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Hey all,
I'm curious about this skaven build. Having played wood elves and low-model count tomb kings, I'm looking for a horde army. There are 3/4 which I can think of (orcs, empire, summon horde VC and skaven) and the only one which really appeals to me is the Skaven. When one says "Skaven" in a power sense, they tend to mean skryre and a fairly character-heavy elite type of list, with lots of fragile shooting and magic elements. I'm interested in the other way to run these guys: warlord (ld 10 slave tarpits...wooo!), BSB, 2 engineers (why not...), 4/5 units of 30 clan rats, a unit of plague monks, some censer bearers, as many units of slaves as I can fit in, 2 units of gutter runners and maybe some giant rats for flavor. We're talking 250+ models with room for some extras (ideally, I don't have the book on me). Aside from being a b**** to paint, are there significant things that I'm overlooking? What's going to be my biggest problem (masses of fear causers, mortars and steam tanks?)? How can I change the extra toys to make up for these weaknesses? How much should I rely on shooting? Can I get away with only a few ratling guns, or do I need one on every unit which can take one? Is this a crackpot idea? Are orcs really much better at this? etc.

I run a horde scaven army and it does very well.
First off, you need jazelles. They are mandatory
Second, two ratling guns is usually enough. Dont think of them as killers, rather the remover of ranks and destroyers of stuff that got behind u.

Take every unit of slaves you can, they are ausome.

The horde army relys on masses of units and expendable units to flank charge everything. It is all about maneuvering around.
The only armies that give me problems are armies that ar hard to flank and will beat me from the front (orcs) and armies that don't care about flanks to much (dwarves with oath stones). Other than that I can usually kill it all under a tide of scaven.

*sigh* jezzails are horrible.... horrible horrible horrible.... I made 30 of them to use.... and they never made their points back.... they're horrible. The problem with the skaven hoarde is hitting power..... they don't have it. Everything you get is STR 3, which means you don't negate armor saves... which means you don't kill anything. And at T3, the enemy gets to kill you, which means you lose combat and run away. The only way the skaven works is through magic and ratling guns..... sadly that's it. Every other infantry unit in the game (besides empire and spearelves) will be able to take you on in a fight and come out on top..... you, on the other hand, have to rely on hitting the sides of an enemy.... and a 20 man block is not capable of doing that most of the time..... night runners are able to, but are easy to kill, and so charging them into the side is almost like giving your enemy free VP's..... I'll try to come up with something later on tonight

Angron wrote:Everything you get is STR 3, which means you don't negate armor saves... which means you don't kill anything.

Last I heard censor bearers are pretty good at killing armored stuff. As in, that's what they do. And then kill themselves.

- Salvage

*sigh* jezzails are horrible.... horrible horrible horrible.... I made 30 of them to use.... and they never made their points back.... they're horrible. The problem with the skaven hoarde is hitting power..... they don't have it. Everything you get is STR 3, which means you don't negate armor saves... which means you don't kill anything. And at T3, the enemy gets to kill you, which means you lose combat and run away. The only way the skaven works is through magic and ratling guns..... sadly that's it. Every other infantry unit in the game (besides empire and spearelves) will be able to take you on in a fight and come out on top..... you, on the other hand, have to rely on hitting the sides of an enemy.... and a 20 man block is not capable of doing that most of the time..... night runners are able to, but are easy to kill, and so charging them into the side is almost like giving your enemy free VP's..... I'll try to come up with something later on tonight

Wow, that is depressing. Sorry dude, you are just plane wrong. The scaven hoard is probably one of the hardest armies out there to beat consistently and one of the most versatile tournament armies in the game.

Jazzeles - They have strengths and weaknesses just like everyone else. They are all just exaggerated. Learn to use their strengths and you will do well with them. 10 is enough, 30 is just wasting points because you need the other special slots. They are great at picking off knights, knocking wounds off large targets, surviving against ranged shooting, etc. Use the rest of your army to make sure they dont get charged.

Ratling guns. They aren't that hard to kill and will not remove entire units. They are support. Sure, against vampire armies they can rule the day but wood elves will shoot them all dead before you know it. They days of ratling guns ruling the game are over.

