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How do you win any games with skaven?; Ive never won a single game skaven
Topic Started: 5th January 2011 - 07:45 PM (1,720 Views)
pierre10
Clanrat
HELP!! I recently started collecting a clan Rictus skaven army, but ive never won a single (in the admittedly few) games with them. Ive devised strategies to tear opponents apart, but i always lose! My main rival is a high elf player, and their speed is terrifying! any help appreciated
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Mathusala0
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The Evil Underlord

if your main rival is a high elf player tell me, A how many points, and B what you and he are taking. you need to explain the situation more clearly

If your looking for general advice against high elves. magic and shooting you can rip them apart as they're all T3 and low armor saves. you NEVER as skaven want to get into CC with high elves and hope to win. you can tie up units with slaves as with any enemy and this is your best bet as you can continue a magical/shooty barrage to knock them out.

If you want to continue the CC route then you need to take things the highelves will have problems with. Hellpits and doomwheels work fairly well against them seeing as no sane high elf player takes the silly bolt throwers (unless its for fun :P) so you dont have to worry about these things getting shot up. Another thing to take would be a big unit of plague monks and a furnace. As highelves can shoot out the furnace and are only T3 and armor 5+ (as stated before) your plague monks will take wounds, but in a war of attrition you'll come out on top (sheer volume of attacks + furnace) this also gives you a plague priest with access to plague spells which are better against low toughness armies such as elves, empire, Bretonia, ext. wither + plague is a beutiful combo which your enemy will only be able to dispel one or the other.

Your weapons teams should include at least 1 warpfire thrower. keep it well hidden behind a small parent unit (say a 10 man storm vermin unit). calculate about 14 inches as the "maximum hit area" and the fire will kill almost everything it touches.

Make sure your taking units in 5 by 10 at least. this way your ldr 10 steadfast keeps you in the game longer.

If he takes monsters take a warp lightning cannon (or just stick with doom wheels) and they'll die fast.

and IF he takes a "deathstar" of Phonix guard with a banner of the world dragon and stocked full of characters. your best bet is to tool out an assassin, charge him and a week unit into the guard, make sure hes in base contact with the banner. use a unit champion to accept challenges. and hope to god you kill him in one round (which is usually not to hard, cant have a ward save and if you ignore armor you should be fine.) and then go back to shooting/magicing the crap out of it.
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Warlord McQueek
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What points level do you usually play at?
What units do you use?
What units does your opponent use?
What part of the opponent's army is it that gives most problems?
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Paricidas
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While I would agree with most of mathusas advices, I will disagree with his point of view on weapon teams.

High elfs dont like their core, as they think it is utter crap. Most of them will only take minimum core and very very very often it will be something with a bow. Something with a bow + bs4 = dead weapon team. If you had a unit of 10 archers with 30 range and bs4, what would you shoot at? The 50s laves or the 70 points weapon team?

Generally a grey seer is always a good and devastating choice. Always take a power scroll with you, target the unit that does NOT have the banner of the worlddragon and watch it go boooom. Alternativly you can play around with whiter and plague, which has an even greater dmaage potential.
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Sketch
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scratchings and squeakings

What the Scottish guy said.

I would also add to Mathusala0's list of recommended weapons the Doomrocket and PWM's/PWG's. If the latters seem surprising since Elves are low Toughness I shall counter by saying that because they're low T, they rely very heavily on armour to protect their fragile, skinny and horribly expensive (pointswise) little arses. I play as High Elves quite a lot and things that ignore armour saves are quite high on my list of phobias. Number 1 though is of course Toughness tests and so roll out the Plague Furnaces and PCB's. HPA and Doomwheels are also very viable though. And I'd also highly recommend taking a Dispel Scroll and any of the riposte items (Feedback, Sivejir's, Leeching, Trickster's) to try and spook his mages and either Storm Banner or Warpstorm to ground or hurt the inevitable Eagles.

