Hi
Im relatively new to Skaven and am entering a local tournament that is two player allied (using the Lustrian alliance chart) with 1200 points per ally. This is my first list and if you could give a bit of advice I would be much obliged.

My ally and I are both using Skaven and one advantage of having two seperate armies is the fact that you can have up to 6 warlocks and 2 storm deamons (thats 8 warplightings per turn!! :eek: )

Anyway Here is my list:

-Cheiftain, heavy armour shield 51
-Warlock engineer, Full upgrades, Storm deamon 110
-Warlock engineer, Full upgrades, dispell scroll 110

-24Clanrats,Standard,Musician Ratling gun 195
-24Clanrats,Standard,Musician Ratling gun 195
-24Clanrats,Musician warpfire thrower 200
-20 Slaves 40
-20 Slaves 40
-1Giant rat pack 30 (ratdaggers)
-1Giant rat pack 30 (ratdaggers)
-1Giant rat pack 30 (ratdaggers)
-5Night runners 25
-5Night runners 25
-5Night runners 25
-5Gutter runners,poisoned handweapons 70
That leaves me with 26 points

My allies list is:

-Cheiftain, heavy armour 49
-Warlock engineer, Full upgrades, Storm deamon 110
-Warlock engineer, Full upgrades, dispell scroll 110

-20Clanrats, Ratling gun 160
-20Clanrats, Ratling gun 160
-20 Slaves 40
-20 Slaves 40
-20plague monks,Full command,banner of burning hatred 210
-20plague monks,Full command 185
-5Night runners 25
-5Night runners 25
-5Censor Bearers 85

So there it is any Suggestions?

okay lets have a look, i will give you some of my recomendations which you can take or leave as many as you like ^_^ :

1. seeing as you have 26 points left buy your warlock with the storm daemon the warpstone talisman (the one which give them a 4+ ward save) as seeing as he will cast with 3 dice a turn, 1 from bound 2 from spell, he needs the protection of a ward save.

2. okay i know you say you are new but some advise from experiance i will give you is that clanrat units only work well at sizes of 30, or if your tight on points 25. this is because as you may know skaven need to outnumber to be able to hold or win combats (hopefully win) so with your units make the first two 30 strong and get rid of the remnants of the other. this leaves you 140points to spend i would recomend you buy a captain for each, simply because it allows them to take challenges when the chieftains in the unit.

3. giant rat packs, these from experiance are only effective in units of 3 or more packs so add these 3 together and buy 2 more packs, you should have now about 10pts left over(not sure completely).

so if you follow this advise you shoudl fare better, i may think of something soon if so i will post it here, otherwise good luck and may the horned rat guide you :thumb: .

Dan

Thanks for the reply Far sight
I had a few reasons for those particular points you raised but your advice certainly has merit.

1) that sounds like an excellant idea and good use of the extra points.

2) I purposefully field them as 24 strong so I can "bus" them going 4 wide and 6 deep to minimise the number of attacks but having the extra numbers is a good point so ill increase them to 28 or 32 strong maybe buy losing some magic items or something.

3)That sounds like an idea but I only need them to set up charges, divert and the like also I plan to use them as cheap flankers to flank units already in combat with my units. However one large unit would be useful so ill find a way to fit another pack in.

Keep the advice coming!!

ooh yeah i didn't think about that, normally i put mine 5 wide, hence the 30 strong (5 by 6) with spears on one unit, but if they have hand weapons and shields they are pretty poor anyway so they'res no need for an extra ratty ^_^ , see an old dog can learn new tricks, but im not old :lol: .

i see you have 3 or so small units of night runners, are these just too screen yor clanrats on the first turn? sort of acting like a skirmish screen that dosent panic the unit?

also out of curiosity do you know how your partner will have his plague monks organised? 5 by 4, or 4 by 5? just curious is all as i don't know which works best, i was thinking of changing mine from 5 wide as they are now to 6 but am not sure.....

ooh yeah in case i have not said welcome to the site :thumb:

Dan

To be honest, I don't like the list, it's kind of boring. -_- It doesn't have a lot of variety, and I'm sure the opposing player won't enjoy playing it, but then again it is a tournie, so fair enough.

I am curious as to how you made 8 warp lightnings, there are four coming from the warlocks and then two storm daemons.

I would advise using some more warpstone tokens or the eye of the horned rat, so far you have 10 PD for 4 warp lightnings, My comfort are tends to be with three dice per warlock so that it can cast the 9+ with some ease, you could get the horned rat for your list and have one point remaining, not bad. :)

I have to say, I don't like the rat packs (It's a nice idea), while there is just enough to cause a rank negating flank charge, you should give the opponent some credit that he will attack the rats with no armour save over the ones without, which then looses you tha advantage providing he kills two.

I would double two packs up, drop the other to bulk up other stuff such as the night runners or slaves.

Hope I helped, and welcome to the site.

I just use the night runners to march block divert assissinate wizards hunt warmachines block lines of sight etc. They're just there to annoy the hell out of the enemy and if they are detstroyed its no big deal because they're only 25pts each.

