First, your Necro list:
Heinrich Kemmler - 350pts
You're not playing this game in respectable company anyhow! Also, this guy's an awesome Lord choice in smaller games - he can boost Skellies above base with Invocation, and his kills revive Grave Guard (where he should be standing). He gets +1 to Cast and Dispel, just like your initial Ashur caster.
L2 Necromancer (Lore of Vampires) w/ Book of Arkhan - 125pts
Potentially a 3rd casting of Vanhel's Danse, out of a bound item (no risk of harming yourself with a miscast). Try for VanHel's, but drop one spell for Invocation for sure.
Necromancer (Lore of Vampires) w/ Rod of Flaming Death - 105pts
You want to mess up Skaven? This will mess up Skaven. If it
doesn't, it's because they're terrified of it and are burning dispel dice on stopping it - letting you hammer out a few more Invocations and VanHel's. This guy needs to drop whatever spell he rolls, for Invocation. The only exception
might be if he comes up with VanHel's.
Wight King BSB w/ Shield, NightShroud, Luckstone - 159pts
ASL against a unit with Greatweapons? Awesome. ASL when your Greatweapons might be striking at Initiative?
Absolutely. Joins the Grave Guard, obviously.
30 Zombies w/ Standard Bearer - 95pts
Zombies have the advantage of being able to be boosted above their starting numbers even without Master of the Dead. I
did undersize this unit, but the fact that you should have 3 Invocations means that you should get them kicked up to a respectable size pretty quickly. Zombies exist solely to hold up the units that you can't fight otherwise. You'll get more out of them (and your whole army) once you figure out what units your other regiments can kill, and put the Zombies up against everything else.
45 Skeleton Warriors w/ Full Command, Spears, Screaming Banner - 280pts
Extra fearsome. The Spears are there to capitalize on those possible failed Fear checks, and the option to go Horde-mode. Musician is there for the quick reforms. Don't forget that Kemmler can push these guys above starting numbers - it's advisable. I'd stick one or both of the Necros in here too, for a little extra leadership. Swapping back down to Handweapons and Shields doesn't net you any points, but could be worth it for the extra tarpit abilities.
Corpse Cart - 90pts
Bog standard. ASF on bubble-casts. Keep it slightly behind your Graveguard, but between two units (Skellies) so that it can jump through the gap. A Cart won't hold out against a real threat, but it would be good for pinning down something like the Skinks or a Weapons Team and keeping them out of the way. Mostly, it's here for the ASF buff though.
18 Graveguard w/ greatweapons, Full Command, Banner of the Barrows - 296pts
These guys go 5 wide. That puts Kemmler and the Wight King up front, and there an
order to this. You want to abuse the rules for targeting characters and champions. So:
Musician | Wight King | Standard Bearer | Champion | Kemmler
When your opponent is lined up against you, there should be ~3 models in contact with that Wight King who lose their Strength bonuses and strike last. The models on the left side of their unit are only allowed to hit the Musician or the Wight. Having them hit the Wight is ideal - he can take a round or two of wounds, and potentially regains one every time you throw Invocation (lore attribute). In the middle, they either hit the Wight, Standard Bearer, or Champion. Again, the Wight is ideal, but if they swing for the Champion, that's also okay. Remember that if they target their attacks against a character (or are forced to) including the Champion, those wounds cannot spill over into the unit. If they score 4 Wounds against your Champion, they
only kill the Champ, and unless it's a challenge, they don't even get Overkill points. Your Champion is also the first guy revived by Invocation. On the right, they should be forced to choose between swinging at the Champ and Kemmler. Kemmler should be Ethereal, which is why he's on the extreme flank - if you're up against a unit wider than yours (like a horde of Skaven) some models will
only be able to hit Kemmler, and their attacks will be wasted.
In challenges, if they don't have a magic weapon, answer with Kemmler. If they
do have a magic weapon, then answer with the Champion, unless you think the Wight King can handle them. You can also issue challenges of your own, in which case the enemy moves to you, and if they decline, you get to kick them to the back.
