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How To Use Skinks
by Doug Reid
extremely adept at hiding from those who would wish to capture it. To keep the would-be attackers away
from the clans den, a few monkeys go out among the hunters and simply stay just out of reach, leading the
aggressors in circles until they are too tired to pursue and just give up.
To mimic this action scout your skinks forward into a forest, marsh, or swamp, as long as it is some sort of
difficult, but NOT impassable terrain. The idea is to lure a unit into chasing this unit around in the forest but
never quite being in attack reach. Simply place all of your skinks in this difficult terrain at just over 2 inches
from the edge and LEAVE THEM THERE! Do not move forward to attack, simply force your opponent to
enter the forest to deal with these would-be assailants. Place a champion in the unit, but don’t sacrifice too
many points as this unit like the shadow monkey must be able to maneuver away from the opponent but still
stay hidden. At the absolute worst, your opponent will simply ignore the unit and just go on by with all of his
units. This is not the best scenario, but if this happens wait until the unit is all the way past your unit and come
to the edge of the forest ready to charge out and run down the enemy after they have panicked and fled from
your more stalwart warriors. The 2nd scenario is that he will commit some unit to flush your skinks out of the
forest. If your opponent spend more than 85 points to deal with your skinks this tactic has worked, and to
the best of your advantage. Since your opponent cannot charge what he cannot see, he must simply move his
normal movement rate to get as close as 1 inch to your skinks. During your movement move to 3 inches
away, but stay in the forest. Your opponent must then either leave the forest which will take him at least 2
more turns, OR he will re-commit the troops to attacking your skinks, using his entire move to get within 1
inch and within charge range of your skinks again, but like the ever evasive shadow monkey, your skinks will
once again disappear into the mists of the forest and remain elusive.
Mimic the Poison Pouncing Tarantula: Of all of the most threatening animals in Lustria, there are none
more dangerous than the Poison Pouncing Tarantula. This spider, about the size of a skinks hand, is entirely
capable of capturing and killing the even a large lizard. The Tarantula sits in wait in her den, watching for any
animal to pass by. A few moments after the animal has passed by the tarantula comes out of her den and
follows it, waiting for the exact moment to unleash her most deadly surprise, a poison dart. After the
Tarantula launches the dart she follows the animal to its deathbed and drags it back to her den. Successful in
her hunts she sleeps contentedly, until the next day.
To mimic this deadly action, first 10-12 skinks are armed with javelins, then scouted ahead into a forest,
marsh, swamp, river, or even lake. The skinks simply wait in the cover, hidden until an opposing unit begins
to come by the forest. At the moment that they can move their normal movement rate, and still throw their
javelins at the unit, they rush out from cover, and fire their poison darts. The harassed unit will react in 2
different ways. 1: The unit will ignore the Javalin skinks and move forward their normal movement rate
towards your rank and file warriors. Fall in behind the unit and continue to fire your poison javelins into the
unit. The reason Javelins are taken into combat is because there is no negative penalty to moving and firing a
javelin. This is an extremely useful tactic, because not even cavalry can get away from your skinks, with a
movement of 6 they can simply follow and stay right at one inch away from the opposing unit raining javelins
on the opponent. This should almost always allow you to charge with your warriors because they will have
their movement cut down, and be forced to move into your charge range. When you charge with your
Warriors you can either charge the unit in the rear forcing a panic test (but NOT taking away rank bonus,) or
better yet if your opponent is close to a table edge, when your warriors that charged inevitably break the
poor troops caught in your trap they will flee away from your warriors. On average, they will only go 7
inches, your warriors should not give chase, but should instead manouver to help out their bretheren in other
combats, instead your skinks should give chase. If you played your cards right, there should be no way your
opponents rank and file unit will be able to get away from your skinks. If the opponent rallies, once again get
out of their charge arc and rain javelin darts on their heads. 2: In contradiction to scenario one, the unit will
wheel to face the unit of skinks mimicking the Poison Tarantula, and ready themselves for a charge, comitting
battlefield suicide. This is by far the best scenario, guaranteeing your warriors the charge, and ultimately the
enemies demise. If you do NOT have a unit within charge range, dodge out of their charge arc and drop as
many javelins on their heads as you possibly can. Forcing them to either wheel again and turn their back to
your warriors, or, turn again towards your warriors giving you the charge, and forcing them back into
scenario one
Mimic the Deadly Lotus: This plant looks, smells and even feels like a normal lotus, but only one lives in
any patch of these seemingly innocent flowers. Whenever an unsuspecting animal gets too close to the deadly
bouquet, a dozen or more thorns are loosed from the flower section at the animal: stunning, paralyzing and
eventually killing it. Then the lotus simply develops a root structure in that general direction, and brings the
roots relatively close to the surface, taking its needed nutrients from the carcass. An astute observer may say:
“Well, animals will simply learn to avoid any area where there are carcasses littering a flower-bed.” This
would be true in most cases, until that observer watches the Deadly Lotus literally pull up its roots and move,
over the course of the day to a new spot nearly 50 feet away. Then the Deadly lotus lets out several spores,
planting a new lotus bed for it to hide in and strike again. The lotus patch only takes a few days to grow,
because the Deadly lotus root structure is packed so full of nutrients, it can share with its less evolved cousins.
