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Hey all I kinda new to fantasy. I played a few games in 7th with my HE and with Isle of blood having both rats and HE I figure hey what the hell might as well start skaven.

What would be the best formation for general skaven units like clan rats? should I go 10 in each rank or 5? Do I want 30 or do I want to increase it to 40? what specials are worth taking and whats not etc.. Just looking for some tips and such.

Get ready to paint a truly stupid number of rats. Skaven are a horde army and now the rules give horde units enough bonuses to make them worthwhile.

Slaves especially just got a HUGE boost. It is not overtly expensive to run a pair of 10x6 units of slaves that (so long as they stay near the general) are going to be Ld 10 Stubborn against pretty much anything, and will only cost 120 points per unit. Now they make truly excellent tarpits, with the only downside being... well, now you have to paint a really ridiculous number of them.

(This is perhaps my biggest beef with 8E. I have been painting Skaven since 5E... and with 6000 points of stuff, now I have to go and paint even more slaves and clanrats to field an army! )

Well from watching my friend paint his orks I think I might have an easy time if I just try to go for basic color schemes.

I'm in the same position. I played Skaven back in 5th ed and I only have 1 unit of Clanrats, so I got to paint a lot to have a legit army. This is What I plan on doing:

With slaves limit the pallet to 4-5 colours.

1-2 for the fur,
1 for skin,
1 for metal,
1 for base.

Just dry brush and hope for the best.

But the unit of 10x6 does look best for the slaves.

As for Clanrats, I'm actually thinking of running them in a 5x7 or a 5x8 formation just so that I always have the stubborn. With Spears your already fighting in 3 ranks, so the extra may not be worthwhile if the unit your facing is only 5 wide as well. Just an idea, but more game testing with 8th will help refine this idea.

Ill just have to read the book again but I thought if you had more ranks than your opponent then you got stubborn?

Ya, if you have more ranks you will be stubborn, that's why I think that Clanrats would work best 7-8 deep because they are cheep enough and will almost always be guaranteed the stubborn bonus against anything they go against.

I always thought that Slaves worked best as flank guards or as meat shields. So, 5-6 ranks deep would be good enough for them as they will only be fighting light cavalry, or dying.

You better hope in the next edition they make the rank bonus give you plusses to Stubborn Ld. At least the way Stubborn works in 7th, skaven would be Stubborn on base Ld, (5 for clanrats, 7 for in general's bubble)

So a unit in the general's bubble that lost combat by 1 could take their Ld of 10 and it will go down to 9

A unit that lost by 17,000 would take its stubborn Ld of 7 (from the general obviously).

Personally I both do and dont hope that they make it Ld 10 stubborn. If they do, they will be a nearly unkillable army, if they dont, Skaven will be slightly under par.

Painting rats 3 color for most tournaments really isnt that bad.
For mine I
Primed them grey
Painted the armor, eyes, and fleshy spots (tails, feet, hands, face)
Then dipped them.

They actually turned out pretty good and i can do 25 in about 2-3 hours depending on my rhythm!

Rats in 30 man units should work well, large enough to get stubborn, not so large they get to expensive.

How viable are Assassins now that they are most of the time getting rerolls on failed to-hit rolls with high I and ASF? Maybe with some of those wacky new magic items like the potion of strength or the potion of recklessness that gives killing blow... Could be fun against certain characters.

Joona wrote:How viable are Assassins now that they are most of the time getting rerolls on failed to-hit rolls with high I and ASF? Maybe with some of those wacky new magic items like the potion of strength or the potion of recklessness that gives killing blow... Could be fun against certain characters.

Time will tell.

However the general consensus is that they are still overcosted.