AoS 2 - Skaventide Discussion

[Skreech Verminking]

35 minutes ago, Hagbean said:

Please for the love of the Great Horned One, reduce the cost of Stormvermin.

Please for the sake of the great horned rat!, 

We just can’t have Stormvermins cost as much as Ardboys, who are much better then our elite.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Skreech Verminking

[Hagbean]

57 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Please for the sake of the great horned rat!, 

We just can’t have Stormvermins cost as much as Ardboys, who are much better then our elite.

Christ when you put it like that it sounds so depressing...

[Ravenista]

I keep looking at the timestamps on these posts and wondering if I'm missing something.  There have been several Youtube reviews of the point changes in GHB 2019, and Skaventide did not have any changes at all...for example:

Are you all just throwing around point changes for 2020?

[Skreech Verminking]

22 minutes ago, Ravenista said:

I keep looking at the timestamps on these posts and wondering if I'm missing something.  There have been several Youtube reviews of the point changes in GHB 2019, and Skaventide did not have any changes at all...for example:

Are you all just throwing around point changes for 2020?

Well there was mention that  skaven, Gloomspite gitz, Khorne and fyreslayers will all get a free point update in form of a downloadable faq on the community website, after the ghb is available.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Skreech Verminking

[Unter]

Read the post, Skaven, Fyreslayers, FEC and Gloomspite are all getting separate updates in 2nd week of July.

Also no way Stormvermin are coming down when Skaven are as strong as we are.

I don't disagree that they are overpointed, but unit vs unit comparisons don't really exist in this game. It's better to think of your army having an overall 'power budget', which is already overspent with great magic, cheap verminlords and monks. So it'd take really significant cuts elsewhere for them to consider any Skaven buffs I reckon.

[Unter]

3 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

I wouldn’t really call the whole skaven range broken or op, but you are right there are a few unit that could well cost a bit more in points.

Yes, we do have units like plague monks that should maybe get a points increase .

I also agreee with the point that some Verminlords are a bit to cheap and should get a small point increase(20-40p)

What I don’t agree on is that the battleshock immunity makes us unbelievable strong and almost unkillable.

sure it helps us keep our battleline units a bit longer in the fray, but still there are armies, out there where they basically kill 40-60 models in one round of combat.

also battleshock immunity buffs has become frequently usual in most armies.

I mean even some grand allegiance can give such buffs with their artefacts/commandtraits.

and  with most of our battleshock immunity buffs, we still have restriction like being wholly within 13 and so on.

not somethings that really benefits the whole army, but a small amount of units.

Sure there are exceptions like the warpseer or the doom bell, but in the end the endless spell can easily be dispelled having only a casting value of 6, and the Verminlord, well yeah, probably is the biggest problem, but as it seem he might get a bit mir expensive with the next faq (hopfully/sadly)

The Screaming Bell and the Furnace also confer enormous BS immunity bubbles. 
 

Again, not disputing other armies don't have similar mechanics, but a weakness of say Monks is their low leadership. Without BS immunity even a relatively low amount of damage from shooting has a decent chance to cause a load more casualties in the BS phase.

Say you lost 10-11 monks to shooting or spells, you wouldn't be surprised to lose this number again in battleshock, crippling the unit and dragging it below the 20 model threshold for +1 to hit - a massive part of their damage.

Skaven basically never need to worry about BS as long as you are within a bubble on turn one, or within the Warpseer's 52" radius after that (26" in each direction).

Crucial to move beyond unit by unit comparisons and look at the whole raft of things which make Skaven strong.

 

[Gwendar]

@Unter Again, you keep bringing up the same unit; Monks. I have agreed every time that they need a points change, I don't dispute that. It's also likely that Verminlords will get an increase (Warpseer in particular) so I don't dispute that either. But outside of those things (and Death Frenzying Monks), what exactly makes us overpowered? Is Gristlegore attacking 4 times before you even get a chance not worse? What about Slaanesh's fight last or summoning capability? Fyreslayers ability to sit on an objective and be un-moveable and pile in to attack when they die, like Death Frenzy?

