8th Ed. Shouldve-Been-Saurus

Just to get down from the End time horse (kind of) ....(also, see what I did there? end time? horse? get it?)...

I would like to talk about Saurus once again.

I just had a readthrough of the Dwarf book, as I dont play them often,
and came across

LONGBEARDS - a CORE choice.

M3 WS5 BS3 S4 T4 W1 I2 A1 LD9
ITP
+1 Strenght on Charge
5+ Parry save WHEN charged
Cant be march blocked
Makes all friendly units within 6'' re-roll failed panic tests.

Comes with Hand weapons and heavy armour.
May take shields
May take...*sigh*....may take Great Weapon...thats S7 on the charge.

on top of that they have 1/3 chance to get Hatred towards everything in your army.

Their Baseprice? 6Skaven-slaves...thats 1pts more than our Saurus.


When I sit back to imagine the saurus described in the fluff and stories,
these rules is what I see. Not even our Templeguard can hope to be CLOSE to this.

and could we please for ONCE NOT
use the argument that Skinks in core are OP enough as it is?

Put these guys in rare and I would still be happy.

----
My hopes are "That which happens to Kroq-Gar" in Thanquol could herald changes for saurus in the future.


Tell me off or whine with me!

 

I don't think I have actually played against the latest dwarf book yet so I haven't yet come across these.
Those stats really are insane for that price as a core unit. I could see these as special or even rare rather than core.

Set these guys against our saurus and we get stomped on. Not sure what was the thought process with the current lizardmen book with the saurus. I think it has been said multiple times in various places but I think that with just one amendment the saurus could actually become viable once again: WS4 - BAM, fixed. With the current WS3 the "warriors" have a hard time hitting even goblins for goodness sake.

BR
Agrem

 

Well, yeah. Knowing that in the End times 4th book, sauruses are holding of an entire army of deamons... well... those are some minor deamons. Id really love to see at least great weapon and light armor option for them. I agree with your points.
I have a solution for saurus problem anyway^^ I skip them whenever I can. I 10 out of 9 games, I play without saurus warriors, or temple guard(and kroxigors). Anyway, they are a big, not so mobile unit, while our army is one of the most mobile in warhammer. In the current status of the game, I think mobility is the key to victory, and this mentality brings me victory most of the cases. As I see blocks: they are kinda victims, waiting to be slain. I find them defensless, because they are slow. Almost anything can charge them from a safe distance, this makes them fragile, unless they are T4-5, with 2+ armor save.
Also, if you take any kind of saurus, youll need to buff them to make them competitive with other blocks. I wouldnt bother doing so, instead there are many more usefull spells to cast at enemies. Take Oldbloods and scarvets, they have huge tank, and they can devastate almost anything.
This is how I see things, and this reflects only my personal preference, so this might be far from the truth/reality.

 

This. How come our characters are then so awesome that can take up about anything on the battlefield but all the other saurus options are just sub par. I realize there is like some "power stages" between saurus from warriors>temple guard>scar-vet>oldblood but why on earth the difference between the troops and characters is so huge? Even the TG are many times better than the normal warriors due to just one point of weapon skill. Yes, yes, there is better save and strength from halberds also but the biggest difference is in weapon skill.

On a side note I don't think that the great weapons would really fit for normal saurus warriors due to the nature and fluff of the army. Halberds could be ok. I think it's the same reason why our cavalry only has spears instead of lances.

BR
Agrem

 

And they can field as many units they want or only one per army as big'uns in orc are?

Saurus are well costed.

Low WS is one of the characteristic of LM.
Also low Initiative.

They are savage with prehistoric weapons.

But you must see who wins in a fight with 20 longbeards w/ gw vs 20 saurus warriors w/ spears.

My bet is on saurus. twice the attacks with half of them with procs for generating new attacks on 4's 4's in my opinion is better than 10 attacks on 3's 2's. Also they strike last, so in round 2 the saurus have the edge.

 

In what scenario?

Where the long beards charge with +1 S on their Handweapons and Shield

or

Where the Saurus charge a 4+As and 5++ Parry ?

or

Choose either of the above where the Dwarfs have Hatred.

with Greatweapons, maybe...dont think I would ever use greatweapons on those.

