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 Jackal wrote:

Also, shooting into combat is nice, but shots are randomised.

No, they're not.

Go re-read the FAQ, specifically the bit that removes the section where shots are randomized. Then remember that removing it removes the option to flame a unit of Slaves in combat, never hit an enemy model, and yet STILL kill more enemies than Slaves.

Skaven are regarded as OP for the simple fact that they have some remarkably underpriced items, and the entire book is full of bent things. The Grey Seer, Slaves, And most of the rare section sticks out.

Even their scouts are bent/cost effective.. A unit of 9 Gutter Runners can take off a war machine a turn for 162 points. 10 Dark Elf Shades can't do that, and cost 170 points.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:
T5 regen W6 is better than nearly any monster in the game at that cost, who is also LD8 and stubborn, and as killy as it is. There are some stuff that are arguably as killy (like Chimeras are close) but their LD sucks butt. Or stuff that has as much defense, but they can't throw out 3D6 attacks.

It also isn't immune to psychology, won't benefit from 'strength in numbers' and unless it has a BSB has just a whopping Ld 8 which can't be boosted by anything really. You could just throw one or two panic tests at it and watch it run away. It's not entirely unlikely to have happen. You just need to learn your enemy more. For instance i used to not know quite a few factions and now i'm fairly experienced at facing them (lizardmen, O&G, warriors of chaos and old army book for ogres). I still need to face daemons and all elf armies more. I was somewhat familiar with the old high elves before the new army book though.

Are you implying that Duke doesn't know how to play Skaven? Tell us about your personal competitive experience then

LD 8 is suddenly bad, ok, and "just throwing a few panic test" at it certainly is a very good idea. Like, imagine all those armies that can easily spam panic tests. All of them! Sure, you got a 28% chance to succeed. Without BSB. With BSB nearby, panic tests become useless again. Forcing panic tests isn't as easy in WHFB as it is in, e.g., 40k.

To fix Skaven, up the WLC points cost by ~20 pts, make Skaven cost 3 pts / model, rework SiN (e.g. by ignoring the first 3 ranks or sth.)...and fix the basic rules, i.e. limiting max. unit size to ~50, fixing Steadfast etc etc. On a competitive level, Skaven are in dire need of a nerf.

Well i don't exactly have 200, 300 or 400 slave models if that's what you're implying. Most people i play against are just regular players. That said i have played a tournament recently and gotten a bit better. I only get to play about once a week though. My lack of money (read: poor war gamer) prevents my army from being much better than it currently is.

What i do know however is that all these big units you complain about eat it hard against templates and esp. spells that are meant for taking down hordes of guys.

I'm not denying warp lightning cannons are good or the hellpit abomination for that matter. They are good and they always do a good job as long as they make it to combat and hit what they need to (even if charged by cavalry sometimes). Lots of units are like that. I mean even base warriors of chaos or a tooled up daemon prince will munch through most things and have no huge weaknesses for core units. Their stats are so solid all around that your best bet against them is usually either the 13th spell or plague.

I just don't understand why everybody compalins so much about skaven. When i fight warriors of chaos they have few units but even if i make mostly great moves the end result is i'll still be the new guy that dropped the soap in prison shower whenever i face a flying daemon prince with insanely ridiculous stats and gear, warriors of chaos and some gorebeast chariots even. That said it probably didn't help both battle were 'meeting engagement' battles and we had to deploy close to each other so less of my shooting becomes a factor as much as melee would often times and a chariot might outflank at the worst areas for my warp lightning cannons but i don't have much choice if i want line of sight to targets. Of course that was over a month ago and before i learned a lot more about tactics and everything.

I honestly don't know how much Duke knows about skaven but i thought he said a couple battles and i've played as skaven for 3 or more years and since slightly before 8th edition came about and i have an idea of how some things are. If it makes you feel any better frenzy (one of the bigger things in the skaven army) can be used against the skaven player as much as any army. Sure slaves might flee but frenzied units always have to hold, frenzied units have to constantly make tests not to charge things and if they do charge something successfully they absolutely have to pursue or overrun depending on what happens. Not only that but frenzy of all the types of special rules though it gives a couple good things it's a double edged sword big time and when you think about it only gives 1 extra attack or in the case of death frenzy an extra 2 attacks for units in base contact only so supporting attacks usually don't get it.

You can try to panic a unit once per each phase. If you even get guys on the outskirts of an army to run away like i did against an O&G player and ruin their morale (which shouldn't be too hard for skirmishing units that run ahead of the main force as scouts like say gutter runners) then it could seriously ruin somebody battle plan for plenty of stuff. Gutter runners have a maximum of leadership 7 and can't boost it. If you take them as scouts they are just leadership 7 out in the middle of nowhere. One magic missile will probably be enough to send them packing.

Also skaven have some not so good units (doom flayer, plagueclaw catapult) though to be fair considering what happened to the empire mortar the plagueclaw catapult doesn't sound too bad anymore. Still comparing everything against all the nerfs of empire is a bit ridiculous. I suppose my point is more that skaven aren't the most OP faction or at least aren't the only OP faction. Lizardmen with a slann, warriors of chaos and other such armies easily take that place.

So i don't know. Perhaps Duke doesn't know how to counter skaven. Maybe i don't know much on this either.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
Skaven are regarded as OP for the simple fact that they have some remarkably underpriced items, and the entire book is full of bent things. The Grey Seer, Slaves, And most of the rare section sticks out.

Even their scouts are bent/cost effective.. A unit of 9 Gutter Runners can take off a war machine a turn for 162 points. 10 Dark Elf Shades can't do that, and cost 170 points.

