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@flamingkillamajig: I'm trying to keep the thread on track, but I'll address a few things.

- Witch Elves are good, yes. They're also over 10pts/model for T3 with no save of any kind. There are units and armies that they simply can't handle on their own.
Where Dark Elves really shine are Dark Riders and Warlocks. And probably Executioners.

- Lizardmen...I'm really not sure what you're complaining about. Skinks are great. Saurus are okay. Their flyers are awesome. Their monsters are pretty solid.

- Back to Skaven, now. Imagine I'm facing Dark Elves. Turn one, my Doomrocket lands right on target and takes out 20 out of 30 Executioners. Then both Warp Lightning Cannons are accurate this turn, and 30 Witch Elves with the Cauldron turn into 15 without a Cauldron.
And then, in my magic phase, I roll box cars for the 13th, turning the Executioners (and the Hag. And the BSB) into Clanrats. And I get to re-roll my Miscast result, thanks to my Earthing Rod.

How, exactly, is my opponent supposed to deal with that?
Now, I know that the above is unlikely to happen all at once.
I need to roll average (not amazing. Not good. Just average) for that to happen.

I can see that you're either (a) having bad luck, (b) struggling to grasp some of the more abstract strategies, or (c) both. I've got two suggestions. First, just look at the Skaven book. Look at our toys; their cost (which is low), their damage output (which is outrageous), and the odds of them working (which is usually around 50%). Second, find a veteran player in your area. Watch a game. It doesn't even have to be Skaven. Just watch how they use chaff and angling units. Combination-charges and timing. All that stuff.

@Poppabear: if by "anti-fun" you mean they're scary-as-eff half the time, and put up almost no fight the other half, then yes.
Skaven were way better back in 7th. Back when you had to slog forward your full M when you failed a charge. I had 4-5 units of 20 Slaves. And 10 power dice.
The army is good in 8th. It can be great. But it's not an unstoppable powerhouse of a book. I'd put Dark and High Elves, at least, well above them.

I'm not going to start arguing whether or not the skaven book is powerful... because they are, very much so. They are a power house, not the best book by any means, by a huge player in competitve 8th

"I'm not going to argue...but I'll restate my opinion". Heh. Okay there, champ. Whatever you say.

The most intelligent thing I've seen on this thread was HawaiiMatt's run-down: the Skaven book is very strong. But the elements of the book that can actively win you the game roll very few dice to determine their effectiveness, which means the army's performance can vary by a huge margin from game-to-game, and there's not much anyone can do about it.

All of skavendom is amazing, just don't take nightrunners. 'nuff said

Rat Ogres are not amazing. Nor are Doomflayers, or Ratling Guns (or maybe any Weapon Team), Globadiers, Jezzails, Clanrats, Stormvermin, and maybe Plague Monks. Those all range from Sometimes Usable to Solid. But none of them are amazing.

Warpsolution wrote:
Rat Ogres are not amazing.

WOAH.

Lets not be hasty here. They can be amazing. If you take 18 with Skweel.

See these 18 rat ogres with regen? They say hi.

I personally have found the Skaven book to be competitive, competitive and repititive, they have some good stuff, but aside from one or two flavourings you see almost the exact same stuff all the time, I mean that stuff is good at what it does (as Hawaiimatt pointed out), but I suppose they are just a more up to date version of the previous WE book to some extent, just nowhere near as exacerbated.

The previous WE book had some solid stuff in it, but it basically amounted to taking the same list over and over again to just win games,.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
They can be amazing. If you take 18 with Skweel.

A minimum of over 800pts for a unit that, 1 in 3 times, has Regeneration, is not "amazing".

Warpsolution wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:
They can be amazing. If you take 18 with Skweel.

A minimum of over 800pts for a unit that, 1 in 3 times, has Regeneration, is not "amazing".

It can be. Poisoned attacks or +1 attack is pretty good for a unit of 18 MI. Skweel has no bad rolls on his chart.

Yes. They CAN be amazing with skweel. But 9 times out of 10, they'll be above average, because Skaven.

