8th Ed. Lizardmen End Times Important Moments *SPOILERS*

Hello everyone,

I think with the massive mess going on about the End Times and our army's place in it, it would be good to look at all of the badass things our race did in their part of the final battle and try to be positive about it. I'll point out a few annoying things here and there but I want Thanquol to be as good for us as it possibly can be, which may require some filling in of left out information on our part.

As a first note, it is pretty clear in this book that it was not written with nearly the same beautiful detail as the previous three. I realized we were in trouble when I saw how small this book was, yet it needed to cover the fall of the Lizardmen, Dwarfs, and the end of the titanic struggle beneath Karak Eight Peaks. Yet despite covering the end of two entire races (or at least their dominions) this book was just short of twice the size of Glottkin or Khaine, both of which only covered a single campaign. However this book covered the final invasion of those damn rats, which was a global campaign, not even the massive Nagash book covered such scope.

However, we should ultimately be extremely proud of how our race behaved in the final war. We did not crack and unleash uncontrolled energies into the world, like the Elves. We did not buckle underneath invasion and flee before it, leaving spoils for Chaos like the Men of Bretonnia and the Empire. Nor did we squat inside our cities in a stubborn refusal to fight for the fate of the world and others like the Dwarfs. No, the Lizardmen sallied forth in a final war to save the world and bring ruin onto their foes.

I will cover the events for us from the End Times shortly, but I must say I think we should view what transpired as a victory, not failure. We did not crumple before unlimited waves of enemies or their recent perversely grown strengths in technology or magic. I feel bad for the author of this book that he was asked to cover SO MUCH in a single book. The battle for Bretonnia and the Empire was even more glossed over than our own battles in this one!

So, without further talk, let's explore what happened to our beloved Lizardmen in the End Times and how we handled the events that transpired.

1. The Battle in Xahutec, the City of Echoes: This battle spelled the beginning of the end for the Lizardmen. The portal tore open to the Chaos wastes and daemonic hordes of size larger than those unleashed during the Cataclysm spilled forth...but we were ready. Kroq-Gar led a mighty host of lizardmen that surrounded the city, and kept it contained until the very land of Lustria itself was destroyed. Think about that, despite a Skaven-led war to exterminate the Lizardmen, we STILL managed to hold a NEVER ENDING ARMY OF DAEMONS at Xahutec and never let them break through.

However, this battle had some unfortunate repercussions. The Slann expected the daemons to invade Lustria, not the Skaven. Our race's unmatched ability to see the future was being stopped the Chaos moon, which seems to have a damn life of its own and by the end times no longer even sets. So what did this have to do with repulsing the rats? Well, not good for us, the Slann devised continent-spanning traps to completely annihilate and "banish" any daemonic armies trying to swarm Lustria. However, these traps did not harm the Skaven armies besides blinding the crude out of them a few times. We'll revisit how this kinda happened at the end.

2. Pre-Skaven attack: This entry is to explain how the Skaven managed to cause such an issue in the first place. The Grey Seers were attempting to drag the Chaos moon all the way into the planet so that the Skaven could harness a planet-sized warpstone mine. This led to the death of Kritilisk, the Grey Seer who was on the Council of Thirteen before the Horned Rat offed him. The Slann stepped in and thwarted every attempt to pull the moon in without even straining themselves, but then the Verminlords arrived.

A verminlord taught the Grey Seers a new ritual which would allow them to successfully pull the moon stupidly close, and so they desperately enacted it. The Slann felt the new power and were alarmed the Skaven suddenly found a way around them. So although the Grey Seers were dying from the power being unleashed, the Chaos moon began to make progress towards the earth. In this moment, every single Slann turned their attention to stopping the moon's progress, which succeeded but caused massive warpstone meteors to hurl themselves done upon Lustria. Between the strain of stopping the Skaven ritual and meteor shower that destroyed uninhabited parts of Lustria, every single one of the Slann collapsed from exhaustion. So let's analyze this incredible feat, the Slann stopped a daemon-taught ritual designed to overwhelm them AND stopped a shower of doom-boulders so successfully the Lizardmen did not suffer a single casualty, very impressive!

I shall analyze the first invasion of Lustria in my next post so this one isn't never-ending.

