Well I have done the normal lizard army, dwarfs, brets, Dark Elves, and many 40k armies, and now I am back to try a variant Lizzie army!
I love the idea of Skink/Krox based MSU but I see a huge problem in that the leadership of skinks is abyssmal. Leadership being chiefly important in MSU armies due to the fleeing tactics one must employ to get units into position for charges.
Anyway, White Dwarf solved my dilemma with their Sacred Spawnings lists. The Tlazcotl Spawning makes all skinks immune to psychology! Without further delay here is my list please tell me what you think!
Chief Tepmundi
Sarced Stegadon Helm (+1 LD is definately needed in this army)
Javelin
Extra Hand Weapon
Light Armor
Shield
Tlazcotl Spawning
(13) Skink Skirmishers
Javelin and Shield
Tlazcotl Spawning
(13) Skink Skirmishers
Javelin and Shield
Tlazcotl Spawning
(10) Skink Skirmishers
Blowgun
Tlazcotl Spawning
Scouts
(10) Skink Skirmishers
Blowgun
Tlazcotl Spawning
Scouts
(4) Kroxigor
Great Weapons
Ancient
(4) Kroxigor
Great Weapons
Ancient
Grand Total: 1000 on the nose!
Basically all the rules of MSU apply to this army:
March block with the scout skinks.
Screen the krox/draw out enemy with the non-scout skinks.
Smash enemy with Krox up close and personal.
This army is completely immune to fear!
The major downside of this list is the lack of magical defense/offense but I really hate the lore of metal.
Bigger flaw than lack of magical defense: Immune to Psych means you can't flee, which pretty much kills an MSU army all on its own, nevermind that they're primarily T2. The Krox are smashy, sure, but I don't think they're enough to compensate for all the free VP the skinks will be giving away.
Good to see you around again, by the way.
Vriishnak is right (of course) I tend to think of benefits of having Immune to Psych and not the negatives especially when I am at work, hmm let me look through the Spawnings and see if there is a more appropriate one.
P.S. Vriishnak good to be back.
I choose you Spawning of Sotek!
The Lore of Beasts is much better for an MSU Army since it allows one fleeing unit to rally every turn (assuming I get it off of course) The +1 A on the charge will be good for MSU as well
Chief Tepmundi
Sarced Stegadon Helm
Spear
Shield
Light Armor
Sotek Spawning
We will put him in a Stegadon! :eek:
Priest Inziti (will always take oxen stands)
Level 2 (God willing the Wolf Hunts will come up)
Sotek Spawning
(12) Skink Skirmishers
Javelin and Shield
Sotek Spawning
(12) Skink Skirmishers
Javelin and Shield
Sotek Spawning
(3) Terradons
Brave
(4) Kroxigor
Great Weapons
Ancient
Grand Total: 999
That Steggy should be a surprise! The Skink Hero isnt a bum either with 4 Strength 5 attacks on the charge and a 4+ armor save! Together they will add the proverbial hammer of 9+D6 strength 5 attacks on the charge which should crack most units I'd imagine. If not there is always the 13 Strength 7 attacks ( :wub: ) from the Krox or the 10 Strength 4 attacks ( :thumb: ) from the Terradons. Main plan is to lead enemies into a unit crushing attack of two of these units (one on the flank) at the same time the ensuing combat should reduce the enemies unit to a lower Unit Strength than my attacks and autobreak him. :clap: Personally I don't think I could beat this army with my dwarfs, brets, or dark elves especially at 1000 points.
I am thinking for 2000 points just copy and pasting this list again. The only changes would be:
Change the Stegadon Helm on my second Skink Chief into the Aura of Quetzl
Drop the level 2 upgrade on the second mage for a Diadem of Power
I will have two units of 11 scouting units of skinks instead of the 12 strong non scouts
At 2000 points that's 2 Steggies, 8 Krox, 6 Terradons, 46 skinks, and 2 mages I think is pretty well balanced.
IS THIS POWERGAMING? IS CERTAINLY FEELS LIKE IT, I FEEL LIKE I COULD WIPE A TOURNEY OUT WITH THIS!
Well, taking a quick break from writing about zombies (nearly finished the fight…) – no, I don’t think this list is powergaming. Nor, I’m afraid, is it particularly powerful.