What I do dispute is your opinion on BS immunity. 13" is not "enormous".. We have the tools to answer it, sure, but overall our bravery characteristic is incredibly low and that's dangerous.. especially with bravery-related abilities being somewhat common. In that same vein, don't other factions also have weaknesses that get plugged by their own buffs? 

Stormvermin absolutely need to come down. There's no reason a unit with the stats that it has is 500 points for a max unit. I disagree that you can't compare units.. you absolutely can. You should be comparing them to Witch Aelves or Bestigors, etc. and their un-buffed statlines and you can see the problem with their points. There's a reason people spam Monks and not Stormvermin; the efficiency you get from their point cost is absurd and you simply can't do that with Stormvermin with how they're currently costed. I'm not saying they need to be 300 points for 40, but 500 is nonsense for what they do.

I just want you to name all of these "rafts of things" that make us so strong, is all. I think we all agree we're strong... but not as much as you tend to make out.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Gwendar

[ServiceGames]

I was wondering if anyone would be willing to help me get to a good, solid 1000 points of Skaven.  I'm not looking for a 1000 point tournament or TAC list.  I'm just looking for a list that will definitely hold its own, but it won't be one of those that no one at my GW or FLGS wants to play against because it's very difficult to beat.

Here is what I currently have (all from Spire of Dawn and Silver Tower):

HQ
1 Skaven Warlord/Clawlord
2 Deathrunners (no longer exists since Battletome Vermintide - maybe be used as Deathmaster instead)
1 Warlock Engineer

Battleline
2 units of 20 Clanrats

Other Units
2 Rat Ogors
1 Packmaster (only exists in units of 3 since Battletome Vermintide)
1 Poisoned Wind Mortar Weapon Team (no longer exists since Battletome Vermintide)
1 Warpfire Thrower Weapon Team

I don't mind getting new models as needed.  My guess is that I'm going to need at least 40 more clanrats even for a 1000 point army.  Would it be worth investing in a Verminlord?  If so, which would be best for the units I have above?  While I think they were meant to be run as Clan Moulder for Spire of Dawn, I'm painting mine as Clan Skryre.

Thanks in advance!

SG

[Coyote]

Start with40 clanrats - Goal of 80 clanrats  (so 3 units of 40 if necessary) 6 Jezzails - park right next to Engneer, and at least 1 Grey Seer - maybe 2 if you eventually want the Screaming Bell

Edited June 18, 2019 by Coyote

[Hagbean]

10 hours ago, Unter said:

Read the post, Skaven, Fyreslayers, FEC and Gloomspite are all getting separate updates in 2nd week of July.

Also no way Stormvermin are coming down when Skaven are as strong as we are.

I don't disagree that they are overpointed, but unit vs unit comparisons don't really exist in this game. It's better to think of your army having an overall 'power budget', which is already overspent with great magic, cheap verminlords and monks. So it'd take really significant cuts elsewhere for them to consider any Skaven buffs I reckon.

This is the thing though, I don't want to play with monks, I want to play a Verminus themed list without being forced to just take block upon block of clanrats. Stormvermin being 500 for a max unit makes them utterly redundant.

Also to try and chime in on your debate you've been having with @Gwendar I don't really understand the point you keep making about BS immunity. The faction inherently has poor bravery and hordes of chaff, without forms of BS immunity we'd be completely useless, is there wiggle room for it to be nerfed? Sure why not it does seem slightly too strong in the situations you described, so tell me how exactly would you balance it? Point increases? Surely people will just bite the bullet and say "huh well I guess I get 10 less of X so I can fit my BS immunity in".

