After my recent
RTT I’ve become pretty sick of 2500 point games, with the bloating that has to happen with any of my armies to play at a level I don’t really have the models for. Add to that that skaven are my only 100% painted army (though with 1 unpainted WLC now
) and often quite frustrating to me, and I’ve been feeling pretty unsatisfied with fantasy of late. But with a
LGS willing to give a 2000 point tournament a shot in March I’ve suddenly got some mojo back, including enough gall to try out an item I’d love to take in any army but skaven: the wizarding hat. I bought half of a
TK army recently only because I wanted to use this madcap item (I then wrote it out of my list …), and love the randomness of it, as well as finally having access to ANY of the
BRB lores (I play skaven, ogres and warriors
), most hopefully Beasts, with the thought that for skaven, my troops are atrocious BUT are also very cheap, so really any buff would make them pretty legit …
Why is the hat terrible for skaven? Because it has to go on a warlord, who has poor physical stats and 0 points leftover for a ward, yet needs to be kept alive at all costs. Oppose this to a tomb king, ogre tyrant, chaos lord and so on, who have awesome stats and mundane options, as well as an army not entirely dependant on being LD10 steadfast when able.
Enough pre-amble, the list:
SKAVEN 2000 L: Warlord – wizarding hat, shield
L: Warlord – ogre blade, armor of destiny, dragonbane gem, shield, bonebreaker
H: Chieftain –
BSB, world’s edge armor, ironcurse icon, shield
H: Engineer – level 1, dispel scroll
H: Engineer – level 1, 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: 36 Slaves – pawleader, musician
S: 5 Gutter Runners – deathrunner, poison
S: 5 Gutter Runners – deathrunner, poison
S: 6 Plague Censer Bearers
S: 6 Plague Censer Bearers
R: Warp Lightning Cannon
R: Warp Lightning Cannon
Many familiar faces from my lists: Breaker #2 (‘LT’), the twin engineers, double gutters, double censers, double cannons, triple ratters. Deathrunners stuck around because I liked having them @ 2500 (I have champion models for my gutter teams but have rarely paid for them to be what they look like, so that’s more at play here than tactical concerns), and I still want to see what 2x WLC can do when they aren’t squabbling with each other like all 3 games of the
RTT.
For those that have been reading my reports, this is the usual High Elf guy, with a pretty standard version of his list:
HIGH ELVES 2000 L: Archmage – level 4, dice-stealing crystal
H: Noble –
BSB, rerollable 2+ armor, great weapon
C: 20 Spearelves – some command
C: 16 Archers – banner of eternal flame, some command
C: 10 Archers
S: 18 White Lions – banner of sorcery, ironcurse icon, full command
S: 12 White Lions – champion w/ ruby ring of ruin
S: 8 Sword Masters
S: 5 Dragon Princes
S: Tiranoc Chariot
R: Eagle
If I can begin the complaining early, how much do I hate all of these magic dice manipulating items? In a row, I’ve now faced dwarfs with balance + anvil (+5 dice, +2 to dispel), orcs with level 4 + staff + totem (+5 dice, +4 to dispel), woodies with level 4 + wand (+4 to dispel, rerolled), and high elves with level 4 + crystal (+2 dice, +5 to dispel). Unless I’m mistaken, skaven have absolutely no special defense against magic? I guess there are a bunch of us, but that doesn’t help when, well, there aren’t that many of you (i.e. skirmishers) or the enemy is rocking hexes and augments or unit kill spells (who isn’t?). Point being: I disliked magic and grow to hate it more and more in 8th with most every game.
*rant capped for later*
MAGIC Hat Warlord [HEAVENS] – wind blast (push back D3+1” /
D6+1”), curse of the midnight wind (hex, reroll 6’s)
Scroll Engineer [RUIN] – death frenzy
Condenser Engineer [RUIN] – scorch
Archmage [SHADOW] – miasma, enfeebling, pit, mindrazor
So it begins. I’ve run a bunch of trials through Hat spell selection, and came to the conclusion that Heavens is probably the worst for me, due to the weakness of the damage spells (I’m paying 100 points for the hat, I want results for my IF) and the lack of stat-manipulating augments and hexes. And here we are, two mediocre Heavens spells, backed up by two great skaven ones, but one that is obviously going to be shut down every turn (scorch vs T3 elves), and one that I don’t want to cast until later in the game, so effectively giving me three spells with which to ‘saturate’ my casting phase. Note also that my opponent rolled 3,6,6,6 for his spells, giving him total choice
SCENARIO, TERRAIN & DEPLOYMENT We diced up Meeting Engagement, and I suggested we tweak it to drop the unbalanced reserves rolling, and he agreed. My Mundane Terrain Chart gave us eight pieces: 2 fences, 1 pond, 2 hills, 3 buildings. He won The Roll to pick, place and start but gave it to me, preferring to be reactionary at the cost of me shooting first …
LT joined the first clanrats, the hat (acting as general) +
BSB joined the second clanrats, the scroll joined the third clanrats and the condenser the slaves. Gutters scouted to harass his eagle and his flaming archers / backfield. His
BSB joined the big lions and archmage the small archers on the hill.
