8th Ed. Skink cohort.. What? They don't come with 2A, PF S/T4...

Skinks out perform Saurus against s6 targets.
Skinks outperform saurus against many monster profiles.
Skinks provide cheap ranks for breaking steadfast.
Skinks provide cheap look out sir! Wounds.
Their leadership can be fixed by taking a ~40-50 point chief or a single kroxigor., and with a slann's inspiring presence it may not matter.

That's all I've got. Those 40 poison skinks with a chief equals the cost of the saurus and can attack a different type of target. It also has a wide frontage in horde (200mm) can be put 6" from something you want to tarpit.
Two common chief builds - anything with the egg of quango, or Javelin / Potion of Strength / Sword of Striking to make a pocket I6 kroxigor.

Saurus are going to do better against S4, T4, heavy armor, or worse. Things like Beastman, undead, state troops, skaven, and dwarves Saurus will do better.

Edit - A skink cohort that has a chief synergizes with the saurus and PF. While the chief lives, you can restrain.

 

As a matter of fact - all you get is more skirmishers - as you always should strain to minimum core pts (be it 625 or 600). That's still an advantage though.

I've had Skinks do well against several other units, and only using large numbers, straying to be near the general / winning the combats.

I go with TG for my Special, in large a block - going to do this both slann less and with slann, and in neither case am i going to field the slann in the TG due to blowing up risks.


EDIT: What's with the using PF as an argument all of the time? yes it's free, but for 2 pts, i get poison, and tbh, i'd much rather have poison than PF.

 

Andy basically covered it.

I have no idea why anyone would not take skinks, unless it was a saurus themed list, or they were making a saurus deathstar and couldn't spare the points on more than minimum core.

If you want to make a balanced list, you gotta have skinks.

Personally I haven't tried Skrox with the new book, and I'm not likely to anytime soon. I also haven't taken more than about 12 in a unit, but I mostly play 500-1500 pt games.

I tend to take a 10 skink cohort, and then however many points I have left for a 10+ (usually less than 14) skirmisher unit. So minimum 2 skink blocks, but never more than 4.

My group hate my skinks more than any other unit I field, and have for the last 3 years. Clear chaff, speedbump, whittle down a block so my real troops win the battle, monster hunt, they are just awesome!

 

I tried skroxigor in a monster/cavalry list to meet core tax and they did fine with a fast list - the bad matchups got stegadon'd.

I'm a fan of using 30 Spears on a flank and then filling out core with skrimishers, but I'm going try the 39 + Chief horde with 24 hand weapons. That list would probably need razordons and chameleons to properly screen.

 

I was thinking something along these lines as well.

I want to try a combat section of :

40 Skinks w/ poison FC
30 TG w/ FC
5 Razordons (don't have the 6th model)

And see where it brings me.

It would also include some 5 units of 10 skirmishers to fill out core, Maybe even a unit of 24 without poison and with FC to hold up some stuff for a round or two. Haven't considered the chief as of yet, might try that out as well - as you mentioned elsewhere his LD is something to go to him for.

 

I've been playing in a campaign with sever limitations, which results in 1200 to 1800 points of core.
The good thing about this, is I've gotten a lot of practice with different skink and saurus combos.

I've been a big fan of 11 skinks with poison and 1 krox, with full command. At 157 points, it's done great at clearing fast cav, flanking, and even taking out chariots. It's quick, and it as a tiny foot print, which is ideal for flanking.

I have also had success with a cohort horde, especially when buffed by beast magic. It's basically a 20/20/30 plan. 20 shots, 20 stand and fires, 30 attacks in combat. All of it is poisoned.
If you can get off a wild form, you're boosting 70 rolls.

This week I'll be running 44 skinks with 4 krox, for a horde that's 6 deep. I'll let you know how it works.

-Matt

 

How do you prevent the krox from getting killed in the first round? Yah they have 3 wounds, but only a 4 up save and average toughness they aren't exactly unkillable. Most units that skinks are "better" against will easily kill a krox in one round. Then you have a unit of skinks in combat which is essentially just throwing away vps. They won't beat anyone.

Just feel like anything cohorts are gonna do well skirmishers do better. Cohorts in units of 10 running around basically as cheaper skirmishers is great, but I can't really imagine another situation where they are any better than just usable.

 

I like this setup also - 11 Skinks plus one Kroxigor.

Why do you go with full command? I can understand musician for quick reforms and rally tests, and I can stretch to Standard to get an extra combat res for a fairly light unit. Why champion?

I've been debating Poison vs not. Naked, this unit is only 105 points, which is 50% less than with full command and poison, meaning you get 3 units for the price of 2. This is all just theory - no real practice with Lizardmen as yet. In an all-comers tournament list, I would probably take Poison, because I would expect to be coming up against lots of armor.

At 157 points the unit is less "throw-away" than the 105pt version.

 

Yup. Against the right stuff, the ability to move 6" and posion shoot without a movement penalty and stand and shoot at short range and take a charge and even hold for a turn is really annoying. The small skink cohort is one of the more under-rated for the points cost units in the game.

