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2200 army from a new WFB player
Topic Started: 4th January 2011 - 03:23 PM (257 Views)
babychaos


Hi all

I used to play WFB _years_ ago (as it 15-16 of 'em), last year picked up 40K after a similar absence, and now I've decided to enter my clubs years WFB tourney, and have picked Skaven as my army to glory (which I define as anything other than last place!). I wanted something very different to my Blood Angel army, so skaven's hordiness and random anarchy appealed to me!

I've spent the last month speed-painting an army (and I'm thoroughly sick of the colour brown already), and I'm a _little_ ahead of schedule, so I was wondering if I could have a bit of critique on the planned force, and any possible changes. I can't do any large-scale modifications, based on time to assemble/build, but tweaks, wargear changes etc can be worked in.

The event is 2200 points, with the following comp;

  • No Special Characters
  • No Triple Special/Double Rare
  • No Power Scroll
  • (skaven specific) Only 2 from Doom Rocket, Hellpit, Storm Banner, Brass Orb

(full event details can be found here...I may have missed some)
http://www.spikyclub.com/e107/page.php?41

My planned army;

Grey Seer on Screaming Bell + Skalm + Dispel Scroll

Chieftan + BSB

Plague Monk (level 2) on Plague Furnace

Warlock with Doom Rocket

34 Clanrats + Full Command + Shields (to hold Bell and BSB)
Poison Wind Mortar Team

29 Clanrats + Full Command + Shields (to hold Warlock)
Poison Wind Mortar Team

50 Slaves + musician

50 Slaves + musician

28 Plague Monks (to hold Furnace)

Hellpit Abomination

Plague Claw Catapult

Warp Lightning Cannon

(I have everything painted and based now apart from the 3 rare models, which are on pre-order for the 15th January)

The rough plan is that the 2 slave blocks go roughly central, with the Bell + clanrats sitting behind. The slaves will either be 10x5 horde, or 5x10 column to keep Steadfast, depending on the opponent. On either flank I'll have the Hellpit and the Plague Monks as my 2 hard-hitting units, trying to force the opponents to engage the tarpit of slaves. If the slaves do get stuck in, I'll happily pepper everyone with a number of templates, and spells from the Seer...

The 2 weapon teams, the Plagueclaw and the Cannon will (hopefully...I have less than great luck with misfires!) pick out tougher targets, as they all ignore armour saves. The Warlocks clanrats will hang back with the weapon teams as a bit of protection against mobile lynch mobs.

I've only had a couple of games so far (though I've spent a lot of time going through the rules, and trying to get my head around various mechanics of the game), and both were great fun, with a lot of random carnage being handed out. I have no expectation of doing well in the tourney, however I want to make sure that I give my opponents a good, enjoyable game, without being a complete walkover. Tweaks, tactics and suggestions are all welcome!

Pete
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Scarr, Reincarnated
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11th creator of the Skaven Achievements. Binder of IceAc.
Why do they have skaven specific things. It should be DoC and slann no entry! :P

Your list looks pretty solid. The only thing I see is the BSB needs at least a shield or a halberd.

scarr
The Pox on you, AND your kind!

Player of games, watcher of games, gamer of plays.


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chiaroscuros
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Warlord
If you aren't at the minimum for your core already, I would drop 10 slaves off each unit to get another 6 plague monks. Blocks of 40 slaves do fine. And a block of 35 Plague Monks gives you 5 ranks with the horde bonus (due to the Plague Furnace). I would also find the points for the Plague Banner. It takes the unit from good to amazing!

I would also be tempted to drop a PWM and the PCC for a Doomwheel. But since you have already ordered the other models, I understand not trying this.
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Grey Seer Exahm
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Gribbly
I'm reading the rules for the tournament and it kind of annoys me.

I mean stuff like banning the Power Scroll is fine, but when you start limiting what units an army can take (maximum of 60 skinks for Lizardmen? Butthurt by skink spam much?), thats when you're crossing a line into being whiney neckbeards.
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babychaos


You should see the discussions for the ETC comp rules... The entire concept of comp is very new to me (40K events I've been to have none of it...at most you'll have a "no special characters" ruling, but even that is getting rare, as many army builds are reliant on a certain characters alteration to the FOC), so can't really comment. About the only items I have heard of are the Power Scroll and Book of Hoeth, mainly in a torrent of abuse from someone :-)

Currently the army list is 1.5 points under the limit. Good point on the shield for the BSB, I'll definitely look into squeezing that in.

