Lizardmen Teams

The Mage-Priests foretold the game of Blood Bowl thousands of years before it was discovered by the Dwarf Roze-El. So it is no surprise that the Lizardmen play Blood Bowl. Providing an odd blend of dexterity and strength, the Lustrian team can almost last the distance against a power team such as Chaos, while remaining able to pull off the running plays of the Skaven.

QTYPositionCostMASTAGPAAVSkills & TraitsPriSec
0-16Skink60k823+4+8+Dodge, StuntyAGPS
0-2Chameleon Skink70k723+3+8+Dodge, On the Ball, Shadowing, StuntyAGPS
0-6Saurus85k645+6+10+GSA
0-1Kroxigor140k655+10+Bone Head, Loner (4+), Mighty Blow (+1), Prehensile Tail, Thick SkullSAG
0-8ReRolls70kApothecary: Yes
Special RulesLustrian Superleague

Lizardmen Team Overview:

Lizardmen teams have an unusual mix of speed, strength and agility. The Saurus players have high strength and speed, but they can’t dodge or handle the ball very well. The Skinks are very fast, can move about the pitch well, though are weak, low armoured and terrible as passing. The key to this team is to use the two player types to support each other. They have the ability to score quickly and the strength to hold off bashing teams and hit agile ones.

They suffer from the fact they have very little in regard to starting skills and the Saurus can be very slow to develop. If you don’t use them in combination well you may get into trouble. Should the other team be allowed to keep attacking the Skinks you have no chance to handle the ball. If you run the ball away from the protection of the Saurus they may get tied up and be unable to keep up.

For a beginner they can be quite tricky, not great at handling the ball and don’t have the skills for reliable blocking to compliment the strength. If you let the team get split up on the pitch the opposing team can pick on the Skinks.

Lizardmen Team Strengths:

  • Fast
  • Half the team is strong and high armoured
  • Dodge and Stunty

Lizardmen Team Weaknesses:

  • Half the team is weak and fragile (stunty)
  • Lacking good starting skills
  • Very poor at passing

26 thoughts on “Lizardmen Teams”

  1. I’ve started a team of Lizardmen in the new Bloodbowl Computer game. I’m having trouble deciding what skills to give my Skinks. They can only choose from Agility but most of the skills aren’t that useful (e.g. Catch for a team that can’t pass, etc.)

    Any thoughts?

    Reply
    • Sure thing, I’ll be going into more depth when I get around to the players but for now I would suggest the following:

      A couple with sidestep, then diving tackle (these are great defensively), a couple with catch (still works for hand off, bouncing balls and interception rolls), then sure feet

      For doubles, one needs sure hands, then a mix of block to keep them alive and a couple with wrestle to take down ball carriers would be useful. Guard could also help but your Saurus could weigh in with that.

      Reply
    • Surefeet is awesome for them – boosts your chances of go for it – less risky extra movement. Catch is actually pretty decent too because it doubles your chances to intercept. When defending I normally keep 2 skinks with catch deep to prevent throwing teams like elves from scoring.

      Reply
    • Side Step is always a good choice. Surviving an AV roll and positioning yourself to still create stop-gaps is completely vital to protecting your other skinks.

      Reply
  2. For my skinks that don’t roll doubbles or stat increases I actually give them break tackle, helps alot vs the dodgy teams out there.  Its really the only way I see to be able to counter wood elfs.

    Reply
  3. Thanks for the advice guys.

    I addition to yere suggestions I have given one of the little guys Sneaky Git to help out with troublesome opposing players.

    Reply
  4. Do not disregard “catch” for your skinks. Catch is great for hand-offs.
    With catch you can receive the hand-off in a tackle zone, and run away thanks to dogdge and stunty. This way you can cover a lot of ground.
    My personnal choice of skill would be:
    Normal: side-step, catch (on a couple), 1 or 2 sneaky gits, 1 sure hand
    Doubles: wrestle or block. Dirty player (on the sneaky git), 1 leader
     

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  5. I’m with the coach on diving tackle.
    If you can get diving tackle and sidestep on the same guy thats even better, but two or three with diving tackle can be a REAL headache for opposing coaches.
    Catch is worth it on at least one or two. Its useful with passblock also and worth having at least one skink with that combo.

