Warhammer Army Project/Lizardmen

This article needs rules updates. Upgrade plz.

Lizardmen: Warhammer Army Project, 9th Edition Tactica

Created by Mathias Eliasson, this brings Lizardmen up to date with the homebrew "9th edition" of Warhammer Fantasy that he has been creating

It should also be noted that Eliasson is constantly updating his work, so don't expect this page to stay current forever. As of now: I'll be using the most current Lizardmen book he has as of mid-2017. If anyone wishes to actually update this page and the items that need it later on, go ahead.

Why Play WAP Lizardmen

Pro

• Aztec Lizards riding Dinosaurs. Need we say more?
• You have access to one of the strongest wizards in the game.
• Can pile up a lot of attacks.

Cons

• Saurus have the slowest reaction times. Even Nurgle can swing swords faster than you.

Notable Changes from 8e

Pros

• Predatory Fighter explicitly works on supporting attacks.
• Skink Cohorts are more customizable.
• Sacred Spawnings add some custom stat changes for most of your army.
• Changes to spell generation rules make High Magic's lore attribute turn any Slann into a ghetto loremaster of all 8 lores.
• Cold Ones are 20% cheaper while benefiting from the edition-wide cav buffs (lost 2 points in their armour save).

Cons

• Scar Vets took a 25% price hike, Old Bloods are slightly more expensive too.
• Saurus characters are locked out of good rulebook armours.
• Saurus and Temple Guard took a hit to armour and price respectively. EVERYONE GOT THEIR NATURAL ARMOUR BACK THANK GOD.
• Stegadons are rare, whether they are ancient or not. Combined with force composition rule changes. Lizardmen went from being able to field five to one Stegadon in a 2000pt game.

Army Special Rules

• Cold-Blooded: Same as 8th, when you take a Ld test, you can roll it on 3d6 and discard the highest.
• Predatory Fighter: Models with this rule can make an extra attack when they roll a 6 to hit in melee. This explicitly applies to supporting attacks.
• Aquatic: Reminder, Skinks ignore marshlands and rivers and gain soft cover when within them. Like most armies, Usfuness is dependent on what you can get away with at your table as you are not wood elves that get an army rule and spell to mass conjure thier synergistic terrain even on a preset table.
• Natural Armour: While now a USR, it should be known everything in the book has some, including the Skinks. Was a point everyone lost it or was reduced by one, but turned out Lizardman needed that extra armor given how brutal bows now are.

The Lore of High Magic

Lore Attribute: Contemplations: When you cast a spell from this lore, you can choose to forget it and replace it with a spell from any of the lores that wizard has access to. This is the sorta thing that makes the Slann so legendary as wizards.

• Signature Spell: Drain Magic (7/12): A 24" augment/hex which dispels all Remains in Play spells on a target. Overcast: becomes an 18" bubble
• Signature Spell: Soul Quench (8/12): 18" magic missile which causes 2d6 S4 hits. Overcast: 4d6 S4 hits.

1. Apotheosis (5/10): Augment which allows a single model in 18" to regain a wound and gain Fear for the turn. Overcast: 10+, d3 wounds
2. Hand of Glory (5/10): 18" augment which increases a unit's WS, BS, I, or M by d3 for the turn. Overcast: 10+, all four stats increased (roll 1d3 for all)
3. Walk Between Worlds (8/16): 24" augment, allows an unengaged unit to gain Ethereal for the turn and immediately move 10". Overcast: 16+, 20"
4. Tempest (12): Place a large blast within 30" and scatter it d6". Anyone inside suffers a S3 hit (flying models S4), and if a unit suffers unsaved wounds, it gets a -1 modifier on all to-hit rolls.
5. Arcane Unforging (13): 24" direct damage spell made for Hero-sniping. They suffer a wound with no armour saves allowed on a roll equal to their unmodified armour save. Then they have to reveal all magical items they carry and you can destroy one of them on a 2+. Be sure to bring your best smug face, because this is why you don't HeroHammer.
6. Fiery Convocation (19): Basically death. 24" remains in play direct damage. Every model in the unit takes a S4 flaming hit. For every magic phase after this, that unit will suffer another S4 flaming hit per model.

