
The Lizardmen - A Tactical Study
Taken from the University of Altdorf
Deciphered from the pyramid of Lola-Cher-Cola by Mike Marshall With aid from Lord Brrrp
From out of the swamps of the Lustrian jungle come the Lizardmen. With
several good special rules including minimum saves and 3d6 instead of 2d6 for
all leadership tests the Lizardmen are here to stay. They appear to have no
basic weaknesses apart from a smallish selection of troop types. This means
that your opponent is likely to know what you are going to bring to the table
and be able to tool up for it. Of course this isn't a problem in tournament
games. However while your opponent might well know what troops you will
field, he will not often know what you plan on doing with these troops.
Lizardmen troops are wonderful in that each can serve several functions. For
instance, skinks can shoot, flank, provide cheap ranks for Kroxigors.
Terradons can slaughter lone war machines or characters/mages or break
skirmishing troops with base leaderships. Salamanders take out war machines
or knights. Stegadons are the classic example of take 4 principles and mash
em into one model. They are a very flexible army and very able to adapt to
the unexpected.
In game play the Lizardmen are very like the Undead with a very powerful
general who will be targeted by every nasty spell and warmachine that your
opponent has and then several units of lower cost troops that are very hard to
break / destroy. They also have several useful magic items that enable them to
devastate enemy troops. The best of these is the Plaque of Dominion though
surely this should be a one use magic item!!!! together with the Amulet of
Xapati.
The Lizardmen are actually an extremely forgiving army because your troops
can wear so many hats. Where it is not forgiving is if you oversee the
limitations of skinks or sauruses. It is an army which is easy to
OVER-ESTIMATE.
Talk about the speed of the army for one second. Great ability to skirmish
through difficult terrain and over water obsticles but almost no hth troops
that can pursue 3d6 and virtually NO monsters for cheap flying rank bonus
breakers. This is a ground only army more so than any other. All you can
have is terradons. . .that is IT!
Characters
Slann Mage Priest : The Lizardmen are unusual in Warhammer in that they
can have a choice of 4 levels of General. You can go for the cheap option and
just get a Mage Priest or spend all your character points on one model and go
for a tooled up Mage-Lord. Personally I feel that a Master Mage-Priest is just
about right for a 2000 point game.
One good tactic is to consider fielding 2 Slann, one for combat and one to
protect the troops and cast. In a crunch, you can have the two Slanns on
opposite flanks and double flank the opponent.
In smaller battles SMP's are cheap generals/mages and battle standard bearers
wrapped in one (certainly cheaper than buying and tooling 3 characters + they
have better stats in an extra wound and the shield of Old Ones)> It's like
office equipment. . .a multi-purpose fax/copier/printer is a good idea on a
budget. . .with some cash it makes sense to invest in all three.
A good option to take is the one that allows you make the General the Battle
Standard Bearer as well. This only costs an extra 50 points but means that all
units within 12" of the palanquin will be rolling 3d6 twice for any break tests
that they have to make. This is almost as good as being able to give them all
the dwarf Rune of Courage that makes them unbreakable. Due to the
fearsome reputation of the Mage Priests your opponent will do everything in
their power to kill him. Fourtunately the Priest comes with a built in special
save that will deflect a lot of the damage. That coupled with his high
toughness means that the biggest threat will come from War Machines such as
Cannons and Organ Guns. Due to the size of the Mage Priest model he
cannot benefit from the "Look Out Sir" rule unless he is with a unit of
Kroxigors, so knocking out War Machines becomes very important. Still
that's what Terradons are for. Remember that the Mage Priest has no armour
and only at high levels does he get wonderful tougness. Thus, every x-boman
in sight will be trying to wound him as well. This is equally as devastating as
war machines.
As well as being the General your Mage Priest will also be your top magic
user. This means that when it comes to choosing magic items you will have to
choose between General type items (big killing sticks) or Mage type items.
Still as you get one extra magic item per level over normal stats you do have
more slots to fill. Remember that if you do take the Battle Banner option you
can take a magic banner that DOESN'T count against your normal magic
item limit.
You also need to remember that the abilities of the magic items carry over to
the bearers. Again I come back to the point of taking two SMP's as it makes
sense to have one for SMP specific mage items like plaque of dominion,
amulet of xapati and other caster friendly items and the other to cut through
enemy ranks.
One tactic that I have seen used with Mage Priests in tournament games is the
Nuclear Bomb option. If you take the Heart of Woe with you priest you know
that if he dies he's going to take a lot of the enemy with him. This is a good
way of grabbing victory points off you opponent even if it all goes horribly
wrong.
