Lizardmen in 8th edition: Lords

My buddy Steve over at Boisterous Exuberance has been running a series of articles on his impressions of Dark Elves in 8th edition (part 1). I thought it would be a good idea to do the same.

Slann Mage-Priest:
This is the choice that is going to define your list. The new 8th edition rules drastically change what options are available to you. All of the BRB lores are quite excellent and which one you choose will have a huge impact on what other units you should take with your army to maximize synergy. With the new Lord percentage restrictions it is now also possible to take up to two slanns in a 2500 point list. The third important consideration is that the new miscast results are so devastating that you may want to seriously consider running your slanns without a temple guard bubble. Strength 10 hits centered over the slann is going to wipe out the entire unit very fast.

2 Slanns:
If you take two slanns, you only have 75 points total for all of their magic items. That's not much. Luckily, you do get one free discipline per slann at this level. If you are giving them temple guard, you need to use this allotment to get you miscast protection. Luckily you can get this for free through the Lore of Life so I would recommend taking this on one of your slanns if it is in a temple guard unit. You should also take the Focus of Mystery to ensure you get Throne of Vines. If the second slann is also in a temple guard unit. You need to give him Cupped Hands of the Old Ones. Since your first slann is going to have to do without The Focused Rumination, you should give it to your second slann. He won't know all of the spells from his chosen lore but having the free power dice every spell will give you some protection from a bad winds of magic roll and you can ensure the second slann will use minimum pool dice so that both slanns can contribute to the magic phase.

The major problem with this setup is it is very expensive. You have to provide a temple guard buffer for two slanns and this quickly adds up. You can always go for a more conservative route and only place one slann in the temple guard, or even running both slanns outside the temple guard, but this leaves you having to dedicate your two disciplines and 75 points towards defensive items that will ensure the slann doesn't get killed.

1 slann:
This is still my recommendation and how I prefer to personally run my lists. I stick him in a temple guard unit and make sure he has some form of miscast protection. Either the lore of life or the cupped hands depending on what I want to do with the rest of my army. Then I give him The Focus of Mystery, The Focused Rumination, and Becalming Cogitation. This ensures that he will have a decent magic phase regardless of what the winds of magic roll and offers him a great deal of protection against the opponent's magic phase. I also make him the BSB as I don't want to have to take another character just to carry the standard. This does pose a risk for some scenarios (all my eggs in one basket) but if I am aware of this and keep the unit safe, it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I will address synergy with the different lores of magic in a separate post but I will say that I like to give my Slann the lore of light. There are several spells in this lore that help negate the innate weaknesses in the lizardmen army. It also nicely complements Lore of Heavens which your skink priests will have.

Saurus Oldblood:
If you don't want to go with a heavy magic list or are looking to supplement a single slann list with something killy, the oldblood is what you want. One of the old builds I liked in 7th edition was to give an oldblood the maiming shield and scimitar of the sun resplendent. The items in the new BRB allow you to take this idea and make it even better. Sword of Strife is 10 less points than the scimitar and you can take Sword of Bloodshed for 20 points less than both the shield and the scimitar on only one item.

Light Armor, Sword of Bloodshed, Maiming Shield, and Potion of Foolhardiness.
This gives you a 2+ armor save and 9 attacks (10 on the charge). That's going to do some damage to just about anything you run him into.

Shield, Sword of Bloodshed, Glittering Scales, and The Other Trickster's Shard
This gives a 2+ armor save, 8 attacks, and means most attacks need 5s to hit him, and enemies have to reroll successful ward saves.

Shield, Sword of Strife, Glittering Scales, and Talisman of Endurance
This gives a 2+ armor save, with 7 attacks, most attacks need 5s to hit him, and a 5+ ward save.

Sword of Strife, Horned One, Glittering Scales
This gives a movement 8 mount with 7 attacks, most attacks need 5s to hit him, and a 1+ armor save.

Other items worth considering are still the blade of realities, trickster's helm, and stacking Aura of Quetzl with Glittering Scales.

Regardless of what you want in a close combat character. You can get it with the oldblood.