riding a T-rex. It's also worth mentioning that I generally think the saurus Characters are cooler, even if Oxyotl and Kroak are no slouches, they somehow just doesn't beat Kroq-gar, Gor-Rok and Chakax.
Interesting one. There are more angles to this question: Lore-wise, Miniature-wise, gameplay-wise... I can't make a choice at the moment, but will think about it some more. Grrr, !mrahil
Can't fault you for choosing adorableness! Me too! Definitely lore-wise. I should have made my question more clear. I've edited my original post for clarification.
Lore-wise eh? I'll expand my answer beyond simply "for the adorableness". While saurus have some amazingly cool heroes, Kroq-Gar being the pinnacle of epic badassitude that all Children of the Gods should aspire to, they also have a bit of an advantage in that combat was what they were spawned for. They are the warrior caste of the Old Ones, they've been given every biological advantage that can possibly be condensed and packed into those glorious pecs of theirs. It's hard for them not to be memetic badasses when they can tank any enemy and consider being flank attacked only a mild inconvenience. You know that the entirety of saurus are amazing when they provoke such reactions from our enemies as this famous quote: Skinks on the other hand, are first and foremost artisans and workers. Sure, they still have an advantage in combat compared to warmblooded races, but it wasn't their divinely mandated purpose. Which makes their baddasses all the more bloody impressive, because they are badasses IN SPITE of being skinks, not because of being skinks. Tiktaq'to? The dude and his pet terradon demoralised an entire savage orc tribe by deciding to take their warboss skydiving. Oxyotl? He John Wick'd the Realms of Chaos before John Wick was even a thing. And when he came back, he inspired the Old Ones to begin spawning Chameleon Skinks for the first time in who knows how long. Tetto'eko? The lad is so magically powerful, I reckon that he is on par with a third-generation Slann. Certainly close enough that the slann gifted the old chap one of their lazy boys and made him an honorary slann. Tehenhauin? Ok, I'll be honest, I don't actually like Tehenhauin that much. He rubs me the wrong way... Can't even explain why... maybe it's because he doesn't look adorable... Skinks don't have the inherent advantage of warfare that their saurus cousins do, and yet I'll rate any of these lads with the best of the saurus. They are crafty, and they don't care if they have to fight dirty. They are badass little adorable bundles of scales.
I thought the Slann were the undisputed masters of magic. I'm guessing that second and third generation Slann are pretty rare, so that would make Tetto'eko more powerful than most Slann! That they are!
First generation are the most powerful, then every subsequent generation is watered down in power. At least that was my understanding, but somebody who knows better is free to correct me. And I said third, because... I can't actually remember ever hearing of a fourth onwards. I should probably amend it to "on par with the weaker slann", which is still bloody impressive.
I recall reading that Slann generations range from first (the strongest) to fifth (the weakest). I believe that none of the first generation Slann are alive (Kroak being pseudo-alive / undead), so the strongest living Slann are the second generation ones, like Mazdamundi. I could be wrong though, if someone more knowledgeable knows otherwise, please correct the record.
You are right, I was getting muddled right up... for some reason I got muddled enough that I thought Mazadamundi was first generation which threw everything else in my mind out of whack...
I suspect this is down to them mostly being described as living construction equipment. Its harder to identify with them.
Esthetically I like them very much, the big hulky guys that do the heavy lifting, both in construction as well as in battle. The Saurus are the main warriors and most associated with the Lizardmen culture. The Slann are the powerful boss-like creatures, magical but also kind of lazy I think I will have to go with the Skinks as well, because they are so damn versatile: workers, beast herders, terradon riders, oracles, priests and whatnot. Grrr, !mrahil
Never been a big fan of the Slann. Never had them in my old army back in the day. I've exluded them from the lore of my current one
Nakai the Wanderer: *Sad BOK sounds* Same. I like lizardmen for the lizards, not the toads with a weight issue While I have my Slann model, I'm planning to try and avoid using him, as narratively isn't actually a part of the army, he is the distant leader at the homefront.
Nakai is pretty epic! Shame that Games Workshop never gave him a model. Poor chonky Slann! That's such a good point. All the others are extremely one-dimensional, but the Skinks do it all.