Maybe but the gutter runners poisoned shooting is only good so long as it has at least a 6+ to hit and with all the different things happening with moving and shooting and multiple shots it can go away pretty quick esp. if it's at long range or similar. The grey seers though good could never hold a candle to teclis from the previous book (not sure about now) or slann and honestly at least our lores are more balanced than the ones in the BRB. Considering a lot of other armies esp. the lizardmen with their slann can take all those lores i think you're being a bit unfair here. Skaven magic will never be as stupid as say for instance 'lore of life' or in some ways even 'lore of light'.

There aren't spells meant to take out hordes of guys except mega lvl 6 spells and people aren't going to 6 dice miscast to try and kill slaves. It's just not efficient. Unfortunately there's no kill X points of models spells, which would decimate slaves at a reasonable casting cost.

There's some template spells and abilities, but again, not everyone has them and you don't exactly want to use a breath weapon on slaves when you can throw it at something worth 3x as much.

Flame Cage does a pretty good job.
Curse of Anraheir is ok.
Doom and Darkness does wonders to crap troops for knocking down steadfast tests.

If you really want to make skaven cry, get a wind of undeath off. Usually I can hit 4 or more units, and since it's based on unit hit, not models hit, it can decimate skaven pretty quickly.

-Matt

No one takes fire. Or at least with a lord, which you're going to likely need to get and cast cage. Otherwise it's an anti-regen list.

There are spells to hurt mass fodder as I said. Most stuff is just doing hits/wounds which isn't enough to hurt something that hordey and cheap. Or is debuffing them which is usually irrelevant because if they are all 1 stat, they are still as foddery. Or is wiping the whole unit out, which is really hard to cast.

I don't know if the game needs anti-chaff, the units probably just need to be priced upwards a bit. But it is kind of unfluffy that a giant kills 4 mega armored knights and 4 decrepit zombies of sadface with the same blow. That reminds me of whatever 40K rule. If S is 2xT? I can't remember. I'm not sure how you'd implement it without screwing stuff like Empire/HE. Some monster comes in and triple thunderstomps.

DukeRustfield wrote:
No one takes fire. Or at least with a lord, which you're going to likely need to get and cast cage. Otherwise it's an anti-regen list.

I did before the new Daemon book dropped a giant turd on that idea...

I loved combining a Daemon Prince with loremaster Fire + a Tzherald with loremaster Heavens.
Horde units are so much fun when you can slam them with Flamecage + Wind Blast and then sit back and watch the pretty explosions wipe out half or more of a big unit!

Skaven are not overpowered, anyone who played demons of chaos in 7th should probably back off this topic especially.
Skaven are constantly seen as the cheesiest thing in 8th Ed because the rules benefit them and they're massed school buses of dirt cheap troops. Not to mention the silly cheap brass orb as well as WLC and Abom.
Lets look at the Abom, for 250 you get a machine yes, but it could roll up to something and hit everything b2b with it and then get curb stomped..or get eaten alive by warriors, or killed by skinks which happens in the competetive scene because lizards and warriors are both superior armies especially in a North American scene where there are so few willing to build and paint skaven (brawlers bash had 1 skaven player, just as an example). Not to mention against lizard men specifically, skaven magic phase is pretty much non existent, and who here crying op.
In non comp environments I don't think skaven hold a candle to lizardmen, warriors or dare I say dark elves because they spend significantly less on their nasty units and can very literally blow people off the table without much effort.
Again if you played khorne/tzeentch demons in 7th please don't call skaven op

Pogybait wrote:
Skaven are not overpowered, anyone who played demons of chaos in 7th should probably back off this topic especially.
Skaven are constantly seen as the cheesiest thing in 8th Ed because the rules benefit them and they're massed school buses of dirt cheap troops. Not to mention the silly cheap brass orb as well as WLC and Abom.
Lets look at the Abom, for 250 you get a machine yes, but it could roll up to something and hit everything b2b with it and then get curb stomped..or get eaten alive by warriors, or killed by skinks which happens in the competetive scene because lizards and warriors are both superior armies especially in a North American scene where there are so few willing to build and paint skaven (brawlers bash had 1 skaven player, just as an example). Not to mention against lizard men specifically, skaven magic phase is pretty much non existent, and who here crying op.
In non comp environments I don't think skaven hold a candle to lizardmen, warriors or dare I say dark elves because they spend significantly less on their nasty units and can very literally blow people off the table without much effort.
Again if you played khorne/tzeentch demons in 7th please don't call skaven op

Well it's nice to know that my trouble is mostly the factions of armies i've been fighting against. I've mostly been fighting against lizardmen with a super slann, a warriors of chaos player and in the tournament i played i lost against a daemons player and a dark elf player. Other than that i handled the orcs & goblins army in the tournament and the empire army fairly well. Maybe there really is a power level to the armies or some factions are just really good at taking other ones out.

I know people wanted me to just use a spell or a storm banner to pin down the daemon prince and yeah he can be taken down by warp lightning cannons but a 20" march and a 10"+2d6" charge over intervening units is just stupid. Oh i'm sorry you want to bog me down? I guess you can't no matter what you do since i fly over all your guys anyway. Also if i did take the storm banner it'd impact my shooting a ton more than it'd hurt the warriors of chaos player. I suppose in the end i'd really need the 'howling warpgale' skaven spell of ruin but ruin spells are worse vs warriors of chaos mostly. Then if i don't use warpstone tokens to make sure my magic works the opponent's already potent warriors of chaos might get even more buffs. This is considering a dude with 'lore of metal' that at times gives his guys a 'scaly skin 5+ armor save' which gives his mark of khorne warriors a 2+ armor save total. Yeah it's stupid. When you both have augments and he can take the stupidly OP lores from the book and i can't it just ends with me at another disadvantage. I dunno.

