Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I want to compile a list of Skaven tactics in AoS and start that train rolling towards seeing some of a tactical depth in the system. Yes I'll miss 8th, many of us will -- but I'm going to venture forth and try to be positive. At this point I've played 5 games of AoS and here are some of the things I've learned -- looking for more tips from the community.

- Tretch Craventail has been the star as my default buff general. His command ability of -1 rend to a verminus unit's weapons paired with any 6 to-wound roll being double damage is absolutely filthy in a big unit of Stormvermin. Granted it's an edge case -- but a unit of Swordmasters of Hoeth evaporated to a unit of 20 Stormvermin. They had 28 attacks, 15 of which hit -- and then 10 wounded with 3 sixes. It killed 12 swordmasters on the charge before any swings back happened.

- Big monsters or dangerous casters can't hide from poison wind mortars. All those ones you have from IoB? They're absolutely critical now. They don't need LoS, have fantastic range and can drop a silly amount of wounds on big scary things. Four PWM's stripped 10 wounds off Nagash in one turn, decimating his casting ability.

- Warp Lighting Cannons are very average, unless there's something I'm missing. While tougher than PWM's there's very little reason to lean on them. Throwing mortal wounds out is nice, but 24" is short for a cannon and on average they'll only do 3 wounds.

- Doomwheels are nastier than before. I consistently used "More-more speed" and didn't roll doubles once. Averaging 14" of movement with the ability to do D3 wounds in the movement phase followed by on average 3 more wounds in shooting is very good. Pair this with the D6 grinding attack and if they're all leveled at one unit it's entirely possible to see them at -10 bravery at the end of combat -- which results in several more dead models.

- Plague Monks with a furnace are nasty beyond reason. The method here is simple: Monks with bale chimes and a contagion banner and given bless with filth. Now you have a unit that on average will be able to throw out 35-40 attacks, re-rolling hits, re-rolling wounds with -1 rend and a chance to proc mortal wounds on 6s followed by 6s. Point at a unit, watch it go bye-bye.

Anyone else found any cool AoS Skaven combos?

My biggest concern with skaven, is taking the numbers you are used too, without handing your opponent a sudden death victory condition.

Triggering sudden death is going to be a concern. Here are a few ways I've found you can mitigate it:

1. Most players tend to think Assassinate is the easy go-to for Sudden Death, but Skaven have ways of subverting it. Small based heroes with good saves like Ikit or Tretch (4+ re-rollable) can easily be stashed behind bigger models. If it can't be seen it can't be shot.

Mortars and the like are concerns, to make them your top priority.

2. Pick Deathmaster Snitch or a Skaven Assassin as the assassination target. You can keep his hidden in a unit all game and as long as you've dropped enough units it will be funny to see your opponent pick the right one.

3. It's hard to get the other win conditions against a well constructed Skaven army. It can move fast, table quickly and have enough bodies to keep models from objectives in your own deployment.

take full advantage of the clawpacks, build your army around those to get an extra bonus during play, take advantage of the terrain and make the terrain more important during games now... and lets not forget, take other units from other armies including other factions to balance what you are missing in terms of gaming...

Take a couple of Ogors for the extra omph

Warplock Jezzails can shred-shred enemies en-masse from afar if they're placed right and abstain from moving to get the bonus during their shooting. That rending -2 is nasty, too. You more than likely don't want the enemy to get too close, so take some Ratling Guns to keep your gunline from being charged to death.

Stormfiends are also really good especially with Warpfire Throwers and Rattling Guns for range and Doom Flayers and Shock Gauntlets for close combat. I plan on running a Clan Skryer themed army so lots of Stormfiends, Weapon Teams, Doomwheels and Ikit Claw!

Agreed that you might as well start building your force around the Clawpacks.

Given that you've essentially got one for each aspect of the army (if you consider the Verminus clawpack to be somewhere between Warlord Clan and Clan Skyre).

The Verminus Clawpack is the only one I've used to date and it's bloody lethal - Gnash-Gnaw Their Bones affecting the entire clawpack makes even clanrats passable combat infantry and makes the stormvermin really scary.

The main weakness of a clanrat horde (aside from numbers triggering Sudden Death) is bravery - if you're using Gnash-Gnaw you're not using Inspiring Presence and small skaven units explode really quickly if they start taking battleshock tests. I'd suggest that a Skaven Chieftain with Battle Standard is a great bolt-on to the battalion - the Sacred Banner of the Horned Rat is one of the best TOTEM boosts going - Reroll 1's to hit and ignore battleshock.

