8th Ed. is Toughness devalued?

Before this train gets too derailed... I'm pretty sure Pinktaco had a typo in his earlier post and meant:

"I'm not envy of the Tomb Kind players..."

 

You make valid points. While I agree that we do have a gap between the skink priests and slann and the fact that he comes with the built in ward whether we like it or not. But you have to acknowledge the other things a slann brings to the table: casting through skink priests, making TG stubborn and ItP (while they still suffer from T being devalued they are deadlier than the average saurus with better stats and the option for a magic standard). I know, I know this isn't exactly what you're getting at, but I had to make a stand for the old frog



While I feel we got a sub-par book (compared to the two first elves and warriors the year before with one gazillion choices just for their core troops). We got weird things like no magic banners (even removed the CoC-one for no apparent reason), strange buff wagons and monsters without much use, a nerf to the skrox unit and all that... (yay for lower scar-vet cost though, completely out of the blue that one). I hope what we see with the Woodies book starts some kind of trend, with low S and Armour Piercing instead. (They even lowered the S of the Tree Kin to 4). I doubt this though...


What we can hope for is that 9th:
Fix laser guided cannons.
Comes to terms with the ridiculous AS of some units.
Change the weapon system so that some of the weapons might lose S but gain other benefits instead.
An overhaul of the magic phase, tone down the dooms day spells and more reliability. Who knows, with more consistency in the magic phases maybe Slann disciplines will put us back on the throne again

/Sebbs

 

Like I said, the first two elves books I even replaced my gun, I sleep with the Dark Elves book under my pillow now instead. Apparently it's so powerful (haven't gotten around to finish my pointy ears yet). But my point is, slann is one of those synergy/added value/compound interest kinda guys. Compared to that empire wizard where what you see is what you get, slann you pay extra not only for what he comes with, but for what you can equip him with. Whether you actually put him with TG, get the opportunity to use the ward, throw spells through skink priests or bling him with all the bells and whistles or not.

(About the TG, they are not WoC, plague bearer horde, BoTWD Lions, but I don't like codex crawl and if anything I actually think their price is right whether you stick a slann in there or not)

/Sebbs

 

Sorry If anyone here legitimately thinks that the slann is not the single best caster in the game, and is worth every single point you pay, you're doing something wrong with him.

The magic phase is as unreliable as any phase in the game. You need a short charge? You rolled snake eyes. You need your combat to just be average and you fluff your attacks. You need one of your 4 war machines to kill SOMETHING and two explode on the first turn

Lizardmen aren't a top 3 army right now, but they ARE competitive, and their magic phase IS one of the best in the game. Period. Those are facts. If its not working out that way for you, perhaps you should analyze the way your magic phases go and see how you could make it better.

Honestly it sounds like the problem here is people are relying on saurus to do something other then tarpit. The lizardmen aren't a combat army. They haven't been that way for a very very very long time. Saurus aren't gonna kill things, they aren't gonna do the heavy lifting in your army, its just not gonna happen.

The trade off is we have arguably the best core unit in the game in skink skirmishers/cohort, and you can make an extremely fast, extremely annoying, pew pew pew poison army that is 100% better than any "combat block" oriented list you're trying to build around saurus. If saurus were better skinks would have to be worse.

Thats just the way the cookie crumbles.

 

In 7th edition our saurus warriors were awesome!

What changed? Our low Initiative infantry does not get rewarded for getting the charge anymore (charging unit attacked first in 7th) The step up rule works against us too. and steadfast of course as well. Saurus warriors were good because they had 2 attacks each str4 (still passable in 8th ed) and T4( too many str4&5 enemies out there these days). Supporting attacks also made our 2 attacks per model less unique as all armies get more attacks back now at better quality than our saurus.

Our saurus warrs were good under a previous ruleset, not so anymore. PF was an ok idea as a special rule but not on par with some of the newer books. The mechanics of 8th ed fighting nerfed them.

Slann had the best (and yes read overpowered) enemy magic suppression in the game, which protected our slow infantry on their way to the fight.

Yes our slann was OP, and I agree he should have been nerfed, but what we got back was not enough on our individual troops.

GW took away, but did not give back to stand toe to toe with other armies' martial prowess or special rules. Most of our new units are not that great after our book got redone, which means LM players go back to masses of skinks that pushes us into a certain playstyle.

So we shine when buffed by augments, but which other army does not?

Its no wonder that cohorts and skirmishers are even more popular these days in a competitive environment

My 70+ saurus warriors dream of an age gone past where they were feared, now they get called infrequently to battle and are more anvil than offensive menace.

I am not saying saurus are terrible...you can play them but they are not as good as they used to be, like most LM units in 8th ed.

