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Been thinking recently about my pure skink army and wanted to try a whole new direction.
Currently im pouring points into vasters simply to try and minimise damage from magic.

However, my army is 90% skirmishers usually with tons of smaller units, with I4+
So in theory, large damage spells really wont hurt all that much (compared to watchin a unit of temple guard fall into a pit)

Allways been lucky against shooting as it rarely does a great deal to my army, and things like cannons and the likes either get shot to death or killed by terradons before they can do any real damage.

So, open to opinions here, but being able to free up extra points is allways nice as i can bolster units for more damage.
Only issue if other than casters, skinks dont have another lord level character, so lord choices are empty. (usually run tenehuan)

Yes it is. Despite the emphasis (overemphasis by those looking for large damage at the expense of strategy, imo) on magic, you can do a lot without worrying about magic, or taking minimal magic.

I've done it frequently with Ogres... You can't do it with VC or TK though...

Im just looking to do it with my skinks
35 more skinks just from dropping tenehuan.
So thats another 70 S3 multiple poisoned shots per turn.

I just really got tired of magic, it seems some people will pour 1/2 of the points or more into casters and units to hide them in, which is not my interest.

I rather get another 100 skinks for those points and split them into 6 or so units.
I just find i get more use from them, and its not as much of a loss when something goes bad.

If your army is fast and powerful, I'd say yes you could be quite effective


If you're dwarves, then yes thats the only way

Yes, you can. It's going to be a really tough uphill fight though.

To be honest, I think if you make sure magic can't affect you too badly, you'll do fine (or well enough) without any casters to defend you. Minimizing the effects of spells that affect whole units will help massively.

So, like you say, not taking massive deathstar units that scream "Cast Dwellers on me!" is a good start. Yeah, your opponent will get a lot less out of dragging a few skins to their doom than dozens of temple guard...

Shadow is pretty spot on there. Deathstars and big bunkers are very tasty targets for the big spells. If you spread your threats around, you reduce the impact of those big spells, plus you force your opponent to deal with multiple threats with limited resources.

It depends on the army.


You will need to compensate for not having one whole phase by making it up in the rest.

The only issue I see is packing your zone, the middle ground and then if your lucky the enemies deployment zone. I just find that doing this will allow a lot of first turn charges which might cause units to break all around you. Then your looking at a total panic and or your units runnning off the board because of clipping other units. Just a thought to add to your thought. Now you just need to work around it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
It depends on the army.


You will need to compensate for not having one whole phase by making it up in the rest.

This, pretty much. Moreover, magic is the most important phase most of the time and dominating the shooting phase isn't much of a help either as shooting tends to be rather weak in 8th (regular shooting, not war machines). You seem to go for a "fun" list anyway, but with Skinks alone you will not be able to compensate for the lack of magic, neither in the shooting phase (S3 really short range shooting isn't what people need to worry about), nor in the melee phase (skinks...).

I'm curious - what armies are capable of pulling this off, other than Lizardmen? By "this" I mean foregoing magic entirely.

 Tangent wrote:
I'm curious - what armies are capable of pulling this off, other than Lizardmen? By "this" I mean foregoing magic entirely.

Goblins, as the Little Waaagh is mostly a supportive lore (though it's a bad idea to forego a lvl 1 mage with ~+3 to each casting attempt). Ogre Kingdoms also come to my mind. WoC might also work out with enough artillery.

I think you need an army with strong fighters. High S attacks and preferrably T4 on the defense. The real problem occurs when your block is fighting another block. He will wound you on 2+ after magic buff and you will wound him on 6+ with the lore of beasts for instance. The lore of shadow as well can be really damaging.

Ogres, daemons with khorne and warriors of chaos might pull it off? Beastmen?

 Niiai wrote:
I think you need an army with strong fighters. High S attacks and preferrably T4 on the defense. The real problem occurs when your block is fighting another block. He will wound you on 2+ after magic buff and you will wound him on 6+ with the lore of beasts for instance. The lore of shadow as well can be really damaging.

Ogres, daemons with khorne and warriors of chaos might pull it off? Beastmen?

Ehhh I'd say no to beasts

The fact that they get a +1 to cast on lore of the beasts.....

Unless you go for a Minotaur list or something. Main problem with beasts unlike say daemons or warriors is that they generally lack saves. Minos cant even have heavy armor

Point for point you do not want to fight the heavy weapon/heavy armour beast units with re-roll to hit. S6 anyone? Regular ghors could do with the magic boost.

LD isnt an issue all that much as drums boost me to LD 10 when needed badly and with cold blooded, it wont be too much of an issue.
Also, LD8 with cold blooded isnt all that bad.

