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So I've gotten back into 40k and there seems to be a healthy fantasy following here as well. I was thinking of mixing it up a bit and playing fantasy as well. Read over the rules, seems strait forward enough.

After getting rid of my tyrannids, I miss the horde... and thus was drawn to skaven. Aside from the high model count, is there anything I need to be aware of? I was just giving to troll greedbay for the masses of foot troops. Playstyle I assume its drown them in bodies (meat shield slaves) and get into cc/magic range?

Yeah skaven do horde well. Be prepared to drop a lot of money though.

If you want good stuff for skaven just buy the skaven halves of the island of blood off of ebay or something. If you can choose which ones to get go for hand weapon and shield.

Weapons teams for skaven are ok but are fairly expensive and die easily. Against close combat armies warpfire throwers can be pretty sick though. Going against heavy outflanking ranged units and sometimes magic missiles just outright kills them. They die to a stiff breeze but when they work they can be godly. Ratling guns seem a bit weak even if you use them on outflanking units. Doom flayers are a waste of money and time. Don't buy doom flayers unless you want a nice painted model on your shelf. They die too fast to be helpful and nobody on these forums finds them good (except one person and considering it was against vampire counts skeletons I am not changing my stance). Poisoned wind mortars can also be alright for cavalry killing. The have good range and go through armor. I may or may not use a warp grinder in the future though probably not to deliver about 30 nightrunners (5 models wide and 6 deep) behind enemy lines to rear flank an enemy unit. It's very risky esp. with the mishap table and even then if it goes where I want there's no guarantee that there will be enough to prevent the enemy from being steadfast and they don't have a musician or standard to help either for stealthy reasons probably.

Clanrats and skavenslaves are really good. Skaven units don't really have punch in their rank-and-file units. Stormvermin might not be the best as they're somewhat elite but some like them. Slaves themselves are pretty needed in the skaven army esp. if you want cheap fodder units. I heard slaves were FAQ'd so that you couldn't shoot into their combats which is stupid since it used to be a rule for all skaven in the previous book ('Life is Cheap').

Except for the Vermin lord (which nobody uses) and random movement units (abomination and doomwheel) the skaven have mostly poor movement in the army. Gutter runners can get into scouting positions and you can use warp grinders on gutter runners (probably a waste) and one night runners unit (probably a good idea but with mixed feelings).

Some would claim otherwise but to me a lot of skaven magic just feels weak. It's a 7th edition book and the magic has no boosted range or boosted version of the spells and you will kind of feel it. Plague magic requires you to be in your enemy's face to use (12" range and template range on most plague spells and 18" range on plague). I used to use cloud of corruption against fanatics and it was absolutely fantastic. Plague is a great spell but it may backfire so you want any units within 12" of your casting to either have decent magic resistance or to be outside of the range. I've had it backfire multiple times in the same spell casting and it's not fun. Wither can be nice and the great thing is the spell sticks. Bless with filth (poisoned attacks in close combat) can also be nice though it only lasts for a round so you'll have to declare your charges and pray it goes off or throw it on a unit that expects a charge from something like a monster (it's better against high toughness models like monsters but more so if they have no armor so daemon princes and steam tanks are out).

Ruin spells have more range but I don't know if I like them. You can skitterleap a guy a cracks call with him but the chances of this being really likely would probably take me risking a grey seer and that's a huge waste. I could probably do it cheaper with a bunch of warlocks but then I would leave the warlock out to die after skitterleap. Some of the skitterleap moves are great. People usually find it to be a good escape move for your general. In one case it actually did help my grey seer survive vs daemons but it still became irrelevant in some ways. Currently I'm using skitterleap on a tooled out warlord with armor of silvered steel and a 4+ ward save talisman for killing war machines. Also after I skitterleap the guy I throw up the storm banner to ruin all enemy shooting and make him harder to hit. If you position the warlord right you can just sweep through enemy war machines and overrun into the others. Try doing it in such a way that it'd be hard for the enemy to shoot you or get into close combat with your warlord though. I also may change my warlord's loadout to something more efficient but then the enemy might try sniping him with cannons (since rat ogre bonebreakers force the warlord to not take 'look out sir' from different unit type to his unit even if he's in rat ogres). Death frenzy and scorch can be alright but death frenzy is something you want to pop later in or near combat so it doesn't kill all of your unit. Scorch is alright as it delivers flaming attacks and can kill some infantry but usually it's good but not great.

