AoS 2 - Skaventide Discussion

[GeneralZero]

Fun for sure, see above with several vermilords and/or heavy magic

[Skreech Verminking]

Hi guys just wondering what your oppinion was to this conversation work I was doing.

I know that it technically shouldn’t be a paper of our community, since it will they will be mostly used in 40k but hey they are still apart of the great pantheon of the great horned rat, so I figured, why not ask all of you, great followers of the mightiest of all chaos gods, (the horned rat).

So hier we have my kill team who’ll be replacing those mutated  genstealers thingies.

[Raskata]

Battle Report time! (wall of text sorry not sorry) 

So today i got to try out our new Battle tome in a 1500pts game! I played a very good friend and he brought a pure Nighthaunt list.

My List was:

Spoiler

Leaders:
Verminlord Warpseer
       - General, Master of Magic
Grey Seer
      - Skavenbrew, Warpgale
Warlock 
Clawlord
     -the +3 attacks thing once per battle (cant remember the name)
Battleline:
40x clanrats
40x clanrats
Other:
WLC
2x warpfire throwers
Doomwheel.

 

His List:

Spoiler

Leaders:
Knight of Shrouds on foot 
Lantern wizard
Ghost with locks (artifact made him a wizard)
Lord Executioner
Battleline:
20x chainrasps
20x chainrasps
Other:
5 Sword ghosts (bladegeist?)
5 Sword ghosts
4 Banshees
2 chaingasts
8 glaivewraith stalkers
2 Batallions (shroudguard and the condemned i think)

So we get Scorched Earth battle plan, and no realmscape features.  He finishes deploying first, opts for me to have 1st turn

Battle Round 1

Spoiler

Turn 1 Skaven
Every single spell cast failed, except for mystic shield (yay!) - I move very little, just getting my guys on all 3 of my own objectives, doomwheel shoots off and goes 16" getting into range of one of his chainrasp hordes. In the shooting phase the doomwheel removes like 4 chainrasps . My cannon rolls a 5 for power, takes 2 wounds of the knight of shrouds.  No charges.
Turn 1 Nighthaunt.
What few chainrasps that where killed got returned easily, the 2 chain dude unit shoots the Doomwheel, takes like 2 wounds off it, then it gets charged with a 10'er  from the chainrasp horde, they immediately fight and bring it to 3 wounds remaining. Then in the actual fight phase they finish off the Doomwheel. On the other flank a unit of 5 sword geists make their charge into 40 clanrats, Nothing much happens, he rolls below average and so do i. I lose like 5 clanrats.

Score Rats 3-3 Nighthaunt

Battleround 2:
I win the roll off and avoid a scary double turn - infact we didn't have a single double turn all game!

Spoiler

Turn 2 Skaven:
Again a terrible magic phase, nothing goes off except a regular Warpgale that kills my Grey Seer (second turn can you believe it? XD) - In my movement phase, even though my Doomwheel didnt end up doing much and dying turn 1, it did set me up for a pretty good counter charge with my other 40 clanrats, and they brought a warpfire thrower with them. In the shooting phase the warpfire thrower overcharges and deals a whoping 17 mortal wounds to the chainrasps, and as a big bonus it did not kill itself! The Clanrats charge in and finish off the unit. On my other flank, my clanrats had retreated and counter charged; this turned out to be a terrible idea - i managed to tie up all 10 of the blade/sword geists and the knight of shrouds, and the banshees - but obviously a lot of rats died in that coming combat! In the shooting phase my cannon overcharges and rolls another 5, does 4 mortal wounds to one of the bladegheist units, leaving just 1 standing, and in miraculous fashion only takes 2 mortal wounds himself. Overall still slow, my mortal wound output is for sure not there yet (apart from the flamer).
Nighthaunt turn 2
A truly devastating turn for Skaven, the rats holding the big side flank almost gets wiped, but thanks to the warpseer's command ability they stay on the board with like 12 models - a single bladegheist makes a retreat and charge into my second warpfire and rolls a 10 for the charge. the double combat kills it. The other flank is a different story, the clanrats + clawlord manage to hold of the grimgast dudes despite losing the grey seer. 

