So I've been playing some games with the new Skaven list now that the book is out. At first, I was disappointed in the army since everything I had didn't really work that well anymore (read: Skryre). But there's strength in the book that I had underestimated. They've done fairly well so far, other than a trouncing they took at the hands of Nurgle Daemons.
I played a game against Lizards recently, here's how it worked out.
Here's my new skaven list:
Characters:
Queek Headtaker
Chieftain: Greatweapon, Heavy Armor, HW+Shield, BSB (Dripping Death banner)
Plague Priest: Scroll, Rival Hide
- Plague Furnace
Plague Priest: Scrollx2
- Plague Furance
Core:
20 Slaves
20 Slaves
20 Slaves
30 Clanrats - FC, shields
Special:
26 Plague Monks - FC, Stormbanner
26 Plague Monks - FC
7 Censer Bearers
7 Censer Bearers
Rare:
Hellpit - Spikes
Warp Lightning Cannon
Lizards were a stego list, with the following...
Characters:
Skink Priest - Scrollx2
- Stego/engine
Skink Priest - Extra spell, save dispel dice item?
- Stego/engine
Skink Chief - Impact spear, BSB
- Stego
Core:
10 Skinks
10 Skinks
10 Skinks
Special:
3 Terradons
Stego
Stego
Stego
There are some woods flanking the center, but there's about 24" of clear space width-wise before the woods start. There's also a defensive obstacle in his DZ. Some hills, but they don't matter here.
Deployment:
He's got 2 skinks on the left, all stegos in the center, skinks + terradons on the right.
Stegos go: normal, normal, engine, BSB, engine, normal
I have queek's clanrats in the center. Plague monks on its right, slaves to the right of that, anchored by the hellpit and censers. Going to the left of queek's unit is slaves, slaves, other plague monks, censer bearers, and the cannon in the far back.
BSB joins queek in the clanrats.
I win the roll for 1st turn and take it.
Skaven 1:
I advance, but slowly. Queek's unit doesn't move, the plague units only move about 4-5". This lets the slaves run forward and get ahead of everyone else to mess with stego charges and such. They make sure to stay within 12" of Queek, though, to stay LD10. Hellpit moves forward 11". Censer bearers also advance some, staying in terrain.
Cannon takes sight of a stego, with a path to hit a second one but the bounce/strength is only 4. This hits the target but fails to wound. Doesn't reach second stego.
Lizard 1:
He has more shooting than me with the bolt throwers so doesn't move up much.. just one skink unit to force the plague monks on the left to charge (censor bearers are in woods and out of sight). Magic is blocked for the most part, but he does put up the ward vs. ranged attacks with one engine. Shooting doesn't do much, kills a couple of plague monks.
Skaven 2:
Monks on the left charge and skinks flee. Puts the unit in charge range of one (regular) stego. Censer bearers on left move to be able to see out of the woods to counter charge said stego. Hellpit rolls high and reaches skinks on the right. They pass terror and stand&shoot - cause two wounds and fail both regen. Slaves move up again right in his face, with overrun angles to miss units behind them.
Cannon fires again but gets 10" extra which just overshoots the target (I really need practice with cross table guessing).
Hellpit explodes skinks, causing terradons to panic and flee off the board. Hellpit unfortunately overruns off the board. This means he'll completely miss my turn 3.
Lizard 2:
He charges one stego into the plague monks on the left. The others still hesitate to charge anything with the slaves blocking him from anything important. Shooting kills 4 or 5 from queek's unit. Magic put a wound on one of his priests when he miscast.
In combat, the stego impact hits kill 2, and I lose another 3 from toughness checks from my censer & furnace. However, all the skink crew dies to toughness checks. Stego kills another monk. I also cause a wound with the priests' flail. I lost 6 plague monks, he lost 4 crew + 1 wound on stego. I have static res, he's stubborn. He's outside BSB range but passes the check.
