Editing Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen (section)

===Infantry===
Infantry provide the foundation of every army in Total War: Warhammer, and the Lizardmen are no different. Indeed, even the humble skinks have their place.

====Melee Infantry====
*'''Skink Cohort''' - Skinks armed with little macuahuitls and shields, skink cohorts are cheap chaff units primarily used to fill out rosters or to support your more expensive infantry actually doing the killing. Despite being shielded, these guys will die by the score due to their pitiful defensive statline if they face any frontline infantry head on and are one of the few lizardmen units prone to routing from leadership issues. Having said that, skink cohorts are among the fastest cheap infantry units in the game and are still rather decent combatants when fighting similar unarmored units and tend to win such engagements (namely against chaff or low tier infantry like Bretonnian peasantry or Vampire Count zombies). Indeed, their speed is invaluable for flanking enemies tied up by your saurus warriors and chasing routing enemies off the map. When pinching pennies, you can't argue with that. In campaign these guys can be skipped entirely for the javelin version instead as the missile attack for 10 extra upkeep per turn is leagues better than just having the club.

*'''Red-Crested Skinks (DLC 1)''' - Angry skinks wielding poisonous, armor-piercing warhammers. Red-Crested Skinks provide an invaluable source of early game/cheap melee AP damage and poison, though they're less effective against unarmored targets as a whole compared to regular Skink Cohorts. They lack both shields and armor and as they are simply skinks, they will die in droves unless they're taking refuge among the far burlier saurus warriors. On that note, RC skinks synergize excellently with saurus warriors, as they can simultaneously chew through armored units the saurus tend to bounce off of and further cripple these enemies with poison, allowing your much slower saurus to both catch up to and butcher them with greater ease. Just like skink cohorts, these guys are at home in watery environments and are easily able to outflank many slower infantry units.
**'''Cohort of Sotek (RoR, DLC 1)''' - Unbreakable angry skinks wielding poisonous, armor-piercing warhammers. These guys have a unique ability, ''Refuse to Die''. When active, no skink models can die (they can still take damage, however), which can maximize their damage output when taking sudden burst damage or ensure that they hold the enemy in place for a precious few more seconds. The fact that they're unbreakable really synergizes well with this perk, as it means that your opponent is going to have to commit to completely eradicating the unit (which, admittedly, isn't really ''that'' tall an ask all things considered). This can buy some of your other forces some precious moments to regroup should the tide be against your favor.
:::'''Campaign Note''': Auto-Resolve tends to value every flavor of Red-Crested Skink just slightly more than the dirt they stand on, so unless you are ok with them taking massive casualties or outright getting wiped out every time you click that auto-resolve button, you'll either need to fight your battles manually or pick up regular Skink Cohorts if you need chaff infantry to pad out your forces.

*'''Saurus Warriors''' - Saurus warriors are probably the first thing that comes to mind when one mentions the lizardmen, and for good reason. Resilient, determined and natural fighters, saurus warriors are one of the most durable base line infantry units in the game due to their high HP and armor and can hold their own even against the more elite infantry options of other factions (Note: they can fight a unit of chaos warriors to stalemate). Should they find themselves in a losing matchup, their naturally high leadership will keep them standing firm against the enemy far longer than their equivalents in other factions would, even if they lose control and rampage towards their inevitable deaths (in game II. They've since become far more disciplined in game III). To compensate, saurus are slow and are prone to being kited, so skink skirmishers/cohorts should be utilized to help pin down the enemy line until the saurus make it into combat. Saurus warriors are available in both standard and shielded variants, but the only reason to not get the shielded version is if you need every last gold coin you can rub together for your bigger monsters on a tight, competitive budget.
**'''Blessed Saurus Warriors''' - Shielded saurus warriors with an even higher base health and [[awesome|perfect vigour]]. These guys make fantastically cost efficient walls that will never tire no matter how hard they're pushed. In the campaign, they are one of the better frontline choices you can give your non-doomstack armies that can find a place even into the late game, so long as they manage to survive and rank up. Gor-Rok, if chosen as your initial legendary lord, can use his rite to grant further defensive bonuses and ''unbreakable'' to them (in game II. Game III replaces unbreakable with the barrier ability and immunity to hostile effects like Poison instead); they will never yield.

