Broken Paintbrush

Lizards, check…

lizards prodding larger lizards into battle, check

those same larger lizards can breath fire, CHECK!

These are all the reasons to love the salamanders, well that and they are actually pretty darn good game wise too. The breath weapons just got a boost with 8th edition as well now that every thing is hit that touches the flame template, and with the increase in large units this could potentiality do monstrous damage!

I almost always run the unit as a pair to get redundancy in shooting as well as close combat. Inevitably one of the salamanders will decide to get hungry at the wrong moment and eat a skink instead of frying up that nice, juicy enemy unit, but hopefully both won’t decide to do the same and some fire can still be thrown.

I often spend the extra 10 points to add two more handlers as well since the pesky salamanders seem to take a liking to skink flesh. Fortunately it only takes 1 skink to keep both beasts in line so even if I lose the other 7 the unit can continue on.

Painting wise, I was inspired by one of the salamanders in the army book that was black with yellow scales, but I wanted it to fit closer to the red scales of the rest of my army. I decided to go with a dark purple/black body and red-orange-yellow scales. I think it gives them a fierce, dangerous look, which is very fitting and contrasting to the light blue, frail bodies of the skinks.

Some more old-school lizard goodness! Ranking as the hardest to-hold-together model, the OOP Stegadon displays the main of the issues with metal models: size = cost, higher cost = less margin, less margin = unhappy stock holders. Once I get around to buying the new plastic kit I’ll have to take a picture of them side-by-side but I am willing to guess that the old stegadon is at least half the size of the new one.

Then you have the howdah, not only is it so small it is hard to fit even 5 skinks in there, but it connects to the stegadon at a very small point, causing it to break off time, and time again… which is part of the reason I hardly ever play with the model.

Tactic wise I have had mixed results with the Stegadon in 7th edition and not sure how well it will work at all in 8th with the changes to many of the rules. The basic stegadon (which is the only one I’ve used) is simply a battering ram. Sure it has some shooting but with only BS3 and S5 for the great bow it is not a real threat, though 2D6 blow pipe shots could put the hurt on. The real use for this though is charging it head long into a unit and hope that between impact hits, the 4 S5 hits from the stegadon and the 5 skinks (and now the stop attack as well) it can do enough hurt to compensate for any rank, standard, and wounds the enemy can do.

The Saurus Warriors are the backbone of the Lizardmen army. They are tough and they are mean. With toughness of 4 and a 4+ save they can take pretty good beating and even once they do it is hard to fail a leadership test of 8 using the cold blooded rule. With two attacks at strength 4 they are also a great unit on the offence as well.

I usually run two units of 20 with full command which acts as the focal point of my army. They attract the attention of the larger enemy units while my Skinks run around and pick off monsters and the like while the cold one calvary take a flank.

Currently both of my units are armed with only hand weapons but for 20 more points I could add 4 more attacks from the unit, something I’ll have to consider for the next unit build.

One of the things that I found really helpful for my units is to magnetize the base which keeps the banner bearer from falling over and troops from flying about when I remove casualties and catch the tail of the warrior in front. I’ll have to put together  a quick tutorial in the future but I simply buy a magnetic sheet that they use for promotional fridge magnets. I glue one sheet into the movement tray and cut the other to fit in the bottom of each base. Care needs to be taken here in that if the magnets are the wrong direction they don’t attract correctly.

Skink heroes seem to be often looked in favor or the mightier Suarus Scar-Vets or used only as Slann sight-glasses.

Used correct Skink Chiefs can be perfect wizard hunters, war-machine destroyers or  a great boost for hunting Skinks. With their movement of 6 they can get where they are needed quickly and with 3 attacks at I6 and S4 they will often strike the first blows against their intended target. Add in the Bane head to double wounds on a specific character and the Burning Blade to punch through armor and even the little skink can take much larger foes down.

In 7th edition, Skink Priests were often used as an extension of the Slann’s eyes and perhaps dropping a thunderbolt here and there. The can only pick from Lore of the Heavens which had some great spells but also some not-so-great spells. With the revamp of spells and magic system, the Skink priest has the potential of laying some smack down with chain lightning or the comet or really messing with the enemies plans by making a unit re-roll all their 6′s.

Those of you who have been around for a while may recognize these models as the old metal command. To me the banner bearer is a perfect representation of a prophet of the lizard gods. The little drummer… er lizard… is still laying in the bitz box awaiting a painted life.

Next up in my Lizardmen showcase is the Scar-Veteran.

While not the most powerful hero in the game, he is a solid character at only 85 points base.With S/T of 5 most troops won’t wound him on less than a 5 while he’ll wound on 2′s.

My standard upgrades include the Sword of the Hornet, Enchanted shield and light armor. This gives him a 2+ save and always strikes first.

Tactics are pretty straight forward: place him in a unit of Saurus and charge the toughest unit the enemy has. Between his 4 attacks and the 13 S4 attacks of the unit, entire ranks of enemy are knocked down and eaten.

The scenic base was more of a necessity as this model is very front heavy and would often fall forward when I moved the unit or placed on any sort of downward slope. I built up the rock mound with flash from the metal kits to create a bit more weight to the base then covered it with green stuff and contoured it to create a jutting rock face.

To introduce my Lizardmen army I could think of no better model that the Slann in charge!

My starting steps in to the Warhammer hobby was the 5th edition Fantasy box with Bretonia and Lizardmen (an odd combination to be sure!). While I no longer have the Bretonian army, the old lizards are still part of my favorite fantasy army. I mean who wouldn’t want to take an army that has angry toads as the lord and dinosaurs as their pawns?

Before 5th edition 40k sucked me away from fantasy, the Lizardman army was my rock solid force. Saurus are dependable, between their cold-blooded leadership tests, toughness 4, and 4+ armor saves they could take a beating and return it in kind. And the skinks! I have an entire army of them and man can they do some damage. With the changes to skirmishers they may have a tougher time, but that is yet to be seen.

Any way, I’ve lost myself on a tangent… the Slann Mage Priest! I do agree that the latest army book nerf’d the Slann a bit though I think it also added a great deal of versatility. In the previous army book you needed to “upgrade” the Slann to older generations to increase his power or get certain abilities, now you get to pick an “upgrade” for free and can mix and match up to 3 more. One that I often used in the past, and will become even more helpful now, is Becalming Cogitation where the Slann points out an enemy wizard within 24″ and any power dice that roll 6′s get thrown out!

My army is lacking any Temple Guard to protect the Slann, and while they are on the wishlist I will either use normal Suarus to protect the lord or give him another great discipline, Higher Stat of Consciousness that ignores all non-magical attacks. I can then float him around the back of the battle field firing off spells and keeping the skinks in line.

I really wanted the Slann to stand out from the rest of the lizards so I painted him with the warm shades of orange and yellow. After taking these pictures I noticed that there is still work that needs to be done and parts that need rework. There are at least two small lizards that never got painted… anybody see them?