The 13th spell is usually the one people spam with double grey seers. It can be a really stupid strong spell and there are no saves of any kind against it. Very painful vs elite infantry but it has no effect on anything outside of infantry including no effect on monstrous infantry.

Most of the good units of skaven are in the rare section. Aside from plagueclaw catapults which I avoid like the plague all the other rares are pretty good. Doomwheels are good at monster killing with their shots. They do shoot at the closest target with an 18" range so keep that in mind. Hellpit abominations are fantastic and can hit really hard vs. units and can even go toe to toe with some monsters. Warp lightning cannons are fantastic at monster killing and monstrous infantry killing. They're ok at killing other units but it's very up in the air.

Gutter runners are decent at killing monsters and can put the hurt on some outflanking units too (like light cavalry, war beasts, flyers and more). As a downside they get a bit costly (you want to run them with slings and poisoned attacks but that forces you to be at 180 pts at the least per 10 gutter runners). People say to run them in 5's but I do 10's. They probably have a good point though. Gutter runners in forests or in buildings are really fantastic though normal I play forests as normal forests rather than mysterious and random magical forests and forests can be painful (which is sad as it gives skirmishers steadfast).

Plague censers hit hard and are good vs armored units but if they go beyond the first combat in the same fight they tend to suck (they have flails and hatred which is first turn of combat stuff).

Rat ogres have the punch but they're expensive. Their low leadership with frenzy is not that good and if their handlers die they have stupidity which is also not good. If kept within range of the general and bsb they can hit decently though keep in mind if you charge into a combat since they're frenzied if they win they have to overrun or pursue.

Sadly and importantly everything in the skaven army that hits hard in close combat is frenzied and we even have a super version of frenzy as a spell. So you might want to use shooting or slaves to deal with enemy re-directors.


Jezzails can be good or ok esp. if you take them in fozzrik's folding fortress for 360 degree sight range. It's mostly a cavalry killer but in numbers they could put a few wounds on war machines or monsters.
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The basic strategy with skaven seems to be to horde and use rare choices as much as possible. Make sure your model count is high.

Anyway I've been going on long enough. That should cover most of everything. Sorry you had to listen to my rambling. Anyway I wish you good luck. I haven't been doing too well with my skaven but this is what I've heard and what I've learned from playing after years. Once again buy more island of blood sets. I can't stress that enough as they're cheap for what they give (pretty much the only combo set GW has that actually saves you money).

To summarize ..
Yes Skavens are really good, however the army book is a collection of garbage piled upon refuse, our FAQ is the biggest and there's still a lot of unclear topics
The internal balance isn't great but the army as a whole is powerful and can be played several ways

The most important 2 rules are:
- Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) in your army is expendable
- The General and the BSB are not concerned by the previous rule, they are NOT expendable

Special characters range from "horrible garbage" to "barely decent"

Lords, Grey Seer is very good (Screaming Bell is dangerous due to cannons) and Warlord is very solid

Heroes, Chieftains are super cheap and good, Warp Engineers are awesomely cheap (espcecially as magic items bearers with ni wizard level), Plague priests are quite cheap for their stat line, Assassins are very pricey but can be deadly when used in a Stormvermin "Rat-Star" along with other characters

