Spawning of Bob - Keeping Lustrian Warbeasts

There is no finer sight on the Lustrian Battlefield than the well drilled perfection of the Salamander or Barbed Razordon hunting pack.  Each member of the team has a unique and vital role.

Congratulations on your decision to become the handler of one (or more*) of Lustria's magnificent war beasts.  This, the fourth of Spawning of Bob's illustrated guides, will assist you in reaching your full potential as a war beast handler.

Although the Fire Salamander (salamandra ignis) and its cousin, the Barbed Razordon (novacula dentatus uncinatus) are from 2 separate genera, many principles of care are common to both species.

Acquiring your pet

The most common means of acquisition of eggs is to take them from attended** or unattended nests.  This sounds simple, but in Lustria care must be taken to ensure that you have selected from the appropriate nest.  Many a would-be handler has been disappointed when weeks of careful incubation have ended in an unexpected arrival.

Large scale domestic breeding programmes*** have met with limited success and tend to end in tears.  Or flames.

Hybrids and fancy breeds such as the Plumed Featherdon (cristatus pinna) are more favoured as ornamental or show animals, although war beast handlers have been known to occasionally employ them in combat****.

Naming your pet

Anything with an apostrophe in it should be fine.

Basic Care

Both Salamanders and Razordons are robust and assertive animals which makes for relatively simple basic care.  They are natural foragers immediately after hatching, therefore they are inexpensive to feed.  However, the unfortunate discovery of a "trophy" on the doorstep from time to time does deter some potential owners.

  

Once the animals are larger, they can continue to forage within the bounds of the Temple City***** or else you can encourage them to forage outside the urban area in order to minimise disruption to city life.

Grooming, care for nails and the animal's coat are essential for both a happy pet and owner.  A poorly groomed and clipped animal can be a liability on the battle field.

A word of caution for barbed razordon owners:  The spring moult can be a challenging time for both you and your pet.

Socialisation

As part of their training your pet should be gradually introduced to other beasts and monsters.  The ultimate goal is to have them interacting calmly with all other elements of the Lizardmen army.

Training

The size and assertiveness of the salamander and razordon do make them challenging animals to train, but with perseverance, access to medical facilities and modern training approaches their natural free spiritedness can be subdued.

They can be taught simple tricks such as "fetch", "beg", "move and fire", "spout flames" (salamander only), and "stand and shoot" (razordon only).

Summary

If you follow these guidelines carefully you will soon be able to commence training with other hunting pack members, join the ranks of the magnificent Lizardmen army and you will have developed a rewarding and lifelong bond with your new pet.

If you don't follow these guidelines******  you have two other options:

1.            Apply firm compression to the wound.  Do not try to remove any penetrating objects.

2.            Bathe the area in cool running water for at least 20 minutes

* not recommended

** not recommended

***not recommended

**** not recommended

***** not recommended

****** not recommended

The False Moon War: Chapter 6

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to Chapter 5

Chapter 6.  The Maw's Jaws

The Maw's Jaws was not an elegant vessel.  She reflected much of the nature of her crew: ugly, brutal and broad of beam.

In lieu of the traditional battering ram, upon her blunt prow she sported a figure head in the form of gigantic hinged iron jaws.  The jaws were not solely decorative. Through the action of levers and pulleys they could be clamped shut to crush or hold fast other vessels.

Upon her raised forecastle and stern decks were enormous harpoon launchers, made after the basic plan of a ballista or bolt thrower, but many times larger.  The launchers could hurl cruelly barbed harpoons trailing coils of heavy rope at her prey, be that prey cetacean, leviathan or maritime.

From her main deck, which was the size of a town square, jutted three masts which towered like the old men of the forest that they once were. Each mast sported a massive spar from which hung square rigged canvas sails.

If the Maw's Jaws were to become becalmed, treble rows of hatches on her flanks would spring open and the crew would extend her oars. There was space on the rowing decks for six gnoblars or galley slaves to each oar. If greater speed were needed, or toward the end of a voyage when slaves were scarce and ogre bellies full, the ogres themselves would man the sweeps. Their powerful strokes gave the ship a speed and manoeuvrability that belied her ungainly appearance.

