8th Ed. The Limits of lizard choices

I just want to mention that the slaan is not a always-include. The best liz player in my area plays double OB +scar-vets in a coold one buss most of the times. He won last years big tournament so it seams to be working out pretty goos.

 

I think there's plenty of diversity with the lizardmen core. By my count, there are about six reasonable variations to choose from before we even talk about unit size and horde formations.

Lizardmen: heavy infantry, light infantry with extra options (krox), skirmish
Given the weapon choices being split, you're looking at being able to take six different variations before repeating a unit (and that's before size): Block of spear saurus, block of hw/shield saurus, cohort, cohort with krox, skirmish javelins, skirmish blowpipes. Given the way these affect the unit's play, that's considerable diversity (two hard blocks, two skirmish variants that want different ranges, big hitting weak Skink+Krox, big cheap bunker skinks). Especially compared to other armies.

I guess I wonder which armies get a more interesting set of Core options? Yes, our book has only three entries. But the count of six variations is worth putting up against others.

Beastmen: Light infantry, lighter infantry, skirmish, beasts, chariot, options to ambush with half (rarely used)
Seems like a lot, but really it's blocks of gors and skirmishing ungors that get used. Even if we count Gors with shields as a variant option (no reason), there are only about six real choices here.

Bretonnians: Two variants of heavy cav, light infantry, bowline
At max, four choices. Given that many don't field the men-at-arms, you're looking at three. And given that knights errant and regular knights are pretty much the same function (some lack of control for discount), it's functionally two choices.

Daemons: Four variants of light infantry with some special rules flavor for each
So clearly, four. And, note that none of the options include the variety of skirmish or cav or other fun.

Dark Elves: Three variants of light infantry, fast cav
Some meaningful gear option choices here for the regulars and the corsairs, so it seems like about six likely choices before core is exhausted.

Dwarfs: Two variants of heavy infantry, two variants of bowline
Yes, longbeards give some special rules... but it's really great weapons or hw/shield. Four choices.

High Elves: two variants of light infantry, bowline, heavy cav
Five choices when thinking formationally. Cav gives some variation, but it's pretty plain in elf-land.

Ogres: monstrous infantry, slightly heavier armored monstrous infantry, light infantry, can the little things skirmish?
Limited, limited, limited. Given the cost of the big models, it means that they're stuck with big points core so minimal core. At best looking at four options.

Orcs and Goblins: light tough infantry, light frenzy infantry (with some variations), light weak infantry with extra options (fanatics, skulkers), two options for light cav, potential bowline units
Aha, here we have some serious diversity. In my experience, it's reasonable to say that O&G have ten+ core options to fiddle with that are game-effective.

Skaven: light infantry, lighter infantry, lightest infantry, giant rats, skirmishers, swarms, upgrade choices with weapon teams
Too many combinations to count quickly. I think we get distracted if we use Skaven as our benchmark. The weapon teams options alone mean that choosing core is one of the most fun portions of list-building here.

Empire: Many variants of light infantry, variants of bowline, one skirmish group, and heavy cav
I think Empire's core is deceptively diverse. It's not as different as it might seem and while yes you can select a different force every game between spearmen, halberds, swordsmen and all the rest, it's all just micro-variation given the points. There's a 2 big blocks with 2 supporting blocks kind of feel to most infantry-heavy forces. And yes, you can go crazy and spam knights or gunline it. What really helps the diversity of creative choice is the detachments. Definitely a top winner, but I'm not prepared to give them the crown.

Tomb Kings: light infantry, bowline, light cavalry, chariot units
Good diversity in type, poor diversity in practice. I find that Tomb Kings rarely are successful if they play the "little of everything game", instead finding themselves focused on a type of army and then spamming core to match that type. So your "how am I going to win" limits the choices. Four or less depending on self-placed restrictions.

Vampires: three flavors of light infantry, beasts
Yeah, no diversity here. They're blocks of replaceable troops, with the ghouls giving a bit of difference. Four.

Warriors of Chaos: heavy infantry, light infantry, fast cav, beasts, marks which cause minor variation
Harder to number because of the marks, but in general you're looking at three styles of warriors (defense, MSU wood chipper, solid offense) and two of marauders (small diversion or big block). That makes about seven choices before mark variation. So pretty diverse.

Wood Elves: melee skirmish, bowline, light infantry (you never see because of metal), fast cav
Really only three options. Yes, an all eternal guard infantry blocks army would be amazing and could get some surprise wins, terribad metal models = kiss of death for the option.