*'''Saurus Spears''' - Warriors equipped with anti-large spears for engaging cavalry and monsters. They're nearly identical to regular saurus warriors in every other way, though they do slightly less damage against regular infantry in exchange for their anti-large speciality. Like the warriors, they come in unshielded or, for a slight premium, shielded variants.
**'''Blessed Saurus Spears''' - Buffed up saurus spears with shields, the blessed variant of these saurus are dramatically inferior to their standard cousins since they lack perfect vigour. Instead, the bonus ability granted to them is Forest Strider, a perk that grants additional melee attack and defense buffs to them while fighting in forests. If you can lure cavalry and large monsters into forests, where they'll suffer additional penalties simply due to how forests interact with them, you can deal impressive sustained damage to them in short order. Unfortunately, this ability does nothing for them outside of forests and ''many'' battlefields will have a dearth of forest patches that you can fight in. Additionally, uncooperative opponents will generally avoid trying to engage your forces inside forests and trying to convince them otherwise may prove too time consuming for what it's worth. Regardless, they still have more health than the regular saurus spears. That's always a plus.
**'''Legion of Chaqua (RoR, DLC 1)''' - The Legion of Chaqua, thanks to their special ability, are able to provide themselves and all nearby allied units a surprising 44% missile resistance for a limited time upon activation. This is an invaluable skill to have on the approach, as many of your unshielded infantry and larger monsters are vulnerable to being focused down by the much superior ranged infantry found in other armies and can be further supplemented by a Slann's Shield of the Old Ones if necessary. Otherwise, these guys simply behave exactly as Saurus Spears are expected to.

*'''Temple Guards''' - The fearsome Temple Guards, renowned for their devotion to their Slann masters, stand ready to slaughter all who'd bring harm to their otherwise vulnerable charges. Temple Guard are the only "elite" infantry within the lizardmen roster, which is more a testament to how strong regular saurus are compared to the melee infantry of other armies. Speaking of how strong regular saurus are, Temple Guard fall short of them against unarmored infantry on the whole. This isn't to say Temple Guard aren't impressive; their heightened statline makes them less likely to budge than regular saurus are while their charge defense and bonus damage against large foes and predominantly armor-piercing weaponry lets them effectively face down a majority of late-game/elite cavalry, monsters and even armored infantry much more effectively than regular saurus. Unfortunately, this general prowess reflects heavily in their price tag and you'll struggle to field multiple units of these without heavily cutting into your other options.
**'''Blessed Temple Guards''' - Recolored Temple Guards, these guys are a slightly more offensive version of their default variants thanks to an increased charge bonus. This makes them significantly more well rounded and will allow you to more flexibly choose how you engage your enemies; do you brace and negate an incoming charge, or is the foe squishy enough where a counter charge would be more punishing? All in all a nice upgrade if only for the usual buff to their health blessed units receive.
**'''Star-Chamber Guardians (RoR, DLC 1)''' - Take Temple Guard and make their weapons also deal magical damage: you now have ''the'' most elite infantry unit available to the Lizardmen. Having magical attacks allows the SCG to engage many undead/demonic forces that utilize high physical resistance and cut them down with ease. SCG also serve as excellent bodyguards for lords (particularly Slann) due to their Guardian ability and when properly supported with healing magic, these guys will ''never'' die. Their only major weakness of note is prolonged anti-armor ranged firepower and artillery, but as they are armored and shielded and have a frankly gargantuan health pool, it will take a long time to fully whittle them down.

====Missile Infantry====
*'''Skink Cohort with Javelins''' - Skinks armed with little macuahuitls, shields and three javelins each. For pennies over a regular skink cohort, you can give them limited ranged support with poisonous javelins; a fantastic way to soften up an enemy unit for your front line infantry on the charge. With their speed, they can also easily circle about and pepper an opposing unit's backsides before charging in to cut off their escape while your saurus chew through them. Once they throw all their javelins, they're identical to the default skink cohort in virtually every way. Generally, if you're planning on taking skink cohorts at all, you should almost always pick these guys up over the standard versions (unless you ''really'' need every gold coin you can possibly scrape together for a specific competitive multiplayer build).

*'''Skink Skirmishers''' - Skinks equipped with little blowpipes and poisonous darts, and your first dedicated missile infantry. Skink skirmishers lack the sheer range available to most other factions and struggle to do damage against armored opponents. Instead, they should be used exclusively as harassers; their speed, ability to fire while moving and vanguard deployment options allow them to easily get into flanking positions and kite enemy infantry while inflicting poison onto them for when the rest of your army catches up. These guys will melt quickly if caught in the crosshairs of opposing archers/gunners and are pitiful in a fistfight, so you should only get one or two of these units at most, and only if you absolutely cannot afford taking chameleon skinks instead.
**'''Blessed Skink Skirmishers''' - Skink skirmishers with more health and an innate magic spell resistance. This extra durability is nice, but the spell resistance in particular isn't going to see much use due to these guys rather high mobility and any targetable spell an opponent ''could'' cast on them would be served much better against... literally anything else in your army. There's virtually no reason to bring these in Multiplayer (even if Blessed units are allowed for the match) and the only reason you'll want to recruit them in any of your Campaigns would be if you're in desperate need of reinforcements for a beat-up army you simply cannot afford to lose and you just ''happen'' to have some Blessed Skink Skirmishers to burn. The moment you are in a position where you can recruit/replace other units, these guys should be the first to go.

