AoS Skink heavy 1500pts for first Age of Sigmar Game

So I wrote up an idea for a 1000 point Skink army earlier and got some feedback. Tomorrow I'll (finally) play my first game, so I'm looking forward to trying a Seraphon army. Amped it to 1500 points, would like to see what your thoughts were.

• Shadowstrike Starhost (120 points)
• Slann Starmaster (General, Strategic Genius, Talisman of Blinding Light, 260 points)
• Skink Starpriest (Talisman of Blinding Light, 100 points)
• Engine of the Gods (Phoenix Stone, 240 points)
• Skink Chief (Relic Blade, 60 points)
  
• Skink Chief (Relic Blade, 60 points)
• 20 Skink Boltspitters (Boltspitters & Star Bucklers, 160 points)
• 20 Skink Boltspitters (Boltspitters & Star Bucklers, 160 points)
• 3 Ripperdactyl Riders (140 points)
• 10 Saurus Guard (200 points)

I don't like the Chameleon Skink or Saurus Guard heavy lists, and really wanted to go heavy on the Skinks - since I just like the idea of fielding a big pile of them. We might be an Order army, but I want to cause chaos in their ranks, by pulling them apart and distracting them. I figure the longer I drag this out, the more bolts my Skinks can get in and the more damage I can get done with my Engine.

The Shadowstrike Starhost is too good to pass up, I feel, with Stealthy Advance and The Trap Is Sprung respectively as a strong positioning tool and maximum damage efficiency. The Rippers are strong, but I think they'll be glass canons. Deal enough damage in the first turn (maybe take out a character) and at the least, distract them enough for a turn for my Skinks to get in range and do damage. The two Skink Chiefs are there to enable the two units of 20 Skinks. The presence of the chiefs, plus the fact that there are 20 models per unit makes them hit at a 3+(?), upping the chances to wound with those pesky 6'es.

The Engine of the Gods and the Starpriest go together, the latter buffing the former. When combat happens, this beast should be able to do some damage, the Phoenix Stone and the Starpriest in its vicinity hopefully prolonging the presence (and the damage done).

Finally, I succumbed and added some Saurus Guard. They are just so damn mean, I feel like they serve as a last resort for protecting the Slann or assist the Engine if things get worse.

I don't know. I really like the idea of a Skink army (and I think I buffed them as much as I can), but what do you think my chances are with this list? Love to hear your thoughts!

I really like this list, looks like a lot of fun and quick paced, but I think the chiefs aren't too useful here. As neither of them is general, they don't add to your skinks, they would act as arcane vassals for the slann, which is good, but you could cast through your priest. I believe with Strategic genius only let's the slann use his gift from the heavens and inspiring presence together, not the command abilities of other models. Unfortunately I think in this case a unit of chameleons would serve you better.

I have only been watching and reading AoS so far so I am nothing close to a strategist but wouldn't this army have serious issues against elite armies with small amount of models ?

I cannot see how anything besides EotG and guards of this list will survive after a single round of attack from an offensive army ? Or even things like zombies if it stuck to combat with them somehow ?

I don't remember the wording exactly, but you cannot have all your heroes carrying artefacts. You would get one as standard, and then another one from your starhost battalion- the other three heroes would lose their artefacts.

Bowser said:

I really like this list, looks like a lot of fun and quick paced, but I think the chiefs aren't too useful here. As neither of them is general, they don't add to your skinks, they would act as arcane vassals for the slann, which is good, but you could cast through your priest. I believe with Strategic genius only let's the slann use his gift from the heavens and inspiring presence together, not the command abilities of other models. Unfortunately I think in this case a unit of chameleons would serve you better.

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Didn't read well enough on the roll of the Skink Chief, but yes, they are essentially worthless. Since I do not own any Chameleon Skinks, I decided to add five more guard.

Seraphage said:

I have only been watching and reading AoS so far so I am nothing close to a strategist but wouldn't this army have serious issues against elite armies with small amount of models ?

I cannot see how anything besides EotG and guards of this list will survive after a single round of attack from an offensive army ? Or even things like zombies if it stuck to combat with them somehow ?

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Fair point, and my biggest worry as well. I scrapped the Chiefs and added five more guard. I lose 20 points, but I gain a ton of wounds, so I think I actually gain some sustain. The success of this army will of course depend on the enemy and how I play it. The Stegadon and the Guard should keep them in place, while the Skinks pepper them with bolts.

InfamousBeany said:

I don't remember the wording exactly, but you cannot have all your heroes carrying artefacts. You would get one as standard, and then another one from your starhost battalion- the other three heroes would lose their artefacts.

