Slann
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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.
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.