 

3. The Siege of Tlaxlan, City of the Moon: After the Slann are all knocked unconscious, the Lizardmen find themselves under assault by the entirety of Clan Pestilens with help from Verminlords, multiple Warlord Clans, and Clan Skyre war machines in a few places. Also they've brought their old Lustria goodies back like the Cauldrons of a Thousand Poxes. The Assault is masterminded by Lord Skrolk, who's basically Nurglitch for all intents and purposes. Anyway, this massive army comes very unexpectedly to Tlaxlan and begins assaulting the city.

With no Slann to lead the fight and many legions and monsters sent to Xahutec to fight the daemons, the Lizardmen are stupidly outnumbered. Realizing this, Tetto'eko (taking charge as the next highest ranking dude there) watches the battle before concluding that he cannot win so orders a retreat from the city. At this point, we are given a bit of an insight into the failures of Skink Priests to listen to another of their number and some try to gather things the Slann may want later or try to think about if the Slann would agree which results in 5 Mage-Priests being killed by the Skaven. Tetto'eko quickly grabs the nearest meteor he can find and pulls it towards him while leading the remaining slann and Lizards safely out of the city. Due to the increased magic in the world and his own haste, Tett'eko accidentally pulled a MASSIVE comet towards Tlaxlan. Telling his army to brace, the comet smashes the city and immediately kills the entire Skaven army. This results in a large percentage of the retreating army being killed as well, but none of the Slann are hurt and a sizable population escapes into the jungle. Tetto'eko successfully destroys an entire army of Skaven and prevents them from acquiring any artifacts or treasure.

4. The Siege of Xlanhuapec, City of Mists: The Skaven figured this one would be difficult so they unleash two massive armies from the north and south to find and overwhelm the city. Such is the power of the mists that the entire southern army is destroyed before it can even lay eyes on the city. The northern city has notably more success and makes it to the city in time to do battle against the guardians within. The Skaven gain the upperhand and defeat the guarding army and begin sacking the city, which allows them to find one Slann and kill him, though unfortunately this Slann was the one producing the mists protecting the city.

Meanwhile, an extremely powerful and adept assassin makes his way into the tallest spire of Xlanhuapec along with a multitude of other assassins in various other places. All of them are slain before causing any damage, though a group of them do battle against Chakax. He single-handily fights like a total badass and is striking throwing stars out of midair while also slaughtering a band of assassins just trying to get by him. The final and most adept assassin does manage to wound Chakax with a weeping blade, to which the Guardian simply picks him up by the throat and then smashes him against a wall before returning to guard duty. The invading force is then slaughtered when a portion of the army from Xahutec. Only the Skaven general and his small bodyguard escape, with no artifacts or treasures.

The Siege of Itza, the First City: Here we see a bit of weirdness, seemingly due to the Lizardmen not having any special characters around to lead the defense of the city. So a bunch of skink priests are apparently much more occupied trying to rebuild the city and deliberately ignore the massing Skaven army outside with a stupid amount of Plagueclaw catapults. The Saurus in charge also just watches as he seems intent on just staying in the city instead of moving out to crush the rats. Where Gor-rok is during the End Times is a mystery, seeing as he probably would've been a great main character for this bit but I guess the writer forgot about him. Perhaps he was off fighting in Xahutec.

Anyway, the Skaven begin to launch new super-diseases into Itza in an attempt to destroy the city. This results in a few Lizardmen dying before merely retreating further into the city where the deadly gases haven't reached. At this point, a very angry Tehenhauin shows up and completely obliterates the Skaven army. Despite having the most elite force, this one is totally annihilated and doesn't kill a single Slann.

Also Tlaxla, the City of Wings, fell under attack, but for what ever reason it's not mentioned. Just know the city also repulsed invaders successfully.

Next post continues.

 

So looking at this so far, it's extremely worth noting that while holding off a Daemonic incursion, the slann being all knocked unconscious, and most Lizardmen having severely reduced armies they still destroy all elements of the rats armies and only lose 1 city and 6 slann. Pretty impressive, honestly. It is at this point, however, that the Verminlords show their true colors by convincing the Skaven to launch yet another assault with what they have left instead of retreating like usual to Skavenblight. So begins the final act.