I also lack the 200-400 slaves i've been told i apparently need in order to be OP and to curb stomp all my opponents as a skaven player. I lack them because i lack the money. Apparently all skaven players are made out of 2 grand USD.

As far as nagging about skaven goes i still never get the whole complaints about the 13th spell. It only works on infantry models and specifically won't work on anything not classified as such like monstrous infantry, swarms or war beasts. If the 13th spell were as sick as people made it out to be even in 8th when casting the spell was made actually possible beyond a last ditch effort by somebody that couldn't win otherwise (for the most part). It's just not as good as most would think esp. with 8th edition. Plague and possibly wither with it is infinitely better or a combination of a lot of things. However the 13th spell would only be great vs elite units (elves and warriors of chaos mostly). The 13th spell doesn't even really effect ogres. I used to think it did. It made sense to me at the time but nope. Stupid unclear 7th edition army book that supposedly had 8th in mind (but it didn't really for the most part).

Anyway i'm just ranting now. Maybe skaven are OP if you have a bajillion slaves but till i see somebody with that type of army then i can judge. Still i feel like overall skaven aren't OP and if we're doing this we could always say no to the 'witch elf' lists or super slann too.

13th is only really complained about by people who run infantry deathstars like elves or the old chosenstar or 'dickenhofstar' and the like.
Most of the really nasty deathstars nowadays however are either cav buses or monstrous infantry/cav/beasts, meaning 13th is useless against them. Actually, the only time you probably want to take 13th is against an ASF Mindrazzorstar (like Witch Elves or a Spearhorde), or a White Lion/Phoenix Guard bannerstar!

For Skaven, lore of plague is just so much better in terms of its overall utility.

Skaven have so much going for them in 8th but the main points that keep coming up and I agree with are

1,Access to extremely cheap rank and file
2,Decent magic
3,Some of the best rare choices in the game.
4,Some of the best skirmishes in the game
5,Some of the best magic items in the game brass orb,doom rocket etc
6,Access to cheap chaff (rat darts,swarms etc)

They are by no means unbetable but on the over hand the lack any of the rock scissor paper match ups that other armies have to deal with. And on top of everything they are really cheap to collect thanks to the isle of blood.

Experiment 626 wrote:
or 'dickenhofstar' and the like.

The what?!

Skaven spells of ruin can be nice but i'm starting to hate using them again. Skitterleap with 'cracks call' is pretty awesome vs war machines, monstrous infantry, monstrous cavalry, monsters, chariots and sometimes even units of cavalry but it's an initiative check so against anything elf or chaos related it's mostly a waste of time to use cracks call. I remembered the hard way that dark elf hydras with handlers means they take their handlers initiative for initiative checks. Sadly by taking cracks call the only thin according to the spell that it had any use for killing was his one chariot. Don't get me wrong it's a fantastic spell but skaven have no way of lowering initiative in such an insane way. I don't even think i could use gutter runners with snare nets to slow down opponent's initiative and then nuke them in the side with a cracks call. Is that allowed? It might be since it doesn't technically have a spell type but then only augments and hexes tend to go through the normal close combat rules. Then again it could probably hit into a combat. I dunno.

@jubear: The doom rocket is great, brass orb i should probably use again but i keep rolling off target so cracks call tends to be better as i just use more warpstone tokens to get all this off. I'm considering using poisoned wind globadiers with death globes since you can throw it into any combat with a poisoned wind globadier unit and you can buy one per champion that you have. It has the potential for nastiness since it's a 4+ to wound and goes through armor. Definitely has potential to be sick if you can bog down the enemy with hordes first. That said it's one shot and has a pretty terrible range and accuracy. The fellblade has also been called into question on this forum with the d6 wounds business and whether if you take a wound from carrying it if it multiplies to d6 wounds. We think that's stupidly harmful to the wielder but we aren't sure if it's true or not since it hasn't been FAQ'd to not do so.

I'm curious as to how i should use rat swarms effectively. They're 25 pts per model. I should need them anyway for my hellpit abomination though. Thing about rat swarms is that they are small and don't block line of sight for shooting. That said most swarms wouldn't anyway. Also they're unstable and unbreakable but i figure they could lose combats easily. I'd prefer to use them to protect weapons teams from melee units esp. in the case of people trying to kill my war machines. I still would probably be careful with rat darts just because they could panic each other though they probably have enough room not to. Also they shouldn't have anything like swiftstride so it's a long way up to not do very much. Any leadership checks made will most likely fail and one stray shot will send them packing but then i suppose they're cheap as dirt so whatever. Just wish i had more of them on hand and that they were easier to get.

I always thought lizardmen had the best skirmishers in the game. Tons of poisoned shooting with a unit that can't take fights in melee but like most skirmishers would fail them anyway. As far as plague censer bearers i'm unsure what to think of them. Considering charging doesn't allow you to strike first like it did in 7th, the fact that you can't negate steadfast with skirmishing units though it's easier in forests or rivers and the fact they're so fragile to some spells and missile weapons makes things difficult. Also it's a mixed blessing and usually a curse that their weapons are considered magic weapons as then you can't use 'bless with filth' to poison them in combat which would be perfect considering all the attacks and hatred that they have. I suppose withering an enemy would help before plague censers have their way with them though since it is based on toughness tests with no armor saves allowed.

