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You want to be starting with at least 120 rats, bare minimum. That's if you want to have a lot of bigger stuff on top of them, doomwheels/hellpit abominations/whatever else is good in the meta. 200 clanrats costs 1000 points which still leaves you a ton of points left over. Make 40 of them stormvermin for a big boost and that's 1300, and anything from then on is golden.
Honestly Clanrats at max unit size are kinda way better than I expected them to be, and stormvermin can hit like nobody's business.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I have a strong impression that the best builds will start with 3 units of 40 clanrats (potentially replacing one with a max stormvermin unit instead), or 3 units of 40 plague monks if running pestilens. 20 clanrats just lacks any real hitting power, especially after they lose one model and thus their hit bonus. 40 is way more than double the effectiveness AND costs less than double the points. They are +1 to hit and wound, and from experience I can say there is little issue getting 30 models in range of 2" weapons. It goes from a chaff objective holding unit to something that will both tar pit and beat the snot out of anything else that costs 200 points, before buffs even get involved. 360 points gets some chaff, 600 gets three units that can actually do something on top of being a massive tar pit and holding objectives or even snagging enemy ones just by charging. Retreat & charge just makes things better since they can seriously encircle or just gum up your enemy's battleline.
Plague monks were already OP and are potentially the best infantry in the game now that they benefit from +1 to hit at 20+ and +1 to wound at 30+. Same advantages as above (minus retreat & charge) but with massive offense.
Either way the main weakness of swarms, battleshock, is easily negated via a screaming bell, plague furnace, or the endless bell, with inspiring presence and extra bravery from numbers being backups.
Pestilens has further benefit in synergy; the Congregation of Filth battalion needs 2+ monk units and a plague furnace; so 3 monk units you need for battleline and the furnace you were taking to support them anyways are already there. It will give those units 6+ fnp while they are wholly within 18" (so realistically, two of them) on top of the standard command point, artifact, and deployment benefits. All together it is 1180 points, which is a lot, but punches so far above its weight it doesn't matter.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/23 05:43:40
The real question is what you take alongside the several hundred rats, what the best force multipliers are and what makes the best hammer for a clanrat anvil. On that front, I'm unsure.
The real question is if you really want a competitive Skaven army bad enough to not only get that many rats together but to be consistently playing them on the tabletop! I mean even LoN is topping out at that level for the whole army. I know I'm going to try to make things work without the clanrat swarms because if it comes down to winning with 120-rat core or losing without it... Well I'd kinda rather lose, because I played with grots long enough to realize how tiring it gets playing with swarms of that size.
Honestly, I love the rat swarms too much to not use them. The idea of having 120-200 rats all popping out of gnawholes, getting extra attacks from command abilities, and encircling the enemy while doomwheels come charging in is just so much fun.
I love the idea to be sure. And I love running it... about a dozen times. Then I still get some enjoyment the next dozen or so. But somewhere around game 20-30 I just look at it and think 'I don't want to do this anymore.'
If my stormfiend focused tourney list goes bust I may try to get myself to do plague monk swarms, because those are really easy to paint and have the added bonus of both killing and dying really fast so games speed up considerably after the first two rounds.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/23 05:18:39
Stormfiends are unique in how they are equipped, so don't worry everything else is easier to figure out equipment wise. The way it works is that for every three 'fiends you have three 'slots':
-The first stormfiend is either ratling cannons or warp grinders
-The second is either warpfire or windlaunchers
-The third has armor and either shock gauntlets or doom flayers
As to picking which... to quote myself:
Spoiler:
NinthMusketeer wrote: So I got around to running the numbers on Stormfiend weapons. Short version; don't take windlaunchers, everything else is viable.
To start with windlaunchers, the average damage is somewhat poor. 1.5 average wounds, or 2 if targeting a unit of ten or more (bumping up to 2.25/3 if a spark is used). Having it hit better against large units does not do much because when looking for an anti-horde weapon the warpfire is better by far. Speaking of warpfire, it is now anti-horde instead of anti-elite but IMO it got better. Certainly it is incredibly strong. The only reason I would see to take windlaunchers is deliberately weakening a list (which to be clear, is a good reason).
Ratling cannons do not have high numbers either; 3.5 wounds average but only at rend -1, so 2.33 against a 4+ or 2.91 against 5+. However with a spark to add to the damage characteristic those numbers double (4.66/5.82) and perhaps more importantly the other weapon for that 'slot' is a melee one.
Speaking of, warp grinders. Obviously if you want to use their reserve capability you'll need them, though personally I wouldn't due to its unreliability coupled with gnawholes being available. However they are worth taking just for melee potential since the damage output is good.
As for the melee-only slot both are good; the doom flayers have a higher average on the charge, the shock gauntlets have higher damage overall (but are very inconsistent).
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/02/23 06:06:44
CatGotYourLas wrote: With Stormfiends, how are we supposed to build them? Do we get to select their weapons, or can they only take one of each? I'm confused.
