About the Sacred Host rules (Lizardmen)

About the rules

The "Blessed spawning" (LM-AB, p.50-51) marks are upgrades for characters and certain units.
Besides characters, the problem comes with the units.

When a unit selects one, it changes from Core to Special.
If the unit selects two, it becomes Rare.

In the Lizardment Armybook, this is allowed for Saurus Warriors (core).

However, in December 2004, WD#300 published new official rules that allow the Lizardmen to consacrate their army to a god (similar to the Chaos armies):

• Sacred host of Chotec
• Sacred host of Sotek
• Sacred host of Quetzl
• Sacred host of Huanchi
• Sacred host of Tzunki
• Sacred host of Tlazcotl
• Sacred host of Tepok

And the limitations also change:

A Lizardmen army (not a Southlands army) may be taken as a Sacred Host of <GOD_NAME> using the following amendments:

• All units and characters that may take a Sacred Spawning must bear the Sacred Spawning of <GOD_NAME>. Core units with this blessing stay Core, but if given a second Sacred Spawning are moved to Special.
• Skink Skirmishers and characters must purchase the Sacred Spawning of <GOD_NAME> for + points per unit, and + points per character.
• Skink Priests in a Sacred Host of <GOD_NAME> can only take their spells from the Lore of .

This also allows the Skink characters to have the mark of the army, after initially being limited by a couple of options (Sotek's or Mark of the Old Ones in the original armybook).

The problems

So here they come the doubts:

• "Core units" mean all-units-in-core? even swarms?
• Skink Skirmishers now are elegible for Blessed spawning, at least the one for the whole army. Can they have more than one?
• Are Temple Guards and Saurus Cavalry also affected by these changes?
• If Kroq-Gar is the General ("Army of Kroq-Gar", LM-AB p.69), the Saurus Cavalry moves to Core, and Saurus Warriors move to Special.
• Will one blessing of the Saurus Warriors make them Rare? Or one (the army's) will make them stay in Special, then the second move them to Rare? 
• Will then Saurus Cavalry (Core) be able to receive one blessing staying in Core, two for getting back to Rare?

The Archival Analysis

This is not a minor issue and we've addressed it in a conservative way, sticking to the known truth (new blessings for the Skink Skirmishers and the category changes for the Saurus Warriors). We skip the Temple Guards, as they have been already blessed by Quetzl.

Regarding the Kroq-Gar issue:

"In addition, Saurus Warriors count as Special unit choices. If they have a Blessed Spawning, then they become a Rare unit. They cannot have two Blessed Spawnings." (LM-AB, p.69)

This solves a critical question: the Saurus Warriors become Skink-like, in the sense of having only one option (the mark/blessing of the whole army or one to choose), but strictly only one.

We conclude that consecrating the host to a God makes the Saurus Warriors Rare, as they are forced to take ONE blessing, while the Saurus Cavalry will never have a blessing (we consider they already have the blessing of Itzl for riding Cold Ones).

With that approach, these units already would have their own Blessings, so they do not need a new one. We shall leave it as it is for now.

The Norn Consensus (Executive Summary)

• Skink Skirmishers: Receive the mandatory army blessing but may not purchase additional blessings.

• Jungle Swarms: Ineligible for blessings; category remains unchanged.

• Elite Units (Temple Guard / Saurus Cavalry): These units possess inherent marks or sacred mounts and do not receive the mandatory Sacred Host mark. Their categories remain unchanged.

• The Kroq-Gar Variant Anomaly: Saurus Warriors in this variant begin as Special. The mandatory Sacred Host mark immediately pushes them to Rare. They may not take a second mark. Saurus Cavalry move to Core and, lacking the mandatory mark, remain in Core.

Sources

LM-AB ("Warhammer Armies: Lizardmen (6th Edition)" (2003), by Anthony Reynolds.
Saurus Cavalry ("White-Dwarf #300 UK") (2004-12) by Andy Hoare

Other discussions about this topic

https://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=5254.50