AoS 2 - Skaventide Discussion

[Congratz]

Any competitive lits out there? Thinking about starting an army

[Ratcliff]

2 minutes ago, Congratz said:

Any competitive lits out there? Thinking about starting an army

 

 

Buy 60 clanrats, a Verminlord Warpseer, Warp Lightning cannon, Engineers and some Jezzails. Put whatever you want in after that

[Xelotath]

What are people’s thoughts on mixed skaven with quite heavy Pestilins? I thought something like this.

did consider dropping vermintide and congregation of filth for 20 gutter runners

[Skreech Verminking]

44 minutes ago, Congratz said:

Any competitive lits out there? Thinking about starting an army

Depends what the word competitive means to you.

are you looking to win as often as possible or just have some fun, and be able to at least stand firm against your foe-friends?

[Congratz]

@Skreech Verminking I wanna win as much as possible, i have heard Warplock Jezzails are quite good, and thats all...
So i need abit of help

[Gwendar]

50 minutes ago, Congratz said:

I wanna win as much as possible

Keep in mind that there is more to this than a good net list; and that goes for any army. I would not say that we have a simple army that just "wins" by playing haphazardly. Skaven are still very much a tactical army that requires good positioning and board presence, among other things.

My Favorite Units

Spoiler

Clanrats: Core minimum of 80-120. I normally run with 100 (2x40 and 1x20). These are what are going to capture your objectives. I can't tell you how many games were decided by them retreating + charging to move onto an objective late game. All of our BS immunity makes them stronger than they used to be, despite the bravery drop.

Jezzails\WLC's: As you may have seen last page, there have been calculations between WLC's and Jezzails. I've been switching over to Jezzails, but there is still a place for WLC's. My opinion is that if you want to take any, you need to take at least 2 of them and 1 Engineer minimum. This is what snipes heroes which is all too important now-a-days.

Warpfire Throwers\Ratling Gunners: A great unit if you face horde armies, but you should note that it won't take long for any decent opponent to shoot them off the board before they're in range to do anything. If you do use them however, I always sit them behind Clanrats so anything that charged them will get roasted next turn. Almost always overcharge. Ratling Gunners can be quite good with buffs, but I would much rather buff a unit of Acolytes who can run + shoot and have about the same range for far more damage.

Acolytes: I use a block of 20-30 and buff them with an Engineer. To be honest, these act more like a hammer to me as I typically don't run anything heavy for the combat phase. The average damage that comes out of these when buffed is pretty insane, but they will die to a stiff breeze if you are not careful with positioning or have proper understanding of deployment and pre-measuring (which is what you need to be doing to be a great competitive player).

Warpseer\Grey Seer\Engineer\Arch-Warlock: A Warpseer is basically an auto-include in almost every list composition I make up. If you decide to make him your General, you can get him an additional 5+ and another 5+ from Suspicious stone which makes him have a 4+ rerolling fails, 5+ FNP that's passed to other units, 5+ FNP, 5+ FNP. He will also generate free CP's which goes great with his huge 26" BS immunity bubble. On top of this, Dreaded Warpgale is one of the best spells we have, especially combined with Warp-Vortex. Engineer is included largely for buffing your Skryre units, but if you can take an Arch-Warlock you will be better off due to the increased tankiness and signature spell. The Grey Seer is typically what you'll be casting your heavier spells with if you don't have Thanquol, but lately I've been taking a Screaming Bell instead for the utility.. and chance to summon a Verminlord Deceiver.

Doomwheel: I haven't used it much since the tome, but it is undoubtedly much, much better. It's a great harassment unit since we don't really have cavalry (unless you count Wolf Rats) and it's wonderful at nabbing late game objectives... if you don't roll 4" on that 4d6. Normally I use it to harass squishy units as it's shooting is pretty decent when overcharged. Rolling over units is nice, but I tend to avoid this unless I believe I can cause enough damage for it to be worth potentially losing as it can put it in a bad spot.

