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So I am in a escalation league atm, and I played VC and Dark elves today. I lost both because my units against his Undead would always fear me because of my low LD (He had ghouls)... So he would always catch me when I fled. So there goes two units... He had knights (who were ethereal, i forget the name). slaves tied them up for a few turns. Then Coven Throne which my Doomwheel destroyed. Now my question is, is how do I deal with the LD problem?

Then with the Darkelves, he has ranged that is hard for me to deal with... 10 units of 2 Corsairs with handbows so they sit there, shoot, then when i charge, they shoot. which does a good deal of damage. 5 coldones which werent that bad, neither was the sorceress. But with most of my units tied up, except Doomwheel... his 21 archers sat back and shot for 3 turns before they were touched. Mortars, Warplock, WLC, maybe?

Just an FYI. the points are 750, No Lords, or Magical items.

My list atm:

Hero:Chieftan w/ Halbred
Hero:Warlock Enginerr Lvl 1

Core: 40 Clanrats w/ BSB and WFT
Core: 40 Slaves w/ musician
Core: 20 Stormvermin w/ BSB

Special: Doomwheel

thinking about getting rid of the WFT for giant rats . How well would Rat Ogres do at this point level?

(All I have are 1 IoB box, hopefully trading the high elves for skaven here soon, 40 clan, 20 storm, 10 giant rats, doomwheel, buying more units depending what will help)

Skaven live and die by their rare choices. Warplighting Cannon are your primary killers. Doomwheels are nice too, but don't match the WLC in their ability to do damage.

The Warpfire Thrower is nice once all your rare points are spent. But don't even consider a weapon team if you still have rare points to fill.

The main issue you're having is that you have one, and only one, real threat: The Doomwheel. Your opponents deal with it, and smash the rest of your army with near-impunity, yes? You need something else to bring some pain.

Well sadly, I forgot to mention, you only get one rare or special... It totally sucks.

I've been having some success with plenty of chaff, a couple units of slaves and a grey seer. The magic tends to do a lot of the heavy lifting. The chaff just sort of re-directs the enemy forever until they're so weak you can easily handle them in close combat. I find skaven have few good close combat units. The only really good one is the abomination. Rat ogres can be ok and censers absolutely have to hit on the flank. Keep in mind what they're facing though and how much damage you will receive. I take about 6 censer bearers so they can survive casualties when they flank. You should probably do similar and run them with a front rank of 4. I figure 4-5 in the front rank should be good with 6-7 censers per unit.

Don't bother with weapons teams. Against melee armies they're decent but against any army with ranged attacks they just die from a stiff breeze. Considering all the elf armies (and how many of them we're currently seeing) esp. wood elves there's going to be so much crap out-ranging every weapons team you have and it's just not worth it. Even provided you hide them behind your units they might get line of sight via high ground, towers, cavalry and the list goes on. They just become targets for light fire from fast skirmisher units.

Fear shouldn't be that big of a problem for you. When you fail a Fear test, you're WS1. Not sure what you're talking about with Fleeing, though. Just...roll better? Hang in there. The bad rolls only last so long. Things'll even out eventually.

Try this, maybe:

1 Warlock Engineer + Warpmusket (23)
1 Chieftain + shield + battle standard (72)

28 Clanrats + shields + musician + standard (138)
30 Stormvermin + musician + standard (225)
40 Skavenslaves + musician (82)
5 Giant Rats + Packmaster (23)

6 Plague Censer Bearers (96)

1 Warp Lightning Cannon (90)

749pts total, I believe.

- Censer Bearers aren't considered a fantastic choice, usually, but they can be pretty cheap and they put another threat on the table.

- More Stormvermin! They're not that bad in a fight, if they've got the numbers to get the job done.

- A battle standard bearer will go a long way towards keeping your troops where they are. Going from a Ld6 General to Ld5 one hurts, but it's worth it.

