AoS Skinks vs Saurus (this is a frickin long post with wound output and everything)

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

After looking at both of our main battleline that I’d actually take (not a fan of single wound at 18 points when my friend likes lightning bois with mortal wounds) and reading a few threads here and there, I’ve come to the conclusion that skinks are thought of as low damage chaff and Saurus our are main damage horde. But looking at the stats and abilities skinks seem to be better off then Saurus even in terms of damage unless you take them in max squads and rely on heavy buffs that aren’t easy for me to put points into since I like summoning lists and play at 1k almost exclusively (the easiest tourneys for me to go too are also 1k but I guess it’s normal for them to be 2k since most tourney lists I see are 2k)

So a unit of 40 Dino’s is like 360 points and realistically should be able to get two ranks of ten into fisticuffs distance, which is like 40 attacks 3 up which is approx. 27 hits which is approx 13.5 wounds. And then another 10 bites which should deal approx 2.5 wounds. Now 16 wounds is kinda meh especially when compared to skeletons... I have an issue where I compare hordes to skeletons lol, skellies get around 20 wounds a fight phase and are cheaper, plus I believe have smaller base size so they can get more guys and gals to do a stab. Now we do have THE WARUDO... ahem teleports thru space and time which is prolly why we don’t get stronk but still it means we are a crap Ally at times...But then I saw that beautiful golden gal (I’m assuming she’s old cuz she’s a vet) the scar vet on t-Rex! So anyways carny with dulled teeth and I wish I had sun powers Phil buff Saurus to new heights! Heck I’ll even add rerolls to the party train! So 40 attacks with the two buffs is around! And they get about 42 hits omg! Which is 21 wounds and they didn’t even chomp yet! So after bites we get approx. 26 wounds! (These numbers are not exact gimme a plus or minus of 2 wounds for the range)

Edit*took out skinks math cuz i made a mistake


Sorry if this thread already exists I looked for it but couldn’t find anything
Also sorry for the silliness just me tryna be funny lol

 

[Asamu]

Now I may be misremembering rules but I believe skinks with blowpipes and moon clubs can attack with both weapons in melee right?

This is correct. A model attacks with all weapons on its profile that it is equipped with. This makes club skinks equivalent to having a 5+/3+ weapon.

If you use Saurus, you sort of have to go all in with them and buff them up to absurd levels with a battalion, a scar vet carno, and something else for re-rolls to hit. Astrolith got nerfed, so that's not an option anymore with Saurus hordes, so the only options are the Slann constellation or scar vet on cold one to re-roll 1s to hit, or a Sunblood for full re-rolls against 1 target.

When Saurus are above 30 models in a sunclaw, they pump out ~1.935 wounds each, with ~1.15 of that having rend -1, +~1 wound per use of the scar vet command ability. With 2 uses (it stacks), Saurus with re-rolls to hit put out ~3.9 wounds apiece in combat with clubs, with ~2.3 of that at rend -1 and double damage vs chaos daemons. 10 Saurus will drop Archaon in a single round of combat with average rolls from just the club attacks in that instance. They'll also wipe out units of 30 or so regular models with a 6+ save or no save. With teleporting, you can spread that unit out to hit the entire enemy line (Though you lose half of the re-rolls on the club attacks, and 2/3 of the re-rolls on the non-club attacks, because you can't get full re-rolls vs everything, which cuts damage by quite a bit).

Without all those buffs stacked on them though, yeah, Saurus are pretty bad. They're like more expensive, worse, slower chainrasps that can't fly naturally on larger bases (same average damage output, same save, but chainrasps ignore all rend instead of only rend- 1); when horde and battalion bonuses kick in, they get stronger offensively, but you have to pay for all that, and they're still ~25% more points. A horde of skeletons is similar in strength with all the horde bonuses, but is cheaper. Base size matters a lot too; skeletons can attack over each other at any angle, and even over 2 models with spears if they're in b2b, but Saurus can only attack over each other in 1 rank through the gaps in a honeycomb sort of formation when the enemy units are extending a bit into those gaps. Granted, you don't actually need that many saurus attacking when you've buffed them up, but it's worth taking into account.

