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Eh...I guess they're pretty durable. Except they're still going to bite it in combat versus a distressingly large number of opponents. Their main purpose seems to be to tip the scales in a combat between Clanrats/Slaves and other weak troops.

My Skaven shooting usually consists of a Cannon or two and 5 Gutter Runners, but I've also done zero shooting (Furnace, A-bomb, R'Ogres)...except for my Doomrocket. Which becomes an even dirtier trick, in that context. "Oh, I'm sorry, you thought my list had a theme?"

Lately i'm running pretty magic heavy with a level 4 grey seer and 2 level 2 warlocks. Kind of crazy all the magic they can pull off and plenty of variety in their spells.

Combine this with skitterleaping my seer into some gutter runners and hexing enemies while buffing them and suddenly the gutter runners can become a nice death unit. I mean I wouldn't throw out the idea of how nice gutter runners with poisoned slings can be vs units that have been lowered to toughness 3 or 2 and themselves been buffed with bless with filth provided it goes off. Of course then you also have plague that you can cast out at the enemy and that'd be fantastic. This is of course assuming you roll up all those spells but you should be in range for quite a few of them.

Then there's all the spells i'll have with the warlocks and how they'll probably get cracks call too. They are also much more disposable than my grey seer. Problem so far is that the grey seer needs to go out and do some damage so I think skitterleaping him into gutter runners is a mixture of a good and a bad idea. Still wouldn't be pretty if I miscasted and blew up the unit so I may very well have to give him that re-rolling first miscast staff for some help. I could run the dispel scroll on the warlocks in this case.

I may use slaves with slings again it's just they have no real use beyond a few things. Perhaps if I had them below the war machines. I suppose warp lightning cannons are higher up than the slaves anyway so I should be ok. I still think I should take the ratling gun to face chaff and use something to cover it till it can shoot whether that's slaves with slings or a small clanrat unit. I've also had some pretty unlucky shooting phases where I roll a double on two dice several times in a row and it shoots me. Sheesh you'd be surprised how many times they misfire. They're nice when they work though. Still not as great as warpfire throwers by a long shot but it is nice to wound a few guys more than once esp. skirmishers.

I used to run a Seer + a lvl2 Engineer + a level 2 Priest back in 7th, when Wizard levels+2 = Power dice.
In 8th, I think it's less advantageous, but 8 spells is still quite nice, as is the extra slots for magic tricks.

I'm pretty sure that anything becomes "a nice death unit" when you've cast 2 or 3 spells on them and their target. I've convinced players to avoid charging my slaves, after Death Frenzy and Bless With Filth.

I'd only ever send the Seer out into a frail unit like Gutter Runners if your opponent doesn't have any more chaff-hunting units/shooting/magic missiles.

Honestly, if you want something to deal with chaff, consider the humble rat-dart once more. It'll only stop them for a turn or two, but then you use those turns to shoot those units with the cannons the rats are protecting.

Ratling Guns have a 1:36 chance to misfire on two dice, and a...9:108 chance on 3 dice, I believe.
Comparing them to Warpfire Throwers is apples and oranges, though. Templates are more effective against larger units, where D6 shots are way better against smaller ones. The Ratling Gun is a better Team for clearing chaff any day of the week; not only is it 15pts cheaper, but if I have a Warpfire Thrower, I'm going to want to use it on the Gutstar, not the lone Sabretusk.

So more ideas. I've stopped running weapons teams not because they're random and not because they are sometimes effective but often blow up so much that it hampers my army for several reasons. First off the way I play I tend to go more stationary though I probably shouldn't. The big problem however is that weapons teams get sniped. It doesn't matter if they get screened by slaves or anything. Somebody will use magic, shooting or something weird to kill them and they die to a slight breeze. Seriously one wound with heavy armor and a 4+ ward save if you stay within 3" of the parent unit does not equal ideal. This is a problem because most enemy shooting with a decent amount of shots can stay out of range of most if not all of the weapons teams without endangering itself to any of them. This is incredibly frustrating to see my weapons teams get picked off. Sure I could probably use cover to block line of sight but you have to understand that this means my clanrats have to deploy near them and probably away from my main battleline. This means if my clanrats panic they panic too and if any panics are suffered out there then I have to test away from my general and BSB. As it stands this is very terrible in every single way. My weapons teams have been shot and killed by archers, magic, multiple shot bolt thrower shots and magical results from the chaos daemons table which aren't even magic themselves. In short weapons teams are a waste of points better spent elsewhere.

So today I instead replaced all my weapons teams with better stuff. I gave a magic resistance (3) amulet to my warlord which is then given to his whole unit for spells. This is huge if my plagues should ever backfire onto my stormvermin as it means 50% less casualties by giving them a 4+ ward save. Also if any enemy should try to use magic that allows a save of some kind they still have a 4+ ward save and if anything targets characters my warlord and chieftain have a 4+ ward save each, heavy armor each and a the magic resistance (3) amulet on the warlord to give them each a 2+ ward save vs magic. This is actually a worthy buy for just 45 pts for me to add to the list.

For the other guys i'm starting to think about using either jezzails or poisoned wind globadiers. My main problem currently is actually knights so I think I will use jezzails. Jezzails will get hurt badly though so I may very well take a warlock with the shadow magnet trinket to go with them and try for 'howling warpgale' during the magic phase. I will also try to stick to woods or buildings if at all possible. The negative modifiers for enemies to hit should be pretty good.

What bothers me about weapons teams is that skaven shooting can be decent and maybe I've gotten unlucky with opponents going first and sniping my weapons teams with infinite high ground from some bolt thrower on a hill or shooting skirmishers/light cavalry or something. However skaven seem to be too slow to keep up with most opponents without having other units protect the rest of their battle line.

Anyway I plan on getting more gutter runners in the future and possibly some rat swarms. Rat swarms seem like really good war machine killers in groups of 2-3 with 2 groups total for 4-6 rat swarms in a list I think they can do alright. They don't need a general or BSB to be ok.

So yeah more gutter runners (2 groups of 10 each for a total of 20 with poisoned attacks and slings), a bunch of jezzails, 2 warp lightning cannons, maybe some other rare choices and mostly horde tactics and magic for everything else. I think this should make my army pretty freaking solid at this point.

I've found that Weapon Teams are usually best deployed in-between units in the second wave.

The key to Skaven is target saturation. Every spell or volley of arrows that targets your Weapon Teams is one that wasn't targeting your cannons or A-bomb or what-have-you. Present them with too many options to deal with, and use whatever gets through.

More importantly than anything, though, is that Weapon Teams are a gamble. You spend 50-100 points on them, and then stop expecting anything of them whatsoever. Take them out of your plans entirely. If they work, it's a bonus that helps your army along. If they don't you're no worse off than you were a moment ago.

Didn't your Warlord have a Talisman before that?

I also wouldn't recommend putting any more points into a unit of Jezzails. They'll die in droves, or they won't be targeted. Small units have worked best for me in the past.