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Nikobot

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  1. Nikobot
    Stormfiends should have a decent place but I think people are expecting too much. A few key things to remember : They are amazingly ****** at shooting without buffs e.g. no buffs = 3x SFs ave 3.8 damage (at 315pts... wow) They are really good fully buffed e.g. MMWP, spark = 3x SFs ave 14.4 damage Their main damage output is their ratlings and they are only 12" range and -1 rend in an edition with a lot more armour They have gone up 55pts for 3 They dont have a champion to access CAs, they need a foot hero for all buffs Unleash hell means the only buff they can have up is MMWP or vigordust still in effect from your previous hero phase. No sparks, no deranged inventor, no all-out-attack Not to be a downer, but these guys are really polar opposites when buffed and unbuffed, and waaaay overcosted when not buffed. There's too many things out there that can squish our heroes for this to be a no-brainer, even an archwarlock with 5+ ward is only an effective 9w with a 3+ save without further buffs. You probably have to really invest into an extra warlock and protection if you are going 6+ fiends which adds further to their effective cost. Just something to keep in mind.
  2. Nikobot
    @Gwendar holy cow, thats some output.. shame verminlords can't do half this 😏 I lie, warbringer + brutal could get close to this once a game 🙄 that must have been a shock! I thought the jezzails might get you some better results, I'd consider giving it another chance
  3. Nikobot
    @Gwendar thanks for the sharing! huh? what? how did he manage this sort of damage?
  4. Nikobot
    the mentioned units tend to fill the role of screening i.e. clanrats x20 etc, and i tend to not build lists with even more screens than 3x20 clanrats + 1-2 units of night runners. But 10 strong rat units are a good speed bump, they do a good job at that.
  5. Nikobot
    Tend to play skaventide and clanrats get that honour usually as they fill battleline too. If additional chaff needed, possible option is night runners for the pregame movement.
  6. Nikobot
    thanks for the batreps! I think a doomwheel + WLC list may combo well, they aren't all clamouring for the same buffs that way I think where im most concerned my skaven fall down is going up against other competently shooty lists, our shooting units apart from fiends just dont do attrition well as we know, have you played many shooty armies?
  7. Nikobot
    Really enjoyed the report, thanks for providing a great read! Honestly, just looking at the lists I was pretty confident you had him. I thought your list is real solid, I think I'll borrow this one 😁 Multiple good threats, good numbers and had everything needed to dismantle the other build. Glad to see the stormvermin back reporting for duty! Questions : - stormvermin, how'd they feel at their current points? I think skeletons may not have been the toughest foe but not the worst either - acolytes , good at 20? Perfect mix of output and horde discount? They seemed good! - it wasn't a danger this battle, but naked warlocks with your general trait and artefacts.. would you change this against opponents with more long range threat or persist with this list? thanks again!
  8. Nikobot
    I know they are currently popular in that list but It's a Skaven unit that for the most part belongs in a Skaven army and im thinking should be balanced with this in mind. Trying to balance a unit with a focus on an separate accessory type release, that delivers a chaos soup army and with a specific artefact in mind seems the wrong way to go about it and largely impossible to balance anything properly.
  9. Nikobot
    i think their role as versatile/utility is great, they just need some more hit for 300pts. verminlords need a spell list now so they have 2 spells to cast. having 1 spell to cast is even worse with max 3 endless now, but with all the unbind power out there now, the endless spell investment is a lot worse for skaven. Warpseer probably worth 280pts due to all his versatility, I think he needs an innate +1 to cast/unbind in this day and age though and that extra known spell from a VL deck, as he hits like a marshmallow, but thats ok as he does lots. Deceiver and Warbringer need to be able to do 9-10 damage vs 4+ reliably without huge artefact investments etc Corruptor is just horrible in combat, needs to be doing something approaching the deceiver/warbringer. id imagine tweaking his MW output, d3 mw on a 6 to hit, and -1 rend would help. Skreech is terrible. needs damage boost/rewrite. i think it would be good if he got a clan keyword each turn for the aspect he takes on. that would give him access to good buffs and versatility.
