Riff_Raff_Rascal

@vinnyt Oh thank you for the feedback. Much appreciated. At this point in time I am merely a guest player and there's only two gentlemen filming, editing and spending time and money. Much of what you said about the camera set-up is certainly on their radar, they too are a fan of all of our favorite channels. I'm unsure what they are planning for their overlay, thats where we get into dealers choice, I certainly am of the same mind about showing the lists for the intro. I've already given them feedback about not worrying about looking at dice trays, some channels have a separate top-down overlay, which is fine. Concerning the running time, I've also voiced my opinion on the length, in fact I was worried this was going to happen because behind the scenes, the entire production took 6 hours! That said, there is only one person editing, and they are still learning, on top of the channel still figuring out what they want their focus to be. All things considered, they've done a wonderful job improving video to video.

I really want to open this discussion up. I want to start thinking about ARTILLERY in terms of the "power projection" on the table; Reach x Threat. I began to think that this discussion in terms of shooting was too limiting because we forget that there are still many ways to project power across a table and not many ways to mitigate it. Whether its being in your face turn one with melee, magic nuking, ambushes and so on. Generally speaking, ARTILLERY can't compete at the moment with any of these other forms of power projection, and that really made me sad. The reason why we talk about the good shooting out there is also because it sometimes outclasses the power projection of other methods too. When you look at an army as a whole, you start combining all of these different forms of power projection, you start seeing a pattern. Generally the good to great armies can play with all different types of power projection, with the same list! Movement is one obvious element to projecting power with any unit or style of play, a trait ARTILLERY doesn't or shouldn't have, and so I have begun to look at this problem from that point of view. This combines with the conundrum of their role as well. How do I synthesize a solution from this?

This is the point of contention for all if not most of the trouble units being talked about. MW shooting doesn't jive with the current look out sir rule and that can be a problem, regardless of actual damage output of a shooting unit. Most artillery doesn't even have MW capability to begin with, another negative to that keyword *cough* WLC *cough*. I definitely think you have the hot take that Longstrikes are what artillery should be. Lots of things make Longstrikes good, primarily because they are in stormcast. You allude to the modularity they have and that is accurate. All of this is to say that I believe they are a "proud nail" in the game because they fill MANY roles without the player making a hard choices whether in list-building, deployment or choosing targets. We can talk all day about giving them an ARTILLERY keyword but there is a subtle distinction between battlefield role and actual role in the game. I would argue that the Longstrikes problem, along with every other problem unit, can be balanced for the game as a whole, if they are in fact internally balanced within their faction, so hard choices need to be made before even showing up to the table.

Lets definitely put those heroes to better use. I would prefer artillery to act more independent of other units or even allegiance rules so they can design them for efficiency and more accurately pointed. Besides, I want heroes fightin' and being part of the scrum. I think you nailed it. If this was the only change they made to some trouble units, it would place a fascinating incentive structure for list building. For all of the problems we identified with the artillery role, this would immediately put into question if the warscroll is worth it. If we took this a step further and started removing artillery from the core battalions, players now have to make harder decisions about their list building. For those worried about making artillery good and thus increase the number of good shooting in the game, I propose that we let them be good and pointed fairly, with the knowledge that they are clunky to add to lists. I'll have to think a bit more on some potential examples. I agree that we shouldn't shoe-horn artillery into a single purpose. Just like every other battlefield role keyword, amongst each keyword, theres still lots of diversity. Just spit balling but I would love to see some artillery pieces have a purpose on the battlefield other than straight damage as an example. I play skaven, and every skaven player knows our plagueclaw catapult is way out of date. What if it was a de-buff at range instead? Perhaps if it hits, the enemy unit effectively gets the Curse prayer on them? Imagine artillery that slows down an enemy unit from afar, or perhaps turns off flying because of a net or something? My favorite idea is forcing out command points from your opponent. What if archery units that are changed to artillery gain something like "if your opponent doesn't use all-out defense against this attack the damage for this attack is increased by 1". This might simulate defending units having to put their sheilds above their head. Most of my ideas would want to incorporate as much of the core rules as possible as an untapped design space. Any time we can add tough choices using rules that are familiar for defending players, especially against shooting, I believe would create a more interactive and fun game.

