I hadn't intended to report this battle, but I realize that I haven't talked much about my vermin lord antics and while I want to write something today it isn't the 25 pager that's due in 7 days. After this game I also made the decision to give Vermy a rest, so this may be his last run for a while as I give my skaven yet another round of redux ...
Little Green Monsters L: Vermin Lord [PLAGUE]
L: Warlord - sword of might, enchanted shield
H: Assassin - dragonbane gem, potion of strength
H: Chieftain -
BSB, dragonhelm, talisman of endurance, shield
H: Chieftain - halberd
H: Engineer - level 1, dispel scroll
C: 30 Clanrats - full command, shields, ratling gun
C: 30 Clanrats - full command, shields, ratling gun
C: 30 Clanrats - full command, shields, ratling gun
C: 30 Slaves - pawleader, musician
S: 6 Gutter Runners - poison
S: 6 Gutter Runners - poison
S: 5 Plague Censer Bearers
S: 5 Plague Censer Bearers
R: Hellpit Abomination
R: Plagueclaw Catapult
R: Warp Lightning Cannon
The main idea was to try out the PCB, which I'm still in the process of converting. I never ran them in 7th when they were hot sex and am curious what I can make of them in 8th. Note that they're replacing 4 rat ogres, which consistently failed me game after game after game, so there isn't much pressure
Otherwise it's my usual soft "cuddles & snuggles" skaven list.
Damn Pointy Ears L: Archmage [SHADOW] - level 4, 4+ ward, +1 spell
H: Mage [HIGH] - level 2, pick spells
H: Noble -
BSB, great weapon, 1+ or 2+ armor, luckstone
C: 24 Spearelves - some command
C: 24 Spearelves - some command
C: 14 Seaguard - some command, flaming banner
S: 18 Sword Masters - some command, +1M banner, ironcurse icon
S: 16 White Lions - some command
S: 10 Phoenix Guard - standard, banner of sorcerer
S: 5 Dragon Princes - musician
S: Tiranoc Chariot
S: Tiranoc Chariot
R: Eagle
This is the same HE dude from a lot of my tizz reports, very newly returned to take up 8th edition - I think this was his 2nd game. His characters may have had more gear but I can't recall, and his command choices were explained to me but were fairly inconsistent. Assume "some command" means a standard + some mix of champion and/or musician.
Magic Vermin Lord: bless with filth, wither, cloud, plague
Engineer: scorch!
Archmage: miasma, withering, pit, mindrazor, ?
Mage: shield, flames
Scenario We decided on a pitched battle (battleline?) for old time's sake.
Terrain & Deployment 
I picked a selection of non-mysterious, non-slowed terrain and we placed and scattered them. There was actually a second woods but I can't recall where it was or if it mattered at all - I'm guessing it was between the other forest and my line, that gap is suspicious. Also, that center hill was tall enough to mess with my ratter's
LoS to the lions and such.
His mage joined his seaguard,
BSB the lions, and archmage the sword masters, though he quickly bailed to the spearelves once the
SM started receiving a little too much love.
My
BSB + halberd chieftain joined the left clanrats, and warlord + engineer the center clanrats, with the assassin hidden in them to kick the engineer to the second rank at some point.
Battle With +1 for deploying first
, skaven start things off ...
Those Who Hunt Elves He was quite concerned by my ratling guns and big template war machines, but I assured him he didn’t have that much to worry about
All the same, after getting into position turn 1 my ratters laid into his sword masters - who were benefiting from soft cover as they traipsed through the woods for two turns - and, combined with completely inaccurate PCC fire, reduced the unit to its front rank. The ratters managed little else besides this, with 1 jamming and exploding Turn 4 and the other sticking just 1 wound on the eagle later in the game. The PCC misfired twice - both he got to place the template but nowhere important due to range - melted a few sword masters but most legitimately hit an entire spear elf block. I got to roll all 25 of my dice (the archmage was pushed out of the way) and nuked 10 of them. Sure I earned 0
VP for that but it was pretty excellent to have the PCC do the only thing it’s meant to do: kill T3 infantry. The WLC knocked 2 wounds onto the right chariot, misfired (#6!), misfired on a bounce and failed to snipe the level 4. Ah well.
PCB: This Could Work! The weird skaven guns did what they always do - achieve mediocrity and/or kill themselves - but how would the PCB do? The right ones rushed forward to get the princes to choke on their fumes, and the noble elf cavalry indeed charged in. And 3 died to the stink, though 2 censers were beaten down by the musician and his cousin. The remaining 3 nutters flooded the cavalry with hits and killed them, reforming to face the eagle that had failed to charge the PCC that turn. The 3 PCB charged the chicken in their turn, but the dice boomeranged back, as 2 of my 3 toughness tests came up 6’s, and the eagle pecked the last censer in the head. Still: that was awesome.
The left PCB marched around the left building and thought about taking the sea guard and/or assassinating the level 2, but then the left chariot just barely caught them in its arc and swiftstrided a long charge into them. I was ready to count them lost, but then he failed his T test and took a wound and between impacts (a gentle 3) and attaks only downed 4 of the 5 censers! The last one went ape and wrecked the chariot. This final toxic commando reformed to face the scrum that had developed in the center …
Destroy All Monsters Clearly I’ve been avoiding What Really Happened in the center ring. Turn 1 the HPA tiptoed 4” forward (to the right of the house), with Vermy making sure he was 18” from the lions and the blocks shuffling about. Magic gave enough dice to get plague off on the lions (1/3 die +
BSB takes a wound) but that was it. He returned by advancing left spears and lions towards the HPA, and his magic ended up dropping the HPA’s toughness by 1.
