Hi there! After a long, long hiatus from WHFB (last played in 5th edition), I've made my triumphant return by liquidating my Vampire Counts army (liked the undead theme, but lost interest in Vampires and the models are very boring). I now have a clean slate and have picked up a large Lizardmen army. I have a few questions though - I've been looking for days for my info online but it seems like WHFB info is scarce compared to WH40K - even Lexicanum has very little information compared to the Future Pages. If someone could answer these questions that'd be superb: - How many army books/iterations of Lizardmen have their been? My searching yields 3 results to date, with a new one incoming. - Can Lizardmen be any color? Lots of photos seem to show blue/turquoise scales, or green. Is there any LORE-RELATED reason why I couldn't do them as RED? Please say I can make my army of bipedal dinosaurs RED!! - I've read some stuff on other forums, because my army book hasn't arrived yet, but is it true that LM can't exist for long outside their moist, warm jungles? I like to stick to fluff during games (not a WAAC player, I like to enjoy myself), and when it comes to making terrain for my realm of battle board, I'd like to know if my direction should be Lustria-themed primarily, or if I can make all flavors of Fantasy terrain and the army won't be out of place. I'd appreciate the answers, thanks, friends!!
Lizardmen can be any color. I don't have the exact reference on hand, but in the fluff section of the current army book (7th edition) it states lizardmen come in a variety of colors. The general theme is blue based, but that is not gospel, as it were. However, at the end of the day, it is your army. Paint it however you want. Just be sure to take pictures and post them in the appropriate section!
there are lots of ancient lizardmen settlements in the warhammer world, so if you want an alternative background for your army you can say that your lizardmen come from an island far away from lustria
Easiest source for basic army book info is wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Army_Book
welcome! I will say that I started painting by the GW suggested scheme that comes with the unit boxes and after seeing some of the amazing work in the forums' paint blogs....I would definitely do what you want. Red would be bold and we are a bold force on the field. I say go for it
It is true that lizardmen arent fans of living outside hot climate, but there is a solution for that: slanns know geomancy and can change the climate as they wish over time (look up the fluff for the lizardmen settlement in albion for more info).
It is true that they hate cold because they are cold blooded, and an idea I like is the Khemri lizards (I have read multiple places that they have settlements in the desert cuz they like the heat)
As most others have said, Lizardmen can be any color or pattern of your liking. At the end of the day it is your army. I'd say do a general google search for different types of reptiles and amphibians of the known world. They come in all sorts of shapes, colors, sizes and patterns and I'm sure you will find plenty of inspiration there. Not to mention while you're at it, you can find some general habitat info on them and get an idea of the kind of foliage and whatnot that grows in their backyard.
This is supported in the fluff, the Sacred Spawning of Sotek are lizardmen marked by the god Sotek, they are recognizable by their bright red skin or scales. Fluff disagrees, there is a temple city in the southlands (africa) as well as Albion (England). They also had a prolonged war with chaos at the north and south poles which they lost horribly, but we can assume that was because of an infinite supply of demons and not because of the snow.
If you think about it, the geomantic web used to run all throughout the world. One thing you can do is imagine that certain pockets of lizardmen survived near the different focal points on the web. Over time, and as the climate grew colder (producing deserts of both varieties), you can argue that isolated pockets of Lizardmen began to spawn with different colorations and better suitedness to their areas.
There are also tales (4th ed. suprised they never included it in the new books) of lizardmen going on prolonged campaigns in the desert, even though they had to rest during the midday due to becoming sluggish, and it is not uncommon for lizardmen to be seen outside the jungle. During the albion campaign, entire Lizardmen armies were spotted marching through the empire in order to get from one gate to the other, and treks into naggaroth are fairly frequent, so Lizzies got no issues at all with exsisting outside their native climate. Problem is they would lack spawning pools whch would get in the way of more permanent settlements, but the old ones have a tendency to make sure there are pools in the right place, producing the right kind of lizzies at the right time.