• The forum software have been upgraded to the latest version.

    If you notice anything that looks off, or does not work, please let us know.

    For more information, click here.

Blog The Jade Host: Mayan Lizardmen

Warden
Slann

Warden

Tenth Spawning
Messages
6,633
Likes Received
18,853
Trophy Points
113
The Jade Host- Mayan Lizardmen

lizardmen paint blog_scroll 3.png
INDEX

Page 1
  • Lizardmen Army photos, May13
  • Core Units: photos and fluff
    • Saurus Infantry
    • Skink Skirmishers
  • Skink Chief on Coatl photo and rules
  • Random pirate dwarf ideas
Page 2
  • Special Units: photos and fluff
    • Jungle Swarms
    • Saurus Cavalry
Page 3
  • Special Units: photos and fluff
    • Temple Guard
    • Janaab Pakal, the Sun Shield (Chakkax)
    • Stegadon Yax Witz
  • Lords and Heroes: photos and fluff
    • Jatzom Kuh, Slann Mage Priest
    • Smoke Frog, Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur
    • Yax Nuunayiin, Saurus Scar-Veteran on foot
    • Yaxum Balum, Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold-One
    • The Skink Priest Court
Page 4
Page 5
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Lizardmen Plaza WIP photos
    • Jungle Fortress (painting process)
  • Casting Slann
Page 6
  • Jungle Terrain: Jungle Fortress (painting process, towers, door)
Page 7
  • Jungle Terrain: Jungle Fortress (tower details)
Page 8
Page 9
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Jungle Fortess Painted, lots of Siege Photos
  • Yellow Saurus Infantry painting WIP
Page 10
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Making a Siege Tower
    • Raised jungle plaza
    • Jungle Buildings- Temple of the Falling God, House of Frescoes, Arch of Labna
Page 11
  • Magnetizing and repainting my Coatl and Skink Priest
  • Jungle Terrain: experiment with water effects in jungle well
  • Golden Serpent 2017: Skink Warchief on Troglodon, WIP and painted
Page 12
  • Updated Lizardmen Army photos, 29MAR17
  • Lords and Hero photos
Page 13
  • Updated Lizardmen Army photos, 29MAR17
    • Lords and Hero photos
    • Core Units
    • Special/Rare Units
  • Basing Jungle Swarms: WIP and completed
  • Basing Saurus Scar-Veteran
  • Building Movement Trays
  • Basing Red Saurus Infantry WIP
Page 14
  • Basing Saurus Infantry, WIP and complete
    • Plus unit fillers
Page 15
  • Jungle Terrain: construction and painting
    • Temple of Tuloom
    • Rattlesnake Temple
Page 16
  • Jungle Terrain: painting
    • Temple of Tuloom
    • Rattlesnake Temple
  • Basing Saurus Cavalry and Stegadon, WIP and complete
    • Plus movement trays
  • Basing Chameleon Skinks/Skink Priests WIP
  • Basing Saurus Infantry, WIP and complete
Page 17
  • Basing Chameleon Skinks/Skink Priests complete
  • Building Temple Guard Slann-bearers
  • Casting Chameleon Skinks
  • Jungle Terrain: terrain challenge
    • Small Burial Mounds construction
    • Large Burial Mound construction
Page 18
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Small Burial Mounds painting complete
    • Large Burial Mound painting complete
    • Warpstone/treasure tokens
    • Sacrophagus tokens
Page 19
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Large Burial Mound interior
    • Jungle Trees
  • Based Skink Skirmishers and Chameleon Skinks
  • Basing and painting Terradon Riders
  • Mordheim Game playing board
  • Basing the Slann Mage-Priest
  • Rebuilding and painting the carnosaur
  • Golden Slann 2017: casting slann and building palanquins WIP
Page 20
  • Golden Slann 2017: casting slann and building palanquins WIP painting
  • Updated Lizardmen Army photos, 01JAN18
    • plus new game room and wargame table
  • Gatormen/Amazon assembly (Amazon completed on my other paint log)
  • Jungle Terrain: Tower of Palenque
Page 21
  • Building and basing Gatormen (magnetized)
  • Jungle Terrain: Uxmal House of the Pigeons
  • Battle Standard Bearer WIP
Page 22
  • Painting the Battle Standard Bearer (WIP) and Temple Guard Slann Bearers
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Uxmal House of the Pigeons complete
    • Jungleheim Game board terrain pics
    • Uxmal Long House and Snake-Faced House pics
    • Mordheim Platforms project
  • Project Gatormen Part 2
Page 23
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Mordheim Platforms project painting
    • Xochicalco Platform painted and complete
  • Magnetized terradon rider
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Mordheim Platforms Part 2
    • Turn Marker
    • Snake Pit platform WIP
Page 24​
  • Jungle Terrain:
Page 25
  • Lizardmen:
    • Standard Bearer complete
    • Carnosaur complete
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Fixing Jungle Fortress
    • Siege Towers
  • Saw a thunder lizard...
Page 26​
  • Mordheim pics
  • Gatormen (Hordes)
    • Red and Voodoo Gatormen posse complete
    • Wrong Eye and Snapjaw
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Serpent Mouth Arch
    • Snake Statues
Page 27​
  • Gatormen: Boilermaster complete
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Canal Project WIP
    • Cocktail monkeys for Mordheim :D
    • Canal Project Part 1 complete
    • Mordheim Jungle Encounters
Page 28​
  • Jungle Terrain: Mayan Stela WIP/ complete
  • Lizardmen:
    • Salamander (Ghost Archipelago) complete
    • Terradon Priest (Reaper) complete
Page 29​
  • Mordheim pics
  • Jungle spiders WIP/complete
  • Jungle Terrain:
    • Game Tile boards WIP
    • Canal Project Part 2 WIP
Page 30
  • Canal Project part 2 complete, lots of terrain photos
  • Slann Council WIP
Page 31​
  • Updated Lizardmen Army photos as of JUN19
Page 32​
  • a few more army photos
  • How to Build a Snake Pit Tutorial
  • Tower of Fire Mordheim scenario

