9th Age what to do with the core

[pendrell]

I am a huge fan of the 9th age idea, but I am really so disappointed that they removed poison shooting and skirmisher from our core skinks. What are our core skinks supposed to do now? without skirmisher they are clunky to move around but at the same time without poison shooting you are forced to move them to close combat. Sending a T2 unit in combats fells plain wrong. So what are they supposed to do now? I cannot see any good use of them, Skrox units don't work either because skinks take too many wounds and loose the combat. Big skinks bunker for the priest on the palaquin, I am not sure it is a good idea either for the same reason (why can't the palaquin at least give stubborn to the skinks???). The whole point about skinks was that you could leverage their major weakness (T2) by avoiding close combat, moving them around easily with skirmisher and shoot some poison shots. Now that you are forced to do close combat is nonsense. I don't see any use in them now, can you think of something?

The saurus warriors then? I have never been a fan of them but perhaps it is the only choice now albeit expensive. The thing is that if I am forced to take a TG block to bunker my slann I don't want to have another infantry block like that. 9th age should give the option to put the slann in the saurus warriors and go to the second line, in that way it would be kind of acceptable to loose the skinks from core and have at least another core unit that makes sense.

So far the only two things that make sense in my head is:
- spend the core in MSU saurus blocks. But it feels like too many saurus on foot when you have also a TG bunker...
- make a big saurus warrior bunker for the priest on the palaquin. More efficient use of points, but I really would like the slann...

ideas or comments?

 

[SilverFaith]

Poisoned shooting skirmishers as core was dumb, and made Skinks among the best core choice in the entire game. Couple that with their ridiculously low cost, and you have a unit that is borderline broken, only saved by the fact that most armies had a way to reliably deal with low toughness skirmishers, or by being largely indifferent to low strength shooting.

Our core isn't as solid as most of us would want, but then, neither is it for the other armies. Sure, a few of them are really powerful, but pretty much all of the "top tier" armies rely on using as few points on core as possible.

MSU Saurus is very strong, for being just core, and having them alongside a Slann Bunker is incredibly potent, because you can ensure getting the block in the right spot, and set up so your Temple Guard can get a free charge into a combat you have a good shot at winning.

My problem is the Temple Guard, not the regular warriors. I am often struggling to think of why I should spent points on TG rather than warriors.

Core Cold ones though... that would be something awesome.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

So far the only two things that make sense in my head is:
- spend the core in MSU saurus blocks. But it feels like too many saurus on foot when you have also a TG bunker...
- make a big saurus warrior bunker for the priest on the palaquin. More efficient use of points, but I really would like the slann...

ideas or comments?

Stick with 8th Edition. Problem solved!

Poisoned shooting skirmishers as core was dumb

Careful... they'll kick you out of Lustria for that kind of talk.

 

[Lawot]

Would you believe that in previous version, the Skinks were considered overwhelmingly powerful CC units? It had something to do with the fact that they could take paired weapons and poison, plus they still had poisoned javelins, so that they could move, shoot up their enemy, stand and shoot, and finally bring lots of poisoned attacks to bear. There were plenty of stories of humble Skinks taking stuff down that should have been way out of their league. And in 8th Edition, before the End Times, large Skink blocks were becoming a go-to combat block. In 8th Edition, there's a lot of high-Strength attacks out there, and Saurus would pretty much die at the same rate as Skinks against many of our common enemies. So why lose expensive Saurus on a 2+ To Wound when you could lose cheap Skinks instead?

I'm wondering if the same can still hold true here. Skinks are T2, of course, so they die in droves. But you can also field enough of them to lose a bunch and keep Steadfast. I just fielded a Skinks + Caimans unit for the first time, and was pretty happy with it as a Monster hunter. They're really at their best engaging with a unit that's so much stronger than them that it would kill Saurus just as easily. You can also still use them to chaff stuff up - they're not quite as cost-effective now that the minimum unit size is 15, but they'll still work to throw them under the bus when you need a speed bump.

I absolutely agree, though, with the points about putting the Cuatl (Slann) in a unit of Saurus Warriors, and I think that core Skinks should be able to carry paired weapons again, now that they've lost their poisoned shooting. I also agree with both @pendrell and @SilverFaith about Temple Guard - they're pretty expensive for what they are, and I think they should be an elite infantry unit in order to be more distinguished from Saurian Warriors.

 

[pendrell]

thanks for the comments! I played a couple more games from the post. Warriors are not super bad after all, still sad though that warriors are the only core option, it restricts diversity which should be a pillar of 9th age. I agree with @Lawot that core skinks are (in theory) still good monster hunters, especially with paired weapons, hopefully inflicting a couple of poison damages before breaking. The problem here is that the monster as a single model has much more maneuverability as compared to skinks without skirmisher so it will be very hard to get them in CC, let aside if the monster has fly. And in a combat with multiple units they will take so many wounds that they will destroy our own combat resolution. I think that if we can't have poison shooting from our core skinks we still have to maintain maneuverability (read: skirmisher) or they will be always be a sub par choice. Another option to make them viable would be to accept that they are bad in combat but convert them in a decent tarpit unit, like the slaves for skavens. If they could hold an infantry block for a couple of combats without running it would open up many possibilities in terms of army tactics. As @SilverFaith suggests, Cold Ones in core would give the possibility to explore something else and increase army diversity.

 

[Lawot]

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about Raptors in Core. I LOVE Raptors, so that's sweet, but I think a core of them might be too much. In particular, it would make the Cold One Bus strategy really appealing again, and they'd probably make our character mounts EVEN MORE expensive to penalize that. I also really think that we should be an infantry- and monster-based army, not a cavalry army. We've got good options for cavalry and monstrous cav support units, and I think they should stay support units.

I think that the best solutions for Core are:
1. Splitting Core Skinks into a) small units used for MSU (but not with poisoned attacks of any kind) without the ability to take Caimans, and b) large units that can take Caimans and paired weapons.
2. A second type of Saurus unit with a small unit size and different weapon options. Great Weapons and Paired Weapons would be my pick.
3. Return Swarms to Core...not that we'll use them much, but we won't use them at all as Special.

 

[PestilenceoftheGods]

Just to clarify (unless a new book was released that I'm not aware of) core skinks can become skirmishers for 2 pts/model, can be give a poison jav for 2 pts/model or poison cc attacks for 1 pt/model.

10 skirmishing skink braves with poison javs cost the same as 10 skink hunters with vanguard.

So our core skirmishers cost 30 more pts in 9th than they did in 8th which were more expensive and less effective then they were in 7th. They are still really good and quite effective. More so now IMO now that that they can take vanguard and we can field a unit of hard to hit, skirmishing, scouting, vanguards.