Our magic vs Lizardmen

[Kopykatkakashi]

I was browsing the art of war here on the forum and i saw that there aren't many lizardmen topics yet.

Now there magic seems pretty strong (I have an old book so I don't really know if that is still thru).
So my question is. is our magic better or should I just get defense and invest more in Close combat?

[Tethlis]

Their magic, both offensive and defensive, can be very strong. They can generate additional Power Dice with tremendous ease, since a Slann can get a free dice added to every spell he casts and the Engine of the Gods can boost the power of a Level 2 while also reducing the casting values of a Lore. This strength is offset by the fact that the Slann is limited to rulebook Lores, while Skinks are limited to Heavens. Still, they can have a great offensive magic phase and excellent magic defense as well if they pay the points for it.

That being said, Lizardmen are viable if they go combat-heavy as well, and they can get a nasty mix of both combat and magic if they go Stegadon-heavy with multiple Engines. Either way, stick with the approach you like the most because magic or combat Dark Elves can do very well versus Lizardmen.

[Timz]

I was browsing the art of war here on the forum and i saw that there aren't many lizardmen topics yet.

Now there magic seems pretty strong (I have an old book so I don't really know if that is still thru).
So my question is. is our magic better or should I just get defense and invest more in Close combat?

Their magic is better. That's not to say that it's not possible to outplay them, but DE cannot abuse as much magic-wise as lizardmen can.

The heavens lore is not a weakness of lizardmen. It's one of the best lores in entire game in many ways.

The first that must be emphasized - both kinds of lightning and the comet have INFINITY range. If your bolt thrower is 48" away from the Slann and 2 priests, all three of them can attack it. This is not possible with normal 18-24" magic missiles like dark elves and most lores use.

LM also have a larger functional supply of dice than other armies.

DE lvl.1 caster costs 100. A skink priest costs like 65. That means they get almost twice as many for points.

A non-lord sorc. gets 2 power 1 dispel.
A non-lord EotG priest gets 3 power 2 dispel. Twice as much defensive magic, and a significant boost in offensive.

Slaans usually buy something which gives them a FREE power dice with every spellcast without having to sacrifice any troops. That means if the Slaan casts 5 spells, he gets an extra 5 power dice that turn.

So he'll have more power dice than you, more dispel dice than you, and unlimited range on damage spells.

The toad is also completely untargettable while within his bodyguard of uber warriors, so Assassins and such present no threat to it at all.

The annoying part of fighting a magic-heavy LM army is, they can still have 2 or 3 Stegadons which are S6 T6 monsters which do extra chariot impact hits on charges, plus their casters all are only shot at most 1/6th of the time and get a 2+ armor save on engine. (and usually 5+ ward too)

Becalming is another frustrating Slaan power. He walks up within 24" of your Supreme Sorc. and throws it on. Now all 6's you roll are thrown out. That means it becomes impossible to get an Irresistible Force (which would've helped since LM have more dispel dice than you do.)

Changing your rolls of 6s to rolls of 0s also disastrously neuters your success rates with all spells. You suddenly have to dedicate extra dice to get stuff off, AND extra chance of miscasting, without any chance of IF.

When DE try to get any extra dice, we have to gamble by risking just losing some of our dice with no gain. If you try to gain D3 power dice and roll a 3, the LM player has a 66.6% chance to make you gain 0 dice and lose that 1 dice spent.

DE are also only toughness 3, so a few lucky barrages of lightning at infinite range can cut an expensive unit in half or wipe it off the board. Good luck wiping a T4 3+ armor save, 5+ ward save unit of Temple Guard off to get rid of his Slaan threat.


The main difference between the two is: Dark Elves are pretty fast. We lack the huge brute force that LM get free, but you should be able to get some charges off or pull off some tactical moves.

(At 2k the max dice a LM could use in a turn would be: 21! And 10 dispel, this isn't a usual list, but you get the point, they can have basically 4 lords.)

