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Hi all,

Latest battle report coming up!

2k Matched Played, Focal Points Battleplan, GT final practice. This time vs Clan Skyre!

I'm also including cogs and a Lord Arcanum in this list to replace the 2 man Fulminator unit. If you want the whole list, please check out my plog!



First up though, a conversion I have done for a Knight-Incantor/Lord-Arcanum on foot.


Deployment


Skaven deployment, verminlord and stormvermin, x2 doomwheel and some other skvan gubins is in reserve!


Winning the first turn I decide to take it and go all out to push the front skaven line back, away from the objectives. Looking to capture all 5 in one hit!

My Lord Arcanum with the Drakesworns help, manages to get Cogs off on the 7!


I get some great charges off. Unfortunately I did not tag the Stormfiends on the left charge with the Dracoth Cav, but I did tag the Rat Ogres on the right flank with the Evocators. Just the clanrats to burn through first!


The charges do their bit. The Evocators smash through the Clanrats, killing them outright. With their mortal wounds targeting the Rat Ogres, as I tagged them with a pile in and doing 13 mortal wounds!

The Dracoths as expected on the charge, smush the other clanrat unit, but without being able to tag the Stormfiends, are about ready to take some mortal wound shooting!

I end my turn on 8 VPs, for capturing all 5 objectives.



The start of Skaven turn 1, sees a few minor spells go off that I can't recollect. But one was focus around bravery.

Shooting takes my Fulminator's down to 2 and 1 on 1 wound. I only barley survive thanks to Mystical terrain getting me a 6+ save on two of them.


The Verminlord and stormvermin bodyguard eye up the center objective and my Drakesworn Templar. Not liking my chances here, with the Verminlords 5 damage weapon!


Clanrats move up to support the Stormfiends, and block a subsequent charge from me.


Further shooting also saw the Doomwheel, knakker 4.5 Liberators on the southern objective. Good shooting there Tex!

The Verminlord and stormvermin make their charges into the Drakesworn.



He takes 5 wounds, but this serves to piss him off, and rolls 2 unmodified 6's on his hit rolls which equates to 11 mortal wounds thanks to his Stormlance targetting the Verminlord. Killing it outright.
D6MW+1 with no saves or wound rolls needed is brutal! Thanks to Stormrage blade adding 2 attacks, the 1/6 chance of getting that six is much improved.

Skaven turn ends with 3 VPs to my 8.


I win the second turn after drawing a 2 on the priority roll.

Allowing me to move my Evocators in to support my overwhelmed Fulminators. Cogs is also still up at this point so their movement is 6" with +2" to their charge. Which really helps footslogging paladins!


I move in more units to support the Drakesworn, as the Stormvermin are able to chip it down to 5 wounds remaining. A con of the Stormrageblade is I got to a 4+ save, turned to a 5+ with the Stormvermin. I get very lucky on my saves, but that should have been a dead Stardrake.

Before this occurs though, I do get some great Rain of Stars rolls, and snipe most of the remaining characters off the board. Including the Greyseer hiding atop his tower.



The second Evocator charge is once again brutal, killing all the Sormfiends, the 2 Clanrats, and tagging the last foot hero on the extended Evocator on the right. These guys won back 800 points, form their cost of 400!

The only reason I'm not taking another unit in place of the Fulminators, is I want more of an Anvil unit with the Fulminators 3+ rr 1's to allowing the hammer blow to come down.



I finish up my turn on 13VPs to Skavens 3. No the 13 did not go unnoticed by the Skaven player!

Thoroughly enjoyed this game. The addition of Cogs, and the Lord-Arcanum allows me to benefit from my combat list so much more than failing 9" rr charges! Losing 2 Fulminators is worth it in my opinion now. Still risky needing Cogs on a 6+ with no rr, but meh worth it.

Thanks all,

Nice conversion! Also not to nitpick but that's a generic Skaven army; Skryre is actually a specific allegiance.

Nice work on the alpha strike tactics, how would you have played it if cogs didn't go off? Do you know what artifact the Skaven guy was running?

Hey Ninth,

Will remember that for next time. The Skaven army has some ground digging elements so presumed it was a specific allegiance, almost like I would refer to my army as a Stormhost not SCEs.

Skaven list consisted of a FW Verminlord w/ Runeblade for +1 attack
x30 Stormvermin
3x20 Clanrats
3 Warpfire Stormfiends
4 Rat Ogres
2 Doomwheels
2 combat focus weapons teams - look like warplances.
1 Grey Seer
1 Packmaster
1 other hero, warlord maybe? Not sure there.

Essentially a 6+ Cogs is my biggest opening weakness for my list.

However, in this instance I would have advanced onto the middle objective to hold that and gain an opening VP advantage. Simply to hold tight until Turn 2 and attempt to cast it again.

