8th Ed. Chakax, worth it or not?

I was thinking of picking up a chakax and I was wondering, is he worth his points?

 

Any named heroes in our book that are worth it? (tetto'eko looks decent)

 

I subbed for another Lizard player at a tourney once, and he had Kroak in his list, I faced Vampires, got him within 6" of 30 grave guard and 80 ghouls and did his points back by getting off the 6" bubble 10 times, killed all the grave guard and 70 some ghouls, ( this is likely rate, I know)

 

My opinion? No. Back in 7th he may have been when in a challenge he always beat his opponent over the head first, no exceptions. Now that he just swings with them (usually), any model of equal or greater points is probably going to knock his head off as well, and it is worse if they've got I4+ and ASF. And against models cheaper than him, you're fine using other characters. You might as well just get a vanilla Scar-Vet and 10 more TG.
He does have other fun rules though. Shutting down enemy magic weapons, and still having an actual special weapon that is also magic (something they've been phasing out for a while) is pretty good. So if you are just playing for fun and/or really like the model, I'd pick him up anyway.

 

In challenges he gains always strikes first, and his opponent always strikes last right?

 

No, it used to basically be that only a little better, and has actually been nerfed in 8th.
From his entry rules, he always strikes before his opponent (this does not mean that he gains ASF, nor do they gain ASL). A thing to remember is that ASF didn't have the "kung-fu fighting" rerolls to hit in 7th. The 7th LM FAQ specified that he would always attack before his challenge did.
However, our 8th FAQ errata'd the entire special rule to only granting his challenge ASL. So both he and his opponent have ASL, and if they have ASF too (such as HEs) they are attacking first.

 

Well that's just a total joke, he's squishy enough to die almost every combat if he doesn't hit first, also not sure if this is true but a 20year fantasy vet from my store told me lizards are a big joke to GW (Character names a prime example of this, I mean really? Tik tac toe? Come on)

 

I mean, he is a pretty tough cookie at t5 4+/5++ in a challenge. The problem is that we can field combat Lords for less points, because you are also paying to make a unit of Temple Guard a literal anvil, smoking out assassin characters (or maybe magic items? I forget), as well as making both him and the the Slann untouchable from templates. Which comes back to my original post, anything close to or more than his points cost (in some cases far less) is going to smack him to pieces, making him a one-trick pony, and anything significantly less is easily dealt with by our vanilla characters.
I don't think that GW thinks LM are a joke, from what I've heard they've had consistently solid books throughout the editions, the problem lies in the Special Characters. They were pricey in 7th, and with the many changes with 8th, are down right handicaps (whoo, Kroq-Gar doubles his combat res, which doesn't matter with Steadfast!). Just compare Kroq-Gar to Archeon. For 50 point more, you get a combat character arguably 100+points better than our oldest Old Blood, who is also a wizard.
As for the names, well, I'm on the fence. I don't mind some of the silly ones (Itzi Bitzi, and Rogue Trader had a Pina Co'Lada), or the Transformers references. Just the devs having a bit of fun, nothing wrong with it as long as the rules stand up.
But this stuff won't get fixed till the next book, which I'm also on the fence about, because VotFF and the Piranha Blade are probably going to be dropped.
But this post just got way too long and slightly off topic. To sum it up, Chakax has decent rules and a great model, but he costs too much in general to be efficient in competitive play.

 

Thank you ; D