Plague Monks\Stormvermin\HPA: Plague Monks are easily are hardest hitting combat unit (and one of the best in the game currently) and don't even need buffs to perform.. that said, casting Death Frenzy on them is satisfying. Be prepared to have ~4 different piles of dice that your opponent needs to make saves for as their unit bonuses are a bit wonky. Stormvermin are.. quite good despite being grossly overcosted. That said, most of us would rather take 80 Monks for less points than 40 Stormvermin. I'm throwing a Hellpit Abomination in this category as it's a really great hammer unit and is rather cheap considering what it can do. Same warning with the Doomwheel as random movement will sometimes cause it to do absolutely nothing but get shot to death.

Gutter Runners: I love Gutter Runners, but I have stepped away from using them as a dedicated combat unit of 20. They tend to perform far better as a harassment unit in units of 5-10 and I typically use them over a Doomwheel for that purpose. Not to mention they're faster than Clanrats and come in on the board edge (T1 unfortunately) so they can be good for capping objectives if you keep them out of danger.

I know it's a bit of a wall, and I could probably elaborate a lot more on different units... but the bottom line is we have a lot of options now. If anyone else wants to elaborate on anything then feel free. I love to see more Skaven players, but I don't like for anyone to buy into an army expecting to auto-win so just read up, test some things out and just have fun rolling dice.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Gwendar

[Ratcliff]

1 hour ago, Congratz said:

@Skreech Verminking I wanna win as much as possible, i have heard Warplock Jezzails are quite good, and thats all...
So i need abit of help

 

 

There's plenty of ways to skin a cat. A net list will win nothing if you don't know what you're doing, so just experiment and see what works. I run a pure Pestilens list that rarely lets me down

[Skavelynn]

3 hours ago, Congratz said:

Any competitive lits out there? Thinking about starting an army

From what I've seen and played, pestilens and skryre units are the current most competitive (rat ogres and HPA aren't bad though!).  The 'base' of most competitive skaven armies seems to be 80-120 clanrats, at least one max unit of plague monks, a warpseer, and any grey seer hero. From there I'd add skryre units and an engineer, jezzails and acolytes are generally very applicable units. Most skryre units are pretty good though, there's a lot of different synergies that are powerful.

Skaven as a whole has a lot viable options and good situational units, which is why I wouldn't copy netlists and instead playtest to see what works for you and your playstyle. I personally like having multiple WLC over jezzails for example, it's not necessarily better or worse, just preference. Also don't forget the warp lightning vortex! 😄

[Milford]

Greetings, fellow Skaven players! I'm hoping to spark more discussion on the objectively best clan: Eshin.

It seems to me that the standard kernel for an Eshin-based force is the following (coming in at 1380 points):

Allegiance: Skaventide

LEADERS

Verminlord Warpseer (260) [General]

Verminlord Deceiver (300)

Deathmaster (100)

UNITS

20 x Gutter Runners (200)

20 x Gutter Runners (200)

10 x Night Runners (80)

10 x Night Runners (80)

BATTALIONS Slinktalon (160)

Some variations:

(i) We take a deceiver as the general, to take advantage of an Eshin-only command trait.

(ii) We take smaller units of gutter runners.

(iii) We take larger units of night runners.

(iv) We drop the second unit of gutter runners.

Given this kernel (perhaps with one or more of the above variations), the main question is: how do we expand this force into a 2k army? 

First, it seems to me that there are good reasons to add a second deceiver to the list.  To start, this gives us a third masters of murder target. And beyond this, it gives us much more flexibility: with two candidates to cast dreaded skitterleap / lord of assassins, we have a lot more options with regards to what we do with the deceivers.

Second, given this Eshin kernel (or perhaps a reduced one which drops the warpseer / second gutter runner unit), would it ever be worth taking units from outside of Eshin? Of course, to do this requires at least a 360 point tax (for 3x20 clan rats). But perhaps this is worth it. For example, alongside some clan rats we take 2 WLCs with an engineer or two. Or, my preferred option, we pick up some jezzails (as an aside, it is still a sore point for me that we cannot ally in jezzails to an Eshin force!).

