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I've done some preliminary reading and I keep seeing that Skorn are hard hitting, slow moving, and while they can take a hit they aren't quite as resiliant as Trollbloods. Trollbloods seems a bit more resiliant, if less hard hitting but I really don't care much for the models. What can you guys tell me about how the army behaves during a game? Since 40k isn't a good system to draw analogies to, how about the old WizKids MechWarrior game (assuming any of you ever played it)?

Skorne heavy beasts are initially slow, but the Skorne army has lots of ways to make them faster. I would say that troll beasts are tougher, but only because of regeneration and snacking on all their heavies. Skorne Titans actually have more armor and boxes than Troll heavies.

Any idea how you'd want to play your army because each Skorne Warlock pretty much plays to a different strength in the Skorne army, which is the beauty of Skorne, really. They are pretty much the faction of jack of all trades, but your army can be built to be masters of some too.

I've no idea on the nuances of the army as I've really only started examining this game. I tended to play Mechwarrior (clix) agressively and found I could usually bully my opponents around. I'm not a finess player by any means and in 40k, I do poorly with Dark Eldar because of it.

How would you rate the value (dollar to utility ratio) of the Skorn starter set that PP has on sale now?

Well there really isn't a bad Skorne Warlock (Mordikaar is a walking conundrum in my mind but then again I haven't played him yet). I'll try to break it down by playstyle for you, keep in mind with Skorne there are no true all beast casters, skorne likes its beasts but in the end each caster needs infantry of some sort to be the most effective.

Beast Focused
*Rasheth
*eMakeda
*pMorgoul

Infantry Focused
*pHexeris
*eHexeris
*pMakeda (outside of Molik Missile)
*eMorgoul
*Zaal
*Xersis
*Mordikaar

Other
*Naaresh

Without going into alot of detail (I can be more specific but don't have my book or cards on me to look up spells etc) I primary used my experience playing each caster to figure out if they rely on their beasts or more on infantry to get the job done.

Naaresh is in his own category has he really doesn't do a ton for beasts except for his feat turn and tends to support infantry as well. However I have never won with Naaresh without using my feat so Im not sure where to put him.

The starter deal that PP has for sale now is fantastic.

pMorghoul is a little weird, but I think you'd like him. He makes his beasts go faster and hit harder, but you need to be careful with his fairly small control area of 10." You can only force your beasts(which allows that to hit better, harder, and make more attacks among a few other things) while they are within his control area, but I think it's a good learning tool to have a smaller control are since it teaches you the importance of order of activations. His feat is also fantastic. People get pretty upset when they can't force or use focus. He can also run beasts pretty hot on FURY and then start taking it off them with Malediction and his claws have Inflict Pain. He himself does not do a whole lot to bigger things, but he can dance through a unit fairly easily. Be carfeful though, he has very low armor, and, while pretty hard to hit, can't take a good smack to the head and live. Morghoul does like to ping off the odd bit of heath from his beasts, but the increased damage output is very well worth it. He also does nothing to boost any of your units only his beasts.

Gladiator is a must for any skorne army since it's animus is so darn awesome. It also reaches stupid high speed and strength on it's attacks after you buff it with Morghoul's spell Abuse(d3 damage, +2SPD and +2STR) and have the Beasthandlers Enrage it(Charge/trample/slam for free, must charge/trample/slam, +2STR).

Savages are not great and you'll hardly use them as your collection grows, but they get pretty damn fast and decent strength with Morghoul.

Nihilators are fantastic. They have great power and MAT, are Tough, have Reach, and Berserk means that they can clear out infantry fast. You have to be careful with Berserk though. They can wipe themselves out.

Beasthandlers are also a must have. They make your beasts stronger, help manage Fury, and can heal your beasts if needed.

Hakaar awesome too. He is a fantastic beatstick that only gets stronger if your opponent kills you troopers near him.

I'd certainly get the starter deal.

As another budding Skorne player (having switched over from Cryx), I have to warn you about something.

Most armies have 'synergy', where unit A will work with solo B to produce result C, and so on.

