Let´s Talk Skyre

[Mayple]

1 hour ago, Betelgeuse said:

@Mayple Do you use balewind to push cannon and mortar forward so that they can reach turn one? 

Haven't done that so far, no. I tend to position my cannons and mortar so that I threaten the mid objectives, far enough past it that he can't take it without exposing himself, let the opponent take the first turn (where able. They tend to take it, which is a tactical error on their part, but eh. Can't say I don't inform them of that ) - and usually I will always be in range to shoot something vital on my first turn following the opponent's. Depending on the scenario, and opponent deployment, I do get some sneaky shots on their deployment zone if I bait them out by witholding my artillery/battalion until the final (few) drop(s). The general approach is the whole 'shoot them if they cap' setup though. 

People tend to get greedy about early game points, but Skryre excells at cleaning the board and taking free objectives from second and third round onwards. Anything the opponent sacrifices before that for objective points, which is any singular entity (their fastest stuff) that can grab an objective that early, is a massive leverage in our favour. 

So I tend not to fret about spending points on a balewind to reach my opponent from turn one, since I expect to always have something to shoot - and if I get the first turn myself, my clanrats are usually more than capable of making a run for the mid objective themselves, which isn't as punishing for us unless they're matching our firepower, which few factions can this in turn will goad the opponent into contesting the clanrats, and my artillery get to unleash hell on them in turn. 

*assuming no teleporting shenanigans, which will prompt me to bubblewrap with clanrats instead, using gutter runners as early objective takers.

**also assuming there is a mid objective at all. Variations of the same principles apply if the objectives have other placements, and a slow death-march (rolling up all the artillery forward, turn by turn) is the appropriate approach if I'd want to take an objective on their side. I consider the artillery in general to be a sorta 'get of the board, please' button. 

 

Uh. Turned into a longer babble than I expected, but that's why I'm not using it at this point. Even if I do reckognize it's merits

[Betelgeuse]

A nice read. I'v run with exactly the same tactics. It's been fun to try out the jazzails battalion and it truly is a delete button. But at the same time it's a huge point sink where it is obvious where the dagmage comes from. Think I will go ahead and try out the chokelung+arkhspark combo a bit next. 

And honestly I really hate the balewind. I think it breaks the game in several ways and a so hope they will adjust it in GHB2018. That said though... It is really nice to have the arch-warlock hit the complete table with his spells and the pushup is just a bonus.

 

[Mayple]

I've been thinking about weaknesses, and reflecting on what moments in my games I've has tough decisions to make that might not work out, and I think I've spotted a hole in our armour.

Skryre is REALLY good at focusing fire, and removing big threats. So the best cases for them (in general) is when the opponent presents one or two things that requires dealing with.

Where they start to sweat however, is when the opponent put more things into threat range than we can kill. Let's say four stonehorns, or two big monsters and a blob of crazy murderhobos. At that point our firepower doesn't do us any good, as we can only potentially (viably) remove one, maybe two big threats at a time. Making the following turn very dangerous. 

I might be off in my analysis though, so input would be great. Do the rest of you have experiences that validates, or invalidates this? 

If it is the case, the best way of fighting this particular Skryre approach (gunline) might be to run EVERYTHING into firing range at the same time. In some manner that ensures most of the things brought forward retains some level of 'this needs to be dealt with'

 

Thoughts?

[Nikobot]

@ Betel agree on the balewind, its just something that seems to be quite maligned right now unless you are using one. It does have very disruptive qualities. I think it probably needs to be toned down a bit even if that makes it cheaper.

@Mayple Yeah, you're right. That's definitely the strategy that Skryre probably aren't going to like. That's what the chaff is for. As much as I would like to spend every last point on something that shoots, having some clanrats/giant rats/plague monks is necessary to hold off the enemy for long enough so the Skryre weapons can do their thing and focus down the enemy like you described. One day, I hope we will see a return of the glorious Skavenslave to provide its meatshield at a heavily discount rate.

For the time being, I think 2-4 units of bodies is needed to do the screening.

[Betelgeuse]

2 hours ago, Mayple said:

I've been thinking about weaknesses, and reflecting on what moments in my games I've has tough decisions to make that might not work out, and I think I've spotted a hole in our armour.

