Skryre acolytes

[Mayple]

With GHB 2017 released, and all the juicy new stuff revealed, and my own shift to skaven, I took a look at clan Skryre with the new horde discounts in mind. Expecting a shift towards bigger hordes of infantry, I wanted to see if we had any strong contenders of how to deal with such armies. 

Sure, we have the poisoned wind mortar, which is good at range, but will hardly take down a horde quickly enough unless spammed en masse. Not so cost efficient.

Enter Skryre acolytes. With one 9' 4+/4+ rend -2 d3 damage per model, with +1 to hit against hordes, these guys have some serious damage output at a ridicoulously cheap cost. They even benefit from the massed infantry discount themselves! Sure, they're squishy, but considering their output and cost, you only need to position them properly to nullify that drawback.

Now, I usually see people go with stormfiends for their battleline - which is all well and good - but why not massed skryre acolytes? At the same cost, you've got a tactical nuke at your disposal. Laugh at heavily armored enemied who brought armor to a gasfight!

 

What are your thoughts/experiences on/with the acolytes? Do you have any insight that could add to the why and why nots on the gasbombing vermin? 

[James McPherson]

They cost too much! if they did boxes of 10 or 20 and were plastic I'd have loads

[Sastopher]

I think you're overestimating their damage compared to other choices. Their expected value for a round of shooting is 2/3 of a wound per acolyte (before saves). Their range is rather short at 9" which generally puts them in counter attack range, which doesn't match up well with their pitiful melee attacks and fragility. 12 points is comparatively a lot for battleline.

It's not really apples-to-apples, but a giant rat (in a large group) will do 5/6 a wound per model in melee combat. When you compare costs, this makes giant rats 3 times more cost-effective per point of damage. Clanrats do 4/9 a wound per model, which puts them somewhere in-between the two. I'd also argue there's a lot more room for synergy and bonuses to for these other units, escalating them even higher.

No, the only real role for acolytes in my mind are a 60 point throwaway skryre battleline unit that's an alternative to expensive 300-point stormfiends. Which is a shame, because Skryre are really in need of a strong battleline unit to act as a tar-pit for all their otherwise awesome shooting. Ratling cannons, warpfire mortal wounds, magic, warp lightning cannons, and even the expensive jezzails are all a better alternative for effective ranged damage, all of which is either full of rend or is straight up mortal wounds, accounting for the one notable quality of acolyte shooting: -2 rend.

[Mayple]

2 hours ago, Sastopher said:

I think you're overestimating their damage compared to other choices. Their expected value for a round of shooting is 2/3 of a wound per acolyte (before saves). Their range is rather short at 9" which generally puts them in counter attack range, which doesn't match up well with their pitiful melee attacks and fragility. 12 points is comparatively a lot for battleline.

It's not really apples-to-apples, but a giant rat (in a large group) will do 5/6 a wound per model in melee combat. When you compare costs, this makes giant rats 3 times more cost-effective per point of damage. Clanrats do 4/9 a wound per model, which puts them somewhere in-between the two. I'd also argue there's a lot more room for synergy and bonuses to for these other units, escalating them even higher.

No, the only real role for acolytes in my mind are a 60 point throwaway skryre battleline unit that's an alternative to expensive 300-point stormfiends. Which is a shame, because Skryre are really in need of a strong battleline unit to act as a tar-pit for all their otherwise awesome shooting. Ratling cannons, warpfire mortal wounds, magic, warp lightning cannons, and even the expensive jezzails are all a better alternative for effective ranged damage, all of which is either full of rend or is straight up mortal wounds, accounting for the one notable quality of acolyte shooting: -2 rend.

Sure, I agree that there are better options for straight up fighting - and in a case where all models would be able to attack, there are higher damage output available.

However, I don't think skryre acolytes are a front line unit, nor a sit-at-the-back ranged one. Where I do think they can really shine, is right behind a fat line of meatshields (allied clanrats, for example) that can absorb a charge for them, or tie up enemy units until they get there. From that position, ALL of the acolytes should be in range to lob their gas globes, which, if you really max out their unit, should do some serious damage. Their role in that scenario is to purge enemy hordes from objectives -quickly-, to prevent a big part of your army getting bogged down trying to hack their way through 80 skinks. 

