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Let's Chat: Spiteclaw's Swarm


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12 hours ago, CanHammer-darren said:

I think also that ressing might end up being a bit of a trap. Like it can be for guard. It will take you an activation to res. Then that skaven will neeed to move to an objective with another activation. And not if he already moved or charges that action phase. I can see it being something useful for denying denial and contained but so is just moving one guy across the centre. Anyone experience this yet?

With 12 activations per game, you kind of want to push for at least 1 glory on average per activation. Because of that I think ressing and then moving are a lot of activation investment to get 1 thing done, not to mention you are kind of giving your opponent a free glory by sacrificing a Skaven first. Sepulchral guard when they move onto objectives, they generally can at least move 2 or 3 skeletons at once onto something, Skaven doesn't have that, so I think playing the objective game as Skaven may not be worth it. Pushes, including earthquake can ruin the tactic far too easily.

What Skaven are good for however, is like you say, stopping contained, denial, etc. Also I think you can buff up 1 clanrat with equipment and use it super offensively and after that in round 2 or 3 throw it into enemy territory to keep assaulting.

I think that Skaven will probably perform best as control based assassins, as well as playing mind games with your opponent with cards such as Sacrificial Pawn. You choose a Skaven, inspire it, and it kind of puts your opponent in a tough position where they either kill it and give you a glory too, or they leave the inspired skaven on the field.

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18 hours ago, CanHammer-darren said:

I think also that ressing might end up being a bit of a trap. Like it can be for guard. It will take you an activation to res. Then that skaven will neeed to move to an objective with another activation. And not if he already moved or charges that action phase. I can see it being something useful for denying denial and contained but so is just moving one guy across the centre. Anyone experience this yet?

Well, as you can rest in enemy territory you can see it as a "free" move action. It is nice to get the objective you need with the right key.

For earthquake: it can be used once. Thank to the skaven mobility you can try to score Supremacy, Make a Statement, lot of Hold Objective and at last the keys. Skaven don't have the Chosen Axes' issues: not been able to sit on objectives round 1 won't utterly ruin the plan. I also play the Skritch related objectives in order to have an other way to score.

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I got my Spiteclaw's Swarm today, whacked them together and had a quick game. I'm still new to Shadespire and so was my opponent so I'm sure we weren't doing things optimally, but essentially: he was Sepulchral Guard and I decided early on I didn't really want to fight them because I didn't want to inspire them and also 3 of my ratty fellows hit as hard as a wet sponge. Unfortunately this played right into his hand as he had the objective that required the Warden and 4 (?) other dudes to still be alive and uninspired, which gave him a convincing win. My deck started well but didn't carry on in that vein, and I ended up with cards I couldn't score and ploys I couldn't play, so Skritch was the only one who got inspired the whole game (on either side, come to think of it). He finished in my back lines, at the very least scoring me a glory point for leading from the back, while I rez'd the Lurking Skaven to ineffectually threaten the Guard's back lines.

I think I need more practise.

 

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21 hours ago, CanHammer-darren said:

I think also that ressing might end up being a bit of a trap. Like it can be for guard. It will take you an activation to res. Then that skaven will neeed to move to an objective with another activation. And not if he already moved or charges that action phase. I can see it being something useful for denying denial and contained but so is just moving one guy across the centre. Anyone experience this yet?

Rezzing for Guard is almost always a trap, unless you can immediately capitalize on the res. I pretty much only res with Restless Dead anymore, so I don't burn an action on it.

Oddly, I think using an Action for Skaven might actually be more ok, since showing up in the enemy backfield with a guy equipped with Heroslayer or Shadeglass Hammer is hilariously terrifying for some Warbands. It really depends on the state of the game. Like I always say for Guard - rezzing is a tool, one of many. Only use it when it fits best.

44 minutes ago, Kirjava13 said:

I got my Spiteclaw's Swarm today, whacked them together and had a quick game. I'm still new to Shadespire and so was my opponent so I'm sure we weren't doing things optimally, but essentially: he was Sepulchral Guard and I decided early on I didn't really want to fight them because I didn't want to inspire them and also 3 of my ratty fellows hit as hard as a wet sponge. Unfortunately this played right into his hand as he had the objective that required the Warden and 4 (?) other dudes to still be alive and uninspired, which gave him a convincing win. My deck started well but didn't carry on in that vein, and I ended up with cards I couldn't score and ploys I couldn't play, so Skritch was the only one who got inspired the whole game (on either side, come to think of it). He finished in my back lines, at the very least scoring me a glory point for leading from the back, while I rez'd the Lurking Skaven to ineffectually threaten the Guard's back lines.

I think I need more practise.

 

I personally think Skeletons is a pretty hard matchup for Skaven. Because of the high number of fighters, there's not a lot of room to play sneaky positioning, and just when you think you run in and bop off that Champion with Skritch, he comes back. 

