Hail

Hail, fellow cold bloods.

Passive, returning Warhammer lurker here. I've never actually played the game before, but was a longtime reader of White Dwarf and elements of the Warhammer canon 15+ years ago, in my early teens, and played both Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen PS1 games to death back in the day. Imagination fired by the days of White Dwarf editor Paul Sawyer (aka Fat Bloke) and some truly outstanding articles, battle reports and modelling work. A horde of undead Bretonnians and modelling Lustrian scenery articles particularly favourable memories!

I would also like some advice. I am contemplating purchasing an army and throwing myself into the hobby, and naturally the lizards are one of 3-4 options. I have seen a large, second-hand force retailing at £300 and would appreciate some thoughts on value from experienced hands? The gist of the army is:

150 Saurus
100 skink skirmishers (plus more on sprues)
9 kroxigors
3 bases of jungle swarms
20 cold one cavalry
7 pteradon
20 temple guard
8 salamander / razordon
25 handlers
5 stegadon (2x official GW, the others are on alternative dinos)
3 Slann Mages
5 scar veterans
3 skink priests
Skink chief
2 x Old Blood lord on foot
1 x Kroq-Gar

The army comes with 7th and 8th ed. army books, plus a rulebook and a bunch of other bits and pieces (Lustrian scenery, KR carry case). Roughly 6500-7000 points using an old army book download, give or take?

It is a painted force (mostly), decent standard, and there has clearly been a bit of love put into basing and so forth. Can't say too much about the models, whether they are current or OOP. Most 'seem' to be the former.

Too large a force for my own needs I suspect, but I was contemplating a purchase and then selling off the excesses to recoup some of the outlay and reinvest into paints etc.

Any thoughts whether this looks good value? I've been out of the hobby for so long and there haven't been many comparable armies online to refer to, at least for lizards. I totalled up approximate 'retail' value, but my knowledge of the second-hand market is less perfect!

Regards,

Andy

Welcome to the forums!

I bought large sets and sold the excess before. It's not a bad way to go.

How many points do you think you'll likely be playing. Presumably you won't want to play the same list type every time so whatever point sized game you'll be playing, you'll probably want points to spare. That will determine what units you should keep or resell.

Generally speaking second hand tends to go for 75% to 85% if it's unassembled. 65% to 75% if assembled. A bit less if painted poorly. More than retail if painted well. The second hand market is getting more volitatle since there are fears of things getting discontinued when 9th edition is released. Some people are leaving the hobby and selling their entire collections. Other people are buying things up afraid that they will never be able to get the stuff later.

Even when fielding a 6000 point army, I wouldn't take more 120 Saurus. The older Saurus Warriors tend to have roughly the same resell value as the newer one, maybe some favorability to the old.

You probably have plenty of Skinks. It's hard to have too many Skinks, They can be fielded as Cohorts or Skirmishers. With the right paint job they can be Chameleon Skinks. You probably want to hold to most/all of your Skinks. The old metal Skinks with Javelins resell for a fairly price. The old plastic archers resell fairly cheap. The newer plastic Skinks fall in between.

When I field Kroxigor as stand alone units I like units of 4-7. When I field them with Skink Cohorts I prefer 3 or 4 Kroxigor, though I've fielded a few little Skrox blocks with some success. I have over 20 Kroxigor but I am insane (and I bought them in bulk).

Swarms are not popular unit choices for most LM players, but Cold One Riders come with snake sprues that can be built into Swarms for practically nothing. If your Swarms are made from the old metal bits, they should resell pretty well. If the Swarms come from plastic Cold One bits, they will have negligible resell value.

Using 20 Cold Ones is conceivable if you are running armies above 4000 points or if you running armies around 2700 points and really like fast armies. In most cases you can probably have plenty of options with 10. Cold One Riders have relatively little resell value as they are often considered the booby prize of the army box and many LM players prefer to swap out Lizardmen Cold Ones for the better looking Dark Elf Cold Ones.

I'm not the one to ask about flyers, my track record with them is pretty poor relative to the Lizardmen community at large. From what little I know of Terradons and Rippers, 7 is not an unreasonable number for your collection.