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Yeah, the wording confused me. That's fine, I think my Slann & the EotG are the only ones that should have one, the Priest is fine.

TL;DR: I got massacred versus a 1500 points Death Army, ended on a draw because of time limits and summoning.

Longer version:

So yeah, playing against a Death army sucks, I presume, but due to some newbie mistakes and the sheer silliness that is Age of Sigmar, it sucked even more. The Death army had several skeletons, Vlad & Isabella, Terrorgheist, Zombie Dragon, and some drunk Giant (?). And then I made some mistakes:

• I rolled for first turn, but due to inexperience and the thought that I could let him come (because of his slow movement), so I gave him first turn. That cost me the game there for several reasons: no buffs, no damage, no shooting, nothing.
• I misread on my Skinks and every shooting phase I looked at their melee "to wound" stats instead of ranged. Or how to make a useless unit more useless.

So, Death first turn, the Vargheist flies in, together with his Zombie Dragon. After some shooting & charging, my Engine of the Gods was gone. The cornerstone of my army, decimated, annihilated, dead.

Seraphon first turn, I try to resummon the Engine (fail), cast Mystic Shield on the Guard and Arcane Bolt on the Vargheist. The Starpriest cast his Starlight on the Guard as well. Shot his Giant with one pair of Skinks, shot the Zombie Dragon with the other - no result whatsoever. 0 hits - partly because of the stupid melee stats, but also because the Skinks are just worthless in dealing damage, as was my biggest fear. Ripperdactyls swoop in on Vlad, to keep him busy, deals measly damage (1 wound, which he heals because Undead armies). The Guard charges the Terrorgheist, and bottom line - I deal a ton of damage (9 out of a total of 14 wounds to kill him) and he decimates my unit - even though the high save rolls and routs them. Yeah, routing Saurus Guard (Bravery 12, +1 on save rolls), didn't know it was possible - it is.

FIRST ROUND RESULT: 1 Ripper dead, 5 Skinks Dead, Engine of the Gods dead, Saurus Guard dead/routed, 9 wounds on Terrorgheist

He got to go first in the second turn, and I figured that was the game - if not for the fact that the Terrorgheist and Zombie Dragon fail at wiping out my Slann due to bad attack rolls and good save rolls. Brought him to 5 out of 7 wounds. I get some damage on the Terrorgheist (12 wounds out of 14 wounds), his Giant engages my Skinks, my Ripperdactyls are eliminated.

When we rolled for the third turn, I got to go again and started summoning - I summoned the Engine, 5 guard and the Rippers. And that's when he offered a draw. I got to kill the Terrogheist in the end and do some damage on the Giant and the Zombie Dragon. With my Engine back in play and his skeletons, Vlad & Isabella far away - it could've gone a long way still, but it felt like I should've lost.

That sucks, looks like he brought a fairly heavy hitting army. But that just leaves room to see what did work and what didn't. How to make this better, I might not be a big skink player, but aside from squishiness they can be quite good. It seems like you were playing with free sunmoning though, so if you had no assigned points to summoning you could have used the engine to successfully get some of your other beasts up there. Using 4 dice with the engine near the slann you should be able to pick summoning pretty well every turn if you wanted to.
So what did you think worked well here?

Bowser said:

That sucks, looks like he brought a fairly heavy hitting army. But that just leaves room to see what did work and what didn't. How to make this better, I might not be a big skink player, but aside from squishiness they can be quite good. It seems like you were playing with free sunmoning though, so if you had no assigned points to summoning you could have used the engine to successfully get some of your other beasts up there. Using 4 dice with the engine near the slann you should be able to pick summoning pretty well every turn if you wanted to.
So what did you think worked well here?

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The Rippers did their job keeping Vlad & Isabella busy. I wasn't able to do much damage, but they were occupied for 2 turns and couldn't buff the big units. The Guard would've eviscerated the skeletons for sure and my Skinks were able to "hit twice" with their wary fighter trait. The Slann was every effective as well. I wish I would've seen the Engine in action, to determine if it was any good.

Stahlax said:

• I misread on my Skinks and every shooting phase I looked at their melee "to wound" stats instead of ranged. Or how to make a useless unit more useless.

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That was not good...
however: yeah, your opponent brought a strong army, zombie dragon, terrorgheist and giant are no joke.

That said, skinks can be very effective, if properly used. Have you seen my thread on tactics about core troops? it's somewhat outdated in some aspects if you play matched games with points as in the General's Handbook, but still accurate for friendly games as your.
In the first page you'll find suggestions for skinks.