I personally think that;
-Monks/Verminlords/Skryre/WLV need to see point increases.
-Something needs to be done to bring Moulder/Verminus/Eshin back into the fold

There needs to be more of an incentive to take single-clan lists, specifically Moulder/Verminus/Eshin, as there currently isn't much at all. I'm not a huge fan of mixed lists as they consists of overpowered auto-includes and it ruins the fun for both parties included in playing imo.

edit: Hence my hope of Stormvermin being discounted by even a tiny amount, it would open up a nice little spot for something else to be included in Verminus lists. They need to add another battalion for both Moulder/Verminus/Eshin also, instead of just dumping a bunch on Pestilens/Skryre.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Hagbean

[Skreech Verminking]

6 hours ago, Hagbean said:

edit: Hence my hope of Stormvermin being discounted by even a tiny amount, it would open up a nice little spot for something else to be included in Verminus lists. They need to add another battalion for both Moulder/Verminus/Eshin also, instead of just dumping a bunch on Pestilens/Skryre.

Yeah I’m really hoping that they’ll be getting a 20 points decrease.

and it really would be nice to have a few more battalions, especially one which combines a few clans rather than only supporting one.

[Kramer]

On 6/17/2019 at 4:48 PM, Gwendar said:

Now, whether or not this means (or if it's even true) the placements ranges are toned down or the amount of scenery that has to be placed is toned down or a mixture of both is uncertain. Personally, my local meta will not be using the 10 pieces of terrain rules and I've seen a lot of TO's be against it as it actively promotes players ****** each other with terrain placement which can lead to some BM.. this is hard to get around when most\all battleplans got a player territory reduction.

I do hope it's not less terrain. I like my tables with at least 10 pieces. But I get the problem they have with regulating terrain. Maybe the faction terrain should only be within 6" of deployment zones or touching you deployment zone or something.

[Hagbean]

1 hour ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Yeah I’m really hoping that they’ll be getting a 20 points decrease.

and it really would be nice to have a few more battalions, especially one which combines a few clans rather than only supporting one.

It's just so disappointing that the number of battalions looks like this;
Pestilens = 4
Skryre = 6
Verminus = 1
Moulder = 1
Eshin = 1
It's like the other 3 clans were/are a complete afterthought. Let's be honest as well you're forced into playing horde-y chaff lists for pretty much all of Verminus/Moulder/Eshin if you want to do well, that's fine as it goes with the fluff and all but there's no dynamism to the list building.

[Saodexan]

1 minute ago, Hagbean said:

It's just so disappointing that the number of battalions looks like this;
Pestilens = 4
Skryre = 6
Verminus = 1
Moulder = 1
Eshin = 1
It's like the other 3 clans were/are a complete afterthought. Let's be honest as well you're forced into playing horde-y chaff lists for pretty much all of Verminus/Moulder/Eshin if you want to do well, that's fine as it goes with the fluff and all but there's no dynamism to the list building.

Skryre only have 1 battalion too, the other are Enginecoven that do not count for bonus artefacts/command point. They are mandatory to complete the one and only Skryre battalions. But i agree battalions are definitely a big weakness and disappointment for the Skaventide Battletomes.

[Hagbean]

3 minutes ago, Saodexan said:

Skryre only have 1 battalion too, the other are Enginecoven that do not count for bonus artefacts/command point. They are mandatory to complete the one and only Skryre battalions. But i agree battalions are definitely a big weakness and disappointment for the Skaventide Battletomes.

You still get bonus's though? Sure the lack of cp/artefact sucks but there's still SOMETHING to say "oh look if you take X you'll get X"

My bad though I didn't actually know about the fact they don't count for cp/artefacts.

Although Skryre get absolutely no sympathy from me in that regard as they're insanely strong.

[Skreech Verminking]

18 minutes ago, Saodexan said:

Skryre only have 1 battalion too, the other are Enginecoven that do not count for bonus artefacts/command point. They are mandatory to complete the one and only Skryre battalions. But i agree battalions are definitely a big weakness and disappointment for the Skaventide Battletomes.

There are actually two.

one which is represented in the book an the other which came with carrion empires, and probably will be gone by the time the next ghb will be available.

