Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ok, now it's been out for a couple of days, what are your views?

Here are a few of my observations...

Quite badly written in places - I puzzled over the rules for warp lightning hits from the Doomwheel for some time (they do one automatic hit per generator, the strength of which determined by an artillery dice. Correct )

Fluff is stolen word for word from the very first Skaven army book

Some of the special characters are amazingly ineffective - take a bow Tretch Craventail, being good at running away is all very characterful, but it isn't very useful in game terms. His only bonus is that he effectively gives his unit Eternal Hatred (i.e. reroll failed hits), but only if you're attacking from the flank or rear. For this you pay 145 points?!?

The emphasis seems to have switched from Skyre to Pestilins. There are many, many, many ways to inflict an automatic Strength 2 hit with no armour save allowed.

All hail the new Clanrats, Stormvermin, Doomwheel and Screaming Bell/Plague Furnance, but there are still a lot of new entries for which there is no model available. GW will have to follow through on the promise of a Wave 2 for Skaven. Yes, you could probably scratch build a Plagueclaw catapult from an Orc Rock Lobba, but a Hell Pit Abomination is going to be beyond most people.

I'll bow out for now. Let's hear your views...

Lots of typos and missing words in the fluff sections of the Bestiary.

Glad I'm not the only one who looked at Craventail, looked again, and still wonders why to take him over a normal chieftain. Or any other Hero choice, for that matter.

Ecstatic to have the Vermin Lord back. Now if I could just find which box the movers put mine in...

Platuan4th wrote:Lots of typos and missing words in the fluff sections of the Bestiary.

Glad I'm not the only one who looked at Craventail, looked again, and still wonders why to take him over a normal chieftain. Or any other Hero choice, for that matter.

Ecstatic to have the Vermin Lord back. Now if I could just find which box the movers put mine in...

Something I'd like to know, how strong is a warplock pistol?? I intend to use one, and can only assume S5 ala the musket and the old book, but I can't find it! On the subject of the scavenge pile, it could almost possibly be useful ... if it weren't coming out of magic item allotments too. Even chaos gifts get their own slot

Special characters I agree aren't mega-powerhouses (all those level 3 NOT level 4 lords!), and I'm for one quite happy to see it - SCs should be expensive and taken for personal interest or theme reasons, not powergaming purposes IMO. Though the skaven ones do push the useless button a bit hard, harder than the Lizards even ... As far as Craventail goes, I was sitting there the other night too and wondering what 90 points over a regular chieftain w/ ahw got you: 4+ ward (one of the few in the army), beautiful unit rerolls that will probably happen against frenzy troops but otherwise very rarely, a single roll reroll of his own (not die, but dice!), and that somewhat bizarre BAIL! ability. Not completely terrible, but still 50 points over a maxed out chieftain.

As far as the abomination goes, I love that it has no model but has hot sex rules. Already there are wonderful and whacky conversions springing up throughout the Internet, ala when the defiler first hit with The Last & Greatest CSM Codex. The models I think we most need are the other weapon teams though, particularly the globe mortars that GW will make a mint off of, given their price and how many people are wanting to take.

Something that bugs me in the new book are all the unit champ upgrades that often do nothing but cost a lot. Weeping blade for deathrunner? Sweet! ... except it's 30 points for 2 S3 AP attaks (that happen to do D3 wounds should the gutters be fighting something with wounds). Thingscatcher or shock-prod for master moulders? Alright! ... except that's 20+ points to give a naked 2W model with 2 S4 attaks KB or a power weapon. Warp-augmented weapon for engineer? Lulz @ the price

Essentially, all these upgrades and cool possibilities, that are so overcosted or ineffectual (or inconvenient, ala the scavenge pile) that it even dissuades ME from running them.

And if I had to pick one thing I miss from the old book? Lead from the Back. 1) To protect my otherwise nigh-unprotectable BSB, and 2) to at least clarify where master moulders go in a rat ogre pack, which appears to be in the front (yipe!) but clearly ought to be in the back for whippings ...