This tactic is extremely straight forward, and should be used at any and every chance. Simply scout 15 or
more skinks with a champion into a marsh, stream, lake, or forest, and keep them hidden until your
movement phase. When they have a target, move into firing position and let loose as many volleys as possible
at the enemy. Should the enemy pursue the skinks into the difficult terrain: FLEE! If your skinks rally in the
forest, begin to mimic the Shadow Monkey. If they do not, attempt to get them back into terrain where they
can mimic the deadly lotus for as long as possible. Should there be no-more targets in range, if the opponent
ignored the skinks, they should either, pick up and move to a new location where they can focus on new units
or help finish off war-machines. If there is nothing left in range mimic the Poison Pouncing Tarantula. While
they will not be as effective as javelin skinks, they will still be useful in this situation.
Follow the Plan of the Old-Ones: The skink was originally created for one single role, and one purpose:
Sacrifice himself for the good of the army. In the world created by the old ones, skinks would be mindless
automatons that marched in front of the Kroxigor, Saurus Warriors, and Temple Guard, soaking up missle
fire and protecting their more “combat worthy bretheren.” While any skink will fulfill this role knowing it is his
duty, the old ones gave the skinks the ability to think for themselves and they have defined other tactics that
have made them more effective on the battlefield than even the Old-Ones could have even imagined.
To follow this tactic, take a unit that fit’s the opponents type of play. The more missiles fired per turn, the
more skinks in the unit. The unit strength of the skinks minus 25% casualties should never be greater than the
unit they are protecting though. This means if you take 20 skinks, the strength of the unit behind them needs
to be at least 16. This is because when a unit flees due to a panic test from losing 25% of their unit (5 guys),
the only other units that need to test are those with a unit strength smaller than that of the fleeing unit (in this
case, 15 or less). So if you have 16 or more Saurus Warriors behind the skinks, you are ok. The only time
this will come into effect is when Skinks and Kroxigor are working in conjunction. Kroxigor are so fragile
when their leadership comes into play, this needs to be factored very carefully. A fleeing unit of skinks
causing a unit of Kroxigor to run is just plain bad for you, and it makes Sotek rather unhappy. In front of a
unit of 3 Kroxigor, for example, you should never lead with more than 11 Skinks, because the Kroxigor Unit
strength is 9. The skinks need to lose 3 models to force a check, putting the unit strength of the skinks at 8
and allowing your Kroxigor to continue on the warpath. With all that said, why should you worry about
fleeing? When the opponent charges your skinks, FLEE! There is no reason to ever sacrifice these little guys.
They are much more effective harassing the enemy. This leaves you with an interesting dilemma: how far in
front of my units should they stay in front of my Saurus Warriors? Answer: It depends on your opponents
basic movement. Should your opponents unit have a M of 4 they should stay 4 inches in front, should your
opponents unit have a M of 5 they should stay 3 inches away, M 6 2 inches, M7 1 inch, and the system falls
apart at any M greater than 8. This entire system assumes that the charge will come from the maximum
possible distance, all of which will cause the unit attempting to charge to fail, and force them to come to a
screeching abrupt halt exactally 8 inches away from your warrior unit. (Example. A unit of spear elves
charges your unit of skinks, if the skinks are 3 inches in front of your Saurus Warriors, the spear elves with a
M 5 would be exactly 13 inches from your Sarus warriors, they would charge the skinks would flee, and this
would leave them 8 inches away from your Warriors. Assuming they had no opportunity to redirect their
charge. Note this particular math system is dependent on the movement of your warriors being 4 inches.
Your Kroxigor move much further giving you a greater buffer zone between Skinks and Warriors, I find that
6 inches is the best in all scenarios.