8th Ed. Skink Cloud

Is anyone willing to write a tactica on the Skink Cloud. I hear about it a lot on the forums, but i've never really come across it. Apparently its the most competitive build for our army, but how exactly are you using the skinks and how many are you taking in a 2400 pt list.

 

My apologies that this isn't an answer to your question but,

I would like to know the same thing.

I speculate that it is a strategy that uses the maneuverability of skink skirmishers to redirect charges in order to avoid the foeman's most deadly units. Then our Monsters flank charge them.

I've never implemented this strategy before, however, so I am probably wrong.

 

Skink Clouds used to be really competitive, double slann, a couple of skink cohorts, a bunch of skirmishers including chameleons, salamanders, terradons and sometimes a cowboy. These were really annoying lists to play against as you woul dbasically flee most charges and then swarm around a unit that was isolated.

Most pple saw it as a pretty cheesy list with nothing getting in combat, only shooting and Dwellers below/final transmutation spells

I'm not sure how competitive these kind of lists are now. First off no loremaster Metal/Death/Life for those uber spells. Skinks lost leadership so they are more prone to continue fleeing instead of rallying easily. Salamanders cannot march and fire aswell. Important units got more expensive aswell (Terradon, Chameleon and Salamanders). Double Slann would also be pretty hard considering you would have 2 naked slann (without any disciplines) with 25 points left in Lords in the typical 2500 game.

 

The Skink Cloud army has gotten significantly weaker.
Dual Slaan is a pretty bad idea now, as both show up naked, or mostly naked.
The skinks themselves took a hit to leadership, meaning that you're taking panic and rally with much worse odds than before.
Slaan also lost a bit of his over-poweredness in the magic phase, making the nuking of enemy units less reliable.
Double flee works great against armies with 5 or 6 units.
It really doesn't work against armies with 10 to 15 units. They can simply run off or panic bomb too many units.

I think a modified skink bomb is still possible, but with the addition of a heavier dose of cowboys, rippers and krox units. Basically going from a total avoidance army, to a choose your fight and hit it with a ton of bricks.

 

JKW could probably shed some light on cloud lists for you as je played them competitively. As for their viability in our current book yes they took a big knock. No double slann etc. But I think variants may surface not fully cloud but sporting temple guard. And some of our other toys. Skrox were strong in lizzie lists but now they are seriously nerfed as well. While certain comps will still limit the amount of skirmisher units. I think cloux players could still work with one kitted slann but the leaderrship drop hurt the most

Still maybe they prove me wrong and still show to be competitive

 

I always ran the temple guard with my skinks. The skinks usually fleeing and getting into the way or at least into the flanks where the lightly armoured targets would be to shoot depending on the match up. I'm now not putting the skinks on the flanks and compressing the deployment. By now fleeing through the temple guard etc I'm not having the leadership issue for the rallying. For my next lists I'm wanting to squeeze in 2 bastilidons. 1 either side of my block to take out the lighter units and still buff my blocks at the same time. Walk between worlds helps skinks get where they are more useful than just fleeing.
Are chameleons now worth it?

 

Yes, or at least i think so, you're paying for a unit with half the profile and enough BS to make the difference on a march and shoot at long range poisonous shot.

I'll pay 6 more points per unit for that, any skink unit twice as big is gonna die to most charges anyways, unless ofcourse i went Jav's in which case i still like the tad smaller profile and the scout special rule (as it can't be dispelled.

 

Yeah I have at least 2 units, usually. 3. I want try and get 2 bastilidons in the list and might try dropping these guys. I can always walk between worlds skink javelins which come out of core. Am I straying from the original thread?
Apologies

 

I went to a tournament, using a skink cloud list,
ended 12/72, with a dose of badluck included


It stll works for me, but requiers some other tactics

 

What sort of tactics does it need now?

EDIT: And what did your army consist of?

 

main tactic is;

Defend the slann at all cost, and try to keep as many units u have, out of combat


My list was

Slann;
bsb, 3dice channel, channel staff, reroll failed dispel and soul stone
lore o fbeast

skink priest;
level 2 beast
scroll

scar vet;
sword of might, dawn stone, charmed shield, cold one light armour

scar vet;
great weapon, armour of destiny cold one

Scar vet;
great weapon, dragon helm, light armour, opal amulet cold one


8x10 skinks
2 bastiladons
2x8 chamo skinks
2x1 salamander


i went beast , caus curse of anraheir, really make an opponent think when charging

 

I can see this going horribly wrong. You have no real combat units and you're not fast enough to stay out of combat indefinitely. Plus the range on skinks is not long enough in my opinion to successfully pull this off.

