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Warpsolution wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
In general the problem is getting those dwarves up close to a monster with far better movement.

Or those models shooting the enemy from 30" away.

 Formosa wrote:
dwarf warriors are str3? so str5 GW, still fair point about all the shooting stuff, can someone math hammer how many crossbow shots it would take to kill a necrosphinx, abomb, etc.

15 Dwarf Warriors are carving 3.3 wounds of an Abomination.
20 Quarrelers strip 1.7 wounds off said A-bomb in one volley.
15 Irondrakes knock him down by 3.8. wounds.
15 Hammerers dish out 6 wounds.

 Formosa wrote:
drake guns are not bad but very easy to bypass, grudge throwers are again not bad, but not as reliable

Irondrakes are easier to avoid and harder to get rid of. And if you've got Quarrelers, a Grudge Thrower, an Organ Gun, Irondrakes, Hammerers, and other misc. Dwarf-y things...where, exactly, is that monster going to go?
And Grudge Throwers aren't as reliable. But they're harder to hide from, and can take on other units more effectively, too. And are cheaper.

 Formosa wrote:
so long story short is that nothing dwarfs have is as good at killing monsters as cannons, which to me is clearly intentional.

That's not a Dwarf-thing. That's a cannon-thing. Nothing is as good at killing monsters as cannons. Which is a problem.
The other options in a Dwarf army might not be as stupidly efficient (and they shouldn't be!), but they're not awful at it, either. I say: strip a few wounds off as it closes, let it take out a few ranks, and then drag it down to an axe-y doom.

the abomb maths you did, does that factor in regen? and 1 round of shooting is all I will get usually from a competent player, but that's obvious.

so what im basically saying is, without at least a couple of warmachines dwarfs cant deal with monsters, cannons are just the best for dealing with them and people shouldn't pile 500pts into super characters and expect them to wreck face freely all game. it reminds me of those sad little girly men on battlefield 3 that say "no stingerzzzz" as they fly around in there helecopters and rack up 50+ kills.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh btw I'm not saying cannons are not op and agree they should be toned down, just saying they are the best way to deal with the big uns

I don't like the realm of chaos chart in the daemon army book. Completely random, with the potential of ruining entire games.

@Formosa: Yeah but cannons shouldn't snipe out characters whether on a monster or not. Taking a character on a monster used to seem cool and then everybody avoided it like the plague because of how bad it could hurt them. It's why i am hesitant to take a screaming bell even with the 360 degree arc of sight to cast spells. It's just not that good anymore. Sure it seems to roll d3 wounds on the chart to toughness 7 or above units and that helps a lot (esp. with crew on war machines replacing wounds so that 2/3 of the time it just wipes a war machine off the board) but everything else it does or can do is very sub-par. A 24" BSB that only lasts in my own turn starting in the magic phase? That'll help a lot *rolls eyes*. d6" movement for the bell alone? Not helping much.

I've had my abomination go down to mostly pistolier fire. As well as re-directed by them. I don't find empire or current dwarf shooty armies to have issues vs aboms. Esp. considering it just dies if one wound it got was from a flaming attack. Usually the preferred route for killing one last i checked was cavalry with the flaming banner or something shooty with the flaming banner.

----------

Anyway i still don't get the hatred of skaven. Dwarfs and empire can corner castle with gunlines and elves can just avoid you all day and be dumb with magical elf fast cavalry or BotWD. These days i'm finding it hard to even win with skaven though admittedly i play tourney level players.

My only real issue is fighting against elves. I find it so ridiculous that things have gotten to the point where if you don't prepare to face elves you probably won't win against them (unless you have a crazy gun-line army with nice units).

Maybe it's just a rock/paper/scissors thing with some factions. I honestly don't see much issue fighting a gun-line but that's because i can just spam core for lots of super cheap t3 bodies with no armor (wouldn't matter anyway vs handguns). At the end of the day a t3 elf and t3 slave die just as easily to handguns and same goes to the more elite units skaven have. At the end of the day when you look at a handgun army the cheap core units actually help a ton more against them than elites with a lot of things esp. considering with elves the more elite it's more expensive while still dying just about as easily.

1. Skaven are currently getting rather old & tired with their current book. It's been what, 7 or 8 years now since they've last been updated?

2. The game has well and truly moved past the infantry horde stage. Elves have most definitely seen to that, alongside other well known MSU armies such as competitive DoC lists and WoC bringing lots of chariots alongside Chimeras & Skullcrushers.
The Skaven book just can't handle an MSU heavy meta as their counters to it are fairly overcosted now considering what they're up against. (Globadiers, Jezzails, Gutter Runners, Censer Bearers, MSU Rat Ogres, etc...) Those units are especially very expensive to purchase as well, meaning it's difficult to get enough of those option unless you've been playing Skaven for a decade or longer, or just have a tone of disposable income to play with!

