so this post is about what will be the new hot tactic for the skaven in the last set its been sad (shooting army of death or doom) but what will be the new tactic that most people will go with?

Probably 30 jezzails to make up for the nerfed rattling gun -_-

Shooty Gunline of Death V.2.

If I'm correct, then they'll have a crapload of template weapons.

i hope so im planning on going with maby 2 plague furnaces 1 screaming bell with 2 doom wheels
then maby the special character that makes plague monks core units.

Ya I was planning on 1 doom wheeler 1 Plague catapult (which is a beast), warp fire throwers and globe launchers out the ass. The globe launchers are insane.

LunaHound wrote:
Probably 30 jezzails to make up for the nerfed rattling gun -_-

Ratling guns are still fine. Like all Skryre devices, there's just that element of risk to them. They can still mow down infantry like there's no tomorrow.

I personally am going to go with the Skryre build, with Doomwheels, Warpfire Cannons, lots of weapon teams, Poison Wind Globadiers, maxed out on Warlock Engineers and led by Ikit Claw.

What's the best use for slaves? Speed Bump or Tar Pit?

Speed Bump = A smaller unit whose sole purpose is to slow down an enemy unit that would otherwise be able to charge your main regiments.

Tar Pit = A large unit which takes an enemy unit a couple of turns to wipe out, thereby stopping it from engaging some of your more valuable units.

Tarpit. They're 2 fething points per model! It's crazy!

Cool, I like that some of the new Clanrats look a little downtrodden, so aiming to field at least one unit of them.

Will have to play around with unit size and see what works.

Clanrats and Slaves still have a minimum unit size of 20 as well. Still can't believe that shields/spears individually are 1/2 a point.

The clanrats I'm trying to get painted are going to be 6 wide adn 5 deep. Slaves, I'll leave at 5x4. They only have one purpose...

ZF-

Slaves cannot tarpit. they suck to much to succeed. They are there to block charges, redirect, bait, and generally be annoying.

In terms of shooting the skaven got nerfed.

People will probably start off with taking all of the big gribbies and getting creamed (1k points in two aboms and a verminlord just don't cut it). Eventually they will go back to the hoard army with some cool toys to deal with the enemy's toys.

cypher wrote:Slaves cannot tarpit. they suck to much to succeed. They are there to block charges, redirect, bait, and generally be annoying.

In terms of shooting the skaven got nerfed.

People will probably start off with taking all of the big gribbies and getting creamed (1k points in two aboms and a verminlord just don't cut it). Eventually they will go back to the hoard army with some cool toys to deal with the enemy's toys.

I agree , thats also how i use my slaves.
Enough in numbers they wont flee right away , and in comes the ratling guns ( no doubt killing the slaves and what ever they tarpitted )

What about SAT as the new skaven acronym? Shooty Army of Templates, nearly all of which ignore armor saves. I wonder if the new no-partials rule for skaven templates is the precursor to a general change in 7.5 next year that removes partials from all templates ... Poor 20mm infantry

Anyway, I'm curious to see how things shake down, with so so so many options. The doomwheel in particular, though people erupted into a chorus of taking multiples ftw, I don't see myself running, because it really is quite a random thing. And would probably lightning my own guys due to low moves and failed leadership tests

- Salvage

Ya the doom wheel has me underwhelmed I'm deciding whether it or another Plague catapult is better. And I hate the new warp lightning cannons. itll be so gay to guess with. you'll have to guess like 6 inches short for it to do anything effective and the only time it hits with 10 it'll be ineffective cuz it just zoomed over the unit. I don't like it at all precious.

And slaves became horrible for tarpiting seeing as they all die as soon as the lose combat O YAY!!!! use the for being annoying but thats about it.

I like the idea of the mortar army of gassy death centered around Plague Furnaces.

Yea those plague mortors are amazing.

I'm seeing slaves being a good thing to take against low T armies like elves. That cornered rule where they do more hits when they break is going to be a great way to soften up swordmasters and black guard before they meet the rest of the army. I'm gonna have a few 20-strong units go in front to soak missile fire and then basically explode in their faces. I'm thinking about modelling some slaves wearing bomb vests...Got some vets of Afghanistan that play around here though, don't know how they'd like that.

I don't think the new book is gonna change my mindset while I play my skaven. When I play these guys, I don't care about any of them. At all. If they die, whatever. Just take some of my enemy with them on the way and I'm fine with it. I usually put ratling guns in FRONT of my clanrats just to get the stand 'n shoot!

Im looking foward to playing against them. I think lots of machines and shooting are going to be the way to go.

has anyone thought about the rat swarms? good unit to tie stuff up and steal flanks. i personaly like them. also what about the rat ogres are they still the horrible brutes as they were in the last codex?

Reach down two selves and buy some lizardmen

the poisoned wind mortars are pretty good, only ranged weapon team worth taking anymore. model under center of small template takes wound on 4+ with no saves and everyone else under it takes a wound on 5+ with no saves

I'd imagine people relying on these templates are going to be sad pandas when the Beasts of Chaos book gets redone...

I'm bit uncertain why the discussion in this thread is diverted to the guns. The Skaven army doesn't seem shooty at all anymore. If anything the signs are there that it's going to be just another monster army.

fuegan17 wrote:the poisoned wind mortars are pretty good, only ranged weapon team worth taking anymore. model under center of small template takes wound on 4+ with no saves and everyone else under it takes a wound on 5+ with no saves

Ratling guns are still a frightening prospect to face for RnF infantry, and Warpfire throwers look good for dealing with CC armies.