Killer Angel said:

That was not good...
however: yeah, your opponent brought a strong army, zombie dragon, terrorgheist and giant are no joke.

That said, skinks can be very effective, if properly used. Have you seen my thread on tactics about core troops? it's somewhat outdated in some aspects if you play matched games with points as in the General's Handbook, but still accurate for friendly games as your.
In the first page you'll find suggestions for skinks.

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I'll make sure to check it out! I was quite annoyed at my mistakes, but then again, first game. And I didn't actually lose. So yay!

Stahlax said:

I was quite annoyed at my mistakes, but then again, first game.

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Don't worry. I'm playing since years and I can assure you that there will always be something that you will forget.

Alright, so I've been thinking that I want to give this army in its current installation another go. I am considering putting all my Skinks in one big unit of 40. A to hit roll of 3+ gives me more shooting power, while I can effectively position them as a screen in front of my army. In my last game, I placed two units to the side, leaving my Engine in the middle on elevated ground - leaving it open for a direct charge of almost 24" by the Terrorgheist & Zombie Dragon.

Stahlax said:

Alright, so I've been thinking that I want to give this army in its current installation another go. I am considering putting all my Skinks in one big unit of 40. A to hit roll of 3+ gives me more shooting power, while I can effectively position them as a screen in front of my army. In my last game, I placed two units to the side, leaving my Engine in the middle on elevated ground - leaving it open for a direct charge of almost 24" by the Terrorgheist & Zombie Dragon.

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You may want to use a skink chief as general for this one, that way it's a 3+ and when you start losing skinks you still have a bonus. And if you can get chameleons or another group of 10 skinks you can throw down the shadowstrike again.

Played another game tonight, 2000 points this time versus Nurgle.

• Shadowstrike Starhost (120 points)
• Skink Chief (General, Relic Blade, 60 points)
  
• Slann Starmaster (Talisman of Blinding Light, 260 points)
• Skink Starpriest (100 points)
• Engine of the Gods (Talisman of Blinding Light, 240 points)
• 40 Skink Boltspitters (Boltspitters & Star Bucklers, 320 points)
• 20 Skink Boltspitters (Boltspitters & Star Bucklers, 160 points)
• 20 Saurus Guard (400 points)
• 3 Ripperdactyl Riders (140 points)
  
• Troglodon (200)

Lost this game, even though it was really tight. The Skinks dealt damage, kept some Drones, Nurglings & Plaguebearers in place, my Guard absolutely eviscerated their side of the board. In my last round, however, I lost my Troglodon, Slann, Engine and 3/4 of my Guard - so I conceded. I killed half his army, but his Great Unclean Ones survived with one wound each and regenerated next turn. Rolled really poorly on turn choice (3 times 1...), my magic (only cast one spell with my Slann) and the Troglodon was really poor in both shooting and combat, due to bad rolls. Happens!

Maybe better dropping the 20 unit of skinks as the wont get any bonus in numbers and as soon as they loose a model.

Get an eternity warden (will also protect your slan)

Use 15 guard split into 3 groups of 5 and get the eternal star host?

Drop the troglodon

Get two units of 5 chamo skinks or 1 of 10 (I prefer five as they are easier to get into cover) but ten means that both skink unit ls (chamo and your normal 40 unit) will be in the shadow stike star host.

You will still have alot of skinks on the feild but I feel like this set up would synergise better with each other.

Nurgle can be a real pain, with all the regeneration the units have they can sometimes outlast a bastiladon. Too bad about the rolls and your slann and trog underperforming. That's the way the dice bounces though. So what would you change about this army?

Having one formation in your army you are allowed to have two artifacts, not three.

Buldi said:

Having one formation in your army you are allowed to have two artifacts, not three.

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Yeah, I didn't use three, only two - was an error in copying and pasting. But thanks.

• Skink Patrol (140)
• Skink Chief (General, 60)
• Skink Starpriest (100)
• Skink Priests (100)
• 30 Skinks Boltspitters (240)
• 10 Skink Boltspitters (80)
• 3 Terradon Riders (140)
• Stegodon (260)
• 10 Chameleon Skinks (240)
• 3 Kroxigors

1st Round my turn first.

Killed wrap lightning cannon by deadly cargo and finished. Chameleons. Terradin shoot Two Rat Ogres and charged on poisoned wind mortar weapon team and kill it) 30 skinks menage to kill worlock Engeener (Boltspitters). He left with clann rats, worlord chaos Warriors and hero, warpfire thrower and packmaster. Good rolls.