Just frustrated cause LM was not my first choice, not GW staff said that i would not like that army (O&G) and i'd like LM more as the troops are tougher and hit harder. and I was all like, 'sweet, hard hitting dinos, i'm game'. Yet again i was lured in by GW sales pitches. Hmm...wonder if i can argue my case against them? I highly doubt it, but now, do i throw more money at the lizards? start a new army (but now i know more about the game, really, none of the armies play how 'I' like to play in fantasy games) or give up and go back to 40k?
Well, fast core with archers (on foot and mounted) with a super tough (high toughness and good saves) Elite units.
super high toughness elite troops: warriors of chaos. but you wont find to much shooting here. but at least you played against them, you know how hard they hit,and how hard they are killed. because of their high resilience, they are easily played, they tolerate the mistakes more.
True, but i like my ranged units, archers and mounted archers, and a core of fast lightly armoured cheap but still hard hitting troops. Thats how i play in Total war and other games similar. Maybe orks was my calling?
High Elves, probably. Good archers, and their Phoenix guard has a natural 4+ ward save. Otherwise, heavy cav Empire or bretonnia is probably a decent choice. Both have good shooting, and their mounts are fast as hell, and being heavy cavalry, they easily possess a 3+ or better armour save. Otherwise, Ogres are good as well, with powerful shooting, and fast units (Most have M6 or better, even your standard ogres) but they only have T4, and worse armour than our lizards... they do have impact hits baseline though, which means getting a charge ensures you get some free hits at a decent amount of strength before anyone even thinks about attacking. Overall though, O&Gs aren't what you are looking for when you said you dislike our low leadership (In which case, go dwarf, because NO ONE outside of straight up unbreakable units have better leadership than we do) or durability, because our Saurus are equal, or tougher, than the standard Orks. They are also even more unreliable than pretty much anything else in the game, because of their Animosity rule. I think your main problem is that you are looking for an army that has really powerful shooting, can stand up to anything in CC, and still be quick, both in combat and with movement. This limits it to elves, which are too squishy to really fit the bill anyway.
Problem with high elves is GW don't do the mounted archers anymore, but have then in the book (Lame). And i'm horrible at converting and/or modeling.
There are some fast cavaly from core, but dont expect some hungarian or hun style horse archers. ballistic skill based archery is not so effective. most of the ranged weapons have s3, wich is ineffective against anything with medium armor. expect 1-2 wounds at best from 20 shots from elves. maybe dark elves with repeater bows are better. but no very effective horseman archers in the game. something realative near your expectation is the ancient steg, but you didnt try out that one.
Sorry to say, but that won't really be possible. In terms of shooting the obvious answer would be the elves, but they don't have neither high toughness nor good saves (except phoenix guards ofc). I can see how you stumpled upon LM since we have both good ranged units (skinks) and good tough armoured elite units (templeguards with T4/3+ armour). An alternative solution is Dwarfs/Chaos Dwarfs, but they're certainly not fast at all. As someone mentioned the middle of the road would be The Empire. Various kinds of shooting, but on foot and mounted along with various kinds of heavily armoured units. Although they are still squishy with their flimsy T3. I actually think Bretonnia have both mounted and infantry ranged models as well.
I think the bottom line is that, as it is, Lizardmen is a pretty average army, that can certainly stand up to most other armies - but this requires a certain level of skill, and mistakes are punished way harder than certain other armies (Like WoC). However, you will not find an army that excels at shooting, CC and movement to the point where you can shoot down Chaos Warriors (this will not happen outside of wood elves) and then beat them down once you hit CC. This fabled army would be hillariously broken and overpowered. Chaos Dwarves are probably the closest choice, in terms of shooting WoC to death, while still being incredibly strong in CC, but do note that Chaos Dwarves is a Forgeworld army, which makes them very expensive, even by Warhammer standards.