I had a questions for those of you who have read the book. The Doom wheel says it shots 3 bolts of warp lighting is it the D6 S5 shots per bolt or is it one S5 shot that makes a big dif for me whether I like the doom wheel lol.

Ratling guns are half as good as they were a month ago when they were worth 20 pts.
Warp fire throwers are now twice as good and still as hard to actually hit something with (and of margional use against knights).
Jezzales lost a lot.
WLC is dam near useless now (half the time its great against infantry, half the time against monsters but you never know which).

Its gonna come down to ranked units harassing and flanking with the hellpit abom trying to crush things. Shooting will be there maily to deny areas to large flyer.

Its kinda sad. The skaven use to be the army that large flyers and such hated. O well, new strategies must be adopted.

I actually dont see it becoming a monster army. I see one abomination being prety much manditory. The other rare could be either another abomination or a doomwheel. The vermin lord is to easy to shoot down. He is good at certain armies but bad against others.

First post on Dakka - woohoo!
To answer the doomwheel question - you get 3 shots. Roll the artillery dice - thats the strength of all 3 shots. Each shot is just 1, but does D6 wounds per unsaved wound. Soooo - if you get it near a big nasty monster and roll good for the strength - you can kill it easy. Run it up around ranked up cheap troops - your looking at 3 dead spearmen.
Okay tactics (which probably revolves more around how I've seen the new ones play so far):

1. Hellpit abomination. Incredible for the points and can walk through most units. Besides the attack table and great stats, alot of folks are missing it has a 360 charge! Well not techically a charge, but 3d6 movement in any direction and if it hits, it charges. Add in impact hits, rank negating US - just 1 walked through most of my Orcs&Goblins, ate it's way through a WoC army - it's nasty. 2 or more though I see most tournaments (at least in the US) disallowing the list or giving you an incredibly bad comp score.

2. Storm banner. Cheap on points, it will shut down enemy shooting. Figure your going to shoot that abomination with cannons - guess again. Dark elf repeating crossbow army - done. For what it costs, I see it almost being mandatory. Only drawback - won't affect dwarf artillery with runes and Tomb Kings. Oh well.

3. LD10 slaves/suicide slaves. Until it gets FAQd, alot of folks are talking about the 1 wide, 20 deep skaven suicide slaves. Run it into combat, almost certainly lose = 20d6 Str 3 hits on all units within 6". Wow.

4. Template weapons. Okay yes they can misfire and hurt your own guys, but the poisoned globe mortars are incredible for their points. Add in all the other templates which only need to touch = many dead things.

5. Plague Censer bearers - just plain nasty - now with an extra attack and don't have to have plague monks to take them. Oh and the plague monks can add their LD if their close. LD10 hatred, frenzy, skirmishing, magic weapon flail armed guys with 3 attacks each. Plus add in the wounds from the censers count towards combat res - ouch.

6. Jury is still out on the Plague Furnance and Screaming Bell. The screaming bell can be amazing if you roll right, but I haven't seen the plague furnace in action yet.

Just a couple of things I've noticed, but I definately think the skaven are going to be a power army, right up there with demons, VC and dark elves. Where I think they are hurting can be in the magic defense side, as well as most of their magic items are pretty bad/and or one use.
Folks who use the bloodthirster as a proving point for how strong an army is - you can only take 1 in a normal game. You can't get the warlord who run back to the back of the unit to stay out of combat - already your going to be at a static 5. Unless you roll pretty well for your BT and have dark insanity special rule, your not going to win combats against large skaven units. Plus they have enough stuff to flank you, shoot you, etc. etc. (also remember you can't fly with the storm banner going off - 16" charge sure but it will prevent you from flying around to get an advantageous flank), it will be tough.

Yup, the storm banner is pretty awesome. I give it a 50/50 chance of being errata'ed to one use only. They left the dark elf ring o no magic in so they might leave the banner o no shooting in.

Suicide slaves are only ld 2, 7 if near the general. Not to hard to break from range. O, and its D3+20 not 20D6 hits.

What do people reckon about the 13th Spell. Is it worth spending the whole game trying to cast it?

Flashman wrote:What do people reckon about the 13th Spell. Is it worth spending the whole game trying to cast it?

You either win big or lose big with it. You can wipe out a deathstar or kill off just a few guys.

Didn't somebody work out the probability of being successful against the possibility of a miscast?

EDIT - I'd work it myself, but my maths is shocking

Trying to cast it with anything less than 7 dice is generally pointless. Your chances of being successful are tiny.

5 dice getting > 24 ~ 7-8%. by quick simulation.

Just throw 3 dice at it and hope for a pair of 6's...

If I remember correctly, the 13th spell can't be augmented with additional dice - no warpstone tokens or power stones or anything. So - 5 dice and hope for 6's. Dark Elves with the ring and Slann with Becalming continue to laugh at you.
But if you do get it off - 4d6 models, average 14 dead enemy models with it. Personally I think it's better than Gateway, but limited a bit more in that it can only be cast on enemy infantry.

The problem with the 13th spell is that it can't be cast on stuff that's most dangerous for the rats such as big flying monsters and the like. It's really not a smart idea try to get this spell through as there should be other valid spells for the gray seer/verminlord to cast instead of a 25+ spell that really doesn't do that much. The best use for this is probably having it around when opponents miscasts 5-6.

I dont know... I always considered the most dangerous thing to be big blocks of stubborn troops like temple guard. Works great against them. Just to hard to get it consistently.