If things look too close, then I would have to drop in a unit and risk a 9" rr charge. That being said, I may well have dropped in the Evocators and Vexillor on my right flank to hard deny the Rat Ogres and Clanrats advancing on their own objective anyway. There was a lack of shooting out that way so, fairly certain they would have survived long enough to contest.

Thanks for dropping in!

Ah, those ground digging elements are part of the warscrolls; each of those weapon teams brings a unit with them, and that verminlord does too. And looking at the list... To put it diplomatically it would be wise not to see it as representative of a tournament Skaven army.

So in regards to turn choice, was it cogs that made you want 1st turn? That round 1-2 double is often game winning if it goes off (double so in tournaments) so do you feel the payout is worth what amounts to a 1/3 chance of game loss if it doesn't go off correctly? What I mean is if you take turn 1 but don't get cogs off and/or don't get critical charges off then a double-turn by your opponent is likely to decide the game right then (your fulminators would stand a good chance of simply dying to mortal wound shooting without ever seeing combat, for example). Or was turn 1 a calculated choice based on this matchup in particular?

Heya Ninth,

Firstly. I would agree with you. I spoke with my opponent before to say I would like a competitive tournament game, and to bring what he thought was applicable.

In hindsight, as other than playing vs Plaugemonk + Bell + Glotkin combo's, this was not a competitive Skaven list compared to what I've at least played before.

Regarding turn choice, I had a few thoughts:

My army is geared up for alpha strikes. There is a great risk associated with that, but that is its main purpose. Inherit of that 1/3 risk, but as a countermeasure is the fallback of keeping the units in the sky anyway, as if cogs fails, at least its failing before movement phase. Or I risk a 9" charge re-rolling if I absolutely must put something down in the way. Simply put, Cogs going off, means I will want first turn in most cases. Unless I think that the additional 2" movement will help to open up enemy lines/gaps I can then exploit on turn 2, whilst the Liberators bear the brunt of an assault.

Keeping in mind the threat of scions of the storm, should be constant for my opponent as I can drop when I need to, and where I need to. Other than area denial.


My overall calculation in this instance was:

1. Cogs on a 6+ with the Drakesworn adding +1 to cast is risky. I'll admit that. Its an uncertainty about my army.

2. Get into the Skaven frontline early and contest the objectives if possible. Even if I did not make my charges and cogs did not go off, I could put a few bodies (Namely the Evocators) in the way, and whilst not taking the objective from numerous clan rats, more importantly I would at least keep them there and not contesting my objectives or the middle. Would mean a slow grind, but I'd have the opening edge. I got lucky this time and was able to score all 5 objectives. Risk Vs Reward.

To note my opponent also mentioned that he was running 250 points more in that list then required. So I would have had less tunneling to worry about potentially.

Ah, I see the thinking you are going with. Thank you for the insight.

As for competitive Skaven, I've heard there is a mixed-rat list running around involving a lot of Stormvermin/Clainrats though I did not get specifics. But the plague monk spam is the most common as you mentioned. I have a competitive Skryre list personally but I have not seen nor heard of anyone else actually running it.

Not problem Choices made in list building, or on the table are not always necessarily apparent.

What's your Skyre list out of interest? Would love to pass it onto my buddy, as he's struggling with Skaven at the moment. Can always DM me if you'd prefer to keep it to yourself.

Tell him to run the clan skryre battalion with the gautfyre skorch enginecoven and put at least two units of warpfire stormfiends in it.

At any rate I am currently running this:
Clan Skryre Battalion
-Arch Warlock (General: Verminous Valor, Artifact: Warp Resonator)

-Arkhspark Voltik Enginecoven
--Warlock Engineer
--Warp Lightning Cannon

-Gautfyre Skorch Enginecoven
--Warlock Engineer (Artifact: Vigordust Injector)
--Stormfiends x3 (Shock Gauntlets)
--Stormfiends x3 (Warpfire Projectors)
--Stormfiends x3 (Warpfire Projectors)
--Warp Grinder
--Warpfire Team
--Warpfire Team

Chronomantic Cogs
Soulsnare Shackles


All of Gautfyre Skorch deploys from reserve. The warp-grinder is placed anywhere on the board (no minimum range) then the rest of the enginecoven deploys within 8" of said grinder (again, no restrictions), any unit that deploys within 3" of the enemy takes d6 mortal wounds. All those units can then cast, move, shoot, etc. Normally.

What it amounts to is them coming in anywhere on the board, dropping ~30 mortal wounds on you from shooting (with no hit rolls) then charging you with shockfist fiends that have +1 to hit from the vigordust injector and are accordingly doing an average of 12 wounds, rend -1, 2 damage. There is a lot of other stuff the army does but the above is the main punch.

The whole army is one-drop deployment so it is almost always able to secure turn choice to go second (most of the army isn't on the board to start anyways, and double turn = game win).