Against the
Rat: Beating the Skaven III
By Randy Atchley
Atchman and Bigrin’s massive Skaven army from the
Brawler Bash II (won Best Army)
Overview:
With the arrival of the new Skaven book, the Empire is yet again confronted by another new foe. This foe, while not nearly as hard to defeat as the Deamons, Dark Elves, and Vampire Counts, is roughly equivalent to our Empire forces.
In some ways the Skaven have lost some power, and in some ways are more powerful from the previous edition. The magic and shooting phases have taken a hit, while their melee potential may in fact be better than before. As far as shooting the rattling gun has been diminished, but the WFT has been increased in effectiveness. While Warp Lightning used to devastate units, now it is more of a normal magic missile. In the past we saw our war machines and shooting units destroyed by Skaven tunnel teams. While this can still happen, it is at a much heavier cost in points.
Skaven have also lost all of their core skirmishing units. While this doesn’t seem like much of a loss, it is huge since they can less control the movement phase. In fact the only skirmishers now are expensive special slots, which are already crowded with so many choices that I doubt you will see many skirmishers in the future.
Basic Skaven Strategy:
The advantages of Skaven
are:
· Large numbers of cheap troops (slaves, giant rats, swarms, clan rats)
· Unbreakable and stubborn units (Bell pushers, Furnace pushers, and
Plague Censer Bearers near a Furnace)
· New spells that can be used both as support (death frenzy, wither),
attack (scorch, cracks call, plague, warp lightning), and tactically (skitterleap)
· Interesting new rules for templates make Skaven weapons and teams deadly
against many types of troops
· The Abomination, may be one of the strongest combat units in the game
A Skaven army has some disadvantages:
· Their leadership away from their general is average at best
· Nasty misfires on some of their weapons
· No cavalry
As you can see the disadvantages of the Skaven list are very few. The fact is that near their general, Skaven have some of the best leadership in the game. When combined with large units to protect them from rank erosion, it is very hard to attrite a Skaven unit enough for their leadership weakness to be apparent. However, the independent units are vulnerable to weak leadership and once routed they rarely are able to rally and return to battle. As we move through the article, you will see how truly effective a Skaven army can be.
Section I: Introduction to Skaven troops
Overall Skaven Rules:
Scurry Away-Skaven add +1 to their flee roll
Strength in Numbers-Skaven add +1 to their base leadership for every intact rank up to 4. If you negate their ranks they only use their base leadership.
Verminous Valour-Can refuse a challenge and still retain leadership bonuses
Warpstone-Magical attacks