Saurus and Skink Heros : If you don't know what to do with these two
characters then you might as well go back to Warhammer 101. Saurus heros
are a nightmare to fight in H-to-H as they have a large number of attacks
coupled with high Strength and Toughness. I would suggest a magic sword
such as a blade of leaping bronze to increase the attacks even further. They
can be your h-t-h general while the SMP can serve as your leader in the magic
phase.Skink Heros are a lot weaker in H-toH (think Goblin) but as your
Skink regiments shouldn't be doing any hardcore fighting this shouldn't be to
much of a problem. However they are very good in Kroxigor/skink units.
Make sure that the enemy decides what they want to attack before they know
what kind of magic the skink has! Your opponenet will need to cause some
wounds because for darn sure the Kroxigors will!!!
Saurus and Skink Champions : Well they're champions aren't they. Every unit
that you create should have a champion if only to provide a bit of extra
hitting power at a relatively low cost. Again Saurus champions are rather
good in hand to hand combat.
Skink Championss are great for challenges to avoid catastrophic slaughter
from such nasties as the flying character from hell attacking the skinks. Sure
they wil flee but if you keep them close to their cousins (sauruses) the
pursuing unit will have the unpleasant surprise of charging into a unit of spear
bearing Strength 4 models.
Skink Shamans : Skink Shamans are your only other magic users instead of
Mage Priests. They are only first level Battle Magic Magicians but can take
two magic items. This means that each Shaman can carry two dispel scrolls
leaving magic item slots free on your Mage Priest to take more offensive
items. I would try and fit two of these characters into any army that I
designed. They are some of the cheapest magic item slots around.
Try putting them in in Stegadons with offensive magic items. Randomizing
hits first between the stegadon/howdah and crew and then amongst the crew
memebers will keep them alive for most of the game. This is a great way of
forcing the enemy to use up power cards and dispels. For instance a Skink
shaman with staff of lightning/staff of flaming death and another shaman with
staff of osiris and whatever else you want. Just add the banner of Wrath to the
howdah and then you can cast 4 spells (using up opponents dispels) before
you get to the magic phase proper. This is a great way to get the Plaque of
Dominion off every round.
Regiments
When it comes to regiments the Lizardman army is very similar to Orcs and
Goblins due to the fact that you effectively have two races to pick your troops
from. You can either go for the harder but more expensive Sauruses (Orcs) or
the cheaper but far less effective Skinks (Goblins). Or you can do what all
good generals do and take an army that is made up of the two.
Temple Guard : Elite Sauruses (+1WS and +1 I) armed with halberds giving
them an effective strength of 5, enough to deal with all but the most heavily
armoured troops. As with all the Lizardman troops they are Cold Blooded.
Weaknesses : These are your most expensive basic troops and your opponent
will know it. They will be target by magic and war machines every turn. Make
sure that you don't get caught into fighting unbreakable units.
Uses : Most of the Lizardmen players that I know take a regiment of Temple
Guards, normally in a unit with the Slann Mage Priest. They are a very hard
close combat unit and with their save of 5+ (min 6+) and high toughness you
can be pretty sure of getting them into hand to hand intact. Toughness 4 on
such high point cost troops should be protected from stray missile and x-bow
fire so make sure you give them Light Armour and shields as well. 3+ saves
are almost as good as knights! Make sure that you also spend some points on
a decent magic standard such as the Jaguar Standard to get that extra charge
distance when you really need it. The models look really cool as well which is
always an advantage.
Saurus Warriors : The fighting core of your army will probably be made up of
Saurus Warriors, if only because you have a load of the plastic ones from the
Warhammer 5th Edition boxed set. They have decent strength and toughness
which when coupled with their two attacks makes them very capable hand to
hand combat opponents. They count as having heavy armour and are Cold
Blooded.
Weaknesses: They are pretty expensive at 15 points per model so it's very
costly to field them in big regiments. No magic standards.
Uses : Depending on what type of battle you like to fight you have two choices
with your Saurus regiments. If you like to sit and wait for your opponents to
come to you then equip your troops with spears and just wait. Your excellent
save and toughness will mean that when the enemy arrive, your rank bonus
will still be intact and they will be in deep trouble. If like me, you are a more
aggressive player, then leave the spears at home and just deploy the Sauruses
as they come. Unless you're a High Elf there is no point in having spears in
attacking infantry blocks, especially when your basic troops cost 15 points
before any extra equipment. I would suggest 2 blocks of around 20 Sauruses
each with a champion and hero would make a comabt force that many
generals will be scared of facing though other Lizardmen generals favour
taking similar ammounts of Sauruses to Skink/Kroxigor units.
