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.

Okay, so I'm definitely enamored with the Skaven, they're just way too ridiculous not to be played. But seriously, Doomwheels, Hell Pit Abominations, Weapons Teams. How does anyone get through the first turn without eviscerating their own army?

I've said it before but i'll say it again:

HoverBoy wrote:Skaven either devastate the enemy, or explode in spectacular shows of selfdestruction.

HoverBoy wrote:I've said it before but i'll say it again:

HoverBoy wrote:Skaven either devastate the enemy, or explode in spectacular shows of selfdestruction.

hover can i use that as a sig that is awesome!

If you really wanted to you could avoid the worst of the crazy stuff and just field massed ranks of Stormvermin or something, but that defeats the point. Skaven are incredibly powerful but blow themselves up just as much as the enemy, which is half the fun.

nsdocholiday wrote:

HoverBoy wrote:I've said it before but i'll say it again:

HoverBoy wrote:Skaven either devastate the enemy, or explode in spectacular shows of selfdestruction.

hover can i use that as a sig that is awesome!

Feel free.

An HPA, or Slaanesh forbid two of them, can be ridiculously damaging, with only a slight chance of doing nothing all game. There are a handful of Boss Salvage's bat-reps on here where his mostly clan rat army with HPA and some globadier/plague things rock out and smash down enemies, only occasionally shooting themselves in the head (and from what I have seen from him, he had a nasty affair with his dice's mothers when they were youn, and they haven't taken it well.) If you can manage to roll at least statistically even, you can do some good stuff and only have a little random pain.

For doomwheels, on the "how do you make it through turn 1" question, you intersperse your doomwheels with things you don't mind crisping with your own warp lightning (this generally means slaves). Fairly unlikely you'd kill enough slaves to cause a panic test in your own phase if you took a decent number.

It's a pretty rare day that everything in your list will decide to break all at the same time and with all the fun toys you have available you don't really need to worry about a couple of them blowing up.

Honestly, Skaven showcase the right way to make something random and wacky yet still powerful and fun. GW got it right, rather then the "You don't control your mans 1/3 of the time" thing they did with Orcs, and the random junk in Chaos 40k. Power-wise, they won't let you down on the table top, and the misfires you WILL endure are just entertaining. No opponent of mine hates dropping one of MY templates on my own troops!

The army is top-notch, and their weapons are devastating to themselves almost as much as their enemies. I haven't run into a game where my gray seer hasn't blown up his own bunker of clanrats, or my Plauge Wind Grenadiers or Cannons decided to "accidentally" draw a bead on my warlord.

I also like the fact that their Artillery is more reliable then gunpowder (it has less of a chance of getting destroyed, and will never lose a turn of shooting) at the cost of potentially launching a large ST 10 blast into your own units, or if the enemy aren't careful enough, dead on into a 30 man block of chaos warriors. >:3

Animosity is 1/6 chance of seizing up.

Suspicously off target is one of the best ever Misfire results, and fits the skaven character to a tee.

Similar to Craventail, who become clawleader by dressing up as a Stalactite and dropping on his bosses head. Utter, utter insanity but so much fun with it.

BEst fun I hadwas the 6th ed book, double skaven army. We both had a bell. I rolled up every Skaven has hatred and frenzy, he rolls up various other insane effects. PWG charging units all over the place, ratling guns tring to tear the eyes from stormvermin. Hilarious!

Everything Mekniakal wrote is correct.

They are just too good to worry about what they will do to you.

HoverBoy wrote:Animosity is 1/6 chance of seizing up.

BUT, you lose control when you waaagh! As well- since you travel towards the nearest enemy, a unit Waaah-ing at the wrong time could clog a lane of movement at a critical time- I'm not a big fan of involuntary movement that is annoying to mitigate.

HoverBoy wrote:Skaven either devastate the enemy, or explode in spectacular shows of selfdestruction.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Several games I've had both, though usually it ends up being miscast rather then misfires that kill my stuff. I seem to have a gift/curse of roll triple sixes whenever I roll four dice for casting, then rolling low on the miscast table.

HoverBoy wrote:
Skaven either devastate the enemy, or explode in spectacular shows of selfdestruction.

but generally when the explode in a spectacular show of self destruction it is just hilarious, especially when your playing skaven as their whole plan goes to bol****s.

Renbags wrote:

HoverBoy wrote:
Skaven either devastate the enemy, or explode in spectacular shows of selfdestruction.

but generally when the explode in a spectacular show of self destruction it is just hilarious, especially when your playing skaven as their whole plan goes to bol****s.

This. I watched a game in 7th where the screaming bell blew up the entire skaven army (including chain panics) except for a doomwheel, a hellpit abom, and 20 slaves, at the top of turn 1 vs high elves. The skaven player won the game. It was ridiculous.

Malleus wrote:

Renbags wrote:

HoverBoy wrote:
Skaven either devastate the enemy, or explode in spectacular shows of selfdestruction.

but generally when the explode in a spectacular show of self destruction it is just hilarious, especially when your playing skaven as their whole plan goes to bol****s.