 

They weren't awesome in 7th either. They were usable because of loremaster of light and the reasons you listed, but they still weren't very good. you'd have at most 1 block in a competitive list.

skink and skroxigor were far far FAR more common.

 

Yeah, Saurus were pretty terrible in previous editions. I quit Warhammer for several years because I was tired of cavalry and Elves charging in first, killing the front rank, and then my models are stuck there not doing anything whilst my opponent had a great time.

 

To be completely honest, from my experience? The issue isn't S5. The issue is the completely wonky balance of Great Weapons.

See, great weapons are, by themselves, fair. I've played against VC, and their GW guys aren't much of an issue, because I hit first - That's the trade off. They get S5, but have to strike last.

The fact that half of the mainly used armies (Any kind of elf, now that Wood Elves also got it) has First Strike, which means they follow the normal initiative, means they practically get a free strength boost with no lost benefits - They lose "rerolls", as if that was an issue. Hell, White Lions have WS5, which means they hit on 3+ anyway, and they even get extra rank attacks. They lose nothing, and get everything, practically for free. But they most clearly cost more, right? Nop, 13 points against our 14, assuming temple guards. That's really the best comparison. Temple guards have I2, while the Elves have I5, and ignores the Always Strike Last rule. They also have better WS than us, and movement... sure, we have 2 points better AS, and 1 point of toughness, but that doesn't prevent them from regularly removing 5-10 TGs before I even get to strike. Oh, and they have the same S as our Temple Guards, except they also use Great Swords, which puts them on S6... Oh, and they obviously also have 2 points more on their heavy armor save against shooting attacks, making them even better at getting to melee in the first place.

If they remade the Always Strike Last rule as OVERRIDING Always strike first, so you'd STILL strike last, regardless of Initiative or special rules, THEN it might be somewhat balanced. High Strength only seems like a problem because it comes free of charge, with no downsides what so ever.

 

I should have said in my experience

You could kill the 5 models in the enemy front rank and they do not get to attack back.
and the enemy would lose combat subsequently. They were awesome because for they frontage they had many attacks and by killing they limit the amount of attacks they receive in return.
Also 8th ed brought initiative to a certain prominence for combat and magic and this devalued saurus even further.

Yes I know there were many things in 7th ed which people may not agree with like the outnumbered by fear rule etc.

My point was saurus a packed a bit more punch imho. They did not change with the times...

 

I think he was talking about 7th edition Saurus under 7th edition BRB rules. they where quite good then.

 

Fair enough. That was quite a long time ago, I'd be lying if I said I remembered it perfectly.

 

In that edition there where no support attacks.
and only spears got attacks form the second row (ok pikes too),
Saurus Wariors where the only spearmen to have 2 attacks on their
profile, so we actual did our full atacks from the second rank, due
to geting rid of this limitation that was in the 6th editin book that limited it to 1.

So obviously in 7th/7th Spear saurus where the go to blender unit for lizardmen.

 

Its fascinating to see this from a different perspective, as from my PoV 8th edition was a huge buff for Saurus (at least initially). Step Up meant that the first rank always attacked, and with Supporting Attacks they got even more S4 attacks in.

 

Well it gave HW/Shield saurus 50% more attacks... (just like everyone ealse)
But spear saurus got exactly the same ammout of attacks,
since they lost their 2A advantage they had in 7th.

 

True; it was really the Step Up rule that counted. For an all too brief time they dominated the MSU cavalry units leftover from 7th, and happily chewed through all the big infantry blocks that showed up. Ah, the good old days...

 

I know 7th ed was along time ago...but I truly believe that our army felt that edition change quite keenly and it hit us hard.
I also apologize for straying from the original topic regarding T4 being devalued. It just seems as I previously said that many of our units did not change with the times when our army book was redone.

Another point on Toughness topic....these days there are so much more poison attacks out there across armies. More armor piercing and of course more ASF (which equates to more hits thus more wounds for our enemy)

In the evolving animal that is WFB did our saurus keep up with the times?

 

lizardmen were a stronger book at the start of 8th then they were at the end of 7th.

lizardmen in 7th, with our 7th edition book simply couldnt' compete with demons and DE.

During early 8th, lizardmen and skaven were easily the strongest books.

to answer your question, i think if we want better saurus we will need to have worse skinks. I like the army the way it is, I think more powerful saurus and weaker skinks would make the army weaker as a whole.

 

The power creep of army books within 7th ed is a different matter. I was trying to point out that Lm army design worked well with a certain ruleset imo.
Could it possibly be that Slann under our 7th book at the beginning of 8th ed was an utter beast? Focused rumination and becalming cogitation with us also handing over miscasts to enemy wizards was hopelessly OP. And iur saurus was buffed to the max or brought back to life.

Did slann not carry us during that period?
Thinking back to that Slann he was so good it felt like a crutch actually