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Taken from another forum i wrote a bit of my own skaven army book ideas. This just added a few things and was in no way about balance although i think some of this was quite interesting and fun. I think some of you will be pleased reading some of this. Oh and those rat-bat bombs in the island of blood background art may make it to this army book too even if as an item like pidgeon bombs.

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Ok so unit ideas:

"Poisoned wind globadiers were always considered quite ingenious and well put to use by the warlocks of clan skryre. However the lack of speed and harassment by cannon fire left the skaven mired and arguing at whose fault it was. The warlocks came up with many ideas even trying to copy the dwarf gyro-copters but their attempts to modify it with warpstone proved too costly. Skreetch Scratchpaw was the first to devise the device that would be known as the warpfire jetpack with a bit of tinkering. Of course he was assassinated and had his device stolen by Shiffty Mangehide. Most skaven knew it wasn't his idea but they didn't care about that as the device itself was a heavily sought after item amongst the warlord clans."

Poisoned wind globadiers can have jetpacks for the additional cost of 5-8 pts. They do explode mid-flight on a one so watch out. As far as rules go jetpacks give the 'fly' rule but for every fly move made every jetpack skaven must roll above a one or die (like 'dangerous terrain').

Also warlock engineers can have jetpacks but instead of instantly dying they take a wound on the roll of a one.

Tretch Craventail:

New abilities that he has allow him to also come in on a table edge with his attached unit and outflank (rules for ambushing units are as normal i.e. roll for each turn to see if they come in). He will cost more so his points will be modified.

New skaven abilities:

They're always watching....:

In skaven hierarchy there's always somebody out to kill you and take your place. A skaven leader (heroes or lords) must roll a die for each player turn and if a '1' is rolled he takes a wound with no armor saves allowed from assassination attempts.

Spy network (i may make this a wargear item or banner that costs points):

Clan eshin has done well to help spy on the lesser races of the surface world. When deploying units the enemy must deploy d3 units before the skaven player. This will probably allow them to finish setting up first.

Skaven warp lightning team:

Rules are as follows. The team does artillery dice in hits at strength 5. Failed rolls to wound against flying units can be re-rolled. Range of weapon: 18".

It has the following misfire results.

Die roll:

6- 'Do you feel something?' A massive shot of warp lightning goes out and does 2 artillery dice worth of hits. The weapon team can't be fired next turn as the crew stands with its fur on end and temporarily shocked and stunned from warp lightning.

3-5 'It's out of control!' The warp lightning team can be controlled by the enemy to shoot at one of your own units within its range.

1-2 'What's that noise?' A cataclysmic explosion of warp lightning takes place. All units within 2d6" take 2d6 worth of strength 5 hits. Remove the warp lightning team.

Skaven wargear:

land mines: Land mines are dug before the battle. Clan eshin characters can use land mines (d3 mines for 50 pts with only one purchase possible). Each time an enemy unit moves roll a d6. On a 6 the enemy has set off a mine. It is set off by the unit that rolls a 6. Landmines explode in small blasts at strength 3 with str 6 for the model in the center hole. Roll a d6 to see if it goes off and on a 1 one of your own units (opponent's choice) sets off a mine instead. If the mine backfires it hits your unit instantly with no need for further rolls.

warpfire jetpacks: They can be bought by warlock engineers and give the 'fly' rule. Each time it moves using the 'fly' rule a d6 is rolled and on a 1 takes a wound.

doom flayer: Modified to 3 wounds instead of one with the rest of the same stats except for the following. "Stooooooop, stoooooop, stoooooop!" On a 3-5 for a misfire the doom flayer moves in a random direction 2d6" and does artillery dice worth of hits. If the result on the artillery dice is another misfire it explodes in a small blast doing str 4 hits with a -2 armor save modifier.

Epitomising the skaven adage of life being cheap. The skaven have devised a bomb that is pushed into battle by a crew of skavenslaves.

Skaven suicide bombs do strength 5 damage in a small blast. To use charge an enemy unit during your movement phase and roll for your result during the shooting phase. Roll a d6 to see what happens.