The last trick with this unit, is that you can use it to safely house one of the Necromancers. Your Command (banner, musician, champ)
must go up front. At only 5-wide, you have room for 2 more characters, and any excess will get kicked to the back. So Kemmler and the Wight go up front, and the Necro would get kicked to the second rank (until the Champion dies, then they get pulled into his slot until he's resurrected)
The strategy with a list like this, actually isn't too different than the monster army that I posted earlier - you want to hit hard, and hit fast. Use the fact that you're guaranteed at least 2 VanHel's, to get to grips with your enemy early. You can bubble it, but with the Book your stuck to the basic version - use it to move your whole army faster than Infantry has any right to, and use the Book cast to get your Zombies into position to block the enemy, or shove your Grave Guard down their throat. Every turn you should also be throwing Invocation. Invocations are your number one priority, unless you get a good Winds roll on your early turn and feel like adding a block of Zombies into the fight with Raise Dead.
Always raise Zombies with that spell, btw - any of your Necros can use Invocation to boost Zombies, and they boost
fast - within a turn or two, you could easily be looking at another block of 30 Zombies on the table.
You
could run Lore of Undeath, but I actually am not a huge fan of the Lore. Not just because of the "cheese factor" of being able to boost your army by 20% in one turn, or because you are still in the process of buying models and don't
need to have a bunch of extra regiments sitting on the shelf waiting to be brought in. Nope. Lore of Vampires just has a really good sweep of spells. It lets you restore wounds to your units, which is harder to do with Lore of Undeath, and it also has better "utility spells" that can be used to deal some damage to the enemy. Stuff like Wind of Undeath and Raise Dead can still get you some models on the table above and beyond what you started with. But being able to bubble 2-3 Invos across the army (and trip the Cart effect) is what this lore is really for, and what this army was built for.
They also ask (since you seem to know a thing or too about warhammer

) if you had any ideas to make their list better or know where they can find someplace to make it better.
I sure do! And yes - there are forums on here. There are other spots online, but I'm not sure who's still running 8th as a primary system for their forums. Lots of people have moved over to 9th Age, AoS, or Kings of War. Here on LO we've been trying to drum up activity for 8th again, but the transition really scared a lot of people off, and we're looking for the next wave of players - groups like you guys who will (hopefully) either begin to discover the game or drift back after a little while. Just trying to get some momentum going. Borak and I both miss the old days :/
Lizardmen list:
Slann - Lore of High Magic lvl 4, BSB - Standard of Discipline, Becalming Cogitation, Harmonic Convergence, Reservoir of Eldritch Energy, Wandering Deliberations, Channeling Staff, Obsidian Lodestone, Shrieking Blade -515pts
If he's got Wandering Deliberations, he isn't casting anything from High Magic. Deliberations replaces all of his spells with the 8 Lore Attributes from the main rulebook. Also, he doesn't need the Obsidian Lodestone - the Obsidian Amulet (MR2) would be enough. Magic Resistance adds to your Wardsave, and you gain no advantage to having a 1+ Wardsave, a natural 1 will still fail. The Amulet is a bit cheaper, gets you down to that 2+ Ward against magic. Also, the Shrieking Blade is no good - read the rules for Fear on pg69; Fear only affects models in base contact, and because of the way the Slann deploys in the second rank of the Temple Guard, nobody is in Base with him.
Temple Guard x20 - Full Command, Light armour, shield, Halberd, Sword of Swift Slaying -335pts
Saurus Warriors x30 - Full Command, Shield, Spears -360pts
Skink Skirmishers x10 - Javelins with Shield, Champion -80pts
These guys really don't need a Champion. If you want an extra hit (from +1BS) just add a Skink to the unit.
Chameleon Skinks x5 -65pts
Depending on the player, these either work amazingly, or they're useless and you're better off with another block of Skink Skirmishers.
