Stop comparing units between armies. Other armies dont have skinks. End of story. If saurus were better skinks would be worse. Thats really all there is too it. If you would like to discuss to what degree skinks should be worse -> and saurus should be better, thats fine. We have salamanders to deal with white lions. We don't need saurus to kill things.
What is fine and what is not is not for you to dictate. You may disagree, but putting up a prohibition "because I said so" style will get you nowhere. Its not all there is to it. In my view it makes perfect sense to compare unit between armies, as long as you don't isolate those units in the comparison. You need to take skinks into consideration indeed, but comparing what army gets what for what points is essential to benchmark properly. I think that could easily be shortened to "We don't need saurus". Thats the whole problem, everything a Saurus can do another part of our army can do better. I love the Saurus models, I love the aesthetics and I love what the fluff makes them out to be: A steady disciplined brick of scales and instinctual warfare that is genetically engineered by a superior race to relentlessly take on any threat. The Old ones apparently comes from a place where great weapons dosnt exist, as it is a darn mystery to me how a near omnipotent race chooses handweapons for I1 troops (which they must have changed genetically to begin with as reptiles reaction time isnt exactly slow compared to mammals....maybe this is what omnipotent humor feels like) No Fu*I dont swear nearly enough as I would like to*ng wonder that they got their intergalactic behinds exterminated both in Fantasy and 40K.
First off, never said "because I said so" and I didn't say that deliberately. Second of all, if you can show me where in this thread comparisons were made while also taking other aspects of the book into consideration I'll gladly eat me words. As it stands, from my opinion, that was never addressed which is why I made the point to begin with. You can look at points between armies and say "here's what elves get for 13 points, but here's what lizardmen get for 11" otherwise every army would be exactly the same. What lizardmen get for 11 points or 20 or 40 can't always be directly comparable because it would make every army static and boring.
That's not actually true. There's many aspects to the game, and each and every army has their own special rules to make them different. Sure we have skinks, but they don't have to get worse just because the saurus (or templeguards) got better, it would only mean you would have more options when designing the army. You're the one who always says "skink cloud is the best for a competitive environment". Guess what? That's because the rest is to expensive/not good enough for the points! A few scenarios that I think would shake things up a bit, and give the LM a fighting chance in a CC-clash, instead of avoidance-skinkdance: Saurus with halbards/GW/light armour or why not a magic banner of -1 to hit from missiles/5++ vs warmachines, direct damage and magic missiles? Of course the options would cost points, but you would get a more useful unit. OR lower the cost to, say 8 or 9 points. Suddenly they would be very competitive. OR 5++ parry save OR 1A +1 bite attack with killing blow (nasty!) OR Let them have supporting attacks equal to the A on the profile (giving them 2, but not increased by frenzy/timewarp etc) Most of them wouldn't make the Lizarmen armybook that much better, but it would give the skinks some competition. Look at every armybook, and you will find units that are NEVER played. Why? Because there's an option in the book that does the job better or equal but at a lower point-cost. If you would see all units in different builds, and the builds would perform equally in a mixed environment (tournament for example), then the point cost of every unit would be quite ok. Of course, you couldn't combine units however you want and be equally efficient. There has to be a thought or battleplan behind it, obviously. If EVERYBODY uses White lions, and NOBODY uses Swordmasters, there's something wrong, right? If EVERYBODY think Saurus is a sub-par choice to skinks, there's something wrong, right?
Yes, but just buffing saurus would make the lists much much better. You could have ever advantage of a skink cloud army along with the advantage of tough as nails core troops. How does that not make it too good? Skinks are that good because Other aspects of the army are weaker. This thread makes it seem like some people want every advantage of good core combat troops along with every advantage of cheap poison shooting skirmishing troops. If that is the case what point is there to play an army who's ONLY advantage is strong combat blocks? If you want every choice in the book to be optimal it means some choices would have to be worse then they are now, along with other choices being better. How is that not true? Besides at no point did you ever actual explain how you could buff saurus and change nothing else and it wouldn't make it "that much better". No army is perfect. It sounds like people want a perfect army, and that's a little silly IMO. If saurus could have great weapons at no points increase they'd be one of the best core combat blocks in the game. Along with having the best magic caster and some of the best BS shooting... That's an army that's way too strong.
A more radical idea would be to go the warrior priest route and make the spawn leader a buff bot. Give him (and unit champions in general?) an allowance for buying army book spawnings. It would be hard to balance, but it would be flavorful. Ideas... ITP (cheap), +1 static CR, ASL/WS4, poison, hatred, fear... That would be a big change, but it would add some uniqueness to a unit that has a lot in common with Gors and Ghouls.
