SSquirrel wrote:Hi there! I'm still in the reading and studying stages of things, I have yet to buy any models due to my current lack of employment (but that is hopefully fixed soon). I am looking at Skaven as my first army tho and trying to keep initial costs down, but still be able to throw together a decent 1500 point army. Here is what I have so far. I may have done magic items wrong, but I tried. Feel free to correct any mistakes.
Purchase:
$100 Island of Blood (this army list assumes a swap of HE/Skaven w/someone to double my starting models)
$115 Skaven Battalion
$35 Night Runners
2x $33 Lightning Cannon
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Total: $316
Lord: 133
Warlord [General] 133 (Shield, Shield of Distraction, Pipes of Piebald)
Heroes: 302
Chieftain [
BSB] 82 (Shield,
BSB, Enchanted Shield)
Warlock Engineer 95 (L1, Doomrocket)
Warlock Engineer 125 (L2, Dispel Scroll)
Core: 500
40 Clanrats 265 (Shields, Full Command, Poison Wind Mortar)
80 (2x40) Slaves 204 (Shields, 2 Musicians)
5 Giant Rats 15
2 Pack Masters 16 (Giant Rats, Rat Ogres)
Special: 377
5 Rat Ogres 215 (1 Master-Bred)
9 Gutter Runners 162 (Slings, Poison)
Rare: 180
2 Lightning Cannons 180
1492 pts
This would give me some decent generals, some magic, a couple of good cannons, a team to take out weapons, a Rat Dart, an Ogre pack and some Clan and Slave rats to add to the mix.
The best person here to ask for skaven advice is warpsolution though i haven't seen said person in a long while. I'll do the best i can in warpsolution's stead.
The 2 warp lightning cannons are fantastic.
You could also probably add in a doomwheel if you wished. Normally i find the doomwheel is a great monster killer. Considering the points you'll probably be ok but in some armies that spam large models with lots of wounds it's just nice to have something that zaps them all away. The doomwheel is not very noob friendly and like chariots if it's charged by rank-and-file or anything specially suited to killing it then it will either be stuck or die. The main power of the doomwheel is in the warp lightning shots which shoot at the closest target friend or foe. It works best running along your flanks but you have to maneuvre back and forth and use in odd ways. At first the doomwheel doesn't work so well but when you get the hang of it it can help out a ton.
Anyway i normally find that the doomwheel is a good monster killer and i've been lacking that lately. If you aim to keep your leader in the back you may want to have a doomwheel or something for facing monsters. Warp lightning cannons help but sometimes just 2 of them doesn't go as far as you'd like with multiple 5, 6 or even 8 wound monsters. There are other methods for handling monsters though.
Rat ogres are an odd unit. I'm honestly starting to think they could kill medium or weak monsters if they had to. They can put out damage but they can't really take it. Worst of all is if they face something with decent strength and higher initiative like say warriors of chaos and the rest of said army's units. Rat ogres probably aren't bad though i don't think i'd have enough to make a difference. Some use rat ogres to outflank but i worry that all it'd take is one weak missile shot or two at the rat ogres and one dead packmaster and the unit would be completely and utterly stuck which is not good by any means and a waste of points.
Most people use giant rats of all things as war machine killers. You mentioned the rat darts already so it seems you know of this. They are incredibly cheap and disposable. Good as flanking units but probably can't do too much.
Skaven-slaves are great in many different builds. You can choose to throw a 15 points warlock in each and give said warlock gear to keep them alive (remember warlocks aren't wizards until you buy them wizard levels so they can take magic armor if you don't make them wizards) and you can get champions to accept challenges for them. The problem with this route is the unit can no longer be shot into by your other units and it will cause panic in non-slave units because of the warlock.
Another build is for hordes where you just load up on guys and clog the battlefield with them and force the enemy into a big melee with them. You can also get the enemy stuck in combat with large slave units and then shoot stuff like warpfire throwers into the melee they're apart of. If you have enough slaves you should be ok and the enemy usually has models that are worth far more than the 2 pts a model base skaven-slaves.
Then there's the loadout i'm doing now which is to use them in small blocks of like 20 each as a moving screen of fodder that takes shots from the enemy in place of my more valuable units and you can choose to have them flee from an enemy's charge and not have to worry whether that 40 points unit will panic anything if spread apart far enough from other slaves and you would force them to fail a charge. Not only that but you can choose to march up to the enemy's units and position your slaves in such a way after marching that the enemy is forced to either shoot, magic or charge the slaves. Usually they are forced to charge the slaves because they won't be able to move aside and charge anything else and the slaves are in the way of the unit proceeding. If the enemy charges you can flee and force the enemy either fail the charge, block another unit they have with their charging unit (since chargers move first) or be left out in the open with exposed flanks and no buddies to help them.