I also like the 10 skink skirmisher with javelins unit simply because of free reform, march and shoot, and no movement penalty for the javelins and they can get up close and still stand and shoot and hold up better.

Sometimes, I just want to get the stand and shoot in and have at least one, preferrably 3, model survive combat and flee so my opponent must try to restrain, puruse so as to risk exposing a flank or being pulled out of position for a turn, or combat reform. If 3 out of ten survive, then the unit stays above the magic 25% and has a chance of rallying and serving as chaff or hiding and avoiding a loss of VPs. The extra +1AS and parry save is often just enough to stay at 3 or mroe models in the unit at the end of combat, which is the goal.

Skinks are a small but essentially part of the army in allowing you to use them as both effective chaff to redirect and control movement and to deal with high T units with the poison shooting. I am not a fan of "skink cloud" armies with the new book. Unless you have Krox in the cohort or music or a sknk chief, which makes the unit more expensive, the ability to bait and flee like old with the cold blooded rally is severely nerfed in the new book. Maybe with a Tetto in a shkink cohort horde and two beast skink priests (with cube and scroll, respecitvely) in a monster heavy or cold old focused army one might get some success, but you reeally can't beat the hitting power, T, and AS of TG for the points cost. I still think you need that saurus block in core to complement and take some pressue off the TG block in special to make the army optimal, but you absolutely need those cheap skink units to take away or deal with opposing chaff and control the timing and context of combat and to screen your saurus and TG units.

 

I agree, but its still arguably the best army the book can field. 4-5 units of skinks is still fairly standard for upper level hyper competitive tournament play.

And honestly unless they drastically change or core i don't see that changing for a while.

 

Agreed. To me, though, 4 or 5 units of 10 skinks each is not the heart of the army, even if ypu slip a Krox in a cohort unit or add a musician. I think of a "skink cloud" army as one where the core is made up entirely of skink cohorts and skirmishers with maybe a smaller sized skrox unit thrown in as well but the focus of the army is running a lot of skink units out there to hit stuff with poison shooting and bait and flee. With the advent of core empire knights, brett knights, demigryphs knights, skullcrushers, and a lot of other 1+ and 2+ AS stuff out there growing in unit and play, it just gets hard to win with that build. We play at 2500 points in our area and tourneys customarily and that represents only 10% to 15% of total points. One serious criticism of the new LM book (in contrast with some of the other recent army books, like high elves and dark elves and Warriors of chaos)), it is the lack of creativity and expansion of viable and competitive core models. Many of the 8th ed books moved a unit or two from special to core and expanded the viable core options or already had more core options. You basically have saurus and skinks. in core, Given the choices, I find myself ending up putting in a decent sized saurus unit whenever I think about playing the army almost by default unless I run a large skrox horde unit as an alternative and I've just not found the skrox unit very exciting or as effective (unless I run Tetto and such special characters are usually not allowed or appreciated in tourneys). Of course, the saurus have options (handweapon or spear) and the skniks have options (skink cohorts with or without Krox; or skink skirmishers with javelins and shields or with blow pipes).

Saurus may seem uninspiring, but S4, T4, 2A, PF, cold blooded, and scaly skink armour saves add up to a pretty useful core unit, especially with an oldblood or scar vet in the front rank or a wyssan's cast on it. It is just that it can get boring after a while. Compared tio my Dark Elves, High Elves, or Empire the core options in the LM book seem a lot more limited and less interesting. In those armies, I have a variety of very different and interesting viable core set ups.

 

Very much agreed. I was hoping for a new core unit with the new book or a little more variety.

One decent sized block of saurus and filling the rest of core with minimum unit size skinks seems to be pretty standard. I dunno how much realistic variations you could get and still stay as competitive.

 

I was hoping for the old "spawnings." They would have been awesome. Or maybe even saurus with great weapons.
It is funny looking at the GW catalogue and looking at two core choices followed by a swarm of specials. (Pun not intended)

 

Ditto. I thought the Spawnings added a great element of customization to the army, and I wish they would bring them back! That, and I, too, wish for Saurus with great weapons! The Scar-Vets can figure it out, why can't our ordinary Saurus do the same? I mean, there's the trade-off of striking last...oh, wait...

However, to the previous points, I think our short list of Core troops still gives us a lot of flexibility in the army we can create. Saurus, Skink Cohorts, Skrox, and Skink Skirmishers all function pretty differently, and I think those differences allow us to create a wide variety of playable strategies. While the variety isn't handed to us in the form of different units, I always feel like I can surprise my opponents with a new and different army.

And as evidence of that, I never would have fielded a large cohort of Skinks before reading this thread. That's one more useful strategy added to the list. They might just make an appearance.

 

Figure a single ~350 point block of saurus, you're looking at a 10 man cohort bunker and 3 units of 10 skirms. You really don't need two Saurus blocks, the bigger question is how many and what weapon for that one block.

Saurus are great grinding other core and quickly run out of good targets if you take multiples (though 2x20 can work). Unfortunately they are very point inefficient in their bad matchups (hammerers, halberd warriors, grave guard, corsairs).