I won't deny that bit about some of the best rare choices. They do a lot but all armies have some class of unit that does the most for them. Some armies are more core heavy with their potent weapons and some have their rares for hard hitting.

No denying the rank and file either. We lack mostly decent WS and BS though. With strength, toughness, WS and BS 3's for most things and 4's for the very elite are the best we get.

BRB magic is stupid strong. Skaven magic doesn't compliment itself in the way hexing your enemy to be much lower in initiative and then nuking them with an initiative test ability would. Same goes for most characteristic tests. Best thing we've got is plague after using wither and it doesn't have the potency of some of the more stupid BRB lores. Meh at least wither lasts all game, stacks and can't be dispelled. It's still one casting on one unit per friendly magic phase so it could take a while.

NickF509 wrote:
Skaven are op because they have no weaknesses.

Give the man a medal, he's hit it on the head. Skaven have at least three answers to every possible problem. You don't even have to really think about it while making a list, and there's no Achilles heel.

I'm actually sorely tempted not to play against this book anymore. Luckily, at the moment I don't have to make that choice since everyone plays something else here. For the time being.

I'm not sure what this comparison with others is supposed to tell us. Let's assume Lizards are OP, and Skaven could not "hold a candle" to them, so what? Are you actually asking for your book to get a 7th ed DoC treatment? Puh-lease. Better BS and WS, seriously? I've had a 150 model army (2*50 Halbs, 40 GS, DGK) fall apart under Skaven shooting within two turns.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Strength in numbers is only effective if skaven can count ranks. This means when they are fleeing they don't count ranks, when they are in forests they can't be steadfast (i think you can still count ranks for leadership but if you're not steadfast it doesn't even matter) and rivers where you lose ranks and can never be steadfast.

Ah, so if you chose to play them really stupid and not use their strength on purpose they are bad. I see. That's simply not convincing. You do realize it's the majority in a wood, right? How do you get the majority of 100 models into a normal wood?

Why can you not count ranks when fleeing?

Not only that but for units like skirmishers and scouts (the thing that gives skaven any speed remotely in its army) they are generally far away from the general or don't count ranks or both.

M 5-6 is quite decent. Skitterleap is awesome. Coming in from behind the warmachines reduces the need for speed, and so do underpriced magic cannonmortars. A Stormbanner is the ideal protection for the one turn you need against shooting; both Lizards and WoC have to suffer much longer. The living carpet of gribblies just sucks up casualties.

I've played against them with a bunch of warmachines, 3 mortars and a Rocket Battery, multiple cannon, all the stuff you mention, countless times (at least 60 times in 8th, possibly more), and it was usually futile.

The fact skaven need their general, ranks and BSB for leadership means that everything you face will be in a big ball.

Just make an army where 80 percent is ItP/unbreakable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I still think skaven spells mostly aren't that big of a deal. We have no lore attribute, no signature spells we can use multiples of per turn and we have no boosted versions of our spells. This means instead of having 2 or 3 versions of a more powerful scorch we instead have a 24" small blast flame template.

Every single limitation is apparently lifted for Skaven, and the fact that something like Death Frenzy is factually RiP, yet can never ever be dispelled is simply ridiculous. Have you seen what a horde of Slaves (!) with that and spears does to your usual 40, 50 core infantry unit?

Okay, so 13th doesn't work against cavalry, hey-ho. Pit doesn't work well against HE or WoC, either, and Dweller's doesn't work well against Monsters, yet nobody says they're not good. The fact that some Skaven spells have some drawback doesn't mean anything.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Abombs got a lot worse with step up and supporting attacks. T5 regen isn't as tough with 2 ranks swinging on you.

Rubbish. Very, very little is going to cause any noticeable damage with 8 attacks. Of course it's not as if nothing could ever kill an Abom in CC but everything that can and goes at the same time or later or fails to kill it is going to suffer. You only have one BotEF, and if that is on the other flank...and nobody (except some Ogres and Loremasters) takes Fire these days.

Slaves are awesome, but critically need the generals leadership, which tends to crowd them around the center. They also can't take a flank charge, which other crap buses can.

Halberdiers need the General's Ld, as do Goblins, Spear Elves, Men-at-Arms, Pistoliers...probably over half the units need that. Just look at how spiteful people treat someone who didn't hold on steadfast Ld 7 - huge mistake.

And when we get to Ld 8, those guys often can't take a flank charge either. Those vaunted underpriced Warriors will just be run down. Protecting one's flanks is a relevant consideration for everyone who isn't a Steam Tank.

the Bell (and furnace) still have a rule where it can be singled out with shooting.

No, they do not.

Why can you not count ranks when fleeing?

Fleeing units don't have ranks

Every single limitation is apparently lifted for Skaven, and the fact that something like Death Frenzy is factually RiP, yet can never ever be dispelled is simply ridiculous. Have you seen what a horde of Slaves (!) with that and spears does to your usual 40, 50 core infantry unit?

Death Frenzy is RiP until you lose a CC round, so it usually lasts 1 CC phase except if you're facing squishy opponents

Okay, so 13th doesn't work against cavalry, hey-ho. Pit doesn't work well against HE or WoC, either, and Dweller's doesn't work well against Monsters, yet nobody says they're not good. The fact that some Skaven spells have some drawback doesn't mean anything.

13th is indeed a very powerful spell, and it is also the hardest spell to cast in the entire game with a somewhat short range ("only" 24, when Final can easily be boosted to 36)
Any smart opponent will keep his dispell scroll for it, so you will need to cast it 3 or 4 times to have it go off once (bar a double 6 of course)

Rubbish. Very, very little is going to cause any noticeable damage with 8 attacks. Of course it's not as if nothing could ever kill an Abom in CC but everything that can and goes at the same time or later or fails to kill it is going to suffer. You only have one BotEF, and if that is on the other flank...and nobody (except some Ogres and Loremasters) takes Fire these days.

