8th Ed. Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth it?

7 points a Skink seems steep. I'd be worried a small cohort would die too quickly to get many poison hits in and a large Cohort would be prohibitively expensive.

Anyone else have any thoughts on how to make it worth it, either from actual play experience or from theoryhammer.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

I think it's overpriced and is worth 1 point, not 2. Since a large unit of skinks for combat is probably a terrible idea, maybe a unit of 12 cohorts with poison would be useful. That makes a unit worth 84 points. The way I would use it would be to use shoot + stand and shoot + hopefully striking first to get 36 poison attacks (60 with blowpipes) before you get attacked back, depending on the unit. VERY situational, but I could see a use for it.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

For me it really boils down to: If your paying 7 points for your skink which special rule do you like better? Poison or skirmisher (both with poisoned shooting)?

Interesting comparison: Ghouls VS Poison-Skinks

Ghouls have:
+1 WS, +2T, +1A, Undead

Skinks have:
30% less points per model, +2M, +3BS and ranged weapon options, +1I, 6+ save with an option for shields for a 5+ save and 6+ parry, standard, musician and Kroxigor options, not undead, Coldblooded, aquatic

I know you can't necessarily draw too many conclusions in a cross-book comparison like this but I think the skinks actually aren't too bad comparatively. Your essentially trading in some offensive performance for more speed, adaptability and manoeuvrability, with +1 WS, +2 T VS a 5+ save, a 6+ ward and being cheaper per wound seeming pretty much a wash to me for defenses, maybe even with the advantage to the skinks.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

I think its viable, tho you have to know what to put them up against. Is it overpriced? Yes since skinks only put out an attack a piece, but horde skinks throw enough attacks to give you the feeling your getting your points out of it. I like the idea of a 40 man brick with a krox or two and a chief with the skaven banner in the group. Prolly a total point sink but the idea is pretty fun.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

Actually, I have used a 30 x Skink cohort with 3 Kroxigors & poisoned attacks and it have been pretty successful unit at least against OnG. I ate a unit of Savage Orcs with no problem. And in my games those little Skinks have done more than my Krox : D But I think it depends much of your dice rolls too if it's worth it or not, but I'm going to use poisons in the future even if it's a bit expensive

Besides: If you look to get poisoned attacks in (for example) OnG army, you get them only with a magic banner you have to but to your BSB, so that's going to cost you on the cheapest 140pts (BSB with no shield, armor..). Even in a horde of 40 Night Goblins it's 3,5pts per model for poisoned attacks.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

Oh so even thought Javelins come with poison, the Hand Weapons don't by default? I need to read my army book more...

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

I'm planning on giving a skrox unit a go with poison on the skinks, I think the double threat of the krox and the poisoned attacks could be interesting to tery out. especially with a chief in the unit to help it stick around

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

I'm with pgarfunkle, I too have used Chief in Skrox unit with poisoned attacks. What were you planning to put on him? I have used him as my BSB, and gave him blowpipe, LA, shield, ironcurse icon and sacred stegadon helm of Itza.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

I've used a unit of 16 with 2 krox/std/muso in smaller point games so far. I like them and think they have a place in my army so far.

To max out their capabilities I usually move them up with-in javelin long range shots, pluck away with them, Stand and shoot on the charge next turn, then have the poison attacks in combat this gives me three chances at a six, the way I see it, per skink. If my opponent happens to flub his charge roll, back them up on my turn to 12 inch range then rinse and repeat the process.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

Seems pretty expensive in a Skrox unit, you're paying for skink poison in ranks filled by the krox.
Comparing to goblins is tough; because they don't start off with poisoned shooting.
You get more than twice as much useage out of the goblin banner, because you get it on 18" range shooting, that can volley fire.
The other problem with comparing to goblins is that it isn't all that useful of a buy. You'd be better off with other BSB builds.
IMO, the poison attacks are worth about 1 point. Over paying 1 point isn't going to break the bank, I just wouldn't try it spammed out for your core.
The real problem with it is that targets that poison works best against; poison shooting takes care of just fine.

As for the Chief, give him a Javelin, he throws it at S4.

-Matt

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

never thought of using the skaven banner in skroc units maybe for the lols

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

Unfortunately, kroxigor in the second rank still only get their three supporting attacks, so only the skinks would benefit from frenzy-at the high points cost and additional restriction of preventing your BsB from taking magic armour, I really feel the skavenpelt banner would have to be used on a much more powerful unit to be worth having. More specifically, a horde of saurus or temple guard, preferably with an extra character or two added.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

So been tinkering with the concept of poisoned cohorts some more and am looking at running:

40x Skinks (Javelin and shield) - Poison, standard, musician
ranked as a horde 10x4

This comes to 300pts. Strategy being to move to just within max range and shoot, the enemy then needs to decide whether to try a long-distance charge and possibly give you a free stand-and-shoot if it fails or to try and close the distance, if they don't make the charge you can move into short-range and fire again, followed by a stand and shoot at short range.

Then, after they've taken all these poisoned shots, they have to face down up to 30 more poisoned attacks from the unit with a decent initiative (potentially allowing them to get the first strike in).