[Umpac]

Their magic is better. That's not to say that it's not possible to outplay them, but DE cannot abuse as much magic-wise as lizardmen can.

The heavens lore is not a weakness of lizardmen. It's one of the best lores in entire game in many ways.

I don't really see how LM can abuse magic more than DE. DE have access to the very powerful Dark Lore, as well as Fire, Death and Metal, imo the best and most commonly used BRB lores. LM only have access to BRB Lores, but the BRB lores are pretty good so I don't really see that as a limitation.

Heavens Lore is okay, but it has too many useless spells. If that Engine Skink rolls Comet, then you have a problem. If he rolls no comet and none of the other 2 damage spells his spells can almost be ignored. Infinite range is good, but as the Engines most powerful ability has a 2-12" range he won't be able to utilize it. The comet doesnt need LOS which makes it VERY powerful, but the fact that it only comes down in the first turn on a 4+, and if it doesnt come down you can dispel it with power dice or move out of its range.

LM also have a larger functional supply of dice than other armies.

DE lvl.1 caster costs 100. A skink priest costs like 65. That means they get almost twice as many for points.

A level 2 DE caster costs 35 pts more than a level 2 skink, far from twice the cost, and noone takes lvl 1s if they magic heavy. They also don't get twice as many hero slots so they can't get more casters than other armies. The max power dice LM list that you mentioned also has around 1600-1700 pts in characters, 1900-2000 if you want TGs, which leaves room for 0 additional stegs.

Max Dice in a Single Phase for LM: 3+3+3+7 (3 engine, +1 dice slann), 16+2
Max Dice in a Single Phase for DE with Avarage PoD rolls: 3+3+3+8+1 (3 sorceresses, dagger level 4, darkstar cloak), 18+2 dice. Without PoD you get 2+2+2+7+1, 14 dice, but its unlikley that not a single PoD will land.

On the Dispel Dice front the LM is far superior to all other races, with a max of

The annoying part of fighting a magic-heavy LM army is, they can still have 2 or 3 Stegadons which are S6 T6 monsters which do extra chariot impact hits on charges, plus their casters all are only shot at most 1/6th of the time and get a 2+ armor save on engine. (and usually 5+ ward too)

A magic heavy DE list can still have 2 hydras and a Black Dragon. Their casters may be hard to shoot, but sniping spells can easily kill them and in CC they are very vurnarable due to T2. They are also Large Targets so they are pretty hard to hide.

Becalming is another frustrating Slaan power. He walks up within 24" of your Supreme Sorc. and throws it on. Now all 6's you roll are thrown out. That means it becomes impossible to get an Irresistible Force (which would've helped since LM have more dispel dice than you do.)

Becalming is annoying but its pretty similar to the Ring of Hotek, that does not only mean you are limited to 2 dice casting but it also effects all casters within 12" of the ring or targeting stuff within 12" of the ring, but doesnt effect spells like Comet with no targets.

If he takes the Becalming Cogitation then it means he needs to be within 24" of your sorceress and can't utilize his range. The ring on the other hand limits the movement of the sorceresses as they need to stay out of the 24" RoH bubble.

(At 2k the max dice a LM could use in a turn would be: 21! And 10 dispel, this isn't a usual list, but you get the point, they can have basically 4 lords.)

Thats if the Slann casts all 6 spells in his Lore with 1 dice, which is never going to happen. If we are talking theoretical maximum dice then a 4 sorc DE list can get 2+2+2+4+1+2 (13) normal dice. Then 4 more from the dagger (17), then 12 more from 1-dicing PoDs (29). In most cases a OOT magic heavy DE list should generate 16-20 dice vs the LMs constant 18.

