Behold, the mighty Slann-lock! They actually ride the large flightless birds that inhabit the chulchan plains because then it's still new and exciting, and actually they're not slann but skink priests, and the spell are actually Iceshard blizzard and Urannon's thunderbolt. And now we can even defend it :O! also they have poisoned javelins, and movement 8, are fast cavalry, and on miscasts lord kroak appears on the field of battle and vaporizes the foe with storms of eldritch badassery while he farts out toxic gasses!
Did we have the same dream?! :O Here goes mine: BRB: 1. - Cannonballs now scatter 1D6 in a direction determined by the scatter dice. -- Most monsters will still be hit on a 1-2 inche scatter , paired with a "HIT" still hits its getting more reasonable than "hits more than not" as it is now. 2. - Scaly Skin goes back to "cant be modified below 6+" (so basicly a wardsave that still gets nullfied by "no armor saves allowed") 3. - Monsters and riders = 1 entity, as monsterous cavalry does. (I hope they look out for Item exploits if they do this) 4. - Powerdice gets optained differently Here is a couple of not all thought out examples. -- You now get powerdice equal to your casters lvl --> only he can use those dice -- Each wizard may attempt to channel 1 PD or DD per caster lvl -- Channels can be used by all wizards might wanna redo death magic...its too good, not just from a lizzie perspective. 5. Either Toughness or To wound Chart gets reworked, or they rework how weapons affect combat. Too many +S5's out there - Spears and Halberds gets a "formation" that gives "ASF" when charged - Great Weapons no longer gives +2 Strenght on attack, but has an effect determined by the strenght of the user. S3: +1 to wound S4: +1 to wound + Armour Piercing S5: +1 to wound + Armour Piercing + Killing Blow (this is not thought out AT ALL, it is merely a direction of thought that could open interesting in-game mechanics. flames will not be met) 6. Redo "Always strike first". Its not an "I hate elves" suggestion, its just that a more correct name would be "Always have re-rolls".... call it something else or change the rule...Swiftstrike? 7. Make Poison attacks vary in effect between ranged and melee use, and maybe even troop type. Our Army Book - Redo trog -- at LEAST 1 more attack -- 1 better BS -- skink either has a spell, can channel normally or can get "artifact upgrades" that either affects the trog or what kind of buffwagon it becomes. -- Primeval Roar is activated when the Trog charges and lasts on affected units until they lose combat (as frenzy). -- Use the "this guy is blind and lives in caves" for something!??! anything!?!? it still eludes me how they put that into the concept without using it. - With the above mentioned changes, I think Slann would be alright. -- Maybe give us access to relic priests. I am working on a concept that treat relic priests as a "spell tank". They roll on a lore as normal, but cant cast spells themselves. Instead they need to use telepathic confabulation with a living slann. This could also be used as a discipline like this: "Thoughtbond - 30pts" The Slann has a telepathic communication with another Slann far away from the battlefield. when rolling for spells, roll for 4 spells on any one of the eight lores of the BRB or high magic, and put them in a seperate pile The Slann may swap 1 of his spells with a spell in that pile, as though he was using his "Telepathic Confabulations" special rule. makes sense? - Saurus need: -- new weapons unless the general Strength level drops -- Spawnings back - New Saurus elite unit needed (concept in working) ..maybe not needed with spawnings. - Stegadons need point drops, so does carnosaur. - Rippers need A LITTLE more survivability...im not calling out for flying fortresses, just more than paperplanes. - a lvl 3 caster, with acces to heavens, beast, life and light (concept in working) - Scar vets on cold ones need a Look Out Sir option in core, and should get a small pts raise accordingly, especially if Toughness gets more valuable. - We dont need it but I WANT a big flyer SO bad (concept in working)..not necessarily the coatl, just something for my oldblood! - More varity in core choices (Saurus spawnings, Skink riders, swarms back?) ..I think thats all I can think of...maybe drop TG to 1 less pts...and make Skavenpelt 50pts so they can use it without a BSB.