Score : Rats 6-6 Nighthant 

Battle Round 3

Spoiler

Skaven turn 3
Ok, so this turn was a big big turnaround for the Skaven, magic phase goes very well - my warlocks lightning manages to kill the single model bladegheist unit. My verminlord manages to kill off some banshees with 3 mortal wounds from his dreaded warpgale, and at this point i'm feeling the dice luck turning! I overcharge my cannon again, and roll a 3 for power, 8 mortal wounds later the Knight of Shrouds is dead - again the cannon doesn't die but is left at just 2 wounds remaining. My Verminlord charges the remaining bladegheists + the lock ghost hero - he doesn't kill anything. On the other flank, it's still a stalemate, with nothing much happening - the clanrats are slowly dying and not enough of the grimghast reapers. The 12 clanrats manage to retreat towards an objective and counter charge in the direction of his remaining banshees (bringing them with distance of one of his backfield objectives) - but its contested and i dont score it.
Nighthaunt turn 3
With his one flank now being kinda spread out, and with the knight of shroud dead, he starts losing buffs/summoning, and as a whole it kinda starts falling apart on that flank, and crucially he fails both his summoning spell and returns only 3 of the glaivewraiths, he does manage to get his remaining lock ghost on an objective that i left, and he scorches it, the bladegeist keep the Verminlord busy - he wipes the unit in combat. On the other side, he has brought his lord executioner to the fight + the 20 chainrasps to stop me from taking the objective there - looking grim for the Skaven points wise. The 12 clanrats on his objective are charged by the remaining banshees - a single rat remains alive there! amazing!
Score : Rats 7 - 9 Nighthaunt 

Battle round 4 

Spoiler

Skaven turn 4
A very crucial turn - magic phase goes well again, the engineer manages to kill off his lock ghost (the objective had been scorched but still) - and VERY crucially, the verminlord wipes the banshees with his warpgale - with a single rat on an objective, a rat that should have been dead, suddenly looked to score D3 points. My Cannon is ready to die, and so i overcharge it again, rolling another 3  for power and wiping his lord executioner - nighthaunt running out of characters - and the cannon still didnt die taking just 1 wound, yikes. At this point i apologize for my cannon's completely unreasonable luck. The verminlord manages a charge into the back of the chain rasps, and combat starts turning there as well.

With just his guardian of souls and 15 chainrasps and about 6 glaivewraiths left, he calls it at end of my turn - score 9-9 but with the assumption that i would either wipe him or score at least 3 more points turn 5, with him unable to score anymore. On the board for skaven : 1 clan rat, 18 clan rats, clawlord, cannon, warpfire thrower, engineer and verminlord. 

Closing thoughts:
Man are rats are random! haha - the first two turns felt horrible as i did absolutely nothing but lose clanrats, dealing very little damage in return. But a few good turns of magic and shooting can always really make a big difference. Also, the two first lackluster turns for my magic/shooting made my opponent think it wasn't a strong part of my army, and he chose to deepstrike, to deal with clanrats instead of getting to my cannon/verminlord, a mistake he surely wont make again.

The good:
Clanrats! the Ability to retreat and charge combined with the warpseers 26" battleshock immunity ability - makes for some really hard to remove board control - for sure worth every single point.
The Cannon! Ok - so this is completely due to me rolling way way better than average - the fact that it overcharged 3 turns in a row and somehow didn't die baffled us both to the point of madness - we even both rolled below/close to average most of the game, but for some reason the cannon just didn't roll 1's. Oh well, its a dice game.
Warpseer this guy is just so ****** good - good casting, his battleshock bubble, generating command points and he can even dish out the hurt in combat!

The Bad:
Doomwheel - so i dont know if i just played it wrong, but it seems you need to babysit him if hes gonna be shooting, 13" range is pretty prime to be charged by well anything, and at just 8 wounds and a 4+ save, this guy can die pretty easily if hes the only charge target. Too fast for the rest of the army, but again he acted well as a bait, but maybe a hellpit would be better then.
Warlock engineer - So this guy obviously allows you to overcharge the cannon, which is good, but apart from that hes just... meh? the lightning at 16" is really not very useful if you are gonna sit him at the cannon, and with 9" on his gun he really didn't do much all game - maybe with other Skryer units like ratling teams or jezzails it would have more impact.

Overall we had a very good game, and if was back and fourth until the very end! I cant wait to play more, as even though i won, i made many tactical blunders and forgot quite a few small rules /buffs, but overall most of it didn't matter that much in the end.
 

[Skreech Verminking]

Great battlereport there @Raskata👍🏻.

 

 

[Verminlord]

Anyone looking to build a moulder list? I know they wont be the optimal choice, but the hobby potential for moulder conversions is very high. Also seeing 100 respawnable giant rats on the table makes me smile. 🐀🐀🐀

Allegiance: Skaventide

Leaders
Verminlord Warpseer (260)
- General
- Trait: Supreme Manipulator 
- Artefact: Suspicious Stone 
Master Moulder (100)
- Artefact: Rabid Crown or Foulhide 

Battleline
40 x Giant Rats (200)
40 x Giant Rats (200)
20 x Giant Rats (120)
4 x Rat Ogors (200)

Units
3 x Packmasters (60)
3 x Packmasters (60)
3 x Packmasters (60)

Behemoths
Hell Pit Abomination (220)
Hell Pit Abomination (220)

Battalions
Fleshmeld Menagerie (160)

Endless Spells
Warp Lightning Vortex (100)
Vermintide (40)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 175
 

2 drop with the battalion, really hard to kill warpseer with two MW shrugs and rerollable save, dreaded warpgale/ WL vortex combo, even more board control/MWs with vermintide. I really wish Moulder had another hero or two. Not sure if I should hide MM all game with a Foulhide to ensure he stays alive as long as possible or have him hug a unit of giant rats for look out sir and extra attacks from rabid crown. Really interested in how rat ogors do now that their horrible bravery is easily doubled by PMs or ignored due to our ridiculous CP gains.

