Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

For the sake of completion, here are a few quick reports for the further adventures of my double bonebreaker rats. This shouldn’t be anything close to in depth, without even deployment diagrams, as I need to spend more time on painting for DakkaCon and less time on Dakka itself …

SKAVEN 2500

L: Warlord - warlock-augmented weapon (S5 A5), charmed shield, talisman of preservation; bonebreaker
L: Warlord - ogre blade (S6 A4), armor of destiny, dragonbane gem, shield; bonebreaker

H: Assassin - weeping blade (D3 wounds / AP), potion of foolhardiness
H: Chieftain - BSB, biting blade, enchanted shield, foul pendant (5+ ward), ironcurse icon
H: Engineer - level 2, dispel scroll
H: Engineer - level 2, condenser

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: 6 Plague Censer Bearers
S: 6 Plague Censer Bearers
S: 6 Poison Wind Globadiers

R: Hellpit Abomination
R: Warp Lightning Cannon

Changes from the first game:
+ General breaker re-tooled for more attaks, at the cost of skalm (dying isn’t totally an issue but fighting is)
+ Lt breaker got the fire ward to mess with flaming units
+ Assassin indeed got the weeping blade, per Zeke’s insistence in particular
+ More censers, my new buddies
+ No death globe, made the globadiers too expensive and demanding

GAME TWO

Up against the WoC boys, a solid list that I’ve played before (and beaten) with my own WoC and I think my vermin lord-led skaven too. Looked like this:

L: Sorcerer Lord - talisman of preservation, infernal puppet, level 4 [SHADOW]

H: Exalted Hero - MoT, BSB, talisman of endurance, stream of corruption, halberd
H: Exalted Hero - MoT, golden eye, halberd, shield, disc

C: 24 Warriors - MoK, banner of eternal flame, standard, musician, halberds, shields [!!!]
C: 20 Warriors - MoT, standard, musician, shields
C: ~36 Marauders - MoK, standard, musician, great weapons
C: ~30 Marauders - MoT, standard, musician, shields
C: 5 Warhounds
C: 5 Warhounds

S: 6 Trolls

R: Giant

This game was the last I played in 2010, and is pretty well faded away in my mind. We played Battleline, I picked out some terrain (2 buildings, 2 hills, 2 woods, a wall), and things happened, almost entirely on the right half of the table, as I did my usual refused flank and he mirrored me. The game was actually really satisfying and ended up with him getting about 170 points more than me and just nabbing that minor victory, too bad I don’t remember more of the details beyond some highlights.

HIGHLIGHTS

+ His disc rider, with a 2/3+ save vs. shooting, zips up his flank first turn. My globadiers scamper up in front of him, hurl six globes as he cruises by, tag him twice, wound him twice, and he fails both 3+ wards. The warhounds behind him pass panic and devour my globadiers in combat but I could care less. 60 points well spent

+ My hellpit, alone on the left 3’ of my deployment zone apart from the slaves, trundles forward to deal with the tizz marauders and trolls bearing down on him. He gets jumped by the slaves and a pathetic regen fight ensues, which sadly sees the abomination killed after losing 1-2 wounds over 4-5 rounds of combat. The trolls, which at this point have MR(3), terror and +1LD, spend the remaining 3 turns of the game failing stupidity and going nowhere, as my slaves were parked in front of them, prepared to direct them off the table. Way to be, slaves!

+ The great weapon marauders, complete with level 4 and BSB, got themselves charged by my assassin and a full line of censer bearers, which were juiced up with Death Frenzy for a sexy 24 hatred-filled S5 attaks. The assassin accepted the chaos BSB’s challenge and managed to scratch him with his weeping blade, which resulted in 2 wounds and killed him! And then the PCB went to work and killed an astounding 20+ marauders through toxicity and weight of dice. It was an amazing thing to roll and reroll so many dice, and then wound on 2+ … All of the PCB were cut down in return and the assassin failed to catch the unit and by end of game both level 4 and unit were still alive, meaning I had gotten no points except for the BSB, but it was still insane stuff.