How about a 'Prayers to Sotek' lore? (Skinks only, no Slann allowed in this club) a monstrous cav for Saurus is a necessity and possibly a unit of fast cav the 'Culchan Bird Riders' I agree with the relic priest idea A new special character 'Nakai Kroxigor of the First Spawning' Most definitely a unit of Elite Saurus (How does Saurus Berserkers sound?) the idea of a flying Saurus mount is brilliant Rather than overhauling the Troglodon how about we do something unique? It was most definitely an attempt at that so go further allow it to carry a hero or lord e.g. the Oldblood needs to get somewhere quickly so he jumps up on it's back and the Oracle ferries him somewhere it's support so let it SUPPORT!! don't try to make it another combat unit or something make it the 'hero ferry from hell' if it's carrying a Saurus lord, the lord can fight and also benefits as if under the affects of primeval roar all the time also more powerful lord skink priests and 'the Chosen of Sotek' as lord and hero choices as expensive combat skink priests with the Prayers of Sotek
I got the idea off you, it truly was brilliant I had to put it down probably a different name for the hero version so people don't get confused and I'm thinking a lord level skink chief as well (the Chosen of Sotek would have Skink chief stats and priest magic) Also Chameleon Skink Heroes (not just chiefs) are really needed in my opinion and possibly buying sacred duty for Saurus Heroes
Sub par? SUB PAR!? Our Cold one Cavalry outclasses the bloody Grail Knights (admittedly with how old the book is everything does) BRING OUT THE NEW BRETTONNIAN BOOK ALREADY!!!
I like some of what has been said, others seem a bit overboard, so I guess I'll just toss my hat into the ring as well. For the core rule book, I'm pretty content overall. I don't agree with everything, but there will never be a book that makes everyone happy, so I can deal with it. Unlike some of you, I'm not a big tournament player (though my hobby group has just started an escalation league beginning in a couple more weeks!) So here are the few things that I've thought about. Cavalry charge should strike first. Period. I get that higher initiative troops can strike before other infantry, even when charged. What I have a hard time figuring out is how infantry can jump past spears/lances (8-10 ft long), attack a charging horse/dinosaur/pig/etc, and jump back in time to get hit by the rider. Just doesn't add up. I could be content, not happy mind you, but content with impact hits. Those of you suggesting bonuses to spear/halberd wielding troops against cavalry, I love the idea. I agree that something needs to be done with magic, but I don't really have an answer. I played an ogre army a while back and wiped out 2/3 of his bullstar unit with one spell, then proceeded to slaughter the rest with overwhelming force. Took the fun out of it. I don't really have a problem with cannons or the toughness of our beasts. Dwarves are slow as an army can be, unless you run a strollaz list, but even that has drawbacks. Let them have their cannons (if anything, their organ guns are overpowered). We have some of the most powerful magic in the game and far more maneuverability. If you don't want your dinos to get whacked by a cannon ball, don't run them. Field more troops/magic. Swarm their cannons with cheap skirmishers and flank their block troops. Yes it would be nice to alter the stats, but let's be realistic, our army is probably within the top 5 as is. Pretty well rounded overall. A good general should field what will work best, not want he wants to work best. Personally, I don't like armies that are overwhelmingly powerful and I feel like if we got all the boosts we want for our dinos, we might as well sell our souls and worship Chaos. Bring the spawnings back! I loved those and was very sad when they went away. They go with the fluff and could make for some interesting army builds. As for elves... I play against HE on a regular basis and to be honest, I was intimidated by their ASF/rerolls at first, but when you really get down to it, they STILL don't do much damage. Str.3? Oh no, I'm shaking in my salamander skinned boots! Hit them and hit them hard with a big unit of cold ones and watch them scatter! So take what I say with a grain of salt (or the whole salt shaker if you need it) and let's see what everyone else thinks.
Bring back the Southlands army! And the Spawnings! And make it so our lords aren't so outclassed! (Really seriously on that last point it isn't funny when our over 200 point Oldblood gets killed by a cheaper lord who is also an mage I can understand being outclassed by a more expensive combat lord but when a MAGE who is also CHEAPER outclasses my 400 point Slann in magic and my 200 point Oldblood in melee I get pretty annoyed) FIX THE BLOODY K'DAI DESTROYER I mean it a 250 point K'dai in two rounds kills 26 Temple Guard a Slann and makes my Oldblood run away and the only reason it didn't pursue is because my skinks were in it's flank (40 poison melee skinks a skink chief with the Piranha Blade and a skink priest and the turn after had 20 Saurus in it's other flank killed all but 7 Saurus and broke the Skinks after killing both heroes and leaving 12 skinks alive before FINALLY DIEING this happened because: at 250 points K'dai Destroyers at the start of combat cause something along the lines of strength 5 hits to every model in close combat you must reroll all successful non-magical wounds and has a 4+ ward the only reason it died was because poisoned attacks bypassed that! IT PAYED FOR ITSELF 6 TIMES OVER BECAUSE THEY THEN CANNONED THE OLDBLOOD AND KILLED THE 7 REMAINING SAURUS!! WHICH WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED IF IT WASN'T SO BLOODY BROKEN!!!!!!
