The Lizardmen probably aren't getting another DLC, but they are in dire need of a rework to their core mechanics. The racial mechanics they currently have don't have much of an impact on the campaign and largely are in the background. Faction-level mechanics are either in need of more work or don't even exist for most of the Legendary Lords.

Race-wide changes

CAMPAIGN MECHANICS

GEOMANTIC WEB

The Geomantic Web is currently nothing more than a booster for your commandments. This is neither interesting or very consequential. Instead of just being a number modifier, it should have some active element. The Web could be given a total of three useful effects to make it more impactful: the current Commandment buffs, sending magic through the Web, and teleportation.

1. The Slann engage in a sublime communion through the Geomantic Web, communicating over vast distances and deliberating on the Great Plan. This is adequately represented by the Commandment buffs, although it could have additional passive effects like a permanent bonus to research speed (in addition to the commandment bonus) and improved relations with other Lizardmen factions.
2. The Slann have the ability to send their magic through the Web and open portals across the world. Sending magic can be represented by bound army abilities in the same vein as Jungle Swarms or the Holy Stella. This could be done in two ways: (1) a special selection of bound spells exclusive to this ability (like the unique spells in the battle for the Vortex or even the Cataclysm spells), or (2) spells based on what types of Slann you have awakened through the Rite of Awakening (no magic missiles, because there is nowhere for them to come from). Before battle, you could choose which Slann will lend assistance (besides a Slann you're taking to battle) and draw from their available spell pool. As casting magic through the Web is difficult even for a Slann, the number of spell casts could be limited to 3 per battle.
3. Portals would give the Lizardmen access to teleportation, an ability that seems to be slowly being given to more races and factions. Slann are able to open portals to transport forces where they are needed (such as sending Kroq-gar all the way to Albion to cleanse it and found Konquata). At lower levels teleportation could be limited to settlements in Lustria, but once the Geomantic Web is at maximum level, portals could then be opened across the world to any settlement you control.

Additionally, the way the Web is managed could also use a change. Instead of taking up a building slot, the Web's strength in a region is now linked directly to the settlement's level. The strength of the Web's effects (Commandment buffs, spell sending, and portals) would be dependent on the global level of the Geomantic Web. The more high-level links in the web you have, the greater your buffs, the stronger and more spells you can cast as army abilities, and the more often and farther you can send forces through portals

BLESSED SPAWNINGS

Blessed Spawnings don't adequately represent the blessings of the Old Ones. They are non-specific and only apply to less than half of the current Lizardmen roster, none of which are DLC units. Rather than the unit-specific effects, the Lizardmen should have a system that gives blessings from a particular Old One.

Obtaining Sacred Spawnings:
Rather than carrying out missions to get specific blessed units, these missions now give a certain amount of Sacred Spawnings as a currency. These Sacred Spawnings can be used to recruit blessed versions of any unit. Any unit recruited this way has special coloration, as shown by the above image.

The blessings present in lords' skill trees are re-tooled to reflect their loreful effects. Non-Slann lords can take 2 blessings in their skill tree, heroes can take one.

The Sacred Spawnings of the Old Ones
- Blessed Spawning of Tzunki: Gives Aquatic and increased movement speed
- Blessed Spawning of Sotek: Gives improved charge bonus, Frenzy, and immunity to poison (all Red Crested Skink units and characters have this)
- Blessed Spawning of Quetzl: Increased armor and/or physical resistance (rather than bony spurs, dark and bone white coloration)
- Blessed Spawning of Tlazcotl: Gives Immune to Psychology and bonus to leadership
- Blessed Spawning of Chotec: Increased movement speed and Perfect Vigor
- Blessed Spawning of Huanchi: Gives Forest Strider and Stalk (dark green and black coloration)
- Blessed Spawning of Tepok: Gives magic resistance
- Blessed Spawning of Itzl: Gives immunity to Rampage
- Blessed Mark of the Old Ones: Gives ward save (only available to lords and heroes)

