AoS 2 - Skaventide Discussion

[Clinch]

It's going to be interesting to see which of the weapon options would be optimal to equip them with now. I'm glad they simplified the scroll as it was very overcomplicated before, but it does feel like a small nerf at least. I guess we'll have the math for it soon.

[Umjammerlama]

Would people arm them with blades or stave and blades?

[Laststand]

12 minutes ago, Darkhan said:

Imo, you still want them in 40, since the removed the rerolling hits:/

So you get the +1 hit +1 wound buff.

Of course! I forgot that. So 40 with blades are kicking out 3at on the charge 2+, 3+. That is still very good. 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Laststand
Typo

[angrycontra]

I love the new warscroll. It makes playing plaguemonks gazillion times faster while still keeping them as glass cannon infantry. High saves hurt them but like I said earlier in this thread, so it should. Also as a side note, verminlord corruptor's command ability just became much more useful, since now plague monks with blades don't have hit rerolls by default. Also this also makes censer bearers more useful (not competetive still probably) since they have rend while plague monks don't.

[MisterJoshua]

41 minutes ago, Laststand said:

Of course! I forgot that. So 40 with blades are kicking out 3at on the charge 2+, 3+. That is still very good. 

Your point about small units is valid though. Units of 10 are better now than before, even if Monks in general function better in bigger numbers.

Edited December 18, 2019 by MisterJoshua

[Drcrabs]

Hello fellow rats! First time posting, getting back into the hobby with Skaven but wanted to wait until after this winter faq to post here. After all changes this was the list I was going to run except I was going to use vigordust injector but decided to switch to skavenbrew to regain some monk attacks. Let me know what you guys think, yes-yes!

 

Allegiance: Skaventide

Leaders
Arch-Warlock (160)
- General
- Trait: Overseer of Destruction
- Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: More-more-more Warp Power!

Grey Seer on Screaming Bell (240)
- Lore of Ruin: Death Frenzy
- Artifact: Skavenbrew
 

Plague Priest on Furnace (200)

Battleline
20 x Clanrats (120)
- Blades
20 x Clanrats (120)
- Blades
20 x Clanrats (120)
- Blades

Units
40 x Plague Monks (280)
- Blade & Woe Staves
40 x Plague Monks (280)
- Blade & Woe Staves
20 x Skryre Acolytes (240)
4 x 1 Ratling Gun (240)

2,000 points on the dot

[Skreech Verminking]

Well looking at the changes I guess stormvermins are still a worse option to take instead of plague monks.

Although I do like the simple change that makes those plague monks so mich easier to play.

 

[Gwendar]

Yeah.. I'm kind of with everyone here, especially with the math from @Ineffectual Clawlord showing it a bit better. I largely stopped using Monks due to the bookkeeping aspect of them, and they're much easier to play now. I'm still not sure if I really want to run them, but I'll give them a go a few times and see how they work out.

This change really does open my eyes to Stormvermins overcosting even more. I would like for them to be higher than Monks obviously, but 400 for 40 is still... odd. I briefly considered running 20 after this change but the damage still doesn't seem to be there compared to 40 Monks for 40 more points. Oh well.

For now, I'll consider running this as an alternative comp build:

Spoiler

Allegiance: Skaventide

Leaders
Grey Seer on Screaming Bell (240)
- General
- Trait: Master of Magic
- Lore of Ruin: Death Frenzy
Warlock Engineer (100)
- Artefact: Vigordust Injector
- Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: More-more-more Warp Power!
Warlock Engineer (100)
- Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: More-more-more Warp Power!
Grey Seer (140)
- Lore of Ruin: Skitterleap

Battleline
40 x Clanrats (200)
- Rusty Blade
40 x Clanrats (200)
- Rusty Blade
20 x Clanrats (120)
- Rusty Blade

Units
40 x Plague Monks (280)
- Woe-stave
6 x Stormfiends (520)

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Warp Lightning Vortex (100)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 204
 

I somewhat considered dropping the Monks for 20 Gutter Runners + a Bridge for the Fiends but... yeah, Eshin still can't compete unfortunately. With the change to the Fiends it really just allows me to take a Grey Seer to Skitterleap an Engineer for WLV. An alternative to that is 6 Jezzails for hero sniping, but to be honest I can usually kill those same squishy 5-6 wound hero's with some decent rolls T1\2 with the WLV anyway and having the Grey Seer around for -1 to hit is nice to have.

