Lizardmen benefit greatly from the skirmisher scout rule. Both normal skinks and chameleon skinks can scout.
Chameleon skinks are a lot better at scouting though.
They can be placed within sight of the enemy (more than 12 inches away). Which means that you'll always be able to shoot on turn 1 (you may not even have to move if your enemy comes after your skinks)
There are several qualities that make chameleon skinks great:-
- Bs 4 (Bs 5 for the sharp shooter unit leader which you should always take for a paultry +6 pts)
- Movement 6 which keeps you pretty safe unless the enemy wastes their expensive cavalry to come after you. Make sure you don't deploy right in front of them - make them chase you around !
- Blowpipes with 12 inch range firing 2 poisoned darts - rolling a 6 to hit means there you automatically wound (armour saves still allowed). This makes them great against the likes of Dwarf Slayers and any lightly armoured enemy.
- A leadership of 6, which is about the equivalent of 8 (taking cold bloodedness into account). This is useful for psychology tests not break tests because you will usually want to flee if charged (keep them out of combat !)
- Best of all a -2 to hit modifier. This means that most enemies (excepting Elves) will only hit you on the roll of 6.
I'd recommend you always take Chameleon Skinks to war with you. Against any army except those with a lot of cavalry like Bretonnians (use ordinary skinks to act as a shield and flee to allow Saurus to counter charge).
You are only allowed 1 unit of 10 chameleons (for good reason - they're so good !)
Make sure you take all 10 for 156 points (because you want that sharp shooter with Bs 5 aswell).
Love your chameleons and they will serve you well.