20 Temple Guard is the bare minimum for a 2000 point game in my opinion, the one thing you'd need to buy more of his Temple Guard unless your opponents don't mind you padding the back ranks with regular Saurus Warriors.

8 Salamanders/Razordons is a viable choice in a 2500ish point game but 2 or 4 is more common. Salamanders work best in units of one to three and it's better to have multilple small units of Salamander rather than one large one. Razordons are the opposite. They are pretty potent in groups of 2-6 and I'd almost never reccomend fielding a Razordon solo. The old style Salamanders with the large dorsal fins tend to resell for fairly high prices compared to the newer versions with leaner bodies and tiny sails. The old metal Razordons sell for a quite a high price compared to the newer plastic Razordons.

I'd recommend holding on to at least two Stegadons. I would not fault you for holding on to all five. South of grand armies, the ceiling for practical Stegadon use is probably four. Both the old metal Stegadons and the newer plastic Stegadons resell for respectable values. Lots of players like to use the metal Steggies for Special Stegadons and the bigger plastic ones for Rare Ancient Stegadons.

2 Slann armies become possible at 2400 points and become competitive around 3000 points. You probably mever need a third Slann unless you want to use one for a conversion project for fun (probably Mazdamundi). If one of the three Slann is Kroak, I'd recommend holding on to one vanilla Slann and Kroak. Kroak is pretty cool in both appearance and game play.

I never really saw much reason to differentiate between Scar Veteran and Oldblood models. Between the two of them, you probably want to have 2-4 Saurus characters on foot for your collection and 2-4 Saurus characters on Cold Ones.

3 Skink Priests is a reasonable choice for Slann-less armies up to 3000 points. An army with a Slann can easily use two Skink Priests and definitely needs at least one.

A Skink Chief on foot is probably all you need though some people have run lists with four or five Skink Chiefs. Army lists tend to take zero Skink Chiefs, one Skink Chief, or n+1 Skink Chiefs where n is a large number. Skink Chiefs on Terradons or Rippers are at least as popular as Skink Chiefs on foot if not more so. If you play games in the 1000 to 1500 point range, you probably want to consider using your Skink Chief as a cheap general (thought a priest works too).

Kroq-Gar is a decent character and can stand-in for a generic Scar Veteran or Oldblood on a Carnsoaur. In general you do not want to field a Carnosaur as your only big dinosaur but they work well in lists that also have Ancient Steggies.

There is very little else you would need to buy if you bought this army deal. If Saurus proxies are not acceptable substitutes, you will definitely want a few more Temple Guard. You probably want a Bastiladon and you MIGHT want two Bastiladons (the Solar Engine is better build than the Ark of Sotek). You MIGHT want a second Carnosaur. You MIGHT want a Troglodon (if you like Saurus heavy lists or see yourself fielding grand armies).

Let us know if you have any other specific questions about anything.

Welcome to the forum. I think Scalenex covered just about everything! I look forward to hearing more from you!

Scalenex said:

How many points do you think you'll likely be playing. Presumably you won't want to play the same list type every time so whatever point sized game you'll be playing, you'll probably want points to spare. That will determine what units you should keep or resell.

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Thank you for the generous response Scalenex.

As it stands I have no current friends playing Warhammer, and I'm not based in the best location to do so frequently. If I get into the hobby I daresay it will be random games, possibly a local club of some sort. I had contemplated retaining around 2500+ points of the army, which I imagine would boost up to beyond 3000+ with magic items and upgrades added etc. Enough models to give some options in a standard 2000- game, but with the potential to sell off a good 3000-3500 pts worth. Not sure what that would realistically fetch - I'm keeping a weather eye on some new lizard listings which have popped up on Ebay to get more of an indication, though your own guide is informative indeed.

The advert itself didn't garner any bids. The seller had collection only, which I think heavily limited his audience.

My initial thoughts were that 2/3 of the saurus, perhaps a bunch of the skinks, 3 of the stegadons, half of the cold ones and a few kroxigor and salamanders looked viable sales. In addition to a slann, or perhaps even two.

Scalenex said:

The second hand market is getting more volitatle since there are fears of things getting discontinued when 9th edition is released.

