Unter

They do quite different things. Skitterleaped Corruptor with Sword of Judgement is very potent, and his spell is beast. That said, with how strong Suspicious Stone is, you often don't have that spare Artefact slot. Warbringer probably outshines him if you are running a double monk block as it gives you two chances at the Death Frenzy effect (assuming you've already got a grey seer with it, which is compulsory with double monk) - which is huge. Dreaded Death Frenzy also stacks with Death Frenzy so if you do get both spells down, those monks fight twice when they die. Plenty of armies have no way of dealing with that whatsoever.

The car example is totally unrelated to how ‘power budgets’ in games are developed, because people aren’t buying the cars and then going home, they are buying the cars (units) in a combination that either increases or decreases their chance to win versus their opponent with the same budget but worse choices. It’s easiest to compare it to character classes in a video game with a competitive scene like League of Legends or World of Warcraft. Let’s say there are 10 playable in a made-up fighting game, and one is called a Rogue. Let’s say the Rogue has one of the highest win-rates in the game. Rogue players win 60% of their games while most characters hover around 50%. However, everyone else has a 2 second stun attack, and he has a 0.5 second stun attack. When you compare the Rogue’s stun to everyone else’s, you might say how come all of the other 9 characters have a proper 2 second stun attack, but the Rogue can only stun for 0.5 seconds? The Rogue has a worse stun than everyone else, therefore let’s increase his stun to 1.5 seconds. If your objective is better game balance – do you think increasing the stun duration of the rogue to 1.5 seconds is the right move or not? Will it help bring the Rogue’s win rate in line with the mean, or not? Clearly it won’t. When people are designing any kind of game like this, Characters or armies in AoS case have a power budget. The Rogue’s stun is worse than the other Characters’, but he also does way more damage, or whatever other tools you want to pick. Secondly, I’m sorry but you are totally wrong about list diversity. Skaven have the most diverse ‘top lists’ out of any of the most competitive armies. Yes there are auto includes (WLV), but come on. Gristlegore lists are almost exactly the same (corpse cart/no corpse cart), DoK lists again are almost exactly the same (Hag’Narr, sometimes snakes), top Nagash lists varied a few characters and spells and that’s about it. All top Idoneth lists have at least 18 eels. Skaven have multiple Verminlord lists, shooting lists, plague monk lists and I suspect a few more hidden up our sleeves. We’ve seen triple Bell lists, Jezzails/Acolytes and even a few Doomwheels/HPAs that have won major tournaments. In an ideal world should this diversity also encompass Verminus and Eshin? Of course! There’s nothing I’d love more, personally speaking, than to play Gutter Runners and Night Runners and have a chance of going 5-0. Stormvermin are my all-time favourite models and a big part of what got me into the hobby, let’s get those guys involved! As I stated earlier, I’d love to see them come down as the rest of our points go up. I simply don’t think you can do like for like comparisons in a game like this, because the game is army vs army not unit vs unit. I just suspect that GW will be conservative about giving us buffs until they’ve seen the effects of the nerfs – but I would love to be wrong ❤️

I mean, given the nerfs to other top tier armies (Nagash is now more or less unplayable, DoK took a lesser hit, even Evocators got nerfed), and there is an FAQ specifically coming out to address us, FEC, Gloomspite then there will one hundred percent be nerfs. I agree, Stormvermin shouldn't cost 500 pts, but part of the reason they do is because we are so powerful elsewhere. Best case scenario we get nerfed in the areas you mentioned and they knock a few points off Stormvermin, but I think we will have to wait longer for that.

Maybe in the December FAQ? I'd be (pleasantly) surprised to see any buffs given how strong we are atm. Depends how hard the nerf us as well. I've heard all Verminlords to 320 which is fairly significant, but also just gossip at this stage.

WLV is overtuned and almost certain to be changed in the FAQ for Skaven due in 2nd week of July, either in points (more likely) or function (less likely)

Oh snap, interesting. Max unit size wardens maybe

That's cool to hear of differences between the various SC And the reforging aspect is definitely cool. I guess it's just hard to see the point of retaking a city or whatever, when you've no idea of what is at stake. They aren't defending an empire per se, its a zero sum war vs Chaos

