Lizardmen

The Lizardmen are a faction in Warhammer Fantasy Battles. They are a race of Aztec/Inca-like, Chaos-hating, reptilian creatures that live in Lustria, the Warhammer World's analogue to South America.

History

Way back when the Old Ones entered the world, they decided they'd need some extra help in messing this world up guiding this world to its destiny. So, they created the first of the Lizardmen, the Slann. The Slann are obese but highly-magical frog-men that spend most of their days sitting around meditating. The Old Ones, realizing the Slann wouldn't be useful for much when it came to manual labor, then created the rest of the Lizardmen, including the Saurus, Skinks, and Kroxigor. They then left the Lizardmen to make some pointy-eared faggots, dwarfs, and humans.

However, the Fall of the Eldar then happe-- wait a minute, wrong universe. Or is it? The dimensional gate the Old Ones had come through collapsed, crashing into the north of the Warhammer World and opening a portal to the Warp Realm of Chaos. The Lizardmen and Elves had to team up to defeat the Daemons that started pouring through the portal. Eventually the Elves managed to redirect the flow of magic into a portal at the center of the island home, Ulthuan, but not before much awesomeness on the part of the Lizardmen.

Lizardmen for the most part are fairly primitive by the standards of the Warhammer world. Even orcs can take iron and forge it into new choppas and make chariots. Lizardmen mostly use stone tools and weapons with some bronze bits here and there. This might lead you to underestimate them in battle, but the fact that they use stone swords is a secondary consideration when you consider that the ones wielding them are three meter long semi-sapient therapod dinosaurs with really durable scales. One area where they do make a lot of use of metalworking is in gold plates, which they have a lot of. These they use to keep records and important bits of information on because they live in damp stone cities in the middle of rainforests where paper would fairly quickly rot away. Other species, for reasons the Lizardmen have a hard time understanding, have an odd obsession for this yellow metal beyond simply valuing its corrosion resistance and try to steal these plates to melt them down. This really gets under their scales.

Fairly isolated, their main problems are emo elves to the north and regular human pirates and colonists. They also have a long-standing fured against Skavens. Their cities have a shitload of gold, so when they're not in the mood, they usually contract Estalian and Tilean mercs to do their dirty work. They are also similar to tomb kings and Grandpa Dreadnought with their "get the hell off my lawn" policies.

Mating Habits

While this will certainly disappoint the scalies out there, oddly enough Lizardmen don't have any. No joking. Despite being called Lizardmen, the entire species (or whatever it's called given that speciation is determined by a lack of reliable inter-fertility between two populations) is composed of genderless individuals to whom sexual reproduction is as alien as a 360-degree field of view is to a human.

But this begs a question. If they don't have any functional reproductive organs then how do new Lizardmen come about?

Well, there are big, bubbling pools of murky liquid at the heart of each temple-city. These were created by the Old Ones at the dawn of time and scheduled to produce new Lizardmen on a timetable unknowable to any but the long-gone Old Ones. The new Lizardmen walk fully formed out of the pools and are instinctively able to understand their role in society. Each new batch (or Spawning) is usually composed of one specific type of Lizardman and has traits which are distinctly of that batch. Needless to say, as they are the foundation of their civilization, the Lizardmen are very protective of these pools, especially since they can't build more and don't really know how to repair the ones that get broken (usually due to Skaven involvement). If you get close to one (if you get close to one), you will almost certainly get your face eaten.

It should also be noted that all Lizardmen are biologically immortal. They don't age, they simply get stronger and more skilled at what they do. So their attrition rates are lower than humans. It also means that the greatest Lizardmen warriors are centuries, if not millenia old and are veterans of thousands of battles.

Subspecies

Unlike most of the races in WFB, Lizardmen are actually divided into a number of distinct subspecies, each with a different role in Lizzie society. This is commonly ignored when speaking of equivalents between WH40K and WHFB armies, because fa/tg/uys will commonly claim Tau have no equivalent in Fantasy, despite both armies (fluff wise) having distinctly separate systems which you are born into. Crunch wise, it's more understandable, but fuck /tg/, I thought you got shit done.

Slann

The Slann are the obese, magic frogs we were talking about above. They're among the most powerful wizards in the entirety of the Warhammer World. In previous Lizardmen army books, they had a more active role in leading the species, but apparently they are now more sleepy. Also, there are no longer any more Slann being spawned, so the ones a alive are part of a dying species... welp, grimdark.

Saurus

Saurus are the main footsoldiers of the Lizardmen and, by and large, the "face" of the army. A "face" that could rip a man in half. They may seem slow and dimwitted, but don't let that fool you, it's not that they're dumb, they just only care about warfare.

• Temple Guard: An elite group of Saurus, spawned to instinctively guard the temples and Slann, their spawning has ingrained this purpose so much they've been know to kill a Skink helper just because he looked at a Slann funny.

Skinks

Skinks are the smallest type of Lizardmen. They act as the administrators and artisans of Lizardmen society. Despite their small size (roughly the same as a Goblin), Skinks can be a formidable military force, as they have highly-accurate poisoned blowpipes. They are also the caretakers for most of the dinosaurs used by the Lizardmen, and thus are Awesome.

Kroxigor

Kroxigor are like Skinks but bigger and dumber; so, in other words, what Ogres are to Halflings (at least in the Warhammer World). They're the main workers and builders of the Lizardmen. In war, they work together with Skinks, forming units termed "Skrox" by the fans.

