Lizardmen how to use them.

[Itheka]

Lizardmen are very quick. They have the fastest strength 4 players (not including star players) in the form of saurus at only $80,000 each. In my current lizardman team i take a full complement of six because these on the front line will cause serious problems to any one defending or attacking. Lizardmen can take rookie kroxigor although at the moment i have found little use for them. Instead i have bought the special character temple guard who is very helpful at assisting and holding his position on the front line. This for me provides a solid centeral peice. Around this i place skinks! Four along with a single re-roll and 8 fan-factor perhaps not the greatest way to spend $140,000 but in my current league it is serving me well. Skinks are the only lizardmen that should attempt to touch the ball in any way. There agility makes them good for doing this although not great at the long pass game. Skinks have such pace and ability to dodge that once one has the ball all he needs to do is be protected or used to run to another skink to make a hand off. Skinks are fairly pricey but are excellent additions to the lizardman team never under estimate a skink especially if your on the ground and its ready to place the boot in.

[NightDragon]

Lizardmen are a good team, I agree. they combine strength and speed very well. Their weakness is their thrower. In 3rd edition this was not a problem as you could get an Elven ally or even use those really good coaching house rules to develop a thrower. Now you need to rely on luck to roll a double. But if you can develop a good thrower they are a really hard team to beat. Personally I always start my Sauruses off with break tackle, mobile ST 4's, what a package! They are definately one of my favourite teams. DD.

[Sputnik]

Hi there!

DD: if you roll a double, which skill would you give your skink? Pass?
And did it work?

I found out that there is no real need for throwing at all. With a double roll, I go for sure hands for picking the ball from the ground and then run like hell. With sure feet it shouldn't be a problem to avoid passing at all, since I failed too often with that!

Sputnik

P.S.: I do love the Lizzies...

[neoliminal]

Catch skill seems more important, I see skinks doing hand-offs all day long. Very frustrating.

[NightDragon]

Yo Sputnik, I'm a big fan of the Lizzies to. Yeah I did use pass and no they are not brilliant. The only problem I found with the running like hell strategy is that very often my skinks became splattered. So my latest strategmn is to build up break tackle and guard skills with my Sauruses to give the ball carrier some protection, and as soon as the Skink is within 8 squares of the line release him. Ofcourse if I got an AG of 4 then I would throw him with my Kroxigor, TD virtually every time guaranteed! Good to speak to a fellow Lizard, you'd love the look of my crocodile team. Speak to you when I get back from Belgium in 10 days. Laters DD.

[Sputnik]

Nearly all my passattempts with the skinks went to nowhere. So catch is a nice skill for the hand-off. As are sprint and sure feet. With that "run like hell" tactics I am usually able to score in two rounds, and with stunty I move my skinks away from my opponent nearly every time without difficulty (o.k., someone has to pick up the damn ball first ). This leaves my opponent with the blitz as the only one possiblity to hit a skink for the whole drive.

Unfortunately, things are different on defense, since it is harder to avoid the tackle-guys .

But with stunty there is often the possibility for the skinks to blitz the ball carrier. this brings the opponent to form a cage in the middle of the field which is all I want for my saurus.

By the way, a strange thing happened to my Lizzies so far: I had four kills in my first seven games! two kroxigors, one saurus and only one skink . And no mighty blow or things like that for the plain kill. Surprising!

I would like to hear more about your experiences with your teams. Especially if your opponent could field four or five tacklers!

And DD: am I right that you play 3rd edition? For I can't throw any skinks around under 2k1

Sputnik


P.S.: Go on dreaming of an AG4 skink-one day it will happen for sure...

[Slinky]

I simply LOVe my lizardman team. The combination of raw STR and fast runners is a very sweet combo imho^^
I'm still in the process of building up my team have a record of 2wins and 2 losses. But it's not so easy building up a team when playing against opponents with usually 200+ TR.
My first match i totally obliterated a Chaos team and won 4-0 (2 of his chaos warriors went down in STR!)
The next match was against a 200+ TR Orc team where it was the other way around and i lost 4-0.
The 2 next matches was against a 200+ TR Dwarf team where i lost the first 2-1 but when the second with 2-1.
Right now I got a TR at 156 and a team of 5 skins, 6 saurus, 1 krox and 1 Lizard Starplayer. 2 of my skinks has gone up in movement and 2 skinks has gone up in STR (one of which also went up in movement!). I'm down to 1 reroll because i got bad habit =( but got 13 FF (Went up in it each match ^^)
Right now I'm starting to see a great potential in it, especially with my 9 3 3 7 skink. Got a feeling I'll be totally unstoppable soon^^

[Furelli]

Ah the joys of the Lizardman team. Speedy on the wings and tough in the middle.
I usually pair a Skink and a Saurus with guard on each wing, then place three Saurus in the middle, two with block and one with guard. This works as a way to choose to run down either wing or simply bash through the centre.
Seems to work, so far i've played 7 games and won 4 of them. Drew 2.

[Pantera]

I was reading John Carters article in the BB Annual about Lizardmen tactics. And I found one think confusing, but I think he must have used some house rules, or maybe this was in the 4:th edition.