The first major Hexoatl moment is the best and most potent Skaven Assassin beneath Lord Sneek (The lord of Clan Eshin) and Deathmaster Snikch climbing Mazdamundi's temple to kill the legendary Slann. He was equipped with all of the skills and equipment to do so effortlessly, but fortunately he was being hunted by none other than Oxyotl the Chameleon skink from Pahuax, who managed to slay the Skaven assassin without much trouble.

The March to Hexoatl: At this point the Skaven decide to form a massive army and march directly to the City of the Sun. They attempted to venture underground, but the Slann got sick of their shit and used earthquakes upon awakening to crush all Skaven tunnels. It appears all of the Slann have retreated to intact cities, leaving Tlaxla, Tlaxlan (ruined), and Itza abandoned in favor of safer environments. The Skaven swarm across the continent, and although the jungle, random beasts, and the Red Host continue to harass the army, it gains the crazy over-powered assistance of a Verminlord. He unleashes plagues into the jungle that kill all life, from plants and bugs to chameleon skinks and carnosaurs. This allows Clan Pestilens to devastate Lustria while marching unhindered towards the City of the Sun. Finally, Tehenhauin gets irritated and deploys his army in Pahuax, the city of Ash for a final confrontation with the Skaven. The Red Host fights well, but ultimately fails and the Prophet of Sotek leads his surviving army back towards Hexoatl.

At this point it is revealed that Lord Mazdamundi has been on the cusp of figuring out something extremely important, but he can't quite figure it out. It is even said that the Slann is certain these warnings are being sent to him by the Old Ones, which heavily insinuates they're still alive (more on this later). Deciding to act, the Slann summons Kroq-Gar (via continent spanning teleportation) to lead the Slann Lord and his army crush the invading Skaven.

Upon arriving on the battlefields, Mazdamundi opens by burying all of the Skaven's Cauldrons and war machines beneath a massive wall of rock fairly effortlessly, proving himself to be a God amongst mortals in this fight. The Skaven begin to be obliterated by Hexoatl's armies, but then Mazdamundi finally has his revelation and understands what is happening. He realizes that the Skaven are being manipulated by the Greater Powers of Chaos (the 4) and are being tricked into attacking the Lizardmen. However, the Chaos Gods underestimated their rat cousins and now the fools were about to activate a cannon to explode the Chaos moon so it would shower the world with warpstone.

Not being the most safety minded, and being obsessed beyond even their poor excuse for good sense, the Skaven were going to accidentally destroy the world. The Skaven did not have nearly enough power to prevent the world from being incinerated or cracked into pieces from the terrible impact the shards of the Chaos Moon would cause, so all life faced immediate extinction. Realizing this, Mazdamundi knew if he could get into Itza he had a chance of preventing this so he teleported himself and half of his army (with Kroq-Gar and Tiktaq'to onboard) to push into Itza.

The Final Battle for Itza

In this battle, the powerful Lord Skrolk and his Verminlord led the largest Skaven army ever seen in Lustria. So the battle for all of life began with Mazdamundi ordering his army punch through the rats so that he may reach the temple-city. Kroq-gar dutifully punches through the Skaven horde like a hot knife through butter and leads Mazdamundi and his apparently fast moving temple guard (who keep up with a steg, huh?) towards the city. However, such was the sheer size of the opposing army that even Kroq-Gar's insanely powerful charge would not reach the city in time. It was at this point that the moon shatters.

Mazdamundi, feeling the horrible Cataclysm he had sought to prevent begin, knew all he could do now was reach the city and try to stop the descending slabs of warpstone from destroying everything. After an incredibly massive battle, the Lizardmen began to be bogged down despite the efforts of Kroq-Gar and Tiktaq'to slaughtering the rats in their thousands. Mazdamundi unleashed spells o incinerate entire regiments while focusing all his power into sending orders to all of the various Slann remaining and trying to reach the city. (Which he had to be a certain distance from to enter due to the protective barriers in the city). There were also battles going on in which the Lizardmen were successfully preventing any Ratmen from infecting Itza's spawning pools, knowing the City would rise again if they could stop this invasion here.

