ah yes, the bane of karl franz. saurus have had small, almost invisible buffs (e.g change to primal instincts, star changes etc.) for their entire life so they have always been a keystone for SP and MP. even in late game blessed saurus are better than tample guards. saurus work in all battle scenarios but they do wonderfully as relentless meatgrinders on low base hp or low armor units. that means you will see the best results when fighting tomb kings, elves of all kinds, empire, vampires and they can even challenge greenskins for frontline supremacy, just make sure to have a supporting terror piece. however, some units they simply cannot deal with, like collosal size SE's and artillery. this is where the carnosaurs and mobility come in to fill the gap. overall the saurus represent the lizardmen roster's identity as ferocious monsters that utilise their excellent pushing power to wrestle a bettle into their favour. when supported with big monsters they are nigh unstoppable.
Nigh unstoppable is the goal. Maybe playing Greasus I should find a Lizardman faction to ally with and get some Saurus infantry supporting ogres.. that'd be scary.
I'm amused someone bested my 650-odd single unit Blessed Saurus Warrior kill count in early Kroq-Gar battles, but yeah, against similar competition they shine.
An unlisted bonus of these guys They have a specific attack animation where they slam forwards then dart back, that shuffles the front line back a model or two periodically. While this has little overall impact on the unit's health or time to die, it reduces the casualties Saurus experience early in combat, makes them even better at slow melee grind, and makes them synergise slightly better with healing. That aside, while full stacks are excessive, a few units of them are fantastic early in the game. They really can pull through messy early game fights where everything else goes wrong, and the number of scuffed fights I've won on the back of a half dead, 12 survivor unit of Saurus just refusing to die, or a problem just being solved by being sat on by some saurus until it dies is higher than I'd like to admit. I actually really like the Spear versions. Skinks, feral Bastilodons, and hunting packs do fine against infantry, what early Lizardmen really need are answers to monsters, cavalry, and chariots, and the spear versions provide that, as well as better cement themselves into melee grind hardpoints to play around. I also find they do a lot better into higher tier infantry they're probably going to lose against anyways, by letting them hold out longer for whatever else you're cooking to come online, be that buying time for a spell cooldown, letting a dino win its current combat and come in to save the day, or slow things down even more if some poisoned attacks get added to the mix. The difference isn't really that big, but, it also helps your old saurus units that are sticking around or being rotated out to second armies stay a bit more relevant. The fact that they can even be in conversations about later game elite infantry is cool, too.
I was wondering if I should mention that animation and settled for the footage showing it in detail. I agree strongly with your whole last paragraph, the enemy has to break out the really big toys to wipe out Saurus units even late game. Sometimes it does, but that means the effort wasn't spent somewhere else for that part of the battle. Saurus being able to keep the enemy honest is always pretty good. Beyond that it's very faction dependent.
I've had Kroqgars starting blessed saurus take out 800 skaven and walk out of the fight with hardly a scratch. These guys are definitely my favorite low tier infantry and they can stay relevant until the late game.
@@OffToBattle the worst part is that they're supposed to be these super special Saurus units but they don't even benefit from Saurus buffs. It's fine if they're mediocre without technologies (sort of like aspiring champions). But not if the technologies DO NOTHING FOR THEM.
Expensive compared to other low-tier infantry, but they hold their own well into late game. The spear saurus synergize very well with red crested skinks. Perfect combo of AP, health, and killing power against units big and small. I approve of saurus, and your summation that they're the "building block" of a good army.
Saurus are an extremely, brutally effective anvil that will stand up to quite a lot of punishment, to the point where I'd argue the only non-elite infantry that can credibly fight them are chaos warriors. As to their killing power.... the lizardmen have enough other units that can do that job.
An iconic unit- great for the Tier at which they are available. What Lizardmen sorely lack is a late-game version of this unit. Lizardmen need a more elite version of this unit to solidify their roster, to make their front lines more sturdy, with far greater staying power. This unit would need Armor of 100, improved MA, (around 36), improved MD (around 40), and higher leadership- 80-90. My problem with Saurus Warriors is not with them, but with the fact that Lizardmen have to go into the late game with a "holding" unit having MA of 29, MD of 34 and armor of 60. While that's fine for an ealry/mid-game, it simply doesn't cut it for the late game, where opposing factions are rolling with Chosen and Tzar guard.