 

No. No they are not.

This is why they are not well-costed. You can argue about thematics all you want, but theme =/= balance.

Low initiative screws them over big time, not only because they almost always hit last, but because low initiative means a large block is indeed a victim, waiting to die - one purple sun and they are gone.

We overpay for our S4 T4 by a large margin, possible even our 2 attacks as well, because 2 attacks on infantry isn't as much as you think it is.

First turn of combat, Saurus starts out, deals 4,8 unsaved wounds. Dwarves retaliates, doing 5,5 wounds.

So on average, dwarves win first turn.

Second round of combat, Saurus deall 4,7 wounds, recieves 5,5 wound (again)

As you can see, they also lose second round of combat, and the Sauarus are already losing combat efficiency.

Assuming the saurus hold their ground. If we keep going...
R3: 3,3 vs 3,9
R4: 2,4 vs 2,5
R5: 1,8 vs 1,5
R6: 1,4 vs 0,7
R7: dwarves won, because the saurus are gone, and the dwarves still have 1,4 guys left.

They have about the same leadership (taking coldblooded into account) and have the benefit of a reroll, when not taking a BSB into consideration.

I wont be calculating the hw+shield combo right now, but even with the suboptimal GW loadout, the stunties win.

EDIT: People also need to remember that balance is two-fold: You NEED both a good external balance (like how saurus are compared to longbeards, for example), but also internal balance. Right now, there is pretty much no good reason to take saurus instead of skinks, outside of homebrew rules (most commonly found in comp systems) or pure personal preference (my reason for taking them).

Skinks simply win out in all regards. if you want some punch, you use monsters/saurus characters. Templeguards with razor banner can work, to a degree, but is severly overcosted for what they bring as well.

 

The issue with Saurus is power creep in general. There are a lot of things with 1+ armor and/or high toughness these days, and you need either great weapons or huge resiliency as a tarpit to be effective against them. Saurus can't really hurt them and are too expensive to use as a tarpit, so they have a lot of bad matchups.

Extra attacks mean a lot more the better their chance of actually wounding something is.

 

It's simple:

Step Up
Attack at Initiative
Building your Army, and
GW not having a consistent idea of what is core and what is special/rare

8th is probably the edition with the worst balance.

 

I understand that Longbeards look great. But the effectiveness of a Great Weapon on a model is defined by how many wounds it can cause with it. The Longbeard has 1 Attack, saurus warriors have 2. That's a big difference (even considering WS). I believe you'll find that those Longbeards, even with all those almost-random bonuses, are not much more efficient cost per model than our Saurus Warriors (that always comes down to the right matchups since our extra attacks are definitely better against weak ranked opponents, and the Dwarfs with GW are definitely better against high Toughness and/or high Armour Save opponents).

Are Saurus Warriors and Temple Guard as great as they really should be? No.
Are Saurus characters too good? Probably.

I really think a 'simple' change for these would be:
Predatory Fighter changed to: Each To-Hit roll of a 6 counts as 2 hits.
Saurus Scar-Vet changed to: T4 (like they were in 6th Ed.)

Suddenly, Saurus would appear better and Scar-Vets, already stupidly good, would get a reasonable nerf. Fixed!

I concur.

 

I always figured it was because lances would get caught in the dense jungle.
(same reason they don't use chariots)

 

As a long time Dwarf player, I just figured I'd clear up a few things here. Now I don't have the book in front of me, but I'm on lunch and read over this so I figured I'd say my peace.

To give them GW costs an additional 2 pts per model and (I believe) giving them shields an additional point per model. So you're looking at 13-14 points per model (or 15 if you want shields for extra armor against shooting). The parry save only comes into play if they are armed with shields, as you cannot parry with a GW. The +1 strength on the charge is great and all, but Dwarfs rarely get the charge (unless you build a tactical Strollaz list (WAY more fun, by the way ), but then you lose out on almost all of your war machines).