Skaven 3:
Slaves on the right charge the flank of a regular stego to lock it up, but the other monks end up being 9.5" away from it, so they charge, too (slaves were flank, these guys front). Censer bearers on the left counter charge the first stego. Censer guys on the right move to charge next turn.
Another unit of slaves charges an engine to lock it in place, too, and potentially kill the priest (it's the wounded one) with some luck. This is the engine that's on the left of the trio of character stegs.
Cannon is blocked by furnace & combats, so it moves to shoot next turn. Hellpit returns to the board, but compulsory moves are over already so it sits there.
Combat on the left has the stego fail one of the multitude of toughness checks it needs. It also sees the censers on the right hit a ton, but fail to wound but once with it being T6. Wrecker ball misfires and causes a wound to itself. He only killed 1, so I still won combat and am still frenzy. He's stubborn and passes.
On the right, 4 of the crew die to toughness checks, the stego also takes a wound. I then do another wound with the priest. This wrecker misfires, too, but I pass the toughness checks on my unit. I win combat, he's stubborn and passes.
The slaves don't kill the priest, but do win combat. He's stubborn and passes.
Lizard 3:
Here come the counter charges. The skink chief BSB counter charges the slaves that charged the engine. With his positioning, an overrun of 9+ will hit Queek's unit when the slaves break/explode. That was poor positioning on my part. A second stego charges each plague monks. The one on the right getting flanked by the second engine.
He double flares with the engines, kills off some guys here or there. No major damage, though.
The chief/BSB has the super spear and crushes slaves. Another unit of nearby slaves break from panic. His overrun is 11". I pass terror and take the charge with queek's unit. Hopefully he doesn't roll too high to overcome the impact hits.
On the left, all skinks die to toughness checks. I do finish off original wounded stego but the other survives (takes 1 wound) and passes the break check. Unit is down to about 10 monks now. I'm about to start losing the ability to move, but it doesn't matter as I'm in combat with his expensive stuff.
On the right, I challenge with my plague priest and his skink priest has to accept. It's after toughness checks, though, since that's very start of combat. I manage to pick off the priest, though, with mine + the attacks from the guys pushing the furnace. He wins combat by 1 in the end, and the slaves break/explode but do nothing. Furnace is still around so monks unbreakable.
Skaven 4:
Censer bearers on the right counter charge the stego not in a challenge (and overrun, since that's all they were engaged with). Abomination moves towards the unengaged engine. Slaves are in range of queek, but they fail to rally and run (they'll eventually go off the board).
Cannon takes a shot at the unengaged engine, but strength is only a 2 and does nothing.
Combat sees the steg on the left put a wound on the priest, and take one in return. It has 3 left. Passes its stubborn check.
Combat on the right sees toughness checks kill off the crew on the priest steg. Censer bearers finish off the wounded steg not in a challenge. The now engine-less steg passes break check.
Now the important combat: his impact hits=2(+2). Lucky. Impacts kill 4. Now my BSB banner goes off and kills off all his crew, his chief passes some kind of 2+ save vs first wound thing he has. Queek has to challenge and he can't refuse. He's got 3 attacks that hit on 5's and 3 that hit on 4's, all strength 6. He ends up hitting with 3 and wounding with all 3. Hm, if I don't pass a 6+ save, queek dies.
I make 2, actually, doing no wounds with the bounced hits. Queek's attacks, though, kill the chief and put a wound on the stego. I win, he passes his break check.
Now I was lucky here, but even if things went average, I still wound have won the combat. Figure average:
- 9 impact hits, kills 7.
- Stego hits 1, Chief hits 1.5 vs. Queek, causes 2 wounds that get past save.
So he's got 9 to combat res.
My BSB banner causes 3 wounds on average. Queek then kills the Chief for another 2. I have 5 to combat res, plus 3 ranks, banner, mass, BSB for 11. I've killed his BSB, so I still win 11-9.
My opponent, though, latches onto that roll for why he lost. Meh.