1-2: Revenge! The skavenslaves rebel and attack their parent unit and thereby detonating into them.

3-5: Works normally. The device works as it should.

6: Why's the fuse so long? The suicide slaves stand motionless and soil themselves not knowing what happened. In the following turn or if the weapon team is in any way killed the unit blows up in a large blast at strength 5 doing d6 wounds at the center. Since they are slaves they have the 'life is cheap' rule and can be shot at by the owning player to set off.

Plague rat riders:

Plague monks can ride plague rats to increase their own speed. They keep their toughness of 4 but move up to movement 8 and have swiftstride. They cost about 16 pts each (i'm thinking about it).

A spoonful of warpstone helps the plagues go down! *vomits*: For a certain amount of points plague monks can ingest a concoction of plagues and poisons to vomit at the enemy. The enemy takes a str 2 wound with no armor saves allowed for every unit in base contact with the unit in melee.

Poisoned attacks: For more points the plague rats can be given poisoned attacks.

You've got some fun ideas here. I wouldn't use them in every game ever, but it's a nice list of things you can use to mix up a game with. Jet-packing Skaven are my favorite.

Here are a few suggestions:

- simplicity is absolutely key. Taking great care to make the rules streamline and easy to both play and understand is always my #1 priority.
So take your warp-packs for example:

A model with this equipment gains the Fly special rule, but must make a Dangerous Terrain test at the beginning of every Fly move (note that the model must make a second test if it ends its move in Dangerous Terrain).

And on that Clan Pestilens...thing...on the Island of Blood box, I already came up with something a while back:

- Plague Censer Rat-bats:
Clan Moulder has long been attempting to breed various war beasts as resilient to poison and decay as their kin in Clan Pestilens.
It took many-much warpstone, and claimed the lives of countless Skavenslaves in twisted experiments, but the result was considered a splendid success: the Plague Censer Rat-bats, giant rats bred with the blood-hungry bats that live in the abandoned tunnels of the Underway, driven half-mad through prolonged starvation and warpstone exposure.
Clan Pestilens did not miss their opportunity to buy as many of the loathsome things as they could, shackling great Plague Censers to their straining, shivering forms to spread death and woe on all that fall beneath the shadow of their fetid wings. The Rat-bats are not a long-lived beast, but they serve their purposes...

Plague Censer Rat-bat: 30pts
Unit type: monstrous infantry
M 2 WS 3 BS - S3 T4 I3 W2 A2 Ld5
Special Rules: Death Throes, Fly, Frenzy, Immune to Psychology, Plague Censer, Scurry Away!

Death Throes: the metabolism of a Rat-bat is an unstable thing, to say the least. If the raw chunks of warpstone churning in its intestines should come into contact with the Plague Censer it carries, the baleful green fire increases to a blinding intensity until the Censer (and the wretched creature it is bolted to) explode in a shower of white-hot metal and poisonous filth.

Whenever a Plague Censer Rat-bat loses all of its remaining wounds, it deals 3d6 S2 magical hits to all units within d6". No armour saves are allowed against these hits. Any unit that suffers one or more casualties from this attack must make a Panic test.

3d6 sounds like a lot of hits even if they are strength 2. The points amount for it is pretty high. I'm trying to think of it really.

Skaven with jetpacks makes sense to me. I understand clan skryre is very kooky like frankenstein mixed with steampunk and a little bit of king k. rool from donkey kong. Although i think orks from 40k have the king k. rool feel to them almost completely. Honestly i don't see why others don't make the connection. Clan moulder is the most like the frankenstein monster though. Eshin are basically rat ninjas so a little bit of master splinter from ninja turtles and far east shenanigans with rockets and stuff. Pestilens is basically nurgle rats.

I just understand clan skryre the most and maybe moulder.

I figure jetpack skaven seems awesome. Sure we have skitterleap but the skaven lack mobility and poisoned wind globadiers could really use another kit and something to make them more worthwhile. Also as far as price goes a plastic kit (like the black knights got) could really make a more poisoned wind globadier force more viable since they already wound on 4's and go through armor. I dunno if jetpacks could be good for a different unit but i think it could really boost poisoned wind globadiers. A fast moving unit that can take down monsters and war machines sounds extremely fun and needed for the skaven.

