AoS 2 - Skaventide Discussion

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

@mmimzie (forgot to quote your post lol) I mean... genestealer cults are fluff wise much easier to make into a fleshed out army. They are not tactical assassins that work behind the scenes, they are fanatical cultists who work behind the scenes. They are basically chaos cultists Xenofied, in fact the closest fluff wise to genestealer cults would prolly be arcanites TBH. Other then capturing those extremely vague terms of “movey/stealthy” eshin is nothing like genestealer cults. Fluff wise they are more like hired assassins right? Makes sense you’d see small forces of them supporting a large force of skaven instead of an army of them. 40k equivalent would be imperial assassins but with less specialization not genestealer cults in my opinion. It would be cool to see an army of your fave clan but TBH eshins use so far seems in line with fluff 

Edited March 18, 2019 by TheadTheOgorSlayer

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

So I’ve been hearing that plague monks are over powered AF and was wondering if that means pure clan pestilens will also be over powered AF. Since their last iteration they lost maximum damage (as the bs pile in when dead buff is gone) and gained better unbuffed power. If I take 100 plague rats and three priests (one on furnace) would my list be too powerful to play against? Or is the thoughts about plague monks being op unfounded?

[Skreech Verminking]

19 minutes ago, TheadTheOgorSlayer said:

So I’ve been hearing that plague monks are over powered AF and was wondering if that means pure clan pestilens will also be over powered AF. Since their last iteration they lost maximum damage (as the bs pile in when dead buff is gone) and gained better unbuffed power. If I take 100 plague rats and three priests (one on furnace) would my list be too powerful to play against? Or is the thoughts about plague monks being op unfounded?

Can’t say.

I mean the plague monks definitely got a huge power upgrade (they finally have a 6+save yai 😀).

they also benefit from the old clanrats rules (strength in number) meaning that a unit of 40of them will potentially hit and wound on 3s and 3s (staff: 4s and 3s)

although there has been a bit of an downgrade in the mortal wound spamming theme they had.

the banner for example where you could easily just spite out a few numbers of mortal wounds changed and instead doubles the damage (I think),

and other similar downgrades.

All in all I would say they got a bit stronger but shouldn’t be Oop.

I’m total I’d say that Plague monks are strong (in case of the clanrats very strong) but you would have to leave everything else behind like warpfire throwers, Warplightning cannons etc. Meaning that as an armie is say they will win you games and sometimes you’ll just loose.

[Luca]

Hello Guis, Suspicious stone stack whit screaming bell's,  protection of the Honed rat ?

 

[Kugane]

6 hours ago, mmimzie said:

Genestealer  cult does exist in 40k.

Vanguard marines also now. I'm having a lot of fun with both atm. GW is finally giving the stealth play style attention. I hope this comes to AoS

[Inquisitorsz]

1 hour ago, Luca said:

Hello Guis, Suspicious stone stack whit screaming bell's,  protection of the Honed rat ?

 

apparently yes it does

[Inquisitorsz]

6 hours ago, TheadTheOgorSlayer said:

So I’ve been hearing that plague monks are over powered AF and was wondering if that means pure clan pestilens will also be over powered AF. Since their last iteration they lost maximum damage (as the bs pile in when dead buff is gone) and gained better unbuffed power. If I take 100 plague rats and three priests (one on furnace) would my list be too powerful to play against? Or is the thoughts about plague monks being op unfounded?

From what I've been hearing their main thing is that they are very cheap and they get a lot of buffs from the various characters. 
So not necessarily OP rules wise, but just very efficient for their points. A unit of 40 only costs 40pts more than 40 clan rats. 
You can fit 2 furnaces, a verminlord, a priest and 160 plague monks for 1700 pts 
Fill the rest with catapults and/or wrap lightning vortex and you've got a very strong army with a lot of bodies. 

Pestilens  battalions are some of the best ones too. And they all include units you actually want to take. Priest + 2 units of monks, or priest and 3 catapults etc.. 

Bottom line, they're just incredibly points efficient. The reason people say they are OP is just because they are one of the best troop units in the game when comparing points for points. 
I wouldn't be surprised if they get a points adjustment in the next general's handbook.

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

2 minutes ago, Inquisitorsz said:

Bottom line, they're just incredibly points efficient. The reason people say they are OP is just because they are one of the best troop units in the game when comparing points for points. 
I wouldn't be surprised if they get a points adjustment in the next general's handbook.

