Yeah, the Skink Cloud was an overperforming build. For better or for worse, the Ninth Age is very focused on balance - it was developed by the two major tournament organizers in Europe, after all, so creating army lists that are balanced in a competitive environment is a high priority. For myself, I actually appreciate that. My friends and I are "casual players" in the sense that we don't go to tournaments, but we've never had a category of "friendly games" like I hear other people talk about. We pretty much pull out every dirty trick in the book to win. And that's a lot of fun, as long as everyone's got dirty tricks and can win. It got real old, before the Ninth Age came along, always facing the same logic: "I can take more Skinks, and probably win, or I can try anything else and definitely lose." So I'm all for creating a balanced game. Balance, for me, is an important part of the game being fun. Regarding the points cost, with the version 1.2 release T9A moved to doubling the points of everything. It makes math simpler, because instead of having 1/2 points you can now have all whole points. So that's probably why you see that discrepancy.
When stating that the Skink cloud list was over-performing, is that in reference to internal or external balance? In terms of external balance (as in compared to other armies) that is definitely not true. Lizardmen were a healthy middle tier army. They were definitely not over-performing as compared to the top tier powerhouse armies. In terms of internal balance, I'd have to agree somewhat because the skink cloud was definitely the most dominate choice. That said others such as @protector used large numbers of Saurus to great effect. So perhaps it was the case that Saurus were misused or unfairly given a bad rap. There is a great thread on the topic found HERE In my personal opinion, we actually had a more viable selection of core in 8th than in T9A. T9A Saurian Ancient core seems much more limited.
I reckon it's all those restrictions we suddenly got, because of all them clouds. Why every other units had to be penalized for it has well, is beyond me. I suppose statistics don't lie and we are an acceptable army, when comparing all around; this is obviously not an excuse if we have become a bore to play, because of balancing restrictions.
those restrictions will only drive the way to build an army into one list only. Why bows are limited ? Other army can have better archers units with illimited bows number. I'm not complaining, i search for answers in such choices.
As far as I know, the armies have been assign certain traits (features if one will) that should be essential for the armies design. I guess that those armies with better ranged choices, were chosen to be the armies that should prevail in the shooting face, more so than SA...
I don't think that the skink clouds were all that bad to begin with. We had full access to skink clouds under 8th edition and Lizardmen were a middle tier army. They didn't make us overpowered. Lizardmen have always had a very limited selection of core as compared to many other armies. So when T9A further restricted it, it was an automatic deal breaker (for me). I feel that someone over there has a specific play style in mind for Lizardmen and unfortunately that style is incongruent with what Lizardmen have been historically.
I think the Cloud was overperforming externally. It was a little complicated to judge, because you can't just judge by how the Lizardmen/SA did in tournaments, you had to split it up by what kind of army. The Cloud was also way overperforming internally, which was reason to nerf it. It'd be nice if they nerfed it and buffed something else, but they tried to first nerf all the strong builds down to equal levels with the less-popular builds, then buff stuff back up to an externally balanced army. A lot of the problems in our army right now are because of the fact that they didn't nerf it hard enough to begin with. The real hit to the Cloud came in version 0.11 or so, which didn't give us enough time to adjust properly. ...now, I can't deny that I think the Cloud isn't that bad, and it mystifies me a little that weakening it has been such a focus. But I kept hearing that the Cloud was too much from people who actually play in tournaments - which I don't. So I don't know. Finally, while I wish the Skinks in Core were more useful, I'm actually thrilled that Saurus are finally being widely used to fill out the Core, and I think the MSU Saurus lists that are becoming popular are a really interesting development. If that ends up being a common build, I think that would be totally appropriate for jungle warriors.
Unfortunately they didn't just nerf it, they outright killed it. I think an increase in points would have been a more acceptable approach. That's just replacing one "ideal/common" build for another. That said, if T9A players find it to be a refreshing build, then it's a good change for their community.
To be quite honest, I think the issue with skink cloud wasn't its performance itself. Rather, the issue is how frustrating it can be to play against. Doubly so when you have opponents making huge deathstars, that just get redirected completely off the board, not even earned back a 10th of their cost, because of cheap, quick and damaging skirmishers. Even if a style like that is "underpowered", it just feels more like cheating to most opponents, so I can see why it would get nerfed this badly. This is even more evident, when you see that people are STILL complaining about what little poisoned skirmishers we have left. People don't want paper to exist. They want to bang their rocks against other rocks, or crush the scissors. The dumb thing is, that a jaguar MSU Saurus army does mostly the same thing, sans the poisoned shooting, so that will likely see some heavy changes in the next update as well. So far my opponents have absolutely hated the mass amount of high T units that all but ensure that a charge will end up in a double or triple charge, removing steadfast and rank bonuses, and generally just being super annoying to deal with. I frequently field twice the amount of units my opponents do, so I have full control of the deployment phase, and I will almost always get the setup I want.
Surely if this is the case, we would need a rule change not an army completely being rendered unplayable... Unfortunately I believe the rules are desire, by most of the community, to remain as it is, with no to little change in the manner of how the game is played. Especially in the movement face
The cloud neutralizing death stars is a good thing. Perhaps these people are confusing skill with cheating: "hey... stop using strategy & tactics against me! " Very true!