For what it costs, the warp lightning cannon really isn't that bad. Getting rid of the random distance is pretty nice, but with the added benefit of a small template at the end of the distance. So not only do you get a straight line shot through a unit, you can hope to get a good bounce and hit another unit as well. 5x4 unit on 20mm bases + template on center = 16 models hit I believe - oh yeah no partials, AS, D6 wounds, etc. etc. Rolling for Str - you have a 50% chance of getting a Str6 or higher, so basically your looking at wounding the majority of anything on 2s . . . . not really that bad. Adding in the fact that the crew has become T6 against magic or shooting - makes them a heck of a lot more surviveable.

I'm seeing more and more folks running the plague furnace - it's not bad for what it does I guess - people must really dig that unbreakable status. Of course, the unit being frenzied and so large could cause ALOT of problems if your opponent knows how to play it right.

I agree though that the 13th spell is great to have, just in case your opponent rolls a miscast - almost guaranteed to pull a dispel scroll. Limited though on units it can affect, I think Wither can be a MUCH more effective spell. Get it off once or twice and then get some plague censors in there - whew - bye bye enemy unit.

Slaves RAI vs RAW.

The rulebook entry for the 'slave explosion' says d3, st3 hits for front rank then 1 per rank after that.... but in the latest White Dwarf the guy who wrote the book explained that it was rank bonus only.

Fool should have had someone else read the book. We picked up on it immediately on reading, the insanity of the way it is written and planned 20 long conga lines of slaves....

I wondered why everyone was harping on about slave conga lines. Expect a skaven erratta/faq the day following release

It is simple, simple problems like this that can be fixed at the cost of a non disclosure agreement and getting someone outside the studio (has absolutely no other link to army book writing process) to proof read it for a couple of days.

There are plenty of top tourney gamers in the UK who would kill for the chance.

I agree that the wording for the unit should be "rank bonus" - however going off the White Dwarf stuff you have to watch out for. Remember the Warriors of Chaos battle rep that counted unit champions as characters for rolling on the EOTG table?
The down side to the skaven slave "congo line" is going to be the sheer length of the unit (it has to be angled to even fit in your deployment zone), as well as not getting the rank bonus to their leadership. Best they'll really be looking at is LD7 from the general. If someone tries running it though, after kicking them in the nuts, I'll be watching the wheeling movement VERY carefully.

The conga line can be deployed on an angle, move forward 9.5 inches (march) then wheel the half an inch to face directly forward. (as wheeling will be accross one 20mm base front and the rest of the conga line swings in a huge arc).
I agree it will be tought to pull off, but man it will be ridiculous.

Also for the Storm banner (one of the most ridiculous items ever in warhammer, and for 50 points SHOULD read 'one use only') my tactic with it will be (as I'm almost universally a tournament player (NGs at the moment)....

-Skaven player can use it at the start of any player turn.
-So as my opponent says that his turn is over I yell very quicky (and throw a dice that is in my hand at the same time) 'Animosity for that unit' (other arm is pointing at said unit).
-Player turn has already started.... sucked in can't use the storm banner.
-Gives me at least 1 turn of shooting.

Those slave missiles must be cheap too, considering how many points slaves cost. Aren't there no limits on the # of core units in Fantasy? Maybe the way to go would be to use, rather than a couple of Slave Nukes, several smaller Slave Scuds and rush your opponents battle line with 4 or 5 units of 10 Slave conga-lines.

WG: Heh... I like your tactic of "get started as soon as possible!!!"

Seems to me that it will be clarified to "one-use only".

Speaking of how ballsed-up the Skaven book is, I was pretty shocked by all the FAQ questions they've already gotten together over at TWF: http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=65254.

Me, I'll be playing the most conservative, least abusive route as usual, but there are some things I flat out can't make a call on ...

- Salvage

Agree with Boss Salvage. Always try and stick to RAI if RAW is blatantly nonsense. The conga line is only going to wind up your opponents and cause arguments.

As the plague furnace is Ld 0- it is going to be massacred by an oldblood with the blade of realities.

Flashman: in another post it was talked about using the 13th spell if your opponent miscasts and roles the ' your opponent emmidiately gets to cast a spell result' try it then, if not id say only if you really really want to

Neat trick, bet that gets nerfed by 8th Edition

Personally? I like the "Skavenslave Torpedo" - a big long line of Slaves which abuse the "cornered rats" rule in order to cause huge amounts of damage to the enemy. you can fit 20 in two ranks from the start, then reform into one line and cause 20 (Okay, 19) D3 S3 hits when you break from combat straight after you charge.

Ungulateman - if any opponent pulls that torpedo tactic - I'll remind them of the Vampire Count "1 pt for the whole unit of Grave Guard to have great weapons" book mistake. Followed by a kick to the nuts.
Or charge them with a cheap flying unit basically in their deployment zone (reforming that many will be all their mvt) and watch the slave bomb go off in their face. Either way - it's definately RAI vs RAW.
To everyone who keeps saying the Stormbanner will get erratta'd - they don't usually FAQ in things like "One use only". They add in things like "D3 per rank BONUS" type of deal. Expect that sucker to stay there and torment all DE, WE and Elf players, as well as Empire gunlines.

Mattbranb wrote:1 pt for the whole unit of Grave Guard to have great weapons

What the dick, Gav Thorpe?

But the storm banner will do stuff all vs Ld bomb slaaneshi daemons, VCs with x2 units 3 fell bats or less (mostly what I see), and WOC without hellcannon/s, and brettonians, AND new beastmen, AND almost all of the ogre units (excepting leadbelchers on the flanks).

What it does do is make me not want to take a dragon to a tourney next year, despite spending almost $200 to get it converted and magnetised....