Ah, thanks. However, those points you raised will never be addressed in a core-rules update. They are army specific issues you have. We've all been outdone by crappy rolls (i lost a fully kitted 1+/4+ piranha blade oldblood to a damned wight king lucking out on 2 killing blow strikes which i couldn't save either with a ward save). That is a dice problem not a rules problem. The Destroyer is just something you've gotta kill in other ways
I don't often see our lords outclassed. In fact, quite the opposite. My last game against WoC, I went toe to toe with a daemon prince of Nurgle (or was it a Herald, or something weird and nasty. Regardless it was ungodly tough) and the only thing left standing was my wounded carnosaur guarding the body of his fallen master. It was a pretty even (and epic) fight and the dice were not on my side. What sort of combat lords do you run?
At that point I was running a Scar-Vet Cowboy 1+/4+ and he got butchered and then it charged my temple guard in the rear and butchered my champion AND my 1+ reroll-able Oldblood it took less than one round to kill my Scar-Vet one round for the champion (Challenges) and followed through on the next round with my Oldblood, getting about 8 unsaved wounds before he even touched him next time my cowboy will be on Carnosaur, and his fury shall shake the world Asunder! damn, he was 400 points...
I'm really not happy with the 8th army book. I am actually back from a 2 year break for personal reasons, and the book only extended that break. MY wishes for the LM book: 1. Disciplines. Add, channels on a 5+, and a point increase to the discipline. In the last edition it was basically mandatory (or at least standard) for my slann to bring cupped hands, now I feel I must bring the channeling staff. Seems like poor game design. Is this done purposely? 2. Disciplines. Allow the slann to loremaster high, heavens, life, or light. When using high magic it feels like I am using magic designed for the elves. I really miss light and especially life. High elves can lore master them. If we use the same magic, why can't we use the same magic? 3. Make rippers frenzy more like that of the Carno's. It's stupid to start or land the rippers backward to avoid frenzy. Gimicky and dumb. Just why? Is it necessary? 4. Give Templegaurd +1 str and allow them to optionally use hand weps. With hand weps, this would give them the same stat line as now, but +1 armor and a parry save. Or +1 str from their current state. Essentially creating the same effect as allowing them to take great weps in their current stat line. The models come with optional hand weps. I want to use them. Also, in their current state, I can't justify bringing TG. Vs a standard spear saurus, they have +1 WS, +1 str, +1i. No spears. Same save. In a 6x4 with a slann, -8 attacks and the primal fighter attacks those 8 attacks could bring. HW with life would make me feel much safer putting my slann in. 5. Bring back the Skrox. Instead of allowing a cohort to add kroxigor as an upgrade, allow the kroxigor to join and deploy with skinks so that the kroxigor are not core. All attacks on the Kroxigor would be randomized like handlers. 1-3 going to the skinks. In their current state, I see no reason to bring a skrox unit esp without light as a standard option. The potential for the kroxigor to be killed before attacking is way too high to risk. And without the skrox as a viable option AND the templegaurd/slann combo, the new book is missing one of the best visually appealing and mechanically interesting aspects of the LM army, mixed units. 6. Bastiladons should be stuborn. They have a massive armor save and are basically a walking tank! Awesome idea for a new monster. But poorly executed. Despite having a massive armor save, they have almost no combat potential what so ever. It's basically a save just for show. Anything worth hitting with a str 10 hit will kill the monster before it attacks. The attack is just for fluff. As for being a walking tank, it likely wont hold in combat vs just about anything. With it giving up combat res like crazy for ranks and banner and a low leadership. It's good for a flank charge, skirmishers, and light cav. It should be much more of a tank than it is now. It doesn't need any more offensive power, but it should be able to hold it's ground better than it does. 7. Troglodon, Lizardmen's shame. Biggest waste of potential in this new book. Visually, the coolest model of the release. But what a let down. I run it basically every game since the release. Only justification for this is it's looks. My ideal troglodon would have: +1 Ld, +1 BS, Vanguard. The skink's Divining Rod would channel on a 5+. Spit Venom would poison on a 5+ and would be D3 attacks instead of D3 wounds. Also if a wound is taken by spit venom, the unit becomes marked with venom. All attacks made against marked units with predatory fighter gain an extra attack on a 5+. At the start of your shooting phase roll a D6 for each venom mark. The mark is removed on a 4+. I think the new book did a lot of good and a lot of bad. I'm pretty much indifferent to the change. As you can see every new unit and monster made my list of wishes. Which isn't good for a new book to me. Wasn't all bad for me though. I do find the bastiladon acceptable in it's current state. I think the slann changes were 10 