In my opinion the DE and LM magic are very similar.
- Both can get +1 dice per spell
- Both have access extremly powerful anti-magic options (RoH & Cogitation)
- Both can bring an insane amount of PDs to the table
- Both have Level 4 casters that are virtually impossible to kill (Slann+TG, Sorc+DP or BD+FF+PoK)
- Both can take an OOT magic army and still bring several tough monsters

Most people don't bring 18 PD armies tho, and in an avarage list I'd say they both are pretty equal. Both armies are fairly vurnarable to Magic as well, with lots of T2 in LM and mostly T3 in DE, so either way I'd take a pretty decent magic defence.

[Kopykatkakashi]

Hmmm So even if I go magic heavy he still has a lot more magic defense then I do...
I don't think he will go magic all the way (cause my opponent is terrified of the RoH)
But i hate it to see that my 850 points of magic can get 2 spells of every round....

So I'll just go with the RoH & something that can eliminate those Stegadons early on.
Lord/Hero on manticore with Caledor'q Bane & Blood Armour will do the trick right?

I actually play a very close combat army so I'm usually in close combat by the end of turn 2.
Is the Ring alone enough to get there without taking to many casualties? (against a balanced opponent?)

Also, for my main unit I was thinking on fielding executioners backed up by a character and the CoB. Or should I take BG anyway?
its (unbuffed) 1A @ S6 vs 2A @ S4. S6 ofc better versus HigherT & Armour save opponents like Lizards?, right?

[Masterofdarkness]

Don't forget we have the shut down magic phase item ring of hotek. So their offensive casting can be easily neutered. Since they will either limit their targets or focus on low cast spells since it is any spell ATTEMPTED not spell cast.

[Timz]

Don't forget we have the shut down magic phase item ring of hotek. So their offensive casting can be easily neutered. Since they will either limit their targets or focus on low cast spells since it is any spell ATTEMPTED not spell cast.

Any piece of your army stepping out of the 12" would get blown off the map.

Hotek is also not amazing vs. someone spamming 4-5 lightning bolts per turn on either 1 or 2 power dice.

Hell, with cupped hands, he can cast it on 2-3 dice and when it miscasts, he gives the miscast to a DE wizard.

The downside to ring of hotek as opposed to becalming is that, not only does becalming not hurt the LM magic at all (hotek means DE can't get any good spells off without the same risk) but it also doesn't get interrupted weird.

There are lots of people who won't let us use the ring against spells even when it should apply (go to the Rules forum for argument)
Thus you can have your entire army killed with spells like
-burning head
-crown of taidron
-pit of shades
-cleansing flare
-drain life
-black horror

If they go magic-heavy, they get several extra dispel dice per turn. Having 3 extra dispel dice wins a magic fight.

[Timz]

I don't really see how LM can abuse magic more than DE. DE have access to the very powerful Dark Lore, as well as Fire, Death and Metal, imo the best and most commonly used BRB lores. LM only have access to BRB Lores, but the BRB lores are pretty good so I don't really see that as a limitation.

Heavens Lore is okay, but it has too many useless spells. If that Engine Skink rolls Comet, then you have a problem. If he rolls no comet and none of the other 2 damage spells his spells can almost be ignored. Infinite range is good, but as the Engines most powerful ability has a 2-12" range he won't be able to utilize it. The comet doesnt need LOS which makes it VERY powerful, but the fact that it only comes down in the first turn on a 4+, and if it doesnt come down you can dispel it with power dice or move out of its range.

Useless spells? A comet landing is 2d6 S4 hits to all units within D6"/2d6"/3d6". A skink priest who gets it just defaults to Portent (all rolls of 1 made to hit or to wound can be re-rolled) <~ not a useless spell.

Second sign, D3 rerolls per turn, not a useless spell.

Celestial shield, 4+ ward save against magic and shooting on a friendly unit, Remains in play. Not a useless spell.

Forked lightning and Thunderbolt, both unlimited range magic missiles. Not useless.

Comet, powerful on Slaan. So 5/6 of the spells aren't useless for a priest and the one that is can be traded for making an entire unit re-roll 1s to hit or wound.

Your argument is failing.

