Next Sunday is a 2000 point local tournament, so I put out a plea to Albany to help me test out my intended list. Guy who stepped up generally runs multiple warshrine, tizz deathstar warriors … but since I made snarky comments about facing that list, he brought his demons instead!
Though in truth it was a change for the better – I’ve faced
WoC a
lot in 8th (who hasn’t?), but not
DoC once.
SKAVEN 2000 L: Grey Seer – seed of rebirth
L: Warlord – ogre blade, dragonhelm, talisman of preservation, bonebreaker
H: Assassin – blade of corruption
H: Chieftain –
BSB, enchanted shield, foul pendant, ironcurse icon
C: 30 Clanrats – full command, shields
C: 30 Clanrats – full command, shields
C: 30 Clanrats – full command, shields
C: 36 Slaves – pawleader, musician
S: 6 Plague Censer Bearers
S: 6 Plague Censer Bearers
S: 5 Gutter Runners – poison
S: 5 Gutter Runners – poison
R: Hellpit Abomination
R: Warp Lightning Cannon
Definitely the most tuned of my lists. The alternative version of this list has two doom-flayers in place of the WLC and the back rank of slaves, but I was leery to go into a somewhat-more-competitive event with no shooting phase, and the WLC solves problems that doom-flayers can’t remotely touch. So the little grinder dudes will have to wait a bit more.
DEMONS 2000 L: Bloodthirster – immortal fury (reroll all hits), spell breaker (‘dispel scroll’)
H: Herald of Nurgle –
BSB, level 1, standard of sundering (-2 to spells cast from 1 magic lore), slime trail (no
CR for being flanked or reared), noxious vapors (enemy in base
ASL), palanquin
H: Herald of Tzeentch – master of death, spell breaker
C: 33 Bloodletters – full command, icon of endless war (1 +
D6” charge)
C: 21 Plaguebearers – standard, standard of seeping decay (reroll wounds)
C: 22 Horrors – standard, icon of sorcery (+1 to cast for unit)
Whoa (but it could certainly be stronger). Mostly concerned for Big Red, but that was a lot of letters too! I had only one plan for them, and would need luck and his bloodthirstiness to carry it off ...
MAGIC Grey Seer [1 Ruin, 3 Plague]: scorch, pestilent breath, wither, plague
Tizz Herald: all Death
Horror Unit: flickering fire (magic missile), gift of chaos (12” damage bubble)
Nurg Herald: rancid visitation (magic missile)
Standard of Sundering nerfed my Plague spells
SCENARIO, TERRAIN & DEPLOYMENT He really didn’t want to use my Mundane Terrain Chart or scatter terrain, but he gave in to my demands
Unfortunately terrain came up fairly lame: 2 large hills, 1 tall thin hill, 1 large wood, 2 long fences. We diced up Battleline for scenario and got to deploying, which didn’t take him long!
His heralds joined their respective units. My
BSB rode with first clanrats, grey seer with second, LT breaker with third. Assassin hide in the first clanrats, and both gutters scouted, to annoy the horrors / thirster and to divert the letters.
Note that unlike what the maps show, we were playing almost entirely in the right two feet of the table – that central thin hill was further to the right, and my line was much more compact. It seemed like a terrible idea to face demons on a third of the board, but was hard to get away from once models hit table
He got first turn with a 7 to my 5, debated letting me faff around first, but then decided to take the initiative.
BATTLE Turn 1 
Bloodthirster swoops forward, bloodletters power ahead (they are in fact 8-wide, not horded), as does the plague block. The tizz guys reform to cheekily bring themselves within 12” of my gutters, to gift them away, but all of his magic (gift, visitation) is denied by my seer.
The left censers, out of
BSB and general range, frenzy-charge into the thirster, ensuring the WLC won’t get to shoot him
The hellpit slams forward 13”, followed by the gutters mobilizing to harass horrors and to divert letters. The grey seer hops out of his unit to gain range on the letters, and some blocks shuffle around. Magic gives a mediocre 7 dice, but that’s all I need: 6 dice go into plague on the bloodletters. While it doesn’t go IF, he miraculously doesn’t spell break it, choosing (and failing) to match it with his own 6 dice! 15 or so bloodletters (including the champion) rot away, and then the plague jumps to the horrors and 10+ of those unliving monsters keel over as well! Sweet baby cats, I missed that spell
Then the WLC takes its only shot of the game, nuking 4 plaguebearers with a perfectly centered template. Oh, the plague censers are splattered, with Big Red turning to eye up the skaven line.
