Editing Warhammer Army Project/Lizardmen (section)

==Building Your Army==

===Buying Your Army===
Most of the classic Lizardmen roster is still buyable from GW, thankfully. You will however have to buy or kitbash your own version of the old characters that are no longer sold, as well as the Great Crested Skink and Coatl.

===Army Composition===

Some people (you know who you are) think Lizardmen (specifically Saurus), are a defensive army. This, however, is not true. Take 2 blocks of 30 Saurus, with spears if you're a taker (or have Gor-Rok to lead them). These are your main hitting force. Next, take 2+ units of Skinks. Blowpipes used to be better but now take poison Javelins. Next, your block of Temple Guard. 20 MINIMUM! No cheaping out here: these bad boys are gonna keep your Slann safe, so may as well go all out. Buy a magic standard, with a Flaming banner always handy in a pinch. Then you need to get some support... here is where your aquatic friends come in handy. No Flounder or Sebastian up in this shit, hell no! We got lizards who breathe FIRE (<s>despite being water-dwelling reptiles...?</s> they spit acid which goes on fire when it comes into contact with the air) and ones that carry a shotgun of spikes to down insects (bring bug spray to Lustria). Two units of any mix well, however, a Razordon is 60 points to a Salamander's 80 points, but now their barbs are S4, so slightly better. Use this to hit the enemy, take ranks, and warmachines out. They can also flank charge in a pinch (use them to chase down). Do all you can to make that hammer blow fall hard and fast.

That's your base, now your Slann. Ok, here is what you want: Becalming Cogitation, Wandering Deliberations, Reservoir of Eldritch Energy, and any other one of your choosing. Make the guy a BSB (hey, if he's so expensive as is, may as well make him worth it) Banner of Discipline, ftw! 

After that, it's entirely up to you what to take. Terradons are a good answer to warmachines yet not as good as Ripperdactyls. Bastiladons in both forms are only worth their points if you have a specific plan for them. It's not a unit you can plop down and expect it to work wonders (i.e., you must think harder about your battle plan when using these, ditto for Ripperdactyls). GW is again trying to push the newest box by making its cheapest model. Bloodcrushers anyone?

<s>Just remember if you are only taking units of 30 Saurus in a horde with spears, you won't get any real benefit of the fourth rank so consider taking them 7 across for the added lulz.</s> Except hordes are no longer a thing so this doesn't work.

===Alternate Opinion===

Let's start with the Slann. Becalming Cogitation and Reservoir of Eldritch Energy are fine. It seems, however, that our friend who wrote the above (and messy) composition forgot about High Magic's Lore Attribute, which allows you to forget a spell of High Magic and replace it with one from any of the Eight Battle Magic Lores. These spells will automatically use their associated Lore Attribute and can always be the Signiture spell as per usual spell generation rules. That means, if you're in a bit of trouble, you can cast a High Magic lore spell, switch to Lore of Life, generate one from there, depending on what it is either keep it or swap it for 5+ Regeneration Signature Spell and then cast that. That not only gives a unit a nice Regeneration save (<S>which I believe counts as a 'Ward Save'</S> there are some differences - vulnerability to fire damage comes to mind) but it also gives the Wizard (or any other character in range) a Wound back. You can do this for any Lore. Wandering Deliberations is also good, as mentioned.

Next, as I am sure the above person knows, your General is automatically the character with the highest Leadership. Since Slann have Ld9, that means they are automatically the Army General unless you have more than one Slann or somehow have another Lord with Ld9 or above. Oldbloods have Ld8. This isn't a problem until you give the Slann the Banner of Discipline, which not only turns it into the BSB but gives it Ld+1. That means the Slann will have Ld10. Amazing for casting the Death Lore Signature spell (Spirit Leech says unmodified Ld, but it's still not bad by any stretch). <strike>However, the Banner of Discipline also states that the Banner wielder cannot be used for Inspiring Presence. Meaning you have lost the ability to use the Slann to rally. This is a important seeing as many of the Lizardmen units are Ld5-6. Coldblooded helps, but is not always sufficient</strike>. As per the BRB FAQ, a General in a unit with the Banner of Discipline may use his Inspiring Presence with the +1 bonus. This gives any Lizardmen under the eyes of a Slann a 99.98% chance of success for all leadership tests. This is so stupidly good for the price that only an idiot would not take it.

