Faction Preview: Lizardmen

[Jubal]

FACTION PREVIEW: LIZARDMEN

BACKGROUND

The slann, mighty and ancient sorcerors, were the first great rulers of the world. The Old Ones, mighty god-like beings, created them to bring peace, order, and stability. The Old Ones disappeared at the coming of Chaos, though, and their childern were banished to the jungles of the far south. These are the Lizardmen - great saurus, tiny skinks, and their many beasts of war.

In Lustria and in the Southlands, the Lizardmen hold several of their ancient temple cities. Mostly cut off from other theatres of war, their battles will be against the orcs of the southlands and the skaven of Lustria, as well as the undead. Later in the game, they may come into contact with Tomb Kings or Dragon Islanders on the jungle's fringes, but there will be many battles in the sweltering, humid heat to be fought - battles the armies of Saurus spawned at every temple-city will relish.

A Lizardman army has a mix of heavy and light infantry, well designed for jungle warfare. Their troops tend to be poor in the cold, though with all their lands in the south of the map this is unlikely to be an imminent problem. Huge monsters like the Stegadon form fearsome centrepieces to the army and can crush huge numbers of enemy troops.

The Lizardmen march forth from their ancient temples, driven to restore the order they were created to preserve. All servants of chaos, or meddling younger races, should beware of what the jungles hold...

IN CAMPAIGN

Chaqua and the north of Lustria:


Itza and the deep jungles, with the Skaven base at Quetza:


Hexoatl, the Vampire Coast, and the Skaven base at Quetza:


The Southlands, including the three Lizardman cities and the Orc camp at Ukka:


The Lizardmen have fairly spread out territories at the start of the game, with three provinces in Lustria and three in the Southlands. Their main problem early on is their lack of specialised buildings and their need to rebuild their temple-cities to challenge the wild skink tribes, skaven packs, and forest goblins that have ravaged nearby settlements.

Their nearby enemies are varied - skaven and undead in Lustria, Orcs in the southlands, and lots of rebels. These aren't the factions' main bases (Skaven tend to prefer expanding around Skavenblight itself, the Undead generally in Lustria or near Misty Mountain, and the Orcs around their main bases in the Badlands) and so often the early game is really a case of grinding them down. The Lizardman troop buildings all give large happiness bonuses to cities (representing how they allow the Slann to keep control of the population) - this is hugely important to counteract the negative bonuses given by the long distances to your capital. Of the three early enemies, the Orcs are probably the most dangerous as they can simply produce more troops more quickly than the others. In addition, their access to Savage Orcs from the early game can be a danger as these are one of the few early game troop types that can do a lot of damage to a line of Saurus.

The Lizardmen building tree is very simple, and just splits between Saurus and Skink buildings, and monster pens. The Saurus buildings train Cold One Cavalry, Spear-Saurus, Sword-Saurus, and the mighty Temple Guard, whereas the skink buildings train the skirmishers (chameleon skinks, javelin-skinks, and skink archers) as well as the powerful ogre-size Kroxigor. The Stegadon pens only train the Stegadon - which is after all one of the two most powerful Lizardman units. Finally, do not forget the temples - they train Skink Priests, which are the Lizardmen's most powerful ranged unit.

In the late game, the Lizardmen should have control of Lustria and be looking to expand north out of the southlands. This will likely lead to new enemies - the Tomb Kings and Araby are obvious possibilities, or if you take ship for the New World the High Elves are possible opponents. The Lizardmen do not have the best late-game troop range, and the Tomb Kings and High Elves pose a particular threat as a result of their ability to hit fast and retreat with their chariots. The biggest weakness of the Lizardmen is their relatively static troop line - their only really powerful long-ranged unit, the skink priest, is also wildly inaccurate and has fairly limited uses of its ability to call down meteor showers (not to mention being very vulnerable to attack by enemy fast cavalry). When fighting the Tomb Kings or High Elves, either go in with enough troops to just soak up the arrow fire and chariots, or try and fight either with ambushes or sieges primarily.