If 3d6 seems like a lot, but the cost is high...what's the problem?

I don't think the Skaven list needs much of anything. We've got Gutter Runners to take out war machines, and cheap, fairly fast units to delay them (rat swarms and Giant Rats in the "Rat Dart" formation). We can also jump into combat to escape war machines, but we can shoot into some those combats to deny our opponent the same safety. And monsters are hard-pressed to survive Cracks Call, Warp Lightning Cannons, Doomwheels, and the A-bomb. Or just getting stuck killing a big pile of slaves.

Warpsolution wrote:
If 3d6 seems like a lot, but the cost is high...what's the problem?

I don't think the Skaven list needs much of anything. We've got Gutter Runners to take out war machines, and cheap, fairly fast units to delay them (rat swarms and Giant Rats in the "Rat Dart" formation). We can also jump into combat to escape war machines, but we can shoot into some those combats to deny our opponent the same safety. And monsters are hard-pressed to survive Cracks Call, Warp Lightning Cannons, Doomwheels, and the A-bomb. Or just getting stuck killing a big pile of slaves.

Maybe.

Yeah well i think the skaven lack a fast moving unit. Gutter runners can outflank or appear through deepstrike but it takes a while and possibly too long if it's a war machine. Usually if i have to fight war machine i find the storm banner and maybe the screaming bell's d3 wounds to str 7 and above models to be best. Then again i don't have a screaming bell yet. Unfortunately i'm poor.

I have a skaven forum btw if you're interested though it's mostly dead and the visitor color scheme is bad until you become a full member. I can't figure out how to fix the color scheme for guests unfortunately.

The Skaven do lack a fast moving unit. And they lack a monster-wizard. And Ethereal Stubborn Core troops.
But anyway; my point was that the role a M7+ unit plays is a role that the Skaven have covered in other ways. It's a non-conventional army, and I think it should stay that way. We don't counter cavalry with cavalry. We counter it with a big warpstone drill-tank that lays mines behind it and shoots lightning and fire out its flanks.

Love the Jetpack idea.
How I'd work it is:
Jetpack, gives the unit flying and unstable fuel.
If the unit marches, charges, flees or over-runs, roll 1D6 for each model in the unit, on a 1, the unit takes a wound with no armor save.

Alternatively, give poison winds the option for a warp grinder. It's just nearly impossible to get any use out of those guys, which is sad, it's a pretty model and a great unit.

-Matt

Warpsolution wrote:
The Skaven do lack a fast moving unit. And they lack a monster-wizard. And Ethereal Stubborn Core troops.
But anyway; my point was that the role a M7+ unit plays is a role that the Skaven have covered in other ways. It's a non-conventional army, and I think it should stay that way. We don't counter cavalry with cavalry. We counter it with a big warpstone drill-tank that lays mines behind it and shoots lightning and fire out its flanks.

We do have a monster-wizard actually. It's called the vermin lord. I hear nobody uses it. Funny considering it's a level 4 wizard and greater daemon/daemon prince rolled into one.

I don't see how fast skirmishers that fly with jetpacks really takes away from the feel of the skaven. Sure we have units that can arrive through deepstrike but it takes a while and often times too long in my opinion. I've also covered the whole spying and treachery aspects of the race too. I mean don't get me wrong we have some good weapons but for me to face like 5 or more war machines as well as another 2 steam tanks is a bit much. I find something is needed to counter this. For steam tanks i can use the fellblade (seriously did an 8 year old write the FAQ for the the previous empire army book's steam tank?). I know you say gutter runners are good vs war machines but i have trouble getting that close without them guarding their war machines with their army. Then they have like 4-6 of the things and even should i appear out of nowhere behind their army it'd take on average 3 or so turns by which time i've probably already closed with their army and there's just no point in having the gutter runners anymore. I know we already discussed this but for me this is a big deal. Other than the storm banner and the screaming bell ability to do d3 wounds to toughness 7 models i can't handle war machines too well esp. in great numbers when it gets really stupid. For me the way to counter this is a unit with the fly rule that uses poisoned wind globes.