Basically, if you can't deal with MSU or mixed MSU with a small amount of MMU armies, you're not going to do well on the competitive scene.

3. Dwarfs are the army you take when you want to make both players miserable!

Wrong, dwarfs are not an army to take to make players miserable, GUNLINES are, please learn that dwarf does not equal gunline, yes there good at it, no it's not the only way to play them.

 Formosa wrote:
Wrong, dwarfs are not an army to take to make players miserable, GUNLINES are, please learn that dwarf does not equal gunline, yes there good at it, no it's not the only way to play them.

Depends on style of games. Competitive dwarfs are bound to gunlines.

 Formosa wrote:
Wrong, dwarfs are not an army to take to make players miserable, GUNLINES are, please learn that dwarf does not equal gunline, yes there good at it, no it's not the only way to play them.

I was trying to be more tounge-in-cheek...


Bad attempted joking aside, Dwarfs simply have a bad rap and tend to go loooooooong periods between updates while being somewhat shoehorned into favoring the gunline style of play, simply because until now, they've lacked enough units to give them a more capable Movement phase.
Plus, let's face it, until 8th edition, you never heard the words, "I'm charging" come from a Dwarf player since everything out distanced them!

I apologise for being arsey :/

It annoys me that dwarfs are seen only as a gunline and everyone says "but crossbows, handguns" what about those of us that love the dwarf infantry, my favourite games are tons of warriors, longbeards, hammerers and ironbreakers and I just wear down my opponent, I find (and agree to a certain extent) that shutting down the magic phase is a tad extreme but since we literally have no wizards (anvil doesn't count) its kind of neccesary

 Formosa wrote:
the abomb maths you did, does that factor in regen? and 1 round of shooting is all I will get usually from a competent player, but that's obvious.

15 Warriors need 3's to hit, so 13.3 hits in the first round. 4's to wound, so 6.7 wounds, 4's to Regenerate, so 3.3 unsaved. Etc.

Also, how is he only giving you one turn of shooting against an abomination? Average move of 10.5" means he's charging your front line by turn 3.

 Formosa wrote:
so what im basically saying is, without at least a couple of warmachines dwarfs cant deal with monsters

I just proved that wrong. Dwarfs can deal with monsters. They can shoot them with small-arms fire, and then they can bring massed great weapons to bear.

 Formosa wrote:
Oh btw I'm not saying cannons are not op and agree they should be toned down, just saying they are the best way to deal with the big uns

Well, obviously. Why are cannons too good? Because of their efficiency against monsters. So what is an army's best answer to monsters? Uh...cannons.

Experiment 626 wrote:
1. Skaven are currently getting rather old & tired with their current book. It's been what, 7 or 8 years now since they've last been updated?

2. The game has well and truly moved past the infantry horde stage. Elves have most definitely seen to that, alongside other well known MSU armies such as competitive DoC lists and WoC bringing lots of chariots alongside Chimeras & Skullcrushers.
The Skaven book just can't handle an MSU heavy meta as their counters to it are fairly overcosted now considering what they're up against. (Globadiers, Jezzails, Gutter Runners, Censer Bearers, MSU Rat Ogres, etc...) Those units are especially very expensive to purchase as well, meaning it's difficult to get enough of those option unless you've been playing Skaven for a decade or longer, or just have a tone of disposable income to play with!

Basically, if you can't deal with MSU or mixed MSU with a small amount of MMU armies, you're not going to do well on the competitive scene.

3. Dwarfs are the army you take when you want to make both players miserable!

It's been more like since 2009 i think so about 5 years. I started playing skaven about 5 or so years ago starting with the new book so that'd make sense. Back then they were powerful sure but currently they're one of the only books yet to be updated to 8th. We have no flyers, cavalry of any kind whether fast, magical or heavy, armored units and besides our tunneling teams, gutter runners and some vanguard equivalent for nightrunners (which are known to suck) our fastest movement is generally about 6 unless it's random movement or the vermin lord which also kind of sucks because no armor and cannons.

For the most part the skaven melee ability is absolute garbage with the exception of the abomination pretty much. The idea of winning a melee with them is nearly hilarious even if you happen to hit your enemy in the flank with a ranked up unit. Rat ogres are overpriced and are basically worse than vargheists which can fly and have better leadership for the same cost (when you factor in a packmaster it is, not to mention vargheists have better leadership and they won't suffer stupidity for lost handlers).

Skaven magic other than the 13th spell is also not very good. Even our magic missiles which are strength 5 and do d6 hits have a chance to hit us when we roll 1 for the amount of hits. Against MSU armies, elven armies which laugh in the face of initiative test or die spells and gear and other such things the skaven tend to do poor damage with their spells. 13th is so overly specific by needing to target only infantry and people never seem to realize it. Against ogres 13th is absolutely useless unless you think it's worthwhile to change gnoblars and same goes for bretonnia with peasants. Seriously i get called out on using magic missiles against a wood elf army with the newer dropped army book. Like wtf am i supposed to do against armies that can do a magic cavalry bunker with a magic resistance 2 hero effectively making them immune to most magic that isn't test or die. Then the skaven abilities which are test or die only effect initiative which does nothing vs elves. In the end it all comes down to shooting but bows esp. longbows outrange skaven horribly with the exception of jezzails which cost 52 USD for 3 and i can't afford. That said it's a 20 pts per model unit.

