Thoughts on 8th ed Skaven?

I'm still toying with a bunch of different ideas, but I was curious - what are people thinking are going to be the big combos or unit builds for Skaven with 8th ed? Anything exciting come to mind?

I would take max doom wheels and if you can max aboms. all of my rat blocks would be 5 by's so say a 5 by 10 50 rats. The reason for this is, rats do not have a high enough str to kill what they hit but doom wheels and aboms do also rat ogres as well.

Think of trying to set up multiple charges.

There magic is still really good so use that. Shooting with jezzels I think after playing against them is a waste of time I'd go with poison mortars for the win.

All in all rats are a really good book and they should be just fine. If you would like I can help you in person with some rat lists.

I think Skaven in 8th Ed are great. They aren't really a low LD army any more because of a couple things. First of all any unit I could really care about, stormvermin / plague monks, I can make unbreakable by adding in either a Screaming Bell or a Plague Furnace. Second of all, the leadership of a Grey Seer went up from 6 to 7 meaning you can have a casting lord and still get the potential Leadership 10 for your army. Throw him on a bell and you have an 18 inch range for your general.

There are a couple things I think are almost mandatory in a skaven army depending on your build. If you do a combat army you need the storm banner, which can go on either the BSB, Stormvermin or Plague Monks.

I personally think either 2 aboms, 2 doomwheels or 1 of each is mandatory. I personally went with 2 abominations because they amuse me but I've seen the doomwheel and it can definately turn the tide through shooting as well as combat.

Any way here was my list for the 2500 Nova Open. Not sure if it will help but I figured I'd post it:

CORE
40 Stormvermin - Full command - Banner that adds +1 movement value.
23 Clanrats - Shields - Full command - Mortar
23 Clanrats - Shields - Full command - Mortar

SPECIAL
5 Jezzails
5 Jezzails
30 Plague Censer Bearers

RARE
Hellpit Abomination - Warpstone Spikes
Hellpit Abomination - Warpstone Spikes

LORDS

Grey Seer - Screaming Bell - Skaven Spells of Ruin - Dispel Scroll - Shadow Magnet Trinket - Ironcurse Icon

HEROES
Chieftan - BSB - Storm Banner - Shield

Summary:
This list is basically Points denial. I have 500 points in the Grey Seer on Screaming Bell, 320 in the stormvermin, and 123 in the BSB they almost have to touch that unit in order to win a VP mission. They also have to deal with 480 points in Plague Censers more than likely in combat because of how hard they are to shoot down in my list if i have either warpgale or stormbanner, or both, active.

I have 6 Fortitude points with the potential of getting more via The Dreaded Thirteenth Spell. This is the weakest point of my list imo. If I could easily add more banners in I would.

Against most opponents I hope to get Cracks Call, Warpgale, 13th Spell, and one of the other ones that isn't skitterleap. If I get warpgale off in the first turn or so, or any turn i have the storm banner active, then shooting at my army is at -3 to hit and if you dont roll to hit you have to roll a 4+ in order to shoot. Also if the opponent is shooting at the Grey Seer on Screaming Bell or the unit of Stormvermin they are at an additional -1 to hit making it a total of -4.

While its not much the Ironcurse Icon also helps a little bit against massed warmachines, IE Scooters gay Dwarf Army. Since most of them don't roll to hit and he will get a couple past the storm banner by rolling a 4+ if he targets the stormvermin they get a 6+ ward save vs warmachines. Its not much but its only 5 points and I must of made at least 10-15 6+ saves against scooter during our game in the Nova Open.

Overall I did pretty good with it in the games i've played so far with it. I went 3 and 1 in the Nova Open only losing to Scooter because he went first. By no means is it the only list that will work I just thought that seeing a list that is pretty good might give you some ideas of what you would like to do.

What do you think about 1 Abom and 1 Doomwheel?

I think with skevan you should go 2 doom wheels and 1 abom what about that


Also on a side note we were told all the inner circle people bring such hard lists lol good job guys keep it up.

I know Ludwig runs 1 Abom and 1 Doomwheel and it's done him fairly well.

I have 2 Doomwheels and am building an Abom.

Do you think there's a point to running anything in a Horde outside of a Bell or Furnace?

NO

I dont know scooter I think censer bearers in a horde is pretty funny.

i thought skirmishers dont get rank bonuses. wouldn't think mean they wouldn't get the step up bonus?

ok ok 1 exeption

@ Lincoln- per a quote from the rulebook under skirmishers "Light Trrops"

"...Skirmishers always count as having zero ranks, and therefore cannot claim a rank bonus, be steadfast, or disorder an enemy with a flank or rear attack - they makie supporting attacks as normal, however."

they can make supporting attacks so if they are ten wide then they will fight in two supporting "ranks"

I personally would love to play Skaven.....I just refuse to paint that many damn models at the moment. I had been toying around with the idea of a list that had a seer, bsb, 6 warlocks and a ton of clanrats with as many plague mortars as i could fit, but again dont want to paint that many models

The way 8th ed works, that many casters is a major detriment. On average, you're rolling 7 casting dice - so if you don't want to just roll a single die for each guy for warp lightning, a bunch of casters are floating around not doing anything each turn and the Seer is definitely not pumping out anything potent enough to justify him. I would think 3-4 engineers with the Seer would be the max you'd want to run to avoid the wasted points.