Equipment

Sacred Spawnings

This is a unique means to upgrade certain models (Saurus units, Skinks, Kroxigor) in the same manner similar to magic items. Lords may take up to 3 Blessed Spawnings, and Heroes, Core and Special units may take up to 2 Blessed Spawnings, but taking more than one makes Core or Special one slot rarer

• Blessed Mark of the Old Ones: 10 points allows one model to re-roll up to three-hit, wound, or save rolls in the whole game. Make sure you throw it on your most reliable guy.
• Blessed Spawning of Sotek: 10pts. Grants Devastating Charge. A extra attack on charge is very useful for Saurus units.
• Blessed Spawning of Itzl: 5pts. Lets mounted units re-roll stupidity and berserk charge tests, which is welcome on Cold Ones. A character gains the option to mount a Horned One.
• Blessed Spawning of Quetzl: 5pts. Like an Invulnerable save, your armour save can't be reduced below a 6+. Useful when facing buckets of armour pricing missiles and war machines, especially when reducing skink casualties. Less useful on Saurous if the enemy is not packing a high enough caliber gun to ignor thier shield and skin. Becomes more useful the less armor you put on the unit and spend those points elsewhere.
• Blessed Spawning of Tlazcotl: 5pts. Gives immunity to psychology, negating any vestiges of fear or terror.
• Blessed Spawning of Chotec: 10pts. Re-rolls all charge and pursuit distances. YES.
• Blessed Spawning of Huanchi: 5pts. Gives foot models Forest Strider and Ambushers. Flanking Cold ones and Kroxigors?
• Blessed Spawning of Tepok: 10pts. Grants Magic Resist(1). You have better, but sometimes stops enemies from messing with your important units.
• Blessed Spawning of Tzunki: 5pts. Gives foot models Aquatic (wasted on Skinks) and +2 Initiative. Let your dinos swing before the humans, Dwarfs, and greenskins.

Disciplines of the Old Ones

As before, these are how you customize your Slann, and you'll want this considering how valuable those toads are.

• Higher State of Consciousness: 40pts. Become Ethereal. Now 20 points cheaper. Though this does give him protection from mundane attacks, this also robs your Slann of the ability to join a hardy group of Temple Guard that can actually throw a punch if need be.
• Focus of Mystery: 30pts. 5 points cheaper. Still gives Lore Master of High Magic.
• Wandering Deliberations: 30pts. Same as always, you now gain all the signature spells of all the CRB lores.
• Harmonic Convergence: 30pts. Provide two die for channeling or dispels. Combine with a channeling staff for 7 channels on 4+.
• Transcendent Healing: 30pts. Same as before. Gain the ability to heal during the magic phase.
• The Focused Rumination: 25pts. 5 points less than Harmonic Convergence to add +1 die to one casting attempt a magic phase.
• Soul of Stone: 25pts. Same miscast mitigation as before.
• Becalming Cogitation: 25pts. Same re-roll on a dispel.
• Reservoir of Eldritch Energy: 20pts. Remains the way to turn a dispel die into a power die.
• The Harrowing Scrutiny: 20pts. Terror for 10 points cheaper than before.
• Unfathomable Presence: 20pts. rolls a d3 to get Magic Resist 1 to 3.

Treasures of The Old Ones

• Blade of Realities: 55pts. No armour or ward saves are allowed against this weapon. Very strong, still very expensive at 55 pts (50% less than 8e).
• The Piranha Blade: 10 points shaved off 8e, 40pts for Multiple Wounds(D3) and AP(1). A decent choice for a character/monster killer. Considering the bone blade costs 30 points and a biting blade is 5, ensure you need both of the effects of this item or just get the BIG RULEBOOK items. Can no longer be comboed with the next item for armour piercing, multiplewound impact hits.

• Sacred Stegadon Helm of Itza: 40pts. +1 armour save, +1 T, and Impact Hits (d3). With Lizardmen no longer having access to items like the Armour of Destiny, this is a solid choice.

• Cube of Darkness: 30pts. Essentially a modified dispel scroll. This is a one use only arcane item which lets you dispel a spell on a 2+, as well as ending any remains in play spells on a 2+. Be careful not to dispel your own spells with this!