I don't see how this is asking much since my ideas have a very skaven feel to them or some of them do. I mean with my additions skaven still lack armored elite units (low WS too) and we proably still don't have cavalry or at least very strong cavalry. I also threw the skavenslave bomb as a weapon team to go with clanrats or slaves or similar.

I'm not really trying to argue or anything but a lot of the new army books threw in entirely new unit types for the faction using them (usually monstrous cavalry and monsters for some reason). I mean ogres never used to have monstrous cavalry (or cavalry at all) as did the empire. Vampire counts got monstrous infantry and they never had that before.

My point is the skaven might not NEED something but options would be nice in a new army book. Although considering army books and codexes chances are they'll make previously good armies outdated and we'll have to remake our armies all over again or just deal with it like always. Funny how the new good armies are usually composed of previously not cared about units and the new units usually. To be fair at least it's nice to see un-used units get their time in the sun.

I don't think Skaven need much of anything.

That said, IF you're going to add stuff, you did it right in that it's more fluffy and it has side-effects. Which is easier with Skaven cuz they always do.

Simple is definitely good and I think forcing a Dangerous Terrain test is valid. Of course, jet packs should be pretty cheap, cuz that's a rough test on every move.

I think Warp Lightning team is too good. I mean you don't have costs, but it has too much overlap with the other teams, specifically rattling gun. Which is a totally cool weapon with totally cool side-effects.

Maybe I'm missing something but is
They're always watching.... a stand-alone ability? I think it's cool, but, and it's rare for me to say this, but it's too harsh. Skaven don't have a ton of wounds as it is. If it went hand-in-paw with your eshin ability, I think it could work. But I think the Eshin ability is a bit nasty. It's kind of at the meta level as opposed to the game level. I think giving a few units you choose Vanguard or Scout might be better. But you kind of understand that making players delay their turn or take their turns out of sequence just "feels" bad. That's my opinion. Like if someone had an ability to always choose whether to go first/last, I think that would feel cheap. Even if there are far more powerful abilities.

That's totally fine man. I'm up for criticism as long as it helps as well rather than offers nothing new.

A lot of this i'd rather not have taken out so much as tweaked a bit..

'They're always watching... ' is sort of like a faction rule just as 'scurry away' and 'strength in numbers' is. It's kind of like how orcs and goblins have to worry about animosity and squabble from time to time except this is more about a hero taking a wound rather than an entire unit being immobile. That said i can make it only hit the general if you wish or allow saves such as armor and ward saves or both.

As an alternative there could be some infighting or fighting between the heroes before one takes place as the new leader if the general dies.

Vanguard or scouts sounds ok but maybe a bit nasty. I went with D3 units placed because in a bigger battle it probably doesn't matter anyway. It's significant but if it's only one enemy unit placed first then it doesn't matter much anyway. However if it's active and the enemy places 3 or 4 units (depending if this activates at game start and the opponent deploys first anyway or if this forces the opponent to deploy first with the 2nd being preferable as 4 units placed before a skaven one would be crazy powerful) then it could be nasty.

Always watching...I mean I like it and it totally fits the fluff, it's just really brutal. First off, you need to restrict it to anyone who has the Strength in Numbers rule and is a Hero/Lord. That way no one is trying to assassinate your Vermin Lord, which would be silly.

But this is the inverse of what I usually see here. You are giving a fairly sizable penalty and nothing to show for it. Yes, it makes total fluff sense, but what do they get in return? Cuz if they were balanced before this, throwing out wounds on your leaders makes them unbalanced negatively. And I don't think the option of additional units/gear compensates for that.

So. Give a buff. Something like a limited ability to swap wounds between your heroes/lords. Like a really long ass LoS that can only go from hero->hero. That would be using your superior authority to have your underlings take the fall.

@flamingkillamajig: I'm not saying "don't make cool stuff", just that "our book is pretty good".
Also, nice call on the Vermin Lord. How sad is it that he's not even on my radar anymore?