My theory with the slaves is that I can fairly easily change their formation without differing movement trays so that they can act as horde or tarpit... I agree that the difference between 10x5 horde and 1x4 horde is minimal, however if I need a holding unit for a hard-hitting opposing unit (where I would set them up in 5x10 column so they stay Steadfast for as long as possible) do you think 8 ranks will be enough? I can easily imagine a good unit chewing through 10-15 a turn!

re: Doomwheel, I was initially going to have 2, and I have the kit for one (though it's not currently assembled). As a model I think it's possibly the best one I've seen in the entire of WHFB, however when I proxied one in a test game it fell over a little too easily for the points (and the comp restrictions mean I can only have 1). Based on that, and the annoucement of the Abomination model meant that I plumped for one of those (and in the 2 games it cheerfully ate through units!). Once the tournament out of the way I can definitely see me getting 2 Doomwheels painted up, and have them racing down the flanks (I've also ordered Ikit, and I can see myself building up a Skyre-heavy army...)

I think I'd struggle to fit in the banner without overly weakening other elements. I _could_ trim the 2nd clanrat unit down to 20 members, saving 40'ish points, but I think then I would have a fairly useless under-sized unit... Alternately I could drop the Warlock, but the Doom Rocket is too funny to leave out...so far it's achieved nothing, but it gets people really, really worried!
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babychaos


This army had a run-out last night (my second ever game!), and performed admirably versus Dark Elves...I tabled him turn 5, and in return lost my 2 slave units (oh, the humanity!), the 2 warmachines (to scouting skirmishers), the weapon teams and the Plague Furnace (which went down to some lucky poisoned attacks)...so about 650:2200.

I tried the Slaves with one as horde, and one as a column. The horde spent 3 turns getting shot to pieces, while the column charged a bunch of Witches, got outside of the Generals range, and broke, causing a healthy amount of hits as they went crazy!

The Bell/Seer was excellent...4 free Scorch spells (I rolled 9 or 10 every time!), forcing him to use dispel dice (and 1 got through, killing half a unit), and the Seer pulled off a IF Cracks Call to kill his War Hydra, while the miscast was the small template one, which hit virtually no-one due to the size of the Bell template. It drew a lot of attention, however the Ward Save and Magic Resistance did admirable work keeping it alive...

The HPA was...well, lethal. He had a unit specifically for attempting to kill it (flaming banner), who caused 4 wounds, but lost the combat, ran away and were run down. The HPA then rampaged through one flank, killing all his archers, and finally charging the remains of his generals unit, eating them all. I was _very_ lucky with the Regen saves (it made 6, and failed none), so can't always expect that to happen...

I think generally having 3 big threats (the monks, the HPA and the Monks) meant that he could never really focus on killing one, and ultimately he ended up wasting a lot of attacks on killing slaves.

Probably the least-useful unit was the 30-man clanrats, who were positioned back to protect the war-machines, however my lack of knowledge of Scouts and charge arcs meant they were given the run-around for much of the game, only getting to hit a unit of skirmishers in the last turn (and only just killing them). Next time I'll have them positioned further back, and better positioned to shield the cannon and catapult.

I think changes I'm going to do are;
1) Drop the Plague Priest down to Level 1...compared to the Seer on the Bell he's a bit of a non-entity casting (-35)
2) Give him back his Plague Censer...not too worried about the risk of wounds I take, and it adds to the thump of the Monks charge (+16)
3) Give the BSB a shield (+2)

With the other 17 points I'm considering either a couple of monks to get them back to a geometrically pleasant 7x5 block, or a second Warlock, as the player pointed out that would leave the opposition guessing as to where the Doom Rocket was (which was lethal against him...round 1 I shot it, needing 25", I rolled 7 dice and got...25! 14 Witches dead). The monks I already have, the Warlock I have (IoB one), but would need to assemble and paint it.

As an aside, the local GW manager was down the club last night with the new HPA and Warp Lightning Cannon models (and Ikit)...really like both of them, the HPA is huge, and utterly evil looking. Ikit is way bigger than I initially thought as well. Really looking forward to getting my hands on them next week, and need to start thinking about what colour scheme I want for my HPA...
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chewii


babychaos
Jan 7 2011, 03:49 AM

2) Give him back his Plague Censer

that aint a good idea when you are on a furnace since all models in basecontact are alot monks and nod so much enemy's
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babychaos


I think that's an aceptable risk. At most I will have 10 monks in contact, who will tkae a wound on a 6, so 1-2 casualities on average. The Furnace will be in contact with 5 enemies normally, so should expect to cause (assuming average toughness) 2-3 wounds. If I hit an armoured target all the better.

I'm a strong believer that all skaven are ultimately sacrificial for the victory :-) If you aren't killing your own troops, you aren't doing it right!
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