Hello, loooong time since i've written here... sadly. Yesterday I've found my old 7th edition army book and I started thinking about how strong Lizardmen felt at the time: I've staretd playing with that armybook and 8th edition rulebook, and when the 8th edition armybook came out it just felt so underpowered (i hated the changes on the slann) and boring... By the way, just out of curiosity, I was wondering when Lizardmen had their golden age: what armybook/edition combination made them shine the most? Let's include every warhammer fantasy edition, age of sigmar and the 9th age. Discuss!
I think they did really well when they were still using their 7th edition army book under the 8th edition WFB rules. Their magic phase alone made them top tier. Other than that, I always took them a solid army. Not over or under-powered.
7th edition was crazy, but i do think we were above average in 8th. Do not underestimate skink skirmishiers, i think you can make a good argument for them being the best core units in the game. Cowboys and Slann are also nothing to scoff at, if used correctly. I think that we more lacked the tools to beat the most dominant strategies (AKA, cannons), than that our own units were neccesarily bad. It was nothing compared to 7th edition Slann though, so that would be my answer.
What he said. 8th edition made miscasts nastier than ever. The seventh edition army book gave us a fairly cheap magic item that could pass a Slann's miscast onto an enemy wizard. There was a cheap Slann upgrade that gave Slann a free power die on every casting attempting. My first tournament was a double's tournament (who was playing 8th edition with a 6th edition Dwarf army book). We steamrolled the competition. 6th edition under the Ravening Hordes rules was pretty potent too but I only got to play that a little bit until they posted some interim rules in a White Dwarf which nerfed Lizardmen a lot (though it did give us Chameleon Skinks for the first time).
They got an 8th edition army. One of the last armies to get the update. They only had to go through all of seventh edition with no army book.
Ah, ok. Not that bad then I guess (unless the rules didn't really fit), more like the current situation of the Seraphon in AoS.
What he said. Compare that to poor Bretonnia who did have to wait through 2 whole editions only to get no book and then all their minis ditched. Probably the only thing that they have over Empire is that at least their Core infantry didn’t look terrible
It was GW’s favourite of the two (for reasons unknown to me), but that still didn’t stop them from making the later Empire infantry really ugly. They’re all hunched over like Orcs and have some really ugly faces. For instance, the poor drummer on the left here looks like he has Phossy jaw, while the bloke in the middle looks unnaturally gaunt:
Leaving aside the other points already made, why boring? Just with a Slann alone, due to the access to all the magic available, you could literally play a dozen different builds to focus your army upon, each one with different flavors...
To each their own - I just think the posture and some of the faces were particularly bad on those, especially compared to the previous kit which just looks so much better despite being older: Here they’re actually advancing forward weapons at the ready, rather than squatting like HeroQuest Orcs and Goblins, and their heads also look more realistic, more like ordinary blokes rather than half-trolls. In any case, to each their own, and sorry @Rettile in advance for derailing your thread.
So sad I would agree that the 7th edition was probably the Lizardmen high point. That codex built upon the 6th edition to make them even more powerful (to include the magic) that was eclipsed when 8th came along with the brand new miscast table. Then again, this switch from 7th to 8th made Slann less of a mandatory auto-include, allowing the Oldblood on Carnosaur to be taken to the table more often.
Agreed, he is by far our most cost effective special character. After him we have a couple that can be good, namely Gor-Rok and Kroak, but outside of them the remainder of our special characters are either sub-par or downright awful.
This is my kind of post! Personally I think Lizardmen were at their strongest in 6th edition, with 7th as a close second. 6th edition Slann was broken beyond all belief. Long live the skink cloud!
Wow, I'm really good at late replies on my own posts: you can say I'm still recovering after the brutal wave of Chaos that GW released upon us just like Slanns have slept for centuries after the first war against Chaos. So true! I used to play a big TG+Slann unit with lore of Life: TG with toughness 8 were great against elves. Actually against anything... Good times. 6th edition dwarves were my one and only nearly impossible match up, i have a friend Who Always invested heavily in countering magic when he was playing against me. I ended up picking Chaos dwarves as a backup army hahahaha Well, our only interesting new option were ripperdactyls Loved him in both 7th and 8th armybooks Always my favourite character, both fluff and in game. Kroak bomb lists could Be brutal and i loved ti play him together with Tetto! After reading 6th edition slann i think i Can understand, but i've never played 6th edition so i cannot judge. Oh, I'm remembering my awesome skrox darts and salamanders with march and shoot... Good old times!
Fluffwise he was my favourite as well, but in game I find him a bit boring. His power level is fine, but his playstyle feels much less tactical and confined in comparison to a regular Slann (and especially when compared to a Focus of Mystery slann)
Agree, but i didn't have the chance to get bored since i've played him few times: a regular slann was always the best choice, so kroak was limited to friendly games (and my friendly games Always were quite competitive)