I think if you get the ball rolling fast, maybe kill a Petitioner or two early on for some quick Glory, you can push the advantage, but you really really need to get in and drop the Warden. Which Skritch can do fairly well with the right Upgrades and Ploys, but if you can't make a bold play by end of 2, you're in a bit of a rough spot. 

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2 hours ago, Requizen said:

I think using an Action for Skaven might actually be more ok, since showing up in the enemy backfield with a guy equipped with Heroslayer or Shadeglass Hammer is hilariously terrifying for some Warbands.

This is one area Skaven can really press the advantage. If they get a little skaven the Heroslayer early on, you canot advance to within 6 hexes of him other than to kill him, but.... if you kill him without him moving, he is brought back to life to threaten again since he has not moved or charged. You have to kill him again, and so on.

One lowly rat with that sword totally changes your game plan.

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2 hours ago, Requizen said:

Rezzing for Guard is almost always a trap, unless you can immediately capitalize on the res. I pretty much only res with Restless Dead anymore, so I don't burn an action on it.

Oddly, I think using an Action for Skaven might actually be more ok, since showing up in the enemy backfield with a guy equipped with Heroslayer or Shadeglass Hammer is hilariously terrifying for some Warbands. It really depends on the state of the game. Like I always say for Guard - rezzing is a tool, one of many. Only use it when it fits best.

I personally think Skeletons is a pretty hard matchup for Skaven. Because of the high number of fighters, there's not a lot of room to play sneaky positioning, and just when you think you run in and bop off that Champion with Skritch, he comes back. 

I think if you get the ball rolling fast, maybe kill a Petitioner or two early on for some quick Glory, you can push the advantage, but you really really need to get in and drop the Warden. Which Skritch can do fairly well with the right Upgrades and Ploys, but if you can't make a bold play by end of 2, you're in a bit of a rough spot. 

From what I've read on reddit, Sepulchral is one of the easier match ups and the way to win is going bonkers with Skritch early on, killing all the small skeletons one after another, leaving the opponent stuck to keep reviving them or deal with Skritch (who is already inspired by then and hogging some equipment). Depends on the deck I suppose. Apparently you can jump around and hit everything with Skritch, especially if he has that sneaky stab-stab equipment or w/e its called.

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I think the current line of talks are more with my experience with skaven. I think with out the extra movies skeletons get via thier commander action, you are abit too 'slow' at grabbing lots of objectives.

 

That said with our out of turn aggressive actions and tons of movement options availible to skaven, along with alot of movement and high staying power via 2 dice defences. I think Skaven make a very powerful either killy force or hybrid objective/killy force. 
 

Skritch is a one man wrecking crew with very little effort.  There are like 6 or 7 different equipment you can put on the little dude to let him wreck most warbands, or endure tons of damage. 

From there the other 3 little rats can very easily get equiped with some super deadly combo to make them pretty terrifying. The hungry rat with black hunger and either shade glass hammer or daemonic weapon can quickly charge accross the board and kill 2 or 3 guys of any warband there is. 

The other two rats can equip the same hammer or daemonic axe for attacks of oppurtunity. Or they have equip something like the  heroslayer with all out assault. 

Speaking of all out assault. it's pretty easy to make a deck that can actually use that card.  With access to ploys that let you charge/attack out of t urn/ Throw in time warp for good measure, and Position tools like aversion to death, you can make lots of attack actions with out having ever moved. Even more so those above cards that let you attack for free work really well if you use the commander ability to bring a skaven back. Bringing a suprize hungry rat with a few good equipment on him and them time warping, momentary boldness, or skaven couraging them is very destructive. 

 

From the now 10 games i've played with them. I feel like combo aggressive skaven is really the way to go with the little rats. 

 

also with the skaven you can safely play anhilation, feast-feast, and denial i think. The match up against SG is sooo easy that getting those dead draws  mean nothing as i often double or tripped the points against SG. While those 3 cards have an important role in making up for the point hemorrhage of having 3 easy to kill rats. 

Edited by mmimzie
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3 hours ago, mmimzie said:

I think the current line of talks are more with my experience with skaven. I think with out the extra movies skeletons get via thier commander action, you are abit too 'slow' at grabbing lots of objectives.

 

That said with our out of turn aggressive actions and tons of movement options availible to skaven, along with alot of movement and high staying power via 2 dice defences. I think Skaven make a very powerful either killy force or hybrid objective/killy force. 
 

Skritch is a one man wrecking crew with very little effort.  There are like 6 or 7 different equipment you can put on the little dude to let him wreck most warbands, or endure tons of damage. 

From there the other 3 little rats can very easily get equiped with some super deadly combo to make them pretty terrifying. The hungry rat with black hunger and either shade glass hammer or daemonic weapon can quickly charge accross the board and kill 2 or 3 guys of any warband there is. 