Saurus Scar-Vet (in the unit of Saurus Warriors)- Light Armour, Shield, Spear, Armour of Destiny -142pts
You either get the Light Armor or the ArmoDest. Read pg174 for the rules on Magic Armor. If a magic armor is described as an armor type (Armor of Destiny is described as Heavy Armor) then it will replace mundane armor of that type. The Enchanted Shield replaces a shield, Armor of Destiny replaces Armor. There are only a few items which don't replace mundane armor - usually the Helms, and oddball items like the Nightshroud.
Total Points 1497.
Skaven List:
Warlord (in unit of Storm Vermin)- Additional Hand Weapon, Portents of Verminous Doom, Warpforged Blade, Enchanted Shield, Poisoned Attacks -188pts
Magical Weapons replace mundane weapons (pg 173, 'I'm Using This One'). Additionally, Poisoned Attacks are worthless while using the Warpforged Blade (pg73, Poison doesn't work with magical attacks, also repeated on pg33 of the Skaven book, under the entry for Poisoned Attacks in the Scavenge Pile)
Assassin - Shield of Distraction, Weeping Blade -165pts
Warlock Engineer - Ruin Level 2, Warlock-Augemented Weapon, Dispel Scroll -170pts
This guy's got 70pts of magic items, on a 50pt item budget...
Also, this is the only magic being brought to the table? Everyone else has a L4 (and that Slann is a beast of a L4), and this army tries to get away with an Engineer for a L2? I don't see the point in running an Engineer over a Seer or similar.
Clanrats x40 - Shield, Spears, Full Command, Poisoned Wind Mortar, Heavy Armour -285pts
Where's he getting the Heavy Armor? Clanrats don't have the option. He didn't charge the unit for it, that's the right pts total for the regiment - but they only wear Light Armor base.
Rat Swarm x3
Stormvermin x30 - Musician, Champion with Poisoned attacks, Doom-flayer, Standard Bearer with Standard of Discipline, Shields, Heavy Armour -350pts
I'd pass on the Doom-flayer. If you want to push a glass cannon into combat, get some points somewhere for a Doomwheel.
Stormfiends x3 - 2x Doom-flayer gauntlets with Warpstone-laced armour, Warpfire Projectors
Total points 1488
I think its worth pointing out to your whole group, that you're all making a very rookie mistake - it's also why I
don't like the End Times army construction rules. Warhammer is not a game dominated by Lords and Heroes with swords. Rules like Steadfast, means that units will always outperform a character. Even if a character
does "hulk out" and win combat, the chances are good that the unit he's dealing with won't Break - and might even have enough models that there's no way for the character to "dig out" before the end of the game. The idea with Fantasy is usually to get "Boots on the Ground". Bigger units, with more ranks, or wider lines for more attacks, or small chaff units to win deployment drops and control the table. That Vampire on a Dragon might be nice, but you could get 2 blocks of Grave Guard for that model - each with 20+ wounds, getting 10-11 attacks, with a Rank Bonus, the chance to negate Steadfast... see where I'm going?
You don't need to have a champion in every unit. Just because the book says you
can spend 50pts on Magic Items doesn't mean that you have to. Not every unit needs a magic banner. This problem gets
really bad when you open up the 50% limits on Lords and Heroes and start sinking points into those single models.
Your primary concerns for any army, are usually to get a Wizard of the highest available level, and then snag a Battle Standard Bearer. Since you guys are already playing smaller games, where your Core requirements are met by 1-2 regiments, I'd stick with the 25% limitations.
Your Vampires army is actually fully legal as a vanilla, Non-End-Times Vampire list. In fact, Kemmler is not available in End Times armies, so if you want to go that route, you need to swap him out with something else.
Oh, and yeah - the Lizardmen? That list is nasty. He's gonna wreck for quite a while. Neither of you really has an answer to the high(er) toughness prevalent across the board with that list. If I had the chance to sit down and make a "pain-train" list for the Lizards, I could make it a lot, a
lot scarier than that. Just a heads up - I've been there; my regular opponent is a Lizardman player, and if you know what you're doing and you push the envelope too hard, it's possible to make that army just...
un-fun to play against. The 25% limits could really help reel in that parity.