Clanrats - str 3, toughness 3 is the average of the game. run large blocks so you outnumber and you can go against most infantry and hold pretty well. If you break...so what. It was 125 pts and you have 4 more blocks in the area to clean up the mess. And how on earth do you think scaven will not get flank charges with their blocks? I have never had one single problem redirecting guys around the table using slaves to get flank charges. It is easy when you have 2x the units on the table that the enemy does.

O, and censor bearers are incredibly good if you can prevent them from charging (its not hard)

I've been playing skaven for many years and the horde is one of the most powerful armies in the game once you learn how to use it. I agree with cypher, Angron is just wrong. If you run the army correctly, you won't need to kill a thing and you'll still win pretty much every combat via flanks, ranks, and outnumbering.

The key is to use your slaves, giant rats, night runners, etc to draw enemy units into bad positions. If you set it all up correctly, you can put your opponent in the position of knowin that if they charge a unit of slaves, the slaves will flee and his unit will be flanked. If he doesn't charge, your spd 6 giant rats coming around the edge will flank him. If he moves forward, he'll get flanked by the giant rats and front charged by clanrats or slaves, etc, etc, etc.

And yes, the others are correct, ratling guns are supportive only. When I field them, I'll use them to take out annoying skirmisher units in woods or fliers. 1-2 works well, any more is points you should probably be spending on more clanrats or slaves. Jezzails take down monsters & cav, and 10 of them is about all you need. The random gun (aka warplighting cannon) is sort of a jack of all trades unless/until it blows up.

The horde army takes quite a bit of practice to use well, but once you get the hang of it your gaming buddies will be pulling their hair out trying to figure out ways to beat you.



SteveW

SteveW wrote:I've been playing skaven for many years and the horde is one of the most powerful armies in the game once you learn how to use it. I agree with cypher, Angron is just wrong. If you run the army correctly, you won't need to kill a thing and you'll still win pretty much every combat via flanks, ranks, and outnumbering.

The key is to use your slaves, giant rats, night runners, etc to draw enemy units into bad positions. If you set it all up correctly, you can put your opponent in the position of knowin that if they charge a unit of slaves, the slaves will flee and his unit will be flanked. If he doesn't charge, your spd 6 giant rats coming around the edge will flank him. If he moves forward, he'll get flanked by the giant rats and front charged by clanrats or slaves, etc, etc, etc.

And yes, the others are correct, ratling guns are supportive only. When I field them, I'll use them to take out annoying skirmisher units in woods or fliers. 1-2 works well, any more is points you should probably be spending on more clanrats or slaves. Jezzails take down monsters & cav, and 10 of them is about all you need. The random gun (aka warplighting cannon) is sort of a jack of all trades unless/until it blows up.

The horde army takes quite a bit of practice to use well, but once you get the hang of it your gaming buddies will be pulling their hair out trying to figure out ways to beat you.



SteveW

Sounds like Angron was right...... you won't kill anything, and need numbers/ranks/flanks, in order to win, and to draw you enemy into bad positions. Well.... what happens when you're playing a competent opponent who doesn't let you draw him into bad positions where you can flank him or have numbers? Well then it's a straight up fist fight..... building a list around the hope that your opponent will screw up doesn't seem like a sound army idea to me. And to put jezzails to rest for the last time..... 10 jezzails are 200 points.... at long range, you're hitting on 5's, wounding on 2's, which gives you 2.77 wounds with a -4 armor save. Against normal infantry, killing 2.77 models a turn, even if you did it for every turn, won't make your points back.... against elite infantry.... well, the numbers of wounds are lowered because they still get their armor saves. The only real way jezzails make up their points is if your opponent brings a giant.

As far as censor bearers go.... well, to begin with, they're 17 points a model..... a skaven model.... easy VP's for anyone with a hill.... and take up one of your rare choices.

