Editing Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Lizardmen (section)

==Tactics==

There's a school of thought that stipulates that in order to win in WFB you need to be control the most phases in the turn. Lizardmen have magic and combat handed to them, so choosing to not take a Slann is really only useful if you're sure that its power as a magic user is unnecessary in the battle to be played. While we don't have truly dedicated fast moving units or long ranged artillery, we can use the ever powerful skink spam to try and control the movement of our enemy and deal at least a respectable amount of short ranged shooting to facilitate cleanup to our meatier units.

Because of the lack of mobility on Lizardmen units and lack of long-ranged firepower, one should not play defensively. Imagine if Dwarfs lacked their warmachines and ranged units. No one would play Dwarfs because you could shoot the crap out of them for 3-4 turns and then run around behind them and flank the survivors. Lizardmen can't just stand there and shoot. The whole army needs to grind forward. Grind is really the best word here, if you're doing it right you should be making steady progress and crush anything that tries to stall you.

While some units can really move around compared to your Saurus, those units are all either skinks, which means they're dead if your opponent looks at them with raised eyebrows, or fliers (technically also skinks but marginally sturdier), available at premium costs in small units. The exception is Cold One Cavalry which is pretty pricey and therefore will never be fielded in the numbers necessary to play them in a super-effective way. 
Mathammer: Cold One cav cost 35 points each whereas Saurus cost 11. Saurus on foot get 2 Attacks whereas Cold Ones riders get 3 and 2 of those are at Strength 5 on the charge. They also have M7, a base 2+ Armour Save and 1 extra WS which helps a surprising amount. The big thing is that with 1" bases you reach critical mass very easily. Basically with 210 points you'll get 12 hits from COC against WS3 at S4/5 on the charge and COC won't die easily. 210 points of Saurus gives you 9 hits or 12 with spears if you run them 6 wide which you should at that point cost. All in all COCs are situationally more point cost effective than Saurus, generally against WS3, S3/4 units. Either way it's not unheard to run 5 COC with characters to flank charge an existing combat.

Against mobile armies like Bretonnia, Wood Elves or people who still think cavalry is good, don't wait for the knights or warriors to charge your flanks. Get a Skink skirmisher unit to stand in the way or charge them. Mobile armies will be a pain in the butt, especially if they have ranged cavalry as you will never catch them without carefully noting terrain placement... but on the other hand, water does nothing to stop your skins and you have fast fliers and walk between worlds to even the odds.

Tarpits are something to avoid, even though your Saurus units will probably wipe out the offending unit (unless it's a half decent one like a Hammerer dart with a Dwarf Lord running a 1+ rerollable Armour Save and a 4++ in front or sword and board Grave Guard), it wastes time and options. That said if you do get tarpitted, don't worry. 90% of tarpits won't do much to your Saurus but you can't afford to have your good units tied up doing nothing for the whole game.

The most annoying thing for Lizardmen players has to be Purple Sun of Xereus (just ask my mate Jed). You're marching along, merry as can be, when some poncy spellcaster decides to royally fuck up your plans. Bye-bye to TWO-THIRDS OF YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING ARMY IN ONE GODDAMN PHASE. They'll six-dice it every turn, so either fuck them up before they do the same to you or carry a Dispel Scroll and hope the poncy prick shoves his staff where the Purple Sun doesn't shine. Kill the wizard with the lore of death. Kill it or you die.

{{Warhammer_Tactics_Races}}
[[Category:Warhammer/Tactics]]
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category:Lizardmen (Warhammer Fantasy)]]