Skaven 2500 balanced list, trying to be competitive. feedback welcome

[affligemm]

Hi there, i'm trying to get the best of the models i own in my skaven army, and there's my new list i'd like you all to check out and comment. I usually play with friends but we're all trying to elaborate competitive lists. Here's da stuff:

LORDS
-Warlord 188
(war litter/shield/warpstone armor/seeping blade)
A decent fighter, he's going in the stormvermin pack in the back, providing his leadership as long as he can to the rest of the horde while the shock troops are getting the job done.

HEROES
-Warplock lvl1 85
(condensor)
-Warplock lvl 2 133
(dispel scroll/warpgun)
A classic skaven sorcerer to spam bolts to the face of the enemy, and a second, more powerful, hoping to get a few buffing spells for the giant rats packs for example.

-Chieftan BSB 117
(4+ward, halberd)
Well, it's a BSB, probably going in the clanrats pack, staying away from contact with the stormvermin unit as long as possible, and cleaning the mess left by the other units in end game.Well in theory right...

CORE
-30 stormvermins 265
(shroud of death banner/full command)
-Warpfire thrower 70

-30 clanrats 170
(shields/spears/full command)
-ratling 55

-25 slaves with shields 62,5
-25 slaves with shields 62,5

-25 giant rats with 1 packmaster 83
-25 giant rats with 1 packmaster 83

An 'elite' pack to escort my general, able to fight quite well, a decent pack of clanrats hiding the BSB,2 packs of slaves with an annoying parry save, and most of all,2 big units of giant rats that can be really good if buffed by the warplock, able to flank, etc...

SPECIAL
-6 rat-ogres 271
(2 pack masters/1 fat rat ogre)
Going for the kill in first line. The rat-ogres, as well as the abomination, will be my shocktroopers, going straight forward to reduce rapidly the number of opponents i will face, and let the other units finish the job.

-8 jezzails 160
-8 globadiers 80
-poisoned wind mortar 65
Some shooting units with high armor penetration value, they're here to make enemy cavalry think twice before going for heroic charges, and be a pain in the neck of costly/well protected units.

RARE
-Doomwheel 150
-Doomwheel 150
-Hellpit abomination with spikes 250
The doomwhells can reinforce my lines in close combat quite effectively while being a real threat to enemy monsters/monstruous infantry in the shooting phase. The abomination is, along with the rat-ogres, a suicide commando unit: i don't care losing them oth as long as they did good damage to enemy lines, the rest of the horde shall crush the survivors with the advantage of number.
Hopefuly it will work...Of course it's just theorical, and being a skaven general i know how things can go wrong in the worst moments with a few warplocks/wheels/shooting units messing up.

Anyways please let me know what you think of that mix. I plan to be quite aggressive, charging forward with the horrors from moulder clan, counting on their good initiative to do good damage before being taken out, keeping enemy elites under pressure with shootings/warplocks/wheels, and then end the day with a good 150+ rats charging to annihilate the survivors.
Against high initiave (elves/chaos,etc..) i shall be more patient and not waste so quickly my rats-ogres/abomination and give them propoer conditions to win a fight, with redirection slaves, shootings etc...

Thanks for yout comments.

[KarlFranz]

pretty solid list. here are my suggestions:

-unless you are going to suicide charge the doomwheels as well on the other flank, i would go for the cannons. since they are hanging back to reinforce ur lines they will be zappin rats here and there, which might be a problem eventually
-try not to spend too much points on the warlord. all he is is a leadership boost. i prefer to take a seer.

hope these help

[affligemm]

Hi and thanks for your avices.
Well i like the idea of cannons, but the fact is i don't own any, and i'm considering the fact of buying a new doomwheel to play this list. But as you said, maybe i've spent too muchin my general. With a few points taken out of his stuff and the second doomwheel out i could take 2 cannons. I really don't like the figs but i'm sure they can do quite well.
I'm not a big fan of seer since i mainly play against ogres/chaos/VC. In the first two cases my opponents are heavily magic resilient (they usualy play their sorcerers as anti-magic guys), and against VC my usual mate relies very heavily on the magic phase, bringing big bad ass vampires that i cannot really match without losing the impact i need to defeat him in CC.
Anyways i might go for the cannons now...dropping the magic armor on the general for example?

[KarlFranz]

yes definately drop the magic armour. remember that he can avoid combat without penalties. cannos will definately be helpful in killing ogres or vampires since they cause multiple wounds.

good luck in your future games!