I mean, yeah, any of those upgrades are good for 100pts. But only if you're bringing a TON of models. I mean...say you're running even a 3000pt game. If you want to slap down a horde of Rat Ogres, what aren't you bringing to fit them in? And are they going to perform better than the other stuff you could have brought?

So, fine. In a big unit, with Skweel, Rat Ogres are pretty good. That is the only way they can hope to pull their weight, though.

Skaven are super powerful. Cheap units with average stats that become extremely hard to break once they have numbers. Cheap characters that can wield (potentially) destructive wepaons like the Doom Rocket. The most annoying monster in the game - the Hellpit. Magic that will make you pull your hair out in frustration, especially the ridiculously broken 13th.

They do have toys that can turn on them, but a well put together Skaven list can be overwhelming.

Convictus wrote:
Skaven are super powerful. Cheap units with average stats that become extremely hard to break once they have numbers. Cheap characters that can wield (potentially) destructive wepaons like the Doom Rocket.

Sure. As said above; Skaven stalling-measures are rock-steady. But Skaven killing-devices are not.

Convictus wrote:
The most annoying monster in the game - the Hellpit.

You think so? I mean, he's certainly an awesome beast. But...Frost Phoenix? Terrorgheist?

Convictus wrote:
Magic that will make you pull your hair out in frustration, especially the ridiculously broken 13th.

Really? I'd gladly take Dwellers, Purple Sun, or Final Transmutation over the Curse. The only thing really scary about the Dreaded 13th is when you get a unit with an expensive character to around 14 models. That, admittedly, is pretty lame. But you know what's lamer? having a 50-50 shot at taking out a wizard every time you cast Dwellers.
But...the rest of the Lore? Deathfrenzy's pretty lack-luster for Skaven (give me Wildform or Enchanted Blades or Flaming Sword any day). Cloud of Corruption is situational, and even then it's only okay. Warpgale is even more so. Vermintide is terrible.
Warp Lightning, Bless With Filth and Wither are good, but they're basically inferior versions of BRB spells...I'm just not seeing it.

@warpsolution: For the most part I couldn't agree with you more though admittedly in a very weird list I used yesterday I skitterleapt a plague priest out to a certain area and killed a bunch of chaff with vermintide. I wouldn't say it's a great spell but against chaff it worked really well.

I do agree though. Death frenzy would be ok if skaven didn't already suck in combat. I've lost combats with horde formation stormvermin with death frenzy and perhaps other boosts can still lose to freaking saurus warriors in normal 5 wide formation. Most of the skaven close combat oriented units or skirmishers are low in numbers and are often frenzied anyway. That means giving them death frenzy wouldn't only barely do anything but it'd probably kill off the fragile melee unit you're trying to fight with. In the case of horde units they'll always lose combat anyway meaning losing frenzy so you have to keep re-casting it. Even then 10 or 30 slave attacks still doesn't do a whole lot against certain things. If it's a dedicated combat unit as skaven your only hopes are magic, war machines, weapons teams or the abomination.

The abomination can be good yes but sometimes you'll roll several turns of 'Feed' which is in most cases the worst result to get by a long shot. Random movement while good can also be horribly useless given chaff esp. fast chaff that can move to its flank and force it into the middle of nowhere or into death.

-----------

I find it funny for all the things people mention skaven have they forget all the things we don't have. For instance we have no armor better than a 4+ on pretty much anything. Our specials aren't that good. Our hard melee hitters mostly suck except for the abomination. Nothing skaven has can move quickly and this is huge (this includes having no flyers). In fact only nightrunners have an equivalent to vanguard and most agree they suck. The only other fast moving thing you have are gutter runners which can scout and the warp grinder which has a good chance of killing the unit it's attached to and those have to be attached to night runners or gutter runners.

Also the skaven general is super important. For all the love slaves get for being able to be shot into nobody takes into the account a few cannon shots can kill a grey seer riding a bell. Even in the case of super spells that allow no saves this would include the grey seer being sniped out by that magic if in range. Then if your slave units have no hero in them for boosted leadership you'll only have leadership 5 on each unit. If any rank and file skaven unit is flanked then they don't get strength in numbers and their leadership is often a crap-tastic 5 on most units and 2 on slaves.

