Are you forced to field 3 Skinks handlers? I Because if you wanna drop some points, (at least) two of them would be the first I wouldn't include in my initial list... you can always summon other handlers at a very low cost (4, and remember you would have the Astrolith Bearer or maybe sometimes a Mage Constellation activated)! By the way: - Astrolith + Kroak is a TASTY combo! More range and +1 to cast rolls, and eventually Kroak's re-roll ability? Yes, please! - I wouldn't chose the knight or the saurus as Guards substitute, especially cause you say you play more defensively. But a bit of mobility (which may mean Knights or trying to fit a Trog in your list, which could also be useful to Unbind enemy spells) could be handy... Hard decisions have to be made! - See the previous answer: I'd go with Knight and Trog before everything else, but as you can guess it is situational... (I wouldn't forget Salamanders and Terradons: they could be a good choice to give some mobility to your army. I'd go for the flying dinos though because with one summoning you get 3 models). - Cahamelons are better, ok, but Skinks have the Retreat ability, and if your Bearer is nearby they can be quite dangerous! I'd keep them in the list (also for the love of variety! )
In Azyr comp the handlers are free (3 for each Sally / Razor ) Lordmariskal : take a look at my thread about an Azyr tournament
Instantly I think this points system is utter nonsense because there should not be that much difference between Kroak and the Eternity Warden. Truth be told, if I had to choose between Kroak and the Warden, I'd pick the Warden because he's a legendary support.
Honestly I would pull the engine out, replace it with eternity warden and a skink Starpriest and take the shadowstrike host. Fill out the ooints with more guards. With your rippers in the sky it is a scary counter attack, which makes them nervous and that blot toad giving you better control of the board from turn 1.
Actually this leaves you with 3 points for heroes. So you could still take astrolith and a skink chief. Oh the combos you could pull off! Edit: scratch the chief, take 5 more skinks in your group of 30 so you can afford to lose a few skinks.
Serously? Kroak is a wizard, casts 4 spells / turn, can summon, can make up to three dice rerolls, and is a combat beast. the two Warden's abilities work only if a) he's a Slann bodyguard, and b) he's near a unit of Saurus Guards In Azyr system, high level casters are costly (IIRC Nagash is 15 points)
Guards turn into absolute monsters with eternity warden though, so I can see it both ways. Can I ask what it is about the chief that makes him popular in AoS? I haven't played much of it yet, and have seen some other people taking them too.
His command ability is pure gold. He can pick a skink unit between 10' (which is a lot) and add +1 to hit. those 30 skinks?, now they hit at 2+ (and they reroll the 1, if you're using the skink patrol formation) those ripperdactyls? now they hit at +3, and with toad rage is huge and so on. Our army is full of battlescrolls with the skink keyword...
Yes, seriously. In addition to naturally turning Guard into monsters, if you use him to complete a battalion then he turns them into nigh-unkillable death machines. You, like whomever did the points thing, are falling into the rookie trap of assuming that a model that has more immediately impressive stats is better than the seemingly weaker one who can act as support to build synergy. But the truth of the matter is that that's 8th Edition thinking and is not valid here where synergy beats power every time.
I absolutely disagree. First: the Warden "only" gives an additional attack to Guards. To make them unkillable you only need a generic hero... a starpriest will give them the bonus to save, and the Starlight bonus. Guards are a tough nut because you can easily give them a save +2 rerollable, and for that you don't need the Warden. The warden is gold for the Selfless Protector ability, that keeps alive your most precious character. Second: when you need the Warden, Kroak (or any Slann), can summon the Warden at 5+, and that's only a minimal fraction of the things they can do in the Hero Phase. The key is all here: if you have a wizard, that can summon the model "A" without breaking a sweat... the wizard is more useful then "A" alone, because since the first turn, my army will have the same synergies guaranteed by "A", and will also have the support of said wizard. So yeah, I think it's definitely better to have Kroak that, during the first turn, can summon that precious Warden, can also summon one Bastiladon (buffed with Spirit Shield), then casts a Comet. Now, the Warden is exceptional... but he's not in the same league of a Slann, or Kroak. And that's why they cost more points. It's not a matter of power Vs synergy. It's a matter of power+synergies+support Vs synergy.
Wrong, actually. The Warden will give them the +1 save due to the Guard's ability, plus the battalion will give them an additional +1 to net them the 2+ without the need for magic. And to be honest, I'd like to see a Slann match that.
Skink Chief is only really good in a heavy skink army, as the general. In this case I was suggesting it based on how many hero points he had left! But it's quite devastating if he's your general and you have a couple of shadowstrike hosts. Downright deadly in that case!
The Guards' ability works with any hero and yeah, battalion gives a further bonus, but in Azyr comp, formations are not free, you must spend points to field them (for example, skink patrol costs 2 points). My point still stands. A+B+C>A
Actually just went through the rules for apocalypse build, and pretty similar to my last build, just less models. Eternal starhost (2) Skink Patrol (2) Kroak (7) Eternity Warden (3) Astrolith Bearer (2) Skink Starpriest (2) 5xChameleon (2) 5xChameleon (2) 10xGuard (6) 5xGuard (3) 5xGuard (3) 4xRipperdactyl (4) Stegadon (Sunfire) (6) Bastilodon (Lazers) (6) 50 points Meets all the requirements. I just normally bring more chameleons and guard per unit. The skink patrol gives you a blot toad and endless ripper attacks and pop out of nowhere chameleons to help control the board. If you have objectives like control a piece of terrain the Eternal starhost marches to it, sits and stays. You sacrifice the engine due to points restrictions, but instead do massive damage with the sunfire throwers before they get anywhere close to the immovable stone units of guard. The bastiladon picks off enemies and tarpits anything that may have a chance at the saurus guards and Kroak buffs, summons, and destroys, while Eternity Warden buffs, and takes any damage for Kroak (If any) while you await victory.
As for an 1500 point SDK List: Slann Starmaster (140) EoTG (289) 15x Skinks (165) 5x Chameleons (95) 3x Ripperdactyls (126) Stegadon (233) Bastiladon (366) 1x Salamander (55) 4x Handlers (32) 1500/1500 Assuming of course you can use the engine for both the skink patrol and the Thunderquake. If you can't cross it over to both hosts, then you would just have to decide which battalion suits the incoming game better. If I had to choose I would drop skink patrol for Thunderquake as it gives the choice between agressive and defensive. In which case I would take out the skinks for Slann Starmaster (140) EoTG (289) 10x Guard (230) 3x Ripperdactyls (168) Stegadon (233) Bastiladon (366) 1x Salamander (55) 3x Handlers (24) 1504/1500
As a caveat the above two SDK lists are not applied hammer but theoretical hammer. As a rule I would not play SDK or PPC comp rules. If I wanted to play 8th... However I don't mind Azyr or independent pool comp riles as much. There are still restrictions but I can work woth those challenges. Points isn't my issue. Making combos or specific characters unfeasible with restrictions of ppc and sdk is where I have the problem.
Of course, that's a matter of personal tastes. .. Azyr is not bad, but neither perfect. One of the better things in AoS is that, with the plethora of house systems , you can pick the ones that suit you better.