The other two rats can equip the same hammer or daemonic axe for attacks of oppurtunity. Or they have equip something like the  heroslayer with all out assault. 

Speaking of all out assault. it's pretty easy to make a deck that can actually use that card.  With access to ploys that let you charge/attack out of t urn/ Throw in time warp for good measure, and Position tools like aversion to death, you can make lots of attack actions with out having ever moved. Even more so those above cards that let you attack for free work really well if you use the commander ability to bring a skaven back. Bringing a suprize hungry rat with a few good equipment on him and them time warping, momentary boldness, or skaven couraging them is very destructive. 

 

From the now 10 games i've played with them. I feel like combo aggressive skaven is really the way to go with the little rats. 

 

also with the skaven you can safely play anhilation, feast-feast, and denial i think. The match up against SG is sooo easy that getting those dead draws  mean nothing as i often double or tripped the points against SG. While those 3 cards have an important role in making up for the point hemorrhage of having 3 easy to kill rats. 

I think its best to avoid objectives you can only score in turn 3, so I don't play denial, other than that this is exactly how I built my deck. I have a lot of immediate things as well, such as precise use of force (or w/e its called). Its quite easy to time those as Skaven, especially with Skritch swinging his halberd around.

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1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

With Demonic Weapon, he is dead on the second swing.  

So you mean 1 of two thing:

Either you mean after he hits two adjacent opponent he dies. This isn't the case as they take damage each time he takes the attack action, so it's only one damage per activation. 

 

If you mean after making two activations.  I'd say I'd be suprized if he attacks once and then lives to make another attack actions. All the weapon combos are abit one and done. 

 

@Kugane yeah I agree. I just like the 3 end of third turn cards because it sure up a weakness to storm cast. Usually againdt them they score big turn 1 or 2.  So much so that the immediate make catching up super hard. 

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4 hours ago, mmimzie said:

ither you mean after he hits two adjacent opponent he dies. This isn't the case as they take damage each time he takes the attack action, so it's only one damage per activation. 

Per the rulebook, an attack that goes after multiple dudes is resolved as an Attack action against each. 

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Played 3 games against Aggro stormcast today with Aggro Skaven (Very aggresive build that can table almost any character in the first turn with a good hand). I wasn't able to win a single game, cards like crushing force, precise use of force, etc tend to just not work in reality. It is too gimmicky to be able to land an exact ammount of damage each turn.  I need to really rethink my strategy for Skaven, because even the double defence dice don't do much when it is mostly dodging we need to succeed. Especially if every attack we face has 2 or 3 dice and 2+ damage.

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3 hours ago, Biboune said:

Yep, I think aggressive Skavens is just like Bloodreavers without all the good things.

The ploys, the upgrades and the objectives are not here to make you win. Skritch is more fit to score Victorious Duel, ok. but there is nothing more. 

I agree that Skritch is the only true fighter the Skaven have. But he is extremely strong. A threatrange of 7 hexes is huge. Inbuild crit Cleave helps, too. Getting him inspired is really easy, bringing him to dmg 3 with no need to be adjacent to enemy fighters. Plus he is more tanky than it seems. Acrobatic and Musk of Fear makes him almost unkillable for the rest of the round.

Arms Lenght, Skritch is the Greatest and maby Victorious Duel are all relatively easy to score and are scored immediately!

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I played 3 games yesterday against agressive storm cast and 1 just against some whatever stormcast today. I won every one. I'm not super seeing the issues??  I definitly think stormcast might be the hardest match up, but it's not impossible. Either you draw the big draw turn 1, 2, 3. You'll definitly get something nice by turn 3. With good objectives you should beable to find some pretty easy free glory in your objective dect if you built it well, and against storm cast you really just need 1 or 1.5 turns to really go off with skritch killing the whole force. 

 

My first game yesterday against storm cast i thought i was gonna lose round 1  because the storm cast player got so many points on his first turn. However i killed his whole first after 2 activation. Broke the shade glass hammer from a charging hungry skaven over the head of bright shield, after the whirldwinds first attack missed on obyrnn. Then skritch time warp + momentary bravery  broke obyrns back. I don't remember how stealheart died but he also went down that turn or maybe the one before?? Maybe it was before because i know obyrn went army of one. 

ONe game i did today. Sidestep+aversion to death  and a move got the stormcast polayer swamped. Then i did a move up with skritch. Who with all the supports surived the first unupgraded blow that came his way. Then he just double tapped bright shield over 2 activations. That was turn 1. WIth me scoring 2 immediates and plant the standard off that play my opponent conceded because i showed him i had sneaky stab stab, and he failed to do any damage again at the end of his first round 2 activatiion. 

Another one today played against demo stomcast just to test my deck. Told him it would be bad. Move skritch up with musk of fear/spoils of war/ great strength/ready for battle/ side step and broke bright shields pretty little head in on my first activation. 