LM can have the equivalent of multiple LORD level casters, uses up no extra slots. Just have to take the handicap of a S6 T6 5 wound stubborn pseudo-chariot with a 3+/2+ armor save, 5-man crew, who can pump out Force Fields, AOE damage to every enemy (even in combat) nearby, and make your spells easier to cast.

It does cost extra points to get extra magic, but he gets extra dice for free. DE do not. The heavier magic you go, the you get through since after he's out of dispel dice, your magic is completely unopposed.

A level 2 DE caster costs 35 pts more than a level 2 skink, far from twice the cost, and noone takes lvl 1s if they magic heavy. They also don't get twice as many hero slots so they can't get more casters than other armies.

Yes, offensively, 4 lvl.2 skink priests costs LESS than 3 lvl.2 dark elf sorceresses. I am completely correct.

And when you compare lvl.1 scroll caddy types like I specified, DE ones cost almost twice as much (it's very common for DE to take two 100 point lvl.1 sorcs)

If you go 4 casters as DE, and he goes slaan + 3 engines. He has three close-combat monsters and you have 0.

Max Dice in a Single Phase for LM: 3+3+3+7 (3 engine, +1 dice slann), 16+2

Incorrect, 2 base + 4 slaan + 3 en + 3 en + 3 en + 4-6 free dice from slaan = 19-21 power dice.

Max Dice in a Single Phase for DE with Avarage PoD rolls: 3+3+3+8+1 (3 sorceresses, dagger level 4, darkstar cloak), 18+2 dice. Without PoD you get 2+2+2+7+1, 14 dice, but its unlikley that not a single PoD will land.

Of course you're completely ignoring realistic magic. Such as, not all 4 of your limited-range DE sorceress will be within range to use their spells. Your numbers are only valid if all 4 are in range so their PoDs are useful, and if none of them are dispelled.

He only has to use up dispel dice AFTER you attempt PoD.
If you have two casters in range and one rolls 2 and one rolls 5. LM player spends 2 of his dispel dice that he has more of than you and on avg you've now LOST 2 dice and gained 0 power dice.

Furthermore, your described list doesn't have Focus Familiar so you have to get in range of Becalming to cast those spells on his army, which obliterates the magic of your lvl.4.
Try to get anything off against someone with 10 dispel dice when you discard 6s completely. You roll a 6 5 and he rolls a 2 4, he dispels your spell!

And if you both stand 30" away from each other and snipe, he can still hit you with 3-5 lightning bolts per turn on 1 dice each with +1 to cast (or more) with no risk from ring of hotek while you can't hit him with anything. And T4 saurus go down a lot slower than T3 dark elves.

A magic heavy DE list can still have 2 hydras and a Black Dragon. Their casters may be hard to shoot, but sniping spells can easily kill them and in CC they are very vurnarable due to T2. They are also Large Targets so they are pretty hard to hide.

There are not many "sniping spells" in the game and they cannot easily kill em. A slaan is immune to almost all sniping. And good luck getting Pit of Shades off on him when you discard all 6s and he has so many dispel dice and could save 1-2 scrolls for it.

Priests on engines are 2+ save, only hit by shooting 1/6th of the time, 2 wounds. So on average it would take 108 hits landing (and with a 4+ to hit for a BS 3 archer, -1 long range +1 large target - 216 bow shots fired to kill ONE of the 3 engine priests.

They're 6" move and chariot attacks are better than ASF. It gets on average 7.5 S6 attacks on the charge, Terror causing and is stubborn so the combat probably won't end unless you somehow kill it. Not bad for a lvl.3 mage.

Becalming is annoying but its pretty similar to the Ring of Hotek, that does not only mean you are limited to 2 dice casting but it also effects all casters within 12" of the ring or targeting stuff within 12" of the ring, but doesnt effect spells like Comet with no targets.

Yup, it's too bad for you that the LM player benefits greatly from 1-2 dice casting using his 18-19 dice. He can bump his spells to 4+/4+/6+/5+/8+/11+ and ring of hotek doesn't work against the 11+ one.

