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Greetings, man-things.

I have a slow-grow league starting at 500pts on Tuesday, and I'm not really sure how to run Skaven at that level.

I'm pretty new to Skaven, but I feel like I understand the core ideas well enough. I have 2 IoB sets, and can pick up some more clanrats or gutter runners (night runners proxies?) before Tuesday.

Lords:
Warlord w/Halberd

Heroes:
Bsb

Core:
20 Slaves
Spears/shields
Musician

Ditto

Ditto

Ditto

Rare:
WLC

I'm thinking of condensing 2 of the slaves into a Clanrat unit, as a bunker for the Characters.

Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

Here are my two Warptokens:

- a Warlord might be just too pricey at this point level. But only because I'm going to suggest getting a Warlock Engineer with a Doomrocket. At small point levels, that thing can win you the game all on it's own. Even if it misses though, it's still only a tiny piece of your total points.
And your chieftain should have some form of protection. Getting him a Ward save is priority #2, every time. #1 is, of course, the Doomrocket. So since you can't afford both at 500pts, I'd get him an Enchanted Shield for a 3+/6+.

- drop the shields from your Slaves. Against S3 or less close combat attacks, shield-bearing Skavenslaves are cost-efficient. Against any kind of missile fire or S4+, they are not.

As for spears...it's usually not worth it; I'd keep them cheap with hand weapons. And if you do want some spear rats, don't also give them shields. That is very cost ineffective.

I'm guess, though, that all your rats have shields and spears, since they're from the IoB set. If you buy another box of Clanrats though, you should be good. If the front rank and/or 51%+ don't have shields, no one should complain.

- I'd get two smallish units of Clanrats for your characters (20-25) and combine the Slaves into one big block of 40. Even at 500pts, 20 Slaves can't tar pit much. They're good for re-direction, though, so keep 'em small if that's what you're using them for.

- Beyond that, the Cannon's great. Gutter Runners are good, but I think they're wasted in small games. Censer Bearers have always served me well.

Before I post another list, I want to ask a couple of things.

When I put this list together, my thought was to be able to out maneuver most other armies simply by virtue of having more units. Is this not going to be a problem if I only take a slaveblob and 2 ratbunkers?

The other question is, what should I do with the 170ish points I get from dropping the Warlord and the upgrades?

PS: Is the Chieftain still the Bsb, with the WE as general?

With only a few clanrat bunkers/slaves, you won't be out maneuvering much.
However; Rat Darts, which are a min sized giant rat pack, could go a long way to helping you do that.
The rat darts will provide an extra deployment drop or 2, and are good for blocking charge lanes/redirecting, and can even take on war machines and tie them up in CC for a turn or 2.

If you take 2 units of clanrats, just bunker both heroes into one unit.
With the left over points you could get a pair of rat darts at 46 points, and more clanrats.

Yes, the warlock will be the GEN, and the BSB will still just be the BSB.

Also +1 to censer bearers being good in smaller games, as are rat ogres. The lack of shooting in these kinda matches usually means your units will survive long enough to get into CC and do some damage.

For your OP; an army of slaves sounds good, but slaves are really terrible in CC. If you lose the WLC early, you'll struggle to pull off a win since you'll lack any kind of hitting power once it’s gone.
The warlord is great in 500 points, but as is; you got no save on him, so he just a T4/3W/5+ AS guy, not hard for most armies to deal with, even at 500 points. Plus the warlord won't carry an army by himself anyways.

Warpsolution wrote:And your chieftain should have some form of protection. Getting him a Ward save is priority #2, every time. #1 is, of course, the Doomrocket. So since you can't afford both at 500pts, I'd get him an Enchanted Shield for a 3+/6+.

Agreeing with everything Warpsolution said, but just pointing out that you don't get the Parry save from a magic shield (pg. 174)

At 500pts, few armies are going to have more than three units.

You could do something like:

- Warlock Engineer + Doomrocket (45)
- Chieftain + battle standard + Enchanted Shield (75)

- 22 Clanrats + shields + musician + standard (111)
- 40 Skavenslaves + musician (82)

- 6 Censer Bearers (96)

- 1 Warp Lightning Cannon (90)

You've got the Rocket, the Censers, and the Cannon as threats, and you've got some Clanrats and some Slaves to grind it out.
If you want more bodies, you could drop two Clanrats and the Censer Bearers for a Rat Dart and a second unit of Slaves, but at that point you're basically banking off of the idea that the Doomrocket will more or less hit (six dice will generally see that done, but not always) and that your Cannon doesn't blow up.
As it is, though, 4 drops isn't bad at 1000pts. 3 units that move isn't a ton, but it's probably still more than your opponent. Just make sure those Censer Bearers don't get suckered into a combat they can't win.