Warhammer Lizardmen: the Jade Host

1 x Slann Mage Priest
6 x Slann Mage Priests (DIY palanquins, all WIP)
1 x Saurus Oldblood / Scar Veteran on Carnosaur (WIP)
1 x Saurus Oldblood / Scar Veteran on Cold One
1 x Saurus Oldblood / Scar Veteran on foot
1 x Eternity Warden (Chakkax model)
3 x Skink Priests on foot
1x Terradon Priest
2 x Skink Chiefs on foot (or magnetize to troglodon and Coatl)
1 x Skink Chief on Coatl (counts-as Dogs of War High Elf on Dragon)

64 x Saurus Warriors (half spears, half hand weapons; unit fillers bring total to 80; four units of full command)
48 x Skink Skirmishers (half blowpipes, half javelins, all have shields)
25 x Temple Guard (halberds and shields; full command)
15 x Cold One Riders (3 units of 5 each; each has a champion and standard)
9 x Chameleon Skinks

3 x Terradon Riders

1 x Stegadon
1 x Troglodon
6 x Jungle Swarms
1x Salamander

Hordes: Gatormen

20 x Kroxigors (gatormen- x15 complete)
1x Boilermaster and Cauldron
1x Wrong Eye and Snapjaw
1x Jaga Jaga the Death Charmer (WIP)



11MAR16
Greetings fellow lizards.

Time to start posting my current Lizardmen army, and hopefully my future progress towards finishing them. Lizardmen were my first army into Warhammer back when the new Lizardmen army book came out in 2003. I also have a force of green Lustrian Bretonnians (which I have incorporated into my lizard’s lore) and a small force of green Black Templars that I need to redo at some point. Got a few army shots for you.

1 Army Photo Wide.jpg

My Lizardmen are also green, because its my favorite color, but also back when I first got them I thought green was going to look better on them than blue. I am very happy how they turned out. They are very worn at this point after over a decade of tabletop abuse, and have never been based, so I perpetually have lots of work to get them finished!

2 Army Photo.JPG

3 Army Photo Slann and Saurus.JPG

All these army shots were taken about two years ago. Since then I have added a few more units to my army, including my Stegadon, and as of Christmas my WIP carnosaur! More pictures on them later.

4 Army Photo.JPG

5 Army Photo unpainted Steg.jpg

My Lizardmen force is based around the Lost City of Mutal, a mostly ruined and partially rebuilt temple city along the coast of Lustria in the Ceiba Jungles, near the Bretonnian colony of Jeruga. The name Mutal comes from the ancient name for the Mayan city of Tikal and Dos Pilas. In this blog I hope to go over some of the lore of my individual units too.

6 Army Photo.JPG

Hope you enjoy the pictures, next on to the core units!
 
Last edited:
I really like the vibrant colours of your army, and all the different crest colours on your various skink units. The yellow ones really stand out to me though! Your slann and temple guard unit looks really incredible! The colours work so well together!
 
Wow that was fast Bowser, thanks for the support! I hadn't finished my next post yet.

Core Units

My favorite Lizardmen are definitely the Saurus Infantry. On the tabletop against my brother’s wood elves they have been the backbone of the host, facing down hordes of dryads, treemen, and the occasional beast horde. Based on many of the articles on this forum saurus infantry are not the most viable core choices most of the time, but I couldn’t imagine my Lizardmen army without them.