As with the ogres, the belly of the beast was the main focus. Her cavernous hold had easily swallowed the entire ogre expedition and its tack, but still it hungered for more booty. In its day this monster had devoured fleets of Tilean trade vessels and still had appetite left to consume entire coastal towns on her way back to port.

The deck was dotted with hatches which led to the lower decks. Beside the high deck rails were racks of grapnels, landing hooks, boarding axes and other tools of high seas predation.

Gnoblar riggers swarmed aloft. Here they were safe from any impatient cuffs of discipline which might threaten to maim them.

Ogre sailors performed their duties with feet solidly planted on the deck. The remaining warriors of the expeditionary force remained below decks with their beasts of burden and war engines.  Here they continued their usual peacetime occupations, gambling, boasting, brawling and eating.

The ship's master stood on the aft deck with his meaty hands clenched on the great ships wheel. He glowered at the two members of the crew who did not fit in.

The first was the Slann, looking for all the world like a giant snoozing frog on his floating throne.  After the trek through the jungle and now some days of sea voyage it was clear that the Slann was not going to wake. Even if he did, he could hardly escape. He had originally been secured below decks, but whenever anyone walked above him on the upper decks they felt ..... funny.

The firebelly and company butcher, who both had mage sight, could see four columns of magical energy sprouting from the Slann, penetrating the decks and then arching upwards and away, back towards Lustria.

If the Old Ones had gazed back at the earth to examine their geomantic web, they would have seen a regular, netlike pattern of bands of power covering the whole Southern Continent.  Regular, except for one bright node of power which was sailing North and East trailing behind it four strands of the web which still connected it to its erstwhile neighbours in the centre of Lustria.

The ogre fire wizard was still miserable. This close to a node of the geomantic web, every whisper of the winds of magic was snatched away before he could channel any power for his own use.  The Butcher, master of the magical Lore of the Great Maw, was not affected because his power was bartered from the earth. However he could not stand in proximity of the pulsating frog for long, because it made his tummy feel funny, even worse than the full Chaos Moon.

Welhung had concluded that it was best to stow the frog above decks, so that he and his crew would not stray into the strange aura and suffer some ill effect.

The effect on the denizens of the sea was dramatic and immediate.

Every monstrous or magical beast which called the seven seas home was drawn from the surrounding depths to investigate, assail or devour the frog and his node of power.

Some were familiar to, and feared by, mariners of all the world's oceans. Many tentacled craken, sea serpents and enormous leviathans were in this category.  Others rose from such great depths that they had never before been seen, let alone named.

One enormous fish came from such benighted trenches that it had no need for eyes. On its blubbery lips it sported large tendrils with which it would feel its way around its world in the same way as a cat uses its whiskers.  Another fish had a glowing lure with which it would entice its prey
to its vast, trap-like mouth. There were eels which spat lightning and crustaceans with claws that could sever limbs with ease.

The one thing that these diverse monsters had in common was that they all tasted delicious.

The second misfit aboard was the Chef.  The entire crew now treated him with superstitious awe.

His first miracle was performed almost immediately after Rodekhil placed him down on the deck. The little lizard felt the rocking motion of the ship and turned from blue to green before the astonished eyes of the crew.

His next act of occultism was to run to the rail of the ship and make an offering to his gods.

Ogres, of course, worship the Great Maw. The Maw came into existence after the impact of an asteroid of warpstone to the east of the Mountains of Mourn. When the showers of rock and magma had subsided at the site of the impact, the earth had sprouted a fang lined mouth hundreds of leagues across.

The ancient ogre peoples were worshippers of earth power and had some mastery of earth magic. Those that were not slain by the asteroid impact, or consumed by the gaping mouth, naturally feared and worshipped this new manifestation of the earth god.

It is a common misconception that the Great Maw is a thing of Chaos. It is, rather, the earth's instinctive means of self defence against the warpstone mountain which had struck it.  An infected splinter under the skin will cause pus to form, and the foreign matter will fester to the surface to eventually be expelled from the body.

The earth does not have this capacity. Its nature is to devour rather than to expel.  Dead bodies buried in the earth will eventually be consumed by the soil.  Even the mighty forests of the Amaxon or old world are growing barely faster than they are being ingested by the earth beneath.

