Give us some "elite" melee skinks who're used to fighting. They can still fight mostly using ambushes and quick strikes and the like. Then that way we can actually field a skink focussed army with capable troops without having to immeadiatly axe our fodder completly.
Agreed - Skinks of any kind on their own should suck in melee - pulverising enemies in melee is the job of the Saurus - but improving synergies with Skink heroes to buff skinks considerably to take out other enemy chaff would make Skinks more fun to use for those who do want to use them.
They don't need to pulverise anything, but it'd be nice if 10 skinks would at least be a credible threat to actually do some harm. The skink handlers are a good example of what I mean. They're not really going to kill anything, but they at least stand a chance of wounding something with their eye-poking. I'd like every unit to at least manage that level of competency. I mean a 10 man unit of skinks is barely more of a threat than a 3 man unit of handlers in melee, which is just weird…. And if you keep putting all their power into synergies you'l push them into the same issue we currently have with our warriors where they only work when you get everything perfect and the stars align, but the moment the synergies start falling away the entire thing just falls apart to the point where in their base-line form they're basicly useless.
IMO skinks are basically too strong as is. But i'd love if poison came back in some way. An extra hit on a 6, MAYBE MORTAL WOUNDS!? Poison was fun in WHFB, i'd like to see it come back in some way.
Chameleon Skinks still have poison, and feel a bit hit-from-the-shadows-like, are they just not viable? I guess not battle-line and 24 pts/model is a bit out of context.
Cham skinks are pretty bad right now. They're too many points for 1 wound models, even with a 3+ save, and they don't have enough output compared to regular skinks to justify their high cost, especially with their terrain special rule not being particularly relevant with any unit being able to teleport. If they were 20-30 points cheaper, they'd probably be okay. Regular skinks are borderline too good at 60 points for 10; they're still a fantastic screening unit, and are decent at 40 models, even with their weak stats otherwise.
Chameleon Skinks are fantastic. The strategic value of 5 models instantly appearing anywhere on the table is immense and should not be underestimated. No objective is safe, and you can just appear in combat with artillery, or flank a unit to restrict their pile-in move. My favourite Chameleon Skink maneuver is to find a big fighty unit next to a piece of scenery and place the Chams behind a wall and within 3" so the enemy is in combat, but unable to attack because they won't be able to reach them. This also works great against shooting units, since you must shoot a unit within 3" but you won't have line of sight to declare the Chams as a targets. I also have to strongly disagree that Seraphon are not top tier right now. Saurus are underwhelming compared to other melee armies, but the Thunderquake Starhost is one of the hardest lists in the game when built and played properly.
Depends on what one means by "top tier". From all the tournament statisitcs I saw through the last half of the year, seraphon rarely pop up in top-5 or even top-10. And I haven't seen a single one, where Seraphon took 1st place. More often I find them at the middle of the placing or even at the bottom. There are things that seraphon simply has not answer too, like high save/high wound monsters or overbuffed hordes. We only can ignore them now, or, possibly bring something like 16 razordons which a rare person can afford. If GW didn't hit Kroak so Hard with a nerfbat, this could be different. (Seriously, dealing couple dozens mortal wounds per turn to enemy army from rather squishy 450 pts unit is considered OP, while having up to 14 attacks rerolling everything from a battleline model per combat phase is ok. Really?) Seraphon is still strong, but not top tier. Tier 2 or tier 1.5 at best. If GW releases new battletome without nerfing already powerful stuff, but making stronger our underdog units and adding more synergy through magic and allegience, we easily can be tier 1, though.
Much like regular skinks their utility is great. It's just everything else aout em that's rather terrible. I'd gladly trade (some) utility to get them more significant stats. Both to make em less situational and to make em easier to balance (stuff with great utility tends to need to be kept weak in other aspects to stop em from being massivly overpowered) That sounds.. wrong.. Wouldn't they still count as out of combat since they're still the entire distance of the wall away (like how for movement you have to count the vertical distance to climb over a wall). Especially for the shooting one it seems weird, if you're not even visible claiming you're in combat is rather weird. We have some strong things, however, as a whole the army is mediocre at best. Yeah, if you abuse the one or two things that are actually decent you stand a reasonable chance at winning a given match. Doubly so cuz several of our good units are rather RNG Reliant (e.g. the EoTG effect, or the shots of a razordon or bastiladon being anywhere from 2 to 12). But even then there's plenty to which we don't have much of anwser besides just burying an opponent in skinks and hoping that ends up working.
