Just trying to nut out a 2200 pt army and I have been considering putting in a horde sized unit of Skinks. 10 x 4. How do you experienced guys think a horde of skinks would go? Might even throw in some Kroxigor. Thanks Paul
Personally, not well at all. They're a bunch of WS2 BS3 S3 T2 models with a 6+ save and 6+ ward in combat against most things. If it was a 40-strong skink horde vs a 40-strong chaos marauder horde (for this test, they have shields and are unmarked, costing the same as the skinks) then the skinks would be hitting on 4s, wounding on 4s and the marauders would get a 6+ AS and a 6+ ward. The marauders would be hitting on 3s, wounding on 3s and then the skinks would get the same saves. The marauders would win everytime due to hitting and wounding more easily, so to have a cnace, the skinks would need kroxigors... but that makes them cost substantially more than the marauders, and your unit is now being tarpitted. This will be the same against most other horde units you're likely to find. Others may have different experiences, but the way I see it is that they're not a great investment.
There really isn't much reason for a skink horde, because you don't gain much from it. The reason to go for a horde formation is to gain an extra rank of attacks, and gaining an extra rank of weapon skill 2 strength 3 attacks is not even close to worth it on skinks. If you want to go for a big unit you might consider just going for tons of ranks, that way you can stay steadfast. Putting some kroxigors in will help you do some counter-damage.
the skinks get a S+S reaction too though. 20 shots 7 hits 4 ish wounds then 7 wounds in combat they should also get at least one round of shooting so thats another 5-6 ish wounds the mauraders get what 9 wounds? if theres 30 of them the skinks should have killed 8-12 of them before combat starts. and the skinks should win comfortably given a small boost of life magic though and those skinks are more than a match for the mauraders in the example
What about changing it to a 10 wide unit with 3 kroxigors with a battle standard barer who has the skaven pelt banner and another defensive oriented skink hero to go with him? It loses some shooting because of the kroxagors but its well worth it! Its not a very competitive build because the hero Carrying the banner is just too soft and will be killed quickly! But you can always challenge with your other skink hero too at least keep him alive for a turn or 2. Another reason being the overall cost of the unit but its fun for a small game like what youre playing!
Your math hasn't taken the 6+ marauder save into account, unless you're calculating without shields. 20 shots as S+S yields 6.66 hits, 3.33 wounds and then they get a 6+ save which means approx. 2.8 dead marauders. This is without taking poison into account. The marauders then go first in combat, smushing the skinks into pulp and taking few losses back. Combined, your rounds of shooting should yield about 7 marauders killed, if that. Once they get into combat, though, your skinks are largely screwed. 30 attacks (I think I have that right, 10 from the front, 10 supporting and a further 10 because they're in horde formation, using my numbers of 40 vs 40) hitting on 3s yields ~20 hits, wounding on 3s yields ~13 wounds, 2 save their armour and 2 save their ward, leaving almost a whole rank of dead skinks. Skinks then hit back with 30 attacks, hitting on 4s for 15 hits, wounding on 4s for 7.5 wounds, 1 saves his armour, 1 saves his ward, leaving ~5 dead marauders. Marauders now number 28, skinks number 31-30. HOWEVER, you will NEVER see marauders that are unmarked, and marked marauders are either Tzeentch (so 5+/6+ AS and a 5+ ward in combat, 6+ vs shooting) or Khorne (an extra front rank's worth of usually S5 attacks). Whereas skinks barely survive combat with equally priced and numbered marauders with only shields, lesser numbers of marked or upgraded marauders will win every time.
your maths seems to be way off in certain places, so lets do this properly, S+S should be 20 shots, lets say 3 poision and 3 hits, so 4.5 wounds 6+save gives 3.75 dead 1 round of shooting gives 20 shots still 3 poision but 7ish hits so 6.5 wounds thats 1 round of shooting, plus S+S just over 10 dead statistically you should also get a second round of shooting since the maurder charge is only 11 inches on average, so lets tag on a second round at long range. another 3.75 dead thats a total of 14 dead mauraders and skinks share I the only difference is the maurders extra point of WS lets do the M first 26 remain thats 27 attacks 18 hits 12 wounds skinks save 4 so 8 dead skinks get 31 attacks 15.5 hits 7.75 wounds M save 2.6 so 5 dead M have lost 19 total so have 1 rank remaining, they charged and have a bangstick S have lost 8 total so have 2 ranks remaining have a bangstick, lose by 2! next round goes more in the skinks favour as they still have a full 31 attacks to the M 22 fairly fair fight realy, HW/S maurderes will most likly have the mark of tzentch, yes, but then we have 30 points extra lose 4 skinks to take a krox. M dislike fear
Your calculations are purely vs a marauder unit with just shields, something that I already stated will be hard to find in the real gaming world. You also have to take into account other units on the field (the OP specified 2200pts, and I have 2 hellcannons in my 2k WoC. If 1 of those hits that skink unit there's going to be a lot of deaths and a lot of panicking, whereas LM have exceedingly little in the way of artillery outside of sallies. There's also the other marks, such as Slaanesh ("Oh look, they have a kroxigor... cool..." "Yeah, it'd look good over my fireplace." "Should we charge it?" "Yeah sure, what the heck.") that can take care of the panicking caused by sallie breath templates and the fear from Skrox units. Then there are khornate GW marauders (light armour-wise, but frenzied (so ItP) and having a good lot of attacks, with a unit of 30 will still recieving a whopping 40 S5 attacks!) and the aforementioned Tzeentch marauders (6+ AS and a 5+ Ward anybody?), even Nurgle are good here, with your javelins recieving a nice -1 to hit, and your skinks now hitting the marauders on 5s!
