I've never been too into the Warhammer setting, but they do have a few interesting characters and out of all their factions, both from Fantasy and 40K, the lizardmen are definitely my favorite. I had originally planned to do a build for a character from DC, but couldn't find the end of his story and wanted to have that before I fully built the character. So I picked out this guy real quick based on a suggestion from my brother and some fun with him. It's worth noting that this build and the gear for it is picked in a vacuum without consideration for what adventure it may be in, so certain options might be better in specific situations.
Let's get into the build for Tiktaq'to from Total War: Warhammer!
TIKTAQ’TO
CHARACTER Tiktaq’to, Master of Skies
SOURCE Warhammer
GOAL A skink who leads the Terradon Riders of Hexoatl and is a master of strategy, Tikta’to leads his warriors in dismantling forces many times their own size from atop his terradon Zwup. Atop his mount, he performs daring aerial stunts to land surprise attacks on the vulnerable flanks of foes before swiftly retreating. He favors speed and mobility over direct confrontation and uses Zwup to unleash Drop Spheres of Tepok, explosives that excel at taking out groups of enemies. He also carries the Blade of the Ancient Skies, a weapon made from the jaw of a fanged beast. In the game of Total War: Warhammer, he is a Legendary Lord that has Encourage to provide a leadership to nearby allies, Vanguard Deployment to deploy outside of the deployment zone, and Hide (Forest) allows him to hide in forested terrain until enemies get too close.
LEVEL 1 First things first, we go through our ABCs – ancestry, background, and class. While Tiktaq’to is a lizardman, though a skink and therefore one of the smaller members of their species, lizardfolk wasn’t entirely working for the build I was trying to achieve. Instead, we’ll be taking kobold as our ancestry because that works super well with the build we’ll be doing and because while not entirely physically accurate, kobolds feel thematically close to the skinks. Tiktaq’to will be a blue dragon exemplar so that he has blue scales, and we’ll take the venomtail heritage so that he can easily wield poison like skinks are wont to do. As a kobold, we receive an automatic boost to Dexterity and Charisma but take a flaw to Constitution. I would’ve liked to make Dexterity be Tiktaq’to’s primary ability score, but with the weapons I ended up going, it was hard to manage that. So our free boost will be to Strength instead. We’ll pick up the Scamper ancestry feat, which lets us use a single action to get Stride quickly with a bonus to AC against reactions.
While the wording of this background suggests horses rather than other types of mounts, we’ll take the outrider background. This will get us an initial boost to Con so that we aren’t taking a penalty to it and then we’ll use our free boost to get another boost to Strength. This background makes us trained in Nature and the Plains Lore skill, but check if your GM will allow a more appropriate lore skill such as forests or mountains. We receive the Express Rider skill feat, which we can use to increase the Speed of our mount during overland travel.
We actually won’t be using too many of our class’s feats for this build, but fighter gives us a solid basis to work off of that decently captures his capabilities. We receive an automatic boost to Strength and then have four free boosts that we’ll distribute to Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 18, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 14). We’ll automatically become trained in Acrobatics and then also become trained in Athletics, Diplomacy, and Stealth. Snagging Strike allows us to throw our foes off-balance, allowing our companions to get their hits in easier or forcing the enemy to move away from us.
LEVEL 2 With the Cat Fall skill feat, this is gonna be some insurance in case things go bad for us with our next class feat. Our pick there will be the Cavalier Dedication, getting the cave pterosaur as our mount, Zwup. These normally start out Small, but per the feat, you can have a Medium one as long as your Small with no stat changes. Part of me wishes I could’ve gotten it at 1st level, but I don’t think waiting to 2nd level to get our mount is too bad.
Gear: everburning torch
LEVEL 3 This first skill increase will see Acrobatics getting pump up to expert proficiency. The Toughness general feat helps shore up our somewhat low health from having only a 10 in Constitution, which why we’ll be trying to keep our distance with our flying mount, it’ll be handy since we are still technically a front-line fighter.
Gear: +1 khopesh, everburning torch, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 4 With the Terrain Stalker – Underbrush, we get close to the effects of his Hide (Forest) ability. We’ll make Zwup slightly more dangerous with the Impressive Mount class feat from our dedication, making him a mature animal companion. With this build, I mostly ended up using Zwup for movement purposes, but I still want to keep Zwup up to snuff.
