Okay, well I personally never have used skinks as a screen and yet, every lizardmen player I know recommends it. I was curious to how people recommend screening with skinks. I get the gist but is there anything special anyone does? Also I was considering spreading out my skinks in one long line to protect many of my units at once, so I was wondering whether or not that is counted cheesy. Also how does baiting units with skinks work, does it rely on the enemy pursuing? Sorry if these are stupid questions or if this is in the wrong section. >.<
Nothing special, stick a skink unit in front of another unit and they block LoS to the ones behind it. You could make a big unit of 20 skinks or so and run them across your whole army, but yeah it would be considered a little bit cheesy and really would hold no advantage over having multiple smaller units. In fact, if your opponent shoots up the big unit and forces them to panic, they are going to be fleeing through half your army and causing a lot more panic, plus you lose all your screens at once. An important part of being a screen is cheap and expendable. Baiting is not so much about pursuit, but more about them charging and you fleeing as a response. If you put something in front of them you give them little choice but to charge or sit there and look silly, when they declare it you flee and they have a failed charge. Since a failed charge is their normal movement, and oyu put the skinks in place, you know exactly where they are going to be and can prepare a flanker.
Also, let us not forget that the carnosaur is not a large target, and therefore your 500 point investment can be protected by 7 point skinks.
If the Carnosaur isn't a large target then could it be placed into a unit of CoR and not be picked out by shooting?
Theoretically, but that would greatly decrease the mobility he gets from being a lone monster, as well a simply being a pain in the neck to rank up!
Wow, I just had to look that up and now that I've seen it. I'm in shock how could they miss a rule so obvious? Even in the FAQ kinda sad really...
I think they deliberately left it out to make it a more viable option, they seem to mostly just want dragons to be large targets these days, and lone monsters. Apparently the carnosaur doesn't fit into the same power group as a dragon, but I'd back him to take one down easily.. The only problem would be killing it before it killed him since dragons fly. Carni in cold ones is actually quite viable and a few people do it, it really makes sure nothing is oging to survive the charge. I personally think its a bit overkill and not really needed though.
For the record, an OB on Carnosaur can be picked out of any unit due to the model being US 6. There are 2 major issues that have to be considered with skink screens, - What units can see them? Depending on how terrain is set up, your opponent can use hills to completely nullify the screen part. - And second, How do I get them out of the way when I want to charge? The block line of sight both ways which can be an issue if you aren't prepared with a solution.
A character who is US5 or more can be targeted individually when he joins a unit. He also does not benefit from "Look out sir", again failing the requirement of needing to be under unit strength 5. pp. 74, 75 for reference.
Damn haha I got so excited with the idea of hiding a carnosaur in a unit just to have him charge out and mess some people up. I guess i could still do that just lost some of the advantage of such a tactic. >.<
I use skinks to cover my TG and a saurus unit. They can serve as many roles. Charge block, flank, almost anything. I've actually used them to take out dragons, war machines, and giants. They're sturdier than they look. SCREEN THE CARNOSAUR. IT WORKS.
i always play against my chaos army friend who has a khornate army so ofcourse they all have frenzy from mark of khorne so i put them in front of my big expensive units so the frenzied units will take them down fast but i found out that idea sucks so i use them as range for distraction