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any idea to help me beat those crazy ratmen???
my brother plays the skaven and i really need a strategy.
he has not an army yet, just a few units but i want a good strategy to be prepared.
thanks in advance.

omg!!!
dont kill yourselves to answer lol

Your not offering any real grounds for comment.
try adding what units you have, what your brother has, what he might bring, how many points per side. etc.
all you have right now is hi. im gonna fight skaven with HE. a little more info perhaps would help.

well the general play for skeiven is a ''horde'' style.
he will outnumber me for at least three units.
he will invest in weapon teams also.
i dont know about leaders. perhaps a warlock or two.

i have :
1 noble
1 mage
15 spears
16 archers
10 swordmasters
1 bolt thrower

the armies will be at 1000 points like i said in the title.

Skaven aren't universally horde style. If they spend all their points on the toys, then you'll see something very different than if they spent it all on slaves, clan rats, and giant rats.

Shoot weapon teams when you can, as they can make a mess of your low toughness, low armor units. If he does bring big gribblies, shoot those down as well. Don't fight plague censers or the furnace with your toughness 3. The bolt thrower can hopefully inflict some wounds on the large things.

Your swordmasters should be able to slice and dice most everything else, and even your spearmen should do OK, though they'd be better at 21, in 3 ranks of 7.

Are your noble and mage mounted or on foot?

RZ

my noble is mounted.
the mage is Teclis but i will use him as a normal mage until i reach 2000 points.
i was thinking of putting him in the archers.

Ok , what i see is that your not going to have a cav advantage, and if he brings a Abomination your going to have a hard time with it. he will have to bring a set of 20 clanrats or 2 , or 2 sets of 20 slaves, to fulfuil requirements (unless he brings night runners witch are just as expensive.). he will go Engineer or plage preist for the magic. nothing special there, though he might bring 2 , id bring two engineers in such a small points game. make em both level 2

so guessing at points he must have will be:
worst case:
Min: 200. roughly
max: 320. roughly
if hes going for broke and adds a abomination weapons teams (ratlings or mortors), and full ups 2 engineers. thats going to be a problem as he will have the magic on you and a close combat jugernaught, along with ok shooting.
final note on plague monks and censors. he can bring small units and they will carve through anything they charge. id bring 1 set of monks at 10 and 2 sets of censors at 7


with this kinda list,hers your options.
make sure your mage brings anti casting.
your archers and boltthrower are going to be busy,
Make sure you target units you can panic, and keep at them. skaven cant handel attrition and will break and run if you shoot them. make sure you dont split fire.
hes going to outnumber you, and in some cases be faster. but your troops are better. watch out for rank bonus and multiple charges on units. pound for pound your going to kill more, but his ranks and outnumber will mean he wins the fights.
last: dont stay static, use terrain, get in where you can win and pound, dont let him pen you in.
Support each phase with units, if your going to charge next turn into a 20 strong infanty block, shoot and magic it first to get the ranks down.

do high elves have anything that causes terror at 1k points? nothing like a vargulf to scare away the low leadership ratties....

if you have spare time just toss a few shots at each unit to ruin their rank bonuses. If you want to take out a melee abomination i think your best bet is going to be phoenix guard with some SCR.

If you want to shovel out the points, you can get a dragon mage at 1000 points. That causes terror, but will take a huge chunk of your points.

Seems like an okay idea going with the Phoenix guard for the ward save. You'll still be hurting. Best to flame it down if you get the chance.

RZ

heu guys.
just finished my first battle in fantasy against my brother's skaven.
i scored a massacre!!!!
really that mage - bolt thrower- archers did all the hard work.
my sword masters killed only three models, in the last round.
it helped that my brother whas a bit unlucky with his dice.

Congrates! , now get your brother on here so i can give him tips to even the score.

The only help ANYONE should be giving skaven players is in conversions.

And if they ask, tell them the warp lightning cannon is worthless. I mean, less expensive than a cannon AND it explodes at the end with no partials? Nobody needs one of those, melt it down for more gubbins!