People also seem to forget most of the damage dealing units for skaven are fairly fragile with the exception of the abomination. Almost everything that does damage is toughness 3 and generally has no more than a 5+ armor save or 4+ in the case of jezzails and you pay through the roof for those saves. If you want to spam ranged units then good luck trying to hit something. Slaves with slings are cheap but they can't really kill anything other than a couple models worth of chaff. Gutter runners shoot well but they're toughness 3 with 6+ wards for 18 pts per model when fully kitted out.

Then there's the issue with our weapons teams which can be singled out by any unit with line of sight whether in a tower, on a higher unit (cavalry or monstrous infantry) or the ability to just maneuver around. Not to mention the very second i have line of sight to shoot with my weapons teams they're in the enemy's crosshairs to shoot. I won't lie though that weapons teams are wonderful against melee armies but the second an army with decent shooting comes along your best bet is to shoot away chaff and chances are you're better off just removing the weapons teams before the game even starts. They're just free easy points for an army with bows or possibly even gunlines. The fact a poisoned wind mortar can use its parent unit to direct its shots is nice but then it will always scatter.

I feel like i'm going insane with skaven these days. I'm actually considering doom flayers for melee because they're cheap and if you flank with them they might do damage. Sure censers can too but flails and hatred last one round and one round where the enemy doesn't break and flee basically dooms that unit in a fight. Rat ogres are 40 pts per rat ogre and are special. I feel crazy for even considering doom flayers but times are crazy and flayers are core. In case you don't know flayers are one of the worst considered weapons teams in the game but if i have a higher armor save with a ward for sticking behind my wall of clanrats then it could be ok. Chances are though if it's a melee army and they're engaged with my slaves i'm just better off targeting them with shooting weapons i may have though. Skaven just feel so tricky to play these days. I'm also considering the vermin lord with plague magic since it has higher toughness, can move quickly and can throw out some alright spells while getting where it needs to go just fine.

On the positive side i will try out more skaven ranged some time which can be alright. It more seems to rely on bogging the enemy down with slaves and just spamming shooting attacks on the enemy which can be fairly effective at times though considering how fast a unit can be butchered it might not matter. I've heard jezzails en masse are so ridiculous but 52 USD for just 3 is crazy. I'd need to be rich even to get a decent amount of them and if they end up sucking i just lost hundreds of dollars for nothing.

-----------

On the subject of dwarfs they're slow for everything but their copters.

-----------

Elves can die to gunlines esp. with super elite armies and skaven don't have that problem. That said if skaven have to fight elves everything just gets stupid.

-----------

@Experiment 626: Did you want to play a game on 'Universal Battle' at some point? I never did get a response back from you on that. I really could use more practice at some point.

Warpsolution wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
the abomb maths you did, does that factor in regen? and 1 round of shooting is all I will get usually from a competent player, but that's obvious.

15 Warriors need 3's to hit, so 13.3 hits in the first round. 4's to wound, so 6.7 wounds, 4's to Regenerate, so 3.3 unsaved. Etc.

Also, how is he only giving you one turn of shooting against an abomination? Average move of 10.5" means he's charging your front line by turn 3.

 Formosa wrote:
so what im basically saying is, without at least a couple of warmachines dwarfs cant deal with monsters

I just proved that wrong. Dwarfs can deal with monsters. They can shoot them with small-arms fire, and then they can bring massed great weapons to bear.

 Formosa wrote:
Oh btw I'm not saying cannons are not op and agree they should be toned down, just saying they are the best way to deal with the big uns

Well, obviously. Why are cannons too good? Because of their efficiency against monsters. So what is an army's best answer to monsters? Uh...cannons.

see that's why I don't like mathhammer, I have played my mates skaven a hell of a lot (hi lee) and NEVER have I put 3.3 wounds on a HPA in a single round with GW, maths hammer is a useful tool I grant you, but useless for real life.

and its not "wrong" you haven't "showed" me all you did was say what happens in a vacuum, it fails to take into account player skill, setup, etc. so it would be more accurate to say "I disagree, according to the statistics this is what SHOULD happen, but not neccesarily always, as other factors may apply", the second part "using small arms fire" also doesn't take into account all the other threats that are on the field, monsters IF they reach combat can totally decimate units (not all monsters of course) and there should be a decent counter to monsters, rather than a average to below average change with str4/5 weapons, this will be made a lot worse when flyers come to fantasy (bet it happens)

that last bit was a clarification of my stance, but again just for you, yes cannons are goods, but some armies need them to reliably kill monsters, yes they are too good as current, so slightly tone them down. simples

 Formosa wrote:

Warpsolution wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
the abomb maths you did, does that factor in regen? and 1 round of shooting is all I will get usually from a competent player, but that's obvious.