 

one game yesterday was close but i remember it was on a respawn>  heroslayer + all out assault+ready for battle in turn 3 that broke his morale and heralded the end of that.

I honestly feel the stupid combos are good, and if you just build a strong hand eventually you are gonna go off. Turn 1 plays usually need spoils of war or an aggressive opponent. other wise you can just keep building a good hand with aggressive mulligans and discards. While banking on getting turn 1 free glory again with aggressive mulligans and maybe even drop an activation for a draw.  All skaven needs to get going is one double activation and you can do stupid stupid stuff. Just bring back a hungry rat into black hunger and any weapon combo can spell a good suprize kill on any warband.

I haven't yet faced orcs. I think they might be scary as the 4 wounds are tough and with more bodies it's hard to get enough attacks to table them before they score a lot of points off the back of your glory.  However, thats all a theory on the orcs thing because i haven't had a chance to deal with them. 

 

Again and sorta TLDR; i think the ability to get lots of rather reliable double tap attacks. Skaven ahving access to ready for action or time warp + revive  is a very powerful suprize that stuff like SG can't do as you can hit any starting tile. While i think skaven ahs more burst potential or early aggression that khorne just doesn't really have due to lower range charges forcing you to gabble with your heavy hitters being at or near striking range, or forcing you to wait till you inspire to start making big moves. While the skaven also just have more durability over khorne models with 2 dice 2 hp is often just better than 1 defence die 3 hp. Having played mostly khorne before it just hasn't felt as easy as it does with my skaven. 

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10 hours ago, Kugane said:

Played 3 games against Aggro stormcast today with Aggro Skaven (Very aggresive build that can table almost any character in the first turn with a good hand). I wasn't able to win a single game, cards like crushing force, precise use of force, etc tend to just not work in reality. It is too gimmicky to be able to land an exact ammount of damage each turn.  I need to really rethink my strategy for Skaven, because even the double defence dice don't do much when it is mostly dodging we need to succeed. Especially if every attack we face has 2 or 3 dice and 2+ damage.

Also here, i think crushing force is pretty bad for skaven as its impossible against both orcs, storm cast, and dwarfs, while only some times useable against skeletons and khorne. 

 

My objective deck is currently:
~Easy to get:

plant a standard

honest oppoent

live are cheap

Escalation

Ploymaster

 

Immedaiate:

Skritch is the greatest, yes-yes

Victorious Duel

The bigger they are

Arms Length

Precise use of force

 

Third end phase:

Denial

Annhilation.

 

 

The idea is basicly. I want as many rather easy objectives as i can get so that i can try to get a second hand store glory point. Honest opponent is pretty bad, but if you have a slow hand you can just play back, take the free glory.  The other easy to get cards are ones that you can try to use for free glory to get the ball rolling. 

Now i see that you wanna score those immediates, but against storm cast if thats what you are banking for you can only really get 1 at a time, and only some times get 2. meaning your just scoring at most 3-4 objectives all game farming immediates as hard as you can.  The reason why i use immediates is to make up for the easy objectives and the fact taht i have third turn objectives cards.  So that i can make up for those cards and start pulling more objectives so that i have a higher chance of pulling stuff i can actually score when i kill stuff.

denial and annihilation are there exclusively to make up for big point debts that you run into against storm cast (and i'd assume you'd also run into against orcs).  They are terrible against other skaven and SG, but against them the other objectives are soooooo easy to get you should have atleast 11 glory against them, and the immediates are there to keep giving you gas to keep doubling your glory for kills. 

 

other than that. I think it's about playing a sort of control game.  You don't go aggro out the gate you play your cards against your chest. Once you have a big combo and can get a chain of kills with your hand then you bring into action. You gotta play aggressive like skaven. Running, lurking, and waiting for the right moment. Then you spring some big trap that leaves your opponent reeling. 

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7 minutes ago, mmimzie said:

Also here, i think crushing force is pretty bad for skaven as its impossible against both orcs, storm cast, and dwarfs, while only some times useable against skeletons and khorne. 

 

My objective deck is currently:
~Easy to get:

plant a standard

honest oppoent

live are cheap

Escalation

Ploymaster

 

Immedaiate:

Skritch is the greatest, yes-yes

Victorious Duel

The bigger they are

Arms Length

Precise use of force

 

Third end phase:

Denial

Annhilation.

 

 

The idea is basicly. I want as many rather easy objectives as i can get so that i can try to get a second hand store glory point. Honest opponent is pretty bad, but if you have a slow hand you can just play back, take the free glory.  The other easy to get cards are ones that you can try to use for free glory to get the ball rolling. 