• Plaque of Dominion: 15pts. Bound spell (3+, 18"). Targets all enemy Wizards, giving them Stupidity.
• The Cloak of Feathers: 35pts. Only for Skink characters on foot. Gives them Fly(10) and Magic Resistance (1).
• The Horn of Kygor: 30pts. An interesting one-use item that can be used at the start of his movement phase. Gives all Lizardmen monsters & mounts Frenzy until the next movement phase.
• The Egg of Quango: 30pts. One use only item which does a random amount of hits to an enemy unit in base contact. While interesting, you are probably better off just getting more bodies.

• Skavenpelt Banner: 30pts. Same as before, this banner gives Frenzy and Hatred (Skaven), but Skaven also gains Hatred against the bearer's unit.
• The Jaguar Standard: 25pts. now all the unit adds D3" to their charge or pursue rolls. Now useful on units other than just infantry.

Expansion Magic Items

Weapons

• Blade of Revered Tzunki: 45pts. Grants +1 Strength and Ignores Armor, both pretty useful for a Saurus.
• Stegadon Warspear: 35pts. Skink Chief on a Stegadon only. This turns the Stegadon into an Impact Hits tank, dealing 2d6+1 of them each turn.
• Lash of Itzaotyl: 30pts. Provides ASF, which is incredibly nice. It's doubly useful on Monsters, who need to test Ld on any turn they get hit or else be unable to attack. It even works on Animated Constructs (can even tame sphinxs).
• Scimitar of the Sun Resplendent: 45pts. Two extra attacks and Hatred. Strong for the how explosive a souroues onslaught can get with a reroll.
• Staff of the Lost Sun: 30pts. Essentially gives you the Amazonian's Sunstaff, except stronger. Probably best on a Skink.
• Sword of the Hornet: 25pts. reroll 1's to Hit and enemy reroll their 6's to hit you. Impressive as you get exploding sixs while also a side of protection.
• Dagger of Sotek: 15pts. Skinks only. Grants Killing Blow, which is kinda naff on a piddly skink, but it also makes any Skaven you face treat it as having Fear.
• Burning Blade of Chotec: 15pts. Armor Piercing 2 and Flaming? Good for this price.

Armour

• Hide of the Cold Ones: 40pts. Saurus Scar Vet or Oldblood on foot only. This essentially grants all the Cold One bonuses, +1 Toughness, a 5+ Natural Armor and Fear as well as Stupidity. Kinda dangerous for the price.
• Maiming Shield: 20pts. Though it's a shield, it's more offensive than defensive. It provides an extra attack as well as Magical attacks.
• Shield of the Mirrored Pool: 20pts. Whenever a magic missile hits the bearer or their unit, roll a d6. On a 2+, this bounces back to the unit who cast it. Shame it won't do a thing to anything else.

Talismans

• Divine Plaque of Protection: 30pts. Slann only. This frog and their Temple Guard now have a 5++ Ward. Stack as needed.
• Aura of Quetzl: 30pts. Grants the bearer a 4++ Ward against anything S5 or higher, making this useful for resisting Artillery.
• Glyph Necklace: 20pts. All melee attacks against the bearer take a -1 to hit.
• Amulet of Itzl: 15pts. Grants a 2++ Ward against the very first wound the bearer suffers.

Arcane Items

• Cupped Hands of the Old Ones: 45pts. Slann only. It's only got one use, but it will allow you a chance to ignore a miscast and instead reflect it onto an enemy wizard with them exploding (Barring rolling a 1).
• Rod of the Storm: 20pts. A single-use bound PL5 item with Urannon's Thunderbold from Heavens.
• Diadem of Power: 20pts. Quite a vicious tool indeed. This lets you store up to two unused casting die and carry them over to the dispel pool during the following enemy magic phase.
• Plaque of Tepok: 10pts. Slann only. Lets you pick one more spell, just in case you needed even MORE spells!

