8th Ed. Lizardmen are "mid-tier", but how easy/hard are they to play

So, here's the thing:

Not long ago people discussed the tiers of the various factions, most (on this board) appear to agree on that lizardmen are now in the middle tier. That's fine, I dont mind.

BUT, tiers aren't everything. Some factions rely on concepts that are harder for some people to learn, understand and utilize. Yeah I realize that might sound a bit weird, but for instance - even when Wood Elfs are finally updated they'll most likely still be a hard faction for people to play with, they don't rely on brute strenght.

Currently I've played against Britonnia, Warriors of Chaos, The Empire, Skavens, Wood Elfs and Dwarfs. Soon I'll also be playing against Ogres.

Out of those I'd say that there are definitely some factions that are more straight forward than others.

- Britonnia relies on the charge and since their pony ranks are small they can do a hefty dual charge and give you the finger by also being steadfast, if it fails they are in for a rough time.

- WoC are just pure lulzy, I mean I5, WS5, S5, T4, 2A AND Mark of Nurgle is just one big FU. You cannot go wrong with these guys, although they're expensive.

- While Empire is the sort of "jack of all trades, but master of none" they still excel at one thing: Heavily armoured units. How about a core mostly consisting of AS+1. In special they have more AS +1 w/ (reiksguard knights) along with demigryphs and.. a tank (rare) AS+1 T6 10W steam tank. Then come the cannons and the option to take all lores for their mages (even the level 1s AFAIK). They can be quite nasty if they want to and how hard is it to launch forward your IC Knights and crush most of everything you get close to after having shot up the big stuff with your cannons?

- Dwarfs are tough. Most of their units can have great weapons and they'll troll you with they cannons and organ cannons. IF you're unlucky you won't see you saurus warriors in combat before the 4th turn. They don't have any magic alright, but they can have quite a lot of "dispel scrolls". These guys can shoot our dinos, dispel our magic unless we risk IF and they chew through most of our units with a minimum of WS4 and most units having S5, as minimum. Hammeres have WS5, S6 and stubborn. And then they force us to come at them unless you get a comet off.

- Skavens are random. They can be nasty and it can all go to hell. They have relatively low Strenght and toughness and should you manage to break any of their units they'll most likely just run off the board. While I've heard they should be quite a good faction I also feel like they're less straight forward than any of the others. It's a fun army though.

- Wood elfs are horribly outdated (6th edition) and will probably, due to their nature, never be easy to play. Their treemen can be nasty, but bring flaming and they'll die quickly. The Bast will have a field day with the beam. From what I can understand you don't try to outright win the combat, just draw the time out so much that by turn six you'll at the very least not have lost much that you've lost the game. But maybe I'm wrong..
At any rate these guys aren't easy to play with, although they can bring some heavy stuff.


So, in my personal opinion all of the above mentioned are quite straight forward with the exception of skavens and wood elfs.


I feel that sometimes I have to think a horrible lot about what I want to do and why. We DON'T have acces to regular AS+1 models other than on characters, we DON'T have acces to actual artillery, nor do we have acces to long ranged shooting. Most of our models are WS3, with some being WS2 and our elite being WS4.

We have heavy hitters, but oh dear do I feel that we sometimes need to carefully consider how to put and use these guys. A stegadon can be taken out by a single cannon ball. One could argue that it would require luck from the opponent to do so and yet I've had it happen several times. Even if that doesn't happen getting a steg to the front with 1 wound isn't awesome.

Our kroxigors suffer from low WS, ASL and the same Toughness and armour of a regular saurus model. They've gotten cheaper though and with S7 these guys can pack a punch not many armies can equal, when they hit. I've had a unit if 11 models of these guys, they hit like a damn truck, but most of the times they're reliant of getting into the flank of an opponent. <- this is something that appear to be a key thing for most lizardmen units.

I cannot figure out if our cavalry is a joke or awesome. Here's the deal: a front of 5 models with no characters/champion will give you 20 attacks. The downside? They strike last against most, they're all S4 and if we want to give a one time one-up on the strenght it'll cost 4 ridiculous pts pr model. They only come with an AS of 2+, not upgradable and stupidity. At 30pts/model I'd argue the spear should included in that price. I wouldn't mind paying a little more for more armour and along with the option to either get great weapons or lances. But no. I mean 35pts for a AS+1 and GW model would be alright, I think. Alternatively these guys could've and probably should've been core, but no. Buff them with ANYTHING and both the rider and the mount benefits from it, so they can be potent, but once against they rely on getting into the flank and then even S4 will be scary for them.

