New Army?

[Iron Warrior]

Ok, since my 40k Orks are nearing completion ive been think of doing a new army for fantasy, since my orges are not really a solid army to begin with. I figured I would go back to my roots and begin a Skaven army...the first army i ever played in Warhammer.

Now I would like to a Skrye-esque list. Now I have vaugly looked at the New (to me) Skaven book and if people could tell me What shouldnt take too much of, whats cheesy, whats solid, whats not, how many casters is fair knowing its a skyre list...basically what would be a competitve list but still have the aspect of Skyre and not too cheesy? hehe Any thoughts?

[johnboo]

Mike & Jason are our rat-boys and can probably answer this better than me, but.....

The two things that bother opponents the most are the auto-hit ratling guns and the engineers with the default str 5 magic missiles - especially with tokens. Jezzails tend to bother people, but not as much as those first two unless you take a large amount.

[Norton]

The problem with "skyre" lists is that they lean heavily on the very things that most ppl claim as cheesy, the ratling guns, jezzails, cannons, engineers, etc.

I guess we'd have to take this a few at a time. The engingeers on their own are fine, they have a fine magic missile spell and can have a little variety with the Skyre only items, enough to be cool. In a clan skyre list i would stop at 3 of them, and prob play 2, and i might suggust only 1 if you're playing the grey seer as well. In general having much over 6 casting dice is frowned upon and with skaven magic, can be downright overpowering.

The rest of the heros are fine though, i'd stay away from teh grey seer personally as well as the warlord, as they don't strike me as "skyre" types.

The chief is fine, especially if played as the BSB, an assassin bodyguard is fluffy, and if you have any rat ogres / giant rats, then a master moulder wouldnt be out of place either.


Skyre Core,

Of course the bulk of you army should be the versatile clanrats, 3-4 units of ~25 should do the trick, weapon teams, while very thematic for a skyre lists are tricky, ppl get touchy about them and even in a skyre list i would never play more then 3, 3 should be acceptable as long as you're making it obvious it's a skyre list. Of course warp fire throwers give you a little leeway with this as most ppl care less about them. So 1-2 ratling guns with 1-2 warpfires should fit well.

Next up in any skyre list should be the Plague wind globadiers, also clan skyre made. A couple small units should be featured in any skyre army. Say 2 units of 5? Relatively cheap, but unfortunately not steallar.

Slaves of course are a sign of power for any skaven army and a couple units wouldnt be out of place here either.

The rest of the core coices arent' bad, but not particularly fluffy. The rest being moulder, eshin, or plaugue related.

SPECIALS,
Of course you'll want to play at least 1 unit of jezzails, possibly 2 smallish units, say 2 units of 5 should be acceptable.

I don't really see reason you'd have the more elite versions of the other clans units so i'd avoid those, possibly a single unit of rat ogres if you were to use the automaton models as those look skyre even though they're not

RARE,
1 warp lightning cannon really should be compulsory. 2 if you're feeling thingyish.

[Norton]

I'm sure this list is a little shooting heavy, but i think this would be a fair represenation of what a skyre list should look like.


Unnamed2000 Pts - Skaven Army

1 Warlock Engineer @ 145 Pts
General; Magic Level 1; Supercharged WP Accumulator; Upgraded Warp-Energy
Condenser; Warp Blades; Warplock Pistol
#1 Warpstone Token [0]
Storm Daemon [25]
Warpstone Charm [25]

1 Warlock Engineer @ 105 Pts
Magic Level 1; Supercharged WP Accumulator; Upgraded Warp-Energy
Condenser; Warp Blades
#1 Warpstone Token [0]
Death Globes [20]

1 Chieftain @ 94 Pts
Heavy Armour; Battle Standard
Banner of the Swarm [20]

1 * Assassin @ 150 Pts
2ndWeapon; Throwing Stars
Weeping Blade [45]

20 Clanrat Slaves @ 44 Pts
Musician

20 Clanrat Slaves @ 44 Pts
Musician

25 Clanrats @ 200 Pts
Light Armour; Shield; Standard; Musician

1 Weapon Team @ [60] Pts
Ratling Gun

25 Clanrats @ 200 Pts
Light Armour; Shield; Standard; Musician

1 Weapon Team @ [60] Pts
Ratling Gun

25 Clanrats @ 215 Pts
Light Armour; Shield; Standard; Musician

1 Weapon Team @ [75] Pts
Warpfire Thrower

18 Giant Rat Pack @ 90 Pts

3 Packmasters @ [0] Pts
Whip; Light Armour

5 Poison Wind Globadiers @ 50 Pts
Poison Wind Globe

5 Poison Wind Globadiers @ 50 Pts
Poison Wind Globe

19 * Stormvermin @ 305 Pts
Halberd; Heavy Armour; Shield; Standard; Musician
War Banner [25]

1 Fangleader @ [10] Pts

1 Weapon Team @ [75] Pts
Warpfire Thrower

5 Warplock Jezzail teams @ 100 Pts
Jezzail; Pavise

5 Warplock Jezzail teams @ 100 Pts
Jezzail; Pavise

1 Warp-lightning Warp Cannon @ 100 Pts
Warp Lightning Cannon Misfires

Casting Pool: 6

Dispel Pool: 4

Models in Army: 185


Total Army Cost: 1992

[Iron Warrior]

Cool, I will have to look this over more closely when I actually have the new skaven book infront of me. Thanks Norton.

