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8th Ed. 8th Edition Lizardmen Tactica

Discussion in 'Lizardmen & Saurian Ancients Tactics' started by n810, Nov 9, 2011.

  1. n810
    Slann

    n810 First Spawning

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    8th Edition Lizardmen Tactica
    Submitted by Bobhope99

    (From The Pyramid Vault Article Archives)

    Slann
    The big frog seems like a good place to start. In big games he will usually be several key parts of your army as the general, BSB, and main caster. The best lore that I have found for him is the lore of life, lizards have plenty of multi-wound monsters and our troops get great benefit from the buffs. Builds that I find useful for him are:
    Magic platform
    Focus of mystery, focused rumination, the becalming cogitation, cube of darkness, ironcurse icon, banner of eternal flame, BSB. This setup goes in a decent unit of temple guard and gives me a solid combat block plus domination of the magic phase, if using a lore other than life you can swap the cube for the cupped hands.

    Lone combat slann
    Mystery, rumination, scrutiny, higher state, fencers blades, helm of command, dispel scroll, BSB
    This setup works best with lore of beast. Not many people will expect your slann to be hitting like a greater deamon, and even without the buffs he can hold a block of troops in place forever.

    The cheaps
    rumination, plaque of tepok, bsb
    This build is for when you really need the points somewhere else but just cant pass on the slann.


    Oldblood
    A genuine combat superstar, the oldblood is really good at killing the enemy in all shapes and sizes. The real problem with this guy is that in eighth edition he just doesn't bring very much to the table. With a LD of only eight and no casting power, he doesnt do much to support the rest of your army and is usually a substandard choice compared to the slann. The only reason to bring him is if you just want to field another monster to beat on the other guy with and even without a carnasuar he is definitly a monster. I am not sure that there are any genuinly common builds for him since if you take him you will probably have something specific in mind for him.


    Scar-Veteran
    The smaller version of an oldblood, the scar-vet does not compete with the slann for the same points slot and so is taken more frequently though really the concept is the same. If you want to put a little combat monster in a unit to up its kill count, then the scar-vet is usually your best bet.


    Skink Priest
    The skink priest has two main uses in my armies as a way to bring an engine of the gods, and sometimes as a little extra magic defense in the form of a scroll caddy. With the engine he has the ability to kill heavily armoured elite units or to provide ranged combat protection for the rest of your army and is often underestimated in combat. The best build I have found for my engine is:
    Support skink
    engine of the gods, channeling staff, amulet of itzl
    This guy runs around next to my main combat blocks providing a wardsave agianst ranged attacks and then either flank charging or standing next to the enemy and burning them depending on what he is up agianst. The list of things that temple gaurd are not good at fighting gets a lot shorter when one of these is nearby.


    Skink Chief
    I will have to hear from the rest of you on the forum about good reasons to take this guy. The only way I would ever use him is on a stegadon of some kind with the warspear or the bsb.


    Saurus Warriors
    One of the best core infantry options in the game, it is hard to go wrong with saurus warriors. Find them something with low armour and watch the slaughter begin. They are also useful as anvil units with thier good toughness, LD and armour save they can hold many enemy heavy hitters long enough for your own face beatters to get in the fight and give a little back. With the help of a little buff magic there is not much that the suarus can not at least hold their own agianst, just watch out for a few bad matches for them. Large monsters with stenght six and several attacks are a good thing to stay away from with your expensive blocks, as these will kill your warriors in bunches.


    Skink Cohorts
    Our only "cheap" block choice, cohorts can either be used as small distaction units or with kroxigors to provide some fast moving hitting power on your flanks. These are a much better choice agianst most large monsters as skinks will die in droves agianst anything and your kroxigor have a decent chance of doing some damage back; just move up in the monsters way, stand and shoot when you get charged and hope your krox can bring it down or just plan on delaying it long enough that it will not matter anymore.


    Skink Skirmishers
    If you ask most lizardmen players "how do you deal with ..." they will probably answer "shoot it with skinks". These little guys are pure gold, fast, deadly and cheap, they really are a superior support unit. Skinks serve the same jobs for lizardmen that fast cav does for other armies, annoy and distract or weaking stronger units. Their best targets are: 1 high toughness monsters with no armour. 2 warmachines. 3 really expensive units. and since they are skirmishers with a 12 inch range if your skinks are ever not shooting at something then you are doing it wrong.