This. I watched a game in 7th where the screaming bell blew up the entire skaven army (including chain panics) except for a doomwheel, a hellpit abom, and 20 slaves, at the top of turn 1 vs high elves. The skaven player won the game. It was ridiculous.

Well, thats wrong right off the start.

You cannot blow up the bell turn one, since you can only roll ONE dice for its effect.


*pics or it didnt happen* IMO

In 7th the bell could blow up any time.

Not if he was running Hellpits and Doomwheels. Those are from the new book. Now, i didnt play rats in 7th, but he was obviously using the new book.

On the first round, you can only roll one dice as the Rat Ogre Warms up...consecutive turns you can roll two or three dice if you wish.

So therefore, either the person was playing it wrong, or it didnt happen.

Can someone explain the use of Warpfire Throwers and Rattling Guns? They're move or shoot, and wouldn't a unit of clanrats always prefer to move? Do these weapons only exist for Stand & Shoot defence? Or is there value in a small unit of clanrats with one of these guns?

Warpfire throwers move up and shoot stuff that you have engaged with your slaves to pin them down.

Ratlings rocked in the previous book, but now they need to roll to hit, which means half of your rolled shots miss. Loosing half of their effectiveness like that, they also needed to loose half of their cost.

But yes, that is a big weakness for those two weapon teams. They need clear LOS to shoot, and if they can see, they can also be seen... and shot at...

with skaven if you want to make sure that your goin to get into combat go with the basic list and add to it. 2 warp lighting cannons, 10 jezzies , 60 clan rats ( sheilds or spears) with any type of weapon team, 20 to 40 stormvermin(sheilds or great weapons), 20 to 40 monks, doom wheel, warlord, bsb with storm banner and great weapon , 1 warlocks and a pluageie. if you get these you have covered the basics and the thing you wont have to worrie about units getting to close to you in a rush as you will be blasting them away( yes their is a risk of a misfire), their shooting is -2 from the banner so most shooting will need 5's or above and by the time you get in combat you have widdled them down with spells from plauge or ruin and you out number them.

Squash wrote:Okay, so I'm definitely enamored with the Skaven, they're just way too ridiculous not to be played. But seriously, Doomwheels, Hell Pit Abominations, Weapons Teams. How does anyone get through the first turn without eviscerating their own army?

Wait, are you kidding? What could possibly go wrong with those choices? The HPA and the DW *might* perhaps do something weird or even kill a Slave once in a blue moon. Most weapon teams aren't even in range on the first turn.

My Imperial warmachines explode more often than my regular Skaven opponent's stuff, and that is with an Engineer for re-rolling a misfire.

thermatic wrote:with skaven if you want to make sure that your goin to get into combat go with the basic list and add to it. 2 warp lighting cannons, 10 jezzies , 60 clan rats ( sheilds or spears) with any type of weapon team, 20 to 40 stormvermin(sheilds or great weapons), 20 to 40 monks, doom wheel, warlord, bsb with storm banner and great weapon , 1 warlocks and a pluageie.

You just gave me a 1376- 1676 point army. And I didn't even include the "pluageie" because I don't know what it is. It could be a Plague Priest, but I hope it isn't because that's 100 MORE points.

Are you saying that as a Skaven play I have to build that 1500 point army, and then can get a little creative in 2000 or 2500 point games? Although I know a couple hundred would have to be earmarked for another unit of core infantry, because you only earmarked two of them for the basic list.

Is this it? Is this the only Skaven build?

a) Jezzail are not required, desptie what Thermatic says.
b) Stormvermin are a waste of points. rats with halberds suck in close combat, as they dont kill very well but die even faster
c) doom wheel sucks above 1k. One cannon and its gone and all its done is fry your side. Thanks to losing its abiltiy to change direction when moving its just a pain
d) warlords are a waste of points. Pack a grey seer to actually kill stuff with magic, and you still get Ld10 rats
e) BSB as cheap as you can, but you WANT a BSB.
f) 2 warlocks, one with brass orb, one with rocket. Skitterleap brass orb near enemies lines, watch as mini-nuke kills them. Use doomrocket first turn and watch the beauty that is the binomial approximation to the normal distribution.

So in other words thermatics "must have" is..not so much a must have.

In a recent 800 point game I took:
20 Clan hw+s fc ratling
30 Slaves Mus
Warlord 4+ward
BSB 6+ ward
Warlock lvl1 doom and condensor
Warp Lightning Cannon
5 Jezzails

I lost only the ratling and all of my other units still had a member on the table at the end of the game. Doom rocket on target took out 16 out of 21 but the other 5 fled immediately afterwards. So depending on what your tactics are you can have other builds. But rolling well is the real key to winning.

heh, yeah sometimes the dice can totally bugger you up no matter how hard you try...

case in point, recently played a vampire counts army, usually a pretty tough customer all in all, and he had 6 characters....did pretty well all game, until two things happened...i tried to power scroll 13th on his smallish death star of vampires and grave guard, and rolled 6 dice....got 1,2,3,4,5,6.....enough to cast, and it got scrolled. :(....sigh....no doubles....unbelievable.