15 Warriors need 3's to hit, so 13.3 hits in the first round. 4's to wound, so 6.7 wounds, 4's to Regenerate, so 3.3 unsaved. Etc.

Also, how is he only giving you one turn of shooting against an abomination? Average move of 10.5" means he's charging your front line by turn 3.

 Formosa wrote:
so what im basically saying is, without at least a couple of warmachines dwarfs cant deal with monsters

I just proved that wrong. Dwarfs can deal with monsters. They can shoot them with small-arms fire, and then they can bring massed great weapons to bear.

 Formosa wrote:
Oh btw I'm not saying cannons are not op and agree they should be toned down, just saying they are the best way to deal with the big uns

Well, obviously. Why are cannons too good? Because of their efficiency against monsters. So what is an army's best answer to monsters? Uh...cannons.

see that's why I don't like mathhammer, I have played my mates skaven a hell of a lot (hi lee) and NEVER have I put 3.3 wounds on a HPA in a single round with GW, maths hammer is a useful tool I grant you, but useless for real life.

and its not "wrong" you haven't "showed" me all you did was say what happens in a vacuum, it fails to take into account player skill, setup, etc. so it would be more accurate to say "I disagree, according to the statistics this is what SHOULD happen, but not neccesarily always, as other factors may apply", the second part "using small arms fire" also doesn't take into account all the other threats that are on the field, monsters IF they reach combat can totally decimate units (not all monsters of course) and there should be a decent counter to monsters, rather than a average to below average change with str4/5 weapons, this will be made a lot worse when flyers come to fantasy (bet it happens)

that last bit was a clarification of my stance, but again just for you, yes cannons are goods, but some armies need them to reliably kill monsters, yes they are too good as current, so slightly tone them down. simples

By your argument, My Elf legion has never fought an abomb. Therefore they can't kill it.

your being purposely argumentative, I was clear in saying that maths work in a vacuum, and in my experience doesn't pan out in a real game, that's pretty clear, your analogy of "My Elf legion has never fought an abomb. Therefore they can't kill it." makes no sense in that context.

They're nothing like tomb guard. They aren't the worst unit in the book, for a start.

Hes not just argumentative, (ask him about arcane unforging requiring a wound), but also has apparently never played Tomb Kings.

Ushabti are by far the worst unit in my book.

A 50pt iron gut that cannot march and is only move 5 and is limited to recovering 1 wound a phase. Undead Legions helps, but then they compete with a 38pt crypt horror, which has a regen save, T5, Poison, and move 6.

 Thunderfrog wrote:

They're nothing like tomb guard. They aren't the worst unit in the book, for a start.

Hes not just argumentative, (ask him about arcane unforging requiring a wound), but also has apparently never played Tomb Kings.

Ushabti are by far the worst unit in my book.

A 50pt iron gut that cannot march and is only move 5 and is limited to recovering 1 wound a phase. Undead Legions helps, but then they compete with a 38pt crypt horror, which has a regen save, T5, Poison, and move 6.

How do you think i feel? Rat ogres cost 40 pts a piece and require handlers to not be stupid. For a handler for every two rat ogres you are looking at 88 pts. On the other hand a vargheist has better leadership, WS and has every single stat rat ogres have except they can also fly. Basically they're flying rat ogres except better and i think they only cost like 92 pts for 2 of them and no possibility of stupidity. I have both army books here with me so i know this for a fact. A little too lazy to look up the exact cost right now but i probably will in a few moments.

That said tomb kings have it bad. I'm not even sure how they feel anymore with the 'end times' stuff. Anybody that enjoyed their fight against nagash must be squirming in agony at nagash owning them now. Then again malekith has elves. Jesus i still can't get over all the elves rolled into one. Please tell me they actually decreased the army's power instead of increased. Seriously each is bad enough on their own.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Thunderfrog wrote:

They're nothing like tomb guard. They aren't the worst unit in the book, for a start.

Hes not just argumentative, (ask him about arcane unforging requiring a wound), but also has apparently never played Tomb Kings.

Ushabti are by far the worst unit in my book.

A 50pt iron gut that cannot march and is only move 5 and is limited to recovering 1 wound a phase. Undead Legions helps, but then they compete with a 38pt crypt horror, which has a regen save, T5, Poison, and move 6.

How do you think i feel? Rat ogres cost 40 pts a piece and require handlers to not be stupid. For a handler for every two rat ogres you are looking at 88 pts. On the other hand a vargheist has better leadership, WS and has every single stat rat ogres have except they can also fly. Basically they're flying rat ogres except better and i think they only cost like 92 pts for 2 of them and no possibility of stupidity.