- Salvage

The Clan Moulder mixed units rules are SNAFU. Rules for randomizing shooting hits for Giant Rats but not Rat Ogres, no placement rules on the packmasters/master moulders. WD messed up the rules on RO/Packmaster ratio in one of the armies (the RO unit is illegal according to my reading of the rules). Are Master-Bred Rat Ogres champions and therefore can challenge/be challenged? What about Master Moulders, who are champions but, if they can stick in the back rows, can they challenge/be challenged? What if they're in the front (can they be in the front? I'm thinking to use a great weapon/Things-catcher)- can they use Verminous Valour to go to the back and still use the whip?

Ugh. Makes me think about selling off my stuff...

awwwwsome

Can't make up my mind about Lord Skrolk. Rod of Corruption and Liber Bubonicus are very nasty, but who lets a 470pt model wander about the battlefield WITH NO ARMOUR, NO WARD SAVE AND NO REGENERATION?!? Even in the relative safety of a Plague Monk unit, dragons, griffins and the like are going to come hunting. Of course if they fail, there's that nasty Rod of Corruption to contend with... Nope still undecided

Boss_Salvage wrote:
Something I'd like to know, how strong is a warplock pistol?? I intend to use one, and can only assume S5 ala the musket and the old book, but I can't find it! On the subject of the scavenge pile, it could almost possibly be useful ... if it weren't coming out of magic item allotments too. Even chaos gifts get their own slot

- Salvage

Warplock are S4 - They say they use the normal pistol rules, except with R10" and unstable ammo. rulebook says pistols are S4, although you may argue that they are S6, which would be AWESOME!

Tretch is such a good idea for a character, but in game is about 45pts too expensive. You can get the same character [chieftan, tail wep, extra wep] for 55pts, making the 4+ward, reroll and flanking rule cost 90pts!!! bleh.

Characters are overpointed for what they can do. I cant see a Bell ever making such a huge impact on the game to justify its pts, other than keeping your seer out of combat.

Making warpfire throwers move or fire is stupid, they have to be within 3" of parent unit, but if parent unit marches, they get left behind if they want to shoot.

Also, you have to keep them in line with parent unt if you ever want to stand and shoot...as theyre missing the empire detachment rules.

I really like the army, but its overpointed, and underpowered. Apart from PCBs and the PF. Plague spells are win.

EDIT:

Also, what about magic items, can you still only take one of named items?

What happens if you give you bombadier a death globe, you cant give another character one? Stupid.

Also, why cant I give my assassin a brass orb???

Wow. A "bad-guy" army that isn't considered over-powered. Never thought I'd see the day. .

So what are likely to be the abusable combos in the new book? (Don't have the book and from the sounds of things, may be worth waiting for a reprint with errata).

Thanks Xenith, that was dumb of me not to check the LRB for generic pistol rules when it told me too

As to the weapon teams, I was hoping warpfire throwers and ratters would be able to move and fire too, as their tactical usefulness would have skyrocketed. At least with 18" range the ratter can reach out a little further, but I'm not sure that will make my own any more than situational or enemies-in-my-backfield destruction then before.

- Salvage

The poison Mortar is the only weapon team, with the possible exception of the Warp Grinder, to really be of any use in todays warhammer. The mortar is move and fire, and the warp grinder allows you to potentially charge up through the ground...which is fairly cool.

The biggest problem I see with this list is that the only things that actually do damage in this list is entirely in special and rare choices. The Characters are rather puny, the troops, whilst cheap, are fairly useless too. Plaguemonks, jezzails, plague censers are all still awesome, and the Hell Pit Abomination is probably one of the most insane monsters I have seen for its points. It is almost manditory for an army to be competitive.

