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Sorry if this has already been covered but I can't seem to find a thread yet.

Will the skaven book be re done with the new models coming out? I ask because I haven't actually got an army as of yet for fantasy. I sold a 9k skaven army about 4 years ago, and no army has interested me since. I LOVE the new models, to the point that I think the new vermin lord is my favourite model GW has done.

I read somewhere in a recent thread that fantasy has no 'net list' as fantasy has more tactics involved and it's re fired my desire to play. I want to start skaven, but should I wait?

Thank you

I hope so to, I had a Skaven army back in the day and after seeing the new Rat Ogre models with weapons on them, yeah its time to rebuild my Clan Skryre themed army again! Especially because Clan Skryre Skaven are superior to all other Skaven!

Just play them anyways. Our book is still good its just got a big FAQ which is annoying but other than that the army is still very payable. Eventually they will get a new book but I don't think it will be for a while (at least after June or so because may/June is the new edition)

We will have to see tho because of the end times book they might not get a army book update for a little while longer.
Just play them anyways tho!

 chiefbigredman wrote:
Just play them anyways. Our book is still good its just got a big FAQ which is annoying but other than that the army is still very payable. Eventually they will get a new book but I don't think it will be for a while (at least after June or so because may/June is the new edition)

We will have to see tho because of the end times book they might not get a army book update for a little while longer.
Just play them anyways tho!

Agreed. The Skaven book has aged really well.

I actually still have my old skaven rulebook. The one thing I kept back. I bought the limited edition high elves book.. but... it's.. erm.. not skaven. I love the idea of powerful monsters surrounded by hordes of cheap, expendable, crap! I was going to flip a coin between skaven and brettonia but I love skaven so much. I think I'll just stick to them

 Andy140491 wrote:
I actually still have my old skaven rulebook. The one thing I kept back. I bought the limited edition high elves book.. but... it's.. erm.. not skaven. I love the idea of powerful monsters surrounded by hordes of cheap, expendable, crap! I was going to flip a coin between skaven and brettonia but I love skaven so much. I think I'll just stick to them

Good choice. Brettonia are cool but right now its not the greatest army because it's book hasn't aged as well as the skaven one. Still playable but more limited

 gmaleron wrote:
I hope so to, I had a Skaven army back in the day and after seeing the new Rat Ogre models with weapons on them, yeah its time to rebuild my Clan Skryre themed army again! Especially because Clan Skryre Skaven are superior to all other Skaven!

Just fyi those aren't rat ogres. They're an entirely different unit & a bit bigger.

My friends so adamant that the skaven book is so overpowered it's annoying. And he's telling me that if I build an army around the new book, I'll be disappointed when the new one comes out and nerfs everything because it's inevitable with them being so strong. :/ and he said the the vermin lord might look good but it'd rules in the book aren't great. What's everyone's opinion??

 Andy140491 wrote:
My friends so adamant that the skaven book is so overpowered it's annoying.

It's a good army book, no doubt about it. Not overpowered however. It has several good builds and methods of winning, which is not "overpowered", it's "well designed". Curious what book your bud plays... beastmen ? Brets ?

And he's telling me that if I build an army around the new book, I'll be disappointed when the new one comes out and nerfs everything because it's inevitable with them being so strong. :/

It's looking more and more like 9th ed army books (if there are such things) aren't going to really resemble anything that we know them as right now, so while you're friend may be technically correct, i don't think he's literally correct. Also, this is typical gamer knee jerk reactionism at its finest "OMG THESE GUYS ARE GOOD WHEN THEY GET UPDATED THEY ARE GOING TO GET NUUUUUURRRRF'DDD".

and he said the the vermin lord might look good but it'd rules in the book aren't great. What's everyone's opinion??

I haven't seen all 5-6 variants yet. The guy that can cast skitterleap on himself is a fething terror if you can keep him alive (yes, that's a nod to 5 up ward not being ideal on such a point sink). That said, Being able to skitterleap a model with those stats should absolutely terrify anyone that plays a low model count army. It's a gamble piece for sure as you're putting a LOT Of points (particularly for skaven!) into one basket, but its as Dwellers and Purple Sun proof as most models get, and played intelligently it can cause hell fairly easily. *shrug* For the point cost it's pretty damn good.

I've heard the casting /warp one is the best of the bunch, but i still haven't seen its rules with my own eyes in what i'd call a reliable format. *shrug* not sure on the remainder.

