8th Ed. Lizardmen vs. Beastmen in 8th edition

so, i'm a longtime lizardmen player, but i haven't played a game since i was quite young. my first game in 8th edition is coming up against a beastmen army and I'm wondering if any of you have any advice or tactics for me to get me ready for the game and then also during the game itself. Since i won't be running a list 2,000 pts. or higher anytime soon i won't be able to field a slaan (which is where we compensate for our weaknesses), so i'm specifically worried that the higher initiative that the beastmen core choices have over saurus will lead to me losing. is there any truth to my concern or should i quit my worrying?

i have lots of skinks, saurus, cold one riders, 2 stegadons (one ancient with EoTG, the other with chief, warspear and giant bow), a salamander, and skink priests. my list is sorta saurus heavy.

all advice appreciated.

thanks!

-alex

 

If he brings any monsters, your skinks will tear them apart. Beastmen rares have no armour at all. 6s on your to hit roll from your skinks will auto wound and there's nothing they can do. Same with razorgors. The best rank and file armour save is centigor at 4+, but they are quite expensive for what you get and not used much in competitive games.

Beastmen combat characters will generally beat lizardmen equivalents, but they do cost more. Be wary of beast characters, they are potent.

The beasts will have a bsb for sure, if not, then grats on your win. LD is the biggest weakness of beastmen. Since anything will cause panic when it flees through a unit (no more unit strength 5) beastmen need a bsb more than most.

Even though beastmen don't have any warmachines to deploy your chameleons on, they will still be very useful. You can measure anything at any time now, so set them up to fire upon units that are out of the support 'bubbles'. Pick units that are easy to panic with the firepower you will have.

Salamanders are good for the auto panic test they cause but the -3 modifier will generally not see any use.

Finally, keep in mind the new(ish) metagame of 8th edition. You only get points for units completely wiped out, or ones that fled off the board. Fleeing units on the board, or not fully wiped out units will give you 0 points. Beastmen armies usually have a few small units with practically no armour. Your saurus are more resilient so as long as you don't give him too many opportunities to get much points, you could probably settle for a conservative win early on.

I've been playing beastmen for 8 years and Lizardmen are my least favourite match up this edition, especially since you can't really hide things anymore.

 

the ambush rule is quite random tough, you don't really know where they show up.

and indeed, skinks and panic are your friends, +some units of saurus about 20 strong to not be wiped out by the end of the game, revive if necessar if slann present

 

You should be able to field a Slann if you want to, as long as he doesn't exceed the 25% point limit. There 'no lords under 2000pts' rule has gone ;-) so go crazy on that front

 

Gojira- Thank you for the detailed rundown. It's completely invaluable to me. It really gave me a great starting perspective. Also, the fact that you are a beastmen player makes your advice even more credible. With your advice I think It'll be a much closer game. Any particular characters i should watch out for that would wreck my lizards?

Arli- Thanks for the warning, I imagine that could be disastrous if not taken into consideration.

Bibamus- The clarification is also appreciated.

Wolf- If what you say is true, that's some real good news. Lore of Light can take away what edge the beastmen have over Lizardmen. Lore of Life seems generally useful. Turns out i'll be playing at 2,000 pts. anyways, but still GREAT news. Thanks!

 

pg 134-135 in the BRB shows you all the details on army selection ;-) have fun!!

 

also, what lore would you take against beastmen with your slaan and why?

 

im also a long time beast player, my honest opinion is you should not have a problem, large saurus blocks with skinks running round backed by the slaan should win unless you just dont have any luck.

i personally would run life in my slaan, if you get in combat they are quite effective, but not much of an armor save, the mino characters are really nasty and the mino unit is nice also but again no armor, but is frenzied most of the time beware once the minotaurs get going they are hit really hard, being frenzied and stacking
attacks.

death magic could be useful too for the character sniping and dice . if you really want to get at him take two skink priest lvl2 give one the power scroll, make sure you roll his magic last and increase your chances of the commet, turn one super comet is quite aggrivating lol. but its up to you.

beastlord is str 5 t5 3 wounds ld9 doombull is ld8 str6 t5 4wounds i believe

 

life is still best for LM, against anything except WOC and dwarves i guess, where metal comes in. an alternative would be death. their not that good with I, especially their monsters, you can snipe characters and there is also doom and darkness. they suffer from low Ld as allready mentioned, reduce that by 3 or 4(with priest) and shoot a salamander breath at them. 1 will probably die as they have allmost no save and then its panic at Ld 5 or 6. that could well be 1 unit per turn incapacitated.