What I will say however is the new book really captures the feel of a skaven force, and for those that like to play for 'fluff' and humor, this army is brilliant. I personally think that tretch is a hilarious character, and would be a blast to play. The sheer danger in using almost anything in the army adds a little excitement to play. I wouldnt recommend this army to someone who either doesnt have a sense of humor or is looking for serious, competitive beat downs like Daemons or Dark Elves.

A few point not mentioned yet that should be brought up are:
The skirmishing army is now dead, sure thre are units that can but in lmited ammouts to what once was.
Also if im correct skaven have always lacked a hard center to the army, with the unbreakable rule that now is a thing of the past (not against every army but alot of them)
Deployment superiority and defending your jezzails. Yup no way a dragon or blood knights will ever pester em again you can take efefctive and cheep speedbumps and freny lures.

My assesment is that the skaven army as a hoard army is stronger than ever, its fallen abit as a shooting army, and magic im still not sure about. but i am sure that its going to give other armies a run now, rather than run away as it did in the past.
My first look at the new book was the in the core section, 50 points per unit of swarms, and 23 for a unit of giant rats. glory, sure i have lost the night runners as cheep and bothersome, but mainstay is gone so i can get more cheep troops for various tasks. if you havent gessed by now i run a flanking army designed to handle the enemy in waves rather than all in one go, the new list lets me do it better. Every unit i have has gotten stronger.

here is a rundown of my old list that ive played for about 6 months. ive only ever had troble with it when faceing cav. (bretonion or vampire)

Warlord H-ar, 2nd HW, bands of power, +1 sheid
BSB (War banner) H.ar
Engineer, Deamon, Diss Scroll
Engineer, x2 Diss scroll

21 clanrats, ratling (CSM)
21 clanrats, Ratling (CSM)
25 storm vermin Swarm banner (CSM) Ratling
3 giant rat packs
3 giant rat packs
2 swarms
21 slaves Musician
21 slaves musician
8 runners champ and xtra HW
8 runners champ and xtra HW
9 globbers
(alot of the local tournaments only allow 3 core choise in skirmish and no unit more than 3 times)

5 gutties P-HW champ
5 gutties P-HW chanp
9 jezzails

cannon

So the New book allows each of the units to get stronger, and as this list wins more than it looses... Chaching

Oh, dont get me wrong, I still think the book is great, I just think that it has a lot of stuff that is overpointed for its random effectiveness.

I havent played a gane with it yet, though, so I cant really say if the random effects are as deadly to the opponent!

And i totally agree, Skaven needs luck not to blow its self up, but now thats no longer true, you can take 'good' army with lesser problems in the random catagories. ive found its all a matter of how you play, i use to run a very distructive list, but after running my army off the board turn 1 a couple of times i started minimizing it and building on the strengths, new book does just that and now even better. first game with a new list will be in Dec.

New Plague Censor Bearers are pure evil if you let them anywhere near your lines: Toughness tests for everyone in base-to-base before combat (with no armor saves allowed!), followed by 3 S5 Hatred attacks from each Censor. Throws a wrench in my normal army lists as now I need to consider either taking magic missiles to slow them down (Seeing as most shooting is bound to be -2 when aiming at them, and then 5's to wound), or some specialist unit combination to slow them down / bait them away from the main battle line for a few turns.

Plague Catapult is likewise evil, but only if you happen to have nice juicy units for it to shoot at. Dwarves, Bretonians, and Chaos players are likely going to be less-than-amused when facing the thing.

Skaven magic, as always, impresses.

The mortar is move-and-fire? Wow, pretty much the last weapon I would have chosen to be mobile, given how flamethrowers and machine guns (ok, miniguns are pretty stable things, unless mounted on a vehicle) operate in reality vs a mortar

I'll admit it here, my own skaven army has gotten more hitty (ABOMINATION) and perhaps better in game - but then I wasn't running Skryre but pretty mixed stuff. Unfortunately I lost all my skirmishers that I loved so much, and I miss the ability to take globies in less-than-panic-causing numbers, and without maxing my special slots like now. Functional (??) rat ogres might mean I can put away those OK ironguts tooling around with my rats ...