Im ok with that, the Banner isnt as powerful as you think. it can be used 3 times in the game. Its more to slow down the shooting and flying than stop it cold, and im happy that something does. One terror critter in the heart of a skaven line and its good bye units. or one painic test from shooting and its conga LD tests for an epic fail. Rats now have a item to defend against this, and i see no reason why they shouldnt, other armies get items that help negate their weeknesses, so its only fair. Limiting it to one use only is just silly.
Sorry by 3 times i mean that it can be used every other turn. so if you use it turn 1, you cant use it again till turn 3, so potentially 3 uses.

Ah nevermind - guess some of the foreign language Skaven books had "one use only" in their spell description. Misprint or something in the US book. Oh well - it's still an awesome banner.

cypher wrote:Yup, the storm banner is pretty awesome. I give it a 50/50 chance of being errata'ed to one use only. They left the dark elf ring o no magic in so they might leave the banner o no shooting in.

Suicide slaves are only ld 2, 7 if near the general. Not to hard to break from range. O, and its D3+20 not 20D6 hits.

Ld2, then add in ranks up to Ld 10, within 12 of general.

13th spell: No, its not worth the whole game trying to cast.

What, you do 4d6 wounds? you can get that with multiple castings of plague spells. Take it anyway, in case your opponent rolls the miscast that allows you to cast your own.

They have to let it go off, or use all of their remaining dice/scrolls to cancel it.

Or use powerstones and warp tokens to blast it out. tokens are pointless, too much risk, pay 5pts more and get powerstone dice.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:VCs with x2 units 3 fell bats or less (mostly what I see)

How will it do stuff all against this(I mean aside from the rest of the army)? Storm Banner still denies Flying Movement.

Waaagh I have to agree with Platuan4th - out of all those examples, the only one I could see it hurting are the fell bats (and 1stturn rushes with them I guess). Here's what I see the storm banner nerfing:

1. Dark Elf shooty armies
2. Empire gunlines
3. Lizardmen skink armies
4. Wood Elves
5. High Elves
6. Flamers
7. Orc Artillery
8. Dwarf gunlines, with the exception of grudgethrowers with runes on them

Now factor in it being errata'd to one use only (like old book), your still talking about 1 or 2 turns minimum of movement before it burns out. Combine that with Mr. Hellpit and/or some plague furnace units or PCB - your in the enemy lines already.
Tomb Kings have to be the ones who come out the best from it though - their archers will still hit on 5s and the screaming skulls will still work.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Slaves RAI vs RAW.

The rulebook entry for the 'slave explosion' says d3, st3 hits for front rank then 1 per rank after that.... but in the latest White Dwarf the guy who wrote the book explained that it was rank bonus only.

Fool should have had someone else read the book. We picked up on it immediately on reading, the insanity of the way it is written and planned 20 long conga lines of slaves....

Remember WD is written ~6months before it hits the shelves. This is ample time for tweaks to be made here and there in the army book.

And the final draft for the army book/codex is sent off at least 5 months before release to the printers.

I know this because the tyranid codex has been at the printers for the last month.


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Also if what you says is true (not arguing your point, just the stupidity of the writer) then he has deliberately gone and changed a perfectly acceptable, well written and well thoughtout/balanced rule to a ridiculous piece of rubbish.

I tell my writing students to have others read their writing before submitting it, and it makes me sad when they don't. When a multi-million dollar corporation (that I send waaay too much money to) does the same...

as you see no one listens to thier teachers.


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as you see no one listens to thier teachers
jk

IM GOING WITH AN ESHIN/SKYRE BUILD AND WITH 4 UNITS OF CLANRATS 3 NIGHTRUNNERS AND 2 DOOMWHEELS 5 JEZZIALS AND A BELL ILL JUST HAFT TO CHARGE CHARGE CHARGE.

plaugerat wrote:IM GOING WITH AN ESHIN/SKYRE BUILD AND WITH 4 UNITS OF CLANRATS 3 NIGHTRUNNERS AND 2 DOOMWHEELS 5 JEZZIALS AND A BELL ILL JUST HAFT TO CHARGE CHARGE CHARGE.

Turn your caps off.

I've been espousing the Abomination as pretty broken, but to tell you the truth, when you look at the comp of the army with magic defense, there are definately ways around it. Enemy takes Lore of Fire, lore of Tzeentch - basically anything flaming and it can be in trouble. Skaven magic defense is really around either A. Taking a Grey Seer for the LvL 4 caster and defense, followed up by either some plague priests or engineers for the extra dispel dice or B. Going magic light and carrying a couple scrolls to give you enough time to get into combat (basically on turn 3ish).
That gives a caster 2-3 turns to fireball/magic the abomination to death - needing 5s to wound it, as long as you get the spell off (fiery blast being especially nasty), you can realistically put 2-3 wounds a turn on that thing.
Throw in some of the additional stuff with flaming attacks, flaming shooty stuff - opponents just can't let the abomination get into combat is all. I watched a Slann list this weekend kill an abomination by turn 2 - pretty nasty.

What I got from the rule is that any one point suffered by the Abom from flames prevents insures its death.

ZF-

If you mean flaming attacks don't allow a regen save, then yeah

Or specifically, if the Abomination incurs a flaming hit, it can't use the 'come back to life' rule or whatever its called.

LunaHound wrote:
Probably 30 jezzails to make up for the nerfed rattling gun -_-

That one.

Platuan4th wrote:

plaugerat wrote:IM GOING WITH AN ESHIN/SKYRE BUILD AND WITH 4 UNITS OF CLANRATS 3 NIGHTRUNNERS AND 2 DOOMWHEELS 5 JEZZIALS AND A BELL ILL JUST HAFT TO CHARGE CHARGE CHARGE.