Edited April 10, 2019 by Milford
Moved paragraph break

[Gwendar]

@Milford First off, do note that your list is illegal if you make the Deceiver your general and include a Warpseer. The Warpseer would need to be general if you intend to go without the minimum 60 Clanrats. If you are going pure Eshin, then you are better off taking the Gutter Runners in full units of 20 in my opinion.. of course I suppose you could also just flood the board with MSU's of 10. Both would probably work out about as well, although the latter would up your drop count.

Night Runners probably got hit the hardest and I would argue it's better to take 10-20 per unit just to cap objectives with the pre-game move. That said, if you are staying pure Eshin then they are about as good of a screen as you're going to get, so you could take them in 40's.

Mixed really is the way to go if you want to play competitively.. and unfortunately Eshin is not too great in that department aside from Deceiver and Gutter Runner utility. If you wanted to stay Eshin, I would absolutely throw in another Deceiver and more Gutter Runners. Outside of that, Jezzails are definitely great to have but you really need 6-9 to see anything decent out of them. Having even 3x20 Clanrats will act as decent screens but.. not great for holding onto objectives compared to units of 40 but they'll still be better than Night Runners.

[Milford]

1 minute ago, Gwendar said:

@Milford First off, do note that your list is illegal if you make the Deceiver your general and include a Warpseer. The Warpseer would need to be general if you intend to go without the minimum 60 Clanrats. 

Hi, Gwendar. The Warpseer is, of course, the general in that kernel. It read that way to you as I put a paragraph break in the wrong place (will now edit that).

I agree on the strength of night runners, hence in my kernel the minimum amount is taken in order to meet the Slinktalon requirements. I also prefer running gutter runners at max strength. Although I think there is room for some units of 10s.

On drop count, we have 4 gutter runner unit slots, and 8 night runner unit slots available per slinktalon, so that is no problem.

Perhaps in a 2k eshin list there is even scope for running two slinktalons.

On its own, I think an eshin force has quite a diverse toolkit. A toolkit good enough to be somewhat competitive. There is room to draw from other clans to augment our weaknesses, if we really need to. But I don't think we need to resign ourselves to mixed lists just yet.

[Gwendar]

2 hours ago, Milford said:

On its own, I think an eshin force has quite a diverse toolkit. 

I mean, they're okay but I really wouldn't call them spectacular on their own. Yes, mixing them in with other units is great but I never expect much out of them otherwise.

Having artifacts like the Gnawbomb are great for utility and Deceivers teleporting within 6.1" is nice for taking out heroes but they seldom do that exceptionally well since the damage coming out of him isn't spectacular compared to a Corrupter.

I dunno.. I love Eshin but they really need help to be worth them running solo. That all said, I still have 80 Gutter Runners converted that I will eventually paint and try some games out with going pure Eshin. They're definitely fun to play and it's nice to take a break with something a little more unique than the average compositions.

Edited April 10, 2019 by Gwendar

[Skreech Verminking]

16 hours ago, Congratz said:

@Skreech Verminking I wanna win as much as possible, i have heard Warplock Jezzails are quite good, and thats all...
So i need abit of help

So well a list with which you can win as many times as possible.

Well that’s a hard task to tell you the truth.

 Since the skaven finally got their book we jumped up the competitiveness ladder of the game.

we are able to win games but of course can loose some.

now there’s are some very spectacular points about the skaven.

for one we have a huge range of models and units, meaning the possibilitiy of building lists is almost endless.

We have a huge range of strong combos, and are able to Outcast even a death or tzeentch army.

Still the perfect winning skaven list doesn’t really exist.

sure there are a few list out there with which some people won their local tournament or a big event, but you’d have to ask yourselves if you really understand the meaning behind it.

Is it your play-style, could you use the list efficiently?

And even then we have a few skaven  tournament winning lists which all differ from each other rather strongly, meaning that finding the perfect list for yourselves is something you will have to do with playing changing a few things up, use units you might never have even thought of using, things like that, and sometime sooner or later you’ll have found your own personal perfect skaven army list.

