Editing Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Lizardmen (section)

===Magic===

Yes please.

Now after the new book, the Lizardmen have gotten High Magic (the High Elf magic) for their Slann. Well not bad at all but the real thing is in the Lore Attribute: Contemplation. It allows you to forget a spell you successfully cast, and generate a new one out of High Magic or any normal Lore. This means you can drop spells you don't need and get new ones. Playing against Daemons? Light magic is there. Fighting against Chaos Knights? There you go: Searing Doom.
If not taking High Magic, generally Life is regarded as the best for Slann as it can prevent Miscasts from nuking your Mega-Toad. Plus, who doesn't like Toughness 6 Saurus? Aside from your opponent, I mean. Generally it's best to take a lore based on your opponent's army. Metal and Shadow are pretty good choices. Heavens is a big NO as you already have Skink Priests to cast that one for you.
Typically, people opt for either Life or Light, with Life being more popular of a choice.

'''Lore of Life''': While Slann can only be a Loremaster in High Magic as of the most recent Armybook, Life is still awesome but Slann can't count on always having the Throne anymore. Throne of Vines helps make your Slann from killing himself and lets Flesh to Stone buff your Saurus to Toughness 8 (as well as buffing the effectiveness of the other spells)! Finally, Dwellers Below is possibly one of the most ridiculous spells in the game and can nuke entire units with no looking back. Generally this is probably the best of the lores to use for a balanced or defensive list. Remember that any good opponent will packing at least 1 Scroll so never depend on your first Dwellers working. In fact depend on it not working.

'''Lore of Light''': Although Life is probably better in a large tournament game Light can be devastating in Saurus-heavy armies with a Slann in the center. Birona's Timewarp and The Speed of Light are probably the best spells as they make up for the Saurus' low Initiative and mediocre Weapon Skill. The Timewarp will also give you an extra Attack and double the Movement, turning the Saurus into something more akin to Ogres in power (that's 3 attacks and 8 movement by the way) . Best of all is that both of them and their little cousin Pha's Protection (an Augment that will help against shooting and getting hit in combat at a -1 To Hit) can all be cast as 12" bubble buffs that can affect all units, allowing an army with a Slann in the center to be twice as effective. On another note the lore has some pretty good utility spells that can clear chaff (and also get a bonus versus the foul Undead and Daemons) and help stop your opponent from getting dangerous flank charges (The Net of Amyntok). All in all probably the second best lore for Lizards. One other thing to note is if you get some lucky rolling you can cast bubble Speed of Light and Phas Protection. The astute among you will notice that means most core (WS4 and lower) will be hitting your mighty Saurus on 6's. This is obviously huge and the fact that more people don't do this makes me sad.

'''Lore of High Magic''': The signature Lizardmen lore, shared with High Elves(the Slann did teach them how to use magic after all). It is a pretty well balanced Lore for Lizardmen and much better suited for them than for High Elves. Hand of Glory gives +D3 Initiative/Movement/Weapon Skill, with its High Casting option giving +D3 to all of the stats, not just one. This counters Lizardmens average Weapon Skill (Saurus, warmachines created to fight, have WS3, unless they're on a Cold One or are Temple Guard, then you have WS4, Skinks have WS2) and Initiative. The Movement buff is just gravy. This is much better for Lizardmen than High Elves, since High Elves are rocking WS4 on their basic troops, and WS5/WS6 on their Rare/Specials. Walk Between Worlds is also useful for Lizardmen, especially for units such as Fuck-You-A-Saurs, Kroxigors, Cold One Cavalry and, most importantly, Salamanders. This allows you to move into perfect flanking positions, allowing your units to dish out some hurt while the opponent is tar-pitted against Saurus. The Salamanders are perfect for this spell as you can have as many as you want, a unit of 5 Salamanders shooting five S4 Flame Cannon Template shots over a horde of something or a tough unit to weaken them for your Saurus, is golden.  Vaul's Unmaking is useful for removing powerful magical items from Lords/Heroes, especially named/special ones. I'm looking at you Tyrion (+3S sword, 1+/4++ Magic Armour, Gem) or Grimgor Ironhide (+2S ASF axe) and so on. The final High Magic spell, Fiery Convocation, is useful as it will constantly cause hits on the unit, regardless of how big it is. That 40 block horde? They all take a hit. It can whittle them down for your units to finish them off. We get a unique Lore Attribute that lets us swap out a spell for a spell from another list, that we can then also swap for the signature if we roll something we don't like. This is a fantastic because it lets you get a spell from a lore that might counter something currently in front of you, like Metal for Warriors of Chaos, or Light for Daemons. You do need to actually cast the spell first, though, so you might need to cast something mediocre just to get rid of it; this isn't quite the same as having every spell right at your fingertips as a result. Special mention fkr swapping goes to Vaul's Unmaking, since you probably had a target in mind when you cast it, and the spell immediately becomes far less useful after it's gone. Light and Life are probably better in their own areas, but if you just want a flexible, fun Slann that you can slap just about anywhere, High Magic is a good way to go. Especially if your scene plays End Times, this gets even better then.