In response to the warpstone comet, the earth created from within itself the Great Maw to devour and destroy the foreign matter. Unfortunately, the asteroid was composed of elements so alien that they could not be digested. The Maw continued to express its earth nature by rapacious consumption but the weird monolith sat uneasily and indigestibly in its gullet.

There is no word for vomit in the ogre dialect. Like the Great Maw, ogres consume and consume and give nothing back.

The ritual performed by the skink chef at the rail was amazing to the crew.  It was not strange to the Ogres that the lizardman's gods would be at the bottom of the sea. Their own means of worship was to throw sacrifices of food into stake lined pits. The Great Maw would show its acceptance by absorbing the gifts into the soil. By the next day nothing would remain of the offerings.

The amazing thing was that the offering came from the contents of the chef's stomach.  This was as symbolic to the ogres as other races would find giving "from the bottom of the heart."

Chef Caneghem performed the ritual, without fail, after every meal he ate, even if this had followed a long period of fasting. This level of devotion alone would have impressed the ogres, but what followed was incontrovertible proof that the chef had earned his god's favour.

No sooner would the offering strike the surface of the water than a gigantic monster of the deep would surface to throw itself at the ship.

The astonished ogres would arm themselves with grapnels and landing hooks and drag the hapless beast aboard, where it would be butchered on the spot.

The first such creature was a thirty foot long blue scaled fish with yellow fins. This species was new to the ogres and they debated what might be the best way to prepare the creature to eat.

Eventually, Rodekhil suggested, "We should ask the chef, 'e should know!"

When they were finally able to pry Caneghem away from the rail he moaned, "You can cut it thin, wrap it in rice and seaweed and eat it raw for all I care! Oh no......Spewshi!" Then he was back leaning over the rail.

"What did 'e say?"

"Dunno. I think it was 'Sushi' "

The gnoblar kitchen hands were directed to follow the chef's instructions and a tasty new dish was created. In much the same way, many other culinary classics, such as Craken Morrrrrrnay and Sea Serpent Gumboh-oh-oh-hurk, were invented. The new chef may have been a little abrupt, but no one would deny that he was a culinary genius.

The little green chef did not even set foot in the galley because the smell of food being prepared instantly put him in a worshipful frame of mind.  Instead, a troop of besotted gnoblar kitchen hands would follow him about the boat clutching the tools of their trade and hanging on his every word.

Welhung grimaced from his post at the wheel. His crew were becoming as sleek as silk and as fat as butter. They would touch their brows in respect whenever they passed their "lucky" chef.  It was all wrong. They should have been boorish and disrespectful.  Were they going soft?  He growled an oath at the slann whose only reply was to maintain the same beatific smile he had kept fixed upon his sleeping face for two months.

The slann also presented a conundrum. He was meant to be a meal to satisfy Welhung's wife Hellun's extravagant craving. The tyrant was not sure that this would be possible.

Rodekhil Offaleater had had an attack of the munchies on one long night watch and resolved to "just 'ave one bite."

A week later the glutton's teeth were still tingling from the flash of light and magical power which had flared from the mystic aura which wrapped the frog like a second skin. Welhung feared that even the trip hammers and crucibles of the kitchens of the ogre court would be inadequate to tenderize meat this tough.

That evening, two full moons set sail into the sea of the heavens, one wholesome and white, the other a baleful green. The green eye made Welhung's stomach knot. He left the wheel in the charge of his lieutenant and strode to the aft rail to spit. There he squinted toward the setting sun and shielded his eyes.

"Man the 'arpoons!" he suddenly bellowed.

"Oh, really Chief?  I don' think I can fit another sea monster in..."

The tyrant captain stabbed a stubby finger at the setting sun. On the horizon were the silhouettes of a multitude of triangular sails jutting upwards like rows of jagged teeth.

"Sweeps out!  Crew to the oars! Bellower, call tempo double quick!"

to Chapter 7:  The Dark Fleet - coming soon

The False Moon War. Chapter 5

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to Chapter 4

Chapter 5.  The Pursuit

First there was nothing.  Nothing but an eternity of cold darkness.  Then a clear golden light.  With the light came warmth, and with the warmth, awareness.  With awareness came a sensation which at first seemed remote, but became more and more urgent and proximate.  The sensation was a sound.  A stricken, keening wail.  As Bob became more aware, he realized that the sound had meaning.  The sound had words.