All in all it looks like the potential for a lot of poison! I thought about adding krox but they seriously cut down on the weight-of-poison angle, costing you 2 poisoned shots and 4 poisoned attacks each, combined with being fairly pricy and giving the unit the PF liability (not a big concern, but something to remember, especially with a big horde unit).

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

Dreadgrass said:

Then, after they've taken all these poisoned shots, they have to face down up to 30 more poisoned attacks from the unit with a decent initiative (potentially allowing them to get the first strike in).

Click to expand...

Lets see how this works against 300 points worth of saurus. That would be about 25 saurus +fc in a 6 wide formation, it gives us something to compare to at least

So the skinks move up and shoot at long range, Lets assume they are horded up and get 20 shots at long range and are quick to fire:
20 shots = 3.33 poison hits and 3.33 hits = 4.44 wounds
after armor saves that means 2.22 wounds

Then the saurus charge, in order for second rank to get shots they must be within 11 inches, so lets assume the saurus can roll a 7, They are quick to fire so no penalty from the stand and shoot, but still long range so another 2.22 wounds

Average 4.5 saurus are dead, then melee happens, skinks go first
20 melee attacks hitting on 4+ (6+ poison) wounding on 5+ armor save on 4+, parry save on 6+
2.3 wounds (would have been 1.4 without pioson)

So by the time the saurus strike, they have suffered about 7 casualties, this is better than i would have expected

19 attacks hitting on 3+ wounding 3+ armor save 6+ parry save 6+ = 5.9 wounds

Skinks lose but are steadfast. Combat continues with the skinks losing steadfast on the third round of combat as they both have 2 ranks left, but overall is actually a decent fight where they kill half the saurus before losing steadfast.

This is assuming average numbers and a successful charge by the saurus. A failed charge would have meant another round of shooting and another stand and shoot, which means the skinks would have won the combat handily with half the saurus dead before they get their first strike.

This math worked out much better for the poison skinks than i expected actually

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

There should be 24 attacks from theskinks, not that it changes the math much.

8 models in contact vs a 6 wide formation and 2 ranks of supporting attacks due to horde

Do hordes shoot in an extra rank too?

A skink bsb with eternal flame might be a good idea.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

Question was though, is poison upgrade worth it.

From the maths a couple of posts back, a lot of the damage looks to be coming from S&S rather than combat, which of course is exactly the same without the upgrade.

Though I am now tempted by a horde of 30 cohort with no poison.... not too points heavy and can certainly throw some shooting power!

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

Math-hammer:

70 Skinks WITHOUT poison
50 Skinks WITH poison
Both cost 350, assuming to-hit roll of 4+:

Against Toughness 2 enemy:
23.33 vs 19.44 wounds
Poison Skinks deliver 16.66% LESS wounds

Against Toughness 3 enemy:
17.50 vs 16.66 wounds
Poison Skinks deliver 4.8% LESS wounds

Against Toughness 4 enemy:
11.66 vs 13.88 wounds
Poison Skinks deliver 19.04% MORE wounds

Against Toughness 5 enemy:
5.83 vs 11.11 wounds
Poison Skinks deliver 90.57% MORE wounds

The higher the enemy WS and Toughness, the more valuable poison becomes.
Question:
What enemy has T4 or above with no or little AS? +19% and +90% seems like a pretty good deal to me
I feel that while fighting T3 enemy, -4.8% is nowhere near a big price to pay.


This calculation has a built-in assumption of all Skinks will be attacking. In a real game, 14 Skinks (2x7) without poison vs 10 Skinks (2x5) with poison, will yield the same %.

However if you have a third row, which is not attacking, depending on unit size, you are paying 2 points per model for no benefit. For example, a unit of 20 Skinks in 5 wide x 4 rows. You will be paying 40 points for only 10 poison attacks. The higher the number of rows, the more expensive poison will relatively be.

Conclusion: I think poison is best given to Skink Cohort units no more than 2 rows deep, versus T4 or above enemy.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

Monsterous infantry...

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

im to lazy to do math but how in the world would they do less wounds then non poison skinks? where they lose wounds do to poison?

@ gapton

Did short caculations and dont get your numbers at all
Whats the formation? was there kroxigors?
In my math poison skinks always do more wounds.

Re: Does anyone think giving a Skink Cohort poison is worth

skillfull_dan said:

So by the time the saurus strike, they have suffered about 7 casualties, this is better than i would have expected

19 attacks hitting on 3+ wounding 3+ armor save 6+ parry save 6+ = 5.9 wounds

Skinks lose but are steadfast. Combat continues with the skinks losing steadfast on the third round of combat as they both have 2 ranks left, but overall is actually a decent fight where they kill half the saurus before losing steadfast.

This is assuming average numbers and a successful charge by the saurus. A failed charge would have meant another round of shooting and another stand and shoot, which means the skinks would have won the combat handily with half the saurus dead before they get their first strike.

This math worked out much better for the poison skinks than i expected actually

Click to expand...

You forgot predotary fighter so it would be ~6.7W per round for saurus
So actualy on first round saurus woud to the same damage that skinks managed to do with CC+ 2shooting rounds.