I fought a Corruptor yesterday. It was kind of scary...

Until it accidentally got swallowed by its own Pit opening up.

 Andy140491 wrote:
My friends so adamant that the skaven book is so overpowered it's annoying. And he's telling me that if I build an army around the new book, I'll be disappointed when the new one comes out and nerfs everything because it's inevitable with them being so strong. :/ and he said the the vermin lord might look good but it'd rules in the book aren't great. What's everyone's opinion??

So many people online feel like the skaven book is over powered. I don't understand that. It isn't an autowin army.
Like others have said there are good builds and a variety of stuff to use and can use rules like steadfast heavily in their favour but it doesn't make them overpowered.

Who cares if the army book gets nerfed the next time it rolls around? If you like the army you will play it weather its a top tier army or if it a bottom tier army. Just my opinion tho
Also vermin lord is meh....I wouldn't use one at first it's more of a fun unit to try later on when you learn how to use your army and want to switch it up.

I got a text from a friend today. He said while talking to a store owner today the owner said a GW rep told him to expect a new Skaven codex in February. The owner asked about it after all the new models from End Times came out.

I had heard in the past that Skaven were most likely gonna get a new codex before 9th came out.

More rumors I know, but just stuff I've heard.

 Andy140491 wrote:
My friends so adamant that the skaven book is so overpowered it's annoying. And he's telling me that if I build an army around the new book, I'll be disappointed when the new one comes out and nerfs everything because it's inevitable with them being so strong. :/ and he said the the vermin lord might look good but it'd rules in the book aren't great. What's everyone's opinion??

Your friend is dumb and/or listens to the internet for everything. Not to be mean here but that's how i see it. As a skaven player up till the End times release i've had loss after loss with my skaven and i'm a 5 year veteran of skaven. Any faction of elves are really stupid. If anybody says otherwise they are ignorant to elves currently. I've heard End Times combined all their factions together without taking anything away. Imagine if you will all the OP nature of each elf faction combined into one. BotWD, witch elves, warlocks, sisters of thorn, trueflight arrows and everything.

Oh and people also complain about gun-lines and all end times stuff pretty much.

For skaven there is a such thing as 'The List'. There are a few big builds most skaven players have to do if they want to win. One includes the tower of terror of jezzails and another includes the combat screaming bell with 2 assassins and stormvermin or something.

I dunno for me i just can't find skaven as that good. If anything in our book needs a nerf it's either the abomination and/or the slaves. Also these new stormfiends might need to be fixed up a little as they sound potent. It must be true that GW doesn't play test their stuff because balance at times seems laughable.

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

So i dunno if i had to put skaven in a tier right now i'd say they're mid tier until the end times stuff is used which may change things. Elves are at the top, vampires are pretty good, daemons are really good if you do the nurgle/epidemius list with possible cannons, ogres are pretty tough but can probably be handled, empire can be dumb if you do the all 1+ armor save army (demigryphs, steam tanks, knights [which can be taken as core] and maybe cannons) and i dunno about warriors of chaos as only the daemon prince ever really scares me and lizardmen just p*ss me off as the easiest way to put it is without end times they do everything skaven can do except better with more options with only a couple things skaven have that they don't have. This is all coming from playing as a skaven player though. Oh and if you want the worst it is supposedly tomb kings, bretonnia, orcs and goblins and beastmen.

Thank you for such an informative response... and it's really helped me in helping decide. My only quarrel with skaven is that I don't think I'd paint all those hundreds of rats. And I hate unpainted models. Plus with what you've just replied with, I've always considered lizardmen also. But I like an army with option. And I've been told lizardmen are extremely limited with their army choice. My choices for armies are

Skaven
Lizardmen
Empire.

Probably with skaven and lizardmen being joint in looks and how I'd want to play them. I love strong magic users and slaan look awesome in my opinion. Can anyone give me some pros and cons to each army? Thank you

 Andy140491 wrote:
Thank you for such an informative response... and it's really helped me in helping decide. My only quarrel with skaven is that I don't think I'd paint all those hundreds of rats. And I hate unpainted models. Plus with what you've just replied with, I've always considered lizardmen also. But I like an army with option. And I've been told lizardmen are extremely limited with their army choice. My choices for armies are

Skaven
Lizardmen
Empire.

