blessed vs reg chameleon skinks

[SMILEDOZER]

blessed chameleons have 10 more range, 5 more ammo and weirdly enough 10 more charge bonus plus a miniscule amount of health, stats wise, i can't see anything else than that.
am i missing something, or are blessed chameleon skinks the most lackluster unit in tw:wh2

[Gentlest Giant]

If they are, what does that make chameleon skinks?

[RCMidas]

Uh-huh. When fully upgraded and ranked, with either a Lord specced for them or the Rite of Sotek active (let alone both) a single full stack of regular chameleon skinks can take on a Chaos army and win up to Hard difficulty. Not in autoresolve, obviously, and they will be badly bloodied by the end of it, but you'd be amazed how effective they are for their tier.

And yes, it should go without saying that there are significantly better armies out there than pure chameleon skinks for taking on Chaos, but they can be massed far more cheaply and quickly thanks to both Oxyl and Xlanhuapec provinces being near to the coast and having a herbal resource in them.

[SMILEDOZER]

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

If they are, what does that make chameleon skinks?

well chameleon skinks are really good, but the other spawned blessings get some specific traits or boosts, like saurus warriors having perfect vigour, carnosaur having 100 speed and horned ones not having rampage, which are all insane buffs, but then the skinks come and are like "double charge bonus" from 10 to 20 and 10 more range from 80 to 90? that is marginal

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Uh-huh. When fully upgraded and ranked, with either a Lord specced for them or the Rite of Sotek active (let alone both) a single full stack of regular chameleon skinks can take on a Chaos army and win up to Hard difficulty. Not in autoresolve, obviously, and they will be badly bloodied by the end of it, but you'd be amazed how effective they are for their tier.

And yes, it should go without saying that there are significantly better armies out there than pure chameleon skinks for taking on Chaos, but they can be massed far more cheaply and quickly thanks to both Oxyl and Xlanhuapec provinces being near to the coast and having a herbal resource in them.

I'm well aware that they are a killer unit on all accounts, i'm just having a hard time understanding what differs the blessed version from the regular version

[the commando]

Originally posted by Totalitärling:

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

If they are, what does that make chameleon skinks?

well chameleon skinks are really good, but the other spawned blessings get some specific traits or boosts, like saurus warriors having perfect vigour, carnosaur having 100 speed and horned ones not having rampage, which are all insane buffs, but then the skinks come and are like "double charge bonus" from 10 to 20 and 10 more range from 80 to 90? that is marginal

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Uh-huh. When fully upgraded and ranked, with either a Lord specced for them or the Rite of Sotek active (let alone both) a single full stack of regular chameleon skinks can take on a Chaos army and win up to Hard difficulty. Not in autoresolve, obviously, and they will be badly bloodied by the end of it, but you'd be amazed how effective they are for their tier.

And yes, it should go without saying that there are significantly better armies out there than pure chameleon skinks for taking on Chaos, but they can be massed far more cheaply and quickly thanks to both Oxyl and Xlanhuapec provinces being near to the coast and having a herbal resource in them.

I'm well aware that they are a killer unit on all accounts, i'm just having a hard time understanding what differs the blessed version from the regular version

it seems they have a few small stat boosts is all. (edit a small miss read on my part)

[Haggis]

Its probably worth remembering that they have poison AND can shoot whilst moving. So that +10 range and +5 ammo is better than it would be on a stationary ranged unit that does not have poison.

I'm no expert in Totalwar games and when you're playing against the AI those small buffs might seem negligible when you are normally able to steamroll over them; but from my limited understanding of multiplayer, that extra 5 volleys of poison can be huge, allowing you to cripple key enemy units for an extra ~minute (not sure what their firing rate is) or so. The extra range makes them even more difficult for flanking units to catch, and they are already pretty difficult to pin down due to their high-speed, insane missile-resist and the fact that they can poison your units whilst retreating.