[shaun]

warhammer.org.uk/PhP/

This is highly regarded as the "best/toughest" army out there by many in the warhammer community. The link above is to what is probably the best link for fantasy discussions.

Just thought I'd share it with you.

[Ranger Dude]

The one thing I hated when facing skaven isn't fluffy for skyre, so I'm glad to see you not playing them. I HATE PLAGUE MONKS!!!!!

[Iron Warrior]

Nortons army that he posted is regarded as the best?


I took a look at the forums and didnt see too much complaining...about equal with Sylvania, 2nd gen slans and some deamon armies...Whent to the "Cheesiest army" post and it took about 14 posts in to list the first skaven list. Im not concerned too much with opinions right now...after all im use to the stigma of playing an army thats "too good". Skaven was the most fun I had when I first started play warhammer and I would like to play them again and play fantasy more, not using an under powered army like the ogres. I think I would have more enjoyable games if I used a more solid army.

I like skyre because of the fluff of the clan of sorcerers and techies, having experiments blow up in thier faces, I remember from the last edition my warp fire throwers running around and exploding in my units, it was hilarious! The old Doom wheel, jezzails, Poison Wind globadiers...it was a cool army. I would like to reconstruct it in the new system.

[shaun]

Here's the link to the recent GT/RTT power army discussion.

warhammer.org.uk/PhP/viewtopic.php?t=9748

I didn't mean any offence to you playing this army. Just like in 40K, its all in what you take. I equate them to the Iron Warriors of fantasy. They can be easily made to be over the top - if thats what you choose to do. Thats all - you were the one who wanted peoples opinions. So take it like a man ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Iron Warrior]

I took no ofense to it. I just wanted to know what units people like/disliked. I know skaven can be broken and wasnt too concerned with that, yet.

Not sure if i totally agree with some of those people. Some have dwarves in tier 3 or 4 where that isnt the case.

Thanks for the link,

[Ranger Dude]

Time to hijack this thread. I also have been looking to play another army in fantasy. The Goblins are fun, but they are goofy. I think I want something a little more serious to play once in a while (plus fewer models to paint would be nice.) Dark Elves have caught my eye, and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions. I'm not really interested in whyche elves and their cult, but other than that, I like the entire list. I've heard mention of problems, but as my fantasy experience is limited, I'm not sure what hey are. Anyone care to enlighten me?

[MallSecurity]

I play Dark Elves myself and here is what I have gathered:

Weaknesses:
Low Toughness, Low Armor Save
Typically low number of Models in an army
Their Core Troops really can't fight their way out of a paper bag
Stupidity
Average-at-best Shooting

Strengths:
Strong Magic (+1 to cast, plus a good lore)
High number of Fear and Terror Causing models
Fast
High Base Leadership

I wouldn't worry about witches, I find them to be both expensive and a liability (from the Frenzy). My Biggest Problem with them so far is that I struggle with units that are good in combat (Many Chaos units, Dwarfs, and jacked-up heroes); I'm having trouble finding the smack to really win combats. The best unit I know that does this, the Cold One Knights, suffer from stupidity and are prone to randomly lose you turns/games.

That said I do enjoy playing with them and I am trying to find ways to make them work.

Another alternative is the Slaanesh Cult, which combines Dark Elves and Slaanesh Chaos. I'm told that the Chaos units can help cover many DE failings, but I have yet to try it myself.

[Ranger Dude]

I thought about that too as I am a big fan of daemonettes. Don't have the list for it though, so I haven't had a chance to really look at it. Maybe I'll give it a skim through soon.

[Iron Warrior]

Now that I have the book I was able to look at the list more carefully.

Question for you Norton, is this a list you made up or found on a site somewhere? It seems like a good starter army, lots of shooting not too much in terms of Magic items...

After looking through the book there really isnt any bad choices in the book...with the exceptions for gutter runners and Night runners, perhaps globadiers but they seem like trick units anyways.

I would like to try a Grey Seer and have him "act" as a Master Warlock engineer, then have a Egineer, and Assasin and a BSB cheiftain.

What are you ideas/opinions on Grey Seers?

[Norton]

The list is just one i put togeather real quickly based on the comments i had posted.

As for the grey seer playing as an engineer? Hmm, not sure about that. I think that will start to garner you cries of cheese. You're already playing a shooting army and the grey seer adds potent magic on top of that.