We'll see how it does... I've been busy playing OBR but I'll probably take a break for a little bit and run Skaven for awhile and working out the kinks on this.

[Darkhan]

@Gwendar have you ever tried a Verminlord Deceiver with a gnawbomb? To get 40 monks behind enemy lines?
Been toying with the idea these couple days.

[Congratz]

People still think Stormfiends are good in units of 6? I can see why one would rather use Jezzails now

What about Plague Monks? Still worth using? Skryre Acolytes might be better now with that 20" threat range?

[Gwendar]

10 minutes ago, Darkhan said:

@Gwendar have you ever tried a Verminlord Deceiver with a gnawbomb? To get 40 monks behind enemy lines?
Been toying with the idea these couple days.

I considered it but never really care to try it as they still need to make a long charge and without Cogs I find it to risky. I can just march them up with the Bell and that tends to work well enough. The only reason I can see to take my Deceiver now is the only way I've ever used him; In my magic list with a SoJ Corruptor that it can Dreaded Skitterleap.

Not to say that idea isn't bad as a lot of people were doing it with Monks\Fiends but just not something I care as much for.

@Congratz 6 Fiends fully buffed are still going to do (basic math here unlike some of you other mathy types who can give more accurate results 😉) around 30 damage on average with Cannons + Launchers; Jezzails will never hit close to that mark. I think running 6 Fiends and 6 or 9 Jezzails to supplement is a great idea now though as Jezzails don't need MMMWP. Acolytes are still... a tough choice I think because there's now no confusion that they need to be on 32's. They obliterate things, but I don't think you should run them along with Fiends as both units wants to be fully buffed.

[Darkhan]

5 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

I considered it but never really care to try it as they still need to make a long charge and without Cogs I find it to risky. I can just march them up with the Bell and that tends to work well enough. The only reason I can see to take my Deceiver now is the only way I've ever used him; In my magic list with a SoJ Corruptor that it can Dreaded Skitterleap.

Not to say that idea isn't bad as a lot of people were doing it with Monks\Fiends but just not something I care as much for.

@Congratz 6 Fiends fully buffed are still going to do (basic math here unlike some of you other mathy types who can give more accurate results 😉) around 30 damage on average with Cannons + Launchers; Jezzails will never hit close to that mark. I think running 6 Fiends and 6 or 9 Jezzails to supplement is a great idea now though as Jezzails don't need MMMWP. Acolytes are still... a tough choice I think because there's now no confusion that they need to be on 32's. They obliterate things, but I don't think you should run them along with Fiends as both units wants to be fully buffed.

Woah, you can actually fit 9 jezzailz, with 6 fiends.

Bell - 240

Engineer - 100

3x20 clan rats - 120,120,120

9 jezzails - 420

6 stormfiends - 520

40 plague monks - 280

Soulscream bridge - 80

2000 points on the dot

[Congratz]

@Gwendar Ahh okay i see. I never got to use 9 fiends, i bought the last 3 this weekend and then the FAQ hit
I was thinking about going with this list:
 

Spoiler

Allegiance: Skaventide

Leaders
Arch-Warlock (160)
- General
- Trait: Deranged Inventor
- Artefact: Vigordust Injector
- Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: More-more-more Warp Power!
Verminlord Warpseer (320)
Grey Seer on Screaming Bell (240)
- Lore of Ruin: Warpgale

Battleline
40 x Clanrats (200)
- Rusty Blade
20 x Clanrats (120)
- Rusty Blade
20 x Clanrats (120)
- Rusty Blade

Units
40 x Plague Monks (280)
- Foetid Blades
6 x Stormfiends (520)

Total: 1960/ 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 187

I just don't know if the 40 Monks are worth it anymore! Sure if they are buffed with +1 Attack/reroll hit and Wound but without im not so sure. I really don't know what to do about it! 

see your point with not using Acolytes with stormfiends.