Turn 2 
Bloodthirsty demons are bloodthirsty: Fred flanks my
BSB’s rats (terror passed), the bloodletters wheel into the gutters, and the plaguers charge the hellpit right in front of them. The mangled horrors reform to 5-wide. Magic blows strong but amounts to nothing, as the only Death spell in range that I care about is doom & darkness, and it’s crushed with dice. When it comes to smashing things, the thirster starts things off by crushing the skaven clawleader into pulp, but the clanrats hold on steadfast 10. The letters lose a couple to the gutters (?!), then (with only 6 un-rerolled attaks) kill 4 of the ninjas, choose to pursue and fall 1” short of catching him. The plaguers get to strike the hellpit first, manage 2 wounds through his regen, but when the beast avalanches them in return a mere 4 plaguebearers die, thanks to a sorry 5 auto-hits, 1 t-stomp and solid regens from him. The hellpit fails his stubborn break and is run down. Sadness and confusion reigns across the skaven lines, but only momentarily.
The trap springs shut on the bloodletters, with censers charging into their flank. LT leads his clanrats into the plague block to get the carnage started over there too, while slaves prepare to hurl themselves into the Buttocks of Khorne, the gutters continue their orbit of the horrors, and the seer prepares to mess with Big Red. Also, the surviving bait gutter rallies on snake eyes
Magic ends up with plague on the bloodletters spell broken, but the thirster withered down to T5! Shooting sees a shocking 2 horrors downed by gutter stars, and the laser cannon crew break out their lunch, since this game is over for them. Combat is brutal all around, beginning with the censers losing one of their own to smell tests and then shredding the letters to just six left. The plague combat revs up with LT knocking down some plaguebearers, the nurgle herald squishing the clawleader and perhaps some clanrats dying. Nurgle loses but doesn’t care. The thirster is challenged out by the skaven assassin (in what we decided later was an illegal move, as combats only can ever have one challenge go on? I had heard rumors of this change in 8th but never double-checked, but I guess that’s how it works. Lame),
hits himself with his blade of corruption, dodges himself, and doesn’t wound the demon anyway. He is pulped, but saves the unit from being t-stomped. Somebody loses but nobody cares.
Turn 3 
The horrors get away from the gutters and into range for a few more spells … but he’s still shut down in the magic phase. The killing continues with more plaguers dying, more clanrats dying, and a wound on both the nurgle herald and LT! Nurgle loses but doesn’t care. The censers finish what they started, killing 5 of the remaining bloodletters and letting the last one pop, then reforming to get a little closer to the advancing horrors. Annnd the thirster challenges the
BSB, who walks to the back and watches as clanrats die in droves. The skaven steadfast.
Already covered in red ichor, the censers charge the horrors to add a little pink to the pallet. And the slaves are forced into the thirster’s rear, but such is life. The seer tries to wither Big Red again, but is spell broken for his failure to go IF. Then the brutalizing commences, as the plague censers lose one to their own stinkiness, shatter half of the horrors and watch the rest poof away. Elsewhere some plaguebearers died but nobody cared, and loads more clanrats were crushed by a greater demon, who astoundingly was wounded by a slave’s hurled rock to the nether region! The thirster loses combat, but keeps it together despite. Finally, I remember to combat reform my clanrats to face their destroyer.
Turn 4 
It’s all over for the demons but the fighting. The plaguebearers are finally wiped out by LT, and the
BSB pops at long last. The thirster has a weak round, with hot parries from me, loses but cares not.
LT mobilizes in case he’s needed to help punch the best out before game end, and it’s on to magic. Unopposed, the grey seer withers the thirster down to an embarrassing T4. Though the greater demon crushes the clanrats down to command + the
BSB, the slave pawleader astoundingly manages to wound the monster twice (2 attaks, 5+ to hit, 5+ to wound, 5+ armor, 5+ ward), sending him raging back to the warp.
Skaven Victory Thoughts to come, time for lunch and some work.
- Salvage
). Part of the reason they rocked the bloodletters' world was because by diverting with the gutter runners I was able to flank the letters instead of meeting them head on. He only had two letters on the flank, so only got 2 attaks (which he missed with), and I got 11 hatred S5 attaks in return (along with the +2CR for charging in the flank). If he had had a herald he would have had hatred too, but he also could have slid that herald over and brutalized by censers himself. So I suppose credit should be shared amongst me using tactics, him not taking a herald, and censers being totally awesome 
65/4/6, 
10/2/1, 
10/3/0, 
2/0/1, 
0/1/1
1/0/0