If this happens my list will change to include two max units for cheaper rats and two furnaces instead of one... I’ll lose 20 rats and a priest but that should fit even if they are increased in points...

honestly they were always points efficient, they just were weak when not battleline (I haven’t heard of many nurgle players taking them over other choices) and had no real magic presence to compensate. Then the book happened 😆 

pestilens alone is just tier 2 in a 3 tier system, pestilens with access to their own monster wizard who is actually good now and cheap casters from master clan are just a little too good perhaps... will have to see how they fight vs top tiers with new rules (although I don’t remember them having trouble with legion or daughters before book)

i vote for locking them out of masterclan unless mixed skaven and losing their caster for another set of prayers (to keep their weakness to magic somewhat intact while not getting rid of the tools their daemon rat has access too) I only play pure so I’d prefer those changes over something like a price increase. Also drop the save... the 6 up wasn’t needed lol 

[Skreech Verminking]

16 minutes ago, TheadTheOgorSlayer said:

pestilens alone is just tier 2 in a 3 tier system, pestilens with access to their own monster wizard who is actually good now and cheap casters from master clan are just a little too good perhaps... will have to see how they fight vs top tiers with new rules (although I don’t remember them having trouble with legion or daughters before book)

Tier 2 of 3.

Im not sure, I guess you could call them that but, actually am armie consitisting of at least 300 Plague monks is near unbeatably.

the problem you’ll just be facing with a high tier pestilence list is to not use anything but plague monks (and 1-2priests plus maybe a wizard for that deathfrenzy)

 

[Ratcliff]

7 hours ago, TheadTheOgorSlayer said:

So I’ve been hearing that plague monks are over powered AF and was wondering if that means pure clan pestilens will also be over powered AF. Since their last iteration they lost maximum damage (as the bs pile in when dead buff is gone) and gained better unbuffed power. If I take 100 plague rats and three priests (one on furnace) would my list be too powerful to play against? Or is the thoughts about plague monks being op unfounded?

 

I play pure Pestilens and, while they are powerful, I don't think they are OP and won't be troubling the podiums any time soon (though you will see a lot of Plague Monks podium in mixed Skaven lists). 

They are efficient at what they do, which is put out a load of pain from up close in large numbers for a very low cost. However, if you are running them in their hundreds, you won't get anywhere close to optimising that function. You will have to screen with at least 40 of them and set aside a few more to protect your own objectives. Clanrats are far better and more points efficient for those 2 latter roles.

Some people seem to make the mistake of seeing Sigmar as a purely output driven game, in which case you would consider Plague Monks pretty close to perfect. But you lose all sorts of flexibility. No WLCs or jezzails to take out characters, no tough chaff to hold fiercely contested objectives, v little speed or ability to get around the board and, in reality, we only have 3 good units now. And of them, even the Corruptor is just an amazing spell in an average unit, and the Furnace needs rats to push it around. The Plagueclaw is probably the biggest waste of 160pts you'll find in the game, and Plague Priests have become useless overnight. Wither and rabid fever are gone as we knew them and Plague Monks put out, on average, a fair bit less damage now, particularly in low model units. We're still very good, but far from overpowered 

Edited March 18, 2019 by Ratcliff

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

35 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Tier 2 of 3.

Im not sure, I guess you could call them that but, actually am armie consitisting of at least 300 Plague monks is near unbeatably.

the problem you’ll just be facing with a high tier pestilence list is to not use anything but plague monks (and 1-2priests plus maybe a wizard for that deathfrenzy)

 

Gonna add context to that tier system. Most people are tier 2, the only tier 3 armies are ones without books or allegiances, heck even armies like devoted of sigmar can do well with a good player in a semi competitive environment. Tier one is of course the best of the best, the armies that have done well above other for a bit. Most people would consider these legions of nagash or daughters, some stormcast builds and maybe new FEC. 