Enchanted Items

• War Drum of Xahutec: 15pts. This here lets bearer's unit march without any check, which is really nifty. It also helps add +1 to any rally checks held within 12", making it useful for support.
• Blood Statuette of Spite: 25pts. This gives you one use of a PL5 bound spell that forces a single model to take a Toughness or else suffer an instant wound. And then repeat the process again. And again. And again...you get the gist. You have a literal voodoo doll on your hands.
• Charm of the Jaguar Warrior: 25pts. Model on foot only. The bearer now has a movement of 8" and Scouts. Incredibly nice.
• Carnosaur Pendant: 20pts. Saurus Oldblood, Scar Vet or Skink Chief only. The bearer now has the Carnosaur's Blood Frenzy, which is sinister for your Saurus.
• Curse-charm of Tepok: 20pts. Once per game when your enemy miscasts, you can force them to re-roll for a worse result.
• Bane Head: 10pts. This grants your model Multiple Hits (2), but only against one model. Pretty much what you want to nail a really tough General, but otherwise does nothing.
• Dragonfly of Quicksilver: 5pts. This lets you add +1 to the roll to determine whose scouts can move first, which you'll want considering how many models you have that want it.
• Venom of the Firefly Frog: 10pts. The bearer now has Poisoned Attacks, or lets them re-roll to wound if they already had it. This is pretty handy, especially for those flimsy blowpipes.
• Gleaming Pendant of Chotec: 30pts. This gives your model a once-per-game bubble of ASL to anyone in base contact. Better see how those pointy ears like it.

Standards

• Sun Standard of Chotec: 35pts. Very useful for the melee force, as this penalizes all missile attacks aimed at the banner.
• Huanchi's Blessed Totem: 25pts. Once per game during the Remaining Moves subphase after making a normal move, the unit can move directly forward another Random Movement (2d6). Let's you move an average of 11". Random Movement also lets you make a sudo charge without triggering charge reactions while the banner also grants the benefits of swiftstride.
• Sign of Sotek: 15pts. Skink Chief only. This allows any attached units to re-roll to wound on the charge. Nice, especially if handling Kroxigors.
• Totem of Prophecy: 40pts. all enemies with Line of Sight and don't have Immunity (Psychology) suffer -1 to leadership.

Army Units

Lords & Heroes

Named Characters

• Lord Mazdamundi: 700pts. He arrives with an 80 point discount, but still obscenely expensive. On top of his spell allotment, he also has a unique spell that deals 2d6 S5 (3d6 if garrisoned) hits on a unit and halves their movement if the target gets wounded. He also has a single-use item that lets him add +d3 die to the power pool for that turn.

• Lord Kroak: 450pts. Everyone's favorite mummy-frog manages to get a panoply of things to change how things work with a 50 point increase. His new magical weapon renders all magical weapons into mundane ones when targeting him. Despite lacking WS or BS, he forces a -1 penalty on all hit rolls against his unit. His amulet adds an extra dispel dice for his team on top of his magic resist 3+. He carries a standard that inflicts d6 S3 hits (S5 against undead or daemons) against models in b2b each shooting phase.

• Kroq-Gar: 470pts. This badass fared the transition quite well with his price slashed by 50 points. He's now your mandatory general if nobody beats his Ld of 8, and he can bring a pack of Cold One Riders as a Core unit to join. His Ward Save deals an instant S5 hit to anyone who punched past it in close combat to protect him, and his spear doubles the wounds it inflicts for the sake of combat resolution, letting him stomp over units faster.

• Tehenhauin: 315pts. A giant Sotek worshiping Skink wizard of beasts. He grants fellow skinks the Red Crest Sacred Spawning: +1 Weapon Skill, Devastating Charge, Hatred (Skaven), and Immunity (Poisoned Attacks). The only change here is that his Plaque no longer gives a Ward save, just a 6+ regen to himself and Jungle Swarms. On the one hand, this regen allows his swarms to last longer, but now they're fucked if fire comes into play. Is this worth the massively jacked-up price he got? Hell no. Especially since he can't hop in Ye Olde Holy Party Bus anymore.

• Chakax the Eternity Warden: 215pts. While largely the same, he can no longer instantly break magic items and instead reveals all items and hidden assassins a unit possesses with his Great Weapon that no longer has ASL - not like that matters to a model with such low initiative. Thankfully, his price drop to 210 makes him more palatable.