Now i see that you wanna score those immediates, but against storm cast if thats what you are banking for you can only really get 1 at a time, and only some times get 2. meaning your just scoring at most 3-4 objectives all game farming immediates as hard as you can.  The reason why i use immediates is to make up for the easy objectives and the fact taht i have third turn objectives cards.  So that i can make up for those cards and start pulling more objectives so that i have a higher chance of pulling stuff i can actually score when i kill stuff.

denial and annihilation are there exclusively to make up for big point debts that you run into against storm cast (and i'd assume you'd also run into against orcs).  They are terrible against other skaven and SG, but against them the other objectives are soooooo easy to get you should have atleast 11 glory against them, and the immediates are there to keep giving you gas to keep doubling your glory for kills. 

 

other than that. I think it's about playing a sort of control game.  You don't go aggro out the gate you play your cards against your chest. Once you have a big combo and can get a chain of kills with your hand then you bring into action. You gotta play aggressive like skaven. Running, lurking, and waiting for the right moment. Then you spring some big trap that leaves your opponent reeling. 

I would advise:

-honest opponent

+leading from the back for first turn glory. Easy enough to get him back to your zone in later turns as well.

I personally was never able to resolve annihilation in the games I played. Pulling off 3 to 7 kills in 1 game is a lot of activations required with about 50% chance to kill each activation since we have only 1 strong character, means you cannot charge. By the time little rats are strong enough it's already too late to go for kills. It also clogs starting hands. which generally we dont really have enough of.

I myself am reconsidering to go for a control based approach since attack based just wont work against orcs, SE and Fyreslayers. Using skritch for attacks is risky as well. It seems safer than just going full aggro. He died far too many times in games I played haha.

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1 minute ago, Kugane said:

I would advise:

-honest opponent

+leading from the back for first turn glory. Easy enough to get him back to your zone in later turns as well.

I personally was never able to resolve annihilation in the games I played. Pulling off 3 to 7 kills in 1 game is a lot of activations required with about 50% chance to kill each activation since we have only 1 strong character, means you cannot charge. By the time little rats are strong enough it's already too late to go for kills. It also clogs starting hands. which generally we dont really have enough of.

I myself am reconsidering to go for a control based approach since attack based just wont work against orcs, SE and Fyreslayers. Using skritch for attacks is risky as well. It seems safer than just going full aggro. He died far too many times in games I played haha.

lead from the back is third end phase.  Honest opponent is garenteed if you need it first turn.  It's the  worst of the bunch later, but it's the most reliable when you need it. Toss up card for sure though as i said.  I see it as the opposite of master of war, but better. master of war is a pretty devently easy turn 2 or 3 card, but even then if you are starved turn 1 going into master of war you will  be basicly in the same boat as turn 1 to get master of war not to mention need some other objective in your hand you can score. Honest oppoenent turn 1 is a garenteed scorer turn 1 every time if you need to score the card, and it doesn't too badly muck up your other easy objectives save for maybe plant the standard unless you get second turn. 

 

As i said you only go in when you are ready. Before that you muster your cards. you go for multiple attack actions. while 1 attack is alittle better than a 50% chance of success against uninspire storm cast, 2 attacks give you better odds, and if you set it up where your attacks can land on multiple different targets you don't have to worry about thier inspire mechanics.  It's a more combo/control style, deck/warband where you build a good hand and you maneuver your fights to lure your prey into the right position. Then you spring your trap. 

 

 i can see where you don't like annhilation or denial. I'd be tempted to drop one or the other myself. Annhilation being closer to a sure win if you table, while denial has a secondary condition for getting the points other than an all kill.  That said i'm waiting for another really juicy objective to take one of thier places. 


 

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4 hours ago, mmimzie said:

lead from the back is third end phase.  Honest opponent is garenteed if you need it first turn.  It's the  worst of the bunch later, but it's the most reliable when you need it. Toss up card for sure though as i said.  I see it as the opposite of master of war, but better. master of war is a pretty devently easy turn 2 or 3 card, but even then if you are starved turn 1 going into master of war you will  be basicly in the same boat as turn 1 to get master of war not to mention need some other objective in your hand you can score. Honest oppoenent turn 1 is a garenteed scorer turn 1 every time if you need to score the card, and it doesn't too badly muck up your other easy objectives save for maybe plant the standard unless you get second turn. 

 

As i said you only go in when you are ready. Before that you muster your cards. you go for multiple attack actions. while 1 attack is alittle better than a 50% chance of success against uninspire storm cast, 2 attacks give you better odds, and if you set it up where your attacks can land on multiple different targets you don't have to worry about thier inspire mechanics.  It's a more combo/control style, deck/warband where you build a good hand and you maneuver your fights to lure your prey into the right position. Then you spring your trap. 

 

 i can see where you don't like annhilation or denial. I'd be tempted to drop one or the other myself. Annhilation being closer to a sure win if you table, while denial has a secondary condition for getting the points other than an all kill.  That said i'm waiting for another really juicy objective to take one of thier places. 