Skryre is REALLY good at focusing fire, and removing big threats. So the best cases for them (in general) is when the opponent presents one or two things that requires dealing with.

Where they start to sweat however, is when the opponent put more things into threat range than we can kill. Let's say four stonehorns, or two big monsters and a blob of crazy murderhobos. At that point our firepower doesn't do us any good, as we can only potentially (viably) remove one, maybe two big threats at a time. Making the following turn very dangerous. 

I might be off in my analysis though, so input would be great. Do the rest of you have experiences that validates, or invalidates this? 

If it is the case, the best way of fighting this particular Skryre approach (gunline) might be to run EVERYTHING into firing range at the same time. In some manner that ensures most of the things brought forward retains some level of 'this needs to be dealt with'

 

Thoughts?

I agree with you. A well played msu list is is dreadful to face with Skryre.  Order msu with waywatcher heroes/longstrikes, prime, skink screens, fulminators/ripperdactyls/"fast hard hitting equivalents" and stuff like that for example. No monsters that gets slower by taking damage. 

Arch-warlock + Balewind and battalion-first-turn-shooting has been my answer to this. That and super cheap screens (plague monks with double flags and muscisians in my case). 

[Epicmay]

Hey everyone, 

I'm currently thinkin' about a list, 2000 points, Skryre allegiance with 200 points of allies; i'd love to hear something from you, as it's almost all ready, i really only need to get one or two boxes to complete it, so i'd like to know what you guys think about it.

I'd start from the battalions:

Clan Skryre: 100 pts

Arkhspark Voltik: 50 pts

Gautfyre Scorch: 150 pts

300 points, but, i believe, absolutely worth.

So Arkhspark Voltik would be just composed of a Warlock Engineer (100 pts) and a single Warplightning Cannon (180 pts), taking up 280 pts.

Gautfyre Scorch instead would be composed of a Warlock Engineer (100 pts), two units of three Stormfiends (4 warpflame projectors and 2 doomflayer gauntlet was my first idea, actually thinking about these; 2x300 pts anyways), one Warpfire Thrower weapon team (70 pts) and of course a Warpgrinder (100 pts). So it would take 870 points, pretty much half the army.

Then again an Arch-Warlock (140 pts), to whom i'd give the Lord of War command trait, for i would always keep him near a unit of 15 Skryre Acolytes (180 pts), and a unit of 40 Clanrats with spears (200 pts). So these guys would take 520 points on top of the others.

Total cost would then be 1970 points; with the main idea being about Clanrats taking the centre of the scene (40 Clanrats always look like a lot of guys to get down, so enemies might target them a bit, giving me the advantage), maybe holding some objectives while backed up by some mystic shield from the Arch-Warlock, of course also by the decent amount of damage the 15 Acolytes should be able to deal when getting the lord of war (against a 10 models or more unit they would hit on a 2+).

By the time the enemy reached my territory, i should've already got at least a dozen wounds from his keystone units with my Warplightning Cannon, of course i'd take the gamble of always shooting twice as the Arkhspark Voltik allows.

But most importantly, right at the beginning, i'd choose a target for my Gautfyre Scorch, which should be able to deal some impressive damage, the minimum being 8 mortal wounds if things really go the wrong way, but could as well end up being 30; only considering the shooting phase, and not the subsequent combat phase during which the Stormfiends should charge whatever is still alive to punch it down with Doomflayer Gauntlets (hopefully some 3 damage would show up, just to get doubled with warpstone).

So that's pretty much it, what do you think? Is it's bulk a bit too shabby? 

 

 

[Mayple]

@Epicmay

 

I'll give you a longer response at a later point, but the immediate notice is that you should split up your acolytes into three, since you're not maxing them out anyway. UNLESS you want to keep your drop count low, which is a valid reasoning. Otherwise, it's better to have three small units than one medium one. Even with buffing. This is to make it difficult for your opponent to take the whole unit out in one go, and will allow you to contest several places of the map, as opposed to just one.