[bushman101]

Has any of the base sizes changed at all?

(And have Pack Masters always been on 25mm based? I but mine on 32's for some reason...)

[Axter]

Guys, i have an army of pestilence (almost complete, some monks more maybe but for now it's ok) and some skryre, most of them fron carrion empire. I also have some stuff in the middle (a spire of dawn box take some years ago, a bell, a grey seer, etc..)

What should i do? Going on with single clan? Taking more carrion empire to have more skryre and keeping a pestilence army and a skryre army or maybe it'a better to take clanrats/stormvermin and build  a mixed army?

What is better in your opinion? From both side, competitive and funny. 

 

[sorokyl]

4 hours ago, Luca said:

Hello guis, samone try mixed clans list? i see more skyre hear,  and i think is good, but im curious how work  a multiclan list if is viable or fun at least.

 

8 minutes ago, Axter said:

What should i do? Going on with single clan? 

What is better in your opinion? From both side, competitive and funny. 

2

Mixed Skaventide is definitely the strongest, because clan rats are the best battleline. Pure clans enable cool, thematic lists, but because of the way they designed this book and the battleline rules, pure clans just can't compete with mixed. You must mix clans to have all the tools.  And there is really no disadvantage for doing so.  You still get all the allegiance abilities. You only unlock battleline options. But, 2 or 3 units of clan rats is never really bad... 

[Axter]

11 minutes ago, sorokyl said:

 

Mixed Skaventide is definitely the strongest, because clan rats are the best battleline. Pure clans enable cool, thematic lists, but because of the way they designed this book and the battleline rules, pure clans just can't compete with mixed. You must mix clans to have all the tools.  And there is really no disadvantage for doing so.  You still get all the allegiance abilities. You only unlock battleline options. But, 2 or 3 units of clan rats is never really bad... 

So, from what i got, what should i buy and which kind of list i should look for?

Edited February 23, 2019 by Axter

[MasterMoulder]

So what are everyone's opinions on Packmasters vs Master Moulders? Personally I can't see why I would take Packmasters over a Master Moulder. They have better attacks, benefit from the Skaventide hero abilities, are easier to screen, heal your ogors/ rat swarms and have a handy command ability that you want multiple copies of as a back up. Sure, they are 100pts compared to 60pts. Has anyone had a chance to play them yet? Preferably on a Moulder list?

[Verminlord]

11 minutes ago, MasterMoulder said:

So what are everyone's opinions on Packmasters vs Master Moulders? Personally I can't see why I would take Packmasters over a Master Moulder. They have better attacks, benefit from the Skaventide hero abilities, are easier to screen, heal your ogors/ rat swarms and have a handy command ability that you want multiple copies of as a back up. Sure, they are 100pts compared to 60pts. Has anyone had a chance to play them yet? Preferably on a Moulder list?

     MM 100 vs PM 60 points, PM 6 wounds vs MM 5,  PM three 12in buff bubbles vs MM one 12in bubble.

edit: also you can only use MM command ability one time per phase, so not too much incentive to run multiple unless you want a 100pt backup; not to mention an extra drop (if going all moulder) because the battalion limits you to one MM

Edited February 23, 2019 by Verminlord

[Vaeron]

1 hour ago, bushman101 said:

Has any of the base sizes changed at all?

(And have Pack Masters always been on 25mm based? I but mine on 32's for some reason...)

They were heroes before the tome dropped. I also had mine on 32s.

[MasterMoulder]

2 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

     MM 100 vs PM 60 points, PM 6 wounds vs MM 5,  PM three 12in buff bubbles vs MM 1

edit: also you can only use MM command ability one time per phase, so not too much incentive to run multiple unless you want a 100pt backup

Fair enough. You would only be getting a few extra inches to the buff bubble but I guess every little bit helps. Not to worried about the extra wound since the MM has a better save. The backup seems critical since you don't want your MM sniped and lose the ability to revive pack units

[Verminlord]

1 minute ago, MasterMoulder said:

Fair enough. You would only be getting a few extra inches to the buff bubble but I guess every little bit helps. Not to worried about the extra wound since the MM has a better save. The backup seems critical since you don't want your MM sniped and lose the ability to revive pack units

I think you should play the army assuming youre going to fail the MM respawn roll because its so inconsistent (even with the battalion/command trait) and you only get one chance per phase. Best thing about the battalion is being able to two drop/extra CP/extra artifact

[MasterMoulder]

Sorry for double post!

