Hey! I've just started to collect lizardmen so i would like if you could give me some advice. All i have is the battalion and a few extra saurus, a old blood/Scar Vetern, two skink cheiftans and a skink Priest. I've made half of an army (no heros in it yet) and i would like if you could help me finish it or do something better with the models i have. Here we go. So far my army is:


Core:
17 Saurus with spears
1 Musician, Standard Bearer and a Champion
( not sure about the spawning)


18 Saurus with hand weapons and shields 6x3
1 Musician, Standard Bearer and a Champion
( sure about spawning again)

6 Skinks with javeilins
Scouts
1 Brave

6 Skinks with javeilins
Scouts
1 Brave

6 Skinks with blow pipes
Scouts
1 Brave

6 Skinks with blow pipes
Scouts
1 Brave

Special

5 Cold Ones
1 Musician, Standard Bearer and a Champion
The Jaguar Standard


Thats it so far. I was thinking of puting the SCar Vetern in with the 17 Saurus making it 6x3 aswell but thats my idea. I still have the Skink heros to think about.
If you could give me some tips I'll be delighted
Thank you

Dont know all that much about lizzies, but you should merge those skink units into 2 x 12 man units. 6 of them wont be much good.

As for heroes, the ever so popular JSoD (jaguar saurus of death) scar-vet is a popular choice. Dont know all the equipment, but the pendant of jaguar something is in the to increse his movement to 9. This makes him very manouverable and allows him to fullfill many battle field roles :).

Thats a start at least :).

If I remember well, LordChiliPepa, our Lizzie player, says thast the blowpipe is crap. I don't have the faintest idea how good or bad the blowpipe actually is, but I think Chili's advice can usually be trusted.

I think you could also do without the Mounted Saurii's champion. The additional attack and the ability to accept challenges is not, in my opinion, worth the extra points.

Get rid of the spears: believe me, Saurii benefit better from the extra armour provided by hand weapons and shields than they do from spear attacks.

Skink Braves are USELESS: just one shot at a higher BS won't make much difference. IMO, they're a points sink.
ALSO, your Skink units are illegal: you need a minimum of 10 per unit.

I'm not sure about the Jaguar Standard, but you definitely need more numbers, as only 5 Cav will be shot to pieces pretty quickly.

I was thinking of puting my scar vetern into the unit of 17 but if i give him the pendant of jaguar it isn't much use if he's in a unit or does it affect the unit aswell?

If i get rid of the spears i will be losing about 12 attacks from when my enemy charges me.I think that the saurii already have a 6+ armor save of scaly skin will it really make a big difference if i get one extra save?

I know its a small amont for cav but, my enemy is ocrs and he only has 18 archers which he never uses! So would it not be better to keep it a small unit?

Well, it´s always of use. He can hide in a unit until you unleash him. He can easily take out warmaschine crews and the likes that could otherwise threaten your saurii blocks.

No you dont, from what I know, the second rank only get 1 attack each. That would mean a loss of 6 attacks. Hand weapon + shield + scaly skin adds up to a 4+ save which can be pretty darn good :). Could be incresed even more with blessed spawnings.

Sure, it can work, but its of no use to give loads of upgrades to a unit that can so easily be taken out. A captured standard is 100 free VP´s for your opponent. Small units are best kept cheap :).

Ya a 4+ armor save sounds pretty good but i lose 12 attacks don't i because the front rank have two attacks each don't they.

Ya I'm not sure what to do with my cav. I only have eight of them so could u give me a tip what to do with them. Thank you.

My brother has played lizardmen and he says that the second rank only get one attack each and that this should be clearly stated in the army book.

Well, it depends what you want to do with the unit? A small flanking unit? A big hammer unit? Small flanking units are to be kept small. Big units are just that, big with full command and maybe even a character in there. Most people will vote against hammer units. One pays a lot of points for that second rank. Stupidity is always a liability, even with the cold-blooded rule.

The rule you’re looking for is “Predatory Fighters”. Page 25 of the army book, first column, bottom paragraph.

It’s hard to give you advice when we don’t know what you’re aiming for. Have you got any idea of your playing style? What parts of the army you like and what parts you don’t? With this kind of information we don’t have such a wide field.

However:

As LONC said, Braves are worthless. Never take them.

Blowpipes are tricky to use because they rack up so many to hit penalties that you’re usually hitting on 7s, negating their poison. Only put blowpipes on scouting units, who will be able to use their forward position to pelt the enemy from a stationary vantage point. Otherwise, javelins are an awful lot easier to deploy, usually more effective, and give your skinks shields, which actually makes them half-usable in combat against your enemy’s lighter troops.

JSODs are valuable. It’s not worth forgoing a JSOD just so you can have a saurus character with your unit: a unit of Saurus with a character in is very easy to avoid, and only presents one threat instead of two. Your 17 spear-wielders should do fine for now if you deploy ‘em in ranks of six – you’ll still get your rank bonus, after all.

Cold One Riders should always, always, always have the Banner of Huanchi. It is practically the only way they will be able to outflank an intelligent enemy, and it’s very hard to counter. And Cold One Riders on a flank charge will bulldoze most units.