  10. Nikobot
    Errr. i dont think so if my memory serves i did the math on this basic profile and he averaged 5-6 wounds vs 4+ including re-roll wounds and inc his chance to get off his punch dagger crit. the verminlords are left way behind for big monster damage expectations. warpgnaw is probably the best, but im not confident with any of them killing a 5w hero via their basic profile. they also have pretty low theoretical maximum damage, circa 12 damage if you ave their weapon damage of d3., whereas as big monsters now are up around 20-30+ i understand they are versatile and jacks of all trades, but they need to do a bit more in combat for 300pts
  11. Nikobot
    it would help.. but then a battalion is the only way around the issue.. which doesnt really solve it? i mean i think its a bit of a design issue, i think its proven, they just dont see play. the game has evolved so they are even LESS likely to see play now, virtually every army now has ways to plink them off pretty quick and even though they can certainly output some damage, theres no way to hide/protect them and the investment to get something done feels high vs the ease with which they can be removed i would more easily decide to pay 50pts for a WFT doing MWs on a 5+, but when i think about paying 70pts, even though at 4+ its better, i think about how easily it can be killed and losing 70pts down the toilet. you get a few of those and 140pts can go quick i thought it might be a better spot for them to be in
  12. Nikobot
    weapons teams all have a bit of an issue with their design now as the game has evolved and so many ways exist to get them off the board at range. with 3w and a 6+ save, they may either do something great or disappear without a whimper. for 60-70pts its a bit of a turn off, which is prob why they dont see too much play your not wrong about the doomflayer, worst unit in the game! i think the doomflayer could stand to be in units of 1-3, 3d6mv, 4w, 4+ save and on the charge do d3mws on a 4+, fix their silly overcharge to just doubles and cost them at 40-50pts . in a unit of 3 they could lurk around the lines for well placed charges or go chase objectives to clear off in the backfield. prob do 10w before saves + 3mws... not much after that but you could see a use in that way id like to see warpfires do mws on 5+ and 50pts each ratlings prob fine at 60pts, maybe 50pts... or maybe make their overcharge only an extra d6 and make them 40pts by making the teams cheaper, i think its easier to mentally accept you could be paying for something that isnt going to get a single shot off and they could see more play. right now they arent popular which is a shame as they are synonymous with Skaven's crazy theme!
  13. Nikobot
    hey, it was just version 1.0! They were probably just keeping something in the tank and a bit worried how an army with 40 units and diverse abilities was going to affect the game. I'm voting for skryre/moulder as the 1st review area! OH... MY... GOD! how good are they! I absolutely love them, bought 60! Just the nicest and most useful faction dice out, so happy with these and couldnt agree more 😊 yeah and its internal to each of the individual and many parts that make up CoS, its just a higher level of tuning that time needed to bring. I look at seraphon now, and i dont know where the dust will settle on them but some of tuning is quite crazy, not sure on the overall cost of it but it just didnt exist back then. Agree, same here. time to look at these again. an expendable asset designed to surgically remove more points than it costs perhaps?
  14. Nikobot
    You can't always have what you want 😉 Its 1 possible way of doing it, its apparent they can't spit out new models for new armies every month. Need to be reasonable or go back to WHFB days of 2-3 army updates per year, and even then there werent huge amounts of new models released! yes.. they have made it clear they want to do minimal errata, and wholesale changes would only come with a new tome. so if they create cool new things that can eventually spread to all books, then continuing with fast paced tome updates would see this happen in a timely fashion. i hope they continue it completely agree, one of my biggest disappointments is i find i just keep using them same spells! so many warscroll spells never get cast due to bveing poor or so limited. the amount of times ive been out of range for a bloody warp lightning! and I'm supposed to overcharge! but the chance of an unbind killing my warlock is too great! should just be a failed cast, not unbind.... 3 warlocks all with MMWP is a shame. A-B I'd say, i think its come down due to lists being played. If you cherrypick the best units (again, unfortunately ignoring most of the book nowadays) i think it can give most lists a run for their money.
  15. Nikobot
    its super fun, i like some random and accept the trade-offs mostly. I do expect points discounts for such units. Sometimes the community can vent about the strength of something without fully acknowledging the trade-offs. Hellpit was a bit of that as an example, it was cheap for its damage output and people complained. However, it has random, not-fast movement (bitten me in the backside hard), its damage profile sees it fall away, and is a big target with a 5+ save that can't have an artefact. So it just doesn't always work as intended and should be pointed that way. I dont think its a case of too many tools, i think at this stage its just a more raw version of where tomes are now and the synergies are just quite basic. It doesnt have the stacking of synergies that other books have these days, it doesnt have sub-factions for depth, and its hurt a lot by the battalions being poor.
