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I spent the last two weeks getting my nurgley skaven back up to 2250 points for the ‘Battle for the Cure’ RTT held 03/14/10 in Troy, NY. Weirdly enough skaven are my tournament army, because they’re painted not because they’re that great, and I always do around 50%, with a best painted (!) award my only ranking thus far. This time I’d be doing my usual thing and bringing a detuned soft list, mostly based around the models I wanted to put on the table than anything. It should also be noted that these would be my 1st through 3rd games with this 8 pd list (which I’ve already tweaked to give the master moulder some gear, since the FAQ says he’s riding the front), and only my 4th through 6th with the new book!

SKAVEN 2250

L: Vermin Lord
H: Engineer - level 2, pipes of piebald, dispel scroll
H: Chieftain - BSB, warpstone armor, shield
H: Chieftain - foul pendant, poisoned attaks, ahw

C: 25 Clanrats - full command, shields, ratling gun
C: 25 Clanrats - full command, shields, ratling gun
C: 30 Clanrats - full command, shields
C: 21 Slaves - musician
C: 20 Slaves

S: 4 Rat Ogres - MBRO, master moulder, pack master
S: 6 Gutter Runners - death runner
S: 7 Globadiers
S: 7 Globadiers

R: Hellpit Abomination
R: Plagueclaw Catapult
------
2250

Zoomable shot of the army:


Sadly you aren’t getting any close-ups or other shots from the RTT, as I am endlessly lazy when it comes to actually using my camera

Going to try to keep these reports short, lots of work to do catching up with school after spending the last week painting and dipping green things!

ONE - BEASTS

L:  Beastlord - hunting spear, chalice of dark rain, shield, heavy armor
H:  Gorebull - BSB, biting blade, ramhorn helm, gnarled hide, shield, heavy armor
H:  Gorebull - pelt of the shadowgave, ahw
H:  Bray-shaman - 2 dispel scrolls

C:  11 Gors - full command, ahw
C:  10 Gors
C:  Tuskgor Chariot
C:  5 Warhounds
C:  5 Warhounds

S:  3 Minotaurs - gw
S:  3 Minotaurs - gw
S:  2 Razorgors
S:  5 Harpies - scout

R:  Jabberslythe
R:  Cygor

‘Psyched Over & Out’

The game was in his court early when the jabber had only taken one wound before it hoped behind my three blocks and stared at all of their rears. Insanity only accounted for three nurglings from the bus and one ratter, and everybody passed terror. I however didn’t pass my crippling paranoia test and turned all three units around to face the jabber, knowing that it could easily have killed any of them with a rear charge, even with mediocre rolling. This was not as insane a move as it might seem - his other assault elements were either playing with the HPA left flank, the VL right-center, or misdeployed down the right flank. However I should have just sacrificed the general’s unit and kept my line functional …

Amazing luck interceded though: my ratter aimed at the jabber, jammed on ten shots, spun around and pointed back at the jabber, smashed four wounds through and dropped it. This was followed by some harpies flanking my general’s block, war hounds hitting them in the rear, and the chaff units easily beating 25 clanrats + chieftain, sending them running for the edge. My BSB’s unit paniced, ran through the other clanrats and they also paniced, likewise panicing some globadiers. Next turn nothing rallied, and my zone was completely empty save a stunned unit of slaves that took off for the SW table quarter.

‘Destroy(ed By) All Monsters’

But the beasts were not exactly taking a break while the skaven army self-destructed. The HPA on the left took a charge from the razors and killed them, took a charge from the chariot two turns later and killed it, and eventually hit the ambushing gors (who came on their own edge second turn) and crushed them utterly. The vermin lord meanwhile punched into some minos + non-BSB gore bull, challenged and vapped the character, running them down and hitting the cygor conveniently lined up behind them. Mr. VL doomglaived him as well, heading into the beast backfield. This left the beastlord + bray sitting in the other gors atop a hill, which got cloud of corruptioned & double withered (!!) and combo-charged by rat ogres in the front and VL in the flank. The rogres went to town on the T2 beasts, leaving just the beast lord on one wound to break the hell out of there.