"Waaa-aa-aaah!  Brain Freeze!  Brain Freeze!  Waaaaah!"

Bob snapped to full alertness.  With his vision restored he could perceive that the sound was coming from Joe.  Joe was kneeling clutching his head.  The scene was bathed in golden light, but Bob could not determine the source of the glow.  Bob found that he had a voice.

"Shut up, Joe."  Bob considered the words he had spoken.  They were good words.  He tried them again, louder.  "Shut up, Joe!"

The wail subsided to a whimper.

"All back to normal!" reassured a deep rumbling voice.  An enormous, four fingered hand reached down and set Joe on his wobbly feet.

Bob shielded his lidless eyes.  Joe's giant benefactor was bedecked with all manner of gold ornamentation from crest to scaly feet.  Every facet reflected flashes of light which were brighter than the noon day sun.

"Mahtis?" Bob enquired.

The kroxigor's massive face split into a toothy grin.  "Bob is okay, too!"

"Great! I'll just....give me a second...."

Bob tried to turn to see the other speaker but he was blinded again by the light streaming from that direction.  Moments later the radiance faded to a warm glow which Bob saw emanated from a weird contraption which was strapped to the rocklike hide of a towering bastiladon.

"What is happening?"  Bob implored.

"Good girl, Bessie!"  Rychek clambered down and gave the armoured dinosaur a scratch between her head and thoracic plates.  The beast snuffled in pleasure and nuzzled the little skink affectionately, knocking him flying.

A bastiladon of Lustria is as heavily armoured as a rock.  It is also as stubborn as a rock.  It looks like a cross between a tortoise, a lizard and a rock.  Its tail is tipped with a rock-like knob of rocky scales, which it will happily apply to friend or foe alike.  Generally the only two safe places to be are far away, or on its back.

Bessie was a bastiladon of Los'tmabo'tl.  She was unusually sweet natured, and had an appreciation of fine music.  With the Spawning of Bob, anything is possible.

Rychek explained the situation to Bob and Joe.  "The Legions of Los'tmabo'tl are frozen.  Everything is covered in ice for a league in every direction."

"Why aren't you and Mahtis frozen too?"  Joe asked.

The kroxigor beamed at Bessie,  "Bessie found us.  Good girl!"  The monster whiffled at the sound of her name.

"Bessie slipped her halter in the monster pits and found us.  She likes Mahtis because he gives her treats when the Beast Master Chief isn't watching.  She had the solar engine on her back and it thawed us out."

"The solo what?" puzzled Bob.

"Climb up and see.  Steady Bessie!"  Rychek led the pair of saurus up for a tour of Bessie's enormous back.  Secured to her back were a series of rails surmounted by wood decking.  The howdah was not strapped about her girth.  Rather, the rails were anchored with metal spikes which were driven directly into her rocky armoured plates.

At the centre of the platform was the Solar Engine.  Its sturdy frame was plated in gold.  Icons representing the sun-aspected Old One, Chotec, covered the stanchions at each corner.  The superstructure was comprised of four glistening triangular mirrors.  Closer inspection revealed no blemish or flaw upon the polished white metal, despite the fact that this device of the Old Ones had existed for at least the eight thousand years.

The centre piece of the apparatus was a cube of some opaque material.  The forward surface emitted a warm yellow glow.  The other five planes were dim.  It was held in place by five metal claws.

Below the front most reflector was a crystal lens fitted into a rotating gimbal.  This allowed the lens to be pivoted around any axis to focus anywhere within the device's forward arc.

On the rear panel was the imprint of a curious hand with five fingers.  "When you put your hand there, the square glows brighter and hotter.  The curved crystal catches the glow and directs it.  That's how we warmed you up."

Bob carefully tallied his own digits, then got Joe to check his calculations.  "That's weird.  Five fingers.  What use is five fingers?"

Joe considered.  "If you had five, you could grip your weapon with the usual four, and use the centre one for signalling."

Bob scoffed, "Don't be stupid.  Four fingers is better."

"Five fingers!"

"Four!"

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Shut up both of you!  We need to chase the ogres!"

"Wha....ogres?"

"The ogres have kidnapped Slann Lord Taisteslaikch'ken.  We weren't fully thawed when they dragged his palanquin out of the city."