 

[Canas]

TLDR: skinks do similar damage when compared to Saurus and the buffs Saurus have exclusive access too don’t make up for it in my mind especially when you add the points required for some of those buffs…

Your math is wrong for the saurus horde. A horde of 40 saurus with spears, 20 of which in range for the spears, 10 for biting, would do 20 wounds, not 16.

This puts us at 40 wounds per full turn for the saurus.

For the skink horde it's worng as well. 60 skinks with boltspitters and clubs will be split into 2 units, one of 40, one of 20.
The one of 40 will do 8 wounds with shooting and 4/9th wound per skink in melee combat.
The one of 20 will do 3 shooting and 1/3th per skink in melee.

Now let's be generous and say 20 skinks of your 40 man group got into melee.
This would result in a total of 11 wounds from shooting and 16 wounds from melee per turn, totalling 27.

27 is less than 40, so no, they don't do more damage. For them to draw even nearly the entire 40 man group of skinks need to get into melee combat (32,625 skinks to be exact). Which is slightly unrealistic.

As far as I can tell there's 1 big flaw in your math. You haven't taken into account that for every time the skinks get to shoot, there's 2 rounds of melee combat.

Some further drawbacks to bringing skinks into the actual meatgrinder:

1. Their main draw is wary fighters. Forcing skinks into the main grinder makes that ability pointless.
2. In terms of cost-efficiency skinks might bring more wounds. But due to them being squishier they are not necesarly going to stand up to more punishment due to the following reasons:
   • You forgot battleshock, which the skinks will be more suspectible to (harder to do the math on though)
   • You removed their shields, making them even squishier (again, harder to do the math on though)
   • Being squishier it's easier to knock of their horde bonus
   • Being squishier it's easier to break the unit with a minimum of firepower, allowing your opponent to better focus his own forces on whatever other priorities
3. The synergy between the various saurus heroes and the warriors you view as solely a cost for the saurus, whereas you don't take into account you're probably going to be bringing that carnosaur anyway and are now paying for a command ability that serves no purpose if all you bring is skinks.

Anyways, tl;dr: kitting skinks out for dealing damage is an excercise in futility, far too many of em need to reach melee and they'l be slaughtered in the 100's. Their main use is being fodder that stands in the way. Saurus actually stand a decent chance at pumping out some damage, especially when fully buffed up, but the strategy requires you to go all in on saurus and even then it's probably not the most efficient or easiest to pull off due to the amount of set-up needed.

 

[Dr Kaos]

Since skinks have 1" range in melee and the base is 25mm they are able to fight in two ranks. The smaller base also add up. For every 10 Saurus (in a straight line) there will be 12,8 skinks.
The problem with Saurus are that they need support from heroes and/or a batallion which in reality increase their cost.
Skinks are good just by showing up with the added option of just opting out of melee. I have on occasion used the wary fighter ability to flee forward and claim objectives behind enemy lines.

 

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

I take it solely as a cost because I’d rather the other options that don’t buff Saurus exclusively, also I’m confused where you are getting 20 wounds for an unbuffed unit? You seem to be rounding your values and I did do the math in my head so I could’ve gotten it wrong now so I’ll redo it here:

40 Saurus get plus one to hit and an extra attack with their Celestite weapons
20 make it into combat when they charge and this will mean 40 spear attacks at 3 up 4 up and 10 bite attacks(first rank only) at 4 up 4 up. So the bites are easy to calculate and we get 2.5 wounds (10*(1/2)=5, then 5*(1/2)=2.5 wounds
Then the spear attacks we get 13.3 repeating(40*(2/3)=26.6..., then 26.6...*(1/2)= 13.3...) so adding these we get 15.83... pr 16 wounds. Is there a bonus I’m missing? As for the “flaw” I addressed that I didn’t add a second fight phase, I also didn’t take into account situations where the Saurus do no damage because of distance and such like that. It should also be noted that the second fight phase has to realistically take into account two rounds of damage suffered by the units in question and I didn’t want to give a situation where no casualties occurred so I only put initial damage to show how effective each unit can be in the initial stages of conflict

