8th Ed. New to Lizzardmen, advice sought

[Vogon]

Hi all.

My lad has recently decided he wants to play WFB like his old man and has decided on Lizardmen as his army of choice.

So far we have cobbled together via ebay a roughly 1500 point force based largely around the models he likes which looks like this

Old Blood on Carnosaur
Skink Priest
Scar Veteran
2 units of 20 Saurus full command
2 units of 12 skink skirmishers
Stegadon

So I guess the question I’m asking is what are some good tactics to use with this as your starting point? Any magic items which are a must have?

He’s thinking of Saurus cavalry next is that a good idea?

And most important is a Slann *really* necessary for an effective army or can you stick with the Old Blood and Carnosaur option?

Cheers

Vogon

 

[Arli]

Welcome to the forum! The reason that I joined the hobby was because my kids decided they wanted to play. Now, they have almost moved on completely and I am still in the hobby.

As to your questions, you have made a great start. To answer your questions:

A slann is not mandatory, but it will help. Hands down, the slann is the best caster (non character) in the game. But, on the flip side, you should not base your strategy on having a slann.

Because your son likes the way the lizardmen army looks, you cannot go wrong getting the cold one cavalry. However, the lizardmen cavalry models look sort of derpy (after looking at the cold one, you can believe that they have the stupidity rule). Strategy wise, they are not very useful unless you take 10+. Then, they get really expensive.

One of the army builds that you could take is using Kroq-gar (on carnosaur). This will allow you to take cold one cavarly as a core chooice. This build could work for you.

If you do not get a slann (and even if you do), you should have a few (2 or so) skink priests. These come in pretty handy for dispelling magic (using the cube of darkness or a dispel scroll). You can also stick one on a stegadon for an engine of the gods. The EOTG works well but is expensive.

What else do you need?

You should pick up some chameleon skinks or get some regular skinks and convert them into chameleons. Chameleons are the best scouts in the game.
Terradons are also good. They work as war machine hunters(like the chameleons). They also look really cool!

Lastly, you need at least 2 salamanders. I have 4 salamanders and 2 razordons (that I use as salamanders because salamanders are awesome). Salamanders will utterly destroy horde formations while causing an automatic panic check when a casualty is taken.

Hope this helps.

 

[Vogon]

Thanks for the advice.

What sort of unit size would you recommend for chameleon skinks? We haven't built the plastic skinks yet so would it be worth sacrificing say half the box to turn them into Chameleons?

I'd forgotten about Salamanders, though the times I've played against them I've always hated them so that's probably a good suggestion for a next buy though he does like the cavalry

Cheers

Vogon

P.S. Skimisher skinks, Blowpipes or javelins?

 

[Scalenex]

Thanks for the advice.

What sort of unit size would you recommend for chameleon skinks? We haven't built the plastic skinks yet so would it be worth sacrificing say half the box to turn them into Chameleons?

Depends on the point size of the game. I tend to take a unit or two of seven with a champion. Champions are controversial in effectiveness, but I like my champion conversions so I take them. I field them in groups of 7 so they cost the same as 3 terradons and I can compared and contrast (yes I'm an uber nerd).

P.S. Skimisher skinks, Blowpipes or javelins?

I prefer javelins because skirmishers move around a lot. Lots of people believe otherwise.

http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/javelins-or-blow-pipes.7126/

For more specialized threads, check out the Tactica index conveniently linked in my signature!

 

[Vogon]

Scalenex, that's brilliant thanks. I hadn't had a full explore of the forums yet so that link is extremely useful.

Cheers

Vogon