Yes, I know. Pretty disappointing. I was only saying that with the Giant Bow's range, shooting it at something is an option from turn 1. It'll hit on 6's most of the time (pretty meh). To be frank, neither Stegadon's shooting ability impresses me when compared to their close combat prowess. However, I've gotten more use out of the Giant Bow (while actively moving upfield & trying to get the Steg into close combat, mind you) than the Giant Blowpipes: The Giant Bow often misses without HoG, and the Giant Blowpipes often lose their poison without HoG. If I'm buffing my Stegadon with HoG (slim chance, admittedly), the Giant Bow receives a greater benefit from BS than the Giant Blowpipes. The difference has been that I find myself shooting the Giant Bow more often than the Giant Blowpipes. They tend to go unused, or only see a single turn of use. So, yeah, neither weapon seems great to me, with a slight edge to Giant Bow being a tad better (on a cheaper model too).. I prefer the young guy.
Regarding the OP, I put a Skink Chief BSB with the Talisman of Preservation on a Terradon for a 1500 pt Skink Cloud. I was worried he'd draw a ton of fire, but he actually didn't. Half the time I could hide him behind a piece of scenery, and the rest of the time there were too many other threatening targets (Cowboy, Slann, Rippers, Salamanders). And he could get where the BSB-boost was needed.
Then I think your opponent didn't do a good job of target selection since a very snipeable T3 W2 bsb would be a dream to fire at for most people.
You're right - that has happened a few times. After multiple trials, I've managed some effective strategies. Still, 'even the best laid plans', etc. Yes, everything has weaknesses. This one can be especially worrisome with a BSB kit. That said, I do my best to outright remove the option - the Stegadon is never alone if I can help it, and is typically fielded behind my forward line. I like to give my opponents a wealth of options for shooting - things more resilient than this vulnerable Stegadon, things that would hurt them much more than the Stegadon if ignored. A combo of Razordons and a salamander behind them... Rippers... Krox...
Your builds are very interesting, I'll have to try a few. I usually go for plain EOTG. I think only the steg gets unstoppable stampede, I never use the rule. I'm not sure now because it says model and the howdah rule says it is all one model. I mean realistically its the monster - but rules are rules In all honesty I would regard the monster as the model for all this confusing stuff Steg helm: I don't think mounted characters can have impact hits off the top of my head Savage Beasts of Horrors: Same as above, I'm not sure. I guess the best thing is to agree with your opponent for all these things. ===================================== On the topic of the Skink Chief: I don't always use him too much, but he does come in handy sometime seeing he's only 40 points. I usually run him naked, either out in the open or even with a small group of skinks/skirmishers. Because, don't tell anyone, but... I like to use him as warmachine distractions (or regular confusions), to make my opponent paranoid. I you had a warmachine and you saw a Skink Chief out in the open (or in a small group coming towards you), what would you do? "Why would a Skink Chief be out in the open all by himself? Oh no, that can't be good... he must be evil... shoot it shoot it shoot it shoot before he gets to me... oh no it was a trap..." I can confirm it has worked a few times. I mean it's another thing for him/her to think about. If another unit messes with your chamos or warmachine unit, there's this guy laying around. If he gets shot, good that could have saved some of you Saurus of even a monster. If doesn't get shot, run him into the warmachine. After all, he is only 40 points
Thank you very much for your interest & clarifications, JamJar. I'm happy that you're willing to give this combination a shot. I wish you the best of luck! Getting used to it is tricky & counter-intuitive against particular opponents. Yet, I've found that the 'interceptor' role shores up its weaknesses very effectively, allowing it to reliably tackle the things that would otherwise be handled by lucky poisons rolls... and lots of 'em, at that. (and it also keeps me from praying that the poor skinks can kill the big thing before it or something else charges them).
In 1600p I have two Skink Chiefs. With following builds. Skink Chief 1 on Terradon. Sword of Striking, Blowpipe, Light armour. Enchanted Shield, Dragonbane Gem, Ruby Ring of Ruin. 2+ armour with 2+ ward vs flaming. 133p Worth of disturbance with blowpipe and a ruby. Can take out (most) warmachines on the charge and has magical attacks incase of ethereals. Number 2: On a Ripperdactyl. Spear, Light Armour, Shield, Dragonhelm and Egg of Quango. 2+ armour with 2+ ward vs flaming. 126p worth of mage hunter/chaff destroyer and plain mischief. They are quite easy to deal with yes. But then my salamanders, my stegadon and slaan can do their job. Also. 2 flying characters tend to keep my opponents busy even if I go against tought units like warriors a wellplanned redirect can do wounders.
I like both of these very much! A close friend of mine plays Empire, so I'll definitely give them a try in lower-point games.