+ While marauders were being murdered - the tizz ones were reamed by scorches (we’re talking 8 dead in one shot, twice) and then finished off by the assassin - I had to do the usual delaying thing with his warriors, which in 8th you have even less time to do without march blocking. The Lt breaker pulled his 2+ fire ward trick, solo-charging the khorne nutters and managing to die, but not before holding them in place for 4 combat rounds and breaking the frenzy out of them. Eventually they docked with some clanrats, liquefied them, charged some more clanrats, killed my BSB and eventually broke that unit, though since it was so late in the game really only the one unit died to death. (This is how it usually works when I play skaven vs. WoC, including my BSB's death in combat around turn five).

+ The warp lightning cannon deserves a final shout out, for landing a S8 armor-save-ignoring shot into the center of the tizz warriors. 10 dead warriors later, that unit was severely nerfed enough to send in the other censers, though a single warrior standard bearer, standing in the middle of a wood, had survived at game end. Despite the 2 ratling guns and WLC all surrounding him at that point.

I guess if I’m keeping track of the bonebreakers’ run, that puts them at 1:1:0 (though originally we called this game a draw when my math skills forgot to carry a 1 )

GAME THREE

I got 2 games in last night to kick off the new year, and the first was a rematch against the same WoC dude. My list was relatively unchanged - swapped potion of foolhardiness for potion of strength on the assassin (Internet, you win this time), at the cost of the BSB’s iron curse and 1 globadier - and his was mostly shuffling around unit sizes:

L: Sorcerer Lord - talisman of preservation, infernal puppet, level 4 [SHADOW]

H: Exalted Hero - MoT, BSB, talisman of endurance, stream of corruption, halberd
H: Exalted Hero - MoT, golden eye, halberd, shield, disc

C: 18 Warriors - MoK, standard, musician, halberds, shields
C: 18 Warriors - MoT, banner of eternal flame, standard, musician, shields
C: 40 Marauders - MoK, standard, musician, great weapons
C: 20 Marauders - MoT, standard, musician, shields
C: 5 Horsemen - flails
C: 5 Warhounds
C: 5 Warhounds

S: 6 Trolls

R: Giant

We rolled up Battleline again (no complaints here!) and then used my Mundane Terrain Chart to generate the field. D6+4 = 6, which ended up with two ponds, two hills, a wall and an impassable ruin. Yes RZ, those ponds could have been two mighty rivers but we passed on such tactical demands.

Once again not going to go turn by turn, and for pretty good reason, as you’ll see. But some highlights:

HIGHLIGHTS

+ Warp Lightning Cannon blows up on its first shot at the giant. Happy 2011!

+ Assassin chugs his potion, tries to charge out of his clanrat dupes into the disc exalted, fails to make the 15” charge and stumbles out right in front of the trolls. They descend upon him and tear him apart. And then commence devouring the clanrats he tripped out of. This takes them a few turns but meh.

+ That disc exalted is pounced upon by some censers, who indeed kill him thanks to body odor and hatred.

+ For the first time yet, my skaven became the victim of a pit, which he cast on the clanrats containing both my general and BSB. He had previously dropped their Initiative by 1 with miasma (honestly I thought he said WS so let it through, because I knew he’s hot for the miasma + pit combo), and having a 50-50 shot of losing clanrats I managed to kill off 17 (!) of them. Which was enough to make the ensuing panic check go off at LD9 instead of 10 - those 2 clanrats in the 4th rank would definitely have survived without the -1I. I fail the test twice, on 10 both times. My general, BSB and central clanrat unit run off the table in turn two … and I’m pretty much at a loss for what I’m supposed to do. I make comments about rematches and such, but gallantly shoulder on.

+ And a good thing too, because the hellpit was just beginning his concerto. His khorne marauder horde was deployed hard left flank, to keep me from refusing that flank as last time, but this meant that my hellpit could skim that table edge without being caught by the flaming warriors, as well as keep out of range of the damn enfeebling shadow mage. His marauders charged the hellpit turn two, suffered horrendous casualties (ok just 8-10 dead), did no wounds to the beast, failed their steadfast 8 (out of range of BSB but in general’s) and were run down. Whoa.

+ Meanwhile the LT breaker was pulling the same trick as last game, solo-charging the flaming banner guys (this game, the tizz dudes). He did markedly better than vs the khorne guys, actually winning combats and depleting a rank of warriors, until the hellpit thundered into the warrior flank. The monster and the monstrous cav exactly butchered the unit, after which the LT turned to face the confused giant standing table center and the hellpit overran with reckless abandon towards the tizz marauder bunker. On their part, the marauders jettisoned the level 4 into the khorne warriors and swift-reformed into the hellpit’s face.