Now that said, the idea of nothing but 8 or so engineers running around throwing lightening bolts is pretty darn hysterical...

the point of that list is not to utilize all of them in the same turn. Since 8th has gone back to a community pool of dice and a system where each mage has the ability to channel, the more the merrier.

On average with 7 casters I should always be adding one to my pool of dice, combine that with warpstone tokens which all skaven can have and multiples of it becomes very useful with that many different spots on the board to cast from.

That is not even considering the turns i roll really high on the 2D6 for casting and if I roll better then averaging for channeling.

Wasted points.....not when you get troops for 4 points, and the casters themselves are only going for 80-90.

Combine this with the massed units of troops, put the seer on a bell for a massive points denial unit and you have an army that can become very hard to deal with in the right hands.


But who knows Im just a rookie when it comes to Warhammer, I will leave the big nasty lists and the tournament wins to the pros like Scooter and Lincoln

Hmm, 6 of them with warpmuskets will run you 480 points. There could be a great deal of fun with that little boom squad...

Quote :

But who knows Im just a rookie when it comes to Warhammer, I will leave the big nasty lists and the tournament wins to the pros like Scooter and Lincoln

It's so hard being green lol

Joe me and Spencer came up with a list and wanted to know what you thought. This was about a week ago.

10 units of 20 clan rats each with poison wing mortar
2 catapults
2 cannons
30 plague censer barriers
1 eng <----- Gen
1 bsb

And there are a couple more points to spend. This list is just shy of 2500 points and we have about 50 more points to spend.

2 doom wheels 2 abombs, furnace, bell, storm banner

and lots of clan rats and plague monks

Also a good units of gutter runners never hurt.

I think going anti shooting and big units with doom wheel and abomb support is the best way to go.

I think the Abom/Doomwheel thing is the only way to go for punch, unfortunately.

I played Scott S. at NOVA and he was running 3 mortars and 2 Aboms. The mortars didn't really have much of an effect the whole game and I was able to avoid his Furnace - but those Aboms did some serious damage, as usual.

@ Scooter - That list will work, it is different but could be nasty with all of that shooting. I would rather have 2 catapults and 1 abom if the points would work out. I love the mortars!!! They are hideous when used in masse like that.

the censors are just funny, Spencer and his damn horde skirmishers.

I would love to play skaven.....does any want to paint my models lol

I hate those GD freaking Censors. Absolutely wrecked me last night.

What do you think about the list having no magic thou or should that be put in when you go to 2750?

Honestly I'm not sold on the mortars but that is from just one game of playing against them. Spencer ran two against me, one blew itself up the other managed to kill 16pts (2 gors w/ xtra weapons) in 5 turns before getting paniced off the board. I don't know but it should definitely be play tested. I know I need some more testing on my Beasts, Spencer wasn't sold on my Bestigors yet I thought they were pretty solid in 8th.

well magic is and isnt as bad as it used to be. Some spells are really nasty, but with the fact that you get the highest die rolled for dispel it can be hard to get those big ones off. I would say run the one engineer with a scroll and see how it pans out. you have a lot of targets for the enemy to keep track of and thats alot of mortars to deal with, even if half blow up, the other half are going to demolish armies.

To be fair on the mortars I rolled like ass for them. I hit twice out of like 5 or 6 shots fired, so thats average. However, when rolling to wound on a 5+ I wounded once out of sixteen chances and when rolling to wound on a 4+ I wounded once out of two chances.

I know that against Skaven a NOVA, I used the mortars against him buy kill-hopping through them or using siren song to make him choose between being killed and not firing or running through his units on a flee. I think I lost 3 horrors to mortar fire all game.

Im actually tempted to get rid of the two mortars entirely and add in another unit with a banner for more fortitude points. I've already changedm y list by dropping the 10 jezzails and adding in 18 plague monks with full command and storm banner. removed the storm banner from the BSB and gave him talisman of protection and switching his shield to a halberd.

scooter wrote:

Joe me and Spencer came up with a list and wanted to know what you thought. This was about a week ago.

10 units of 20 clan rats each with poison wing mortar
2 catapults
2 cannons
30 plague censer barriers
1 eng <----- Gen
1 bsb

And there are a couple more points to spend. This list is just shy of 2500 points and we have about 50 more points to spend.

I ran a similar list way back when, but instead of clan rats, used stormvermin. Because a unit of clan rats is 80 points compared to 70 points for the 10 stormvermin. This allowed me to get more points for more mortars.

thats funny. thats really funny

Spencer what was your list for ard boys?

I was just wondering