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

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

You missed these:
70 Skinks without poison attacks
50 Skinks with poison attacks
Both cost 350

This is a "How to best spend 350 points" calculation.

OF COURSE poison is always better than no poison.

I guess you skipped what I type and only look at the numbers there.

 

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

oh man i would like to see the formation where all 70 skinks can atack
That was your mistake i guess for damage output you have to count b2b and it shoud be the same for poison or no poison so thus poison always do more damage.
The question is whats better more damage or extra 20 walking dead?

 

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

I'm looking at a Skorx unit opposite of what I use to. It use to be the Skinks were their to eat attacks so the Krox could attack, now with the enemy forced to attack the Krox first, I'm looking at the Skinks as the DPS in the block and the Krox as the tanks. I've toyed around with the idea of a large Skrox unit with poison and the Skaven Pelt banner but at the end of the day it still doesn't come out to alot of poisonous attacks.

 

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

I'm kinda against the compasison of "saurus beat skinks in combat so they're better" as for one thing how often are saurus going to be fighting WS/T 2 enemies? Also, saurus don't have any form of shooting attack and only the standard M4.

I guess the point of poison to me is having a multi-purpose unit in the same vein as a skrox unit. Adding krox or poison are both ways to make a fast/shooty chaff/tarpit unit into a reasonable combat block. Both options have their pro's and cons:

Skrox:
Can deal with High toughness/armoursaves
Can dish out their max damage over a narrower frontage
Have higher LD
The krox (if focused) have T4 and a 4+ save, which could lead to you taking fewer casualties.

poison cohorts:
Can deal with high toughness (but not a lot of armour)
Don't miss out on shooting from the 2nd rank (or CC attacks from the 3rd in the case of hordes)
Don't have the Primal Fury forced-pursuit to worry about
Have more wounds to soak up damage
Their damage output can't be hamstrung before it strikes (krox being killed before they attack for example)

 

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

If you have 70 skinks, do 2 blocks of 35, 10 wide.
20 shots, 20 stand and fires, 30 attacks. Or, form up 5 wide and 7 deep so you'll be steadfast for awhile.

-Matt

 

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

So, ran some math for skink cohorts w/ poison VS Saurus (not actually fighting each other, but each fighting different targets) with some interesting results:

OFFENSIVE TEST
Parameters used: skinks are in horde formation (10 wide, at least 3 deep) Saurus are 6 wide and math will be included for both spears (24 attacks) and HW&S (18 attacks). No buffs/debuffs will be included. Only combat offense will be considered. Math assumes Primal Fury (PF) is applied to supporting attacks, and that there will be enough models in the unit's in question to strike with full effect. All results are before saves so it bears noting that saurus also decrease their targets armour save by 1.

VS basic Humans steadfast block (WS3/T3 5 wide)

Skinks:
hitting on 4's, wounding on 4's
21 attacks - 7 normal hits + 3.5 poison - 7 wounds

Saurus (HW/S):
hitting on 4's, wounding on 3's
18 attacks + 3 from PF - 10.5 hits - 7 wounds

Saurus (Spears):
hitting on 4's, wounding on 3's
24 attacks + 4 from PF - 12 hits - 8 wounds

result: Pretty even, with spears obviously just ahead.

VS basic Elven steadfast block (WS5/T3 5 wide)

Skinks:
hitting on 5's, wounding on 4's
21 attacks - 3.5 normal hits + 3.5 poison - 5.25 wounds

Saurus (HW/S):
hitting on 4's, wounding on 3's
18 attacks + 3 from PF - 10.5 hits - 7 wounds

Saurus (Spears):
hitting on 4's, wounding on 3's
24 attacks + 4 from PF - 12 hits - 8 wounds

result: Due to WS3, the saurus results are the same. WS2 brings the skinks down a peg though and they start to lag behind.

VS "steadfast" ghoul block (WS3/T4 5 wide)

Skinks:
hitting on 4's, wounding on 5's
21 attacks - 7 normal hits + 3.5 poison - 5.833 wounds

Saurus (HW/S):
hitting on 4's, wounding on 4's
18 attacks + 3 from PF - 10.5 hits - 5.25 wounds

Saurus (Spears):
hitting on 4's, wounding on 4's
24 attacks + 4 from PF - 12 hits - 6 wounds

result: Skinks pull things back into line a bit here, with poison helping them almost match the spear-saurus. (note ghouls were the first 20mm based unit I could think of with T4 and mediocre WS. This maths could also work for wildformed humans, Grave/Tombguard etc.)

VS Orc steadfast block (WS3/T4 6 wide)

Skinks:
hitting on 4's, wounding on 5's
27 attacks - 9 normal hits + 4.5 poison - 7.5 wounds

Saurus (HW/S):
hitting on 4's, wounding on 4's
18 attacks + 3 from PF - 10.5 hits - 5.25 wounds

Saurus (Spears):
hitting on 4's, wounding on 4's
24 attacks + 4 from PF - 12 hits - 6 wounds

result: The advantage of the skinks here is the wider frontage, allowing more skinks to play. Note: I did this test at 6 wide as that's the staple for 25mm models I see hereabouts. With the orcs 5 wide the skinks cause 6.667 wounds respectively.

VS Chaos Warrior steadfast block (WS5/T4 6 wide)

Skinks:
hitting on 5's, wounding on 5's
27 attacks - 4.5 normal hits + 4.5 poison - 6 wounds

Saurus (HW/S):
hitting on 4's, wounding on 4's
18 attacks + 3 from PF - 10.5 hits - 5.25 wounds

Saurus (Spears):
hitting on 4's, wounding on 4's
24 attacks + 4 from PF - 12 hits - 6 wounds

result: So the slightly greater weight of skink attacks + poison draws about even with the spear saurus' superior WS and S. Note: As above, I did this test at 6 wide as I haven't really seen Warriors run at less.