Please, you guys don't what useless is until you've shot yourself in the foot by taking a unit of Flamers...

40pts for a guy who can't hit the broad side of a barn and hands out Regen like candy because... "reasons"
A full unit setting you back a whopping 240pts is just barely capable of wiping out 5 generic T3/5+ save Fast Cav with their shooting, yet will instantly melt the second anything touches them - even freaking Gnoblars chew apart Flamers!

 Formosa wrote:
See that's why I don't like mathhammer, I have played my mates skaven a hell of a lot (hi lee) and NEVER have I put 3.3 wounds on a HPA in a single round with GW, maths hammer is a useful tool I grant you, but useless for real life.

It is most certainly not useless. That's one of the best ways to actually be good at this game. You gotta' know the averages. Should I charge my 15 Stormvermin into your 10 Dwarf Quarrelers? If you don't ever look at the averages, you'l never know if it's a good idea or not.

 Formosa wrote:
and its not "wrong" you haven't "showed" me all you did was say what happens in a vacuum, it fails to take into account player skill, setup, etc. so it would be more accurate to say "I disagree, according to the statistics this is what SHOULD happen, but not neccesarily always, as other factors may apply", the second part "using small arms fire" also doesn't take into account all the other threats that are on the field, monsters IF they reach combat can totally decimate units (not all monsters of course) and there should be a decent counter to monsters, rather than a average to below average change with str4/5 weapons, this will be made a lot worse when flyers come to fantasy (bet it happens)

Okay. So, you're saying that I'm not taking into account all of the different variables.
Which leads me to believe that you think you are.
Which leads me to believe that you, somehow, believe that a Dwarf army cannot--your words, mind. CAN. NOT. No possible way. Failure, in ever scenario--deal with Monsters, without a cannon or two. And we both know that's not true. For example, my Abomination is terrified of your Hammerers. Because, on average, they'll kill him in one round. Which is why he avoids them, and one of the other reasons why I focus on that unit with other resources.

- I will never account for player skill when considering anything tactical. That's absurd. "This unit's too good, because a veteran player could do X", "this item isn't good enough, because a new player would probably just do Y".
- set-up and other threats on the field are issues for everything ever. The fact that cannons are so remarkably efficient at killing this one type of unit that targeting them is an obvious and automatic choice just goes to show how weird the rules are.

 Formosa wrote:
yes cannons are goods, but some armies need them to reliably kill monsters, yes they are too good as current, so slightly tone them down. simples

If cannons did half the wounds they currently do to Monsters, that would be enough to strip a few wounds off. Then, they can be finished in close combat, or in a later shooting/magic phase.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
We have no flyers, cavalry of any kind...

Easy, there.
As a general rule, I think we can assume that other players know the general capability of an army. No need to list every capability of every unit.
You're clearly frustrated with the Skaven book...we get it.

Math hammer works in a bubble if you have nothing forcing you to attack as soon as possible you can take an extra turn manouvering so that you can setup a flank charge dwarves are movement three its not hard to outmanouver them tie the unit up with slaves then flank charge them however if there are cannons making staying out of combat a bad idea the skaven player will be more likely to pick the worse option.

 Thunderfrog wrote:

They're nothing like tomb guard. They aren't the worst unit in the book, for a start.

Hes not just argumentative, (ask him about arcane unforging requiring a wound), but also has apparently never played Tomb Kings.

Ushabti are by far the worst unit in my book.

A 50pt iron gut that cannot march and is only move 5 and is limited to recovering 1 wound a phase. Undead Legions helps, but then they compete with a 38pt crypt horror, which has a regen save, T5, Poison, and move 6.

Ushabti have a place in competitive TK lists. Or good ones. (Gunlines or 1200 points of necroknights). I've actually been using 12 with great bows and now nobody wants to play my tomb kings. Which is a shame, as I love the army list.

war machines should have a forward facing ark in which they can shoot, pivoting to shoot where ever you want is ridiculous.

bertmac wrote:
Math hammer works in a bubble if you have nothing forcing you to attack as soon as possible you can take an extra turn manouvering so that you can setup a flank charge dwarves are movement three its not hard to outmanouver them tie the unit up with slaves then flank charge them however if there are cannons making staying out of combat a bad idea the skaven player will be more likely to pick the worse option.

I have almost no idea what you're trying to say, here.
Mathhammer isn't a way to determine if you can win a game or not. It's a good way to figure out about how difficult a particular situation is.
The numbers I provided were pretty damn simple: front-to-front combat, and assuming that there were at least 15 Dwarfs attacking. Now, if your opponent whittles your unit of 30 down to 20, and then the A-bomb takes out another 10, obviously you'll do less wounds. But then again, the A-bomb most likely lost a wound or two as well. Or the other resources the Skaven general is using to whittle down the Dwarf unit are dealt with, etc. So, in closing, Mathhammer isn't attempting to take every variable into account. It's just a rough guideline. And without some basic form of it in hand, you can't play this game. You need to know the odds even somewhat remotely.