Combat wise skinks are nothing short of gak, but shooting phase, they really do come into their own.
2 poisoned shots each for a small price tag stacks up nicely.

Which means even big monsters drop with enough shots, and by losing magic, i gain enough shots to do that with ease.

The problem is their terrible range. Most enemies can just kep shooting magic / war machines / etc. on you while you are forced to walk across the entire board. Volume of fire is nice, but first of all, it's low S and secondly, hitting stuff isn't as easy as one would like to be.

We do have a local guy who plays an all skink army and he has yet to be even close to a victory vs. my Goblins

Low S yes, but poison tends to help out alot there.
Range is an issue i guess, and thats something that will allways pose an issue.
I simply have to pour shots into a unit to make sure its small enough to beat in combat.

Movement isnt too bad though, skinks arent all that slow and adding in the range, i should be shooting on turn 2.

Also, terradons and a skink chief with cloak help out with war machines to no end since large templates really do hurt.

 Jackal wrote:
Low S yes, but poison tends to help out alot there.
Range is an issue i guess, and thats something that will allways pose an issue.
I simply have to pour shots into a unit to make sure its small enough to beat in combat.

Movement isnt too bad though, skinks arent all that slow and adding in the range, i should be shooting on turn 2.

Also, terradons and a skink chief with cloak help out with war machines to no end since large templates really do hurt.

Depends. If your enemy knows what you're going to play, you're screwed. Skinks are vulnerable to almost everything in the game and are effective vs. barely anything. It looks awesome on the battlefield as there are TONS of models and really, Goblins vs. Skinks looks downright ridiculous - never seen so many models on the battlefield! I mean, we're debating an entirely fun army here. It's one of the weakest army lists out there, but it certainly is fun to play. That guy in our club said that he thinks about adding normal LIzardmen in though, as he claimed the list getting really boring real quick...it just lacks diversity. He struggles against every army out there bar WoC, he has a chance vs them due to their small unit size and lack of shooting.

I, personally, just Curse of da Bad Moon through them - and ye know what's mean? Re-roll 6s on hits So many Skink Chiefs w/ cloak have already died by a goblin landing right on their head...and 4 Spear Chukkaz just breeze through Teradeons at ease! What's most hilarious though: suicide squig herder units. Skinks cannot do anything against them! Even if they get close enough to kill them, they are likely to kill the herders first and boom, die in return ^_^

Oh, and moving Skinks is a major pita

Kudos for playing a fun list though!

Moving isnt an issue
Ive got my own custom movement trays for the units with pre-made spacing lol.
Decided on those after playing 2 games.
I think even a strong breeze kills a skinks, but i dislike the lizardman units.
Good in combat, but low I and just generally get shot to pieces alot of the time.
Also, i hate the giant toad, so bar those, it leaves skinks.

Started off 1st when lizardmen had a southlands list available.
However, this book killed it and left me with 16 horned one riders i now cant use


Gobbo's are a fun army, but i moved away from them after my squig army.
Was fun to paint and play, but the price started to get a bid stupid at 5k points.

Mono khorne might be able to do it

Mono-Khorne is too much of a risk - you would lose both the magic and the movement phase given that your entire army would have to rely on safely walking towards the enemy lines, giving your enemy ample time to shoot / downcast them. Furthermore, any good enemies has quite a few distractors and they are hell vs. frenzied units

 Sigvatr wrote:
Mono-Khorne is too much of a risk - you would lose both the magic and the movement phase given that your entire army would have to rely on safely walking towards the enemy lines, giving your enemy ample time to shoot / downcast them. Furthermore, any good enemies has quite a few distractors and they are hell vs. frenzied units

If you take a few units of khrone marauders, you can take on those redirecting units.
MSU khorne should work, as they won't have enough units to kite your whole army, and you would be picking up points taking out the chaff.

When people say "MSU," what size units are they really referring to?

I'd guess <20?

See, I think the term "MSU" sounds like ten models. But I can't imagine an army full of 10-model units having even the slightest chance of winning.

<20 would imply the average Chaos Warrior unit size being MSU

 Sigvatr wrote:
<20 would imply the average Chaos Warrior unit size being MSU

I'd do 10. Deploy just wide enough to maximize base to base with opponents units. With the front rank throwing out 3 attacks each, you really don't gain much from the 2nd rank anyway.
Maximizing the front rank also limits how many units get caught up with frenzy.

-Matt

MUs could also mean to a lot of movement control in the way of small redirecters.

Small units if they are to do some damage needs high I.