8th Ed. is Toughness devalued?

Whenever I talk lizardmen pros and cons compared to other armies I always get the "your Saurus have toughness 4" line thrown at me as if it makes up for all flaws concerning Lizzies and close combat.

I put my money down on this statement:
"Lizardmen troops cant compete in close combat, as T4 does not hold up in a S5+ saturated environment"

Saurus combat abilities sits with their T4 S4 A2 statline
(I keep leadership and cold blood out of it as we are talking WINNING combat)

This is good on paper compared to other infantry, and paired with a 4+ (3+ for Temple Guards) it has great effect when taking S3 and S4 shooting.

This means our troops are resilient on their way to the fight, and so far the points are well spend, but this is where it breaks, at least in my meta.

When I go to a tournament (ETC environment) I rarely meet infantry/ cc units with lower than S5 which isn't tarpits, and usually that infantry has bigger WS and Close combat oriented abilities.
This means that Saurus, Templeguard and kroxes T4 means very little on the outcome of the battle, and even though a 6+ armor save is better than no armor save (as when the enemy elite infantry is S6) , I find it very rarely does a difference.

I almost always find myself along these lines.

against S5 infantry
we usually have more attacks
we strike last
we hit worse than them
we wound equally well as them
we usually end up with the same armor save
our combat special rules loses in efficiency against their combat special rules
we take more wounds than them
we lose combat by a few

while this is acceptable and can be swayed in a grind due to coldblooded, I would hardly call T4 a balancing factor.

this is when our "core meets their core" in my meta. T4 does its thing and is somewhat worth the points we pay for it.
all in all acceptable.

Here is how "our elites meets their elites/ some core"

We usually have the same amount of attacks
we strike first due to them USUALLY having greatweapons, unless they are elves
we hit worse than them
We wound equally or worse than them (T4 is out of effect but we still pay for it)
We usually end up with worse armour/ward save
our combat special rules loses in efficiency against their combat special rules
we take more wounds than them
we lose combat by a lot

This leaves us paying for a statline that does not have an effect, and to me it seems like other armies get more for that one point of toughness, as T4 is just exactly just enought to be nullfied by the big amount of High strength attacks our there.
pair this with our inability to get greatweapons on infantry and get the most out of our low initiative and all of a sudden we come out quite awkward for a combat-bred race.


Please note I do know that T4 is useful in many more aspects than close combat, and that other races envy us for it. I just like to point out that they overvalue it, and I am a little uneasy by the thought that Games Workshop does the same.

What are your thoughts on the matter?
Does T4 come into play a lot in your meta?
I would really like to hear the point of view from some one with elven armies where the T3 really shows.

 

I agree with in practice.

What are saurus good against?

S3/T3 models, which are nominally common.
BS shooting, which are also nominally common.

The problem?

Both of those choices are inefficient. BS shooting is terrible and s3/t3 units are still overcosted for what they do. M4 tarpits do not win games.

Why are skaven successful? Cost and you can shoot the melee. But look how common skink, ungor, skeleton, spearmam, etc are. They aren't.

So what saurus are good at are never used in this rule set and they can't compete with our Ws.

 

I agree with the OP. T4 is quickly becoming irrelevant to the point that it is no longer a significant advantage over T3. If it comes to lots of T3 (or worse) or a few T4, the former is preferable. When Toughness counts is when you are taking lots of damage; if you are taking lots of damage then you want to retain Steadfast longer, therefore you need more models.

S4 has already gone the same way. Unless you can bring it in bulk (Stormvermin) and buff it (ie Halberdier State hordes with Warrior Priests and Hurricanums) or it has additional benefits like Poison (Plaguebearers, Ghouls), or they are Phoenix Guard, you just don't see it anymore. See: Blackguard.

As a Dark Elf player, Toughness 3 doesn't phase me in the slightest. For the same reasoning as above, it only matters if I'm being hit. Through ASF, high Initiative, good Weapon Skill and either volume of attacks or high Strength, I can usually ensure that I inflict such significant amounts of damage - if not wipe the enemy out entirely - that any attacks back are inconsequential. In fact, the entire Elven strategy of all three books revolves around forcing the right combats where this occurs.

Theoretically, Saurus should be the other extreme: tanks instead of glass cannons. You maneuver them into combats where they will be resilient enough to tank out the damage, and then any Saurus who survive dish it out in kind. But I've been saying for a while now that T4/4+/6++ just isn't resilient enough anymore, and WS3 S4 A2 simply isn't offensive enough, either. Temple Guard just about scrape by on account of their WS4 S5 magic banner.

 

thanks for the confirmation GCPD.
You just backed up my thoughts on the subject, nice to hear it in elven words

I will like to get something out of the way:

I realise that Wyssans work better on saurus than on toughness 3 troops simply cause it means they get to T5...but that really just proves my point that T4 is just EXACTLY not enough to make the reliable difference.

 

It's not just the toughness.

If I could swap saurus out for another core choice, and keep everything else in the lizard book the same, I'd take Long Beards.
+1 S on the charge, +1 parry to the front. 4+ armor. WS5. S4. Init 2. Immune to Psych. Magic Banner. 1 in 3 chance of hatred against any enemy army, and auto hate vs skaven and O&G. Bubble of re-roll panic tests.
Sadly, Long Beards are exactly what the Saurus fluff says saurus should be.

