Tourney Lizardmen re: skill picks going to random players

[Joemanji]

Are Lizardmen a viable team in the following tournament situation? Unfortunately the PK&Q site is down at the moment, so I shall have to paraphrase.

"After each game a random player is picked to gain a skill. After the third and fifth games two random players are picked to gain a skill. A single player may not gain more than one skill per game, though he may do so over the tournament as a whole. Skills are rolled as normal on the SPP Table, with doubles rolls allowable as normal, but characteristic increases not."

I was all set to take Lizardmen to the PK&Q, but with skills allocated to random players, I am starting to think twice. It seems to me that random allocation will hurt the Lizardman team more than most others, with any skills that go to a Skink being almost wasted. Whilst Side Step, Catch or Sure Feet are useful enough in their own way, the lack of general skill access is going to cause a serious hurt. Vital tourney skills such as Tackle, Kick, Block and (on the Saurus) Break Tackle will be missing.

What do you think, is this as serious a problem as I imagine?

Cheers
Joe

[kithor2002]

What TR will it be?

If its TR110 I would give them a try.You have 6 Saurus and 1 Krox and the chance is good that at least two Saurus will gain a skill(Break Tackle).
Catch for a skink isn't bad.It will save you a RR when you failed a handover roll.
And also have in mind that your opponent has the same problem with the skills.

[gken1]

if you go with the 6 saurus, krox roster the chances are smaller that the skills will land on skinks tho. Catch is always useful to run a quick scoring offense. run skink 3-4 squares in....cage around. next turn run ball up handoff....dodge your way through to the end zone...TD

[Tante Kaethe]

And maybe you will roll an AG increase on Skink - happy scoring !!!

Cheers,

Tante Kaethe.

[kithor2002]

He posted that there won't be any stat increases

[JJB]

I'm not sure about the likelihood of skills landing on sauri. In particular, IMNSHO, it's all very nice to think that out of 6 games there are many chances for skills to land on sauri, but that will be once the tournament has started.
I.e. it all matters from game 1, not game 4 or 5.
Therefore, I would consider the team as a whole, and not just individual players. In addition, I would also consider the likelihood to succeed without those extra skills. If I were you, I would only view those skills as a bonus, nothing else.

I remember my 4th game agains lizardmen with wood elves. I had no strip balling WD, and my opponent had at least 2 skilled sauri. He had decent rolls. I had 3+ double ones and 3+ double skulls. I crushed him 5-0. Why? Because he could not play properly obviously and let me totally control his game.
Conclusion? Don't worry about those skills. Just ask yourself what you can do with a lizardman team of 1.1M gc. If you feel confident with them, you'll figure out what to do with the skills that will land on your guys, whoever they will be.
If you're not confident, whatever skills you'll get won't matter, you'll certainly get flattened.

[TuernRedvenom]

I think the skills do matter, they can definately make the difference when you play an opponent of about equal BB skill (which will most likely happen in swiss format). But going an 11-man squad with 6 saurus and 1 kroxigor is dangerous as the biggest threath to a lizzie team is the opponent going skink hunting, and with only 4 of those buggers in the squad that's not too hard to do.
I would conclude that lizardmen aren't the optimal team in such an environment. I played a tourney like this before and have seen that especially (chaos) dwarves tend to do really well, since it doesn't really matter which player gets the skill, it will always be very usefull. Of the other teams that did well I noticed they were lucky to get the skills on their positionals, the skaven team that came 4th had lots of skills on gutter runners and the Rat Ogre.

[DoubleSkulls]

It seems to me that random allocation will hurt the Lizardman team more than most others

I really don't think that's true. What about a Wood Elf team? They have a high chance of not getting any skills on the war dancers, Chaos Dwarves with the Bulls, Skaven with Gutter runners etc.

I'd say Lizards probably suffer less. Only 2 player types (3 with the krox) so although you can't assign all the skills to Saurus other teams have a bigger problem as they have little chance of getting the skills on the couple of players they want to skill up.

[TuernRedvenom]

I really don't think that's true. What about a Wood Elf team? They have a high chance of not getting any skills on the war dancers, Chaos Dwarves with the Bulls, Skaven with Gutter runners etc.

But a linerat/lineman/hobgob can still get usefull skills like kick, dirty player, tackle, pass block or block. A skink can't. And chaos dwarves also have dwarves that can take skills like guard and mighty blow.

[Tante Kaethe]

He posted that there won't be any stat increases

Oops ...

Silly me...

Cheers,

Tante Käthe

[Joemanji]

I really don't think that's true. What about a Wood Elf team? They have a high chance of not getting any skills on the war dancers, Chaos Dwarves with the Bulls, Skaven with Gutter runners etc.

I did say suffer more than most others teams. I don't intend to argue that they are the very worst. Though to be honest, I would be about ten times happier with Block/Kick/DP/Tackle/Sure Hands on a hobgoblin than with anything a Skink can have. Or for Guard on a chaos dwarf for that matter. Don't get me wrong - having Catch/Sure Feet/Side Step is better than not having them, but they are totally marginal skills in comparison to Kick on a hobgoblin. Wood Elf linos also have a very good selection of skills... Dodge/Block and all the other good General picks.

I'd say Lizards probably suffer less. Only 2 player types (3 with the krox) so although you can't assign all the skills to Saurus other teams have a bigger problem as they have little chance of getting the skills on the couple of players they want to skill up.

I see where you are coming from. Not being able to skill up your most valuable positionals is a bind. But the skills going to the rest of the team are still very useful. My contention is that Lizardmen suffer because half of all the skills they earn will effectively almost be wasted. I can understand that Break Tackle for a bull centaur is preferable to Block/Kick/whatever on a hobgoblin, but the latter is still useful, and I would feel it had some use.

At the end of the day, I could just not use Lizardmen if I feel this way, I suppose. :) But it is a bit of a gutter after having bought and started painting a new team (and I am not exactly flush right now).

[Joemanji]

if you go with the 6 saurus, krox roster the chances are smaller that the skills will land on skinks tho.

Would that be:
1 Krox (130k)
6 Saurus (480k)
5 Skinks (300k)
3 rerolls (180K)
FF 1

?

I was thinking of:
6 Saurus (480k)
7 Skinks (420k)
3 rerolls (180K)
FF 2

... but in light of the skill rules, that would seem much preferable.

[kithor2002]

The first lineup would be much better.
You have the Krox. which is a nasty Big Guy vs the agility players.
And with his high AV and his St he will be a great support for the cage.

[juck101]

weird but of all the teams i find lizard's dont chaneg much at all with a few skills. I would say maybe buy another reroll to add saftey without block - but luck is a big part of playing lizards. - they can have good days and bad days... one block extra hardly changes them ihmo.