    Swarms
    They are a swarm, what more needs to be said.


    Chameleon Skinks
    Just about everything skinks can do these do better, with there scout and better balistic skill, they are some of the best warmachine hunters in the game. Some things to keep in mind however are that they are almost twice as expensive and still die like flies to combat or magic missles.


    Terradons
    In seventh edition these guys were a no brainer option, but the meta-game has rendered them without any real use. The days of small expensive units and close combat skirmishers gone and now that skinks are so good at killing the same targets as the terradons most people just don't use them very much. The one reason I can see to use our flyers is for their movment, charging things that are already fleeing, or parking behind things things to change their flee distance. This can be used to get enemy units off the board or your own units out of harms way.


    Kroxigors
    Krox are good, but usually better in skink units as a core choice. They have a high strenght but hit last with little armour so without the skinks to do the dying for them they tend to not be around to hit back. In or out of cohorts these are our cure for high armour and toughness, just don't forget that with weapon skill three they will not be killing any fully ranked units on their own.


    Temple Guard Saurus
    These guys should really just be used to guard your slann, they are not worth the points without the abilities that he provides them. They are even harder hitting than warriors and with stubborn and immune to psychology, with cold blooded rerollable LD9, they can be counted on to stick around and keep fighting even in the worst situations.


    Saurus Cavalry
    High strength, lots of attacks, and a good armour save, they are a good choice for cavalry. Get them in the flank of a unit that is fighting something else or use them to guard a flank and take out weak supporting units. Stupidity means that they are immune to pyschology and they do cause fear so those or some small advantages.


    Stegadon
    Another fast moving support unit, the steg is really good at making enemy blocks stay were you want them or keeping them from reforming in combat. Most opponents are really scared of any stegadon and will devote themselves to killing them. They tend to be mostly resistant to normal shooting, however it will bring them down eventually, usually saving the lives of countless skinks and suarus in the proccess. One point of intrest is that the giant bow might be one of the best options in the game for bringing down the ever-hated steam tank


    Ancient Stegadon
    Most of the same concepts apply as the nomral steg. The giant blowpipes do provide better shooting at about the same level as a unit of skinks and the higher strenght means that it can more reliable kill larger targets.


    Salamanders
    Eighth edition was a dream come true for these things, big blocks of infantry can be taken down to managable sizes in just a round or two with a unit of these. Nothing else will mess up a high elf players day quite like a few salamanders. They have become the auto include option of the army agian after terradons short lived rule in seventh. A lot of players forget that our running artillery can fight off the kinds of things that would hunt most warmachines and charging ranged units with them in the back turns is a good way to use them once the main units are all locked in combat.


    Razordons
    Kind of like salamanders less talented stepbrother, they are not a bad option in their own right, they just don't hold up next to salamanders for most things. The big exeption is agianst monsters and monsterous infantry they are a much better choice and as the game changes to include these better targets more, I can see people starting to really get some use out of one of our most overlooked units.
     
  2. strewart
    OldBlood

    strewart Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for posting. Thats a decent little overview of the army as it stands now.
     
  3. Avatar
    Skink

    Avatar New Member

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    Very handy little guide, especially to new players. The combat Slann was never something i'd ever considered. A couple of small bits I'd like to add:

    Slann - I personally find Light is considerably better if you fielding a lot of Saurus as the buffs negate pretty much all there weaknesses - Weapon Skill and Initiative

    Old Blood - I have found a build i always go with for my old blood on carnasaur is the +1s no armour save bade, with the 5+ ward... Eats steam tanks for breakfast.

    Skink priest - another common tactic is the feathered cloak, for both channeling for the slann and chain lightning if your lucky enough to get it.

    Saurus Cavalry - try giving them the +1 D6 to charge and casting the double movement spell from lore of light... there will be no-one they cant reach!


    hope these have helped, sorry for my lack of item/spell names. i can't remember them or bothered to find out :p
     
  4. Nuntius
    Jungle Swarm

    Nuntius New Member

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    Hi !
    I haven't played 8th edition yet, so i might be missing something out.
    But, how do you deal with warmachines now? Without Terradons (and according to what i'm understanding) both of the given options (Salamanders and Skinks) would deal with them, in case they do deal with them, on the last turns, when all the damage they could do is already done.