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Mathusala0
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Quote:
 
Something with a bow + bs4 = dead weapon team. If you had a unit of 10 archers with 30 range and bs4, what would you shoot at? The 50s laves or the 70 points weapon team?


fair point. still need to know what his opponent takes. But show a 30 man unit of sword masters a warpfire thrower and let the fun begin

Quote:
 
I would also add to Mathusala0's list of recommended weapons the Doomrocket and PWM's/PWG's. If the latters seem surprising since Elves are low Toughness I shall counter by saying that because they're low T, they rely very heavily on armour to protect their fragile, skinny and horribly expensive (pointswise) little arses. I play as High Elves quite a lot and things that ignore armour saves are quite high on my list of phobias. Number 1 though is of course Toughness tests and so roll out the Plague Furnaces and PCB's. HPA and Doomwheels are also very viable though. And I'd also highly recommend taking a Dispel Scroll and any of the riposte items (Feedback, Sivejir's, Leeching, Trickster's) to try and spook his mages and either Storm Banner or Warpstorm to ground or hurt the inevitable Eagles.


High elves take eagles? with all cannon one shots? Doomrocket yes i totally forgot. NEVER leave home without one. pwm/pwg totally all good, just with low armor saves already they might be less effective than just taking strength 5 things. dispel scroll ftw. storm banner is nice against elves, shuts down shooting and the flying.
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Paricidas
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Sketch, my high elfs do not highly rely on armor. Granted, I do not know your HE list, but I bet it is not 50% just white lions and heavy cavallery. Of course you can always "metal" them up, but I do not know many highelfs that go with the lore of metal.

Weapon teams, imho only make sence if you take PWMs, as they get hard cover from their main unit and can move and shoot. If the high elf is worth 2 warptokens, no other serious weapon team will get off a single shot becuause it is dead before that happens.

Another rule that always holds true for my games is that all high elf lists contain at least two eagles which will be very very versatile. I regard them as a flying 20 slaves unit. If you do not take care you can kiss your weapon teams/ cannons goodbye by turn2 (not to mention the nice advantages the HE gets from the eagles during deployment). A nice little SV unit with a stormbanner will make a very very ugly scratch through any plans the HE might have with his eagles (plus it renders useless most of the HEs shooting for a turn).

Generally speaking, you can say that you will always lose all close combats but will always be steadfast. So slaves and anything that can shoot will make short work out of almost anything a highelf can throw at you.

Things you should watch out:
Banner of the world dragon: Immune to magic, your 13th and plague are wasted on them. Pro: lore of life does not work on them

Banner of "Give me additional d3 powerdices": Normaly taken in addition to a lvl4 mage, very very very unhealthy.

ASF, always: All HE chars get +2 str weapons for low costs. Combine that with an armor of caledor and you have a BSB that can kill almost any of your "none-commanders" without even taking a scratch while he laughs at the pityfull attempts of the skaven hord that tries to get through his 2+ armor.

HE magic in general: Lore of life death and light are really ugly. Mindrazor, dwellers and some other spells are gamebreakers and should be avoided by all means.

the book of hoeth: "My own private teclis guy". Get IF on any doubles but ignore the miscast. One of the most powerful items ever created, but it costs 100 points. So the lvl4 mage will be a naked t3 model. Rush that guy at all costs and slay him (even 3 slaves will do the job, the trick is to ever get to him...)-

Last tip: HEs tend to use very small units (compared to skavens 30+). If you face an opponent who fields his chars in a small elitist unit, the 13th spell will be extremely devastating. If the HE has turned on his brain before he deployed his chars, they will be stuck in large units like spearmen or in a bunker of 20+ phoenix guards. Phoenix guards are a big no-go for any spell but the 13th, the large spearmen-group is a candiadte for whiter/plague.

So if you see a BSB or a general in a unit of 12 white lions, pull out your powerscroll, throw a 13th and watch the game go to "massacre" in one magic phase.
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Mathusala0
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The Evil Underlord

if only power scroll wasn't taboo at my place of origin

then again so is book of hoeth...
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Paricidas
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Mathusala0
Jan 5 2011, 09:34 PM
if only power scroll wasn't taboo at my place of origin

then again so is book of hoeth...