Turn your caps off.

Plat, he spelled his own username wrong, I don't think he knows how to turn caps lock off.

Hello - finally i'm back at Dakka.

Long story of being away, but hey it's good.

I just read on this thread that Skaven have no magic defense?

I don't think that this is entirely correct.

I've recently seen a veteran skaven player (who owns a legit 13,000 point army of the little buggers) completely dominate every magic phase and wipe out every army he's faced in 2000 points since the book came out.

His answer: Many many Plague Priests with the ubiquitous Dispel Scrolls.

His army at 2000 pts is basically Clan Pestilens with a ton of Plague Monks, Priests, Slaves, Catapults, Censer Bearers and Skrolk.

He sends in the slaves as suicide rat bombers and then lets the Monks and other units mop up.

He's had three armies that have troubled him:

Ogres - hard to wound and take down.
WoC - Damned Armour and Toughness.
Orcs - Horde like tough guys.

I must admit that Pestilens is my fave Clan, but I might end up doing a Ratzilla list with Throt, a ton of Rat Ogres, some Slaves, Swarms and other Moulder goodies plus two HPA.


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The same veteran player is thinking of taking Queek and a ton of Stormvermin as core choices.

I question his sanity, but could it work?

How viable is a rat ogre heavy list? I have a buddy who's working on skaven and loves the rat ogre models and has about 16 of them so far. Can they be used effectively? I remember lots of people saying Rat Ogres were terrible choices in the last two army books, but has something changed this time around?

put it this way bbb, if the rat ogres get into combat they have a ok chance of winning it, but not great. its the getting to the combat thats the problem. they are Real easy to kill by shooting, still 16 would give me pause. try it and see.

also, does anyone know the base size for the hell pit abomination? I was thinking about scratchbuilding one for my friend, but wasn't sure how big it should be. I'm guessing chariot sized base and hydra sized monster.

I asked a friend (the same veteran player) about the Ratzilla possibility and he said he would add the following key things to the list...

Vermin Lord/Throt/Warlord on Bonebreaker.

Take the Vermin Lord for a very large threatening unit that can beat face and has some good magic, probably only in large games. Take Throt if you want a lot of Rat Ogres. Take the Warlord on Bonebreaker in a Deathstar Unit of Rat Ogres - tool him up, wind him up and let him go.

Slaves.

Large units of them to soak up fire, block LOS for the Rat Ogres and create Tarpits.

Rat Swarms.

Tarpits.

Rat Ogres.

As many as you can field. These things are strong in combat and can bring down nearly anything with their high strength and high number of attacks. Downside is WS:3 and they have no armour save, but if you can saturate the battlefield with Rat Ogre units you can create a big headache for your opponent.

Hell Pit Abomination.

Nasty pieces of work these. They will attract a lot of firepower, usually away from your Rat Ogres, which is not a bad thing as that means your Rat Ogre's may make it into combat. My friend has two converted up using the Warhammer Giant and a load of Rat Ogre and spare Skaven bits.

Well thats his two cents anyways.

You know noone at our store had noticed that part about flaming attacks negating the Abomination coming back rule. Interesting.
As far as magic defense - I'm not sure how taking tons of plague priests really answers that - I mean, you can only have 4 max in a 2000 game and if he's running Skrolk, your looking at 7 dispel dice max. You could take a couple scrolls in your priests, but maxing out at 3 leaves you without a BSB as well. Matter of preference really I guess - I just like to be able to reroll my break tests.

As far as the abomination base size - I've asked the same question myself (along with the warlitter base size) - the general consensus seems to be a chariot (as it's a big monster), but due to there isn't a model, and it's a monster, some folks have said 50mm x 50mm. I'm leaning towards chariot base.

Mattbranb wrote:As far as the abomination base size - I've asked the same question myself (along with the warlitter base size) - the general consensus seems to be a chariot (as it's a big monster), but due to there isn't a model, and it's a monster, some folks have said 50mm x 50mm. I'm leaning towards chariot base.

at first I thought it was a 50x50, but the image in the book makes it look like it's a melding of skaven machinery and beast and it causes impact hits, so those together would sound like a chariot base to me, but I'd really like a clear ruling before I try to build anything.

I'm building my abomination on a 50x50. If there is ever a ruling saying it should be on the larger base, I can always transplant it.

Im making mine on chariot base , it can barely fit that atm too hmm...

Anyways , larger monsters ( including FW ) are often mounted on chariot size bases , so cant really go wrong.

Going 50x50 with mine. Yea, it's harder to tag with stone throwers and such, but it also doesn't have a 100mm flank that could be used to nab more hits when the abomination decides to do the splash attak that crushes everybody in base.

Also, my conversion fits better on a square than a rectangle

- Salvage

50X100 for me, i cant fit it on anything smaller, and if it comes to a question on base size its easy to just say it can be attacked the full length, but i only count the front half. here i wont have a problem in any of hte tournaments.

We should use valkyrie flight stands to minimize the base size if its an issue >.>

Abomination screams chariot base to me. All big monsters of its ilk are on chariot bases this days - see also Stegadon, Hydra, Dragon & Giant.

Giant is not on a chariot base.

It is on 50x75.


I wish they would standardise monster base sizes.

But for the skaven 'pushed' machines I'm perfectly happy with a 20mm basis for sizing to allow ease of ranking.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
I wish they would standardise monster base sizes.

