Looked through a little bit last night and this morning. My first impression is that to run all of what we want, most people will need at least 60 Clanrats or 30 Stormvermin to fill out the require Battleline units. I was a little disappointed that, for example, Gutter Runners couldn't be Battleline if the general was Eshin, but ALL of the other models besides a Masterclan or Eshin model is the general. Really limiting Clan specific armies, especially those who aren't Pestilens and Skryre.
While I wasn't surprised, I was also a little disappointed Skaven can't ally with anything but Nurgle, and then only if they're Pestilens.
It was reassuring that there are a good amount of Bravery mitigating devices in the book. Screaming Bell is on my general to try list for my Eshin army. The Warpseer Verminlord's command ability is another. The +2 for units of 10 or more is also very useful.
Nice to see the big heroes (I think) all have the 5++ save vs wounds and mortal wounds!
Seems like plenty of movement trickery available with the Gnawholes, Warp Grinder (hooray! no more rolling a 3+ for it, but just rolling D6 mortal wounds after they pop up!), and Skitterleap spells from the Grey Seers and Deceivers. In my last 8 games being able to zip zap all over the table has been a big factor in winning, or rather, when I cannot do that and the enemy can, I lose almost every time (been playing Legion of Azgorh lately).
Also seems like tons of magic and mortal wounds to dish out, good shooty ranged attack potential, besides the vast amounts of mass melee action. I'm excited to try these rats out in full force, first up will be the ninjas of Clan Eshin. I think their Clan specialty coupled with a Slinktalon battalion will be pretty darn nasty. I'll be maxing out on Gutter Runners, just need 20 more......besides like 80 Night Runners more Didn't think I'd end up with a horde army but looks like Skaven is hard to avoid being a horder army. Guess with 30 Stormvermin, 4 Verminlords or Thanquol and 3 Verminlords that could be a reasonably low model count army. Just not sure if it could capitalize on all the Skaven tricks, but maybe?
I have a strong impression that the best builds will start with 3 units of 40 clanrats (potentially replacing one with a max stormvermin unit instead), or 3 units of 40 plague monks if running pestilens. 20 clanrats just lacks any real hitting power, especially after they lose one model and thus their hit bonus. 40 is way more than double the effectiveness AND costs less than double the points. They are +1 to hit and wound, and from experience I can say there is little issue getting 30 models in range of 2" weapons. It goes from a chaff objective holding unit to something that will both tar pit and beat the snot out of anything else that costs 200 points, before buffs even get involved. 360 points gets some chaff, 600 gets three units that can actually do something on top of being a massive tar pit and holding objectives or even snagging enemy ones just by charging. Retreat & charge just makes things better since they can seriously encircle or just gum up your enemy's battleline.
Plague monks were already OP and are potentially the best infantry in the game now that they benefit from +1 to hit at 20+ and +1 to wound at 30+. Same advantages as above (minus retreat & charge) but with massive offense.
Either way the main weakness of swarms, battleshock, is easily negated via a screaming bell, plague furnace, or the endless bell, with inspiring presence and extra bravery from numbers being backups.
Pestilens has further benefit in synergy; the Congregation of Filth battalion needs 2+ monk units and a plague furnace; so 3 monk units you need for battleline and the furnace you were taking to support them anyways are already there. It will give those units 6+ fnp while they are wholly within 18" (so realistically, two of them) on top of the standard command point, artifact, and deployment benefits. All together it is 1180 points, which is a lot, but punches so far above its weight it doesn't matter.
Thanquol is also crazy, crazy good. No particular reason, he just does a lot of things well and does not cost many points for how well he does them.
I could go on for a while... I'll come back later.
Hmmm yes, excellent points on the 40 rat sized units. Ugh, sooooo much assembly and painting though. SOOOO much.
I don't forsee anyone's Skaven army getting best painted because of that, except maybe all Stormfiends. I think that's a viable build too despite the mandatory mixed weapons.
I'm not sure how much it will actually be seen because of that. Pestilens has had viable tourney builds for years but no one wanted to to deal with the 160+ plague monks it needed. Certainly my planned build avoids the swarms simply out of practicality even though I know it will be worse for it. It is very Stormfiend heavy though so it might get away with it.
Speaking of, Stormfiends keep getting cost reductions they do not need. Warpfire changed role from anti-elite to anti-swarm but actually got better. There are a bunch of ways to buff them. Weapon teams, to be frank, are a poor choice at best now because Stormfiends do what they do but with way more durability and melee effectiveness.
Consider what a ratling gun does at 80 points, but at 120 points a ratling stormfiend does that plus twice the wounds, 4+ instead of 6+, and with a good set of melee attacks to boot. A ratling team, warpfire team, and doomflayer put together are just a vastly poorer version of a fiend unit. Unless you don't have the full amount to take fiends there is little reason to go with weapon teams. Not that weapon teams are actually bad for the cost, just that when stormfiends are so much better why bother.
Malathrim wrote: Hmmm yes, excellent points on the 40 rat sized units. Ugh, sooooo much assembly and painting though. SOOOO much.
I don't forsee anyone's Skaven army getting best painted because of that, except maybe all Stormfiends. I think that's a viable build too despite the mandatory mixed weapons.
Meh an army of fully painted clan rats straight deserves best painted for the sheer effort . still need to work on my 2-300 ish clanrats
pretty stoked for the new book. Found it fortunate that i didnt build doubles on my stormfiends now that there are build limits. Really stoked for the DOOMWHEEL buffs on speed and more more abilities on a lot of stuff that didnt have it like the warp lighting cannon.
I might do a Doomwheel army just because they are so fun! And I had an old short-tailed opossum who LOOOOVED his doomwheel, which ultimately was his doom, but that's another story.
Another thing I was expecting was more summoning potential, but there's not much at all actually. Guess they come with what hordes they have. Maybe we'll see one person with 400-500 rat swarms and giant rats in a Moulder army )
Looking at the battalions this morning, I'm definitely doing a Slinktalon. Maybe two, not sure if the extra relic is worth it (the Eshin relics are almost all one-use, but possibly worth taking, plenty in the Realms though).
Eshin will be my first focus (mostly have them right now), but using a Screaming Bell as my general because I can do that and still have my Gutter Runners/Night Runners as battleline. Then a Deceiver, and a big mass of Slinktalon, hopefully can fit another Deathmaster (assassain) and 2nd Deceiver in there too, or at least some Endless Spells, probably at least a Doombell for more anti-battleshock use.
All the early test reports I've read agree that the Vortex is powerful! Very powerful! Thanquol is also now a very powerful wizard and combat unit which goes well with his high 400 point cost.
Gnawholes are getting less raving about (which as they are free is a good thing probably); but I think part of it is that people forget about them or they are not quite yet used to using them to their full potential.
Stormvermin are good but at 500 points for 40 they are a big chunk of an army; esp if a player then brings something like Thanquol or a Verminlord. So whilst they are solid I can see people varying the Stormvermin angle from time to time.
Also don't forget "pure" clan armies only work IF they are all with the same key word. So any Clan Pestilens or Skyre clans are going to have to use something other than Clan Rats.
To quote myself on plague monks from the other thread:
NinthMusketeer wrote: A 40-man plague monk unit (double blades) charges. With 25mm bases they can fight in two ranks, so it is reasonable to say they get 20 models in melee range. Going with just the benefits the unit has for showing up:
+1 to hit for being 20 or more models
+1 to wound for being 30 or more models
+1 attack for charging (3 attacks per)
Re-roll hits for dual blades
6s to hit* have rend -1 from music
6s to wound* do an extra damage from banner
*Imagine how much fun it will be to keep track of those two abilities.