Lizard 4:
Other engine stego charges into queek's unit, too. Skinks on the left had been moving up and now charge cannon. Other skinks on the left move and shoot the hellpit - only 2 are in range, but two poison wounds rolled and both get past regen. Down to 2 left. I hate skinks
In the left plague combat, I finally finish off the second steg when it fails 2 of the 6 toughness checks it needs and the priest gets its last wound. Censers are down to 3 models, plague unit is down to 3 monks and so can't move (but priest is alive as is furnace). Combat on the right sees the stego kill off the plague priest taking one wound in return (4 left), but loses combat. Passes its check.
Center combat sees new impacts kill 3. The BSB banner, which he had to touch, kills off the priest and 3 crew. Queek has nobody to challenge with priest dead. His attacks wound BSB and Queek (each down to 1 left). Queek wounds a stego in return. BSB causes one more with his great weapon.
Amazingly, both fail their stubborn checks and break. One is caught, the other flees and hits the stego fighting monks in the flank on the right. It does 3 wounds with the impact hits, leaving it with 1 left. The one that got away has 4 wounds remaining.
Skaven 5:
Hellpit charges the fleeing steg that's about 4" away but it gets away. Censers on the right rejoin the combat with the steg that's fighting the monks - which has only 1 wound left after the other one ran through it. Censers on the left hit the last unit of skinks on the left.
Combat sees him kill cannon with skinks. Skinks fighting censers are wiped out. The stego charged by censers gets killed. The plagues they fought are down to 5, so it can't move either.
Lizard 5:
Last stego rallies. He has 4 wounds left. Only other unit is some skinks, they hide.
Skaven 6:
Stego is charged by 3 censers and the hellpit. They finish off the steg before it can do anything.
He had only one skink unit left, capturing a table quarter.
I had:
- Wounded Queek
- Wounded BSB
- Plague Priest
- 2 Furnaces
- 2 below-half plague monks
- Clanrats
- Below half hellpit
- Full censers
- below half censers
I also had 3 table quarters and killed his general. Don't remember if I get his BSB, since the stego didn't run on the turn I killed him off the top.
I played a game against Lizards recently, here's how it worked out.
Here's my new skaven list:
Characters:
Queek Headtaker
Chieftain: Greatweapon, Heavy Armor, HW+Shield, BSB (Dripping Death banner)
Plague Priest: Scroll, Rival Hide
- Plague Furnace
Plague Priest: Scrollx2
- Plague Furance
Core:
20 Slaves
20 Slaves
20 Slaves
30 Clanrats - FC, shields
Special:
26 Plague Monks - FC, Stormbanner
26 Plague Monks - FC
7 Censer Bearers
7 Censer Bearers
Rare:
Hellpit - Spikes
Warp Lightning Cannon
Lizards were a stego list, with the following...
Characters:
Skink Priest - Scrollx2
- Stego/engine
Skink Priest - Extra spell, save dispel dice item?
- Stego/engine
Skink Chief - Impact spear, BSB
- Stego
Core:
10 Skinks
10 Skinks
10 Skinks
Special:
3 Terradons
Stego
Stego
Stego
There are some woods flanking the center, but there's about 24" of clear space width-wise before the woods start. There's also a defensive obstacle in his DZ. Some hills, but they don't matter here.
Deployment:
He's got 2 skinks on the left, all stegos in the center, skinks + terradons on the right.
Stegos go: normal, normal, engine, BSB, engine, normal
I have queek's clanrats in the center. Plague monks on its right, slaves to the right of that, anchored by the hellpit and censers. Going to the left of queek's unit is slaves, slaves, other plague monks, censer bearers, and the cannon in the far back.
BSB joins queek in the clanrats.
I win the roll for 1st turn and take it.
Skaven 1:
I advance, but slowly. Queek's unit doesn't move, the plague units only move about 4-5". This lets the slaves run forward and get ahead of everyone else to mess with stego charges and such. They make sure to stay within 12" of Queek, though, to stay LD10. Hellpit moves forward 11". Censer bearers also advance some, staying in terrain.
