AoS 2 - Skaventide Discussion

[Gwendar]

@Coyote I think if you want to kill\cripple Durthu then you really need to bring a WLC. I would much rather bring a WLV over those 3 endless spells as well simply because that thing is absolutely devastating and a Grey Seer should be able to reliably get it off next to a Gnawhole with your command trait.. and if not there's always the 3d6 roll instead. Not to mention you only have 1 Wizard and you can only cast 1 endless spell per turn with him.

Allegiance: Skaventide
Grey Seer (120)
40 x Clanrats (200)
- Rusty Spear
40 x Clanrats (200)
- Rusty Spear
Warp Lightning Cannon (180)
Warp Lightning Vortex (100)

Total: 800 / 1000

You could start with something like this and fill in the extra 200 points as you see fit. Personally I like to leave at least 50 points out so I can start with a CP against any T1 shenanigans that would force me to use an IP. Of course if you bring a Grey Seer on Bell or Snoutgrovel Robes you wouldn't need to do this. The second Durthu pops out of those woods you cripple him with the WLC. It may be worth bringing an Engineer\Bombardier to overcharge it if you so choose.

Edited March 25, 2019 by Gwendar

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

@Coyote I agree with the above post, with one caster and Low points you want impact not variety. The only army who should be running 3 endless spells at Lowe points is tzeentch! Lol

[Darkhan]

Tons of superb info here! Currently assembling a 2k+ Skaven Skryre army.
Been wondering about a couple of things. For the Grey Seer, when he does 3D6 cast, does he use a a warpstone token of the stock you rolled for (3 + D3)?  Or is it just a explanation on paper.

Same goes for Thanquol. If you don't include any skryre units in your list, to get those waprstone tokens, how can he then use a warpstone token? Get what I'm trying to point out?:)
 

Also, wondering why people take clanrats with spears instead of swords, since the swords are easier to get a hit with.

Thx in advance:)

[Xelotath]

19 minutes ago, Darkhan said:

Tons of superb info here! Currently assembling a 2k+ Skaven Skryre army.
Been wondering about a couple of things. For the Grey Seer, when he does 3D6 cast, does he use a a warpstone token of the stock you rolled for (3 + D3)?  Or is it just a explanation on paper.

Same goes for Thanquol. If you don't include any skryre units in your list, to get those waprstone tokens, how can he then use a warpstone token? Get what I'm trying to point out?:)
 

Also, wondering why people take clanrats with spears instead of swords, since the swords are easier to get a hit with.

Thx in advance:)

Thanquol and the grey seer warpstone tokens aren’t the same thing as warpstone sparks. Sparks are the Skryre resource, so it doesn’t cost for grey seers to use them.

 

Spears have 2” range rather than one, so more rats can attack at once. It’s better with large numbers and buffs. If you go for less rats in a unit than blades are better.

 

hope that helps

[Darkhan]

8 minutes ago, Xelotath said:

Thanquol and the grey seer warpstone tokens aren’t the same thing as warpstone sparks. Sparks are the Skryre resource, so it doesn’t cost for grey seers to use them.

 

Spears have 2” range rather than one, so more rats can attack at once. It’s better with large numbers and buffs. If you go for less rats in a unit than blades are better.

 

hope that helps

Aha! Yes totally:) 

[Kramer]

7 hours ago, Darkhan said:

Aha! Yes totally:) 

Although I agree with @Xelotath I would also throw up the counter argument that big units of clanrats tend to become small units of clanrats and there is a case to be made that hand waepons are always better choice than spears. 

because you won’t have many rounds to enjoy that third rank compared to rounds of combat with two ranks. It’s a bit down to you and how you use them. 

[Xelotath]

@Kramer that’s actually an interesting point I hadn’t really thought of it like that. Currently I use units of 20 and am looking at going up to 40 man units soon,  was planning on going spears as it seemed the obvious choice but when you factor in that they die to a stiff breeze or less blades may be the better option! 

Perhaps if you use 3x units of 40 and maybe death frenzy you can be confident you’ll have enough bodies to benefit from spears but maybe less than that it’s not worth it so much. Certainly worth looking into for me.

[bushman101]

Were there any other changes to base sizes with Skaven?

Just making sure I didn't miss anything

[Inquisitorsz]

53 minutes ago, bushman101 said:

Were there any other changes to base sizes with Skaven?

Just making sure I didn't miss anything

https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/age_of_sigmar_base_sizes_en.pdf

Only real change is Skryer Acolytes are now 32mm. 
Everything else seems to match what the unit comes with on webstore. Dunno how that compares to the past though. 


