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Small Model Count Skaven


ierthling

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Hey guys - so I bought Carrion Empire because I play FEC, but instead of selling off the Skaven half I've kind of fallen in love with the idea of trying a small model count Clan Skryre army. To aim for the 1000 level, I was thinking of just getting a second Skaven half of Carrion Empire, which would give me two units of Stormfiends for my battlelines, two Bombardiers, and then a choice of some combo from the 2 lightning cannons and doomwheels to make up the rest.

Building towards 2000, I would imagine getting or proxying enough acolytes to run a little block of them (not as easy to do right now as I'd like, of course, but I think I can manage it with some converting), adding maybe a Verminlord Warpseer, and some combo of ratling guns, warp-grinders, warpfire throwers, and doom-flayers. 

But (as someone who runs big hordes in FEC), I'm just not that interested in getting into another horde army right now. I know hordes are the way Skaven have usually worked, and the Skaventide army bonuses in general still favor big units, but I'm wondering about the viability of a Skryre force that keeps the model count pretty low. I'm not looking to win any tournaments or anything, just to have fun, but of course it's not fun to lose every game before it even starts. Could an smc Skaven list work? Any thoughts or suggestions on how to make it especially fun, flavorful, or effective to play? Thanks!

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My current Skryre list is 

Arch warlock 

Warlock Bombardier 

Warlock Engineer 

3 x Stormfiends 

3 x Stormfiends 

6 x Stormfiends 

Warp Lightning Cannon

Warp Lightning Cannon

(A weapon team. Changes each game) 

Emerald Lifeswarm 

Warp Lightning Vortex

It's great fun. It's hard to hold onto objectives, but the sheer destructive power is fun! It annihilated my friends Nurgle Daemons one game, and we drove to a standstill in another. So I think its viable, but be prepared to play with gnawhole shenanigans for movement. 

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With Skryre it’s all good to go elite. It’s up to you if the in game advantages of a bigger unit are more important than low model count. But you definitely don’t need globadiers

on the other hand everything that makes Skryre excel... tends to blow itself up. Perfect for a side army. Breaks your heart the first time it happens 😂

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Thanks guys! I’m glad to hear it’s not totally worthless. I love the “blow yourself up” aspect - I feel like it would be a fun army to just go for broke with and see what chaos ensues. @Balloon Dwarf how do you decide among the heroes (arch-warlock, bombardier, engineer) or the weapons teams? Just looking at them on paper I’m a little puzzled in both cases how to sort out which ones I want for which purposes.

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17 hours ago, ierthling said:

Thanks guys! I’m glad to hear it’s not totally worthless. I love the “blow yourself up” aspect - I feel like it would be a fun army to just go for broke with and see what chaos ensues. @Balloon Dwarf how do you decide among the heroes (arch-warlock, bombardier, engineer) or the weapons teams? Just looking at them on paper I’m a little puzzled in both cases how to sort out which ones I want for which purposes.

I go for heroes because of my play style. I'll have my bombardier babysit the cannons, my arch warlock with the six man stormfiends and my engineer to get some gnawhole stuff. And with regards to using weapon teams. In my first game, my warpfire thrower ended up in combat, then died. In my second game, the ratling gun overcharged, rolled a double 1, missed all 4 shots, then died. So for my play style they're fun but not something I bank on, they're more there because I had the points to spare. 

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I'm interested in this thread. I've been trying a bunch of 1000pt Skryre exclusive, or nearly exclusive, lists, and am trying to land on one that I actually like.

So far I've tried:

Grey Seer general, 2x engineers, 1x lightning cannon, unit of Stormfiends, as many acolytes as will fit at 1000

Grey seer, 2x stormfiends, 20 acolytes, engineer

Screaming bell, 2x Stormfiends, 15 acolytes, engineer

With the changes to Stormfiends, they really lack punch unless you can give them a buff.

I also have been wondering whether an Arch warlock is worth his hefty price tag.

I'm going to try this out next time I play:

Arch Warlock, Warlock engineer, 1x6 Stormfiends, 10 acolytes, Warp Lighting Vortex.

So far, all the other lists have struggled to do damage. Keep in mind, though, that I've been primarily playing against Nighthaunt which is pretty much a hard counter to this army. They ignore rend, can ignore mortal wounds, have incredible movement so they can tie up guns very quickly, and can regenerate.

I'm really trying to figure out a 1000pt list that has an Arch Warlock, some Stormfiends, a Vortex, and a Doomwheel. 