SLANN

Slann are much better than they used to be, but they could use some tweaks
- Shift the generations of recruitable Slann down by 1. There are 5 generations of Slann and very few Second Generation Slann remaining (Mazdamundi, Huinitenuchli, and Adohi-Tehga), so the generic ones should all be from the Third, Fourth of Fifth generations. Additionally, the "younger" Slann tend to be more bellicose than their elders. Older Slann generations should have the generation trait as it currently is, but the younger Slann should have the weaker casting benefits with a slight buff to their army's fighting abilities. This makes the younger Slann not strictly worse than the older ones.
- Make Mazdamundi's "Venerated" trait slightly stronger than the current Second Generation trait
- Add Adohi-Tehga as the faction leader of Tlaxtlan and Huinitenuchli as the faction leader of Xlanhuapec, both with a generic version of Mazdamundi's trait. Not as legendary lords, just unique ones like the Red Duke or Kazador Dragonslayer.
- Give Kroak a First Generation trait that's even stronger than Mazdamundi's

- Give Slann access to the Catacylsm spells for their Lore 

BATTLE MECHANICS

PRIMAL INSTINCTS AND RAMPAGE

Primal Instincts is replaced on Saurus and Kroxigors with Predatory Fighter. Predatory Fighter is similar to Opportunist Murderer for Nasty Skulkers. Units get a buff to melee attack when winning their current combat, but are forced to pursue their target when it routs unless a Skink lord/hero is nearby.

COLD BLOODED

Rather than an active ability, it is now an AOE passive for skink lords/heroes that prevents any kind of Rampage for friendly units.

Faction-specific changes

CULT OF SOTEK

Sacrifice-unique Regiments of Renown:

Instead of gaining some Blessed units, 5 faction-exclusive RoRs and 3 new sacrifices are added to the pyramid. This gives Tehenhauin the same treatment that Ikit got units-wise in their DLC.

1. Eyes in the Canopy (Chameleon Skinks): Gets snipe and a damage over time effect in addition to poison
2. Living Bastion (Ark of Sotek): Gets increased armor and its ability is constant while in combat.
3. Red Shields (Skink Cohort w/ javelins): Gets anti-large and physical resistance
4. Wind that Hungers (Ripperdactyl Riders): Unsure of how to make them any different from the Colossadon Hunters, possibly just a straight stat upgrade from regular Ripperdactyl Riders
5. Fire Lizards (Salamander Hunting Pack): Gets improved melee stats and Frenzy

Retool the Sacrifices of Sotek:
Most of them aren't terribly useful or are too weak for what they do. The current sacrifices are:
- Sacrifice of Xahutec: +10 armor for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Amaxon: +5 leadership for skinks for 10 turns
- Sacrfice of Xuhua: Army ability "Jungle Swarm" for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Qurveza: +15% replenishment for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Gwakmol: Unlocks Cohort of Sotek
- Sacrifice of Chaqua: Unlocks Legion of Chaqua
- Sacrifice of Quetza: Unlocks a random banner
- Sacrifice of Huanabic: Unlocks a random follower
- Sacrifice of Gwangee: -1 global recruitment time for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Pahuax: Unlocks Pahuax Sentinels
- Sacrifice of Pok-Hopak: Unlocks Pok-Hopak Cohort
- Sacrifice of Qu'ittax: +15 growth for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Chiquibol: +5 public order for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Mal'liente: Unlocks Colossadon Hunters
- Sacrifice of Oyxl: Unlocks Umbral Tide
- Sacrifice of Aymara: +8 Untainted for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Incatol: +2 recruitment rank for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Xlaxgol: Unlocks a unique Red Crested Skink Chief
- Sacrifice of Axlotl: Unlocks Star Chamber Guardians
- Sacrifice of Capac: Unlocks the Thunderous One
- Sacrifice of Sotek: Army ability "The Great Invocation of Sotek" for 10 turns

Retooled Sacrifices of Sotek:
- Sacrifice of Xahutec: Either make the +10 armor permanent or increase it to +20-30 for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Amaxon: Either make the +5 leadership for skinks permanent or increase it to +10-15 for 10 turns
- Sacrfice of Xuhua: Probably fine
- Sacrifice of Qurveza: Probably fine
- Sacrifice of Gwakmol: Unlocks Red Shields
- Sacrifice of Chaqua: +5% taxation income faction-wide for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Quetza: Add additional banners to the pool
- Sacrifice of Huanabic: Add additional followers to the pool
- Sacrifice of Gwangee: -1 to all recruitment time for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Pahuax: +10 starting Winds of Magic for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Pok-Hopak: Renamed to "Sacrifice of Zlatlan", Gives Army Ability "Curse of Sotek"- single-target ability that causes Rampage and Poison
- Sacrifice of Qu'ittax: Either make the +15 growth permanent or increase it to +30 for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Chiquibol: Either make the +5 public order permanent or increase it to +10-15 for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Mal'liente: Unlocks Wind that Hungers
- Sacrifice of Oyxl: Unlocks Fire Lizards
- Sacrifice of Aymara: Probably fine
- Sacrifice of Incatol: Either make the +2 recruitment rank permanent or increase it to +5 for 10 turns
- Sacrifice of Xlaxgol: Add additional traits to the Red Crested Skink Chief pool
- Sacrifice of Axlotl: Unlocks Eyes in the Canopy
- Sacrifice of Capac: Unlocks the Living Bastion
- Sacrifice of Sotek: In addition to "The Great Invocation of Sotek", give all Skinks Immune to Psychology and +10 MA/MD for 10 turns. "The Great Invocation of Sotek" also rallies and makes unbreakable all units in the army for the duration of the spell.