And then he rolled a 6 and stole the initiative. Balls.
BATTLE Turn 1 
Though he has longer charges on all of the ratling guns, the high elves largely shuffle around, with the eagle, princes and chariot heading down their respective flanks. Magic blows strong but does relatively little, with a boosted miasma (D3 = 1) on the eagle-hunting gutters. Shooting opens with his flaming archers killing two of their gutters and panicing them off table, and the archmage’s archers nailing the closest ratling gun.
Still stunned that I lost first, I start going into damage control far earlier than anticipated: censers block the eagle from getting to the left cannon while the M5 gutters chase after the big bird, blocks shuffle some and the other censers move to intercept the flanking cavalry and chariot. Magic blows very weak (3), which is made weaker by his crystal (2), but stronger by a triple channel (3), though that just means I’ve got what he has (3-3). From here out you can assume that I generally got a triple channel off, always lost a die to him, and never once condensed (in fact in the last four games the condenser has worked 1-2 times). Anyway, 4-die scorch and 2-die wind blast are shut down. Of the two surviving ratters, one drops 2 lions and the other jams (1-2-1) and blows up. The right WLC tries to shoot the eagle (I think), misfires, spins and hits a censer (1 to wound) and the other WLC (
D6 = 2 wounds). Enraged, that cannon shoots at the tail end of the tiranoc chariot, but rolls S2 and can’t wound it.
Turn 2 
The eagle charges the last ratling gun, which flees and strands the bird in front of the censers. But the elves themselves are still loathe to commit, once more shuffling up and heading down the flank. Magic rolls respectably (face it, with the banner of sorcery he has 8-12 dice every phase) but again largely doesn’t matter – the ring drops 2 censers facing the eagle, the hat’s unit is big miasma’d (D3 = 2), and pit fails to cast against the right censers. The archers continue to work their magic in the shooting phase, dropping 2 gutters and panicing them away, and impressively tagging 2 of the right censers as well.
Time to rock and roll! Censers jump on the eagle (which holds to make them overrun away), other censers long charge the chariot, and LT leads his clanrats into the lions, who are in fact out of
BSB range. They flee, LT redirects into the swordmasters but can’t manage the 8 to reach them. The last ratter rallies, but the gutters keep running (to the table edge). I get my only strong magic phase of the game (12 – 1 for crystal + 1 for channel), but his +5 dispel allows only a wind blast through, which pushes the big white lions back 3”
Gun phase continues the retardation: right WLC aims to land a template into the princes, rolls a misfire for strength and fizzles out; left WLC lines up a sweet flankshot on the same princes, rolls a misfire for strength and fizzles out. My rage begins to rise …
Thankfully I get to smash things with my lovely censers! The eagle takes 5+ wounds (0 from smell tests, though I lose 1) and those 3 censers overrun 1”, while the right censers lose 2 to their own smelliness (the chariot loses 0 wounds) and the last 2 to the S3 elf crew. At this point, I’m pretty livid, as I’ve killed this chariot how many times with fewer censers??
Turn 3 
The big white lions finally find the gumption to charge the last of the ratters, which flees, leaving them to fail forward as they aren’t ready to start killing clanrats quite yet. The other white lions fail their LD8 rally (no musician!), twice (
BSB fail!) and keep on running. Otherwise, the archers scoot about, swordmasters move up to glare at LT, chariot lines up flank nastiness for next turn and the princes decide to take the incoming slave charge on the chin if need be. Magic miraculously doesn’t debuff the hell out of LT and crew – perhaps he failed his first casting attempt? He was very very frightened of miscasting, so would roll no more than 4 dice for every cast. Sensing soft underbellies, the flaming archers drop 2 censers at range (needing 6’s then 5’s), while the other archers try for the condenser engineer (saved from a wound by
LOS!).
Desperate to save my WLC (for unknown reasons
), the slaves head out of the hat’s
LD bubble and charge the princes – my opponent is very concerned by this, but I assure him it’s a stupid move. (I’m still unsure what I should have done if saving the cannon was my priority.) LT takes the bait and leads his rabble into the swordmaster blender. The last gutters rally at the table edge, the last censer hides behind the hill, the last ratter rallies behind friendly lines, and the clanrats shuffle around awkwardly, with engineers orbiting their general’s unit. Magic goes to scorch the lions and curse the ‘masters, but neither gets through. The cannons continue the ineptitude, one misfiring on strength vs the chariot, and the other wounding with S6 (!) but rolling a 2 for wounds.
Fighting returns though, and it’s pretty awesome, at least half of it. The swordmasters load many attaks into LT but, without rerolls, manage 0 wounds, and only dice up 3 clanrats. They are brutalized down to a single ‘master as a result, who fails his snake eyes break and heads off. Stupidly I follow rather than reform and roll his line, but I was expecting to have to run down the lions and then deal with archers … The slaves meanwhile lose 6, kill 0, fail their steadfast 5 and explode, taking down 1 prince in the process. Uh, pyrrhic victory for skaven everywhere?