    Maybe killing them its not that important now, dunno.

    Thanks!
     
  5. ForgottenKnight2001
    Saurus

    ForgottenKnight2001 New Member

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    I've loved having a lore of light slann. It's for a more offensive play style for sure though. It's not the "block of you can't hurt me" temple guard, but the "you charge how far with how many attacks" style.

    Since the FAQ that made the steam tank T10, it takes a lot to kill it now. Granted, this guy has as good as a chance of anything w/ the negating armor save.

    I'm partial to the GW/VoFF/1+ Rerollable/4+ Wsv build or just putting GW/VoFF/Stubborn helm


    You definitely have to deal with warmachines. Especially Brett's trebuchet and cannons. They'll make your Steggies have a bad day. The main way to deal with them is Chameleon skinks. Scout them, get them in range of the machine and poison it to death. Otherwise, it's good to get in combat as fast as you can (light helps w/ this).
     
  6. Arli
    Skink Priest

    Arli Moderator Staff Member

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    ForgottenKnight is right. Chameleons have been improved by the changes to the scout rule in 8th edition. If you cannot get into your opponent's back field with them, just deploy them 12 inches in front of the target (if the target is on the line). As long as you are not within 12 inches of an enemy model, you can do this. March 12 and double tap. BS4 means that you still hit on 5s (if in short distance) or 6s.
     
  7. strewart
    OldBlood

    strewart Well-Known Member

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    Terradons are actually still useful and perfectly adequate warmachine hunters, they're just not as good as they used to be. They won't perform great every game, but they're not a completely useless choice.

    The other option, and far better in 8th, is charmeleon skinks. These guys can pump poison into a warmachine on turn 1 if you put them in the right place. Very good little unit to have around.
     
  8. Nuntius
    Jungle Swarm

    Nuntius New Member

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    Holy cow! I wasn't aware that cannons used the Armour Save of their crew now! So, if i'm getting this right, Imperial cannons no longer have any armour save?

    That would change my question to how many , and how big, units of Chamaleon skinks do you deploy?, haha
    Is a single unit of 5 enough?

    .... i never thought i would see the day when i poisoned a cannon to death....
     
  9. Arli
    Skink Priest

    Arli Moderator Staff Member

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    I like to take at least 2 units of 6 chameleons. In 3k+ games, I will take up to 30 chameleons. I love those guys! They are the reason I started with Lizardmen. I use them primarily to war machine hunt, but I have used them like skink skirmishers as well (redirecting, screening).
     
  10. eppe
    Kroxigor

    eppe Member

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    I've found 8 to be a good number. Since you have to deploy them +12" away you can either march to put them with in 6" and take that penalty or you can move them just inside 12" and take the max range penalty. With 8 I tend to get 3 wounds. They are easily my best unit for their cost in my army.
     
  11. ForgottenKnight2001
    Saurus

    ForgottenKnight2001 New Member

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    I never field fewer than 6 Chameleon Skinks in a unit.

    If I know i'm fighting Dark Elves, Dwarves, Empire, high elves or wood elves, I try to make sure there's at least 2 units of 8. Your opponent will learn quick that those things need to die and die quick.

    I rarely field them any bigger than 10s, they just start to get in each others way after that. I'll add another unit if I want any more than 10 or 20.
     
  12. Nuntius
    Jungle Swarm

    Nuntius New Member

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    I see. Wonderful ! I remember playing a lot with them back in 6th edition (dunno if they were actually good or not, but they were very very fun!) so I'm glad i'll be fielding them again soon ^^

    Now, regarding Skink Skirmishers; i read somewhere that they were no longer good for screening other units but after checking some of the rules i still don't get why would this be so [Keep in mind that I wont be able to read the full rulebook until next week, when my vacations start ^^].

    And, since i'm asking: in multiple places people seem to consider the Lore of Life our new favored lore, yet it also seem standard to build armies with big infantry blocks, instead of multi-wound monsters. Are all the other lores really sub-par to it? (like Fire and Metal)

    Thanks!
     