Abombs are indeed very powerful against troops, which means they will get slaughtered in the current meta as they will get punched by Chickens, Chimeras, Princes ... (they're not fast enough to avoid them)

Slaves are awesome

Yes they are, nothing to say to it ... But if your opponent gets one slightly lucky (easy if you have a Bell) cannon shot, your slaves are not that good anymore (and Lore of Tzeench is awesome against Skaven just for Treason)

the Bell (and furnace) still have a rule where it can be singled out with shooting.

No, they do not.

Yes they do

TanKoL wrote:

Fleeing units don't have ranks

Yeah, big deal.

Death Frenzy is RiP until you lose a CC round, so it usually lasts 1 CC phase except if you're facing squishy opponents

No, DF is not RiP. You know full well that no spell fits a category. What is usual? Skeletons? Archers? State troops? Goblins?

All of these are likely to get crushed by DF'ed Slaves, and against anything harder the Skaven player can simply opt to cast something else and go bus, so there's really no drawback.

13th is indeed a very powerful spell, and it is also the hardest spell to cast in the entire game ...

Something which is very easily circumvented with a Power Scroll. Also, that VC magic vortex has complexity 25 I gather (not that this matters).

Any smart opponent will keep his dispell scroll for it, so you will need to cast it 3 or 4 times to have it go off once (bar a double 6 of course)

Perhaps he will, perhaps he won't. Perhaps he's so dumb he doesn't know the opposition has the Power Scroll, perhaps he's got a situation elsewhere. It's quite easy to imagine a critical Skitterleap or Cracks Call. I'm sorry I'm not so smart and won't use my scroll on that Call winding its way to my STank or cannon battery. And all of that is before we consider that some of us get bored using the same aulde net lists over and over again.

Please don't get me wrong, I am fully aware of I sound, and that the usual response will be "Your mistake to try something different, dunce". In fact, I've only once been hit by 13th, and it wasn't even game-changing. My point is that Skaven magic is neither bad nor a good enough reason why the book would direly need improvement. That's hilarious.

Abombs are indeed very powerful against troops, which means they will get slaughtered in the current meta as they will get punched by Chickens, Chimeras, Princes ... (they're not fast enough to avoid them)

A bold claim. Demigryphs do 2 wounds. With the chance for a score of autohitting, high-strength, armour-ignoring attacks, some of them causing multi-wounds you're welcome to try your luck. Even Demis with the BotEF could very easily get crushed. And the Skaven player can dictate whether they get into combat because he simply outdeploys Empire with Ratdarts or other stuff.

Flyers? Hahahahaha....Skaven just snip their fingers and ground them. Okay, okay, 'scuse the vitriol, it doesn't work the whole game, and flyers ARE better but then the Chimera has to survive the WLC, avoid any DW AND goes second. Again, S6, some of which autohit, some of which ignore armour, some of which cause multiple wounds. And the Chimera costs more to boot.

Much of this applies to a DP as well. He's pretty much immune to the Ini test, which is cool but still. Four wounds, double the points, usually no flaming attacks...how many wounds is HE going to cause?

Yes they do

No. Shots will be randomized between rider and Bell while templates hit both. You cannot single out the Bell.

Having said all this, these are just the usual culprits. They're bad enough on their own to make me very, very unhappy (does it show?). Even more irksome are all the little details: The weapon teams, the Brass Orb, the Rocket, the DW, neither is a warmachine, so forget the Iron Curse. Skirmishers that cannot just come in from behind but actually get a ward save. Monsters that absolutely need to be unique, so no Wolfheart or whatever there is against monsters. Special rules for the Giant Rats, the Bonebreaker who shreds characters who aren't VC Blender Lords, Warptokens, Fellblade for MC, Assassins, unbreakable stuff, random movement for no charge reactions...and all of that is topped off with rules so flawed that they needed the biggest FAQ in the history of WFB.

was meaning you can single out the Bell from the unit it is in

Oh, I see, sorry for the misunderstanding.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
or 'dickenhofstar' and the like.

The what?!

The old VC staple deathstar that was;
Vamp Lord w/Loremaster - lore of light + other gear
Wight King BSB w/Drakenhof Banner
1-2+ Support characters (ie: thrall vampire, but more like a pair of Necros w/Book of Arkhan & Periapt)
40+ Grave Guard w/great weapons + Banner of the Barrows

So basically, you had a unit with unit-wide Regen, magical attacks + killing blow from all the wights AND every spell from the Lore of Light in order to hit your deathstar with the 'ol Speed of Light + Timewarp combo for +1A/ASF WS10/I10 that hit at S6...

Yeap, filthy, awful, disgusting power gaming at it's finest! Even Skaven hated it because the unit was still insane just in terms of it's sheer resiliency - all those single D6 castings of Invocation to bring back D6 models per cast and regen combined with T4/ItP... Pretty much just smashed most anything Skaven could throw at it and was easier to deal with by simply Power Scrolling 13th and hoping for a high roll to remove about half the unit before lighting it up with your entire shooting phase!
It was typically flanked by a horde of Ghouls + another unit to flavour, with chaff provided by Spirit Host swarms and Fell Bats.

It earned the name 'Dickenhof' because it was pretty unkillable and it was likely the outright hardest deathstar build at the time.