+ The abomination wasn’t interested however and skimmed past the barbarians and into the giant. The giant survived thanks to mediocre abomination rolls, held on stubborn 10, and the hellpit was countercharged by the trolls, newly done eating clanrats. Showing wisdom beyond his years, the hellpit devoured the giant, and although the monster’s grasping feeding tubes had no affect upon the trolls, the giant falling upon everyone in combat did: 4 wounds to the trolls, 0 to the hellpit. The trolls broke and were picked up by various skirmishing rat-things, so the abomination could focus on the final movement of his performance.

+ I had set a clever, if familiar, trap for the khorne halberdiers: put junk unit in front of them (globadiers), force them to eventually charge, kill and overrun said junk (done), then put painful things into their flank (censers in this case). It worked like a charm, with the addition of a rampaging hellpit hurling itself 11” into the warriors’ rear as well. Of the 10 warriors left pre-combat, 9 died to the hellpit’s displays of affection, leaving the censers to inflict 1 hot wound on the BSB, before a 5 t-stomp distributed across the wounded BSB, warrior standard and level 4 splattered everything save a wounded shadow mage. He failed his break and was run down by, who else, the hellpit abomination.

Thanks to the hellpit completing nearly a perfect circle (roughly 12” in radius) of maximum carnage, it was a triumphant if thoroughly filthy skaven victory. From my experience, 2 in 5 games the hellpit dies without doing anything, 2 in 5 games he eats an important character or noms a unit before keeling over, and in that fifth game all hell breaks loose. And then some.

Which brings the record to 2:1:0

What hideous antics will the hellpit get up to in GAME FOUR? Stay tuned!

- Salvage

I'm really enjoying this series- atypical builds and some fun to watch/hear about units.

Particularly liked the LT Bonebreaker chugging in to flaming units to hold them up for as long as possible. Another favorite unit- the globadiers. Being used as chaff to set up the take-down on the frenzied block and dropping the disc rider were both very cool.

Hooray for the assassin game 1! Not so much game two... I don't frequent the skaven lists so much, so didn't realize how "internet standard" weeping blades and potion of strength were. I'd hate to push anyone too much in that direction. I thought the Potion of Foolhardiness was pretty clever, though.

How have you felt about magic with the two engineers? Do-able?

Re: Ponds- much more usable terrain piece in general. You *could* have had rivers, but they can really make the game about them, rather than the match itself.

Wonderful read- thanks for the post!

Boss Salvage wrote:

What hideous antics will the hellpit get up to in GAME FOUR? Stay tuned!

- Salvage

Outstanding!

Thanks for the kind words RZ, always appreciated. I too was thrilled at how well LT did, though I did leave out the bit about him charging the tizz marauders in the second game above, fluffing, breaking and being run down. LD7 leaves little room for a poor round of rolling, and unfortunately these guys are totally dice reliant. As you'll see in Game 4 that's not always a problem for my dice ...

Magic has been fine for the most part, though I hate relying upon it so my expectations aren't too high. Ruin is a decent lore: skitterleap is worthless to me and an auto-drop, lightning is the bread and butter of engineers and half-decent at frying warriors, warpgale I haven't had reason to cast yet (having only played beasts, warriors, warriors & beasts) but it isn't too terrible if I have loads of dice, death frenzy is excellent, scorch is almost always dispelled but can get up to serious mayhem, and crack's call while more situational (I'd only take it vs low Init scary things that are headed in to me, or armies where low I is everywhere) also has one of the most unique abilities in the game, as it can level buildings. Casting-wise I've often gotten poor winds rolls, which when up against +4 to dispel means that I usually get 1 spell off, often at IF. Again, this is what I expect from the magic phase, so no worries. All three of the games in this thread saw me experimenting with engineer placement, often running one in the slaves and then both out of units when given the option, such as in Game 3, so as to minimize miscast pain.

Fun fact about globadiers as suicide frenzy bait, I was able to move them up into 1" away position and then throw into the warriors (1 dead). Next turn he spun his wheels, I threw and killed another. And when he charged I was able to stand and throw, for another dead warrior. "Worth" 0 VP but beats dogs or something which just stand there, and skirmishing means I can scoot sideways if he wants to shimmy around.

Anyway, next game coming up shortly ...