Finally you can run slaves with slings. I haven't tried this yet and it doesn't seem too great considering their shabby
BS and the fact multiple shots means they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. That said it could probably do well against skirmishing units with low armor and few wounds, small weapons teams (like the skaven ones) and possibly fanatics with a small possibility being that it could effect small units of skirmishers (unlikely though considering they're even harder to hit with
BS weapons). My suggestion for using them would be to keep some around your war machines such as the warp lightning cannons. In theory it should prevent an enemy's version of rat dart type units killing your war machines. In ways this is also good to have slings since the enemy may have flying units like harpies ready to harass your war machines and that's bad news for everybody. Still won't help versus a chariot though.
If you run slaves at all it's generally accepted they do best with no extra gear as it costs too many points so no spears or shields and only use slings if you use them as i mentioned.
The doom rocket is used most effectively when you skitterleap its wielder into the flank of an enemy army. Grey seers are an absolute guarantee for getting skitterleap though i'd suggest against having a skitterleaping grey seer as your general considering your general needs to give his army his command radius esp. for slaves. It's a mistake i learned the hard way when i didn't realize how much i would skitterleap the grey seer and how useful the general's command radius was.
The
BSB is usually best in the back. Keep him and the general out of harm's way or as a last line of defense.
Gutter runners are usually best used as a war machine killer since most war machines are on high ground or most monsters are large targets making them easy to hit (you should have line of sight to them no problem). The way i ran mine and supposedly the best way to run them is to scout your gutter runners. This usually gets them to within 12" of the enemy on turn 1. Running them with poisoned slings will allow for some good war machine killing though it isn't terribly easy.
As far as clanrats are considered i'd use them with weapons teams. I know some say not to trust them too heavily but i can't help but love them. My favorite is the warpfire thrower by far though the poisoned wind mortar has net me a few nice cavalry kills.
Warpfire throwers are great vs. most things oustide of super large monsters and cavalry but they're incredibly short ranged. It takes some getting used to but if you run slaves correctly and move around well you should be able to net some insane warpfire thrower shots. I must've killed about 20 warriors of chaos with mark of khorne in one game and the warriors of chaos player was left with only 1 of his 40 warriors at game end though he still won (stupid daemon prince and gorebeast chariots but mostly the ridiculous daemon prince). Warpfire throwers shoot magical flaming attacks at strength 5 that do d3 wounds and cause panic for any wound lost from their flaming attack. If that isn't fantastic i dunno what is even if the warp lightning cannon usually does it better. It's also worth noting that fire re-rolls to wound against units in buildings and that it goes through regeneration for an entire phase.
The poisoned wind mortar is a move and fire mortar that usually is best used on cavalry but it can take pot shots on monsters with few wounds. I think i heard they do some damage when used en masse versus rank-and-file but i never tried it.
Some people prefer ratling guns over warpfire throwers but it just doesn't seem to throw out as many shots as the previous skaven army book did where they'd auto-hit. Tends to misfire a lot but has a decent range. I'd use it versus elite units and any sort of small unit (skirmishers like skinks and maybe enemy weapons teams like salamanders) and to annoy the crap out of an enemy that has to come and get them or deal with them somehow.
The doom flayer is the last weapon team and most agree it sucks. It's supposed to be melee oriented but it tends to die against everything before its turn to hit comes or it's low initiative enemies tend to be higher in toughness. It's just a weapon team that doesn't pan out. If you use it at all use them in friendly games where you don't expect to win or are facing a noob.
Clanrats by themselves are ok. Most give them hand weapons and shields for survivability purposes. I hear they're good as character bunkers.
As a couple tips i will say i regret putting my wizards in any sort of expensive unit such as queek's stormvermin. In my opinion they work best in a unit that can horde but is very disposable and won't effect battle plans if a bunch die to a miscast or similar (and they will die to miscasts from your wizard for most intents and purposes exploding and killing his unit around him).
I'd probably throw out just a little more wizards. It's more a preference thing here for me. I just like having access to more spells. Combining skitterleap with cracks call for instance is good fun though you may need a grey seer for that and then you'd need a warlord as the general so the grey seer can jump around. It'd cost a lot of points though. Perhaps if you threw out 2 level 2 wizards.
Other than that you can't take two shields. You only need one or the other.
I also probably wouldn't use the pipes of piebald. It something best used against skirmishing units that lack the leadership boost of a general and
BSB due to being outside both of their command radiuses and only if you expect them to charge you. It might be ok but most skirmishing units prefer to shoot you or melee your war machines so unless you could somehow throw that on a war machine i wouldn't care to use it. This game is all about figuring out how to make something work and be good though. I know i'll try my hardest with the doom flayer.
Your list as is does give a decent amount. I suppose the poisoned wind mortar is the cavalry killer here but you normally don't want to put all your eggs in one basket esp. with a horde army known for misfiring.
Anyway nice to see another player join the ranks of skaven. Enjoy your stay
.