Hexoatl

New mechanic: Interpreting the Plaques

The Slann spend much of their time debating and interpreting the will of the Old Ones through their many golden plaques and reading the heavens. This mechanic would focus on fulfilling the Great Plan according to the Slanns' interpretations of how to proceed. This would work similar to the new Age of Reckoning mechanic for the Dawi, giving you certain targets (specific armies, factions, or settlements) and a certain amount of turns to attack them before moving on to the next step in the Great Plan, giving you campaign buffs, income, and additional Sacred Spawnings.

Mazdamundi, as a Legendary Lord capable of High Magic, should be able to create a custom spell list from all 9 lores of magic rather than just a mixed spell lore. This should also be the case for other Legendary Lords like Teclis and Kairos.

Itza

New mechanic: Shield of Lustria

Essentially the same as Alarielle's Defender of Ulthuan mechanic. It incentivizes Gor-rok to defend Lustria against the Warmbloods, providing benefits for reclaiming Temple-cities and penalizing you for allowing non-Lizardmen to exist in Lustria.

Ghosts of Pahuax

Oxyotl only really needs some minor adjustments to make his central mechanic matter more. For failing to complete missions on time, the consequences (such as an enemy army) should actually appear in or near your territory or Oxyotl himself rather than potentially halfway across the world. 

Spirit of the Jungle, Last Defenders, and Tlaqua

Nakai feels generally alright to me, my only idea for Kroq-gar would be functionally identical to the one for Mazdamundi, and Tiktaq'to is such a minor character that I can't think of a single thing that would be fitting as a campaign mechanic.

General Changes and Future Content

-Fix the Troglodon: The Oracle rider is not properly animated and hasn't been since release. The Troglodon's whiskers are not properly portrayed as whiskers, they're more like solid horns on the model.

- Change the Coatl model. The bird head is honestly just ugly and is based on a kitbashed model rather than the actual art depicting the Coatl with a serpent head in the army book. Its animations are also still kind of broken because of how it hovers. Just make it land and slither on the ground when it's in melee. 

- Readjust recruitment times and building requirements. Some units probably shouldn't take a whole two turns to recruit (e.g. Temple Guard, Kroxigors, etc.) and the Lizardmen's settlement buildings are a bit bloated.

FLC

The Lizardmen are largely done unit-wise. There's a couple of things that could be added: Skink Culchan Riders, Skinks on Horned Ones, maybe a new Saurus variant with great or Dual weapons. But they are missing a couple of important characters. 

Legendary Lord: Tetto'eko, Astronomer of the Constellations

Legendary Hero: Chakax, the Eternity Warden

You forgot the most important Lizardman tabletop character - Lotl-Botl

While I don't think the Lizardmen are particularly lacking (I find them to be one of the most powerful races in the game), I do think things like the sacred spawnings and geomantic web could do with a bit of an update.

For me I'd probably just make the spawnings like dwarven runes. Give each Lizardmen character an extra magic item slot (one for heroes, two for lords) where you can equip them and then have the others just act as banners to apply to units. And just leave the special missions to earn them as they are.

Being able to quickly build up armies with the free units is nice, but it doesn't particularly make sense.

I do like the recent changes to the Slann (they seem to give your entire army a barrier now?) but buffing their magic capabilities a little more would be nice.

I've not played Tehenhuain properly because I find his sacrifices mechanic a bit pointless, so I would definitely approve of changing that up.

For the geomantic web I could possibly see something akin to the chaos dwarves tower or the new dwarves age of reckoning mechanic, something that is race wide and co-operative/competitive between the lizardmen factions. Maybe throw in confederation with the other factions as the end goal (as this seems to be more common for other races now), along with the ability to revive and recruit the defeated legendries.