GAME FOUR

The second Monday night game saw a rematch against the beasts from Game 1, with a slightly tweaked “t-stomp ftw” style list that saw the minos finally tossed to the side (as many serious beast players seem to be doing). My list remained unchanged from Game 3, while he took:

L: Beast Lord - biting blade, armor of fortune, shield
L: Great Bray - chalice, dispel scroll, level 3 [SHADOW]

H: Wargor - BSB, beast banner, gnarled hide, shield, heavy armor (2+ armor, +1S to entire unit)

C: 37 Gors - full command, ahw
C: 20 Gors - full command, ahw [In Ambush]
C: Tuskgor Chariot
C: Tuskgor Chariot
C: 5 Unbows [In Ambush]
C: 5 Unbows

S: 18 Bestigors - full command
S: 10 Centigors - full command
S: 6 Harpies - scout

R: Ghorgon
R: Giant

I had to double-check that there was really no flaming attaks going on? So the HPA would be relying upon my regen dice, while on the other hand my LT wouldn’t get another flaming combat unit to mess with.

We rolled up Meeting Engagement, and then used my Mundane Terrain Chart to generate 10 pieces for the board: 4 impassable, 2 buildings, 2 woods, 1 marsh, 1 fence. It was actually really cool to just pick up 10 dice and throw them at once, with a few secondary rolls to determine type of obstacle and water feature. Much much faster than throwing 2 dice, consulting a chart, then another chart, then doing the next piece.

I won the roll for Drop & Go and gave it to him, so he deployed first. He was actually ridiculously hindered by the scenario special rule that holds some units back on a 1 - his beast lord, a chariot, the bestigors, the centigors and the giant all had to walk on turn 1! Combined with his 2 ambushing units there really wasn’t a whole lot he deployed before me. On my part I only had an engineer and my BSB (!) stuck off table. And then I stole the initiative in the beginning of a mad streak of good luck.



This diagram shows you both initial deployments, with where our reserves moved on (yellow arrows) in our respective first turns. His gors ambushed (red arrow) turn 1 on the right flank, while his ungors waited until turn 3 to appear on the left (also red arrow). The brown circles are impassable columns, and the crater is the marsh.

You can see from the diagram the evidence of my paranoid response to his ambushing block, as my left censers are blocking off a section of table edge, the LT breaker is prepared to slam in should the gors show up in that space, and the right censers are actually facing my own table edge. Thankfully they showed up in such a way that the gor horde couldn’t fit between the columns to save their bacon (beef) when I responded …

RUNDOWN

Opening turn saw the ghorgon knocked down to 1 wound remaining by scouting gutters (+ assassin), and a S2 WLC shot that I made the 6+ to wound with. The big guy would die next turn to a single globadier shot to the back, after which I didn’t care that the globes were run over by a chariot. Speaking of big monsters, the hellpit headed straight for the gor horde, which moved up against the fence and prepared to receive the charge. There was a truly epic moment as I nonchalantly let a -2 withering through on the abomination, and was punished by having those 5 ungors tag 3 wounds off of the hellpit! Enraged, the beast made contact the following turn (2) with the great bray and his horde of friends, and once again showed what a smart boy he is by feeding upon the level 3 and giving me magical superiority. Sadly the ungors had sealed his fate and the horde of S4 gors cut him down the following turn (and I only just remembered I forgot to see if he came back! Been fighting too much fire …)

The ambushing gors were combo-charged by the LT breaker and some censer bearers, lost 10+ of their number but held on rerolled steadfast. The giant, recently having joined the battle, counter-charged into the bonebreaker, swung with his club and astoundingly the ratty beast failed his I7 test! His 4+ ward made the 2D6 auto-wounds a manageable 2, but still a brown trouser moment. All the same the gors were shredded by LT and the non-hatred, non-flailing censers, broke and chased down by the PCB, leaving the bonebreaker second in command to kill the giant. It took him a while, but he did, dodging the other thumping clubs that were sent his way.

After the early demise of the ghorgon and the arrival of reinforcements, the left flank mostly involved the slave commandos bravely taking a charge from the centigors in the front and the harpies in the rear (the harpies at this point had flipped over my WLC and chased around a solo-ing engineer, though he escaped to the last). The slaves not only held but actually killed 4 centigors before they could strike (I2 ftl), and would go on to kill all of the centigors, all but 1 harpy (who fled all game) and eventually the ambushing ungors, admittedly with some help from the gutter runners.