Etherdude wrote:Hey all,
I'm curious about this skaven build. Having played wood elves and low-model count tomb kings, I'm looking for a horde army. There are 3/4 which I can think of (orcs, empire, summon horde VC and skaven) and the only one which really appeals to me is the Skaven. When one says "Skaven" in a power sense, they tend to mean skryre and a fairly character-heavy elite type of list, with lots of fragile shooting and magic elements. I'm interested in the other way to run these guys: warlord (ld 10 slave tarpits...wooo!), BSB, 2 engineers (why not...), 4/5 units of 30 clan rats, a unit of plague monks, some censer bearers, as many units of slaves as I can fit in, 2 units of gutter runners and maybe some giant rats for flavor. We're talking 250+ models with room for some extras (ideally, I don't have the book on me). Aside from being a b**** to paint, are there significant things that I'm overlooking? What's going to be my biggest problem (masses of fear causers, mortars and steam tanks?)? How can I change the extra toys to make up for these weaknesses? How much should I rely on shooting? Can I get away with only a few ratling guns, or do I need one on every unit which can take one? Is this a crackpot idea? Are orcs really much better at this? etc.

Getting to your actual questions though.... your biggest probelm is the fact that you are STR 3 with almost everything..... so anything T4 or higher and with a good armor save is going to ruin your day. There are three ways to make up for this weakness..... Magic (Warp lightning, Plague, Pestilents Breath), Ratling Guns, and Warpfire Throwers. Warpfire Throwers are generally subpar, but I like to keep them around to take down things like treemen. 3 Ratling guns and 2 Warpfire Throwers tend to be a decent set up, though I have run the 8 ratling gun list. You're going to hafta rely on shooting... but in a different way than you're used to. With skaven, combat and shooting go together.... don't be affraid to charge in a unit of slaves into a chaos knight unit, and then flame the slaves to get extra hits on the knights. Also, units of 30 are unwieldy, keep it to units of 25 and add more units. Remember that skaven don't need unit champs.

Angron wrote:

Sounds like Angron was right...... you won't kill anything, and need numbers/ranks/flanks, in order to win, and to draw you enemy into bad positions. Well.... what happens when you're playing a competent opponent who doesn't let you draw him into bad positions where you can flank him or have numbers? Well then it's a straight up fist fight..... building a list around the hope that your opponent will screw up doesn't seem like a sound army idea to me. And to put jezzails to rest for the last time..... 10 jezzails are 200 points.... at long range, you're hitting on 5's, wounding on 2's, which gives you 2.77 wounds with a -4 armor save. Against normal infantry, killing 2.77 models a turn, even if you did it for every turn, won't make your points back.... against elite infantry.... well, the numbers of wounds are lowered because they still get their armor saves. The only real way jezzails make up their points is if your opponent brings a giant.

As far as censor bearers go.... well, to begin with, they're 17 points a model..... a skaven model.... easy VP's for anyone with a hill.... and take up one of your rare choices.

Simple response: Its ok to build your army around your opponent making mistakes when your shear weight of numbers forces him to. It is simply not possible to make perfect tactical choices when you are outnumbered 2-1; eventually the Skaven player is going to get a flank charge.

As for jezzails: By your own numbers 10 jezzails should still kill at least 2 knights a turn. If those two knights were in a unit of 5 or 6 you've effectively gutted a high power target and made back the points in principle; even if not in terms of actual casualties.

Hmm, sounds like orc heavy list would ruin your day, so would defensive dwarves. Love to see what happens when you get hit by brets....

Sounds like Angron was right...... you won't kill anything, and need numbers/ranks/flanks, in order to win, and to draw you enemy into bad positions. Well.... what happens when you're playing a competent opponent who doesn't let you draw him into bad positions where you can flank him or have numbers? Well then it's a straight up fist fight..... building a list around the hope that your opponent will screw up doesn't seem like a sound army idea to me. And to put jezzails to rest for the last time..... 10 jezzails are 200 points.... at long range, you're hitting on 5's, wounding on 2's, which gives you 2.77 wounds with a -4 armor save. Against normal infantry, killing 2.77 models a turn, even if you did it for every turn, won't make your points back.... against elite infantry.... well, the numbers of wounds are lowered because they still get their armor saves. The only real way jezzails make up their points is if your opponent brings a giant.

Wow dude, Jezzails are among the most feared shooty units out there. This is because they kill 2-3 of anything per turn. 2+ save, doesn't matter you still die. And if I kill half of your unit and you can no longer break me on the charge then I have made up my points.