I can say that the Screaming Bell was very tanky with the Suspicious Stone, and I can only imagine a Warpseer would be even better. 4+, 5+, 5+ is very hard to break, and being able to reroll failed saves is very strong. But, in both cases neither model will do all that much damage, and neither will Stormfiends without support, so my army was left pretty dead in the water, even though the Bell tied up my opponent's entire force for a whole turn.

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10 hours ago, Zinnar said:

 

I'm really trying to figure out a 1000pt list that has an Arch Warlock, some Stormfiends, a Vortex, and a Doomwheel. 

Arch warlock, 6x Stormfiends, 5x Acolytes, Doomwheel, WLV. 1k pts on the nose.

I think you will like stormfiends a whole lot more when supported by an arch warlock. Try deranged inventor and vigordust injector, and make sure your stormfiends have 2x windlaunchers and 2x ratling guns.

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13 hours ago, Baron Wastelands said:

Arch warlock, 6x Stormfiends, 5x Acolytes, Doomwheel, WLV. 1k pts on the nose.

I think you will like stormfiends a whole lot more when supported by an arch warlock. Try deranged inventor and vigordust injector, and make sure your stormfiends have 2x windlaunchers and 2x ratling guns.

I feel like this is a lot of eggs in one really fragile basket, though. Why take Deranged Inventor, AND vigordust AND (presumably) More-more-more Warp power? A lot of those buffs overwrite each other, or at least don't help. Deranged inventor adds 1 to shooting rolls, Vigordust adds 1 to ALL hit and charge (at the cost of d3 mortals), and M-m-m-power rerolls all failed hits and wounds (at the cost of d3 mortals).

I don't see the point of stacking all three together, because then I'll really quickly lose Stormfiends. Plus, if they get tagged in melee, then that also means my shooting is trapped.

I'm not trying to drag this list, I'm very interested in it, and trying to figure out how it would work. Doomwheel zooms around getting objectives and being a distraction, Acolytes are a very flimsy screen, Stormfiends try and shoot everything off the table as fast as possible while the Arch-Warlock locks enemy down with WLV?

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2 hours ago, Zinnar said:

I feel like this is a lot of eggs in one really fragile basket, though. Why take Deranged Inventor, AND vigordust AND (presumably) More-more-more Warp power? A lot of those buffs overwrite each other, or at least don't help. Deranged inventor adds 1 to shooting rolls, Vigordust adds 1 to ALL hit and charge (at the cost of d3 mortals), and M-m-m-power rerolls all failed hits and wounds (at the cost of d3 mortals).

I don't see the point of stacking all three together, because then I'll really quickly lose Stormfiends. Plus, if they get tagged in melee, then that also means my shooting is trapped.

I'm not trying to drag this list, I'm very interested in it, and trying to figure out how it would work. Doomwheel zooms around getting objectives and being a distraction, Acolytes are a very flimsy screen, Stormfiends try and shoot everything off the table as fast as possible while the Arch-Warlock locks enemy down with WLV?

It is most of your eggs in one basket, yes. But it’s a lethal basket. And it’s not that fragile.

There isn’t much point in stacking all three together (unless you absolutely positively have to kill ... you get the idea), but the key being deranged inventor doesn’t cause mortal wounds, and coupled with vigordust injector is lethal without mmwp. +2 to hit is huge, and worth d3 mortal wounds next hero phase; stacking both mmwp + vdi will burn through them a bit fast at 2d3, although with all 3 stacked there’s not much you can’t take down when sparked as well. Moreover, deranged inventor can’t be countered, whereas of course spells can. I try not to rely on mmwp going off; in a bigger game I’d cast it on a different unit, but you can always use deranged inventor on your acolytes (since you can spark them any time you spark your fiends, for free - and don’t forget spark, it’s what makes fiends and acolytes awesome), and then put mmwp (+vdi) on your fiends if you get it off and don’t care about the mortal wounds coming down. After all, with 2 ‘spare’ melee fiends in a unit of 6, that’s 19 wounds you can allocate without reducing your ranged offence at all.

I agree that the doomwheel is interference, can be good, can be so-so; is unlikely to capture anything but unattended objectives though. Acolytes can certainly buy you a turn shooting with your fiends if you need it, but they can also sit on objectives as required.

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Okay, you've at least sold me on Arch-Warlock + 6 Stormfiends. Let's scrap the Acolytes, Doomwheel, and WLV (potentially). What would we add at 1000 points to make this a strong list, trying to keep on theme of a "Small, elite force" that wouldn't get ruined too easily.