He had:
Gorebull BSB + Minos
Harpies
Warhounds (w/ standard)

I had:
Vermin Lord
1 Slave unit
Rat Ogres (w/ standard)
Gutters (sitting in a corner)
1 Globadier unit
Abomination

Unfortunately for him my monsters were alive and more expensive than his stuff, so it came down to a SKAVEN WIN (13-7)

For those curious, the PCC’s activity:
1) Overguessed the beastlord’s unit by 10-12”
2) Was accidentally hit by a scattering cygor mehir and dealt 6 wounds.
3-6) Festered quietly.

Coming Up: Vamps!

- Salvage

More! More! Thanks for the writeup.

- Blackbone

Wow, nice creativity on the army. Love the game, and you've made the report easy to understand even without pictures. I like this style for reports that can't give a visual on deployment. Brings away the essentials and highlights, gives a feel for the game, without getting too bogged down in details.

Looking forward to the rest!

RZ

I agree, very easy to understand bat rep, and I was rooting for you when all seemed lost . Way to pull it out in the midst of some unfortunate events!

Ditto.

Stuff like this is what keep me laughing throughout an entire game. (The journey is the reward)

ZF-

Cheers dudes, glad you enjoyed round one. How about another?

TWO - VAMPS

L: Vampire Lord - master of the black arts, dark acolyte, lord of the dead, blood drinker, flayed hauberk, talisman of protection
H: Wight King - BSB, sword of kings, gem of blood
H: Necromancer - sceptre of noirot, dispel scroll, corpse cart w/ balefire

C: 20 Skeletons - banner of the dead legion, full command
C: 20 Skeletons - full command, spears
C: 20 Skeletons - full command, spears
C: 16 Ghouls
C: 20 Zombies - standard, musician
C: 5 Dire Wolves

S: 4 Spirit Hosts
S: 5 Black Knights - hell knight, musician, barding

R: 4 Wraiths – banshee

A quite subdued vamp list all told, but it was still all fear causing and functionally unbreakable, so I wasn’t free of the rotting woods yet!

Deployment
Vamps (L2R): ghouls (left flank), zombies, [tower], spear skellies, banner skellies + vamp, spear skellies + BSB, corpse cart necro behind the skeleton phalanx, wraiths (behind large wood), knights (behind same wood), hosts (behind same wood), wolves (right flank)
Skaven (L2R): HPA, rat ogres, slaves, clanrats w/ ratter, clanrats + BSB + engineer, clanrats + ratter, globadiers, more globadiers, PCC (on hill), slaves (on hill), VL (right flank)

‘The Abomination Abides’

Much of the ‘action’ in the middle involved my blocks jostling with his blocks while the HPA made its way diagonally across my battle line – I had failed to leave space for him, so he was coming from the flank – and eventually into the vampire’s skeleton block. While he did horrific things to the unit turn after turn, the vamp stayed out of base contact (my HPA kept feeding when not avalanching his flesh, so a smart move) and kept the magic going. This had relatively little effect though, as the a-bomb didn’t care about fighting more skeletons and I was happy to save dice for any dansing nonsense. He did however get off wind of undeath, which stripped a wound from many things (including a ratter’s only one) and created an eight-wound host right in front of the rat ogres. I despaired as they charged in, the master moulder realized he had left his electro-whip at home (he shan’t do that again) and they proceeded to tie or lose combat as the ghouls wheeled in from the wings and approached the rat ogre’s flank …

‘Vermy Goes a-Ghostbusting’

While this was happening the VL dropped a proton bomb and a half on his flank of deadites. He zoomed past the diverting wolves and bombed out an IF cloud of corruption that burned four dogs, a spirit host, the banshee, half a wraith and one black knight. He welcomed a charge by the spirit hosts and glaived through nearly all of them, finishing them next turn and heading deeper into the VC deployment zone. At this point another IF cloud tore through the undead ranks, though the most notable result was dealing five (!) wounds to the HPA, of which all five (!) were regened. The wraith remnants (1.5 left) charged Vermy’s rear and were backhanded back to undeath, followed by the corpse cart likewise charging in and being utterly obliterated through challenge overkill.

‘A-bomb-ination Continues’

Meanwhile, the HPA had finally crushed and eaten its way through all the skeletons and popped the vamp on CR overdose. The general’s clanrats tackled the BSB’s unit and, along with crumbling, quickly shattered them. While the rat ogres had broken and been caught, the remaining spirit host and ghouls were swamped with nurglings until CR + crumble drove them away. (The four black knights who survived the VL’s cloud, it should be noted, were taken out earlier by one unit of globadiers needing 5+ to hit. Awesome.) The final move of the game saw the VL valiantly charging five zombies and mashing them to a pulp(ier pulp).