As for the GHB updates, I'd like for Skryer to get some usable battalions. The warpcog convocation and enginecoven system is dumb. Why are Skryer the only army that needs to effectively pay for 3 battalions just to get 1. 
it's like 280pts for just the 2 covens + battalion. 
The cheapest you can possibly do is 2 arkhspark voltiks  which is 2x warlock engineer, 2x WLC, arch warlock and battalion and comes to 280+280+160+280 =  1000. 
WTF? 

There is that one out of the carrion empire box I guess which is kind of useful but I can't seem to find it anywhere online. 
I think warpseers and grey seers might go up in points, would be nice to see stormvermin go down a bit. 
Everything is probably OK otherwise, but having said that, I think we're unlikely to see any skaven updates because it's probably too soon and the books are probably being printed already. 

[Gwendar]

3 hours ago, Xelotath said:

@Kramer that’s actually an interesting point I hadn’t really thought of it like that. Currently I use units of 20 and am looking at going up to 40 man units soon,  was planning on going spears as it seemed the obvious choice but when you factor in that they die to a stiff breeze or less blades may be the better option! 

Perhaps if you use 3x units of 40 and maybe death frenzy you can be confident you’ll have enough bodies to benefit from spears but maybe less than that it’s not worth it so much. Certainly worth looking into for me.

Yeah.. it's a shame I built pretty much all of mine when I first got into the game and didn't really know any better.

Also, @Inquisitorsz to be honest, all Skaven battalions are not that great, but that's mostly ringing true for a lot of armies nowadays. I'm just glad the Gautfyre spam that everyone ran with is gone and we actually see more varied builds.

[Inquisitorsz]

@Gwendar
i'll be honest I haven't really looked at many of the other ones.
Congregation of Filth seems to be used a bit
Foul Rain Congregation also seems to be useful. 
Whether or not they are competitive or worth the points... hard to say. But at least you get the extra CP and artifact. Which Skryre don't get easy access to. 
Most of the other ones at least use units that you're likely to take often (be it monks or clanrats or ogres or whatever).... The cannon one and maybe gascloud chokelung or rattlegauge warplock are the only ones that would be useful alone. 

Most of the time people take battalions to get more CP and more artifacts. Skryre just don't get that option for less than 1000 pts which is ridiculous. I dunno why that battalion works differently than all the other ones which are made up of smaller battalions.  

Edited March 26, 2019 by Inquisitorsz

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

How expensive are 40 clan rats in the new tome

[Axter]

12 minutes ago, TheadTheOgorSlayer said:

How expensive are 40 clan rats in the new tome

200 points. 120 for 20 rats, 200 for 40

[Verminlord]

5 hours ago, bushman101 said:

Were there any other changes to base sizes with Skaven?

Just making sure I didn't miss anything

packmasters went from 32s to 25s

[Kramer]

6 hours ago, Xelotath said:

@Kramer that’s actually an interesting point I hadn’t really thought of it like that. Currently I use units of 20 and am looking at going up to 40 man units soon,  was planning on going spears as it seemed the obvious choice but when you factor in that they die to a stiff breeze or less blades may be the better option! 

Perhaps if you use 3x units of 40 and maybe death frenzy you can be confident you’ll have enough bodies to benefit from spears but maybe less than that it’s not worth it so much. Certainly worth looking into for me.

Just another example from a game recently and a tactic I use close every game in some form. Re-charging for better positions. 

Usually that means spreading out towards his back lines to get more rats in and controlling spaces. It’s in my opinion the best weapon we have when playing mixed (and one more reason I’m disappointed in the current stormvermin situation). 

in the middle you see my 40 clanrats with a bell in the middle. In his turn he charged 6 buffed endrinriggers into that mess to assassinate my bell (have it the extra 5+ save artefacts. So that didn’t work)

in my turn I disengaged only to recharge and tag in the khemist behind it. I also took spears but just like most games sword and board would have been ore efficient. 

And I think your last point is a good one. If the game plan is to buff the clanrats into damage dealers it’s more likely to be worth it. I decided to play this game for the scenario as tabling a newer player with a difficult army didn’t seem helpful for anyone. 

[Overread]

Spears vs swords might also depend on terrain density and board size/position. A very light terrain board is going to offer more open combat and thus more ability for both forces engaging to wrap around each other and thus get more models into close combat; meanwhile a more terrain dense board might well offer less open regions to make such moves. As a result even with a depleted unit you'd still benefit from being able to have increased close combat range. 

[Darkhan]

I'm understanding that 1" is two ranks on 25mm bases. In theory, wouldn't 2" on 25mm be 4 ranks? Seeing someone saying 3 ranks.

 

[Saodexan]

10 minutes ago, Darkhan said:

I'm understanding that 1" is two ranks on 25mm bases. In theory, wouldn't 2" on 25mm be 4 ranks? Seeing someone saying 3 ranks.

 

1" = 25.5 mm
2" = 51 mm
Your 1" can go over 1 rank so 2 ranks in total. Your 2" can go over 2 rank so 3 ranks in total.