Remember that assassin? He chugged his potion of strength, failed a 14” charge into the central chariot, then failed another 15” charge and ended the game having done nothing but throw one shuriken at the ghorgon. Oops.

The bestigors, bereft of character-support, were piled into by some clanrats led by the general breaker, and though it took several rounds were eventually broken and caught. 1 attak each, even a S6 one with hatred rerolls, isn’t really enough to override a combat critter with 10 S5 attaks and 1 S5 stomp, especially when the dice are with him.

But of course the main event was always going to be how I dealt with that horde deathstar. It ate ratling guns, scorches (1 shot hit 11 and killed 8, lovely!) and eventually charged some clanrats with my BSB and scroll engineer in it. As usual I was stunned by how good gors are with primal fury hatred every single round, along with +1S from the beast banner, and the BSB and engineer immediately died, followed by lots of clanrats. However, since the gors have no armor even the few wounds my simpering clanrats were landing counted, so the horde was dwindling. I flanked with 30 fresh clanrats, then the LT bonebreaker, and eventually the deathstar was smashed down to just the champ and the BSB - the beast lord had been picked off by the rampaging LT, who unfortunately fled at some point (no steadfast and lots of clanrats were dying each round) but 8th meant it didn’t mean much. The end of the game saw a swarm of clanrats geld the gor champion and even wound the wargor BSB, but he was the last beast on the table, for pretty light skaven casualties all told.

So another massacre for the bonebreaker twins. The above doesn’t really show how intense my dice were at times (the 4 dead centigors vs. 13 slave attaks for example), but I really think the deciding factor was his boning by the scenario.

A side comment, is everybody else out there running Shadow too? It’s literally the only BRB lore I fight, unless the caster has loremaster or is a prophetess, in which case it’s Life with some kind of backup caster (beasts for brets). Just curious if our meta represents a general trend towards Shadow uberalles.

- Salvage

Your reports are definitely making me reconsider Bonebreaker Warlords. You haven't found the lack of "Look out sir!" to be a problem?

And yeah, the HE player in our group runs Shadow mostly, the Lizards run Life and the DElves run Fire! *eek!*

Keep em coming. The reports are enjoyable reads. I do love me some after action reports!

I've really enjoyed your Skaven reports, as they provide both insight & motivation as I build my own horde of rats. Thanks a bunch!

Got any pictures of your bonebreakers? I'm curious.

Boss Salvage wrote:Remember that assassin? He chugged his potion of strength, failed a 14” charge into the central chariot, then failed another 15” charge and ended the game having done nothing but throw one shuriken at the ghorgon. Oops.

I notice you always seem to ask a lot of your assassin, as concerns charge distance. I'd always figured him for a defensive choice (e.g., in that unit of Clan Rats, to take on the Beast Lord when the horde hit you), but you definitely seem to use him as an offensive charge-out-a-unit weapon.

A side comment, is everybody else out there running Shadow too? It’s literally the only BRB lore I fight, unless the caster has loremaster or is a prophetess, in which case it’s Life with some kind of backup caster (beasts for brets). Just curious if our meta represents a general trend towards Shadow uberalles.

My daemons use Life, followed by Beasts (but with the support of a level 4 Horror block for direct damage goodness). I still see a lot of Death from VC players.

Cheers lads, glad you are enjoying the write-ups

streamdragon wrote:Your reports are definitely making me reconsider Bonebreaker Warlords. You haven't found the lack of "Look out sir!" to be a problem?

Well I haven't faced a single war machine yet, so I couldn't really say, but I am still as prepared as I'm going to be, with 4+ wards on both and the charmed shield on the general. Inevitably I'm going to lose a couple bonebreakers to throwers or cannons the longer I use them both, though I do think the hellpit's existence probably drops the 'breakers down the target priority. Not getting a LoS! roll vs the auto-kill spells may be a problem in a tournament setting (I don't know of a NE US GT that doesn't allow characters a 2+ against dwellers, etc) but with effectively S5, T5 & I7 the model as a whole is fairly resilient to dice.