Skink Warriors : The Goblins of the Lizardman army. Very cheap so they
qualify for the half price equipment discount. They can Skirmish and hide in
water features. They get posioned weapons and are Cold Blooded. They can
also include Kroxigor in their units, giving them some needed hitting power.
Weaknesses : Low leadership and pathetic toughness. In combat rolling 3d6
won't help these guys as they will be dying in droves against any half decent
troops. Thinking about it, even a goblin could have a skink.
Uses : Don't get pulled into the trap of thinking of Skinks as frontline combat
troops. Even if they have some Kroxigors in their midst the chances are that
they will get their butts kicked in any halfway serious fighting (thats what
you've got Sauruses for). Instead think of them as secondline troops for
driving off enemy skirmishers, pursueing broken units and generally harassing
the enemy. With their high movement Skinks are also very good deployed as
largeish (20+) units of Skirmishers deployed on your flanks. As Skirmishers
can always march these units can quickly get amongst the enemy formations.
Your opponent will then do one of two things. He will either charge these
(very cheap) units thus distracting him from his main advance or ignore them
and thus enable you to reform to a fighting ie non skirmish, formation and
then charge them in the rear. Either way its a win win situation for you. If you
really want to use them as fighting troops then make sure the regiments
contain as many Kroxigors as you are allowed as these are the figures that will
end up doing most of the killing for you.
Always poison your weapons and remember anything that is a skirmishing
shooter with str 4 hits for only 5.5 pts is not all bad! I like to make them
force a charge with frenzied units then flee flee flee leading the frenzied unit
way away from the real battles.
Cold One Riders : The Lizardmens only cavalry. The are Cold Blooded and
cause fear due to the cold ones that they ride. Decent armour save (3+) for a
relatively low points cost.
Weaknesses : Cold ones are subject to stupidity and Skinks only have a
leadership of 6. Make sure you put a character with them. With a toughness
of only 2 they are a prime target for any missile troops that your opponent
might have.
Uses : Using their spears these mounted skinks have an effective strength of 5
so you would think that you could use them as medium cavalry but their
pathetic toughness effectivley precludes that. I can't really see any use for
these troops and would suggest that they didn't make it onto the battlefield.
however Lord Brrrp says that as they have really good armor saves so
toughness of 2 doesn't matter if they pick the right targets, and they do cost
1/2 of a regular knights cost.
He suggests that you use them in any of the following rolls : 3d6 pursuers,
Flankers, Breaking skirmishers, Getting behind enemy lines and slowing the
enemy down or Attacking war machine crews
Kroxigor : Giant walking crocodiles with two handed weapons and leadership
9. Scary, and the models just look great
Weaknesses : Watch out for characters with multi wound weapons as they will
turn your Kroxigors into kebabs in short order. They never seem to leave
their two handed weapons at home.
Uses: You can place Kroxigor in units of skinks and whilst this gives skink
regiments some needed hitting power and leadership I feel that they are better
off deployed in their own unit in the same way that Trolls and Rat Ogres are
deployed. With their excellent leadership (rolling 3d6 as well) they will be able
to take on all comers and still stand a decent chance of winning any fights
that they get into. Using their big axes they get an effective strength of 7 so
they can wound anything in the Warhammer world. If you haven't guessed I
really like these guys and feel they should be formed up in a big unit, placed
in the middle of the battle line and then just charged into the enemies big
powerful units. Great.
Terradons : Relatively cheap flyers with a cool rock drop. Terradons are a bit
wierd as the rules contradict each other. In some places they talk about them
being like monsters and in other places they talk about them being used as
cavalry mounts. I've assumed that they are cavalry mounts. (WDUK 208
supports this theory).
Weaknesses: Toughness 2 as they count as mounts.
Uses: Terradons are best used in the traditional flyer roles of attacking
warmachines, lone characters and broken units. They are no match for any
monsters though so don't be tempted to use them to attack that flying high
dragon rider.
Dinosaur Chariots with a bolt thrower on top. The shear impact that placing a
stegadon model on the tabletop will have on your opponent is probably worth
the points cost alone.
Weaknesses : Magic Weapons that kill automatically ie Rod of Corruption are
to be avoided. Attacking big blocks of enemy troops without any support is
probably a bad idea as well.