Probably with skaven and lizardmen being joint in looks and how I'd want to play them. I love strong magic users and slaan look awesome in my opinion. Can anyone give me some pros and cons to each army? Thank you

Skaven
PROS:
- Cheap troops
- Uses steadfast to their advantage with slaves
- Good magic users in lvl 4 Grey Seer (fairly cheap)
- Dreaded Thirteenth is awesome
- Both their lores are fairly good, best spells being (the above) plus plague, wither, warp lightning, death frenzy, cracks call etc etc
- Rare choices are AWESOME

CONS:
- Have to paint hundred of models
- Main troop choices are fairly weak (cheap tho)
- Big FAQ for the army book
- Limited useful builds
- Some stuff is pointless (i.e night runners)

Lizardmen
PROS:
- Slann is a good caster
- Cold Blooded special rule is very good/forgiving
- Nice monsters and cool models
- Lots of builds to try
- Overall a solid army

CONS:
- Tough to paint kind of lol
- Not sure what is going on with them due to the End Times stuff (they left the world after they were almost all destroyed)
- Super low initiative which sucks

Empire
PROS:
- Lots of versatile builds
- Almost everything in the book is useful
- Can go horde army or low model count depending how you play them i.e lots of cavalry
- Access to all the magic lores in the rulebook
- Shooting is good (helblaster is awesome)
- Detachments are one of the best things in the game

CONS:
- Troops aren't the best they are pricey (state troops are worse than stormvermin but cost the same or 1 point more)
- Can end up painting a horde of troops
- Colour schemes are annoying to paint with the dual colours
- Not the strongest army as it isn't top tier but it is competitive


That list was semi bias but gives you a few things to think of. If you don't like playing with unpainted armies and don;t have the time to paint don't go with Skaven. You will be required to paint about 175-200 models for a 2000 point list (average for skaven lists are 1 model for every 10 points spent, I don't always follow that though).

I'd say 'chiefbigredman' hit the nail on the head for some things.

With empire i'd say detachments are pretty dumb as i've seen somebody take just normal handgunner detachments and they can all stand and shoot for the main unit getting charged. Possibly might get corrected here but dwarfs and empire have a lot of similar stuff. Thing is dwarfs have gyrocopters, good melee, terrible movement, no magic and great leadership whereas empire has steam tanks, armored cavalry and a magic phase. I remember when dwarfs used to shut magic phases down hard. I don't think they're like that anymore. Empire are basically more mobile and better armored whereas dwarfs are very static with the exception of the copter units.

With lizardmen slann used to be stupid powerful. The rest of their book wasn't too good though. Now they have a better army and worse magic caster. They have more flyers with more options. Skinks skirmishers seem pretty good, the monsters are good, the magic is still pretty solid, armored units and cavalry are still there, a lot of poisoned and even flaming attacks, weapons teams with forgiving misfires and the ability to move and shoot, cold-blooded is ridiculously good and makes the skaven 'strength in numbers' look like a joke and there's the predatory fighter rule on things now which is honestly annoying (something like a 6 to hit gives you another attack). Most of their shooters are fairly short ranged. The army can be very mobile. Lizardmen are like the anti-thesis to dwarfs if elves aren't.

With skaven i'd say our rares and core are good. Our special choices are limited and i have trouble finding any worth taking with the exception of maybe gutter runners. Rat ogres are over-priced since vargheists have about all the same stats (except a higher WS and leadership than rat ogres) and can also fly for about the same price (more expensive by a little but no packmaster needed). Censer bearers aren't too good either. I used to try to love them but if they don't do what you need them to do in their first combat phase they just die. I've tried globadiers and though they have a good weapon they're just slow, have poor range and once again are too fragile. Weapons teams can be good but once again if you face any enemy with any decent shooting they will die very easily. They might live against lizardmen but if you face an army like empire, dwarfs or elves you may as well just hand the models over to your opponent at the start of the game. Against more melee based armies though they're actually pretty good (warpfire throwers being pretty sick). The trick with skaven is all of our heavy hitters besides the abomination are very fragile and usually die when charged. This is why you want the hordes to hold up the enemy while the heavy hitters flank the enemy while the hordes negate steadfast in an enemy. It's a very critical point you have to wait for and it can all go horribly wrong. As for the abomination and doomwheel all i'll say is throw chaff near those MF'ers. You want to prevent both from getting charged and you want to charge with the abomination and the doomwheel needs to shoot at the closest unit which can be fixed with some small slave blocks till you get near an enemy that you wish to shoot.