"He's old enough to look after himself," sniggered Joe.  He was remembering the Slann's twenty thousandth birthday celebration last solar cycle, which he and Bob had ruined by polarizing the entire city in the catastrophic 'savoury versus sweet' party food debate.

"He can't.  He's sleeping."  Mahtis intoned.

"We must rescue him!"  Rychek implored.

"We are on picket duty.  We are meant to stop enemies getting in.  These ones are clearly going out.  Someone else's problem I'm afraid"  Bob folded his arms resolutely.

"They are taking him away!  We need to get after them."

"I'm sorry, I agree with Bob here..." Joe began.

"So you agree with me.  Four fingers is better!"  Bob smirked.

Joe signalled to him with an imaginary middle finger and continued, "....we cannot abandon our post.  Again."  He rubbed his scaly backside, the memory of the most recent kick he had received from his C.O. brought tears to his lidless eyes.

"So there is no way that I can convince you to give chase?  They are abducting our exalted lord, you know."  Rychek had a devious smile on his face.

"No, sorry.  Under no circumstance will we abandon our standing orders."  Bob rested his hand weapon on his shoulder and turned away.

"They are...FLEEING...with our Slann,"  Rychek murmured.

Bob stiffened.  "What?"

Mahtis brayed with rage, "They flee?"

"We must pursue!"  Joe screeched and sprinted into the jungle brandishing his spear, closely followed by Bob and the mighty Mahtis.

Rychek allowed himself a self indulgent smirk.

"Come on, Bessie."  He led the lumbering beast in their wake.

On the after deck of his vessel, Welhung Thunderloin muttered an obscenity and picked a feathered sting from his nose.  It was a parting gift from the accursed Lustrian bees.

They had renewed their attack on the tyrant as soon as the ogre band had moved out of the zone of ice surrounding the temple city.  The harassment had continued for the entire trek through the jungle, and ceased only when he had escaped to the safety of his ship.

Unseen by all, within the fringe of the jungle, D’an, the most skillful of Lustrian chameleon skinks muttered an obscenity and placed another poisoned dart into his blow pipe.  The previous dart had been a parting gift to the accursed ogre barbarian.

D'an had renewed his attack on the tyrant as soon as the ogre band had moved out of the zone of ice surrounding the temple city.  The harassment had continued for the entire trek through the jungle, and ceased only when the warm blooded brute had escaped to the safety of his ship.

An unfortunate juvenile terradon flapped lazily overhead.  There was a high pitched buzz, then the saurian flyer emitted a startled croak and fell dead from the sky.  With his test completed, D’an cursed again.

There was no problem with his legendary marksmanship, nor with the jungle poisons he had lovingly concocted.  The boorish oaf must have developed immunity to poison from his enforced diet of venomous jungle reptiles.

D’an broke his blow pipe over his knee and faded into the mottled shade.  His once trusted weapon had betrayed him.  If he was to protect his beloved homeland he would need to change his doctrine of warfare.  He would learn from his foes and adapt.  In the future there would be no failure, or mercy.

With a gleam of murderous hate in his eyes, he brandished a pair of bamboo sticks and vanished back into the jungle.

“ ‘Oist sail!  Ship oars, you ‘orrible lumps of porridge!”

After the torment of the gloomy jungle, Welhung could feel the life flowing back into him now that his feet were firmly planted on the deck his beloved ship.  Here he was the master.  And there were no bees.

The operation to refloat the Maw’s Jaws had been performed with practiced ease.  She had then been rowed out beyond the lee of the cape to find a south easterly breeze.

Once the billowing sails were reefed, the ship heeled well to port and she gathered way with the setting sun to her stern, and a pair of full moons on her starboard bow.

“Oi!  Rodekhil!  Lash down the frog.  I don’t want ‘im sliding all over the deck in a swell”

“Aye aye, Chief!”  Rodekhil waved a hand in reply.

“What?  What in Lunch’s name is that?”

Rodekhil started in surprise and looked at his clenched fist.  In it was grasped something that resembled a limp blue lettuce leaf, except for the baleful golden eyes which glared back at him.

Welhung prodded it with a meaty finger, and recoiled when arms and legs twitched fitfully. 