Given that, I think there are three tiers when it comes to core complexity:

Tier One: Orcs and Goblins, Skaven, Empire, and Warriors of Chaos
Tier Two: Beastment, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, High Elves (being nice), Tomb Kings (being nice)
Tier Three: Daemons, Dwarfs, Ogres, Vampires, Wood Elves

Thus I think that despite only having three entries in the Core section, picking the core for Lizards is pretty complex. Lots of build options, and options that suit the other things you're going to include. I don't think it's a matter of simply "fill the 25%". I think that the core choices you make determine the other options that you're going to pursue, so they play a big role in diversity. And compared to other armies, Lizardmen are at least middle-of-the-pack when it comes to diversity of choice in Core, which leads to a lot more diversity in choice about what else in included.

Heck, I started this army recently because I wanted MORE diversity in choices than I was getting from my other two current armies (Daemons and Dwarfs).

Grass is greener issues maybe?

Cheers.

Andrew

 

I don't know, I think if you apply the same "basicly only" critera to Lizardmen as you did with
the other armies, then we would have just 3 core choices, saurus, skink cohorts, or skink skirmishers,
and that bumps us down to tier 3.

 

I think there's more variation than that tho. If we take it that the addition of Kroxigor makes a skink cohort a very different unit (different role, different size considerations, etc.) then there's no reason to say "oh, just three choices" in my view.

Compare that to Beastmen (another army I'm very familiar with). There are two options for Gors: shields or two hand weapons. Two hand weapons are mostly regarded as the perpetually superior option. Thus, the only consideration is numbers--maximize frontage and two weapon chopping is really the only question. So unlike Skink Cohorts, where one option contains two different flavors, this one I tend to think of as a "single" option. Blocks of Gors all look and work the same.

That's why I think the Lizardmen have it better than the three choices imply. Maybe I was a bit more generous with the saurus having two variations (it is a Lizardmen board, after all). But I think that the playstyle of cohort with and without krox is very different, and the same for javelins versus blowpipes to be honest. That's still at least five--which is better than daemons (which honestly have two styles: expensive good fighting blocks of core, and expensive bad fighting blocks of core).

Why is it preferable to think about choice versus roles? Longbeards and Warriors, no matter what their options, really still do the same things. But there's more diversity in the Lizardmen I think.

Andrew

 

Pink Horrors are not included as light infantry, that's for emergencies only. Simply because they are garbage as infantry. Pink Horrors are typically included for their spell casting ability. Plaguebearers are slow and defensive, much like Saurus with a few additional perks. Daemonettes are quite versatile, they can be horded, provide fast moving ranks to break steadfast or be deployed MSU-style to tear up chaff and hit flanks. Bloodletters are lackluster, it takes some work to conceive of a situation where they might be even moderately useful. Overall the daemonic core does cover a decent range of roles though.

There was a few reasons which made me choose Lizardmen as my first Fantasy army. The look and feel of the army, the comparative ease with which it could be painted and the comparatively low cost in £/$/€ per point all mattered. Crucial was however how many viable builds the old book seemed to allow for. The Slann was with Loremaster and additional power dice able to select any BRB lore and do well with it. And given how strong and dependable the magic was it made sense to choose units which synergized well with the chosen lore. Some lores offered stronger builds, sure, but there still seemed to be a lot of interesting and useful options. Dual-Slann builds offered additional combinations on top of that.

Now the Slann is not very strong any more. The dual-Slann build is dead. Point for point the naked Slann is a weaker spell caster than an Empire Wizard. If one spends a lot of points on disciplines the Slann can become a decent caster point for point but not a great caster. I'd also argue that for example the Empire have more point-efficient choices for powerful spell casting when opting for any of the BRB lores except perhaps Beasts and Heavens. Lizardmen simply can no longer expect an overwhelming magic phase. At best we get what the point cost suggests we'd get, in terms of spell casting.

True, Lizardmen and the Slann does have strong dispell options. However, if dispelling was such a great interest of mine, I'd be playing dwarves. Unfortunately, dispelling does not really provide a basis for creative army list building like varied spell casting options does.

With weaker and less dependable magic it makes less sense to select units which synergize well with the chosen lore and more sense to select units which are just stronger at the core. This in turn promotes army lists with less variation. I'm not much pleased with how the number of army build options appears to have developed with the new Lizardmen army book and I place the blame for this mainly with the changes made to the Slann. At the very least, Loremaster for all of the BRB lores would have made army lists centered around these lores more viable.