 

[Unter]

23 hours ago, Gwendar said:

@Unter Again, you keep bringing up the same unit; Monks. I have agreed every time that they need a points change, I don't dispute that. It's also likely that Verminlords will get an increase (Warpseer in particular) so I don't dispute that either. But outside of those things (and Death Frenzying Monks), what exactly makes us overpowered? Is Gristlegore attacking 4 times before you even get a chance not worse? What about Slaanesh's fight last or summoning capability? Fyreslayers ability to sit on an objective and be un-moveable and pile in to attack when they die, like Death Frenzy?

What I do dispute is your opinion on BS immunity. 13" is not "enormous".. We have the tools to answer it, sure, but overall our bravery characteristic is incredibly low and that's dangerous.. especially with bravery-related abilities being somewhat common. In that same vein, don't other factions also have weaknesses that get plugged by their own buffs? 

Stormvermin absolutely need to come down. There's no reason a unit with the stats that it has is 500 points for a max unit. I disagree that you can't compare units.. you absolutely can. You should be comparing them to Witch Aelves or Bestigors, etc. and their un-buffed statlines and you can see the problem with their points. There's a reason people spam Monks and not Stormvermin; the efficiency you get from their point cost is absurd and you simply can't do that with Stormvermin with how they're currently costed. I'm not saying they need to be 300 points for 40, but 500 is nonsense for what they do.

I just want you to name all of these "rafts of things" that make us so strong, is all. I think we all agree we're strong... but not as much as you tend to make out.

Actually I don't just keep bringing up monks, I also have brought up our BS immunity, Death Frenzy, undercosted Verminlords and Warp Lightning Vortex.

Let's start with some figures so we are having a more informed discussion:



This is a statistical breakdown of the performance of all factions at tournaments. A full breakdown of the stats and more detail on the data is provided at the following link: https://aosshorts.com/age-of-sigmar-power-rankings/

Data cannot tell you the whole story but it can provide an informed starting point. 
 

To have an informed discussion it also helps to differentiate objective facts from subjective opinion.

 

I’ll present objective facts first – proof that Skaven are one of the most successful armies in the game. Followed by a subjective opinion on why I think that is.

 

Objective:

 

From a quick look at win rate, we can see that since release Skaven are behind only 3 other factions. Slaanesh (though their sample size is small), DoK and FEC.

 

Skaven also have the 3rd highest number of 5 Win tournaments out of any army. Tellingly, Skaven reached eleven 5 Win tournaments in half the amount of games it took Legions of Nagash to reach 15.

 

To win a 5 game tournament, you will in almost every case need a 5-0 score. FEC & LON are the only army with a higher number of 5 Win tournaments. 5-0 scores are also proof of effectiveness against other strong armies. It is comparatively straightforward to go 4-0 at a tournament, but by the fifth game you are playing against the best players with the best lists. The fact that Skaven can win a lot of these ‘top table’ games, is significant.

 

On win rate, Skaven are number 3 out of (I think) 43 factions. The sample size is pretty good as well, 37 UK events, about 10,000 matches.

 

Skaven lists were a key part of each team at the recent 6Nations tournament, and have picked up several first place finishes at major tournaments, as well as numerous 2^nd/3^rd places.

 

Subjective:

 

Skaven have reliable access to ranged mortal wounds at long range. With arcane terrain and Master of Magic, or Thanquol’s baked in +2 to cast plus arcane terrain, other melee armies are hesitant to give Skaven first turn.

 

In a melee matchup giving away first turn is often a good idea: it opens your opponent to a counter charge, and its the best time to get double turned, as your enemy is across the board. However against Skaven there is a high likelihood WLV will go off, wounding or killing your support characters and massively hindering mobility. Additionally, Warp Lightning Cannons/Jezzails can add to the pain without substantially altering Skaven’s melee threat in terms of list construction.