  16. Nikobot
    the hardest thing is we usually get 1 artefact as per most builds, choosing to put it on a deathmaster to do killing is not a great use IMO. hes squishy, he isnt going to kill anything more than a support hero, it has better applications. in a more narrative sense, no problem. But it feels like a feel B-C tier army decision for competitive play. i think you are right about the SoJ in a sense, it would make him killier, but only against heroes/monsters, but see above. i think i recall the fangs being discussed prior, like the idea of 3 fangs too, but are you really going to use the artefact slot on something this situational. if we had 2-3 artefacts, yeah sure, i see. or if not concentrating on being competitively focused. Its 1 use only and will kill a support hero 28% of the time. It will kill a 12W monster hero only 8% of the time. psychologically may have some effect i agree, but if the enemy knew the numbers then perhaps not. might be more useful if the enemy has an important 8W (28%) to 10W (16%) hero. It really can do nothing most of the time, so that nags me... 3 out of every 4 games, the 1 artefact i get to take... will do nothing... hmm.
  17. Nikobot
    not really compelling. whilst it may score 2-3 wounds if lucky when you include shooting, its not really going to get any forseeable job done. no force multiplier abilities, no special CA.. can jump out and surprise but for what purpose. agree with what you said, sadly dont bring him to the table
  18. Nikobot
    Plus Nagash, Arkhan, and Seraphon prob the most troublesome now too... I think Skaven are pretty good still, can't think of situations as yet where skaven are outright not competitive, to me its just being funnelled into stricter choices and less variation for competitive play. I think points adjustments would be welcome and could shake things up, would be fantastic for less popular units but i wouldnt expect it. doesnt seem to be a trend.
  19. Nikobot
    I dont think its that grave. You get a rules update and new bells n whistles, its keeping the game current which can only help. As i said, we are at a precipice as to what's next for tome rollouts. maybe we see something like, 1 hero + 1 unit with a minor tome updates to keep things rolling. maybe multikits at that. just generally speaking, I dont know if Skaven are really that good at magic now, they have some good spells, but a lot of the spells never see the light of day which is a shame. i think the game has moved on and i would be reluctant to invest much into a heavy magic build. We dont have access to enough boosts to inspire confidence i feel. gnaw holes are too out of the way to get +1 with largely short range spells, they tried to be too narrative with all the 13" ranges i feel. I agree it was a cleanup tome, and am very thankful for it. the number of viable/competitive builds is dwindling for the higher tier play, you really only see the same armies mixing it over and over again utilising stormfiends/jezzails/monks with 3x20 clanrats. You never see mono-clan doing anything, its solely skaventide, and the rest of the units range between OK to meh. Thats being harsh and a competitive play point-of-view only, and you can play lots of units at a middle power level.
  20. Nikobot
    I like that endless spells add tactical options to armies, it would be good to see other endless spells adjusted to see more use e.g. Laucheon was tipped to be popular until nerfed into the never-to-be-seen bin before starting. so in a way i dont want bridge changed.. its also like spell portal, now its only used by a few characters, mainly nagash for hand of dust... id like to see it changed so its providing utility/tactics to other armies other than nagash or CoS only. Agree that fiends arent as great as they once were, their balance in the current meta aside, they really are a bit of conundrum as unit for rules. They need changes, their shooting options are just auto-include if you are taking them and GWs policy on warscroll-to-match-kit-options leaves them difficult to write rules for that will see a unit with obvious loadouts. I hope they work out something that sees all loadouts see some value in future.
