AoS 4th Edition is nearly here...

Yeah, Skinks are in a weird place right now. I think the reason they still got used in 3e was that Saurus still weren't as good as comparable units in other armies despite the buffs, and you still had a lot of people really wanting to lean into the "flood objectives with cheap bodies" playstyle that Seraphon had been doing since 1e. Plus, we still had the mortal wounds buff from the Starpriest so you could still push out a little bit of damage from sheer weight of dice rolls. In 4e, that's all gone. Even a unit of 20 Skinks shooting into a very squishy target is maybe going to do 1 or 2 damage, lol! And their melee isn't any better. They're pure screens now and they're just not very good screens.

Probably the most jarring thing about our army in 3 and going into 4e was the almost total removal of good shooting. We went from having Skinks raining mortal wounds, Salamanders cutting through tough targets and double-firing Bastiladons to being lucky to get 2-3 damage out of any of our "good" shooting units currently.

 

Yes they got rid of our good shooting to hurt our ability to play castle style, and tried to make us into a coalesced heavy saurus melee style army. But they didnt really give us the tools other melee heavy armies have. We have to rely on base stats with very little attack buffs, activation war, fight twice or 3d6 charge. That is party of why the skink cav is doing so much better than the saurus. Shadowstrike gives it that free move to simulate 3d6 charges.

 

Yeah, being able to turn one charge seems pretty important this edition. When our shooting was dominant we usually won games by giving up points in the first couple turns to weaken the enemy enough for a comeback in turns 3-5.

Now it seems better to try to engage as early as possible to keep enemies off objectives as long as possible.

 

i think secondary scoring is a big part of this. its so much easier to take the center or the flanks when you jam them up with cav turn 1. lets you build up a big lead. they tried to help fight this in the december update letting people be underdog until they can catch up, doubling without penalty. i dont think its enough though.

 

They've gone too heavy on objectives, and general game-y mechanics, for 4th. Adding more game-y mechanics like giving underdog while you're behind on imaginary points really isn't going to fix anything.

It puts us back to the same problem we keep having every edition since 2nd though; tons of mortal wounds while relying on 2-3 units to carry the entire army's damage output, and other units consequently being overpriced/underpowered to make up for the 2-3 stars of the army.

Skinks really just need to be given a more meaningful role than "bodies to dump on an objective".
A unit that exists purely to be a screen, with no significant other utility, is just not well designed.
At best its purely there to be an annoying speedbump for your opponent. At worst it's a useless unit annoying for both of you.
Just give them some purpose beyond merely being screens.

 

Honestly this is just another example of how GW doesn't seem to test their rules very much before releasing them. They constantly have to update/FAQ stuff, sometimes 2-3 times a year, when they really should be letting editions last longer than three years so they can actually develop more fleshed-out and balanced rules for the next edition.

While I've said multiple times that I like a lot of the stuff they've done with the base rules in 4e, the big focus on objective scoring is not one of them. Especially the whole control score mechanic and how so many units have had stuff removed so that part of their point cost can now go do increasing friendly CS or decreasing enemy CS.

But the focus on objective-based scoring is kind of one of Warhammer's biggest flaws, both in 40k and AoS.

Yep. I know it's probably extremely hard to make an army with a unit roster as big as Seraphon/Stormcast/etc. remain balanced while still having at least most of their units viable in gameplay. But I really do wish they would actually put more effort into making it so instead of always just going "well, these are the units/models we like the best right now so let's just make those the core of the army." Or worse, accidentally making 1-2 units very overpowered and then readjusting the entire army's rules to counter the inevitable spamming that happens, lol!

I think if a unit is actually cheap enough it can make sense to serve as just a screen. Units that have an MSU of 20 normally did well in this regard as it's hard for even hard-hitting units do do more than 20 damage in a single phase and you don't want to dump all your buffs on a unit that's going to be hitting a screen. But with most of them going down to MSU 10 they really are barely more than a speedbump unless they've also got some unique special ability that makes them worth taking.

For Skinks specifically, they were never "good" on their own. They required at minimum the Starpriest's MW buff to make them worth having as more than a screen. And being able to summon at least 10-20 of them per turn would make just constantly throwing them at the enemy or summoning them as a screen a viable tactic. The loss of customization/wargear also kind of hurt since they compiled all their ranged and melee profiles into what ends up being an overall nerf while also removing the benefit of shields entirely.

I like this idea. My personal favorite way to play is to get rid of standard objectives altogether and make the "objective" of the game more narrative. Not necessarily just "kill all enemies" (although that is sometimes fun), but something more specific than "camp on this point longer than your opponent to win."

 

Not just a narrative meaning, you can actually give them a meaningfull gameplay impact in that way.
Instead of holding an arbitrary circle, hold a bridge over an wild river that affects how you position.

It's honestly one of the things that's always confused me about GW battleplans; the map design is virtually non-existent.
Why are there so few maps with say a chasm in the middle with the crossings being chokepoints you naturally fight over.
Why is the only thing they ever really put down a random imaginary objective?