Also: Is Warpseer and Bell  still worth the +20 points? 

[Gwendar]

@Darkhan Yep, you can, although I don't know if I would. I like having the redundancy of 2 Engineers for MMMWP. 60 Clanrats is alright, but the loss of wounds from losing 3 Stormfiends I find I want at least 100 at all times now.


@Congratz I really don't know if they are either anymore... hence why I'm going to test it out but I really want to have a decent melee unit in there (but I won't rant about Vermin anymore 😉) but it may be worth it to just go pure shooting aside from Clanrats. I find both still worth their points, absolutely. Though I still would never use them together, personally. I would rather have Engineer redundancy as stated above. Once you lose MMMWP that pretty much kills Fiends.

[Vesper]

Why do people keep saying you need 'full buffs' to make Acolytes worth it? You can easily get them up to 3s to hit and 4s to wound simply by having 30 of them with -2 and D3 damage. The only worry is that they might not be fast enough to get fully in range of what they want to kill. Even then, they're going to kill whatever they attack regardless.

Same 6+ save plague monks have, hardly any work when rolling. They're simply hard to obtain, but things like this (Scroll down to the priests) and this (They're not even hiding who they're marketing these to) exist if you don't want to convert?

I think they're pretty solid. They will absolutely hurt anything they touch and are great to have around in case the fiends get focused down. Just skitterleap the engineer to the acolytes and buff them instead! I think an alternate is to simply have a second engineer nearby? List I'm going to be putting together around march when that second link starts selling again:

Warpseer
Bell
Rocket Rat

x3x20 Clan Rats

x6 Stormfiends
x30 Acolytes

Bridge

Leaves 20 spare points which I could switch over to a second engineer for redundancy I think. In case the bombardier dies or vice versa.

[michu]

14 minutes ago, Vesper said:

(They're not even hiding who they're marketing these to)

Oh boy, I think that one qualifies for some kind of copyright infringement

[Gwendar]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

Why do people keep saying you need 'full buffs' to make Acolytes worth it? You can easily get them up to 3s to hit and 4s to wound simply by having 30 of them with -2 and D3 damage. The only worry is that they might not be fast enough to get fully in range of what they want to kill. Even then, they're going to kill whatever they attack regardless.

Same 6+ save plague monks have, hardly any work when rolling. They're simply hard to obtain, but things like this (Scroll down to the priests) and this (They're not even hiding who they're marketing these to) exist if you don't want to convert?

I think they're pretty solid. They will absolutely hurt anything they touch and are great to have around in case the fiends get focused down. Just skitterleap the engineer to the acolytes and buff them instead! I think an alternate is to simply have a second engineer nearby? 

I mean... you don't need full buffs, sure. You could easily just give them Deranged Inventor and a Spark from an Engineer.. Vigordust too if you want. The problem I tend to have is I like to work in little 'power pairs' as coined by a few others. Monks pair with the Death Frenzy of a Bell and give me a melee option which I don't get with Acolytes who also are vying for the attention of an Engineer the same way the Fiends are.

Another problem I have is those 32mm bases means less can get in T1. Unbuffed 20 are only doing ~11 damage (before Spark) if shooting at a unit with 10+ models.. fully buffed 20 of them are throwing out 24 damage (before Spark), which is less than that of 6 buffed up Fiends. All of this is assumed a targets save is 4+. Points cost is obviously way different there, but the point stands that if I wanted to buff one or the other I'm going to pick Fiends and at that point I don't see a reason to take 20 Acolytes who are only going to put out ~11 damage. That said I do see some value in exclusively using them to blow up weak save hordes but they can obviously do any job well. Fiends already have an 18"-30" threat range and you could easily have the Launchers killing a support hero\elite unit while the Cannons murder a horde. The issue I have with Acolytes split firing is that unless you have that math worked out and assume averages, it has the potential to be far worse in practice.