A more accurate match up would be 200 pts of GW Longbeards (14 models with heavy armor, so 1 attack each with a 6+ save when the saurus attack) vs 200 points of Saurus (18 models with 2 attacks each that go before the GW Dwarfs, with no armor save). Generally I run a 6 dwarf front (lots do, but not all), so I'd have 2 ranks with a couple on the back against a 5 lizard front with 3 ranks and a couple in the back. Lizards get 15 attacks that get to go before the GW Dwarfs attack. Using Silverfaith's math of 4.8 kills (not sure if you added an unnecessary parry or not, doesn't look like it. Also, if Saurus have hand weapon and shield they WOULD get a 6+ parry, which you pointed out not giving them in this situation) that cuts the Dwarf unit down to only 1 rank bonus. Dwarves kill 5.5 (Though this will diminish the number of supporting attacks). Lizards will still have 2 ranks with the same number of attacks ready for the next round. With the extra kill the Dwarves get, it's a draw. So whoever gets the charge will have won the combat by 1. Let's face it, we will most likely have gotten it.

So we continue this combat now with only 10 Dwarves and 13 Saurus (I'm rounding down on the kills just to give the Dwarfs a bit of an edge). Lizards go first, still with 15 attacks killing another 4. This leaves the Dwarfs with 6 attacks and essentially where the tide turns and the numbers change. The Longbeards lose turn 2 or 3.

Yes, they are pretty nasty, but not really overpowered or under priced for what they can do. Just to give myself some more credibility, yes, I have played my Dwarf army against Lizards on many an occasion. While they can dish out some nasty damage with their GWs, they die in droves with only heavy armor. This above is a pretty accurate description of Longbeard/Saurus combat.

On the topic of "Does the fluff match the stats"... I say no for the core troops and yes for the Oldblood/Scar Vets. Point cost is pretty accurate for what you get. If they got a little better armor save or better PF rule, then the cost should increase. I would be all on board for paying more to get better Saurus. Best way I could see this done would be to bring the spawnings back. A rule along the lines of.... an additional 2 pts per model to give a +1 armor save.... or +3 points for Frenzy.... etc...(not really putting a lot of thought into point amounts, but I think you get my point... no pun intended ) Essentially you could give one spawning to each with an increase in points per model, but no more than one spawning could be taken per unit (duh).

So... That's what I've got on this topic. Thoughts?

 

I agree with this, along with several other things. Keep in mind I have played very few actual matches when I say these things.

First of all, move of 3 is SLOW, so it should be fairly easy to out maneuver or harass these guys. Second, we have one more attack per model, along with the 1/6 chance per front rank attack to get another free attack. While the 1/6 chance is not much, the potential is there to get in A LOT more attacks. Third, we have access to a lot of great stat buff magic to use on our saurus, while I believe their replacement casters can only confer magic resistance and armor piercing to them(?). Wyssans gets us at S5 T5, which is great! We can also get Initiative or Weapon Skill buffs to our guys, and while magic is not always reliable, again, there is the potential to be A LOT better than the standard Warrior. Fourth, we have a lot of support units that will be fighting with our saurus. I feel that it is a rare situation in which a block of saurus are fighting alone, and also feel that our support is stronger than theirs, IF it lives through the cannons xD, although this is debatable.

Just my viewpoint on this. I could be very wrong! What are everyone else's thoughts on this?

 

Its been said time and time again. Skinks. I know you want to conveniently ignore it for whatever reason, but access to skinks is what makes saurus the way they are.

Thats the long and the short of it. They are the best unit in the game.

Access to longbeards while still having skinks in core... talk about overpowered.

 

@Lordkingcrow: Nice analysis, gives us some perspective from "the other side", so to speak. And yeah, I assumed no parries, because I replied to someone saying Longbeards with GWs beat spear saurus, which is not true.

Of course, this is also a suboptimal build, and most people would use hw+s on saurus, which already tips the scales to the saurus' advantage.

Now, a big problem with the Saurus is highlighted here.

The Longbeards can either tank it out, by having shields, a 5+ parry save, ITP, etc, allowing you stand your ground against almost anything - WS5 is also a huge factor in your survival, because even most rare and special choices will struggle to find WS6, which means most things only hit on 4s - which allows you to setup counter-charges on the next turn.