Sooo... Whilst I have now idea how it all works in practice, I do think that those stat increases are better than they initially look due to them having poison and being able to shoot on the move.

[Father Ribs]

I don't see blessed units as elite units to fill out my standard armies; I see them as a way to get a full strength army including dinos instantly for no cost, whereever I need them. There are so many situations where being able to insta-recruit is such an advantage that having a few stat bonuses doesn't mean I'll choose minmaxing an army versus keeping them in strategic reserve.

[SMILEDOZER]

Originally posted by Haggis:

Its probably worth remembering that they have poison AND can shoot whilst moving. So that +10 range and +5 ammo is better than it would be on a stationary ranged unit that does not have poison.

I'm no expert in Totalwar games and when you're playing against the AI those small buffs might seem negligible when you are normally able to steamroll over them; but from my limited understanding of multiplayer, that extra 5 volleys of poison can be huge, allowing you to cripple key enemy units for an extra ~minute (not sure what their firing rate is) or so. The extra range makes them even more difficult for flanking units to catch, and they are already pretty difficult to pin down due to their high-speed, insane missile-resist and the fact that they can poison your units whilst retreating.

Sooo... Whilst I have now idea how it all works in practice, I do think that those stat increases are better than they initially look due to them having poison and being able to shoot on the move.

Well yeah i agree that the boost is inherently better than not having the boost, but they already have poison and fire while moving from the get go, and compared to nearly every other blessed spawnings, they are just so marginal, to a point where it's almost not worth it as it uses up a slot in the random generator, which could have cost you say stegadon, carnosaur or solar engine

Originally posted by Father Ribs:

I don't see blessed units as elite units to fill out my standard armies; I see them as a way to get a full strength army including dinos instantly for no cost, whereever I need them. There are so many situations where being able to insta-recruit is such an advantage that having a few stat bonuses doesn't mean I'll choose minmaxing an army versus keeping them in strategic reserve.

I feel you on that, having immediate access to a lot of units is absolutely a major advantage, and i usually keep some units in reserve, especially saurus and skinks, but i generally recruit them tactically into my armies to give each army a specific buff. Like if i have two stacks that roll together, i usually put all the fast attack in the reinforcing army to have them reach the battlefield faster, like carnos, cold ones, terradons and skinks while the main stack has artillery and frontline holders, but i like putting the blessed saurus warriors in the reinforcing stack because they are way cheaper than temple guard, and just as able to tie up a frontline while the more fragile rest of the army are able to do their skirmish thing in case of skaven ambush and the like.

but yeah, the chameleon skinks are already insanely good with stalk, poison and FWM and can help disable monsters, snipe characters and can even melee artillery with their improved melee stats, so maybe if they had even more buffs they would be too overpowered.
But i do think that maybe perfect vigour, dodge or even like more magic resistance (which it is in my understanding that the albinos should be better at) would have set them a bit more apart from 10 more charge bonus(???):)

[Wh♂♂par]

Yet 20 CB is a 100% increase on 10 and also turn 20 vanilla MA into 40, instead of 30, which is another 100% increase, so that in case of ever having to melee, they can harass even more. If they're buffed through ranks and skills that just amplifies their abilities further, just to a smaller degree.

And, a few damage dealers have exactly 90 range unbuffed. So instead of running into their range, before you can even fire, you can dance in and out now.

[SMILEDOZER]

Originally posted by Wh♂♂par:

Yet 20 CB is a 100% increase on 10 and also turn 20 vanilla MA into 40, instead of 30, which is another 100% increase, so that in case of ever having to melee, they can harass even more. If they're buffed through ranks and skills that just amplifies their abilities further, just to a smaller degree.

yeah i agree that it's not a bad buff and definitely gives them more tools to play with, i just think that while all the other spawnings have buffs that make them VISIBLY better, the skinks are like land hits better for 15 seconds in a fight that will diminish their numbers thus making them overall weaker..
Not trying to be difficult, i've just struggled to find a specific application for them, as i have been able to with the other spawnings:)