The Lizardmen are strong, that's never been an issue for them as far as I can remember. They're just so boring and lacking in any real mechanics to make them interesting. The racial mechanics may as well not even be there and 4/7 have no faction mechanic to speak of at all. The Empire update gave a lot of good stuff to the vanilla lords and the dwarf update made some big changes to the racial mechanics, so I don't think most of this is out of the realm of possibility. 

You have not listed the most interesting and fun part of the missing units. I'm talking about Arkanadon and the great Wyrm. You have a rather strange and lackluster wish list regarding new units.

Geomantic web is obvious, now that CA is embracing fast travel there's no way the Lizardmen won't get some sort of ability to teleport across the web. And then yeah maybe some unique campaign map abilities (like counteracting climate penalties to represent terraforming, sending earthquakes to a specific province) if you power up the web enough.

Blessed spawnings need a rework too but instead of adding to the many mechanics which feature RoR-lite units I'd prefer if they were instead changed to be unit traits. So every X turns (or maybe after you build up some sort of currency) you get a choice between blessed spawnings and then for the next couple of turns every unit recruited in that time receives whichever blessed spawning trait you chose. Would be more interactive and less gimmicky.

I agree with the Slann changes, Second Generation Slann should be semi-unique and maybe turned into tech tree Lords like the Legendary Admirals for Vampire Coast or the Tomb Kings Dynasty lords.

One way to spice up the recruitment would be if Lizardmen had instant recruitment on a fixed cycle. So you could only recruit Kroxigors every three turns but when you did they were recruited instantly, compared to every two turns for the basic Saurus Warrior. That way it's easier to recruit  units like Kroxigors or Temple Guards while still keeping their status as more elite.

Also totally disagree with the constant pushing of Lizardmen as a FLC only faction now. Empire is going to end up with 4 DLCs, there's no reason Lizardmen as a popular faction can't reach that too and there's no way they're going to get the rework they deserve without a DLC budget behind them. Tetto'eko, Chakax, Skink Cav and the Arcanodon (maybe Amazon auxiliaries too) is enough of a basis for a DLC.

Really good post and suggestions. Lizards need some love to be enjoyable to play. 

Vova1408#8818 wrote:

You have not listed the most interesting and fun part of the missing units. I'm talking about Arkanadon and the great Wyrm. You have a rather strange and lackluster wish list regarding new units.

The Arcanodon doesn't bring anything to the table. It never had an official model or art (the image on the wiki is a kitbash and not representative of what the thing would actually look like) and its sole purpose was initially to be the bearer of the Engine of the Gods, which was instead placed on Stegadons. Great Wyrms have more possibility to them, being essentially dragons in Lustria and I wouldn't oppose them. There's a couple of things that I'd like to see them get, like a Skink Priest lord and a Kroxigor hero, but otherwise I consider the Lizardmen's unit roster to be essentially complete. I suppose they could get a DLC that included:

LL: Tetto'eko

LH: Chakax

GL: Skink High Priest

GH: Kroxigor hero

Units: Great Wyrm, Great Crested Skinks on Horned Ones, Saurus w/ great weapons, Saurus w/ dual weapons, and Culchan Riders

forthekey67#3061 wrote:
One way to spice up the recruitment would be if Lizardmen had instant recruitment on a fixed cycle. So you could only recruit Kroxigors every three turns but when you did they were recruited instantly, compared to every two turns for the basic Saurus Warrior. That way it's easier to recruit  units like Kroxigors or Temple Guards while still keeping their status as more elite.

This could be interesting and more thematic with how Lizardmen actually reproduce. I haven't touched Nurgle so I don't have any experience with the way his building and recruitment works, but it could probably work well.

forthekey67#3061 wrote:

Blessed spawnings need a rework too but instead of adding to the many mechanics which feature RoR-lite units I'd prefer if they were instead changed to be unit traits. So every X turns (or maybe after you build up some sort of currency) you get a choice between blessed spawnings and then for the next couple of turns every unit recruited in that time receives whichever blessed spawning trait you chose. Would be more interactive and less gimmicky.

One way to spice up the recruitment would be if Lizardmen had instant recruitment on a fixed cycle. So you could only recruit Kroxigors every three turns but when you did they were recruited instantly, compared to every two turns for the basic Saurus Warrior. That way it's easier to recruit  units like Kroxigors or Temple Guards while still keeping their status as more elite.

