8th Ed. Chameleons, worth it?

Are chameleons worth the 13 point each?

With Rippers, Terradons and cheap skink chiefs on flying mounts being able to cover our warmachine killing needs, do we still need chameleons?

Given that you can get almost twice as many Skink Skirmishers as chameleons, are we better off just running more skink skirmishers and skipping on the chameleons?


I was looking at running 2 units of 8 chameleons, but for about the same points, I could get 30 skirmishers (or 40 cohorts). I can't really come up with a situation where the chameleons seem to be the better choice.


What is the niche for chameleons in the new book?

-Matt

 

Well they are our only scouts,
if you can get them into a forest, or better yet some water terain,
and there are going to be seriously hard to get rid of.

 

Hard to get rid of, outside of charging them, shooting a magic missile at them, any type of non-BS based shooting, or forcing a terror or panic check.

The scout role is pretty well covered by Vanguards.

-Matt

 

I find most oponents hesitant to charge skink of any kind bunkered down in terrain even less for water.
as for magic, if you are lucky they ARE shooting it at the chamelions rather than your monster of characters.

 

Multiple units lose their utility quite fast in our army. As you said, we have lots of supporting units that are fast enough already.

That said, I think 1 unit still pulls it's weight. You have all the options of regular skinks, but you can do it from turn 1.
I love that option. While your terradons/rippers and skinks/salamanders are moving up, your chameleons are already in a position where they can annoy your opponent. Shooting monsters, war machines or just infantry. The extra BS helps with moving+shooting+double tap.
From turn 1 onwards, you have enough movement with your other units to join in on the fun. But the chameleons will still be there!
They also are pretty usefull for charging fleeing units early in the game (late game: terradons/rippers). A cheeky long range terror-check with your bastilodon might send a unit fleeing, which you can easily chase off with the chameleons.

I always run a unit of 6 chameleons, so all of them can join in on a war machine assault. If the enemy flings a magic missile at them, it's one magic missile less at my terradons/skinks/priest/saurus/stegadon on 1 wound..
Without magic missiles or a devoted unit that is willing to charge it, they are true survivors. They pretty much always survive when I play with them, making them the only skink unit that doesn't die at a stif breeze

The Hunted

 

I think they are better at lower points games. The higher up in points the more spread out your opponent so it's harder to get a good scout placement. Your opponent also has less to counter them. They are a must take for me at 1500 and under but now that I'm playing 2500 to 3K I haven't found much use for them.

 

Odd, my opponents see to go for them. At 13 points each, they are worth going for.

-Matt

 

I'm still using a unit of them at the moment, they are good for putting the hurt on high toughness/low save targets like Warmachines or Warsphinxes from the start. Having said that I am considering replacing the. With a second ripper unit when I can afford to for double toad shenanigans.

 

When a minimum unit runs in at 65 points, I find its not hard to fit them in to a list - mostly for the sheer frustration they often force on opponents. I usually play High Elves or Warriors of Chaos, against which they aren't brilliant (the High Elves tend to shoot or magic them off, and the Warriors have enough armour to usually ignore them). I haven't played the new High Elves yet, but I can see them being extremely useful against both the cheap RBTs, Frost Phoenixes, and Sisters of Averlorn (which don't have any armour and tend to run in small groups).

That being said, they do pump out a lot of shots and if left ignored they will chip wounds off here and there. With Lizardmen, I find that its important to weaken an enemy as much as possible before they reach combat and Chamelons are great for that.

Its difficult to find something that can replace that 65 point void if they were to go. I wouldn't be able to bring another new unit, for instance, without tinkering points elsewhere, so I'd probably end up putting more points in existing units (which in my list is fairly limited). Although, now I think about it, I could fit in that Potion of Strength Skink Chief that I wanted...

 

Making my opponent change his deployment because of my scouts is worth the extra cost of chameleons. I usually run 2 units of 6 or 8. Being able to be at long range, march and double tap and still get poison attacks can also be big game at times.

 

Yeah, that's what I thought... but:
65 points gives you 10 shots on a 6+ at 12".
70 points gives you 10 shots on a 5+ at 12", and quick to fire should you want to stand and fire.
Both skirmish.
Both march and shoot.
Chameleons get an extra -1 to be shot, but with fewer models, panic easier.
Skinks get 5+ armor, parry and 4 extra wounds.

The skirmishers point for point, dish out the same or better firepower, but survive better due to the improved armor and being ~half the cost per model.

I'm still not seeing the niche. The backfield disruption is done better by flyers. The shooting and skirmishing is done better by core skinks. That leaves Chameleons as expensive generalists.

 

My opponents regularly bring scouts, so I dont always use them offensively. They can be used just as much as a defensive measure against enemy scouts. Scouts that are placed in a forest or close to your lines can be a pain in the ass in some circumstances.

 

16 poison shots are still better than 10 but yeah if your only taking skinks for quantity of shots then then normal skirmishers do that fine.
Terradons usually dont serve the same purpose as chameleons and when they do the redundancy is nice and scout on chameleons helps a lot with sneaking around and inbetween the enemy, my chameleons survive a lot more battles than my normal skirmishers because of that.
Also cant count the amount of times my chameleons have taken out a cannon,hellblaster, sabretusk or chariot in the first round clearing the way for themselves and the rest of my army.
They demand an immediate answer from my opponent (like terradons) and forces him to play my game.
but hey different strokes. not everybody is a fan of them but they have always been stars in my book. Only time I would not bring them is if I had Tetto ekko

 

This. My regular opponents hate and fear these guys so they often change quite a bit in preparation for them. Then my wee chameleons still often have a decent impact anyway.

I tend to take one unit of 8 or two units of 6.