Edited February 23, 2019 by MasterMoulder

[MasterMoulder]

Allegiance: Skaventide

Leaders
Verminlord Warpseer (260)
- General
- Trait: Supreme Manipulator 
- Artefact: Suspicious Stone 
Master Moulder (100)
- Artefact: Rabid Crown 

Battleline
40 x Giant Rats (200)
40 x Giant Rats (200)
4 x Rat Ogors (200)
4 x Rat Ogors (200)

Units
6 x Rat Swarms (180)
6 x Rat Swarms (180)
3 x Packmasters (60)

Behemoths
Hell Pit Abomination (220)

Battalions
Fleshmeld Menagerie (160)

Endless Spells
Bell of Doom (40)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 195
 

Thoughts? I feel like I might be a bit light on leaders

[Verminlord]

Anyone know a good source of giant rats?🐀

[MasterMoulder]

5 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

Anyone know a good source of giant rats?🐀

If you have a local pestilens player ask them, they will likely have a pile of the base ornament rats left over from the plague monk kits. They are a little bit smaller than the official giant rats, but it is all GW so usually not an issue!

[bushman101]

5 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

Anyone know a good source of giant rats?🐀

You kinda get a few from various kits (kinda like Ripperswarms from 40k Tyranids).

If I remember right, you get a few from:

Doomwheel

Plague Monks 

Rat Ogors

Screaming Bell/ Plague Censor?

 

[MasterMoulder]

12 minutes ago, bushman101 said:

You kinda get a few from various kits (kinda like Ripperswarms from 40k Tyranids).

If I remember right, you get a few from:

Doomwheel

Plague Monks 

Rat Ogors

Screaming Bell/ Plague Censor?

 

None in the Screaming Bell kit. I think you get a few in the Verminlord and Thanquol kits though

[Ahriman]

4 hours ago, MasterMoulder said:

Fair enough. You would only be getting a few extra inches to the buff bubble but I guess every little bit helps. Not to worried about the extra wound since the MM has a better save. The backup seems critical since you don't want your MM sniped and lose the ability to revive pack units

After a few games trying out Master Moulders and Packmasters, I agree there is little use in the Packmasters for my Moulder army - unless you can't spare the 40pts.

The main reason is their prized creation rule, getting to add D3 wounds to a rat ogos or HPA is cool, but the reroll 1s is deadly.

And they do have a slightly extended aura, but I've got 3 Master Moulders around the board, so things are almost always covered.

[Verminlord]

41 minutes ago, Ahriman said:

After a few games trying out Master Moulders and Packmasters, I agree there is little use in the Packmasters for my Moulder army - unless you can't spare the 40pts.

The main reason is their prized creation rule, getting to add D3 wounds to a rat ogos or HPA is cool, but the reroll 1s is deadly.

And they do have a slightly extended aura, but I've got 3 Master Moulders around the board, so things are almost always covered.

Mind sharing your list?

[Ahriman]

1 minute ago, Verminlord said:

Mind sharing your list?

Can do:

Master Moulder, moulder supreme, stonehorn blade

Master Moulder, rabid crown

Master Moulder

3 x 4 Rat Ogors

5 x 10 Giant Rats

2 x 5 Wolf Rats

2 x Hell Pit Abominations

Flesh Menagerie 

2,000pts

 

I usually do the Moulder Supreme on a Hell Pit Abomination, then 2 rat ogors in different units.

[Verminlord]

24 minutes ago, Ahriman said:

Can do:

Master Moulder, moulder supreme, stonehorn blade

Master Moulder, rabid crown

Master Moulder

3 x 4 Rat Ogors

5 x 10 Giant Rats

2 x 5 Wolf Rats

2 x Hell Pit Abominations

Flesh Menagerie 

2,000pts

 

I usually do the Moulder Supreme on a Hell Pit Abomination, then 2 rat ogors in different units.

Always wanted to try wolf rats, how do you like them/ what do you do with them? Why the the smaller grouping of giant rats?

[Kugane]

12 hours ago, Kramer said:

If you are going big on it it doesn’t really matter. Because then you’ll either keep them back with an engineer for the +1 damage spark. or skitterleap him to the same spot. Give that engineer more more warp power or deranged inventor and you still have the re-rolls and the +1 to hit. 

My biggest concern is how good of an position will your gnawhole be in? With a 30” range + 6 move it’s hard to hide from them. So how worthwhile will it be to play on that redeployment 

Indeed. I just wonder what the damage output is at this point. I may need to recalculate the damage per point of all the skaven units we currently have buffed and unbuffed to see which are the best ranged units right now.