- Magic is nice, but at this level, you don't need it. And a lvl1 isn't going to be able to tap into all those dice anyway.

- The Rat Dart. 5 Giant Rats and a Packmaster. Best unit in the book.

Well then, they had told me you flee when you fail a fear test.. seems to me I was cheated, or he didnt know the rule

 beardman3000 wrote:
Well then, they had told me you flee when you fail a fear test.. seems to me I was cheated, or he didnt know the rule

The person must have been used to the old version of fear which was much better for the fear causing unit than it is now. If i recall 7th edition terror also had at least a 6" bubble panic test just being within that range. I could be wrong though. I wonder what 9th edition will change to everything. It might make all our 8th edition talk invalid soon.

---------------

Btw i'm currently thinking up a fairly strange strategy. Not exactly sure how to run it but it includes putting a wizard in a skirmisher unit. This will most likely be a plague priest level 2 wizard in each censer bearers unit with a rat swarm blocking their path to prevent their frenzy from destroying them. The next bit has them moving around everywhere casting the short ranged plague spells (wither, bless with filth, cloud of corruption, plague and whatever else). The point mostly being you're trying to cast spells to destroy chaff and similar crap (clan pestilens is only effected by cloud of corruption on a 5+ and they have toughness 4 but it might hurt them) while also making them very unattractive to charge with some units or shoot at (possibly use a censer on the priest as well as invest into magic items like shadow magnet trinket, magic resistance 2-3 and storm banner esp. with howling warpgale from a seer. Considering they're frenzied they are immune to panic and the rat swarms which are also immune to panic and how both are skirmishers they shouldn't panic unless beaten in combat and if away from the big scary units they shouldn't be panicking from combat. Perhaps i should advance with rank and file instead as some units could probably pour enough fire in to kill them but i feel like stacking all the negative shooting modifiers onto them should be fairly effective esp. with their toughness. If nothing else they waste a bunch of shots trying to kill censer bearers and that's good news for the owning skaven player .

Normally i'd use censer bearers to attack a unit after my main force is holding an enemy at bay and i will depending on who i face. However against some enemies with fast cavalry, war beasts or flyers (like all the elves and lizardmen we're currently seeing) this should be quite handy. Also should you cast a spell like 'cloud of corruption' near some rat swarms they should hold out ok though you could always move them out of range before magic if you don't want to hit them. Frenzy issues may be a problem though without them.

I would say go with the list that warp solution provided for you. I would be inclined to fit in gutter runers over censor bearers but they would play a different role to tie up the enemy archers for a round....maybe 2 if you are lucky.

Keep the clanrats bunker size to a Max of 30 that's just my preference. Once you get the points to increase that stormvermin unit to 40 do it and slap the razor standard on and your good to go.

Everyone likes the warp lightning cannon and I think its the first choice in most skaven lists. I disagree that skaven live and die by their rare choices tho. Once you get to the points level where you can take a hellpit do it. Not sure how escelation leagues work but I know that if you put a hellpit in a 1000 points game it'll be hard to stop unless it gets cannon balled to death (that's what gutter runners are for tho to stop this cannons)

If this was your first time with skaven or fantasy don't nessecarily blame the lists or rules (not that you are or anything) but I found when I first started playing it was hard to wrap my head around all the rules plus tactics of my own skaven army. It just takes practice and some tough loses but you will get it!

No magic items? That kind of bends skaven over and feths them slightly. For an army that depends on its toys and lords to do damage, taking the lords and most of the toys away seems like an unfair condition.

Well I'm sure that the magic items thing is only a condition during the low points games. Once it gets up in points I'm sure they will allow him to use magic items.
You can use skaven with minimal magic items tho. Just can't use magic armour etc etc.

Rat ogres are a highly underrated unit.
Just 2 will give you 8 s5 attacks. Plus fear.
A unit of six will give you 21 attacks at S5.
just put a pack master and 5 rats right in front of them to block their charge until you are ready to release them and let the carnage begin.

 beardman3000 wrote:
Well sadly, I forgot to mention, you only get one rare or special... It totally sucks.