With the undead menace tabled, the nurgley-skaven enjoyed a decisive WIN (20-0)

PCC RECORD
1-3) Fired at the leftmost skellies, overguessing half the time or rolling somewhat marginally otherwise. Melted about ~15 skellies all told, though many were raised back.
4-5) Overshot the ghouls by an embarrassing amount.
6) With no real targets, had a snack and napped a bit.

Coming Up: Dark Elves on Table 1!

- Salvage

Wow, the Hell Pit crushes all before it. Great games so far!

Final round was up against the organizer of Crossroads, a great guy with a nicely tuned DE list, though it had every tool he could want from the book (with the exception of the cauldron) … It should be noted that several times at the RTT I would counter claims of the vermin lord’s excellence with pointing out how easily he dies to repeater crossbows. I should have added nuclear rending stars, which the DE player took two of just to kill abominations (and so he fought brettonians twice before he met my HPA)!

THREE - DARK ELVES

H:  Sorceress - 2 dispel scrolls
H:  Master - BSB, sword of might, pendant, shield, sea dragon cloak, heavy armor, steed

X:  Assassin - rending stars, manbane
X:  Assassin - rending stars, manbane

C:  24 Warriors - warbanner, full command, spears, shields
C:  10 Crossbows - musician, shields
C:  5 Dark Riders - standard, musician, shields
C:  5 Dark Riders - musician, rxb
C:  5 Harpies
C:  5 Harpies

S:  12 Black Guard - ASF, ring, champion, standard
S:  5 Cold One Knights - standard, musician
S:  10 Shades - gw

R:  Hydra
R:  Bolter

Deployment
DE (L2R): left half of the board: cold ones, crossbows behind, chariot, harpies, shades, med cav + BSB, hydra (behind large wood), harpies (behind same wood), warriors (behind same wood);
right half: black guard + sorc, dark riders, bolter (on hill)
SK (L2R): left half: slaves, globadiers, HPA, VL behind, globadiers, clanrats + ratter + BSB, clanrats + engineer + general, clanrats + ratter, PCC (on hill)
right half: rat ogres, slaves

‘Vermin Lord Bombing Run & Abomination Bombing It’

My monsters started things off by tanking up into his guts, while their CR-laden brethren were somewhat hesitant about having a hydra crash through the woods and gut them. The vermin lord slammed a massive plague cast (20+) through into his packed units, but no IF meant scrolled. He then pounced on the stupidity-failing chariot, bringing him up into cloud range - one IF cloud later he had choked out four cold one knights, five crossbows and three medium cav. Unfortunately this also nuked the chariot the VL was fighting, meaning he couldn’t overrun and would die next turn. Which he did. My opponent pointed out that hellpits are curiously not ItP, and I agreed and watched him fail his panic check and head through two clanrat units, to which he caused a mere one wound total! This was somewhat ok though, as my opponent had ringed the a-bomb with nasty targets all about 16-18” away, and I had opted to say screw it and head for the hydra to see what would happen ... So getting out of that trap was a good move on the hellpit's part!

‘Give Me the Ring!’

With nowhere else to plop down my 200+ point rat ogre pack, I had decided to give them the entire right flank to play in, which gave them the option of standing around being shot and eventually baited by dark riders, or just running into the ASF-ing embrace of the BG and getting this over with. Sadly I chose the latter and powered up and into the gits. It became clear to me that I was essentially going to assassinate The Ring - note that the VL was still alive when this decision was made - with models worth 10x its points The MBRO managed to do just this, but it cost three rat ogres to accomplish. The MBRO and master moulder broke, and allowed the black guard remnants - the PCC had given them some attention previously - to charge a ratter (killing some on the stand-and-shoot) and overrun into the right most clanrat block. At this point the hellpit had redeployed itself about 20”, rallied and tossed into the BG / CR combat, killing the elves on impact hits exactly. Next turn however the abomination-hunting assassins caught up with the hellpit and knocked him down to one wound, which he lost on stand-and-shoot trying to kill at least one of them. He birthed a single rat swarm - the worst possible result - which was killed and gave up 50 more VP.

