8th Ed. Lizardmen End Times Rumor from Warseer

Sorry but as the guy who won Best General award you're referencing I actually stopped playing Lizardmen soon after as I felt they were no longer competitive. To my mind they are a mid-tier army that when in a very specific build can compete with poorer players using upper tier armies. Any of the elves, Skaven or Daemons should wipe them off the table without much effort....

 

For what it's worth, Lizardmen were 7th in the UK for 2014 according to Bad Dice.. DoC, Delf, WoC, Empire, Helf, Ogres all ahead.

Lizards are a good army and not uncompetitive. They certainly aren't the best, struggle to deal with certain match ups because they don't have the right tools (WoC especially), and have a lot of difficulty in uncomped End Times, but they are far from terrible.

 

That's what i said.
LM don't need nerf. So what is happening with us - it's just a crude commercial decision, that is not connected with game balance of game fluff.
And this make me sad =(

 

Hold your horses there - this is still purely fluff. Removing the slanns would likely be a magic nerf to us, but in terms of overall gameplay and power level, it is FAR too early to say anything about potential buffs/nerfs

 

I am the one lizard player that just bought Kroak...I think at worst the endtimes is a last ditch effort to save warhammer by trying to get 40k players into it. I look at my army now and see alot of monsters that do not stack up to what other armies get for comparable points (like greater demons, hell pits, and even units like chaos knights). Things like only 3 attacks (steg), low weapon skill (carny), and the lackluster bastilladon and togladon are costly at key moments. Do hunting packs and ripperdactyls need skinks if they got a leadership buff? I think lizardmen all around get shafted so people with monstery armies dont quit buying those. I still have fun with lizards, theyre my only army, but i mostly just take tons of saurus,guard, cav with the engine, trogladon, and horn of the Kygor...but back to endtimes...I have to say I am going to wait for the Mazmamundi (?)book or ninth edition untill I purchase any more. I would love a generic relic priest, and a slann in some pyramid thingy (The palaquin should get the hover move like the tzentch disc), and maybe a Kygor (a verminlord size oldblood or something). the new red crest formation is a joke compared to what all else has come out. The factions idea seems possible, but I dont know. Would dwarfs and humans really need to be mixed up? I guess lizards are not a big seller, I dont know. After all the time and money I have spent, I will not pick another army. My best hope is that this is all fear mongering, I think 9th editions fluff will be the endtimes instead of five seconds before it, like previously, so Lizarmen and the Slann will still be there. Maybe Lizardmen need alot of work to fit in with what GW is doing. The slann is not all powerful, considering the variable winds of magic, and my "lazer guns" are all boundspells. It is easy to have worthless or static magic phases (this applies to warhammer in general) for alot of points.
...allthough the scar veteran BSB model was out of print untill recently, it doesnt make sense to keeping making new batches if you are planning on axing the army....something to ponder...
.

 

People that keep saying everything we have is bottom tier are fooling themselves.

Skinks are among the, if not THE, best redirectors in the game, the Scar Vet is ridiculously good for his cost, and the usual cowboy builds are popular because of how insanely cost efficient they are, and our Slann makes several other armies just give up in terms of magic. The local Empire, Bretonnia and Vampire Counts players hate playing against the Slann, because he makes magic incredibly difficult to get through compared to pretty much any other army.

Sometimes I feel like I'm on the Ulthuan forum where people claim a White Lion deathstar with Banner of the World Dragon is only subpar, and people honest to god claiming that a 3+ armour save against shooting means the entire block will vapourize if targetted by any kind of shooting ever. We aren't the best army out there, but as someone who plays Tau in 40k, I would much rather have a middle-of-the-road army, than an army some people outright refuse to play because it is too overpowered.

And honestly, looking at tournament results in uncomped settings (because lets face it, comped = houseruled, and if we start doing that, our "power level" doesn't matter anyway), Lizardmen rank both high and low, as does most other armies - Fantasy Battle is actually surprisingly balanced, so the whole talk about "being shafted" and such are just plain wrong.

I would have loved something NEW or at least UPDATED like Karl Franz or someothing - but in the end, this is just end times stuff, and is unlikely to be useable in anything but large scale battles in 9th edition, if at all. End Times is still scenarios you can have fun with, similar to storm of magic. From the rumours, I don't think we should expect to see fieldable KFA or Eternity King Malekith in 9th edition at all.

 

About the slanns: 7th edition slanns were those slanns, that you imagine based on the fluffs. Were they powerfull? Yeah, I have to say, they were op. BUT! Lets put The current slann next to a dp. Meh... If there are such things like dp-s running around, we should have kept our disciplins, but with a higher cost. I think a fully kitted 7th ed slann is in pair with a fully kitted current dp.

About Kroak, dead slanns: Ive heard a roumor suggesting gw wanting to sell more named hero models, like Kroak. Slanns are dead now, but their spirits linger around their corpses. From these informations, it seems theyll make kroak modell our new slanns. Does this make sense to you? I think this has a good chance, but id welcome lord level skink priests and chiefs aswell.

 

I just think they will make a generic use of the Kroak model to be honest.
Replacing the Slann would mean that they sell less slann models, which would make no sense businesswise as they cost the exact same in stores, and by my judgment cost more or less the same to produce.

One COULD smell a potential multikit in the future.

Slann/Relic Priest/"That special character slann that survived"/"Special Mummy Character named "Not-Kroak"

 

if the slann is to much of an auto-include choice, all gw had to do is give it an alternative - a lvl 3, or 4 skink priest for low points, that could cast heavens and beast, and voila you would see a whole new array of army builds.

furthermore increase the slans cost, give it some nice 7tish edition toys, so it would live up to its fluff, but yet be a big enough points sink hole to make you wanna try an alternative.

you dont have to be a genious.

