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Well working on a competitive Skaven list and have been playtesting a couple of different variations - here's the one I'm leaning towards:

Warlord - Halberd, Shield, Warpstone Armor, Foul Pendant, Warlitter 191 pts
Chieftan - Shield, BSB, Stormbanner 122 pts
Plague Priest - Flail, 1 Dispel Scroll 129 pts
Plague Priest - Flail, 1 Dispel Scroll 129 pts

Clanrats (30) - Shield, Full Command, Warpfire Thrower 225 pts
Clanrats (30) - Shield, Full Command, Warpfire Thrower 225 pts
Stormvermin (25) - Shield, Full Command, Banner of the Under-Empire, Warpfire Thrower 320 pts
Slaves (20) - 40 pts
Slaves (20) - 40 pts
Slaves (20) - 40 pts

Plague Censer Bearers (7) - 112 pts
Plague Censer Bearers (7) - 112 pts
Plague Censer Bearers (7) - 112 pts
Plague Censer Bearers (7) - 112 pts

Warp Lightning Cannon - 90 pts
Hellpit Abomination - Warpstone Spikes 250 pts

So far it's done very well against Dark Elves and Lizardmen - haven't had a chance yet to test it against any other army. Thoughts, comments, concerns (other than Plague Censer Bearer spam)?

PCB SPAM OMG
*vomits on self*

Yea, beyond that it's an interesting list, triple flamers has got to cause a lot of mayhem, for you as well as him. Any awesome stories of devastation? The thing has some real potential, but I've just got the one in my list and I only seem to land a shot once a game or two

Where do you park your priests? I hear some people run them along with PCB units, though I suppose I'd be worried about them being gassed by their buddies ...

- Salvage

What's your plan for a big flying fighting thing, like a Dragon Lord or a Thirster?

Are the PCB really that good?

40kenthusiast wrote:What's your plan for a big flying fighting thing, like a Dragon Lord or a Thirster?

Notice the Lightning Cannon?
EDIT: Even thought you have to roll the Strenght, it is as realible as Skaven can do to monster hunting (after Jezzails)

eimaj wrote:Are the PCB really that good?

If you can't bait them / deal with them from magic (shooting tends to do poorly due to their being T4 skirmishers), yes.

They're 3 S5 Hatred Attacks that - before either side strikes - force toughness tests on the enemy. On M5 skirmishers.

For math-hammer, against non-Nurgle Chaos Warriors those seven will cause about fifteen hits on a Chaos Warrior unit, ten wounds, and five casualties (assuming they had HW & shields). This is before the toughness check kills, which will on average kill one-to-two more Chaos Warriors. Or those seven plague censor bearers just tore six-to-seven Chaos Warriors to shreds before they could attack, and unless said Chaos Warrior unit had a champion and / or they had the magic five starting combat res they're likely to lose with a decent leadership penalty.

What about non-Chaos Warriors? Goblins / Gnoblars / Skellies / Skinks suffer at least two wounds from the censor itself, and then about 11-12 further casualties from the attacks. Orcs, Ogres, and other T4 / low-save units take 11-12 wounds after the Censor's rule is invoked. Temple Guard are in the same boat as Chaos Warriors (6-7 casualties) with Saurus Warriors taking around 7-9 wounds. Chaos Knights are taking 1-to-2 casualties before either side strikes (regardless of who charges), and for every two Plague Censors who get to attack about one Chaos Knight is going to be killed (6 attacks / 4.5 hits / 3 wounds / 1 failed save). Thus: Knights charge Plague Censor unit, take one insta-casualty. Four attack, horsies kill one, Knights kill (assuming champion) four. Censors caused two wounds on Chaos Knights, losing match but taking out two Knights when charged. Assuming Censors charge, add two-to-three more casualties by the censors and subtract most of the kills caused by the knights.

Censors only weakness is that they're very vulnerable to templates and magic attacks that auto-hit.

Plague Censor Bearers are definately good, though taking this much of them forces you into taking the Warp Lightning Cannon to deal with Monsters (as you can't take Jezzails for it due to all your Special slots being taken). This isn't that bad, but it does restrict the amount of Hell Pit Abominations you can field, another strong unit. I would try fielding 2 units of Plague Censor Bearers, 2 units of Jezzails and 2 Hell Pit Abominations.