    I actually use pass-block a fair bit with skinks and normally end up with at least two using pass-block/diving tackle.

    There is the chance at the intercept, then the affect on the catch roll, then the chance of the diving tackle. All in all its a headache for elf catchers.

    Doubles I’d stick with wrestle primarily. Block works, but realistically wrestle is ideal for skinks, you’ve got very high movement so you’ll still be pretty free to move after you get up, it puts the guy that hit you on the ground, reducing the number of dodge rolls and restricting his movement next turn.

    Get one guy with kick at some point. Even though it burns a double, its well worth it for the control in my opinion.

    Heres a question though, you roll a ten with a skink….MV or AV?

    Reply
  6. I recently started a lizardmen team on Cyanide and have found them really difficult to play as, especially before they get skills. Strength 4 on 6 players (and a strength 5 Kroxigor if you can afford it) might seem great, but you really chew through the rerolls, especially against teams with block (orc, human and dwarfs come to mind). And your skinks don’t have ball handling skills, so there’s a 1/3 chance not to pick up the ball.
     
    There also seems to be a ‘blitz a skink’ mentality, where the opposition goes all out to destroy the little guys. This sometimes leads to 1 or no skinks on the field at the end of a drive, especially against those damned dwarfs with their cursed tackle skill. The other problem you will have with them is that the opposition man-marks your Saurus and forms a mini cage to run down the field with the rest of his guys. As Saurus have agility 1, it is very hard to get them back to the action. Once you skill them up and get a couple with break tackle, things change. Although that’s another problem, as with agility 1, they rely on injuries to skill up, which is very slow! If at all possible, if you have a reroll and are in a relatively safe position near the opponents end zone, try handing it off to a Saurus to score (approximately 50% chance of success). The same goes for dodging with your Saurus. If you have a reroll handy and are dodging out of a tackle zone, you have approximately 50% chance of success. It can be a touch-down saver and something the opposition usually isn’t expecting.
     
    Definitely not a team for beginners, but they play a bit easier once you skill them up and there is nothing better than running a skink through 4 tackle zones to score (although dodging with your agility 1 Saurus to sack the ball carrier comes pretty close)! Just don’t forget to take break tackle on a couple of your Saurus and try as hard as possible to skill them up.

    Reply
  7. Nice to see someone finally mention the Kroxigor! And as for ‘blitz the skink’ thats just normal bashy tactics of taking out the weak link and then winning match through superior numbers. Once a few of the ickle lizards have picked up block they’ll be a lot harder to take off pitch. even without AG4, they can score almost as easily as Gutter Runners.

    Reply
  8. Wait for doubles with your skinks and replace skinks without doubles bevor they get their 3rd skill or your teamvalue will get to high. Take sure hands, kick und strip ball an doubles. a ball hunter with move 8 is nearly not controlable by the enemy coach. For the saurus i prefer 2 with block&frenzy (sideline clerarer), 2 with block&standfirm for the LoS und 2 with block&break tackle to stay agile. Kroxi should get break tackle too to bet in position for his tail. always try to have on skink running around behind enemy lines in distance for a hand-off. Just for the case the other team drops the ball.

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  9. Hey folks just wanted to throw in my experience with the Lizardmen so far. I just recently got in to Blood Bowl in a Private League with a bunch of Friends and thus far the Skinks are the Stars of the show. They may not be able to take a hit bit the sheer volume of them swarming around the field has been a true boon to my playing. I keep them in the middle of the field adding Dice to my Sauros on the Attack and otherwise use them to surround the other players in groups of two whenever I can.

    They may not have much to offer by way of Violence but they are highly mobile tackle zones. I rarely face a Team that can manage to dodge away from two Skinks and get far enough away that the Skinks are not right there next to them at the end of my round to force another set of Dodge rolls.