Warpsolution wrote:

bertmac wrote:
Math hammer works in a bubble if you have nothing forcing you to attack as soon as possible you can take an extra turn manouvering so that you can setup a flank charge dwarves are movement three its not hard to outmanouver them tie the unit up with slaves then flank charge them however if there are cannons making staying out of combat a bad idea the skaven player will be more likely to pick the worse option.

I have almost no idea what you're trying to say, here.
Mathhammer isn't a way to determine if you can win a game or not. It's a good way to figure out about how difficult a particular situation is.
The numbers I provided were pretty damn simple: front-to-front combat, and assuming that there were at least 15 Dwarfs attacking. Now, if your opponent whittles your unit of 30 down to 20, and then the A-bomb takes out another 10, obviously you'll do less wounds. But then again, the A-bomb most likely lost a wound or two as well. Or the other resources the Skaven general is using to whittle down the Dwarf unit are dealt with, etc. So, in closing, Mathhammer isn't attempting to take every variable into account. It's just a rough guideline. And without some basic form of it in hand, you can't play this game. You need to know the odds even somewhat remotely.

What i'm saying is that if you take away the threat of cannons the opponent whoever it may be has no need to charge into a bad matchup if we took everything based on front to front combat we could just roll off at the start of each game to see who would win!

Experiment 626 wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Thunderfrog wrote:

They're nothing like tomb guard. They aren't the worst unit in the book, for a start.

Hes not just argumentative, (ask him about arcane unforging requiring a wound), but also has apparently never played Tomb Kings.

Ushabti are by far the worst unit in my book.

A 50pt iron gut that cannot march and is only move 5 and is limited to recovering 1 wound a phase. Undead Legions helps, but then they compete with a 38pt crypt horror, which has a regen save, T5, Poison, and move 6.

How do you think i feel? Rat ogres cost 40 pts a piece and require handlers to not be stupid. For a handler for every two rat ogres you are looking at 88 pts. On the other hand a vargheist has better leadership, WS and has every single stat rat ogres have except they can also fly. Basically they're flying rat ogres except better and i think they only cost like 92 pts for 2 of them and no possibility of stupidity.

Please, you guys don't what useless is until you've shot yourself in the foot by taking a unit of Flamers...

40pts for a guy who can't hit the broad side of a barn and hands out Regen like candy because... "reasons"
A full unit setting you back a whopping 240pts is just barely capable of wiping out 5 generic T3/5+ save Fast Cav with their shooting, yet will instantly melt the second anything touches them - even freaking Gnoblars chew apart Flamers!

That's pretty sad actually. You have my pity. Not sure what else the flamers can do with what they've got.

@Warpsolution: Yeah i know but i don't get how other people can field them so successfully. Perhaps i don't have the money to field them correctly? I just have no idea how to field skaven anymore. Before it used to be easy and then i won significantly against some players and then my lizardmen playing friend started taking a slann before their current army book (back when slann were ridiculous) and things were just hard. That and anybody i face is generally a tournament level player on Universal Battle and in some cases in real life too. I don't think i'm terrible at playing the game. It's just i've never struggled like i currently have been. Almost every game i have is a loss these days. It's just really disheartening and ruins my morale for the game. Admittedly it's giving me a bit of humility losing so much but often the people i play throw out a power list like that nurgle with epidemius army i faced.

bertmac wrote:
What i'm saying is that if you take away the threat of cannons the opponent whoever it may be has no need to charge into a bad matchup

Wrong. There are other war machines. There's small-arms fire. And there's magic.
None of these things are as efficient as cannons. Because cannons are too efficient.

bertmac wrote:
if we took everything based on front to front combat we could just roll off at the start of each game to see who would win!

No. Just no.
You seem to be accusing me of saying "all of my combats will be two units, meeting front-to-front". And I'm not. At. All. I'm saying "what usually happens is, you charge my unit in the front. I counter-charge into the flank. Then you threaten my other flank, so I charge, but then you flee...".
It is completely and utterly pointless trying to account for every little variable in this game. Because there are so many crazy situations that arise. So, how do I get some sort of vague idea as to how my unit A will fair against your unit B? Why, I do a little Mathhammer! That way, I'll know how many rounds my Slaves can hold up that unit over there, or how many Warp Lightning Cannon blasts I'll need to take out this unit, over here.
And yes, sometimes, that Mathhammer involves figuring out the averages of a flank charge.