Our saurus warriors/guards are.. I dunno how to put it. Our saurus warriors are super good at being just above average. They will slaughter most human infantry units, they'll chew through most skaven units in a 1 on 1 and yet they still lack somethin. They're quite cool though and most of my friends will usually use heavy toys to deal with them. Templeguards are even more awesome, but ultimately they're just tooled up saurus warriors. They don't bring more defense in close combat and which means that most of what can beat saurus warriors will most likely also beat our templeguards. They can pack a punch though. Give these guys Wyssans Wildform OR the armour piercing banner.. Or both and they'll eat most if we can get them to it. Usually though these will also be the victims of raping squads.
Their biggest downside? M4. They take forever to march the damn field.

Skinks? They took a hit with the Ld nerf bat. Once these guys flee and they aren't near your general they might keep fleeing. Might. The thing about them is that they're quite awesome if you know how to use your skinks. They can be both cohort or skirmish, they have a good movement rate and are aquatic. However the real reason anybody would take these is because of poison. The issue? If you have no idea how to use them they're just a waste. They require you to learn the concept of redirecting and careful positioning. They bruise when against the wind and their WS is just as hilarious. They are a funny unit though and I like these guys :3

Ripperdactyls have the potential to be awesome. roll high on the frenzy and they come with 24 attacks with reroll to hit, S4 + armour piercing and killing blow. Want to hear something funny? Put them in the flank. They suffer, mostly, from a "low" initiativ IMO. Take enough of them if you want to field them. Other than that I think they're decently costed. I mean 240pts for 6 of these who can potentially do 24 attacks and have a great mobility? Again though, these aren't exactly straight forward.

We have other options as well. The troglodon is supposedly horrible, the bastiladon is okay and actually fairly priced, but it's not a game changer in anyway. Our cameleon skinks are aweome though and I'm not too sure what to think about our salamanders/razordons, although I'll get around to those.

Our absolute biggest ace is that we have an awesome mage who, at the cost of 300pts, comes with 5 wounds, T4 and a ward save of 4+ PLUS he have auto-pass on LOS in a templeguard unit and gives them stubborn. Then the disciplines. There appear to be a lot of ways to use him and it's all up to you. He's quite versatile, much more than most other mages. One of my friend fears my slann, but it's for the wrong reason. Every faction can IF something nasty, but ours can do so much more and I personally think that we're still in the learning process. The issue? Magic is unstable. If you roll snake eyes your 300pts + party tricks will do you no good.

Then we have our second ace. Cheap scar vets and incredible oldbloods. They don't have much to fear and most should fear these guys. There's not much to say since I think they're quite awesome. Their biggest issue? Maybe that they're "only" WS5/6, but then again most factions don't come with scaly skin + armour, or both S5/T5. We also don't care much about initiative so GW are common picks for us so hello WS6 S7.


Predatory Fighter: This special rule is both too useless and at times quite good. I find it utterly useless on my saurus warriors, but on my characters? That's a different story. I almost feel like I'm getting free rerolls so that's awesome. Otherwise there's not much to say..


All in all? I don't personally think our army is THAT straight forward and I'm definitely feeling it. Maybe it's just me though. Our most straight forward units are our saurus units and they don't move at a fast pace. They are also the victims of heavy hitting BS beceause those I play with fear them, so they will do their best to utterly ruin them. Our slann is awesome, but magic is magic. Luckily our oldblood can almost single handedly kill entire units so long as they don't pack too many high strenght attacks. The rest of our army? It either rely on flank attacks or careful positioning.

Against my empire friend he can usually sit back, pop a comet, shoot cannons at my big dinos and when I get close enough he'll safely charge me. THAT's straight forward and it's the same with dwarfs and to some extent Britonnia. WoC is the warhammer equivalent of a-moving, at least that's what it feels like. (attack-move armies of doom in RTS games).

I'm not being a p1ssy little gurl about it though. I LOVE playing with lizardmen, but on the same time I also feel like the strategic part from us needs to be superior due to our units. I've for instance never seen any of my friends dabble in the fine art of redirecting, instead most of them rely on brute strenght because they fear my "awesome" 2 S4 attacks. Even our slann seem to be misunderstood from my friends. As I said I don't believe getting IF spells off is what we excel at because everyone can do that, again I find us to be in a position where we now pay more, but it is also somewhat excepted of us to do something else than what everybody else is doing. Dwellers bellow? They could've given us a level 3 skinks priest with acces to more lores in order to do that, no need for a 300pts naked frog to do that.

