Hey there everyone of Lustria Online. Name's Adam, or skippy as most of my internet related junk goes by. Seeing as Fantasys 8th edition comes out in afew weeks, ive been real interested in playing the game. Of all the armies, my choice was stuck between skaven, something about the lil rat guys was appealing, or Lizardmen, dinosaurs look awesome. After flipping through the codex afew times at the store i go to, i decided these are the guys id like to start playing as, but i have a problem haha. I have no idea of the rules of the game. I've played wh40k for about a year now, but know nothing of fantasy. Id like to start a basic list of something thats competitive, but i dont even know what that would be. I'd like to run a list of calvary, the saurus on the raptors look bad ass, and that big named saurus on the huge dinosaur, hes nasty lookin' - but they could suck for all i know. Anyways ill wrap this up. Nice to meet yall, hope to be around here a bit and learn what i can. If anyone has questions id be happy to answer. Thanks!
Welcome to warhammer fantasy! First, we have army books, not codexes.. hehe. You've picked a good time to start, everyone is going to be learning new rules and coming to grips with the new game that is 8th edition. As such nobody can really say what will and won't be effective at this point, so just start grabbing the models you like. You'll need skinks and/or saurus foot troops for sure, since you will need to have 25% points in your core troops. The good news is Lizardmen have awesome core choices. The other big advantage of taking Lizardmen is you'll find a ton of info on this site, we've got some talented and helpful people here. Feel free to ask rules questions in the rules section once you are getting started. You won't have all the rules down in your first several games, just hop on here and ask about the issues you had in your game. For now, get some skinks and get to painting!
So i bought my 1st box of Saurus earlier, and it has come to a quick halt. Not knowing the rules and such, since the new book don't come out till 2 weeks from now - What do i give them!? Ive asked, spears, or swords? Ive heard the standard "sword and board" is best, then afew "spears are better" arguements. What is the general communities opinion? It is my understanding you get a 6+ ward save from the sword/shield combo, where as spears let the 3rd rank deep (if you have X amount of saurus wide), get its attacks back in combat. To me spears seem the better choice, but i dont know the 8th ed. rules, some of you may know this more than i. Help a new guy out! Thanks!.
That is what everyone is going through, spears or not. It all really depends on how big you want your saurus blocks to be. With hw+sh you will want at least 3 ranks, so you can lose one before you lose attacks. And with spears you will want at least 4 ranks for the same reason. Because you will get hit with magic or war machines or archers before you get into combat. Beyond the basic of wanting an extra rank to soak up damage, they are both relatively equal depending on what you want them to do in your army. There is no clear better choice at this point, at least until the meta-game of 8th is established. I will probably run spears because ranks are going to be super important so I will have enough to soak up some damage, and dish out a lot. Not to mention spears were decidedly better in 7th so my 40 saurus all have spears In short magnetize if your keen for it
Another bit of advice that seems applicable now... see which of the lores of magic appeals to you in terms of what you want on your Slann. The lore that you choose could very well influence what units you take in your army. If you are leaning towards Metal, then you would probably want spears, considering the killer buff in that lore that gives +1 to hit, armor piercing. That would be awesome damage with a spear unit. If you are going for Lore of Life, you will be looking at toughness, regen, and resurrecting models, so you might just go for HW+SH. If you want to be different and go for Lore of Beasts, you will want to take a few scar vets inside your units since most of those spells buff characters. The cool thing about 8th edition is lists will vary greatly depending on what lore you choose.