I don't believe they're a universal role, and definitely shouldn't be considered a traditional range unit (more of a shotgun, in that regard) - but backing up other infantry, I am pretty sure they'd get notable results.

This is, of course, disregarding their weakness to enemy shooting, to which I say - if they're shooting at my acolytes, they're not shooting at my more valuable units

[Sastopher]

13 hours ago, Sastopher said:

Ratling cannons, warpfire mortal wounds, magic, warp lightning cannons, and even the expensive jezzails are all a better alternative for effective ranged damage, all of which is either full of rend or is straight up mortal wounds, accounting for the one notable quality of acolyte shooting: -2 rend

Actually, in responding to you and backing up this statement, I think I convinced myself you have a good point.

Warpfire throwers are (17/18 [overload self-destruct chance]) * (7/2 mortal wounds) / (70 points), or 0.047 mortal wounds per point at 8".

Ratling canons are (17/18 [overload self-destruct chance]) * (14 attacks * (2/3) hit * (1/2) wound)) / (80 points), or 0.058 rend 1 wounds at 9" (0.044 past 9").

Acolytes are (1 attack * (2/3) hit [10+ models] * (1/2) wound) / 12 points, or 0.056 rend 2 wounds per point.

So these are actually on par or a bit better with some of the other options mentioned. These numbers might fudge with various command traits and artefacts, but at least they're all in the same ballpark. And acolytes have the key distinction of being battleline for skryre. Nice! Still not sure I'd take them out of skryre allegiance, but they aren't as bad as I thought they were.

[Xanax Lot]

a 30 man unit of skyre acolytes with a war-grinder weapon team is a really good combo. y you complement that with a couple of units of  stormfiends with grinderfiests and two pack masters all of the sudden you have a very dangerous army.

 

The acolytes will cause damage on the turn they go out as well as work as meet shield for the storm fiends, which should be close to the pack masters in order to have +2 to hit and +2 to charge. doing the average math of a 6 stormfiends unit on the charge with this buffs its  13.3 Wounds of damage 3 and rend  -2 (40 Wounds)

very nice in my opinion.

 

 

[James McPherson]

30 man unit of skyre acolytes with a warp grinder as a meat shield = wasted warp grinder. 30 man acolytes with warp grinder popping up in back field = failed charge & out of range and deleted on the next turn by your opponent.  pro's and cons, con's outweigh the pro's for me.

I'd rather take 400pts of allies, plague monks or clanrats to fill the roll.

5 man units of acolytes are good as people won't see them as a threat and are good for sitting on an objective and not doing anything plus they are super cheap, similar to a small unit of Skinks or Nightrunners

[Sastopher]

Yeah, like my comments above, Skryre really needs battleline to screen for the hard hitters. If my gimmicky list wasn't stuffing my allied points full of packmasters I'd probably be filling fielding 2 full units of giant rats.

Has anyone played around with other skryre units as tarpits? Maybe a ton of spread out weapon teams to act as chaff?  How about a couple of doomwheels? They aren't really worth it in the damage category but 4+ save on 8 wounds is maybe okay. They look like a juicy enough target on the table.

[EMMachine]

I really like to have about 30-40 Acolyte Models, so a Skryre Army would feel like an army, but like James McPherson said, there are too expensive. I actually have 10 and even there are 3 different models I sadly got 10 times the same (actually don't know, if this was the case because I ordered them all together or it was the only model they had).

I think, in my case it would be more a style thing.

[tea_wild_owl]

I plan on using a block of 30 acolytes in my next skryre game, or consider them for the skyre battalion.

On 09/12/2017 at 2:51 AM, James McPherson said:

They cost too much! if they did boxes of 10 or 20 and were plastic I'd have loads

the costs were the main reason for me not to play them (next to the design and being metal..)

however, I found a cheap (and in my subjective opinion better looking) solution: I converted the skaven blood bowl team with some tanks and tube to look more skryric. even the throwing poses work great with them throwing the bombs and a block of 30 costs only 75€ instead of 270€

 

[James McPherson]

Looks cool man! I can't believe the metal ones are £7.50 per mini, it's crazy. And people are talking about blocks of 30!

[angrycontra]

I made my acolytes using plague monks as base, giving them space marine backbags and some green stuff gas masks and ball arms. They're not that pretty but those green orbs make them easy to recognise in the battlefield.