[affligemm]

Hi there, i've played two games this week end and i wanted to give you some feedback about the list, still hoping to receive further advices.

My first game was against chaos warriors, the second against vampire counts.
I went with the list as posted here (with 2 cannons inbstead of wheel/magic armor) against chaos. My opponent had something like this:

-Sorcercer lvl2/lore of death/spell familiar
-Exalted champion on slaanesh mount with few items
-Exalted champion general with basic stuff/magic weapon

-20 warriors with additional weapons/mark of khorne
-40marauders with flail/mark of khorne
-2 altars
-6 trolls
-30 chosens with halberd/mark of slaanesh/ frenzy banner
-apocalypse cannon
-5 warhounds
I might forgot a few things. But as you can see, a quite hard list te beat. I made a pretty good deployment, had good success in the shooting phases during the 2 first turns, killing a lot of chosens, and some slaves of course.
When the CC time has come, well, how can i put that...i got smashed hard like skavens against warriors of chaos(-_-). Quite boring to see a 40marauders wih flails crush trought my frontline with ease, while the killings i've done on the chosens didn't really affect their ability to win CC against whatever i'd throw at them. Anyway that's chaos as we know it will be nerfed someday, but i was hoping to test the list anyway, even against this. After the 4th tunr i decided that making a BBQ in the garden was far more interesting that to wait for an apocalypse cannon to kill my general and his unit while 4 trolls had nearly collected all the chaos gifts in two rounds of CC with my abomination. Of course they killed it althought they i've made about 30 wounds against them, killing...2 trolls(yepeeeee).

A few modifications after,(and after congratulating my friend for winning with his overpowerd horde of northern barbarians), i 've decided to drop the lvl 2 warplock, one pack of giant rats, the shields for the salves and 1 cannon to add a unit of 30 plaguemonks and a plague priest lvl1 with censor and dispel scroll. I thought i was really lacking of unit that can win fights and/or last a few rounds at least in CC, so i made this choice.
Turns out it was quite effective, since the battle against the undeads was way more balanced, and rapidly turning in my favor.
However, the fight ended on a draw. I made a few mistakes and the battle was raging hard, the VC army managed to grab a lot of victory points in the two last turns.
Here's the list my friend had for the battle, just for info:

-Master necromancer lvl3 with the 20pt skeleton invoc skill and other stuff i don't remember
-Necromancer lvl1 on chariot
-Vampire general lvl1(lord) on steed, with many CC abilities(red fury etc...)
-Revenant BSB with usual stuff

-40 ghouls
-3x30 skeletons, 1 pack with spears, the others with shield/CCweapon
-5 blood knights
-4 giant bats
-1 spirit swarm
-20 tombguards with shields/CCwepon
I may forgot some stuff.

Anyways the battle with really tight and nothing ununsual(for a skaven army) really occured. A miscast from my plaguepriest killed 16 palague monks and 12 ghouls, my mortar nearly took off the last HP on my abomination by targeting the blood knights that were 20' away from it, my warpfire thrower exploded without taking any casualities, my ratling killed more slaves than skeletons and my general was taken out by a tombguard. Still it was a nice and fair fight that i would have easily won without making a few deployment/manoeuver mistakes. I was quite happy about it.

Considering all of this i have come with a new list that i'd like you to comment. I've dropped the clanrats since they really suck ass IMO, as well as the warpfire thrower which tends to be far from cost-effective. I am willing to try a few units of night runner with slings and more slaves instead. I also added 5 plague censor bearers to help the plaguemonks.

What do you think of it? Is there not enought characters? should i forget the idea of night runners? Is one cannon effective or 2 is the only option? Any thoughts are welcome, thanks all.

LORDS
-Warlord 158
(shield/litter/seeping blade)

HEROES
-Plague priest lvl1 141
(censer/dispel scroll)

-Warplock lvl1 85
(condensator)

-BSB 72
(halberd)

CORE
-40 slaves with slings 100
-40 slaves 80
-30 stormvermins(full command) 235
-ratling 55
-10 night runners with slings 80
-10 night runners with slings 80

20 giant rats with 1 packmaster 68

SPECIALS
-6 rat ogres(2 packmasters/1 fat ass rat ogre) 271
-5 plague censer bearers 80
-5 globadiers 50
-poisoned wind mortar 65
-30 plaguemonks (full command) 235
-8 jezzails 160

RARE
-hellpit abomination 250
-doomwhell 150
-warpfire cannon 90

2505. i shall find 5pt to drop but that should be no problem.