@SinisterSmooth I relented. Posted list in posty-post. Its uber glass cannon of course. I'll be posting another battle report soon with the same list. It was a wild one.

In every sense, Skaven did not win. There was little doom. Stormcast actually had more bodies than a Skaven army. I felt naked. Doomwheels proceeded to do no damage when rolling over models which I was counting on against high armor. A single unit of Thunderstrike hammers just dropped in within 7" and killed off all 3 of my MSU acolytes with MWs and then battleshocked off. The same unit proceded to make their 9'' in charge into all of my foot heroes. My lightning cannon blew itself up doing no damage on the Unleash Hell. Half of my opponents army wasn't even on the table. All the while, what was on the table stayed in their respective corners because we were playing "The Vice". Not much tactically learned. No need to post my list here. I am not sad. I am not angry. Just an example of skaven life. Oof.

@Megahurtz Verminus works as a theory. Remember, I only tied that one game with one model left. Verminus can work if you purposefully use stormvermin as a hammer AND can get the set-up. That said, I highly encourage list building that has the bodies, fighting through the restrictions in reinforcement points, and winning the day. I still think most opponents are building for high profile shooting, large centerpeice monster/heroes which currently a hoard army is not great on paper against, but you can still pull some tricks. With a verminous list, I recommend being highly aggressive with mobility, perhaps jumping off of your idea with weapon teams, and adding some drill teams to replace the endless spells. However, even stormvermin are gonna just evaporate when they pop up in a no-mans-land. Use it for pinpoint accurate set-up to get buffs from a Clawlord or Warbringer. Anytime you can take the re-roll charge triumph is a must as well. Otherwise, spamming MSU units of giant rats is the real tactician's choice. Control the board and have speed bumps to protect heroes and stormvermin alike. Some tech I'm looking into is splashing an assassin to prevent one turn of piling in. All of this is to say that I will stump verminous lists if for no other reason that they can alpha pin your opponent in place. Maybe not in their territory but you can make it work. This is absolutely not gonna work against any Death army or an orruks list (lets be real) but certainly against anyone trying to be tech-y with their list.

