Hi all, Im a newbie to Lizardmen but been a warhammer player for many years. I recently began a lizardmen army as part of my LGS's Tale of Many Gamers and I initially was going with Saurus and TG etc but Ive kinda fallen in love with the little dudes. So, my question is...is it viable to do a completely skink army? What I have currently is: Slaan Tett'ekko 2 Skink Priests 50 Skink skirmishers 40 Skink cohot with 4 Krox 3 Salamander Hunting Packs 3 Terradons 1 Engine of the Gods So, this is not a list query, by the way, but is it viable to run a LM list without the usual bigger guys? My style of play is for fun with a fluffy, or scaly in this case, list. My concerns would be what to do with the Slaan, if I took one.......hmmmmmmmmm Many thanks
I think an army built around Tetto is interesting and can be effective. but only wiith an army with more LD and tougher than a skink based army. Tetto in the second rank of a skink cohort horde with Krox on either side is an interesting option. However, the problem with such an army is two-fold. First, there is a lack of leadership across the army. Krox at LD7 have the highest LD and Tetto, skink chiefs, and skink priests are are at LD6. LD5 skinks with cold blooded have only slightly better than a 50% chance of passing terror, fear and panic checks (slightly worse than units with LD7 but not cold blooded). LD6 cold blooded leadership is slioghtly inferior to normal LD8. Worse yet, you do not have a way to boost LD with a magic banner such as standard of discipline or otherwise without a TG unit or a Slann. Without greater LD and a BSB, the army risks a set of cascading panic checks as skinks flee through other units and have diffiiculty rallying or are destroyed near other units. For this reason, I really feel that you need an oldblood in the army as the general or the Slann. Second, even with poison, skinks have trouble wounding high AS models in general and high T models in combat. Having Krox with the skink cohort helps that one unit both in terms of improved LD and in hitting power, but it not enough. Thus, if you run this army you need the two skink priests to be able to cast with lore of beasts to boost S and T. Form a magic phase perspective, Tetto with two skink priests, one with the cube and the other with a scroll, is pretty formidable but you are really vulnerable to LD tests and shooting and close combat phases. The Slann will compete with Tetto and skink priests in such an army for magic dice and the Slann has little ability to hide given its slower movement and footprint within skink units causing it to be placed on one side or the other of the unit, if it is in a unit. You could run a "ghost Slann" (essentially ethereal but unstable and unable to join units) but your skink units will not likely be very effective in holding up stuff trying to get at the Slann. That means maxing out the Slann with a war banner and the healing discipline and other stuff and either leaving Tetto at home or dropping the skink priests. One solution if you are able to run special characters is to run the Slann model as Lord Kroak. Lord Kroak is LD 9, unbreakable, has a more limited miscast risk (suffers one S6 wound and loses D6 dice on a 2+), and has a 3+ ward save and 6 wounds with T5. Notice that a character that is not unbreakable cannot join a unit that is unbreakable but the reverse is not true (p. 78 of BRB). Also, Lord Kroak makes the TG unit he is with unbreakable. Your could run Lord Kroak initially in a skink cohort or skirmisher unit if there is a lot of shooting and magic threatening him or solo screened by a unit with Tetto. His ability to cast his one spell through a skink priest makes him quite effective. He is still best used in a TG unit or reasonable size to exploit his unbreakable special rule and -1 to hit his unit with shooting and in combat special rule augment (which are quite significant for TG). Since skinks are cheap, at normal 2400 to 2500 point battles you have room to address the issues by adding an oldblood general (possibly with in cold one rider unit with a saurus BSB or saurus cowboy models to run out of this unit) and scar vet models for combat ability and improved LD or a TG unit for the Slann. or Lord Kroak 1. The advantage of the cold one rider unit is that you gain cold one armour saves (+2 AS) for the characters in the unit and it is a lot cheaper in $$$ to buy and can also keep up with the skink, Krox and steg units. However, an oldblood on the corner of a skrox unit with Tetto really can change the nature of the unit and an oldbood and sknink cheif or scar vets can run in skimish units run behind the main line of units. 2. While I like the oldblood on carnosaur for the improved range and hitting power, it is awfully risky in 8th edition (even with Tetto giving the unit a vanguard move to get it closer and reduce the rounds of shooting and magic targetting it) with war machines and magic (pit of shades and purple sun being issues for this model) able to take out the oldblood on top or the carnosaur on the bottom too easily. 3. You could consider running Tetto in a narrower skink cohort six wide with two Krox, one on each side of Tetto, and having the unit very deep to keep potentially steadfast and resilient and run the other two Krox in smaller skink chort units of ten models each to spread out the LD of the Krox and give you some flanking and hitting power in smaller skink cohort unit. I understand what GW was trying to do conceptually by nerfing skink cohort and skirmisher leadership across the board (given skink priests were at LD6), but at least skink chiefs should have remained at LD7 or even gone to LD8 sufficient to make the army a fast skink army possibly with monsters (stegs, carnosaurs, cold one riders, Krox). It is not like skink cloud armies were winning tournaments and overwhelming ohter armies (especially without a "ghost Slann", which is now partially nerfed by makiing the ehtereal slann unstable). While such armies can be frustrating for some to play against, it was only because they employed shoot and run tactics, which are legitimate tactics in WHFB (fast cav having feigned flight). I always found playing against such armies an interesting alternative to the horder/march across the battlefield armies. The -1 to LD really hurts the effectiveness of a skink army and forces you to splash saurus leadership units into the army in order to improve the resiilency. However, unless mounted, saurus leadership slows down the army (M4). This goes against the stated objective in the 8th edition army books of making each army have multiple competitive comceptual builds with opportunities to win.