Turn 4 
Finally, the white lions hitch up their (manly plaid) skirts and charge the character-less clanrats, with the tiranoc screaming in for a flank. The princes charge the cannon behind the fence, one of them getting a splinter in the process from dangerous terrain. Ray of Sunshine Moment: the small white lions continue to flee (9 to rally only works if you have a musician!), as does the last swordmaster. Magic may have pitted LT’s unit, but it scattered off. The flaming archers continue their anti-skirmisher duties, dropping another 2 gutters, though the final ninja passes panic now that he’s not being pestered by his brothers and sisters. The archers tag a wound off of the condenser engineer.
Carnage is finally on the elves’ terms: 15 clanrats die, 3 white lions bite it (just enough for the rats to retain rank superiority), and the skaven steadfast on 9. The cannon is flipped over and the princes reform.
I very seriously contemplate calling it, but I really do hate reading books for my grad degree so shoulder on. LT quick reforms his bus into the flank of the spears, the hat girds his loins to be charged next turn, the last of the censers runs interference on the princes, hoping to get lucky (!), and the final gutter hides as far from the scary archers as possible. Magic I manage to cast Rant of Doom, venting my fury upon the apparent necessity of taking level 4’s as well as skaven’s utter lack of items that manipulate the phase in the way that just about every other army can. I also cast Banishment upon the wizarding hat, successfully (?) banning myself from ever using it in another skaven build. My army however is utterly ineffective in this phase. Shooting is a cosmic joke as well, with the remaining cannon, now devoid of targets, trying to snipe the level 4 but rolling the old misfire for strength again.
Combat sucks too: 6 clanrats survive a rather tame beating (5 after the standard bearer is devoured), they flee and astoundingly outpace the chariot. The lions +
BSB turn to face the skaven wearing the stupid hat and ready their axes …
Turn 5 
… and charge the hell in. The princes steam into the waiting censer, their path cleared of fleeing clanrats by the chariot, which heads off table. The fleeing lions leave the table (THANK YOU, HORNED
RAT) and the swordmaster scurries to the edge himself, while the spears turn to take LT’s charge and the archers look for more vulnerabilities to exploit. Magic finally rolls low (2-1), but with banner of sorcery it’s actually a good thing (5 vs my 2). All the same mindrazor (which would have SUCKED) on the spears fails to cast. Archers try for some engineer-kabab but can’t make it.
The censer fails to stink out any princes (failed HE tests = 0; failed skaven tests = 3), then is lanced like the boil he is, as the princes head into the main combat yet to happen. Then the skaven end game finally begins as the lions rev up. His
BSB is contained by the clawleader in a challenge (max overkill), while the lions gentlemanly don’t allocate to either character, preferring to trash the
RNF. We steadfast on 9 successfully.
Well at least LT is the man, shepherding his flock into the waiting spears. Engineers nervously run about, but magic continues to be a bust regardless of where they stand. The WLC takes another snipe at the level 4, but again somehow ballses it up.
Meanwhile, the hat takes 2 wounds from his
BSB (delivers none back), the
BSB is chopped down and some clanrats die too. We fail the LD8 steadfast and flee over the laser cannon (which doesn’t care), with the lions in hot pursuit and the princes reformed to tackle the last, confused ratling gun. But yea, LT rocks those spearelves’ world, folding many into small pieces, losing few clanrats and running them the hell down. Monstrous crotch-chopping may have occurred.
Turn 6 
My opponent asks if I want to end it but I assure him I would have quit hours back if that was the plan. His lions – admittedly there are only 4 +
BSB at this point – charge the WLC, the princes ride into the ratter, and archers look for engineers. He chooses to not cast at all, and the archers can hardly get shots, none of which wound my wee tiny wizards. Combat does what you expect: I remove the ratter as he rolls and the princes head off table, and the lions flip over the cannon and push the hat and his cohorts off the edge with their overrun.
With two engineers, one gutter and an Ultimate Badass left on the table, this is going to be an intense final turn. LT swift reforms into the archmage’s face, growling angrily. The scorch engineer targets the last of the lions (because they could run off the board, unlike the reroll-less archers), rolls all 5 of his mighty power dice at the spell and gets 5-2-1-1-1. The archmage waves a hand at LT’s rancid breath, inadvertently both dispelling the attak and signaling his crew to call off the battle …
Right, that’s a
HIGH ELF VICTORY if there ever was one, though I felt like that was the case from his roll to seize 3 hours earlier.
If it weren’t obvious, I’m declaring this HATBREAKER build a failure, even if luck was stupidly brutal all game – and it was after too, with long lines at Wendy’s (I was the guy who had to wait for new patties to be busted out), long waits for traffic, and then terrible heartburn from said patties
About the only thing I did like was triple-channeling, but the hat warlord just doesn’t cut it for skaven, at any points. It
might work in conjunction with a grey seer, but then I’d rather put the dice through the rat actually capable of not being dispelled with such ease. The real sad thing for me is that, just like 7th, I have to pump at least some points (scroll level 1 maybe?) into a phase that isn’t returning anything for my investments. That said, I have literally never used a grey seer, and I do miss the Plague lore from my vermin lord days …
- Salvage
