8th Ed. Shouldve-Been-Saurus

[Skinquisitor]

But I don't think the Longbeard stats really fit how a saurus warrior should be. They can deffinitely use a boost, but great weapons just doesn't feel right...

Gw was just a wishlisting from me I1 vs asl-->almost no difference, exept with I1,they hit before stomps.

 

[Quinras]

hehe fair enough. But while we are talking about units rules who just don't fit the fluff, what do you think about the Slaan? I mean sure, they are very strong, very effective casters. But reading what they did during ET: Skaven, don't you think their in-game rules are a bit dissapointing? ( I only started playing with this book, maybe it was diffirent in the previous?)

Don't get me wrong, I love my Slaan. I always try to squeeze one in, where I can.
But reading the ET summary provided by Overlord, I got the impression they can disspel almost everything, while no one can really counter them. though this would be OP in game, I feel the gap is quite large.

 

[Putzfrau]

@Putzfrau
There is something called external balance, and internal balance.

Poor internal balance means you get units that are trap-choices, and taking too many of them means you basically admit you don't count on winning. Skinks are far too good in comparison to saurus, which is why so many tournament lists don't include Saurus at all - skinks are just too good, why bother with Saurus?

By your logic, they should just remove saurus entirely - we have skinks, after all. Right?

Except that's not what I'm saying at all.

My point was pretty cleary that saurus are how they are because skinks are so good. Acess to cheap poison skirmishing chaff makes saurus better. Longboards have a better statline because they don't have thay option.

Saurus are t taken at a competitive level because skinks are so good, this is true but that's the nature of competitive play. And literally irrelevant to the point I was making. Skinks could be worse and youd still need to take 80 of them because that's what a lizardmen army needs. Cheap fast moving chaff



I'll be honest, I really don't understand the constant problem on this forum over saurus.

ATM lizardmen are a dynamic army that competes in every phase. I'd rather not lose that so we can push 3 blocks of infantry across the board. Should the balance in our troop section shift slightly? Sure, but our army would arguable be worse overall. Lizardmen need skinks to be as strong as they are to stay relevant.

 

[Skinquisitor]

hehe fair enough. But while we are talking about units rules who just don't fit the fluff, what do you think about the Slaan? I mean sure, they are very strong, very effective casters. But reading what they did during ET: Skaven, don't you think their in-game rules are a bit dissapointing? ( I only started playing with this book, maybe it was diffirent in the previous?)

Don't get me wrong, I love my Slaan. I always try to squeeze one in, where I can.
But reading the ET summary provided by Overlord, I got the impression they can disspel almost everything, while no one can really counter them. though this would be OP in game, I feel the gap is quite large.

Do you remember 7th edition rulebook disciplines? Dispell almost everything: The Becalming Cogitation. 100% representing the rule what you say. No one can really counter them: The Focused Ruimation. The same thing applies.
A fully kitted slann was about 540-550 points, more then a current fully kitted demon prince. It dominated magic phases, as it is in the fluff, with those rules, I think it was in pair with the dp. 8th ed slann? Meh. The 7th edition one wasnt good in cc aswell, but the skills represented their real power, the high cost was in pair with what you paid for. Now, you cant be that dominant, in a perspective, night goblin shamans are the best now, when talking about domination (can have 4 free dice extra). And dont forget the cupped hands of the old ones. If you want to take a bunker for him, you have to be carefull, to prevent blowing up half of your bunker... Yeah, I should stop crying like a little bitch

 

[Putzfrau]

And it was ridiculously overpowered.

So we got the current version of the slann

 

[n810]

NO, NOT REALY, he was actually nerfed quite a bit from his 6th edition grandeur.

 

[Mr Phat]

I came into warhammer 6-7 months before our 8th book...so I just got to learn the game
get a hold of the magic phase
truly understand how powerful the slann was
and THEN! then it was taken from me in 8th -.-

Give me 7th Slann with new pricing....the free diciplin was HUGE concerning he was that cheap.

I would HAPPILY pay 450+ for a 7th Slann with Focus of Mystery, Becalming Cogitations and Focused Rumination.
Now........now im actually only buying him for the lore choice :S

 

[Putzfrau]

And a slann is still easily one of the best mages in warhammer.

What's the complaint exactly?

 

[Putzfrau]

NO, NOT REALY, he was actually nerfed quite a bit from his 6th edition grandeur.

The slann was completely broken in 7th. How he was in 6th is irrelevant.

 

[Quinras]

And a slann is still easily one of the best mages in warhammer.

What's the complaint exactly?

No, no complaint. Like I said in my original post, I love my slann. I field one almost every battle, abd it has never let me down so far. Much like my saurus warriors, allthough they are not so reliable. This, however, could be me.

No I was just wondering why the gap between fluff and in-game rules was so big. I only started playing fantasy since 8th edition (the release of the carnosaur kit ), so I don't know how strong he was...