@rockabill

Swordmasters are mighty expensive to have only killed 3 models, lol. Were they nice models?

well they didnt saw much battle.
my brother kept avoiding them.
anyway, today we had a second battle.
i lost, my brother had a solid victory.
he had a new army list and i expirimented with lore of death.
he had 5 jezzails that killed almost all my troops.
any ideas on how to deal with them???

With high elves? I don't know... bolt throwers? Do they have the range to do it? Failing that, charge them with something fast. Bonus points if you can get on their flanks where they can't shoot anymore.

i tried but he killed my crew with giant rats.(4th round)
he had them in the far edge of the tabble.
the worst thing was when he destroyed my unit of archers in the first round.
i didnt even manage to shoot with them.

@infamousxiii]The only help ANYONE should be giving skaven players is in conversions.

And if they ask, tell them the warp lightning cannon is worthless. I mean, less expensive than a cannon AND it explodes at the end with no partials? Nobody needs one of those, melt it down for more gubbins!

i run a cannon, its killed just about everything i ever asked it to kill including a hell cannon, abomination, 3 chariots outright, and a steamtank, plus coutless grunts, and a few times intire lines of cav that had their flank to me. the cannon rocks, love thy cannon.

@rockabill, how to kill 5 jezzails? easy, make them take a panic test. period. they will most likey fail as they need 5 or under.
baring that. shoot the crap out of them but remembr they have a 4+ AS. or if you have to attack, flank them they cant move and shoot. hte best is a terror critter that lands right next to them, terror tests kill most skaven units dead.

I really enjoy the repeater bolt throwers in dark elves, I imagine the high elf ones just get better with arrow attraction. Toss a few in there, their great for killing ratties.

@hawkins, my post was sarcastic.

rockabill-gr wrote:i tried but he killed my crew with giant rats.(4th round)
he had them in the far edge of the tabble.
the worst thing was when he destroyed my unit of archers in the first round.
i didnt even manage to shoot with them.

Wait, 5 jezzails fired 5 shots and wiped out your archers? Your archer unit was only 5 strong? I didn't think that was legal!

Or did he combine his fire from the jezzails with other stuff (which makes a lot more sense, duh...)?

Treat jezzails like a war machine and crew. Functionally that's what they are.

infamousxiii wrote:I really enjoy the repeater bolt throwers in dark elves, I imagine the high elf ones just get better with arrow attraction. Toss a few in there, their great for killing ratties.

@hawkins, my post was sarcastic.

I figured that out. i was just arsching you back

Vulcan wrote:

rockabill-gr wrote:i tried but he killed my crew with giant rats.(4th round)
he had them in the far edge of the tabble.
the worst thing was when he destroyed my unit of archers in the first round.
i didnt even manage to shoot with them.

Wait, 5 jezzails fired 5 shots and wiped out your archers? Your archer unit was only 5 strong? I didn't think that was legal!

Or did he combine his fire from the jezzails with other stuff (which makes a lot more sense, duh...)?

Treat jezzails like a war machine and crew. Functionally that's what they are.

no, my unit had to take a panic test and they failed, so they fled.
the bad thing was that the table edge was about 5 inches back.
my distance roll was 10.....

rockabill-gr wrote:no, my unit had to take a panic test and they failed, so they fled.
the bad thing was that the table edge was about 5 inches back.
my distance roll was 10.....

Ah. I had forgotten about the shooting casualty panic check.

Well. There are two options to solve that little problem. Put the general or BSB nearby, or use a bigger unit of archers.

Another useful strategy against Skaven is the Terror Bomb. Force Ld rolls for terror, and skaven tend to crumble - especially skrimishers and small unranked units. If you can get a Dragon within terror range of the Jezzails, they have a very good chance of fleeing. If they don't, fire breath will force a panic check.

The overall low Ld of Skaven makes them quite vulnerable to psychology. Make use of that.