 

Ah, my bad, I thought leading from the back was first turn as well (I don't play it). I personally dropped master of war in favour of Brilliant brilliant and now built my skaven to be a objective based defensive warband. I'm having quite good success playing the control game and going in turn 2 or 3 for some kills.

I personally think Denial is easier to achieve then Annihiliation. Annihil is dead against other Skaven teams and SG, nearly impossible to pull off against SE and not wise to go face to face against Orcs either. So all in all its only good against Fyreslayers and Khorne because of that reason. I personally do not like the odds of that. I went with supremacy myself.

One downside of Honest Opponent I feel is the lack of draw power at the end of the turn. The thing I personally like is to be able to turbo through my entire power deck by the end of the game, to ensure I will have all the combo pieces necessary to pull of a win condition. The problem I have with Honest Opponent is the fact that if I want to do that,  I have to dump a lot of cards in the end phase instead of using them. I think I would rather just use my ploy cards and get some inspired Skaven on the field and get some form of value out of them, knowing I can replenish my hand at the end of the turn, rather than having to dump it all into the graveyard.

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On 2/25/2018 at 9:03 AM, Alphadork said:

@mmimzie Would you mind posting your full Skaven deck list.

Been trying them out in mostly hybrid builds and can't them clicking for me yet (1-5).

Thanks in advance 

of course. Sorry was pretty tired yesterday so i was up to replying lol. 

So the ploys in the deck are all about extra actions/getting full support on attacks. I think full support is more important than actualy doing more damage as 2 attack dice vs 1 defence dice is 50% or less.  However with supports you can skyrocket up to like 80-90% success on attacks which means you get stuff done with each action.

Ploys:

Ready for action

spoils of war

nervous scrabbling

time trap

side step

musk of fear

there are always more

aversion to death

confusion

scratching in the shadows. 

 

The upgrade deck is all about just getting tasty combos to go off all the supports to get extra damage. Or to let skritch solo the enemy warband.

Upgrades:

Etheral Shield

Hero slayer

acrobatics

awaken weapon

great strength

total offence

shade glass hammer

Black Hunger

Daemonic weapon

sneaky stab-stab

 

Changes i'm considering making:

Thinking of droping either spoils of war or musk of fear for skaven courage, or both and also adding distraction.  I think spoils of war is an easier drop, as musk of fear is an inspire card, and in it's own way allows me to put a rat into support range, and then put them on inspire guard to give me a better shot of having more supports. Where as spoils of war is just a free equipment that i really only am excited about if i also have ready for action in my hand, and again i only care about spoils of war on turn 1 as otherwise i have glory.  So if you want, i'd go with skaven courage over spoils of war. Musk of fear is also the best card for inspiring skritch as he usually want to move to a rather central location and spam attack action. 

 

As for how it plays. The whole point is to angle you turns toward setting up full support attacks, and using the occasional multi action to capitalize. It's rather easy for skaven to do with all the polys, speed, and surprizing durability we have access to. Against none storm cast you wanna charge a model, and then use confusion or nervous scrabling to inspire your rat, and then switch places with the target. a distraction or scratching in the shadows can easily make it so that such models after a switch will result in them already being between two models. Depending on your hand you'll then want to do two charges 1 with krrk, and then 1 with skritch take out 3-4 health foes (though occasionally your iniatal charging rat will do 1 damage allowing you just to charge in with one other). If you have a free activation card like skaven courage/ready for action/time trap you can then get your free action

 

There are always more can also act to help get free supports as any enemy model next to a starting hex is a vulnerable. This will again effect where your move of your initial switching skaven. Any all 4+ equipment hands i'd throw away for the most part. This means your deck is super charged with ploys. As i said before the upgrades are abit meh to me as you can kill stuff more reliably with lots of supports and free actions than one big 4 damage attack.  Against storm cast you do the same thing, but you don't charge with 1 damage attacks, as they aren't worth it. You can also use your high movement to get behind enemy models and push them into your other models meaning you don't have to actually do damage, but your 3 dice attacks are very likely to result in pushing atleast against most models.  Lastly, aversion to death and musk of fear do a lot to keep up the pressure. Musk of fear allows you to either put a rat into a riskery situation, and makes them considerably more durable than they;d other wise be. While aversion to death lets you replace a fallen rat with a freshly pushed one or two. 

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1 hour ago, mmimzie said:

of course. Sorry was pretty tired yesterday so i was up to replying lol. 

So the ploys in the deck are all about extra actions/getting full support on attacks. I think full support is more important than actualy doing more damage as 2 attack dice vs 1 defence dice is 50% or less.  However with supports you can skyrocket up to like 80-90% success on attacks which means you get stuff done with each action.

Ploys:

Ready for action

spoils of war

nervous scrabbling

time trap

side step

musk of fear

there are always more

aversion to death

confusion

scratching in the shadows. 