This one was the most fun I've had in any game of AOS of all time. Here was my Skaven list: Things I wanted to learn with my list: 1) Can I play cagey with doomwheels and bait my opponent into chasing them? 2) Is there a situation where a lightning cannon can be used as chaff? 3) Is the Warp Lightning Vortex still worth it? And is it still toxic to play? Here was my opponent's Beast-Claw list: The Scenario Veins of Ghur The setup BCR had no tricks and had nothing holding them back to go straight me since no objectives were on the table. Full BCR army frontlined and center. I back-boarded all 3 gnawholes in my deployment zone as a way to have heroes escape along the long edge of the table. I chose to "turtle up" front and center as well, with the intent of scattering as soon as I could see the whites of their eyes. I was also counting on this being a huge incentive to have my opponent run his entire army at me as opposed to spreading out and denying space for the doomwheels. Lightning cannon mistakingly just out of range to shoot nearest Stonehorn. Turn 1: BCR win priority, Skaven go first SKAVEN Not much in the way of magic, nothing in range, I cast mystic shield. Fails. Great. Just great. I had mis-measured and was forced to use my vigordust injector on my WLC so this it could double its movement to a whopping 6", putting it into range of the Stonehorn. Doomwheels kept as a pack and swung wide left, anticipating hope against hope an objective would land on that side and also showcasing the maneuv's and mechanics to my opponent. I also get spicy by baiting a few trucks to hunt down my exposed Jezzails sent through the gnawhole. I was gambling that I can nuke one of them with the vortex on a later turn. Shooting phase, hot dice, on the first volley, with a 2+ power setting, 10 MW's, 2 mitigated by a ward and the WLC took 3 MW. Not bad. Jezzails are exactly 30'' away from the other Stonehorn and get 4 wounds in. BCR Damaged stonehorn heals 3 with Heroic Recovery (curses). The army drives straight me. Although in an interesting twist 3 trucks head toward my Jezzail bait. Turn 2: Beast-claw Double Turn. Oof. First objective lands centerfield BCR My opponent heroic actioned another precious heal bringing this souped up monster truck to a whopping 10 health, everything just shoves forward, then the snowballs and birds arrived. Warlock bombadier ate dirt off the cuff, Lightning cannon stays alive by the skin of its teeth. Jezzails go to half strength. I lose my chaff wall of acolytes infront of my other acolytes and WLC. Then the charging happened. So good news and bad news. I rolled hot dice yet again on the Unleash Hell (although i couldn't overclock the WLC due to the engineer being dead and all) and put the souped up Stonehorn to 6 health. The WLC ultimately became chaff as it had kept the Stonehorn away from charging my heroes due to body blocking and a terrain piece. He charged so hard the impact hits killed my back-up chaff walls and was able to pile in to my ramshackle cannon. Meanwhile, in the corner, the other stonehorn just obliterates my jezzails serving as a very expensive chaff wall. I already lost all 3x5 acolytes and both of my artillery. That's the bad news. All that remained in that space was a Grey Seer staring down a still kicking Stonehorn and another healthy monster truck. Stonehorn menacingly stares down my Grey Seer general from just outside killing reach. SKAVEN Miracle time baby! So I'm thinking well there's now way I'm winning this, my only real nut-cracker is dead (WLC) and there's so many more wounds to go through. I can't run these monster trucks over with hamster wheels for MW, So whats a Skaven general to do? I happen to notice that my opponent chooses to heroic recovery, magic is mine to lose. Time to nuke the place. I call out "Orbital Bombardment at my location!" and proceed to successfully cast Warp Lightning Vortex on top of that stupid Stonehorn. BOOM! The dust clears, I anticipate visual confirmation that the target is disintegrated only to find my Grey Seer bleeding out and the Stonehorn took nothing. Hmmmmm. Well I have an arch-warlock, so I got that going for me, which is nice. I casually cast Warp Lightning Storm from his warscroll also nonchalantly declare that I'm overcharging it. Its my magic phase to lose like I said. For those who've never seen this spell, effectively it is up to D3 targets and each target takes D3 MWs. If you overcharge it, its D3 targets for D6 MWs! At the risk of course of taking D3xD6 MW's myself. Double Hmmm. If your not overcharging abilities as skaven you're not worthy of being called a Skaven General. I spike a Stonehorn. 