Introduce me to the Skaven

[The_Farseer]

Hi Guys,

I want to get into playing Warhammer, so I've bought the rule book and the skaven book.

I have no idea about tactics, and very little knowledge on how to play, so I would like your advice on list building and anything else you can think of which will help me!

So far all I know is that I would like a horde of ratmen, and I'm leaning towards clan Skyre (?) so maybe more shooty stuff and some Grey Seer Magic (I really like the magic in Warhammer)

Thanks,

Dom

[Necron_Lord]

Skaven are all about the horde. Their stats and armor are typically meh compared to others, so you'll need to have lots of cheap stuff to tie up the opponent and then have some killy stuff to actually do damage. You'll typically have 1-2 large blocks of slaves (30-40 models) with a general and BSB nearby. In addition you should have 1-2 blocks of clanrats of the same size. These units don't kill much, but are meant to tie up the enemy's units.

You then should accompany them with things which can inflict lots of damage. Weapon teams, Poisoned Wind Globadiers, Hell Pit Abomination, Plague Censer Bearers, etc. These should charge the units tied up in the flank or in the rear if it can be pulled off. That will help to turn the tide.

I would recommend getting one or two IoB starter sets. If you know someone who wants to start HE, you can swap so that one gets all the HE stuff and one the Skaven to cut costs. You would still need a couple more boxes of Clanrats. That would give you some weapon teams, warlock engineers, a warlord, and another one to make a BSB, and some Rat Ogres. If you like Clan Pestilens, you could get Battalions, as they have Plague Monks. You could get an HPA or two, or Doomwheels, Warp-Lightning Cannons, a Grey Seer or whatever catches your imagination. Expect a lot of your army to die, however. Furthermore, Skaven magic and technology is prone to backfiring, so you'll have games when things go very bad indeed, where you only manage to kill your own guys and you get totally slaughtered. That is just the Skaven way of war. Remember that it's not your fault, it is due to treachery within, and that your troops are meant to be expended in a cold-blooded manner for your commander to achieve his aims.

[Chronowraith]

Welcome to the Under Empire!

Skaven are the quintessential horde army. You will often have more models on the board then even other horde armies, excepting possibly a full blown goblin army. As Necron Lord mentioned we rely on our basic troops and core units to tie up the enemy while we endeavor to use tricky schemes, vile beasts, and weird contraptions to deal the real damage to our enemies.

As a skyre fan as well, make good use of the weapon teams for your clanrats and the Doomwheel , Warp Cannon, and Jezzails are all strong options as well that fit with the skyre theme. Going outside of Skyre you have units like Rat Ogres, which perform extremely well for me, the hellpit abomination, and of course the plague censer bearers and/or plague furnace.

Skaven have not one but two great lores of magic. My personal favorite is ruin but the plague spells are great too. Spells of note in Ruin are Warp Lightning which is a fantastic and cheap to cast magic missile spell, Scorch which is a nice template for blocks of infantry, and Howling Warpgale which will aid your ratmen in reaching more static and shooty oriented armies. Cracks Call is also a great way to remove those low I models.

For tactics you will take your big blocks of slaves and clanrats and run them up. It really doesn't matter if you charge or get charged at this point as long as you work to move your damage capable units to the flanks. Also, since Skaven are tricky, we can have a variety of evil schemes up our sleeves such as warlock engineers with a doomrocket waiting to be teleported across the board on a suicide mission, sneaky assassins hiding in units, gutter runners and/or night runners popping up in the enemy deployment zone, and any number of strange magical devices.

For starting an army, Isle of Blood is a great way to get started. Rat Ogres are great, you get a warlock engineer and a warlord/chieftain model for characters and a whole boatload of skaven clanrats with spears or hand weapons. From here you should pick up some clanrat/slave boxes to build up your slave units and then pick up some of the bigger damage dealers I mentioned above, whatever turns your hamster wheel.