Suggestion:

Since you're going slightly punchy anyway, consider having your two melee options for the stormfiends be Shockfists, and bring vigordust injector with the warlock engineer. Put both of the punchy punchers in the same stormfiend unit. So one 3x warpfire, one 2x Shockfist + 1x warpfire. This should drastically increase your damage output for your alpha strike   remember to vigordust BEFORE attempting to blast them with an overloaded spell.

[Epicmay]

Thank you so much! 

I'm probably going to follow your advice, i didn't consider the artefact at all! Then, having those d6 hits doubled up with a Spark...

Hey i just checked the maths a bit, the average damage should be doubled with the Shockfist Gauntlets and Vigordust Injector ?

 

 

[Kugane]

On 2-2-2018 at 8:39 AM, Betelgeuse said:

A nice read. I'v run with exactly the same tactics. It's been fun to try out the jazzails battalion and it truly is a delete button. But at the same time it's a huge point sink where it is obvious where the dagmage comes from. Think I will go ahead and try out the chokelung+arkhspark combo a bit next. 

And honestly I really hate the balewind. I think it breaks the game in several ways and a so hope they will adjust it in GHB2018. That said though... It is really nice to have the arch-warlock hit the complete table with his spells and the pushup is just a bonus.

 

How does that jezzails combo work if I may ask? As in, what battalions are generally taken?

[Nikobot]

@kugane It's the rattleguage warplock enginecoven from the skryre battalion. Allows unit of jezzails or ratling gun to shoot in the hero phase as well as the normal shooting phase. So 2 shots a turn.

give your warlock vigordust injector to give them +1 to hit and they can now mw on 5+.

[Kugane]

54 minutes ago, Nikobot said:

@kugane It's the rattleguage warplock enginecoven from the skryre battalion. Allows unit of jezzails or ratling gun to shoot in the hero phase as well as the normal shooting phase. So 2 shots a turn.

give your warlock vigordust injector to give them +1 to hit and they can now mw on 5+.

Thank you for the feedback! And oh my thats powerful lol. I might need to convert more jezzails for that purpose haha (currently I have 6 Jezzails, might need more for this)

 

[Nikobot]

In 2000pts... 6-9 is probably the right number. Vigordust will chew away at them, but its worth it.

And you have to protect them, the enemy will see them as a priority threat, as soon as they get their 1st shot off !!

[Mayple]

A bit overdue, but I said I would post my weapon teams a while back for the purpose of showing conversion possibilities 

Featured: 

2x Poison wind mortar

1x Warpfire thrower


Note that the skaven from the blood bowl set works exceptionally well as crew members. Two of them are featured manning the first mortar, one of them is holding the "bazooka" mortar, and a fourth is assisting the warpfire thrower. 

[Kugane]

On 7-2-2018 at 3:45 PM, Mayple said:

A bit overdue, but I said I would post my weapon teams a while back for the purpose of showing conversion possibilities 

Featured: 

2x Poison wind mortar

1x Warpfire thrower


Note that the skaven from the blood bowl set works exceptionally well as crew members. Two of them are featured manning the first mortar, one of them is holding the "bazooka" mortar, and a fourth is assisting the warpfire thrower. 

Loving the conversions :). Are those genestealer bodies?

[Kugane]

In the Azyr app whenever I set the Skryre allegiance it keeps showing Clanrats as a battleline option in allies. Has there been a FAQ errata or something allowing Clanrats to now be battleline for Skryre? Or is this yet another bug?

And as for pics... Just finished 1 Warplightning cannon (just need to paint the base and glue the model on)

 

 

[Mayple]

9 minutes ago, Kugane said:

Loving the conversions :). Are those genestealer bodies?

The flamethrower rat is using a genestealer acolyte body, yes those tend to work great!

[Kugane]

1 hour ago, Mayple said:

The flamethrower rat is using a genestealer acolyte body, yes those tend to work great!

The only thing you may want to do is just smoothen the hands with some green stuff. That tyranid kind of bone stuff on the hands looks slightly out of place, but I guess thats a small fix. And dont forget to clean the flash on the warplightning crew member XD, as you can see in my cannon after its painted it really shows, even though I tried to clean it off before painting. Seems all that type of crew member have that issue.