• Gor-Rok: This mega-badass now had his price hiked up to 230. A durable and deadly foot hero, given both the Sacred Mark of the Old Ones and the ability to reroll to hit, he's terrifying enough before he rolls to proc Predatory Fighter on a 5+. Then comes his protection, from his 2+, as he maintains a 4+ Natural Armour and his Shield adds +2 to the saves, but then you read that he's immune to KB and forces enemies to reroll to wound him - making him ded'ard. He also discourages charging, as anyone that does so must take a dangerous terrain check at -1. Simply put, he is here to wreck all the face and draw all the hate.

• Nakai the Wanderer: 305pts. A unique Kroxigor Lord. While pricy, this Monstrous Infantry guy has a 4+ regeneration and a 3+ natural armour, in addition to his stat boosts over a normal Kroxigor (+2 WS, +1 W, +1 Ld). He comes with three rerolls, which he can use for any d6 roll he makes. He may not be overrun or pursued if he is killed in the melee or flees. He may also Ambush, although he must appear from a wood, swamp, or water feature if able to. His sword gives him +1 to hit and -1 to hit him back, making this beast S7 with plenty of stacked defense.

• Tetto'Eko: 190pts. He has survived this edition with a 10 point discount and is still the badass pseudo-Slann in the block. Level 2 Heavens Loremaster that can help with Dice generation, hand out Vanguards, and Comet of Casandora becomes more consistent.

• Tiktaq'to: 135pts. A silly name, but a balanced character. Got his price dropped to 135. A booster to a Terradon Riders unit lets them ambush, their -1 to hit from shooting, and use his WS of 4 to fight better. He is a sky-duelist, getting Ignores Armour and a +1 to hit flyers, making him proficient at killing flying wizards.

• Oxyotl: 90pts. The legendary chameleon skink now hates Daemons of Chaos (why only melee?) but loses out on any saves. Despite Chaos Daemons being immune to Poisoned, he is a potent hero killer. If allowed to stay still(feigned flight doesn't count), He gets to reroll wounds with his 3 sniper-shot Golden Blowpipe, easy to take out a wizard. He is also flat-out your cheapest hero, having his price slashed in half to 90 points.

• Inxi-Huinzi: 80pts. He is a Skink riding an upgraded Cold One. He is a special Hero for 120 pts. He offers poison, Fear, heavier armour than the typical Skink and is armed with an array of poison darts. He may throw these darts if he charges or is charged since they're Quick to Fire. His Horned One is also not vulnerable to Stupidity. While this sounds good, this does not confer to other packs, meaning that things might still turn out poorly for you.

• Lotl-Boltl: 130pts. a Saurus Scar-Veteran with Fear on the charge, and give +1 bonus to combat resolution. He's pretty much a support hero who helps a unit of Saurus win in the first round of combat.

• Kroq: 110pts. Another Scar Vet who's more of a bruiser. He touts a 4+ natural skin and has a special attack. When he's fighting a unit at Unit Strength 2, he can make another attack that ignores armour and deals d3 wounds, which might help clean up stragglers.

• Ten-Zlati, Oracle of Lord Kroak: 130pts. Skink Priest of Heavens on Terradon that serves Lord Kroak. He has Poisoned Attacks which can stack with any other means of Poisoned Attacks to reroll to wound, but you're not likely to use it due to being so flimsy and more prone to use the rock drop. You want him because he has no limitations to his Arcane Vassal rule; this means that he doesn't need to be around a Slann to be used as a casting vector.

• Itzi-Bitzi, The Piranha Warrior: 100pts. A Skink Chief with a The Piranha Blade. Its real function is being a one-use Panic bomb for all enemies within 8".

Generic Characters

• Slann Mage-Priest: The big Super wizard toad on floating mobility scooter. Pretty much unchanged from 8th edition, this guy remains the badass caster he always was. Can any pick core lores + High and the ever-valuable Disciplines of the Old Ones can be your BSB but still has its full 100 points allowance for diplins and 100 points for items in addition to a 50-point banner. In bigger games, they can trade spells with other Slann in case you don't have a nearby Skink priest to fiddle with.

• Saurus Oldblood: Your Big generic melee lord option. He is the only one that can mount a Carnosaur. He got a price hike and can no longer take some of the magic items that made him great, though he retains the 4+ natural armor that made Saurus so badass.