On the other hand if they kill of all of the slann i would personally see that as an awful degradation of the armys fluff, flavor and lvl of uniqnes.

 

Not only this, but all we have to go by are fluff books and rumors. 9th isn't out yet.

 

....why?
Becalming Cogitations?

Vampire counts can have 2 lvl 4 wizards to the price of 1 kited slann.

so can empire, and so can bretonnia.

lets break it down.

Thats 2 dispell attempts (Granted, we can achieve something slightly better with becalming)
Thats 8 spells (Like us with a disciplin)
Thats 6 wounds (compared to our 5 -> we have a wardsave -> which you should RARELY be using)
Thats 2 channels (compared to our 1 unless we take harmonic)
Thats no bsb options (THIS the Slann do well, it has NOTHING to do with magic though)
Thats NOT all eggs in one basket, a miscast is half as catastrophic as for us.
Talking miscasts: Its HALF the base of our slann.

From here the slann cant really do anything they cant achieve through items, which you probably
wouldnt use anywhere else anyway.

I am deadly serious when I say I would take THEIR options ANY day.

 

Personally I always thought a necromunda style game would suit fantasy really well.

Necromunda was an amazing concept poorly executed

I would like to see something like that... As a spin off, not as a replacement

 

For the same reason, I was hoping for a lord lvl priest (and chief) in 8th edition. Well, I call that book "Book of missed opportunities"

 

Well my Dad plays Brettonnians so I often face them and with 1 Slann I have out-magiced him with 2 Damsels and the Fay Enchantress on multiple occasions, the big thing is how limited their magic options are and our Slann is built to handle the current Lores of Magic where his book is almost older than me! his army gets out-magiced by everyone unless he gets really lucky (Or his opponent gets unlucky) I used Kroak to kill a third of a Deamons of Chaos army (Admittedly Kroak then miscast and was sucked into the warp but still that was a fluke, like getting detonation twice on a lone Skink Priest) he can buff his Knights on the charge to be ravenous killing machines, but it doesn't compete!

 

How limited...what?
The Fay Enchantress may take any of the 8 lores, AND gets a +2 to cast lifespells.

Thats not limited in ANY way.

Not to speak bad about you or your dad (really!) but you need to point at something that
doesn't just point to you being a better player in the magic phase.

I need to know why you couldn't have "out-magiced" him with any other lvl 4 than the Slann.
Magic being what Magic is, you owning someone in the magic phase on occasion doesn't really count as
being proof that the Slann being a strong caster.


also...when discussing Slann, I dont count Kroak.
Gamewise Kroak is not a Slann, he is a Special Character that does something completly different than the "Slann" in discussion.

 

Lizardmen have access to best magical defense and it can work without slann.

Dispel Scroll + Cube of Darkness can pretty shutdown magic phases.

But i must say, the problem is not the Slann rules & statlines. The problem here is the magic itself and how random and risky it is.

When I field temple guard + Slann I always joke about bringing C4 to my most expensive unit ready to blow-up themselves. But that's not Slann fault.

The unbalance comes when some kind of builds in other armies does miscasting just a minor issue. So you look at those combinations of units + wizards that are not afraid of miscast and gladly rolling 6-dices to cast a spell.

Then when you pick up your dice to cast a spell , looking the potential slaughter your Slann can do on their bodyguard and ... pray to the Dice God for not miscasting when you are throwing 2 or 3 dices. And never 6 dices unless the spell will give you the game so you can afford killing your own elite troops also risking your general and maybe BSB.

But again, this is not Slann rules fault.

We can minimize the downside of miscasting. Field your Slann with Cohorts in early game, so even in the worst case will only affect skinks.

Run it solo near infantry. Look Out Sir 4+, Roll to wound , Ward Save 4+ and 5 Wounds. It is very hard to one/two shot a Slann.

Pay miscast protections, you can modify in 1 the result with a discipline, you can also pay for rerolling one miscast. So you drastically lower the chance of being blown up.

Also you can have easy access to at least one spell from Lore of Shadows (FoM or WD) so you can swap your Slann from unit to unit with another character. So running solo is not a bad idea.

 

Pit of Shades, and bb to your Slann. No Ward Save will help you.

...btw, as far as i remember - u can't Look Out if your model base is not the size of other units that is near. Still solo ethereal Slann with 2++ is a nice choice imo (but still a gamble).

 

Look out sir is for model type. Base size means nothing.

Although spell generation is done before deployment, so you can keep your Slann positioned where you want. Taking riskes or not.

As I mentioned, you can keep them with Skinks for LoS.

 

As someone who have faced ogres a couple of times, and seen them WRECK necromancers, i can assure you, our Slann is FAR more difficult to kill than even 2 necromancers.

3 poison sniper maneaters will absolutely WRECK a standard necromancer. Hellheart is also amplified against multiple casters - hitting just 2 casters will have a very good chance of shutting down the entire magic phase completely.

Hitting the slann with the hellheart isn't the end of the magic phase for you, and poison snipers will not be able to reliably take out the slann, even if he is out in the open.

2 necromancers also don't have 2 dispel attempts - they still only have 1 each, which isn't not the same as a reroll. A missed dispel means the spell go through for 2 necromancers - a missed dispel means you reroll your attempt on a slann.

My problem is when comparing to a vampire wizard, though. For roughly the same price, you can have a good wizard which will be an absolute terror in close combat. The slann is good at magic and... well, that's it. For his cost, one would think he'd be capable of doing at least SOMETHING else.

 

It's called Mordheim and it didn't sell well so they discontinued it.