Of course, VC players had to be somewhat forgiven for using it, because at the time (ie: before their 8th ed book) Undead had just been 100% nerfed beyond the grave by changes to the core rules!
Fear being hit hard and being almost worthless for most undead, step-up rule, everyone else gaining BSB + Steadfast, general costs of undead themselves... (ie: Skeletons were 8pts/model at the time for what it still one of the weakest units, while Zombies were a staggering 4pts/model for S2/T2/unstable unit!)

The entire VC book was pretty much reduced to just Ghouls, Grave Guard, Black Knights, Spirit Hosts, Fell Bats & the Rare section!

I want to find some of these gentlemen who are rocking these 100+ slave units, I almost got driven insane painting 120 of them. It seems to me that a lot of people think that Skaven are conceptually OP, they are, on paper, a horde of unbreakable infantry, unstoppable shooting, immortal skirmishers who can have a greater daemon begging for its mama. I feel many of these people haven't played a lot of games against Skaven, or are just refusing to think of them in the same way they would think of any other army. Mike der Ritter, I would recommend trying to find some Skaven players to play because for someone who is on the brink of refusing to play against the book, you said no one in your area plays Skaven. After all I have never heard about a Rat Ogre Bone Breaker Warlord, "Chewing" through characters except blender lords, if they did my games against tooled up Dwarfs just got a lot easier. Also our cannon of variable strength sometimes feels... random almost, most of the frightening Skaven toys have a propensity to blow themselves up in a glorious fashion, that and I have never had a game where anyone had considerable trouble putting an Abomb down, they are monsters, strong monsters, but canons and a ton of repeater crossbowmen, will still take them to the cleaners. If cheap units are a sign of being overpowered, then any army with access to them must be top tier, Vampiers, ogres, O&G, TK, and even Empire. Whenever another army with poor leadership brings out a list the first thing everyone says is, "Target the BSB", it always seems that no one considers doing this to Skaven, we need our BSB too.

I don't need to admit that Skaven are strong, they are. I don't have to defend them from being top tier, they are. However they are not immune to the same weaknesses that other armies face, though i disagree with the Skaven player deflecting peoples claims with "WE aren't OP... look how OP that thing over there is". Our units have great synergy and we have a lot of tools at our disposal, but at the same time most of our strongest weapons are completely random, hurt the user, kill our own models, or rely on raw luck to function. Some of these complaints have made me feel like the unluckiest Skaven player in the universe, I have missed Doomrockets and Brass orbs, I have been flank charged and lost entire units, I have had my magic do nothing an entire game, Skaven are an army, they can be beaten lie any other, generalship is still the most important thing in this game, especialy when your army is so random.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
or 'dickenhofstar' and the like.

The what?!

The old VC staple deathstar that was;
Vamp Lord w/Loremaster - lore of light + other gear
Wight King BSB w/Drakenhof Banner
1-2+ Support characters (ie: thrall vampire, but more like a pair of Necros w/Book of Arkhan & Periapt)
40+ Grave Guard w/great weapons + Banner of the Barrows

So basically, you had a unit with unit-wide Regen, magical attacks + killing blow from all the wights AND every spell from the Lore of Light in order to hit your deathstar with the 'ol Speed of Light + Timewarp combo for +1A/ASF WS10/I10 that hit at S6...

Yeap, filthy, awful, disgusting power gaming at it's finest! Even Skaven hated it because the unit was still insane just in terms of it's sheer resiliency - all those single D6 castings of Invocation to bring back D6 models per cast and regen combined with T4/ItP... Pretty much just smashed most anything Skaven could throw at it and was easier to deal with by simply Power Scrolling 13th and hoping for a high roll to remove about half the unit before lighting it up with your entire shooting phase!
It was typically flanked by a horde of Ghouls + another unit to flavour, with chaff provided by Spirit Host swarms and Fell Bats.

It earned the name 'Dickenhof' because it was pretty unkillable and it was likely the outright hardest deathstar build at the time.


Of course, VC players had to be somewhat forgiven for using it, because at the time (ie: before their 8th ed book) Undead had just been 100% nerfed beyond the grave by changes to the core rules!
Fear being hit hard and being almost worthless for most undead, step-up rule, everyone else gaining BSB + Steadfast, general costs of undead themselves... (ie: Skeletons were 8pts/model at the time for what it still one of the weakest units, while Zombies were a staggering 4pts/model for S2/T2/unstable unit!)

The entire VC book was pretty much reduced to just Ghouls, Grave Guard, Black Knights, Spirit Hosts, Fell Bats & the Rare section!

Oh i was somewhat aware of that vampire counts thing. I know of people that used the helm of commandment on some vampire hero possibly a lord and with the 8th magic items you could give them fencer's blades for auto WS 10 on the grave guard or any real unit within 12" of the character as long as he doesn't get stuck in melee or something. The thing you mentioned though sounds even sicker though if you have fencer's blades on the lord and the helm of commandment you don't need that light spell that makes you WS 10. Also i'm pretty sure the vampire counts still had vanhel's danse macabre too to give ASF and re-rolls to hit or something. Your version still sounds much dumber though (OP dumb).

If i remember though i could be wrong blood knights were sick back then. Now they're not as big of a deal. Skeletons sucked sure but the potency of skeletons before was that with certain vampire bloodlines you could basically raise skeletons and stuff.

Oddly enough it seems like zombies are replacing skeletons as the big units from what i gather from looking at the previous army book to the current one. The points decrease is huge now for both skeletons and zombies and zombies strike last usually (but they would anyway and are super easy to bring back in comparison and can be risen beyond starting size. Then there's the deal with zombies getting boosted stats and you can rise them beyond starting size without any vampiric powers.