Skorne, on the other hand, has 'Skornergy':

Battle College wrote:
Skornergy is the opposite of synergy, it is a thing in which two good abilities or features are mutually exclusive or contradictory. Primarily focused in their Warlocks, it makes it very important to double-check any spell or ability of a new warcaster against his other spells or abilities before using them. It is, however, also seen in their very army layouts at times (Immortals want you to field Ancestral Guardians. Ancestral Guardians want you to field living models, Zaal wants all three in large numbers but needs warbeasts to fuel his Fury). Skornergy isn't insurmountable, and it can be turned against your enemy by leaving him to have to choose between two bad options, but it does demand a detailed understanding of your models and their rules interactions.

Skornergy, huh? Good to know.

I just bought the Skorne Summer Sale Army Box and selected Priority Mail so hopefully it will be here sometime early next week. Looking forward to getting in some play time once everything is put together.

Quick question; what size list do you guys recommend for learning the game and getting a good understanding of how Skorne works?

Okay. My Skorne army arrived today. It was shipped nearly a week after I ordered it, but I'll put that up to them being swamped with orders. Given that we're both in Seattle, the USPS had it delivered the very same day it was shipped. Which, of course, means someone at the USPS is going to be fired shortly.

It's too late this week to go to the various shops I know about and watch some games, so I'll just start reading through the rules.

Is there any sort of "default" 15 or 25 point list floating around that can be made from the army deal? Even though I don't know what I'm doing yet, it would probably be a good idea to have something together before I ask people to teach my some lessons.

Breotan wrote:Okay. My Skorne army arrived today. It was shipped nearly a week after I ordered it, but I'll put that up to them being swamped with orders. Given that we're both in Seattle, the USPS had it delivered the very same day it was shipped. Which, of course, means someone at the USPS is going to be fired shortly.

It's too late this week to go to the various shops I know about and watch some games, so I'll just start reading through the rules.

Is there any sort of "default" 15 or 25 point list floating around that can be made from the army deal? Even though I don't know what I'm doing yet, it would probably be a good idea to have something together before I ask people to teach my some lessons.

You got the army deal, right? Well, for 15, you can grab an Agonizer, and have -

pMorg
--Cyclops Savage
--Cyclops Savage
--Titan Gladiator
Paingivers (min)
Agonizer

The agonizer acts as a Fury-battery and can use its stored fury to screw over warbeast/jacks.

The bundle already comes together at 25 points -

pMorg
--Cyclops Savage
--Cyclops Savage
--Titan Gladiator
Paingivers (min)
Nihilators (max)
Hakaar

It's essentially the same as the 15, where Morg and the Paingivers make your beasts better, but with the inclusion of infantry. pMorg does absolutely nothing for infantry, which is fine since Nihilators (being Tough and Fearless) can more or less run on their own. Hakaar will go with the Nihilators, since when they start dying he begins sucking up souls to make his attacks better.

Awesome! Thanks for the info.

One more question, is there a specific issue(s) of No Quarter that I need to hit eBay for? I assume that unlike the WD there's stuff in there that's actually useful?

Thanks.

Not really. I'd recommend you check out the Skorne community subforum on PP's official forums, though. You can find plenty of Tacticas and advice, much better than Battlecollege's stuff!

There may be some extra theme forces from NQ you'll want to try out later on, but theme forces are generally not for new players. There are also a few background articles such as guts and gears or the Gavin Kyle files that are sometimes about skorne.

There just like Khador, hard, slow and deliver a nice punch in combat.

Breotan wrote:One more question, is there a specific issue(s) of No Quarter that I need to hit eBay for? I assume that unlike the WD there's stuff in there that's actually useful?.

One issue you might try to get hold of is #39. It has Skorne power progression, which details one possible route to expand from battlebox to 100 points. It was written by Jason Watt, who has been the most profilic tournament player in US in the past couple of years. It doesn't have anything that you cannot find elsewhere, but it is a nice compilation on how to put together pMorghoul army according to one experienced player.