Cannon takes sight of a stego, with a path to hit a second one but the bounce/strength is only 4. This hits the target but fails to wound. Doesn't reach second stego.
Lizard 1:
He has more shooting than me with the bolt throwers so doesn't move up much.. just one skink unit to force the plague monks on the left to charge (censor bearers are in woods and out of sight). Magic is blocked for the most part, but he does put up the ward vs. ranged attacks with one engine. Shooting doesn't do much, kills a couple of plague monks.
Skaven 2:
Monks on the left charge and skinks flee. Puts the unit in charge range of one (regular) stego. Censer bearers on left move to be able to see out of the woods to counter charge said stego. Hellpit rolls high and reaches skinks on the right. They pass terror and stand&shoot - cause two wounds and fail both regen. Slaves move up again right in his face, with overrun angles to miss units behind them.
Cannon fires again but gets 10" extra which just overshoots the target (I really need practice with cross table guessing).
Hellpit explodes skinks, causing terradons to panic and flee off the board. Hellpit unfortunately overruns off the board. This means he'll completely miss my turn 3.
Lizard 2:
He charges one stego into the plague monks on the left. The others still hesitate to charge anything with the slaves blocking him from anything important. Shooting kills 4 or 5 from queek's unit. Magic put a wound on one of his priests when he miscast.
In combat, the stego impact hits kill 2, and I lose another 3 from toughness checks from my censer & furnace. However, all the skink crew dies to toughness checks. Stego kills another monk. I also cause a wound with the priests' flail. I lost 6 plague monks, he lost 4 crew + 1 wound on stego. I have static res, he's stubborn. He's outside BSB range but passes the check.
Skaven 3:
Slaves on the right charge the flank of a regular stego to lock it up, but the other monks end up being 9.5" away from it, so they charge, too (slaves were flank, these guys front). Censer bearers on the left counter charge the first stego. Censer guys on the right move to charge next turn.
Another unit of slaves charges an engine to lock it in place, too, and potentially kill the priest (it's the wounded one) with some luck. This is the engine that's on the left of the trio of character stegs.
Cannon is blocked by furnace & combats, so it moves to shoot next turn. Hellpit returns to the board, but compulsory moves are over already so it sits there.
Combat on the left has the stego fail one of the multitude of toughness checks it needs. It also sees the censers on the right hit a ton, but fail to wound but once with it being T6. Wrecker ball misfires and causes a wound to itself. He only killed 1, so I still won combat and am still frenzy. He's stubborn and passes.
On the right, 4 of the crew die to toughness checks, the stego also takes a wound. I then do another wound with the priest. This wrecker misfires, too, but I pass the toughness checks on my unit. I win combat, he's stubborn and passes.
The slaves don't kill the priest, but do win combat. He's stubborn and passes.
Lizard 3:
Here come the counter charges. The skink chief BSB counter charges the slaves that charged the engine. With his positioning, an overrun of 9+ will hit Queek's unit when the slaves break/explode. That was poor positioning on my part. A second stego charges each plague monks. The one on the right getting flanked by the second engine.
He double flares with the engines, kills off some guys here or there. No major damage, though.
The chief/BSB has the super spear and crushes slaves. Another unit of nearby slaves break from panic. His overrun is 11". I pass terror and take the charge with queek's unit. Hopefully he doesn't roll too high to overcome the impact hits.
On the left, all skinks die to toughness checks. I do finish off original wounded stego but the other survives (takes 1 wound) and passes the break check. Unit is down to about 10 monks now. I'm about to start losing the ability to move, but it doesn't matter as I'm in combat with his expensive stuff.
On the right, I challenge with my plague priest and his skink priest has to accept. It's after toughness checks, though, since that's very start of combat. I manage to pick off the priest, though, with mine + the attacks from the guys pushing the furnace. He wins combat by 1 in the end, and the slaves break/explode but do nothing. Furnace is still around so monks unbreakable.