fantastic, yes you can tool them up to all hells. you can give them MOK and GW at about 6 points each but thats added half again what you pay for the skinks so at an even points cost you only get what? 27 MOK mauraders for every 40 skinks as already stated the mauderers lose 15.5 to shooting leaving them with what? 25? so 35 attacks 23 hits 19 saves 16 skinks dead? they wont break the skinks before they all die, end of the first round of combat your looking at 23 dead mauraders to 16 dead skinks skinks have the rank bonus so hold nicely the scary ones are nurgle and tzeentch. but if you are going to take into account the other units on the table fine, take a slaan. there are what? 3 spells in life that will help the skinks in combat, any one of those swings the battle largely in your favour, while sallies dont panic mauraders, they are awsome at just killing them so are blowpipe skinks for that matter, yes they are rubbish ws and T, but they do have quick to fire poisioned weapons and are dead cheap. they would make an interesting horde unit that most people will ignore, great tarpit though. personally i would ditch 12 of the skinks and take krox but theres no reason they cant work as a dirt cheap hordey tarpit given some decent support
Wait, what!? You do NOT get 27 MoK GW marauders for the price of 40 cohorts. 5pts per GW marauder + 30 for the mark puts them at 230 for a unit of 40, to get down to skink numbers you're dropping to 34 marauders. Where did you get 27 from? I'll see your Slann and raise you a Sorcerer Lord with Pit of Shades/Purple Sun/Gateway... By 'take other units into account' I meant stuff APART from the obvious Slann and Pit/Purple Sun Lords, units that are seen at these points in numbers such as sallies and hellcannons. Hellcannons being my example, any units they hit (not wound, hit) take a panic test at -1Ld. If you have a Sorcerer who can lower their Ld beforehand then you're watching that buffed unit of skinks running away quite quickly unless your BSB is babysitting them; the hellcannon also has superior range to their javelins, and so can inflict larger casualties on the skinks before the marauders get hit. All this time we've been using numbers where both units cost the same/have the same bodies and the skinks shoot the marauders to death whilst staying on full, whereas any WoC general can see a nice juicy target like that and have a hellcannon firing on it before you can say "Doomfire!". Yes, you might have a Slann, I might have a Sorcerer Lord who's swalloed him with Pit of Shades, but without taking into account casualties from common sense atacks and other sources, our numbers mean nothing.
i may have left the shields on the M when i worked out pointage then you cant compare any unit ever although, 15 chameleons can easily kill your hell cannon first turn i was mearly pointing out that a skink horde can stand up to a maurader horde. even a nasty khone GW wielding horde , its not a terrible unit for the points cost,
sure, its a monster with handlers yes only have to kill the 3 dwarves to make it roll on the reaction test, 30 shots should give at least 5 wounds a turn, so a shooting phase and a S+S should finish it off
A skink horde would only be worthwhile if not used as a horde. Using skinks to kill stuff is a bad idea - yes you can buff them with magic etc, but those same buffs would be much better spent on improving your already strong saurus/krox/stegs etc. A large unit of skinks could be good as a steadfast tarpit - I'm talking about spending maybe 200 to 250 points on skinks and putting them in formation 5 wide. 8 to 10 ranks of skinks are going to take a long time to grind down, no matter how strong a unit is. You could easily tie down a 500+point deathstar for the majority of the game with something like that. Plus, the points would only be won if every skink was killed/run down/fled off the board. The counterargument is that for 200-250 points you could have an 18-20 strong saurus unit with full command. There is still an advantage for the skinks, however. Yes, the saurus could actually kill and defeat mid to elite infantry while the skinks would only hold them indefinitely, but the skinks would be able to hold the most brutal of deathstars far, far longer than the equivalent saurus would. And yes, a huge unit of skinks would be vulnerable to warmachines, but if they're being shot by warmachines then that is artillery fire being wasted on skinks that would otherwise be killing your far more valuable saurus.