New to Skaven, 1000pt list, PLEASE HELP

[rag doll]

Ok so, Im new to skaven, thinking of making up a list. Having trouble deciding what type of list, but thinking of basing around the battalion. So here it is:

Warlock Engineer, blades, UWEC, SWPA, storm daemon-110

assasin, bombs, bands of power-150

25 clanrats, FC, ratling-210
Is a champion usefull here?

25 clanrats, FC, warpfire-225

20 slaves-40

20 monks, additional hand weapon, FC-185

5 censor bearers-85

total-1005


I realise i am 5 points over, but the people i play with dont mind.
I think I am lacking some punch with just anvils, but i dont know what to take away or what to add. I trust your advice, so please post them
thanks in advance
rag doll

[==Me==]

You don't need the extra power dice, your Engineer can only use a max of 3 anyway so that's wasted points.

I'm not a fan of Assassins either, you can get a tunneling team for 65 points less. Assassins are overpriced for what little they do, and Bands need to be on the table in your magic phase, while the Assassin is revealed in the assault phase.

Otherwise it looks fine, I'd look into a Chieftain for your general and some more Slaves. Night Runners are always good.

[MouseC112]

Assassins: Skaven assassins may be revealed at in the movement phase, assault phase, when you declare a charge. So before your turn begins you can reveal IE during the pre movement portion.

I also do agree thought skaven assassins are not that great unless your really playing a big point game. They are a waste at the 1000 pt value. Instead I would have a chieftain with Heavy armor, shield, and a weaping blade AND a unit of 3 gutter runners with poisen HW that tunnel. Much more effective, and has a similar result.

At 1000 pts you can get away without unit champions in a skaven army. I do have a problem you being 5 pts over. You may thing "its not a big deal." But it is, drop a clan rat, now your 1000 pts on the dot. Its a minor change and makes a big difference in some players eyes. It comes down to fairness, and sportsmanship. 1 more clanrat isn't a huge deal, 1 more dwarf with a 3+ save in combat is. This is the way some players see it. If you have an extra model, your opponent should have one as well.

With the engineer at 1000 pts your max roll for power dice is 3. So you have 2 being generated from him 2 for the table. Most likely wasting one. HOWEVER, if you run into a player who has remains in play spells which are cast you can always cast warplightning lv 2, and use your 2 remaining power dice to kill the remains in play spell. Remember that, as most people forget it. Me personally, I just wouldn't bother with the extra dice in your build.

[juravial]

I occasionally use assassins in lower point games just to mess with people. Usually, though, I run with a weeping blade instead of bands simply because str. 5 and d3 wounds per will take out almost any large critter they manage to sneak in to a 1k game.

Its occasionally frustrating to come up against a giant or a squad of trolls or knights at 1k with skaven, as your ratling guns and W.F throwers should be trying to take out their static Combat Resolution as opposed to characters and toughies.

He's right about the extra dice, I'd cut those 10 points and then you're 5 points under!

Other than that, looks like a right killy list! Kudos to you!

~Juravial

[rag doll]

ok, thanks for all your help, the new list posted here:

Warlock Engineer, blades, UWEC, storm daemon-100

Chieftan, heavy armour, shield, weeping blade-96

25 clanrats, FC, ratling-210

25 clanrats, FC, warpfire-225

20 slaves-40

20 monks, additional hand weapon, FC-185

5 censor bearers-85


total-941

I am now 59pts under and have no clue what to add, any ideas would be appreciated
rag doll

[juravial]

With 59 extra points (and I'm assuming you don't wanna buy any more models, I don't blame you!), I would suggest the Banner of Burning Hatred for those plague monks. You could give a dispel scroll to your engineer (boooooring), but personally i never run with a dispel scroll unless I absolutely have to (lol i just let them hit my huge units with those piddly magic missiles and save my dispel dice for spells that wouuld really screw me over like spells that hit "every model in the unit with a str. x hit."

If you did wanna buy some more models (just a few!) I would suggest getting that plague monk squad up to 24-30 members and run a 6-man front with 5 ranks (or 4 if you go the 24 route). Adding 4 extra monks and the banner of burning hatred would put you right at 49 points, then give your engineer one more tasty warpstone token (remember, they don't count for the amount of dice you can cast based on your level, so in a small game even a dwarf player has to commit all his dispel dice to dispelling the first warp lightning you cast on 4 dice - 3 regular +1 warpstone token - and then has nothing to contend with your storm-daemon except maybe a 25 point scroll, in which case the daemon has made up for its points and can cast again next turn unheeded!)

[rag doll]

That sounds great!, thanks a lot for everyones help, list posted here:

Warlock Engineer, blades, UWEC, storm daemon, Warpstone token-110

Chieftan, heavy armour, shield, weeping blade-96

25 clanrats, FC, ratling-210

25 clanrats, FC, warpfire-225

20 slaves-40

24 monks, additional hand weapon, FC, banner of burning hatred-234

5 censor bearers-85

Total-1000/1000

I was thinking of setting them up with the monks on one flank, with the slaves in the middle and the clanrats on either side of them, but i was wondering whether to put the chieftan with the engineer to protect him, would this work, or not?
And is this setup ok?
thanks for all your people's help
rag doll

[juravial]

As far as strategy goes, sounds good, but you will need a unit to block your frenzied monks and censer bearer's line of sight to the enemy lest they go running off as fast as they can (the enemy will try to bait them away from your main army with their fast cavalry this way).

I'm not sure how terrain is set up, they could "hide" behind some, but you're probably going to have better results if you make a "teaser" block of clanrats just behind the slaves with your heroes in it. Don't feel bad about tossing your slaves to the wolves - they're slaves! That way their overrun charge after beating down the slaves will go right where you want them: into your unit of heroes. Then flank them with bearers and monks, which will in turn prevent flankage of your main unit of heroes.

Here's a diagram. in practice, you will want to probably keep your second unit of clanrats and frenzied monks just slightly behind the slaves (sorry this post won't let me do that with smilies). One weapons team should be behind the censer bearers, to shoot into combat as soon as they connect with your slaves. The other weapons team (wf thrower) can probably go behind the monks and shoot as they overrun into your clanrats (just aim it so that it won't hit your characters, if you get a clanrat and 5 of their guys then meh...life is cheap).

= clanrats
= slaves
= frenzied units (censer bearers and monks)

[rag doll]

So do i put both my heroes in the unit of clanrats at the back? And the PCBs have to be within 3 inches of the plague monks, so how does that affect the diagram?
rag doll

[juravial]

Sorry, the diagram isn't very good. To allay any confusion:

-Its totally up to you if you wanna put both heroes in the same unit of clanrats. It does present a very tempting target, for which you can goad your enemy into charging. Also, keep your slaves just to the left of your engineer inside the unit so that he has line of sight to oncoming mobs.

-I completely forgot about that stupid disciples rule, i suppose you could just switch the positions of the PCB and the clanrats with your leaders in them. The important thing is to block line of sight from your frenzied units to the enemy's units until you really wanna charge, and to not block line of sight from your engineer to the enemies.

If you think about anything else, let me know. As of right now, I'm officially adopting this list as my 1k list and maybe if I can get up to GW on friday I'll play it and let you know how it goes. If you can play it before then, lemme know also! ^_^

~Juravial