Skaven 4:
Censer bearers on the right counter charge the stego not in a challenge (and overrun, since that's all they were engaged with). Abomination moves towards the unengaged engine. Slaves are in range of queek, but they fail to rally and run (they'll eventually go off the board).
Cannon takes a shot at the unengaged engine, but strength is only a 2 and does nothing.
Combat sees the steg on the left put a wound on the priest, and take one in return. It has 3 left. Passes its stubborn check.
Combat on the right sees toughness checks kill off the crew on the priest steg. Censer bearers finish off the wounded steg not in a challenge. The now engine-less steg passes break check.
Now the important combat: his impact hits=2(+2). Lucky. Impacts kill 4. Now my BSB banner goes off and kills off all his crew, his chief passes some kind of 2+ save vs first wound thing he has. Queek has to challenge and he can't refuse. He's got 3 attacks that hit on 5's and 3 that hit on 4's, all strength 6. He ends up hitting with 3 and wounding with all 3. Hm, if I don't pass a 6+ save, queek dies.
I make 2, actually, doing no wounds with the bounced hits. Queek's attacks, though, kill the chief and put a wound on the stego. I win, he passes his break check.
Now I was lucky here, but even if things went average, I still wound have won the combat. Figure average:
- 9 impact hits, kills 7.
- Stego hits 1, Chief hits 1.5 vs. Queek, causes 2 wounds that get past save.
So he's got 9 to combat res.
My BSB banner causes 3 wounds on average. Queek then kills the Chief for another 2. I have 5 to combat res, plus 3 ranks, banner, mass, BSB for 11. I've killed his BSB, so I still win 11-9.
My opponent, though, latches onto that roll for why he lost. Meh.
Lizard 4:
Other engine stego charges into queek's unit, too. Skinks on the left had been moving up and now charge cannon. Other skinks on the left move and shoot the hellpit - only 2 are in range, but two poison wounds rolled and both get past regen. Down to 2 left. I hate skinks
In the left plague combat, I finally finish off the second steg when it fails 2 of the 6 toughness checks it needs and the priest gets its last wound. Censers are down to 3 models, plague unit is down to 3 monks and so can't move (but priest is alive as is furnace). Combat on the right sees the stego kill off the plague priest taking one wound in return (4 left), but loses combat. Passes its check.
Center combat sees new impacts kill 3. The BSB banner, which he had to touch, kills off the priest and 3 crew. Queek has nobody to challenge with priest dead. His attacks wound BSB and Queek (each down to 1 left). Queek wounds a stego in return. BSB causes one more with his great weapon.
Amazingly, both fail their stubborn checks and break. One is caught, the other flees and hits the stego fighting monks in the flank on the right. It does 3 wounds with the impact hits, leaving it with 1 left. The one that got away has 4 wounds remaining.
Skaven 5:
Hellpit charges the fleeing steg that's about 4" away but it gets away. Censers on the right rejoin the combat with the steg that's fighting the monks - which has only 1 wound left after the other one ran through it. Censers on the left hit the last unit of skinks on the left.
Combat sees him kill cannon with skinks. Skinks fighting censers are wiped out. The stego charged by censers gets killed. The plagues they fought are down to 5, so it can't move either.
Lizard 5:
Last stego rallies. He has 4 wounds left. Only other unit is some skinks, they hide.
Skaven 6:
Stego is charged by 3 censers and the hellpit. They finish off the steg before it can do anything.
He had only one skink unit left, capturing a table quarter.
I had:
- Wounded Queek
- Wounded BSB
- Plague Priest
- 2 Furnaces
- 2 below-half plague monks
- Clanrats
- Below half hellpit
- Full censers
- below half censers
I also had 3 table quarters and killed his general. Don't remember if I get his BSB, since the stego didn't run on the turn I killed him off the top.