AoS 2 - Skaventide Discussion

[Cosmicsheep]

15 hours ago, Verminlord said:

It is also 4 drops, which should out-drop most lists that aren't built around 1 or 2 dropping.

Speaking of 1 drop armies.... do we think they're going to be more common in AoS 3? It's not something we've had to worry about as Skaven players (unless running pure Skryre) and i've got used to always going second.

But there are ways to make a 1 drop Skaven army now. I'm just not sure how optimal it is. I literally had to pick stormfiends just to get anywhere near 2000 points. And with the extra CP for going second, a high drop army gives your opponent one extra decision to make

One Drop    1980
Battle Regiment    
Verminlord Warpseer    335
Warlock Engineer    125
Clanrats-40    260
Clanrats-40    260
Clanrats-20    130
Stormfiends-6    630
Hellpit Abomination (Toughened Sinews)   240

Edited June 23, 2021 by Cosmicsheep

[shalvan]

16 hours ago, Verminlord said:

Still working on my competitive build, but here are a couple of fun lists for your perusal:

Unleash Hell x Warp Lightning Cannon

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Do you really like Warp Lightning Cannons? Do you want to shoot-kill in your opponents turn with no penalty to hit? Then this is the list for you.

Arch Warlock            175
     -General: Skilled Leader (5+ CP every hero phase)
     -Chain Warp Lightning
Shackles                     65
Lifeswarm                   60

Vanguard:
Bombardier               125
     -Warp Lightning Shield
     -Vial of the Fulminator (x2 move on WLC)
Nightrunners x10       85
Nightrunners x10       85

Hunters of the Heartlands:
Clanrats x20               130
Clanrats x20               130
Clanrats x20               130

Grand Battery:
Bombardier                  125
     -Warp Lightning Shield
WLC                              185
WLC                              185

Grand Battery:
Bombardier                  125
     -Warp Lightning Shield
WLC                              185
WLC                              185

                             Total 1975

Overall just pure glass Cannon self destructive mayhem.

The Grand battery battalion let's you use Unleash Hell for free once per game, and importantly, does not count as an issued command, meaning you can use Unleash Hell 3 times in your opponents charge phase potentially. Hunters of the Heartlands turns off Monstrous Rampage abilities so that they can hopefully live longer screening WLCs.

Nightrunners tag objectives t1 and allow your clanrat/WLC bubbles to move forward. If nightrunners live the first round, Vanguard let's them auto run 6 for free once per game without it counting for being issued meaning you can do it for both in the same turn to get them even deeper into enemy territory.

Lifeswarm is there to heal up your WLCs that will obviously always be overcharging.  Shackles prevents charges from deepstrike or a key objective. Bombardiers will be spamming overcharged rockets and warp lightning spells.

My next variation (and probably more competitive take) will take one grand Battery out for 2-3 Doomwheels in Alpha-Beast Pack for D6 pregame move on each one.

Puree' de Moulder

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Warlord Battalion:
Warpseer/Skreech      335/330
     -General: Skilled Leader
     -Skitterleap/Warpgale
Master Moulder             95
     -Rabid Crown
Master Moulder             95
     -Arcane Tome (Becomes Wizard) 
      -Levitate (grants flying to a unit)
Giant Rats x6                 40

Hunters of the Heartlands:
Rat Ogors x6                  285
     -Toughened Sinews (6 wounds, 4+ save)
Rat Ogors x6                  285
     -Insanely Rabid (6 attacks, reroll charges)

Alpha Beast Pack:
Hell Pit Abomination       240
     -Never-never Die-die (reroll death effect)
Hell Pit Abomination       240

Giant Rats 8x6(msu)      320 
Shackles                          65

                         Total 2000/1995

Can't decide between warpseer and Skreech for the general. Warpseer is probably more competitive as you are getting an extremely tough to kill monster hero that gives cp on a 3+ and another on a 5+ with Skilled Leader and CP he uses is refunded on a 5+. Won't feel as bad using Master Moulders 5+ respawn on chaff because you'll be swimming in CP, though his unique command ability won't be super useful. He still has a 26" range D6 MW spell that turns off fly though. Skreech is interesting to me mostly for the fun factor of his unique spell. 9 minimum size giant rat units flooding the board plus multiple clanrat summons sounds fun. He's also a hero monster which has its benefits.