 

For 240 or 480 points if you want two blocks, Skaven have access to some of the most points efficient damage output in the game, which has up to 2 opportunities to fight on death.

 

This is why you can’t do like for like unit comparisons. The cheapness of monks is part of what enables Skaven lists to provide so much ranged threat. There is no meaningful choice for Skaven players to make, i.e: do I take an extremely powerful melee unit or do I take ranged threat? We can just do both, while Death Frenzy counters one our closest competitors: FEC.

 

Successful Skaven lists are also not mono-build. Gristlegore’s list picks itself with a few variations, DoK lists are almost all Hag-Narr and standard builds, most Idoneth lists revolve around 18+ eels. Slaanesh have more variety but it looks like the current wisdom is around double or triple Keeper.

 

Skaven have won big tournaments with Monk blocks, with 3 or 4 Verminlords and endless spells, and with shooting lists. 6N winning team played a triple Screaming Bell list which went 4-1 against the best players from the other participating countries, losing only to a well-played FEC.

 

The variety of winning Skaven lists suggest the whole book is powerful, and that undercosted areas of the book give Skaven players options elsewhere.

 

Skaven lists also do not eat command points at the same rate as other top lists. We can regenerate CP when Masterclan heroes use points, and through our BS immunity auras we need CP far less for Inspiring Presence.

 

FEC chew through CP for their damage as do Slaanesh (though Slaanesh generate them too).

 

This means Skaven lists don’t need to save points for CP – most GristleGore lists come in around 1850 - and we aren’t reliant on them for our damage output.

 

NOW – I’m not complaining, I love Skaven, I love them being strong, and I’ve enjoyed playing them while they’ve been easily one of the best armies in the game.

 

I do not however think that Skaven are the single best army in the game, I think FEC and DoK are stronger and that we’ll see Fyreslayers and Slaanesh come up.

 

I agree with you that they should not be over-nerfed. From the points changes so far it seems that GW are being conservative with nerfs and that’s a good thing.

 

That said, I doubt we will get many points changes as compensation for the nerfs. I hope we do, as I’d love to play Stormvermin and Verminus lists too. I also don’t think mono-Skryre really competes so in an ideal world we’d see some rebalancing there.

 

However since FEC and Skaven’s release they have shot right to the top of the charts in terms of performance, major tournament wins and overall win rate, to the extent that I don’t think you can argue they aren’t one of the top armies in the game.

 

I think we can probably agree on that, and that it helps our cause to face up to the fact that Skaven just have more to offer than the vast majority of armies.

Edited June 19, 2019 by Unter

[Skreech Verminking]

I agree with you on almost all of the terms.

yes, we have probably one of the best tools for shooting.

yes plague monks are one of the cheapest army destroying units in the whole game and definitely need an increase in points.

and yes we have a fantastic range of magicians in our range like Verminlord warpseer, Thanqoul, grey seer etc.

and yes the WPV can deal immense amount of damage while nerving the movement etc. Of enemy units.

what I don’t agree is that our battleshock immunity makes us almost unbeatably.

sure it hinters thousand of models fleeing from a unit, but come on there are units out there that’ll kill slay 40models per turn.

Buffed  witch aelves (30) are even able to kill 120-140 of them  in a single round of combat, if you let them (meaning bad placement)

They won’t care if your battleshock immun or not.

also I mean the screaming bell doesn’t keep your whole army Bs immun.

in total you might get two 40rat units of clanrats/Stormvermins etc into the range of its bs buff.

and a few other behind the line which will probably not loose to many models anyway.

I agree with you on every aspect but just not the bs immunity one.

 

 

 

[Coyote]

I wish we’d leave the Monks alone, I love them but they’re not battleline.  I play good opponents, and the monks have great wound output, but the opponent spends his 1CP to pass the Shock and we move on.  

I would argue they are really the only unit we have to field like that, and if I’m fielding them I’m probably not fielding my Jezzails, etc.