Yeah, having played Kroq-gar campaigns to relearn the race I've been feeling the lack of a "truly elite infantry unit" that's not Temple Guard, because Temple Guard have their weaknesses. You also have Red-Crested Skinks, which are amazing in some respects but fragile. I'm airing this out without any kind of real solution in mind. Catch you soon for future vids.
An excellent unit held back by the fact you need to boost its stats. Lore of Heavens/Light is the best way to get these murder dinos to eat enemy infantry alive. They struggle to wear down armor but thats what Kroxigors are for! (never mind the fact that they also struggle with surprisingly low stats)
They are great for creating blobs for the lizard men’s powerful magic. They are also very good in auto resolve because of their high stats for their tier.
Yeah, in contrast despite my liking Red-Crested Skinks in battle, they're more fragile and auto-resolve hates them. (Because they're more fragile in battle.)
Their AP damage really is pretty bonkers. Red-Crested Skinks, noted to be specifically armour-piercing, have a whole 1(!) AP damage more. Granted, frenzy does push them up a bit, but still.
It pushes their Melee Attack up too but yeah, the Warriors are the epitome of well-rounded hard-hitting mace infantry. They're not OP, just really worth their coin.
Ah yes! The mighty saurus! I use them all the time. I dont even recruit temple guards most of the time. Only 2 for anti large. Mostly i use sarus warrios with shields. They do really really good. Better than their stats card shows. Especially the blessed sarus. These do really good damage. They shred through infantry and are near unchallanced in their tier! I just love them. They do a lot of damage and they just dont die 😅 Good video mate! I am exited for the skinwolf video :) Like the saurus warriors would say: BOK BOK
I wish Lizardmen had access to a similar upgrade tree as the Warriors of Chaos. Say, a unit of saurus warriors reach rank 5, you could upgrade them to saurus with shields but loose all their accumulated ranks. Shielded variant reaches rank 9, you can upgrade them to a Blessed Spawning at rank 0. Given the sheer randomness of Blessed Spawnings, I feel like that would bring some much needed control.
upgrading basic saurus to shielded makes sense, to the blessed spawning no since they're different from birth. I wish temple guards were tier 5 and stronger than they are while saurus would have an intermediate, tier 4 veteran unit type.
I like to do lord boosts with specific lord videos when I actually get to them finally, but I'll take a look in this case, since well, Nakai had some bugged stuff for the longest time I understand?
I like your videos but have you made one yet where you decided that a unit isn't any good? or do you feel like most units in the game really do have a solid role
It's more like, a lot of units have a role, it's not necessarily solid. Few are so bad at so much that I have to call them bad units. To get this out of the way, I saw others use this video format and tried it and it worked for me, but specific cases: Zombie Pirate Gunnery Mob (Pistols) and Slayer Pirates, kind of for similar reasons. The former were, until very recently, irredeemable trash and expensive trash at that. Slayer Pirates are not useless, they're just (in base form) bad... so little ammo and such paltry combat stats with 0 armor, they have enormous difficulty winning against ANY opponent on their own. Now, mixed with other units their value goes up, and I don't hold inability to solo against, say, Empire Crossbowmen, but they're missile units, not hybrid units with 6 rounds of ammo total. If a hybrid unit is bad at both of its roles then it's a bad unit. Some units are shakier in their roles than others, an issue I expect to cover very soon with Skink Cohorts (base melee), but yeah, most units have redeeming virtues. A few don't. And some are incredible. That's where I am coming from with this.
comparing them to empire swordsmen is a mistake, saurus are extremely expensive for tier 2, they're elite infantry that just happen to be available a tier early in campaign
It's not meant to say they're similar at all, it's a point of comparison with a baseline I use in my videos quite a lot to show how strong/ weak a melee infantry unit is relative to Empire Swordsman, which makes a lot of things easier to understand. Saurus have entity HP and weapon strength way above most any 120 entity infantry unit, but that's useful info. Swordsmen are great at what they do. Thanks for the feedback, though! Keeps me honest.
Do not forget about the blessed Saurus warriors which have perfect vigor so in a way, if you aren't using regular saurus warriors, you are probably using the blessed variants.
