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in the new lizardmen army book, it appears to me that the skinks have lost what made them good. and it seems from the lists that people are coming up with that skinks are no longer being used. is that the general consensus, skinks are done, or is it something else?

i know the saurus got a lot better, does that mean the day of the skinks is over?

What did they lose that made them good? as far as I know, they still have everything, the Saurus just got better. They still skirmish, they still have Jav's and Blowpipes. they only thing that changed was the Skirmish Screen. But they also got Ranked units that can include Kroxigors in the unit, and strike from the second rank. I think skinks will fill the same roll as they used to, but now that Saurus have gotten better, they have competition in the lists.

yea but the ranked krox, skink thing is gonna be pretty poor right? cuz unless you smash all of the enemies front rank, theyre gonna get their attacks back and rack up lots of CR from killing lots of skinks

Every one says that, but not if you hit the right thing. skinks will have a 5+ armour save from Hand weapon and shield.unless they get hit with high strength, they'll do alright, plus with movement 12, you can get the charge on alot of things with just a little fore thought. Think about it, two kroxigors hitting some one on the charge WITH CR from the ranks of skinks!!! I think it will work pretty good, it just makes tactics a little harder. Heaven forbid you should actually have to think about what you are doing.

That does seem like it would be pretty cool though you are right, you'd have to position and pick your fights carefully.

The ranked skink units will work best hitting the side of units locked in combat with your spear saurus. With a 12' charge, they can hang back and you can bait with saurus.

This is the opposite of the old strategy, which was to cram skink skirmishers in front of your enemy in order to get them to rush forward, then counter charge with the saurus/krox.

Skink/Krox blocks won't win the day on their own. And you can't use skinks to prevent krox from being charged anymore, so now it will take a bit more effort in your planning stages to get things set up.

Heaven forbid you should actually have to think about what you are doing.

lol

Now that i think about it they arent really a lot worse their just different, maybe theyll work, but strategies will certanly have to change. Not that thats a bad thing just we wont be seeing the skink hordes anymore, oh well

I don't know what you're talking about. Most lists I'm seeing that are trying to be "competitive" are still taking the usual 3 units of 10 Skirmishing Skinks w/ Blowpipes.

i am under the impression that skinks can no longer skirmish.....

am i wrong?

No, they can. they are just more expensive, and can no longer scout. New skink skirmishers are 7 pts/model, where as old skink skirmishers were 6 pts/model and the scouts were 7 pts/model.

That's right, ranked skinks got cheaper and skirmishing skinks are more expensive (I believe it's 5 / 7 points). Although that's not that much more and they can no longer scout.

Doesn't seem to make them useless, just balances things out a little bit (seems like people thought they were an incredible points value before and would hardly take saurus over them). This way people will (hopefully) take saurus and skinks!

OK, Ranked skinks just got worse. Apparently when mixed with Kroxigors, they cannot execute a "Turn Maneuver." That sucks. It makes them alot harder to use, and a lot less Maneuverable. It makes picking your fights (as I had said before) a lot harder, and makes deployment of the unit a lot more important.

Don't be such a drama queen. Not being able to turn does NOT make then "a lot worse." Unit only turn if they can't deal with fast units that get to the flank/rear. Lizardmen have lots of options to deal with said threats.

Now, if they couldn't WHEEL it would be a different story. But the loss of TURN is minor.

Zoned

Right, so answer me this. 13" away from Chaos knights. So I can't charge them, but they can charge me. What do you do in that situation? Without being able to turn, you have one option. take the charge. Wheeling won't get you anywhere. If you could turn, you could turn around, move three inches, and turn back around, putting you out of their reach.

That said... it makes sense that they can't turn with kroxigor in the unit, imho. Wouldn't seem to be fair for something that large to make that nifty of a maneuver, right?