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Just gonna say this Mike. If you're worried about a doom rocket anything then remember that unless there's multiple skitterleap'ing grey seers you probably won't have to deal with skitterleap more than once per turn. I would probably go double skitterleap myself because the 13th spell seems so finicky (you can substitute skitterleap or the 13th spell with a grey seer).

My point for the combo i mentioned is that wither with plague as a spell combo is nothing like somebody reducing your stats by D3 and then nuking you with a characteristic test type spell. This is worse than wither and plague combined could ever hope to be.

Most skaven spells can only be taken once unless substituted and we have no equivalent for a 'lore trait' that boosts our spells or does something and we don't have an equivalent for a 'signature' spell in that we can have certain wizards all substitute a spell and all ones of that type can do it but our wizard can't cast that spell multiple times per turn which is totally unlike other signature spells wizards can take since that makes it not as good for the most part.

Anyway skaven magic isn't bad and it is good but it isn't fantastic.

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I won't lie skaven are great it's just slann with skink mass or WoC can torch us pretty hard. I'm just don't know why skaven get all the bad rap they get. They deserve a bit of it but so do other factions. No reason to just pick on skaven.

I too would like to see these players with multiple hundreds of slaves. Considering my work and the amount of money i have i don't understand how they manage it. I can only imagine what transporting all those dudes must be like.

Honestly if i were to go another fantasy faction it'd be vampire counts or beastmen. I'd go vampire counts but i'm tired of horde armies and need some variety too and i'd play beastmen but i heard they were very poor. Still the ghorgon and minotaurs look cool. I think i'll go dark eldar in the future.

Sorry for that bit of off topic but i'm kind of unsure about what armies to do next. I don't want to play an army people say is OP but the funny thing is i played imperial guard in 40k back before 5th edition and before the current guard codex and let me tell you they were under-powered before they were made OP. Somehow though i still got people claiming i played guard because they were OP whether they knew when i started them or not (back when we only had hellhounds rather than 3 variants of them and 2 types of leman russ only instead of like 7 and we could only choose 3 tanks, vets were elites but could infiltrate and we relied on doctrines instead of orders).

I dunno i don't want to play an under-powered army but i don't want to play an OP army either for the looks i'll get and the feeling like i didn't work for my win or use skill.

What armies do you guys think are somewhere in the middle? A power scale of the armies is always appreciated though i've seen many people throw their's out.

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@sandant: Wait so mike der ritter doesn't even play against skaven he just hears they're bad? Wow that's just stupid! I won't lie we have some ridiculousness but why rage so hard for something you can't even see in action and play against?

Anyway if i fought with 400 slaves i should get no dirty looks mostly because how long it'd take to paint, put together and to buy all those models. I'd spend over a thousand dollars for fodder. I'd probably hate myself so much at that point before playing you for having bought that many dudes that i'd kill myself for you. After that you could consider my death me conceding defeat. Sheesh. Playing skaven pretty much ripped out any interest i had left for playing an army that goes in hordes.

Experiment 626 wrote:
I loved combining a Daemon Prince with loremaster Fire + a Tzherald

That's not a lvl 4, now is it. No one is spending 350+ pts on a Fire lord when they could get...almost anything else. The lore simply isn't that great compared to the alternatives.

to be fair.... the "Achilles Heel" for the Skaven is usually their own stuff. I have had quite a few games where my own stuff (WFT, WLC, other weapon teams) have decided to backfire and blow up part of my army, then cause the rest to panic and run off... lol. Skaven be fun.

 caledoneus wrote:
to be fair.... the "Achilles Heel" for the Skaven is usually their own stuff. I have had quite a few games where my own stuff (WFT, WLC, other weapon teams) have decided to backfire and blow up part of my army, then cause the rest to panic and run off... lol. Skaven be fun.

But come on man, there's no counter-play to that. If the only way to win against Skaven is to hope they roll a 1, there's something wrong. I know the phrase "only way to win" is exaggerated, but still. A "weakness" is sort-of inherently something that can be taken advantage of by an opponent. If an opponent can't take advantage of it, it's not a weakness in any practical sense, and you can't take advantage of the fact that a Doomrocket MIGHT kill friendly Skaven.

That being said, I'm not saying that I think Skaven are OP. Just making the above point.

This is true, but when an army, in and of itself, has a fairly good chance of completly self destructing simply through firing its own guns, I would have to call it a weakness, its just not one that your opponent has to focus on and try to make happen. Will come around on its own... That being said, I agree that Skaven are not really OP for competative play.... Lizzies are way worse with super-crazy caster slann, Ect...

 sandant wrote:

I feel many of these people haven't played a lot of games against Skaven, or are just refusing to think of them in the same way they would think of any other army. Mike der Ritter, I would recommend trying to find some Skaven players to play because for someone who is on the brink of refusing to play against the book, you said no one in your area plays Skaven.

I feel many of you would be well-advised to ever play with Skaven before claiming they're too weak, but hey, feelings. *wink*

I have played at the very minimum 60 games against various Skaven players, probably a lot more. I've played against one guy since 7th. There were two Skaven lists in last season's League, too, and they're ranking #1 and #2. I think I know how they play. :-)

I'm a happy man because currently in a new group people play everything but. I know I'm ranting and letting some steam off here but I can't help that sinking feeling when I know I'm up against them. Perhaps I wouldn't be so aggrieved if I would only play against them once in a while. Having said that, people on Ulthuan are just as biased and defensive about their army being so weak, which puts me off just as much. :-)

After all I have never heard about a Rat Ogre Bone Breaker Warlord, "Chewing" through characters except blender lords

They have no problems here to kill almost any Empire character. I've not once seen anything but the odd weapon team blow up in the last 60, 70 games.

