I had a thought the other day about theses special characters and new armies, especially Beasts of Chaos, that allow for units to enter from the back of the board in your deployment zone and make you modify your deployment just be ready for it. What I am suggesting is to use two units of skink skirmishers to line the back table edge so no unit can enter from it. usually these coming onto the board rules follow the rules for coming back after following a unit off, and do not allow for charging on the turn they enter. That being said, if you left no area big enough for a ranked unit to enter they could not come on the board at the back edge of your deployment zone at least. The skinks are cheap, fast, and versatile enough to get you a turn or two of main unit advancement before catching up to the rest of the force and adding some support to the units up front. I know the new beasts can still come on from the table sides, but at least you would not have to worry about turn 2 rear charges on your main battle line. Just a crazy idea. Any thoughts?
I think it's so crazy that it might just work. I was thinking along similar lines my self as one of my friends is quite fond of his Georgers...
Yup, you don't really need to line the back wall, but if you are worried about anything behind the lines like miners, beastmen, tunneling teams, or just flying units, just take some random skinks, and maybe even consider giving them javelins and shields. With shields a fair number of those units become more easily defeated, I.E. the stuff that's just str 3. (which is a lot of it)
I think it sounds like a viable tactic. Expend 140 points to cover your rear flank, and then have some mid to late skirmisher support action. Conceavably it would be an awesome tactic. Not to mention the look on your apponent's face when he thinks he has a nasty surprise and you foil it with a couple of cheap units!
you know, they don't have to come from behind yor troops (i.e. your table edge), they could just come from the flank and do the same nasty stuff. if he point of some of those units is to capture table quarters they could also come in close to the skinks and kill them off. also, i doubt 140 points worth of skinks are going to cover the whole table edge
They don't have to cover the entire table edge. They only have to sufficiently cover your rear quarter of your army. Though your forces will have some time to move forward you still need protection in your back lines. You don't wanna have to try and fight a two front war.