Hello, i'm new to the game and the forums and my gaming group is doing a warbands campaign, but we are only following the rules for smaller unit sizes and limited points for heroes (we raised the points for heroes from 150 to 250 for the campaign). But the campaign is going from 500-750. so here is my army any critiques or sugjestions on army growth is appreciated. Talaz-Gar Saurus Scar-veteran Light Armour, Shield Burning Blade of Chotec -113 Saurus Warriors x14, Spears - 168 Skink Skirmishers x14 (divided into two units of 7) Javalins -112 Cold One Cavalry x3 -105 Total 498 I was planning on taking a skink priest with the Diadem of Power as magic defence Oh yes, the armies currently signed up are Dark Elves, Empire, Vampire Counts, Orge Kingdoms(dwarfs if he gets enough money by the time it starts), Three Warrior of chaos armies (one heavy maurader, one heavy knights, and the other is mixed.) Woodelves, an Orc/Goblin army and another Lizardmen army, but so far the only one who is planning on taking any magic are the vampire counts.
Really? The javalins seem much more reliable, on an average turn blowpipes will probably be hitting 5's or 6's unless I missed a special rule for them :X. Should i possibly switch out the Burning blade for one of the common magic items as well then?
I'll answer your question prior to offering my comments on your warband list. Skink Javelins vs. Skink blowpipes: To-hit: Both weapons suffer from the same penalties and are based on the users BS. You will generate an equal number of hits from either weapon. To-wound: Both weapons fire at the same strength, blowpipes (str3 from rules), javelins are "As user". A skink is strength 3 so both wound with a str3 hit. Both weapons wound with the same strength. Poison: Skinks benefit from the jungle poisons rule wether they use javelins or blowpipes. No advantage to either weapon here, but a nice advantage to skinks overall. Range: This is where the blowpipe starts to pull away from the javelin. Range on a javelin is 8" as compared to the 12" on a blowpipe. You will have more viable targets with blowpipes from any relative position as compared to javelins, which will require your skinks to get closer to the enemy before firing. Shots: The single biggest reason that the blowpipe wins. With a javelin, you throw it and it's gone. You have to wait until your next shooting phase to take another shot. With blowpipes, you may elect to fire 2 darts in one round at an additional +1 to-hit penalty. This almost doubles the amount of hits you have. Big advantage to a blowpipe. The blowpipe has huge advantages in the range and number of shots. While you may prefer javelins for one reason or another, when you really weigh the weapons side by side, the blowpipe will come out on top every time. On to the list..... Before I make any comments I'll preface what I'm going to say with a few words. Firstly, the greater percentage of my warhammer experience has come from warband games. I've greatly enjoyed this because the games play a little faster and it allows for members who don't have time to paint a lot (such as myself) to get in the action with a fully painted warband. I've spent over two years playing primarily warband games with a few larger games here and there. I've used a lot of different lists and have a decent idea of what works and what doesn't. Here are my thoughts. Firstly, I am assuming that you are using the warband rules established by GW for your games as your list indicates that you are at least using a few of those rules (units of 7 skinks). Lizardmen are a fairly elite army by any standard and while we don't have the most elite troops, there are many armies who will consistantly field more models than you will. Be that as it may, you will want to make the models you DO field count. I've found that the more troops I have on the board, the better my chances of winning at the smaller points level. I will comment as such, and tailor my comments for the 500pt list you have. At 600pts you become subject to normal rules, which limits your choices significantly in army construction. I'l talk about that at the end. 1) Remove the Scar-Veteran. There will be folks who will disagree with this, but I strongly recommend removing him from the list all together. You are putting 20%+ of your list into a single 2 wound model. I am not denying that he is a killing machine, but even a mighty scar-vet (who will be able to go toe to toe with anyone elses general) won't be able to stand up to a big unit of infantry by himself, and cause enough wounds to equal out the combat resolution scales, let alone win. In warband games, you don't gain extra points for killing the general. Use those rules and make a sarus unit champion your general. You won't loose leadership, and you'll gain a lot of points to spend in core troops that will ultimately tip the scales for you. Add, more rank/file sarus, another unit of skinks, terradons, kroxigors or something else. In smaller games you can get away without having a point wasting character on the table. Each point counts and I am telling you that your value per point is best spent in another core/special choice. If anyone disagrees with this, I'd like to know how many successfull warband games you've played and