Wait, what?

The answer is that you don't. Under those rules, Skaven are pretty effectively screwed. Play a different army instead, or find a group who wants to play Warhammer instead of 'our own little special screw the Skaven-hammer'.

As I said, Skaven live and die by their rare choices. Having them ripped away destroys them as a viable army.

 Vulcan wrote:

 beardman3000 wrote:
Well sadly, I forgot to mention, you only get one rare or special... It totally sucks.

Wait, what?

The answer is that you don't. Under those rules, Skaven are pretty effectively screwed. Play a different army instead, or find a group who wants to play Warhammer instead of 'our own little special screw the Skaven-hammer'.

As I said, Skaven live and die by their rare choices. Having them ripped away destroys them as a viable army.

It's a 750 point game. Limiting specials and rares to 1 at this level isn't horrible.

I'd go:
Warlock, level 2
20 slaves, musician
2x25 clan rats with shields, standards and musicians
1 ratlinggun
1 warpfire thrower
8 gutter runners with poison and slings
1 warp lightning cannon

beardman3000 wrote:Well then, they had told me you flee when you fail a fear test.. seems to me I was cheated, or he didnt know the rule

That would be Terror. If you are charged by a unit that causes Terror (which will also cause Fear), you have to take a LD test or Flee.

HawaiiMatt wrote:It's a 750 point game. Limiting specials and rares to 1 at this level isn't horrible.

I'd go:
Warlock, level 2
20 slaves, musician
2x25 clan rats with shields, standards and musicians
1 ratlinggun
1 warpfire thrower
8 gutter runners with poison and slings
1 warp lightning cannon

Sounded like only 1 special or rare, not one of each. Given the choice, WLC all the way.

If you can take lord choices, I still think a Warlord with halberd (possibly on a warlitter, depending on points) would be the best choice for General. They're not super amazing, but they'll deal with most enemy core choices.

 chiefbigredman wrote:
I would say go with the list that warp solution provided for you. I would be inclined to fit in gutter runers over censor bearers

Agreed. When I first put the list together, I enough for 5 'Bearers, but couldn't shave off the extra 10pts for 'Runners. But yeah. In that incarnation, you could fit in a death squad of poisoned sling-death

 chiefbigredman wrote:
I disagree that skaven live and die by their rare choices tho. Once you get to the points level where you can take a hellpit do it. Not sure how escelation leagues work but I know that if you put a hellpit in a 1000 points game it'll be hard to stop unless it gets cannon balled to death

Wait...so, the army doesn't need it's Rares, but get an Abomination ASAP?
The really issue with the Abomination at low point games is how do-or-die it is. If your opponent has the tools to deal with it (Banner of Eternal Flame, Ruby Ring of Ruin, cannons, lots of S5+ infantry), they'll take him down easy. If they don't, he'll walk all over them.

 Throt wrote:
Rat ogres are a highly underrated unit.
Just 2 will give you 8 s5 attacks. Plus fear.
A unit of six will give you 21 attacks at S5.
just put a pack master and 5 rats right in front of them to block their charge until you are ready to release them and let the carnage begin.

A unit of 2 costs 88pts. 6 is almost 250. So, 2 Rat Ogres, or a Warp Lighting Cannon? 6, or an Abomination?
The real issue is how fragile they are. 15 BS4 archers are doing 1.7 wounds to the Rat Ogres, and 1.1 to the Packmasters at long range. Which means you're now testing for Stupidity and Frenzy on Ld4.
I'm definitely an advocate for Rat Ogres being a decent niche combat block, but they are not "highly underrated". Maybe slightly.

 Vulcan wrote:
The answer is that you don't. Under those rules, Skaven are pretty effectively screwed. Play a different army instead, or find a group who wants to play Warhammer instead of 'our own little special screw the Skaven-hammer'.