Ahem... White Lions also hit in 3 ranks and have +2 AS against shooting. Sure 13 saves at 4+ they're going to fail a lot but short of cannons and catapults there isn't a whole lot of ways to deal with them. Also WL and SM can take magic banners. In regards to "we have skinks to make up for it" I don't think this holds up against a lot of armies either. Lots of other armies have fast cavalry and ways to deal with them. My HE buddy likes to use Silver Helms to deal with my skinks. If he can run down 3 units of 10 skirmishers he's almost points neutral on a 9 horse unit. That doesn't even take into account eagles, chariots, and griffins. O&G are also very good against skinks since goblins are so cheap and have so many options. For 80 points they can have 10 night goblins with short bows and 5 goblin wolf riders! Bottom line is skinks are not that dangerous. They have T2 for chrissakes! Shooting against T3 lightly armored troops they expect to kill 1-3 models on a reasonable average. The reason the skink cloud works is because it is so against the meta of 8th edition that most all comers can't deal with it. It's points denial not points winning.
I actually think PF was a pretty cool idea. Less boring then this ASF spam that is all over the elf books.
I don't think we have the best magic, or best BS shooting. We have pretty good magic, but I think all elven races are better casters, and WoC and skaven are pretty good. Elves has pretty good BS-shooting as well, and better bolt-throwers. Sure, we have the best short range, fast skirmishing poison shooting, i give you that... And the scar-vets are top tier as well. The reason it wouldn't be "that much better" is because you invest the points in M4 infantry, instead of skinks. And of course GW would cost extra points. As would some or all of the other upgrades. If a book with perfect internal balance is what makes an army too strong, I guess your right. But IF you spend lots of points on Saurus, the skink cloud would be a lot smaller and thus less effective. You wouldn't be able to just take the "Skink-cloud list" and add 300-600 pts worth of saurus to it. Of course something else would be left out. The way the usual cloud plays out it doesn't really matter how good the saurus or TG are, as they never ever see combat unless you are either outplayed or the cloud has evaporated.
Internal balance is not everything being strong. It's everything being equal. Slann is still the best caster in the game. For whatever reason it's only lizardmen players that ever doubt that. I love saurus, they are my favorite unit in the game. I just think lizardmen would be much much stronger if you just buffed the hell out of saurus to make them an "optimal" choice. think that's an opinion that has to at least be addressed. So far this thread completely ignores the fact that making saurus better would make the army as a whole much better. The aren't an army that needs to be better. They are an army with shoddy internal balance. Making saurus better would mean something somewhere needs to be sacrificed. Unless the opinion is the army just needs to be better.
I think that this, like the whole Saurus problem to begin with, is due to rules changes between 7th and 8th and the 8th edition book not really adapting to the new rules. Apart from the magic spells themselves getting better in 8th edition pretty much all the rules changes actually took away from the Lizardman advantages. -- magic doesn't scale: reduced the Slann's power, being a good magician isn't an advantage because of how winds of magic works. -- no attacks first on the charge: our initiative now really hurts us -- attacks back no matter how many casualties: combined with above meant that prior to 8th our Sauruses were scary The new army book never really gave us anything to make up for these fundamental differences. I seem to recall skirmishers being better in 7th too but can't remember enough to really comment. Did any of the rules changes actually work in our favor?
Armies that equal or better magic than us. 1) High Elves have the book of hoeth, a L2 wandering deliberations guy, and an L4 high magic 2) Tomb Kings generate d3 pd with a casket, which is better than anything we can do 3) Vampires can get +2 casting, -1 enemy casting, reroll winds of magic, palm 2 PD or 2 DD (and not roll 2+ for it), and has an item that autocasts 10+ spells on d3 dice 4) Chaos can get harmonic convergence and a fifth spell 5) Dark magic generates power dice A slann is very similar to a sorcerer lord on disc. Good spell selection, hard to kill, above average channel. What does the slann offer? 1) Level 4 all sigs 2) Built in ward 3) Can be general, with magic bsb, with magic gear 4) Temple Guard 5) High magic is better suited for lizards than elves But none of that does what makes you good at magic - reliable dice amounts.
No 3 channel attempts? No turning a dispel dice into a power dice? No adjusting miscast results? No casting through priests? Access to 9 lores, and a sig style loremaster? Re rolling first failed dispell? On top of all that you have tetto re rolling of ones. If you're going to compare at least include everything... It seems as if you've intentionally ignored every aspect that does exactly what you said... reliable magic dice. Slann do surprisingly well on low winds results. Between resevoir, channels and tetto lizardmen can have a very very good magic phase on low winds. Lizardmen easily have one of, if not the best magic phase in the game. You won't find many people that disagree with that. High elves might be the only army with a better phase, and that's only because hoeth. And that's not a guarantee.