I am very happy that people appreciate seeing different units take the field. Skaven power armies (bell, furnace, hpa, 1+ doomwheels, 1+ wlc, 2+ poisoned sling gutters, slave hordes to round it out) deserve their reputation for being some of the least fun to play, most obviously filth armies in 8th, yet the book itself has a lot of variety and a lot of mediocre-yet-not-useless options available. Even my skaven army catches flak for simply being drawn from the skaven army book (ok my hellpit is the same as the ones in those power builds), but I feel my games operate on a level that is a lot more enjoyable for all involved, even if that means that my victories often involve a lot of luck to pull off.

Lexx wrote:Keep em coming.

Will do! I feel like I need to lose a game, so perhaps I'll challenge the HE guy next Monday. His new list is low magic, high white lions (24 backed up by 18 more, with 18 swordmaster friends) and should melt my ratty face right off

Janthkin wrote:Got any pictures of your bonebreakers? I'm curious.

I notice you always seem to ask a lot of your assassin, as concerns charge distance. I'd always figured him for a defensive choice (e.g., in that unit of Clan Rats, to take on the Beast Lord when the horde hit you), but you definitely seem to use him as an offensive charge-out-a-unit weapon.

Sorry J, no pics yet, just primed them yesterday so paint will happen next week. Perhaps I'll bust out the camera then ... But they aren't that exciting, just the IoB rat ogres with headswaps. It should be noted that my army has only 3 skaven models in it (converted ratling guns) and is otherwise made up of about 120 nurglings and a carnival of strange green monsters. Ratmen really do nothing for me aesthetically, while I've really enjoyed being able to model whatever I want with the counts as nurgle theme. Expect some pics of the lot after DakkaCon, once I get everything rebased and sealed properly.

On the assassin, I actually appreciate you reminding me of why I took him in the first place. Originally he was meant to help the clanrats have some hitting power, just with his own 4 ASF poisoned attaks. Then I used potion of strength and was suddenly able to hurt things, and add in the weeping blade and I guess he got delusions of grandeur. I think I do need to return to the old plan - hide in the unit with the BSB, kill what comes to kill him - and let the guns take care of the naked monsters and chariots I keep wanting the assassin to tackle.

- Salvage

Another interesting one, and a nice win. Two big critters for the beasts! That's unusual, but cool.

As far as look out sir checks go, I think you're probably okay. 4+ ward and four wounds is pretty durable. Add the charmed shield, and it should be enough to get you into combat. I know I'd be busy shooting at the hell pit and WLC before I could even pay attention to those two as well.

Boss Salvage wrote:It was actually really cool to just pick up 10 dice and throw them at once, with a few secondary rolls to determine type of obstacle and water feature. Much much faster than throwing 2 dice, consulting a chart, then another chart, then doing the next piece.

Yes! This is one of the reasons I like it. Much less tedious.

You can see from the diagram the evidence of my paranoid response to his ambushing block, as my left censers are blocking off a section of table edge, the LT breaker is prepared to slam in should the gors show up in that space, and the right censers are actually facing my own table edge.

This is one of the things that has me interested about beasts. Whenever I play against them, I'm always stuck having to worry about worst case scenario, and so whether the ambushers eventually do anything or not, they tend to disrupt things.

5 ungors tag 3 wounds off of the hellpit!

!!!!!

As usual I was stunned by how good gors are with primal fury hatred every single round, along with +1S from the beast banner

Yeah, talk about a magic item that had quite a turn around with 8th!

A side comment, is everybody else out there running Shadow too? It’s literally the only BRB lore I fight, unless the caster has loremaster or is a prophetess, in which case it’s Life with some kind of backup caster (beasts for brets). Just curious if our meta represents a general trend towards Shadow uberalles.

Definitely seeing plenty of shadow around here. My last game was the first in six that I didn't face that lore, and that was only because both casters were marked Tzeentch. Definitely planning to face a lot of shadow and a little life magic in tournaments.

I like your report style man. It's nice to see variety in Skaven players.

I've only played one tournament list for them so far and I eked out a minor by simply not giving up any VP's from my WoC.

He ran bunches of Artillery, 2 WLCs, 2 Catapult things, and numerous detachable artillerymen.

Excellent report man. Love your write up style. That LT bonebreaker is darned clever... I might have to steal that idea for one of my exalted heroes. 10 points for a 2++ save on a man you know they don't want to be forced to kill with flamers is pretty sweet, even without having any regen in my army.
I look forward to seeing you and your freshly painted army Jan 21!