*'''Chameleon Skinks''' - Ninja skinks equipped with little blowpipes and poisonous darts. Though fewer in number than basic skink skirmishers, chameleon skinks are considerably more durable thanks to their flat 40% missile resistance and have a much easier time sneaking around enemies thanks to their Chameleon ability. This, along with their loose formation, can make them surprisingly effective at countering enemy archers. They otherwise fulfill the exact same harassment role your regular skink skirmishers do and deal a disappointingly low amount of damage against armored targets. Also, like skink skirmishers, they are unable to curve their shots well meaning they're less effective in siege battles than the archers of other races.
**'''Blessed Chameleon Skinks''' - Slightly swole Chameleon Skinks with twice the charge bonus (which is barely anything, especially combined with their rather tragic melee statline) and a few extra darts per skink. More ammunition is always welcome in a firefight, but it's hardly a game changer. Regardless, better stats do open up options and if you have a choice between these and regular Chameleon Skinks, may as well pick these guys.
:::Oxyotl's banner army in the campaign should almost entirely consist of these guys. Between the AP bonus damage, variant ammunitions he can grant them in addition to giving them perks like Snipe, there's almost no force these guys can't just shoot to death with relative ease. Siege Battles or battles featuring multiple enemy banner armies might become tricky, but that's why you always have at least a couple Skink Oracles or Skink Chiefs with Stalk to clean up shop.

*'''Chameleon Stalkers (DLC 3)''' - Angry ninja skinks with little blowpipes and [[what|explosive darts]]. Chameleon Stalkers fill the rather niche role of shock infantry for the Lizardmen. Each skink is equipped with two Precursor blowpipe shots that deal rather impressive burst damage against unarmored targets either on the charge or when falling back from a melee engagement. As they possess the same Chameleon ability their standard Chameleon Skink kin have, they do have a lot of wiggle room to get into an optimal charging position and can quickly fade away from the fray when things go south. Speaking of things going south, though Stalkers are reasonably decent at combat due to their poisoned attacks and mediocre stats, they still tend to lose against medium tier and above infantry or anything with armor. That said, even against armored infantry, much of the Stalker's value comes from the heavy formation disruption their Precursor Rounds cause, slowing down their targets and interrupting their charge so that you can take the initiative in the ensuing engagement. They can also deal decent burst damage against single entity units in a pinch, but this is generally an inefficient use of them.

====Monstrous Infantry====
*'''Kroxigors''' - Kroxigors, as to be expected from 12-foot tall crocodile men, are beastly armor-piercing anti-infantry blenders who can carve through lower tier units like butter and are sturdy enough to hold back more elite units for your more capable specialists. Though quite tanky and reasonably quick (compared to your saurus), they are still large (with the weaknesses all that entails) and very vulnerable to getting shot to hell and back or getting slammed by larger cavalry/monsters. While Kroxigors do hit damn hard, their total damage is divided between three subcatagories: Base, Anti-Infantry and Armor-Piercing. As such, they only really get the most bang for their buck when thrown against armored infantry. While they are able to tie up units that fall outside of those categories, they become dramatically less effective and ''will'' lose the grindfest if they aren't supported. Just like in the tabletop, they pair fantastically with supporting skinks to flank and tie up enemy forces or debuff them with poison to make them even more vulnerable to the kroxigors.
**'''Blessed Kroxigors''' - If you thought regular kroxigors were thick, you haven't seen these thunder-thighs strut their stuff. Though the standard health increase is all well and good, blessed kroxigors received a substantial buff to their charge bonus. This can make them surprisingly deadly cycle-chargers which, combined with their anti-infantry/armor niche, will let them crack massive holes in front lines.

*'''Sacred Kroxigors (DLC 2)''' - Kroxigors with [[power fists]]. These magical boxing gloves turn your kroxigors into all-purpose ass pounders who punch holes in armored foes effortlessly and tear through things with low magic resistance like so much wet paper. Much like regular kroxigors, sacred kroxigors get the most bang for their buck when supported by skinks (ideal) or saurus (when you don't want to move from that spot). Unlike standard Kroxigors, Sacred Kroxigors are much more well rounded offensively and will perform much more efficiently against opponents regular Kroxigors tend to struggle or stalemate against. Additionally, as the only non-RoR/Lord unit in your roster with Magical Attacks, these guys are your go-to melee force to deal with Ethereal units, Treemen and other high-physical resistance targets. Additionally, as Magic Resist is slated to change to only affect damage caused by Spells, Sacred Kroxigors will be very well suited to deal with the forces of the Dwarfs and Khorne going forward.
**'''Cohort of Huatl (RoR, DLC 2)''' - Sacred kroxigors with much higher physical resistance and straight up sunder enemy armor, allowing units like your saurus warriors to deal more damage to them.