That does seem rather "Obey the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law". I'd bet there is an official ruling about this somewhere, and your reasoning about how distance is measured sounds logical enough. Reminds me of the games where you're trying to sleep or rest or whatever, but you can't because there "Is a monster nearby" but that monster is like underground in a cave somewhere or glitched into the earth and you can't get to them or they to you, but you still can't rest anyway!
Nope @PJetski is right. This works. Distance for combat is measured as though terrain were not present. However, if he were to charge his chameleon skinks then he would have to account the distance of the wall up and down. Same for pile in. This is why Chemeleon skinks are so expensive.
Well that's just dumb.. and inconsistent given that the distance is only measured that way in that one specific case making it even stupider... And the example he gave with no line of sight is even worse…
It is very consistent. Distances are measured that way in AoS across the board. For example the range of spells, the range of shooting attacks, determining units control over objectives, the eligibility of declaring charges. Lastly, being in combat does not specify the requirement of line of sight. The only time vertical distance is measured in AoS is when assessing move distances for units without the Fly keyword.
It is inconsistent as getting into combat involves moving over the barricade. The whole point of being stuck in combat is that the enemy has a zone of control you can't just enter or exit without risk cuz the other guy might follow you and stab you as you do so. If he has to climb over a barricade to get to you, his zone of control should be significantly diminished. A model's zone of control can basicly be seen as the area it can viably control by moving into it at a moments notice. Hence the pile-in mechanic allowing just that, for the model to move to reach an opponent within his zone of control. It's not just an imaginary bubble that ignores things like (impassable) terrain. As for attacks, spells etc. None of those involve the model moving over the barricade, they just involve reaching over it with whatever attack you have. So as long as you are tall enough to concievably reach over it and stab/cut/shoot at an exposed bit of opponent you can viably hit him. As for being stuck in the control zone not specifying line of sight… I mean yeah, technicly. However, this logic would have the increadibly stupid implication that you can put a wall between 2 units that's 50" tall, 0.5" wide and a 100" long and they're now in combat despite them having no concievable way of even knowing where the other guy is, let alone being able to ever reach them. Which is well, really stupid… Also, I just read the attack passage in the general rulebook again. Melee attacks apparently don't technicly require line of sight, only the passage for ranged attacks explicitly mentioned the need for line of sight. So in my previous example with the essentially infinitly tall and long wall as it covers the entire battlefield the two units could attack eachother through the wall despite not being able to ever actually stand next to eachother. So RAW that's a thing apparently… a really really stupid thing… Also needless to say, the range for being in control of objectives I would find similarly stupid since then you can control them through walls as well.. At least for stuff like spells and aura's and such you can claim some magical explenation, or the fact that shouting a command at a troops on the other side of a wall still works, especially seeing as most walls are decrepit ruines with holes in em.
Abstractions in tabletop gaming will always be necessary. Obviously. But I can't help but to agree with you. Any rule, that might cause you or your opponent to audibly exclaim "What? That's so dumb", ought to get a second look. A simple solution might block that 3" with only impassible terrain, but a shorter wall, even one that skinks can hide behind (and otherwise block LOS) wouldn't block their ability to pop up and fire a poison dart at you, thus holding the enemy unit at risk. But then again, Skinks, esp Chameleon Skinks are VERY nimble, and they likely could hold you at risk from some very precarious positions. But that doesn't sort out the rule in general.
Correct. There are fundamental difference between event/tournament play and narrative play. In narrative play it makes no sense and the players can certainly create their own rules for how they want to play. For competitive play these are the current rules we have. And they make Chameleon Skinks very useful.
I'm seriously curious if it's being used a lot... cuz even for a game-y rule/abstraction this is still rather weird as it effectivly invalidates a good chunk of what you'd naturally assume obstacles would be usefull for. Though based on the pictures I see in the white dwarfs and such of tournaments it does appear as if the amount of small obstacles tend to be limited. So I guess it's just something that's rare enough that it's never really become an issue...
The rules are pretty clear cut. You can choose to ignore them, but it's weird to have a discussion about how good or bad a unit is if you're not playing the game the way it is intended.