Yeah, I'm covering them, I've had a huge ton of experience with them with Kroq-Gar of late. If it's not literally tomorrow it'll be next few days slipped in among other priorities like Kroxigors and Skin Wolves.
@@OffToBattle Understandable, I figure the blessed are their own beefers, however before that slight changed, I mostly used Temple guards as my main liners, though now with some stat adjustments with blesseds, it really is hard to not have saurus warriors as I treat my temple guards as beefed up spear troops. I am still waiting for skink with javelins to have some antilarge cabilities.
@@Tucher97 Cheeky Battle: "They do have antilarge, they're called javelins." Cheeky Battle #2: "Temple Guard ARE buffed up spear troops." Stat-wise, they're direct upgrades from Spears, including a tilt toward armor-piercing, because otherwise Warriors outperform them in anti-infantry fighting. It's such an interesting roster!
@@OffToBattle Let me rephrase, sure, the javelins are anti large when thrown, but then that means hte javelin skink are only antilarge for a very short duration.
I wrote a script for them yesterday, in fact, along with a few others. Bit of a coin flip which I do first but Kroxigors are an important part of the roster... plus the recent Skink synergy buff.
That's how it was at the start of TWW2, you had to build a skirmishing building to get the Skinks. Not sure they should go back. They have Temple Guard at the Tier IV level of that building now...
Regular suarus warriors are decent but mid Blessed ones on the other hand are perfect for murdering skaven and zombos but that goes for the stalkers too. Either way they perfect line holders cuz they never tire out and stacked on top of temple guard or suarus spears, and you dont even need to worry bout that front until the spears get low on numbers or some big ass crab decides to smash its way through your line. Stupid pirate coast and his stupid hero on the crab AFTER ALL MY JAVS ARE USED UP. Literally the only reason i couldnt win that siege in my first campaign as gor rok😢
I have a script for the blessed saurus warriors/ spears variant already because I need to cover it for Kroq-Gar's starting army, so I'll go over that soon enough.
Skink Cohort javs is unfortunately a far superior unit in campaign due to their speed and ranged attack and also easier recruitment, which lets them synergize with dinos a lot beetter than the slow and expensive saurus units.
That's very dependent on your situation. I think highly of javelins, well, I used them more in TWW2 in reality, but they were extremely good then. It's just, against factions with brutal levels of shield use, they can suffer. Hence my continuing to say, keeping enemy forces honest - even a couple of units to take on meat grinder duty can help with tough cases.
@@OffToBattle speed is key for skinks, lets them keep up with bastis and stegas. If you engage several units with basti and clump them up skinks can flank from several sides and break them real quick then chase them down. Its also easier to reposition your entire army when its just skinks and dinos.
Saurus my beloved
Yeah, feels like greeting an old friend.
Karl Franz doesn't approve of this
As a hardcore lizardmen simp, i am loving all the attention you are giving to them!
Glad to hear it, seems a lot of people care about the faction still.
ah yes, the bane of karl franz. saurus have had small, almost invisible buffs (e.g change to primal instincts, star changes etc.) for their entire life so they have always been a keystone for SP and MP. even in late game blessed saurus are better than tample guards.
saurus work in all battle scenarios but they do wonderfully as relentless meatgrinders on low base hp or low armor units. that means you will see the best results when fighting tomb kings, elves of all kinds, empire, vampires and they can even challenge greenskins for frontline supremacy, just make sure to have a supporting terror piece. however, some units they simply cannot deal with, like collosal size SE's and artillery. this is where the carnosaurs and mobility come in to fill the gap.
overall the saurus represent the lizardmen roster's identity as ferocious monsters that utilise their excellent pushing power to wrestle a bettle into their favour. when supported with big monsters they are nigh unstoppable.
Nigh unstoppable is the goal. Maybe playing Greasus I should find a Lizardman faction to ally with and get some Saurus infantry supporting ogres.. that'd be scary.
Every day we draw closer to Skink Cohort Javelins and their overwhelming and undeniable power!
I am a recovering heavy user of Skink javelins.
They're probably some of the best early game infantry. Magnificent creatures.
I'm amused someone bested my 650-odd single unit Blessed Saurus Warrior kill count in early Kroq-Gar battles, but yeah, against similar competition they shine.
