I only seem to have a 6th edition book, so I've got no idea on people don't seem to like these, could anybody clear it up for me?
Who doesn't like these? Lizardmen players or their opponents. If the former, then i'd like disagree and say that I prefer them to salamanders. If the latter, its becacuse they are really good.
It is a bit situational, razordons are good at receiving charges since they get 2 artillery dice worth of shots but if even one of them misfires it isn't going to shoot at all which is a bit of a weakness. Razordons also need to roll to hit while salamanders don't, and razordons do not cause automatic panic checks when wounding opponents. For these reasons most people find salamanders for more worth their points than razors, and they do seem better value, but it depends a bit on your playstyle and obviously some people do find them very useful. Razordons can have quite a psychological shock factor on your opponent, chances are you aren't going to get those two artillery dice very often since most people will stay away from them and not charge them. This can be very useful. Razordons tend to be a bit more expensive though because 1 alone doesn't work very well, it will only average 3-5 wounds against most things (which, btw, is only slightly better than a unit of 10 skinks) so needs to be in a larger pack thus a bigger investment of points. Salamanders actually work better on their own even if you are taking two because you can point them at seperate targets and cause a lot of panic checks.
Razordon's would be more effective against larger higher leadership units while a salamander would be best against ranked lower leadership units?
Against skirmishers, flyers, large targets tough targets, FAST CAVALRY (especially) and small low armored units, the razordon is superior. Against blocks of infantry and knights (heavy cavalry), the salamander is superior. Make your own decision, thet both have their strengths. Note that the razordon has a very cool stand and shoot reaction special rule. This can be used to to great effect by deliberately putting the razordon into the path of an on coming charge. Often provides unexpected results, like opponent running the hell away instead of risking a poo-storm of spines. This versatility, together with the fact that fast cavalry are both annoying and (normally) worth a health amount of victory points (5 fast cav will normally equal or go over the cost of the razordon, and its quite possible to wipe a unit of 5 out in a turn), as well as the fact that fast cav can charge and kill a unit of skink skirmishers with relative ease, lead me to believe razordons are the more reliable to put into your "locked out" tournament lists. Contrary to above post (apologies, no offence or flaming intended). Using razordons on their own (units of one) is the best way to field them. Its only 75 points for a deployment. Only 75 points to die when it gets charged. Too annyoing to ignore but not worth many victory points. Still causes fear as well as a unit of 2 or 3. Takes up less space in deployment zone and in your battle line. Less points in rare units, leading to (normally) better scores in tournament composition judgments. I have 2 units of one in my army. I personally love them ;p.
i like to use both depending on who i play. i play with razordons most of the time though because of this. when playing orcs and goblins i generally use salamanders, but once i used razordons and like thesecondman said that they are good at taking out fast cavalry, wiped out an entire unit of wolf riders ( they had been 2 had already died.) camo-skink
Well, I'm expecting to play against chaos, dwarves and ogre's so I'm not seeing much in the way of fast calvary, so I just ordered my self 1 razordon and 2 sallies.