New to Skaven; Slaves question

[Stickabee]

Howdy folks. I'm new to the forum, and as the title of the post reads, new to Skaven. As such, I've got a few questions, only a few of which I will ask now.

I've been poring over the book for several days now and debating the usefulness of Skavenslaves. Their cost is obviously low, and their stand-up-and-fight seems to correspond to that cost, but (1) does the "Cornered Rat" rule(or whatever its called) makethem worthwhile? (2)Is it their ability to shield the other, more "solid" units of rats from big charges or ranged fire that makes them worthwhile? (3) Should they be given spears and shields for one more PPM, or just left as is? (4) Should I just avoid them altogether and go with giant rats or swarms to screen against charges?

These are probably pretty amateurish questions, but having only tinkered with High Elves in the past, this army is pretty hard for me to wrap my head around, at least until I get some more games under my belt. On a related note, I'm not looking for a tournament ready army, but merely insight into whether I should build half of each box of clanrats as unarmed slaves or not.

Thanks for any and all insight.

[Lord Azaghul]

I can't specially help you, as I've only played against the new army twice; but I can direct you here: [url]http://underempire.net/index.php?act=idx[/url]
The underempire. Its a skaven site so you should be in good shape.

[mariajames]

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