• Saurus Scar-Veteran: Your melee BSB. He also received a price increase and can no longer be mounted on a Carnosaur but is otherwise as badass as Temple Guard. In larger games where you can afford a few Scar Vets (or a couple of them and an Old Blood), equip them and use them like missiles: send a kitted-out Scar Vet after one thing and watch it get maimed. They're more useful sitting in Saurus units to chew through infantry in smaller games. Solid choice as a General at low-level games and good in larger battles for extra killing power. If you take a Slann and a Scar Vet, you can have a very nice combo: a Carnosaur and your magical toad!

• Skink Chief: Much cheaper than a saurus HQ. They get their unique mounts between flyers, Troglodon, or Stegadon. Their role is similar to those of goblins as inexpensive ways to hold magic items and do a particular job like BSB so long as you're not using them for smacking face.

• Skink Priest: Your Hero level Caster. You are no longer limited to strictly only Heavens or Beast, as they can take Life, Fire, or Light. Your Slann can also use them to extend the range of his magic missiles.

Mounts

• Cold One: The classic raptor mount for Saurus heroes. Bring only when you have someone to set them up with.
• Horned One: Requires the Blessed Spawning of Itzl. Essentially a faster Cold One without Stupidity that grants other Cold Ones Hatred
• Terradon: The lightweight speedy mount for Skinks.
• Ripperdactyl: The speedy Skink mount with more bite in them.
• Carnosaur: The big T-Rex mount for Oldbloods. While no longer as expensive as a Slann, they're still about as much as almost two Vets.
• Troglodon: The Skink version of the Carnosaur 50 points cheaper, and now you can have your Skink HQs ride it. With Ambush, Poison, and Poison Spit, and can roar once per game to give nearby Predatory Fighter rolls trigger on a 5+. The question is, is this any more worth it than before?
• Coatl: Another mount for a skink Priest, Your Dragon Equivalent that's also a wizard. Also, lest you buy a Coatl with Hero allowance + some Missile protection rather than going on their own.

Core Units

• Saurus Warriors: Remain the molasses-slow hard-hitting fuckers that your army needs to build around with S/T 4 with 2 attacks, 4+ armour, but with Initiative 1, they have the slowest reaction time in-game. At the end of a fight, Saurus Warriors will either smash straight through the enemy lines, end up in slow grinding combat that leaves either half a unit of Saurus or a few dazed and bloodstained enemies left, ready to be swept away by the rest of your army.

• Skink Cohort: Your cheap chaff, with Initiative 4 and BS of 3 for what they are. Despite weak (native) Leadership and terrible Toughness(T2), Skinks can be surprisingly effective against non-elite infantry and cavalry for one turn, in part thanks to their relatively high Initiative. Their prices are now cut in half, making Skink Spam a very affordable matter though they lose the poisoned javelins as a default deal. They also have a choice in loadouts, either buying back the javelins, getting spears, or trading off their shields to go full-archery with poison shortbows.

• Skink Skirmishers: Keep their prices, keep their rules. Skinks are geared with blowpipes, poison shortbows, or poison javelins and shields. Both have pros and cons- Shortbows have better range and multiattack if allowed to stay still. Pipes are mobile, and always having multiple poisoned shots is devastating. At the same time, javelins are quick to fire, which significantly bolsters the unit's mobility and threat range, and the shield affords them a much-appreciated defensive bonus. Skinks can be great for kiting enemy units and being an all-around thorn in their sides. Put simply, if the Skink Skirmishers manage to inflict wounds on any unit, The dilemma will compel your opponent to either shoot at it, commit a unit to charge it, or try to ignore the damage they're doing. The first option is terrible because damage spells and shooting units are overkill against Skink units that size, making it a waste of resources when other, more dangerous units are around. The second option is ill-advised because most close combat units are significantly more costly than Skinks and are better suited to stopping/slowing your Saurus bricks from smashing through the battlefield. This worsens if the Skinks can shoot at the unit before the melee and inflict wounds. However, with cheap units like Skaven Clanrats, this is less of an issue, except that large Clanrat units shouldn't chase down half a dozen Skinks, and no one fields those kinds of units with an equivalent cost to your Skinks. Elite units further aggravate the problem because any damage directed at the Skinks is pointless. Most elite infantry units run from 12-16 points, and heavy cavalry or monstrous infantry are even more expensive, which means that more than 2 ranged casualties are a lose-lose tradeoff at best. Ignoring the Skinks is even more stupid as some players do because it frees the skinks to pick off other skirmishers, violating war machine crews, and chip off wounds from other critical units or characters.
  • In summary, Skink Skirmishers are suicide units that force bad tradeoffs for the enemy. Skinks die when they are attacked, but it's a lose-lose situation, and in the broader context of the battle, this leads the opponent to be inefficient with his units. Skink spamming is surprisingly viable at competitive levels since you can flood the battlefield in cheap, fast-moving little units with an array of poisoned weapons redirecting, shooting, and irritating your opponent's units to a not-quite-metaphorical death and beautifully supporting your heavy-hitting saurus cowboys.