Thought i'd let you know that the Warlords command ability can be used even if hes not the general, so a great add on to the force is still the greyseer who can activate "minions will not flee flee, must fight fight"

Retreat and then charging back in is the best thing yet,
Poison wind mortar's are awesome where as my experience with rattling guns have been really meh,
Warp lightning is a 18" cannon shot that dosnt roll to hit or to wound lol that does mortal wounds lol

now i need to buy some plague claw catapults!!

Hettar wrote:
Thought i'd let you know that the Warlords command ability can be used even if hes not the general

Cite? As far as I can tell, it's a command ability like any other.

Just pure theoryhammer here but looking at Giant Rats in swarms of 30 or more is very nasty. 3 attacks each hitting on 2+.

Also, since these are very small models you can actually fit at least 2 per base.

Any thoughts on Clan Skyre themed lists of around 50-75 wounds?

If my sample games today taught me anything, it's that this game is all about fun and theme, not building a hardcore list.

Having said that, as cool as Doomwheel only army would be, it won't get very far.

 streamdragon wrote:

Hettar wrote:
Thought i'd let you know that the Warlords command ability can be used even if hes not the general

Cite? As far as I can tell, it's a command ability like any other.

I believe he's referring to the Verminus Clawpack -- the single best tool in the Skaven arsenal.

"This battalion’s Skaven Warlord can use his Gnash-gnaw on their Bones! command ability even if he is not your general."

Verminus Clawpack + Tretch Craventail = Fun.

In this case "fun" is a 50 strong unit of clanrats carrying 15 bravery, 2 attacks each with -1 rend and 6's to wound doing double damage.

 Auswin wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

Hettar wrote:
Thought i'd let you know that the Warlords command ability can be used even if hes not the general

Cite? As far as I can tell, it's a command ability like any other.

I believe he's referring to the Verminus Clawpack -- the single best tool in the Skaven arsenal.

"This battalion’s Skaven Warlord can use his Gnash-gnaw on their Bones! command ability even if he is not your general."

Verminus Clawpack + Tretch Craventail = Fun.

In this case "fun" is a 50 strong unit of clanrats carrying 15 bravery, 2 attacks each with -1 rend and 6's to wound doing double damage.

Time to start remodeling most of your clan rats into Stormvermin.

I'd run the packs of Clan Rats fairly small, enough to shield the Clawpack's PWMs a bit. Dump the rest into a giant unit of Stormvermin. They're superior to Clan Rats in every single conceivable way and cost 0 extra, might as well.

A Skaven Cheiftain with Battle Standard is awesome support, as well.


The Clawpack Warlord, Chieftain and Tretch between them turn clanrats into little melee monsters with 2 attacks each, rerolling ones to hit and to wound, with immunity to battleshock.

The reason I prefer the Chieftain is that, like the Clawpack, it's a 13" bubble rather than picking a single unit. Tretch only helps one unit.

Let me propose cheating your way to victory, the Skaven way:

Step 1) Get a major victory in your first battle.
Step 2) Bring in the screaming bell.
Step 3) Hope you roll a 1 or a 2 on the triumph table.
Step 4) Roll for the Peal of Doom.
Step 5) Win the game!*

*When you roll for the Peal of Doom, let's say, for example, that you rolled two 6's. You can used Blessed to change the result of any single die to your choosing once during the battle. So you can simply change one of your 6's into a 7, ergo rolling a 13.**

**If you think that changing a die result counts as "applying a modifier", then just don't tell your opponent than you can't modify Peals of Doom.

That works even better with Kairos since you can do it turn one

Having played in a 50 wound tournametn that was 3 rounds this is what I experienced:

Ratling cannons on stormfiends are super strong. Warpfire projectors are weaker, as they miss out on one turn of shooting after tunneling in (have to tunnel in 9" away and counts as moving, WFP have 8" range). That being said, they are better at taking out a wight king on a hill with mystic shield on him, giving him a 1+.

My doomwheel constantly underperformed. It may have been my bad rolling, but it was definitely my weakest unit,

HPA is fine.

Shooting is really strong. As no one could find a rule to exclude it, the TO ruled that you can shoot while locked in combat, but you must shoot at the unit you are locked with.

Units aren't locked in combat in AoS.

However I understand the point of the ruling, and it is 'realistic'.

I was using locked in combat loosely, still trying to drop the WHFB terminology.

Also, dropping sudden death in a tournament where there is some form of balancing makes the game more fair, as my list was set up to take advantage of sudden death and they got rid of it.

Had they kept it, I could have easily taken first, with all three games taking less than 10 minutes combined.