I don’t remember clan pestilens smashing all competition before the book came out despite having the Mose efficient troops still and wither stacking plus death frenzy was unbeatable unless you were fighting at ranged. A unit of ten would wipe out just about anything fully buffed. A unit of 20 would kill Death Stars when they were charged themselves with the right buffs (that were pretty consistent with re rolls from trait) pestilens has gotten buffed (max damage debuffed, unbuffed units buffed and All hero units buffed considerably) I would think as things are you would need only a slight tweaking in points on rats and heroes (perhaps 240 points for a furnace and ten or nine points per rat?) if 300 rats are unbeatable does anyone have tournamount results where they cleaned house back when they had better buffs? Or even now? On paper it’s disgusting but I haven’t seen pestilens annihilating anything it didn’t before personally...

if sufficient results are given I’ll concede and add them to my personal tier 1 

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

14 minutes ago, Ratcliff said:

 

I play pure Pestilens and, while they are powerful, I don't think they are OP and won't be troubling the podiums any time soon (though you will see a lot of Plague Monks podium in mixed Skaven lists). 

They are efficient at what they do, which is put out a load of pain from up close in large numbers for a very low cost. However, if you are running them in their hundreds, you won't get anywhere close to optimising that function. You will have to screen with at least 40 of them and set aside a few more to protect your own objectives. Clanrats are far better and more points efficient for those 2 latter roles.

Some people seem to make the mistake of seeing Sigmar as a purely output driven game, in which case you would consider Plague Monks pretty close to perfect. But you lose all sorts of flexibility. No WLCs or jezzails to take out characters, no tough chaff to hold fiercely contested objectives, v little speed or ability to get around the board and, in reality, we only have 3 good units now. And of them, even the Corruptor is just an amazing spell in an average unit, and the Furnace needs rats to push it around. The Plagueclaw is probably the biggest waste of 160pts you'll find in the game, and Plague Priests have become useless overnight. Wither and rabid fever are gone as we knew them and Plague Monks put out, on average, a fair bit less damage now, particularly in low model units. We're still very good, but far from overpowered 

Wait... don’t be dissing my priests! Trust me priests are a secret strong unit. They dish out similar damage to a ghoul king on the charge, get the ability to make their points back with one prayer at times. (I’ve had fun vs saurus guard and max squads of saurus... when you kill an average of 5 or more models on a horde and make back 5/8s of your cost on one phase, of course certain targets you simply make your points back) and they are harder to kill in my experience then a unit of 10 plague monks with look out sir and 5 up save. For 80 points they are priced correctly and are the cheapest set of prayers in game for pestilens (I love my great plagues!). I’ve had many proxy games (I will say my army is heavily converted and modified and won’t be done for awhile as it takes me 4 hours to work on some models and im making 100 of them...) where they combined with msu books from leaders sniped a hero. I run two at 1k points since I’ve found 100 plague rats to be sufficient and with RAW furnace with relic and trait I get 5 prayers first turn with 3 rerolled (unless they FAQ’d the relic... it gives him access to the plague prayers from the priest on foots warscroll, then states if he’s a priest he can use them twice... but his prayers are a separate noxious prayers ability so it appears RAW he gets his own plus the two bonus ones)

basically they are mortal wound threat to heroes and despite them only casting what’s basically arcan bolt at 13 inches it’s enough to threaten heroes with all our other sources of mortal wounds. They either die and keep 10 rats alive for the charge or are left alone and make their points back easily.... win win for me

Edited March 18, 2019 by TheadTheOgorSlayer

[Inquisitorsz]

It's probably just the general problem of spam. 

You get your 1-2 good units and go all out because they can do everything for a good price. 
Same with grimghast reapers. They aren't anything fantastic on paper but they are relatively cheap and battleline (in nighthaunt). LoN have easy battleline screens with wolves then fill up on reapers. 

The thing that annoys me most about monks is all the extra rules. 
Rolling 2 different weapon profiles for a unit of 40 with a bunch of buffs is already slow and annoying. Then 6s to hit have a different profile again for each weapon
and you get all the other buffs like mortal wounds on a 6 when a monk dies, extra run/charge, extra attacks on the charge (for both weapons), and a hero phase mini spell  too.  
Just seems like a lot of book keeping. 
And that's before any character buffs. 