It works out to 44.44 damage mostly at no rend (a quarter of it is rend -1), so about 31 wounds against a 5+ save or about 24 against a 4+ save. Off a 240-point unit that has 40 wounds to chew through and is probably outnumbering you enough to capture objectives even if you're standing on them. With no buffs.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Overread wrote: Thanquol is also now a very powerful wizard and combat unit which goes well with his high 400 point cost.
Thanquol basically auto-casts a spell every turn. 3d6 drop the lowest and +2 (or +3 next to a gnawhole) on top of that. That bonus also applies to his other spell. He is also really durable with 14 wounds, 4+ armor, 5+ fnp, healing 1 a turn. His warpfire deletes 1w or 2w infantry, and does heavy damage to any unit with multiple models regardless (even just a 3 model unit will suffer an average of 6 mortals). He fights in melee. And he has a solid command ability.
Meh an army of fully painted clan rats straight deserves best painted for the sheer effort . still need to work on my 2-300 ish clanrats
Dipping is your friend. I made some 400 skavens easily back in 8th ed with good old dipping method. Sure no tournament winner but funnily enough might very well have been my best looking FB army.
Stormfiends aren't looking as quite the same eclispers as they were, though.
Not sure how I'm feeling about Skryre getting loads of ways to make their stuff efficient, as it's taking away from supercharging being a risk that you'd want to take for the jamminess to being "kill-kill much quick!".
Stormfiends got better. While the units can't specialize as much, they are cheaper and all the ranged weapons were buffed. On top of sparks benefiting them more now.
The basic tactic would be putting clanrats in front of a hammer unit, then when the retreat do so sideways to allow the hammer unit to go in while the clanrat unit charges around the flank.
So I really like battalions and how they work in AoS. I am very happy the newer battletomes have gone back to having a wealth of battalion options even if many of them are sub par. The option is there and I see battalions as more of support for narrative/thematic armies anyways.
But wow is the new Skryre battalion (Warpcog Convocation) terrible. It is so terrible I am going to break down how terrible it is. To be clear I am more amused by this than anything.
To start we have the initial requirements; 60 points and an arch warlo k which buys you absolutely no benefit aside from the ability to take the enginecovens. Though TBF if you are running a skryre army you almost certainly had an arch warlock anyways, and he does trigger the within 13" abilities from enginecovens.
First up the Arkhspark Voltik enginecoven. 110 points and an engineer in exchange for increasing the damage of a WLC by 33% while that engineer is alive and within 13". Like the arch warlock you probably had the engineer anyways, so the cost is really 110 points to increase the damage of the WLC... But for 70 more points you could just take another WLC. And this is one of the better ones.
Gascloud chokelung. Engineer, stormfiends, two acolyte units, and 120 points to give re-roll hits of 1 while the engineer is alive and they are wholly within 13". But it's only stormfiend windlaunchers that are effective, and that weapon option is already poor since it replaces the far more powerful warpfire. So really it's just re-roll 1s on the acolytes, but for the cost you could get 10 more acolytes so unless there are over 60 of them in the enginecoven it is strictly better to do that.
Gautfyre skorch. For 140 points it lets you bring two units from the enginecoven in with a warp grinder. But just getting another warp grinder is 80 points and offers more flexibility on deploying from reserve. Enough said.
Rattlegauge Warplock. 120 pts, engineer, stormfiends, jezzails, and a ratling gun to get the same buff as gascloud only the stormfiends don't benefit at all. And jezzails are already re-rolling hits from their own ability (unless they moved, but with 30" range that's not going to happen much). So basically a bunch of requirements to gain a benefit to ratling guns that is much worse than just buying another ratling gun even if the maximum amount is taken.
Whirlblade Threshik. 130 points, engineer, stormfiends, doomwheel, and a doom flayer. The doom flayer is basically a tax here since it is barely worth half the points you pay for it. but this is still the only enginecoven that is actually good since it gives 3" extra move for the units within as long as they start wholly in 13" of the engineer. That's a nice buff even on the average 14" move of a doomwheel and helps it from being totally movement-screwed on a bad roll. But on stormfiends that is 50% movement increase on a unit that wants to get close for shooting/charging and cannot do either if it ran.
So the end result is that of five enginecovens four are worthless at best and one is decent if expensive. But I want to emphasize that those four are really REALLY bad. You are paying points for something strictly and mathematically worse than just taking more units in all plausible contexts. Not just kind of worse either, a LOT worse.
I think it's the sheer magnitude of bad that pushes them past dissapointing firmly into hilarious for me.
The sad thing is those battalion options just show that the points cost for battalions in general is silly. They really need another cost mechanism to run alongside points - esp once they get to the point where they want players to spend more points on "nothing" on the tabletop when they could spend less points; get more models on the table and get the same effect if not better.
Endless Spells were a step in the right direction - big fancy spells you pay points for but which appear right there on the tabletop as a physical model.
Free battalions and free abilities is also something I really don't want to see return and I haven't seen any currency or system that would let you freely take batallions that doesn't just continue to reinforce the false-choice parade that is AOS.
Eh, I don't think it's a flawed concept just that battalions are difficult to cost right even when you are really trying to balance things. Back when I was costing them out it really took a full year of doing it before I got the hang of things. And GW does not put in the effort balance their units correctly so it should be no surprise battalions are the same. When it comes to the latter they lean on the side of too high a cost, which I think is appropriate (given their lack of interest in balance).
auticus wrote: Free battalions and free abilities is also something I really don't want to see return and I haven't seen any currency or system that would let you freely take batallions that doesn't just continue to reinforce the false-choice parade that is AOS.
I never said free, I simply said a different method of paying besides points.
That said I feel that AoS is a few years behind fantasy and 40K in terms of the model count on table. I figure its partly because the game is new (yes I know its got the old world behind it, but AoS is new and there was a big enough gap that many AoS armies in collections are new) and GW didn't want to totally swamp people with army building requirements.
But I still feel that things like command points and battalions should be separately pointed from army points. I just dislike the notion of taking hundreds of points worth of "nothing" in an army. Then again I've never had an issue with weapon changes and upgrades in 40K so perhaps I'm just balking because its a single big cost instead of " 1 point per unit" costs.
Battalions are essentially bundles of unit upgrades. It's only nothing in the sense that there is no model associated with it, but there is a long history in WHFB and 40k of units having upgrades like that. Look at 'Ardboyz and Scarboyz from 40k, or Big Uns from back in WHFB. It is saying "these units have an additional ability but instead of making you pay the cost whether you take it or not (like equipment) we will let you choose".
Hmm last i recall the Gautfyre skorch was super busted not because it could bring extra dudes but because it can get deployed just outside of 3" for basically free charges and shooting fire (which last i remember in the previous iteration of this tome, most people ran this with a bunch of warpfire stormfiends whom im going assume is cheesed with the weapons limit now).
Essentially yes the battallion is the equivalent of saying:
Take unit X for 80 points
Now for each model in Unit X, you can have this awesome ability for +5 points / model
Only instead of that they say "take a battalion of all this stuff for these points and you get this awesome ability"
And thats perfectly fine. So long as you aren't getting awesome ability for nothing or point costed so low that it might as well be nothing and is a false choice because you'll take it every time.
Yup that's what it did. Now you just spend 140 points to put two units with a warp grinder instead of one. Now you COULD spend 80 points on a second warp grinder to do the se thing but better; both units in reserve but without the restriction of deploying them in the same spot (and getting a second grinder to fight with) while still having 60 points left over.
usernamesareannoying wrote: How do you make us of the clanrat ability to retreat and charge in the same turn?
the clanrats are there to screen your hammers and valuable more fragile units from retaliation. So if they screen and get charged, they can retreat, while the hammer moves in, then they can charge so, that the enemy retaliation unit is again screened by the clanrats so that your hammer can go on for turns to come.