@@OffToBattleonly 650? I had one with like 1.2k kills mainly bc they single handily killed 90% of a skaven garrison
An unlisted bonus of these guys
They have a specific attack animation where they slam forwards then dart back, that shuffles the front line back a model or two periodically.
While this has little overall impact on the unit's health or time to die, it reduces the casualties Saurus experience early in combat, makes them even better at slow melee grind, and makes them synergise slightly better with healing.
That aside, while full stacks are excessive, a few units of them are fantastic early in the game. They really can pull through messy early game fights where everything else goes wrong, and the number of scuffed fights I've won on the back of a half dead, 12 survivor unit of Saurus just refusing to die, or a problem just being solved by being sat on by some saurus until it dies is higher than I'd like to admit.
I actually really like the Spear versions. Skinks, feral Bastilodons, and hunting packs do fine against infantry, what early Lizardmen really need are answers to monsters, cavalry, and chariots, and the spear versions provide that, as well as better cement themselves into melee grind hardpoints to play around. I also find they do a lot better into higher tier infantry they're probably going to lose against anyways, by letting them hold out longer for whatever else you're cooking to come online, be that buying time for a spell cooldown, letting a dino win its current combat and come in to save the day, or slow things down even more if some poisoned attacks get added to the mix. The difference isn't really that big, but, it also helps your old saurus units that are sticking around or being rotated out to second armies stay a bit more relevant. The fact that they can even be in conversations about later game elite infantry is cool, too.
I was wondering if I should mention that animation and settled for the footage showing it in detail. I agree strongly with your whole last paragraph, the enemy has to break out the really big toys to wipe out Saurus units even late game. Sometimes it does, but that means the effort wasn't spent somewhere else for that part of the battle. Saurus being able to keep the enemy honest is always pretty good. Beyond that it's very faction dependent.
I've had Kroqgars starting blessed saurus take out 800 skaven and walk out of the fight with hardly a scratch. These guys are definitely my favorite low tier infantry and they can stay relevant until the late game.
I've done 650.
Their perfect vigor makes them great at mulching chaff without ever slowing down. I wish more of the blessed spawnings had perfect vigor.
kroq gar starts with a skink priest of heavens and that clairvoyance spell turns saurus into shredders
24s duration? its a joke.
Ra’tok my beloved
I've done it.
If that's all you have in your first battles you just keep casting it when it comes off cooldown. Adds up over a long fight.
I always rename him Zip'zapt and he stays in the army for the entire campaign.
Temple guards in shambles slowly walking with 30 speed and 30 melee attack 😂
That's the take people have yes.
@@OffToBattle the worst part is that they're supposed to be these super special Saurus units but they don't even benefit from Saurus buffs.
It's fine if they're mediocre without technologies (sort of like aspiring champions). But not if the technologies DO NOTHING FOR THEM.
Expensive compared to other low-tier infantry, but they hold their own well into late game. The spear saurus synergize very well with red crested skinks. Perfect combo of AP, health, and killing power against units big and small. I approve of saurus, and your summation that they're the "building block" of a good army.
Well when I played Tehenhauin I really felt the sting of not being able to have them except for 3x the cost, and even then, you still wanted some.
My favorite generic Lizard front line: Three units of source with spear and Shield, two units of hand weapon and shield, and two units of Kroxigor.
Kroxigor are fantastic for stiffening a battle line and bringing juicy armor piercing and splash.
Saurus are an extremely, brutally effective anvil that will stand up to quite a lot of punishment, to the point where I'd argue the only non-elite infantry that can credibly fight them are chaos warriors.
As to their killing power.... the lizardmen have enough other units that can do that job.
Well that's the thing. Lizardmen have trouble with factions that can simply shoot their anvils apart, but they do their intended job just fine.
An iconic unit- great for the Tier at which they are available. What Lizardmen sorely lack is a late-game version of this unit. Lizardmen need a more elite version of this unit to solidify their roster, to make their front lines more sturdy, with far greater staying power. This unit would need Armor of 100, improved MA, (around 36), improved MD (around 40), and higher leadership- 80-90. My problem with Saurus Warriors is not with them, but with the fact that Lizardmen have to go into the late game with a "holding" unit having MA of 29, MD of 34 and armor of 60. While that's fine for an ealry/mid-game, it simply doesn't cut it for the late game, where opposing factions are rolling with Chosen and Tzar guard.