I think the AoS lore still needs to come to life a little for me. Don’t get me wrong I’m a total convert and the old world had to die for the new to be born, but there’s still a bit of knitting together of the background before we can properly develop an attachment. The old world was obviously just various history memes and fantasy tropes. Elves were more or less the elves from Tolkien, dwarfs were more or less Tolkienesque dwarves etc. I’m not saying there weren’t differences, but it was an instantly recognisable setting to anyone versed in fantasy or even history (brets, tomb kings, lizardmen and others all directly modelled on specific human societies), and therefore not a unique GW product. The realms I think still have a bit of work to do before we can really get our teeth into the lore, and there are a few logical leaps we have to make. For example, while the internal life of space marine chapters is documented and intelligible – direct comparisons can be made to Roman Legionaries, martial fraternities, warrior monks etc, the same comparison is more difficult with say, Stormcast Eternals. Are there yawning cultural differences between Stormcast Chambers? Do they have schisms, do they fall, do they vie for power of influence with Sigmar, do they hold territory? Are they at all tied to the populations they protect? And what of the population they protect? For the layperson it seems to be that they protect generically ‘good’ people. This doesn’t lend them the layer of nuance that say, space marines have in defending a civilisation that is in many ways morally indefensible. What are the human civilisations doing that are living in Ulgu, or the realm of death? Are they good? If so, how aren’t they corrupted? If they are corrupted, do the Stormcast want to save them? Does it really make sense that you have cross-realm travel and technologically advanced factions existing alongside other sentient races that refuse to embrace those advances? Compared to the relatively primitive blackpowder technology that WFB dwarfs and men had mastered, you now have Kharadron Overlords living in Sky Cities armed with pretty advanced weaponry, while you have various aelves kicking about with bows and arrows. I’m sure there is some lore that points to this, but it will take a while before it seeps through and starts to knit together an evolving, internally consistent universe. The possibilities with the AoS setting compared to WFB are endless and I’m optimistic about how it will develop, but at the moment I’m not sure what would be an obvious setting for a game. RPGs function best with a well-developed ‘home world’ for characters to explore, like the setting of the Witcher, for example. Rich lore, settled societies with a myriad of local rivalries. You could quite easily set a 40k RPG on countless worlds as we roughly know the ‘coordinates’ of Imperial societies, where would you set an AoS RPG? I’m not sure that is so straightforward. An RTS makes more sense but then what are they fighting over? The stakes are very clear when the imperium is fighting over Cadia, or when the Empire has to defend Altdorf, or even when the GDI have to defend the Tiberium fields, but I think more work would need to be done to decide what the AoS factions are fighting over. Soul Wars seems like a decent place to start, but what are the consequences of defeat? What constitutes a victory? All questions I’m sure could be answered, but suspect more lore development needs to happen first.

Interesting, thanks. I guess you avoid taking a big arkanaut blob? I guess you'd be working with a couple of drill cannon squads and then riggers in that case? Do you prefer the frigate or the 'clad?

Hi folks, seen a lot of lists recently focused on buffing Drill Cannons that have been doing pretty well. I'm not sure if I'm just missing a trick here, but even with Khemist-Mornar buffs of Khemist-Ziflin I’m only simming units of 9-12 drill cannons as doing around 6-9 damage. Have you guys found success with them?

Really cool, I'm going to check this out and share with friends

Well I’m not at any point arguing that any of those facets should be taken away? I’m saying we need a points tuning so Skaven players have meaningful choices, on which we agree. I also am fine with us being one of the strongest, I’d rather it stayed that way personally, and yes others will catch up but that’s the game. Look at LoN, with Grims up to 420 I think Nagash is gone for some time, I’m hoping we avoid that fate and am confident we will, cause we aren’t mono build. I’d agree WLV is a scroll issue not a points one. Change it so it only goes off once in the turn it goes down and I honestly think it’s fine. In my opinion the most useful measurement of what’s OP can be taken from the percentage of tournament performances which are 5-0, or the pace at which armies accumulate 5-0 finishes. Legions of Nagash have taken 200 games to reach 15 of these, Skaven have taken 100 games to reach 11. FEC – which I agree are stronger than Skaven, have 17 5-0 tournmanets in only 122 games, which is absolutely obscene. On your other point clearly Skaven have weaknesses, just less weaknesses than almost any other faction, and weaknesses that aren’t effectively countered in the meta. FEC for example are glaringly weak to shooting, but the fact is that in the current meta shooting lists don’t tend to get rewarded for their choice over 5 games, so they often aren’t playing vs FEC in game 5, as they’ll struggle versus other mid-tier lists. For example at 6N you can see a higher proportion of shooting (KO, Stormcast shooting/Rukk), compared to a singles tournament. That’s largely to pick them into favoured matchups against FEC which you can do in a team event. Therefore although you might say FEC are weak to shooting, because shooting is weak in general their natural predators are gone. I don’t think the meta has figured out yet what Skaven’s real weaknesses are, or how to create a reliably 4-1 / 5-0 list that can go toe to toe with good players playing good Skaven lists later on in tournaments. For that reason I’m supportive of the generally conservative approach GW has taken to nerfs so far, and with a wee bit of tuning let’s hope the meta shifts gradually.