let get it over once more: skinks: best shooters in game! they are almost as quick as fast cavalry shooters,but, at the price of 1 horse archer, you get not 1, but at least 6 shots. from these 6 shots, 1 is a poison on average, and thats a wound before saves. your horsman might have 1-3 higher movement, but does 0,25 wounds... these fast cavs tend to be 5 man strong, a little salvo and they are done. 10 skinks vs 5 horse archers-->big win for skinsk. saurus characters: one of the toughest characters in game, while they deal a shitload death. use them well, and they win you the game. slanns: one of the best and most versatile mages of the game. they have lots of wounds with built in !!! ward saves, wich means you can field 3 4+ ward save chars from the lord slot. only woc can beat it monsters: ancient steg is one of the strongest monsters in the entire game. everyone fears its impact hits, so theyll try to avoid it, but hey, here comes the big deal: 4d6 shots to 18". poisoned! t6 w5 s6, awesome. carno with s7 multiwound d3? man, learn how to use them... then enjoy the bloodbath. if you mix these things correctly, youll be able to take down anything. clumsy sauruses wont win you any matches, even if you field 120 at the same time. take our best units to field, not the weaker ones. if you dont have the models, borrow some. trust me, after you had your first round of combat with a well kitted old blood, or after a shooting phase with 50-90 skinsk... youll fall in love asap. we are the 2nd most mobile army, we pick our fights. choose wisely were to get into cc, and let the other things be shot down by poisoned darts.
Well, i'm told it's a game of random luck and dice rolls, but it's not. I can call the my slann with do one of two things, 1. fail to case the most simple of spells and loss concentration (needs a roll of 2, i roll 2 die, gets double 1) or he will Miscast and blow himself up and everyone around him. Same story with skinks and saurus, Saurus are being overrun by dwarfs and skinks just die when anyone so much as looks at them. My flyers? Well, past 4 games they have fails panic tests (even with the Slann LD and re roll) and just run off the board. Last game i played, 3/4 of my army ran off the bored cause of one panic test and what was left with some (stand in) chameleon skinks and a priest. On paper i see saurus as killing machines but on the board, they are paper and wimps. Had a skink chief with a 2+ armour save, has never made a save in 5 games. Not had a single game where my slann has not miscast (if he doesn't and is not dead in that case he has not got a single spell off). Saurus warriors get charged by anything and half die, other half fail to hit anything and just run away. What is this? F**King GW staff say that i can't cast spells from inside the temple guard as the unit blocks line of sight as the slann no longer has large target. This is after they convince me to get one as they are 'super' broken and unstoppable. The whole army book feels flawed and lacks any hard hitting units like the demon prince or vampire lord.
Sounds like you have had really bad luck on your side. Although I have to admit that dwarves are nowhere near the easiest opponent for the lizardmen. Their organ guns and gyrocopters just murder the skinks and the runes will just nullify the magic phase if you won't roll IF's, which then ends up blowing up your army. Unfortunately saurus are paper and wimps also on paper. Granted they have S4/T4/A2 but the WS3 is what makes them so weak. They are easy to hit and they miss atleast half of their attacks. I think that their price and stat line has been almost similar from the 6th ed book onwards while other armies/units have had some modifications. I read somewhere that the guy who wrote the latest AB was a bit inexperienced and that's what might have lead to the fact that the 7th ed and 8th ed books are almost just copies from eachother as he didn't have courage to make any bigger changes. I could be wrong in this though. That's plain stegadon dong. As per rules as written in the rulebook you follow the true line of sight. Meaning that it is determined from the slanns own eyes what it can see and cannot. And since he is floating with his palaquin he can clearly see over the heads of temple guard. This rule is really abstract and should have never been introduced to the game but that is conversation to another topic. (Also only magic missiles require the slann actually to see the target...) That's because we don't have anything like the deamon prince or vampire lord. Don't get me wrong the saurus characters are really strong on their own and can usually stand toe to toe with these guys but they will struggle against bigger units. I believe it was said earlier in this topic that lizardmen have quite steep learning curve and you need rather lot practice with this army to know what will work in certain situations and what will not. I do understand the frustration as I just went through the same with my beastmen a while ago. I still feel that I have not yet achieved enough experience with them to play them well enough to compete with tougher builds. BR Agrem
This thread has some pretty useful information here. I'm commonly finding myself getting wiped out by Warriors of Chaos as well when I face my friend that plays them. It's either Warriors or Wood Elves in my group of friends. Two of them have Tomb Kings and The Empire but they never seem to want to play, and another two have Skaven and Ogres, but absolutely no desire to build their models lol.
I read through all of this and it seems like you might be having a bit of trouble because your opponents aren't understanding some basic rules. Bloodcrushers reforming and then over-running, LOS issues...You might need to sit down with the book and really read it so people can't do things like this. No game is fun when someone just tables you, especially when they're misinterpreting the rules.
I've got a list I'll be trying out that will run two units of 12 Skink Skirmishers (Jav & Shields) and two units of 12 Chameleon Skinks. Think that shooting and kiting can give me some much needed diversion/distraction to let my Slann and two Lv 2 Skink Priests with Lore of Heavens do their work?