The monks fit the theme of the army, and if we buff them - well, that means we aren’t buffing another unit.  It still takes good generalship to get the right unit to hit the right target at the right time, and if the opponent charges us first - well that takes some of the plague fumes out of the rotting flesh-sails.

i

I will be surprised if we see much or any modification to prices, except the Forge World stuff.  

[Gwendar]

6 hours ago, Kramer said:

I do hope it's not less terrain. I like my tables with at least 10 pieces. But I get the problem they have with regulating terrain. Maybe the faction terrain should only be within 6" of deployment zones or touching you deployment zone or something.

Considering the max sizes (I read them wrong at first) the 10 pieces isn't what's terrible... I think it's the restrictiveness of the 6" away that makes it feel cluttered and faction terrain almost impossible to put out.

I still see the biggest problem as people gaming it to prevent your opponent from placing their terrain and that shouldn't be enforced.. although I think there's a rule stating that TO's can set it up beforehand.

1 hour ago, Unter said:

Actually I don't just keep bringing up monks, I also have brought up our BS immunity, Death Frenzy, undercosted Verminlords and Warp Lightning Vortex.

This is a statistical breakdown of the performance of all factions at tournaments *snip* I’ll present objective facts first – proof that Skaven are one of the most successful armies in the game. Followed by a subjective opinion on why I think that is.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

1. Skaven have reliable access to ranged mortal wounds at long range. With arcane terrain and Master of Magic, or Thanquol’s baked in +2 to cast plus arcane terrain, other melee armies are hesitant to give Skaven first turn.

2. In a melee matchup giving away first turn is often a good idea: it opens your opponent to a counter charge, and increases your chance to win priority for t2 because you win the tie. However against Skaven there is a high likelihood WLV will go off, wounding or killing your support characters and massively hindering mobility. Additionally, Warp Lightning Cannons/Jezzails can add to the pain without substantially altering Skaven’s melee threat in terms of list construction.

3. This is why you can’t do like for like unit comparisons. The cheapness of monks is part of what enables Skaven lists to provide so much ranged threat. There is no meaningful choice for Skaven players to make, i.e: do I take an extremely powerful melee unit or do I take ranged threat? We can just do both, while Death Frenzy counters one our closest competitors: FEC.

4. Successful Skaven lists are also not mono-build. Gristlegore’s list picks itself with a few variations, DoK lists are almost all Hag-Narr and standard builds, most Idoneth lists revolve around 18+ eels. Slaanesh have more variety but it looks like the current wisdom is around double or triple Keeper.

5. The variety of winning Skaven lists suggest the whole book is powerful, and that undercosted areas of the book give Skaven players options elsewhere.

6. Skaven lists also do not eat command points at the same rate as other top lists. We can regenerate CP when Masterclan heroes use points, and through our BS immunity auras we need CP far less for Inspiring Presence.

7. Skaven lists don’t need to save points for CP – most GristleGore lists come in around 1850 - and we aren’t reliant on them for our damage output.

 

I don’t think you can argue they aren’t one of the top armies in the game.

 

I think we can probably agree on that, and that it helps our cause to face up to the fact that Skaven just have more to offer than the vast majority of armies.

You're right, you have. And I've agreed on those fronts, but does WLV need a points increase or a warscroll change? It's an incredibly strong tool and the reason we get most of the hate and it's easy to get off with all of + to casts or re-rolls. What I don't understand is why it almost seems like you think we don't need to have any advantages. Every faction in this game has distinct advantages in some regard that allow them to compete and have weaknesses (of which you believe we have none\very little if I recall). Yeah, you're right, we've done well at Tournaments.. but plenty of others have as you've said so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make other than "Skaven shouldn't be doing so well at Tournaments so they need to be nerfed and let someone else have a turn". Someone else will absolutely get a turn, believe me.. that's how it works.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To not take up a huge amount of the page again, I'm going to hide these:

Spoiler

1. Like I said above, that would be considered a distinct advantage that we have. We literally only have monks (as Stormvermin are too overcosted) for an incredibly strong melee unit. If you take away our strong spellcasting and shooting AND Monks without doing something with Stormvermin.... what are we left with?