Lord Skrolk attempted to forge his way to Mazdamundi, but the Slann got close enough to the city to teleport and vanished from the back of his Stegadon and appeared beneath the largest temple, utilizing his magic to open the complex barrier protecting every structure in the city and entering.

At this point Kroq-Gar finally fights his way to Lord Skrolk and faces off against the Ratman responsible for the invasion. Lord Skrolk wields a weapon so insanely powerful that he kills Grymloq with a single blow, causing the ancient Carnosaur to wither and decay in mere second. Kroq-Gar begins fighting the diseased rat and realizes if the fight drags on, he will certainly die from the fumes of the enemy's weapon. The Kroq-Gar becomes Ascended Kroq-Gar as light from the Hand of the Gods surrounds his ancient body. The mighty Saurus lord purifies the air around him and catches Lord Skrolk's weapon with the Hand of the Gods, crushing the mighty weapon in his armored fist. Kroq-Gar then impales the Skaven on his spear and lifts him up for all to see with a triumphant roar.

At this point, Skrolk's Verminlord surprises the Scar-Leader and vomits on him, causing Kroq-Gar to stumble and drop his weapon. The weapon apparently badly burns the Verminlord as he retrieves Skrolk's corpse and begins to pour disease magic into the rat to cause healing tumors(?) to cover the Plaguelord's wounds and they both vanish into a portal. Kroq-Gar's godly aura heals him and the Saurus roars to call a new Carnosaur and receives orders to go to the Obelisk of Silver Stars, which is in the battlefield.

With the fight behind him, Mazdamundi orders the Exodus begin immediately. Most of the slann, and a small number of selected attendants, enter structures that suddenly revealed strange new entrances. Many temples and stone monoliths then rise into the sky and quickly retreat from the planet to the stars that can no longer be seen.

"For the Slann, it was time to return to the stars."

Then Mazdamundi and the remaining dozens of slann unleash the full power of the geomantic web to battle the falling mountains of pure chaos energy made manifest. The strain was terrible as they battered and obliterated vast amounts of warpstone, saving entire continents from annihilation as they fought. However, sadly it was not enough. The Slann were slowly overwhelmed, one by one their brains exploded from the sheer effort being used and each died one by one. Finally exhausted through all of his incredible efforts, Mazdamundi knew Lustria, the Southlands, and many of the eastern lands would be destroyed by the remnants of the Chaos moon falling, and attempted to return to his favorite watching spot. Such was the power he unleashed, the greatest living mage known couldn't even float his palanquin and attempted to crawl before finally succumbing to death.

And so passed the mighty Lord Mazdamundi, Lord of the Solar City, Deliverer of the Warhammer World.

At long last we see Lord Kroak, observing all of this from the highest pinnacle in Lustria. Here he marks Mazdamundi's passing, the Exodus, and the falling doom approaching. The meteors slam into Lustria, the Southlands, and the world's oceans, causing massive walls of flame and tidal waves that will consume the world.

In his final act, Lord Kroak does two things with one spell. First, he snuffs out the walls of destruction threatening to consume the world and calms the world's oceans, so that the Old World may yet have a chance to survive this war. Secondly, he bubbles off multiple areas of Lustria to protect them from the flames and raises them up. These areas are very vague, and it's unsure who or what all he saved.

"Incongruously, the chunks of earth and jungle under each dome floated through the cataclysm, as Lord Kroak sent them up and beyond the horizon of the world."

After this final act, both Lustria and the Southlands were consumed by flame and sank beneath the seas.

On to analysis.

 

So let's hit some points....

1. Ultimately, although not BAD, this book could have been way better simply due to writer not seeming to have a great grasp of Lizardmen fluff and pulling weird cop outs like the Slann getting all knocked out. However, I believe this may not so much be a cop out as an indicator of what's to come, which leads to...