Actually I don't just keep bringing up monks, I also have brought up our BS immunity, Death Frenzy, undercosted Verminlords and Warp Lightning Vortex. Let's start with some figures so we are having a more informed discussion: This is a statistical breakdown of the performance of all factions at tournaments. A full breakdown of the stats and more detail on the data is provided at the following link: https://aosshorts.com/age-of-sigmar-power-rankings/ Data cannot tell you the whole story but it can provide an informed starting point. To have an informed discussion it also helps to differentiate objective facts from subjective opinion. I’ll present objective facts first – proof that Skaven are one of the most successful armies in the game. Followed by a subjective opinion on why I think that is. Objective: From a quick look at win rate, we can see that since release Skaven are behind only 3 other factions. Slaanesh (though their sample size is small), DoK and FEC. Skaven also have the 3rd highest number of 5 Win tournaments out of any army. Tellingly, Skaven reached eleven 5 Win tournaments in half the amount of games it took Legions of Nagash to reach 15. To win a 5 game tournament, you will in almost every case need a 5-0 score. FEC & LON are the only army with a higher number of 5 Win tournaments. 5-0 scores are also proof of effectiveness against other strong armies. It is comparatively straightforward to go 4-0 at a tournament, but by the fifth game you are playing against the best players with the best lists. The fact that Skaven can win a lot of these ‘top table’ games, is significant. On win rate, Skaven are number 3 out of (I think) 43 factions. The sample size is pretty good as well, 37 UK events, about 10,000 matches. Skaven lists were a key part of each team at the recent 6Nations tournament, and have picked up several first place finishes at major tournaments, as well as numerous 2nd/3rd places. Subjective: Skaven have reliable access to ranged mortal wounds at long range. With arcane terrain and Master of Magic, or Thanquol’s baked in +2 to cast plus arcane terrain, other melee armies are hesitant to give Skaven first turn. In a melee matchup giving away first turn is often a good idea: it opens your opponent to a counter charge, and its the best time to get double turned, as your enemy is across the board. However against Skaven there is a high likelihood WLV will go off, wounding or killing your support characters and massively hindering mobility. Additionally, Warp Lightning Cannons/Jezzails can add to the pain without substantially altering Skaven’s melee threat in terms of list construction. For 240 or 480 points if you want two blocks, Skaven have access to some of the most points efficient damage output in the game, which has up to 2 opportunities to fight on death. This is why you can’t do like for like unit comparisons. The cheapness of monks is part of what enables Skaven lists to provide so much ranged threat. There is no meaningful choice for Skaven players to make, i.e: do I take an extremely powerful melee unit or do I take ranged threat? We can just do both, while Death Frenzy counters one our closest competitors: FEC. Successful Skaven lists are also not mono-build. Gristlegore’s list picks itself with a few variations, DoK lists are almost all Hag-Narr and standard builds, most Idoneth lists revolve around 18+ eels. Slaanesh have more variety but it looks like the current wisdom is around double or triple Keeper. Skaven have won big tournaments with Monk blocks, with 3 or 4 Verminlords and endless spells, and with shooting lists. 6N winning team played a triple Screaming Bell list which went 4-1 against the best players from the other participating countries, losing only to a well-played FEC. The variety of winning Skaven lists suggest the whole book is powerful, and that undercosted areas of the book give Skaven players options elsewhere. Skaven lists also do not eat command points at the same rate as other top lists. We can regenerate CP when Masterclan heroes use points, and through our BS immunity auras we need CP far less for Inspiring Presence. FEC chew through CP for their damage as do Slaanesh (though Slaanesh generate them too). This means Skaven lists don’t need to save points for CP – most GristleGore lists come in around 1850 - and we aren’t reliant on them for our damage output. NOW – I’m not complaining, I love Skaven, I love them being strong, and I’ve enjoyed playing them while they’ve been easily one of the best armies in the game. I do not however think that Skaven are the single best army in the game, I think FEC and DoK are stronger and that we’ll see Fyreslayers and Slaanesh come up. I agree with you that they should not be over-nerfed. From the points changes so far it seems that GW are being conservative with nerfs and that’s a good thing. That said, I doubt we will get many points changes as compensation for the nerfs. I hope we do, as I’d love to play Stormvermin and Verminus lists too. I also don’t think mono-Skryre really competes so in an ideal world we’d see some rebalancing there. However since FEC and Skaven’s release they have shot right to the top of the charts in terms of performance, major tournament wins and overall win rate, to the extent that I don’t think you can argue they aren’t one of the top armies in the game. I think we can probably agree on that, and that it helps our cause to face up to the fact that Skaven just have more to offer than the vast majority of armies.