Or go with GWs and kill someone who thinks they are tough with a 1+ or 2+ armour save.

Saurus can't do either. They are too squishy, even with hw+s. If you want someone to open cans, you take monsters or temple guards with razor banner. If you want a tarpit, you go large on skink cohorts - which, if you want to dish out some damage while you're at it, can take poison pretty cheaply, which can ensure some free wounds here and there.

Saurus warriors fall into the awkward position of being master of none, and jack of no trades. They can't really fill out any role properly, which means their cost, even if "fitting", is just too high for what they actually bring.

A Saurus unit can't survive direct contact with a white lion deathstar. A Longbeard unit has a fair chance of holding their ground for that 1 crucial round until you can setup a counter-charge.

A Saurus unit have a hard time dealing with heavily armoured guys - Longbeards with GWs has the strength to punch through, especially if they get the charge.

i honestly think saurus would be fine if they cost the same, but had spawnings added as additional cost upgrades, that made them able to perform *something* other than just be S4 T4 footmen.

Or make them semi-monstrous infantry, so they get full attacks in supporting ranks, and also benefitting from PF, but no stomps. OOooooor maybe I'm going overboard here, because that would PROBABLY require quite a cost increase. But it might just put them on par with skinks...

@Putzfrau
There is something called external balance, and internal balance.

Poor internal balance means you get units that are trap-choices, and taking too many of them means you basically admit you don't count on winning. Skinks are far too good in comparison to saurus, which is why so many tournament lists don't include Saurus at all - skinks are just too good, why bother with Saurus?

By your logic, they should just remove saurus entirely - we have skinks, after all. Right?

 

Yeah, I agree with what's developing here - that Saurus are either overpriced, or are priced correctly but fill no helpful role. Some kind of specialization would awesome.
I think what it comes down to for me, is that when I look at other armies, I see a number of ways to win. When I look at Lizardmen, I see very few winning builds. I think we should be able to build a winning army around heavy infantry, and I wish the rules made that possible.

 

Most of the reason I fell in love with the lizards from 5th was the epic infantry, very sad that it's no longer a winning choice

Interesting to hear the saurus hate given the handbook rates them blue. It also rates skirmish skinks blue, normal skinks green and skrox yellow

 

So very much this!

and +1 to everything else you said Silver.

 

And again the problem isn't the rules or the saurus statline.

The problem here is the meta. Players shift the game when they aim for the win instead of the fun. And is at this moment when Warriors of Chaos don't bring any of them. Where Dark Elf & High Elf just field cavalry and monsters. Where the idea of fielding an army is vanished in favour of mobility/flying and 1+ AS and a lvl4 Wizard to do the trick.

And we all do that kind of things that kills the fun and reachs the victory.

But the game was intended to field a wide range of troops recreating the battles of the old age with hints of fantasy in form of monsters and magic. My eyes really hurt when I see all those army list meant to achieve crushing victories giving no chance to the other player as I see the spirit of the game dies as the meta of competition climbs to the top of Warhammer.

If you compare saurus to the whole range of infantry and their options in the game, they are remarkable. If you compare saurus to the range of infantry in the competitive meta, they stink.

IMO Saurus are well designed. Our book is pretty balanced with some flaws like troglodon or ripperdactyles not being what they should be. Again the problem is not Lizardmen, its some armies being unbalanced and players abusing them.

This game should implement Stamina as a stat. A number of march/combat rounds/flee/pursue actions the miniature/unit can endure before being exhausted and start losing unsaved wounds.
This would end the situation of 1 vs 40 holding forever and ever as the one get exhausted and finally being killed.

 

I don't get to play as often as I like, plus my main opponents both play OnG so my experience is somewhat limited. However I did notice that most of the time, my saurus warriors end up loosing. Either they are shot to bits before they arive, or they are killed in combat by a horde of Big'Uns (I think).

But I don't think the Longbeard stats really fit how a saurus warrior should be. They can deffinitely use a boost, but great weapons just doesn't feel right...