 

I've got quite a love of Life myself, but against an army with hordes and practically no armour I'd be very tempted to take Fire on my Slann; Lots of S4 destruction in there, which against T3 models with almost no armour to speak of is going to do some nice damage.

 

Thank you for all of the advice guys. Our first game was last night and I was victorious. It was a close game until turn 4 though, so he did quite well also. Killed him to the man and captured both objectives. I had a little trouble with his characters (even his generic heroes are impressive) but in an amazing turn of a events a unit of 16 saurus with spears killed his elite unit of 20 (i forget what they are called) with great weapons. If anyone has anything else to add on tactics vs. Beastmen in 8th I think this would probably be a good place to post it, even though the match in question is in the past.

 

Most beast units are t4 though...

This thread was an interesting read, I will be facing beasts with my LM soon as well and they will be my main opponent for a while, so good to read a few tips. my opponent is actually quite scared of facing me since he sees saurus as far superior to his units.

. My HE in 8th ed have had mixed results, winning a couple and losing a couple. The deadliest part of their army seems to be the razorgor chariots, they are very very tough and have decent armour and a stack of wounds. I still haven't really found an effective way to kill them, though LM with generally higher toughness than my Elves should fare a little easier.

Leadership definitely does seem to be the key, when they are near general and BSB they are almost unbreakable. The units that ambush from behind? Hit them with 25% casualties and chances are they will flee.

Congrats on your win, Sun Drinker!

 

I have a battle against Beasts coming up in a couple weeks...reading this over has been very useful. I think the game I am playing will be 1300 points. Wondering if anyone has anything more to add?

 

I faced beasts not all that long ago for my first game with my lizardmen. He had 3 or 4 wizards in his list i think. 1 or 2 shadow, 1 beasts and 1 death. He also had a lodestone type thing to generate masses of PD. So he pumped his big blocks of infantry. Needless to say i lost badly. But i am a Dwarf player naturally and so i am just trying to get used to using magic effectively. Either way, i would say Light would be ok, pump up the WS and get an extra attack with with timewarp. What are your thoughts?

 

Yeah, my best bro plays beastmen and today were hopefully havin a 2k game. a lot of people say taking on the beastmen isn't hard, but I'll let yall know after the game. Were both novices but he is always good at absolutely wild and random strategies. So wish me luck my cold blooded brothers.....I may need it.

 

Any tips for Minotaurs without a slaan?

Razorgor Chariots too for that matter

EDIT//

And Skink priest? Or Chief?

Can a Bray Shaman be put in a chariot?

 

Bray shaman can go in a chariot. Hell, he can even be a scout in a chariot

 

Hello,

First of All "life is still best for LM," <- 2 years ago i'd be Mainstream, now Life on a Slann is Hipster style. Shadow/Death are way better!
Secondly, beastman don't have anything to say vs Lizardmen. They can have a Good combat units of 50 str 4 Gores with AHW and hate (They have a BSB that grants +1 Str to the unit.) But they aren't that tough. You should watch out for a Lvl 4 Death shaman with hagtree fetish, he can kill some serious stuff. LD is not a problem with Beastman, they will have a Bestigor unit with standard of Discipline, and put thier Warlord there and viola LD10 all around. You just need to kill his magic, many beastmman players play with a lot of shamans with the siganture spell and spam with it(They have a Magic item that gives +1 PD for eery wizard within 6" so they will hav the PD..) But all in all, a 2+ Ward save Slann with Death/Heaven and some samalander and a solid block os Sauruses, and some scar vet cowboys will do the trick

P.s in Europe beastman are weak, and in major tournaments they have +200 points...

 

Thanks!

Decided to test my lvl 2 Priest against whatever he can throw at me in a 500 pt game