Uses : Place a stegadon just to the side and behind of one of your big Saurus
blocks. When the Sauruses charge the Stegadon will be able to make it as well,
giving a massive combat boost and thus enabling you to destroy your
opponents most powerful regiments with ease. The other option with
Stegadons is to take two and place one on either flank. They can then advance
down the edges of the board, and then hopefully charge enemy units in the
flank whilst they are engaged by you main troop blocks to the front.
Remember that if you are playing the "House Rules" from the back of the
Warhammer rule book then Stegadons will cancel out a units rank bonus die
to the fact that they have 5 wounds. It's probably worth giving them a giant
bow as its only an extra 20 points and it gives you a decent strength missile
attack to shoot at things like Treemen with. Well you need something to do in
the missile phase don't you.
Salamander : A living artilery piece that gobs acid at it's enemies.
Weaknesses : It can't hit the side of a barn, even a very big one.
Uses : Despite the fact that Salamanders are the only form of artillery that the
Lizzies can get I wouldn't suggest that you field them. They are very expensive
for what you get and the damage that they are capable of doing just doesn't
justify the cost. Spend the points on extra Kroxigor instead. It's a shame that
they arn't more effective however as the miniature is very nice.
Special Characters
In more and more tournaments these days you aren't allowed to use special
characters due to the perceived unbalancing effect they have on the game. I
personally don't have a problem with using specials in your army provided
you don't start switching magic items around as this just means that you want
all the abilities that the characters tend to have but not the crap selection of
items that they get. However in the Lizardmen Book you can't change items
so its all or nothing with these guys. Overall the Lizardmen special characters
seem to be a very fair set. There is no over the top cheese monster in there and
once you get past the sad names them they all seem to be pretty good.
Venerable Lord Kroak : Lord Kroak has been dead for hundreds of years but
don't let that put you off taking him as he's still a powerful opponent in
h-to-h. He also still gets spells and that fact that he can't cast them means that
you can use the Slann telepathy ability to dump all your crap spells on him
and not worry about it. He gets a great special save (3+) and his magic items
are pretty cool. Combining the Ceremonial Mace of Malachite with his save
and the Amulet of Itza means that Kroak can give most things a kicking in
h-to-h without any worries. If you are allowed to take special characters and
you've got the points I would definately put Kroak in my army.
Lotl Botl : Bit of a sad name but a nice character. He has no magic items but
has a couple of abilitys instead. His Blood Curdling roar is OK but it only
means that he cause fear not the whole unit. Cold Blooded Determination is
much better though giving an extra +1 to combat resolution. In these days of
everybody having a Standard and a full rank bonus this is very useful, like
having another standard bearer in the front rank.
Kroq : Another Saurus hero with a couple of abilities to make up for not
having any magic items. To tell you the truth he is my favourite Lizzie special
character as I just love the idea of him going up to a Khorne Lord and then
biting his head clean off. I just hope that the miniature will match up to the
one in my imagination.
Oxayotl : Oxayotl has the feel about him of a unit type that was going to
make it into the army book but was dropped towards the end of the armies
development cycle - a bit like Wood Elf Animal Handlers. This was a shame as
chameleon skinks sound like they would have been fun. Again he has no
magic items (what is it with these character, terminally careless or what) but a
couple of nice abilities.He is excellent for taking out warmachine crews.
Inxi Huinzi : Another character that I'm looking forward to seeing the model
for. However Inxi's only real use is leading a regiment of Skink Cold One
riders and as I have already said that I don't think you should take cold one
riders I can't see Inxi ever making to the battlefield. Shame really.
Itzi Bitzi : Itzi is a Skink hero with an excellent special ability. Once per battle
he can make all enemy units within 8" take a panic test on 3 dice (pick worst
two). This is great for destroying an enemy attack and handing the iniative
back to the Lizzies. The best time to say the incantation is probably at the
begining of your turn before charges are declared. This means that if you do
cause any enemy units to panic and flee you can charge them hopeully killing
them in short order.
Tenehuini : The prophet of Sotek himself. Unfortuneately, dispite his
auspisious position in the scheme of things Tenhuini is a very poor character
and I couldn't recomend anyone taking him.
Lord Mazdamundi : One of the greatest Mage Priests who rides a Stegadon
instead of a palanquin. All the normal Mage Priest special rules apply
together with all the Stegadon rules. Mazdamundi also has his own special
geomantic spells. Sadly these spells, whilst very flavoursome are a bit useless
in a warhammer battle. They could be good in a campaign setting however.
Mazdamundi has his full selection of magic items but again they are more
flavoursome rather than useful. Overall I wouldn't recomend using Maz
though I bet the model will again be absolutely killer.
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