Alrighty! Big all-things Skaven post incoming, but I'll be promoting Pestilens, so we're good for thread focus
Skaven do a lot of things really, really well - and some things moderately. They have, like all armies, weaknesses, but those are largely avoided or mitigated by clever plays, or allied units that balance out key weaknesses. It's difficult to list strengths and weaknesses for Skaven as a whole since their different factions can approach the game in such drastically different ways, but there's a few recurring elements.
The good:
- Hordes; Almost anything skaven can bring to the table, they can bring a -lot- of. Every clan except Skryre wants to swarm the opponent in some shape or form.
- Base size: Every single horde unit is filled with models standing on 25mm bases. This means that stacking an absurd amount of attacks onto something is easily accomplished with just a handful of rats, and you'll rarely have to worry that your unit gets "clogged up" by it's own models due to bigger base sizes. A very good rule of thumb about this, which some people aren't aware of; 25mm is slightly less than 1", this means that models with 1" reach/range, standing on 25mm, can fight in two ranks, while those with 2" reach/range can fight in three; as long as there's no additional space between them. Thus, swarming an opponent is a very real thing, and you'd be surprised what seemingly weak clanrats and such can accomplish when they get to gang up on a large behemoth
- Sacrificial pawns; As a Skaven player, you're often well aware of how expendable your units are. Your opponent is often unaware of this, and will very often waste time throwing their terrifying killing machines into units that you know you don't need to accomplish your plans. This very often turns into a win/win scenario, because if they ignore that throw-away unit, you're free to run them onto objectives. Skaven can be surprisingly fast; clanrats being an exceptionally good example of this (They get +2 speed if they run/retreat, and they're able to retreat and charge in the same turn, meaning you get to retreat them -past- a unit they were fighting, and charge them into a unit they can actually handle, like a lone mage, or a line of archers. In the new edition, where units can only fire at the units they're in combat with if they're in combat, this is doubly effective)
- DAMAGE: A lot of Skaven units and warmachines have the possibility of dropping more wounds onto something in a single turn than you'd ever see from anything else. That's not to say that they'll -always- do this. Typically, Skaven damage output is flimsy, risky, and only half-reliable, but when it works, it -really- works. Think glass cannon, if that terminology works for you. This mostly goes for Skryre, who has the largest collection of "big damage, squishy" and "big damage, could kill itself" units available, but applies generally as well.
For instance, Clan Eshin has a great, game-dominating unit called "Gutter Runners" - For 200 points, you get 20 of these killer rats, who can deploy off the map, and basically outflank your opponent. Now here's the catch; They -have- to show up at the start of your first movement phase. No choice, no waiting for the right moment - and if your opponent is ready for them, then there's not going to be a lot of space for them to deploy everyone outside of 9" in any effective manner. Well, great, they still get to shoot a bunch, but that's more of a bonus than anything else. The real risk, is getting off that 9" charge. If they do, they will more or less kill, or horribly maim, anything you throw their collective stabby-stabbing at. If they fail, they will be wiped out before they can do anything because they're super squishy, and has terrible bravery. Or, for 240 points, you get 40 plague monks, who can sort of match Gutter Runners in hit/wound rate with their foetide blades (but no rend) - but in return, they have no save whatsoever; which doesn't hold them back at all, but I'll get back to that later.
- Heroes: Skaven has so many heroes, it's incredibly difficult to determine which one is the "best of the best" - As they're all great for different situations, especially in the new edition where you can use all of their command abilities. Interestingly enough, Verminlords are not always as good as their smaller counterparts, as you can easily protect your tiny warlord behind a rock, or a piece of scenery, while the Verminlord will take a cannonball to the face. Notable heroes are; Grey Seer, who's command ability will save a -lot- of rats over the course of a game, Plague priest w/censer; who's ability to once-per-game nominate a unit within 13", giving everyone who attacks that unit re-rolls to wound (Which is often a guaranteed death sentence with the amount of attacks Skaven usually throw out) - and the eshin Deathrunner, who gets the same artifact TWICE; one for himself, one for his clone! - Spoiler; In the new edition, chaos allegiance's "crown of conquest" makes all chaos units within 6" immune to battleshock; and now you have two of them
- Spellcasters: If you wanted to, you could bring enough spellcasting to rival Tzeentch. You don't have a good way of increasing your modifier, but you can make up for that with the sheer quantity of spells you'd be able to cast. One can only unbind so much. Not neccesarily a very competitive way of doing it, but good to know, eh?
The bad:
- Horrible bravery: Your models will run away every chance they get. Expect to take just as much losses to bravery as you do actual damage - Luckily, and especially with the new edition, we're able to work around this. Pestilens and Skryre allegiance gives us +2 bravery per 10 models in the unit from that clan, which goes a long way, but the saving grace is how inspiring presence works now instead of how it used to work. Before, we had to pick a unit in our hero phase, and instead of using a normal command ability, we would give it inspiring presence, making it immune to battleshock until our next hero phase. Now, we pick a unit in the battleshock phase within 12" of the general (or 6 from a hero), pay a command point, and they succeed their battleshock test. No more guessing who gets hit hard - now we know, and we get to do something about it.