It can also be used to cover ridiculous distances with ground troops to capture objectives by outnumbering a low model objective grabber, retreat (+2") then charge is 8+2d6 movement instead of when running just 8+d6.
Arch Warlock or two, an engineer/bombadier or two, and most importantly however many stormfiends you are willing to run. At least 3 units of 3 to fill battleline.
So I got around to running the numbers on Stormfiend weapons. Short version; don't take windlaunchers, everything else is viable.
To start with windlaunchers, the average damage is somewhat poor. 1.5 average wounds, or 2 if targeting a unit of ten or more (bumping up to 2.25/3 if a spark is used). Having it hit better against large units does not do much because when looking for an anti-horde weapon the warpfire is better by far. Speaking of warpfire, it is now anti-horde instead of anti-elite but IMO it got better. Certainly it is incredibly strong. The only reason I would see to take windlaunchers is deliberately weakening a list (which to be clear, is a good reason).
Ratling cannons do not have high numbers either; 3.5 wounds average but only at rend -1, so 2.33 against a 4+ or 2.91 against 5+. However with a spark to add to the damage characteristic those numbers double (4.66/5.82) and perhaps more importantly the other weapon for that 'slot' is a melee one.
Speaking of, warp grinders. Obviously if you want to use their reserve capability you'll need them, though personally I wouldn't due to its unreliability coupled with gnawholes being available. However they are worth taking just for melee potential since the damage output is good.
As for the melee-only slot both are good; the doom flayers have a higher average on the charge, the shock gauntlets have higher damage overall (but are very inconsistent).
You want to be starting with at least 120 rats, bare minimum. That's if you want to have a lot of bigger stuff on top of them, doomwheels/hellpit abominations/whatever else is good in the meta. 200 clanrats costs 1000 points which still leaves you a ton of points left over. Make 40 of them stormvermin for a big boost and that's 1300, and anything from then on is golden.
Honestly Clanrats at max unit size are kinda way better than I expected them to be, and stormvermin can hit like nobody's business.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I have a strong impression that the best builds will start with 3 units of 40 clanrats (potentially replacing one with a max stormvermin unit instead), or 3 units of 40 plague monks if running pestilens. 20 clanrats just lacks any real hitting power, especially after they lose one model and thus their hit bonus. 40 is way more than double the effectiveness AND costs less than double the points. They are +1 to hit and wound, and from experience I can say there is little issue getting 30 models in range of 2" weapons. It goes from a chaff objective holding unit to something that will both tar pit and beat the snot out of anything else that costs 200 points, before buffs even get involved. 360 points gets some chaff, 600 gets three units that can actually do something on top of being a massive tar pit and holding objectives or even snagging enemy ones just by charging. Retreat & charge just makes things better since they can seriously encircle or just gum up your enemy's battleline.
Plague monks were already OP and are potentially the best infantry in the game now that they benefit from +1 to hit at 20+ and +1 to wound at 30+. Same advantages as above (minus retreat & charge) but with massive offense.
Either way the main weakness of swarms, battleshock, is easily negated via a screaming bell, plague furnace, or the endless bell, with inspiring presence and extra bravery from numbers being backups.
Pestilens has further benefit in synergy; the Congregation of Filth battalion needs 2+ monk units and a plague furnace; so 3 monk units you need for battleline and the furnace you were taking to support them anyways are already there. It will give those units 6+ fnp while they are wholly within 18" (so realistically, two of them) on top of the standard command point, artifact, and deployment benefits. All together it is 1180 points, which is a lot, but punches so far above its weight it doesn't matter.
The real question is what you take alongside the several hundred rats, what the best force multipliers are and what makes the best hammer for a clanrat anvil. On that front, I'm unsure.
The real question is if you really want a competitive Skaven army bad enough to not only get that many rats together but to be consistently playing them on the tabletop! I mean even LoN is topping out at that level for the whole army. I know I'm going to try to make things work without the clanrat swarms because if it comes down to winning with 120-rat core or losing without it... Well I'd kinda rather lose, because I played with grots long enough to realize how tiring it gets playing with swarms of that size.
Honestly, I love the rat swarms too much to not use them. The idea of having 120-200 rats all popping out of gnawholes, getting extra attacks from command abilities, and encircling the enemy while doomwheels come charging in is just so much fun.
I love the idea to be sure. And I love running it... about a dozen times. Then I still get some enjoyment the next dozen or so. But somewhere around game 20-30 I just look at it and think 'I don't want to do this anymore.'
If my stormfiend focused tourney list goes bust I may try to get myself to do plague monk swarms, because those are really easy to paint and have the added bonus of both killing and dying really fast so games speed up considerably after the first two rounds.
Stormfiends are unique in how they are equipped, so don't worry everything else is easier to figure out equipment wise. The way it works is that for every three 'fiends you have three 'slots':
-The first stormfiend is either ratling cannons or warp grinders
-The second is either warpfire or windlaunchers
-The third has armor and either shock gauntlets or doom flayers
As to picking which... to quote myself:
Spoiler:
NinthMusketeer wrote: So I got around to running the numbers on Stormfiend weapons. Short version; don't take windlaunchers, everything else is viable.
To start with windlaunchers, the average damage is somewhat poor. 1.5 average wounds, or 2 if targeting a unit of ten or more (bumping up to 2.25/3 if a spark is used). Having it hit better against large units does not do much because when looking for an anti-horde weapon the warpfire is better by far. Speaking of warpfire, it is now anti-horde instead of anti-elite but IMO it got better. Certainly it is incredibly strong. The only reason I would see to take windlaunchers is deliberately weakening a list (which to be clear, is a good reason).
Ratling cannons do not have high numbers either; 3.5 wounds average but only at rend -1, so 2.33 against a 4+ or 2.91 against 5+. However with a spark to add to the damage characteristic those numbers double (4.66/5.82) and perhaps more importantly the other weapon for that 'slot' is a melee one.
Speaking of, warp grinders. Obviously if you want to use their reserve capability you'll need them, though personally I wouldn't due to its unreliability coupled with gnawholes being available. However they are worth taking just for melee potential since the damage output is good.
As for the melee-only slot both are good; the doom flayers have a higher average on the charge, the shock gauntlets have higher damage overall (but are very inconsistent).
CatGotYourLas wrote: With Stormfiends, how are we supposed to build them? Do we get to select their weapons, or can they only take one of each? I'm confused.
I picked up the new Skaven book two days ago and this is my first exposure to AoS ever.
Like musketeer said each stormfiend has a choice between two weapons. If you have a unit of 6 (or 9 or 12 or whatever) then 1/3rd of them have two choices, 1/3rd have two more choices, and 1/3rd have yet another two choices. There doesn't appear to be any restrictions on how many of a weapon you can take, so you could for example take two of the flamer weapons as long as there's six stormfiends in the unit (or 3 if there's 9, 4 if there's 12, etc).
Are wind launchers honestly that bad? They seem good to me. Yeah, their average damage is about 30-40% worse than guns, but they have double the range and don't need Los. Wouldn't you often get an extra turn or two of shooting with these bad boys?
And they, along with the guns, make for the shootiest fiends you can get. Warpfire is nice and all, but there's no delivery system. Gnawholes, grinder teams, grinder fists all force you out of range. Your opponent won't run his hordes into your warpfire unless they're lobotomized. I feel like you'll rarely get to shoot the fire at what you want. It's a good zoning tool if nothing else?
Hordes aren't so maneuverable that they can avoid units like that, if they aren't bogged down by clanrats already. Even then that is a tremendous advantage, just one Stormfiend unit can seriously mess with your opponent's movement because of that. Whereas a windlauncher will probably just do 5-6 damage the whole game, because that guy will almost always be the one to die first. Not needing LoS is nice, but without any damage output it means little; what is hiding that the windlaunchers are going to kill or meaningfully damage? Range is also nice, but the other two thirds of the unit needs to be close anyways.