what your list was. 2) Add skink skirmishers. Add more skirmishing skinks carrying blowpipes. These little guys are great if you know how to use them. I suggest units of 5-6, no more. The reason for this is that you effectively field more units. You can spread them out to keep your opponent on his toes or your can put them near one another to focus fire darts on a specific target. A very important point is that people will always underestimate your skinks. At least, until they come up big with a kill or a lucky panic check throwing a monkey wrench into your opponents plans. They are great for march blocking, distracting troops you don't want your sarus to deal with right away and of course shooting the enemy to death. Set them up to fire on low armored targets with blowpipes or flee from charges where they will be within range of your generals cold blooded 8 for rally checks. This will most likely set up charges for your sarus or cavalry. Put some stock in these guys and keep your opponent guessing where they'll go or show up. 3) Full command on your sarus blocks. With larger warband games, you will see other midsize to large units of infantry depending on how elite they are. Your sarus can beat just about anything in any of the armies you mentioned, if they bring some static combat resolution with them (standard/musician) and the champion should end up being your general. The only troops you'll have trouble with are ones that can out maneuver you (think elves), or out fight you. The only danger that your sarus will need help with will be chaos warrior units. If you increase the size of the sarus block to 17-20 you'll rack up some rank bonus, plus the standard. Odds are, you'll have numbers with a unit that big and so you'll stack the odds of winning in your favor despite the chaos warriors ridiculous armor save and combat prowress. Other infantry units will crumble before you unless they get a support unit in on your flank. Be very carefull with how you handle the chaos warrior units and make sure you bring some help on the flank to break them and they'll go down fast. The main point that I am trying to make is to beef up the size of this unit, give it some SCR. There will be very very few troop types, as elite as sarus that get fielded in that large of a unit size at this points level. 4) Kroxigors are your friend. These guys are great for smaller games. I particularly enjoy fielding units of two. You could essentially swap your scar-vet for a unit of two of these guys, giving you +4 wounds and 6x str6 attacks in a faster, more mobile package that causes fear. These are the perfect weapon for supporting your sarus block on one side as they can really dig into the flank of a chaos warrior unit while you're fighting with sarus at the front, cause a few extra wounds and carry the day for a dangerous situation that your sarus are most likely to be in when they fight CWs. They're also great for taking on small to mid sized units of infantry themselves in a direct charge. They've got three wounds each so they take a bit to kill. Don't forget about the fear, especially with low leadership armies. Overall, I like your choice in including the Cold one Cavalry. Another fear causing unit that can take beating and keep going (provided they don't get stupid, duh!?). The mobility and speed can be used to protect your sarus' meaty flanks and they can also take a flank with 3 alive (another great unit to slam into that unit of chaos warriors you may be struggling with). I've also had great success with terradons, although they've recently dropped out of my list in my current warbands campaign i'm participating in. I just found that despite their points reduction, they weren't doing what I wanted them to. They're great for larger games, but I'm not liking the 7th edition incarnation of their rules for smaller games and they seem to be more of a liability than not at this level. Someone may suggest to make your general a cold one champion. This is bad idea. People seem to not like cold ones and will point their guns in that direction first (over your sarus blocks even), and rightly so. Keep your general alive in the big block of sarus so you can keep your skinks rallying and coming back for more. So, what changes @ 600pts? Well, all things considered, armies get a little tougher when bridging the gap between 500-600. You have to pick up a character to be the general and just flush the points. The good thing is that everyone else has to as well so it's not as big of an issue. The downsides are that the minimum unit sizes for normal troops go up from 3 (2 for cav) to what ever they say in the rule book. No more mobile expendable units of 5 skinks each. Also, you probably won't be able to field a legal unit of Kroxigor and Cold one cav without taking a significant amount of points out of your block of sarus, which I wouldn't recommend. Also skink units at 10 a piece get a little tougher to maneuver and you have to really think more carefully about 'throwing away' a 70 point unit to set up a charge for something. Hope that this helps, and best of luck in your defense of the Old Ones, may Sotek guide your path.
skink javelins do NOT get the same panelty's as the blowpipes ( not for moving an shooting nor long range )