Warlord gives me an extra cp, and an extra artifact that lets me turn a MM into a wizard with Arcane Tome. He will probably be using mystic shield every turn on the toughened sinews ROs. Alternatively I could give the rabid ones flying if the opponent has a lot of screening. The toughened senews ROs also reach the threshold for counting as 2 models each, so that's 12 models for objective purposes on a 3+ with mystic shield, 6 wounds each.

I am still undecided on which Hell Pit mutation to take, but I do find that they die quickly once targeted and tend to do enough damage on the charge without buffs, so reroll respawn seems decent to me. Anyone know if warpstone spikes and other abilities that ignore "spell effects" ignore damage in addition to regular effects?

I think the rest is obvious if you're familiar with playing Moulder, but feel free to ask questions.

EDIT: aaaand one more

Rats in the Walls: An Eshin-ish List

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Battle Regiment:
Verminlord Deceiver      345
     -General: Master of Magic (Reroll cast/dispell/unbind once per hero phase)
     -Flaming Weapon (+1 dmg chr to a weapon)
     -Shadow Magnet (Fights first once per game)
Night Runners x10           85
Gutter Runners x5           65
Gutter Runners x5           65
Clanrats x20                   130
Clanrats x20                   130

Battle Regiment:
Lord Skreech                  330
     -Warpgale
Clanrats x20                   130
Warpgrinder                     75
Warpfire Projector           70
Warpfire Projector           70
Night Runners x10          85

Alpha Beast Pack: 
Doomwheel                    165
Doomwheel                    165

Shackles                          65
Burning Skull                   20
                                 Total 1995

The idea in this list is to maximize board pressence/objective pressure. Nightrunners and doomwheels both get D6 pregame moves, Gutter runners deepstrike, a unit of 20 clanrats deepstrike with warpgrinder and 2 warpfire throwers, Deceiver teleports himself, or Skreech, and Skreech summons clanrat speed bumps. Elite armies will really struggle to be in so many places at once.

Taking Master of Magic generic command trait on Deceiver to make sure he gets those key dreaded skitterleaps off. Not 100% about his artifact, but "fights first" in your opponent's turn might crank out just enough damage to finish off w/e target Deceiver goes for. Warpgale on Screech is there to turn off flying so I can screen scary stuff like Mawcrushas, but splinter may actually have place depending on how often coherency casualties ends up happening.

The list really leans on the two verminlords to dish out damage, but new heroic and monstrous actions should help with both output and survivability. It will have trouble against big high save flying smashers like Archaon, Morathi, and Mawcrusha. The double warpfire thrower will melt hordes. It is also 4 drops, which should out-drop most lists that aren't built around 1 or 2 dropping.

 

Lore of Ruin is Grey Seer only, so I believe you can't take those spells on Verminlords?

@Cosmicsheep
The new builds with stormfiends seem super squishy to me as of late. Sure, they have 4+ save and lots of wounds, but it still ends up being less than other things. Still, I'm inclined to try something where the Stormfiends play the role of Archaon. Even based on your list:

One Drop 2    2000
Battle Regiment    
Verminlord Warpseer    335

Arch-Warlock   175
Warlock Engineer    125
Skryre Acolytes-5   65
Skryre Acolytes-5   65
Stormfiends-9    945

Warplock Jezzails-6    290

 

Almost no screen and super glass-cannon, but with an aetherdust injector, spark and mmmwp this unit of Stormfiends can delete anything.
 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2021 by shalvan

[umpac]

3 hours ago, shalvan said:

Lore of Ruin is Grey Seer only, so I believe you can't take those spells on Verminlords?

Yup, Verminlords can't take lore spells, except the new generic ones.

[Yes-yes warpstone]

Hi guys, yesterday I played my first 2 games at Aos 3 and found it at first impression really cool! 

Was playing VS Slaves to Darkness both games runned by a friend. List I played:

Battalion 1 more enchantments

Warpseer

Grey seer (swath frenzy, skavenbrew) 

Arch warlock (general: repeat hit skryre, MMMWP, new artefact negate 5+)

Clanrats 60 20 20

Battalion: no monstrous rampage against 60 clanrats and stofiends

6 stormfiends

1 warpfire

He played first game archon and kn the second belakor and 2 prince daemons, In both list as units he got 2x5 cavaliers, 20 warrior, 3 varanguard. 

