A strange choice, I realise, but I am very torn. I have a big gap available in my 1500 point list and I cannot decide how to fill it. The benefit of having Chameleon Skinks would be the additional points I'd have left to spend on my priest and an additional Skink chief who would be useful in the close combats I always find my skirmishers end up in. With Chammies I'd have a very large skirmisher force capable of pulling its own weight and being able to effectively combat counter attacks from the kind of units I pick on with my javelins and able to deal out a lot of firepower. On the other hand, I do only have one lot of Saurus Warriors (20) and so some extra meat to go alongside my army would be appreciated - although perhaps the twenty Temple Guard I also have in that list might be able to do something along those lines. 16 extra saurus warriors would be mean I have three very solid units of nigh-on unbeatable dinosaur men, something which no amount of fancy cannons and peppering with shot will do much to take away from. So I'm kind of stuck. Can someone help? Thank you.
Saurus just leave them naked, no bonusses no promotion just there weapons (and 2 atks). you don't need the remaining points to beef up your skin priest (it is useless if heh as feather cloak or a nice staff +magic 2 hell b alright).
I would go with the chameleons. The reasoning is that you can use those chameleons to elimanate those cannons or war machines that you will face. The best way to run them is two units of 5. That way you can group them together and still go for the same target. Usually, your opponent would have to target a single unit. That will help with the survivability of the units. The extra points can then be used as you wish. If you take a skink chief to put in the skirmishers, give him the crown of command and make the unit stubborn. A unit of skirmishers is only going to last one round of combat in most cases, the stubborn will give you an extra round. You could also round out the temple guard to 20. This will give your slann more protection.
Units of 5? To kill Warmachines with 3 crew? Chams are useless in Combat due to points and WS2 , T2 no Armor Save. All that for ONLY 60pts? (heavy sarcasm there) (120pts for both units) Further, any opponent that simply allows you to place your Chams in a position (due to scouting) to charge the warmachine (unopposed) is not very tactically adept. Even if you do charge, your not charging with a 100% certainty you are going to win. And your 2 cham units cost more then any Artillery piece they will try to kill so if you dont kill the artillery you have lost a lot of points. If you shoot at the warmachine, well your going to hit but probably not wound unless your praying you roll 6s before the enemy can charge/shoot them. In CC Chams are very expensive and generally very DEAD.
have you tried using chamo skinks? combined fire from the 2 units will statistically remove any 3 wound war machine in one volley, and with scout, march move and then the range on the blowpipe, its very easy to get these shots out. and 2 chamo units cost more than any war machine? hardly. nobody would charge them into CC unless they were absolutley desperate to prevent a round of shooting. even if you do genuinely think chamo skinks are bad against war machines, what would you suggest using instead?
Why would you ever get into HtH with Chameleon Skinks willingly? They're a ranged unit with a 24 inch threat zone (march 12 + 12 inch blowpipes.) I run mine in units of 7-8 which increase my odds of seeing 3 6's when shooting at war machines. You might want to actually learn how to use a unit before discussing it.
Even if you cannot deploy the chameleons 12 inches from their target, they can still march 12 inches and still hit on 6s at long range. Those two units of chameleons are worth 120 pts against a warmachine that is a fraction of the price. But, If I take out the warmachines, they do not take out my stegadon or other high profile target. To me, that is well worth the cost.