Sure slaves can be great but more if you can shoot into them. If your general is sniped as skaven at the very least all those slave units become absolute garbage.

Besides most of the skaven army is strength 3, our small hard hitting melee units have poor initiative or can be easily destroyed (censer bearers, rat ogres to an extent) and we just don't really have elite units or cavalry so it all comes down to shooting and magic. We need our magic so bad and people complain about the 13th spell like all of our magic is good based around only one spell with severe restrictions.

I would also like to agree with warpsolution on wanting better spells or updated ones. Having no boosted versions to any of my spells is frustrating. I'd gladly take a -d3 to toughness version of wither or even -2 toughness. Not only that but most plague spells have a 12" range which is terrible. Other than plague, scorch, cracks call and 13th most of the spells are rather poor. Also while we're at it 13th has to be cast on infantry models only so ogre armies, bretonnia and most non-elite armies will be totally immune. Cracks call is I test or die and purple sun makes it look like a joke in comparison.

I have always noticed a trend when discussing armies and how 'good' or bad' armies and units are..
One major observation comes in when discussing how bad an army is the 'bad' unit is always compared to the best of it's kind and focus on what it doesn't have.
For example when discussing clanrats they are often compared to chaos warriors. Here is the flaw (IMO) they are clanrats, not chaos warriors. Chaos warriors are better and they cost more. Put clanrats next to empire swordsmen and things even out better. They are what they are.
And I know many have done all the math hammer to show why this is better than that. But in the hands of a skilled general all that can change.
So much of the game is situational and our job as generals is to put as many situations in our favor as possible.

We always judge solely on the worst...take killamajigs example for the abomination. I'm not trying to call anyone out in a bad manner, I hope nothing comes across that way. I just disagree...
The quote is ..."The abomination can be good yes but sometimes you'll roll several turns of 'Feed' which is in most cases the worst result to get by a long shot"
Can be good? It is rarely not good.
Even an abomination rolling feed means that in most cases it only got 6-11, strength 6 attacks that turn. (Assuming 20mm based enemy plus thunderstomp). Sometimes you will roll feed several turns, and sometimes you will roll flailing fists for several turns (4d6 w/ thunderstomp). An average 12 streght 6 hits.
I have no complaints about the abomination and have chosen not to use him on several occasions simply because of how powerful he really is. He is the big WIN button...and if you have 2....

Skaven work different to other armies. It's part of their beauty.
THe common logic with Skaven is to expect death. Plague Censers...expect them to die, their weapons even kill them. It should be no surprise. When you keep the idea of dying in your mindset it becomes easier. Formulate your plan on what will die more than what you hope or try to keep alive.
To expect Death Frenzy to do amazing things goes against several constants for the skaven army. Skaven die, it's one of the things they excel at. Death frenzy works best cast on units that are most likely to die anyway, it works bottom up. Why on earth would you cast death frenzy on a small unit and then be surprised when it helps them lose? It's a gamble. Slaves are perfect for death frenzy because they aren't doing much anyway.
Personally I never look at Skaven in the mindset that they should not have better armor, or fliers etc. If you want those things than skaven aren't for you.. They do just fine the way they are.

They are an old book and I do agree that boosted spells would be nice. I would wager that wither won't get changed other than a potential range boost.
Plague, Cracks call, scorch and the 13th means that almost 1/3 of the spells are good and you can always get the 13th.
Comparing Purple sun and cracks call.. cracks call won't kill you and is easier to use because of the line rather than template.

I guess I really have more of a glass half full outlook when it comes to Skaven.
If you want to understand my thoughts, try this..
Talk to your opponent and play a game with all those 'bad' units. Both of you build a 'bad' army, take the rarely or never used units, and play several games that way. It will help you learn more about your army and what it can do.

Well thing is I'm not saying skaven are bad. I don't think they're as powerful as people say. That said I don't use a double seer list, a double abomination list or any of that garbage.

I find the few players that hate skaven so much must have the elite armies where 13th becomes annoying and face double seer or something. Thing is I don't want to win just based on 2 seers or 2 abominations. That's lame and very lazy. Sadly not playing the super builds gets me crushed almost constantly these days and it gets frustrating. Hearing people say skaven are an 'I win' button with this happening to me is like a slap in the face. It's just tiring and I have to fight for my life just to get a draw.