As I said, Skaven live and die by their rare choices. Having them ripped away destroys them as a viable army.

I'm sure they were just trying to control the spamming of cheap Special and Rare choices.
We had to do something similar for 500pt games back in 7th. Bringing a Doomwheel was...effective. So we said no single model can cost more than 130pt, or something like that.

Skaven have great Rare choices. But we can do okay without maxing them out. In fact, if I'm only allowed 1 Special or Rare, and not 1 each, I might opt for a decent squad of Gutter Runners over a 'Wheel or a Cannon.
Stormvermin, Plague Monks, Gutter Runners, and Weapon Teams are all solid choices.

Thankyou for all the insight guys it helping . and btw it is each month, so in october it is : 1500, 100 points of magic items, no Unique. then November is 2000 with everything, the december at 2500... after that it is the top 10 players with the most points (from hobby points and winning/losing as winning gives 3 then losing 1) gets in the tournament blah blah.... But my biggest thing was that I was kind of cheated with fear rule, take that out i would have won that game... I had been taking the Wheel which has been working. Quirky and fun
I am thinking about buying the nightrunner box and running them as gutter runners with slings, also, will I need to buy the slings, or does the nighttunner box come with them?

I had though of using Ogres as well, but I was thinking what WarpSolution brought up and is right.... I am thinking about the abomination in the next points since it is just about time to buy.

Just an extra question, does anyone know of a good place to get units other than the standard price GW sells them for?

@Warpsolution
What I ment was you can play skaven without having any rare choices and still be successful and win.
They are good but not an absolute nessesity in a skaven list. Sure the hpa is fragile against cannons and flaming attacks but it stomps when you get it in the right combat.

@beardman3000
Good to know the setup for the league. I'd you are looking to buy games workshop stuff at a discount (22% off plus free shipping in the USA) go check out discount_games_store. They have a Facebook page, webshop and eBay but just email them directly and get their pricing sheet and you can order what you need. I highly recommend them, have always done good business with me and always help sort things out if something goes wrong

@chiefbigredman: I understand both of your points. But putting them side-by-side is confusing at best, and contradictory at worst. "Skaven don't need their Rare choices. By the way, this one Rare choice is AWESOME".

@beardman3000: Interesting set-up. Any way you can contact the people in charge of this and explain it to them? Or ask your opponent for a re-match?

In 7th Edition, non Fear-causing units had to pass a Ld test to charge Fear-causing units.
In addition, if a non Fear-causing unit lost combat to a Fear-causing unit and has a lower total Unit Strength, the unit instantly needs Insane Courage to avoid breaking.
It was beyond stupid. I don't know how many times my friend's Ironbreakers lost combat to some Dryads or whatever by 1, and then happened to be outnumbered by 1, and went from testing on Ld9 to Ld2.

In 8th, a non Fear-causing unit must make a Ld test at the beginning of every close combat phase it begins in close combat with a Fear-causing unit. If it fails, the unit's WS is reduced to 1 for that phase.

At this point level, the Doom Wheel rocks the house.
In larger games, it loses a lot of it's effectiveness, but it's still a 150pt T6 W5 4+ Terror-causing Random Movement wild card. If your opponent brings any Monsters or Monstrous things, they have a lot to fear from the 'Wheel.

What I did for my Gutter Runners is use regular Clanrats (the less heavily armoured ones; there's even one with a long, ninja-esque hood) with the Slave sling-arm bits. They look a lot better than the old models.
But yes. There are slings in the Night Runner box.

Night Runner box is pretty up there on my "list of boxes I would love to see redone".

@chiefbigredman thanks man! Will be looking into that!

@Warpsolution I had talk to the dude and he said he didnt know the rule and figured that was the case. So we had looked it up and he apologized several times we rematched and we tied because he was able to take two specials as one of them was a "mount" (Cauldron of Blood) so it counted as a chariot/mount. then took etheral knights SO. me having no magic except my wheels warp lightning.... killed the Cauldron; then the knights killed slaves/clan because none have magic weapons to hit.