This is probably the one thing that makes the skaven army so much different form all the other meta factions and in the same time fun to play😉.

 

[Xelotath]

I think you could have a lot of fun with a list like this. Highly mobile with Doomwheels and characters being skitterleaped about to support them, lightning cannons popping out of Gnawholes and some combat punch from the deceiver, highly doubt it would be competitive but a tonne of fun! 

[Num]

Hi, here is a quick battlereport on the weird 2v2 500pts event I had.

So we had to make 500pts lists (minimum one battleline) and we were paired randomly for a 2v2 match. I was paired with a troll against ironweld arsenal and flesh-eater courts. My list was:

- Warlock Engineer (general)

- Balewind vortex

- Warp-lightning cannon

- 15 acolytes

 

The ironweld arsenal camped on top of a hill (2 machines and a line of dwarves protecting them) and the FEC prepared himself for a rush.

We got the first turn, and the overcharged WLC put the line of dwarves down to 2 men. I had no range to get to the machines. The Warlock Engineer got on top of the balewind vortex, itself on top of the gnawhole (see picture. However, note that the paint is not finished. I am hesitating between colors... But I will go with dryad bark finally for the stones instead of verminlord hide).

My general idea was to spam his overcharged spell. Indeed, he seems to be able to cast it any number of times, according to the warscroll. Being on a gnawhole and a vortex, that would make 2 times D6 MW at 19" on a 4+, rerollable once!

In their turn, the FEC moved forward.

 

Second turn, I sniped a machine and that was about it. The trolls wiped some FEC units.

In their turn, the opponents did some minor damage to the trolls, which they healed afterwards.

 

Third turn, I sniped the second machine, the troll cleared some more units. But at this stage we were behind on objectives and as the game was only 3 turns long, we lost!

 

So as you can see, the game was not very exciting. The dwarf and I were just camping from behind, and the other two were tarpiting. Three turns were just too few to get anything done really.

However, this game made me realize that all of you are right: The warp-lightning vortex seems way too got not to take. Even at 500pts I should have taken it. I could have completely wiped the ironweld arsenal with a single WLV cast on his camping position, and use my resources to do other things during my turn, letting him deal with this problem of his meanwhile... It would have been may more worthwhile than the warp-lightning cannon after second thoughts.

I think I'm going to bring the WLV in all games now :D

 

I played another friendly game 3v3 afterwards with the same list, and it also confirmed me that the Warlock Engineer/Bombardier is now tremendous value. I am considering it instead of the Arch-Warlock now. His spell is easy and not very risky to overcharge. The range is not so great but on top of a balewind vortex or inside a pack of clanrats it is OK. Plus it gives access to the warp tokens to reroll the cast. I have done the maths and it seems to be a reliable way to cast the WLV turn one next to a gnawhole. The only thing that can compete is the grey seer with master of magic next to a gnawhole or a grey seer sneezing some warpstone (but the risk outweighs the gain)

 

Cheers

[Gwendar]

4 hours ago, Num said:

I think I'm going to bring the WLV in all games now

The only times I've had issues getting it off (even with MoM\Gnawholes) has been against Tzeentch with a LoC and +'s to cast. Usually they keep a 5 or 6 from their destiny dice to make sure it get's unbound.. but eventually that pool of dice runs out and we may get lucky.

Or, you know, just pop 9 Jezzails\WLC + Engineer behind them from a Gnawhole and put a stop to that silly LoC.

Thanks for the quick batrep, I love reading them. I'm currently prepping my list for the tourney at the end of the month and have a game planned against Seraphon on Friday.

Edited April 10, 2019 by Gwendar

[mmimzie]

You can also max range the vortex. It has alot of reach, so odds are you can cover most of the area you want if you deploy your grey seer rather far back.

 

That said if the LoC has magical supremacy just don't even cast spells lol. 