- Salvage

Yep, not counting the Doom-flayer, the Poison Wind Mortar is the only move & fire weapon team. That said, weapon teams do NOT have to stay with their parent unit. After deployment they are free to do what they like.

Slightly off topic, but have just opened my new Clanrats. Very pleased with this box. Sprues are neatly divided into Clanrats with armour and those in rags, so units of slaves can (at last!) have a clear identity if you so choose. Nicely modelled with 20 individual skaven and dead simple to put together too. You only have to glue in the weapon arm and add a shield. Going to start with some slaves methinks...

Is none of you guys pissed that they took away a lot of magic items which were rather cool with the new book?
I'm thinking storm daemon, bands of power, liber bubonicus, eye of the horned rat, etc.?
I was a bit shocked when I looked at the magic section.
And the fluff is rather weak in this one, I surely miss the little stories that described rather well how sneaky and backstabby skaven are. You still get the idea, but I miss some nice stories...

Greets
Schepp himself

Schepp: There is 1 thing i miss out of the book more than anything.
Snikch -_-

The nerfbat knocked him down, then beat him to a bloody pulp on the floor.

He can no longer fight dragons and win, he can no longer go toe to toe with chaos lords of monsters, he simply sucks as a character now.
Why is the master assassin now just a basic assassin with a slight stat increase?

They took all the "fun" gears away , all that is left are "useful" items that we'll probably see in every army...

What did they do to the warlock engineers? they cant pick warp lightening anymore?

Actually luna it says that a enginneer can subtitute 1 spell for warp lightning.
Im also miffed that the magic items are somewhat lack luster and thinned down.
Ive also been taking a hard look at special choices and the plague preist. no armor, no ward save unless you pay 30 pts or 15 for a 6+ he cant refuse challenges... and on a furnace will get picked off easily. im no longer convinced that the furnace and plauge monk combo is worth the points. sure you get a nifty unit with a ton of abilites.... but... well i have to playtest it or see it played before i build one from scratch.
Me thinks my list wont change so much now that ive really settled into looking at the lists. But i will be going whole hog on Mortors. move and fire? and you can add em to globbers? oh ya....
One last thing now that im about finished rambling. eshin.... i cant belive they suck soooo hard. each unit has been made useless in some way. gutties are to expensive, night runners just silly (might as well call em super gnoblers) and the assassin and the death master just dont cut it.

Weeping Blades nerf definitely hurt Assassins. The Deathmaster I don't feel is so bad off; with the number of attacks he gets, and the difficulty of getting a ward save in the new army books (no more 4+ ward save for 25 points that many armies could get beforehand, you're usually stuck with a 5+ that's more expensive now), the d3 wounds from the weeping blades will add up REALLY fast. But a regular assassin just can't land wounds to start with.

Death Globe being one use only kinda sucks too, as it makes it nothing more than a cheaper but functionally similar Brass Orb.

One thing I miss off the bat is that Skaven heroes/lords had relatively weak statlines for cost, but greatly cost-effective magic items. Things just seem a bit more bland now.

Screaming Bell provides extra protection for the grey seer riding it now, but itself is, well. Rather boring now. None of the effects are terribly useful for how random it is. I can't say it's NOT worth the points, but more for its side rules than the bell itself now.

Weapons teams are cumbersome. Warpfire Throwers do have the apparent disadvantage of "you can't fire until the turn AFTER a charge". Remains to see how that'll work.

Warlock Engineers got all the flavor stripped from them. They're just regular mages now, instead of having to get spells through equipment.

Stuff that works on Dwarves only? That's the sort of 'flavor' stuff I DON'T like, because unless you're designing a list specifically to fight a certain opponent, you'd never take it. And it's just my opinion but warhammer's army balance 'breaks down' when you start thinking "I'm gonna design a list to kill my friend Joe's army" instead of "Joe and I are gonna design a list to 'take all comers' and then play against eachother"

Eshin stuff still seems too expensive all around for what it can (or usually can't) do.

