I got a bunch of chameleon skinks, but no that I'm putting them together I'm starting to wonder, how exactly are you supposed to use them? I mean, yes obviously they are assasins and should sneak up on something high value and kill it. But there's 3 issues. 1) they're not that long ranged 2) Their damage isn't exactly impressive for an assasin. On average they'l only do 3-4 wounds before save-rolls. 3) They're squishy. So what exactly do you use them for? They don't have the raw firepower to truly blow anything up (reliably). They don't have the range to be able to attack safely, with only 16" it is far too easy for return fire or a charge to reach them. And at 1 wound/model even with a 3+ save in cover they'l quickly lose firepower as they get killed of.
put some ripperdactyles with them and the shadowstrike host, the rippers will "tank" the enemies while ur skinks are safe and shoots for days! + the rippers really pack a punsh so they should be able to wipe out anything of your choosing
I used them as 2 units of 5 and pop them in cover but on opposite sides of the target (if one target) if possible, they are very resilient, shooting is good but not brilliant. I think of them as a tie up unit your opponent will want to kill them asap and that is a great tactic 120 points to tie up a more expensive unit for a few turns.
So basicly not so much assasins as skirmish/harasement troops, essentially a more mobile and annoying variant of normal skinks then. Not entirely what I had hoped for, but that could work. Though they might be hilarious against a melee focused army on a battlefield with loads of impassable terrain. Keep running around in circles
They are definitely game changing, try our battle report forum, they were decisive in all 3 I ve uploaded !
Definitely more for harrassing and distraction, but can take out some of the smaller heroes, or can help rippers out with big monsters.
Their deployment is so flexible that there must be 100 uses for them, all of them highly situational For example: Problem - you want your Ripperdactyls to kill something big and important but your opponent will block them with grot fanatics Solution - deploy a screen of Chameleon skinks right next to the unit of grots, as soon as they put the fanatics in place to charge they are within 3" of your skinks and hence may not declare a charge on the rippers. They are a blocking/harassment light infantry unit - but taken to the level of elite commando light infantry. Also their ability to re-position onto an objective anywhere on the table looks really sweet!
Mmm I agree just not what I was expecting. Expected a full blown glass cannon assasin. But they seem to be far more of a general nuisance skirmishy kind of unit for harrasement and or taking objectives. Also, they seem have the same issue that our saurus guard have.. too few wounds (or models) in a unit which causes mortal wounds to wreck havoc on them. Which is kind of annoying for a fairly fancy "elite" unit. Having 5 wounds in total for an entire "elite" unit is just a tad bit low when you have mortal wound mechanics... On that note, I heard our battletome was one of the earliest to come out. Were mortal wounds increadibly rare back then or something? Looking at other elite units that usually have 2 or 3 wounds while not having that much worse a save it feels odd that ours are so low and feels like the balancing approach was different.
I killed skaabrand with a unit of 10 in one round of shooting once so they can be very effective, good for killing wizards who have low armour/wounds our just softening up something before your rippers hit them in a shadowstrike. They are game winners if you use them properly but you really have to think hard about positioning and target selection
Against the skarbrand you were Lucky but yes it's definitly a possibility. Especially against daemons. Wizards are probably the only hero they can sort of reliably snipe as those tend to have low armour and wounds. And yeah, I can see them being usefull, just in different ways than originally anticipated.
I 've played 12 games so far. I have 6 Major Victories. Chameleons were the reason in all 6. *literally
I think with Chameleons utilising their Chameleon Ambush and Disappear from Sight rules is key. Given that there's no restriction on how far from the enemy you need to be when Ambushing you can redeploy to cap objectives pretty reliably and it allows you to plop down close to supporting casters you'd normally see in a backfield role and fill them with darts (hi there Sayl!). I haven't had any play time with these guys so that's just a bit of theory-hammer, but given how many games have some kind of objectives to claim I think they're pretty good.