The Screaming Bell and the Furnace also confer enormous BS immunity bubbles. Again, not disputing other armies don't have similar mechanics, but a weakness of say Monks is their low leadership. Without BS immunity even a relatively low amount of damage from shooting has a decent chance to cause a load more casualties in the BS phase. Say you lost 10-11 monks to shooting or spells, you wouldn't be surprised to lose this number again in battleshock, crippling the unit and dragging it below the 20 model threshold for +1 to hit - a massive part of their damage. Skaven basically never need to worry about BS as long as you are within a bubble on turn one, or within the Warpseer's 52" radius after that (26" in each direction). Crucial to move beyond unit by unit comparisons and look at the whole raft of things which make Skaven strong.

Read the post, Skaven, Fyreslayers, FEC and Gloomspite are all getting separate updates in 2nd week of July. Also no way Stormvermin are coming down when Skaven are as strong as we are. I don't disagree that they are overpointed, but unit vs unit comparisons don't really exist in this game. It's better to think of your army having an overall 'power budget', which is already overspent with great magic, cheap verminlords and monks. So it'd take really significant cuts elsewhere for them to consider any Skaven buffs I reckon.

So you agree with my statements but don't want me to say 'busted'? Ok, we can say broken, overpowered or unbalanced instead. At 6Nations I believe each team had at least 40 PMs, with many opting for 80 (including the winners). I'd be interested to see a more efficient warscroll in terms of a points : damage ratio, and they come into their own with how cheaply Skaven can access BS immunity and Death Frenzy - or even double Frenzy if you take the Warbringer! I don't really know what line you are pushing, you are saying people shouldn't go crazy about Skaven, but also that you'd be fine with drastic points increases. I do agree there's a danger Skaven get over-nerfed, but imo we are less vulnerable than Gristelgore in that respect. PMs to 300 - 350 and Verminlords up by 20 is what I'd expect. I'd expect Verminlords up by more but looks like there's some pretty substantial changes to endless spell points which I think is a kick to the Verminlord endless spell lists.

This is a useful twitter thread to analyse what is busted and what isnt: As you can see, the author uses win % chances and I believe a weighting on tournament win % to create a tentative tier list. Clearly not perfect, but it is backed up by data. I'd switch FS with IDK but that's personal preference. Not everything can be brought up to 'busted' level, because busted is a relative concept. As you say, there is power creep in the game. Just look at Nagash, I'd be surprised if you see him in any top lists until GHB 2020 now that Grims are up to 420 but we'll see. Plague Monks currently are absolutely busted. 240 points for I think the most expected wounds per points in the game, plus fairly reliable access to Death Frenzy making them an effective tool vs Gristlegore. Skaven are loaded with Battleshock immunity and casting bonuses, and they are relatively self-sufficient from a damage perspective anyway. That's before you get into the numbers PM can put out with buffs. I've played multiple tournament games where a single PM block has killed several units at once, for a fraction of the points you'd expect to pay for such carnage. Again, the fact that they are busted is intrinsically tied to their points. The fact that a single block would still likely be a preferred choice even if they went up to 350 suggests that something is off, given how cheap many other Skaven units are. Also as a disclaimer I love it, I enjoy playing competitive AoS and Skaven are as competitive as it gets at the moment. Enjoy it while you can!

Skaven are busted, firmly on tier 1 along with DoK and Gristlegore and arguably Fyreslayers, though we need more data for that last one. I'd argue pre-nerf DoK and Nagash + Grims of 6 months ago were more 'auto win' than Skaven, and all armies are beatable - especially when run badly. However, Skaven's problem is different to the problem FEC has. Skaven's scrolls are more or less okay. Bump up monks (how one of the best combat units in the game with access to Death Frenzy is only 240 points I will never know) and the Warpseer and probably WLV and we will still be great. FEC has busted mechanics with their pile-ins and activation shenanigans. Nerf their points too badly and they could totally disappear. They've already taken a hit from the nerf to CP generation. A few too many points increases and they will be in serious trouble. I think part of the problem you are running into (I presume your mates are complaining that you are playing filth?) is that a lot of people think they are being competitive by taking the strongest version of a lower strength army, then complain when you table their Gutbusters on Turn 1. Other competitive armies give Skaven a hard time with their equally filthy lists.

Phil mcg one ticket please!