The main issue I have with them is that they're just not very fun. Or at least, they aren't fun in a regular game.
To your opponent they're simply an annoying roadblock in the way of his cool stuff doing things. To you they're simply useless fodder buying time for your cool stuff to do things. Both players would rather just be using their cool stuff more.

Which is why I really don't like Skinks who literally don't have any other role besides screening.
At least something like freeguild steelhelms have their consecration ability to give them some value besides getting slaughtered.

 

I don't disagree that GW could, and probably should, provide a better framework for more creative maps and scenarios. But a HUGE aspect of all Warhammer games for decades has been their group/convention/tournament play. You often need those games to be more "generic" so the playing field is more "balanced." GW probably does focus too much on the tournament aspect of their games and not more like roleplaying games, which provide a framework for different kinds of play with at home games.

That said, there is nothing stopping players from doing just what you guys are doing, and come up with more specific and unique scenarios.

 

Skinks, and several other "light" units in AoS, can be tricky to "get right." Real life units in real life warfare have been nothing more than speepbumps, screens, and/or distractions. Mobs of untrained fighters have been in large scale battles for millennia. I'm pretty sure that's the role Skinks have played since their appearance in the game. In certain versions of Warhammer, Lizardmen/Seraphon could exploit that to one degree or another.

But, since AoS is more of an upscaled skirmish game, as opposed to a mass battle game, Skinks will likely need something else to see the field. Maybe it's just making them cheap enough? Maybe 20/40-sized units could do it? Maybe a better special ability (although two chances at a good redeploy isn't terrible)?

 

Even for tournaments GW could do more. It's not that hard to create a balanced/symmetrical/generic field with some natural chokepoints to fight over that doesn't give an advantage to either side. Videogame leveldesign has been doing that forever. Hell, even GW does it on occasion for the more interesting battle reports in white dwarf. They just had one with a river for the tale of four warlords game. They just don't seem to release stuff like that for "official" play.

To be honest, I don't think the problem would be the maps. It's the way GW designs factions to be extremely assymetrical. A full flying army for example, would be ridiculous on a map with a chasm. Similarly, something like a knight army would probably end up feeling rather weird.

Sure, but in real life those untrained fighters could still hold a position. A mob of untrained fighters in ambush, or in a fortification, are still a threat to proper soldiers. You can't just send 1 knight at them and wait for him to finish the slaughter. In AoS, a single basic hero will absolutly destroy entire armies worth of skinks.

While the ability isn't "bad", it isn't fun. And more importantly, it still doesn't allow them to actually do anything.

To be honest, they should just get the Hunters of Huanchi bolas rules (and then GW can fix the Hunters of Huanchi while they're at it...). Then they'd at least have some value beyond merely standing in the way of things.

 

Having played several games of 4th ed, I disagree that one "basic" hero could destroy an army's worth of Skinks, or maybe even a single unit of them right away. I consider a basic hero to be a cheaper foot hero, like our Oldblood, for example. I assume this is hyperbole to try and make your point. I've had a unit of 5 Chameleons survive small units of knights, small units of troops, and basic foot heroes. Yes, a bigger mounted hero or one on a monster could do much more.

Yes, real untrained fighters could hold a position. So can Skinks. A "single knight" probably couldn't wipe out a reinforced unit of Skinks any more than a unit of zombies. I don't quite see your argument.

 

There are some battleplans that are very unique, but they're usually in the battletomes or White Dwarf articles and never used widely or tournament legal. You're right that the tournament aspect requires them to focus more on balance than on interesting gameplay. Hence why most objective layouts typically have 2 objectives close to each player's starting territory, and 1-2 more in the middle of the board for them to fight over. This tends to keep the VP score from getting too lopsided early in the game but nearly always leads to the "camp this one spot on the map" style of gameplay I was talking about before.

Personally, I'd be very interested in seeing how AoS plays with getting rid of most objectives altogether. Instead of scoring by sitting on a specific spot on the map, you could score points by completing more gameplay objectives. So have more battle tactics and more varied options for battle tactics, and have more and better faction-specific battle tactics. I'd make the faction-specific ones worth more points than the universal ones. Then your faction's battle tactics would be something that the opponent would have to know and they somewhat dictate how your army would play. Perhaps the game would feel more like a battle of trying to counter your opponent's tactics while trying to execute your own instead of having a general meta tactic like "rush your opponent in their deployment zone" or "sit your guys on the circle longer than your enemy's guys."

Personally I believe Skinks belong at the 20/40 unit size as they are now. If you wanted to keep them at the 10/20 unit size, either their shooting or melee needs to be better. With a lot of stuff having at least -1 rend in 4e, anything with rend pushes Skinks to no-save territory. Having a 5+ save from shields or having a better shooting profile while also being at a 20-40 unit size for like 120-150pts for the unit would make a lot more sense and also give them a better defined role in the army in my opinion.

