So, in little over a day I face not one, but TWO armies that I haven't fought before, and on the same team.
Yes, it is 2,500 points Stunties (1,500) and Empire (1,000) v. Skaven.
As I haven't fought either of these players before, I don't have any idea what their list would be, or what units they usually bring. Having read around a bit, I thought the general following list might be ok. This game is at a friendly local gaming circle.
What do you think?
Drops/ Chaff (46 pts)
*5x Giant Rats, Packmaster (For drops/ setup and chaff)
*5x Giant Rats, Packmaster (For drops/ setup and chaff)
Lords (490pts)
* x1 Grey Seer (Dispel Scroll, Earthing Rod, Screaming Bell)
Heroes (361pts)
* Chieftain (Battle Standard Bearer, Shield, Storm Banner)
* x1 Plague Priest: Flail, Wizard Level 1
*x1 Warlock Engineer: Doomrocket
* x1 Warlock Engineer: Death Globe, Wizard Level 1
Core (638pts)
* x35 Clanrats (For pushing Bell)
Musician, Poisoned Wind Mortar, Standard Bearer
* x35 Clanrats (Chieftain goes here)
Musician, Poisoned Wind Mortar, Standard Bearer
* x50 Skavenslaves (WLE with Rocket here, so he can be teleported over to enemy battle line)
Musician
* x50 Skavenslaves
Musician
Special (471pts)
* 6x Gutter Runners + Poisoned Attacks, Slings (Scout, to taking out advancing enemy warmachines)
* 6x Gutter Runners + Poisoned Attacks, Slings (Infiltrate in game to take out enemy warmachines)
* x30 Plague Monks (Plague Priest goes here)
Musician, Plague Banner, Standard Bearer
Rare (490pts)
* Doomwheel (Flank Running, monster/ vehicle hunting)
* Hell Pit Abomination + Warpstone spikes (general anti infantry duties!)
* Warp Lightning Cannon
(List made with Battlescribe)
Any ideas or help for 'ol Squeek out there? If so, send in those ideas quick!!
Cheers,
Squeek.
Thats a pretty strong list vs. Dwarfs who would struggle against it. I would expect the Empire list to have a couple of blocks of Chicken Knights so you need to think about how you'll deal with those. But honestly what you have there is very strong.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input John. I guess it is the shooting phase that worries me the most there.
DeleteI am wondering if it is better to stand-off with the Runners and try to shoot using poisoned slings, or try to get into combat with the cannon so it can't shoot at all (but possibly lose the combat)?
If you have Poison attacks then shooting the warmachines is always best as 6's auto-wound (yes poison does affect them, wish it didn't but it does). In combat Dwarf artillery crew are WS4 S3 T4 with 6+ AS and are Stubborn. They can stick around for an annoying length of time if you charge them. Keep your gutter runners moving and use them to redirect the bigger units while shooting at the warmachines, and while your other stuff eats into the killer units i.e. 13th'ing the Chicken Knights
DeletePersonally I don't find units of Slaves (or clanrats) above 40 a good idea, they become much harder to move about and I don't really find it adds anything. Gutter runners I do like running 2 units but I usually go with units of 9 (you average 3 poison wounds a turn so can wipe out warmachines in 1 round of shooting).
ReplyDeleteGenerally though I'd say this was a pretty nasty list and it has answers to most stuff, chicken knights don't worry you too much when you have the Abomb/Doomwheel/WLC to kill them and slaves to bog them down forever.
Dave A
Hi Dave A. Thanks for your post and the advice about the Slaves. I think my concern is "What else would I have to drop" to get those additional GRs?
Delete...also, someone pointed out to me that I should really have Skalm on the Seer to increase his survivability...
...both of these things would be nice to do, but would see my body-count drop event further.
Thoughts?
I like Skalm but you've dropped your miscast protection to take it (from what I see in the list below) which might not be a good trade off but it depends on how you play your Seer, I like to throw the odd Dread 13th and as you're playing against Dwarfs you're going to need to be throwing a lot of power dice at spells if you want to get them off so you might need the miscast protection.