 

Lizardmen fluff tends to sugarcoat the truth :/

I would either go for beards or chaos warriors
Drop their initiative to lizard level
(this is actually bullflowers ..as reptile brains reaction time is close to a 1000 times faster than mammals)
Drop weaponskill 1 point
Give them cold blood and change marks to spawnings.

If they really want saurus or lizardmen in general to be cc oriented
They should either re-arrange the way toughness works or make scaly skin an armour type that is immune to modifiers.

"...I see your great weapons falls short before my skinks impressive 6+ save! "
Its not even op when you think of daemons having wardsaves across the board.


...but back on topic..I cant stop wishlisting that next edition will shed new light on our otherwise fragile lizards.

 

I hope more people bandwagon onto the wood elves.
It's the army saurus like!
T3, S3, with lots of S3 shooting.
Holy Crap Batman, it's what were good at killing, and good at surviving.

-Matt

 

Now I've only just read your OP Phatmotha, no replies so forgive me if I might repeat something. I think you are right to some degree about the saturation part. Now my opinion is that saurus benefit (a little) more from magic buffs than most other core (excluding WoC etc). I'm at work so I can't give you a full blown breakdown but just take the most common example, wyssans, it makes men/elves S4T4 but that really don't make that much of a difference. Now S5T5 you get something very different. Then again if you don't care too much for magic it's a bit unfair. That also goes for saurus not being able to take magic standard and PF drawback when most of the other races (more or less) army wide rules came without drawbacks (martial prowess, murderous prowess, that dwarf thing etc)

Sorry for any inconsistent wording etc I'm on my cell.

/Sebbs

 

Waaaaay back in the day, this is exactly how Scaly Skin used to work: it could never be modified to be worse than 6+. Skinks and Saurus everywhere had a 6++ ward.

Edit: There's a very simple fix as far as I'm concerned - cap all non-character armour saves at 2+. Bam! Suddenly Strength 4 is relevant again, and because Strength 4 is relevant, it isn't as important to get as much Strength 5 or higher, and because there isn't as much Strength 5 or higher then Toughness 4 isn't as devalued.

Although, with all their armour-ignoring shenanigans, Wood Elves might have started this trend anyway. I'm hopeful, but we'll see.

 

Why would anyone go for S4 attacks when S5 just got even more useful?

 

Well, exactly.

Cap armour saves at 2+ and Strengths 5 and higher become even better at punching through them (as well as Strength 4).

"Crap!" people will say, "all my expensive low model count 1+ units aren't nearly as resilient as before! Hmmm... Maybe I'll scale back on a few and start bringing cheaper high model count units instead to soak up all of that damage."

"Hey look!" everyone else will say, "I'm not seeing nearly as much armour anymore, but there are a lot more bigger units of lesser quality troops showing up. I should scale back on all these low attack high Strength models that aren't any good against them because they have too many models/low Toughness/no armour, and start bringing units that can fight those things instead. My S4 stuff is good enough against 2+ armour anyway that I don't need so much high Strength to deal with it."

Ergo, S4/T4 is meaningful again. And if the above sounds familiar to you, its because its what the start of 8th was like before Demigryphs and Warriors of Chaos came along.

 

The "magic is unreliable" aspect is true for all S3/T3 armies as well. However there's plenty more spells that you can buff them with or debuff their opponents.

Slann did take a beating and isn't as ridiculously powerful like back in 7th, but he's still better than most other spell casters (the decline which I believe is fluff related?).
For example a Supreme Sorceress, lvl 4, 4++ is 265 points. The trade off for 5 wounds and the ability to tailor him is well worth the extra points imo. Although a "Book of Hoeth"-discipline to re-roll ones would have made a good consolation prize for losing the Rumination dice.

Don't forget about free spears!

 

Yeah, GW totally missed the boat with the engine of the gods, bastiladon and troglodon.
We got 3 buff wagons, and they all suck at buffing.
6+ ward with no other buff isn't enough, +1 init isn't enough, predatory fighter once on a 5+ isn't enough.
We're an army where T4 doesn't cut it, all our buff wagons fall short of those of other races, and we're left depending on magic to boost T4 infantry to usefull.

I think the real problem with saurus is that across the whole game 10-12 point fighting models just aren't that good, with few exceptions. We're better off playing one extreme, then middle of the road.
I mean, would you rather have a combat unit that performs some of the time, or a shooting unit that performs all of the time?

Want to make Saurus Viable? Swap predatory fighter for this: Rending. On a roll of 6 to hit, no armor save is allowed. Not as good as killing blow, but it lets saurus do something poison darts don't do. Kill armor.

 

=> Because for TK, not casting spells pretty much means a 99% chance of a loss, where as Lizardmen benefit from magic but don't require it, maybe?

Also, those two TK items can be killed (stupidly easily, in fact) out of the army and not be protected like items on characters (such as the boosts a Slann can get to his magic).



Trust me, there is NO reason, at all, the envy TK armies or rules.

 

just a side note on the unrealiability of magic
3000p game against dwarves where i had a CO buss and pumped up slann with tetto
6 turns. 4 of my magic phases were shut down by me, miscasting and losing loads of dice xD even with soul of stone..
1 magic phase was shut down by 2 spell eater runes and 1 spell breaking rune.
the last magic phase didnt see any magic since my slann had miscasted himself into the abyss the previous turn, tetto went earlier and my skink also detonated.

it kindof was hilarious

luckily scarvets broke face and managed to get a tie

but srsly wtfff xD