2. Going back to the first point, I see this as strategy that your opponent needs to consider as do you for deployment. I've easily been charged T1 despite deploying far back and deepstrike armies that can get right in my face (Fyreslayers, SC, NH, BoC, etc) will still end up hitting my lines right out of the gate and tend to only leave things they don't care about on the board to be hit with WLV. Again, what do you suggest they do for WLV? A points increase of ~20-40 won't change this from still being taken, I can promise you that.

3. I don't use Monks and not every list does, so I disagree that every winning list is taking 40-80 of them and that's what's winning the games. We've always been a jack-of-all-trades army and that hasn't changed.. but if we don't have some power in some regard (IE; Ranged + Magic) we're suddenly plummeting back down to bottom tier where we used to be. Our ability to do both well is a problem, yes, but you need to change Monks to fix that, not Jezzails or WLC's.

4. You're right, they're not mono build but I never argued that. What I will argue is that Monks are not also an auto-include. We've also seen plenty of top results from players taking 6-9 Jezzails, 1-2 Doomwheels and 20-30 Acolytes, 9+ Stormfiends.. which are all very ranged focus lists and it's what I revolve my lists around as well. Do I think this means that our shooting needs to get nerfed? Nope. If we can't be a jack-of-all-trades then we need a strength and that should be in Shooting + Magic.

5. Yes, it is powerful... but again, this has been the case for almost every book released recently. So what do you suggest? Nerf everything so that we aren't strong anymore? They've largely been giving people points increases rather than warscroll changes and I think that can only do so much. You will absolutely still see similar results from the top tables after these changes. There are still worse factions out there that will likely take over our placings, which you seem to agree on.

6\7. Our CP generation can* be strong, but like everything else in this game, it's a dice roll and where some games I've had 5 CP in the bank, other's I've only had the 1 granted each Hero phase. What happens when you get charged T1 by them taking the first turn and you don't have any spare CP to BS immune all your 4-6 bravery units? You aren't going to be winning most objectives games without those Clanrats and everything that was behind them is now vulnerable. The Gristlegore problem will be changed with the CP limit of going under 50 points. I spend my CP on "At the double" and "Rerolling charges" much of the time but.. yeah, I mean what else am I going to do when we don't have any meaningful unique CA's other than the Verminlords or Clawlord? The new generic CA's are going to be great, especially for us.. but other factions also generate CP or they can bring along Brooch for replenishment.

I don't argue that we aren't one of the top armies in the game.. I know we are. What I want you to see is that that's okay. Everyone get's their time to shine, but nerfs have to be carefully considered or else you risk going too far and making it C-F tier again.

I will respectfully disagree on your final point. I love the fact that we have variety in builds because it's incredibly boring to play my other armies that typically have only 1-2 valid competitive lists. As I've said before, we've always been a jack-of-all-trades and if it remains that way, it's fine.. just tone down what needs to be toned down (Monks, Verminlord point costs, WLV..however you do that). If you want that to be taken away, then we need to continue to be left with strong magic and shooting. Try to think of what the yet-to-be-updated armies will have in store (like, say, Tzeenth or Seraphon.. or the TK coming back as a shooting army like Tom Lyons suggests)..

...and then we're right back in the same boat, wishing we could be buffed to compete with these factions. I'll leave it at that.. I respectfully disagree and your opinions can remain yours. I don't see us changing each others minds and that's okay.. in a couple weeks we'll see what happens and I'll still love and play them just like you will regardless of what happens because we all love our ratboi's for the playstyle, models and lore.

Edited June 19, 2019 by Gwendar

[Unter]

Well I’m not at any point arguing that any of those facets should be taken away? I’m saying we need a points tuning so Skaven players have meaningful choices, on which we agree.