So first game archon died my t1 and that's all also I continued for 3 turns. The second one was close and we finished with a tie. The new rules looks great at first impression, also if we played without battle tactics (we remembered to late about this). 

About skaven, stormfiends looked really nuts. With MMMWP unleash hell was something really broken, the turns where I didn't passed MMMWP instead Stormfiends dealed a good amount of damage in my turns thanks to warpstone and the command trait but unleash hell was really bad. I got hard lucky with the dice and dealed just 1-2 damage, in another situation maybe 4 but really was like wasting cp withou MMMWP  (also and mainly thanks to my opponent tankyness).

In general we know that Stormfiends without the spell aren't so great and maybe is cause of that I found unleash hell not something incredible for them. On the other side they were really a good unit for cancel opponents units so for the moment I found them good. 

Still I'll keep playing this list for learn the rules and in future evolve it.

One change I'm going to take is downgrade arch to bombardier and 1 clanrats unit to stormvermin so I got 70 points for the second warpfire. 

On other side I found warpseer good but not so great for support role/points, still to see next games how will work but on paper I'm not so escited by him cause he cost us 1 cp every turn and only 2/3 times we got this free cp, so maybe a bell with another kind of verminlord could be better. 

Edited June 23, 2021 by Yes-yes warpstone

[Verminlord]

16 minutes ago, Yes-yes warpstone said:

Hi guys, yesterday I played my first 2 games at Aos 3 and found it at first impression really cool! 

Was playing VS Slaves to Darkness both games runned by a friend. List I played:

Battalion 1 more enchantments

Warpseer

Grey seer (swath frenzy, skavenbrew) 

Arch warlock (general: repeat hit skryre, MMMWP, new artefact negate 5+)

Clanrats 60 20 20

Battalion: no monstrous rampage against 60 clanrats and stofiends

6 stormfiends

1 warpfire

He played first game archon and kn the second belakor and 2 prince daemons, In both list as units he got 2x5 cavaliers, 20 warrior, 3 varanguard. 

So first game archon died my t1 and that's all also I continued for 3 turns. The second one was close and we finished with a tie. The new rules looks great at first impression, also if we played without battle tactics (we remembered to late about this). 

About skaven, stormfiends looked really nuts. With MMMWP unleash hell was something really broken, the turns where I didn't passed MMMWP instead Stormfiends dealed a good amount of damage in my turns thanks to warpstone and the command trait but unleash hell was really bad. I got hard lucky with the dice and dealed just 1-2 damage, in another situation maybe 4 but really was like wasting cp withou MMMWP  (also and mainly thanks to my opponent tankyness).

In general we know that Stormfiends without the spell aren't so great and maybe is cause of that I found unleash hell not something incredible for them. On the other side they were really a good unit for cancel opponents units so for the moment I found them good. 

Still I'll keep playing this list for learn the rules and in future evolve it.

One change I'm going to take is downgrade arch to bombardier and 1 clanrats unit to stormvermin so I got 70 points for the second warpfire. 

On other side I found warpseer good but not so great for support role/points, still to see next games how will work but on paper I'm not so escited by him cause he cost us 1 cp every turn and only 2/3 times we got this free cp, so maybe a bell with another kind of verminlord could be better. 

Yeah storm fiends have always been very effective, but if you can't get MMWP off you suddenly have over a quarter of your army invalidated. Several armies can very easily shut your magic phase down. That's one reason I stopped using fiends towards the end of 2nd, and will probably just shelf them in 3rd unless points drop significantly. They are just too expensive and also depend so hard on your fragile hero getting a spell off.

You may want to give warpseer a few more trys. I think he is going to be an auto include in most 3rd Ed lists. The amount of potential cp generation with Skilled Leader is nuts.

Edited June 23, 2021 by Verminlord

[Yes-yes warpstone]

10 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

Yeah storm fiends have always been very effective, but if you can't get MMWP off you suddenly have over a quarter of your army invalidated. Several armies can very easily shut your magic phase down. That's one reason I stopped using them towards the end of 2nd, and will probably just shelf them in 3rd unless points drop significantly. They are just too expensive and also depend so hard on your fragile hero getting a spell off.