‘Small Green Monsters Need Love Too’

What about everything else? Well, the engineer had put my magic phase to sleep by rolling a 1 for both warp lightning casts he got off and killing himself. Some globes got tied up fighting the cold one standard until they managed to toss into their own combat and kill him, while the other unit fought the BSB for turns, while he could never hit and the globes couldn’t manage to tag him with a lovely pendant-ignoring sphere of gas. At some point the hydra did arrive and breathed on the large clanrat block, causing an astounding 15+ wounds! The BSB’s clanrats summoned the courage to charge the hydra, which broke and caught it when the remnants of the large clanrat block flanked it for great justice. At this point late game my opponent decided to be nice and gamey and toss his BSB and shades into my BSB clanrats’ front and two remaining medium cav into their rear. All that hatred S4-5 did nothing, while a shade dropped, both med cav died and everybody else broke!

But it was too little, too late to avoid a SKAVEN LOSS (4-16)

PCC RECORD
1) Tagged black guard, melted a handful.
2-4) Overshot the shade blob or scattered away.
5) Misfired - for the first time in ever - and killed itself.
6) *bubbles*

Pretty zapped after all was said and done, I packed up the green boys from their stomping and headed over for awards, figuring I might get lucky and pick up third or something. The first name called was mine, so I sauntered up and took first pick of the generous piles of stuff donated by The War Store - I got a box each of bestigors, gors, ungors + the beast book - and sat back down. Then I asked what I had won, assuming we'd do third place backwards or something. Apparently my weird green things had won first I was well impressed, and it looks like comp scores came through in a big way, with my 11.5 (of 18 max) kicking me over the DE's overall rampage (and 6 comp).

I'll see about some unit thoughts after the experience, but I'm at least happy with the look of the army, and I figure this is the army, barring some equipment tweaks, that I'll be trucking out to Crossroads come September

- Salvage

Wow, congratulations on winning 1st place! And you say you've never won more than a best painted before Very cool!

I think skaven are going to be tough to handle for a while now, especially in the hands of a good player. I'm really impressed that you did this well without taking some of the things that everybody seems to be raving about.

The vermin lord is incredible! I didn't realize it was even an entry, and I own the book... coupled with the HPA, you had a nice 1-2 punch going while the rest of your army sort of stood around and watched and tried to look useful . I think you deserved the high comp score, and I'm glad it put you over the top . Was there a painting score factored in as well?

Hooray for the rat-things

Gratz on the win!

I was very surprised at the performance of your Vermin Lord. I took one look at him and dismissed him immediately due to his point cost, perhaps I should revisit him for further analysis.

The HPA is sheer WIN. I love mine...

Thanks guys. I've had this VL model for at least 10 years, and was thrilled that I had a real reason to rebuild him (with tentacle head ftw) and get some paint on him. He's still fantastically vulnerable to shooting, but with the right match ups he can clearly wreck house. He also is a really good delivery system for the plague list, with its various area affects and templates. Unfortunately he's going to be nigh unusable in this role if/when 8th swaps the magic phase to first. Really pretty unfortunate, and I suppose I'll either swap for ruin lore, or convert up a Throt and drop the big 500 points-suck

Instead of a unit-by-unit breakdown, how about a few thoughts on the army:

- VL has been covered above, but he did get some really tasty targets here, and excelled where shooting was a non-issue. 3x IF clouds right when I wanted them was more than I could have asked for too!

- HPA was money, and I'm learning that you might just be able to jam him forward and crush after all. I've been hesitant to put that much faith in the big guy - he's certainly not invincible, at least in my mind - but I think I can lean on that crutch harder in the future. I also get some of what DE players must feel with the hydra, as this one monster can literally destroy armies by itself. It is not a completely terrible feeling

- Still sticking with the PCC, just really need to work on my range guessing For whatever reason my hellcannon is quite a bit more accurate than this thing, so who knows what the issue is! It clearly never got its points back, but at least I know how the thing fires, vs the WLC sitting in the bottom of an army case now. Though with the continued rise of giant monsters having MORE anti-armor is seeming less helpful ...

- Beyond dropping that jabber my ratters did relatively little, accounting for just a few handfuls of models. I'm fine with that, it's really nice to have the ability to pump out ~20 shots over a pretty large area, with 18" and 360 fire. Pretty simple to use vs the other weapon teams too, and misfires are not so catastrophic.