But for the skaven 'pushed' machines I'm perfectly happy with a 20mm basis for sizing to allow ease of ranking.

Seemed to me 50x50 was the standard for large target monsters, but then that damn (sexy) dragon came out and messed things up

Is the bell/furnace actually on a 60x100 base? The pics in the armybook look like it, and if so, good on you Dub, that's pretty handy.

- Salvage

Boss_Salvage wrote:
Is the bell/furnace actually on a 60x100 base? The pics in the armybook look like it, and if so, good on you Dub, that's pretty handy.

Yes, it takes up the space of 15 models, so that would be 3 20mm bases by 5 20mm bases.

Ive an old bell so looks like good times for a bit of basing and conversion. (never built the thing)
As a side note. any idea if there is an official FAQ/Erratta for the army book?
And has any one managed to count the spelling mistakes and errors in the book? (Hell i can spell better than this, and thats a very disapointing and above all scrary as hell thought.


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Oh and i'll be trying the new army out next week. looks like Warlord, bsb, X2 plague preists.

and nothing but inf, with a tooled up set of globers and many small units of giant rats for interfearance.

Hawkins wrote:
And has any one managed to count the spelling mistakes and errors in the book? (Hell i can spell better than this, and thats a very disapointing and above all scrary as hell thought.

Cool, a new word...

Scrary: defn To mock somebody else's inadequacies whilst make the same error.

Sorry Hawkins, I jest I know everybody makes mistakes writing their posts. And yes, GW desperately need to do some proof reading.

EDIT - Lol, spotted a gramatical error on my post. Oh dear!

here's a sickening though, take 2 furnases in the same unit. i cant find anywhere that says each has to be in a seperate unit.

Then watch as 2x the fumes eat away at it quickly, and it has such a large footprint its impossible to move anywhere near the other army, due to terrain or your own units.
It will also struggle to get much of it into combat, possibly missing both of the furnaces.

So, good thought, bad idea


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Edit: It will also be flank charged throughout the whole game, meaning they allways get a nice bonus against you.

Watch as you get march blocked by a single giant eagle.


such fun

How in the hell did a giant eagle dodge like 20 jezzails and all the other warmachines? If a great eagle marchblocks for more than one turn, the skaven player's doing it wrong.

Spellbound wrote:How in the hell did a giant eagle dodge like 20 jezzails and all the other warmachines? If a great eagle marchblocks for more than one turn, the skaven player's doing it wrong.

Forest hopping

On a side note i would like to hear other Fantasy player's opinion on facing giant blocks of skaven slaves.
Do you guys shoot / mow them down for fun?
Or generally try to not step into the "tar pit" ?

Hawkins wrote:Ive an old bell so looks like good times for a bit of basing and conversion. (never built the thing)

I'm thinking about buying the new bell, and converting my old (pre-6E) one into a cataplt. The bell would make a great counterweight...


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LunaHound wrote:

Spellbound wrote:How in the hell did a giant eagle dodge like 20 jezzails and all the other warmachines? If a great eagle marchblocks for more than one turn, the skaven player's doing it wrong.

Forest hopping

On a side note i would like to hear other Fantasy player's opinion on facing giant blocks of skaven slaves.
Do you guys shoot / mow them down for fun?
Or generally try to not step into the "tar pit" ?

If you do it right, the only way to avoid them is to open your flanks to a charge from whatever's behind them.

I thought about the new bell as well, but with the boycott on i cant see me buying it, i will probably convert my old orc catapult instead, or just use my grudge thrower.

slaves? flank charge..... no more slaves.

Hawkins wrote:I thought about the new bell as well, but with the boycott on i cant see me buying it, i will probably convert my old orc catapult instead, or just use my grudge thrower.

slaves? flank charge..... no more slaves.

No, whatever's behind the slaves does the flank charge. Then you send the slaves in the back for good measure!

??? were talking about charging slaves right? as in, response to Luna's question.....
charge the slaves in the flank to get rid of a tar pit.
*gets confused and goes of to bed.*

Ah. I think Luna is referring to a paired charge - the slaves charge the flank, something a bit more solid charges the front.

So, any feedback from the past month of playing?

Here's my main takeaway - Weapon teams still suck, even with a ward save. Any attention at all directed at them and they die. Now, I've only played with the warpfire thrower and ratling gun, but, what kills them would be killing the other ones too. Namely - any and all shooting or magic.

I haven't had a problem with running weapon teams. Against armies without much shooting, there isn't much threat to them, and they can generally get a couple shots off. Against armies with a lot of shooting, I usually hide them behind the parent unit later in the game when most units are locked in combat. Plus, if someone if shooting at the WTs, that's less fire at the Bell or censer bearers. Having a ratling gun in the late game can be really useful when there are depleted enemy units running around, or you've lost your heavy hitters.

I was really skeptical at first about night runners, since they lost their skirmish rule. However, a ranked unit with movement 6 that can pop up on the other side of the board is pretty nice, and they aren't bad hunting big monsters. With their pregame move, deploying them on the flanks to go after archers and such isn't bad either.

