8th Ed. ETC Skink Army. Army Building

[Malleus]

Greetings one and all, I will use this post as an introduction as well as my army building tactica if you don't mind? Also Mods apologies if this is in the incorrect part of the Forum as I am wanting to have an army building tactica to come from this post if at all possible.

Now onto the vast amount of gumpf that I typically post.

I play a lot of Warhammer under ETC restrictions and am currently looking for a 3rd force. I play an all Goblin army both in Single and Team games with lots of Tarpits and hard hitting supporting units to cause damage by flanking the blocks tied up with my Night Goblins. As well as this I have been running an Ogre Kingdoms force so have two different playstyles when it comes to close combat and was thinking lately that I want to try a shooting army. Also with both of these armies the use of chaff units is paramount to getting the combat that I want when I want it. With ETC restrictions you're limited to 45 shots with a range exceeding 20" and obviously the armaments of Skinks, the range is under this but has the addtional restrictions of having a maximum of 4 identical core choices (so cannot fill core with just skirmishers) and a total restriction of 6 units of skinks/chamo skinks (cohorts over 20 models and including Skrox units are not included) and was wondering what the viability of running this type of army would be.

If anyone is up to helping me design an army for next years ETC competition's (I typically attend approximatel 5-6 tournaments throughout the year at a Regional/National Level) that would be very much appreciated. To begin with I want to look at core choices only and as a result this is what I am beginning to think of as my core selections.

Minimum core is 600 Points

Cohort - 299
24 Skinks, Mus, Std, 3 Kroxigor

10 Skirmishers - 80
Javelins, Shields

10 Skirmishers - 80
Javelins, Shields

10 Skirmishers - 80
Javelins, Shields

Now that leaves 60 odd points to add into my core, I am not all that interested in adding another unit of skinks as that will reduce the amount of Chameleon Skinks that I can take (am thinking 3 at the moment but not sure whether that's going to be too many)

Braves are not really going to add all that much to the units so I was wandfering whether adding a few skinks to each of the skirmisher untis would be worth it or not?

I am notorious for attempting to stick to minimum core %

 

[Hebus]

I would remove javelin in favor of blowpipe (less expensive for almost the same result) and put more skinks in the Skrox unit to fulfill the 600 points minimal core. It wouldn't change the maneuverability a lot while giving you more time for the unit to die. I would go for 45 models in the units since you have no point/ are limiting yourself at 600 point this give you 42 skinks + 3 Kroxy for a total of 397 points with full command.
I would include a brave, to soak up damage for a heavy character.
With this, you have :
3x10 skirmishers 210pts
42 skinks + 3 Kroxy w/full command 397 pts
a clean total of 606 point


Edit :
Another way to fulfill you core minimum point, is to add some jungle swarms

 

[Malleus]

Jungle Swarms are actually something that I did not consider using, it would definately give me an interesting option for redirection although I am skeptical about including them due to swarms being unstable and the cost per base is perhaps a bit steep for what they actually bring to the table. However saying that I have a load of tricks using Snotlings that I could perhaps attempt to replicate with the jungle swarms, I will have a think about their inclusion and run a series of scenarios for their use.

Why do you have a preference for the Blowpipe option is it simply the case of the upgrade cost for the Javelins that puts you off or do you have a different reason for not including/recommending them?

My thoughts on the upgrade is that the Javelin makes the units more survivorable in the battle between chaff units as they already have a benefit of being skirmishers and the shields give them a nominal save against S3 shooting, the benefit of the parry save in cc is also pretty good in my opinion and when taking the Cold Blooded into account actually makes them pretty reliable at holding their ground.

Blowpipes I do like the idea of but am I correct in thinking if I take advantage of the multi shot rule I lose the benefit of poison?

I was also considering including a couple of larger units of Skink Cohorts without Kroxigor so that I can escape the restrictions on skink units (for example multi units of 22-24)

 

[Stonecutter]

I tried out a core heavy lizzie list that sits around 50% and it was very successful at a recent tourney I participated in (see 2500 tourney in battle report forum). The skrox were actually very effective for taking on certain types of units with relatively few, high strength hits such as choppy characters, stanks, demigryph knights, hellcannons, etc. While my list currently has two units with 3 krox + 24 skink I am considering going with 2 krox + 28 skink to free up more points. In addition, with the musician present, the ability to reform with a wide frontage allows skrox to put out a lot of shots (~20). This is highly useful in dealing with a number of opponents as it will provide the initial volley of ~20 shots followed by another volley for the stand and shoot if they charge. What remains of the opponent's unit then has to deal with the S6 hits while only being able to kill skinks and by this point the skrox will be steadfast with ranks due to enemy casualties. The speed of the skrox also makes them good flankers and while I certainly wouldn't recommend tackling most ranked units head on, they are good at taking out large units of shooters (dwarves, elves, humans, etc.) since the skinks have some chance of saving armour or parry.