• Jungle Swarms: Pricing and stat have been fixed, so to be reasonable 6 wounds and 6 attacks for 30 points per swarm make them a decent pack for screening, and Poisoned Attacks give them something resembling a fighting chance against basic troops.

Special Units

• Temple Guard: Saurus with +1 WS, I, LD, a 3+ save, Halberds and are stubborn. They get better when Bunkering for a Slann, protecting him in the second rank and gaining Immunity (Psychology). These big guys are now 17 points, and they now lose any option for magical weapons.

• Cold One Riders: Temple Guard riding a Saurus Warrior with stupidity. 26 points with spears as default. They occasionally lose control, but they can really rip and tear. They are designed to rush into enemies before the rest of the army. COR excels when serving as a delivery system for one or several Scar Veterans or Old Bloods armed to the teeth with magic weapons. They are solid enough to hit hard and soak up damage, and mounted Saurus characters are terrifying. They also provide a flanking unit that can withstand damage.

• Horned One Rider: Skinks that ride Horned Ones. They are a controllable, 21ppm fast cavalry. They are not as good of a fighter as Cold One Riders (They still have attacks from the Horned One), but they are better at flanking. Cold Ones are faster infantry, while Horned Ones are proper all-purpose cavalry.

• Kroxigors: Your Big Alligator with a Sledgehammer, a Min size unit, will Deal 3 S7-6 attacks plus more from Predatory Fighters. Knights will feel it when they get flanked by them.

• Chameleon Skinks: Extra stealthy and accurate Skink Blowpipe scouts, getting +1 to hit with Missles and -2 to be hit back. With Skinks getting shortbows, these guys aren't as mandatory for shooting things, though their price drop makes them welcome support.

• Terradon Riders: Fly(9) Skink bombers. Flying Fast Cavalry is now Slightly cheaper than before. They will do Flyby Missle harassing. Excellent for harassment tactics: hunting Warmachine crews, isolated models, and skirmishers. Their ability to drop rocks is also handy for softening up something tough before the Saurus or TG can deal the real damage. The choice between default poison javelins or swap to their special Fireleech Bolas depends on whether the target takes Poisoned or Flaming Attacks worse. (fire against Animated constructs and low armored animals, poison for monsters and everything else).

• Ripperdactyl Riders: Melee version of the Terradon. Same as above, 8 points cheaper and now count as cavalry. The killing power comes from the Ripperdactyl mount, having 2 attacks + Frenzy, S4, AP(1), Killing Blow, and Toad Rage lets you pick an enemy for each Ripperdactyl unit you bring, and they get even more attacks and reroll hits against them. Not only can they harass, but they rip apart archers. Thier job is to pick soft targets and rocket at them before anyone can stop them like a pitbull in an orphanage. Otherwise, they are glass cannons.

• Razordon Hunting Pack: Act as living artillery, more mobile and Defend themselves better than most warmachines. Razordons Shoot barbs like Cannon Grapeshots can fire on the move and reroll the artillery dice when charged. Effectively the same as before, though the Razors are 5 points cheaper than before at 60 points per unit. Razordon takes the roll of tuning units that think they can shield-wall through blowdarts into pincushions.

• Salamander Hunting Pack: Paying more for 80 points per unit, Salamanders act as Flamethrowers. Salamander is more offensive-oriented than Razordon, Preferring to get into CC range to cover a unit with Templates.