- Rat ogres, who knows? A lot of management with these things. Master moulder is getting an electro-whip for a bit more bite, and the magic weapon bit too. (Ethereal paranoia much??)

- The main thing was seeing how far a chieftain general goes. Ld9 for blocks and guns is nice, but I was feeling the lack for rankless support troops like globes and even rat ogres suffer too if in combat nearby. As we saw the monsters mitigated the NEAR TOTAL LOSS of my army in that first game, but you gotta take that psych nonsense in stride

Here's the gently revised list, not too mindblowing:

L: Vermin Lord
H: Engineer - level 2, pipes of piebald, dispel scroll
H: Chieftain - BSB, warpstone armor, shield
H: Chieftain - sword of might, foul pendant

C: 25 Clanrats - full command, shields, ratling gun
C: 25 Clanrats - full command, shields, ratling gun
C: 30 Clanrats - full command, shields
C: 20 Slaves - pawleader, musician
C: 20 Slaves - musician

S: 4 Rat Ogres - MBRO, master moulder w/ electro-whip
S: 6 Gutter Runners
S: 7 Globadiers
S: 7 Globadiers

R: Hellpit Abomination
R: Plagueclaw Catapult
------
2250

- Salvage

The revisions look good. A pawleader? to take a challenge, I guess?

I'll think you'll get props for taking the ratling guns, and if you like how they work, so much the better I didn't know weapons teams had 360 LOS, that's good to know! I guess they move as skirmishers, then? Couldn't quite figure that part out... and haven't yet brought myself to reading the 100 page FAQ (a slight exaggeration ) for all the stuff they had to fix... it seems much longer than those I'm used to, especially the errata part? That's a lot of actual changes rather than clarifications...

How about the globadiers? I love the idea of those fellas, it's great that you're taking them imho. And chieftans are mostly for leadership than anything else? They're expensive (seemingly) for what they do, but you're finding them well worth it?

I'm playing ratters as US2 little things on cav bases, with a front arc, so no -1 to hit as a skirmisher and no true 360 LoS. They can spin and fire though, so beyond stand-n-shoot it's effectively the same as far as blasting stuff goes.

I do enjoy my globes, quite nice at taking out enemy armored elites, like those black knights. In theory monsters too, but with terror and no ranks they basically get to move in and have one toss, then might be terror-ing away sooner than they'd like. But yes, love their versatility, enough to sacrifice not one but two coveted skaven special slots to them. That DE game was the first where I've tossed into their own combats, was neat but involves so much randomization - 4+ to hit, 4+ to hit the bad guy, 4+ to wound - that the max four globes I'm getting with a 7-thing unit are pretty minimal. Now tossing into my clanrats' combats, I need to remember that, as clanrats are in my book junk so who cares if they go down 'by accident'?

On the chieftains, remember that the VL can't be your general, so it's either a chieftain or a plague priest if you want Ld6. I did the priest for the three games before the RTT, and he died in each one, by frenzy charging out and getting pulped. Turned out his magic was mostly useless too, plague really bites when you're a) slow and b) sitting with an army of non-plague units. I have no expectations from the sword of might / foul pendant general in my new list, except to avoid combat until the odds are totally in his favor and then jump on in and stay alive. The only time he got to fight over the RTT was against the DE shades - he missed a lot - and vs the vamps he declined the wight king's challenge and hung out in the back ranks

- Salvage

Boss_Salvage wrote:I'm playing ratters as US2

And that was confirmed by the FAQ

Lol @ the cheiftan

One more question... you had the globadiers toss into their own combat? Or the second unit of globies toss into the combat of the first unit? I didn't think they could toss (shoot?) while they were in combat themselves?

(yes, the book is clear as mud to me, especially not being a skaven player... thanks for clearing these things up )

P.S. So for the ratters do you move them like a monster (free wheel) or like a unit (measure to wheel)?

Yes, the second rank of globadiers can toss into the combat they are in...

But do note that the globes tossing into their combat has nothing to do with a combat phase, as it occurs in the globes' own shooting phase.

Ratters move like single US2 models (generally cav), which means free reforms all over the place like a monster. Front arc for charging / facing, etc.

- Salvage

Thanks for all of the clarifications here. Love them globies

When can we expect your next game with the green skaven tide?