Next, mixing Razordons and Salamanders is a fun idea, but they are both different firing types. Firstly, the Salamanders are Slow to Fire and fire as a Flame Cannon, while the Razordon are Quick to Fire and fire as Grapeshot from cannons. It would therefore be better to keep them separate. Yes, there is the bonus that the Razordons will be able to protect the Salamanders, but it's still a mess. 

Bastiladons are worth their price. If you take Jungle Swarms, the Ark of Sotek is useful for a chance on a free base every turn, but the key worth is in the Solar Engine. The gem not only gives every Cold Blooded creature within range +1I (which is <s>stupidly useful</s> does nothing for I1 Saurus on protecting them against Pit of Shades for example) which also stacks with Hand of Glory for a potential +4I (and half of your Magic Phase), it's the Gem's power which is the real useful part of it. The spell is Power Level 3, meaning you need only a 3 to cast it (<s>and your opponent needs only a 3 to dispel it</s> 2 assuming minimum roll because you add half your Wizard level, rounding up, to dispels but not when casting bound spells). You've got a 66% chance of doing it with one die. Throw two and you're going to be unlucky to not cast it (and you get a bonus die for casting from an item, so why not). The spell itself not only causes 1D3-2D6 S3-6 Flaming Hits, but also a 1/6 chance to reduce WS and BS skill by 1 for a turn. The fact you're going to be forcing your opponent to either accept the chance of the spell being powerful and causing damage OR using a couple of dice to dispel it. If they do dispel it, you then simply laugh and use your remaining dice to cast some High Magic or Battle Lore spells which your opponent will struggle to dispel. The Bastiladon is also still the proud owner of a 2+ Natural Armor, meaning you're going to be resisting plenty of attacks. and imagine a Skink Priest casting Wildform from a Lore of Beast on it, giving it +1S and +1T, or even +2/4T from Lore of Life. Making it the true tank it should be to the further shrog off those Bolt throwers, Grapeshots, and other Roidid out beauties that would normally butcher other weaker monsters.

===Magic===
* '''Life:''' Stick your Slann in a unit of Temple Guard, sit on your Throne of Vines, be within 12 inches of your Oldblood or Scar Vet and whore the hell out of Earth Blood, Flesh to Stone, and Regrowth until the game ends.

* '''Metal:'''  The lore has improved for everyone, including Lizardmen. The lore attribute now benefits all its spells. More importantly, Glittering Robe is both a point easier to cast and stacks with Natural Armour, giving that Temple Guard unit a juicy 1+ Armour Save. Enchanted Blades are as strong as ever for the average weapon skill focused army. 

* '''Light:''' Probably the best lore to make your units as killy as possible, considering they already have high toughness and decent armor. Throwing Speed of Light and TimeWarp on your unit of Temple Guard is broken- ASF, 3 Attacks re-rolling misses. Take it against undead armies every time. Still viable against others.

* '''Fire:''' Tough lore to recommend when you can have your Slann know all signatures or Loremaster high magic and take what you need. There are not enough good spells here to take a Slann. Super viable on your Skink Scroll Cadey.
**A bit straitlaced, this lore can help fill the gap of long-range firepower that Lizardmen have, and put down fast, long-ranged units. Flaming Sword of Rhuin can situationally make your Skinks a good bit more dangerous, aiming through a Skink Priest means lining up perfect Flaming Heads has never been easier and your own units generally have high enough Toughness and Leadership to mitigate friendly fire, and Fulminating Cage can straight up delete problematic units that could otherwise harass and stay out of range of your Saurus blocks. Don't let the associations of the lore being mainly used by lower-level casters discourage you from the raw blasting power a Fire Slann offers, but do be aware that blasting is pretty much all you're doing, and besides the ranged units, Fire excels at killing things your dudes already great at butchering.