steps forward and just 1 step back. I am happy with the salamander changes. I thought for sure they were going to all but remove them from the game, but they did a good job. The carnosaur leaves me with nothing but smiles. Great work with that. But in general, to me, the book seems more like a fun fan made play on lizardmen than their actual army book. Seems like they missed the mark almost conpletely hardly feeling like lizardmen at all. Adding a ton of offense, randomness, and almost completely removing mixed units. I always thought of lizardmen as a very stable/solid mostly defensive army with very few options for high str attacks. Now my magic phases are randomly powerful based on channel rolls. Not enjoying the elf magic much. But I do randomly get other spells. Also I like the idea of predatory fighter, but all it does is make my really good combat rolls better creating a larger range than before. It makes my bad rolls feel worse because of the increased range. I always thought the 2nd sauras attack was the jaws/tail. I think it is a cool mechanic, but I think it's a little out of place with the LM. I think predatory fighter would suit LM better as just an additional attack at a -1 str. And if that is too bland, +1 attack on a roll of 4+ to hit at str 3 for more stability. As for the core book, I really like 8th. I have played no other version. But one thing pops in right away. Cannons profile should drop to str 7. Isn't str 10 reserved for the most powerful things in warhammer? Deamons attacks, magical feedback, magically imbued lord attacks. Cannon balls are strong, But str 10 is really overdoing it. Nothing is stronger than a cannon ball!? Also, mechanically I understand the purpose and that they do their job very well. But I don't like it's role at all and, I feel like it is not very good game design. I spent X points on large monster, deamon, or desirable target, cannon takes it out on turn 1 or 2 before getting any use out of it. I feel like every cannon should be unable to fire on turn one for loading and aiming purposes as far as fluff is concerned. But mechanically, to get spell buffs, get the target in combat, get warmachine hunters to the cannon, or get some kind of use out of the unit before it gets blown away. The current state of them almost feels more like army grief. It feels like robbing the player and creates an unfun frustrating start to a game. And the lingering thought of "My combat monster died to a cannon ball." that persists till the end of the game and through the drive home.
Well, here we go. 1. Just a general thing, here. Can't say it'll add much, but it really bugs the crap out of me: Why don't we have access to Regen?! We're friggin' Lizards!! Come on!!! (sigh) 2. Let Saurus Warriors... a: buy an add'l hand weapon (tail attacks? headbutts? nasty! big! pointy! teeth!?)... 1ss per model, 2ss per model... I don't care. Hell, make it 'Strength as user, -1'! I don't mind paying 11ss per model, but I don't like it very much when compared to Temple Guard. WS3 has really been a pain in the neck for me lately. I1 has been freaking terrible. I find myself pigeoned into taking Focus of Mystery when I field them so that HoG can make them less sucky, but I'd rather have HoG for our well-rounded choices (Stegadon, Razordon, Trog, Skrox). One more attack will justify their cost a bit better, buff Predatory Fighter, and even buff Troglodons (to some extent). Plus, extra attacks could even see smaller unit sizes, allowing us some flexibility in core. A big block of Saurus and then Skirmisher spam is nice, but my opponents don't like playing against it very much. What they DO like is a big block of Saurus with Cohorts at its flanks -- they say this looks really, really cool from the other side of the table. Unfortunately, the unit sizes were so small that they were extremely inefficient. b: Take a magic standard. I've gotta sink AT LEAST something like 350~ points into this unit. A magic standard (25ss) would be nice. c: Sacred Spawning, at least on the champ. 3. Skink Chiefs should be able to: a. Have access to a Poisoned Attacks upgrade, or at least a poison CCW. "The Skrox has Poisoned Attacks." 'Ah crap. How many attacks does the Chief have, then?' "4, but... they're... not poisoned... that's not an option." 'Dude, what?' b. Shoot the giant bow. Hooray, Regadons!!! If I could not HoG their BS for this, I would be so happy to pay 40ss. 4. Razordons' Shoot Barbs needs... a: Armor Piercing. b: Armor Piercing within half. c: Strength as User (it is using its body to eject spines from its body). d: Strength as User, and then Armor Piercing within half (in the fluff, these things dropped charging Knights like nothing when they were closing on a charge). 5. Trogolodons get... +1 BS. 5+ auto-wound. It's not just poison, right? It's friggin' acid poison. 6+ for poison. 5+ for acid poison. It seems fair at 200ss.. 6. Slann coumter PF pursuit. 7. Wishlisty, but allow Jungle Swarms within 3" of unit X to function as a detachment per an Ld test at unit X's Ld. Or maybe only allow it if they have a champ/character. 8. Make Oxyotl a better Predator. I'm alright with everything else, I guess. Or I'm just forgetting things. Or I have no legitimate solutions. o.o Flyers need better toughness imo (they get shot to bits), but they're also fairly inexpensive.
