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I played against some dark elves with a vermin lord in some place. The game was good and the vermin lord lasted till his 4th turn shooting phase (he basically forgot one shooting phase and my storm banner locked him out the first shooting phase he had though sadly he got first turn). My opponent had the most pathetic magic phases for 3-4 turns. My vermin lord sorta under-performed in my magic phase as well sadly but i did kill some stuff with him. I was more annoyed i had a really good chance of killing his sorceress level 4 wizard and failed at it. It had only one wound left.

The gutter runners also took their time in showing up and also under-performed (one squad panicked off the board after doing some damage and the other squad did damage and then melee'd a bolt thrower to death and ran into another). Those bolt throwers were pegging my vermin lord fairly hard as you guys mentioned and my 1 turn storm banner didn't help.

If the 50% of lords and heroes thing happens (it has in the FAQ or so i heard) maybe i should take a warlord with flying carpet and shield of ptolos or armor of silvered steel and go war machine hunting. That said skitterleap would help a ton but normally i figure the vermin lord does better with plague magic (usually easily getting somewhere to cast 'cloud of corruption', plague and other short ranged plague spells).

In my opinion Rat Ogres are needed as a soak shield to either type of Verminlord. Rat Ogres dont cost much for what you get: a few hulking models to sponge warmachine hits so your Verminlord can get into melee.

Once in melee, and supporting your rat horde, the Verminlord's stats work for themselves.