Alright, scaven combat with str3 units. Lets say you have infantry that are just as good or slightly better than a clanrat - most infantry. In a straight up fight I will hold because I have leadership 10 and you wont butcher me. I will still have a few extra points to play with because scaven are cheeper so I will get a 1-ratpack that will eventually flank you (it moves really fast) and then you will break.

If you are really good, say a large block of chaos guys (small blocks of chaos guys are about as good as normal guys because of combat res). I will probably have two clan rat units and a unit of slaves. One slave sets up counter charge with one clanrat unit so you cant do anything (you charge, i flee and flank) while the other merrily walks around to your flank and gets ready to pounce. At this point you are screwed.

The only armies that give hoard scaven problems are the ones that you cant do this to. Unbreakable or stubborn troops are a pain. Stubborn dwarves are worse because you will never kill them even if you get a flank charge. The average orc is just like everyone else, it doesnt have as many units as you. Hoard orcs can be a challenging fight and usually revolve around tactics chosen by each player.

Censure bearers, They usually arent that hard to hide. What is on that hill that is killing them so quickly? They are toughness 4 immune to panic skirmishers. The only thing that really kills them fast are helblasters and organ guns. Thats it. And scaven have ways to kill those quickly.

O, and brets get screwed by scaven because they cant survive in lasting combat and the scaven can lead them on a mery chase killing slaves and cheep units before the clan rats flank them.

Brets lose like crazy to horde skaven, particularly in 7th edition where Enemy in the Way replaces redirecting charges. Flee & flank beats most armies out there.

One thing in particular that I've seen Horde Skaven (we've got a skyre player around here who occasionally switches over to the Horde playstyle) have trouble with is a jerk on a dragon.

Without the plentiful Skyre shooting elements they are pretty well boned by a flying terror causer that beats their units on front or flank.

Cypher's tactica contains basic descriptions of how this sort of thing works, but basically the problem is that not everyone is in range of the General (due to the large size of the Horde) and you can't face him and the enemy army at once.

There are very few flying terror causers that can take a fully ranked unit from the front and consistently break it. You really have to cause 8 wounds on average, or 10 if there is a bsb nearby.

If there is such a monster on the table it means the hoard has even more of a number advantage that before.

In the case of scaven those flyers are usually containable with the use of jazzeles (flyers hate these guys) and warp lightning. It will require a lot of thought and skill to deal with flying terror causers in general though. They dont die easily.

Careful placement/spacing really helps against a dragon, too. Remember that while a Large Target can see over other units, and a Flyer can charge over other units, they can’t make a flying charge if there isn’t space to fit their base into contact. So you don’t have to turn your whole army to face them, if your units are closely-enough spaced to prevent the dragon from landing. Turn one unit to face and keep the others close together. Then Jezzail and Warp Lighting the crud out of the dragon now that it’s close.

You should still have fast-moving stuff (PCB skirmishers, Giant Rat blocks) on your flanks to counter this sort of thing. A unit of Giant Rats is cheap and has M6. If the dragon flies in to threaten your flank, and you can hit it with a unit of rats in the flank or rear, you have huge CR (3 ranks, outnumber, plus say 1 for flanking) for him to overcome through attacks. Even with a 6 attack dragon plus 4 attack lord, you’re looking at 10 attacks, of which 1/3rd miss straight off, and at least one of which fails to wound. He’s got to roll average just to beat you by 1, (or to lose by one, if you manage to get him with a block of regular rats or slaves using standard and musician).

The only real weak point in this is getting the unit to charge the Terror-causer, as if you’re out on the flank you’re out of the general’s LD radius, but with counting your ranks you still have a chance. Immune to Psych units can do it reliably, though. Plague Censer bearers can do significant wounds, though they lack the static CR. Plague Monks get the static CR AND are Immune to Psych. Another nice unit to have on your flank if you’re worried about fast Fear or Terror causers working the edges of your army.

two things you have'nt talked about: firstly rat ogres can consistently kill knights and almost defantly if i put a master moulder with skavenbrew in their.... next is screaming bells! they can seriously hurt everyone.... warmachines can be destroyed you can make vc crumble you can make your entire army have hatred they are simply awsome!

i play a horde skaven army and i can attest that, although the army's style has a steep learning curve, they are a army to be feared. think goblins with crazy powerful magic and shooting and GOOD Ld! (Until you break or panic, then it's bye-bye)