I wasn't sure about the cannon now that it shoots like a regular one, but a good shot can take out a lot more infantry than a regular cannon can.

been running (because of restrictions to war machines in tourney here) 3 mortors, a cannon, and a catapult. against armies that dont shoot with heavy bocks of infantry.... all i can say is ick...... i will be getting rid of the catapult, its lack luster when it comes to wounding and even though ive managed to get at least 5 solid hits with it, its killed less than 1o models. on the other hand if you get scorch as a spell for an engineer, i can honestly say OWWWW, DAMN OW!!, ive wiped out 3 entire regiment blocks with this thing in 3 turns (well always killed over half the models).
so after playing and testing, i can say the warlord is an awesome choice on war litter (theres just that small problem of its US (as it could be argues 0 to 4 (5 with warlord) ) and base size. we run it as a US4 including warlord on a 40mm base at the momment (becasue of the torney organisers rules). but it hasent been an issue yet personally i think the war litter should be at most US2 but 0 makes more rules sense. also the base size at 40mm is ok but 40 x 20 could work just as well.

all in all the censor bearers and plague monks are sick, the censors kill WoC heavy cav like they werent even there. cut thru units all by themselves, and just make things nasty for the opponent here we restrict then to being in a 2 choice pool, (witch includes abomination, censors, doom wheel, catapult, cannon, and bell (yup only 2 from the list can be picked and not multiples of rare.) ive charged censors full on and lost the combat needing a double 1 from the ammount of wounds tasken from both the smoke and hits (hit with 24 clanrats full command. they are evil. (so ya i guess thanks GW for making em that way)

Vengis wrote:I haven't had a problem with running weapon teams. Against armies without much shooting, there isn't much threat to them, and they can generally get a couple shots off. Against armies with a lot of shooting, I usually hide them behind the parent unit later in the game when most units are locked in combat. Plus, if someone if shooting at the WTs, that's less fire at the Bell or censer bearers. Having a ratling gun in the late game can be really useful when there are depleted enemy units running around, or you've lost your heavy hitters.

I wasn't sure about the cannon now that it shoots like a regular one, but a good shot can take out a lot more infantry than a regular cannon can.

I don't mean to disparage your experiences, but... It really sounds like your opponents don't know what they're doing. Ten archers can take one round of shooting to kill a major threat and earn 65 VPs or they can shoot something else and do .. nothing? Against armies without much shooting they are the best target choice in your army.

Vengis wrote:
was really skeptical at first about night runners, since they lost their skirmish rule. However, a ranked unit with movement 6 that can pop up on the other side of the board is pretty nice, and they aren't bad hunting big monsters. With their pregame move, deploying them on the flanks to go after archers and such isn't bad either.

I don't understand how you're finding succes with night runners 'hunting' big monsters. Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't see too many monsters that would be worried about them OR that could be 'hunted' by them. M6 does not keep up with flying.

I do agree about the cannon however. I don't run an abomination and the cannon has performed beautifully for me. A good to perfect shot with it results in whole units being wiped out. It's really fantastic. If I ran the abomination, might my relative opinion change? Yes, but till I do that conversion, I have no problem running the WLC. It's been pure gold.

the crippler: any unit can find sucsess if you have a specific purpose and learn to use it for that, i use a huge ammount of swarms and find i always make points back with them.
take the Vargulf or tomb scorpion, both are nasty, but if hes using full ranks to slam into them then hes killing them easy (as passive alone means both these monsters have to get in 4 wounds just to break even, i use to do it in the old version with giant rats)
but i do admitt having an extra 6 inches head start with night runners is the bomb if your using them against a gunline, or for flanking.

weapons teams can hide, a half compitant skaven can run a ratling up to a gunline and pound them archers if done right., mortors as well and you wont even have to expose em. skaven really are the new anti gunline, storm banner, 3rd on the engineers spell list. -3 shooting flyers cant, and warmachines need 4plus to even think about firing. send in huge ammounts of mixed infantry and its over.

i guess were all echoing the cannon. its pure gold.

an abomination can be a good thing, but it needs practice to use and you really have to think out its moves at least a turn in advance. ive killed one when it ran into my warlord. made it run and chased it down (not hard). but it had me sweating the whole time it was coming. the battle could just have easily gone against me. corse rival hide did work wonders against its 3-d6 attacks.

swarms, cant say enough about swarms when protecting your flank and war machines. cheep, huge ammount of attacks, and unbreakable but not unpopable. (i run 5 sets of 2 normally. min 3 sets of 2)


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giant rats: something to think about. 75 points. 11 attacks at str 3 ws 3, 2 attacks at str 6 ws 4 i think. or 3 attacks str 4 ws 4. good hard unit for gitting a flank.

Crippler:

Against armies with just a unit of archers or two, I'm going to make sure I try to target those units with some sort of spells or shooting. I have had my weapon teams wiped out before (MSU high elves) but I still think they're worth it. They're great against armies like WoC. I'm interested in trying out the doom roller, or whatever it's called. A 3+/4+ is pretty good.

Maybe 'hunting' is the wrong term to use. Night runners are good for things like giants or stegadons on the flanks. Against large targets, the whole unit can shoot, hitting on a 3+. You can usually get a couple 6s. If you position them at an angle before shooting, you can make the opponent either charge and possibly overrun off the table, or ignore the unit. Slaves with slings can do this too, but they don't hit as often, although they do have much better range.

Hawkins:

How are censer bearers cutting through chaos heavy cav? They'll never get the charge, the censers don't work as well against T4, and the Cav still has a 3+ save against the bearer's S5 attackse, if any censer bearers live through the initial attacks.

Also, why restrict so many choices?