Gear: golden legion epaulet, +1 khopesh, necklace of knives, everburning torch
LEVEL 5 We receive a set of ability boosts that will improve Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 19, Dex 16, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 16). This increase to Intelligence grants us another language and causes us to become trained in Deception. We’ll take this skill increase to Stealth, becoming an expert in it, and then we’ll pick up the Ally’s Shelter ancestry feat so that we can use an adjacent ally’s modifier for a saving throw instead of our own. I’m not sure how often this will actually come up, but it definitely seems like it’d be handy and I like the caginess it gives off, which fits the character.
Gear: +1 striking khopesh, golden legion epaulet, bracers of missile deflection, necklace of knives, everburning torch, predictable silver piece
LEVEL 6 Befitting a leader, we’ll pick up the Quiet Allies skill feat so that we can potentially lead our allies on silent raids. With the Cavalier’s Charge class feat, we can spend two actions to command Zwup to Stride twice and make a Strike at an enemy within reach at any point during this movement with a +1 circumstance bonus to the attack roll. I did just realize that this might not work with Zwup flying. Hmm.
Gear: +1 hide armor, +1 striking khopesh, cloak of repute, golden legion epaulet, necklace of knives, brooch of shielding
LEVEL 7 Given that Tiktaq’to is often noted to lead ambushes, I like the skill increase to Stealth again, raising it to master proficiency. This isn’t super essential to the build, but I like the Ride general feat for if we need to jump on somebody else’s mount for whatever reason.
Gear: primeval mistletoe, +1 hide armor, diplomat’s badge, +1 striking khopesh, golden legion epaulet, bracers of missile deflection
LEVEL 8 We can use Swift Sneak to move our full Speed when we Sneak, which will be handy for scouting missions and the like. With two feats from our Cavalier Dedication, we can now take other dedications if we want and that is exactly what we’ll do. Marshal Dedication will increase our Diplomacy skill to expert proficiency and give us an aura to bolster our allies.
Gear: wounding weapon rune, ring of the ram, primeval mistletoe, +1 hide armor, +1 striking khopesh, cloak of repute
LEVEL 9 To go along with its recent increase from taking the Marshal Dedication, we’ll apply this skill increase to Diplomacy to raise it to master proficiency. Fittingly for an ambusher, we can use Between the Scales to add the backstabber trait to any weapon with the agile or finesse trait that we hit a flat-footed foe with. The khopesh I’ve given Tiktaq’to to simulate his jawbone weapon regrettably doesn’t have those traits but picking up could be handy and understandable with this character.
Gear: +1 resilient hide armor, slippers of spider climbing, wounding weapon rune, primeval mistletoe, diplomat’s badge, +1 striking khopesh
LEVEL 10 For this level, we’ll take our boosts to Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 20, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 18). We’ll dip into Diplomacy skill feats a little bit, picking up Group Impression so that we can influence an entire group at once. The Inspiring Marshal Stance is also going to make use of our Diplomacy to boost the capabilities of the allies around us, going along with Tiktaq’to’s Encourage ability.
Gear: collar of empathy, +1 resilient hide armor, flaming weapon rune, slippers of spider climbing, primeval mistletoe, +1 striking khopesh
LEVEL 11 We’ll see this skill increase go towards Acrobatics, boosting its proficiency to the master level. As part of the idea of fulfilling his Vanguard Deployment, we can pick up Incredible Scout, letting us grant a greater bonus to our allies’ initiative when we use the Scout exploration activity.
Gear: +2 striking khopesh, collar of empathy, horn of blasting, +1 resilient hide armor, wounding weapon rune, slippers of spider climbing
LEVEL 12 With the Hobnobber skill feat, we can Gather Information much more rapidly, a useful ability for a far-ranging character like Tiktaq’to. On the class side of things, we’ll buff Zwup with the Incredible Mount feat from the cavalier, making him a Nimble mount so that he’s able to pierce magical defenses and becomes harder to pin down.