[Ratcliff]

2 hours ago, TheadTheOgorSlayer said:

Wait... don’t be dissing my priests! Trust me priests are a secret strong unit. They dish out similar damage to a ghoul king on the charge, get the ability to make their points back with one prayer at times. (I’ve had fun vs saurus guard and max squads of saurus... when you kill an average of 5 or more models on a horde and make back 5/8s of your cost on one phase, of course certain targets you simply make your points back) and they are harder to kill in my experience then a unit of 10 plague monks with look out sir and 5 up save. For 80 points they are priced correctly and are the cheapest set of prayers in game for pestilens (I love my great plagues!). I’ve had many proxy games (I will say my army is heavily converted and modified and won’t be done for awhile as it takes me 4 hours to work on some models and im making 100 of them...) where they combined with msu books from leaders sniped a hero. I run two at 1k points since I’ve found 100 plague rats to be sufficient and with RAW furnace with relic and trait I get 5 prayers first turn with 3 rerolled (unless they FAQ’d the relic... it gives him access to the plague prayers from the priest on foots warscroll, then states if he’s a priest he can use them twice... but his prayers are a separate noxious prayers ability so it appears RAW he gets his own plus the two bonus ones)

basically they are mortal wound threat to heroes and despite them only casting what’s basically arcan bolt at 13 inches it’s enough to threaten heroes with all our other sources of mortal wounds. They either die and keep 10 rats alive for the charge or are left alone and make their points back easily.... win win for me

 

Tbf, I can see their utility at 1000pts, but I'm not convinced of their usefulness after that. 80pts for a character that doesn't have any way of buffing your own army and only a 13" threat range. I'm going to to throw one or two into my list and see if I'm terribly wrong!

[TheadTheOgorSlayer]

1 minute ago, Ratcliff said:

 

Tbf, I can see their utility at 1000pts, but I'm not convinced of their usefulness after that. 80pts for a character that doesn't have any way of buffing your own army and only a 13" threat range. I'm going to to throw one or two into my list and see if I'm terribly wrong!

To be fair I play 1k points almost exclusively! In larger points I definitely see the use of big expensive wizards like the corruptor and multiple furnaces over priest spam... (especially since the furnace can “snipe” most hero’s in one shot at full health) I’m also not so sure his threat range is the issue when the whole army has the same weakness haha. Lack of utility is a pain but I also believe out of all the horde armies pestilens is least reliant on buffs so a glass cannon of sorts (for his points) is an interesting prospect 

[Donut Assassin]

mixed skaven and Pestilens are both T1. If I owned 200+ plague monks, I would be playing them. Take battalion for the main purpose of being a low drop army and go first, run 200  monks up the board. Should be next to impossible to lose any games if you focus on objectives. You do average 33 mortal wounds back Just for having guys die in combat phase lol. Take a warpseer and give him trait to pass wounds to nearby rats, and artifact for additional 5++, keep him alive for the big no battleshock bubble. So plague furnace and 5x40 monks with congregation battalion, + warpseer is 1800 pts and 2 drops. Take WLV + 10 monks added into battalion or whatever else. I would keep it 2 drop tho. 235 wounds in a list. Let’s not forget gnaw holes and threatening to throw 40 monks into their back lines if they engage your front ranks. Everything about this is T1. 

[Ratcliff]

3 hours ago, Donut Assassin said:

mixed skaven and Pestilens are both T1. If I owned 200+ plague monks, I would be playing them. Take battalion for the main purpose of being a low drop army and go first, run 200  monks up the board. Should be next to impossible to lose any games if you focus on objectives. You do average 33 mortal wounds back Just for having guys die in combat phase lol. Take a warpseer and give him trait to pass wounds to nearby rats, and artifact for additional 5++, keep him alive for the big no battleshock bubble. So plague furnace and 5x40 monks with congregation battalion, + warpseer is 1800 pts and 2 drops. Take WLV + 10 monks added into battalion or whatever else. I would keep it 2 drop tho. 235 wounds in a list. Let’s not forget gnaw holes and threatening to throw 40 monks into their back lines if they engage your front ranks. Everything about this is T1. 

 

It works well in your head, but in practice, running Monks up the board en masse will lose you a lot of games. They can only move 6" and work better as a counter-punch army. Going second is actually better for them in a lot of scenarios, especially against a heavy hitting army that can lay waste to you with one double turn. Not to mention missions like Places of Arcane Power that are reliant on heroes and wizards for pointscoring.

Plague Monks are an unbelievable, heavy hitting unit but, as I mentioned, taking them in the numbers you suggest means they will be fulfilling other roles they are unsuited to and their area of efficiency is wasted in most cases. As with any good footslogging army, it's about balanced unit selection, good screening and zoning, picking your charges wisely and retreating at the right times. A good player would wreck 5 blobs of 40

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Ratcliff

[Skreech Verminking]

21 minutes ago, Ratcliff said:

 

It works well in your head, but in practice, running Monks up the board en masse will lose you a lot of games. They can only move 6" and work better as a counter-punch army. Going second is actually better for them in a lot of scenarios, especially against a heavy hitting army that can lay waste to you with one double turn. Not to mention missions like Places of Arcane Power that are reliant on heroes and wizards for pointscoring.