Just my $0.02

from a fluff standpoint the no turn rule makes some sense, the lumbering beats would squish half their unti if they turned around, this also makes the unit an interesting challenge to play ( not my cup of tea but...) that said, from a tactical standpoint, the no turn rule makes things much harder, and as Arion said, can leave you with few options. my opionion is that if the kroxigor had had a more significant point reduction then this downside would be much more acceptale, but at 52? (not sure but i think this is right) points theyre a bit expensive to be hindered by no turning

To Arion:

If you know you're going to get smoked by the Chaos Knights, flee maybe?

Arion wrote:Right, so answer me this. 13" away from Chaos knights. So I can't charge them, but they can charge me. What do you do in that situation? Without being able to turn, you have one option. take the charge. Wheeling won't get you anywhere. If you could turn, you could turn around, move three inches, and turn back around, putting you out of their reach.

Well, personallyI would most likely elect to flee from the charge. Average roll for me is 7" on the flee, leaving me 20" away from their starting position, and best of all, causing them to fail their charge. Ideally, I'd have a unit placed to exploit their by now poor position...

Or of course I could apply my full attention to the game and not leave a pricey/fragile unit in such a crap position in the first place.

not been to a tourny since the new skink list has come out, but from reading it GW seem to have come up with a fare way of stopping the old skink army of death that was brought along by at least 5 people to every tourny I have been to, reqiures little to no real skill to use, and is an extreamly beardy army list. I think recent army lists have shown that GW takes notice in tournaments. For instance the chaos warriors army, hounds now not counting towards a core choice (making the old I will tak 3 cheap units of hounds, there is my core, now lets get silly with dragons e.t.c). Yes somone will come up with somthing different now, and within 6 months there will be a new Skink army of death equivalent, but for now at least it is good to see the lizard men more balanced, and saurus actually being a more viable option.

on the other point, if it was me, a unit of chaos nights 13 inches away, I to wopuld probably flee, and then take advantage of the bad position of the knights.

Actually, Chaos Warhounds never counted towards min core.

Arion wrote:Right, so answer me this. 13" away from Chaos knights. So I can't charge them, but they can charge me. What do you do in that situation? Without being able to turn, you have one option. take the charge. Wheeling won't get you anywhere. If you could turn, you could turn around, move three inches, and turn back around, putting you out of their reach.

Why not wheel enough so that if he decides to charge he will in turn get charged in the flank by the big nasty unit of saurus you have lurking off to the side?

Golga wrote:

Arion wrote:Right, so answer me this. 13" away from Chaos knights. So I can't charge them, but they can charge me. What do you do in that situation? Without being able to turn, you have one option. take the charge. Wheeling won't get you anywhere. If you could turn, you could turn around, move three inches, and turn back around, putting you out of their reach.

Why not wheel enough so that if he decides to charge he will in turn get charged in the flank by the big nasty unit of saurus you have lurking off to the side?

Or maybe just take the charge? This is a game that involves HTH combat, remember? We've been playing with the new army for a bit, since I got my preview book. Chaos knights charging skink/krox blocks hasn't been that bad. S/K start with +5 combat res. Knights get a banner and a lot of hits. Then Krox hit back hard. Last game Knights got a bad roll, then took 3 casulties, lost combat, and got run down.

One list that has been particularly tough doesn't have any saurus, or a slann. 3 skink heroes on ancient stegs, one on a terradon. S/K blocks, skirmishers, barbed razordons. Fun to play against, but beating my VC up badly.

I still say skinks built to be close combat elements are a terrible idea.. It's stuffing a square peg into a round hole, yeah with enough force and luck you might get it to stay or you could just use a round peg.
If you want combat resolution, take the saurus warriors. They were solid before and underrated, now they're just killer for their point value.
If you want to kill knights just take a unit of Kroxigor. It's cheaper and you don't have to worry about maneuvering problems or skinks feeding your opponent CR or dropping a banner on a flee reaction.
Not to mention I enjoy the added maneuverability of skink skirmishers vs rank and file units. If I wanted to play an army of large craptastic fighters in rank and file units I'd bring my skaven out..