Ven: normally the cav have frenzy, its easy to get them into the position you want , then charge in, i do admit that its hard to crack em, but with 7 thats 21 str 5 attacks with hatered (18 if you loose one to a tough check), and normally 5, 5+ checks on the cav before combat. if they dont have frenzy well all the better, slam a slave unit in front of em, position a swarm in back and then bring the censors on a flank ready to charge in behind... (works like a charm if the opponent doesnt realize what the swarms and slaves are for.witch is to stop the cav from reposioning. (it takes timing and good guessing on charge distance, but its always cool when the WoC tries to reform and cant casue he has to be out of one inch distance. so you see, i do get the charge, it just takes true skaven thinking (sacrifice the 42 point unit, then the 50 point unit, and kill 250+ points and remove a threat.)

as for restrictions, alot of tourneys are doing it here now to keep a balance, though some of the crap they come up with is rediculas.

heres a couple of examples for the salsburg touney tomarrow.
no more than 5 war machines.
no more than 50 shooters. (thrown weapons dont count, weapons teams count as 5, catapults and cannon count as 10. slings are .5
any weapons team after the 3rd couts as a slot (of the 2 your allowed)
no more than 9 power dice can be used per each of your magic phases.
a stupid one was : you cant have more giant rat packs and slave units than you have clanrat units.
no 3 heros the same.
no rares the same.

each army has its own.

some like styermark MT (masters), have more realistic restrictions. some like Tyrol have others. its all in how the hosting organizers want to set it up. the default are the OTT rules and they are ok.

best thing is though is most of the torneys are WYSIWYG heavey, but non gw models are allowed, in fact most armies have at least something cool thats non GW, so there isnt ever problems. i think Wien is the only place where there ever has been a problem with non GW minis. (but then again its one of the few places where there is a GW store.

Vengis wrote:Maybe 'hunting' is the wrong term to use. Night runners are good for things like giants or stegadons on the flanks. Against large targets, the whole unit can shoot, hitting on a 3+. You can usually get a couple 6s. If you position them at an angle before shooting, you can make the opponent either charge and possibly overrun off the table, or ignore the unit. Slaves with slings can do this too, but they don't hit as often, although they do have much better range.

Problem being that - against the Stegadon - not all the hits are going against the monster. Similarly, about 2/3 the hits that are suffered will be saved. Lastly, you either:
1) Are firing at long range (4's to hit)
2) Moved into short range (4's to hit, 5's if double-shooting)

Sure, a nice 40 shots is a good 13 hits, but after randomization you've got about 4 on the crew and 8 on the beast. You're getting one wound, maybe two, and odds are it'll save at least one of those. The crew, you're getting 2-to-3 wounds, again with the majority being saved. And you're now, likely, in combat range. Have fun.

Jezzails are much better anti-stegadon. 4's to hit at long range, no save for any Stegadon-wounds caused, and only a 6+ save for the crew (who's being wounded on 2's). If lucky, a unit of Jezzails could possibly snipe a Skink Character waiting onboard.

How are censer bearers cutting through chaos heavy cav? They'll never get the charge, the censers don't work as well against T4, and the Cav still has a 3+ save against the bearer's S5 attackse, if any censer bearers live through the initial attacks.

I did the calculations earlier.

"Chaos Knights are taking 1-to-2 casualties before either side strikes (regardless of who charges), and for every two Plague Censors who get to attack about one Chaos Knight is going to be killed (6 attacks / 4.5 hits / 3 wounds / 1 failed save). Thus: Knights charge Plague Censor unit, take one insta-casualty. Four attack, horsies kill one, Knights kill (assuming champion) four. Censors caused two wounds on Chaos Knights, losing match but taking out two Knights when charged. Assuming Censors charge, add two-to-three more casualties by the censors and subtract most of the kills caused by the knights. "

keep in mind the standard here is a set of 5 knights, ive seen up to 10 deployed but thats rare and with characters in. (WoC)

Hawkins wrote:keep in mind the standard here is a set of 5 knights, ive seen up to 10 deployed but thats rare and with characters in. (WoC)

I was assuming an average width of six, as many people will take a 6-7 width (at least at my GW) due to the extra attacks it provides in addition to giving no extra contact-range against most armies (Few having more than 5 models wide blocks anyways).

If your going anti-stegadon, PCB work wonders. 1 Censor bearer in BSB contact with the steg = toughness tests on everything on the model. Sure you may not hurt the steg, but you'll wipe out the crew and wound the character pretty easy. Best way I've found to get rid of Engines (which are a pain in the butt), especially at Burning my weapons teams I have running around.

My friend runs a skaven list with a verminlord AND a plague furnace AND a hell pit abomination. We house-ruled the stormbanner to one-use only. I run a fairly standard anvil (not thorek) gunline. 10x crossbow, 20x thunderer, 2x bolt thrower, cannon, grudge thrower, one beastly block of hammerers with bsb.

First game we played (I posted a battle report of this one) the storm banner only stayed on for one of my turns (also one of his). I scored a massacre. His luck was terrible, mine was close to optimum (I shot his abomination with my cannon THROUGH the stormbanner). The abomination and the verminlord are both highly vulnerable to shooting, and the plague furnace only slightly less so since you can pick it out of its unit to shoot at.

Second game we played, the storm banner stayed on for two of my turns, and he scored a massacre. I still managed to plink the furnace and the verminlord, but not quite the abomination, which personally killed nearly 900 points of units.

Based on these experiences, I would say that a plague furnace is great for its points, an abomination is practically mandatory in a combat-oriented skaven army, and a verminlord is a silly waste of a lot of points as it's too easy to shoot.

The slave bomb is silly good, IMO, if you can use it properly. I did ok against it because of dwarf armor, toughness, and everything having shields, but I'd hate to see what it would do to either kind of elves, or even empire infantry, etc.

When you say slave bomb, I hope your not talking about the "line them up 20 deep 1 slave wide" torpedo thing. Thats pretty much accepted as a errata fix, just like the Stormbanner.

No, just the fact that they explode at all.