Am I wrong here? It feels counter intuitive since I also realize that we have some damn tough and hard hitting models, but just not in the same way as others have it. IC Knights come at 25pts/model and is core. Dwarf can get WS4 S5 from their regular warriors, can be upgraded to WS5 S6 unless I'm mistakening. Then they have a horde of those and it's suddenly quite hard to keep up.


So how about Lizardmen? How do we categorize them? What's your opinion? Are they easy to play with, have they become harder after the update or still somewhat the same? Should I just STFU and L2P?

** I'm also terribly sorry for the big wall of text, but uhm.. yeah, sometimes I cannot control myself. I hope I've made my point clear though.

 

Re: Lizardmen are "mid-tier", but how easy/hard are they to

Yes, I agree that you can make power builds. I've done it myself with a character bus and large kroxigor unit. They smashed everything they came near. It didn't require much of me really.

Here's the thing do - my friend who have empire now plays with a newly acquired dwarf army. This means that, as you told me a few days ago, The Bus really might not be the best unit to use since they'll be going up against large blocks, which also happens to hit hard (most of the time). Krox also feels useless in this matchup because once again they're up against large blocks.

So one could go with the power build and it might even work, but I think it's also about the match-up. I'm not sure I'd do it if I didn't know who I was up against.

Maybe it's just me, but if I feel the power builds are more fun than competitive..?

 

Re: Lizardmen are "mid-tier", but how easy/hard are they to

This have been what I've felt too. I have played something like 20 games with lizardmen now, but I'm still a new and inexperienced player.

Last night I smashed a S8 comet into my friends dwarf cannon with his rune lord. Both died, The turn after I popped a comet on his organ gun and it too died in my next turn. Before CC began he had lost 700pts and had lost his only character with a dispel scroll.

Still though his Ranger horde with GW and iron breakers with lord and hero + 30 miners went ahead and made sure he didn't outright lose. It was a draw (well I actually lost with 29 pts).

The thing is that even though he lost all kinds of stuff he managed to swing back with relative ease.

Sometimes though I also wonder if it's just me who being a bad player here. He might be a better player, I don't know. It's hard to measure really.

 

Re: Lizardmen are "mid-tier", but how easy/hard are they to

I personally think a level 3 skink high priest would've been great, Let him have Beast, Heaven and High magic, but without any loremaster. Don't allow him any disciplines. Let him have the usual skink priest stats. Maybe give him upgrades such as being able to use a palanquin for a reasonable cost. Say he costs 165pts and can have a palanquin for another 40-50pts. He would still be cheaper than our current slann.

I don't think he should be upgradeable to level 4, since that's our slanns duty, but maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway if cheap enough I think that would've been a decent choice for us. He wouldn't be OP in ANY WAY. He would be limited in the selection of lores, have silly stats and still only be a level 3.

Anyway about our slann I partly agree with you. What I think it great about him is that we can do quite a lot with him. We have 2 ways to have 8 spells to choose from. We can, if we feel like, get an extra PD from of DD pool + the 2 extra channel dice w/ channel staff so he have the potential to throw around a lot of dice. Alternatively he can get the book of ashur along with 8 sig spells and throw spells around him like a mad man.

We have way more options that most other factions. Hell you can make him etheral and stall a steam tank for all eternity. Giv him the BSB + the +1 CR banner and he can stall monstrous infantry/cavalry AND STILL cast spells through our skink priest.

So I do think our slann is worth it if you care for it. It's just that we're sort of limited in a way. I think it's a shame we haven't gotten another lord level mage because if you don't care about what I just wrote your only other current option is to take 2 regular skink priests.

 

Re: Lizardmen are "mid-tier", but how easy/hard are they to

That's also what I think. It's just that it's much easier for newcomers (me and my friends) to use an army such as empire which mostly consists of fast AS+1 units with support if artillery and mages than what you just descriped.

I love our faction because it's so versatile as it is, but I just find it harder to perfectly well execute.

I mean, as a new player what is easier? redirecting nasty units with skinks OR charging forward with knights that comes with S6 lances and AS+1?

Or how about dwarfs? They'll just sit back with the WS4/5 and great weapons and blast at your with their artillery until you've finally reached their ranks, then they'll move in with their GWs.

I don't want to be rude to people who play dwarfs, but I think we can all agree that the dwarfen way of playing is quite a lot simpler than the numerous ways lizardmen offers.