  21. Nikobot
    We are at the precipice of "what does GW do next?" in terms of battletomes... now everyone has an updated tome, though some are showing age, its a big Q if they continue to update tomes at the rate they have or do they slow down and if so, how much... I hope they continue dropping tomes, even if they arent updating models, they are improving the rules and moving things forward and i see it as a "relatively easy" option to create interest and keep everyone excited without the large overhead that new model lines create (I assume this, as this seems to be what the general discussion suggests) it wouldnt suprise me to see skaven 2.0 at the end of the year. when you compare skaven to the latest books like seraphon, you can see it was relatively vanilla as a ruleset and largely warscroll-driven, and whilst im very thankful for it, they didnt add in all the development bells'n'whistles that tomes have now. there were plenty of opportunities still unexplored to add depth to the tome without introducing new model ranges like : adding more units without new models e.g. doomwheel warlock hero variant (steam tank got 1), plague lord vs plague priest(bell plastic / metal skrolk), giant stormfiend (boneripper minus thanquol), assassin lord vs deathmaster (they had old metal assassin sculpts they shelved), variant clawlords (they had other sculpts they shelved e.g. spinetail, tretch), HPA variant possibly skryre (they have diff bits in the kit, like warpstone spike, metal claw arm), another grey seer variant (bell guy could go on foot / foot guy), im sure there are others... adding CAs to heroes, skaven really has minimal CA mechanic variation outside verminlords e.g. all clawlords have the same one (clawlord/brrod horror/skritch), grey seers (seriously? they lead skaven most of the time), arch-warlock, deathmaster, warlocks, plague priests etc. and this is really the way a lot of new armies are structured with heavy CA interactions clan sub-factions. an obvious exclusion and at a time where sub-factions were probably only starting to emerge. i can understand why it was left out at the time as skaven was one of the 1st big factions to appear and harder to manage/understand the variety it presented, and as sub-factions were just newish rulesets. I'm seeing a template for all the clans is needed. I can see it being different to the normal sub-factions too, more like the CoS one, but with greater restrictions. Narratively, the point of a clan sub-faction would be to focus on the clan, and not be as mixed as skaventide, so a focused approach to what warscrolls were allowed, and probably a more powerful set of sub-faction abilities to compensate for the limited range of army options e.g. skryre taking only skryre keyword units with perhaps 1 in 4 units being able to be from 1 allied clan in the greater skaventide range, kepping it relatively focused, getting some bebenfit of variety but not allowing you to simply cherry-pick the best units and at the same time getting a pretty good set of sub-faction abilities makes sense to me. It doesnt need to have the "set artefacts and traits" lie CoS does, and this continues to work very well with the separate trait/artefact lists available to skaventide. Verminlord spell lore (3), Verminlord traits (3), Pestilens prayers lore (3) Summoning in the form of Giant Rats and Rat Swarms makes sense like the old Warpseer CA. Using CPs for summoning seems in theme with skaven, possibly an effect of the screaming bell table as well, i wouldnt expect summon for any other units, but those 2 seem appropriate. Anyway, some ideas that seem to fit for me and allow for opportunites of development without the need for extra model ranges. In saying that, there are other tomes showing their age and could do with updates too like LoN, Nurgle, deepkin, Beasts, DoK even.. so who knows
  22. Nikobot
    @Gwendar you're fast becoming a hero of mine totally agree units cant be compared in isolation, simply not right and are a function of the army they belong to. in saying that, its still something of a measuring stick to know the heirarchy of things in a loose fashion the comparison gives me the loose impression yes they could be better, but i wouldnt be mostly focused on the optimal loadouts for SoS and hammers, as the requirements are too different to compare. comparing peak output based on multiple chancey buffs is prob less perfect. Personally, I'd like to focus on whats reliably acheivable moreso., or at least dont include the "kitchen sink" every time. I personally think their biggest weakness is something you mentioned, how they drop off as they die, and that makes the strongest case for a points drop. the value curve is all skewed because of this. A unit of 10 is much more useless than 40 model-for-model yet costs more per model. But thats a skaven thing, so... well its another challenge doing comparisons. Another missing ingredient is they dont seem to have as many buffs to access as some peers. Looking at Seraphon as an extreme example, its just layers and layers of synergy. Actually, if you have time @Gwendar would you mind doing a compare vs a few saurus builds? harder to compare due to base size, but would be interesting to see, how say 20 compares all in all, after thinking about it my gut tells me that 9-10 points per model and debatably without/reduced horde bonus, funnily enough.
  23. Nikobot
    @Gwendar if you have time, care to comment on some comparison units to SV that are currently in fashion in other armies and if you have any damage output comparison info vs points etc? just asking if you have any info up your sleeve as you seem to have cool stats and charts available
  24. Nikobot
    too expensive yes, but stormvermin are a legit threat. they are not clanrats that are only good at dying. with their 25mm bases, 2" reach they are an absolute blender and 95% of units need to be very careful around them. another unit thats been left behind on efficiency due to the advancement of new armies but can absolutely delete a lot of things.
  25. Nikobot
    looks good. possibly consider swapping the priest for something else, endless spells? they dont do too much i've found. i suppose you may drop their prayer and scoop some mws sometimes, even snag a great plague potentially
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