'''Lore of Signatures''': (Requires Wandering Deliberations) If playing End Times, this gives you every single standard Lore for 30 points... so just do that instead of taking a standard lore, unless those 30 points are really breaking your army. Outside of end times... it's decent? The signature spells and lore attributes of most spells are pretty good, even if some of the attributes don't really work under these conditions. Getting all of them lets your Slann cover a ton of specialized bases decently, without ever feeling like they have a useless list. However, part of what makes a Slann so good is how reliably they can cast the big guns, and this keeps them from doing that. You're certainly still going to be able to get your money's worth on your magic phase, few wizards can rapidfire spells quite like a Lore of Signatures Slann, and it might be worth running especially if you have a very active game scene, and want just one Slann to handle all of it, but you definitely feel the lack of power.

'''Lore of Shadow''': The Lore Attribute is interesting as it allows the Slann to leave the unit on a succesfull cast.. this will free up space for the TG to pile slightly more damage in, if you really need that boost. On the casting side of things Shadow is the most expensive lore to cast in the game; most of the spells are Hexes that lower the capability of your opponent's units, which can help letting the Saurus survive the brunt of a first combat turn and retaliate safely or even let Skinks tie up an enemy for a long time. Of course, Mindrazor can be fantastic, Lizardmen usually have massive Leadership, with Jungle Swarms having 10, but don't fixate on it. And if needs be, lore comes with yet another template spell, and a line spell helpfully able to be aimed by an expendable Skink, so... 

'''Lore of Death''': Bit of an odd relationship. On the one hand, Lizardmen are arguably the best casters of the lore; few armies can make quite as good of use as the massive surplus of power dice you'll be generating as Lizardmen, and the chief drawback of the lore, the short range on most of the spells, is more or less entirely mitigated as your Slann can just cast through a Skink, rather than get within spitting distance of that Bloodthirster himself. On the other hand, the lore excels at character sniping, and if there is one thing Lizardmen really don't need help with, it's murdering characters. Additionally, while Purple Sun is tantalizing, one even slightly bad scatter, and you will fuck your own army far harder than you will the enemy. It's not a dead lore for us, but it's not something you should just slap on a standard army list; you need to build your army with consideration for the lore. In very large games, where you can run more than one Slann, a Death Slann can generate absurd amounts of dice, that the other can absolutely violate the board with.

'''Lore of Metal''': Situationally good pick. The Lore itself is kind of hit or miss by matchup, and if you're dropping points for a Slann, you really don't want that investment to just sit there, but it's not like there aren't spells to cast. It can be handy against Warriors of Chaos specifically, but Lizardmen actually generally do alright against most moderately armored armies, making this already situational lore even moreso. If you know you're fighting Warriors of Chaos, maybe you can make a tin foil hat for your frog and convince your opponent your Slann was always a Metal Lore caster. Not bad by any means, but a bit less flexible and generally useful than other picks.

