1,000 POINT ARMY LIST
The thing you have to understand about small armies is that the points value limits what you can do. While this seems pretty obvious, some players don't really understand this. Many players relate pretty heavily to the Lord-level characters in their army list, which is normally fine, but when asked to play a small, quick game where the armies are small, these players are quickly frustrated when they learn they can't have their favourite Lord on the table. So you need to understand this before even starting to build an army of this size — you don't get your Lord. Once that's out of the way, the fun can begin.

The first thing I do when building an army — any army — is to decide whom I want to take as my General. While this may have to be adjusted later when I start running out of points and still lack what I think I need to have a fun army, the General comes first. This guy is the closest thing to 'me' on the battlefield, so putting a leader together that I am happy with is important. Since I can't have Lords, I opt for a Saurus Scar-Veteran for my General. He's got a decent Leadership (8 is not too shabby with a Cold-Blooded army!), and in a fight he will be able to stand up to most heroes in other armies. I can equip him with up to 50 points of magic... I'd like him to stick around a while, so I look at Armour and Talismans first. Not much there in the way of armour, particularly as I plan to give him a Great weapon. So I opt for the Aura of Quetzl... I'm most concerned about attacks of Strength 5 or more anyway, so having a 4+ Ward against those attacks seems pretty nice! That leaves me with 20 points left... there are two items that seem pretty nice for those points — The Charm of the Jaguar Warrior (9" Movement) and the Venom of the Firefly Frog (attacks from his weapon are poisoned and magical). I plan to keep this guy with my line troops, and don't want him straying too far, and without a magic weapon my General could easily be at the mercy of an ethereal creature (like an enemy Wraith!), so I take the Venom of the Firefly Frog. I also give him light armour, a Great weapon, and a shield (I always take this option, even if I'm carting along a Great weapon... it's worth a couple extra points to be able to opt to go with a hand weapon and shield and get a better Armour Save).

I then look at the Blessed Spawnings. I want my General to travel with a unit, and although he could have a Spawning or two and join a unit without any Spawnings at all, most of the Spawnings are really only useful if the character and the unit have the same one. With this size of an army, I'm not sure that I want that many points in special choices, so I look at the Spawnings that I think a character on his own can take advantage of. Tepok looks pretty cool... I think I'll take that! That brings my character up to a grand total of 158 points.

For my other characters, I look at Skink Shamans. I'm a big fan of magic — not just because I see its value in the game, but also because magic is a big part of the fun of Warhammer for me. And one thing I have noticed in Warhammer is that points spent in magic are only worth it if you can rely on your spells getting through (duh). So I opt for two level 2 Skink Shamans. In order to keep the other guy's spells from getting through, I opt for two Dispel Scrolls as well.

Next I look at units. I know I want at least one Saurus unit for my General, a couple Skink units, and a unit of Kroxigors. First I look at the Saurus. 20 of them with hand weapon, shield, standard, Musician, and Champion cost me a grand total of 270 points. That's over a quarter of the total, and there's not much left at this point, but I take them.

Next... Skinks. I opt for two units of 10, make one of them Scouts, and swap the other unit's blowpipes for javelins and shields (they are going to be working the front line, so they'll be moving around a lot). This costs me a grand total of 130 points.

At this point I have around 200 points left and a unit of 3 Kroxigors costs me 174 points... close!

Now I'm to the point in army design that is known as 'point fiddling'. Okay, that's probably not a well-known term, but that's what I call it. I have 18 points left... enough for a Saurus and a half, or 3 Skinks. Do I add more Skinks, or do I give what I have purchased a hard look and try to strip it down to add a new unit of some sort? I opt for the latter (I usually do... that's half the fun of army design, balancing what you want with what you really think you need to have a fun army that can win a few games).

I decide to drop the Spawning of Tepok... with it I have 5 Dispel dice and 2 Dispel Scrolls, which should be more than enough. That gives me 38 points, and if I drop another 22 points, I can add a third unit of Skinks. I decide to drop one of the Skink Shamans to level 1, which saves me 35 points. This means that I can take another unit of 10 Skinks, and make them Scouts as well! So the final 1,000 points army is:

It's a bit light on dedicated close-combat troops, but it's got versatility, and should be fun to play! My goal will be to advance my Kroxigors and Saurus block with the General behind a Skink screen, picking off the enemy as I go with poisoned blowpipe darts and magic. I don't plan on having a lot of magical attacks, as I want both my Skinks to have Second Sign (the level one guy will probably only be able to get that spell off anyway, since he can only use 2 dice to case his spells!), but with any luck the second spell for the level 2 Shaman will be something I can do damage with. I need to soften up the enemy and then hit them with my big Saurus block. At 1,000 points, there shouldn't be too much that can stand up to my Saurus, and my Kroxigors should be able to account for themselves well also.

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