The Core section is very solid, Slaves are probably the single best unit in the whole game, Clanrats are OK but they're basically glorified Slaves, small units of 5 Giant Rats + PackM are superb redirectors, Stormvermins are excellent for their low price tag but keep in mind they're "Skaven elite", not "proper elite"

The Special category is a bit sh*t, apart from Plague Monks (but you need the Plague Banner and a Furnace then) and the Gutter Runners (who are awesome when using poison and slings). I love Rat Ogres for instance, but they're really terribad

The Rare category is 75% awesome, only the catapult is "meh"

I am going to have to agree with killamajig on most of what he said.
I would definately buy a wack of clanrats from ebay from the island of blood sets (you don't really need to get to many weapon teams or the rat ogres though).

I agree with what he said about weapon teams....I used to really like using PWM and warpfire thrower normally 1 of each but once your enemy knows what they do they will snipe them out so fast so if you bring them block them from any enemy fire.
OH and by the way when they misfire it is usually terrible....you know run in a random direction into a unit and large blast template that kind of stuff.
Be warned that there will be a ton of misfires when playing skaven either warp lightning cannons, weapon teams, jezzails its what makes them fun though! haha

I like plague the most for the magic side of things and depending on the point value of the game you will either be taking a grey seer with a few engineers (with doom rocket or warp energy condenser) and a chieftain battle standard bearer. I like the plague priest quite a bit aswell if you want spells of plague at lower points.

The dreaded 13th is good but honestly it is reaaaallllllyyyy tough to get since 25+ on 6 dice max is very unlikely. If it does go off though it's great!

I would normally go with slaves and clan rats as your starting point for core with blocks of 30 minimum for clanrats and 40-50 as a good solid choice for the slaves.
I keep trying to use stormvermin but haven't really seen them work to any great effect but I think I just need a larger unit probably 35+ for them to work the way I want.
Plaguemonks are something I tried a few times and actually really like them. They have frenzy which is awesome and are tougher than clanrats but again they are pretty pricey (compared to clanrats).

First rare I would buy is a hellpit abomination....hands down it is my favourite unit because it dishes out some awesome damage from my experience. I like to go against cavalry with it and it works great! The filthy thing never dies haha

Doomwheel is good but that damn nearest 18 inch thing sucks sometimes but if you position it right and move it right it will be fine. Works good for killing monsters too!

Everyone likes the warp lightning cannon and I like it too but I don't think it is as good as everyone says. It is by no means bad but it isn't always as great as people say but buy 1 for sure.

Rat ogres are terrible in my opinion because no armour saves is awful and it just sucks haha
Gutter runners....buy these (i use some modified night runners since they are super pricey to get gutter runners) they have to be equipt with slings and poisoned attacks and they will kill their points value in no time.

I wish I had some jezzails....$60 bucks for 60 points of models is a riiiiiiiiiipppppoooofffffff. I have used some stand ins though and they work really good I would pick some up if you can find a good deal or if you can modify your own which isn't that difficult.

Buy 2 halves of island of blood (or just 1 and then more clanrats if you don't want the other stuff since rat ogres are not good) then 2 boxes of either storm vermin or plague monks, 1 hellpit abomination, 1 or 2 warp lightning cannons and a doomwheel if you want. Convert some gutter runners and you should have a good solid start to your army.
Playstyle put 2 units of 50 slaves in front and follow them with your units or clanrats or whatever with your battle standard and wizards and such then use your rares to deal ith the scary stuff as your slaves hold the line and you throw some magic around. That's the basics of it haha

Thanks as a new Skaven player this has helped me loads with the direction to go in just need to build and paint like a slave now!! lol

 chiefbigredman wrote:

Doomwheel is good but that damn nearest 18 inch thing sucks sometimes but if you position it right and move it right it will be fine. Works good for killing monsters too!