I find the best arrangement for Cold Ones to be six, in a single line, with full command and the Banner of Huanchi. This way they have the Banner’s trick up their sleeve, but they actually put out enough attacks to take average enemy infantry head-on, and have an extra model to soak any casualties. Any more and they become clunky to manoeuvre and start wasting points on models that don’t get to fight; if you go with fewer, they become dangerously easy to whittle down with even very mild firepower, since their save is so poor for heavy cav. Another good arrangement is five with full command, the Banner, and joined by a Cold-One riding Scar-vet. Even better if you make said Scar-vet the Battle Standard, and give him the War Banner – but then it starts to get expensive. The cheaper option with a mounted character is to give him the Scimitar of the Sun and the Blessed Spawning of Sotek and just scythe down as many enemies as you can. Or else a halberd, for armour-busting S6.

I’m afraid those Skink Chieftains you bought are most likely going to be useless: Skink Chieftains have very few useful roles. They can make passable war machine hunters if you give them dual hand weapons, the Blessed Spawning of Sotek and the Cloak of Feathers, but it’s really only playing second fiddle to a JSOD, who does the same job better. You can cause quite a bit of havoc by having a Flying Skink and a JSOD in the same army, however… but the only other role I’ve ever had a Skink Chief achieve anything in was riding a Stegadon. You can make quite a combat beast if you stick a Chief on a Stegadon… and if you give him the Stegadon Helm, you can make it stubborn on Ld7 rather than 5.

Skink Priests are always handy. They have a decent lore, and are your main source of dispel dice. As soon as your friend starts breaking out the wizards, you’re going to need him.

The only fault I find with the Huanchi Banner is that everyone takes it. Seriously, if you see a unit of Saurus Cav on the tabletop, you can safely assume that it will have the Huanchi Banner. I think someone once said on some forum that the "holy trinity" of over-used Lizardmen items are the Jaguar Charm, Huanchi Banner, and Diadem of Power. I'm not dissuading you from using it: it is very effective. It just tends to get....predictable after a while.

Well i suppose I'm going for a kind of big strong units taking out big enmeys and for my skinks to go around taking out a few men at a time. How does that sound?

The Cold-Ones in a single line of 6 and wiht the scar vetern sounds good. I think it is better not to take the War banner but get the extra attacks. What about you?

Yes, it could be but my apponent has never faced a Lizardman army and has no idea what to expect so I think I'll use that banner!

What does the huanchi banner do?

They each have their advantages. The Battle Standard with the War Banner gives you two combat resolution before the fighting even starts, and still contributes 4/5 S5 attacks in melee; however, he's a lot more expensive, and sometimes kills can be more useful than static combat resolution (for example, against unbreakable or stubborn units).

The six-attack Scar-veteran can give you similar results against enemy horde troops, delivers more kills (always a good thing), and is cheaper. However, against tougher, better-armoured or skilled enemies, he's a lot less effective: the BSB always has those two points he can count on on top of his attacks.

Really, I'd say go with a BSB if you have the points and you really want to make the Saurus Cav a head-on hammer unit: with the two standards and the War Banner, they should easily be able to break enemy blocks with frontal charges. If you're on a tighter budget, and want your cav to be a bit less eggs-in-one basket and draw a little less attention, a combat scar-vet would be the way to go. Against Orcs, you might want to consider a halberd rather than the Scimitar: it's a lot cheaper, and will double your chance of wounding with each hit you score (2+ is twice as good as 3+). You can always give him the Blessed Spawning of Sotek for 5 attacks on the charge, and the Venom of the Firefly Frog if you want to beef up his combat potential a little further. Alternatively, you might want to get him the Enchanted Shield for a truly heinous armour save, or some sort of ward save to protect him from enemy heroes.

Once per game, you can use it to move the unit carrying it D6" straight forwards at the start of the magic phase. There's no way to dispel or stop it, and if it results in a charge, the enemy doesn't get a charge reaction.

Wow, pretty effective. Kinda like the new waaagh rule for O&G :).

Doesn't sound like so good for me... I don't like relying too much on luck. Luck is, as we all know, as treacherous as a Skaven assassin. Never trust the dice.

I'd never attempt the use of this banner unless I were within 3" of my opponent.

I generally deploy it from one or two inches away, to make absolutely certain. Its virtue isn't in extending your charge range - it's in allowing your cavalry to start in an enemy's front arc, saunter round onto their flank using their full march move, and charge in the same turn, without your opponent being able to react in any way, shape or form. A COR unit pulling this trick can wipe the table with practically any unit in the game. Add a character, and remove the 'practically'.

Of course, if it's still not certain enough for you, you can always slap it on a battle standard bearer with the Blessed Spawning of the Old Ones. Re-rolls ahoy!

:blink:

I don't normally use emoticons, figuring that textual communication should be able to express thoughts without needing to rely on such things, but it really is appropriate right here. Egads.

A friend of mine, a LOTR player, has recently decided to start in on Warhammer and bought a box of Saurus the other day. Clearly, I need to ensure he never reads any of Chili's tacticas...

I can't lay claim to it as being mine. Pretty much every Lizard player finds out, sooner or later: the Banner of Huanchi is a compulsory upgrade for Cold One Riders. With it, they are dangerous as hell. Without it, they're pretty poor for their price.

What's great is when someone knows you've got it, and is frantically trying to make it so that you cannot reach their flanks. Unless they're really good, and have got the terrain to work with, pretty much all their units within 14" of the riders grind to a halt in a sort of semicircular formation, and you just have to sit there with your one unit holding two or three others in a sort of Mexican standoff while the rest of your army moves in for the kill.

Oh, I had never looked at it that way... This banner is better than I thought.

I'm such a poor tactician... Thanks for showing me the real use of this item.

It wasn't the Banner so much as the combination with re-rolls that was so scary.

Essentially (with either configuration), you need to rely on artillery and missile fire to down the cavalry before they hit your lines.