[Gwendar]

So, I've been lurking for awhile and thought I would finally ask for some solid list building advice. Have a local tournament next week that I may try to go to, and would love everyones CC on my current list idea.

Allegiance: Skaven Skryre
Arch Warlock (140)
- General
- Trait: Masterful Scavenger 
Warlock Engineer (100)
- Artefact: Vigordust Injector 
Warlock Engineer (100)
- Artefact: Esoteric Warp Resonator 
3 x Stormfiends (300)
5 x Skryre Acolytes (60)
5 x Skryre Acolytes (60)
5 x Skryre Acolytes (60)
9 x Warplock Jezzails (420)
1 x Ratling Gun Weapon Team (80)
40 x Clanrats (200)
- Rusty Spear
- Allies
Warp Lightning Cannon (180)
Arkhspark Voltik (50)
Rattlegauge Warplock (50)
Clan Skryre (100)
Balewind Vortex (100)

I suppose the balewind isn't necessary, but I've really enjoyed toying with the idea of using one with the arch warlock and it seems most of you agree that it works well. I would love to have 2 units of fiends, but I'm not sure how I would go about doing that really unless its strictly better than what I laid out. And I suppose in a singular unit of 3 I should arm them with warpfire projectors and sit them behind the clanrat shield? The jezzails have to stay, I love them too much to have a list without them and from what I've read around on here, they do rather well, along with the wlc coven.

I've only played about 5 games so far since I got into the hobby a few months back and none have had objectives (just death matches essentially) and have all been 1k or under, so list building has all been theoretical at this point, especially concerning objectives as I'm not sure how to play those yet I know they will be present at the tournaments. I haven't wanted to buy models for a list that ends up being rather trashy, so thoughts/improvements?

[Nikobot]

@ Gwendar all the models that you have proposed in your list would be useful for a decent list, so you wouldn't be wasting anything by buying those or having a few more of each wouldn't be an issue either.

I like having another clanrat unit, even if it is smaller, you only really have the 40 clanrats to absorb whatever is coming at your face, which leaves no bubble wrap unit to protect the jezzails  if there are any fast movers/alpha strikes... and those jezzails are an expensive investment. You probably only have the stormfiends which ideally have their own meatshield. 

I think your list would enjoy an army coming directly at it, but if it gets tricky then it could cause problems as your jezzails may not have the time they like to hit the delete button quick enough.

Any idea what type of lists you would be facing? or just going to make it a take-all-comers list?

[Mayple]

@Gwendar your list seems a bit frail in terms of wounds. I don't have any definite fixes for that right now (I'll pop back with some suggestions though) - for now I fear your army will crumple under even a moderately coordinated attack. Clanrats help, but I think you're gonna need something more. Doesn't have to be more clanrats, but it could be

For stormfiends, always go shockfists if you can buff them, and always warpfire if not. Although I do think 4 warpfire thrower weapon teams will do more to dissuade your opponent from bullrushing you (at less points) than a unit of stormfiends. Mainly a benefit for giving you a greater number of units to send around the map. If you do this, then dropping a unit of acolytes will allow you to get a second ratling gun, which is good if..

..you switch out masterful scavenger with overseer of destruction. The extra warptokens will do you little good since your main damage output here is mortal wounds, making rerolling 1s on weapon teams more -useful-. 

Not a big fan of the balewind. It gets the job done, but I'm not convinced you can't make more use out of those points elsewhere. Our wizards are good, but they're not Kroak/Gaunt summoner good. 

Likewise, I think you got too many points thrown into your jezzail basket. Decreasing the size by one unit should give you a nice chunk of points to round out your list, and ensure that you keep those jezzails around for more than one or two rounds

 

Overall, it doesn't really matter much. Competitively, you just gotta make sure your list have the tools available to take, hold, or deny OBJECTIVES. Anything beyond that are means to an end. As long as you're prepared for that, and play accordingly, you will win even when you seem to be losing familiarize yourself with the different scenarios, and make sure you don't have any auto-lose maps. If you do, rewrite the list. 