Arch Warlock, 2x Engineers, 6x Fiends, 10x Acolytes is 1000 points. Could drop an Engineer for WLV to force people off of objectives, potentially?

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On 3/25/2019 at 7:41 PM, Zinnar said:

Okay, you've at least sold me on Arch-Warlock + 6 Stormfiends.

Good, that’s the best bit. Interestingly, while the arch-warlock is more survivable, can cast 2 spells, and is generally better in every way, a warlock engineer can give exactly the same buffs as general to your fiends. So if you’re tight on points, you can always do that at 1k. 

To get to a 1k list, probably 30 acolytes is going to be the most effective (or a unit of 30 and a unit of 5 if you go with the engineer) and give you that target for mmwp we talked about 😉. But if you can’t get a mortgage, alternatives include 3 more stormfiends and 5 acolytes (or 10 with a an engineer general). I run this at 1k, and load my unit of 3 fiends for melee - shock gauntlet, grinderfists, and warpfire. Lot of fun, but can be hard to play the objective game, so go for maximum damage.

Alternatively you could squeeze 2 doomwheels in with engineer, 6 stormfiends, 5 acolytes for 1k. This ought to be done at least once. Or go all out ranged with a WLC and the WLV. That’s the beauty of Skryre, so many possibilities! I wouldn’t add 2 engineers though, at 1k; get more toys first. Can add an engineer or two (or bombardier) at 2k.

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13 hours ago, Baron Wastelands said:

Good, that’s the best bit. Interestingly, while the arch-warlock is more survivable, can cast 2 spells, and is generally better in every way, a warlock engineer can give exactly the same buffs as general to your fiends. So if you’re tight on points, you can always do that at 1k. 

To get to a 1k list, probably 30 acolytes is going to be the most effective (or a unit of 30 and a unit of 5 if you go with the engineer) and give you that target for mmwp we talked about 😉. But if you can’t get a mortgage, alternatives include 3 more stormfiends and 5 acolytes (or 10 with a an engineer general). I run this at 1k, and load my unit of 3 fiends for melee - shock gauntlet, grinderfists, and warpfire. Lot of fun, but can be hard to play the objective game, so go for maximum damage.

Alternatively you could squeeze 2 doomwheels in with engineer, 6 stormfiends, 5 acolytes for 1k. This ought to be done at least once. Or go all out ranged with a WLC and the WLV. That’s the beauty of Skryre, so many possibilities! I wouldn’t add 2 engineers though, at 1k; get more toys first. Can add an engineer or two (or bombardier) at 2k.

 

Well, I DO have 25 acolytes and nine stormfiends.....

A Warlock Engineer, NINE stormfiends, and 10 Acolytes might actually be the "right" list for me. I'll experiment with this over the weekend if I make it down to the game store to play.

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Guys this is all super helpful and interesting, thanks for taking the bait! I’m really hoping they’ll release a new version of the acolytes soon - seems like it could happen, since they made Skryre the centerpiece of the new starter. For now, though, I think I’ll be sticking to my stormfiends personally, so I’m glad to hear they can work well with the arch-warlock buffs. I think to start with I’ll be running something like 2 x3 Stormfiends, Bombardier, WLC, Doomwheel, and I guess maybe I’ll try to grab a weapons team for the few leftover points. But it’s good to have these ideas to work towards!

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1 hour ago, ierthling said:

Guys this is all super helpful and interesting, thanks for taking the bait! I’m really hoping they’ll release a new version of the acolytes soon - seems like it could happen, since they made Skryre the centerpiece of the new starter. For now, though, I think I’ll be sticking to my stormfiends personally, so I’m glad to hear they can work well with the arch-warlock buffs. I think to start with I’ll be running something like 2 x3 Stormfiends, Bombardier, WLC, Doomwheel, and I guess maybe I’ll try to grab a weapons team for the few leftover points. But it’s good to have these ideas to work towards!

Sounds good - I do encourage you to try 6 stormfiends though; with 2 ratling guns and 2 windlaunchers, 1x6 is so much better than 2x3 simply because you can buff them all in one go with your general. Makes taking 5 acolytes as your other battleline worth it, even if you then do nothing at all with the acolytes. As a side note, you won’t fit a weapons team in the list you gave, you’ll have 40 pts to spare, which is basically an endless spell as your option.

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Thanks, Baron! I'm all for a bigger blob of stormfiends, so I'll definitely be working in that direction eventually. Right now 2x3 is all I've got, but once they put out new acolytes or I buckle and convert some, I'll definitely try bigger stormfiend blocks.

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