Yeah, having played Kroq-gar campaigns to relearn the race I've been feeling the lack of a "truly elite infantry unit" that's not Temple Guard, because Temple Guard have their weaknesses. You also have Red-Crested Skinks, which are amazing in some respects but fragile. I'm airing this out without any kind of real solution in mind. Catch you soon for future vids.
I love Saurus. I love them. I love their lizard faces.
I've come to respect them a ton, speaking as a Tehenhauin main from TWW2.
@@OffToBattle I'm Tehehuain main too. I play him more than Karl.
An excellent unit held back by the fact you need to boost its stats. Lore of Heavens/Light is the best way to get these murder dinos to eat enemy infantry alive. They struggle to wear down armor but thats what Kroxigors are for! (never mind the fact that they also struggle with surprisingly low stats)
Well if nothing held it back they'd have to charge 300 upkeep or something, hah. We have lots to work with.
This just makes me think of the famous "I hate saurus" reddit post
You made me go and read it..
Dogehammer made a hilarious cover of that post
They are great for creating blobs for the lizard men’s powerful magic. They are also very good in auto resolve because of their high stats for their tier.
Yeah, in contrast despite my liking Red-Crested Skinks in battle, they're more fragile and auto-resolve hates them. (Because they're more fragile in battle.)
Their AP damage really is pretty bonkers. Red-Crested Skinks, noted to be specifically armour-piercing, have a whole 1(!) AP damage more. Granted, frenzy does push them up a bit, but still.
It pushes their Melee Attack up too but yeah, the Warriors are the epitome of well-rounded hard-hitting mace infantry. They're not OP, just really worth their coin.
Ah yes! The mighty saurus! I use them all the time. I dont even recruit temple guards most of the time. Only 2 for anti large. Mostly i use sarus warrios with shields. They do really really good. Better than their stats card shows.
Especially the blessed sarus. These do really good damage. They shred through infantry and are near unchallanced in their tier!
I just love them. They do a lot of damage and they just dont die 😅
Good video mate! I am exited for the skinwolf video :)
Like the saurus warriors would say: BOK BOK
Thanks and I look forward to seeing you when I get the skin wolves one out!
KEEP EM COMING! #LIZARDGANG
I wish Lizardmen had access to a similar upgrade tree as the Warriors of Chaos.
Say, a unit of saurus warriors reach rank 5, you could upgrade them to saurus with shields but loose all their accumulated ranks.
Shielded variant reaches rank 9, you can upgrade them to a Blessed Spawning at rank 0.
Given the sheer randomness of Blessed Spawnings, I feel like that would bring some much needed control.
upgrading basic saurus to shielded makes sense, to the blessed spawning no since they're different from birth. I wish temple guards were tier 5 and stronger than they are while saurus would have an intermediate, tier 4 veteran unit type.
That's creative. I'd love to see it in action and see how it works out.
Another interesting thought.
Do the higher tier one next! I forget what theyre called temple guards or something
Temple Guard. Sure, because I know they get a lot of hate, hah.
Would be good to mention if Nakai does anything for this unit. Or definitely Nakai's tech tree for Kroxigors when you do that video!
I like to do lord boosts with specific lord videos when I actually get to them finally, but I'll take a look in this case, since well, Nakai had some bugged stuff for the longest time I understand?
I like your videos but have you made one yet where you decided that a unit isn't any good? or do you feel like most units in the game really do have a solid role
It's more like, a lot of units have a role, it's not necessarily solid. Few are so bad at so much that I have to call them bad units. To get this out of the way, I saw others use this video format and tried it and it worked for me, but specific cases: Zombie Pirate Gunnery Mob (Pistols) and Slayer Pirates, kind of for similar reasons. The former were, until very recently, irredeemable trash and expensive trash at that. Slayer Pirates are not useless, they're just (in base form) bad... so little ammo and such paltry combat stats with 0 armor, they have enormous difficulty winning against ANY opponent on their own. Now, mixed with other units their value goes up, and I don't hold inability to solo against, say, Empire Crossbowmen, but they're missile units, not hybrid units with 6 rounds of ammo total. If a hybrid unit is bad at both of its roles then it's a bad unit. Some units are shakier in their roles than others, an issue I expect to cover very soon with Skink Cohorts (base melee), but yeah, most units have redeeming virtues. A few don't. And some are incredible. That's where I am coming from with this.