You may want to give warpseer a few more trys. I think he is going to be an auto include in most 3rd Ed lists. The amount of potential cp generation with Skilled Leader is nuts.

I'll try it a lot more for sure. I don't think I would change a lot my list except for a 2nd Warpfire in next 5 games, mainly for learn as better as possible the rules first😁

Anyway I finally buyed a thanquol and a second WLC for grow my rats army. 

YES-YES, ready for FIRE-FIRE!!!! 

Edited June 23, 2021 by Yes-yes warpstone

[Coyote]

Question- Revealing Hidden Weapons Teams and Unleash Hell in Opponent’s Shooting Phase.

Are we agreed we “can” use Unleash Hell and reveal our Hidden Weapons Teams n the *Opponents Shooting Phase*, or do we need to wait for *Our Turn* Charge or Shooting?

Edited June 23, 2021 by Coyote

[Verminlord]

12 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Question- Revealing Hidden Weapons Teams and Unleash Hell in Opponent’s Shooting Phase.

Are we agreed we “can” use Unleash Hell and reveal our Hidden Weapons Teams n the *Opponents Shooting Phase*, or do we need to wait for *Our Turn* Charge or Shooting?

RAW weapon teams can only be revealed in your own shooting or charge phase.

[shalvan]

11 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

RAW weapon teams can only be revealed in your own shooting or charge phase.

I easily get salty. I am salty it is only Stormvermin and Clanrats. I want to hide them in Skryre acolytes especially, but could be fun to hide them in plague monks too, night/gutter runners less so because they are so fast. Giant rats is probably a stretch

The biggest problem to me is you can't hide them in pure Skryre army, otherwise an amazing and flavorful mechanic. Though 6 weapon teams jumping out of the last clanrat is super silly

Edited June 23, 2021 by shalvan

[Verminlord]

5 minutes ago, shalvan said:

I easily get salty. I am salty it is only Stormvermin and Clanrats. I want to hide them in Skryre acolytes especially, but could be fun to hide them in plague monks too, night/gutter runners less so because they are so fast. Giant rats is probably a stretch

The biggest problem to me is you can't hide them in pure Skryre army, otherwise an amazing and flavorful mechanic. Though 6 weapon teams jumping out of the last clanrat is super silly

I really hope clanrats get keywords for every clan or the ability to choose which clan they are from in our next update. It makes absolutely no sense that they don't. They're CLAN rats.

Edited June 23, 2021 by Verminlord

[Cosmicsheep]

42 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

I really hope clanrats get keywords for every clan or the ability to choose which clan they are from in our next update. It makes absolutely no sense that they don't. They're CLAN rats.

Totally agree.. I may have said this before, but we need a mechanic like Cities of Sigmar where Clanrats and Stormvermin are always battleline, and the other units (monks, gutter runners etc) become battleline based on your general, or which clan (city) you chose to be from.

[umpac]

2 hours ago, Verminlord said:

I really hope clanrats get keywords for every clan or the ability to choose which clan they are from in our next update. It makes absolutely no sense that they don't. They're CLAN rats.

This would certainly make the clans more viable, which would be great for list diversity. If GW are worried about the key word bingo making clanrats bonkers this way (could for example be buffed by stuff like a Plague Furnace) then they could always just change the Battleline requirement for clan units to include Clanrats:

Battleline in Skaventide army if general is MASTERCLAN or CLANS ESHIN, and all other units are CLANS ESHIN or CLANRATS.

[Skreech Verminking]

4 hours ago, Verminlord said:

I really hope clanrats get keywords for every clan or the ability to choose which clan they are from in our next update. It makes absolutely no sense that they don't. They're CLAN rats.

 

3 hours ago, Cosmicsheep said:

Totally agree.. I may have said this before, but we need a mechanic like Cities of Sigmar where Clanrats and Stormvermin are always battleline, and the other units (monks, gutter runners etc) become battleline based on your general, or which clan (city) you chose to be from.