And to answer 40kenthusiast's question:
Flying isn't going to be a problem at all. At least, not until they FAQ the Stormbanner.

To tell you the truth, I'm very pleased at how the Plague Censer Bearers are working out. Played a game Thursday where a unit of 7 charged in with a Plague Priest and in 3 turns took a unit of 16 Temple Guard and a Slann down to 1 Temple Guard (made a lucky save) and the Slann were left. I'm still trying to figure out though why the Plague Priests don't have Hatred. . . .

Anyways - we play the Stormbanner like it's going to be FAQ'd - one use only basically. Otherwise its a little too strong. Usually I wait until the second turn or so to pop it, but if my opponent has some cheap flying troops he's trying to use to draw my guys away (Harpies for Dark Elves are a pain in the butt), I'll probably pop it first turn to deny them that cheap flying redirect.

I'm debating though, on the possibility of taking the Hellpit and Warp Lightning Cannon out and throwing in 2 doomwheels. Yes I know they can be random, but the Doomwheel has a higher toughness, still has an AS, and can deal with big nasties pretty well (providing the lightning shots go well). The Hellpit, although pretty good, has died almost every game for me. If I drop it and the Warp Lightning Cannon (which incidently seems to be very hit or miss - when it hits, it devastates), I could throw in the 2 doomwheels and add in another dispel scroll. Thoughts?

Carnage stories? Well my Warp Lightning seems to have the best carnage stories, like obliterating 16 out of 20 dark elf spearmen in one turn, while the best the warpfire throwers have done so far is kill all the crew members on a Steg Warchief. I do like the pivot and shoot though for them, as my Lizardman opponent tried to be sneaky and flew his Terradons behind my lines and got a nice template right on top of them. Killed 3 out of the 6 and made them panic right off the board. Saved my warp lightning cannon big time.

About the Harpies: Couldn't you let them move in front of you on turn one... then crack the Storm Banner in your turn so that their flee reaction has to be on foot instead of with their flying movement? Thus, forcing them to either take the charge or likely get run down? I mean, that could actually force it into an advantage for you (provided they don't fly behind the Plague Censors or try to bait them off an edge) as it'd allow them to scream up the field faster with their pursuit / overrun move.

Your right - alot just depends on where they are and how the unit is positioned. Alot of the guys I play against are pretty good at that stuff, putting their guys right at about the 9" away mark and forcing the charge. Good point though.

Note on the double Hellpit comment someone mentioned above - our area actually has already disallowed that from tournaments - certain combinations (such as double steam tanks) and other extremely nasty combos are banned to keep some balance in the gaming lists.

Are the PCB really that good?

The mass PCBs are the weak part of this list. I'm sure it's pretty obvious to all of you that frenzied skirmishers are basically the worst unit type in the entire game. The only way they ever see combat is on the enemy's terms, which means he will position his unit so that only one (or two at max) have range to his unit. Then you'll charge him with only one model being able to attack and if you're unlucky that model might die to the fumes from the model right behind him even before he gets his measly attacks. This not only destroys the unit in question but it also gives the enemy protection from magic and shooting whenever they like.

Naturally you'll also need the Grey Seer on Bell, and the Doomwheel, just to get started. This is assuming double rares are banned. Otherwise you'd of course go with two Abominations. You're also missing Giant Rats which seem to be one of the best units in the book.

screen with slaves, explode them in combat, then charge with pcb's.... although your comp will get destroyed in torneys for doing that...

Therion wrote:I'm sure it's pretty obvious to all of you that frenzied skirmishers are basically the worst unit type in the entire game.

Normally this would be the case (I have plans of neutering my local GW Pestilense player's ten-big Censor unit with a constantly rallying / fleeing unit of Spider Riders), but in this case there's four of the units which makes redirecting all the more difficult. Even assuming you can bait two units at once with one of your own, it's rare that someone's going to be able to consistently flee with two of their units a turn. Eventually, one of those units is going to fail its rally or be a unit you can't afford to retreat with.

The only way they ever see combat is on the enemy's terms, which means he will position his unit so that only one (or two at max) have range to his unit.

Don't you need 25% of a skirmish unit in charge range before you can go? Or am I thinking Raiders / some other special unit's charge restrictions?