But seriously, test it. Nothing beats the value of a good test. I have been wrong before and will certainly be again.
I have 40 clanrats, two assassins, a skaven lord, a grey seer, a warplock engineer, two weapon teams, two rat ogors and a packmaster. Thousand point army? Lol. Yes, I have the book to go with all that. But for anyone who looked through the book...can I do ANYTHING with that small amount of stuff in a low point game? If I boost it, it'll be with two (or three) pestilens SC boxes, one of the furnaces becoming a Screaming Bell. And maybe three Hellpit Abominations.
Heeeello-greetings fellow followers of the great horned one!
Started playing AoS with Skaven recently and tried out a fair few units, but was severely disappointed by Stormvermin.
Stormvermin are pretty much my favorite unit (well, together with DOOMWHEELS, rat ogres and everyone's favorite Cutepit Abomination) and I ran them in a block of twenty and they just let me down. They simply die too easily while costing too many points, can get screwed really hard by mortal wounds, any ability that targets bravery (mortal wounds from screams in my first match against FECs weren't pretty) and once they go down to 9 models they are exactly as hard to kill as Clanrats in most circumstances. Them only having +1 bravery and 1 damage doesn't help.
And they lose the +1 to hit as soon as they lose one model and drop to hitting on 4+.
And if I increase unit size to thirty they go up from 280 to 420 points. And 40 are 500 (!) points.
And a single Stormvermin costs almost as much as 3 Clanrats if you take them in full sized blocks (and why shouldn't you at 120 vs 200 points), and a Stormvermin with the max unit discount still costs as much as 2 1/2 Clanrats. And 3 Stormvermin are almost as expensive as a 4 wound rat ogre which has a much higher damage output (42 vs 50 pts). Taking a min sized unit on the other hand seems like a complete waste of points unless you just want the Verminus battalion for a whole lot of Clanrats.
How do you make those worth taking over the same points in Clanrats (survivability), Rat Ogres (pretty much same number of wounds per point, smaller footprint, as much or quite a bit killier with a Master Moulder around) or Hellpits (why take 40 Stormvermin over 2 Hellpits and 60 spare points?). Sure, you can stack a bunch of buffs on them, but isn't that throwing down even more points into the sink to polish a turd (yeah, they aren't that bad, but still, you know what I mean)? And that's before even taking a look at Plague Monks, who seem to do the whole glass cannon thing muuuch better while costing considerably less points.
I can see value in getting them into combat and then casting death frenzy on them so they can punish the other player for attacking them, allow them to attack twice if you picked them for first melee activation before and hopefully allow them to make their points back, but otherwise? I mean why not cast death frenzy on 6 Rat Ogres instead which are also much easier to passive buff considerably with a Master Moulder, which can also be healed and with some luck brought back by the latter?
If they still had their ability to retain their +1 to hit against units with less models I might understand their extreme premium price, but without it I'm just left scratching my head, because you either have to invest at least 420 points or never lose a model to get the Skaventide +1 to hit. To me they just feel like Clanrats +1 while costing as much as Clanrats +3.
Clan Rats: 1x 5+/4+ 1 dmg 2" or 1x 4+/4+ 1 dmg and a 6+ save (5+ vs dmg 1)
boosted at full strength a 4+/3+
vs
Stormvermin 2x 4+/3+ -1 rend 1 dmg and a 5+ save (4+ vs dmg 1) 2" reach
boosted at full strength to a 3+/2+ -1 rend 1 dmg
Stormvermin are very much more than "clan rats +1". That is a murder machine unit that must be dealt with and if you don't deal with it, it murders most things it touches. And killing them to start dropping bonuses is not a trivial task short of vomiting out mass mortal wounds (one of the pillars of AOS game play).
And the skaven are spoiled for choice meaning there are going to be multiple units like that on the field.
No, stormvermin are priced quite fine. I think thats the problem some may have with them. If you're used to the GW false-choice wagon of being obvious choices then seeing a murder machine unit priced correctly looks wrong and bad.
I think the key with stormvermin is that whilst they are expensive they work best in a large group comparable to the points value. At 2K you really want to be looking at a full 40 - yes that's 1/4 of your points; but if you are marching them over the battlefield you want them to arrive as big as possible to get as many bonuses as possible. And on the way there they are going to be abig distraction and damage soak.
If you want to take less consider gnawholes and warpgrinder teams to try and deploy them further forward so that they can get into combat faster and retain as many models as possible.
Yeah, 40 isn't because you need 40, it's because you need 20 and that's what will be left when they get there. It's still a load of damage output though.
Kinda sucks that you now can't run a dedicated shooting or combat stormfiend unit and have to mix them.
Also sucks that poisoned wind mortars are no longer part of the army as I have 8 of them.
New book looks to be solid though.
Stormvermin in a general army are absolutely solid and there are a ton of ways to ignore battleshock.
Plague monks (IMO) are now one of the most damaging battle line units for output - cost ratio.
They are bordering on nutty as to the damage they can put out after a few buffs.
On a side note, kinda sucks we don't see any new models (spells not counting here)
Loads of kits are outdated or in need of an overhaul.
The rat ogre kit and weapon teams really need a change.
Would also be nice to lose the metal/finecast stuff too.
On the plus side, the new set means stormfiends are only £24 on eBay I guess lol.
I'd hold onto the mortars as I'd wager we might see a weapon team kit in plastic one day with all four options in it. One big bonus of no new kits but losing basically nothing (we only lost the metal assassin and metal clawlord both of which had resin alternatives) is that at least Skaven players can expect new kits one day to replace some of the vintage ones.
Overread wrote: I'd hold onto the mortars as I'd wager we might see a weapon team kit in plastic one day with all four options in it. One big bonus of no new kits but losing basically nothing (we only lost the metal assassin and metal clawlord both of which had resin alternatives) is that at least Skaven players can expect new kits one day to replace some of the vintage ones.
This is true.
Still have ikit and sniktch in both of their metal forms, amazing models.
My mortars won't be going anywhere either, I'm sure they will make a return at some stage.
Just hate seeing models cut from armies, thought we were past that point by now.
Runners need a new kit badly though, so do monks.
Both just look wonky these days sadly.
Way back when Ikit Claw was originally released I really wanted to start a skaven army - however back then was the days of needing bazzillion slaves to make an army work and the thought of all those models (and conversions of them or metal slaves or just using loads of clanrats) turned me away.
I'd honestly say the loss of skaven slaves as a model and choice is one of the VERY few cases where losing a model from a range isn't a negative; esp since they basically were just worse clanrats and were always a"put on the table then basically just keep taking them off the table" model.
When the new Carrion Empire came out I did start gathering up some older metal sculpts from GW and ebay because I figured they were likely to drop a lot of them; so I was really pleased to see that GW didn't; heck they even brought back the metal warpthrower!
The one nice thing about losing PWM is that they can now be used counts-as for Jezzails, which are now undercosted due to re-rolling all hits rather than just 1s. I am wavering between running 9 or 12 in my tourney list.
I don’t understand; can’t we still use the PWM from the general’s handbook points cost? I realize it’ll eventually go with the dodo, but...it still has points and a model (that even came in a very temporary AoS box set: Spire of Dawn).
timetowaste85 wrote: Ouch. That’s a bunch of BS. Wonder why they did it when it’s one of the few weapon teams to actually HAVE a plastic model. Very strange.
Its locked into the isle of blood kit so while its plastic its pretty limited until they cut new tools.
I dont think that bodes well for a weapons team kit or even globadiers in plastic any time soon.
Skaven drew a short straw and I'd wager are two years or more off a big model update release. Which isn't bad many of the metals still look good and they are a very varied and functional army with a nice amount of variety.