You mean the Covenant Throne? Never actually seen one used in a game before. But yes. The 'Wheel mulches through such models with terrifying ease.

These knights...were they Black Knights, or Hexwraiths? Black Knights have lots of armour. Hexwraths can move through your units and hit them without charging.
I ask because Black Knights, while awesome, only have a special rule that lets them move like Ethereal units, but they can still be stabbed to death.
Hexwraiths are true Ethereal models, but with low attacks and high cost/model, getting them in combat with a big block is dangerous. Clanrats with 4 static CR are still winning combat by 1 with the 'Wraiths. And that's assuming they failed their Fear test and got charged.

It was hexwraiths indeed... This was where that "Fear" ruled played. first combat I lost cause we had thought thats what fear mean so they whipped me at the time (same thing happened to me chieftan/stormvermin with ghouls i think) So that is the only reason they had "won"... yes the Covenant Throne sorry lol Cauldron is DE...

Out of curiosity, how many Hexwraiths did he have? You shouldn't be losing 2 blocks of infantry to one unit of Hexwraiths. Especially not in close combat.

5. It was just the fear messed with us. We played again today, got better on rules, and I wooped him lol. slaves caught up wraiths as my Engineer warplightning the wraiths... warpfire/clanrats/ stormvermin killed the ghoul front/sidde charge. and Wheel of Doom in 2 turns killed his Throne. only summoned maybe 15 zoms

Even with 7th edition Fear, that sounds like some bad dice rolls.

That second game sounds brutal, too. Vampires struggle at low-point games; they need lots of magic and a well-protected General to survive. Skaven excel at these smaller games, because they have so many cheap toys to play with.
And then, on top of that, it sounds like your opponent was running a Vampire list that was far from idea. Ouch.
Well, keep up the good work!

Hexwraiths only count as ethereal for movement. You don't need magic weapons to hit them in combat.

 Vulcan wrote:
Hexwraiths only count as ethereal for movement. You don't need magic weapons to hit them in combat.

That would be black knights.
Hexwraiths are ethereal all the time.
Black Knights are ethereal for movement, unless joined by a character who isn't on a spectral steed (ie a vampire).

-Matt

This thread is very interesting - I was just this morning discussing a Skaven project with my mate, and he was all like "Awww, you need a billion slaves (I don't want ANY slaves) and this, that and the other" and then I see this lad having a riot with them once he got used to the rules.

Most inspiring!

I have the IoB rats, so I might get a DW when I get paid...

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Hexwraiths only count as ethereal for movement. You don't need magic weapons to hit them in combat.

That would be black knights.
Hexwraiths are ethereal all the time.
Black Knights are ethereal for movement, unless joined by a character who isn't on a spectral steed (ie a vampire).

-Matt

DOH!

Yeah, I was thinking about Black Knights.

Slaves can be great, if you keep them in range of the BSB and General. They make a great Anvil and are cheap as can be at 2 points each. They'll keep units tied up, while your Hammers (Stormvermin, Doomwheel, HPA) flank and destroy units. You can also shoot into a combat your Slaves are in, granted none of your characters are in the unit. This makes the Warplightning Cannon and Weapon Teams happy.

At low point levels, it might be a good idea to put in a Plague Priest. Put him and a Chieftain BSB in a Clanrat bunker behind Slaves. At 750, I'd play this:

Plague Preist

Chieftain BSS
-Shield

Clan Rats x20
-Musician

Skavenslaves x40
-Musician

Skavenslaves x40
-Musician

Stormvermin x25
-Musician

Doomwheel

The above gives you 2 Anvils (Skavenslaves) and 2 Hammers (Stormvermin, Doomwheel). Put your heroes in with the Clanrats, who stay behind the Slaves and out of site, granting their leadership benefits to the Slaves.