 

[Arli]

Jungle Swarms do not count toward the minimum core requirement.

 

[Stonecutter]

Blowpipes I do like the idea of but am I correct in thinking if I take advantage of the multi shot rule I lose the benefit of poison?

The only time you would lose the benefit of poison is if the to-hit roll is higher than 6 - a situation that will be the case for normal blowpipes moving and using multi-shot at long range (-1 moving, -1 long range & -1 multishot= 7's to hit). If the blowpipes are in short range then they will need 6's to hit and thus every 6 will be a poisoned auto-wound. Alternatively, simply single shoot at long range and then use multi-shot once the unit is within short range or if it doesn't have to move to shoot at its target.

 

[Malleus]

Jungle Swarms do not count toward the minimum core requirement.

Which is why I must have dismissed them first time around

Also Stonecutter, thanks for clearing that up for me, so really the question is whether I want to double tap or have a 6+/6++ in close combat

 

[Wiggus]

personally i prefer jav's and shield like yourself you also have to consider that javelins can always stand and shoot.

 

[Malleus]

Ok so having explored a number of possibilities I think that I'm more then likely to be running this for the core

Cohort - 299
24 Skinks, Mus, Std, 3 Kroxigor

10 Skirmishers - 80
Javelins, Shields

10 Skirmishers - 80
Javelins, Shields

10 Skirmishers - 80
Javelins, Shields

10 Skirmishers - 70

Totals 609 Points for my core selection, I am a little skeptical about running teh Skrox unit on its own but hopefully with the next section should give you some idea as to what type of list I want to be running eventually (If this fails badly I will be sacrificing the Skrox and 1 unit of Skirmishers for a block of 24 Saurus - but I do want the Skinks to have a fair chance of running all core)

Stupidly I picked up the Ogre book instead of the Lizardmen book so I will try and do the characters from memory.

I'd like to focus first on what i plant to have running my CR once the target has been softened by the Skinks.

Lord: Oldblood on Carnosaur

Now my initial thoughts with this guy are so;
Since Carnosaur already has S7 attacks, its not really worth it in my opinion to increase the strength of the general ontop of this beast. S5 with the Oldblood is going to be enough for the type of targets that I have in mind for this guy to tackle especially with the strength of the Carno as mentioned previously. Ideally I want to have more attacks. 8 would be nice but I think that I can happily settle for 7 Strength 5 attacks from my lord so Sword of Strife is looking promising. I also want him to have a good an armour save as possible (1+) so looking like Shield, BUT cannot decide between re rolls or a 5+ ward as I am also planning to give him Other Tricksters Shard (so really a choice between Armour of Fortune or Dawnstone) at the moment I am leaning towards running him with teh Wardsave

 

[Hebus]

You are aware that you block your possibility to get chameleon if you take 4 skirmisher units?

Unless you are fighting a S7+ or a killing blow unit, reroll is better than wardsave for less point.

 

[Malleus]

You are aware that you block your possibility to get chameleon if you take 4 skirmisher units?

How so? Should still allow me to take 2 units of chamo skinks (maximum of 6, Cohorts with Krox not counted towards this limit)

 

[Hebus]

yeah, I don't know why I thought it was 4 yesterday... sorry

 

[Malleus]

Lord Build at the moment is looking like

Oldblood
Carnosaur
Sword of Strife
Dawnstone
Other Tricksters Shard
Heavy Armour
Shield

Which gives me a bucket of attacks from the lord at Strength 5, S7 attacks from the Carnosaur re rollable armour save of 1+ and the ability to force successful ward saves to be re rolled (Haha Daemons). Also since he has a magic weapon he can most likely blow through Ethereal Threats fairly easily. Since we're looking at approximately 450 points here there is likely to be no further Lords in the army so the Magic phase and users are primarily going to be focused on two or more LEvel 2 Priests, which we will move onto next.

Priest - 140
Level 2 Heavens, Cube

Priest - 125
Level 2 Heavens, Scroll

Is there need for a 3rd or have I overlooked a magic item that you think I could better utilise?

 

[Smexygor]

EotG?

 

[Malleus]

The Engine of the Gods is an interesting choice, but I want to include a BSB as well.

If I put EoTG in the list I'll have to reduce the amount of magic users to 1 Level 2 Priest,