To apply any of this to the original point, though: the statement was that Dwarfs need cannons to deal with Monsters. I said they don't need cannons to deal with monsters. Is it easy to get a unit of Hammerers into combat with an A-bomb? Yeah, probably. But you use terrain, and fleeing, and other shooting. And the Skaven player uses screening units and shooting and magic, etc. It goes back and forth. I really am at a loss as to how this is so hard to understand.
Will it be likely that you engage that A-bomb on your terms, and that he goes down without a fight? No. You'll take some losses, probably. He might even get a flank charge off on this unit, or Regen a Grudge Thrower's stone. But I assume that, for everything that goes in your opponent's favor, you can orchestrate something to go in yours.
Because I assume that you and your opponent are roughly on equal footing, tactics-wise. Because assuming anything else is pointless and silly.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Spoiler:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Thunderfrog wrote:

They're nothing like tomb guard. They aren't the worst unit in the book, for a start.

Hes not just argumentative, (ask him about arcane unforging requiring a wound), but also has apparently never played Tomb Kings.

Ushabti are by far the worst unit in my book.

A 50pt iron gut that cannot march and is only move 5 and is limited to recovering 1 wound a phase. Undead Legions helps, but then they compete with a 38pt crypt horror, which has a regen save, T5, Poison, and move 6.

How do you think i feel? Rat ogres cost 40 pts a piece and require handlers to not be stupid. For a handler for every two rat ogres you are looking at 88 pts. On the other hand a vargheist has better leadership, WS and has every single stat rat ogres have except they can also fly. Basically they're flying rat ogres except better and i think they only cost like 92 pts for 2 of them and no possibility of stupidity.

Please, you guys don't what useless is until you've shot yourself in the foot by taking a unit of Flamers...

40pts for a guy who can't hit the broad side of a barn and hands out Regen like candy because... "reasons"
A full unit setting you back a whopping 240pts is just barely capable of wiping out 5 generic T3/5+ save Fast Cav with their shooting, yet will instantly melt the second anything touches them - even freaking Gnoblars chew apart Flamers!

That's pretty sad actually. You have my pity. Not sure what else the flamers can do with what they've got.

Well, as long as tournaments/LGS's are gracious enough to allow the WD rules, for 120pts 'tax', 3 Flamers can be used to pass their Skirmishers rule onto an Exalted Flamer or two who will wreck stuff! (albeit Warpflame is still an issue...)

Still, that's typically a 300pts unit - 3 Flamers + 2 Exalts, so for that kind of investment it damn well should get to wreck something!

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
@Warpsolution: Yeah i know but i don't get how other people can field them so successfully. Perhaps i don't have the money to field them correctly? I just have no idea how to field skaven anymore. Before it used to be easy and then i won significantly against some players and then my lizardmen playing friend started taking a slann before their current army book (back when slann were ridiculous) and things were just hard. That and anybody i face is generally a tournament level player on Universal Battle and in some cases in real life too. I don't think i'm terrible at playing the game. It's just i've never struggled like i currently have been. Almost every game i have is a loss these days. It's just really disheartening and ruins my morale for the game. Admittedly it's giving me a bit of humility losing so much but often the people i play throw out a power list like that nurgle with epidemius army i faced.

Your book is just getting super old and what makes it special isn't so hot anymore.

I honestly think Skaven work better when going heavy on Clan Pestilence - lots of Plague Monks who while still only average, throw out more attacks than other ranked units worth using. One unit can carry the Plague Banner which while a one-shot item, is still a really good one.
The Furnace is solid for maximising the frontage for annoying Toughness tests. (Elves get a special kind of screwed since these go before their ASF attacks, guaranteeing you some kills) Censer Bearers just need some cheaper models really... Sure they'll kill themselves, but they do tend to worry opponents a lot simply because they never fail to cause havoc!

Spells of Plague are leagues better than the Spells of Ruin in all honesty. If your group/store allows Special Characters, seriously take Lord Skrolk as he's a complete b********! Lv3 wizard and his magic weapon is plain mean. (and it's toughness test is not blocked by the stupid HE banner either!)
Plague Priests are also fairly resilient for a Skaven character. Pricey sure, but they bring a high utility with both decent fighting abilities + magic.

The only thing that really keeps my from cracking open the masses of Skaven boxes hiding in my closet honestly is that I'm not a huge fan of Clan Pestilence... Personally I'm more into the Warlord Clans, (Clan Vulkan because I like fire & burning things!) Plus ninja rats, because, they're freaking rat ninjas!
I don't mind a smaller army of the putrid ones, but I'm not into the idea of building & painting a full 2400+ pts army of them...



Oh, and about the on-line battles thingy... computers aren't my thing sadly, and vassel/whatever thingy sounds complicated...

That and my on-line/video gaming time is currently being taken by Fantasy Life 3DS! (sooooooo damn addictive!)
If you have a 3DS and FL though, I can try and monkey my way with figuring out how Friend Codes work and can add you on that.

sigh!
Your point was dwarves can kill Abombs if they get to fight it on their terms then go on to say well that likely wont happen. So just suck it up? Or is it fair that they get a chance to even the odds via cannons?