In the end we can hope for a plastic weapons team; updated sculpts all round and the like. But right now its gone becaus GW doesnt' make it any more and getting hold of unpainted plastics from Island of Blood is going to get harder and harder and more and more expensive.
So the current run of Made to Order is a bunch of old Skaven minis. The WHC article says their rules are in Warhammer Legends: Skaven. Where do I find that?
Edit: Never mind. I found it. They really should have included a link. I had to go through the webstore to find the PDF.
I try to avoid legends as much as possible.
It can simply vanish at any point or become invalid without warning.
Been burned enough times by my armies suddenly vanishing from existence lol.
As a side note, I wanted to build a fluffy army based on clan moulder.
While fluffy, I've been trying to make it useable and not an instant loss.
Unit wise though it's kind of locked.
Master moulder - essential, may be worth doubling up on.
Pack masters - they help out alot, but worth running min sized or bulking up?
Rat ogres - generally the core of it all, they do rat ogre stuff.
Giant rats - typical cheap nasty horde unit, would make an ok tarpit until something heavier gets there.
Rat swarms - I'd say has to be maxed to make the best use, but points heavy.
Abomination - the biggest hitter possible, definitely taking a pair.
Stormfiends - about the best damage output possible and luckily they have the moulder key word aswell as skryre.
Wolf rats - kinda torn here, they are expensive for what they do but they are ok fast chaff.
Brood horror - FW screwed people as only the mounted one is available .... for £49 and then you have to chop off the saddle etc. (Maybe convert a pack master rider?)
Jackal I think wolfrats are worth it, esp in a moulder only list. Their main weakness as I see it is their really low bravery score of 5. They really want to be right into combat as soon as possible; since then their bravery check ignore comes into play and they are safe. Their worst would be against any ranged heavy army that could shoot them enough to break moral and run.
The Brood horror is annoying - I asked and FW confirmed the one without saddle is long gone. I agree that its a case of getting hold of one and hacking at the saddle and then converting something to go onto it - pipes and containers and warpstone bits and stuff and you can easily have the beasty looking good.
Overread wrote: Jackal I think wolfrats are worth it, esp in a moulder only list. Their main weakness as I see it is their really low bravery score of 5. They really want to be right into combat as soon as possible; since then their bravery check ignore comes into play and they are safe. Their worst would be against any ranged heavy army that could shoot them enough to break moral and run.
The Brood horror is annoying - I asked and FW confirmed the one without saddle is long gone. I agree that its a case of getting hold of one and hacking at the saddle and then converting something to go onto it - pipes and containers and warpstone bits and stuff and you can easily have the beasty looking good.
To be fair, we have the double bravery bubble which can help alot.
I may give them a go.
Will be converting mine though.
Ray ogre parts and fenrisian wolves.
Funnily enough I've checked this too.
Ironically the 2 kits barely shared any parts atall.
Really not keen on the armoured look either.
I'll have a look at the armoured one but I see this being conversion time instead.
I'll be interested to see your conversions and how they turn out!
The only other weak point of moulder heavy is ratswarms- they are decent unit in concept but darn expensive as its £5 for each model! Unless you convert them with some small rat models.
Overread wrote: I'll be interested to see your conversions and how they turn out!
The only other weak point of moulder heavy is ratswarms- they are decent unit in concept but darn expensive as its £5 for each model! Unless you convert them with some small rat models.
Look at the bigger picture though.
£40 gets you a max sized unit that costs a good chunk of points and has a unit.
Your also not likely to want 2 units due to points constraints.
While it's not the cheapest, there are far more priced units out there lol. (Or am I just getting soft with age on GW pricing?)
Overread wrote: Oh I think we are all getting softer with GW pricing But yes you don't want too many rat swarms otherwise there's no bite to the army.
Of my gaming group, 5/11 play stormcasts and 4 of them rock celestant prime.
I need a big damn tarpit to keep him away from my master moulder.
Also debating unit sizes for ogres.
Pairs make a nice distraction, but kind of waste the more more beasts rule, especially when buffed to procc on a 4+
Tempted to actually run 4-6's with maybe 1 or 2 pairs for flank protection or to keep unwanted units away from the abominations.
And yea, I see the swarm issue.
Just a shame the points are that heavy because you need a maxed out unit.
I think if ogres are going to be the powerhouse of the army then its better to go with more in a single unit. Whilst it cuts down on mobility it increases both survivability and damage done once they reach close combat. IT also gives them a viable ranged attack whilst charging in. One ranged attack from a pair is nothing; but three from a unit of 6 can do something and be a threat
So, moulder. They have a good amount going for them actually.
Going in book order, command traits first. If going with a master moulder for the general I think the go-to is verminous valor to keep him alive while making him a platform for rabid crown (below). If going with a masterclan general getting one of the two extra CP options is great since more-more beasts has strong competition with spending them on inspiring presence (and charge re-rolls). Screaming bell is a nice choice here but I think the warpseer wins out for his larger battleshock immunity buff, stronger magical support, all around durability, and CP generation.
Rabid Crown. Hot dam is this a great artifact. Re-roll all wounds for pack units wholly in 13" is a huge buff, but it will make the 5-wound hero a massive target and thus the verminous valor if he is the general. The rest I see as lackluster and if additionals are gained I would look towards malign sorcery artifacts or a masterclan one (all good, though the gnawshard will probably not be as useful and the robes could be redundant).
The battalion. Fluffy and I'd say its worth its points because a pure moulder army will have the component units anyways. Redundant with the command trait, but as mentioned above I do not see that command trait as ideal.
Stormfiends:
Spoiler:
NinthMusketeer wrote: So I got around to running the numbers on Stormfiend weapons. Short version; don't take windlaunchers, everything else is viable.
To start with windlaunchers, the average damage is somewhat poor. 1.5 average wounds, or 2 if targeting a unit of ten or more (bumping up to 2.25/3 if a spark is used). Having it hit better against large units does not do much because when looking for an anti-horde weapon the warpfire is better by far. Speaking of warpfire, it is now anti-horde instead of anti-elite but IMO it got better. Certainly it is incredibly strong. The only reason I would see to take windlaunchers is deliberately weakening a list (which to be clear, is a good reason).
Ratling cannons do not have high numbers either; 3.5 wounds average but only at rend -1, so 2.33 against a 4+ or 2.91 against 5+. However with a spark to add to the damage characteristic those numbers double (4.66/5.82) and perhaps more importantly the other weapon for that 'slot' is a melee one.
Speaking of, warp grinders. Obviously if you want to use their reserve capability you'll need them, though personally I wouldn't due to its unreliability coupled with gnawholes being available. However they are worth taking just for melee potential since the damage output is good.
As for the melee-only slot both are good; the doom flayers have a higher average on the charge, the shock gauntlets have higher damage overall (but are very inconsistent).
Packmasters: Cheap source of crack the whip with a larger coverage area (while they still have more than 1 model) but generally inferior to just taking another master moulder, save the battalion.
Master Moulder: A really good hero for the cost. Crack the whip is obviously essential for buffing moulder units, a nice support heal, a nifty command ability, and a decent combat profile (always go lash; same average damage but more range). I would take as many as you have HPAs/Brood Horrors to buff with prized creations.
Hell Pit Abomination: Was not bad before, got a lot better with the new warscroll and prized creations. Just a fantastic monster that punches (literally) well above his point cost.
Rat Ogors: Offensive monstrous infantry, very buffable thanks to being Pack. 2-man units fill battleline slots while 4-6 man units get work done. Unfortunately they cost a lot of points for what they do so really need to have crack the whip to be competent and only with both that and rabid crown will they really shine. They can come back with more-more beasts which if it triggers obviously makes them very points-efficient (IF it triggers...). I wish you luck in getting the plastics from the OOP starter set, some metals, and/or converting the one from the screaming bell.