[Gwendar]

1 hour ago, mmimzie said:

You can also max range the vortex. It has alot of reach, so odds are you can cover most of the area you want if you deploy your grey seer rather far back.

 

That said if the LoC has magical supremacy just don't even cast spells lol. 

Lately we've played Duality of death on a 4x4 at 1250 pts so.. not much I can do to get away from unbind range generally. He usually does have supremacy I believe but that doesn't stop me from trying since the WLV melts his army if it does manage to go off.

[kenshin620]

Well played creative assembly

Well played.

 

[SleeperAgent]

6 hours ago, Gwendar said:

The only times I've had issues getting it off (even with MoM\Gnawholes) has been against Tzeentch with a LoC and +'s to cast. Usually they keep a 5 or 6 from their destiny dice to make sure it get's unbound.. but eventually that pool of dice runs out and we may get lucky.

Or, you know, just pop 9 Jezzails\WLC + Engineer behind them from a Gnawhole and put a stop to that silly LoC.

Thanks for the quick batrep, I love reading them. I'm currently prepping my list for the tourney at the end of the month and have a game planned against Seraphon on Friday.

Can you do this in one turn? The way I read the gnawholes seems to imply you can only use your gnawholes (the entire set of 3) once per turn. 

[bitchparty]

46 minutes ago, SleeperAgent said:

Can you do this in one turn? The way I read the gnawholes seems to imply you can only use your gnawholes (the entire set of 3) once per turn. 

Correct. Only one unit can go through a gnawhole per turn.

[Gwendar]

2 hours ago, bitchparty said:

Correct. Only one unit can go through a gnawhole per turn.

3 hours ago, SleeperAgent said:

Can you do this in one turn? The way I read the gnawholes seems to imply you can only use your gnawholes (the entire set of 3) once per turn. 

Which is why you skitterleap the Engineer to be in range of it. Sorry, I know I didn't exactly word it to properly show what I meant and it read that I did both through 1 Gnawhole.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Gwendar

[mmimzie]

Gonna drop abit of a battle report, i'm abit new in my Skaven adventures. However, it was fun and it shows some real promice for this list i've doctored up:

Stormcast Vs Skaven: 
Random mission: Shifting Objectives

My List (skaven):

Spoiler

 

Scream Bell General: Master of Magic
      Death frenzy
Grey Seer
       Warp-gale
Warp Seer w/ Suspicious Stone
Warbringer
Claw Lord Trait: Verminous Valor

4x40 Clanrats
 

Endless spells:
Gravetide
Vermintide
Warp-lightning Vortex
Pendulum

1950 +1 cp

 

My Friends List (stormcast):

Spoiler

 

Lord Arcanum
Lord Ordinator
Knight Azyros

3x5 Sequitors

10x Evocators

3x Evocators on dracolions

3x Celestar ballista
 

Everblaze comet
+2cp

 

 

Deployment:
I  deployed with the bell on one flank + Clan rat unit with 10 evocators facing them down
The warbringer bringing up the middle with 2x clan rat units Facing off against the sequitors and knight azyros
The Warpseer on the opposite flank with a unit of clan rats in toe daring the evocators on dracolines to come at them.

The balistas and ordinator were up in the sky doing there thing. 

First battle round: Skaven First (3pt objective is warpseer dracoline flank)
Skaven got off the vortex and vermin tide to choke up the sequitors and dracolions, and skaven moved up just in ranged to hold all 3 objectives. 
Storm cast deployed balista's behind the rats and try'd to shoot the bell, to no avail.  Ever blaze comet hit's and nearly kills the claw lord, but he is saved by verminous valor. Dracolines charge the warpseer who backs up to a gnawhole to get get +1 to cast in turn 2. Due to my skaven only using 1 model to cap each objective, and thus stay out side of any real charge range. Stormcast capture both flank objectives, but i did keep the middle objective as i surround that one with clan rats.

