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Hello,
Interested in starting skaven. Hear the SoD set is a good starting point, but I really like stormvermin & skryre models especially they stormfiends.
How are they SF on the battlefield and how to arm them????
What are the average size for clan and storm units?
I was imagining a decent amount of bodies (clan/storm) backed by stormfiends and lighting cannons? What heros really drive the skaven?

Thanks for any help

Clanrats are a good source of cheap battleline units that can flood objectives. Stormfiends with warpfire throwers are one of the main components of most chaos cheesebuilds. Each stormfiend with warpfire throwers can shoot 2d3 mortal wounds at an 8" range. Stormvermin are also quite good as long as you can stack buffs on thwm and keep them outnumbering their targets. Watchout for battleshock, so bring heroes that minimize those.

aquietfrog wrote:
Clanrats are a good source of cheap battleline units that can flood objectives. Stormfiends with warpfire throwers are one of the main components of most chaos cheesebuilds. Each stormfiend with warpfire throwers can shoot 2d3 mortal wounds at an 8" range. Stormvermin are also quite good as long as you can stack buffs on thwm and keep them outnumbering their targets. Watchout for battleshock, so bring heroes that minimize those.

Battleshock is far less of an issue that you might think. People forget the +1 Bravery/10 models in a unit pretty often, and you will often run Clanrats and Stormvermin in units of 40-models. This helps a ton. And Stormfiends will tend to never lose a model to Battleshock if you keep them to units of 3.

Fair warning, don't run Clan Skryre Battalion unless you've discussed it with opponents in advance. I ran it versus a friend who knew to expect it and it still, in practice, made for a miserable experience for us both. Never running that one again unless someone expressly asks.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

aquietfrog wrote:
Clanrats are a good source of cheap battleline units that can flood objectives. Stormfiends with warpfire throwers are one of the main components of most chaos cheesebuilds. Each stormfiend with warpfire throwers can shoot 2d3 mortal wounds at an 8" range. Stormvermin are also quite good as long as you can stack buffs on thwm and keep them outnumbering their targets. Watchout for battleshock, so bring heroes that minimize those.

Battleshock is far less of an issue that you might think. People forget the +1 Bravery/10 models in a unit pretty often, and you will often run Clanrats and Stormvermin in units of 40-models. This helps a ton. And Stormfiends will tend to never lose a model to Battleshock if you keep them to units of 3.

Fair warning, don't run Clan Skryre Battalion unless you've discussed it with opponents in advance. I ran it versus a friend who knew to expect it and it still, in practice, made for a miserable experience for us both. Never running that one again unless someone expressly asks.

Is this because it's too try hard(like 45 warp spiders in 40k) or you have no Chance?

Pretty much, though funny enough they don't have the numbers to hold objectives so they can't sweep GT's

I highly recommend building an army around The Verminus Clawpack. With that as the backbone of your army, you'll find you have a super balanced force that can compete in any objective based scenario. Get the Spire of Dawn for sure.

Take the big units of 40 clan rats (the more you take the better they are), or units of 10 that will hide out of line of sight for objectives. 30 Stormvermin is great. If you can find Tretch, he will really add to the power of your Clan Rats and Stormvermin. Warplightning Cannons are great for sniping heroes, and so is the Arch-Warlock.

The Arch-Warlock with a Crown of Conquest can really add to your army: He can cast 2 spells, either dealing out mortal wounds or Shield. His signature spell deals mortal wounds to 3 different units. He has a once per game shooting attack that deals mortal wounds too, so in one round he has the potential to deal out 15 mortal wounds. He has a 3+ save and 6 wounds, which means he is durable and good for Three Places of Power. He's also no slouch in combat, and can dole out an additional 9 wounds.

Rattling Guns are great for taking out Heroes at a distance, I take 2 to make sure the job gets done. Warpfire Throwers can push out lots of Mortal Wounds, but they have a short range so keep it guarding an objective or one of your heroes.

If dipping into forces outside Skaven, I like Sayl so I can throw a fully buffed unit of Stormvermin at something and deleting it. For instance, buffed by Tretch they cause double damage on 6's to wound and have -2 rend. The Warlord gives them 3 attacks each. They will normally outnumber anything they attack, so now you get +1 to hit. It's absolute murder, my locals fear them. I took out the elite half of a Bretonnian players army with this unit alone in a single round.

Have fun!

Ecdain: Against the vast majority of opponents you will literally remove their army before they get to play the game. In strictly tournament settings you can expect to face one of the small hard-counters, but at a store level you'll be run out of town.

As Dez said, I bought/built the Clawpack side-by-side with my Skryre Fire, and the Clawpack is absolutely good, and competitive without breaking the game. Its also easy to scale slightly softer for more casual games, or push harder to get it to a legit tournament contender.