Like I said, I'll try running a lot of stuff over the coming months in prep for a few tournaments I'm going to next year but I think Monks still need to be looked at as a viable option.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Gwendar

[Darkhan]

@Gwendar did you ever do your skaven magic list in a tourney? If so, how did it go

[Gwendar]

4 minutes ago, Darkhan said:

@Gwendar did you ever do your skaven magic list in a tourney? If so, how did it go

Just some of the local stuff.. nothing big, but I did get 1st a couple times (anywhere from 6-10 people) but a few games were scraped by. The issue with the list is that it has potential to do a lot of damage but.. a few spells absolutely must go off or it does nothing at all for a turn. The good thing is that it has decent board control with the Clanrats and it generally doesn't matter if I'm made to go 1st or 2nd; I can punish most armies either way.

[Vesper]

47 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

I mean... you don't need full buffs, sure. You could easily just give them Deranged Inventor and a Spark from an Engineer.. Vigordust too if you want. The problem I tend to have is I like to work in little 'power pairs' as coined by a few others. Monks pair with the Death Frenzy of a Bell and give me a melee option which I don't get with Acolytes who also are vying for the attention of an Engineer the same way the Fiends are.

Another problem I have is those 32mm bases means less can get in T1. Unbuffed 20 are only doing ~11 damage (before Spark) if shooting at a unit with 10+ models.. fully buffed 20 of them are throwing out 24 damage (before Spark), which is less than that of 6 buffed up Fiends. All of this is assumed a targets save is 4+. Points cost is obviously way different there, but the point stands that if I wanted to buff one or the other I'm going to pick Fiends and at that point I don't see a reason to take 20 Acolytes who are only going to put out ~11 damage. That said I do see some value in exclusively using them to blow up weak save hordes but they can obviously do any job well. Fiends already have an 18"-30" threat range and you could easily have the Launchers killing a support hero\elite unit while the Cannons murder a horde. The issue I have with Acolytes split firing is that unless you have that math worked out and assume averages, it has the potential to be far worse in practice.

Like I said, I'll try running a lot of stuff over the coming months in prep for a few tournaments I'm going to next year but I think Monks still need to be looked at as a viable option.

Yeah, the real usage I would see for them is taking out larger hordes next to the fiends. Either way, as you stated, one unit would be left unbuffed and it really hurts their output. Maybe I'll hold off until GHB on these guys and pickup some PMs while I wait.

[Gwendar]

3 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Yeah, the real usage I would see for them is taking out larger hordes next to the fiends. Either way, as you stated, one unit would be left unbuffed and it really hurts their output. Maybe I'll hold off until GHB on these guys and pickup some PMs while I wait.

You could always run 9 Jezzails or a couple WLC's. Jezzails don't need buffs and tend to be fine to act alone and snipe a support Hero per turn or whittle away at other units. That would leave the 6 Fiends to shoot at whatever else they want. It's another route I'm looking into, depending on how my testing with Monks and Acolytes go.

[Vesper]

8 hours ago, Gwendar said:

You could always run 9 Jezzails or a couple WLC's. Jezzails don't need buffs and tend to be fine to act alone and snipe a support Hero per turn or whittle away at other units. That would leave the 6 Fiends to shoot at whatever else they want. It's another route I'm looking into, depending on how my testing with Monks and Acolytes go.

I do have 12 jezzails. So we'll see what happens in my next list. I looked at the math again and again today and decided against monks. Their output is too weak now? Sure they can put out plenty of wounds, but with things like HoS and OBR...they won't get much mileage anymore. Meanwhile jezzails have never let me down.

[Ineffectual Clawlord]

@Laststand The battle report was good fun. 3000 pt games always have this nice apocalyptic flavor. Generally, Log Cabin Gaming has a great atmosphere to their reports and it is nice to see the channel grow.

On 12/18/2019 at 12:57 PM, Umjammerlama said:

Would people arm them with blades or stave and blades?

I created a blog post trying to answer questions that appeared so far, including the question of how to equip them.

On 12/18/2019 at 1:49 PM, Drcrabs said:

Spoiler

Arch-Warlock (160)
- Trait: Overseer of Destruction
- Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: More-more-more Warp Power!
Grey Seer on Screaming Bell (240)
- Lore of Ruin: Death Frenzy
- Artifact: Skavenbrew
Plague Priest on Furnace (200)

20 x Clanrats (120)
20 x Clanrats (120)
20 x Clanrats (120)
40 x Plague Monks (280)
- Blade & Woe Staves
40 x Plague Monks (280)
- Blade & Woe Staves
20 x Skryre Acolytes (240)
4 x 1 Ratling Gun (240)

list

If you have the models already, try out how much you like all the close range shooting. For my taste, going with double PM as well as double close range combo tends towards overkill and you might want to consider some longer range.