5 skaven to 4 stormcast

Secon Round: Skaven First (3pt objective is middle objective)
Skaven dispel the vortex and the recast was unbound.  Grave tide Stops the evocators from taking thier flank, but blocking up a large portion of the table, for insurance against the evocators making a charge, the clan rats on the screaming bell flank are buffed with death frenzy. Bell gets -1 to hit aura, effectively turning of the usefulness of the ballista.  The pendulum kills a dracolion, knight azyros, and a few sequitors.
Stormcast charge in with sequitors and the dracolions to attack clan rats in the middle of the table. Who hold numbers high enough to still get +1 to hit with thier spears when they attack back, claw lord is just in range to aid them with +1 attack, and they hits the sequitor squads hard. Evocators fail thier charge due to being slowed by the gravetide. One of the two middle units of clanrats is reduced to 6 models, and stay due to warpseer command ability.  The balista also used the command ability to fire in the hero phase multiple times with his 3 or 4 CP. Shooting at clan rats, but the -1 to hit countering the ordinator's +1 to hit. 

10 skaven to 7 stormcast

Third round: Skaven first turn (3pt objective is warpseer dracoline flank)
Vortex is recast to  cripple sequitor squads with big mortal wound rolls, and pendulum (dispeled and recast) also hits home to finish off the dracolines, and a few more sequitors. The 2nd middle group of clan rats swarm the middle objectives, only lightly injured from the ballista's and comet (about 25-30 remain) plus the other 6 or 7 of the first clan rat unit create a screen to protect the middle clan rat unit from getting charged.  The screaming bell gets the -1 to hit aura again.  The warpseer team up to lashing tail a few more rermain sequitors off the table. Dreath frenzy clan rats charge the evocators with +1 attack leaving the bell stranded with a claw lord to cold that flank objective marker, and sacrafice themselves to heavily damage the evocator squad. 

Before we roll the combat damage, we look over the game and decide it looks alittle lop sided at that point. The remaining evocators would have to do too much work, while the ballista's couldn't move quick enough to capture any objectives. So we call it in favor of the skaven. 

The endless spells gumming up the works were really big.  Gravetide and vermintide helped me control where my friends unit's could go.  Pendulum did damage and also made some lanes of attack too dangerous. While the vortex did alot of of chip damage that pretty much killed the ordinators and knight ayzros almost all on thier own, while claiming at least 5 sequitors. 

Warpseer works welled well to hold down his own flank, using his big tanky body to block off movement while the clan rats  used thier bodies to hold objectives, worked really well.  I did miss up as i think the warbringer, clawlord, and bell should all sort of roll together, as they all want to buff 1 clan rat unit. So i never really got to take advantage of double death frenzy. The last turn i got off 2 death frenzies, but wasn't in range to double up on the unit that charged the evocators. 

After talking my friend also made some mistakes, by not dispeling my endless spell's with his evoctors/dracolions (namely the tides).  He also felt he should have focus his fire more on the clan rats, rather than trying to mess with characters that were too tanky (like the bell or the claw lord).  He also felt that he should have deployed the ballista's on his side of the table instead of behind my army; i'm not sure if this is too true, as the ballista were basically invulnerable behind my army, as i really just wanted to hold all the objectives, and had no desire to turn around and deal with those ballista. I also feel such a choice would have made them vulnerable to the lighting vortex.  I also feel he got unlucky abit with me getting 2 straight turns of -1 to hit, which killed the damage of his ballista. Though i didn't roll a single successful clan rat save all game so maybe the luck balanced out?? 

Either way the list is a lot of fun and honestly. It worked really well on that mission because the fighting lane was so small.  I love the ability to shift power where it's needed, and not having only big power unit that can be targeted down, but clan rat units that can get turned on and become threats at any moment. 

[Congratz]

Clanrats in units of 40. What weapon? Spear or Sword?

[SleeperAgent]

What do you guys think the chances are that the rest of the metal Skaven get new plastic minis? I wanna get some Ratling Guns and Warplock Jezzails but $45 and $52 respectively are insane for 3 tiny little models. No to mention Skryre Acolytes at $10 per model.