You must have missed something. The idea is not to flee the PCBs at all. The idea is to let them charge you so that one model makes contact. You understand that only the model that has enough range to the target will form up in CC and the rest will form in a conga line behind it? The PCBs will lose and die. Rinse, repeat. Any unit can do this to frenzied skirmishers. Whether you have time to do it to all four units during the game is irrelevant.

Therion wrote:You must have missed something. The idea is not to flee the PCBs at all. The idea is to let them charge you so that one model makes contact.

Which again misses the point that it's not one, but four units of Plague Censor Bearers. Again, at best you're going to be nabbing two units a turn - in this case, that's bad because you're getting more hits on yourself from the Plague Censors - and you need to be very good with your judging of distance / fighting someone who congo-lines Bearers to reliably get only one or two chargers a turn.

You understand that only the model that has enough range to the target will form up in CC and the rest will form in a conga line behind it?

Ah, so that 25% thing is a Raider / something else rule. That makes this more useable.

Whether you have time to do it to all four units during the game is irrelevant.

Why is it irrelevant? You're arguing they're useless because they're easy to counter, but then when brought up that there's three other units that need it done you say "Forget about them". Do you ever intend to move your army forward? Do you intend, in this game, to sit for two to three turns just barely at / outside 10" from their main line constantly baiting one-at-a-time Censors?

No doubt the tactic can work - and well - against a single unit, but when there's four of the units saying "Easy to counter bait one unit crumbles forget about the rest" doesn't quite sound reassuring.

I think alot of the folks who let their PCB's get sucked up in the 9" bait tactic really aren't using them right in compared with the rest of the army. A common tactic seems to be to run the PCB up front and throw them at enemy units as fast as possible - hence the "only 1 or 2 in range tactic" comes into effect. What I've found to really work well though is running the PCBs near large blocks of clanrats or stormvermin, usually letting the blocks of infantry charge in or take the initial charge. When you have to beat a static 5 combat res against rats, it's usually pretty hard, backed up by a LD 10 coming from the warlord and BSB. Following that, you can charge the PCB in, hopefully against a flank and do some real damage, still benefitting from the bonuses from the large infantry block.

I'm still pretty torn on the warpfire throwers - with no partials and such, they can tear up huge blocks of bad guys. But - the mishap table is horrendous and they are pretty expensive. I can see them doing great things though against demons and VC.

Doomwheels .. . .. I'm just torn as they have good points and bad points. If the warplightning they shot in CC counted towards combat res, I could see them doing well. The random movement and shooting makes them a wild card and not really able to take on a ranked up unit unless I rolled very well for impact hits (same concept as chariots). Of course, they basically have a 360 charge arc (correct me if I'm wrong but you can pivot them and then roll for their random movement in the compulsory phase right?). Plus they add in a nice big creature killing aspect to the army which would be really nice (not worried about infantry heavy armies as much as some big nasties running around).

Comparing the doomwheel to the warplightning cannon is somewhat difficult - the cannon is nice for the template shot, which can be somewhat difficult to land, but it devastating when it does. The doomwheel adds in movement and the potential for very killy shots, but is random as well. Of course, its still T6 and causes terror, which can be good. Another possibility I'm contemplating is dropping the warp lightning cannon and a warpfire thrower (3 may be excessive) to add in a doomwheel.

Thats why I think the skaven book is so excellent in that it has SOOOOO many possibilities for very strong lists - much more than alot of the cookie cutter armies that seem to be popping out from the other newer codexs.

Mattbranb wrote:I'm still pretty torn on the warpfire throwers - with no partials and such, they can tear up huge blocks of bad guys. But - the mishap table is horrendous and they are pretty expensive. I can see them doing great things though against demons and VC.

From what I've heard, the Globadier Mortars work better due to no need of LoS, still being template, disallowing armor saves, and being move-and-fire.

In return, they are drastically less effective against light infantry than a Warpfire Thrower.

I've tried the globe mortars - wasn't too impressed. Being able to move and fire is nice to keep them near their parent unit, but the random scatter can be a real pain. Plus the misfire table is very annoying with most of the time letting the opponent place the template. I guess it really depends on what your going against - land a shot or two on some high AS Chaos Warriors and your good.

Negative point for the doomwheel though - the shooting attacks allow armor saves and don't count towards combat res. Anyone think they'll FAQ that one or is it just considered a "weaker" warp lightning that still causes D6 wounds per hit?