Skaven Horde

[Ben]

Is there any milage in a true horde army?  

Under SCGT you can get 240 rats spread across 6x each of Clan rats, Plague Monks, Storm Vermin, Giant Rats and a 4 point hero.  

In the hero scenarios you can easily drop 30 rats for more heroes

[Liam]

Maybe, I do like the idea of that style of list. I'd just worry that you'd never complete a game due to moving that many models. 

 

 

[Rhellion]

Moving models was definitely a problem for us at Adepticon, with many fewer models playing a Ghoul horde. We had some big stuff too. We sped it up but didn't completely finish many of our games (team tournament).

[Ben]

I'm not so sure.  If you want to play a horde you just have to train yourself to play quick.

Does anyone think there is a powerful list to be made from a horde? 

[Terry Pike]

Moving 30 plaguebearers around is already a hassle, I don't know if I could bring myself to even try and push 240 models around. I know under Clash comp the most effective army is actually 300 high spearmen in 10 units of 30. There just arent enough turns in the game to get them off of objectives and they put out so much damage, they will eventually grind out any model/unit.

I think there would be a lot of strong lists using super cheap hordes and formations. look at Jacks masters list for example, it broke the comp in a very strong way and was pretty much unbeatable without being able to prep for that exact list style.

[NiallJC1984]

Interesting question. 

Its the one part of AoS I feel is let down by the individual models. When I started I had approx sixty clanrats, twenty to thirty Plague Monks and then hero/monster/warmachines (SCGT Pools).

Now I'm down to a Clan Skryre formation, a Deceiver and maybe a unit of Rat Ogres or Vermin max! Thanquol might make an appearance in that filthy list soon

Part of me does miss the whole Strength in Numbers/Murderous Ferocity perks but at the same time I did feel a bit guilty about winning a double turn and my opponent having to wait another age for me to move haha. 

I'm not sure the existing Warscrolls are good enough for a horde army. They feel like a stepping stone and need specific Verminus battalions or formations to make them work. 

Still not clear of course if the other Clans will get individual Battletomes

[Darth Alec]

You could mitigate the horde-moving by just being less accurate. Move the front and back guys accurately, and just shuffle the rest in a vaguely similar formation in between the two. That way you only need to be wary once in combat.

 

I think there's a lot more potential in large units that has been realized. There's a compounding interest of buffs when applied to large units. The more models you have, the longer you'll get to use all the effects of the buff. Bonus for catching multiple huge units in area of effect buffs (congalining to get that buff!). They can deny area in ways that smaller, more mobile and killy units can't. 

 

The key will be managing battleshock and having unit saturation. One giant unit is likely to get pounded by all the heavy hitters of your foe. But two or three? More? Suddenly you'll have as many hard-to-shift units with huge board presence as your opponent has killers. And if they can't do 20/30/40 wounds in a turn, they're getting a full payback. 

Ultimately, I don't think horde armies will be the 100% best option for tournaments. But they are probably a lot better than they look ATM.I hope to see some proper horde armies in the future. My next list is looking at 100+ models, if I can manage to build it.

[Ben]

I'm thinking that movement trays might be making a come back

 

[Shane]

I've thought about two units of 30 Plague Monks with a Furnace in both. As a unit Plague Monks don't look all that until they hit a target and you use all of their buffs and a huge amount of damage can be done. By having that twice you could split the attention and increase the chances of one getting in. 

That said, painting 60 Plague Monks is not very appealing.

[klunc]

Have seen some people pushing round their models on those skirmish movement trays they had for LOTR.

I imagine they work fine until you get into combat.

[Bowlzee]

I regularly play against Skaven and have just donated my 40K Daemon to Fantasy movement trays so he can put his 25mm Skaven bases in them and push them around the battlefield. Even if you only use them for the first few turns before charges and combat it will save a massive amount of time.

Stormvermin are crazy good in large numbers and the Plague Monks are fun too. Definitely still viable to run Horde in AoS 

[Nico]

Lack of -2 rend could be an issue - unless you can take Tretch in the Comp.

There are some hideous hard counters to large blocks. Mortars, Decimators and the Galrauch spring to mind.

Plaguemonks are too vulnerable to Battleshock (with no armour saves) to be competitive. They are ok as a chaff wall to protect Stormfiends or Stormvermin, but Clanrats, or especially Slaves (just as tough as Clanrats but cheaper) are better options.

 

 

 

 

 

[DaanofWar]

I fully intend to build a new horde army for AoS. I'd hesitate bringing one to a tournament though, since not only does the actual movement of the models sound like a hassle, keeping the different units apart would also be quite the challenge.

For battles among friends though, I can't wait to see what sort of stuff I could swarm over with a horde of 200 clanrats.

[pforson]

I have about 80 Clanrats and I fully intend to use them, as they are the thing that attracted me to Skaven in the first place.

Some people seem to be claiming that it takes too long to move them. Is that really the case? How important is super accurate movement in AoS? Having seen people play 40k horde armies like Tyranids, they seem to measure the first guy and then shuffle all the others quickly up behind - is that not ok in AoS?

[RuneBrush]

1 hour ago, pforson said:

I have about 80 Clanrats and I fully intend to use them, as they are the thing that attracted me to Skaven in the first place.

Some people seem to be claiming that it takes too long to move them. Is that really the case? How important is super accurate movement in AoS? Having seen people play 40k horde armies like Tyranids, they seem to measure the first guy and then shuffle all the others quickly up behind - is that not ok in AoS?

Will be honest and say that's the way I still tend to move models!  Measure the first couple and then shift the rest.  I'll occasionally re-measure one on either flank to make sure that they're all roughly within the right distance.

[NiallJC1984]

I'm aiming to give the Verminus Clawpack a bash at Northern Invasion in 16th July....

wish me luck, it'll be 90+ models before adding in the toys!

[UrFrndJenn]

I played a goblin horde for a bit (200+ models). It was really powerful but the models were an absolute nightmare to move and manage. I considered re-basing them all on squares to put on movement trays before I ended up just selling the army in favor of something else.