Why are globe throwers getting combat-oriented rules? Especially ones that are most useful only when you have a BIG unit of them.

I think what boggles me most is how, compared to other new-booked armies, that Skaven seem to have crappy offensive options now but great defensive ones. It's relatively easy to get good, reliable ward saves and other protections for Skaven characters now. And aside from the Fellblade, it's near impossible to use up any character's budget on offensive combat/magic choices, so for the first time I've had plenty of free magic items budget for defensive choices on characters (too bad half the time it's because I can't find ANYTHING worth taking. Like, the Condenser is the only caster item that isn't one use only, what the heck is up with that?). Basically I find it wierd that I have no problem fitting a 5+ ward save on a Skaven character, but my Lizardman characters are often going with only armor saves now because of magic item budget.

Also,The Dreaded Thirteenth Spell. Uhm, what the heck? Okay, sure, it's (average) 14 instant completely unsaveable wounds on a unit, and potentially a new unit of clanrats with full command and any equipment you want. (Is it worth victory points?). But how are you ever supposed to CAST it? It takes EIGHT dice to reliably get it off if you discount the (overwhelmingly high at that point) chance of miscasting. The grey seer can only bring that many dice to bear on one spell popping munchies. You need at least 5 dice to even have a chance to pull it off, which is still more than the grey seer can bring to bear from his own dice contribution. So you have to 'rely' on either rolling all 5's and 6's, or pop a ton of munchies. Either way you'll probably miscast before you ever see the spell. Super powerful spells that you can never actually cast are just silly.

Also: The

Corseth wrote:Warlock Engineers got all the flavor stripped from them. They're just regular mages now, instead of having to get spells through equipment.

Stuff that works on Dwarves only? That's the sort of 'flavor' stuff I DON'T like, because unless you're designing a list specifically to fight a certain opponent, you'd never take it. And it's just my opinion but warhammer's army balance 'breaks down' when you start thinking "I'm gonna design a list to kill my friend Joe's army" instead of "Joe and I are gonna design a list to 'take all comers' and then play against eachother"

Eshin stuff still seems too expensive all around for what it can (or usually can't) do.

I think what boggles me most is how, compared to other new-booked armies, that Skaven seem to have crappy offensive options now but great defensive ones. It's relatively easy to get good, reliable ward saves and other protections for Skaven characters now. And aside from the Fellblade, it's near impossible to use up any character's budget on offensive combat/magic choices, so for the first time I've had plenty of free magic items budget for defensive choices on characters (too bad half the time it's because I can't find ANYTHING worth taking. Like, the Condenser is the only caster item that isn't one use only, what the heck is up with that?). Basically I find it wierd that I have no problem fitting a 5+ ward save on a Skaven character, but my Lizardman characters are often going with only armor saves now because of magic item budget.

I actually find engineers much more interesting now, with the weapon options and the missiles and taking other items (pipes!) adding a lot of interesting possibilities, when before all I ever saw were The Twins (all upgrades but pistol, 1 storm daemon, maybe a scroll or two). The change to making plague priests a required level 1 kinda bums me though, as I used to run priests just for the T5 fighter character for relatively cheap, not a mandatory 100 pt level 1.

Dwarfbane is actually cool by me, as it's essentially a sword of might that for 5 more pts injects a bit of fluff AND puts a little more hurt on dwarfs should you face them. If it cost any more than 25 pts (or didn't also do +1S) then I might agree more on its unfortunate-ness.

