8th Ed. Sally & Skink Skirmishers

[thinlizzy]

Hi all,

I am newish to 8th edition and I was hoping someone could explain why Sallys & Skink skirmishers are must haves for all competitive army lists? How do the new rule set benefit them?

I have heard that Skinks are used as redirecters, hoping that you could explain what this tactic is.

Many thanks,


Richard

 

[Eladimir]

Salamanders are must have because in 8th ed there is a tendancy to larger blocks of infanty and the flame template is fantastic.

Skink Skirmishers have been voted in some forums as the best units in the game. I don't see it. Get Salamanders and Chamo Skinks.

 

[BEEGfrog]

Salamanders eat big or armoured units (roasted) for breakfast.

Skink skirmishers eat expensive monsters (normally high toughness, low AS and thus vulnerables to high number of poiso shots generated by skinks) for lunch.

Leaving your slann and saurus an easy dinner of the rest of the enamy army.

At least that is the theory...

 

[Stonecutter]

There are a number of advantages to both sallies and skirmish skinks that make them excellent value for their points due to lethality, mobility and survivability (OK, not so much for T2 skinks ). Here is quick top 3 for each:

Sallies:

1) Skirmish - great mobility, -1 to shoot at, stubborn in the woods and they can march & shoot. The latter part means they effectively have a range of up to 30" (12" march + 8" template + arty die roll up to 10").

2) Monster & Handler rules - this allows the handlers to be ignored almost completely, meaning the enemy is always fighting against the sallie toughness, WS and AS. Even if a wound is taken, it is randomized and on a 5+ kills a handler instead of wounding a sallie - essentially a 5+ ward save vs cannon balls! In addition all of the handler attacks can be directed against any model in base contact with a sallie but the handlers cannot be attacked directly. This allows a pile of attacks to be directed against enemy wizards or other soft targets.

3) Flame shooting attack - unlike a breath weapon, it can be used every turn. As others have noted, it is devastating against hordes.

Skirmish skinks:

1) Skirmish - as for sallies, giving them a 24" range effectively for shooting.

2) Poison - autowound on big monster or just help grind down an enemy unit - even chaos knights will roll 1s on their AS if they have to do enough of them.

3) disposable martyrs - a unit is cheap enough that its loss is no big deal. Since charging units now align to the skirmisher facing, this makes the unit ideal for deflecting enemy units.

 

[nyahuma]

Not much to add to everything above except that I love it when opponents discount the skinks. In my last game the choas player was running a sorceror on a disk and blithely ignored my oncoming skinks. His friend warned him to watch out but he said "Hey, I have a 2+ ward save." 48 shots, 8 wounds and 2 failed saves later he was saying "I hate skinks."

 

[Eladimir]

On the redirecting front though when something charges into you skinks they'll align up but after they score a crushing victory and the skinks flee the winning unit can just take a leadership test and reform to finish how they wanted.

Leave you down 80 points and the enemy not out of position?

I do add in though that it can slow down a death start unit but marching to 1 inch in from of them because then they annihilate the skinks and reform only 1 inch from the starting point.

 

[Deusvult]

also, dont know if it is widley done but.. rear charges with skinks. Due to the fact u can fit them through gaps in an enemies battleline, you can more often than not get a rear charge on a unit, only with a front charge by something else obviously

 

[Moniker]

Sure it's an option, but at WS and T 2 you're really just giving him the chance to add combat res against you unless you've got a second rank of support attacks. Sure you get the +1 or +2 for a flank or rear charge, but how many is he going to manage to kill rolling 3's most likely? Maybe with Jav+Shields against something weak but definitely not blowpipes.

 

[Arli]

also, dont know if it is widley done but.. rear charges with skinks. Due to the fact u can fit them through gaps in an enemies battleline, you can more often than not get a rear charge on a unit, only with a front charge by something else obviously

Salamanders and razordons are very good at this.

 

[MOMUS]

Skinks and sallies are great both can dish out alot of damage, are very hard to catch and even when killed give up only a few points.
Skirmishers i would say are too valuable to be used as redirectors (unless you are really stuck), they are too useful with high movement and threat range. They are a good form of point denial.


Regarding redirecting: http://www.lustria-online.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=8435