 

[Putzfrau]

And a slann is still easily one of the best mages in warhammer.

What's the complaint exactly?

No, no complaint. Like I said in my original post, I love my slann. I field one almost every battle, abd it has never let me down so far. Much like my saurus warriors, allthough they are not so reliable. This, however, could be me.

No I was just wondering why the gap between fluff and in-game rules was so big. I only started playing fantasy since 8th edition (the release of the carnosaur kit ), so I don't know how strong he was...

That way they can still have fun fluff but balanced rules

 

[Lawot]

Yeah, the fluff tends towards over-the-top...even our Skink character's fluff tries to make them seem tough and deadly. So Slann created as servants of the Old Ones, to wield the power of magic as architects of the world, should be able to do all the insane things that Slann do in the fluff. But to translate that into game terms, each Slann would be like 3,000 points. So instead of having a mage that you'd never be able to play, and who would be boring anyways because they'd auto-kill everything except packs of Greater Daemons, they're super toned-down.

In 6th edition, the Slann could be upgraded to ignore miscasts, get a free dice on every spell, have more wounds, and other awesome things I can't remember. Oh, and they always had +1 to cast and dispel, and could choose spells from multiple lores, mixing and matching as they liked. They were incredibly powerful and incredibly expensive. You'd want a nice big Temple Guard bunker to protect them, and Temple Guard were...17 pts? So you usually had half your points or more all in that one unit. Lord Kroak appeared (for the first time?) in that book. If I recall, he knew a total of eight spells, two of which were Drain Magic and "The Ruination of Cities" (forerunner of Deliverance of Itza), which did severe damage and wrecked buildings. The other six spells he could choose from BRB lores. He also had all the benefits of a Slann already mentioned above, and other powerful things...and he was 1,225 points.

Since then, they've been toning down the Slann, and definitely Kroak. In 7th edition they broke up the upgrades (which came as packages in 6th edition, depending on what generation your Slann was) so that you could customize his powers. Some of those upgrades were pretty sweet (Lore Mastery, free D6 for each cast, make enemy Wizards discard 6's when they attempt to dispel, Ethereal without Unstable), but they did lose the basic abilities of +1 cast/dispel and mixing Lores. I think they made up for it, though, with efficiency: at a stupidly low 275 pts base, they were sheer terrors on the table. In 7th, Kroak was pretty much the same as he is now, except 600 pts.

Now, I do wish that the Slann were the undisputed masters of magic that they once were, withering the enemy with impunity. But I'm also pretty happy to have a cheaper, more versatile Lord, with the option to play him bare-bones so that the whole game doesn't ride on his magic phase.

And just for the sake of completeness...
I never saw our 5th edition rulebook, but began playing Lizardmen using the early 6th ed. rules in the Warhammer Annual from 2002 or something like that. That's when we had the old-school Slann, carried into battle on a palanquin, and giving him both the magical prowess of the Slann, and the combat stats of 4 Temple Guard. And he had T6 and 8 Wounds or something ridiculous like that. Getting him into close combat wasn't really something to worry about, he could destroy a lot of other characters one-on-one.

 

[Agrem]

Yes, sixth edition slanns were the greatest. That is when I started playing. Don't remember the cost of the generations nor which ability came with what but I remember that you usually took the second highest to get the most bang for the buck. Then just stick the warbanner for him, get the bears anger spell (+3A, +3S or something like that) which was the #1 spell that you could change for the same way as signatures now. With this combo you could charge almost anything and break the unit in one go with solo slann. Oh the good times.

BR
Agrem

 

[Koranot]

I really think Saurus are fine as a unit. I have done the math against several other core units and they fare well against most of them, although the outcome is normaly pretty close as in the Longbeard Saurus matchup. The only other core units I found to be problematic are fully equipped chaos warriors and savage orc big uns. Especially the big uns devastate Saurus but they are generally a very though unit, although very hard to control.

The reason why Saurus are seen as subpar by many, is that infantry is generally subpar in a meta where everyone uses fast moving, hard hitting lists or avoidance lists.

But that is problem created by the community. If the core scenarios would be used at most tournaments, chaos chariot lists, skink clouds or flying circus lists would really struggle to hold a watch tower or get enough standards for blood and glory. Saurus, or other tough infantry units, are pretty good at holding watchtowers or defending standards but since the community as a whole decided to abandon the core scenarios infantry got weakened.

In summary I think the problem lies more in the way the community plays warhammer than in the effency of Saurus.

 

[Ersh]

The problem of sauruses as a core is simple imo...

They can't take flag and have very limited weapon choice and low WS - so they can't stand vs chaos core infantry and other strong core units. In other hand - they are expensive, and can do nothing vs strong units, that "every hit kills" or units like banshee, so it's much better to place skinks vs them .