[KarlFranz]

two cannons are definately needed as one will not be enough to damage a unit enough before they hit your lines (i would suggest dropping the doomwheel for it). if you had a couple against the warriors list you may have been able to zap the marauder horde into less than a horde (remember the template). i would personally drop the poisoned globadiers as they are really only effective vs high toughness/armour save. you can still keep the mortar by attatching it to another unit

another thing...does your bsb have heavy armour?

also...not a big fan of night runners. get more rats with those points

[affligemm]

Hi,
Yeah i agree with you cannons should definitely be cannonS. I had good success with just the one against VC thought since i manage to kill all of his bloodnights with it. About the bsb, he comes with a heavy armour so that's why i haven't specified. About the globadiers, well, i kinda like them. they're quite cheap and can still be a nice threat to cavalry/monsters, and i find the mortar quite good. I'm not willing to take more than my stormvermin unit so i'll not be able to add extra mortars/ratlings in core.
Considering all this, and that the night runners are probably not a very cost effective unit, i made an other list.

Dropping all of the characters except the bsb, 10 night runners and the cannon allows me to get 10 more stormvermins and a greyseer in screaming bell to lead the pack(with like 25pts of magic items, reroll for the first miscast for example).
I think i'm gonna try this out. Still hesitating about the night runners: dropping the other 10 could be used to buff the ranks of slaves, but is it really worth it since i'll have already 3 packs of 40figs and another pack of 30+abomination/wheel/censers and giant rats to deploy. All of that stuff is starting to get some nasty space on the battlefield. Important: these 80pts of runners must be spent, if i decide not to play them, in core units only to get to the 625 minimum pts. Tell me what you think of that. cheers

[KarlFranz]

about the screaming bell..........just dont in 2500 (trust me, ive tried). you should still take a seer though. just bunker him somewhere in either the jezails or the vermin, depending on the situation

hope this helps

[affligemm]

Why is the bell that bad? Too expensive i guess? Well i think so too, could be replaced by a plague priest on furnace. I find it quite expensive too. I was thinking that the greyseer on bell is quite good even just for buff effects: general leadership extended to 18', a giant pack of stormvermin unbreakable and some nice magic phases. Well this is a nearly 800pts units so i may agree with you...
Still...what should i trade him for then? alone on foot he'll already cost me 240-300pts, and loose all the benefits of line on sight/leadership/unbreakable rules. Could be replaced by 2 cannons of course? but i would only have two heroes in my army, very vulnerable and quite useless in CC. i donno.

[zim]

Hello,
I felt like chiming in on this thread. reading over the previous posts... I feel a couple adjustments may work out. To copy your latest list posted:

LORDS
-Warlord 158
(shield/litter/seeping blade)

HEROES
-Plague priest lvl1 141
(censer/dispel scroll)

-Warplock lvl1 85
(condensator)

-BSB 72
(halberd)

CORE
-40 slaves with slings 100
-40 slaves 80
-30 stormvermins(full command) 235
-ratling 55
-10 night runners with slings 80
-10 night runners with slings 80

20 giant rats with 1 packmaster 68

SPECIALS
-6 rat ogres(2 packmasters/1 fat ass rat ogre) 271
-5 plague censer bearers 80
-5 globadiers 50
-poisoned wind mortar 65
-30 plaguemonks (full command) 235
-8 jezzails 160

RARE
-hellpit abomination 250
-doomwhell 150
-warpfire cannon 90

dropping the Warlord, Plague priest, both units of night runners & doomwheel gives you 609points. I don't know what models you're able to add in, but You can spend the 609 on a Grey Seer (to compensate loss of the warlord & priest), another cannon (more shooting power), block of 30 clanrats w/ shield, musician & standard... also have a ratling gun (more shooting ), and then use some of those night runner models as 5 or 6 Gutter Runners with left over points, or use their points for some magical things on the greyseer.

Personnaly, I like the screamin bell, exactly as you say, For the buffs... but it really doesn't do much itself & A lot more can be taken for the points that will do damage. If you like doom wheels, take them. many people prefer 2 cannons for their destructive capabilities. I myself love Abominations, so always run 2 when i can (this normally means I only have one cannon).

I hope this helps you out