I haven't had the opportunity to see the new BRB yet but I've read many of the confirmed rumors and I had a few thoughts and questions. My first question...and a key one to how I'll play my Lizards...how does the magic resistance work with groups? The rumors I've seen have said that magic resistance gives/adds to your ward save vs magic. Okay I guess that is neat. But if you have a character with a magic resistance do they extend that to the squad they are in like in 7th ed or is it just for them like 6th ed? Secondly, is the ward save able to be taken from any source of magical damage or just during the magic phase. For instance, would it protect vs magic weapons? Depending on how magic resistance works in the new system will determine if I use the magic resistance (3) plaque for my Slann. Now on to changes in my tactics. So I've been going over the numbers and it looks like skinks might be the ticket to victory. For the same price as 15 saurus w/spears you can get almost 40 skinks. If you place the skinks in three ranks (14x3) then they all get to attack because of the hoard rule. Their higher initiative means they will go before any non-elf core troop. And with 40 attacks and poison they will do more damage. vs a block of 20 empire swordsmen the skinks should do about 14 wounds and the saurus would do ~6. As far a friendly casualties go the saurus would probably only lose a single guy and the skinks would lose around 5 but the skinks would still clearly win the battle and have a better shot to break the enemy. The question i have on this tactic though has to do with then rank bonus of hoards. do they have to have 10 to get the bonus or is it still 5? So the way i look at it, at least vs run of the mill units, the skinks would do far better. Vs knights or something with good armor the skinks don't fair as well in the long run. Of course brining a toad with life magic and casting +4 Toughness on the group of skinks will quickly make your opponent cry So those are my first questions and thoughts on 8th ed Lizards. Let me know what you think.
It will be rare if ever that you will have all 14 skinks in the front rank in base contact with an enemy. So you will rarely use all 40 attacks. Not to mention how unwieldy a 14 front rank unit will be to move.
Good point. Does it still work where you have get to attack with models adjacent. For example: OOOOO OOOOO Group 1 OOOOO XXXXXXX XXXXXXX Group 2 XXXXXXX So in this situation would the outer models from group 2 get to attack and thus any models behind them. Or would it just be the 5 in direct base and those behind them? Either way i may just run groups of 30 skinks and save some points...
Skinks won't have poison in hand to hand combat, they only have poison ranged weapons. The BRB is supposedly saying the "poisoned attacks" special rule says ranged and melee weapons get poison. BUT skinks in the LM book get "jungle poison" which means only ranged get poison. The good news about the skink hordes is the stand and shoot reaction. You can make the stand and shoot reaction no matter how close the enemy is and you will pump out 20 poisoned javelins. Pretty devastating to any big monster. I might run my skrox 6 wide just for the 12 shot stand and shoot.
Blast! You people need to stop poking holes in my strategy for an uber skink hoard Thanks for the input...guess the little guys arn't going to be serving as big a part of my new army as I thought
I guess I'm sort of assuming the errata for lizardmen will move kroxigors and slann in mixed units to the 3rd rank, but I may be excercising very wishful thinking. It makes total sense in my mind, as both slann and kroxigors weren't placed in "fighting ranks" before 8th, I figure they would change that little detail. I really hope this change goes through, but then again, if GW decides krox/slann look better in the 2nd rank than the 3rd, then the 2nd rank is where they will stay, despite the obvious combat disadvantages.
I believe that the Krox are counted as in B2B...in which case the skinks behind them would be able to make their supportive attack. As far as stand and shoot, that is a bit dicier. I would imagine that the krox would be considered 2nd rank for that, and prevent the skinks behind from shootin.