Conclusion: So Im pleasantly surprised with the damage output of the skinks on comparison. As stated earlier though, the enemies armoursave and any wounds taken prior to striking can skew the numbers one way or the other.

Wellp, that's the easy part done, next I'm going to try and work up some form of defensive comparative to find if there are any enemies (besides the obvious Strength 6+ WS 4+ variety) where the skinks greater number of wounds may pip out the saurus's higher WS/T/save.

 

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

I have been seeing lots of people state that the new skrox rules mean that the enemy HAS to hit the krox, but i don't think that this is they way the rule are written. I believe they say CAN, not MUST, and so is much worse. Please prove me wrong. Has this been debated already?

 

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

It's been debated repeatedly, and we really should derail this threat with that.

The tough comparison is that skinks can shooting and move faster. Saurus are slower and tougher, with much better leadership.
The squishiness of of skinks really shows up against init 5 opponents, which skink losses are impacting damage output.
Reminds me of the Varghiest vs Crypt Horror debate. Varghiests always looked good on paper until something hit them with higher initiative.

I'm actually thinking that the Krox being singled out might help the skinks. Poison skinks have decent damage output (as you just showed). If an enemy dumps 12 attacks into killing a single krox (3 wounds) instead of 6 skinks, you just swung combat res by 3 points.

-Matt

 

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

The problem is with a horde Skrox unit you're not getting very many supporting attacks from Skinks because Krox are there. Unless you're sure the Skinks are going to hit first I don't feel like they are that viable.

 

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

BAH! My internet hates me, apologies the information below is slightly abbreviated from it's original form (yey! less Dreadgrass-maths-waffle!)

Alright, so been running a few comparisons on the difference between saurus and skinks defensively:

1) WS 2 (Skink) VS 3 (Saurus)

I feel this has a much smaller impact on the defensive side of things. The only commonly-seen WS that this makes a difference to is WS. VS a WS3 opponent, a saurus unit will take 25% less hits than a skink block. Unfortunately for the saurus though, a WS3 unit that is a mainline combat block will generally be running high strength (eg. Ironguts) or special rules (eg. Poison on Ghouls) to give some form of bite to their frontline.

2) T2 (Skink) VS 4 (Saurus)

One of the 2 biggest differences in the units defensive statlines. Everything with a strength less than 6 has a much easier time wounding skinks than it does saurus.

from 12 hits @ S3
T2 - 8 wounds
T4 - 4 wounds
100% more casualties to the skinks

from 12 hits @ S4
T2 - 10 wounds
T4 - 6 wounds
66% more casualties to the skinks

from 12 hits @ S5
T2 - 10 wounds
T4 - 8 wounds
25% more casualties to the skinks

from 12 hits @ S6+
T2 - 10 wounds
T4 - 10 wounds
It's a wash

3) points per wound.

The other big defensive difference between the respective units. Obviously I can't post points-values for units per-se but as an example, a 300pt unit of each with standard and musician = 25 saurus wounds VS 40 poison-skink wounds, meaning the skinks are rocking ~ 60% more wounds.

4) 5+ save, 6+ parry (skinks) VS 4+ save, 6+ parry (HW&S Saurus) VS 4+ save (Spear Saurus)

Obviously the HW&S saurus are running the best of both worlds. re: the other 2:

From 12 wounds:

No save modifier (eg. S3 or less)
4+ save - 6 wounds taken
5+ save and parry - 6.666 wounds taken

-1 save (eg. S4, S3AP)
5+ save - 8 wounds taken
6+ save and parry - 8.333 wounds taken

-2 save (eg. S5, S4AP)
6+ save - 10 wounds
parry - 10 wounds

So against low strength attacks the saurus' armour wins out, S5 is the balance point, with anything greater favouring the parry. Parry can of course also be negated by a flank charge or the like.

Conclusion:

In a nutshell:

Against enemies with less than Strength 5, Saurus are more efficient defensively, against S5 the Saurus WILL be taking less wounds, but the skinks take their wounds more efficiently (losing less pts/combat round), and against S6+ the skinks cheapness wins out. Special note should also be made of WS 3 enemies, as they will hit skinks more easily and thus the numbers in those situations will be more in favour of the saurus.

 

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

Unfortunately, this analysis is slightly off (I made a similar mistake recently). The problem is that points per wound isn't a relevant metric, no matter how much sense it seems to make. Due to the combat resolution system, the entire unit is at risk in the event of a lost combat, so against two comparable units the raw number of wounds is the value that matters (as that is what CR counts).

 

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

@ Ripperderek - Good point. But whilst it is possible for a unit to be broken by CR or to flee off the table, it is also just as true that the unit survives as long as their is so much as 1 wound remaining, as long as that model isn't fleeing at the end of the game.

Essentially your adding another variable to the equation that I haven't touched on as yet. I should probably round out the analysis with "additional considerations" such as test-or-die spells, LD/CR/panic issues, movement and ancillary uses (eg. shooting) for the sake of completion.

 

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

I found it doesn't really work out that way unless the units are unbreakable. Your goal isn't to kill X points worth of models, it's to win combat and break the unit. So unless you're looking at the "combat goes until all units are dead" case, the point cost of individual models doesn't factor in. What matters is the number of wounds caused.

In the "vs S3" example, the skinks would be -4 in CR compared to the Saurus, just due to wounds taken. They fall even farther behind when wounds dealt are also considered, widening the gap to -6 or -7. As a result, the skinks are much less likely to win combats, which is usually the goal of large infantry blocks.