16 MW's. He's got no ward. The two Thundertusks behind him don't know what they just saw. So what the heck happened you might ask? How is this possible? We travel to the Core Rules FAQ's 1.6 where, in its enlightenment, we find that an ability that allows for choosing multiple targets, you may in fact choose the same target unless noted otherwise (typically phrased as "different targets") Q: Some abilities stipulate that you can pick a certain number of units to be affected by the ability. When this is the case, can I pick the same unit several times? A: Yes, unless the ability specifically states otherwise. So fortunately, my opponent is laughing. Thats a good sign. Already we were enjoying the theatrics unfolding with the failed nuke and just describing this recent spell potentially doing that much damage to the warlock himself. Good times. If we fast forward, during movement, My Warp Lightning Vortex triggers and puts my general to 2 health, does 2 damage to a few doomwheels and a thundertusk and finally completely missing the Stonehorn in the middle of all of it. The thing just wont die. I'm feeling frisky and send my Archwarlock back through the gnawhole towards my Grey Seer. I take a hard re-direct to centerboard with my doomwheel armada and I take some pot shots at his thundertusk also near my general, overcharging the slew of Doomwheel lightning bolts for decent damage. Turn 3: Skaven Double-Turn. Spicy. Both 2nd and 3rd objective land on opposite end of table away from remaining Skaven units. SKAVEN Hero phase, I don't even bother trying to heroic recover, not with skaven bravery, oh no, we don't do that here. First cast I have my general go for an aracane bolt at that bone-head monster truck: miss-cast. My Warlord Grey Seer is at one health. Whelp. Archwarlock's time to shine. I go for the overclocked Warp Lightning Storm spell and it goes off! I rolled hot once again and split my damage between the nigh-indestructible Stonehorn and the beefy Thundertusk. Stonehorn shrugs off all but one MW putting him at 1 health left and the Thundertusk is half-strength. AHHHHHHH. I've never been so happy/mad at the same time. Lightning vortex once again pings away at several doomwheels, hits my archwarlock and the thundertusk. All doomwheels remaining on table. I surround the centerboard-ed Thundertusk shooting the ****** out of it. Its on its last legs. No charges for now. Objectives still in BCR control. BCR Without much options, BCR throws some birds at my archwarock, gets smackled by them putting him to 1 health. Oh where have I heard of that before? Top of movment, the vortex rears its ugly head and explodes my Archwarlock and pings the rest of the nonsense on the table. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! All 3 remaining Thundertusks Snag the remaining objectives and hold the fort down. The one in the center charges a doomwheel and whiffs his attack rolls. Oof. Doomwheels survive. Turn 4: BCR double turn. Super Spicy BCR Centerboard Thundertusk tries to heal and fails. Movement phase, the vortex finishes off the Thundertusk. The other two move to body block my doomwheels and/or crush them just out of range of shooting. While moving off of the objectives would seem counter-intuitive for BCR and clearly counting as more bodies than even two Hamster wheels combined. The base(?) movment range of the doomwheels would be well outside of making it, only with a decent move roll AND a decent charge would I have a shot, so my opponent, was being clever(?) to deny me that chance. All of this was assuming I would roll close to 14 inches for my movement. SKAVEN I had a need, a need for SPEED! With objectives abandoned I had a shot. I whiff two movement rolls, one of which was quadruple boxes. I would not have it, not one bit and so like the cheating general that I am, I declare a speed waagh!!, erh, I mean I overclock my generators. I declare that I'm re-rolling my movement dice at the risk of any result of a 1 on dice lets my opponent move my unit (go read the warscroll, its pretty slick). The first one I roll is hot, but with a 1 rolled, thus goes zooming off into no-mans land. The other though rolls hot and speeds 18" just around the side of one thundertusk, setting up a sick charge. The two remaining doomwheels go head long into battle with the thundertusk guarding the point in my territory. One of them gets crunched in the combat phase, they were pretty beat up to begin with. Turn 5: Maintain turn order BCR: One hero recovered a bit in the hero phase, whittled own a doomwheel with a flock of seagulls, all parties involved hit like a wet sandwhich. Curious. BCR were too injured on their monster chart to retreat to the objectives. That gave me a chance. Instead they attempted to body block the lanes. SKAVEN My last doomwheel makes its final push and needs a ridiculous charge to take a thundertusk and then whip around a bit to snag the objective on my opponent's side. I make a 10" charge, survive melee (somehow), I activate, pile-in 3" and take the objective in my opponents territory. Points ('+" is the extra monster point) BCR SKAVEN Round 1: Primaries 0 // 0 Battle Tactics Ferocious Advance: Complete+ Ferocious Advance: Complete Round 2: Primaries 2 // 0 Battle Tactics Broken Ranks: Complete + Slay the Warlord: Failed Round 3: Primaries 9 // 0 Battle Tactics Monstrous Takeover: Complete Bring It Down!: Complete Round 4: Primaries 8 // 4 Battle Tactics Slay the Warlord: Failed Conquer: Complete Round 5: Primaries 0 // 15 Battle Tactics Savage Spearhead: Failed Aggressive Expansion: Complete TOTALS Primary 19 // 19 Tactics 8 // 8 Monsters Slain 0 // 3 By some miracle both players achieve their Grand Strats of keeping monsters alive and slaying the warlord. My warlord survived death, like, a gazillion times for that to go off. Even if he had that would have tied game. DOOMWHEELS WIN! All things considered, I may still have missed a few things, mistakes were made on both sides and there may have been drinking involved. But boy do I love this game!