At the very least, I'd change the Skavenbrew to Ignax's Scales. Your AW is an essential buff piece for your shooting, and if there is one thing you don't starve for with this list, it is damage. 😊

22 hours ago, Gwendar said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Allegiance: Skaventide

Leaders
Grey Seer on Screaming Bell (240)
- General
- Trait: Master of Magic
- Lore of Ruin: Death Frenzy
Warlock Engineer (100)
- Artefact: Vigordust Injector
- Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: More-more-more Warp Power!
Warlock Engineer (100)
- Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: More-more-more Warp Power!
Grey Seer (140)
- Lore of Ruin: Skitterleap

Battleline
40 x Clanrats (200)
- Rusty Blade
40 x Clanrats (200)
- Rusty Blade
20 x Clanrats (120)
- Rusty Blade

Units
40 x Plague Monks (280)
- Woe-stave
6 x Stormfiends (520)

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Warp Lightning Vortex (100)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 204
 

I somewhat considered dropping the Monks for 20 Gutter Runners + a Bridge for the Fiends but... yeah, Eshin still can't compete unfortunately. With the change to the Fiends it really just allows me to take a Grey Seer to Skitterleap an Engineer for WLV. An alternative to that is 6 Jezzails for hero sniping, but to be honest I can usually kill those same squishy 5-6 wound hero's with some decent rolls T1\2 with the WLV anyway and having the Grey Seer around for -1 to hit is nice to have.

I do occasionally take an AW with Balewind and Chain Lightning in my double Bell builds. As the Bell aura does damage 50% of the time, it tends to create a nice, although unreliable, amount of AoE pressure on non-monstrous heroes.

22 hours ago, Darkhan said:

@Gwendar have you ever tried a Verminlord Deceiver with a gnawbomb? To get 40 monks behind enemy lines?

It's used occasionally with Fiends or PM, but compared to the bridge it does have disadvantage of being once per game and you "wasting" your artifact. It can most certainly catch your opponent of guard though, which is why these lists did have some success.

18 hours ago, Vesper said:

Why do people keep saying you need 'full buffs' to make Acolytes worth it? You can easily get them up to 3s to hit and 4s to wound simply by having 30 of them with -2 and D3 damage. The only worry is that they might not be fast enough to get fully in range of what they want to kill. Even then, they're going to kill whatever they attack regardless.

 

The argument is not that Acolytes without MMMWP aren't good (they aren't great however), but rather that you miss out on too much. They do normally hit 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4 = 4/16 of the time before armour. With MMMWP the equation changes to 3/4 x 3/4 = 9/16. It more than doubles the number of hits.

It's the same for Stormfiends. As they trade some damage for tankiness, it's usually preferred to buff them, as you invested so much more and to make them an efficient use of your points you want to maximize their effect.

As you pointed out, you could use Deranged Inventor as your command trait. This directly competes with Overseer of Destruction however, which for the same investment will net you more damage when going down the Ratling route.

Personally I always found large (>20) blocks of Acolytes too unwieldy, but that's primarily because I feel naked without at least 120 melee models. Hopefully you will find more success and fun with them!

Edited December 19, 2019 by Ineffectual Clawlord

[Darkhan]

I think it's still atleast worth trying 9 stormfiends now, just to see how it affected them, 6 +3, and just treat them as one unit. Gonna try it this Saturday! And see how they do.

MMWP the unit of 6, Deranged the unit of 3, and use the bridge. Sure they will lose some dps, but I may also be able to negate some overkilling. We'll see!

Ill ask a math engineer geek friend right now infact, and ask for the math! Ill post it here.

 

[Ineffectual Clawlord]

@Darkhan I made a table a while ago that lists the Skryre units and how they interact with different buffs, which might be helpful if you try to compare who to use MMMWP, Deranged Inventor e.a. on.