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So I just bought the island of blood boxed set and I am playing the Skaven army while my friend is taking the elves. We have played 40k but never fantasy so I am unfmaliar with the skaven army? Does anyone have any tips on which units are good and which are overpriced. I am not obsessed with winning but definitley like to be competitive. Any ideas/ pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Clanrats with shields and Skavenslaves are probably the best options for Core.

Gutter Runners with Poisoned Slings are great harassment units.

Both the Hell Pit Abomination and the Warp Lightning Cannon are great Rare choices.

For Characters, a Grey Seer, A Chieftain BSB and Warlock Engineers (Doomrocket!) are great.

I second the above poster... i just recently started with IoB set as well... and i went and bought a Warplightning Cannon right away and wow it wrecks... seriously great!...
I haven't personally tried a doomrocket engineer yet but from these forums they are pretty wicked as well.. If your looking to expand your army in a cheap manner i suggest
going to ebay and buying more clanrats/slaves from the IoB set... you can buy them individually in sets of 20 rats for around half the price of the boxed set!

Unless you're getting weapon teams or pushing a bell, I find slaves better than clanrats for the purpose of tarpitting the enemy. Works best with cannons, doomwheels, and monsters so you can inflict both ranged and melee attacks on the tarpit. A BSB is a must have for his abilities.

@ Kenshin
Agreed, Skavenslaves are better tarpits for their points than Clanrats are. However, you need Clanrats to join your Characters to. Characters can't join Skavenslaves, Warplightning Cannons and Hell Pit Abominations. They could join Gutter Runners, but only if you deploy the Gutter Runners normally, which kind of defeats their purpose (scouting harassment units). Clanrats are the most logical option to join your Characters to as they are fairly durable for their points. You won't need 25% of the game value in Slave tarpits anyway (300 Slaves in a 2400 points game anyone?).

These are all great tips.


I'd also like to draw attention to the awesomeness of a Plague Furnace pushed by Plague Monks with the Plague banner. If you do this make sure you grab enough monks (some will no doubt die before they see combat due to pushing the furnace). Usually 40 is a minimum starting number, though I would run it in 50 or 60 to be safe.

As far as weapon teams go, wind mortars are worth their weight in gold. Warpfire throwers are mean too but a bit harder to get into the right position.

Besides that just go with huge blocks of slaves backed by lots of WLC's. Though be prepared to be 'That Guy' at your FLGS/GW.

Skaven have a lot of options. I implore you to go through the book and come up with a list that appels to you. It's really hard to make a crappy list with the rats.

Airmaniac wrote:Characters can't join Skavenslaves

Yeah they can. You just can't shoot into a CC if there's a character in the unit; that doesn't stop them from being able to join though.

streamdragon wrote:

Airmaniac wrote:Characters can't join Skavenslaves

Yeah they can. You just can't shoot into a CC if there's a character in the unit; that doesn't stop them from being able to join though.

Yup, slave units are popular with warplock engineers