Skinks

Skinks serve as cheap battleline units, and as expert screens.  They are fast, mobile, and able to spread their models out wide.  They don't deal much damage, and they don't withstand much, but they are able to keep the enemy away from your valuable units, and that's what makes them valuable.  They are a useful unit, especially in Starborne, and perform their function very well.

Skinks are pretty similar in Starborne and Coalesced.  They serve as cheap, battleline screens in either faction.  Starborne has more synergies with them, but other than movement, they tend not to be great targets for buffs anyway.  Starborne's Speed of Huanchi spell works well with them, though, for getting them into position.  They are also a great, cheap summon in Starborne.  Coalesced can use Skinks, but Saurus Warriors are a tough (though pricier) alternative in Coalesced with many more synergies.

The Fangs of Sotek subfaction ability, which allows three redeploys, two of which are free for SKINK units, is excellent on these units.  Especially in light of their Swift and Nimble ability, which improves their redeploys.

With the previous Battletome: Seraphon, large units of Skinks would roam the battlefield, wiping out the enemy with wave after wave of buffed skink attacks.  Those days are behind us.

Today, there really aren't good ways to get Skinks to deal much damage, at least compare to other options.  Because skinks are relegated to the role of screens, they are at their best in units of 10, where they can cover the most area while putting the fewest number of skinks possible into combat at a time.

A unit of 20 for 180 points can get in more attacks, but still doesn't do much damage with ranged weapons.  If built for melee, they can match Saurus Warrior damage if the enemy armor is light, but aren't nearly as durable.

A unit of 30 for 270 points can deal modest shooting damage, comparable, on average to a Bastiladon with Solar Engine, but is less likely to swing up or down in damage, and lacks the long shooting range.  But they are much less tanky and loss damage output as they quickly die.  In melee, it would be difficult to get them all into range, and there are much better melee options for the cost.

There really isn't a good reason to reinforce Skinks.

Skinks have four options for their loadout that force you to choose between some combination of longer range shooting, short-range shooting with rend, better melee and better armor.  Dealing damage is not the role of Skinks, and they are pretty bad at it.  The weapon choice, therefore, isn't all that important, but the extra armor from the Star-bucklers is very helpful.

• Meteoric Javelin, Celestite Dagger and Star-buckler: The short-range shooting configuration has a little rend, but still only averages 1.22 wounds against a 4+ save.  The short 8" range may tempt players to position them closer to the enemy, moving out of the optimal screening position.  Their measly damage isn't worth it, and for this reason, the Javelins can actually backfire on the Seraphon player.  Melee combat averages a pathetic 0.61 wounds against a 4+ save, but the 5+ save from the Star-buckler can make a big difference in some battles.
• Boltspitter, Celestite Dagger and Star-buckler: The long-range shooting option is a little weaker against armor than the javelins, averaging 0.92 wounds against a 4+ save.  But the 16" range means you can attempt to deal a wound or two from the screening position you need the Skinks to be in.  Melee combat averages a pathetic 0.61 wounds against a 4+ save, but the 5+ save from the Star-buckler can make a big difference in some battles.
• Moonstone Club and Star-buckler: The option has no shooting, but the Moonstone Clubs can deal relevant damage in melee, averaging 2.63 wounds against a 4+ save.  This is a viable configuration, especially if you intend to charge the enemy with your skinks, either to prevent them from piling in to a hammer unit that you are also charging with, or to keep an enemy unit busy in combat so it can't do something more important.  The 5+ save from the Star-buckler can make a big difference in some battles.
• Boltspitter and Moonstone Club: This loadout has the advantage of the long-range shooting and the better melee, but at the cost of having just a 6+ save.  Most of the time, this won't be worthwhile, as the 5+ save is more valuable than the damage output.

Overall, the loadout difference usually won't make a huge impact, but the Boltspitters with the

Star-buckler or the Moonstone Clubs with the Star-bucklers tend to be the top picks.

When a Skinks unit runs or redeploys, you can roll two dice and pick the result you want.  This is great for getting your skinks into a needed screening position or avoiding being charged.  It's especially useful in Fangs of Sotek, with its three redeploys in the enemy movement phase, two of which are free for SKINK units.

This ability means that when making run or redeploy rolls, Skinks will roll 6" nearly a third of the time.  They will roll 5" or more over half the time, and roll at least 4" three quarters of the time.  Whereas most units have a ~16% chance of getting stuck with a 1" run or redeploy result, this will happen to Skinks less than 3% of the time.

The 25mm base of Skinks can be thought of as a collection of useful abilities that make them excellent, flexible screens.  These abilities are not on their warscroll, but are emergent properties of the base size, because 25mm is slightly less than 1".

Core Rule 1.3.3, Unit Coherency, tells us that in units with 7 or more models, the models must all be within 1" of two other models in their unit.  This would prevent units like Saurus Warriors from lining up in a single straight row, because the Warriors on the ends would only be within 1" of one other model in the unit.  But Skinks can do this.  Because the bases are under 1", models on either end of the line will be within 1" of both the adjacent Skink model and the next Skink down the line.  This allows skinks to screen a wider area than models with larger bases could.

The next benefit their small bases bring is that 1" reach melee weapons can reach over them.  That means that if you have two rows of Skinks in the unit, the ones in the back row can reach over the front row.  But more importantly, it means that a unit of Saurus Warriors with clubs or Aggradons, for example, can stand behind the line of Skinks and attack.  While it is true that the enemy unit can also reach over the Skinks to attack the more threatening unit behind them, it nonetheless allows for some fancy tactics.  For example, if an enemy charges a unit of Skinks that has a hammer unit an inch and a quarter behind the Skinks, that hammer can remain safely out of reach from the enemy unit until after that unit has attacked the Skinks, and then pile in behind any surviving Skinks to unleash their own attacks.  This can be an effective counterstrike, or a deterrent from charging your units in the first place (especially if that unit is Kroxigor Warspawned, which will get +1 to attacks if the enemy kills a one of the Skinks).

Finally, because their bases are less than an inch, it is possible for a unit of Skinks to move between the models of a friendly unit that has its models spaced with the coherency-allowed maximum 1" gap between them.  This allows the skinks to effectively 'pass through' the widely spaced unit, for example, to come up from behind the unit, move ahead of it and screen for it.