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Well I'm starting a skaven army and picked up a pack of clanrats and can't decide which weapon to equip.

Hand weapons, always. Clans arent meant to kill, just tie up. Keep them cheap.

Thank you for the advice kenshin620

In my oppinion spears are only worth it if they're free.
I'm sure some will disagree with that approach but i'm stingy on the points

HW/Shield. Spears simply add up to points that can and should be used for more Slaves.

Yeah i use HW shields, 1/2 a pt for a 5+6++ in combat, YES PLEASE

Agreeing with the posts thusfar. Mind are all hand weapon / shield. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my IoB spear rats, but I'll probably just use them to fill out back ranks who won't ever see combat anyway.

streamdragon wrote:I'm trying to figure out what to do with my IoB spear rats.

Some clipping of unnecessarily long sticks to turn them into handles and you have rats that wil effortlessly blend into the horde.

With one quick cut spears become clubs!

Kiwidru wrote:With one quick cut spears become clubs!

good idea!!!

The only exception I can see is a list that expects to get "Bless with Filth" for poisoned attacks- where more attacks could come in handy. But yes, generally, the parry save trumps for this kind of infantry.

I run a unit with Spears for the reason Red_Zeke mentioned.

My other 2 are HW & Shield

Only take spears if the unit is stupidly large, and you're looking for either poisoned attacks and/or skaven brew.

Remember folks, 14 wide is where it is at (you'll maximize against 25mm and 40mm hordes that way).

Other than that, hand weapon and shield.

-Matt

I find that, by and large, there is nothing that clanrats can kill that won't kill them back at least as well. Given that, it makes too much sense to maintain Steadfast to the maximum extent by maximizing ranks and minimizing incoming attacks by sticking to 5-wide religously.

Going wider is for killing more than you will lose. And clanrats cannot do that. Stormvermin and plague monks can, against some weaker core stuff. Queek's super stormvermin can, against some somewhat tougher stuff. Other than that, you are always better off keeping Steadfast.

EDIT: HW and Shield, never spears, by the way. Minimzie deaths, maximize numbers.

Slave units, on the other hand, last longer with sheer numbers than they do with shields. They are that cheap.