As far as your Empire troubles, I'm wondering: is the Storm Banner working for you?
Some of your issues seem to be with that particular list (4-6 machines and 2 tanks is...a lot).
Whenever I want to use crazy new stuff, I usually extend the option to my opponent, and we see what happens. House Rules are a different matter, though.

With your Eshin-related rules, I'd suggest those be specifically game-related, rather than new army rules. Something like:

- In the Nightlord's Pocket: Warlord Ikitch of Clan Trissk has made a huge down payment of warp-tokens to Clan Eshin for information on the movements of the feeble man-things.
Unknown to the agents of Clan Eshin, however, Ikitch has no intention of paying the other half of their fee!
Unknown to Warlord Ikitch, however, the Eshin teams have a mole-rat in his personal bodyguard, and know all about his plans for betrayal!

After both players have finished deployment (including Scouts), the Skaven player may re-deploy d3 of his units.
At the beginning of the last combat phase of the game, the Skaven general is attacked by a hidden Assassin equipped with a Weeping Blade.

That's fine i guess. I'm more worried if it hits up 3 wounds though. All things considered if i used a warlord with fellblade even on a rat ogre bonebreaker he'd still die from that considering the fellblade hurts the user over time.

To be fair i faced an empire list before the new army book with a cannon or two and like 3 mortars and 2 steam tanks. I lost pretty badly but i almost took out a steam tank. Let's just say i was playing against a power gamer and that my chances for victory were already pretty slim. Oh and he had about 3 engineers all with pidgeon bombs. It was pretty brutal.

The Assassin-thing I just stole from a game detailed in White Dwarf. A Fellblade Warlord is going to be vulnerable to anything that attacks before him, no matter what. It's the risk you take when you use The Sword of Swords. Still, I think it's easily better than a Runefang, the Sword of Realities, and all the other armies' Big Weapons.
If you're buying that thing, it's almost a sure thing that your Warlord will die. Almost. So he's just got to get out there and kill some stuff. Like a Steam Tank. He should be able to kill one/round; that right there would make up his points.

Anyway, my point is that the Assassin-themed rule should be simple and easy to understand, so the most natural thing is to make it a real-live assassination attempt by an actual Assassin. With a tough Warlord, he might die. With a Fellblade Warlord, he almost certainly will, but he'll probably be dead before that anyway.

That list does sound brutal. Last time I checked, Pidgeon Bombs weren't super competitive, but it's a tough thing for Skaven to deal with. If he's trying to do that, I'd suggest taking out your Fellblade-toting blender for someone a bit more resilient. What was the general feel of your list?

I can't remember what my list had at the time but if i remember my hellpit was in it and i think i had a plague furnace and 12 or so censers in there at the time. That said the censers killed and got killed by his flagellants, his steam tanks never died but one had like 3 wounds left or something and believe it or not the pidgeon bombs were the worst of it. By the time i got up there my force was probably at half strength and even then i probably didn't have enough skaven. According to my opponent i should've had more bodies on the field but either way he was blowing them apart with large blast mortars anyway. I think he finished off my hellpit by imbuing his swordsmen with flaming attacks and i think his steam tanks did a number on my guys too. They can shoot into close combat?

I remember over-hearing from people at the store that the guy i played was a power gamer. Even one of the employees at the other store said he's probably somebody you want to make a proper list to counter his. I slightly prepared to fight his empire army the next time and then i fought his daemons. Yeah it doesn't speak too well of somebody when they only choose the most overpowered armies to play. Btw his 3rd most played army was high elves.

I don't think i've lost to anybody that badly before and it wasn't fun. That said the most recent time i didn't have fun was the teclis using high elf player that pretty much asked for a tower in his deployment zone when we did a 2vs1 against him (equal points so we each had half of his and less magic). Let's just say less magic was harder for us and the fact he put archers and teclis in the tower didn't help. I mean i could've skitterleap a hero in and done cracks call but even if i didn't get rid of that power it'd be hard to get both spells off esp. with teclis and then to face up a 360 degree arc of shooting from archers. I tried to get in there but he had swordmasters and he boosted them to toughness 7 with teclis i think (teclis took life magic that time if i remember). I kind of felt like punching that guy after the game for doing what he did. Teclis is really dumb.

