Building a Skaven Army: Clan Pestilens
Entry posted by AIdenNicol444
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Building a Skaven List
Clan Pestilens
The only Skaven clan with a “battletome” (it doesn’t feature any of the stuff modern tomes do, only warscrolls and a small handful of battalions, you need the General’s Handbook for the rest), Clan Pestilens were one of the first armies in the game to receive a book and their line repackaged into the new boxes with round bases and so on. Pestilens takes the existing theme of Skaven being mostly high damage, low durability and escalates it severely. Everything in the book is a melee powerhouse but lacks any form of self-defence.
What Makes the Perfect Virus
Plague Monks. Everything about this army hinges on and builds around it’s most numerous battleline option. The army features a whole SEVEN warscrolls (people with other armies will think this is a joke, but only Clan Skryre has more options than Pestilens), and all of these bar one are either Plague Monks, or something that makes Plague Monks more useful. It’s unsurprising that the exception, the Plagueclaw, is awful and almost never sees use. Plague Furnace and Plague Priests have access to prayers that buff Pestilens units, or debuff the enemy to make your army more effective at harming them. These prayers are also integrated into the army’s allegiance abilities in a key way.
Allegiance to the Great Corruptor
Pestilens have 2 allegiance abilities, one is extraordinarily simple and the other is somewhat more complex. Strength in Numbers gives 2 bravery for every 10 models in a unit instead of 1, which makes I far more viable to take 40 stacks of Plague Monks. Echoes of the Great Plagues is where the thinking comes in. Every natural roll of a 6 when praying allows a once per turn use of one of a selection of super plagues. Bar one, all of the Great Plagues hit the nearest target within 13 inches and have devastating effects like body blows of mortal wounds or even making enemies pile into each other. As your army will usually feature a stack of priests who will all be praying their maximum amount every turn, the odds of receiving these are good.
MC Corruptor, Straight outta Ulgu
Malign Sorcery gave us new artefact tables to draw from, and these come in handy as only 2 of the Pestilens artefacts (Liber Bubonicus and Vexler’s Shroud) are useful. My personal favourite is the Sword of Judgement from Ulgu, which causes d6 mortal wounds on every hit roll of a 6 or more, which single-handedly makes the Verminlord Corruptor the best Hero/Behemoth hunter in the game. Play around with these tables and find what suits you best. Ghur and Ghyran have some gems as well.
Unfurling the Plague Scroll
Given I’ve actually played well over 100 games with Clan Pestilens and started playing AoS with them, I feel somewhat confident in writing an example list. Over the course of my time in the NZ scene, I meant from 5 Major Defeats with this army to maintaining a win-rate of 3/5 games or better. While most wouldn’t consider this an impressive brag by any stretch, I feel it’s pretty good in a meta that mostly only features the battletome armies.
Allegiance: Pestilens
Mortal Realm: Ulgu
Leaders
Verminlord Corruptor (220)
- General
- Trait: Master of Rot and Ruin
- Artefact: Sword of Judgement
Plaguesmog Furnace (180)
Plague Furnace
- Artefact: Liber Bubonicus
Congregation Furnace (180)
Plague Furnace
- Artefact: Doppelganger Cloak
Plague Priest with Plague Censer (80)
Plague Priest with Plague Censer (80)
Battleline
5 x Plague Censer Bearers (60)
5 x Plague Censer Bearers (60)
40 x Plague Monks (240)
- Foetid Blades
10 x Plague Monks (70)
- Foetid Blades
10 x Plague Monks (70)
- Foetid Blades
10 x Plague Monks (70)
- Foetid Blades
10 x Plague Monks (70)
- Foetid Blades
10 x Plague Monks (70)
- Foetid Blades
Units
10 x Gutter Runners (120)
- Allies
10 x Gutter Runners (120)
- Allies
Battalions
Congregation of Filth (170)
Plaguesmog Congregation (140)
Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 2
Allies: 240 / 400
Wounds: 166
Plan here is simple. Charge the enemy with the 40-man unit of Plague Monks with both the Bless with Filth and Rabid Fever buffs active. This unit will likely die to counter charges, but the active buffs will ensure it takes well over its own point cost with it. This is followed up in the next turn by both Furnaces hitting the enemy. Both will get full chance to fight as the one activated second has Doppelganger’s Cloak and so can’t be fought till it’s activated. The small units of Plague Monks and the Censer Bearers are there to follow up aggression and take objectives, and the Gutter Runners coming on behind the enemy force them to split their deployment, so they can’t present 100% of their defence against the front charge.
I myself have ran this list several times and can confirm it will have no trouble taking down combat armies, but has trouble against heavy magic lists. To counteract this, utilize Gutter Runners to harass backfield mages and split the enemy’s focus. Don’t forget to remember the Plague Monk’s once per game activations and the radiant mortal wounds on the censers and furnaces. Go forth, and embrace the 3/2 glory that only an army getting absolutely murdered by Tzeentch can know.
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