Next I’ll address their squishy ness if a skink unit is dealt 6 wounds and a Saurus unit is dealt 6 wounds you’ll lose 5 skinks and 4 Saurus. With rend you’ll lose 6 skinks and 4 saurus, and with 2 rend you lose 6 skinks and 6 saurus. So the main reason saurus are great is becuase a max unit teleported will do more and last longer then a max unit of skinks, how ever points wise they aren’t that much tougher. So bravery is the main difference between the two units toughness wise and I do think you have an argument there so I’ll concede

Now next you say you are generous with 20 skinks making it into combat but I’d argue that with 3 more inches of movement they would get the much in a combat where saurus manage 2 perfect ranks. I will say that I misread the skinks bonus! I didn’t realize it only effected shooting! So I’ll concede with skinks math and just take your number plus the redid number of 32 wounds a turn for saurus so 27 vs 32 wounds without buffs (still not sure where 40 is coming from) but I will say saurus are awesome if you grab the right units! I just think that for the points unless you take the battalion they lose effectiveness. Also with the ability of skinks you couldn’t get situations where the saurus don’t survive and skinks do! Such as combat with multiple units where the units would wipe you out but you escape! Also the ability to take several units for every max saurus squad was overlooked.

I’m gonna take the time to math out some scenarios when I get home! I’ll add my findings soon...
I want to try these scenarios : double turn while waiting the first turn out of combat for the skinks only, double turn with skinks also in combat both turns, survival vs no rend, one rend, and two rend (saurus is gonna wreck here), possible scenarios with multiple units don’t know what yet (prolly a grind with one skink unit outside the combat shooting in every turn), adding a carno for the saurus and a steggy for the skinks (I believe the fearless skinks May beat the saurus in this scenario but time will tell)

I’ll be testing with both units charging and being charged but remember that skinks are much less susceptible to being charged cuz they are fast as frick boiiiii. Maybe I could add any interesting findings to a skink or saurus thread for easy comparisons since this thread is messy lol

 

[ILKAIN]

Just build rippers and delete enemy units one at a time

 

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

Another thing to notice is that saurus drop a lot in damages once they are below 30 models as the horde bonus lost is so much more then what skinks would lose, although i haven’t pondered the effect it might have mathematically it’s still a good point

 

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

Okay after doing some math saurus lose straight up vs 60 skinks with the group of 20 staying out of combat to shoot. This was mostly due to having just enough damage with the initial shooting and melee to get rid of the bonus attack saurus get... this makes me think that any unit that alpha strikes a saurus unit is able to whoop them easily. This also means in a protracted assault vs many enemies skinks will last longer point for point while also doing similar damage. Saurus are tankier in specific situations tho! (Such as adding a priest against a unit with one rend) also another situation where saurus lose straight up is if the unit of 20 skinks splits into 2 units and puts two speed bumps in front of the initial 40 skinks, causing about 2-3 turns of shooting even in a good scenario that favours the saurus

So with this I’ve come to this conclusion: if you need to fight outside buffs and keep that objective then 40 skinks will out perform 40 saurus in many situations. Saurus are outperformed when Enemy is a gunline and they can’t charge, when the enemy has -2 rend and enough damage to deal 11 wounds initially, when faced with several units at a time, and anything that requires a threat range of more then 17 inches max and 12 inches average to damage. The truth is that saurus need a lot of attention to thrive, while skinks don’t need support to deal wounds, saurus also have the sad truth of losing almost half their damage once they drop below 30 models. Skinks also screen really well and have access to immunity to battle shock with a steggy. It should also be noted that with rerolls and max strength 40 skinks dish out 12 wounds at range, so they have the ability to get rid of most peoples horde bonus before they are even in range to react, and with melee counted as well they can easily break a lot of units and overwhelm them with initial casualties when buffed.