    I don’t run a Kroxigor at all. I have found in Test Games that the Loner Special Rule cripple them far too much. In Season Play I have waited til near the end of the Season to pick one up and even then I use him as a Blocker more than I do on the Attack. Prehensile Tail is honestly the most useful ability in his Skill List in my opinion.

    Reply
  10. If you get the choice between AG or MV then you just have to go for MV.

    I have one skink very dear to my heart with a MV of 10. He is just a nightmare for other players, as he can run from halfway to within three blocks of the tryline, with dodge and stunty to protect him, as well as re-rolls. All you need to do is have another skink further back to pick up the ball and hand it off to him and have your Saurus who should outmatch most other front lines, break open a single space in the center. Its possible to score a touchdown every two turns, and I’ve done this before three time in a row.

    Reply
    • I think you got mixed up, it is a choice between armour of movement, and in most situations the movement would be better but often taking a skill could be best. An agility increase doesn’t offer an alternative stat selection, only a normal skill choice. I would always prefer an AG4 Skink even over a MV10 one as well. While this may have been working well for you currently against the best coaches an agility four Skink is going to be way more useful. Scoring quickly as it sounds you do leaves yourself open to the 2-1 Grind or at the very least you don’t put any pressure on teams that prefer to take their time to score.

      Reply
  11. I really like all the advice. I’m a huge newbie lizardman fan myself. My recommended leveling for skinks was diving tackle (for pesky elves), then sure feet, then usually catch (for hand offs). If I ever had an opportunity to get MV I would jump at it. When you start getting a MV 9 or even 10 in combination with sure feet, no other team can come close to you. Saurus was block and then mighty blow. Once I got these it seemed like they all started leveling up super fast and I would kill/injure half of any team I encountered. I found guard on my front line guys was awesome too. Basically allowed me to take out the other team’s ‘big guy’ effortlessly at the beginning of ever game. My poor Krox is still just as dumb as ever 🙁 but he scored his first touchdown against elves so I think things are looking up!

    Reply
  12. I started playing bloodbowl about 11 years ago nd used a lizardman team as my 1st team nd set up with just 11 players to start with but maximum strength, side step was the starting skill for my skinks nd block on doubles.
    But for my saurus’s i gave 4 of them pilling on as there 1st skill nd it was hugely effective at making sure my opponents stayed down for longer or just removing them off the field it helped get there casualty points up quicker nd also cleared the was for my skinks. Of course pilling on has changed since then but could still b a good option for a saurus or two

    Reply
    • With the current version of Piling On, if I was the opposing coach to the Lizardman team I would be very happy if they had taken Piling On. Trying to remove the tackle zones of ST4 players is hard for a lot of teams and also exposes the Skinks! They are already pretty good at overpowering other teams and Skinks with high movement and Stunty don’t need much of a gap. Personally I think you will get better utility out of other skills, though of course a Piling On strategy could work, I just don’t think it will work as often.

      Reply
  13. One thing I have not seen written here that should be obvious but took me a little while to cop to is the fact that it’s generally a good idea to give the ball to a Saurus whenever you get a Touchback, because they’ll rarely get their hands on it otherwise. Especially after they have Block, their respectable MV 6 means that they should be able to get in a TD and gain themselves some valuable SPP.
    I notice that Lizardman teams seem less about the building game and more about the playing game, if that makes sense. You seem to have fewer good options when it comes to leveling players up.

    Reply
  14. One of my favourite games in Blood Bowl is ‘Blitz A Skink’. Granted, the saurus will make you pay for any progress you make overall, but smashing the skinks is great fun. A damn tough team to play if you don’t understand them. Against a team like this, block and tackle are among your greatest weapons. I don’t see the croxigor very often, so I don’t know much other than to have a big hitter yourself or swarm it with blitzers to put it down and then hope it fails the wild animal roll to get back up.

    Reply

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