Note: I had forgotten that withering is a RiP spell, and his phase was so weak because he failed to cast a couple spells here and there. I had 5 unused dice that I could have chucked into withering, but didn’t … He was able to see the HPA with a few seaguard and, with good rolls, tagged 2 (burning) wounds off it.
Turn 2 the HPA went 11” or so towards the lions, and I decided to be risky with the VL, placing him 12” from the white lions but with the HPA in the way. Magic blew weak again (6), and I realized my mistake with withering but ultimately could not have him stuck at T4 going into the HE turn, which meant tossing 3 dice into dispelling it and the rest into plague on the lions, which he dispelled. So risking the VL was pointless, as I didn’t get the power dice to wither / cloud / plague the lions apart. About this time I gripped loudly about how skaven don’t have a sexy banner of sorcery to save their asses when the Winds turn
He responded by double-charging the HPA with spear elves and white lions, and the beast held, with the intention of doing some damage but sticking with stubborn 8 and the
BSB within range, thus saving the VL’s skin. Magic put mindrazor on the spears, though the withering was stopped with a vengeance (as was shield on the lions). In the first combat of the game, the spears and lions
ASF’d a good number of wounds on the HPA, and his regen completely failed him, when average rolling would have kept him in the game. With the abomb dead (having never attaked to boot), both lions and spears overran into the VL, hitting him in the front and flank respectively.
Turn 3 and I needed to rescue the main man, but the awesome counter-charge from 30 clanrats +
BSB + choppy chieftain couldn’t complete their wheel in because of ratling guns in the way. In retrospect I could have long-charged the guns into the sword masters and hopped to fail far enough to clear things up, but it was well and jammed up in there. But the lone left-flank PCB rear-charged the spear elves, with dreams of toxic glory … My magic finally blew strong enough to matter (9-10) and I prepared to have Vermy beat his way out of this predicament I got him into. How about a wither to start? 2 dice = 1+2 + level 4 = 7, which failed to meet the 8 to cast and blew his concentration. Sadness reigned, and the engineer was shut down. In combat Vermy challenged, nobody cared, and he glaived / stomped 6 lions to goo, for a wound in return. The PCB was also
ASF’d to death, but not before gassing all 3 of the elves touching him. Amazingly Vermy won by 1, but the elves were not impressed.
Retaliation was brutal as expected. When his banner-boosted magic phase came around, once again I was given the choice of having the VL withered or the spears mindrazored. I once again let the spears become S8, thinking that at least the lions wouldn’t be wounding on 2+ as well. 8 wounds later Vermy was dead.
Never Surrender? Through all of this the sword masters had advanced and gone to work, double-charging the warlord’s (and engineer’s and assassin’s) rats with the right chariot. They hewed down the assassin, the chariot’s horses kicked the warlord to death (total dice failure - warlord landed 3 hits on chariot and needed just 2 3+ to wounds to kill it, and rolled 1,1,1; and then failed all his 3+ armor saves), and liquefied the unit over a few turns. The characterless clanrats at some point charged in to help, but were broken (despite steadfast) and bounced right off the board. All the ratters started to either combust or run away, and the
BSB’s clanrats in a last ditch effort to get some points charged into the white lions. They were counter-charged by spear elves, who assassinated the T4, 3/5+ save chieftain with 6 S3 attaks (WAT?) … and I conceded rather than continue to watch my army dissolve. Fun Fact: I don’t concede.
SKAVEN LOSS So what went so wrong? My dice are rarely very good, but I feel like they took a crap worse than usual here, particularly when it came to magic and
especially when it came to not rewarding my risks with the VL. I know many people are not happy with the dominance of magic in 8th, but I think that comes down to concern over a few spells and the handful of items scattered across the books that can manipulate miscasts and/or rolling IF. I find myself falling back to my opinion of magic in 7th edition, that it's something I'll have to weather from the enemy but ultimately can't rely on. People have said fairly loudly that a level 4 is mandatory for magic defense in 8th, but they way I manage my dispel phases I'm content with stopping one spell cold, dealing with the other nasty spell (which will have gone off IF in many cases) and ignoring the token weak spell that might have gotten cast if dice allowed - and I'm still thinking that a dispel scroll is mandatory, to nerf both big nasty spells in one round. The downside is that that "token weak spell" is often a hex or augment that I'd really rather not have around but can't afford to stop ...
Back to the game, I have to give a shout out to my opponent's dice. Maybe they're a new block, but the number of 5s & 6s they rolled was driving me nuts towards the end - the spears hardly needed mindrazor to take down my T5 baddies! And I guess High Elves have grudgingly earned a pip of respect from me - this is the 3rd time I've played them in 8th and, with the dice behind them,
ASF was really difficult to handle. Add me failing to wound T3 and him refusing to fail 5+ armor and it was a real mess
I'm looking forward to posting up more skaven reports in the future, especially once things have been converted up and painted. Which means pics ... Stay tuned.
- Salvage
. I've taken to kind of fielding a range of unit sizes based on what I have available and what I want to try out)