Right now I have three units of saurus infantry, the first being the Green Saurus- the Guardians of the Ceiba Shrine and dedicated to Tzunki. They were the first unit of Warhammer I ever put together, and I learned a lot about what not to do for future units. They are a staple in almost every army list I have used, and are normally the bunker for my scar veteran on foot.

Saurus Green.png

Next the Red Saurus, known as the Spawned of Sotek. Back when I started sacred spawnings were still a thing, and I was so sad when they never came back :(. But I still kept the look for the rest of the units in my army, giving each one a different color on top of the green color scheme. It made storing the army a lot easier as I never get confused which lizard goes with which unit.

Saurus Red.png

The Black Saurus are known as the Spears of the Tazamul Caves and dedicated to Queztl. They served as my slann bunker for the longest time until I recently got the new temple guard box. I also have a second unit of saurus spear warriors but I have yet to finish them (they will probably be yellow and dedicated to Tlazcotl).

Saurus Black.png
 
Last edited:
Next, my skinks! Sorry for the pictures being so blurry, they are all from several years ago, I need to take new ones. Each skink unit is also painted a little differently. I run them in units of 12 (two units per box of 24 of course!) and have never failed to earn many times their point back in games.

Green Skinks- the Jungle Patrol, with javelins.

Skinks Green.png

Dark Green Skinks- the Pathfinders, with blowpipes and modeled with shields too because they look cooler with them.

Skinks Dark Green.png

Yellow Skinks- the Swamp Runners, also blowpipes and shields

Skinks Yellow.png

Red Skinks- the Rat Hunters, and dedicated to the cult of Sotek.

Skinks Red.png

My Green Skinks and Dark Green skinks somehow got posted to the previous post, not sure how I did that... Anyway next post will go into some of my special units.
 
Wow that army looks great! I think whenever I get time I´ll start writing all my fluff, and that will definitely include a small section for each unit, just like you did with yours ;). I am also surprised by how well do the different regiment colors look and match so well with the basic color scheme, I´ve never managed to make my saurus´ regiment makings look good :D. When I do a small repaint of them I ´l for sure consider painting them in a way to represent their fluff! By the way, how many point is your army?

Oh and nice Quetzal there! Did you sculpt it or is it bought? And with which rules do you play it?
 
Thanks for the great compliments! I will postpone my special units post in favor of this one for now. And I would need to go back and do a points count, I don’t have any put together at the moment, the last time I played was over a year ago.

Backstory

So I wanted my own coatl ever since reading this passage from the Lustria Campaign book:

Coatl Lore.jpg

@Jorgik and @Bowser , I actually made it myself! It wound up being a very easy project. I used some clay to make the body, after firing it in my oven I added some wings from a $5 plastic Pegasus from a craft store. I tried making a clay head but it turned out badly, so I used one of the extra heads from my leftover saurus cavalry and it turned out pretty good! The pictures I posted so far don’t show the skink chief (from the stegadon set) I added to him, so here is an updated picture!

IMG_0112.JPG

I need to add a newer picture later, I did a little more work on the coatl’s body since then.

Lore

The character’s name is Waxakalhun Ubah Kan, known as the Avatar of the Jungle’s Wrath. He is a lone survivior of a spawning that was wiped out by [foe to be determined], and was lost deep within the Lustrian jungles around Mutal. Presumed dead by the rest of his skink brethren, he later reappeared in the midst of a fierce battle upon the back of a mythical Coatl, and helped drive the enemy from the field before disappearing again into the dark rainforest. His name comes from an ancient Mayan name for the god Kulkulkan, the translation for Waxakalhun Ubah Kan actually means “feathered war serpeant” (I originally named him Sarpedon because it sounded cool, but I changed it after reading some more WH40K lore discovered this name was already taken).

Rules

I used him were some older rules for Asarnil the Dragonlord, the Dogs of War High Elf on a dragon, because it was the only flying dogs of war unit I could find at the time that best represented the coatl and rider. Even though the high elf stats were a bit higher than any normal skink chief, it was still closer to the skink chief than a saurus oldblood because of its low toughness. I also had the idea that he could have been maimed or crippled somehow, to justify the slower movement speed, and maybe magically gifted by some sign from Sotek or a magical device, such as his helmet.

Here is a summary of the rules I used to use for him, matching the original profile for Asarnil and his dragon (to give an estimate he cost a little over 400 points).

Stats:

coatl stats.jpg

Ubah Kan can never be the army general.
Takes up a hero slot and a rare slot
Unit Size: massive!
Equipment: hand weapon, shield, the Thunder Spear, and Sacred Helm of Chotec Ascendant. I changed the original model’s heavy armor to his scaly skin combined with his helmet.

