Inspiration for Skaven Allies

[NiallJC1984]

Hi folks,

Looking for advice and a bit of inspiration regarding allies for my Skaven. The obvious choice would be Nurgle to mix with Pestilens but to be perfectly honest I've never been a huge fan of Pestilens aesthetic or Nurgle for that matter (OK I admit I'm painting a Lord of Plagues as a small side project :p)

Without digging deep into Warscrolls I had considered Slaves to Darkness. I'm not sure if they'd have much synergy with Skaven. Don't particularly fancy Khorne or Daemons either...

Of course I could just build and paint more Skaven! There's still a lot from the various factions I haven't tried. Haven't tried a lot of Stormvermin yet or many Weapon Teams. Also not got much Eshin on the table.

How do you other Skaven players make up your 100 point SCGT armies?

[James McPherson]

The only real synergies are with the Nurgle stuff I think although I could be wrong. Beastmen Shamans can summon anything with the monsters keyword, could be some cool synergy there with a HPA. They would be my natural go to perhaps for a bestial themed clan Moulder alliance. Stormvermin look a bit Khornate with red armour and verminus are perfect for Khorne, Eshin could work well aesthetically with a cult of Slaanesh style Dark Aelf themed army (might have to use Dark Elves as Marauders of Chaos or something, lots of assassins,and have the main backbone as a Skyre/Verminus .

 

If you wanted to you could have all four gods represented in some way or another and have a combined force with each part led by a Chaos inspired Verminlord , but Tzeentch is where it falls down for me

corrupter/nurgle/clan pestilens

warbringer/khorne/clan verminus

deceiver/slaanesh/clan eshin

warpseer/tzeentch/masterclan

 

Tzeentch is the only one that doesn't work that great, you could play it that the warpstone radiation alters/changes/mutates in the same way Tzeentch would enjoy or maybe just throw Kairos in there instead of a Verminlord Warpseer, either way you aren't getting many synergies between ratfolk and Chaos, just a few random coincidental aesthetic likenesses.

[NiallJC1984]

That's a fair summation of options thanks

I hadn't considered Beastmen so will read some of their scrolls. 

As I said I still need to try more Skaven units anyway but always good to break up a painting project with something new! Helps if that something new can be used in the army

[Dangermouse425]

14 hours ago, NiallJC1984 said:

I hadn't considered Beastmen so will read some of their scrolls.

I approached this question from a slightly different perspective, I was on the look out for some allies for my Beastmen and decided a small Eshin force would be cool.

The idea was to have Night Runners and Gutter Runners backed up by a Verminlord Deceiver. It worked for me because Beastmen are pretty fast and I wanted a fast-moving hitty allied contingent.

It wasn't until later that I realised every man and his dog runs a Skitterleaping Verminlord in their Chaos armies, so whilst the idea doesn't have special-snowflake appeal, it's still cool imho.

[James McPherson]

On 30/05/2016 at 11:07 PM, NiallJC1984 said:

That's a fair summation of options thanks

I hadn't considered Beastmen so will read some of their scrolls. 

As I said I still need to try more Skaven units anyway but always good to break up a painting project with something new! Helps if that something new can be used in the army

Censer bearers have a -1 rend, use them with a corrupter to get an extra attack and keep them nearby plague monks to get a re-roll on to hits

[DaanofWar]

Are you talking about synergy from a rules-perspective? Making the army better? Or from a lore/flavour/modelling perspective?

I'm not really at the point of getting allies yet, but with the massive freedoms in AoS lore, there's a lot to be said for just picking something completely different as an allied force. It can be quite interesting to find out naturally what kind of story would bring your two forces together. 

[NiallJC1984]

That's true Daan

Well tonight I had a lot of fun just playing with a Verminus themed army.

It didn't quite work out as planned for various reasons (I blame Thanquol as always) but there's a lot of nice units in that small Clan.  I think Skaven will be a force to be reckoned with once Battletomes for the individual Clans are released.  As I play to SCGT at the minute I don't use the Legacy scrolls of Formations so right now there's no BSB/Formations in particular for Verminus.  The Warbringer is a great VL though.  Still lots of options within Skaven for me to try

[DaanofWar]

I mention this ally thing mainly because flicking through the GA: Chaos book has become quite distracting. I keep getting these ideas of maybe getting some models from the Slaves to Darkness or Slaanesh ranges to march alongside my inevitable Skaven horde. That is just completely silly though since I have about a bajilion unpainted clanrats lying around.

[NiallJC1984]

Hi folks, gonna try the Verminus Clawpack tomorrow. 1 Warlord, 30 Stormvermin, 60 Clanrats (3 units of 20) and three Weapon Teams (2 WFT and a PWM).

Im gonna throw in the VL Warbringer to compliment them but that's when my ideas run dry.

That's 66/100 SCGT points. 

Id like to stay with Skaven so I'm tempted to just throw in some more Skryre stuff. Fiends and WLC. 

Alternatively I might throw in six Rat Ogres and a Hellpit for a Moulder/Verminus mash up  

How would you folks compliment the Verminus Clawpack for a fun, casual game?

[Goodwin]

I'm not sure I'd branch too far into the other Chaos forces with the Verminous Pack.  Nurgle/Pestilens is the only big synergized things right now that I can see.

If you have more Skryre then check out the Clan Skryre battalion thing in the Grand Alliance Chaos book.  It has you take one Archwarlock and then two other packages.  The cheapest/easiest is probably the Warplightning Cannon one that requires 1-3 WLC +1 Engineer (the other packages all require at least 1-3 Stormfiends!).  Take two, even at one WLC each.  It lets you shoot in the hero phase, then potentially take d6 Mortal Wounds.  Sometimes it'll bite you in the tail, but other times you'll be spitting out 2 rounds of shooting a turn.  High risk, high reward, its the Skryre way!  Then you have three casts - who can all summon Chaos Daemons.

I've not actually looked at that comp system though.  So maybe my idea is horrible?

Either way, goodluck-luck!

[Swampmist]

Personally, I'm running my Clan Skryre (+a bit of verminus for the horde-yness of it) as Slaanesh aligned because I had an idea for fluff I wanted to write. Going over everything, the biggest thing about slaanesh daemons is speed, which neither the skryre+clanrats nor the Nurgle-Half of the army really have (outside of plague drones but those things are bloody expensive.) That, and tons of rend. So if you need something to hit quick and hard, possibly hrlping some eshin guys, Slaanesh is your god/dess. Nurgle, meanwhile, is the tankiest wet sock this side of Shuckle. A unit of 20 Plaguebearers forces a -2 to hit from shooting and a -1 in combat, while having a 5+/5+ ward save. Put them in cover and mystic shield them and they will be as close to immortal as ypu can get without mystic shoeld stacking (or being Saurus Warriors.)  They pair well with the Glass Cannon that is plague monks, and can ignore most of the pestilens attacks. Both options are fun imho, and can add a ton to an army who just need a bit more punch/Tank

[NiallJC1984]

With the General's Handbook now in my hands it feels like a good time to branch out. I've had a good few runs with a pure Skaven army but feels like something is missing. 

May focus on Stormvermin but need to pick some complimentary battleline units - Daemonettes or Bloodletters potentially although I haven't checked their points yet. A few other Skaven toys to throw in mix then need a general to suit. 

[Darkmind]

I was thinking mixing chaos dwarves with skaven.  The battleline core tax kinda prevents me from pure skaven as im not interested in any of the current battalions.