Empire and DoC aren't overpowered. I have a tough time seeing any entire Army as OP. Many lists can be made OP. Like taking multi Hbombs. Multi Hydras. Mass Mourfangs + Cannons + magic armor slaughtermaster /groan. Teclis. Khairos.

And before people say that X army wins Y more times, you have to know the entire population of armies to know if that is relevant. If 100% of players played Wood Elves, 100% of all tourneys would be won by Wood Elf players. Underrepresented armies will by their nature win less. This is an expensive, time-consuming hobby. People can't simply change to the new best army in a week.

I'm just saying his play style matched that of a power gamer. He played all the factions known to be OP in comparison to the others. He is definitely a power gamer and thus not fun for the game.

Sorry i'm extrememely tired and barely able to write up a pag eof comments. Talk to you when i can tomorrow maybe.

I think it goes more for saying some armies are just better at handling others. High elves are pretty brutalbut get owned by gunline armies like dwarfs, wood elves and empire. Also with my imperial guard army the tau and eldar in particular back in 5th seemed to beat my guard pretty handily. Would've been nice for a few match-ups to give me better skill at facing said armies but at the time only few people played those armies and their skill level varied greatly.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of armies had great potential for stupid, but the Empire has never been one of them.

That said, war machines don't have much variance in how they perform in a game; their utility is decided by a very small number of dice, so when your opponent just can't seem to Misfire!, it can be frustrating.
Aside from Gutter Runners and the Rat Dart, have you tried Rat Swarms? I used to run two units of 3 bases to get in the way of things, and was usually really satisfied. They have a lot of wounds, take up little space, and are pretty fast. If you laid out enough of this sort of manueverable-but-cheap stuff to threaten a gun line, it might help?

That said, I would just like to say: I think anyone should be able to play any kind of list. Not because they want to smash everything ever, but because the idea of an all (blank) list appeals to them. Mounted, artillery, monsters, whatever. Because it's a game, and it should be fun.
However: I can also say that playing against a list that is designed, not to meet me on the field and fight, but to avoid me entirely while they shoot me, is really frustrating and not fun.
If you've got some shooting and magic, and it diminishes my numbers so I lose combat, that's fine. But I've faced many a player who just seem determined to try and prevent me from taking part in the single biggest portion of the game, and it has never--EVER--been fun. Though I'll admit, there is a smug sort of pride in getting to partake in close combat anyway.

It is never fun to me for somebody to use a power gamer list with a power gamer army and to face somebody as smug as he was. 2 steam tanks with war machines, pidgeon bombs and a named hero wielding a runefang. Some people should be punched after a game. Then again i suppose that's a bit much.

Also duke i've faced both kairos and teclis. The kairos one left his dude out in the open and i assaulted him with stormvermin. Of course he got lucky with his thunderstomp and that messed up my plans. Would've definitely helped to win that combat but maybe i was expecting too much.

I'm learning that (like some of you said before) war machines and weapons teams are great. Of course my favorite are warpfire throwers, warp lightning cannons and the poisoned wind mortar. Let me highlight the importance of warp lightning cannons vs ogres.

Runefangs are sucky, IMHO. They cost too much for what they do. Either one of those named guys with the runefang is kinda just fluff. They aren't terrible, but you could buy about the same stats for cheaper just making a generic lord. They just have some fluffier abilities.

Khairos has potential. I do feel he's less cheesy than Teclis because he's a) a monster and can't be bunkered b) can't fight for poo c) is super expensive. But I'm also a little prejudiced. I think I just want there to be at least ONE lord DoC has that is good.