I picked up the new Skaven book two days ago and this is my first exposure to AoS ever.
Like musketeer said each stormfiend has a choice between two weapons. If you have a unit of 6 (or 9 or 12 or whatever) then 1/3rd of them have two choices, 1/3rd have two more choices, and 1/3rd have yet another two choices. There doesn't appear to be any restrictions on how many of a weapon you can take, so you could for example take two of the flamer weapons as long as there's six stormfiends in the unit (or 3 if there's 9, 4 if there's 12, etc).
Are wind launchers honestly that bad? They seem good to me. Yeah, their average damage is about 30-40% worse than guns, but they have double the range and don't need Los. Wouldn't you often get an extra turn or two of shooting with these bad boys?
And they, along with the guns, make for the shootiest fiends you can get. Warpfire is nice and all, but there's no delivery system. Gnawholes, grinder teams, grinder fists all force you out of range. Your opponent won't run his hordes into your warpfire unless they're lobotomized. I feel like you'll rarely get to shoot the fire at what you want. It's a good zoning tool if nothing else?
Hordes aren't so maneuverable that they can avoid units like that, if they aren't bogged down by clanrats already. Even then that is a tremendous advantage, just one Stormfiend unit can seriously mess with your opponent's movement because of that. Whereas a windlauncher will probably just do 5-6 damage the whole game, because that guy will almost always be the one to die first. Not needing LoS is nice, but without any damage output it means little; what is hiding that the windlaunchers are going to kill or meaningfully damage? Range is also nice, but the other two thirds of the unit needs to be close anyways.
But seriously, test it. Nothing beats the value of a good test. I have been wrong before and will certainly be again.
I have 40 clanrats, two assassins, a skaven lord, a grey seer, a warplock engineer, two weapon teams, two rat ogors and a packmaster. Thousand point army? Lol. Yes, I have the book to go with all that. But for anyone who looked through the book...can I do ANYTHING with that small amount of stuff in a low point game? If I boost it, it'll be with two (or three) pestilens SC boxes, one of the furnaces becoming a Screaming Bell. And maybe three Hellpit Abominations.
Reality is a nice place to visit, but I'd hate to live there.
Manchu wrote:I'm a Catholic. We eat our God.
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Heeeello-greetings fellow followers of the great horned one!
Started playing AoS with Skaven recently and tried out a fair few units, but was severely disappointed by Stormvermin.
Stormvermin are pretty much my favorite unit (well, together with DOOMWHEELS, rat ogres and everyone's favorite Cutepit Abomination) and I ran them in a block of twenty and they just let me down. They simply die too easily while costing too many points, can get screwed really hard by mortal wounds, any ability that targets bravery (mortal wounds from screams in my first match against FECs weren't pretty) and once they go down to 9 models they are exactly as hard to kill as Clanrats in most circumstances. Them only having +1 bravery and 1 damage doesn't help.
And they lose the +1 to hit as soon as they lose one model and drop to hitting on 4+.
And if I increase unit size to thirty they go up from 280 to 420 points. And 40 are 500 (!) points.
And a single Stormvermin costs almost as much as 3 Clanrats if you take them in full sized blocks (and why shouldn't you at 120 vs 200 points), and a Stormvermin with the max unit discount still costs as much as 2 1/2 Clanrats. And 3 Stormvermin are almost as expensive as a 4 wound rat ogre which has a much higher damage output (42 vs 50 pts). Taking a min sized unit on the other hand seems like a complete waste of points unless you just want the Verminus battalion for a whole lot of Clanrats.
How do you make those worth taking over the same points in Clanrats (survivability), Rat Ogres (pretty much same number of wounds per point, smaller footprint, as much or quite a bit killier with a Master Moulder around) or Hellpits (why take 40 Stormvermin over 2 Hellpits and 60 spare points?). Sure, you can stack a bunch of buffs on them, but isn't that throwing down even more points into the sink to polish a turd (yeah, they aren't that bad, but still, you know what I mean)? And that's before even taking a look at Plague Monks, who seem to do the whole glass cannon thing muuuch better while costing considerably less points.
I can see value in getting them into combat and then casting death frenzy on them so they can punish the other player for attacking them, allow them to attack twice if you picked them for first melee activation before and hopefully allow them to make their points back, but otherwise? I mean why not cast death frenzy on 6 Rat Ogres instead which are also much easier to passive buff considerably with a Master Moulder, which can also be healed and with some luck brought back by the latter?
If they still had their ability to retain their +1 to hit against units with less models I might understand their extreme premium price, but without it I'm just left scratching my head, because you either have to invest at least 420 points or never lose a model to get the Skaventide +1 to hit. To me they just feel like Clanrats +1 while costing as much as Clanrats +3.