Hi comrade, at my club powerscrolls are also not allowed. A staff of jet will do (almost) the same.

I have the impression that the original author is quite a beginner to WHFB and from that I conclude he has a small army and plays against small armies. There for I think a grey prophet and his 13th will be so extremly devastating and weapon teams will be so dead. (A WFT will have no real targets against 1000 points HEs, costs 7% of your whole army and is nothing more than a simple "shoot me"-sign with a 4+ ward save)
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Mathusala0
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The Evil Underlord

True true.

high elves... beginning skaven... island of blood.... hmmmmm

PIERRE 10!!! you need to inform us of the armies, units, ext!!!
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pierre10
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sorry for the wait! Im ayoung child with limitations of computer time! Anyway, I usually field tretch craventail, a grey seer on screaming bell, masterbred rat ogres, loads of stormvermin, some slaves/clanrats, hell pit abom, queek, and i plan to use a warp lightining cannon, doomwheel, loads more clanrats, more rat ogres and a vermin lord. I yet again lost another battle, this time against a lizardmen player. At least it was close! :(
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Hello ^_^ Don't worry about not replying immediately, we're all in different time zones so there's no guarantee that you'll be around to respond. Just reply when you can :)

Anyway, from your list of models I have to ask: have you just started playing Warhammer Fantasy? Secondly, can you post the army list you're using? It would help a lot to know the size and number of units you are using.
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Mathusala0
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The Evil Underlord

Points value man! and what is HE taking!

Vermin lords are USELESS! 500 points of "one shot cannon target" with only a 1/3 chance to avoid it.

don't say "loads" give us actual numbers. I can't tell the difference if a load is 20 storm-vermin or 50 storm vermin.

Rat ogres will die vs elves for sure. In general i dont take them do to having no armor they die faster than the cheaper plague monks (which also tend to be way better) the only difference is the strength and initiative.

You should not take a large block of storm vermin, large being 30+, unless you have it pushing the bell. and honestly id say just take cheeper clanrats for the bell.

More slaves!!! sounds like you've got at least 1500 points!! that means you should have 200 or so models!

Craventail is the only named character ive ever looked at and even considered taking. tell me how he works out for you.

Do you have a Battle standered bearer? you NEED one. it is CRITICAL.

Don't get more clanrats, get more slaves!!! take globadiers, jezzails and most definably a warp lightning cannon or a doom wheel or 2. and take a warlock engineer with a doomrocket! SO USEFUL!

Don't feel too bad loosing to lizard-men, the top three teams are vampire, lizzard, and skaven so it's a hard one to beat.

so based on this limited "news" and to recap. Take stormvermin only if their pushing bell. Take more "Skryre" stuff (globes, Warlock with doomrocket [maybe level one and warp condenser as well] jezzails, warp lightning cannon, doom wheels.), don't take to many rat ogres and the master breed is not worth those points. take more SLAVES!!! you will not win in combat EVER (except against empire) so dont bother TRYING to by getting clanrats over slaves. save the points, get more stuff. and do NOT get a vermin lord. I'd be willing to bet the cost it takes to buy you one that the other skaven on this sight will tell you the same thing.
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SkavenDan
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How about taking it easy on the kid :P

First thing he must do is post the army list he took in the army list section I am sure he will get lots of feedback after he does that.
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Mathusala0
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The Evil Underlord

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Jan 6 2011, 04:44 PM
How about taking it easy on the kid :P

First thing he must do is post the army list he took in the army list section I am sure he will get lots of feedback after he does that.

after reading my post, I apologize if I come off harsh.

But don't take a vermin lord.... I beg you!

Everything else is something I used when I started as well. And I as well wanted to use a vermin lord before i was shooed away by more experienced skaven players.
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