DINOSAWZ

Lizardmen are also known for their use of dinosaurs found on their native continent of Lustria. Thus they have the best monsters and cavalry period. Dinosaurs bitch. Like fucking Jurassic Park.

Stegadons

Probably the most well known dinosaur used by the Lizardmen, this stubborn, motherfucking Triceratops hits like a freight train and can trample all who oppose the Lizardmen underneath his feet. They usually carry Howdahs on their back which include a Skink crew, and a FUCKHUEG bow. As the stegadons age, their tempers cool and they will be able to carry either 2 massive blowpipes which fire buckets of dice, or a mystical Engine of the Gods that can buff, or shoot lightning bolts like a Red Alert Tesla coil. Strangely, it seems to be named after a Stegosaurus or the Stegodonts (an ancient sister groups to mammoths and elephants)...this goes to show how little GW knows about Paleontology, despite seeming more like a Triceratops mixed with an Ankylosaurus and a Styracosaurus. And for more added scientific fail, if you put the name "Stegadon" in biological classification, then it would literally be called "Roofed Tooth" (Tooth: δόντι = Donti | Roof: στέγη = Stegi ), I mean lolwut GW? if you want to name something, at least put a name that would actually make sense in correlation to the creature you are naming it in the first place.

Carnosaurs

RIP AND TEAR This guy is based on the large and awesome therapod dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus, Giganatosaurus, and Allosaurus, and can rip the throats out of Dragons (Since Dragons are for pussies). Only the beardliest of Saurus (which is saying something as saurus are reptiles and don't grow hair) can ride them, as even the babies can rip a human in half. Also, they spill blood in the name of the Old-ones and don't give a shit about that pushover Khorne faggot. If you field one or more of these in your army, make sure you play the song "I'm a motherfucking T-rex!"-courtesy of the Nostalgia Critic. And as the old saying goes from TVTropes, Everything is better with Dinosaurs.

Troglodons

Looks like a Blind Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, freaking awesome and anybody would pay money to see it fight a Carnosaur Jurassic Park style. But knowing how it goes, we can see the Carnosaurs win every time since Spinosaurids are weak and dismal. For some reason a Skink can ride them. This is because they team up and search for the lost plaques of the Old-Ones in a 1970's buddy cop film.

Bastiladons

The Lustrian equivalent of Ankylosaurus mixed with a Scutosaurus, the walking tank of dinosaurs, and the first recipient of a 2+ Scaly Skin save. Even a big Dragon, T-rex (ahem, CARNOSAUR), or Greater Daemon sometimes struggle to get through.

Cold Ones

Not to be confused with the Old Ones, Cold Ones are basically velociraptors-like animals that are used as cavalry. They are also used by the Dark Elves, who have much cooler Cold Ones. The official, in-universe explanation for this discrepancy is that the two types are related-but-distinct breeds of Cold One; the cool ones are native to Naggaroth and based off of irl Velociraptors, whereas the derpy ones are native to Lustria and based off of Spinosauroids. But mostly this is due to Games Workshop being too lazy to update old models.

Horned Ones

A relative of the Cold Ones that are rare in Lustria, but prominent in the Southlands (the Warhammer World equivalent of Africa). They are distinguished from their counterparts by the fact that they are smarter, slightly faster and are based upon pachycephalosaurus with sharp teeth. They used to have their own models, known as Tichi-Huichi's Horned One Riders, serving as a unit in Dogs of War armies. Lizardmen mercenaries? Do want!

Salamanders

Not technically a Dinosaur but is still awesome. The models seem to be based off of Dimetrodon (again not really a dinosaur) and shoot flaming poison like living artillery.

Razordons

Looks like what would happen if a Kentrosaurus was on steroids. Shoots out spikes at Sufficient Velocity. Very nasty, and usually has the side affects of being pinned to a wall like a "Lets pin the tail of a Donkey" game.

Terradons

Not a Dinosaur, just an average looking Pteranodon, nothing to look at, but are still useful as fast, flying cavalry. Their new models are also very sexy, unlike their retarded brothers.

Ripperdactyls

Just look at the name. GW is really phoning it in now aren't they. Otherwise, its a Pterosaur similar to the Terradon but with more of a basis in Pterosaurs like Rhamphorhynchus. There are also the shittiest excuse for Monstrous Cavalry ever. Coupled with the shitty name and pretty poor models, there is reason to believe that they only exist to make plastic Terradons a dual kit and to give monstrous cavalry to the Lizardmen since plans for Carnosaur Cavalry were probably scrapped in favor for a new large Carnosaur kit on short notice.

More Dinosaurs

Since the Lizardmen have pretty much every iconic Dinosaur, the only thing they are missing now is a massive Sauropod like Amphicoelias fragillimus...That . Would . Be . Awesome. A Thunder-Lizard perhaps? Otherwise they could add it as the Arcanadon which used to exist back from the Lustria Sourcebook (although it is still in the fluff.)

See Also

• Tactics/Lizardmen

Gallery

<gallery> File:FUCK YOU CHAOS.jpg|Play Lizards. Or I'll cut you. File:Slann and their Magical Force Fields.jpg|Look into this frog's eyes. He's half-asleep, probably drunk, and he's still going toe-to-toe against a Lord of Change in a magic fight. File:A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.jpg|A typical Lizardmen city. File:ThunderLizard.jpg|Please GW. I beg you. ADD THIS (Even if it's ripping off Dinotopia, with some change it'd be a good original idea) File:ScaliePorn.png|Even Lizards need to beat one off sometimes.