Attention rat generals, I need your help deciding: likely ill be on our channel again spreading the glory of the great horned rat but what army to choose 🤪: 4 doomwheels and lightning vortex 😍: null deployment 😂: All moulder with healing cranked to 11 Vote with appropriate reactions (confused, love it, and haha

You went up against a lot of shooshting, did that -2 to be shot actually save your demon, or still get buried under weight of dice? Based on the armies you saw for the whole event I assume there was diversity of shooting in general.

@Skreech Verminking You must be in Australia. All them rats are upside down.

@Megahurtz Sorry for the late reply. Sure thing. I posted this list a ways back after success against Slaves of Darkness (ironically with a Khorne Demon Prince that time). Here's the list I showcased in the video. As far as what I learned, I'll start with questions I wanted to ask with this list: Q1) Can I still castle (or even afford to) as skaven without having a typical number of disposable units? Q2) Can I turn a Clawlord into an assassin? Q3) Can I win the command point war? Q3) Endless Spells: Do they work as intended? Can lifeswarm keep my elite troops in fighting shape? Will geminids help me win the command point war? Considering I strolled up to a table full of giant centerpeice models, Bloodthirsters now doubt, I was a bit skeptical. Here's the answers I uncovered: A1) I can indeed. Stormvermin with a mystic sheild, actual sheild and the 6+ ward from Bless can work like the perfect "storm" of anvil and hammer. Stormvermin are only blenders if you castle up, the Warbringer and Clawlord command abilities are wholly within so normally being aggressive on the charge makes them 'meh'. You want to be charged. Even against khorne. A2) I can. But I threw him at a wall of chaff. Then he die-ded. Re-Deploy is a fickle mistress robbing me of killing a Big ol' Demon. Suicidal maniac Clawlords look and feel super fun, more tech would be to put him within 6" with Dreaded Skitterleap. I don't regret putting the Things-Bane artifact on him either. A3) I stole 5 CPs from my opponent with cunning. Generated 5 extra with Warpseer's ability an extra 3-4 from the masterclan trait. So yes. I felt in control at all times. I was so inundated with CPs that even after realizing a mistake with how often I actually needed to use my battleshock bubble, my opponent and I concluded I would have had plenty of CPs to do it (I was remembering the old version of the that ability). A4) No, oh no they did not. Even if they hadn't been dispelled every waking moment, I realized the folly of bringing back a handful of models during the game. More frustratingly, I mis-read the geminids and they don't interact with command points in the combat phase, which is where I need them to work. They're range is pretty abysmal as well, hard to use them proactively. Shackles unfortunately would have been the choice but I can't bring myself to play them as I have deemed them a feel bad.

So as mentioned in the intro, there are many Michaels but there can only be one. Skaven must win out. I actually want to have a Mike V Mike fight for their channel. I think it would be funny.

Now I don't normally like sharing stuff, especially things that are me, but I want to direct your attention to a battle report on my gaming club's fledgling channel. I was recently "tricked" into appearing on the youtubes thinking I was just going to roll some dice but apparently the camera loves me. The channel is Battleshock Wargaming and they're always looking for feedback on making their videos better. More importantly, watch the LOTFP (khorne) V Clan Verminus featuring all the stormvermin below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U45a2hK-lBQ&t=471s They're a bit long, but as with most channels starting out they're working on ways to slim the reports down. Spoilers, the conclusion was very satisfying in the most Skaven way possible.

I've thought about the Splinter spell a lot, especially with list ideas that have the warpgnaw, and generally yes, it would only really check at the end of your turn's battleshock phase. If you use this strategy you have to make sure its a unit you don't plan on engaging in melee, otherwise their pile-in could fix the gap. More interestingly, if you plan to shoot that same unit (which we would more reliably do off of a deep-strike), you want to make sure they are battleshock immune or won't lose so many models to the shoosting or the following battleshock phase such that coherency doesn't matter. Very good strategy against death armies though. These are some subtle pointers but important if you want the model removal spells to get maximum effect.

I stand corrected. From FAQ: "Q: Are Unique units allowed to take spells from the universal spell lore or prayers from the universal prayer scripture? A: No." While at the same time, your army is still allowed to take a spell enhancements. It is stated that no individual unit is given said enhancement. Then, each unit may take a spell from lore they have access to. Except unique units. Before we go down that rabbit hole, check out the discussion here also on this site if you're interested. I was just typing this all out to cement it in my head. Warscroll builder still let me do it so I was confused.

@bonzai Strong recommendation to bring at least one warlock. The possibility of overcharging a lightning cannon is too good to pass up. Even if you're the type of player who wants to blow up a key peice, its part of the mind games with your opponent. You need to keep the threat of 12 MW's with one shot on the table, even if you never use it. I would swap your artillery for Jezzails so they can run more independently. Otherwise a list after my own heart.

@Skreech Verminking By golly you've done it. The 2x block of stormvermin make me extra proud. No need to alpha pin, going for the alpha strike from the look of things. Warpgnaw at flat 6 dmg sounds hilarious to me. Hunters of the Heartlands for the win, if you can take a triumph to get that free re-roll to charge. What I just realized for this many weapon teams, you can actually turn them into a screen for the heroes/stormvermin. The warpgrinder's alone account for at least 1 foot of speed bump if you line them all up.