I want to see someone use Transformation of Khadon on him. Turn into a Great Fire Dragon or Chimera. And have 1 head still to cast spells (though not on the turn he transforms). He could have like all 8 stats. 2+ armor. 3+ ward. Can't be hurt by any attack on <3+. Can reroll one die a round. Magic, flaming attacks. Fly. Terror. +2 to cast in addition to his +4 (and +1 more for beasts on himself cuz he's a monster). And with access to more spells than any other caster in the game. It's so over-the-top. Of course, when it's dispelled, he looks awful silly standing there.

Please don't turn another guy into a cheese-mobile. I don't enjoy some ultimate character killing me without a chance.

There are few ways to play Kairos that don't involve that.

Special Characters are either super specific in their role on the table and very expensive for what they do, or they're awesome at Magic. Or both.
My friends and I simply do not play with them, since they tend to make the game higher risk-reward than we like. We want a back-and-forth struggle, not a steam-rolled win or loss.

That said, I watched a 1000pt game where one guy had the special Chaos Spawn. And he single-handedly ate that whole daemon host. It was...funny, in a tragic sort of way.

I dunno about that. Usually buff heroes or heroes needed for certain units like queek and maybe skweel gnawtooth seem good.

I think ikit claw is overpriced though and maybe grey seer thanquol but only maybe.

The vermin lord is way overpriced even though what it does is good i'd never use it for fear of cannons and really you just know it'll die in combat even though it's fast. Could be nice to flank small units with or cavalry maybe but it's still a bad idea. It's just too many points and i'd prefer a grey seer on a screaming bell for that price.

I like how it was FAQ'ed that ikit claw's storm daemon artillery dice str 5 magic attack actually ignores armor. I can imagine what that'd do to knights. That said he's still just a bit too costly in my opinion.

Tretch craventail looks like a cool model but you have to flank with him to use him correctly. Even with his changing units skill i just don't know if he'd be worth it. Maybe in 7th he could've been good but with fewer units in 8th he isn't. Also i don't run many fairly small units of clanrats or stormvermin even though i probably should (for the sake of weapons teams when i get any). Basically i use skavenbrew for anything i'd normally use him for and maybe a good death frenzy just in case. That's how i did like 27 kills on that small elf spearmen unit with queek's special stormvermin with skavenbrew rolling the highest result even after taking about 7 casualties (i would've prefered to magic them with death frenzy and get hatred from the skavenbrew but i deal with the cards i'm dealt).

Queek is pretty good, Skweel is pretty random. Thanquol is...bad. He costs so much for what you get.

My point is: as a general rule, special characters are overpriced. Some are not, some are useful. But most are just not that great.

So do you have any other ideas for the skaven? I might comes up with some myself but it might take a little while. I came up with all this stuff months ago.

I've been considering a few. The most important thing about coming up with stuff for an army like Skaven is that it should be new options, ones that you can use in specific games while giving your opponent a chance to do the same.
Changing how rules in a solid army like Skaven work is a different sort of thing, and not often necessary.
Here are some of the things I was considering:

- mutation upgrades for Giant Rats and Rat Ogres and maybe (Skweel is okay, but he doesn't offer much variety, and it's completely random). I'm currently thinking +pts/model is the easiest way to go. Extra/Poison Attacks, Swiftstride/+1 Movement (to make Skaven "cavalry"), Regeneration (6+ for Giant Rats), maybe magic AP attacks (I'm thinking warp-saws/drills).

- the Ratling Warp Lightning Cannon-Cannon they had on the GW website is a great example of crazy over-the-top stuff.

- giant drill-type transport (maybe a giant Warp-grinder, but...good).

Those're some of the ideas knocking around in my brain. The only things I'd consider changing are fixing up Master Moulders' rules a little, then maybe assigning the spells some types (to put an end to casting Scorch out of combat and the like), repricing the Doomrocket (50pts, move or fire), maybe giving Warlock Engineers s'more options (making them able to turn into halfway decent combat characters), and I suppose something that involves fixing up the Vermin Lord, Doomflayer, and Plagueclaw Catapult. Oh, and bumping the Cannon to 100pts and Slaves down to S2 or up to 3pts or something.
It's all pretty minor. Like I said, the main focus should be on new and pretty zany things to focus on for a game or two, not re-writing the book for all games ever.