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Yeah, I'd have to agree about the Dreaded 13th. Not even close to an auto-win.
On six dice, you've got a 50-50 shot of it going off. And 14 models is devastating to small units...but so is 30%, 50%, and 60% of any unit.
The only thing I don't like about the Curse is how it can turn a 300pt character into a 5pt Clanrat with deadly reliability, after you've whittled down their unit enough.
Then again, I also don't like the way Dwellers has 1:2 odds of insta-killing my Seer, while cutting his Clanrat bodyguard unit in half.
And don't even get me started on Purple Sun vs. Dwarfs, Lizardmen, O&G, or Ogres.

And the Doomrocket really ought to be 50pts and Move Or Fire. With a more likely Misfire! chart.

As far as Ld10 goes...yeah. The only thing that makes Skaven better at the Leadership game is that their lvl4 Wizard cam grant Ld10 to the army. We don't need a fighty character to do it.
But pretty much everyone can do it.
Oh, you say those blocks are cheaper, and thus more easily steadfast? That's true...but they also lose combat a lot more.

Oh! And out tar pitting Undead? ...no. No way. Zombies are raised at a pace that far outstrips the point cost and model count of Slaves.
Plus: Unbreakable. If you've got an Unbreakable unit that costs under 10pts/model, you're doing great. Unstable sucks, but reanimation helps a lot. Fear doesn't hurt, either.


@flamingkillamajig: I think we're all pretty much in agreement, here. No one's saying Skaven are overpowered.

And...heh. If you really like winning combats with high Strength attacks, and lots of them...maybe try Chaos Warriors?

Thankfully End Times Magic sorta neuters a lot of the typical "throw six dice at this" habitual offenders - P. Sun, Dwellers, Curse, etc. My one major gripe about end times magic is that it does elongate the magic phase significantly due to all the extra rolling, and sometimes when you have 22+ magic dice, all the sheer magic you can fling.

I think it was an ultimately brilliant way to reduce how stupid the magic phase was, while still making it a significant portion of the game. Way better than when 40k slingshot in the opposite directions and basically made most psychic powers really gakky shooting attacks (a trend they mercifully have undone at this point).

I'd be fine with either of those doomrocket suggestions, but both would be a little heavy handed.

I'm actually fine with Skaven leadership. As i mentioned waaaay back in the thread, my biggest bitch with the book is that while i LOVE the design intention that went into it, the gakky technical writing of the rules and the even shittier ambiguous FAQ are a bear.

Warpsolution wrote:
Yeah, I'd have to agree about the Dreaded 13th. Not even close to an auto-win.
On six dice, you've got a 50-50 shot of it going off. And 14 models is devastating to small units...but so is 30%, 50%, and 60% of any unit.
The only thing I don't like about the Curse is how it can turn a 300pt character into a 5pt Clanrat with deadly reliability, after you've whittled down their unit enough.
Then again, I also don't like the way Dwellers has 1:2 odds of insta-killing my Seer, while cutting his Clanrat bodyguard unit in half.
And don't even get me started on Purple Sun vs. Dwarfs, Lizardmen, O&G, or Ogres.

And the Doomrocket really ought to be 50pts and Move Or Fire. With a more likely Misfire! chart.

As far as Ld10 goes...yeah. The only thing that makes Skaven better at the Leadership game is that their lvl4 Wizard cam grant Ld10 to the army. We don't need a fighty character to do it.
But pretty much everyone can do it.
Oh, you say those blocks are cheaper, and thus more easily steadfast? That's true...but they also lose combat a lot more.

Oh! And out tar pitting Undead? ...no. No way. Zombies are raised at a pace that far outstrips the point cost and model count of Slaves.
Plus: Unbreakable. If you've got an Unbreakable unit that costs under 10pts/model, you're doing great. Unstable sucks, but reanimation helps a lot. Fear doesn't hurt, either.


@flamingkillamajig: I think we're all pretty much in agreement, here. No one's saying Skaven are overpowered.

And...heh. If you really like winning combats with high Strength attacks, and lots of them...maybe try Chaos Warriors?

Not really a fan of chaos. I just would prefer to see less gimmicks or perhaps less auto-takes. I really just want to see weapons teams be a valid option again. They just get sniped out so easily by everything even if you use slave walls or calculate distances. All it take is one wound to take them out. I've had people take them out with winds of chaos during the magic phase which is something i couldn't even block. Best thing was a leadership check and i could do nothing. It was really stupid and it was End Times stuff. It would also be nice to see skaven have some ok melee units rather than needing the abomination to do everything and hoping to god you don't roll 2-3 turns of feed.

I dunno i realize skaven are random and i love em to an extent for it but it doesn't help a skill based game. It's very gimmicky and i hate that. I honestly might try vampire counts or something but the money just isn't there.

@Haight: Absolutely the skaven book was definitely an end of 7th edition book and it's really showing esp. now. I just feel bad for the other old factions that didn't get updated to 8th. I mean yeah people say O&G are weak but at least their book was an 8th book. I'd prefer to have an army book that spent most of it's life during the edition it was made for. At least then it could take advantage of the current rulebook rather than generate an 8 page FAQ.