The Skink Chief on Steggie with Stegadon Helm is always an appealing combo on paper, and I’ve tried it myself. However, it doesn’t work, the main reason being that the Stegadon is counted as a chariot mount – the opponent just has to challenge your Skink, and he steps off the Howdah and is easily and brutally dispatched, leaving you with an immediate monster reaction test where five 2+ armour save skinks would have been far, far more durable. If your opponent starts firing bolt throwers/cannons at the Steggie, then a hit on the crew is no longer a sort of 5-use 5+ ward save, but instead pretty much a guarantee of a Monster Reaction test, as the D3/D6 wounds will easily finish him in one shot: finally, he’s cost-inefficient, as he has very mediocre combat skills for his points – he can’t use his main selling points (Scouting, manoeuvrability, shooting) while sitting on top of a lumbering great Steg.
On the whole, the list is the kind of list I’d use at 1000pts, where Saurii really are too expensive to be feasible: skink core, with fast, killy combat support looking for psychology checks and flank charges. However, there is a key ingredient to any kind of list of this kind which you have omitted: the JSOD!
The JSOD radiates Ld8 for those cowardly skinks to use. He is far more of a combat beast than any skink chief can ever be. He has chariot-popping power with his mighty great weapon. He is able to block enemy march moves with impunity, as his armour save makes him pretty much immune to most shooting at 1000pts, and can hunt enemy mages with equal aplomb. No skirmish list should ever leave the shelves without a JSOD.
I think that this list would really be better off without being spawned at all: using skinks as combat troops is fun, but if you ever actually find yourself needing that Spawning of Sotek on them, you’ll know things are going wrong anyway. Ditch the Sacred Host, go with a standard Lustrian list, and that should easily bag you the points to switch from Skink Chief to mighty JSOD, with quite a few to spare. The Oxen Stands is nice in this context, sure – but you’ve got to cast it (never something to rely on with only one wizard), and with a JSOD around, rallying should be less of a problem in any case. Cast Second Sign, and that should let you pass those rally checks pretty well anyway, as well as being more generally useful: Forked Lightning and Uranon’s Thunderbolt are better than pretty much anything you can find in Beasts lore, due to their lack of targeting restrictions, and Portent of Far is very effective when cast on Kroxigor (who only fail to wound on 1s, in any case).
A fourth Kroxigor I generally always find is a waste of points: it makes the unit’s wheel arc painfully cumbersome, and generally makes it difficult for them to out-manoeuvre the enemy, while failing to add much to their combat potential, and costing a good deal of points. Similarly, the Ancient upgrade is never really worth taking. I would cut them down to a simple unit of 3 Kroxigor – this way you will still have a very dangerous unit, but one that is easier to protect from enemy charges, one that is more manoeuvrable, and one that, should it go kersplat, will yield less points to the enemy. The key principle of MSU is never to let the enemy bag a lot of points in one go, and currently this unit violates that principle. Remember, the only time those extra attacks will be important is in an unsupported frontal charge – and you shouldn’t be making those anyway.
With the points saved on the spawnings and the Kroxigor, try buying another unit of skinks: at the moment, you only have 24 in the army, whereas ideally you want to be able to flood the enemy formation with the little blighters, making it as difficult as possible for them to really do anything and raining as much pointy death on them as you can. On top of that, you should really have a symbiotic skink unit for your Kroxigor: if you were to team them up in that way at the moment, then that would leave only one unit of skinks for forwards javelineering/disruption duty, which is simply not acceptable :D
So, my conclusions:
Drop Tepmundi, drop the Sacred Host upgrades, drop a Kroxigor, drop the Ancient upgrade.
Buy a utilitarian JSOD (Great weapon, shield, light armour, the charm, blessed spawnings of Sotek and Quetzl if you can afford them), and another unit of skinks. Upgrade them to scouts if you can.
I knew you would help me out!
Thanks for posting Chili, I had no idea on that Steg as a chariot rule. One problem I have is I want this to be an all skink army sacred spawning for fluff reasons, but I could model the JSOD as a Avatar of Sotek which sounds promising. Modeled as a Half-Skink Half-Giant Snake!
Quetzalcoatl, Avatar of Sotek (Counts as a Saurus Scar-Vet)
Charm of the Jaguar Warrior
Great Weapon
Shield
Light Armor
Spawing of Sotek
Spawning of Quetzl
Priest Inziti
Level 2
Spawing of Sotek
(10) Skink Skirmishers
Javelin and Shield
Scouts
Spawing of Sotek
(10) Skink Skirmishers
Javelin and Shield
Spawing of Sotek
(10) Skink Skirmishers
Javelin and Shield
Spawing of Sotek
(3) Terradons
Brave
(3) Kroxigor
Great Weapons
Stegadon
Grand Total: 1000 on the nose!
How about this?
