Lizardmen command rating

[Meraklis]

Unless I am reading an outdated army list for the lizzies, it seems that the slann can not issue any orders. Moreover the highest leadership in the army is 8 (skink hero)?

Am I reading this right?

and to avoid starting a second thread, could anyone explain to me what are the strengths and weakness of the Lizardmen?

I mean it seems like an army with poor command, saurus infantry can not receive orders unless the character is within 20cm and characters can not be everywhere at all times right?

[Lex]

Slann provides a bonus to his Skink advisors.

Army is nasty in terrain and compact and hard hitting with very capable screening Skinks

[honestmistake]

"The Slann Mage is the army's general but uniquely amongst commanders he cannot give orders. Instead any Skink character within 20cm of the Slann can use the General's Divine Guidance - deducting -1 from his dice score
(eg8 counts as 7, 10 as 9 and so on). If a Divine Guidance roll is failed then the Slann's Divine Guidance cannot be used by any other characters for the rest of that turn. When Divine Guidance is used the Skink cannot 'Blunder' - any roll of double 6 simply counts as a fail."
While it is true that the heroes only have a command of 8 (as is the rule for almost all armies) the -1 dice roll means that each realistically has a 9 and cannot fumble (same as most generals) if you are lucky and keep the army together. As Lex states.... they are very nasty when you have forested terrain.

In my experience they do very well against most foes but did struggle against a missile heavy Empire army where the cannons were able to wreak a lot of carnage on the slow moving infantry block.

[Meraklis]

but there is no command rating on the slann's profile.... so that means that using the divine guidance rule most characters will be issuing orders with their own low command...

right?

[honestmistake]

Yes and No.... Yes the skink hero and shaman do use their own command scores of 8 and 6 respectively but the 1 is subtracted from the dice score meaning that a hero will pass a first command on a roll of 9 or less... This bonus remains in effect until an order is failed making it impossible to fumble until then. Please believe me when i say that issuing commands is not a problem for this army, it's weakness is that it is slow moving and easy prey for massed missile fire that can often stay just out of range while chipping away at your units and causing confusion.
You probably shouldn't be using the shaman or the saurus hero to issue orders anyway as that's not really their job. The Saurus is a hard hitting thug to throw into the attack (esp if you put him on a mount) while the shaman is there to cast a pretty impressive range of spells

[Lex]

Yes and No....

Well put !

[Meraklis]

so in plain words the slann has a command rating of 10 that can never use by himself. It always has to be through a hero.
Thus the hero will test on a 9 on his first order?

[Lex]

it is a -1 on the rolled dice result  NOT a bonus on Ld..... big difference and you can opt when to use it (but remember ONCE you fail a roll UNDER DivGuide it is lost for that turn !

[honestmistake]

As Lex says.... It's not a +1 to the command rating its a -1 on the command roll. In many ways this means pretty much the same thing but not in all ways which is why it is an important difference.
2 key differences are:
* it is impossible to fumble when the most you can roll is 6 + 6 - 1 = 11
* mathematically a command of 8 has 10 possible ways to fail on 2 dice while a command of 9 has 6. A command of 8 with a -1 on its dice roll has only 5 possible dice combinations to fail that 1st order (that's out of a total 36 possible combinations)

Obviously dice modifier is unlikely to apply to all of your commands in most games but it is a very nice bonus to have, just make it clear that you will announce the use of the modifier before you roll the dice...
One last thing, I am pretty sure that the errata has a clarification/alteration to the rules than imposes a penalty on the 1st command to follow a failed order that was using the modifier but i can't find it?

[forbes]

* mathematically a command of 8 has 10 possible ways to fail on 2 dice while a command of 9 has 6. A command of 8 with a -1 on its dice roll has only 5 possible dice combinations to fail that 1st order (that's out of a total 36 possible combinations)

Can you explain that further - I understand what you mean by ways to fail e.g.
6,6
6,5   5,6
6,4   4,6  5,5
6,3   3,6  4,5  5,4

But how is 9 or less different from 8 or less with a -1 on the total?

[honestmistake]

sorry, my faulty
logic... it's still 6 possible fails, it's just that the double 6 no longer gives the dreaded fumble result.

[Meraklis]

ahh!!!

now I understand!

thank you!