Rare Units

• Bastiladon: 175/185/215pts. The big war wagon. Very durable and an anti-monster attack with a magic relic mounted on it. This thing got reamed. 15+ points, moved to rare choice, loss of poison in the skink spears, and it can no longer replace the Ark with a Solar Engine for free, but at a costly 40. For a cheaper 10 points, you can add a Revivification Crystal, allowing Cold-Blooded units within range to get Regen 6+ saves to reinforce the heavy troops.
  • Ark of Sotek: adds models to a Jungle swarm and deal damage to whatever enemy is near it.
  • Revivification Crystal: lets your units gain Regeneration(6+) when near it.
  • Solar Engine: gives friendly units an Initiative boost and shoots a Magic laser.

• Stegadon/Ancient Stegadon: 215/220/270pts. The offensive version of a Bastiladon, including a d6+1 impact hits. It is armed with a poisoned Bolt thrower, a blowpipe machine gun, or a Magic support Engine. The Ancient is now condensed into an upgrade that makes it 10 points cheaper than before. Everything else that made this a mainstay remains as it was. Additionally, with the changes to Bolt Thrower Rules, units may take armor saves as normal. This means a Demigryph will save 67% of the time (IMO, this is an oversight and should have the AP1 as a regular bolt thrower does).

• Dread Saurian: 365pts. The giant from Monstrous Arcana and the biggest there is. Though it has a pitiful WS4, its bite does d3 wounds at S8, and M7 makes it very mobile. The Saurian can upgrade it with either: a 4++ ward against non-magical attacks; flaming attacks with 2d6 S3 flaming impact hits; the ability to force enemies to take -1 to hit when targeting the Saurian & making Undead and Daemons take ASL in close combat; mega-barding with Unbreakable and T8 but M5; or +1 Move, Ambusher & Swiftstride that forces enemies who stand and shoot to re-roll hits when it charges.

• Coatl: 270pts. A giant fly(8) snake. It only has 4+ armour, but it gets 3+ magic resist and forces enemies shooting missiles at it to take -1 to hit. It also Lv2 Lore of Heavens wizard with a bound PL3 spell that lets you reposition d3 pieces of forest terrain by d6" - something you'd only use if you have forests set up that you know won't hurt you.

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 (despite being water-dwelling reptiles...? 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?

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. 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 (which I believe counts as a 'Ward Save' 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). 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. 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 stupidly useful 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 (and your opponent needs only a 3 to dispel it 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.

Tactica

A school of thought stipulates that to win in WFB you need to control 2 out of the 4 Phases in a turn. Lizardmen have magic and combat handed to them, so choosing not to take a Slann is only helpful if you're sure that its power as a magic-user is unnecessary in the battle to be played. Lizardmen don't have the mobility to control the Movement Phase and we really don't have any truly dedicated ranged units like Elves or Empire.

One should not play defensively because of the lack of mobility on Lizardmen units and lack of long-ranged firepower. 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 skinks, which means they're dead if your opponent looks at them with raised eyebrows. The exception is the Cold One and Horned One Riders, which will cost some, therefore, will never be fielded in the numbers necessary to play them in a super-effective way.

Alternative view: Cold One cav cost 24 points each whereas Saurus cost 11. Saurus on foot get 2 Attacks, whereas Cold One riders get 3, and 2 of those are at Strength 5 on the charge. They also have an M7, a base 4+ 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 give 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, in a standard list, run 5 COC to flank charge existing combat.

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 etc. Against mobile armies like Bretonnia and Wood Elves, 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.

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 and very few have a real chance of beating 40+ Saurus Warriors (you did take a Horde, right?). Try to avoid tarpits getting to your Temple Guard as you want them to be free to deal with issues not bogged down playing whack-a-mole.

Warmachines are the most annoying things for Lizardmen players. You have 2 options to deal with them quickly. Players who rely on warmachines to win are pussy bitches or Dwarfs and should be mocked as such. When they hit, stone Throwers are absolute cunts, and several Bolt Throwers will quickly chew through a unit. Against Dwarfs, this is doubly so. In fact, during a Dwarf player's Deployment Phase while they look to place their lame-ass contraptions, play this clip from Community where Senor Chang perfectly describes Warmachine-heavy armies: [1]

The most annoying thing for Lizardmen players has to be Purple Sun of Xereus (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 fucks 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.

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