But still they are not useless - i found them nice vs other mediocre infantry and vs enemies with low AS. Still, if i will play vs random opponent - skinks will be better. Sad but true.

 

[KingCheops]

But that is problem created by the community. If the core scenarios would be used at most tournaments, chaos chariot lists, skink clouds or flying circus lists would really struggle to hold a watch tower or get enough standards for blood and glory. Saurus, or other tough infantry units, are pretty good at holding watchtowers or defending standards but since the community as a whole decided to abandon the core scenarios infantry got weakened.

In summary I think the problem lies more in the way the community plays warhammer than in the effency of Saurus.

Um WTF are you serious? This is a pretty ridiculous argument. These situations are the player's response to the rules as published by GW. GW created this mess by releasing a sub-par ruleset (8th edition) and unbalanced army lists. Blaming the players or the tournament organizers for stuff that is largely outside of their control is lunacy.

Saurus are worse than skinks at defending standards and watchtowers because of the rules changes in 8th and the way they wrote army lists. For instance Longbeards kill Saurus and Skinks in a watchtower at the same rate so you are better off fielding twice as many Skinks in order to make him spend forever getting you out. Plus you get shots.

 

[lordkingcrow]

Maybe it's because I don't play tournaments or maybe I just have a different play style, but I've never had an issue with my saurus units outside of the low initiative vs MEGA Death spells. In fact, I tend to run a very saurus heavy army with lots of cold ones and few (sometimes no) monsters. I don't think I've lost with them at all in the last year.

Core Str. 4 T. 4 troops with 4+ armor and two attacks a piece (with the potential to make another) for 11 points is a pretty good deal. If anyone should complain, it should be High Elves. Those guys are expensive for how fragile they are. In the example I gave, our core troops beat more expensive models with better WS. I'm not sure how you can complain about that.

Granted, against big tough things like monsters and such, it can be a rough go. Solution: Throw in a GW scar vet and "make way" to deal with those issues. I think what we need to remember is that they are CORE. Not special or rare. Would you expect a regular elf spearman or dwarf warrior to hold against elite troops? No. At least not without superior numbers or additional support. Core troops are not designed to be your hammer, they are the anvil, and if played right, they do a pretty solid job of it.

 

[SilverFaith]

Saurus are worse than skinks at defending standards and watchtowers because of the rules changes in 8th and the way they wrote army lists. For instance Longbeards kill Saurus and Skinks in a watchtower at the same rate so you are better off fielding twice as many Skinks in order to make him spend forever getting you out. Plus you get shots.

Important note: you get OVERWATCH shots, EVERY TURN he charges in to get you out.

So if he charges you, and fails to get you out, he took a salvo of poisoned overwatch shots to the face, and maybe even lost a guy in the combat (5s to hit hurts), and if you held your ground, you can now fire another salvo at him in your turn, AND THEN GET ANOTHER OVERWATCH.

Skinks >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Saurus in a watchtower scenario.

I fail to see how skinks make Saurus better. From this kind of logic, we could also say Longbeards don't need to be this good, because Dwarfs have cannons and units with guns. They have gunlines for a reason, and finally hitting CC, only to be met with 4+ 5++ T4 is ridiculous. Most units that can deal with that, IE Temple Guards with razor banner, are unlikely to be even half size anymore.

We aren't the only army with powerful shooting phases.

 

[Putzfrau]

Saurus are worse than skinks at defending standards and watchtowers because of the rules changes in 8th and the way they wrote army lists. For instance Longbeards kill Saurus and Skinks in a watchtower at the same rate so you are better off fielding twice as many Skinks in order to make him spend forever getting you out. Plus you get shots.

Important note: you get OVERWATCH shots, EVERY TURN he charges in to get you out.

So if he charges you, and fails to get you out, he took a salvo of poisoned overwatch shots to the face, and maybe even lost a guy in the combat (5s to hit hurts), and if you held your ground, you can now fire another salvo at him in your turn, AND THEN GET ANOTHER OVERWATCH.

Skinks >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Saurus in a watchtower scenario.

I fail to see how skinks make Saurus better. From this kind of logic, we could also say Longbeards don't need to be this good, because Dwarfs have cannons and units with guns. They have gunlines for a reason, and finally hitting CC, only to be met with 4+ 5++ T4 is ridiculous. Most units that can deal with that, IE Temple Guards with razor banner, are unlikely to be even half size anymore.

We aren't the only army with powerful shooting phases.

Cheap chaff makes infantry blocks better. Dwaves don't have access to cheap chaff.

Lizardmen play dwarves very well. It's not as if our only option is march across the board.

Saurus are fine. Lizardmen are a very strong army. And saurus are a fine choice in everything but the most competitive lists.

8th is the most balanced warhammer has ever been.

 

[Mr Phat]

That was a lot of statements without arguments to back them up Putz