Rat Swarms: Cool support unit, low numbers but still pesky as an objective camper/flank guard. It is a pack unit so can be used in combat with proper buffs. Just put it between other units to make it more difficult to single out and kill off.
Giant Rats: The moulder clanrat equivalent. Buffable, can be brought back with more-more beasts, and benefits from the generic +1 to hit for 20+ models and +1 to wound for 30+ models. A lot of damage output when at full size and buffed (2+ to hit, 4+ to wound, and 3" melee range!) and keeps most of its damage output even when outside crack the whip range. Horrid bravery even with strength in numbers though, keep some battleshock immunity around.
Wolf Rats: Fast and with a built-in source of battleshock immunity means they can be used as outflankers and objective snaggers, something the army lacks otherwise. Maybe not essential but a useful tool to have around.
Brood Horror: Solid performance, but I feel it is out competed by how great the HPA is.
AngryMedic wrote: I've been thinking of starting a clan skrye army for some time. How do they look with the new battletome? I'd love to make a Stormfiend heavy army
You can. they become battleline if skyre hero is general. as well they have become cheaper.
Went through some of the book and im thinking skyre warlock bombardier with a bunch of throw away rattling guns. get that +1 to damage on 3 of them, use the command trait that buffs a units shooting attack, throw in a more more power, then more more more warp lead for hopefully a very large amount of -1 rend 2 damage attacks.
you could do it with the stormfiends too but 3d6 vs 2d6 x 2 for max 24 shots and a dead rat is just too funny to me.
AngryMedic wrote: I've been thinking of starting a clan skrye army for some time. How do they look with the new battletome? I'd love to make a Stormfiend heavy army
Well if you are running skryre stormfiend-heavy is the way to do it so you're in luck!
AngryMedic wrote: I've been thinking of starting a clan skrye army for some time. How do they look with the new battletome? I'd love to make a Stormfiend heavy army
You can. they become battleline if skyre hero is general. as well they have become cheaper.
Just to confirm - if you want to use stormfiends as battleline you have to have all other units in the army (excluding allies) as Clan Skyre in their keywords; whilst any leader units can be Clan Skyre and/or Masterclan. You can't have any other clan units in the army such s clan rats, rat ogres etc....
All this does is allow you to take the stormfiends (and Skyre Acolytes) as battleline troops. Same as all the other clan specific battleline models.
The equipment lists at the start of the matched play section for the army are broken into clans, but you don't have to be running a Clan Skyre to use the Clan Skyre list; you just use whichever list fits the leader/hero you are equipping. So in an open Skaventide list (ergo no clan focus) you can take the artifacts from the Clan Pestilens for your Plaguelord and artifacts from the Clan Skyre for your Warlock Engineer
Got some games in last night with my Skaven force, based off the Carrion Empire set. A couple quick Path to Glory matches against Ironjawz, and a 1250pt match against Tzeentch Disciples.
First PTG game resulted in my loss, when my Bombadier sniffed far too much bad warp dust and died, with his living or death being the objective. Can't do much about rolling a pair of 1s in a row for your Warpspark Tokens, besides not using them. In that game, I discovered that Doomwheels are hella strong on even average dice rolls. Gives the good feelies to roast units off the board.
Second match, I was able to shoot Ironjaw Boar Riders off the table between Doomwheel and Ratling Cannon Stormfiend shots. And although my Bombadier once again murdered himself, this time attempting to overcharge Warp Lightning and failing the initial cast AND the reroll, I still won when my Doomwheel broke the sound barrier and claimed a third objective marker resulting in the game to end.
At 1250, against the Chickens of Tzeentch, the other player made a rather large tactical blunder that I'd expect other players to not make. Hot Dice on my side made the error even worse. When prompted with the choice of taking first turn for himself, or forcing it on me, he chose it for himself, and moved his 2 Lords of Change in to Deep-frying range.
WLC and Gatling Fiend worked together to take down one, with the WLC getting overcharged, rolling a 3 for power, and doing 10 damage to the LoC, and only 1 mortal wound to itself. Gatling Fiend finishes the job.
Then, a Doomwheel with More-More Warp Power spell, More-More Warpbolts self buff, and a Token for +1 to it's damage rolls pushed out 16 damage at range.
Luck and errors aligned to the perfect first turn.
I've yet to experience devastating poor luck that can result from the nature of Skryre. I expect to feel it soon enough, it'll just eventually happen.
I'm hoping to try out more forces soon enough, but I don't think ill ever be satisfied running a wholly-skryre force, the lack of bodies I wouldn't be able to feel good about.
Still debating stormfiend loadout before I add them to my moulder list.
Just bugs me that 1 is shooting options only, 1 is combat only and the 3rd is a mix.
I'd rather have all shooting or all combat.
Currently leaning towards warpfire, ratling gun and shock gauntlets though, seems like the higher damage output build.
They will be doing a fair bit of heavy lifting so I need to make use of them.
Finally finished converting my throt model (now just a master moulder) and had 3 more rat ogre sets arrive, so a week or 2 and the moulder list should be ready to hit the table.
@Thadin- I got to see it first hand today.
Some poor lad wad running a fairly weapon team heavy skryre list in q pickup game.
In 2 turns 3 of his weapon teams had killed themselves and his warlock crowned it all by toasting himself the next turn.
While it's amusing to watch, I'd hate to lose 340 points in just under 3 turns to poor dice lol.
That's how I've built my first set of Stormfiends exactly, and how I'll likely build the second the same. I haven't got to see the Warpfire under ideal conditions, having only played it vs Ironjaws and Tzeentch with Tzaangors, so can't comment on it. But the Ratling Cannon and Shock Gauntlets put out solid damage.
I like the Shock Gauntlet guy as Ablative wounds to eat things like More-More Warp Power and Vigordust Injectors, though I will likely change that up against certain armies, and instead dump the damage on a Warpfire Thrower fiend. Its just not good enough if there aren't hordes to eat compared to the gauntlet damage.
auticus wrote: They did make it harder to min/max with stormfiends yes. For whatever thats worth. Interesting design choice though they made.
I understand it was for balance and I think it was needed to be fair.
Imagine what 3x warpfire would do to horde armies.
Now, balance is one thing and I don't mind the 1 per 3, it's a good idea.
It's just how they did it that I don't like.
Why not just say each weapon option is 1 per 3 and be done with it?
Alot less text needed and it prevents wonky units (I just hate mixing roles)
Ninth - thanks bud, just had a run through that now.
I think I'll keep with what I stated earlier.
The shocks are a gamble but I'm happy with that.
Warpfire I think is a no brainer here.
Ratling guns are just For my love of all things shooty.
Clubbing blows can make up damage as they close in.
Thadin - to me it just seems like the best choices.
The wind launchers don't even seem good on paper sadly, let alone in game.
Just need some punch in the moulder army.
Winds launchers are really the only dud weapon option, both for being bad themselves and competing with the best one. Everything else is either good or has its place.
Imagine what 3x warpfire would do to horde armies.
One of our resident powergamers did exactly that kind of thing. Like 9 or 12 warpfire stormfiends popping up and saying hi and melting the opposing army off the table.
It caused a lot of people to say "sorry AOS you're not my thing" and abandon ship lol.
Imagine what 3x warpfire would do to horde armies.
One of our resident powergamers did exactly that kind of thing. Like 9 or 12 warpfire stormfiends popping up and saying hi and melting the opposing army off the table.
It caused a lot of people to say "sorry AOS you're not my thing" and abandon ship lol.
I'll be honest, I used to run alot of pure warpfire fiends in goutfire scorch, but I did that purely for the competitive tournaments.
Wouldn't dream of doing it in a friendly or pickup game.