I've seen people argue that this is only in the front arc, as war machines in 8th only can shoot in the front arc, and doomwheel has no exception for this, but I've also seen that most people here play it as it was meant to be played in the previous edition where the 18 inches are 360 degrees. The RAW is quite clear, but since it worked in a completely different way in the edition it was written for, the RAI clearly is at odds with the RAW. How do you see it played in your area?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Urtyork Rotfang wrote:
Thanks as a new Skaven player this has helped me loads with the direction to go in just need to build and paint like a slave now!! lol

Remember you don't have to paint 50 slaves to have 50 slaves. Unit fillers are a great way to not have to buy/paint as much, and if done right adds great look to the unit.
This guy I found on the internets was a great inspiration as far as I'm concerned:

I'd say of all the misfires the warpfire thrower and the warp lightning cannon have some of the worst. In fact the warpfire thrower is in ways the worst since when they misfire 5 out of 6 chances (the exact odds) they die or run and die and both times explode into a large flaming blast template at strength 5. Like I said warpfire throwers are really good when they work. When they get sniped by any army with decent shooting or if they blow up you will curse your head off. Sadly it's often situational. According to Warpsolution you either take a lot or none. Honestly though they cost a lot of points. It adds up quick and if they're just getting shot left and right and you have to approach a ranged army just to get in range to fire a warpfire thrower then it's probably a waste of time. Ratling guns have better range but still get out-ranged by archers and even if that wasn't the case ratling guns aren't as good as they were in the previous army book supposedly and just not that good even for killing chaff units and that's kind of pathetic actually.

If somebody wants to kill weapons teams it's usually pretty easy Even hiding weapons teams tends not to be enough because if they're on high ground even if it's just a bolt thrower or 3 of em they'll find a way to snipe out your weapons teams. It's just not worth it.

Plague monks can be awesome. I prefer them to stormvermin usually. Their plague banner is awesome and then you get the plague furnace which makes sure that even if they lose combat and their frenzy that they're still unbreakable and something your enemy has to deal with. In ways I want to do a double furnace build but I hear it's a bit gimmicky. Also at 2,000 pts that would be all your hero choices and you have to take like 40 plague monks per furnace. Not only that but you have to find a good way to handle cannons which for most seems to be gutter runners. For me I've got the skitterleaping warlord with a 2+/4++ save, a halberd and the storm banner in the enemy turn once he's there. I have gotten up to war machines first turn. He barely lived sure but he managed to be somewhat successful (killed a helblaster) and I only did it once.

Of what I've played with skaven your biggest threats tend to be large target killers like cannons and stone throwers and horde killers (still stone throwers, magic and templates). Chances are most of the time you won't be able to even shoot a lot of the opponent's re-directors but small slave blocks should help by charging with them into the enemy. Keep in mind they might flee but even so if they place their unit close enough it shouldn't matter. The small slave blocks will be out of position and open to a charge but so what they're expendable. They're cheap and you have a lot more stuff on the board.

Don't take poisoned wind globadiers. They're a waste of points. If you do take them try out the death globes on each champ to maybe score a lucky shot. Chances are you're just better off going for a poisoned wind mortar. Poisoned wind mortars can fire on the move, have more than one shot and don't have to get within hitting distance of the enemy.

I've pretty much laid out most of the rest of what we've got. Warlocks are cheap item holders. You can give them magic resistance, stick them in a unit and bam your unit has magic resistance so that it doesn't die so easily to magic. It can be very frustrating to magic users.

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Basically like I said. The army is mostly about hording and then getting as many rare choices as you can.

Don't always worry about a unit not making its points back in a killing sort of sense. Sometimes a unit does it's job by getting the enemy out of position or by sucking up casualties so that a more expensive unit doesn't and therefore does more (like moving slaves through a fanatic minefield to clear the way for your important units).

If you played imperial guard the skaven would be like colonel chenkov except not killing their dudes on the spot to my knowledge. They just really don't care and are selfish so the only life that matters to them is their own. The only reason why skaven get strength in numbers is their numbers push them all on. Besides it's hard to run away when you have a bajillion dudes pushing you forward.