TACTICA

The Lizardmen have a decent variety of tough close combat infantry and skirmishers with a few specialists; in general their strengths are their infantry, monsters and magic, with their weaknesses being numbers, speed, and range. They are primarily a battle-line army, with Saurus being some of the game's toughest standard line infantry and the whole force having high morale. Unlike the Dwarfs or Chaos Dwarfs they lack powerful and effective shooting, though they do have more so than Chaos, and their discipline marks them out from Orcs and other "barbaric" forces.

Effective use of the different elements of the army is always crucial. Kroxigor and the Stegadon are the "hammers" of the force, both tough and capable of dealing a lot of damage, whereas the Saurus infantry are excellent "anvil" troops (though also good at dealing a lot of damage). The skirmishers can force an extremely close-combat heavy force to come and break itself on the Lizardman line, and also provide good cheap garrison troops. Ambush tactics can be quite effective, particularly given the very forested nature of the Lizardman starting areas. Large numbers of skink archers can deal quick damage at the start of the battle and swift attacks with cold one cavalry can also rapidly break weaker units in an ambushed force. Ambushes can also allow Saurus to get to grips with an enemy that has good shooting and movement capabilities (like Tomb Kings) very quickly.

The core of the army are the Saurus, a large warrior species of lizardman. All the three main Saurus units have similar uses - they're tough, hard-hitting line infantry. The differences are fairly obvious; the Temple Guard are the toughest and guard your leaders, the spearmen have a slight advantage against cavalry, the warriors against infantry. The warriors are generally the best choice early in a campaign as the jungle rebels and nearby factions tend to have little cavalry, though a mixture of both is always advisable. Your Saurus are reasonably well armoured but be careful of opponents with monsters that can break your ranks or very heavy shooting or magic.

The Skinks are a smaller Lizardman species, physically weaker but expert skirmishers. They are relatively slow moving (short legs!) but nevertheless extremely useful. Skink archers are decent ranged fighters, certainly not the best archers but cheap. The javelinmen have lower range but more punch, and can be surprisingly effective at punching holes in the first rank of an enemy before they charge. Chameleon skinks are javelinmen but can hide anywhere, making them especially useful for surprising enemy units just before they get countercharged.

The four specialist units – Cold One Cavalry, Skink Priests, the Stegadon, and the Kroxigor - are vitally important to augment your main battle line. The Cold One Cavalry are the only fast attack unit available to the Lizardmen, making them utterly vital for chasing down enemy troops or making all-important flank and rear charges. They are a medium rather than heavy cavalry force and should not remain stuck in a combat for too long ideally.  The Skink priests should ideally be well protected by other units, being very weak in close combat but also boosting nearby troops. Their meteor shower attack is extremely powerful but also very inaccurate, so be careful particularly of firing it too near a melee – it's great if you can destroy an enemy unit in one hit, but with Lizardmen units being relatively tough and expensive hitting a block of Saurus may be more costly than it's worth. The Kroxigor are good for guarding skinks (their role in the fluff), for acting as a hammer unit, and also as a relatively fast-moving reserve unit thanks to their longer legs. They are also fear causing, so hitting enemy light infantry with them can be a good plan. Finally, the Stegadon. This beast is one of the biggest, toughest monsters in the game, with a crew of skink archers and a bad temper! Make sure the enemy can't get too many volleys of flaming arrows fired at it or it can run amok – use it for breaking through enemy formations and of course terrifying weak enemy units. Its headbutting attack is very powerful and good for dismantling cavalry and chariots; it can sometimes be weaker against infantry as it may just run straight through them, knocking them down but doing little serious damage.

CORE TROOPS


Skink Archers


Skinks


Saurus Spearmen


Saurus Warriors


Temple Guard


SPECIAL AND RARE

Kroxigor


Stegadon


Cold One Cavalry


Chameleon Skinks


Skink Priest

[comrade_general]

Excelente!

[slayergr]

Neat looking models and a great indeed preview.....it makes me want the full of it now!

[Dunadd]

Very nice. Any chance of skink cold one rider light cavalry with javelins and spears? And are pteranodon style flyers possible or would that be too difficult to do?

[Jubal]

Terradons won't happen, I can confirm. Probably no javelin riders but I may look into it at some point.