Yea, eshin's 'nerfing' (not like they were overpowered, but way more useful!) is a sad thing. 15-20 night runners burrowing into the rear of units is the only use I've been interested in for them, and gutters, well, I used to run 2 tunnelers, and am now giving 1 big out-flanker a run to see what it does. The ward is cool, but the upcosting not so much. Also with so many special choices I can't really take 2 units any more

I suppose skaven do have a lot of protective gear, but similar to the chaos book, the biggest save stuff is gone, like the 4+ ward (but you might die!!) or the regen hat. Somebody gets a 5+, somebody gets a 6+, maybe somebody rides the bell, but after that it's fiddly armor or tricky things (rival hide, distraction shield). Which is cool, but. As to your complaints vs lizards, maybe it's damn fluffy for skaven to be good at surviving but junk at causing direct damage? Works for me anyway.

Xenith wrote:
Tretch is such a good idea for a character, but in game is about 45pts too expensive. You can get the same character [chieftan, tail wep, extra wep] for 55pts, making the 4+ward, reroll and flanking rule cost 90pts!!! bleh.

I've decided to give Tretch a shot, as general in my vermin lord led 2250 list

Points justification: chieftain w/ ahw + tail weapon (55) + old 1 reroll item (25) + 4+ ward (50 in most lists) + teleportation / rerolls to flanks & rears (15) = 145

I can handle that, and he is kinda neat just in principle. Of course my logic starts crumbling when you compare it with a chieftain w/ shield (47) + BSB w/ warbanner & shield (97) = 144

- Salvage

In that case I was referring to the banner that makes you Hate dwarves and Dwarves hate you. It has no other effects, so it's completely useless unless you plan against dwarves.

And I dunno about "Good at surviving but bad at causing damage." That's like saying "Orcs are peaceloving except when they're forced to fight" given the amount of portrayal on Skaven being about unsafe technology and magic but not caring about the cost

Ya sorry there Boss Salvage, i cant agree on most of the points in the last post, except that for fluff your right.
Engineers? dissagree, i think the fluff as well as unique game play is gone there.

Eshin.. ummm the cost has muitiplied by at least a factor of 2 to 4 depending on the unit (save assasins) old runners: 25 points bare min. now 70.
gutties are the same but tunnel and/or poison... how much? are you Nadakin futz?

I will agree on the upcosting and pain of the special spot problems though.

Hawkins , while ur still online ( which page says engineer can swap for warp lightening? )

And which magic item are ideal for them?

sorry was posting something else.
Engineers have nothing worth taking anymore. make em dispell scroll caddies. 150 pts for a level 2 with 2 dispell scrolls. or make it level 1 and go cheeper.

Oops didnt see the edit

Corseth wrote:Also,The Dreaded Thirteenth Spell. Uhm, what the heck? Okay, sure, it's (average) 14 instant completely unsaveable wounds on a unit, and potentially a new unit of clanrats with full command and any equipment you want. (Is it worth victory points?). But how are you ever supposed to CAST it? It takes EIGHT dice to reliably get it off if you discount the (overwhelmingly high at that point) chance of miscasting. The grey seer can only bring that many dice to bear on one spell popping munchies. You need at least 5 dice to even have a chance to pull it off, which is still more than the grey seer can bring to bear from his own dice contribution. So you have to 'rely' on either rolling all 5's and 6's, or pop a ton of munchies. Either way you'll probably miscast before you ever see the spell. Super powerful spells that you can never actually cast are just silly.

The only realistic way to get it off without risking a miscast is to throw two dice at it and hope for Irresistable Force. Otherwise you're far more likely to miscast than get the spell off, and take every magic die you have to do it. At least this way you can do other things in your magic phase, and now your miscast chance is EXACTLY equal to your sucess chance.

You still want the page number Luna? 58 has it.

Me, I'm just taking 1 level 2 engineer w/ condensor + scroll to back up my vermin lord. Not an awesome phase, but since my VL is taking all plague spells (IMO a better lore) it'll be good to have the lightning and something else to have around. Warp gale is pretty decent to me, especially as I'm not running storm banner. So basically: access to more than just lightning is cool by me, adds variety and flexibility. Also, I never ran The Twins, so I'm not in the crowd who lamenting the loss of 2D6 S5 magic missiles

- Salvage