@Experiment 626: True spells of plague can be nice but if i can't take warp lightning spam on my warlocks then i'll have issues with chaff. It's not super good but it helps. Censers aren't as good as they can be. If your opponent managed to lose combat but passes morale then they're absolutely dead in the water (man i must be playing way to much xcom: enemy unknown). Plague monks i've been considering heavily again if only to hold up the enemy and give off less combat resolution in a fight (though sadly they're special rather than core unless you take skrolk). Keep in mind they're 7 pts for a toughness 4 model which isn't too shabby. Although going up against a gunline slaves are probably ideal the plague monks could take plenty of shots too. The furnace is decent and sometimes manages to hold up but once again it takes up a significant portion of hero points though i suppose with 50% lords and heroes that shouldn't be as big of a deal now. In fact double furnace or more should be very possible. That said i'd need a way to take care of war machines. That way is either ambushers or more reliably skitterleaping a warlord on war litter or something in there and just chopping up the war machines one by one. Sure they might die but against this one guy i managed to reliably kill most of his war machines and he had no way to stop it. It's funny because usually that method has worked for me every time i used it. The problem though is that it costs a decent amount, can only take on one or so war machines at a time and might not have much validity beyond that. That said if the enemy has no cannons you can just keep the warlords in other units and use them to help out combat resolution so it can be a bit of a win in that sense.

Oddly enough i'm considering things that other skaven players probably think is insane. One of which being the vermin lord and the other being the doom flayer. Considering both is so crazy i wonder if skaven players will take me seriously. That said the vermin lord can approach an enemy quickly and has terror and when equipped with some of the short ranged plague spells can actually go places with his good movement. Sure he costs a lot but against an elf army depending on what's taken he could really throw out some damage. He isn't great and would require some serious work to use correctly but he could be ok. Storm banner might also be a plus to use with him considering the incoming cannons. Doom flayers kind of suck but if i can manage to hold in a combat with plague monks or similar they could probably do some damage provided they hit an enemy army that has lower initiative or equal initiative to them and if i flank with probably 3 of them in the same combat. This excludes elves but elves are mostly doing the shooting and avoidance fast cavalry armies with magical fast cavalry.

Most of the spells of ruin aren't that great. That said cracks call, skitterleap and massed up warp lightning can be alright. Sometimes i'm even considering taking a vermin lord with spells of ruin on the off chance i can get cracks call. Basically a march of 16" into the flank of an ogre army and then casting cracks call with 6 dice or a decent amount. That's a crap ton of dead ogres unless they can make 6 or so ogre initiative checks. Some people might state you can use warlocks or grey seers for that but grey seers are incredibly expensive and vulnerable and warlocks are cheap and also vulnerable. Sure it's totally possible with march of 10" but nobody is gonna let em get off both skitterleap and cracks call and in some cases that's a dead skaven wizard if they can't get off cracks call. In the case of a vermin lord it's just one spell they need and they can usually stand up to another attack. Also though it sounds incredibly stupid i could probably block line of sight from a vermin lord with a furnace or abomination or similar large target. Sure cannons can hit both but they need to kill one completely to get to the next one and if they can't then it doesn't go through. That way i could save my vermin lord with the abomination just a bit.

Skaven do need a re-release. Hopefully 'end times' will help considerably or if the next book is skaven (whether army book or end times book). I hope like hell they do jetpack skaven already whether with dual warplock pistols or poisoned wind globes. That alone would be worth it. Do that or possibly some fast cavalry options. It's really not asking too much in my view.

It's a shame you won't play Universal Battle. It's a good system and those players are really good. It's basically warhammer fantasy. It's a bit confusing at first but i taught CthuluIsSpy how to play on there so i could teach you too provided you had the time. You already said it confuses you though so i guess not.

bertmac wrote:
sigh!
Your point was dwarves can kill Abombs if they get to fight it on their terms then go on to say well that likely wont happen. So just suck it up? Or is it fair that they get a chance to even the odds via cannons?

Again. Not sure if I'm following you.
Dwarfs can deal with monsters such as the Abomination with more than just cannons. Yes. That is what I was saying. If I put down an Abomination, and my Dwarf opponent does not field any cannons, they don't go "oh. An Abomination? Well, darn. Good game, man. I lose!"
They have other options. None of them are as good as cannons. Because, once more: CANNONS ARE TOO GOOD AT KILLING MONSTERS[i].
Just look at the numbers on those Hammerers. Look! They will, on average, fell an un-wounded Abomination in one round of combat, assuming he leaves 15+ standing (he will). Now, will it be easy for my opponent to get those Hammerers into combat with him? No. I'll try to stop them. And they'll try to stop me stopping them. And 'round and 'round we go. That's how you play this game!

me - I intensely dislike the book of hoeth - 55pts to allow you to reroll one dice each time you cast/dispel is just annoying