(The hardest one for Skryre is fixed by including one or two doomwheels, since they're behemoths)

 

Edit: I messed up the math on the acolyte/stormfiend point. The intent came across at least, but the numbers won't add up. Just fyi. (i.e: you don't get a second rattling gun by trading out the stormvermin and a unit of acolytes because then you'd only have two battlelines left)

[Gwendar]

Appreciate the help, but yes the general idea was some kind of build for every situation/army. I know there are a few stormcast and khorne players in my area, along with some death now that legions of nagash is out, but not sure what else. 

I see your point with the balewind so I can easily toss that out. I do have about 50 acolytes I've converted, so I could beef those units up instead of adding more clanrats that I don't have (nor want to paint), or drop to 6 jezzails and add another stormfiend unit and have 2x5 acolytes total? I had another, heavy shooting list built that involved jezzails, 3 mortars and about 40 acolytes covered by a clanrat screen but I wanted something else to play around with that involved a more stormfiend/jezzail list with enginecovens. I'm a bit tired of moving around more than one unit of 40 since my Eshin list involves 120 Night/Gutter Runners.

I suppose when objectives are involved I would want at the very least beefier acolyte units to grab those and maybe sit jezzails on another? Like I said I'm not entirely familiar with objective games, but I want to be prepared to learn them the hard way with a list that can push them decently, although it seems Skryres strength is more "Kill everything early and get their objectives after" rather than claiming objectives earlier on. I don't mind dipping into some other units from other clans if need be.

[Betelgeuse]

@Gwendar You list will have a tremendous damage output and in contrast I strongly encourage you to go with balewind. I hate that thing and how it breaks the game in some sense but your arch-warlock will be a beast upon it.  AND your cannon can fire two times turn 1. 

The big risk for you is if your opponent can hit those jezzails before they get to do anything you will loose a lot of damage potential. Especially if some of them run from battleshock as well. Which means you will thrown IP on jezzails leaving the big block of clanrats with bravery low (they don't get boost to bravery due to numbers since they are allies).  But you still need numbers for objective scoring and as chaff so big unit of clanrats or giant rats, two smaller units or several small units with monks, giant rats, acolytes and gutter runners. All upp to your preferered playstyle.

One way to go wound be to switch cannon for several wind mortars in order to get fewer drops (gas cloud includes your acolytes) and with balewind you could still push one of them forward for that first auto d6 mortal wounds and a better utilization of warlord trait (overlord of destruction). 

[Gwendar]

@Betelgeuse I had been curious as to what would be better in most scenarios between chokelung and arkhspark. I do have 3 mortars available, so that would make my horde clearing a bit better and still have the 6 jezzails to make some shots at heroes with. I don't think overseer would work though while on a balewind would it? Wouldn't the height of it put me out of that 6" range of a mortar team?

I do have 40 gutter runners, so if I was going to bring anything extra for objective nabbing, it would probably be those. Although I imagine my only way to do that is to have 1 stormfiend unit and take 1x15 gutter runners and buff up the acolytes to 2x10.

[Betelgeuse]

you could make the simple engineer belonging to the gascloud the general. Let the arch-warlock do his balewind thingy by himself somewhere

[Gwendar]

Ah, well, duh clearly I didn't get enough sleep last night... rough morning. Maybe something closer to this then? Give or take the balewind. I love my stormfiends but I suppose I could use the rest for some other list because I just don't know how I could properly fit in two of them without breaking everything else or if that would even be strictly better.

Allegiance: Skaven Skryre
Arch Warlock (140)
Warlock Engineer (100)
- General
- Trait: Overseer of Destruction 
- Artefact: Vigordust Injector 
Warlock Engineer (100)
- Artefact: Esoteric Warp Resonator 
3 x Stormfiends (300)
10 x Skryre Acolytes (120)
10 x Skryre Acolytes (120)
6 x Warplock Jezzails (280)
1 x Ratling Gun Weapon Team (80)
1 x Poisoned Wind Mortar Weapon Team (60)
1 x Poisoned Wind Mortar Weapon Team (60)
40 x Clanrats (200)
- Rusty Spear
- Allies
10 x Gutter Runners (120)
- Allies
Clan Skryre (100)
Rattlegauge Warplock (50)
Gascloud Chokelung (50)
Balewind Vortex (100)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Allies: 320 / 400
Wounds: 125