But as it has been said by others, running multiple acolytes in big units is just throwing points down the sink. That bravery bonus is useless, they have crappy 4 bravery as base, 8 at 20+ is not gonna save them from major casualties. 6+ save and worthless melee and low range. Better to use them as multiple smaller units, that screws over enemy melee (because they can't charge and kill all of them in one big swoop) and it screws ranged too (as they have to split their attacks). I see no actual benefit of running them in big unit.

[Flood]

11 hours ago, tea_wild_owl said:

I plan on using a block of 30 acolytes in my next skryre game, or consider them for the skyre battalion.

the costs were the main reason for me not to play them (next to the design and being metal..)

however, I found a cheap (and in my subjective opinion better looking) solution: I converted the skaven blood bowl team with some tanks and tube to look more skryric. even the throwing poses work great with them throwing the bombs and a block of 30 costs only 75€ instead of 270€

 

These look absolutely incredible. Nuff said. Ive also seen these models converted into gutter runners. Both look truly amazing. 

[Mayple]

8 hours ago, angrycontra said:

I made my acolytes using plague monks as base, giving them space marine backbags and some green stuff gas masks and ball arms. They're not that pretty but those green orbs make them easy to recognise in the battlefield.

But as it has been said by others, running multiple acolytes in big units is just throwing points down the sink. That bravery bonus is useless, they have crappy 4 bravery as base, 8 at 20+ is not gonna save them from major casualties. 6+ save and worthless melee and low range. Better to use them as multiple smaller units, that screws over enemy melee (because they can't charge and kill all of them in one big swoop) and it screws ranged too (as they have to split their attacks). I see no actual benefit of running them in big unit.

There's the large-unit discount, which would be the only reason to do it like that, tbh. I'm advocating acolytes in large numbers - I don't particularly care how one would go about arranging them (although I would personally go for the discount, as I trust in my ability to keep them safe, and I feel the price reduction is rather helpful)

[Mayple]

Double post, but I just realised that with vigordust injector, you can get the acolytes up to 2+ to hit against units of 10+ models, which further pushes them as a maxed out unit rather than many small units, as you want to get the buff onto as many as possible. 

I'm convinced now that these guys are the way to go. Screened by a bunch of sacrificial clanrats, there aren't many things you won't absolutely annihilate if your positioning is on point - and that's not even considering whatever else you bring to the table. 

I reckon the way to go for battleline (for 2000 pts) would be maxed acolytes + stormfiends + stormfiends. A maxed block or two of clanrats as allies to use as chaff - the rest is up to individual preference, but should leave you with plenty of points to work with. 

[Sastopher]

Combining conversations in a couple of Skaven threads, how about using summoning to answer our in-allegiance battleline woes? Summon some Plaguebearers of Nurgle in front of your acolytes?

[Kramer]

46 minutes ago, Sastopher said:

Combining conversations in a couple of Skaven threads, how about using summoning to answer our in-allegiance battleline woes? Summon some Plaguebearers of Nurgle in front of your acolytes?

I might not have understood your question right but just to be sure: summoned units do not count for your battleline choices. 

[Sastopher]

Just now, Kramer said:

I might not have understood your question right but just to be sure: summoned units do not count for your battleline choices. 

To clarify, I was continuing the idea from earlier that Skryre is deprived of durable front-line units, often the role of battleline units. Hence "battleline woes". Sorry, I worded that a little ambiguously.

[James Ramsay]

I've always wondered what happens if you buy 2 warp-grinder teams for a gautfire scorch, attach one to 30 acolytes outside of the scorch, and 1 to something else  in the formation, they all turn up together, does that also drag the acolytes along?

 

Might post this in the rules.

[Kramer]

2 hours ago, Sastopher said:

To clarify, I was continuing the idea from earlier that Skryre is deprived of durable front-line units, often the role of battleline units. Hence "battleline woes". Sorry, I worded that a little ambiguously.

Ah got it. But yes that would really help! Personally i'm a big 'in line with the fluff' type of player so i'm wondering which god would fit. Maybe some Slaanesh as a war-lock's experiments with electricity become more and more focussed on the experience of pain. But game wise, some first turn Seekers to get behind enemy lines, but the Plaguebearers are a very good solution for a durable  frontline through which the Skryre goodness can unload a turn longer.