@TerminusRex Absolutely go ham on big monsters. Huge stocks on verminlords right now and Thanquol can finally be a bruiser with flaming weapon. Mechanically speaking, its just a big advantage to have monsters for point scoring. Our monsters are still glass cannons despite buff stacking, but we also still have affordable chaff. @Noserenda Unless you "sacrificed" an enhancement on a Deathmaster, they're even worse now. The best I could see is re-rolling all hits and wounds against a target and turn him into a wizard for flaming weapon. A better assassin is a clawlord with double death frenzy, give hime the Things-bane artifact and you teleport him to their back line. Way more fun.

I challenge all of you (if you're a real skaven player you will) to build a list that "null deploys". Don't have a single model on the table to start. It doesn't matter who goes first. You just scare the ****** out of your opponent. I suggest Warpgnaw Verminlords summoned with the Gnawbomb, so many Drill Team Six's and a plethora of Gutter Runners. Use the GR's to tag your backfield objectives if you're really trying to score points.

At worst we get a new underworlds kit, the whole point of that range is to explore areas of the lore that they're not willing to dive into just yet or are too niche. That doesn't mean we wont buy them in droves to make units. Rules don't need to be good, we just need the models. The Skaven vs. Seraphon rumor would be an absolute blast. Great way to round up some old world grudges. For the book re-design, I've said it before but mechanically we need to leave the clan based factions behind. Theres certainly lore reasons on the surface not do that, but plenty lore reasons why we play mixed forces anyways (because it works on the table). I still vouch for creating "schemes" instead of clans for the book structure, incentivizing two or three particular units/clans to acheive a goal, kinda of like Tzeentch's agenda allegience ability but fleshed out as a sub-faction.

All right Rat fans, time to put on your tin-foil hats: its speculation time. I'm willing to bet that the next "season" is going to take place in Ulgu, GW is just dying to get the "Umbra-neth" aelves out so Teclis and Melarion, not to mention Morathi is taking over cities there and foul plots afoot. We've said it before in this group, but clan eshin has to be hiding out here. I'm just going to assume they're getting a complete re-vamp, because we're taking some big swings here. My question to all of you is: How do we make eshin really weird and cool? Ninja-rats? Come on, this isn't Fantasy battles, this is Age of Sigmar, lets get crazy. Ninja-rat-pirates? Yes please. Ninja-rat-pirate-Oni? Much better (might flesh out our demon lore a bit to boot). In Ulgu they might just go "shadow-rats" on us, perhaps more elite 32 mill bases? Perhaps some non-hero single models, kinda like the doom seekers in fyreslayers. Now if we stay in Ghur, and the next "season" is simply other parts of that realm, I could easily see Moulder getting a face-lift. And crazy new monster sculpts alone would be amazing by itself. I'm just having fun, speculate at your whim. Happy dice rolling!

oh yup, thats my bad. i was in fantasy land when i posted that. stilll remembering the good ol days

@Noserenda Thats a very important question to ask. My answer comes down to what role they play and that is certainly screen chaff, objective grabbing and being a speed bump. Min size units of 10 for night-runners will always be difficult with the way reinforcements work at the moment for skaven. Even if we could get them to 40 to get them the damage buffs to be "good", you lose out on their ability to be cagey speed bumps, their mobility ironically suffers because its harder to maneuver that many bodies. There is an argument to max unit size gutter runners, as you potentially get them to +3/+3 so I would save those points for that. If you really feel enticed to max them out, make sure to pair every block of 30 with at least another unit of 10 to be the front wall of chaff and take the initial charge. Night runners do have the potential to serve multitple roles in your lists, just not optimal ones.

So RIP having nurgle allies now. Double RIP for glotkin, doubled points. Should have seen that coming. That being said, having reviewed the book, I'm so happy for nurgle players *ahem* I mean Maggotkin players. The army will play very different and may upset a few try-hards but I must say the flavor of that book is on point. And because of how they nailed that part, I can only get excited for the other armies glow-up, especially Skaven, Beast-men and Khorne. Oof can you imagine a khorne book that just slaps, and gets rid of all of its complicated aura 3-D chess nonsense?