  13. strewart
    OldBlood

    strewart Well-Known Member

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    Screening is no longer effective since GW brought in true line of sight. If you can draw a line from your model to your target, you can shoot it. Woods are now useless for blocking LoS, so are skirmishers since they can be shot past. It does give the screened unit a cover save, but not that great.

    Lore of life is the best lore in general, defensive but good for LM. The second (or equal first maybe?) best is light, and I personally prefer light.
     
  14. Lord Tsunami
    Salamander

    Lord Tsunami Member

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    i would say screening is incredibly effective (against BS shooting) since it provides hard cover for the unit behind. either he shoots at skinks (with -1, and the prospect of killing a "useless" unit) or he hoots at stuff behind with -2 to hit. i call that a win-win situation :)

    ofc... it will not help against war machines or magic, but i dont really cry about that.


    ps. TLOS is the stupidest rule in 8th edition. we use a house rule where every unit in the game has a "unit hight". you can see (and be seen) over smaller stuff, but not larger. it is so much more convenient than having to crawl along the table checking "true line of sight". also, it removes the idiocy where awesomely converted models on big bases can be seen more easily than boring standard models.
     
  15. Ejpok
    Temple Guard

    Ejpok New Member

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    Hello,
    Since this Topic is back on top, i will throw in my 2$.
    Many of you say that the best lore for an offensive Slann is Light, I personally think it is the Opposite magic school, namely Shadow. The Debuffs can make your Saurus fight almost anything. You have an answer vs Tanks and Hydras (Pit of shades), you can have Skink Kohorts fighting with S6, not to mention the Steed of shadows +EotG Combo, too bad that you have to use the engine at the start of your magic phase, but it is still good. And last but not least, my personal fav, -D3T and Burn them with Salamanders:)
    Cheers,
    SS
     
  16. eppe
    Kroxigor

    eppe Member

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    We sort of do the same thing. We assume all forests are made of a solid wall of tree's so that you can hide behind them and we ignore unit height for standard models.

    As for Lores I really want Light to work for me but I just can't get it to function. I lose so many units before CC starts I never get the benefits of the combat buffs. Life keeps my units alive long enough to reach CC and it allows me to heal my Salamanders and Saurus.
     
  17. The Hunted
    Carnasaur

    The Hunted Active Member

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    The most important thing when reading stuff online, is that you should always do what you think is best/fits you best. Clearly, the Lore of Life is better suited to you than the Lore of Light. Even if everybody on this forum would say that the Lore of Light is waaay better (which, as you may or may not have noticed: is not what is being said here!), you should still use what you like!

    Use what you think is best/like the most.
    I like my armies with a lot of supporting units, that way I feel I can control the game. Other prefer a wall of Saurus, some like the skink chief-BSB...whatever!
    I simply cannot stress this enough :), but in my attempt to do so, I think I have succeeded.

    The Hunted
     
  18. thethingunderthebed
    Jungle Swarm

    thethingunderthebed New Member

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    Hey I'm looking for some good ideas on how to beat a ogre army I just started lizardmen so I really don't know therelittle tricks yet
     
  19. Arli
    Skink Priest

    Arli Moderator Staff Member

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    Poison shots are your friend! Skinks will ruin the Ogres day. The only Ogres that are immune to poison are the butchers, Firebellies, and slaughterers. As far as magic goes, in small games take a dispel scroll and the cube of darkness (you will need two priest for that). In large games, you can take those two priests and a slann with becalming cogitation to utterly destroy the Ogre magic phase.

    Hope this helps. I believe if you search the forum, you will find a recent topic on fighting Ogres.
     
  20. BloodyPanda
    Jungle Swarm

    BloodyPanda New Member

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    I just recently started playing lizardmen i switched over from orcs and goblins and damn i hated those little green skins after getting some shit for switching my armies me and my friends started playing now keeping in mind my limited experience i have found that an old blood with the sword of realities if you can spare the points after a slann is absolutely devestating and can take out almost anything if you back it with a few saurus
    second in higher point games i have put the hero oxyotl into my chameleon skinks because he gets an extra attack and has a higher leader ship
    lastly what is the best way for the lizards to square off against chariots because in every game ive played im obliterated by them

    Any help is welcomed
     

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