Now I really feel like using Skink Chiefs. Sword of Striking is one I like to take, especially with the Skink Chief. Combined with Armour of Fortune and shield, you've got yourself a Chief hitting pretty much on 3's (usually 1st strike depending), with a 3+ 5++. Unfortunately armour saves don't always cut it for me. With a mount that's even better. It does provide a cheaper character that tends to sort of get in the way of enemy characters A couple of times I ran a naked Chief with the Egg of Quango in a Skink Cohort along side a Skink bsb w/ razor standard. That worked out quite well.
That could be pretty cool! Or maybe even the Banner of Swiftness. Does anyone have a link that describes how these two compare? I like Swiftstride for charge insurance, but I've heard that Swiftness tends to give them same effect for fewer points.
I have tried, during a joke match, to bring in 9 skink chiefs, with 7 of them having lustrian javelins. At 1500 points, that cost me only 374 points. The enemy was a Dwarf player who wanted to bring as many shooters as he possibly could. The reason was simply because we had brought armies, but none of us had any lists available, so we made something up quick and on the spot. All 9 skink chiefs ran alone. It was hillarious to watch him contemplate for minutes, on each of his shooters, what to aim for. He ended up spending 4 shooting phases on nothing but chiefs, and 2 of them still survived the game. I won with a crushing victory, because he was somehow scared shitless of the millions of chiefs I had on the board, when they didn't actually pose any real threat to him at all. Okay, not entirely true, two of them killed a warmachine, but they were pathetic otherwise. If I wasn't such a huge fan of Scar Vets, I'd definitely try this option more often. We did wonder if this was legal, though, but reading the rulebook, we found nothing to say otherwise. Only Specials and Rares seem to be limited in dublicate choices, unless we missed something.
Ok so I played a 2000 point game with 4 Chiefs with additional hand weapons and light armour. They were in a cohort nuit with 3 krox. One Chief had bsb Skaven Pelt Banner Another had the Egg A Beasts Slann and Beasts Skink got me Savage Beasts , but not the Pelt My Slann irresistibly cast Savage Beasts, giving the Chiefs 8 attacks There wound be 32+12 possible wounds on the Empire state troops from the Chiefs alone... Unfortunately, with my luck, most of the Chiefs failed the hit and then failed to wound I think there was a kill by a Chief. The Egg rolled a 1 and ended up killing another troop. Don't get my wrong, this unit should have demolished them and overrun into fresh combat. It just rolled a lot of 1's and 2's. Next time I'll try out Tehenhauin with 6 Chiefs
yeah you should've done a total of 22,7 wounds not counting the egg. It's a funny unit, but also highly reliable on savage beast because otherwise you're looking at a whole lot of WS4/S4 attacks I'm not sure the magic banner is worth it though. You're only gaining 4 additional attacks at the cost of 25 + 65 pts not to mention no option for magic items.
Razor Standard on the other hand... @_@ In the same situation, that could be awesome. With a poisoned cohort, even more. Whew! Definitely gonna be trying that out.
Remember: Chiefs are useful because they are so dirt cheap. If you kit them out too much, they will no longer serve their purpose. Egg is awesome, as are potions, but remember: They are squishy as hell, and even the mounts are rarely worth it. If you can attack first, or against something you can be fairly certain wont kill you first, go for it. Otherwise, make them a surprise bag of combat res. Something that springs up, much like an assassin, takes down a couple of models, and then dies in the ensuing counterattack. Few expect to get killed by SKINKS in CC, which means they'll make more mistakes in terms of handling the unit. Their saving grace is BS5, S4, I6. This makes them faster than most core that isn't elves, and allows them to mess up unsuspecting attackers, especially when charged. Always bring those javelins/blowpipes! I have found it effective to field 1 in a unit of chameleons, wielding a Shrieking Blade. Causes fear means Terror only causes fear, which means terror wont force our low-leadership unit to flee. This coupled with high BS makes him pretty effective, at a pretty low cost, and can continue adding casualties once Close Combat start. And if the enemy DOESN'T cause fear, you might even get lucky and WIN combat. All for fairly cheap - If you keep it to a minimum, he'll cost 52 points (javelin and shrieking blade), which is pretty good to allow your chameleons to put some poison goodness into that Terror-causing chaff-hunter. And at BS5 and S4, he isn't half bad at causing some extra wounds himself.
I love the model, so try to include it in any list i can. That being said, as I run no Slaan, putting two priest in my list with Tet, plus a vet, usually eats my points in all but the higher games. I have though, just begun to army-build some new lists that actually focus on them - skink-star! Put it in a cohort, FC, kroxigor, and let' er rip!