Yeah, I was thinking of something like that as well (the idea of marks or banners doesn't quite make sense when they are supposed to be born with the blessings), and if you combined it with your other idea it would give the lizardmen a very interesting recruitment style.

I think a Nurgle style cyclical situation would work better though, instead of only allowing you to recruit units at a certain time they would instead be added to a pool where you could recruit them instantly whenever you wanted. You could possibly limit it to only the skink, saurus and kroxigor units so you can't just insta-spawn armies full of high powered monsters, but if you stuck with a high turn cycle for more powerful units (like Nurgle with Great Unclean Ones) then it would be hard to end up with two many monsters in your pool until late in the game. Presumably the pool would have caps too.

I think all the second game races kind of suffer from a bit of boringness. I have no idea why they stuck them all with fairly generic rites instead of more interesting and varied stuff. The DLC lords got some more interesting mechanics but the base race mechanics are just meh compared to newer (and even older) races.

Excellent suggestions

I know I'm late to the party, but I skimmed through the suggestions and a decent number of the changes suggested are present in the "Lustria Rises" mod. 

- While there's no teleportation there is an army spell and confederation system using geomantic energy as well as every lizardmen faction is given a altered version of Tehenhauin's sacrificial temple, but Tehenhauin's temple is better and still gains sacrifices more easily. 

-Lotl Botl is in the mod

-The different units mentioned in the original post are present

-The great Wyrm unit is in the mod

-Kroxigor hero

-dual mace saurus

-culchan riders

-missile cave skink cold ones

-recruiting blessed units on command(somewhat)

And honestly a decent bit more. There honestly were changes made in that mod that I didn't know I wanted until I subscribed to it. The mod creator is very responsive and if there's something you want add/change they would be quick to answer on it. I highly encourage everyone to at least check it out. 

I'd love a reverse Imperial Authority mechanic applied to all the territory in Lustria. 

Take hostility away from Markus Wulfhart and apply that to any non-Lizardmen faction in Lustria. It should only increase if you are actively raiding/fighting a Lizardmen faction, or if the settlement is apart of the geomantic web doesn't matter if it's a non-Lizardmen faction. Just non-Lizardmen factions fighting in any other capacity doesn't count. 

​

MiniaAr#5798 wrote:

I like all the suggested changes. Actually most of them were kind of what the Lustria rises mod started with https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2940793412 but I feel the mod creator went a bit too far with the new additions.

One of the cool thing for example was that the Fire Lizards RoR of Tehenhauin are Salamanders (Firejets) meaning they get an Irondrake type of flamethrower attack.

Regarding Nakai, the rework I would like to see is that both him, the Ancient Kroxigor Lord and the Spirit of the Jungle faction are made dedicated to anything "feral" in the Lizardmen roster, instead of Nakai being somekind of "Kroxigor King" that he never was. This would mean:

- Ancient Kroxigor becomes the default Lord leading rite of primival glory army (perhaps gated being if Hunter & Beast is owned?)

- Tech tree of the Spirit of the Jungle faction is retooled so that the bottom right part instead of giving useless experience buffs would give buffs to feral units and/or cool abilities.

- Both Nakai and Ancient Kroxigor special skill line will buff feral units as well. I am thinking of buffs similar to what Rakarth is giving to his Monsters. Perhaps Nakai could have factionwide buffs whereas Ancient Kroxigors would get only armywide equivalents.

- Nakai main horde building will allow recruitement of feral units, starting with Feral cold ones at the bottom tier and finishing with a +1 recruitment to Feral Dread Saurian at the higher tier, on top of the Kroxigors that he already has. Please CA also fix it that Nakai can recruit those Krox in one turn again like in TW II and not 2 turns like now.

The idea is that Nakai, Ancient Kroxigor and Spirit of the Jungle's armies aren't really supposed to be organised armies but instead conglomerations of dinos and other creatures acting on instinct more than anything (hence Ancient Krox leading the primival glory armies for example). This would make playing Nakai or building an army with an Ancien Krox general a very distinct experience than building regular LM armies.

On a much smaller level, I would really like to see Nakai to start with a Skink Oracle hero instead of the Skink priest if you own both Hunter & Beast and S&F. Oracle seems like a much better and thematic choice as a starting hero for him (being Jungle and not temple-city bound).

What additions do you feel like went too far?

I like all of the proposed changes, but I adore the proposed blessed spawn changes. I'd love to have a pseudo army painter for my Saurus with different stats for different circumstances.