8th Ed. I wonder, won't 400 skinks crush everything?

[gapton]

Sorry if this is a noob question but....

With any character being so expensive, I can't help but to think wouldn't a massive flock of cheap unit always be a better choice instead?

For example, a Krox costs 55 points, that is 11 skinks. With only 3 wounds, I am pretty sure 11 skinks would easily shoot it to death.

For some more expensive characters worthing hundreds of points, and say, 5 wounds.... wouldn't it be easily shot to death by a bunch of cheap skinks?

Say saurus old blood..... 145 points, with default 4+ AS. With 145 points you can field 29 skinks. 1/6 of 29 shots is roughly 5 hits. Five hits and 50% chance for armor save, meaning statically you will land a solid 2.5 WOUNDS on the old blood, every round. Well the scar vet only has 3 wounds.....

Some characters are so expensive that each wound they take would be as good as eating away hundreds of points.

Which brings me to a funny idea, wouldn't an army of 100% core, in fact, 100% skinks, just shoot everything to death?

In a 2000 points army you can have 400 skinks.... 400 shots every round, isn't that shear amount enough (and in fact an efficient way ) to take out most of the expensive characters that usually have 3 to 5 wounds??

Of course, it wouldn't be as fun to play with an awesome lizardmen army with beautifully painted models

 

[strewart]

In an artificial environment where you just look at statistics and what 1 unit can do vs another, yeah you will almost always find that the cheaper models will win because you have a lot more of them.

However, the first problem is that the vast majority of characters sit in units which means you can't actually target them with normal missile fire, so the plan is gone already.

Then for your extreme idea of 400 skinks shooting, remember that is IF you can get every single one of them into range of a valid target. Doubtful most of the time I imagine, especially since only the first rank of any unit can actually shoot.

The range of skinks is also small enough that against most targets, you will only get one shot off before they charge you. Say you have a unit of 40 skinks 10 wide, and you get 20 shots off into them (first two ranks). Thats 3-4 poisoned shots, anywhere from 0-4 wounds depending on the target armour save. They then charge you and start munching through the unit.

Now I am setting an artificial environment and making the skinks look like a poor choice. Their role is to be in fairly small units of skirmishers so they can get to a position where they can shoot and not be charged. OR in a large unit with krox so they can deliver those brutal s6 attacks to combat.

So to sum up, when you just look at attaks and wounds, characters are pretty overpriced, and skinks are very good. You always need to consider the overall battlefield role though. Two standard core units facing off are usually relatively even. Drop a combat character into one unit for 2-3 extra combat res, it suddenly swings. Bring in a cannon next to the unit (which, incidentally, would probably also get beaten by the equivelant points of skinks) to remove a rank from the opponent before combat starts, and again it all swings.

 

[elmoheadbutt]

If you just field 400 skinks, your numbers will dwindle very very fast before you can get into range. All it takes is a well-placed meteor, cannonball, etc.

 

[Smexygor]

12" range isn't deadly enough. You get maybe one turn of shooting before the melee strong units reap them like wheat and you scramble to avoid overruns and try to throw poison on them after they destroy a unit or two. I think wood elves do this better with their mobile archers and MSU style. BS3 S3 skinks just won't be able to throw enough death out to offset the enemy. Like, say Brettonian knights. Not likely to get a lot of poison on them before their hit with a charge, and with their armor save their don't care anyway.

Maybe this would work against a melee monster heavy list or something like that.

 

[elmoheadbutt]

Wood Elves just rip through skinks. My girlfriend likes her Wood Elves; and I field a very saurus-heavy army.

 

[DanBot]

If you are talking better as in only game worthy and min maxing. The skinks would probably produce more wounds. But the game is only 6 turns and relies a lot on combat ress and breaking units in cc to make thr game progress faster. Stuff skinks can't do alone. You need to concider holding and survival as well. Doing say 4 wounds and taking no wounds breaking a unit and running them down iz the most ideal situation in the warhammer game.that is the most bang for your buck.happy medium is the best approach.

 

[rothgar13]

The game has upper limits as to how many models can participate in a given shooting or combat phase, and that's when the poor accuracy and fragility of the Skinks is going to rear its ugly head. It's not hard for most opposing units to spank them in combat and send them running, and that will earn them enough points to win the game.