 

The upgrade deck is all about just getting tasty combos to go off all the supports to get extra damage. Or to let skritch solo the enemy warband.

Upgrades:

Etheral Shield

Hero slayer

acrobatics

awaken weapon

great strength

total offence

shade glass hammer

Black Hunger

Daemonic weapon

sneaky stab-stab

 

Changes i'm considering making:

Thinking of droping either spoils of war or musk of fear for skaven courage, or both and also adding distraction.  I think spoils of war is an easier drop, as musk of fear is an inspire card, and in it's own way allows me to put a rat into support range, and then put them on inspire guard to give me a better shot of having more supports. Where as spoils of war is just a free equipment that i really only am excited about if i also have ready for action in my hand, and again i only care about spoils of war on turn 1 as otherwise i have glory.  So if you want, i'd go with skaven courage over spoils of war. Musk of fear is also the best card for inspiring skritch as he usually want to move to a rather central location and spam attack action. 

 

As for how it plays. The whole point is to angle you turns toward setting up full support attacks, and using the occasional multi action to capitalize. It's rather easy for skaven to do with all the polys, speed, and surprizing durability we have access to. Against none storm cast you wanna charge a model, and then use confusion or nervous scrabling to inspire your rat, and then switch places with the target. a distraction or scratching in the shadows can easily make it so that such models after a switch will result in them already being between two models. Depending on your hand you'll then want to do two charges 1 with krrk, and then 1 with skritch take out 3-4 health foes (though occasionally your iniatal charging rat will do 1 damage allowing you just to charge in with one other). If you have a free activation card like skaven courage/ready for action/time trap you can then get your free action

 

There are always more can also act to help get free supports as any enemy model next to a starting hex is a vulnerable. This will again effect where your move of your initial switching skaven. Any all 4+ equipment hands i'd throw away for the most part. This means your deck is super charged with ploys. As i said before the upgrades are abit meh to me as you can kill stuff more reliably with lots of supports and free actions than one big 4 damage attack.  Against storm cast you do the same thing, but you don't charge with 1 damage attacks, as they aren't worth it. You can also use your high movement to get behind enemy models and push them into your other models meaning you don't have to actually do damage, but your 3 dice attacks are very likely to result in pushing atleast against most models.  Lastly, aversion to death and musk of fear do a lot to keep up the pressure. Musk of fear allows you to either put a rat into a riskery situation, and makes them considerably more durable than they;d other wise be. While aversion to death lets you replace a fallen rat with a freshly pushed one or two. 

Lovely list. Concerning the Spoils of War comment, I personally have several uses for mine. My first use is getting my Lurking Skaven equiped with either a Daemonic Weapon or glass hammer, so he can go in and put pressure on weaker uninspired heroes in the first turn, but I also have a nice little combo going for Festering Skaven with Shade glass darts + festering blades, my third use for Spoils of War is to get Bodyguard for a price up right away on Krrk to support Skritch.

I personally think you should really consider Festering Blades, I personally prefer it over Black Hunger and it would kind of give you a very viable offensive option for Spoils :). I personally stopped running Ethereal Shield since the only worthwhile unit to get it is Skritch, whom is on guard most of my games now (I personally don't charge with Skritch anymore unless it is the last activation to keep the guard on), so I often find Ethereal Shield dead in my hand. Perhaps you can drop it for Festering Blades to give it a try, or even fit in the Shadeglass Darts instead of another weapon, crits dealing 4 damage is huge, especially when you can keep a safe distance. I love it when my Festering Skaven dies and I resurrect it in enemy territory the second round, just throwing darts and 1-shotting heroes.

We had a discussion about Festering Blades stacking with multiple crits recently, but there is no FAQ about it yet as far I know, so when combined with stuff such as Total Offense you can dish out huge attack damage that can knock out enemies easily.

I personally run a very similar ploy set up and dropped Aversion to Death myself instead :).

Time trap is amazing, I wish I could fit it into my objective based Skaven. I prefer to be able to go second each turn, so I can control what happens in the last activation, so unfortunately cut it out of mine. That way I can move my Skaven next to the enemy and Confusion onto objectives with less of a chance of them countering it by pushing me off again haha.

@Alphadork if you want to try an objective hybrid, feel free to give this a roll:

My personal deck:

Objectives:

Hold objective 1-5

Brilliant, Brilliant!

Supremacy

Ploymaster

Making a Statement (may drop this, often too hard to pull off)

Tactical Supremacy 3-4

Tactical Genius 3-5 (May get another Tactical Supremacy instead)

Honed Survival Instincts (may drop this also)

 

Ploys:

Spoils of War

Scratching in the Shadows

Confused Priorities. testing this out, my goal is to control 3, 4 and 5 in my territory, with priority on 3 and 4 for future key/objectives I didn't draw yet. Seeing the objectives in my hand I can roughly predict what I will draw next, which is great.