And then with his spare dice he can brute force through spells that buff his own army (won't be near your ring) and spells against any part of your army outside ring of hotek (your sorceress unit since being within ring neuters her.)

If he takes the Becalming Cogitation then it means he needs to be within 24" of your sorceress and can't utilize his range. The ring on the other hand limits the movement of the sorceresses as they need to stay out of the 24" RoH bubble.

WRONG. If he takes becalming cogitation, he can damage you with lightning from 100" away. The ONLY thing is that YOU cannot step within 24" of the Slaan on your turn and expect to get any spells off.

And if you took the sac dagger for your sorceress, a lot of your spells are 18-24" which means you can't do damage at long range and you can't do damage at close range either because becalming.

Thats if the Slann casts all 6 spells in his Lore with 1 dice, which is never going to happen. If we are talking theoretical maximum dice then a 4 sorc DE list can get 2+2+2+4+1+2 (13) normal dice. Then 4 more from the dagger (17), then 12 more from 1-dicing PoDs (29). In most cases a OOT magic heavy DE list should generate 16-20 dice vs the LMs constant 18.

Actually, it can easily happen. If you can cast it on 2 dice, he can cast it on 1 dice.
He can bump his spells to 4+/4+/6+/5+/8+/11+
Now his slaan can cast the first 5 of those easily with 1 dice (which is doubled to 2 dice - avg 7 passes the first 4 spells with only 1 dice.)
He might choose to only cast 4 spells per turn (4 free dice.) But it's plausible for him to get a 5th spell off. This is excluding the 3 lvl.3 priests and their spells.
A DE magic heavy list isn't going to get 20 dice, period.
You get 2 + 4 + 2 + 2 + 2 which is 12. Then you can get 13 with a magic item. If you kill your own trooper. 14. Now if you attempt 4 PoD, 1-2 fails, 2-3 are dispelled.
That leaves you with 10 power dice, which is enough maybe to cast 3 spells. He also has some left over dispel dice so make that 2 spells.
LM casts on you with those 19 power dice of his and he can easily throw out 8-9 spells. You dispel 2, that leaves him having done 6-7 while you got off 2 spells.

Power of Darkness
on a 1-2 you lose 1 dice
on a 3, he can dispel it 2/3rd time, you've lost 1 dice.
on a 4, he can dispel it half the time or use 2 dice and dispel it, you've just lost 1 dice.
On a 5-6, he can just let it through, 1/3rd the time you gain nothing at all even though you rolled that 5-6. 1/3rd the time you gain 1 dice for your efforts. 1/3rd the time you gain 2 dice.

That's hardly comparable to the Slaan casting 4 spells and getting 4 free power dice at no risk. Each engine gives a free dispel dice which can effectively smash a 3 or 4 PoD.

In my opinion the DE and LM magic are very similar.
- Both can get +1 dice per spell
- Both have access extremly powerful anti-magic options (RoH & Cogitation)
- Both can bring an insane amount of PDs to the table
- Both have Level 4 casters that are virtually impossible to kill (Slann+TG, Sorc+DP or BD+FF+PoK)
- Both can take an OOT magic army and still bring several tough monsters

Not a good summary. Both can cast 4 spells and get 4 free dice, but the DE player just killed 4 bodyguards (risking panic, costing 44 pts in xbows, 24+ points in warriors.) This caster is much, much easier to kill sitting in T3 elves and able to assassinated or melee'd, and for the points used in the sac dagger (25 + easily 25-50 of troops sacrificed.)

If your lvl.4 is on pegasus riding around, then you Don't get 4 free dice when the LM gets 4 free dice and Slaan are still even harder to kill. An argument of DE magic has to consider that you can't have good survivability without Focus crystal (meaning no black staff / sac dagger.)
LM can have full +magic without sacrificing survivability.