Let's compare Skinks to our mortal enemy's similar unit, the Clanrats: The rats have a 20 MSU, the same melee profile as Skinks with 2 attacks instead of 1, but no shooting. They have a 5+ save instead of a 6+, are slower but have much better keywords and abilities. They have built in d3 unit recursion, better CS with the standard bearer, and a better chance to rally if they try to do that. The only keywords Skinks have are infantry and a champion. At a reinforced unit of 20, Skinks are 180 points, 30 points more than a MSU of 20 Clanrats. So Clanrats are better screens, better at holding objectives, better at lasting longer in combat and server the "cheap bodies" role much better. Oh, and they have auto-wound crits as well.

The only special ability Skinks have is to roll twice to redeploy. Getting a better chance to redeploy would be ok if their purpose was still ranged skirmishers but they do next to no damage even to the squishiest of targets so trying to use them as skirmishers is almost pointless. Personally I'd prefer seeing them as squishy but fast ranged infantry that actually can do a little bit of damage at the very least. Especially since they are able to shoot in combat.

That's definitely one of the main issues with balance in AoS in general. On the one hand, it's awesome to have armies with specific and unique themes and playstyles. KO and their flying boats, Nighthaunt's flying, speedy ghosts that scare you on the charge, Tzeentch being magic focused, Idoneth riding sharks, eels and giant turtles, etc.

But on the other hand, when armies have such radically different playstyles and unit types from other armies, you definitely end up with a bit of a "rock, paper, scissors" scenario where one army tends to absolutely overwhelm specific armies but get curbstomped by others. Sometimes you have really blatant balance issues like when Gargants were introduced with their 35 wound "DPS check" that some armies couldn't make, or Lumineth being absolutely awesome at *everything* when they were added and being able to beat just about any army in any phase the majority of the time. But I think a lot of armies that actually have the ability to play multiple playstyles get shafted the most. I'd say that Stormcast, CoS, Skaven, and Seraphon all have enough variation in their units to be able to run your traditional "mixed arms" force that you'd see in games like old Warhammer but AoS doesn't support that kind of play. If you removed objective control as the main focus of gameplay, I think you'd be able to see a lot more varied playstyles using a lot of these units that don't ever get much time on the table.

Unfortunately the solution that often gets looked at most is either nerfs that are too heavy-handed or the overall trend of simplification and stripping out all the flavor and fun from armies to make them more similar to each other for the sake of balance. I'm honestly not sure what I would do to balance the game without doing either of these things, but at the very least I think that they should put more effort into armies' internal balance and making all their units have a viable reason to be used in game.

Personally I'd give them back a poison-themed rule. Either crit: mortals, crit: auto-wound or maybe a poison ability that goes off if they do any damage and it reduces the target unit's save or something...

If you're talking a basic unit of 10 Skinks, against any "standard" melee foot hero they should at least last 1 combat phase. It's hard for a foot hero to do 10 damage in a single combat phase unless they've got a lot of special rules. For example, a Clawlord could feasibly *maybe* do 5 damage to a Skink unit and would probably take 0 damage in return. But the Light of Eltharion could easily wipe 10 Skinks in a single combat phase and probably could take out an entire army's worth of Skinks in a few turns. But yeah, foot heroes in the 100-150 point range aren't going to solo 40 Skinks or anything like that.

 

I'm just going to say that I think Clanrats and Plague Monks are busted for their unit size and points. Lol. With such powerful shooting, good screens, and some dirty heroes, how does Skaven lose?

So, in light of that, I think Skinks could go 20/40. Come on, GW, hook a lizard up.

 

It's a bit of a hyperbole, but also not entirely as the skinks can't actually interact with anything beyond physically being in the way due to their abysmall stats & lack of any special rules. Very simply put, there isn't anything to discourage that oldblood from just blindly charging in and starting to cut them down. Sure it'll take a while to kill all of them, but aside from time there's nothing really stopping him. And an oldblood isn't even that good of a unit.

Which is the point I'm trying to make. The only thing skinks do is physically block an area.
They don't (de)buff anything. They don't threaten anything, not even weak opponents. They don't really interact with anything. Hell, they don't even have tarpit special abilities, like how skeletons can ressurect and a have a ward. Skinks literally just exist and nothing more.

So, sure, they can "hold" an objective in the sense that there's too many skinks standing on top of it to kill in a given timeframe. But that's the only thing they really do.

And that's boring.

They need to revisit how battalions originally worked and use those to actually balance army composition.
They have the potential to fix a lot of problems by controlling army composition and encouraging a healthy internal balance by encouraging mixed forces. Or at the very least, discouraging (or outright forbidding) people from just bringing 10 dragons, or 30 eels, or other one-note spam lists.

As for factions like SoB, and god models like Teclis or Nagash, they just don't really work on a fundamental level. Sure, they can be fun for a narrative game or a specific scenario. But they're simply too different from other factions/units to be consistently balanced in all scenarios/against all opponents. Honestly, when looking at some of those it feels like GW sometimes wishes their games would be more like D&D and less like fantasy chess.