'''Lore of Heavens''': One of your choices for your Skinks, so you will almost always have one or two on the board. Actually pretty handy, the signature spell can mess with war machines something fierce, which we always appreciate, the Lore Attribute is nice for consistently chipping off flying units or characters, which is always welcome, and Thunderbolt might be able to finish off a character that your Scar Vet barely missed a kill on, and the buff and hex are okay for Saurus. Never take it on a Slann, though; if you want a high level Heavens caster, it's probably for Comet of Cassendora, but Tetto'ekko gives bonuses to that spell specifically, and is cheaper to boot. His bonuses to Comet make us significantly better at hitting with it when we want to, making the spell jump from a gimmicky toy to a genuinely threatening move. Just take him if the thought of a Heavens Slann crosses your mind, or leave the Lore to your Skinks otherwise.

'''Lore of Beasts''': The other Skink lore. Generally quite decent. You'll almost always have a monster for the Lore Attribute and a cheap scroll caddy Skink can get some consistency from it, but the real draw is getting Wildform off on a big block of Saurus Warriors, Temple Guard, or maybe a Scar Vet to shovel some coal into the Saurus rape train. The Amber Spear is neat, as it can fill a niche Lizardmen sometimes struggle with. Impenetrable Pelt and Savage Beast can help a Scar Veteran or Oldblood survive or kill a Vampire Lord or Chaos Lord in combat, but the rest of the lore is kinda meh. Don't bother taking it on a Slann unless butchering a Vampire Lord is something you anticipate needing to do regularly, even then, Light is probably the better counterpick. Skink Priests can cast what we really want in most cases. In case you wanted to try it, unfortunately Slann uniquely cannot cast Transformation of Kadon, because the fat bastard refuses to get off his mobility scooter due to the Palanquin rules.

'''Lore of Fire''': A bit straitlaced, this lore can help fill the gap of long range firepower that Lizardmen have, and put down fast, long ranged units. Flaming Sword of Rhuin can situationally make your Skinks a good bit more dangerous, aiming through a Skink Priest means lining up perfect Flaming Heads has never been easier and your own units generally have high enough Toughness and Leadership to mitigate friendly fire, and Fulminating Cage can straight up delete problematic units that could otherwise harass and stay out of range of your Saurus blocks. Don't let the associations of the lore being mainly used by lower level casters discourage you from the raw blasting power a Fire Slann offers, but do be aware that blasting is pretty much all you're doing, and besides the ranged units, Fire excels at killing things your dudes already great at butchering. 

'''Lore of Undeath''': Kinda funny meme pick. RAW you can take it on Kroak for maximum lulz, but the lore actually isn't terrible. You don't really have much use for zombies and skellies besides the odd flank or fear test, but Lizardmen as an army tend to have a lot of niche holes that the raised units can handily plug. From proper archers, to cavalry that isn't the hideously overpriced Cold One, to doubling down on the monsters, to getting a Necromancer or Liche Priest just to flex on having access to even more "unique" lores, the extra units this can get you are surprisingly synergistic with the Lizardmen. Taking a full Undeath Slann is probably overkill, but a Skink Priest or two can add some decent utility and counterplay to your army. Also gives you an excuse to kitbash that Relic Skink Priest you've always wanted. Not exactly a great choice, but better than it deserves to be. A High Magic, Loremaster Slann with the Book of Ashur and a Heirotitan spawned from this Lore can achieve some truly disgusting spellcasting capability, should you get the combo off.


There are many viable Lores, but you can't get Loremaster any more, making it a bit of a problem. Even with Lore of Life, you're still only getting 4 spells out of 6, and you're definitely feeling it if you miss Throne of Vines. You can't count on a Slann getting that one spell that makes your army work every game.

Heads up people! With the new End times Khaine book, Slann are stupidly strong. If they know one spell from a lore then they know the entire lore now! Meaning the signature spell discipline they can take? Yeah, they can know all spells from all the basic lores now... And if they are Loremasters of a lore then they get to Reroll Casting attempts of that lore! So you can stick to High Lore and have a higher chance of casting all the spells you need! And ONE MOOOOORE THING!(Shush Uncle!) When the Slann use the High Magic Lore attribute then the moment they get a spell from a Lore they learn the '''Entire Lore'''.
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