Oh well... Fortunately I later on acquired a small daemon army, mainly because of the great number of list building options provided by Heralds of Tzeentch with Loremaster to even a limited selection of models. Meaning I can still enjoy the variety provided by nearly unlimited Loremaster access. No, wait. I can't. They killed that option too.

While this admittedly saddens me I have not yet given up on Fantasy. 9th edition better offer ally rules which allows my Lizardmen and Daemons to join forces. The prospect of exploiting the yet to be discovered brokenness of this alliance excites me as much as the objectionable fluff of it makes my stomach turn. Kind of like the idea of getting intimate with a really unattractive woman. On one hand....but on the other hand....

Lest sensitive readers object to the above example I'd like to point out that it is purely theoretical. As an individual which spends my time writing about the hobby on the internet, an activity which about 50% of the human race sadly seems incapable of realizing the unsurpassed coolness of, I may have come across the concept of such unnatural interactions a few times but I obviously don't do such things myself.

 

Isn't it a bit lacking of imagination that all new unit entries resemble so much to previous ones also if they have some different roles?
for example: salamanders/razordons,terradons/ripperdactyls and the devices of bastiladon could have been put on top of a stegadon too.
I mean i'd do for example some kind of Fasolasuchus tenax with a crew of saurus warriors on top i know they are not the brightest but maybe mount some simple device on top that skink cannot use because they are too weak and kroxigor too strong

 

By starting off with the slaan, the rest of the army is pretty set.
So, break the mold and don't take a slaan.
Tetto packs a decent magic phase.
Tetto + 2 skinks with scroll and cube is very solid.

The slaan is slow, and his body guard is slow. By not taking either, you can suddenly run a very fast lizardmen army where the "slow" units are Move 6.
Combined with D3 vanguards on anything, you can be on top of the enemy very quickly.

-Matt

 

I just want to make it clear that I don't feel the book is bad because it lacks any new auto-include OP unit. I don't think that's the reason that High Elves or Dark Elves are good: in fact, I think they are good despite Warlocks and Frost Phoenixes.

Also note that its possible to have lots of options and still be limited. If you have 100 different choices to make, but only two of them are any good, then your options are limited. Its an illusion of choice. Furthermore, if you have 100 different options but all of them are infantry with minor variations, its still limited to infantry.

 

I'm on the fence. I have played some variations of many dinosaurs to just harassment and magic, saurus and TG blocks of grinding doom, to whatever else my mind let me. I've had to work harder to come up with something that plays differently, because the playstyle tends to be similar in most scenarios for me. I think it has some variation, certainly more than some, but I was so psyched for more than this, at least in terms of options. Saurus, or saurus with spears. Always skirmishers. Sometimes cohort, usually not. Either bunker or monsters. And, to decide for me on the rest of the points, do I need warmachine hunters. It's the same process, and it feels and looks different, but I think in practice, I find I'm doing the same things in most lists, with different units. It's the problem I ended up having with Orks in 40k, played the same things for too damn long and got bored. I don't think they added enough for me to feel like I am varying much more than I did before the new codex. I have been at the point where I randomly roll before each game to decide what lore I take because its one of the few ways to add some excitement.

 

I just came up with this crazy & troll idea.

Saurus Oldblood - Cold One - Light armour - Great Weapon - 100 points Wizard's Hat (makes him lvl2 wizard with random lore) Also is stupid (wich already was with Cold One).

281 points if my maths are right (no LM armybook here). M7 WS6 S7 T5 W3 I3(ASL) A5 LD8 AS1+ Wizard Lvl2

This guy adds lot of fun, diversity, randomess, troll face and hey, it can be game breaking. Every game is different with him.

I'll give it a try next game, just for the laughs.

 

I have heard of this setup, But never heard of anyone who actualy tried it.
(should be fun)

 

I actually really want to run an Oldblood with Wizard hat, the only thing that bothers me is the lack of Ward Save. Random Lore makes him kind of unreliable, but how many people are going to expect a mounted combat lord (most common builds for OBs) to bust out with spells? If anyone tries this out they must let us all know how it goes!

 

I take it you are talking of the element of surprise made by closed lists

"WHAT?! he can cast SPELLS?"

sadly....that bubble is burst the second you roll for spells even before the game begins -.-