2. The Slann are gone. Period. All of the Slann on the warhammer world and in the bubbles are dead and the rest vanished "to the stars" in spaceships, which I believe is them leaving forever. Slann also are very deliberately left out of all the Lizardmen scenarios in the Thanquol book. Seriously, none of the scenarios involving us allow any slann to be taken as part of the armies. If the Slann were staying, I GUARANTEE there would have been a boosted version of Mazdamundi in a scenario-specific or battle-scroll only spell like the new ice spell for the Defenders of Middenheim force wizard, or Teclis' super demon-banish spell from Khaine. This may not be a bad thing, though. This would allow the Lizardmen to open up into new territories over the multi-hundred year gap between the End Times and 9th edition that's being discussed. We could have a fun race with smarter and more powerful Skinks and maybe Saurus that think for themselves instead of being automatons.

3. The Lizardmen are badasses. Seriously, unlike every other army we did not lose a SINGLE Special Character to the battles in the End Times. Mazdamundi and Kroak died saving the world, due to the elimination of Slann from our fluff, more then likely, but every Skink and Saurus stood strong and won all of their fights. Major bragging right!

4. I think Kroq-Gar is meant to take over the Lizardmen. It's hard to tell, but he gained a "Glowing nimbus" of power after defeating Lord Skrolk, which was a major feat. It seems to insinuate he has entered on another level of almighty power, meaning we'll likely see him again. He arrived at the Obelisk of Silver Stars, which rumbled during the Exodus, but I don't think Kroq-Gar went with the ships, meaning he's likely floating in the bubbles. The book makes it evidently clear in multiple paragraphs that he's a "shimmering" Saurus now, which is a bit unusual so we'll see.

5. Go out with a bang: The Lizardmen accomplished amazing feats before they had to abandon Lustria. We CRUSHED Clan Pestilens and stripped that clan of so much of its strength I imagine they won't be a major contender for taking over Skavendom anytime soon. And this was all while the Lizardmen held off AN ENTIRE DAEMONC INCURSION!! I mean, seriously, we are fucking awesome.

6. There were a couple of upsetting parts of this book. The most obvious was that the fan favorite, "Nakai the Wanderer" who shows up in every incursion EVER into Lustria did not appear in this book, which was a damn shame. Also the magnificent Gor-rok did not make an appearance as I expected him to as Itza's general. Would've loved to see him teach rats the meaning of pain, but alas. That being said, I like to think they both were merely at battles that weren't covered, so I imagine Nakai appeared to save Tlanxla during the initial siege of Lustria and Gor-rok was fighting the daemons at Xahutec, leading the armies there in Kroq-Gar's occasional absences.

7. The Old Ones return. So it is my firm belief that the End Times shows us that without a doubt our Gods not only survived the original Incursion, but decided to call their Children home. Not only does Mazdamundi receive telepathic warnings he is almost certain is from the Old Ones about what the Skaven and Chaos are planning, but then there's the Device of the Great Beyond.

When the Skaven begin sacking the City of Mists, they find the Device of the Great Beyond and after messing with it a bit they discover that it talks! The device, which allows communication from across the stars, starts talking in a voice of an unknown language to the Skaven, though "the melodious tones that issued forth were, if anything, akin to speech of the elf-things." This heavily seems to suggest Eldar or that the Old Ones bear a striking resemblance in voice to that group of creations. Perhaps another planet was populated by the Old Ones creations.


End: So what do all of y'all think? Now that we finally have lizards goodies to speculate over, we should search for clues!

 

First of all I have to thank you. I'm reading everything on this forum about End Times cause the books itself aren't cheap. Before your post everyone depicted annihilation of Lustria as someting stupid and really poorly written and you put some logic in this and it looks like Lizardmen are still pretty awesome. Looks like I will have to buy this Tlanquol book.

 

i really hope you're right about the old ones: it would be the only thing that could pay for the slann departure, at least for me.

 

Thank-you for the analysis, I've been yearning for a summary of the Lizardmen fate.

Beyond the non-appearance of Nakai, and not even a reference to Gor-Rok, there's one other thing I feel they missed out on:

Sotek vs. The Horned Rat. The feud between the two gods form a major background to our fluff and I expected some sort of reconciliation to that arc, especially considering how each previous ET book has featured prominently a battle between gods (Nagash consumes Usirian and drains Valaya; Nurgle tries to usurp Taal, God of Nature, but is beaten back by Ulfric, Shallya, and Ladrielle/Lileath; ET:Khaine, generally).