Sudden Skittering

Musk of Fear

Earthquake Counter to enemy earthquake or pushes

Sidestep

Nervous Scrabbling

There are Always More

Confusion

 

Upgrades

Daemonic Weapon

The Blazing Key Control #3,4,5 is my game plan, I wanted to add 2 more keys, but I feel it clogs)

Great Strength

Soultrap

Bodyguard for a Price

Shadeglass Darts Combos with Festering Blades

Festering Blades Combos with Shadeglass Darts and Daemonic Weapon

Skitter Scurry

Acrobatic

Shardcaller (Again, control 3,4,5)

 

Overal this deck is a lot of fun and so far quite balanced. I'd love some advice how to improve it though!^^

Deck gets hard countered by objective decks focusing on 1 & 2 though, lol

Edited by Kugane
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@Kugane First i'll talk about your deck abit. Looks neat. I dont know how comfortable i feel with that many hold objectives. also i dont think your deck can ever score brilliant brilliant, i beleive that can only be scored by scoring 2 immediates during an action phase?? or something like that. Its different from flawless stratagy which is what i think you actually want??  Skaven should be pretty good at objectives, but i sorta don't like objectives for anyone out side of skeletons as i don't feel you have enough models or activations to get on enough objectives while keeping enough models alive. The double skeleton move frees up activations where in a game you might want to actualy spend maybe 1 activation bringing a skeleton back.  Where as skaven i can't ever see using a turn to bring a model back, and as such your abit in danger of just getting all your models killed. Which means you could potentialy be unable to score anything turn 3. 

 

On to the shadeglass +festering combo.  Note rolling more than 1 crit doesn't do more damage. what a crit hit is, is a success due to rolling more crits than the opponent i believe. As per the faq's errata ‘If the Attack action succeeds, it also results in a critical hit.’  So max damage would only be 4, but..... problem is actually festering strike only works on attacks with a range of 1 or 2. 

 

The black hunger is amazing and the other combos in my deck are amazing because they work off multiple different combos. So i don't have to jsut draw black hunger and shade glass hammer. For instance i killed an orc team in only 6 (really 5) activations.  He went first moved and ork. I spoils of war'd equiped black hunger and used ready for action all as one ploy play. To move my hungry rat in melee range of all of his orcs. On my actualy activation i roll 1die attacks against all his orks damaging only the leader. Then i used time trap and damaged all the orks and pushed them back (which i believe you can do??).  He killed my hungry rat (a mistake <.<), Skipped a turn, and then he charged another orc to kill another of my rats, at which point i used aversion to death to get supports. You see when i pushed his orks i made sure they were all near starting hexs. After his activation, I used there are always more to bring the hungry rat back, right before i was gonna get my turn again. then i had the rat attack again. Killing his boss and an ork. That's two orks down and the only rat still to move was the hungry rat.... Then i had krrk charge and injury his un injured ork. Then krrk finished that orc off at the start of the next phase. Then the hungry rat finished off the last injured rat. Spent the rest of my activations drawing for and getting anhilation and denial. Stuff like the only works with spoils or war. Which is a reason i really like the card in skaven, but it's very unlikely and spoils of war is really bad later. 

 

In the multiple combos thing:

Black hunger can combo with Shade glass hammer, daemonic weapon (4 damage attack),  hero slayer, great strength (against non storm cast, orcs, or uninspire dwarfs), and awaken weapon procs off each attack roll as each is a different attack action.

 

Shade glass hammer can combo with Total offence, Great strength on any one, awaken weapon to fish for crits or fail/tie on purpose to keep the shade glass hammer threat around.

 

Daemonic weapon can combo with great strength. (if i droped upgrade it would be daemonic weapon0.

total offence is amazing when combo'd with a last activation:  time trap (3rd activation), Ready for action, or skaven courage. To make sure that attack does what you need.

 

the other 3, ethereal shield, acrobatics, and sneaky stab stab are just good on thier own. If i had to drop one of those 3 it would probably be ethereal shield due to bad synergy with acrobatics. 

 

@Alphadork you are welcome. 

 

Edit: other combos i'd try to work in. I'd go for either shade glass sword or cordinated attack and then festering strike.   both of those can combo with other equipment well, and also combo with festering strike. That said i don't really like cards that are too restricted to specific models, as i can garentee where they'll be. Which is why i only have hunger, but festering does have lots of potential. 



 

Edited by mmimzie
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15 hours ago, Kugane said:

I love it when my Festering Skaven dies and I resurrect it in enemy territory the second round, just throwing darts and 1-shotting heroes.

Festering Blade give bonus on crit only to attack of range 1 or 2. Shadeglass Darts have range 3. So, they dont work together (even if you attack from lower range than 3, that attack still have range 3).

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