8th Ed. New to lizards

[Martinaston]

Hi guys I'm a 40k player and haven't played fantasy since last edition and I'm thinking of building lizard men
So I was just wondering if you guys could offer me advice on the strengths and weaknesses.
And how practical it would be to have mainly a skink army?

 

[cyanhawk]

The biggest strengths of the lizardmen are overall high durability, great control of the magic phase, and great leadership.

Weaknesses are less mobility, high point cost per model, Overall low initiative.


Any army with a solid core of saurus warriors supported by stegadons, salamanders, etc with a slann backing them up is an army to be feared.

An all skink army is something I have toyed with, but you need to be fairly comfortable with how the army plays to pull it off. Skinks might as well have 0 for toughness, they die extremely quickly, and once all the skinks are gone you are really not left with anything to win games.

Since you are new I would recommend starting with some saurus and then expanding after you get some games under your belt.

 

[Martinaston]

Thanks for the advice

I started as a lizard men player and I liked the skirmisher skinks

I think I like the special models for skinks like the chiefs warlocks and the Chameleon skinks do these particular models not play well?

 

[cyanhawk]

Skink Skirmishers are wonderful, Chameleons are some of my favorite units in the whole army.

Skink Priests are not bad, but they are limited to only one lore of magic and lvl 2, Whereas the slann is lvl 4 off the bat and can pick from 8 lores of magic. I do use one in most of my armies though to get a second arcane item in the list.

Skink Chiefs don't usually make it into my lists. the only time they are effective is when you put them on a stegadon, and that eats into most of the points you can spend on heroes. They just don't have the staying power that they need for the points they cost.

I have made an no saurus or slann army before and you can definitely feel the difference on the battlefield.

As always though, if an all skink army is what makes you want to play warhammer and you have fun doing it, go for it. Its very hard to play but it was fun the couple of times I played my all skink list.

 

[Arli]

I play primarily skink oriented lists. In a 2.5-3k game, I will take either one or two block of skink cohorts with 3 Kroxigors (as my main core choice). I do not use skirmishers that much as I need those skinks in the horde unit with the kroxigors. I will usually take a slann with 20 temple guard. Using either lore of life or lore of light to buff them all up.

I will always take 2 or 3 skink priests. Not for the spells so much as what they can bring.

Skink Priest 1: Forbidden rod (d6 dice to the power pool taking d3 wounds) I also give him the 15 pt amulet that gives a 4+ vs the first wound. This can turn a bad magic phase into a winning magic phase. Everyone should try this as it is awesome. I have been using it for 6 or 7 months and only lost the skink a few times.

Skink Priest 2: dispel scroll I take this at a bare minimum.

Skink Priest 3: Cube of Darkness I like this better than the scroll because of the 4+ ending of the magic phase. Priest 2 or 3 can be mounted on a EOTG also.


As far as skink chiefs go, I sometimes take them. I kit them out and put them in the cohort units. Put a Crown of Command on one and you have a Stubborn, Fear Causing unit that can tarpit very effectively.

A unit of terradons with a skink chief on a terradon can drop rocks on an opponent then land behind them. Next turn, that's a rear charge that can help with combat rez.


I like having fear causing units running around the field. Also, because they are mixed units, skrox (cohorts with kroxigors) cannot be stomped and cannot be targeted by the dreaded 13th spell from Skaven.


Chameleons are awesome! I use them to hunt war machines. They are the best unit in the game (IMO) for this purpose.

If I take skirmishers, I always take the javelin and shield for the stand and shoot. I always lose my poison after I move and try to shoot with them. Since that happens, I would rather have the 6+ shield parry along with always being able to stand and shoot.

 

[Martinaston]

Well the models I was going to buy for now was going to be

Slaan

2 stegadons

The army box

Box of skink

Skink priest

Chameleons

Oxytol

Box of Saurus warriors

3 kroxigor

And 3 salamanders

Maybe with a few more Saurus warriors

Could a competitive list be made with this?

 

[cyanhawk]

I cant see any reason why you wouldn't be able to create a competitive army out of what you have listed. You may have to play some lower point value games or use some proxy models to get the required 25% for core.

 

[Martinaston]

Or maybe by more saurus warriors?

 

[cyanhawk]

I actually missed the box of skinks. If you put the three krox in the 24 skink block and then use the 40 or so saurus warriors you have you should be fine up to around 2500 point games for core. Or you can pick up another box of saurus warriors. I think my collection of saurus is just 2 boxes of saurus warriors plus what you get in the batallion, and I have never really needed more.

 

[Arli]

A box of 10 temple guard will be needed as well. You should always bunker the slann in a unit of 20 temple guard (at least). I would go no higher than 26 though.

 

[Martinaston]

What is the average points for a game?

And with the stegadons I was going to have one engine of the gods and the othe one with the big bow would this fit in an average game?

 

[cyanhawk]

The average points cost per game really depends on your group. My group plays around 2500. We used to play 2250 in the previous edition. We also play some 1500 point games.

You really should pick up the rule book and give it a read. Both the core rules and the lizard rules, but you should be able to fit an engine and a steg with bow into most games.