About the only units I'd steer clear of until you get a handle on the game and the skaven in particular are the Screaming Bell (Incredibly Random), the Plagueclaw catapult (just haven't seen this unit do much of anything), and the Verminlord.

If you are into the Plaguemonks then I encourage you to buy a large number of them. At T4 and no armor they tend to dye in droves, especially once they reach combat. They can certainly pump out some damage of their own but they are nowhere near as effective as they once were.

If you have any questions feel free to send me a PM. I've been playing Skaven for years (as in almost multiple decades by now).

[elmir]

I have a question as a starting skaven general as well then: How big should I run my slave units? What's the minimum unit size before they can be considered useless?

[Chronowraith]

I have a question as a starting skaven general as well then: How big should I run my slave units? What's the minimum unit size before they can be considered useless?

I find the best size to be around 40 slaves. Don't run them as a horde either. You want ranks on your slaves to keep steadfast as long as possible. The smallest unit of slaves in a standard 2000-2500 point games would be 30 slaves and I wouldn't run them in units larger than 50. Large unit will just cause problems when manoeuvring your units around.

The only time you will ever run slaves in numbers below 30 is in small games of 1000 points or less.

[elmir]

Thanks for the reply! I'm off to paint a bigger horde now.

[Morfiend]

The above posters were spot on. Nothing new to add their good advice.

I'll give you a tip you may not have thought of though. Paint a ton of the giant rat models. You may not even want to have a giant rat unit, but you can paint 20 of them in an hour easy and they make amazing unit fillers.

Lets say you want to try out different size units. More slaves less clanrats, just move some of the giant rat models from one unit to the next. They look good, and it makes sense since rats follow Skaven everywhere.

It gives you great flexibility, saves you time, and saves you $$$! And it doesn't sacrifice any of the visual quality of a big block of troops. I even think it improves them. Gives everything a real ratty chaotic feel.

I put mine on the regiment trays GW sells. Each of my units look like they are being followed by a bunch of rats. Skaven die a lot, so instead removing 4 models, I just pull out one of the 4 wide regiments of rats.

[w7west]

Skaven have a lot of guys who it is their sole purpose to go forth and die. Before they die, all that is required of them is that they force someone to waste their precious time swinging a weapon in their direction. This sounds like a horrible battle strategy until you find out that while your rats are waiting for their death, you get to shoot into the combats. Skaven have a lot of really good template shots (warp lighting ) so if you can keep the things that shoot these alive, and hold your opponent up with dieing rats, you can safely bombard them with all types of nastyness. Sure you might scatter upon your own ranks every now and again, but with the points you paid for each rat, 15+ casualties is perfectly acceptable for the chance to take out 100points of enemy infantry if you land it right. Plus you have rat ogres and abominations for when you want to be winning, duh.

[Metacarpi]

I don't really have much more to add to the above posters, but in my experience at 2,000 to 2,500 games (friendly, I've never played in tournaments or tried to build so called "competitive" lists), units of 30 - 40 Clanrats, 30 - 50 slaves, a unit of 40 Plague Monks (with the Plague Banner, naturally!), Grey Seer, BSB, a single Hell Pit Abomination, Warp Lightning Cannon, and a Doomwheel seem to work pretty well for me.

Oh, also - Plague Monks, Rat Ogres, etc come with bits on the sprue that can be used to make Giant Rats. A unit of 5 Giant Rats with a Packmaster is cheap as chip, points wise, so a couple of units of these can help force your opponent to place his pricier units ahead of you during deployment, allowing you to take tactical advantage!

EDIT: To add to the suggestion to use Giant Rats as unit fillers, I also find that Rat Ogres make visually appealing unit fillers, with the added bonus that you can paint them pretty quickly (I think I can knock out a decent Rat Ogre in an hour or so), and they take up 4 regular Clan Rats!

[HaleysRedComet]

Something I have heard is the rule that for every 10 points you should have 1 model on the board. This will pretty mich ensure that you are running a big horde and let you pick your big units to build your list around.