 

I also am fine with us being one of the strongest, I’d rather it stayed that way personally, and yes others will catch up but that’s the game. Look at LoN, with Grims up to 420 I think Nagash is gone for some time, I’m hoping we avoid that fate and am confident we will, cause we aren’t mono build.

 

I’d agree WLV is a scroll issue not a points one. Change it so it only goes off once in the turn it goes down and I honestly think it’s fine.  

 

In my opinion the most useful measurement of what’s OP can be taken from the percentage of tournament performances which are 5-0, or the pace at which armies accumulate 5-0 finishes. Legions of Nagash have taken 200 games to reach 15 of these, Skaven have taken 100 games to reach 11. FEC – which I agree are stronger than Skaven, have 17 5-0 tournmanets in only 122 games, which is absolutely obscene.

 

On your other point clearly Skaven have weaknesses, just less weaknesses than almost any other faction, and weaknesses that aren’t effectively countered in the meta. FEC for example are glaringly weak to shooting, but the fact is that in the current meta shooting lists don’t tend to get rewarded for their choice over 5 games, so they often aren’t playing vs FEC in game 5, as they’ll struggle versus other mid-tier lists.

 

For example at 6N you can see a higher proportion of shooting (KO, Stormcast shooting/Rukk), compared to a singles tournament. That’s largely to pick them into favoured matchups against FEC which you can do in a team event.

 

Therefore although you might say FEC are weak to shooting, because shooting is weak in general their natural predators are gone. I don’t think the meta has figured out yet what Skaven’s real weaknesses are, or how to create a reliably 4-1 / 5-0 list that can go toe to toe with good players playing good Skaven lists later on in tournaments.

 

For that reason I’m supportive of the generally conservative approach GW has taken to nerfs so far, and with a wee bit of tuning let’s hope the meta shifts gradually.

[ServiceGames]

Does it stay within the lore to have Clanrats in a unit with different colored fur, robes, and armor? Or are they all very similar to each other for each army?

Thanks

SG

[Skreech Verminking]

17 minutes ago, ServiceGames said:

Does it stay within the lore to have Clanrats in a unit with different colored fur, robes, and armor? Or are they all very similar to each other for each army?

Thanks

SG

That’s up to you.

but basically the clanrats still take what ever they find on the battlefield, so go nuts.

[Congratz]

Just saw the Bobo list that used 4 Verminlords. 
Can anyone explainme how this works? Is it to cast spells or what?

[Gwendar]

On 6/19/2019 at 2:11 PM, Congratz said:

Just saw the Bobo list that used 4 Verminlords. 
Can anyone explainme how this works? Is it to cast spells or what?

It's rather technical, but yes it revolves around the spell-casting and Corrupter, for the most part. The order of operations in your teleports + spells to choose from makes it pretty fun and effective.. assuming you can actually get your casts off, of course.

Essentially you'll be finding a good target for the Corrupter with SoJ and Skitterleap it 6.1" away with the Deceivers spell. Then it can be in range to throw out Dreaded Plague + an endless spell on a unit.. at the same time you can use your other Skitterleap to teleport another Verminlord (likely the Warpseer with MoM) near a Gnawhole to cast WLV\another endless spell + Warpgale and he will be able to teleport back to safety during movement with the Gnawhole. You also have access to Spellportal to get other spells through in the relative safety of your deployment while the Clanrats provide screening\objective control.

The Corrupter will likely delete any hero\monster it charges and can wipe out\cripple hordes with Dreaded Plague so it will likely make its points back even if it gets killed next turn. WLV + Shackles\Vermintide + Warpgale will do it's thing and cripple\kill units or small heroes. The idea is generally to keep them tied up and distracted in their own deployment starting T1 and whittle them down with spells. With the endless spell points changes (and likely some of the Verminlords going up) this composition will be a bit different.

I'm actually running an offshoot of it this weekend with Thanquol over Skreech and the Grey Seer so I'll be doing reports on the 1-2 games with it.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Gwendar