Anyway, he refers "(a hefty investment in Assistant Coaches for those extra SPs is very worthwhile)" and "(and don't forget those Assistant Coaches you bought). What does he mean by this? How does Assistant Coaches relate to extra SPs?

Or maybe its some joke I don't get.

[Thadrin]

There used to be an optional rules (I'm not entirely sure what its status was) that you could gain extra SPPs if you had assistant coaches. I think the system was roll a d6 for each coach post game, and you get d3 extra SPPs to distribute at will for each 6 you rolled.

Theres a whole line of discussion about this in the House Rules forum.

[NightDragon]

Good to be back. Sputnik, yeah I do play 3rd ed. I was reading DFC's post on another board and he refers to 3rd ed as the goldan age of BB. I agree. You had a lot more freedom as a coach and you saw some really different teams. Wicked stuff.
For instance, my 3rd ed team has a high elf thrower ally and I can also use a house rule mentioned in one of the compendiums about buying coaches to train players with specific skills, so I am developing a skink with passing skills.
As for my experiences against other teams I have found the Lizards to be highly competitive. Team re-rolls are essential since everyone seems to be going for tackle these days, but I havn't found tackle particularly annoying. Catch skills are essential for skinks. My Lizards have never been thrashed and they win a lot more than they lose. You need to ask me more specific questions really my man.
I do have 1 rule about star players. Don't take them.
AG 4 skink? Yeah baby, one day. Of course you could get one as a star player, don't know if he is in the official new list. Laters geezer. DD.

[Sputnik]

Well, DD.

If you play third ed., this changes a bit. Your elven thrower is a BIG addition to the team. You don't have the problems picking up the ball AND you can throw it around. Wow!! And yeeeesssss, there were a lot of VERY different teams out there under 3rd ed....but I find my lizzies still very competitive with the new rules!!

Then of course catch is a very important skill for the skinks if you have a passing game. Since I have to play without the help of an elf I usually only make a hand-off and only if I need. So other skills come in there as well (sprint, Sure feet, side step).

With respect to the star players, I think the AG4 guy has been ruled out. Only the temple guard is left, but this guy is really good. My sauri (is sauri the plural of saurus? Anyway...) tend to have a rather slow progress in earning skills. Therfore, he is a great improvement to my front line with all that skills.

Do you give all of them block as the first skill?

Does your team have tacklers??

Playing defense against all those dodgy type teams is a problem for me due to a lack of some general skills...so getting the ball back and outscoring is mainly the tactic to win the game.

Did you try shadow/side step on a skink? I have to admit he dirty players seem to like him pretty much and he is a casualty for sure. but for slowing some guys down and unnerving your opponent...


Sputnik

P.S.: go on dreaming of an AG4 skink like I do. Some day it WILL happen...

P.P.S.: I have had an AG increase already. It was a saurus

[Sputnik]

Well, DD.

If you play third ed., this changes a bit. Your elven thrower is a BIG addition to the team. You don't have the problems picking up the ball AND you can throw it around. Wow!! And yeeeesssss, there were a lot of VERY different teams out there under 3rd ed....but I find my lizzies still very competitive with the new rules!!

Then of course catch is a very important skill for the skinks if you have a passing game. Since I have to play without the help of an elf I usually only make a hand-off and only if I need. So other skills come in there as well (sprint, Sure feet, side step).

With respect to the star players, I think the AG4 guy has been ruled out. Only the temple guard is left, but this guy is really good. My sauri (is sauri the plural of saurus? Anyway...) tend to have a rather slow progress in earning skills. Therfore, he is a great improvement to my front line with all that skills.

Do you give all of them block as the first skill?

Does your team have tacklers??

Playing defense against all those dodgy type teams is a problem for me due to a lack of some general skills...so getting the ball back and outscoring is mainly the tactic to win the game.

Did you try shadow/side step on a skink? I have to admit he dirty players seem to like him pretty much and he is a casualty for sure. but for slowing some guys down and unnerving your opponent...


Sputnik

P.S.: go on dreaming of an AG4 skink like I do. Some day it WILL happen...

P.P.S.: I have had an AG increase already. It was a saurus

[Pantera]

Well, DD.
P.S.: go on dreaming of an AG4 skink like I do. Some day it WILL happen...

P.P.S.: I have had an AG increase already. It was a saurus

Typical bad luck

I'm reading with interest, as I'm going to play a Lizardmen team in our next league. My starting team is 6 Saurus, 5 Skinks, 5FF, 2RR, 1 Apoth. I searched the net, and used Astech names for my team F.e. one Saurus is called Itzcoatl (Obsidian Snake). Hehe.

The only thing I feel, is a bit naked. NO skills at all. Hope to redeem that fast. If you could choose team to start against, who would you play?

[Furelli]

Hi Pantera, what teams have you played previously. I'm guessing you normally play blocking teams with occasional passing but I could be wrong. The main reason i'm saying this is that 6 saurus is way to many. You need 4 saurus max to hold the line and one saurus as a running mate for your skink. After all it is the skink who are the backbone of the lizardman team. They are the only ones who can move most of the time as you will never be dodging a saurus and as for the ball, don't let those big blokes anywhere near it.

For your other question, I would say you want to play against a team that you can not only outrun but also outblock. Something without tackle, orcs maybe.

Furelli