* '''Beast:''' If you need your characters to survive challenges, this is the one. Suppose you have a lot of Cold-Ones, even better.
**The other Skink lore. Generally quite decent. You'll almost always have a monster for the Lore Attribute and a cheap scroll caddy Skink can get some consistency from it. Still, the real draw is getting Wildform off on a big block of Saurus Warriors, Temple Guard, or maybe a Scar Vet to shovel some coal into the Saurus rape train. The Amber Spear is neat, as it can fill a niche Lizardmen sometimes struggle with. Impenetrable Pelt and Savage Beast can help a Scar Veteran or Oldblood survive or kill a Vampire Lord or Chaos Lord in combat, but the rest of the lore is kinda meh. Don't bother taking it on a Slann unless butchering a Vampire Lord is something you anticipate needing to do regularly, even then, Light is probably the better counterpick. Skink Priests can cast what we really want in most cases. In case you wanted to try it, unfortunately, Slann uniquely cannot cast Transformation of Kadon, because the fat bastard refuses to get off his mobility scooter due to the Palanquin rules.

* '''Death:''' Purple Sun against Dwarfs or Ogres. You could potentially cast Soulblight and Wildform in one combat and create a 2 point difference in strength and toughness with High Magic. Making your Longbeards vs. Saurus combat more like a Dragon Ogre vs. State Troop one. Doom and Darkness Combined with Harrowing Scrutiny is potentially -5 leadership to the unit you're fighting... 
** Bit of an odd relationship. On the one hand, Lizardmen are arguably the best casters of the lore; few armies can make quite as good of use as the massive surplus of power dice you'll be generating as Lizardmen, and the chief drawback of the lore, the short-range on most of the spells, is more or less entirely mitigated as your Slann can just cast through a Skink, rather than get within spitting distance of that Bloodthirster himself. On the other hand, the lore excels at character sniping, and if there is one thing Lizardmen really don't need help with, it's murdering characters. Additionally, while Purple Sun is tantalizing, one even slightly bad scatter, and you will fuck your own army far harder than you will the enemy. It's not a dead lore for us, but it's not something you should just slap on a standard army list; you need to build your army with consideration for the lore. In very large games, where you can run more than one Slann, a Death Slann can generate absurd amounts of dice, that the other can absolutely violate the board with.

* '''Shadow:''' Any spell cast is now also an escape button for a slann. A lot of enemy debuffs. You should never miss out on Mindrazor and The Withering (Slanns are expensive, so always take the best).

* '''Heavens:''' have a lot of good things. Signature lets saurus hit first. Harmonics helps Predatory Fighters trigger. Slann taking the Lighting Spells are especially effective when fighting heavy armour.
** One of your choices for your Skinks, so you will almost always have one or two on the board. Actually pretty handy, the signature spell can mess with war machines something fierce or make foes slower than saurus, which we always appreciate, and Thunderbolt might be able to finish off a character that your Scar Vet barely missed a kill on. The buff and hex are okay for Saurus. Never take it on a Slann; if you want a high-level Heavens caster, it's probably for Comet of Cassendora, but Tetto'ekko gives bonuses to that spell specifically and is cheaper to boot. His bonuses to Comet make us significantly better at hitting with it when we want to, making the spell jump from a gimmicky toy to a genuinely threatening move. Just take him if the thought of a Heavens Slann crosses your mind, or leave the Lore to your Skinks otherwise.

*'''High:''' Why have one when you can have them all? You need to cast a High Spell before getting another spell of that level or lower with its Attribute. It's already solid lore with spells to support your saurus and mess with your opponent, and then you can grab any other spell when you needed. You only take other lores on Slanns because you don't have the Dice economy to throw out all the game-enders and your opponent just needs you to dispel your high magic spell to stop you from using your lore attribute.