As for the grind vs other armies I know they perform well vs ogors mathematically going even with them when accounting for initial casualties. In fact my two battles vs ogors they entered my lines first turn due to lucky allegiance rolls and I was able to easily hold my own with some skink summoning (as i only have 480 points of troops as my other 520 points was a Slann, astrolith, and endless spells for more summoning fun) vs anything other then a basic OGOR they did lose tho, but again summoning made it impossible for my friend to overwhelm me when each unit he owned was only getting thru ten skinks a turn and the razordons were putting in work the whole time. Someone also noted we have better damage dealers then saurus so I guess in the end as speed bumps skinks are overwhelmingly superior so saurus aren’t useful unless you take that battalion someone mentioned. This is only for optimization of course saurus aren’t a bad unit per se

 

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

Just build rippers and delete enemy units one at a time

That’s good point! Why make these units damage when we already have a (somewhat crappy) hammer to smoke people with! Although that would mean skinks when since they can better support and protect that hammer haha

 

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

This is correct. A model attacks with all weapons on its profile that it is equipped with. This makes club skinks equivalent to having a 5+/3+ weapon.

If you use Saurus, you sort of have to go all in with them and buff them up to absurd levels with a battalion, a scar vet carno, and something else for re-rolls to hit. Astrolith got nerfed, so that's not an option anymore with Saurus hordes, so the only options are the Slann constellation or scar vet on cold one to re-roll 1s to hit, or a Sunblood for full re-rolls against 1 target.

When Saurus are above 30 models in a sunclaw, they pump out ~1.935 wounds each, with ~1.15 of that having rend -1, +~1 wound per use of the scar vet command ability. With 2 uses (it stacks), Saurus with re-rolls to hit put out ~3.9 wounds apiece in combat with clubs, with ~2.3 of that at rend -1 and double damage vs chaos daemons. 10 Saurus will drop Archaon in a single round of combat with average rolls from just the club attacks in that instance. They'll also wipe out units of 30 or so regular models with a 6+ save or no save. With teleporting, you can spread that unit out to hit the entire enemy line (Though you lose half of the re-rolls on the club attacks, and 2/3 of the re-rolls on the non-club attacks, because you can't get full re-rolls vs everything, which cuts damage by quite a bit).

Without all those buffs stacked on them though, yeah, Saurus are pretty bad. They're like more expensive, worse, slower chainrasps that can't fly naturally on larger bases (same average damage output, same save, but chainrasps ignore all rend instead of only rend- 1); when horde and battalion bonuses kick in, they get stronger offensively, but you have to pay for all that, and they're still ~25% more points. A horde of skeletons is similar in strength with all the horde bonuses, but is cheaper. Base size matters a lot too; skeletons can attack over each other at any angle, and even over 2 models with spears if they're in b2b, but Saurus can only attack over each other in 1 rank through the gaps in a honeycomb sort of formation when the enemy units are extending a bit into those gaps. Granted, you don't actually need that many saurus attacking when you've buffed them up, but it's worth taking into account.

I’m sorry but how did you manage 1.935 wounds? I though sunklaw just gives an extra bite? (Unless it’s daemons then they get 2 damage as well) I haven’t actually read the rules myself I just want clarification on where the math is from

 

[Asamu]

I’m sorry but how did you manage 1.935 wounds? I though sunklaw just gives an extra bite? (Unless it’s daemons then they get 2 damage as well) I haven’t actually read the rules myself I just want clarification on where the math is from

That's with re-rolls to hit and the horde bonuses.

 

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

That's with re-rolls to hit and the horde bonuses.

Oh rerolls! That makes perfect sense I didn’t add in rerolls! They are sooo easy to get with this army definitely can make saurus dangerous with the extra bite!

 

[Aginor]

Yeah the thing about Seraphon basically is that out units aren't really good, but we can get a lot of synergies and those work pretty well.
I know some of them are hard to take into account mathematically, but they matter a lot.

 

[Putzfrau]

While this is totally true given the parameters you put in place, you're probably not taking 40 saurus unless you have a way to buff them. Whether it's the battalion or one of the many saurus specific command abilities, things can get crazy really fast when you start stacking a few of those together.

With just 2 command points, 40 saurus in a Sunclaw have 2 attacks 3's and 3's with -1 rend, 2 attacks 5's and 4's, generating extra hits on 6's (scar vet on carno), all with reroll to hits (sunblood). That measures up really well with other armies battle line units. Granted, they start to drop off hard as you take wounds but /shrug.