- Super squishy: Everything is squishy except for some heroes (Arch-Warlock clocking in as the tankiest rat out there) - but what we lack in defense, we lack up for with mountains of bodies. As with all problems, the skaven solution is to throw more rats at it. Sure, you're losing 7 skaven to an attack you'd probably normally only lose 4 freeguild guards to, or maybe a single stormcast liberator, but there's TWO HUNDRED more where that came from. At that point, it's almost cute when the opponent starts dropping d3 and d6 mortal wounds onto a unit, for whatever reason. Normally that would be horrifying, but we don't care - there's always more skaven.
- Lack of support: We're a little bit behind the curve. No new shiny rules or toys for us, so we make due with what we have; and make no mistake, what we have is good - made even better by other people -constantly- underestimating what skaven can actually do. They surprise even me sometimes, and I play them all the time
I'd put it like this:
Verminus: (MANEUVER) super-horde army, uphill battle, use right buffs at the right time, outmaneuver opponent. All about being adaptive, flowing; Terrible at breaking through a static line. Units rely heavily on heroes.
Pestilence: (KILL/MOSHPIT) Horde army, loves to fight, loves to sacrifice low-value models to kill high-value models. Prayers; no spellcasting, but no one will unbind you. Units work individually, heroes can make them better.
Skryre: (SHOOT/MORTAL WOUNDS) Elite/Weapon team army; The bane of other elite armies. Can kill pretty much anything, but tends to have a serious shortage in friendly bodies. Extremely weak/auto loss versus things that do army-wide aoe damage, since every single weapon team has 3 wounds, and they're the core of your army, one way or another. Clanrats are exceptionally good allies, and fix a lot of Skryre's weaknesses.
Moulder: (BIG HEALTH MONSTER MASH//Frankenstein rats) Elite/Horde, everything is squishy, but some of the things heal. They have the hands down squishiest, cheapest heroes in all of Skavendom; Packmasters make the army go around, but don't be afraid to ally in a plague priest w/censer or two to -really- lay down the hurt. Good to note; Stormfiends don't need to be allied into Moulder, they're both a Moulder and a Skryre unit, so go crazy.
Eshin: (ASSASSINATION/FLANKING): Great allies! Don't run it as it's own army unless you're bringing a Verminlord deceiver, who helps them out a lot. Everything in Eshin has -some- kind of movement shenanigans, and they're all faster than normal Skaven (7!), and have some kind of shooting, which Skaven troops normally do not have. Gutter runners are my favourite from these; think of them as your expendable suicidal special forces; send them in, torch/kill something, and watch them die. All according to plan.
Masterclan: (ALLIES): A bunch of wizards. Everything is nice, depending on your overal approach. Not an army in itself.
More so than ever before. The three new command abilities (Inspiring presence, re-rolling charge rolls, and automatic 6" to run) have given us access to reliability; the one thing that has been keeping us down At this point, any battle should be winnable as long as we play it well, which is a vast improvement to the earlier "Sometimes we can't win." - And I will eat my words if I can't prove it in time!
Pestilens has caught my eye at the moment as a potential competitive pick. They got a point drop across the board (so did Moulder) - but I have yet to see their new allegiance abilities, so we'll see where they stand. Regardless, they're a very fun army to play if you're not put off by the horde aspect.
Warpgnaw Verminlord + full blob of Stormvermin; With the new edition, we can finally pull off a deepstriking maneuver with some reliability. Previously, if we failed the charge with the Stormvermin, you've essentially wasted 500 points; 840 if they also killed your Warpgnaw Verminlord. No more! Those Stormvermin will massacre whatever they get access to!
Plague Priest w/Censer bearer + Anything: It's hard to use this offensively, because it's in your hero phase, and only 13" range, but if the plague priest gets to target a unit with it's once per game ability, anything attacking that unit gets to re-roll their to-wound rolls; which turns things that are normally quite harmless like, for example, giant rats, into rabid swarms. Combined with any of the already good units, like Plague Priests, Stormvermin or Gutter Runners, you're looking at an exceptionally dead target!
There's other combos, but I can't think of any right now. I mostly focus on movement and outmaneuvering, so the perfect situational "Aha, I have all my buffs, let's go" only plays out a few times over the course of a couple of matches We're bound to discover new combos now with the new edition as well.
You let them charge you
All the damage in the world means nothing, if all they get to hit the turn they reach you.. is a single unit of clanrats. 40 clanrats, or any other 40-rat blob can essentially reach across the table in a long line, forming a sacrificial wall. Then you hit them back with everything you got (i.e: only throw clanrats at something if the unit is weak, or if the clanrats are over 30 models, and are buffed by a warlord, so in this scenario; everything else)
Fast hard-hitting armies often translate to someone putting their whole army within reach of your violent response. Who needs speed when the enemy parks at your doorstep?
Alternatively, there's the "Onion/Wall/Net" Approach, which I explain a bit in-depth in my "Age of Sigmar Strategy" thread thingy. Check my signature, it should sort you out That's more of a stalling technique, but the principle is the same.
Playing skaven is all about embracing the cowardly nature of your army. Your hero should NEVER unexpectedly get caught up in a fight. That's what your meatshields are for. Bodyguard, bodyguard, bodyguard.
We are the tankiest of tanks, but we pay the price in sanity; painting all those models will change you
No worries! I hope you got what you needed Mind that my moulder and eshin insight is lacking a bit. I have minimal Moulder experience, and only Gutter Runners have graced me with their presence from Eshin. I'm sure others can fill in whatever blanks or misinformation I might have on those.