Boc
Thanks for dropping by.
comparing them to empire swordsmen is a mistake, saurus are extremely expensive for tier 2, they're elite infantry that just happen to be available a tier early in campaign
It's not meant to say they're similar at all, it's a point of comparison with a baseline I use in my videos quite a lot to show how strong/ weak a melee infantry unit is relative to Empire Swordsman, which makes a lot of things easier to understand. Saurus have entity HP and weapon strength way above most any 120 entity infantry unit, but that's useful info. Swordsmen are great at what they do. Thanks for the feedback, though! Keeps me honest.
Did you just say "PAWR-ee?"
Paper-ee is how I wrote it, heh.
i have noticced, eternal garde without shield have more chage than their shielded counterpart but not the case for saurus, weird
Yeah, they only changed the charge bonus for warriors vs. spears here.
Do not forget about the blessed Saurus warriors which have perfect vigor so in a way, if you aren't using regular saurus warriors, you are probably using the blessed variants.
Yeah, I'm covering them, I've had a huge ton of experience with them with Kroq-Gar of late. If it's not literally tomorrow it'll be next few days slipped in among other priorities like Kroxigors and Skin Wolves.
@@OffToBattle Understandable, I figure the blessed are their own beefers, however before that slight changed, I mostly used Temple guards as my main liners, though now with some stat adjustments with blesseds, it really is hard to not have saurus warriors as I treat my temple guards as beefed up spear troops.
I am still waiting for skink with javelins to have some antilarge cabilities.
@@Tucher97 Cheeky Battle: "They do have antilarge, they're called javelins." Cheeky Battle #2: "Temple Guard ARE buffed up spear troops." Stat-wise, they're direct upgrades from Spears, including a tilt toward armor-piercing, because otherwise Warriors outperform them in anti-infantry fighting. It's such an interesting roster!
@@OffToBattle Let me rephrase, sure, the javelins are anti large when thrown, but then that means hte javelin skink are only antilarge for a very short duration.
@@Tucher97 Yes, a few moments of glory. Sometimes (with enough Skink units..) that's enough.
*BOK-BOK*
Kroxigors soon? :0
I wrote a script for them yesterday, in fact, along with a few others. Bit of a coin flip which I do first but Kroxigors are an important part of the roster... plus the recent Skink synergy buff.
@@OffToBattle Every Skink needs their emotional support Krox!
Tier 1 saurus and tier 2 shielded saurus when CA?
That's how it was at the start of TWW2, you had to build a skirmishing building to get the Skinks. Not sure they should go back. They have Temple Guard at the Tier IV level of that building now...
Regular suarus warriors are decent but mid
Blessed ones on the other hand are perfect for murdering skaven and zombos but that goes for the stalkers too. Either way they perfect line holders cuz they never tire out and stacked on top of temple guard or suarus spears, and you dont even need to worry bout that front until the spears get low on numbers or some big ass crab decides to smash its way through your line.
Stupid pirate coast and his stupid hero on the crab AFTER ALL MY JAVS ARE USED UP. Literally the only reason i couldnt win that siege in my first campaign as gor rok😢
Yes i hating on that specific lord that starts in lustria
Ahhhhhh...
Can u do the blessed saurus
I have a script for the blessed saurus warriors/ spears variant already because I need to cover it for Kroq-Gar's starting army, so I'll go over that soon enough.
Skink Cohort javs is unfortunately a far superior unit in campaign due to their speed and ranged attack and also easier recruitment, which lets them synergize with dinos a lot beetter than the slow and expensive saurus units.
100%
Correct. They are also far cheaper on upkeep which matters in campaign first 40 turns.
That's very dependent on your situation. I think highly of javelins, well, I used them more in TWW2 in reality, but they were extremely good then. It's just, against factions with brutal levels of shield use, they can suffer. Hence my continuing to say, keeping enemy forces honest - even a couple of units to take on meat grinder duty can help with tough cases.
Cost is a major plus yes.
@@OffToBattle speed is key for skinks, lets them keep up with bastis and stegas. If you engage several units with basti and clump them up skinks can flank from several sides and break them real quick then chase them down. Its also easier to reposition your entire army when its just skinks and dinos.
BOK
BOK
BOK