Both have big anti-magic option. But one has negative side effects and doesn't work against lots of useful spells (like black horror.) and hurts your own casters. Becalming doesn't.
Cupped Hands makes a miscast positive instead of negative. Now the DE suffers the miscast instead.

The pegasus sorc is hard to kill, but much, much easier to kill than a Slaan in temple guard. And your other 3 sorcs on foot inside of units die super easily in combat and their squads are probably easy to shoot down. Whereas shooting down a priest on an engine takes an average 216 shots at long range with BS3.

The difference is both armies have a lord that's durable, but LM have heros who have the magic power of a lord slot but also have a super chariot and are durable. DE lvl.2s aren't durable.

DE can bring a magic heavy army and 2 hydras, but that's really it. A sorc on a black dragon is too weak to be fighting in close combat and leaves the sorceress with ZERO armor save compared to 2+ save for priest on engine (who gets shot on 6+ when priest gets hit by arrows on a 5-6)

To instant kill the priest would take skinks on average, 54 shots, 27 skinks. Would get 6 poison shots on the dragon auto-wounding and 3 poison shots on supreme sorc (killing her)
That's only 189 points worth of skinks to do 2 wounds to dragon and kill rider in one turn. Of course, lightning bolts would shred a priest riding a dragon without any of the drawbacks of skinks being shootable, but it's pretty significant if <200 points of basic troopers can 1-shot-kill a 640+ point Lord.
Engine priest's 2+ save and only hit 1/6th of the time would mean it'd take 72 poison arrows, 432 shots to instant-kill him. 54 vs. 432.

So, all the CC monsters that are viable for magic-DE are hydra + hydra. They're good, yes, but you can't compare having 2 hydras to having 3-5 stubborn T6 stegadons. Hydras are nice, but they're not stubborn and die so much easier with T5 compared to T6.


Against non-LM, DE super-magic-heavy vs. enemy-no-magic, the DE can do amazing damage because of strong spells and extra dice against people who never dispel. Against a LM magic juggernaut, DE get outmagic'd away pretty easily, and a DE magic heavy list does not have more close-combat stuff than a LM magic heavy list.

To stop magic abuse, the enemy has options vs. DE: A sorc with no armor save hiding in T3 bowmen and killing her own troopers to get spells off is MUCH easier to assassinate than a dude which could survive a barrage of 100 arrows. He could on the first round from 36" away hit one of your casters with 4 lightning bolts and do like 16 hits and kill 8 and then your unit turns tail and runs off the board, yet DE have little retaliation of the same type vs. LM.

[Eglard]

Best way to tackle offensive magic is to take no magic offense. Invest in CC troops instead. A caddy and Hotek will keep your units alive, and if a few spells gets through they kill only the warriors yu bought with the points saved in the magic department. If you want to feel really secure get seal of ghrond also.

IMO the best way to kill a Slann is to throw everything at the temple guard. People usually buy a unit of sixteen. I use a unit of black guard and exequtiones, led by an assassin and a bsb. They have never failed to decimate the saurus unit in a few turns. Just make sure the LM player can't bring more units to the fight.

[Timz]

Best way to tackle offensive magic is to take no magic offense. Invest in CC troops instead. A caddy and Hotek will keep your units alive, and if a few spells gets through they kill only the warriors yu bought with the points saved in the magic department. If you want to feel really secure get seal of ghrond also.

IMO the best way to kill a Slann is to throw everything at the temple guard. People usually buy a unit of sixteen. I use a unit of black guard and exequtiones, led by an assassin and a bsb. They have never failed to decimate the saurus unit in a few turns. Just make sure the LM player can't bring more units to the fight.

If his temple guard are flanked by stegadons / saurus / CoCav, how do you stop them from charging your executioners and stuff and massacring em?

A smart LM player will have his Slaan in the very most protected position in his army. Foot troops will not be able to charge it unless they're no threat.

10" executioner charge range vs. 12" charge range for each of his stegadons.