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On the issue of painting I don't paint most of mine. Your best friend will be speed painting. It's pretty much necessary if you don't want to kill yourself by doing it all or give up part-way through.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Urtyork Rotfang wrote:
Thanks as a new Skaven player this has helped me loads with the direction to go in just need to build and paint like a slave now!! lol

Remember you don't have to paint 50 slaves to have 50 slaves. Unit fillers are a great way to not have to buy/paint as much, and if done right adds great look to the unit.
This guy I found on the internets was a great inspiration as far as I'm concerned:

This is actually an horrible kind of unit-filler (even if it's nicely painted)
way too much of the unit is composed of filler and it's of the "static kind" that doesn't make much sense when moving it around the battlefield

Unit fillers should only constitue a small part of the unit and should make "sense":
- a unit of Dorfs with a donkey pulling a cart of ale is fine
- a handful of zombies getting out of a huge collection of tombstones sucks

With Slaves, you have to do speed painting with brutal drybrush and heavy use of washes / quickshades, otherwise you're just a crazy person

TanKoL wrote:
This is actually an horrible kind of unit-filler (even if it's nicely painted)
way too much of the unit is composed of filler and it's of the "static kind" that doesn't make much sense when moving it around the battlefield

Unit fillers should only constitue a small part of the unit and should make "sense":
- a unit of Dorfs with a donkey pulling a cart of ale is fine
- a handful of zombies getting out of a huge collection of tombstones sucks

With Slaves, you have to do speed painting with brutal drybrush and heavy use of washes / quickshades, otherwise you're just a crazy person

I both agree and disagree. I really like his fillers, and as far as I can figure, he doesn't seem to use them in the way he does here. He's normally using 1 or at most 2 in one unit, not all 3 like he did for the picture.

I've seen one with a discarded bell with skaven skittering over it, and I thought it looked fantastic. The fact that it moves with them doesn't bother me, but if it happens to look like it can move with them, yeah that's cool.

Skaven are a double-edged sword as far as a beginner's army is concerned.

On the one hand, the positive, they have a very strong, forgiving book, with pretty good internal balance that allows you to run a plenty of either magic, shooting, chaff and decent close combat too. And finally they have the bonus of being one of the IoB armies, allowing you to pick up a good chuck of a starting force, plus the rulebook, in one fell, reasonably priced swoop.

However, they're quite a complicated army rules-wise, and they have a huge FAQ you'll have to get your head around. Furthermore, they're one of the few remaining 7th books, so they'll be updated sometime in the near future (probably) are a quite expensive, monetarily, to start up.

I ended up picking up the island of blood box. I liked the sculpts, and my daughter really liked the high-elves (it was the grifon that did it). I'll expand out from there, trolling greedbay this week.

I do already like the tactical aspect of fantasy. It's much more movement dependent, and reminds me of some other games I like. I also like the randomness of the Skaven...the chance of hilarity happening for either a win or a loss. Doom wheel... LOL I love it!

Nice! Did you just paint up that rat ogre? Looks awesome!

Also the randomness is awesome in skaven....except when you misfire a warpfire thrower and 5 out of 6 times it blows up in a large blast template (the real odds haha)

 chiefbigredman wrote:
Nice! Did you just paint up that rat ogre? Looks awesome!

Yessir - did it (along w/ a hand full of others) this morning. That pic was right before the mat finish went on, but it looks pretty much the same (slightly more "wet"). I appreciate the kind words I've never painted any fantasy stuff before, nearly everything I've done is 40k related...so no flesh. It was an experiment with colors more than anything, I think it turned out well. Just cheap craft store paint, maybe 6 colors total if you count the primer LOL.

Also the randomness is awesome in skaven....except when you misfire a warpfire thrower and 5 out of 6 times it blows up in a large blast template (the real odds haha)

I look forward to seeing it in action I need to make some movement trays pronto!