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So as the title says i'm curious. Just how many furnaces can we have with enough points and how many are a good idea to have? Skrolk costs a lot of points but makes plague monks core. Alternatively you can have just a warlord as your general but take plague monks as special. The problem with that is you'd still need the 25% core. There's also the possible issue of rare choices holding the skaven army together. That said 4 furnaces in a 2400 pts list would be pretty crazy.

So what's everybody else's take on this?

My problem with Skrolks and Plague Priests in general is the lack of save of any kind. T4 (5 for Skrolk) will hold against most regular infantry, but you WILL get worn down. The furnace, like the Bell, presents a wide frontage on which to attack your priest. Unlike the bell, you don't get a free 4++. There's also the issue of only being able to take 1 plague banner, which to me somewhat limits the attractiveness of Plague Priests.

That said, the Furnace (like the Bell) would give you Unbreakable core troops, which is pretty huge for skaven.

Interesting idea.
@ 2400 points, it doesn't look like you get enough chaff to go with the monks, or the units of monks are so small that you risk losing the monks to magic/shooting and being stuck unable to move.

You could squeeze in 3 furnaces, 2 abominations, a storm banner and 87 monks (split between 3 units), all led by the 3 priests and Skrolk.

Skrolk is pretty expensive for what you get, but the monks becoming core is a pretty big deal.

-Matt

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
Interesting idea.
@ 2400 points, it doesn't look like you get enough chaff to go with the monks, or the units of monks are so small that you risk losing the monks to magic/shooting and being stuck unable to move.

You could squeeze in 3 furnaces, 2 abominations, a storm banner and 87 monks (split between 3 units), all led by the 3 priests and Skrolk.

Skrolk is pretty expensive for what you get, but the monks becoming core is a pretty big deal.

-Matt

Remember that both the screaming bell and the plague furnace have magic resistance 2 and plague monks are toughness 4 each with furnaces being toughness 6 with 6 wounds. Even without armor they're still fairly tough. As long as it's not a test or die spell it's not too big of a deal. I'm more worried about the shooting if anything as enough deaths equals an immobile furnace and unit. I still might keep each furnace down to 25-30 monks though.

You could always take the storm banner on one of the plague monk units. That would help significantly. I mean that way it'd count as core instead of needing a BSB and come on with 4 furnaces at 2400 pts and few monks in each unit you're not really relying on the monks for combat resolution anyway.

@steam dragon: Actually all plague priests are toughness 5. That said they only have 2 wounds whereas skrolk is a lord and has 3 i think. I can't say he's the best fighter ever but anybody hit by him (any amount of times) has to take a t test or instantly die with no saves allowed. Using this against some heroes, cavalry or monstrous infantry this should be really good.

I suppose my biggest issue with this list is i'll need to have a decent counter against the magical elf fast cavalry armies (probably just spread your plague monk/furnace units to 10 wide with 7 being monks and in 4 ranks so 28 monks total provided you took only 3 furnaces). No saves of any kind allowed would make skrolk really powerful against an army with 'banner of the world dragon' though. Provided you can get him into that particular combat. There's also the issue with enemy war machines but in a mass large target list i'm guessing that problem isn't that big of a deal esp. with a storm banner.

It could work.
Remember Skrolk causes terror which can give you a slight boost in survivability
You could run
Skrolk
2 priests on furnaces
3 units of 35 monks
2 units of 12 censer bearers
2 rat darts for control
and 2 catapults

35 monks are enough to get the furnace where it need to go and survive long enough to break the units. With the wrecker attacks and censers helping the units should be going down quickly.

Had some issues with this list. I don't think my opponent prepared for this beforehand but he countered me pretty hard. Even with the storm banner i just didn't have enough to take down his stupid flyers and such. He went tzeentch heavy but also had a khorne cannon. Also for whatever reason his magic was always godly and during my magic phase he always channeled to have equal dice pretty much. It was pretty sad.

I suppose i should've prepared to face an avoidance army. That's all anybody does anymore.

4 furnaces would be to many IMO.
I have considered taking 2 but it wouldn't be an all pestilence army. I would still bring a stormvermin core with some chaff units.

I wouldn't want to bring more than 2 because then I can't bring the other things I want (rares lol) plus I don't like skrolk so I don't think I would bring an all monk core. I find that the furnace will get destroyed pretty quick if they bring lots of cannons. Even the storm banner doesn't always help just like you said. I do think the furnace is one of my favourite units skaven has tho but the lack of any sort of save on it (other than magic resistance 2) makes it hit or miss sometimes

IMO you want Aboms with the Furnaces.
It's cannon saturation.
Storm banner and hope for the best, and run at him hoping most of it makes it in before the banner burns out.