[Darkhan]

31 minutes ago, Saodexan said:

1" = 25.5 mm
2" = 51 mm
Your 1" can go over 1 rank so 2 ranks in total. Your 2" can go over 2 rank so 3 ranks in total.

Thank you sir!

[Gwendar]

11 hours ago, Inquisitorsz said:

@Gwendar
i'll be honest I haven't really looked at many of the other ones.
Congregation of Filth seems to be used a bit
Foul Rain Congregation also seems to be useful. 
Whether or not they are competitive or worth the points... hard to say. But at least you get the extra CP and artifact. Which Skryre don't get easy access to. 
Most of the other ones at least use units that you're likely to take often (be it monks or clanrats or ogres or whatever).... The cannon one and maybe gascloud chokelung or rattlegauge warplock are the only ones that would be useful alone. 

Most of the time people take battalions to get more CP and more artifacts. Skryre just don't get that option for less than 1000 pts which is ridiculous. I dunno why that battalion works differently than all the other ones which are made up of smaller battalions.  

Foulrain has been doing much better due to the buff to catapults and Congregation is as great as it always was for the most part. I'm also of the mindset if you run pure Eshin you may as well take the battalion anyway since you only have 4 units to choose from.. you could easily just make a list with minimum Night Runners for early objective capture and fill the rest with Gutter Runners.

I think the issue with things like Rattlegauge and Gascloud is the fact that we have Traits, Artifacts and MMMWP to give the same\better buffs to units. Just as an example, my previously posted list has 1 Arch-Warlock with Deranged Inventor, MMMWP and Vigordust which all can provide overlapping buffs to 30 Acolytes and 9 Jezzails... so why would I want to take less of those units to give them worse buffs? Sure, they won't take d3 MW's but that's pretty insignificant compared to re-rolling all failed hits\wounds compared to just re-rolling hits of 1 for either Coven. These battalions probably need to be re-evaluated at some point and at the very least have either:

1. Points decreases since they have all been mostly nerfed compared to what they previously were (aside from Arkhspark).
2. Allow us to take individual Covens as the battalion. 

[EvilMonkee]

Anyone got the list that won the Throne Of Skulls Heat at the weekend just gone?

Looking at the results list the Skaventide player tabled his opponent in each game.

[mmimzie]

hmmm so i think for the spears vs sword arguement. I think if you are going to take advantage of death frenzy you'd be a bit better off with spears.  As each pile in and attack happens 1 at a time, meaning your range for such an attack is quite short, and the extra inch of the spears can be pretty big for getting more mileage out of the spell. 

[chowwingho]

@EvilMonkee Not sure if it was updated since then or not, but this was posted about a week ago: https://twitter.com/Slaaneshfiend/status/1107395196940177408

He mentioned in another reply that his list was Skyre focusing on Thanquol and acolytes.

 

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

Spears vs hand weapons

 

without horde bonuses spears need 50 percent more rats attacking to do equal damage, with horde bonuses you need approx. 30 percent more rats, this is real terms means the following:

20 rats without spears = 30 rats with spears not accounting horde bonuses

20 rats without spears = 26.666 rats with all horde bonuses

so now we must go over what you’re are using your rats for, if you are bubble wrapping, then the extra range of the spears will help as you will be as wide spread as possible normally to increase your foot print and keep peeps off stuff. In this situation with max coherency it’s not unlikely to get the 50 percent more rats needed even without horde bonuses

if using your rats as rank and file offensive troops then it’s easy (due to 25 mm bases) to get two ranks of attacks, and in most scenarios this means the spears underperform even in groups of 30 as soon as rats start to die, so prolonged fights means spear will lose

if not bubblewrapping ranged weapons but instead taking charges on purpose to make someone regret being within melee range of some big hulking rat monsters with a new flamer that’s great at hitting bunched up troops or another equally terrifying melee opponent, then a small footprint 20 man with two or one rank just required to take the charge and let other do the killin will be better off with hand weapons to make their pitiful attacks after being massacred a little less pitiful 

However spears with target saturation win outright, with 3 or more groups of 40 supported by some buffs the opponent will be hard pressed to remove every rat needed to get rid of your bonuses while also dealing with your other threats (unless they are a gaunt summoner and you have no cp... losing 20 guys a turn then failing that morale is disheartening to say the least, pestilens can do that trick as well)

beep boop

[Zinnar]

So, based on that, @TheadTheOgorSlayer, if I am taking 3x20 Clanrats in a "Skryre" list just so they eat charges for Ratling Guns, Warp Lightning Cannons, Acolytes, and Stormfiends with Ratling+Windlaunchers, it's not actually the worst thing that all of my Clanrats are built and painted with spears since I can cover more table space and still get attacks in on enemies?

 

Am I reading that right?