 

1 hour ago, umpac said:

This would certainly make the clans more viable, which would be great for list diversity. If GW are worried about the key word bingo making clanrats bonkers this way (could for example be buffed by stuff like a Plague Furnace) then they could always just change the Battleline requirement for clan units to include Clanrats:

Battleline in Skaventide army if general is MASTERCLAN or CLANS ESHIN, and all other units are CLANS ESHIN or CLANRATS.

Something I’ve always enjoyed in the skaven lore, was the stories and fluff of the greater and lesser clans.

lesser clans who usually consisted of merely clanrats, Stormvermins, lesser slaves, and if they had enough money some weapon teams, and maybe some bigger hitting stuff.

as for the greater clans, they were known, to have had a ton of half promised contracts, with some of these lesser clans.

Others dedicated themself to one of the greater clan.

for example there was a lesser clan in the old world, which were rescued by clans eshin spies from slavery which was the reason for their dedication.

Personally, considering that The clans Verminus are theoretically and from a fluff perspective very often a usual sight in the greater clans, either by contract, dedication or just to boast ones might, I would really like to see some kind if a, what some faction call subfaction  kind of rules for the skaven.

These subfaction would then be known as the hidden thirteen paths.

One would be dedicated to the clans eshin aspect of the game, buffing all units and those of eshin greatly, while also allowing them to take those kind of units as a battleline option,

the same would be for the other greater paths, allowing each and every clans to prosper in one or the other way.

for example an army that takes the path of clans eshin, could consist of any skaventide armies.

with the inclusion of the already existing faction rules, they could easily make it that all skaventide units in the army are -1 to hit as long as they are more then 18” inches away from any enemy units.

While eshin units would get a buff that would just make them better int total as well.

for example, they get an additional rend in this path, and/or are to do mortal wounds on wound rolls of 6 against any hero key-worded model.

[ccconner777]

Any thoughts on a quad verminlord list with the new update? With verminlords able to take generic spells now they wont be wasting casts each turn and the new monster and hero rules obviously dont hurt. I have a warpseer, a warpgnaw and a converted skreech, and ive got an idea for a deciever conversion id like to have an excuse to pull the trigger on...

Was also bouncing around the idea of comboing a verminlord deciever with a hellpit abomination with the 7 inch move and charge moulder mutation to have a constant threat of a hellpit abomination teleporting anywhere 6 inches from the enemy with a guaranteed charge

[umpac]

16 minutes ago, ccconner777 said:

Any thoughts on a quad verminlord list with the new update? With verminlords able to take generic spells now they wont be wasting casts each turn and the new monster and hero rules obviously dont hurt. I have a warpseer, a warpgnaw and a converted skreech, and ive got an idea for a deciever conversion id like to have an excuse to pull the trigger on...

For fun, hell yeah. For competitive play, I can't really see it. You still waste a lot of casts since you only have 1 decent universal spell in Flaming Weapons and the Verminslords aren't really carry units. Monster rampage is nice but you can only use them once each and since Duel & Smash are situational so you won't really get much more out of 4 monsters compared to 1-2. With minimum battleline thats 1705 points, not much room for other stuff.

 

33 minutes ago, ccconner777 said:

Was also bouncing around the idea of comboing a verminlord deciever with a hellpit abomination with the 7 inch move and charge moulder mutation to have a constant threat of a hellpit abomination teleporting anywhere 6 inches from the enemy with a guaranteed charge

Awesome idea, sadly Dreaded Skitterleap only targets heroes.

[Cosmicsheep]

33 minutes ago, ccconner777 said:

Was also bouncing around the idea of comboing a verminlord deciever with a hellpit abomination with the 7 inch move and charge moulder mutation to have a constant threat of a hellpit abomination teleporting anywhere 6 inches from the enemy with a guaranteed charge

Unfortunately, Dreaded Skitterleap (much like the normal skitterleap) can only be cast on heroes with a wounds characteristic of 12 or less. So can’t be cast on the hell pit 😢

[ccconner777]

5 minutes ago, Cosmicsheep said:

Unfortunately, Dreaded Skitterleap (much like the normal skitterleap) can only be cast on heroes with a wounds characteristic of 12 or less. So can’t be cast on the hell pit 😢

Good catch I forgot about that. Would have been quite fun to have had a teleporting abomination missile 😆

[ccconner777]

10 minutes ago, umpac said:

For fun, hell yeah. For competitive play, I can't really see it. You still waste a lot of casts since you only have 1 decent universal spell in Flaming Weapons and the Verminslords aren't really carry units. Monster rampage is nice but you can only use them once each and since Duel & Smash are situational so you won't really get much more out of 4 monsters compared to 1-2. With minimum battleline thats 1705 points, not much room for other stuff.