Gear: +2 resilient hide armor, +2 striking khopesh, winged boots, collar of empathy, flaming weapon rune, rod of wonder
LEVEL 13 Given how Tiktaq’to seems to spend much of his time in the wilds and nature, I like applying this skill increase to it, raising it to expert proficiency. Slither is our pick for an ancestry feat at this level, letting us get through tight spaces with greater ease to evade capture.
Gear: +2 greater striking khopesh, +2 resilient hide armor, bag of holding (type III), winged boots, collar of empathy, horn of blasting
LEVEL 14 We’ll use Discreet Inquiry to subtly Gather Information without our enemies noticing our movements. We’ll also take our final feat from the Cavalier Dedication with Specialized Mount – Ambusher to make Zwup even harder to hit as well as excellent at sneaking, allowing us to easier conduct our ambushes.
Gear: bomber’s saddle, +2 greater striking khopesh, broom of flying, +2 resilient hide armor, winged boots, greater clandestine cloak
LEVEL 15 With these ability boosts, we’ll see increases to Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 21, Dex 18, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 19). Since we have this increase to Intelligence, we’ll gain another language followed by becoming trained in the Crafting skill. We’ll also increase our Diplomacy skill, making it the first to achieve legendary proficiency. Fleet increases our Speed when we’re off of Zwup, which hopefully won’t be happening too often but it’s still good to have just in case.
Gear: +2 greater resilient hide armor, bomber’s saddle, winged armor rune, +2 greater striking khopesh, bag of holding (type III), envisioning mask
LEVEL 16 While this doesn’t really have any bearing on his abilities, the Legendary Negotiation skill feat allows us to try to convince our foes to surrender. We’ll also go further into our Marshal Dedication by taking Cadence Call, granting an allies the quickened condition but resulting them in being slowed in the following round.
Gear: greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient hide armor, greater primeval mistletoe, bomber’s saddle, +2 greater striking khopesh, broom of flying
LEVEL 17 Our next skill to make it to legendary proficiency will be Stealth. Our final ancestry feat will be Wignlets, taking after our mount somewhat though we initially can only use this small wings to enhance our jumps.
Gear: +3 greater striking khopesh, greater flaming weapon rune, heedless spurs, +2 greater resilient hide armor, bomber’s saddle, winged armor rune
LEVEL 18 Since we have Stealth up to legendary proficiency, we can go ahead and grab Legendary Sneak so that we can hide even in plain sight. We’ll also pick up Tactical Cadence so that our allies aren’t slowed after we use Cadence Call.
Gear: belt of giant’s strength, +3 greater striking khopesh, speed weapon rune, greater flaming weapon rune, +2 greater resilient hide armor, greater primeval mistletoe
LEVEL 19 This final skill increase will go towards Deception so that we can try to mislead our foes. We’ll use Skitter to Crawl at half our Speed when we find ourselves in such desperate situations.
Gear: +3 greater resilient hide armor, belt of giant’s strength, greater cloak of the bat, +3 greater striking khopesh, greater flaming weapon rune, heedless spurs
LEVEL 20 Our final set of ability boosts will be for Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 22, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 20). This final increase to our Intelligence makes us trained in Survival and gives us yet another language. Our Foil Senses skill feat makes us better at avoiding the unique senses of certain animals, such as scent or tremorsense, when we’re sneaking. With this very last class feat, we’ll finally return to our base class and take Weapon Supremacy, making us permanently quickened though limiting this bonus action to a Strike.
Gear:+3 major striking khopesh, +3 greater resilient hide armor, greater fortification armor rune, belt of giant’s strength, greater talisman cord, greater flaming weapon rune
CONCLUSION This was an interesting build to attempt and one that I had a lot of fun trying out. Fighter makes a really good basis for classes thanks to its Combat Flexibility and solid base class features so because we had to take all of these other class feats from our archetypes. I mostly based this build off of a few of Tiktaq'to's base abilities as well as some lore since I couldn't fit in all his skill tree or really even see all of it. I was also very iffy on the choice of the khopesh as a weapon but was convinced to go for it by a friend of mine that's more into Warhammer than I am. We do manage to achieve the rocks Zwup is supposed to throw for a brief period thanks to the bomber's saddle item.
Be sure to let me know what you think of the build!
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Have a fantastic Friday!
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