@Throt: I've never heard of someone comparing Clanrats to Chaos Warriors. That is silly.
Now, if someone wanted to compare 4 Clanrats to 1 Chaos Warrior, we'd be closer to the mark. But still far from it.

Also, 6-11 attacks a round with Feed? It's 5 auto-hits, tops. Unless you're assuming the enemy is in his flank? At which point it's, what, 8?

The numbers are the single most important aspect of a discussion as to whether or not an army is good or bad.
A skilled General can make a bad army win, sure. And a poor one can lose with a good one.
But that has nothing to do with the army book itself. And that's what we're talking about.

Skavenslaves with shields are inferior to naked ones 19 times out of 20. Giving them shields doesn't make them terrible. It's just not The Best choice.
So, when someone looks at Nightrunners or Rat Ogres or the Doomflayer, and determines that yes, they are not good units, saying "but if you do X and your opponent does Y and you roll Z+" is totally irrelevant. That player could have done as much or more with other choices in the book. Ones with better numbers.

@flamingkillamajig: For the record, though, saying that the "abomination can be good yes but sometimes you'll roll several turns of 'Feed' " or that "a few cannon shots can kill a grey seer riding a bell" is just silliness, though.
You're saying that, sometimes, you roll bad, and, sometimes, your opponent's stuff beats your stuff? I mean...yeah. That's true.

I get it. That frustration can be hard to deal with. Back in 7th, with the book before this one, my opponents were Dark Elves, Daemons, and Vampires. The three best armies, by far. Vampires were the worst. Nothing I did worked. I could out-maneuver them, out-General them...and then be crushed anyway.
BUT. It often seems like you use this forum to vent. Which, I mean, if you want to do that, fine. Just realize that, when you do, people aren't going to take your opinion seriously. Because your argument isn't sound; it's subjective, based on personal experience, etc.

Yeah i am often venting but it's just tiring hearing skaven being not only not that good but being OP from every tournament player. I'm not a tournament level player really. I fought in two different tournaments and won one out of 3 games in each tournament and placed like 5th or 6th out of 8 both times. The winner in one tournament was actually an empire player with an all 1+ or 2+ armor save army (2 units of 3 demigryphs each and cavalry) with cannons and steam tanks.

I don't do cheesy stuff and I'd rather people not throw me in with people that do a cheesy build that wins every game. Personally I think if skaven are hard to beat in the hands of a tournament level player it's not a big deal. It's a bigger deal when anybody can just pick up an army and win without trouble like supposedly tau in 40k. Skaven actually have a steep learning curve and things can suck bad.

I'm actually rather not sure about liking skaven anymore. I usually try new builds like the multiple plague priest with skitterleap build to get them in spell casting range early and it sort of works. I even had luck killing a bunch of chaff with that vermintide spell which is a use for a plague priest on foot and that spell. That said they're all frenzied and on leadership 6 they'll be running into combat the very next turn if something is nearby even if you try charging something barely within charge range.

---------

In short though you are right. I do complain about skaven but I do it more so when people say skaven are OP. I mean if I really wanted to be lame there are much more annoying factions I could play. When you think about it there has to be at least a few factions more annoying than skaven with an infinitely lower learning curve.

Again. I understand the frustration. But saying "hey, Skaven aren't OP!", and then going on to tell us about how, one time, you rolled really bad and you lost the game is not going to prove your point. It's going to make the people who disagree with you feel like their argument is even stronger.

If you want to prove your point, you need to offer concrete, objective evidence.

Also, it doesn't seem like trying out a "new build" is going to help much. You can only build a list so well. After that, it's a matter of in-game tactica. Movement and time-management has to account for 75% of my victories.

If it's any consolation as a tournament Dark Elf player, Skaven are my biggest fear.

Those steadfast troops, and the war machines, and the Toys.

I may dictate the movement phase, but they have the means to deplete my army, considering I have 3 units which are more than 5 models.

Warpsolution wrote:


Also, 6-11 attacks a round with Feed? It's 5 auto-hits, tops. Unless you're assuming the enemy is in his flank? At which point it's, what, 8?