That's why I'm now hacking stormfiends apart and swapping them about lol.
I ran 3 warpfire (actual model), 3 warpfire (converted), 3 shock gauntlets. So some minor re-converting to make blowtorches and now I have three units of warpfire/grinders/shocks. Pretty happy with how it worked out!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Unrelated; has anyone else noted the potential hilarity of surrounding a big monster with lightning vortex then double turning and putting soulsnare shackles in the gaps to prevent them from moving out?
NinthMusketeer wrote: I ran 3 warpfire (actual model), 3 warpfire (converted), 3 shock gauntlets. So some minor re-converting to make blowtorches and now I have three units of warpfire/grinders/shocks. Pretty happy with how it worked out!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Unrelated; has anyone else noted the potential hilarity of surrounding a big monster with lightning vortex then double turning and putting soulsnare shackles in the gaps to prevent them from moving out?
Wouldn't be easy to setup and means getting a squishy caster near a big monster, but it's highly amusing.
No running or flying, lowered movement and near constant damage.
Also creates a huge section of off limit board lol.
Edit: why push for a 2nd turn?
Could just run a pair of caster to get both off in the same turn.
Imagine what 3x warpfire would do to horde armies.
One of our resident powergamers did exactly that kind of thing. Like 9 or 12 warpfire stormfiends popping up and saying hi and melting the opposing army off the table.
It caused a lot of people to say "sorry AOS you're not my thing" and abandon ship lol.
I'll be honest, I used to run alot of pure warpfire fiends in goutfire scorch, but I did that purely for the competitive tournaments.
Wouldn't dream of doing it in a friendly or pickup game.
That's why I'm now hacking stormfiends apart and swapping them about lol.
The fellow that did this in our campaigns was one of about four guys that would just buy what they needed for tourney play and then play that for every type of game. Its the source of my perspective and viewpoint when it comes to public games and AOS
Imagine what 3x warpfire would do to horde armies.
One of our resident powergamers did exactly that kind of thing. Like 9 or 12 warpfire stormfiends popping up and saying hi and melting the opposing army off the table.
It caused a lot of people to say "sorry AOS you're not my thing" and abandon ship lol.
I'll be honest, I used to run alot of pure warpfire fiends in goutfire scorch, but I did that purely for the competitive tournaments.
Wouldn't dream of doing it in a friendly or pickup game.
That's why I'm now hacking stormfiends apart and swapping them about lol.
The fellow that did this in our campaigns was one of about four guys that would just buy what they needed for tourney play and then play that for every type of game. Its the source of my perspective and viewpoint when it comes to public games and AOS
I think that's commonly known as being a dick haha.
While I've run some stupidly broken armies, it was always in the environment where it belonged.
If it was a campaign, pick up game or just a RT tournament I'd generally run a fun and fluffy army.
Always nice to have an army that you can have fun with and not worry about the end result.
It's just sad that some people don't see the difference between friendly and competitive games and seem to think it's a win when they use a top tier tournament army in a friendly match.
These always come down to money and time issues though. As in - player buys the broken list, buys the models, paints them, doesnt' want to buy other models or paint other models just to tone down.
The community putting the onus on self policing has always been such an odd side effect of GW never getting balance right. How the same company makes the infinitely better LotR system is super confusing.
Imagine what 3x warpfire would do to horde armies.
One of our resident powergamers did exactly that kind of thing. Like 9 or 12 warpfire stormfiends popping up and saying hi and melting the opposing army off the table.
It caused a lot of people to say "sorry AOS you're not my thing" and abandon ship lol.
I'll be honest, I used to run alot of pure warpfire fiends in goutfire scorch, but I did that purely for the competitive tournaments.
Wouldn't dream of doing it in a friendly or pickup game.
That's why I'm now hacking stormfiends apart and swapping them about lol.
The fellow that did this in our campaigns was one of about four guys that would just buy what they needed for tourney play and then play that for every type of game. Its the source of my perspective and viewpoint when it comes to public games and AOS
I ran Skryrefyre as my tourney list since GHB1, never did it touch the table outside tourney/tourney practice (aside from one 2v2 where I was invited to bring it and didn't realize what a horrible mistake that was until we set up). If I did want to run those models I just dropped the battalion entirely, which amounted to a 300 point handicap that made it tolerable.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I ran 3 warpfire (actual model), 3 warpfire (converted), 3 shock gauntlets. So some minor re-converting to make blowtorches and now I have three units of warpfire/grinders/shocks. Pretty happy with how it worked out!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Unrelated; has anyone else noted the potential hilarity of surrounding a big monster with lightning vortex then double turning and putting soulsnare shackles in the gaps to prevent them from moving out?
Wouldn't be easy to setup and means getting a squishy caster near a big monster, but it's highly amusing.
No running or flying, lowered movement and near constant damage.
Also creates a huge section of off limit board lol.
Edit: why push for a 2nd turn?
Could just run a pair of caster to get both off in the same turn.
Can only cast one endless spell per turn army wide. Also both those spells actually have pretty long range and you can teleport casters through gnawholes...
It is still mostly theoretical because they can just dispel the shackles anyways. Unless they don't have a wizard in which case you already won and are just kicking them while they're down!
Imagine what 3x warpfire would do to horde armies.
One of our resident powergamers did exactly that kind of thing. Like 9 or 12 warpfire stormfiends popping up and saying hi and melting the opposing army off the table.
It caused a lot of people to say "sorry AOS you're not my thing" and abandon ship lol.
I'll be honest, I used to run alot of pure warpfire fiends in goutfire scorch, but I did that purely for the competitive tournaments.
Wouldn't dream of doing it in a friendly or pickup game.
That's why I'm now hacking stormfiends apart and swapping them about lol.
The fellow that did this in our campaigns was one of about four guys that would just buy what they needed for tourney play and then play that for every type of game. Its the source of my perspective and viewpoint when it comes to public games and AOS
I ran Skryrefyre as my tourney list since GHB1, never did it touch the table outside tourney/tourney practice (aside from one 2v2 where I was invited to bring it and didn't realize what a horrible mistake that was until we set up). If I did want to run those models I just dropped the battalion entirely, which amounted to a 300 point handicap that made it tolerable.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I ran 3 warpfire (actual model), 3 warpfire (converted), 3 shock gauntlets. So some minor re-converting to make blowtorches and now I have three units of warpfire/grinders/shocks. Pretty happy with how it worked out!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Unrelated; has anyone else noted the potential hilarity of surrounding a big monster with lightning vortex then double turning and putting soulsnare shackles in the gaps to prevent them from moving out?
Wouldn't be easy to setup and means getting a squishy caster near a big monster, but it's highly amusing.
No running or flying, lowered movement and near constant damage.
Also creates a huge section of off limit board lol.
Edit: why push for a 2nd turn?
Could just run a pair of caster to get both off in the same turn.
Can only cast one endless spell per turn army wide. Also both those spells actually have pretty long range and you can teleport casters through gnawholes...
It is still mostly theoretical because they can just dispel the shackles anyways. Unless they don't have a wizard in which case you already won and are just kicking them while they're down!
That has my interest.
Never ran 2 endless spells before so checked the sorcery book.
I must be missing something because it just says a wizard can only cast one endless spell per turn, doesn't mention multiple wizards.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I just double checked as well and I think I was confusing that a given wizard cannot do more than one, so I was wrong about that.
No worries bud, it was new ground for me so I just started flicking through books.
Makes it even easier to pull off though with a pair of wizards as you don't need to rely on a double turn.
I may have to try this with my skryre list just because it could be highly amusing lol.
Even if you don't lock anything in it is still useful as they can't run, can't fly, and are half movement if they get hit by the shackles. The mobility restriction alone is hugely useful as that can gum up an army very effectively, or at the least force them to burn a spell on unbinding shackles. On top of that they take MWs from sticking around!