Not once have I thought of this...cannot be unthought. How awesome would it be to have regen as an army rule for lizards. "ha naah, that's OP" ha naah, thats less than daemons have and we are supposed to be their orderly counterpart. Higher initiative and regen would really sit in favor of lizardry character traits. Just thought of this: Skinks may one per game "drop their tails" while fleeing to make a pursuer/charger take an unmodified, un-rerollable leadership test. If it fails they automatically fails their pursue / charge Would love something like that!
One thing i truly hope for, is more like marks of chaos for everyone in general. Something to spice things up a bit. Not necesarily much, just a tiny bit of choices. For LM, this would be spawnings. Not much, so as to prevent point bloat, but just small, nifty buffs, liike +1WS, +1I, +1A, +1Ld, etc. or maybe +1 to PF, or even +1AS to allow that Saurus character on foot to have his 1+ rerollable save, possible even lower for an oldblood (you can go below 1+ AS with evverything but a shield, RAW) Better yet, remove those unique special rules only available to special characters, and allow them to be taken as a unique for for each character. This have always annoyed me, especially when some people disallow specialcharacters. So we get loremaster heavens for skinks, the ability ro prevent insta-death on a 2+ for our Saurus characters, etc. Would be far more interesting for army building purposes, and allows you to field your own characters, rather than some pre-generated once.
I understand your point, Silver, but those unique traits would be pretty expensive on regular characters. Two things are in play when you put them on Special Characters - 1) In the designing of those guys, the author could tell exactly what that character would have every time. This meant the traits/items could be assigned a point value based on a known final set of rules. Allowing them on characters that could come up with super combos would neccessitate making them expensive enough to handle such outcomes. 2) Opponents know what Special Characters have at all times. It makes them easier to deal with than characters that have the ability to customize their loadout. The ability to hide a trait or item until just the right moment is powerful and would need to factor in to point costs.
Of course. And it's a price you have to py. But I'd personally rather pay 230 points for a skink priest with the exact loadout that tetto has, rather than have a ton of options just "disappear" because some people decides to ban special characters. Especially when it is such a huge part of why some things work as well as they do. At least we don't have things that change our options (special to troop, etc.). It just feels like you are cheated the moment someone says "no special characters", becauses you've instantly reduced magic effectiveness, especially at low point costs, by a massive amount. Just rebalance them a bit, and add some more flavour if necessary. Tettos "reroll" is a gogod one, because while it does have beneficial effects, it can also mess up your magic phase. And skink priests are stupidly bad right now. An option for loremaster would be really nice to give them some much needed power, and lessen the massive gap between the skinks and the Slanns, for exaple. And I don't see how it is such a huge problem - it wouldn't exactly be a huge buff to lizardmen. Some of the other armies have some quite potent special rules as well. And it would reduce a lot of the predictability - Instead of thinking "oh, right, Tetto again.", you will actually have to consider all the options, rather than just know what the enemy has. It's dull and boring, especiailly from an army building point of view. At least, that's my opinion. I'd rather be able to create a "copy" of krog'gar myself, and have the option of granting my other characters a 5+ ward to their mmount as well. Making them unique would also ensure you don't blanket spam them across the army