You missed the parenthesis. 5 max for feed plus thunderstomp. No worries.

The numbers are the single most important aspect of a discussion as to whether or not an army is good or bad.
A skilled General can make a bad army win, sure. And a poor one can lose with a good one.
But that has nothing to do with the army book itself. And that's what we're talking about.

It's really just a personal taste. And I disagree because often the numbers discussion starts to break down into a matter of a few points. 3 or 4 models. It becomes a number that is easily counteracted by a god/bad dice roll.
This is not to say that there aren't units that don't stand out from the crowds but the conversations often come down to a min/max mentality that isn't the full representation of the book.

Skavenslaves with shields are inferior to naked ones 19 times out of 20. Giving them shields doesn't make them terrible. It's just not The Best choice.
So, when someone looks at Nightrunners or Rat Ogres or the Doomflayer, and determines that yes, they are not good units, saying "but if you do X and your opponent does Y and you roll Z+" is totally irrelevant. That player could have done as much or more with other choices in the book. Ones with better numbers.

That's just it though...it isn't irrelevant. Some only make it seem that way. Would you just run the abomination into the Vampire count Blender lord?
Some of the units with 'best' numbers have hard counters. And the purpose of general ship is to maximize/minimize that. Rat ogres have high strength, decent initiative and good speed and though frenzy can be a handicap, those numbers are good when used appropriately.

@flamingkillamajig: For the record, though, saying that the "abomination can be good yes but sometimes you'll roll several turns of 'Feed' " or that "a few cannon shots can kill a grey seer riding a bell" is just silliness, though.
You're saying that, sometimes, you roll bad, and, sometimes, your opponent's stuff beats your stuff? I mean...yeah. That's true

This is a prime example of the mentality on an extreme case. I've used unit X and it has died so it must be bad.
People don't take rat ogres because (imo) they have been programmed not to by the talk of how bad they are. And when added to the few games they used them in and got frenzy baited, they just shelved them as bad units. I have seen rat ogres tear through units many times and they have become a go to choice.
And sure it varies by local meta, but personally I enjoy the variety that evolves when people don't take the good/bad as dogma.

I get it. That frustration can be hard to deal with. Back in 7th, with the book before this one, my opponents were Dark Elves, Daemons, and Vampires. The three best armies, by far. Vampires were the worst. Nothing I did worked. I could out-maneuver them, out-General them...and then be crushed anyway.
BUT. It often seems like you use this forum to vent. Which, I mean, if you want to do that, fine. Just realize that, when you do, people aren't going to take your opinion seriously. Because your argument isn't sound; it's subjective, based on personal experience, etc.

This too has the same example. And how things can be subjective.
If you were playing one of the 3 best armies..Did you out maneuver and out general them if you were being crushed every time.?
We play a game with dice and luck can be a bad bedfellow. When we play we try to minimize the impact of the dice, but luck can destroy all the numbers.
I'm not sure this is really coming across as clearly as I would hope, but I simply disagree.

I think killamajig is frustrated but his argument is just as sound as yours because he is playing with the same numbers as you and the 'best' units are failing him. It is hard to accept but when luck plays a part good/bad, best/worst does become subjective.

No i get what he means by out-maneuver and out-general because some players basically just bait some idiot opponents out in certain cases and despite falling into every single trap the more skilled player loses against them. It's really just frustrating and insulting.

For instance I have a friend who was just fighting against chaos dwarfs the other day and his orcs & goblins were just getting destroyed. Sure the artillery fire was spot on but he was only halfway across the table before he conceded and his army was about halfway destroyed already. I know it isn't a GW army but it's just rather not fair to be destroyed by a stupid army like that. He basically didn't even get a chance to do anything.

I saw dwarfs mentioned once or twice as a good beginner army and I have to COMPLETELY disagree...

They basically ignore two phases of the game (Magic and movement) one of which is the most important phase of the game for every other army. Games are won and lost in the movement phase. You can have the most badass broken list in the world but if you dont know how to play well in the movement phase you will lose.

Lizardmen, WoC, orcs and goblins, and empire are probably your best starter armies as they tend to have simple special rules, and operate well in all phases of the game (except maybe shooting for WoC).