I have thanquol & an arch warlock in my list so I am going to try using thanquol to cast vortex, then skitterleap the warlock forward, then cast shackles with the warlock.
Sidenote; arch-warlock with scales of ignax is incredibly difficult to kill.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Even if you don't lock anything in it is still useful as they can't run, can't fly, and are half movement if they get hit by the shackles. The mobility restriction alone is hugely useful as that can gum up an army very effectively, or at the least force them to burn a spell on unbinding shackles. On top of that they take MWs from sticking around!
I have thanquol & an arch warlock in my list so I am going to try using thanquol to cast vortex, then skitterleap the warlock forward, then cast shackles with the warlock.
Sidenote; arch-warlock with scales of ignax is incredibly difficult to kill.
Let me know if you can pull that off.
I've got a few games mid week so I'll try for the same and see if I can get it to work.
My only worry is the big monsters you want to trap have huge bases, meaning the 7" triangle from the storm may not be enough, even with halving movement to keep them there for more than a single turn.
Side mission, take purple sun aswell.
2nd turn you can drop that by it to make them sweat.
Do I get bonus points if I can trap a chaos mammoth?
One of the chaos players runs it constantly so that could be pretty funny to see if I can even pull that off.
Honestly even if you do not trap them it is still a big deal. Figure that you cast it and surround the monster; it gets hit with the MWs when you cast, then again on your movement phase. If they cannot get out of range (likely) they get hit again at the end of their movement phase, then again at the end of yours. That is 4 triggers for the vortex's mortal wounds and barring bad dice will be doing some serious damage. Adding in shackles just makes it so much worse, even without trapping, because they will be half movement; unless the enemy can unbind the monster will likely be stuck long enough to die just from the spells' mortal wounds. You can also use shackles to set up a 'wall' that prevents them from moving in a certain direction.
And all of that works well even against regular units. Inability to run puts models without more than a 6" move in quite the bind.
Purple sun just is not worth the 100 points you pay for it, and if your opponent goes second they can just send it towards you or off the board edge. Geminids would be the far better buy for sheer MW output, while vermintide would be better for blocking purposes.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Honestly even if you do not trap them it is still a big deal. Figure that you cast it and surround the monster; it gets hit with the MWs when you cast, then again on your movement phase. If they cannot get out of range (likely) they get hit again at the end of their movement phase, then again at the end of yours. That is 4 triggers for the vortex's mortal wounds and barring bad dice will be doing some serious damage. Adding in shackles just makes it so much worse, even without trapping, because they will be half movement; unless the enemy can unbind the monster will likely be stuck long enough to die just from the spells' mortal wounds. You can also use shackles to set up a 'wall' that prevents them from moving in a certain direction.
And all of that works well even against regular units. Inability to run puts models without more than a 6" move in quite the bind.
Purple sun just is not worth the 100 points you pay for it, and if your opponent goes second they can just send it towards you or off the board edge. Geminids would be the far better buy for sheer MW output, while vermintide would be better for blocking purposes.
That's true, but I want to see just how much I can trap for how long.
It will do decent damage that's for sure, it will also destroy movement for a fair few rounds, I just want to see how long I can keep something there.
Now imagine if the movement and flying movement were seperate as they were in WHFB.
Used to love reducing screamers to 1" movement.
Honestly I'd never looked at them.
As they are predatory they can be sent back at you aswell, but value wise they seem alot better than PS.
If you play against a fairly elite army though (stormcast, creature heavy lists etc) then PS is still pretty decent.
I rarely use the generic endless spells though, will have to dig through as I honestly haven't looked at all of them just yet.
Purple sun is much better against swarms due to how its rolls work.
The only generic endless spells I see used with any consistency (or at all for that matter) are swords & shackles (by virtue of being 20 pts), geminids (by being so powerful it is worth the risk of them being turned back on you), and cogs (by being useful to everyone and crazy useful for anyone summoning/deep striking 9" away). Spellportal I see but is pretty niche and not nearly as good once they nerfed it, pendulum I saw some of early but I think people realized even as a 'safe' source of MWs it isn't worth the points. Generally speaking predatory spells are avoided because if you win initiative taking/not giving the double is far stronger than the spell, bar geminids which can be worth giving it up for.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Purple sun is much better against swarms due to how its rolls work.
The only generic endless spells I see used with any consistency (or at all for that matter) are swords & shackles (by virtue of being 20 pts), geminids (by being so powerful it is worth the risk of them being turned back on you), and cogs (by being useful to everyone and crazy useful for anyone summoning/deep striking 9" away). Spellportal I see but is pretty niche and not nearly as good once they nerfed it, pendulum I saw some of early but I think people realized even as a 'safe' source of MWs it isn't worth the points. Generally speaking predatory spells are avoided because if you win initiative taking/not giving the double is far stronger than the spell, bar geminids which can be worth giving it up for.
The only one I've actually used (of the generics) was purple sun until now.
That was purely more for flank protection against a regular stormcast player than anything, I just had to keep a safe distance.
I think the shackles will make it into most of my lists now.
Alot of spells are situational, but this seems like one that will always have a good use.
Would help alot against the resident fish player too.
Slowing a double sided charge to stop both hitting at once is a ton of value.
The portal doesn't seem too amazing, especially after reading the FAQ and notes.
Kind of annoying you can't increase range on endless spells, it would removed alot of the come back on some of them.
I'll have to try out gems aswell for a damage based one.
Alot of us have a fixed list for the night, so I may throw it in as it will likely help at some stage.
And thanks for the run down aswell.
It's just something I'd never looked into alot, despite having the book.
Looking for some general opinions on power-levels of certain tools or strategies we could use.
Warp Lightning Cannon. I've seen some lists floating about where people are taking 2-3 of them, and so far even just one has been having some nice impact. What's the target priority for it? I feel like it's ability to delete characters at range would be amazing, picking out some important support pieces from the other team. Following characters, it's going after targets with higher armor saves and so on? However, that also seems to give quite the bad feelies in the times that I've used it.
For reference, I'm going for games fun for both players. While I enjoy winning and playing solid lists and strategies, I'm trying to avoid the overpowered tools Skaven have. Lightning Cannon and Warp Vortex seem to stand out as being quite unfun to be across the board from.
Another little idea I had, would be taking a 40-block of Stormvermin, sticking a Clawlord behind them for obvious reasons, then hitting them with Death Frenzy from a Grey Seer. If I can charge and fight first with the brick, that's best case scenario. And a rather strong unit made up of many tiny models, each fighting before they die seems like it would make for an excellent screen or charge deterrent.
Has anyone found luck with aggressive use of Gnawholes? Thus far, I've only found them useful as a potential threat and to buff my spellcasting from a warlock and greyseer, and so on. Only time I've actually used the Gnawhole's teleport ability was to win a game that was already over.
WLC is not a great model for fun factor due to it's strong potential to be incredibly strong or incredibly weak on any given shot. And having a character aced off by MWs in one shot from a model that does not even roll to hit is rather unfun.
Gnawholes are all about extending your threat range. By putting them near objectives and/or in your opponent's backfield that becomes a flank they must protect. Having a 3-man stormfiend unit sitting wholly within range of one on your side is a good way to provide that threat while still leaving room for them to just move forward and engage conventionally. Also teleporting jezzails through just to make your opponent have to run way out of the way to kill them is fun.
Didn't think I'd end up with a horde army but looks like Skaven is hard to avoid being a horder army. Guess with 30 Stormvermin, 4 Verminlords or Thanquol and 3 Verminlords that could be a reasonably low model count army. Just not sure if it could capitalize on all the Skaven tricks, but maybe?
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But yes you don't want too many rat swarms otherwise there's no bite to the army.