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This mirrors my research; I signed up to Warseer and there is mass hysteria and rumours over 9th ed. Personally, I feel it is overdone....but that's the internet for you! The volatility is part of the reason I felt like investing in a force now, with some potential to get a good deal. I do profess to feeling ambiguous though; I've never been particularly interested in painting and modelling, and the chance to invest in a pre-painted force was tempting. But I do love the idea of putting my own cohesive twist on an army......it's the lasting effect of the undead Bretonnian article I think

Scalenex said:

Let us know if you have any other specific questions about anything.

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There is one; as per above, how easy is it to strip a model of its paint if I had ambitions to repaint myself? Do the citadels come off easily under the influence of thinner?

Mavriq said:

There is one; as per above, how easy is it to strip a model of its paint if I had ambitions to repaint myself? Do the citadels come off easily under the influence of thinner?

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Stripping a model of paint isn't too difficult. The material from which the model is cast will determine what type of solution you can use to strip the paint.

For Metal models: Paint stripper or nail polish remover works great.
For Plastic models: Soak them in "Simply Green" cleaning solution
For Finecast: I'm not quite sure, I'm not a fan of finecast so I've never stripped paint off of it.

In any case, let the model soak for a while, then use an old tooth brush to get rid of the paint. I find the paint comes off fairly easily, though some undercoat may stick around.

Thank you Nightbringer.

I am now a fully-fledged Lizardman warmeister. I decided not to go for the army outlined above, eventually deciding it was far too large for a new-starter with uncertain gaming opportunity, and the collection would have added a tank of petrol to the cost. However, I came across an ideal little army on Ebay:

66 saurus (36 new, 30 old style)
53 skinks (20 new, 33 old style)
12 cold ones
3 jungle swarms
2 skink priests
skink chief
2 further characters (unsure which)
Stegadon (new)

Paid £76 total, which I felt was solid value for 140 miniatures. The stegadon, 33x skinks, cold ones and characters are unpainted - so plenty of opportunity to tailor the army to my own taste - whereas the remainder are painted to quite a nice gaming standard, so I have a base of a 'ready to play' army. Solid start to the run-of-the-mill troops with which to begin to build the specialised units and characters around.

That's a good set, you pretty much start playing immediately with that set. It's basically a standard "Traditional Army" right there. You have more than enough models to play balanced games of 1500 games right now.

If one of your further characters is on a Cold One OR you have a Cold One unit champion that can pass as an acceptable Scar Veteran or Oldblood, I think you are one big dinosaur away from balanced 2000 point games.

Since you are Slann-less and probably don't want to buy a bunch of Temple Guard right now, I'd recommend a Solar Engine Bastiladon as your next purchase. Solar Engines are great in Slann-less armies. Decent magic that requires little power dice.

I'd get a fair number of games under your belt before making an additional major purchase. Everyone has a preferred playing style. Once you figure out your playing style, you can figure out what type of army you'd like to play and gear your new purchases accordingly.

The cold blooded ones arrived today, so to celebrate naturally I went out and bought some more - picked up 12x metal temple guard figures from a seller in Germany, including battle standard and drummer. No shields, but that was fixed with 2x plastic sets found on Ebay, and an extra totem for good measure for an extra £1.

£30 all-in, including shipping. Considering 10x plastics retail at £25.50 anyway, fairly pleased with that purchase.

Against your advice there Scalenex, but I'd considered a Slann as my next purchase - mainly as the slann and temple guard are some of the more interesting models I'd like to paint up (after I've honed my technique on a few cheap saurus!)

That'll be my limit until I've had a thorough read through the also newly-arrived army book, snagged a few paints and perhaps actually locate someone to game with!

"Welcome to the jungle, we've got fun 'n' games"...

Mavriq said:

Against your advice there Scalenex, but I'd considered a Slann as my next purchase - mainly as the slann and temple guard are some of the more interesting models I'd like to paint up (after I've honed my technique on a few cheap saurus!)

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I don't blame you. In my opinion the Slann is the nicest model in the Lizardmen army (my personal favorite in all of warhammer).