With a glimmer of recognition he said, “That’s one of them skinky priest things from the temple.  Why the ‘ell is it ‘ere?”

“Oh, yaa, right,” Rodekhil remembered.  “Well, when you said, 'Get the Chef out of my way' I thought to myself, since I’d eaten Cookie, maybe a new Chef would come in ‘andy!”

“Maw give Buttered Scones!  I said, 'Get the chaff out of my way,' you melon!”  Welhung leaned in close to inspect the lizardman.  The ogre was so near that the smell of his rancid breath made the little priest’s stomach churn.

“ ‘Ave you been carrying ‘im ‘alfway across Lustria?”

Rodekhil nodded.

The tyrant locked Caneghem’s flashing eyes.  “ ‘E’d better be able to cook…..”

The headlong pursuit by the predatory fighters did not last long.  The further the trio strayed from the warmth of the solar engine, the slower they became.  One by one they were overhauled by the plodding bastiladon.  One by one they sheepishly climbed onto the howdah.

It took no special skill to track the ogre party.  They had crushed a wide avenue through the forest understory with their ironbound boots and iron hooped wheels.  Here and there would be a cracked bone with the marrow sucked out, or a scrap of grey fur, but no sign of the fate of the slann could be found. The ogres had at least two days lead, but Bessie could continue her inexorable pace day and night, pausing only to crunch up the large tasty flowers which were scattered in the gloom.

The heroes passed the time discussing the finer points of the tactical disposition and effectiveness of the many units deployed by the Armies of Lustria.

“Razordons!”

“Salamanders!”

“Razordons!”

“Salamanders!”

“Razordons!”

“Salamanders!”

“Shut up you two !  Don’t make me come back there!”

After what seemed like an intolerably long time, Bessie burst through the curtain of trees and stood upon a wide strand near an abandoned fortified camp.  Off shore they heard the boom of sails filling with wind and saw a squat and ugly barge slide towards the horizon.  The Slann was slipping out of their reach.

Upon the howdah Bob howled in impotent rage and flung his hand weapon towards the retreating vessel.  This was a token gesture considering the range and his total lack of ballistic skill.  Rychek and Joe cursed and swore.  Beneath them, Bessie absorbed the ill temper of her riders and became agitated.

Only Mahtis kept his composure.  He began to remove the golden bracelets, torques and other adornments which he was wearing.  “Swim time!”

Joe looked at him suspiciously, “I don’t swim.”

“I only dog paddle,” Bob pantomimed an ineffectual stroke with his hands.

“How did you two get out of the spawning pool?”  Rychek wondered aloud.  “Anyway, Bessie is not aquatic.  There is nothing we can do.”

“Rats!” blurted Bob. 

Bessie thudded her club-like tail on the ground to show her empathy with her upset pasengers.

Clan Catarrh was ascendant.  Soon it would reach its zenith and eclipse even the great Clan Skryre in terms of power and warp-token wealth.  Its warlord would have a permanent place on the secretive Council of Thirteen, not as first among equals, but as supreme Lord of all Rat-kind.  He would be envied, feared and worshipped in equal measure.

This was the kind of irrational belief that most people would be put away for having.  For a long, long time.

But Under Lord Pickit Raw was not most people.  Although he had wisely abandoned his plans for the conquest of Lustria, he did not want to slink back to the skaven haunts of the Old World without a single victory.

To this end he led his few faithful remaining rats from their shallow tunnel beneath the sand.  The beast and her crew had their attention fixed out to sea.  In a few more seconds he would plunge the warpstone Sword of Abstinence through the back of the lizard-ogre-thing.

He had learnt from bitter experience that appearing in front of his enemies put them at an unfair advantage.  Far better to have a fair fight with he and his cutthroats approaching from the rear.  Much safer this way.

Suddenly one of the proposed victims shouted, “Rats!”

“Wee-ee are reevea-ee-eeled!  Flee-…..” Pickit was cut off in the middle of his warning by a bony lump the size of a cart horse which was propelled like a thunderous bludgeon by eighteen tons of agitated bastiladon.

First there was nothing but darkness.  Then a clear golden light.  With the light came awareness.  With awareness came a sensation which at first seemed remote, but became more and more urgent and proximate.  The sensation was a sound.  A stricken, keening wail.  As Bob became more aware, he realized that the sound had meaning.  The sound had words.