This message was edited 7 times. Last update was at 2019/02/26 00:19:36
Dark it was, and dire of form
the beast that laid them low
Hrothgar's sharpened frost-forged blade
to deal a fatal blow
he stalked and hunted day and night
and came upon it's lair
With sword and shield Hrothgar fought
and earned the name of slayer
Clan Rats: 1x 5+/4+ 1 dmg 2" or 1x 4+/4+ 1 dmg and a 6+ save (5+ vs dmg 1)
boosted at full strength a 4+/3+
vs
Stormvermin 2x 4+/3+ -1 rend 1 dmg and a 5+ save (4+ vs dmg 1) 2" reach
boosted at full strength to a 3+/2+ -1 rend 1 dmg
Stormvermin are very much more than "clan rats +1". That is a murder machine unit that must be dealt with and if you don't deal with it, it murders most things it touches. And killing them to start dropping bonuses is not a trivial task short of vomiting out mass mortal wounds (one of the pillars of AOS game play).
And the skaven are spoiled for choice meaning there are going to be multiple units like that on the field.
No, stormvermin are priced quite fine. I think thats the problem some may have with them. If you're used to the GW false-choice wagon of being obvious choices then seeing a murder machine unit priced correctly looks wrong and bad.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/02/26 00:23:50
I think the key with stormvermin is that whilst they are expensive they work best in a large group comparable to the points value. At 2K you really want to be looking at a full 40 - yes that's 1/4 of your points; but if you are marching them over the battlefield you want them to arrive as big as possible to get as many bonuses as possible. And on the way there they are going to be abig distraction and damage soak.
If you want to take less consider gnawholes and warpgrinder teams to try and deploy them further forward so that they can get into combat faster and retain as many models as possible.
Yeah, 40 isn't because you need 40, it's because you need 20 and that's what will be left when they get there. It's still a load of damage output though.
Kinda sucks that you now can't run a dedicated shooting or combat stormfiend unit and have to mix them.
Also sucks that poisoned wind mortars are no longer part of the army as I have 8 of them.
New book looks to be solid though.
Stormvermin in a general army are absolutely solid and there are a ton of ways to ignore battleshock.
Plague monks (IMO) are now one of the most damaging battle line units for output - cost ratio.
They are bordering on nutty as to the damage they can put out after a few buffs.
On a side note, kinda sucks we don't see any new models (spells not counting here)
Loads of kits are outdated or in need of an overhaul.
The rat ogre kit and weapon teams really need a change.
Would also be nice to lose the metal/finecast stuff too.
On the plus side, the new set means stormfiends are only £24 on eBay I guess lol.
I'd hold onto the mortars as I'd wager we might see a weapon team kit in plastic one day with all four options in it. One big bonus of no new kits but losing basically nothing (we only lost the metal assassin and metal clawlord both of which had resin alternatives) is that at least Skaven players can expect new kits one day to replace some of the vintage ones.
Overread wrote: I'd hold onto the mortars as I'd wager we might see a weapon team kit in plastic one day with all four options in it. One big bonus of no new kits but losing basically nothing (we only lost the metal assassin and metal clawlord both of which had resin alternatives) is that at least Skaven players can expect new kits one day to replace some of the vintage ones.
This is true.
Still have ikit and sniktch in both of their metal forms, amazing models.
My mortars won't be going anywhere either, I'm sure they will make a return at some stage.
Just hate seeing models cut from armies, thought we were past that point by now.
Runners need a new kit badly though, so do monks.
Both just look wonky these days sadly.
Way back when Ikit Claw was originally released I really wanted to start a skaven army - however back then was the days of needing bazzillion slaves to make an army work and the thought of all those models (and conversions of them or metal slaves or just using loads of clanrats) turned me away.
I'd honestly say the loss of skaven slaves as a model and choice is one of the VERY few cases where losing a model from a range isn't a negative; esp since they basically were just worse clanrats and were always a"put on the table then basically just keep taking them off the table" model.
When the new Carrion Empire came out I did start gathering up some older metal sculpts from GW and ebay because I figured they were likely to drop a lot of them; so I was really pleased to see that GW didn't; heck they even brought back the metal warpthrower!
The one nice thing about losing PWM is that they can now be used counts-as for Jezzails, which are now undercosted due to re-rolling all hits rather than just 1s. I am wavering between running 9 or 12 in my tourney list.
I don’t understand; can’t we still use the PWM from the general’s handbook points cost? I realize it’ll eventually go with the dodo, but...it still has points and a model (that even came in a very temporary AoS box set: Spire of Dawn).
Reality is a nice place to visit, but I'd hate to live there.
Manchu wrote:I'm a Catholic. We eat our God.
Due to work, I can usually only ship any sales or trades out on Saturday morning. Please trade/purchase with this in mind.
I mean even LoN is topping out at that level for the whole army. I know I'm going to try to make things work without the clanrat swarms because if it comes down to winning with 120-rat core or losing without it... Well I'd kinda rather lose, because I played with grots long enough to realize how tiring it gets playing with swarms of that size.
~1001~