Special Rules:

Coatl, Guardian of the Sacred Places- the Coatl has Scaly Skin save of 3+, causes terror, can fly, and has a S4 Breath Weapon. In addition, when rolling the Monster Reaction Chart, add +1 to the dice roll. If you roll a 6 you may choose the result you wish.

Scaly Skin- Ubah Kan has a Scaly Skin save of 6+

Thunder Spear - counts as a lance, provide +2 on the turn he charges

Sacred Helm of Chotec Ascendant - provides Ubah Kan with an extra 6+ armor save (bringing total armor save to 4+). In addition, the dazzling light of this helm cause both Ubah Kan and the Coatl to appear blurry and vague, as if spotted through a haze, providing a -1 to hit penalty for all missile attacks.

I used him in a couple battles. He was fun to use, and much faster than any carnosaur or anything else the Lizardmen have except for the terradons. It would have been great if the Lizardmen had actually gotten one of these guys in their army. I know the fluff entry for the coatl is more along magical lines, but it would have been great to get a two-part kit, one for a magical monster and another for a skink ridden combat beastie.

Or even better, a coatl that could air drop a stegadon onto the battlefield…
 
This Coatl is quite inspired! Now I see the head and know exactly the model! I suppose if you wanted a mach 2 version you could use the carnosaur or troglodon head left over from that kit! Would need a bigger body to support it though. I got really excited reading this post because when I first started I joined a league doing this campaign with regiments of renown bit. So I tried looking that up which brought me to some brilliant little rgiments of renown booklet with special rules guys like these skink cold one riders Tichi Huichi or something and some other goblin hewer guy. It was the wrong thing but that led to looking up dogs of war and other special units.
Edit found them! It was the Border Wars campaign. Totally different regiment of renown rules but still fun!
Screenshot_2016-03-12-19-42-38.png
Screenshot_2016-03-12-19-42-59.png
 
Last edited:
@Bowser I always did like the old Regiments of Renown! My favorite were the Long Drong Slayer Pirates. I always dreamed of starting an army of pirate dwarfs... But I haven't quite finished my Lizardmen and Bretonnians enough to justify starting a third warhammer army yet.

Long Drong Slayer Pirates.jpg
http://www.coolminiornot.com/205342

@pendrake It is a very easy conversion! The whole thing cost me about $8 not including the leftover cold one head. Very fun model to put together.

@Jorgik that is a very good idea. When I go back to fix up this model I will consider figuring out a way to easily detach the rider and use him as a transformation of kadon model.
 
Wow! I really like your color code... Used to do it in a similar way with my first little army back in 5th. Had black brown and blue units of warriors and a yellow and one red unit of skinks.
And nice one! for that coatl!
 
Warden said:
@Bowser I always did like the old Regiments of Renown! My favorite were the Long Drong Slayer Pirates. I always dreamed of starting an army of pirate dwarfs... But I haven't quite finished my Lizardmen and Bretonnians enough to justify starting a third warhammer army yet.

long-drong-slayer-pirates-jpg.19775

http://www.coolminiornot.com/205342
Click to expand...
Those are awesome. Do you own any? GW really has some great long forgotten classic minis. The good old days!
 
Normally around $50, more for painted sets. What I may do is buy a couple single pirate miniatures and just cast them myself, that's what I have been doing with my bretonnian men-at-arms and knights to save money.

Although I have also considered experimenting with some basic dwarfs and my air-dry clay and making a piraty army that way. Or maybe even chaos dwarf pirates with goblin/ogre slaves.
 
NIGHTBRINGER said:
A set of 10 or so I would imagine? How big would you plan to make the army?
Click to expand...

Yes they normally come in a set of 10.

I was originally thinking a dwarf pirate force consisting of a unit of Long Drong Slayers, some piratey thunderers and warriors, and a unit of counts-as miners that look like deep sea divers from a jules verne book. Also would have added a unit of regular slayers to be dressed up like islander cannibals, and of course cannons. Lots of pirate cannons. Maybe a gyrocopter dressed up to look like a pirate lifeboat.

I never really developed the chaos dwarf pirate angle, but I figured they would have deal with the slave trade to Lustria, and be supplemented by some orc slave regiments and some Lustrian ogres. Lots of big beards and big hats. I was partially inspired by these chaos dwarfs:

IMG_5306.JPG

IMG_5310.JPG

I can't find the original link, but here is a link to the guy who made them, Tjub from Chaos Dwarfs Online.

Also for bases I wanted to use a similar concept by wonkobaggins at DakkaDakka; have a bunch of dwarfs coming up along the beach, with palm trees and barrels lining the coastline.

Undead Pirates.jpg

Lots of good stuff here. So many projects still to do!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top