I'll have to second Aranigej's great post. It seems that in a lot of ways, Skink skirmishers are underestimated by my opponents every time. As I've mentioned in other threads, no one wants to chase a 70 point unit of skinks down with their expensive cavalry, but at the same time, they really dislike having that cavalry or other unit destroyed or reduced to a less than fightable force due to poisoned darts. Let's not forget about large multi-wound targets either. Ultimately skinks seem to be rather annoying to foes with harrassment tactics. It's not worth it to chase them around because you may never catch them if you're too slow. If you ignore them completely, they tend to come up 'big' in sitations that you don't expect them to.
Oy. Oh yes, as it's been mentioned skink skirmishers are underestimated. I had 10 of these 'lil buggers in a game of 1000pt vs daemons with Skulltaker... When Skulltaker finally took my lone sword of the hornet+enchanted shield cold one mounted scar-vet the skinks shaved of those 2 nice wounds he and his rusty old juggernaut had left... I'd say to try and run a skink priest in the unit too, worked wonderfully to have forked lightning being thrown around... Even thou magic resistance dispelled it most of the time... Skink skirmishers: HOORA! Cheers!
Well you've managed to convince me to get a box of the lil' lizards as soon as possible ^^ I'm still not too sure of the cohorts, but I can see that the skirmishers are an integral part of the army ^^
I love skinks, i have like 72, not including heroes, and i usually use most of em, which isnt hard, at 5-8 points apiece. Yep these little(comparatively) guys are more versatile than saurus, if not *quite* as powerful... too bad they don't poison hand weps, i usually hit on 5/6 in combat anyway. I agree with everything said so far.... Charge blockers, march blockers, skirmishers, (sometimes) flankers, and YAY!!! Poison!!!! The one downside.... BS 3, WS 2. If only it were one(or more) higher..... heh heh heh I like to use them in a mix of ranked skinks(5 points!!), javelin skirmishers(no move/long range penalty!!!), and blowpipe skirmishers(multi shots!!) YAAAAWN..... Goodnight, I'm gettin' tired And remember... YAY SKINKS!!!!
I have to put my input in here, I feel that skinks are amazing units, and incredibly good at what they do. unfortunatly, they are quite squishy, and if they dont get to where they need to be fast enough, they're dead. Don't let my dismal view change your opinion on the skinks however, i simply have found that being faster than dwarven units is no good when a grudge thrower has an easy time wiping them out. That said, i prefer skirmishers over the normal skinks, because it seems that the only difference between the two is that the skirmishers are skirmishers, and the normal 5 point skinks get kroxies. I feel that (granted ive never played with this mixed unit before, this is simply my observation) despite the Kroxies bringing more power to the group, the unit is still quite squishy, and not nearly as maneuverable as skirmishers. so in my ever so humble opinion, id go with skirmishers over ranked any day (until i give the ranked a try)
Grudge thrower wiping them out? Hell.... If my opponent is firing his artillery at skinks rather than the rest of my army I would be thrilled! Sure the skinks die, but they are cheap so who cares? It means the rest of my army is still alive to go nuts and kill stuff.
not to shoot down your enthusiasm strewart, but when your opponent has three cannons and the grudge thrower is only one of them, it really comes down to there being one less war machine firing at your saurus, not necessarily the saurus still being able to wreak havoc.
Well yes but we have controls for dealing with warmachines such as terradons and charmeleon skinks. It rarely works perfectly so there will often be one or two warmachines in an army like that which survive and still do lots of damage, when facing artillery like that it is important to minimize their effects so one out of 4 shooting at skinks is still reducing their effect. Unless they have destroyed everything else already, in which case you are screwed anyway.
There isnt actually a 'crossfire rule', it is simply known as that colloquially. The rule is simply this: If a fleeing unit runs into a non-friendly unit of Unit Strength 5 or greater, they are instantly destroyed. So, you put a unit behind an enemy that you intend to force to flee (Terradons are excellent at this) and force them to flee into your unit. Boom, dead enemies, whether you catch them during flee or not.
The Crossfire rule isn't in the rulebook on any given page as the "Crossfire Rule". This rule is described in the section where fleeing troops are described. In summary, it states that a unit that must flee through an enemy unit of unit strength 5 or greater is automatically destroyed. When you crossfire a unit, you intentionally place a unit of US5 or more in the path of a unit that is fleeing or will be fleeing. Most players call this crossfire. Unfourtunately, I don't have access to my rulebook to give you a reference page number.
cohorts and skirmishers are both designed to die, well. They are there TO: -draw enemy missile fire and magic missiles by presenting themselves as the only viable target or by being used as a screening unit -get charged and flee from them if possible -charge other skirmishers to hold them up or even *sometimes* beat them. actually happens. -kill low armor save foot troops and large targets, and fast cavalry. In other words, high points cost elite but soft unts. -buy the rest of your army to set up proper charges, or to give the slann time to end worlds with its magic, or both -randomly "crossfire-kill" units that break off your saurus with spears -look cute and greebly "Be reckless and use the skinks dead bodies to clog the wheels of your opponents army-machine. Use their blood to rust his engine and their flayed scales to make his grip all slippy" - Quote from the Slann Training manual "How to fights the Chaos", written by an Old One, ages ago.