So, I was thinking about this - Frenzied saurus warriors. That could be fun, 3 attacks instead of 2? They only get 4M, so it'd be hard to frenzy bait them cause your opponent needs to get in real close, and if you provide enough shooting support you can take out the real soft targets that would pull your warriors out of position.... now the other part of my assumption is that you can add more than one character to a unit, I believe I read that. So, the list: Heroes ScarVet on Cold One, LA, BBoC, EnchSh. Skink Chief, LA, Shield, BSB, Skavenpelt Banner. Skink Priest, Lv2, Diadem, Dispel Scroll Core 15 Warriors, Spears, Full Command 10 Skirmishers 10 Skirmishers Special 5 Cavalry, Standard Bearer, Plaque of Dominion 6 Chameleon Skinks 3 Terradons Rare Salamander w/ Extra Handler Total Points: 1249 I'm going mostly magic defensive, including adding the plaque on the cavalry for dealing with lower leadership casters. Terradons and Skinks can also be part of my active magic defense, trying to find any lone mages and war machines. The skinks will support the warriors mostly, softening up units trying to bait them - and my salamander I usually just roam the field with trying for the best possible flame shots.
Only one problem: the BSB is squishy. Dead skink chief = no frenzy and a loss of about 200 points. Other than that I can see it working, but it might be tough.
Now... this is where I'm not 100% clear when it comes to close combat. If I have the skink in there with my scar vet, and a champion as well - I'm definitely protected from shooting (look out sir), and they'd have to get through my champion and scar vet first as well before getting to my chief when it comes to challenges. But then there's model that's directly in base contact with my chief... he can choose to direct his attacks at the chief still, correct? That's where the concern about a squishy BSB comes in?
Yep, any model in base to base contact with the skink BSB can direct their attacks at him. Any additional wounds that happen if they kill if are not counted, but he can still be hit and thus killed.
Well, make sure your unit champion and scar vet are on either side of him, and always challenge with one of them if there's a character in the unit. Make sure there's never anything other than a rank and file in position to strike him, and cross your fingers.
Eep... think I might have found one minor issue with my plan about this list... though I'm not sure entirely how the rules might apply. 'a frenzied character must declare a charge and leave a unit he is with if the unit is not declaring a charge that turn and there are enemies within charge reach of the character' Since my scarvet would have a charge range of 14", and my chief would have a charge range of 12", and then warriors only 8".... I'd actually have to charge with my vet first, then my chief... and then my warriors would be coming up behind, and not be frenzied anymore? And my scarvet would lose his frenzy once he left the unit, correct? So I might get an extra attack in the charge round, but after that would be attacking at 4 attacks only. Or is it because they're only frenzied due to the banner this rule doesn't apply, and I can just use a 8" charge range. Also, if you lose a combat round - will you lose frenzy on that unit for the rest of the game, or due to the permanent nature of the banner - does it reapply frenzy?
You're right that the characters would have to charge out of the unit if they were in range and the saurus weren't. That will make things awfully difficult for this plan... I'm guessing that the frenzy is gone for good if the unit loses combat. For other items, like the Carnosaur Pendant, it specifically says that the frenzy lasts even if combat is lost. It's a similar situation with WoC; the Mark of Khorne just gives them regular frenzy which can get beaten out of them, but they also have a banner that grants it and the book goes out of it's way to state they can't lose it. This gives me an idea, though... What about a unit of 4+ Kroxigor with the Skavenpelt Chief? The whole unit moves the same, and giving the Chief an extra hand weapon and the Krox a champion makes for a ton of attacks coming the enemies way. It'd have to be screened well, but could turn out to be a heck of a hammer unit. Any thoughts or experience on this?
I've not - krox are a bit too expensive for me to try out for novelty purposes... Speaking of screening though, if I got real creative with my skirmishers - I could potentially block LOS on my chief and scarvet, until my warriors got within 8" of the enemy... though I'd definitely be running a risk of getting my skirmishers fleeing through my warrior block - or if I'm lucky they could get charged and expose a flank. Something like. S-S -S-S-S-S ---------S-S-S-S then.......V-C-W-W-W (and rank the rest of the block behind) In theory, if an enemy were to charge my skinks, they'd almost end up lining up offset enough that their flank could be exposed. And since part of my warrior block has LOS past the skinks, I could technically declare a charge - move the skirmishers out of the way, and then the charge would succeed, correct? I believe that's covered by the FAQ, or am I getting my sequence of moves mixed up.
Just tried this in a game with 3 krox, one of them a champion... Meh. I hit a big line of Chaos Nurgle knights in the flank as they were attacking my Saurus. His character was right on the end where they hit, and I accepted the inevitable challenge with the krox champion. Long story short, he killed the champ on the second round and broke the saurus to win the game for himself. Hindsight being what it is, I should have declined the challenge. Whichever guy of mine he chose to retire from the fight, the other three characters could have done enough wounds to finish him on the charge. I thought the Krox champ with his five attacks could do the job, but underestimated the power of the super armor he had. I'll try it again eventually, but it's definitely not a tactic I'd stake a game on just yet.