This whole "the slann is the best caster" thing has got to stop. WE PAY 300PTS FOR A LVL 4 MAGE. Bam. That's it. Does he have some neat features to back up the cost of the model? Yes, but NONE of that makes him a better caster in the sense that he can "out-cast" the opponent. We can shoot through our skinks which offers a better range, fair enought - but that's another 65pts you just added for more range. If we look at it like that the model is now 365pts. How does we make him a better caster (not necessarily the best)? By adding disciplines that'll ramp up the cost of the model even further (and quite fast IMO). The biggest issue with this? It's in no way "safe". We do not automatically generate anything. With the channel staff we should generate a single extra power dice each turn. We pay 45pts to statistically get another extra dice each turn. Combined with High Magic and a Skink Priest that's 380pts + 65pts, so 445pts and I still wouldn't dare to call him "the best caster in warhammer" - he's a super flexible caster with the potential to generate extra power dice with added range. Obviously it all adds up and yes if you look at our 450pts combo compared to a 200pts lvl 4 empire mage we're now "better" in the sense that we can get new spells, have a greater range, have overall more spells and should be getting 1 more PD each turn. Here's the kicker though, if you don't add a power stone to the mix (another 20pts) you can still risk rolling snake eyes in Winds of Magic and not channel, or hell anything followed by a 1 and not channel. Suddenly our super expensive (IMO) build is no longer that powerful, he's just flexible with almost an equal number of dice as the opponent meaning that our flexible amount of spells will probably be dispelled. The way I see it we won't be a truly better caster before we gain something similar to: - level 5 discipline. - Safely generate x power dice (like we used to). - Gaining +D6 (or something like that) when casting a spell. And if not the Slann at least our new monsters (a missed opportunity). Several of the other armies have something like that. Hell, I mean High Elfs can bother Reroll a D6 PD when casting AND get +1 to casting, Beastman have the headstone thingy, Tomb Kings have all kings of things/support.. We have an expensive frog that needs to be even more expensive JUST TO BE BETTER THAN A REGULAR LVL4 MAGE. That's hilariously stupid when you think about it. Even with all that jazz we can't safely out-perform a 275pts High Elf because not only will be actually be lvl5 in terms of casting he can also reroll a single dice. Even naked our Slann is nowhere near that and yet with all his nice features he isn't a better caster. With that said I'm not actually complaining that he's bad, I'm just stating that from my point of view he isn't exactly the best out there, more like flexible in terms of what you want him to do. If flexible is another way of calling him the best fair enough, but that not what I'm thinking of. Calling him the best and then adding all kinds of junk (not to mention Tetto'Eko - another 185pts) really doesn't cut it because at the end of the day you've poured so many points into magic and you'll still be screwed should you roll bad in one way or another. The more we put into our slann the less we can put into something much more reliable such as our scar vets.
And yet numerous high Level competitive players of all armies somehow still see the slann as grossly powerful. Party slann still show up in a vast majority of competitive lists. Apparently it's worth it to the best players playing against other players of equal skills. It's only a handful of lizardmen players on this forum that I've ever seen complain about the strength of a slann. Sooo I'm thinking that's not a coincidence. It's a game of dice. You throw 500 points into an elite combat unit and they fail a crucial psych test those points are a waste. Fail a crucial charge, it's potentially game changing. Spend 400 points on war machines and they all misfire in the first two turns and oops, wasted points. Yes, cascade is shitty and it's a pretty big risk. But the potential strength compensates for the big risk. Magic is unreliable, maybe slightly more so then other phases, but it doesn't make the slann garbage or the army broken or those points wasted. Nothing in this game is a guarantee, that's the fun. Nothing in life is a guarantee either.
Slann, channel staff, channel discipline, reservoir, tetto'eko, soul of stone and.. lore master. If I'm not mistakening that's 610pts for casters alone. Cut out Tetto and you've used 425pts. That's 225pts more than a regular lvl4 mage. Most other factions can have a lvl4 mage + a combat lord (depending on the faction he won't be fully kitted though). Obvioiusly different perspective - mage + combat lord vs double trouble mage. WIth that said I actually think the most reliable way to get a ton of spells off with minimal risk is: Slann + Book of asure and 8 sig spells and Tetto'Eko. It's probably one of the only times you'll hear me say that the slann is now truly the best. He'll be able to reliabely 1 and 2-dice spells and have plenty of spells to do it with. He's still hampered by low rolls in winds of magic though, but at least his spells are super cheap. As I've said in my previous post though - the biggest force is that we can be flexible in terms of how to build our slann. Most armies cannot do that, they can either choose various low level casters or a lvl4 and then decide between lores. We can switch things up and make it interesting for ourself. This way we can build our mage in a way that we like it and what we consider the best. Personally I prefer the naked slann, well great he still has all lores + high magic so I'm not gimped in that department. Usually he is also accompanied by a heavy oldblood because this is what I find more reliable + I'm not a big fan of the "all eggs in one basket" deal our slann can easily become.