Most of the "great" battleline units don't start being really oppressive without a buff or two.

 

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

While this is totally true given the parameters you put in place, you're probably not taking 40 saurus unless you have a way to buff them. Whether it's the battalion or one of the many saurus specific command abilities, things can get crazy really fast when you start stacking a few of those together.

With just 2 command points, 40 saurus in a Sunclaw have 2 attacks 3's and 3's with -1 rend, 2 attacks 5's and 3's, generating extra hits on 6's (scar vet on carno), all with reroll to hits (sunblood). That measures up really well with other armies battle line units. Granted, they start to drop off hard as you take wounds but /shrug.

Most of the "great" battleline units don't start being really oppressive without a buff or two.

That is true! Most people need to stack buffs to get battleline units into line, I still think seraphon require more buffs then usual from looking at other hordes however this may be intentional to balance out summoning! (Although this shouldn’t be the case, balancing summoning should start at the Slann not the army as a whole)

 

[Audvin]

I'm only playing Sunclaw this year and I'm testing out different ways to run it. The 40 man unit has so far slaughtered anything in it's way and remain undefeated. But it's a bitch to move around the board. What I've noticed so far is that 10 man units seem to hold up decently against most things, and with teleport, they're good chaff to screen the big blob. They also have decent tarpitting abillities. I've not done any math but this is atleast what I've experienced so far. Go be testing 30, 20, 10 in a Sunclaw the next few weeks. I know they loose a lot of bonuses this way, but as I mentioned that really is'nt that big of a drawback in my meta at least. Oddly low MW output where I'm at.

 

[Canas]

I'm only playing Sunclaw this year and I'm testing out different ways to run it. The 40 man unit has so far slaughtered anything in it's way and remain undefeated. But it's a bitch to move around the board. What I've noticed so far is that 10 man units seem to hold up decently against most things, and with teleport, they're good chaff to screen the big blob. They also have decent tarpitting abillities. I've not done any math but this is atleast what I've experienced so far. Go be testing 30, 20, 10 in a Sunclaw the next few weeks. I know they loose a lot of bonuses this way, but as I mentioned that really is'nt that big of a drawback in my meta at least. Oddly low MW output where I'm at.

They can be a decent-ish tarpit if your opponent doesn't throw mortal wounds at em or at least doesn't put focussed fire at them. They're just sturdy enough that outside of a buffed up deathstar, or very Killy hero, very few things have the firepower to outright kill em in 1 turn, most will take 2-3 turns. Which when combined with a sunclaw host does mean they'l usually get to put some scratches on whatever it is they're slowing down. They're not going to win many fights mind you, but in that set-up they're fairly decent as general purpose fodder troops and objective grabbers (with their drum they're quite fast). Issue is just that it requires the starhost which makes it fairly expensive for mere fodder.

 

[Audvin]

Yes they are indeed expensive fodder, but they're tax fodded in the sunclaw. I get that in the ultra competitive tournament world out there sunclaw might not be the best. But my sunclaw list is undefeted in the past 10 games in my meta. The 40 man blob is the real point of the sunclaw imo.

 

[Canas]

Yes they are indeed expensive fodder, but they're tax fodded in the sunclaw. I get that in the ultra competitive tournament world out there sunclaw might not be the best. But my sunclaw list is undefeted in the past 10 games in my meta. The 40 man blob is the real point of the sunclaw imo.

To be honest I wish they'd switch the horde bonus with the bonus from the sunclaw starhost. It'd make warriors actually usefull outside of a 40 man horde & it'd also change up the summoning a bit, skinks might still be cheaper but at least with that bonus warriors actually pack a punch.

 

[Audvin]

To be honest I wish they'd switch the horde bonus with the bonus from the sunclaw starhost. It'd make warriors actually usefull outside of a 40 man horde & it'd also change up the summoning a bit, skinks might still be cheaper but at least with that bonus warriors actually pack a punch.

I totally agree with that. Though that would mean Guards require change as well. Since they already have -1 rend etc. But forcing you to take a unit of 1 wound models on 32mm bases to get a horde bonus is not very well though out.