"Waaa-aa-aaah!  My tail!  My tail!  Waaaaah!"

Bob snapped to full alertness.  He was in an echoing tunnel, illuminated by a beam of light which shone like a lance from the back of a massive beast.   The tunnel sloped away as far as the light would carry.  Bob found that he had a voice.

"Shut up, Joe."  Bob considered the words he had spoken.  They were good words.  He tried them again, louder.  "Shut up, Joe!"

The wail subsided to a whimper.

"All back to normal!" reassured a deep rumbling voice.  An enormous, four fingered hand reached down and set Joe on his wobbly feet. 

"Mahtis?" Bob enquired. “What just happened?”

The kroxigor's massive face split into a toothy grin.  "Bob is okay, too!"

“The roof of this tunnel collapsed and we fell in when Bessie thumped her tail,” Rychek explained.  “We can’t get back up, but the tunnel goes the same way as the ship.  It must come out somewhere.  We can still rescue Taisteslaikch’ken!”

“I can’t rescue anyone.  I’ve dropped my hand weapon.” Bob moaned

Joe sniggered at him,  "Spears are better," he mouthed.

“Why not use this hand weapon?”  Mahtis picked up an odd looking sword from beside a moist pile of rags and grey fur.

“That will have to do!  Now climb on!”  Rychek was already scrambling back onto the howdah.  Bessie grumbled impatiently as the others resumed their places on her back.  When they were safely aboard she continued her dogged march.

“You know, Joe, just before the tunnel collapse, there was a squeaking sound.”

“No there wasn’t.”

“Yes, there was.”

“Wasn’t!”

“Was!”

“Wasn’t!”

“Was!”

to Chapter 6:  The Maw's Jaws, coming soon.

Spawning of Bob, Casket of the Cold Ones: Army Lists and Troop Types

There are a bewildering array of options to understand when selecting troops for your army of Lizardmen. Funny things happen when you just throw your troops onto the battle field without considering the need for specialized equipment, specific training and the best uses for each troop type.  Don't become the comic relief at your next Warhammer battle.

This is the third of Spawning of Bob's helpful guides to becoming a better Warhammer General.

Perhaps the most basic decision to be made is whether to take command groups with your units.

For some, the choice to field a champion happens almost by default.

A standard bearer is nice, but to maximise value for their points cost they should carry a magic standard which can confer special abilities for the whole unit.

A musician provides advantages for units wishing to swiftly reform, or to rally from flight.  A word of caution, however:  If the enemy unit also has a musician in close combat, you must consider your own performer's ability to neutralize or overpower his (or her - with Lizardmen who knows?) counterpart.

A single unit may be presented with options to upgrade weapons, abilities or equipment.  Consider your unit's (and your opponent's) strengths and weaknesses before choosing from these.  They are often very situational, and you may find your units in deep water if they are used outside their usual scope or environment.

Of course, many units bring special rules or abilities to the table.  A good general will prudently use troops suited to laying siege, or to the defense of an obstacle, to turn the tide of battle.

A single flying unit can give the crucial element of surprise.

Some units (indeed some whole armies) can reduce the howling winds of magic to a whisper.

A Lizardmen general should not need reminding that small expendable units of skinks (sometimes referred to as "chaff") can have an invaluable role in redirecting the enemy's more threatening or higher value units.

The last element to good army selection is a detailed knowledge of your enemy.  Direct purchase of your opponent's army book from GW is, lets face it, prohibitively expensive, but there are equally satisfactory and less costly ways to get the tactical information you need online.

Using a single example from the Orcs and Goblins (O&G) army book, you can see how particular units combined with a simple warmachine, have been used effectively the world over to root out enemies from behind obstacles.

The same basic unit of cave squigs, with an upgrade to give the "Ambushers" deployment special rule suddenly becomes a sinister threat to your army, and indeed the whole of Lizardmen society.

I hope that this advice will make you a superior general, and that your certain victories will gloriously pave the way to the fulfillment of the Old Ones' inscrutable purposes.

In case they don't, check this site soon for the next of Spawning of Bob's tutorials, "Increasing the Impact of your Razordon and Salamander Hunting Packs"  and its companion guide "First Aid for Skinks - Seconds Count"