Plague Monks are an unbelievable, heavy hitting unit but, as I mentioned, taking them in the numbers you suggest means they will be fulfilling other roles they are unsuited to and their area of efficiency is wasted in most cases. As with any good footslogging army, it's about balanced unit selection, good screening and zoning, picking your charges wisely and retreating at the right times. A good player would wreck 5 blobs of 40

 

Challenge accepted.

my list will consist of:

1Grey seer:120p(deathfrenzy cloak of something and verminus valour)

8x40Plagye monks:1920 (all with blades)

now i only need to buy another 6-8boxes of plague monks and somehow manage a week without food🤮 (I think my purse hates my 🥶)

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Skreech Verminking

[mmimzie]

50 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Challenge accepted.

my list will consist of:

1Grey seer:120p(deathfrenzy cloak of something and verminus valour)

8x40Plagye monks:1920 (all with blades)

now i only need to buy another 6-8boxes of plague monks and somehow manage a week without food🤮 (I think my purse hates my 🥶)

 

I think i'd make the general a warbringer, as otherwise you'd lose to battle shock pretty badly. 

[Skreech Verminking]

2 hours ago, mmimzie said:

I think i'd make the general a warbringer, as otherwise you'd lose to battle shock pretty badly. 

Yeah well sadly I really, really just want to field at least 300+models.

I mean that fear not knowing if my foe will be able to steal my objective and if it is even possible to kill all of them is already enough for me.

(also I probably won’t be  buying myself some plague monks, the 130 I have at home are plenty enough and I am still interested to bring my collection of clanrats up to 1300😅😂)

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Skreech Verminking

[GeneralZero]

You guys are sick!! hahahaha 300+ models lol to paint.

I'm far from that but I admire the dedication 

On my side, I'm building an all purpose skaven army which will be able to play several builds (pure skryre and mixed skaven with 80+ clanrats...). I have the feeling that the skaven are close to top tier but I didn't play them yet.

What is your point of view about the mixed skaven tier position? top? tier 1? tier 2? tier 47 ()?

[Skreech Verminking]

12 minutes ago, GeneralZero said:

(1) You guys are sick!! hahahaha 300+ models lol to paint.

(1)Call it madness, but we all know that this is one of the most genius and cunning tactics to defeat your foe-things army (mighty Skreech knows best, Yes-yes nobody is more cunning then Us-us)

12 minutes ago, GeneralZero said:

What is your point of view about the mixed skaven tier position? top? tier 1? tier 2? tier 47 ()?

I think they are more or less a bit of everything.

We have such a huge field of possibility in our army.

some list might fail others plans will dominate the tournament scene and on another day you just might get unlucky and both of your warplightning cannons explode turn 1 because your rolled 6 1s.

so technically seen I would say they can be somewhat good till excellent and sometimes just do the opposite. So something between tire 2-1.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Skreech Verminking

[GeneralZero]

I know that some of our weapon are random to say the less. But I thinnk we can circumven this by the numbers to  make it more reliable. In addition, we have a really strong magic power. To build a different army than my Death ones, I'm aiming something like: clanrat screns+ one 40 clan rat + many fire power+ magic. 

[5kaven5lave]

Talking of Plague Monks, was looking at allying in a Nurgle Lord of Blights for the -2 to hit in shooting and -1 combat on a unit of 20+. That would help them get across the board with less losses. With a Warpseer you’d have loads of CPs to keep a couple of units buffed. Just need a Pestilens general and you’re good to go. 

[Donut Assassin]

1 hour ago, GeneralZero said:

You guys are sick!! hahahaha 300+ models lol to paint.

I'm far from that but I admire the dedication 

On my side, I'm building an all purpose skaven army which will be able to play several builds (pure skryre and mixed skaven with 80+ clanrats...). I have the feeling that the skaven are close to top tier but I didn't play them yet.

What is your point of view about the mixed skaven tier position? top? tier 1? tier 2? tier 47 ()?

Mixed is pretty much t1 as well, depending on how you build. So many strong units and one of the strongest spell phases in the game that shreds opponents back lines.