7th Ed. Tricky Skink Ploys!

[Apollo3]

Seeing as how skinks are present in pretty much every Lizardmen army out there, I thought I'd post up some neat tricks you can use them for. Maybe you're heard these before, maybe you haven't, but hopefully everyone learns something! Some of these can be used with other types of skirmishers as well.

1. Take out giants! No chaos player likes to see his awesome and potentially destructive 200+ point giant fall in one turn to a 60 point unit of skinks with blowpipes. giants have no armour so the poison works superbly against them. also, remember the +1 to hit for the giant being a large target!

2. March block early! skinks can scout, so position them where they can slow down a large portion of the enemy's army and spend the extra turns magicking/shooting them up. If he turns something around to deal with your harassing skinks...good! that's another unit that has to spend at least 3 turns dealing with 60 points of skinks! as a side note, the infiltrating skinks can also take out lone mages and stuff that are left lurking behind their lines.

3. Redirect charges! this one is not as well known. You may be thinking "but they're skirmishers, they line up to the enemy!" aha! only when you accept the charge! If you elect to flee, then the enemy unit pursues towards the nearest visible skirmisher! this means that if you deploy them in kind of a half moon shape with one side farther forward, as long as the forward flank is in the enemy's sight arc they have to wheel and pursue towards it. this trick can set up some devastating flank charges.

4. Screen kroxies! this one is obvious, but just stand them in from of kroxies and let them take some missile damage, then charge the kroxies right through!

5. Claim quarters! remember, at the end of the game there are 400 free VPs up for grabs, 100 for each table quarter. you can get a free 100 VPs just by having some leftover skinks sit in an otherwise unoccupied quarter, possibly meaning the difference between a draw and a victory (or a loss and a draw)! Or they can contest a quarter, denying your opponent the easy VPs. this is just as important.

These are all I could think of off the top of my head, but hopefully it helps you out in future battles.

good luck!

Apollo3

 

[Sammy the Squib]

The uses of skinks are indeed numerous, thanks for the roundup. I use most of them apart from number three. I think I might try and use that one a bit more!

 

[Apollo3]

I just thought of another one.

6. Run stuff down! This is a situational trick for a flying skink chief. Use him to charge enemy units that are already fleeing from the other more dangerous stuff in your army. The 20'' range means he has a good chance of running them down on his own or making them run off the board because the only charge response that a fleeing unit can make is to keep fleeing. Use this on enemy units you really don't want to rally and come back into the game.

 

[Sammy the Squib]

Also, if you flee through an enemy unit of US 5 or more then you are destroyed, so you could position your skinks for that as well.

So many uses!

 

[Pinkus]

Last game vs HE my one unit of skinks worked wonders I think.

The march blocked a flank most of the game, probably killed about 7 spearmen and 3 swordmasters(halfed the unit i think).

The best part is the 3 swordmasters got in a charge and it took 3 rounds of combat to kill my 10 skinks off pretty much taking the swordmasters out of the big massive melee' we had in the middle. 2 insane courages for the skinks!

 

[Apollo3]

A timely insane courage can really wreck your opponent's day when he was expecting to just steamroll that combat and move on. Now he's stuck there for at least one more turn and you have a chance to flank/counter charge!!

 

[kroxigor01]

Just adding a new one. Tying up units that are not very many ranks deep (therefore getting only a few attacks against the skinks). Charge them into the flank of a chaos knight unit, watch as one skink dies (1.11 on average) and you pass your leadership test (if they even have to take one). If the Knights win they have the option of turning to face, but then the will get flank charged again! (by something far more deadly...), but if they don't turn to face they could be there forever! (especially with your general or BSB near).

 

[SohCahToa]

@Kroxigor01: That is interesting. I have used that tactic many times, but in the past almost exclusively with a jungle swarm base. I have found, however, that the statistics do change quickly when you face a heavy cavalry unit including a Hero (or a nasty champion), as they can redeploy to the flank without dragging the unit with them.

 

[Cragspyder]

Firstly, if you follow the rules for redressing ranks, the Chaos Knights charged by Skinks have to make a turn manoeuvre, which basically means they go into a conga line facing the Skinks. Also, I am not positive you can actually MAKE that manoeuvre, since it would result in less Skinks being in combat (since Knights are on 100X50 mm bases, and you can't even do the 'Winning Combat' manoeuvres if it would result in less models being in close combat).

And according to the rules you can't increase frontage until you are not being charged in the flank anymore.

Regardless though, I think one Chaos Knight will probably kill 3 Skinks, not just one

Secondly, I have two favourite tricks of my own for Skinks.

Flee and get Run Down!

You run up right close to the unit you want to flank charge, then leave them there (shooting if possible). This works best on a fast enemy unit (Knights, Chariots, etc). If that unit charges the Skinks, you flee and are almost automatically run down. However, the enemy unit has to move their full charge distance towards you! if you set up properly the previous turn, they will be hugely exposed and ripe for a flank charge, but it does cost you the unit automatically I am afraid It's easy to predict where the enemy unit will end up (as opposed to an overrun) as they will always go their full charge distance.

Exploit their Overrun!

Run your Skinks right up close to a unit, and leave a big block unit right behind them, in range of the enemy overrun. When the enemy unit charges, hold (or Stand + Shoot) with the Skinks. Then watch the Skinks die in CC, and flee, then let the enemy unit overrun into your block unit.

Now it is the Lizardman turn, and you can flank charge the unit that overran into you with Kroxigor or another block unit!

Only risky part is that the fleeing Skinks might panic you when they break from CC (or if they are US 5 still and flee through your second unit)