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So after hearing about the double assassin loadout with the screaming bell I started wondering not long ago why we can't use this same approach with 2 plague priests on foot and one on a furnace in the same unit being run 5 wide. I'll admit this does still have the possibility of cannon sniping against the furnace but there are other targets. So why do this?

Each plague priest is toughness 5, WS 5, str 4 and init. 5. Also they can each take a plague censer without having it go against their magic items limit. This would allow you to use it on other things like a ward. With 3 plague priests you could take the 2 on the sides with 5+ ward saves and the one on the furnace with a 4+ ward save. Add to that the fact the whole unit has magic resistance 2, the furnace has its attacks (impact hits, fuming close combat, crew and censer swings) and you have a fairly tough unit. The fog attacks of the furnace are also different to the plague censers the plague priests wield as said in the skaven army book. This should allow anywhere from 4-6 toughness tests on the enemy unit from the plague priests (if you use censers on the 2 side priests) and another d6 fog attacks from the bell which all go through armor.

Personally I might not take the plague censers on the furnace priest as then most of the unit would have to take toughness tests instead of just the furnace, the center priest and 2 plague monks per turn and you'd only miss out on one toughness test on the guy in the center. Instead you could give the furnace riding priest the 4+ ward save and a flail or something.

All these flail attacks combined go at strength 6 on the first turn of combat and as long as frenzy is active you have about 12 of these attacks total. The enemy also only has either the plague priests with ward saves to fight or the furnace.

So this is probably not the best loadout you can do for skaven or really that fantastic of a death star but I figure it should have a decent amount of hit in it, a good amount of defense and if that's not enough you even have them as wizards boosting your combat with spells possibly. It also might take up way too much of your heroes limit and prevent you using a BSB so you have to watch out for games that can field it more easily (2400-2500 pts range at least).

I'm not sure how this build will go but I will try it out in the near future with a good 30 plague monks in back and see how it goes. A weird loadout to be sure though.

486 points of characters is a bit steep for a single unit.
I think I'd rather just spend 254 on each single furnace and take 2 of them.
With a unit champ in one corner, very few models are swinging on rank and file.

-Matt

That sinks all your ward saves onto a single unit. What does your Warlord or BSB get?

 streamdragon wrote:
That sinks all your ward saves onto a single unit. What does your Warlord or BSB get?

I still have the armor of destiny for one of them (which includes a 4+ ward save) and another armor which probably has a 5+ ward save or I could just give the BSB the 2+ armor save armor.

Also one good thing besides the priests in comparison to normal censer bearers is that priests have better weapon skill, higher toughness, better initiative and I can throw them in this unit to do some damage. The furnace should also have all of its attacks.

I'm unsure if I would rather take 3 plague priests on foot instead with censers for each.

I will take the storm banner for this list however.

The thing about the bell+assassins is that the seer has his magic and a 'free' 4++. And the assassins are hidden, meaning they can't be sniped out, and that you have to kill the entire unit of 40 odd stormvermin, in order to stop them.

The assassins also have built in 4+ wards and insane weapon skill stats. So, you can focus all their gear on making them Killy. I.E. Sword of antiheroes & potion of strength+weeping blade.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
The thing about the bell+assassins is that the seer has his magic and a 'free' 4++. And the assassins are hidden, meaning they can't be sniped out, and that you have to kill the entire unit of 40 odd stormvermin, in order to stop them.

The assassins also have built in 4+ wards and insane weapon skill stats. So, you can focus all their gear on making them Killy. I.E. Sword of antiheroes & potion of strength+weeping blade.

By insane WS stats you mean 6?
Don't confuse skaven and dark elves.

-Matt

 thedarkavenger wrote:
The thing about the bell+assassins is that the seer has his magic and a 'free' 4++. And the assassins are hidden, meaning they can't be sniped out, and that you have to kill the entire unit of 40 odd stormvermin, in order to stop them.

The assassins also have built in 4+ wards and insane weapon skill stats. So, you can focus all their gear on making them Killy. I.E. Sword of antiheroes & potion of strength+weeping blade.

The plague censer is 16 points that is just normal gear outside of magic items so I can spend most of those 50 points on taking wards and such. Also I have a slight bit of magic and higher toughness on my end. There's also all the fog attacks of everything and the fact they're all strength 6 and initiative 5 for a few turns. That would hurt a unit pretty bad and could win some combat. Anyway I'm gonna see how it works out.

Oh and plague priests are WS 5. I'll admit the priests aren't great but toughness 5 is much harder to wound than toughness 4 and with wards it'll be that much harder. Against some elves it still might hurt but probably not considering not many can hit each hero.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:
The thing about the bell+assassins is that the seer has his magic and a 'free' 4++. And the assassins are hidden, meaning they can't be sniped out, and that you have to kill the entire unit of 40 odd stormvermin, in order to stop them.

The assassins also have built in 4+ wards and insane weapon skill stats. So, you can focus all their gear on making them Killy. I.E. Sword of antiheroes & potion of strength+weeping blade.

By insane WS stats you mean 6?
Don't confuse skaven and dark elves.

-Matt

Because WS 6 is bad on a hero.... Especially by Skaven standards.

So I'm curious if I should try this list out again. Last time it didn't do so hot but perhaps next time would have better results. Alternatively I could have all 3 priests riding pox rats but then I'd lack any sort of unbreakable should thinks start going south. We'll have to see how it goes. My problem last time is they got hexed to be at -1 toughness and -1 strength which hurt me a ton as well as getting hit by multiple dark elf units.

It's a huge points sink though so if I do this chances are i'll have to keep points low in other areas. It's also hits hard on the first turn mostly with my hope being I could destroy a couple ranks of the enemy and prevent them getting steadfast.

The biggest problem here other than the point sink is that cannons could tear this thing apart. That's part of my reason for wanting to hammer this out and why I might take pox rats instead for the plague priests to ride on. Poisoned attacks aren't half bad.

I'm trying to figure more effective load-outs than this but it could be something I at least try before throwing out completely.

@thedarkavenger: They assassins are still just t4 with a 4+ ward save and only 2 wounds. That's not a whole lot. I give my chieftain bsb heavy armor with a 4+ ward and if he hits combat he still bites it pretty fast. Not to mention that seer is gonna go down fairly fast too. The seer is also your level 4 wizard and most likely your general. You generally would want to keep your general and level 4 wizard away from combat. The screaming bell combo is not a bad plan but against anything decent it'll still die just as hard. I plan for the priests with furnace to be used on less combat intensive units. That said i'm probably expecting too much as a run in with some powerful melee units might tear my priests to shreds. I'll give it another shot and see how it pans out before I throw the idea away. I imagine some form of this load-out could work though it might not be some ultimate death star.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
@thedarkavenger: They assassins are still just t4 with a 4+ ward save and only 2 wounds. That's not a whole lot. I give my chieftain bsb heavy armor with a 4+ ward and if he hits combat he still bites it pretty fast. Not to mention that seer is gonna go down fairly fast too. The seer is also your level 4 wizard and most likely your general. You generally would want to keep your general and level 4 wizard away from combat. The screaming bell combo is not a bad plan but against anything decent it'll still die just as hard. I plan for the priests with furnace to be used on less combat intensive units. That said i'm probably expecting too much as a run in with some powerful melee units might tear my priests to shreds. I'll give it another shot and see how it pans out before I throw the idea away. I imagine some form of this load-out could work though it might not be some ultimate death star.

The point is that you have the ability to keep the most important character in your army safe. As for the whole Seer thing, I ran it a while back, and ran down Throgg and his 18 trolls in a round. It's really the best combat build we have.