I mainly intend to use them to just help cover my saurus from missle fire, but I'm not completley sure of the rules and I was wondering if there was any advantage to having them ranked.
you can't choose to have them ranked or not. according to the new rules, they are always in ranks, the difference to normal troops is, that they are spaced away from each other (1/2" I think). they only move to a tight rank, when charged and/or when charging. I had a post here on shooting through skirmishers http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/shooting-through-and-over-skirmishers-in-8th.4544/ you might want to check that out. in the end, it seems to me, that skirmishers are now not worth to be used as a single purpose screens against shooting. in my opinion, normal skinks would now do the job better with a lower cost (and javelins instead of blowpipes). however, if you want to use them to flank and shoot the enemy, skirmishers are still the better choice in my opinion.
Ranked skinks come equipped with javelins and shields, that cannot change. Skirmishing skinks come equipped with blowpipes which can be upgraded to javelins. So if you take blowpipes, they have to be skirmishing. For the record, both types of skinks definitely have their uses. Skirmishers may not be able to screen anymore, but they are still harder to shoot and more manouvrable.
You may be able to get some soft cover from you're skirmishers (-1 to shoot). Depending on how you're opponent feels about this.
Strewart is spot on. Skirmisher Skinks and Skink Cohorts both have there uses. Skink Skirmishers destroy all monsters and are good for whittling down units and redirects. Skink Cohorts are good sponge units as well as throw away units to protect the flanks or simply protect another unit. They make great Warmachine Killers and if anyone has archers and bowmen they're solid for putting them into combat and taking the heat off in the shooting phase.
Wouldn't units behind skirmishing skinks get a -2 hard cover bonus, since they're behind a unit? Thanks for all the replies BTW, it can be a bit difficult to sort out all of the rules and stuff.
That's why I put 'depending on what your opponent thinks about it' in my previous post. I would say yes personally. You need to make sure that you're opponent is ok with it first.
Okay, color me curious. Why would you opponent play this any differently? Units behind other units get hard cover, per the rules.
I thought that this was a gray area (from reading another post ). Where does it specify that in the rules? Thanks
Page 41 of the BRB under the "Target Behind Hard Cover" section. "We also count intervening units as hard cover (if they obscure the line of sight to the majority of the target, of course) as their presence will play havoc with the shooters accuracy."
Ok, now I am remembering the conversation. It came up that with a unit of say 10 skirmishers spread out (.5 inches apart). By the true line of sight rule, you can see the majority of the models in the unit behind the skirmishers. If that is the case, it was determined that the fair thing to do would be to discuss which modifyer applies with your oponent (the -1 or -2). Read as written is pretty clear though.
If you set skirmishers in 2 ranks overlapping it would work just fine. -- -- -- -- -- . -- -- -- -- --
Show me where it says that. The only rules are that they are "roughly" 1/2 inch apart, facing the same direction, and have a front, 2 flanks, and a rear. That set up has met all of the requirements.
The picture does indeed show the models being one behind the other. So I can see where an opponent would have a very strong argument against have the models stagered. And having an argument over something like that sort of defeats the point of playing a game (the point being to have fun).
Any formation will provide hard cover, I can explain it again more briefly this time. Each firing MODEL (not the unit as a whole!) must see 50% or more of the target UNIT or else suffer the -2 hard cover penalty. Yes, there might be a gap right in front of each firing model, but each guy must have unobstructed view of 50% of the entire target unit to avoid the penalty, which I really don't think would happen even with a straight line of skirmishers 10 across in front of the target unit. Each model would see 1/2 inch of the target unit through the gap right in front of him, but he's going to see much less through the gaps that are off at an angle. Get down to eye level and try it out..