Back on topic....

I rank skaven up their with WoC as far as strength of the book., definately in the top tier... Although breaking warhammer into tiers is kind of meh as I have seen every army do well, some are just easier to do well with and require less luck...(except like, TK and Beastmen)

A tournament skaven list is no less dice dependent than any other armies tournament list, you can win or lose with any armies with a couple of bad rolls. I played skaven for years and absolutely loved it, The main reason I got away from it is I felt like it was a complete chore to paint as opposed to enjoyable.

 Throt wrote:
the conversations often come down to a min/max mentality that isn't the full representation of the book.
...Would you just run the abomination into the Vampire count Blender lord?
Some of the units with 'best' numbers have hard counters.

That is true; people get pigeon-holed into thinking in one way. I'll give you that.
But no, I would never try to run my Abomination into a Vampire Blender (unless I knew he was only S5 and didn't have Flaming Attacks). Why? Because numbers. I'm not saying "model A has better stats than model B, so model A is better always". That's just stupid. I mean all the numbers. Including cost, and the numbers of my opponent's models.

 Throt wrote:
This too has the same example. And how things can be subjective.
If you were playing one of the 3 best armies..Did you out maneuver and out general them if you were being crushed every time.?
We play a game with dice and luck can be a bad bedfellow. When we play we try to minimize the impact of the dice, but luck can destroy all the numbers.
I'm not sure this is really coming across as clearly as I would hope, but I simply disagree.

First, he was playing one of the three best armies. I was playing against it. Second, yes. I quickly became a superior player, in that I grasped more aspects of the game more completely, and used them to my advantage. And I was crushed every time. I don't mean I lost. I mean that I'd take out his two units of Dire Wolves and one block of Ghouls, and I would lose everything. The old Skaven book had next to no tools do deal with the old Vampire Counts book.
That was 7th all over, though. Some books were stupidly good, and some were just garbage. 8th has been a fantastic equalizer. The "top tier" armies of 8th aren't miles and days above the others like they were back then.

 Throt wrote:
his argument is just as sound as yours because he is playing with the same numbers as you and the 'best' units are failing him. It is hard to accept but when luck plays a part good/bad, best/worst does become subjective.

You have to look at the math, and accept that this is a game of chance. If I set up a situation in a game where the odds are heavily in my favor, but then I roll terribly and my opponent rolls great, I don't go "oh. I guess that unit's not so good after all". I go "huh. Well, that wasn't very likely. Ah, well. None of the other units in my book would have performed better than this one, so I guess it's just an outlier."
The best unit for the job doesn't always win. They just have the highest chance to do so.
I see what you're saying. If my Stormvermin have a 75% chance to win a fight, and my Rat Ogres have a 74% chance, being "better" doesn't amount to much.

ShivanAngel wrote:
I rank skaven up their with WoC as far as strength of the book., definately in the top tier... Although breaking warhammer into tiers is kind of meh as I have seen every army do well, some are just easier to do well with and require less luck...A tournament skaven list is no less dice dependent than any other armies tournament list, you can win or lose with any armies with a couple of bad rolls.

What? No. First, Skaven are not more "dice dependent". All armies roll dice. Dur. The statement was that a Skaven victory is more dependent on fewer rolls, which means there are more outliers, in both directions.
Look at Warriors of Chaos and Skaven lists. 80% of the Warrior's army contains stuff that can earn you points. The Skaven list has more models, more staying power, etc, but fewer models/units that actually kill the opponent.
And then you need to actually consider how those units work. Trolls, Warriors, and Skullcrushers are throwing out 18 attacks or more. The Warp Lightning Cannon, Abomination, and the Doomrocket are rolling less dice. They're not less destructive or anything; they just roll less dice.
The more dice you roll, the closer to the mathematical average you get. So an arm like Warriors of Chaos is more reliable, since the units that make it a threat roll lots of dice. Skaven, on the other hand, are more likely to do amazingly or to do terribly.
If both armies play 100 games, they'll both--ideally speaking--do about the same. But if you look at the results from 3 random games, the Skaven results will show more variation between sample groups, whereas the Warriors will be more consistent.