 

You need someting more solid than your saurus hero.

Magic is a double edge axe and can be shutted down , get bad luck o even your Slann can take a walk in the Realm of Chaos.

LD 5 skinks will be hard to handle and lore of beast have no massive spell to destroy a unit or weaken it so hard that a saurus hero could finish it.

With beast you should change some cohorts for a big CoC unit to be the one to clash against the weakened unit. Also a EOTG will let you cast more beast spells with less dice. The buffs on the CoC unit and the saurus hero on Cold One with a -2 spell difficult.

 

this list suits me perfectly, since ive been playing with these kinds of lizard lists since 6th edition,

i know how to handle it, and i know my local meta, people hate playing against me, caus even if i dont win, i ruin there tournament.


I understand your critics and your thoughts, but if we all would think alike, the game would be a tad boring wouldnt it ^^



I changed my magic to lore of heavens, caus i seem to roll a lot of 1s while htting and wounding, that cancels it out, and u have some nice damage spells aswell =)

 

Ferocious, you list looks quite good and playable, with the exception of, perhaps, the lore choice. Heavens is DEFINITELY a better choice imo, especially with the level 2 beasts. It still does lack any major kill spells though. Still, nice list. You ever think about running Tetto?

Personally, if I ever went skink cloud, I'd run a semi cloud list, like what was already suggested. Having a big unit of Temple Guard (or something, maybe even Krox) alongside 2-3 cowboys and use the skinks to help me dictate the matchups.

I like cookies.

 

My meta doesnt allow special characters, zo no wont be using him.

ANd yea im opting for heavens, caus i just roll somany ones hahaha!

 

I've been experimenting with different lists since the new book and have settled back down on the cloud as the most competitive build. I don't think the combined arms list has the goods to beat WoC/DoC in my meta. The list is not quite as good as it used to be but I still think it has legs. The list I've been using (or variants of it) can be found at:

http://www.lustria-online.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13241

The key to the play-style is knowing everything about the movement phase and being able to plan well ahead. The knock to leadership is a pain but frankly good play can mitigate most of the risk by correct positioning and understanding what is going to flee through what. Tetto helps even more units get up in your enemy's grill to create space.

I wouldn't dream of putting rippers, stegs or anything like that in the army as their inability to flee would screw up everything. The 2 Scar Vets is really all you need, although a good variant is a cheaper Slann and an Oldblood for more mobile punch.

If I couldn't take Tettoeko I would take the 3rd Scar Vet exactly the same as Ferocious has.

But yeah, hands down the most competitive build in the new book in my opinion, but not the force it used to be.

Cheers. Jeff

 

glad to see someone who is having good wins with this list aswlel

 

In my very limited experience with the new LM book (been playing with my daemons too much), I too still find the skink cloud build as one of the strongest. An equivalent points in other units such as saurus, skrox, krox or CoC are better served with more skinks IMO.

That said, I'm having difficulty cracking units with good saves, especially stuff like monstrous cavalry and tough-as-nails characters like WoC discolords and DPs. Heck, even large units of white lions are rather impervious to our shooting. A combination of good saves plus mobility, high toughness or many wounds always gives me a headache.

I've loaded up on scar vet cowboys with GW to go armour busting, but they can only be in so many places at once, and running them solo also puts them at risk to warmachines and spells. Also, with just 2 wounds each, all I need is 1-2 unlucky rolls and they can die, they don't have the wounds to buffer against bad luck.

I've also tried metal, which in theory seems fantastic in a skink cloud list, helping to mitigate some of the army's weakness. But in practice, everyone would just be looking out for and stopping searing doom and maybe hounds if a character is involved, and ignoring the other spells. And I don't exactly fancy 6-dicing searing doom with something as expensive and as important as a slaan...

Short of diverting such units all day (which doesn't solve the problem against flyers), what other tricks can we use? WoC armies prove to be especially difficult to handle in particular, multitudes of high AS units that are rather immune to skink shooting, characters that are probably even more difficult to kill than our own cowboys, and I have nothing to stop a DP from chasing down my slaan before eating up whatever else thats left.

 

Go with wandering deliberations instead of metal, that way you get both searing doom and spirit leech(ignores armor) instead of just one anti armor missile. Amber spear is also nice if you can get it on your skink priests