I agree with you, almost everyone relies on the BSB. The argument someone made was that Skaven are not OP because they rely on their BSB.

Well, as to skaven being "weak," that is crazy too... Skaven are not weak, nor are they OP.... I think they are decently balanced.... considering how GW defines "balance." A weak army would be Wood Elves.... or Beastmen.... Or Brets.... They all need some serious updating to make them worth anything. Skaven on the other hand, could use a few updates to their magic (give types) and some minor tweaks to be as well balanced as you could ask for.. at least IMHO

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Just gonna say this Mike. If you're worried about a doom rocket anything then remember that unless there's multiple skitterleap'ing grey seers you probably won't have to deal with skitterleap more than once per turn.

And? It's rare that I have to deal with multiple same spells regardless (Invo excepted).

It's not the Doomrocket. It's not Skitterleap, and it's not the 13th, nor masses, Ld, chaff & chaff removal, speed & mobility, hard-hitters and great anvils, it's all of that together. They can cope with nearly everything, in every phase. Those fearsome Warriors are laughably easy to swamp - Slaves are simply better in combat.

I'm not saying units of 100 are all there is either. I've seen plenty of lists with multiple units of 40, or even no Slaves at all. Ive seen double Abom, double WLC, the Plague Monk horde with their re-roll banner, MSU with max weapon teams, Rattacus with 350 models, hordes of ROgres, units with Regen from Queek, and everything in between. Transporting is quite possible with the right trays, although one guy now only plays them at his place and brings HE when he travels!

I'd be very happy with a true signature spell and an attribute if I'm allowed to dispell Death Frenzy and everything would follow standard rules. Having to keep track of everything to deflect the next "Haha, new FAQ"-trick sprung is tedious enough.

I'm also happy to hear WoC give them trouble; I've started those last year! :-)

Sorry for that bit of off topic but i'm kind of unsure about what armies to do next. I don't want to play an army people say is OP but the funny thing is i played imperial guard in 40k back before 5th edition and before the current guard codex and let me tell you they were under-powered before they were made OP. Somehow though i still got people claiming i played guard because they were OP whether they knew when i started them or not (back when we only had hellhounds rather than 3 variants of them and 2 types of leman russ only instead of like 7 and we could only choose 3 tanks, vets were elites but could infiltrate and we relied on doctrines instead of orders).

I used to play His Majesty's Most Glorious Imperial Guard between 2nd - 5th edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 caledoneus wrote:
This is true, but when an army, in and of itself, has a fairly good chance of completly self destructing

Sorry, bunch of malarky. Or an urban legend, whatever you prefer.

I think that uncomped Skaven are indeed too good (and I play them since 4th), just like uncomped Slaans / Dark Elves are filthy as Nurgle in a flatulent day.

I would say that a lot of the hate comes from the fact that Skavens basically don't play the same game as the other armies in 8th edition meta:
- High armour save meta and/or multi-wounds MC? We got ignore AS all over the place! and D6 wounds as well
- Elite hordes and ubber-killy beasts/characters? We got legions of Slaves!

To be perfectly honest, my usual army has three main weaknesses:
- over-reliance on General + BSB for holding the line, they're not "very" easy to kill, but they're not 1+ / 3++ either
- difficult to "finish off" enemies and do a clean mop-up (ok, I usually won the game already there, but it costs loads of VPs not to be able to finish units)
- traffic jam in my deployment zone as I have to pack my units close together to protect cannons & bunker > hard to answer to a bad turn of events

 caledoneus wrote:
Will come around on its own...

But what if it doesn't? The point is that you can't make it happen, nor can you force your opponent into positions where they have to make it happen themselves. It doesn't always come around on its own, and the point is whether or not you want to play a game where you and I sit across from each other at an empty table and take turns rolling a single d6 until one of us rolls a 1, and that's the guy who loses.

@ Mike, wait so now I'm confused you played 60 games at least against Skaven, but only 1 game since 7th edition? Also, I think you play against the luckiest Skaven player in the world, my cannons self destructing or overloading into something is a regular occurrence, my Warpfire throwers have run straight into the flank of my Stormvermin then detonated. Also if you have played against huge of a variety of Skaven builds and still feel the army is overpowered, I am just not sure what to say, I try to encourage people to take half the builds you mentioned to add some variety to the Skaven player's builds, However if a warlords on a Bonebreaker, a rat ogre pack with Skweel, bells, plague monks, HPA, slaves, weapon teams, cannons, BSB's, are ALL overpowered, the I think that you may be looking at this with a bit of bias, and this is coming from a Skaven player trying to defend his army.

To re-phrase once again, I believe Skaven are very powerful, I believe that they(and most armies) ought to be comped in tournament play to ensure balance and fun, but to examine the meaning of OVER powered, to be dominate in almost every aspect, to be in a point where they are so strong that they are superior to ALL other armies, that is the definition of OP, and if our judge of this is to claim the army doesn't have a "weakness" then good, no army should have a giant weakness, or one that can't be overcome, that is just bad game design. Ogres have very good all round stats, they are fast and strong, with a crappy WS and LD, I don't complain that their powerful shooting makes it so they have no weakness. Empire can be so flexible that it is arguable they have no REAL weakness. Now I hope that as you read that you were preparing retorts to explain to silly old Sandant how those armies DO have weaknesses, and were preparing to write down what those would be and post it here, to that I say good, now apply that to Skaven instead of treating them like an unstoppable juggernaut.