Hes using them 5 by 4

Nah I meant that we could have 6 warlocks and 2 stormdeamons but Im not that evil ;)

He'll have to kill three to get them below US5 (packmaster) and he still wouldnt get his rank bonus because they're calculated at the beginning of combat Ill just lose the flank bonus and Ill be fielding the rats 2 or 1 wide so he can only get a few attacks against them so he'll have to have lots of attacks or be really lucky to kill 3.

Doesnt matter now beacause my ally showed the list to the tourny organiser and he told us to bugger off because our lists were too cheesy. :(

He said either half the magic and shooting or take a list themed around one of the four major clans and only take troops from that clan.

My ally wants to now take clan pestilens and for me to take clan skryre with the following lists:

-Warlock engineer, Full upgrades, Storm deamon,warpstone talismen 135
-Warlock engineer, Full upgrades,warpstone charm (general) 110
-Warlock engineer, Full upgrades, 85

-28Clanrats,Standard,Musician Ratling gun 215
-28Clanrats,Standard,Musician Ratling gun 215
-20Clanrats,Musician Ratling gun 165
-20 Slaves 40
-20 Slaves 40
-20 Slaves 40
-5 globadiers 50
-warplightning cannon 100

My allies Pestilens list:
-Plague priest, plague censor 86
-Plague priest, flail and Liber bubonus 118

-20Clanrats, 100
-20Clanrats, musician 105
-20 Slaves 40
-20 Slaves 40
-20plague monks,Full command,banner of burning hatred 210
-20plague monks,Full command 185
-4 rat swarms 180
-8Censor Bearers 136

To me these lists look not only boring but easy to take advantage of especially with frenzy I think we sould just tone down the first lists but my ally is set on having these lists for good comp and sports because its fluffy. :rolleyes:
What do you guys think about this?

well too be honest that is incredibly rude for you, okay if it's a mate and everything but saying you cannot play because you have too much shooting :blink: , in your first army you only have 3 weapon teams and 2 wizards, whoops almost forgot the Gutter runners. Skyre too be honest are more shooty too be honest, nice with pestilens mind ^_^ . apoligies if i seem a bit aggresive i am not meant to it's just i hate when tournament organisers dont let you play because "they" see your army as unfair, it's like get a life would you :lol: .

too be honest i can't see you toning down the first list very much, you can try but i really can't see why? you have two wizards and 3 weapon teams, it's just a bit odd as it's not even that much seeing most of it blows up. Can i just ask you though, are they're any shooty high elves entering the tournament?

otherwise as i said before i like both lists, see what omid thinks :thumb:

Dan

Yeah I like the Pestilens list but Im a bit worried about the Skryre. It seems very luck dependant and probably not very fun to play against but I havent used it yet so Ill play a game on sunday and see how it goes.

Yeah Im a little ticked off but It happens.

I think what really made the tourney organiser say that was the fact that we were only two of the 7 skaven players entering who had much milder lists (If there is such a thing) with little or no magic. Also we were kind of abusing the allied rules taking a single army with duplicate magic Items and taking lots of magic. But for some reason he's ok with the Skryre list? :wacko:

To my knowledge there isnt any shooty elves entering but there is a gunline Empire army with 30+ hangunners two mortars a hellblaster a couple of wizards and a few small Knight units etc.

You've got a pretty good list there. If you a worried about the gunners, try not to get too greedy with the number of shots you try to roll. Also I am wondering why you are not using Jezzails in a Skryre list. I don't own any(too cheap) so that is all I can say about them. One other thing is do you know if there are any Wood elf players in the tournament. They could be a true pain if they have any spellcasters (tree singing, grrrr). Although since the army has almost no armour saves, get those guns ablazin. You might also want to consider a Warplighting cannon for your army. If the tournament you are playing in is using the Lustria rules it could prove very usefull. But it is up to you. Hope you have fun and remember.

GLORY AND PRAISE TO THE HORNED RAT!!!!!

Yeah I'm not using them because I cant afford them (considering you can buy a warp lightning cannon for the price ($) of 2.25 Jezzails :blink: ) Also I find that you need atleast 7 or 8 preferably 10 for them to work properly and thats a lot of points (not to mention dollars) and I'd rather have more clan rats or slaves.

Dont think so but theres plenty of skaven, chaos and deamonic legion armies.

Yeah I have included one in my second list :thumb: and it seems pretty useful for chariot and war machine killing but its awefully unreliable (not like anything else in the army isnt :rolleyes: ).

nooo not a warplightning cannon, ooh well up to you ^_^

yeah the jezzails are a pain in a way, brilliant for only 20 points but in money they cost a bomb, i brought 4, £6 each over here, then realised £60 in total for one unit- no way :lol: , so yeah i only got 4 jezzails in my force. currently looking for different models i can get away with using as jezzails but can't find any at the moment- i will let you know if i do.

still Skyre itself as a army is the worst, for some armies at least as many skyre players just have SAD armies (Shooty army of death) so try not too go overboard on magic/ shooting. apart from that it looks pretty cool bud.

Good luck and remember to follow the golden skaven rule when playing (well my rule in a way but hey) laugh when something blows up, it makes the game so much more fun ^_^

Dan