Sceptical about the value of putting monks through gnawholes. wholly within 6" is very restrictive for a block of 40. In games where you are able to have gnawholes in an 'objective relevant' position, your opponent will often be able to block them if necessary.

Sign me up please, Phil McGuinness

Grey Seer - Frenzy Engineer - Vigordust, Warpshield Warpseer - Suspicious Stone Furnace 3x20 Clanrats 2x40 Monks Cannon Cogs Vortex Congregation of Filth Battalion I managed to dodge FEC and DOK. FEC wouldn't be so scary as I've Frenzy and screens, but priority would be important. DOK I think is a very hard matchup full stop, Morathi shrugs off tons of wounds, and even a few witch elves will tear through monks, plus they're more resilient. Sniping the general would be key. I did play Stormcast but probably had too many bodies. I managed to dispel my own Vortex with Master of Magic then recast it onto their main shooting which was clustered together in cover. My opponent who was a great guy, also probably focused on the Furnace/Warpseer too much, as opposed to the monks. The Furnace and Warpseer throughout the event took a disproportionate amount of heat, and any advice I'd give to people playing against a monk heavy list would be to just start chipping away on those blocks asap, even with 1MW/d3MW spells even though it feels like a waste. Getting the monks below the Skaventide horde bonuses is a big deal. In each game I played defensively, I was against pretty aggressive combat lists in 4/5 games which was in my favour. They had to come across the board quick or they'd get chipped down by Vortex and Cannon, which let me get even a single block of monks into 2/3 units on occasion, and their busted warscroll does the rest. Toughest game was my game 5 versus Slaanesh as they made both monk blocks strike last. Luckily in the previous round I'd been able to keep my furnace alive thanks to hot dice and my Warpseer safe so their damage combined with a few magic phase and shooting MW meant my blocks survived the double pile-in and cleaned house.

No, for my 2nd artefact I went for Vigordust injector for +1 to hit and +1 to charge on monks, so I'd have +2 to move from cogs and +4 to charge from injector/cogs/monk banner. On reflection, I rarely needed those bonuses. By having enough of a ranged threat people tended to come to me (partially due to the matchups I had), so I'd maybe have gone for the reroll prayers artefact on the furnace instead of injector. Cheers! Yeah you have to. Even without Death Frenzy, monks are so so cheap and they can delete almost any unit in the game. Furthermore, their frontage is so large that you can comfortably get them into multiple units and just blow people up. I'm certain monks will go up, as they are probably the most egregiously overpowered facet of Skaventide, but I'd be surprised to see any compensatory buffs or point reductions given how the wider community feels about Skaven atm. The Furnace I really just took to get my drops down, but it provided very handy battleshock immune and a decent mortal wound output. It was also quite an effective screening drop. Given its large frontage you can use it to deny a flank charge on to your monks, and its cheap enough to throw away if you need to.

Cheers! I won't go through a blow by blow of my games, but I got a few favoured matchups (big monsters) that provided good targets for my cannon and vortex, as well as solid battleplans (no relocation orb or burning objectives). Over 5 games I played versus 6 Dragons, 3 Bloodthirsters and 2 Keepers of Secrets, which is ok for Skaven, as we've got screens for days. I think the list is tight, and there's not too much I'd change. Congregation of Filth I took mainly to lower the drops, which paid off in a couple of matchups as I was able to dictate priority. Most Skaven lists are closer to 10-11 drops so it should pay off in a Skaven mirror too, which was the initial logic. Plague Monks are insanely undercosted and Death Frenzy just turns them up to 11. Skaven are ultimately just extremely strong and have an answer to most things, plague monks definitely need toned down/increased points, but I'm not complaining - I've waited a long time for Skaven to be good! I tended to deploy in a tight ball in the middle of the table with a long clanrat screen at 1" spacing, with the monks in a tight bunch just behind. I tried to use the Plague Furnace to take up space to block double pile-ins or serious movement shenanigans from getting into my monks by flying over screens, which it was good for. The ball of plague monks then went off in a hand-grenade like direction in T1 or T2, spreading from a tight ball to a wide line with cogs where possible, leaving them with an 8" move and +3 to charge. The amount of distance you can cover with those bonuses and a pile-in is pretty nuts, and it was relatively straightforward to tag multiple units. Warpseer was good bait in a lot of games. Left deliberately out of position to try and draw a charge and he didn't die in the whole tournament (partly thanks to some lucky rolling). His scry-orb also won me my game 5 by killing the last summoning hero for Slaanesh, so don't forget that - I often do.

Plague monk list was mine, had a really fun tournament. happy to answer any questions