So the real strategy isn't so simple, only a bad LM player will have his Slaan die before he's used up every other combat unit in his army. And if you've beaten every single combat unit in his army, then, well yeah, you're probably winning.

[Eglard]

Well you have to lure the stegies out. Threath them with hydras, cold ones, dragons/manits and chariots. Force them to charge you, or charge them yourself. If he charges you can always flee. If the LM player charges you and you flee, it will take three combat rounds (assuming you charge on your next turn) before he can get into that big combat. If a hydra and a chariot charge a steggie, it will most likely die. Shooting can often reduce a steggie to the point where knights can finish it off.

[Auere]

Master BSB (full armour, lance, Cold One, Hydra Banner)

5 x Cold one Knights (full command, banner of cold blood)


... with a +1 attack cauldron of blood blessing


I just have to try this setup on a temple guard some time! ;-)



Apart from that, do you limit a slaans casting ability by engaging the temple guard? In that case BG would proberbly do a desent job...

[Eglard]

Well since many people, including me, give RoH to BG it llimits quite much. The unit can't turn in CC which means that the slann the LM player can't influence the slanns line of sight.

[Timz]

Master BSB (full armour, lance, Cold One, Hydra Banner)

5 x Cold one Knights (full command, banner of cold blood)


... with a +1 attack cauldron of blood blessing


I just have to try this setup on a temple guard some time! ;-)



Apart from that, do you limit a slaans casting ability by engaging the temple guard? In that case BG would proberbly do a desent job...

These type of units are decent in combat, but it also has a pretty big shoot-me sign.

Half the LM lightning bolts ignore armor completely (obliterating cold one knights.) Engine of the Gods also does D6 S4 no-armor-save hits to all units within 2d6".

Expect those knights to get wiped off the board or reduced to 1-2 members before they ever get into combat. And 1-2 knights can't really bring down a terror-causing stubborn S6 T6 5 wounds stegadon.

Foot troops won't be able to engage temple guard in combat unless the LM player makes the silly choice to. Generally it's positioned at the back-center of his army like your cauldron of blood. Black guard marching down the middle to get towards it might get flanked by a steg with D6+1 better-than-ASF S6 attacks + 3 S6 attacks in combat.

Or he'll march over his 2nd unit of "regular" saurus (2 S4 attacks each And spears) which will hold you up pretty indefinitely with Ld9 cold-blooded.

The important point is: the unit has 5 regular T3 dudes utterly shredded by ignores-armor stuff (like steggies undispellable spell) and 1 2-wound T3 dude easily shredded by ignores-armor stuff.

They're no harder to kill than 7 regular run-of-the-mill knights but enemy can wipe em out at range and get victory points, you get nothing.
Or if he wounds em, finishes off in close-combat, then he can capture standard And battle standard.

They're a shock-unit, so they need to all survive or they won't hit hard enough to break a LM unit. One round of shooting and magic will bring em down to like 2-4 models which would bounce off a saurus or temple guard block.

[Mazrim taim]

Apart from that, do you limit a slaans casting ability by engaging the temple guard?

Not at all. Slann can still cast magic missiles as long as they are not in base-to-base contact, which doesn't happen until the TG are reduced to one rank.

I was browsing the art of war here on the forum and i saw that there aren't many lizardmen topics yet.

I was going to write an anti-tactica article but i lost my Army Book, and it wasn't going well anyway...

[Kopykatkakashi]

Well going magic heavy versus LM seems plain stupid....

In my previous encounter he sniped my BSB in my executioners in turn 1.... since I only had the RoH as magic defense. Which isn't enough when his Slann has an item/power that allows him to ignore his first miscast...
So I just have to include a scroll cady.... (I lost the game, but it would have been an entire different outcome if he hadn't sniped my BSB !)

The best defense seems to be: 'mage hunting' which isn't that easy if there on a Stegadon's back.
But then on the other hand, bringing down a Stegan is still much easier then trying to obliterate a Slann in a unit of TG's!

btw thanks for the nice reply 'Timz'