I then had a massive combat tying up his death start with my bell, rats, and plaguemonk unit...last turn, he kills the bell and everyone ran away...blowing about 800pts for me and giving him the win....so sad..I failed every single inv save i needed to make to stop it.

But! it was a good game, and hellpits rule!

Jezzails are nuts 4+ save yes you have the change to kill your own guys but their guns make up for it, not to mention they are magical so against WE and VC blam no ward and their go your wraths. Stormvermin are a unit to hold up others and have the ability to hold their ground, put a warlod queek in that unit pay the extra 4 points per model and give them your bsb their you have a unit that is able to hold its own ground i.e watch tower. The doomwheel is realy effective against armys that do not have cannons yes a elve bolt thrower can take of 3 wounds at maz but who cares your moving D3 per turn shooting with a possible S10 weapon in and out of combat . finaly nosferatu you have to understand that must have list is one that will combat any army and has a solid chance to survive and that list is one that says" if you dont get the spells you want its no problem you still have other things that can kill a enemy". While everything in a skaven army has the chance to blow up the list i have given is one where it renforces you if you have not got the spells you wanted and you have had bad dice rolls and you have misfired.Squash yes the plaguie is a pluage monk yes he is 100 more points but compare it to other armys who are more expensive, you put the pluage monk in a unit of pluage monks and right their you have a unit that ,if you give them the pluage banner re-rolls all hits and wounds T4 with about 3 attacks each. That unit now has the ability to cast magic that will kill a hell of alot of ememy minnies (for example a unit of swordmasters gets hit by a spell from pluage normaly they are S2 but no armour so you make your money back) and has the ability to rip things apart in combat for less than what most elve units cost.

I'm pretty sure "pluage" is some kind of French insult which includes rain or other liquids.

Stormvermin aren't all that bad from where I stand but then again, I usually stand in front of them, so that might make a difference. They do not die any faster with better WS and better armour. Okay, they're quite visibly less numerous but still not entirely useless.

Doom wheels do not "suck above 1k", that's just nonsense. One cannon might kill it but one cannon might kill lots of other things that cost a world more than 150 points as well and it's far from automatic, more of a 15 % chance. Doomwheels are quite good at killing big stuff. Even if it is killed, that shot did not go towards the HPA, Bell, Furnace, ROgres or your own cannon. It's affordable enough to include other heavy hitters.

Please: use paragraphs. Wall of text is bad.

Jezzail: Except they have a low BS, cover abounds knocking that down even further (as their targets likely have something cheap in the way of your fire lanes) even if you can see your target at all. Or the enemy laughs as your only reasonable target is 2 point slaves, or 5 point warhounds.

At least they now benefit from SIN, but to actually benefit from it, with 3 ranks, you're looking at a huge points investment for a SUB PAR unit

WE? Dont make me laugh. Anything tht you could affect the WE player will not let you see, or you'll be hitting them on 7s. VC? You really think wraiths are going to let you shoot them? Again, dont make me laugh. Jezzail were marginal previously because of less cover, and skirmish meant you could have all shooting without taking up too much room.

I say this owning 20 of the damn things!

Stormvermin, with their special weapon, hold up *less effectively* than clanrats with HW+SH. LESS effectively while costing more points. Queek? Not worth the points for him OR his more-expensive-than-the-already-too-expensive-SV.

I say this owning 50 SV, all metal. I love the models, but they have yet to make them worthwhile taking.

Put clanrats with a warlord OR grey seer plus BSB and watch it hold the line MORE EFFECTIVELY (as it will take fewer casualties due to getting parry) than stormvermin, while either costing MUCH less or having FAR greater numbers. More importantly the seer can be hurting the enemy before they get to you.

The doomwheel, as I said, is effective at low point games. Otherwise it dies in one turn. 3D6" IN A STRAIGHT LINE, UNABLE TO MANOUVER is far less useful than in 7th, or have you not read that part of the FAQ?

Finally: you have to understand that playing Skaven myself and winning against all comer armies I have a fairly good idea of what works. Jezzail, SV and DW do NOT represent a good ROI except against specialised foes. If you're only playing ogres or brets then yes, they do very well - but not otherwise.

I have *lots* that can kill an enemy. PF + priest deals with most, plague monks happily rip through enemies esp with flaming banner to help with the tough ones, the bell seer WILL get 4 useful spells, as ruin is full of amazing spells, and my suicide locks (doom rocket, globe, orb) are far cheaper, more flexible and killier at taking out big stuff than jezzails. A globe lock, skitterlept into the enemies lines will, barring a misfire, kill far more than a few turns of jezzail shooting ever will.