 

Yeah thats what i suspected. Im definitely fun first, competition 2nd, but i do at least like to have close games. Blowouts arent much fun. With +1 to saves so plentiful now I worry that heroes like verminlords with just 1 rend are really going to struggle to do damage against anything with a decent save. At least the new generic master of magic command trait makes casting the warpseer's spell very reliable, assuming its not unbound 😆

[Yes-yes warpstone]

Holy I've realized now that doomwheel is considered behemoth but has not the keyword monster 😬

Was thinking about a 2 doomwheel list with the artefact for doblue move for take care of small heroes with the 2 d3 mw at 2+ and maybe scenery

Edited June 23, 2021 by Yes-yes warpstone

[Cosmicsheep]

9 hours ago, Yes-yes warpstone said:

Holy I've realized now that doomwheel is considered behemoth but has not the keyword monster 😬

 

Yes, see @Verminlord list above, you can take 2 of them in the Alpha-beast Pack battalion. The definition of monster (with the picture of the dragon) is “Behemoth that is not a leader” So you could get an extra D6” movement at the start of the battle.

Edited June 24, 2021 by Cosmicsheep

[Yes-yes warpstone]

 

42 minutes ago, Cosmicsheep said:

Yes, see @Verminlord list above, you can take 2 of them in the Alpha-beast Pack battalion. The definition of monster (with the picture of the dragon) is “Behemoth that is not a leader” So you could get an extra D6” movement at the start of the battle.

There are a lot of way for play it but I was mainly hoping doomwheel was able to use monstrous rampage but seems like it can't. 

Would have been really beautiful in charge having 2 impact hit and destroying scenery with a 30" movement model 😁

[Skreech Verminking]

20 minutes ago, Yes-yes warpstone said:

 

There are a lot of way for play it but I was mainly hoping doomwheel was able to use monstrous rampage but seems like it can't. 

Would have been really beautiful in charge having 2 impact hit and destroying scenery with a 30" movement model 😁

Yeah,yet  it still can be a pretty great unit.

although costy, the chance to move up 30-48 inches, and with some hot rolls, this u it could also just one shot a 400-600points monster/hero

[Cosmicsheep]

Do we think Warp-grinders and Warpfire throwers need to be included as part of the Battle Regiment?

i.e. if a hidden WFT is part of a unit of clanrats from the batallion, does the WFT use one of the slots?

And if i keep my warp-grinder out of the batallion (to save space) can i then use one of my batallion units to tunnel when i 1-drop them ?

 

Is this 3 drops, or 5 ? 

Spoiler

Battle Regiment  
Verminlord Deceiver    345
Plague Priest    85
Warlock Engineer    125
Clanrats-40    260
Clanrats-40    260
Stormvermin-10    110
Stormvermin-10    110
Night Runners-10    85
Jezzails-6    290

Warpfire Thrower    70
Warpfire Thrower    70
Warp Grinder    75
Warp Grinder    75

 

[umpac]

1 hour ago, Cosmicsheep said:

Do we think Warp-grinders and Warpfire throwers need to be included as part of the Battle Regiment?

 

Weapon teams aren't even set up, so I interpret that as not being part of drops at all. The phrasing is "Do not set up the WEAPON TEAM", unlike stuff that is in reserve where the phrasing is "Instead of setting up this unit on the battlefield you can place it to one side". Fanatics has the same phrasing and we've always played them as not counting as a drop.

[Cosmicsheep]

@umpac Thanks, so if my first 2 drops were the warp-grinders and the 3rd drop was the batallion, i could place my 2 stormvermin units (and WFT) off the board with the grinders?

I'm trying to counter my friends KO army. He has multiple ships fully loaded with troops. I'm hoping that the loss of his batallions in matched play mean i can out-drop him and flame-roast his troops turn 1

Edited June 24, 2021 by Cosmicsheep