Sure, we get a Red Host, and Tehenhauin is mentioned more than once so he beats some of our other special characters. However, I feel Tehenhauin deserved a bigger spotlight considering the Skaven incursion parallels to the rise of Sotek, and the general lack of meditation on the whole theme of Sotek vs. THR feels like a wasted opportunity, given that all the components were directly to hand.

 

I just have to say regarding Kroq-Gar getting some kind of boost from the Hand of Gods: CALLED IT!


Other than that: is there any explanation of the twin-tailed nature of sotek followers AND the vermin lords?

I seem to remember someone said that GW hinted there was a connection.

Also, not having read the book and all, are we certain that all slann are in fact dead?

Is it possible that some of them, like the one described in our book who leaves to go to the old world, is in fact still alive?

Other than that, someone described that a lot of slanns became like Lord Kroak, spirits lingering their remains.
Does it mention this or did he make it up?

I have a hard time seeing how GW could kill of the most iconic sculpt in our range.
I see that potentially 1 might still live to become a special character, and keep the Slann sculpt in their usuable range.

"Adohi-Tehga, Last of the Slann".
(does it mention him btw?)

 

I just got to the section about the Beyond Box last night.

I am more convinced than ever that 40K and Fantasy will be merging,

Glottkin had a Space Marine in it, and this book has Eldar.

 

How will they balance that?

 

the new spacemaRats known as Stormfiends are most certainly hinting it....

I sincerly hope that they are just making easter-eggs trying to hint "yes, its the same universe again".

Regarding the Space marine, he could perfectly be an easter-egg (that Draigo guy)

Regarding the Eldar speech....I hope that it comes from a planet were the old-ones actually succeeded with their grand plan,
and the reason they are talking "elvish" is because elves speak the language given to them by their creators.

 

How does the space marine make an apperance?

 

Some silly elves go to Nurgle's apartment to pick up chicks, but along the way they meet a guy in super armor who has hand that shoot lightning or some such. A space marine.

 

Looks like most flew away, and the few dozen that remained behind sacrificed themselves to save the world.

 

Firstly a massive tank you for taking the time to read it all and type this! I'm glad that the parts I didn't have time to read showed the Lizardmen in a better light

Having said that your persentation is ever so slightly on the rose-tinted side There was a lot of stuff that didn't make sense - fluff wise or logic wise. It did smack of poor storytelling and them wanting to get the Slaan out of the way whether it made sense or not. But I'll have to give it another, more sedate, read sometime and see if my view changes.

Roll on 9th Edition - my decision to quit Fantasy as well as 40k rests on your shoulders (thank god for Forge World!)

 

Excellent summary. Just what I needed. Makes me proud to be a Lizardman.

 

This was a great summary with a great attitude behind it. You analysis has been the best I've read so far. I think you did well to look at things objectively and criticizes things that were perhaps poor narrative choices and not because you wanted the words to say something else.

I especially value your positive take on the role the Lizardmen play in the ET. What the Lizardmen are able to do, as a people, in defense of the world at large, is quite impressive.

These events definitely change the make-up of Lizardmen armies. I can't wait to see what people do.

 

I still haven't been by the GW store to pick up my copy, but I'm looking forward to the read. Thank you for the summary, though.

Quick WAG that I've been ruminating on for the Slaan. What is the original purpose of the Slaan? To use their magic to shape the world for the Old Ones. Perhaps, particularly in light of the suggested return of the Old Ones in the book, GW is setting up a scenario where the remaining Slaan will be instrumental in shaping a new world from the surviving bubbles.

Padre

 

Where are my manners.......thanks Over-Serp ... it was great read!

 

Thanks for all of your hard work!

This was a great read, and it was really nice to read something positive after all of the doom and gloom from the warseer rumors.

That kind of stuff is exactly how these books should go. I obviously can't comment on the writing itself, since I haven't read it yet, but the impression I had been having of the End Times is "the bad guys are really strong, they attack the good guys, and the weaker good guys lose". While this may be how this would work in reality, its not very good for fiction. The fact that the lizards put up such a great fight, and have the potential to continue putting up great fights, really makes the story better.

It's just a shame that they can make such a great story but they bog it down with lousy writing and plot holes.