DeletePersonally I like PWM's and I think generally weapon teams don't get used enough but I would take your points from either there and/or drop the level 1 from the brass orb warlock. Generally (and specifically when playing Dwarf's) you will be better off with 1 level 2 than 2 level 1's so if you want to go plague priest maybe make him level 2?
Dave A
If you're playing Dwarf & Empire there's a good chance you will face an organ gun and/or hellblaster in situations like that it makes all the difference being able to reliably kill the warmachine in 1 round of shooting. Deploy the gutter runners out of range, your turn move in, shoot, kill it (hopefully) then you can take your time hunting the inevitable cannons/mortar/grudge throwers. They either have to give up on the remaining war machines or they try to chase you with units and you can lead them around by the nose while everything else you have advances as you want.
DeleteWith 6 you move in, do 2 wounds (on average) and then your gutter runners will most likely die in the enemy turn.
If you need more points in core (if you drop 1 or 2 PWM) you could look at Stormvermin in place of the plague monks as I think they would do better against Empire/Dwarfs, better WS, I, S(halberds) and give them the razor standard or something. You could even give the Stormvermin the Storm banner and make the BSB more killy.
I like to talk ratty tactics :) I am a fan of never taking the same list twice. Having said that there is no wrong item or list with Skaven really, it's about what you want to do with them and how you enjoy playing.
Other possibilities would be dragonbane gem on the seer, (really annoy any dwarf flaming cannons) and maybe ironcurse icon on the plague priest it's amazing how many points that 5 point item can save you each shooting phase when you're getting templates dropped on you!
Dave A
Well, I've made some changes now, so here is an updated list:
ReplyDeleteLORDS
Grey Seer (495 pts)
1 Screaming Bell, Dispel Scroll, Skalm
HEROES
Chieftain (122 pts)
Shield, Battle Standard Bearer, Storm Banner
Warlock Engineer (45 pts)
Doomrocket
Warlock Engineer (115 pts)
Level 1 Wizard; Hand Weapon, Brass Orb
Plague Priest (104 pts)
Flail
CORE
x35 Clanrats (217 pts)
PWM Weapon team.
x35 Clanrats (217 pts)
PWM Weapon team.
x47 Skavenslaves (96 pts)
x50 Skavenslaves (102 pts)
x5 Giant Rats + Packmaster (23 pts)
x5 Giant Rats + Packmaster (23 pts)
SPECIAL:
x6 Gutter Runners (slings, poison)
x6 Gutter Runners (slings, poison)
x30 Plague Monks + Plague Banner
RARE:
Warp Lightning Cannon
Hell Pit Abomination
Doomwheel
don't know if you're playing with special characters or not, but against dwarves a queek with 20 stormvermin makes a deadly mini-hammer. don't know about taking screaming bell. against those armies there's going to be a horrid amount of artillery on the field aiming at that, without dice in your favor i wouldn't expect it to last more than a turn or two.
ReplyDeletei would still take the seer, but bunker him in with a tough-ish unit, maybe put iron icon thing on him for the ward save against war machines for his unit. in my experience dwarves struggle against unending hoards. their artillery can take out big nasty stuff efficiently, but when you're fielding 300+ wounds worth of rats they often simply can't dish out enough damage to turn the tide and war machines will have too many targets to shoot at. so i would drop the bell in favor of another hoard of something, or a queek mini-hammer, or another wlc.
Thanks for the advice Zerixar.
DeleteAs it turns out I didn't take Queek as I wanted to find my way around the game first before playing characters...
...but you were right about the Screaming Bell. It was only by good luck that the Dwarf Cannon didn't take it out early in the game (the cannon overshot at least twice!)
oh also, keep in mind if the dwarf player is running an anvil (which they probably will) weapon teams will be the first thing to go.
ReplyDeleteprobably should have condensed this. oh well. here's my last 2500 pts skaven list that obliterated my dwarf opponent:
ReplyDelete2x wlc
1x doomwheel
1x hpa
1x pwm
2x 40 slaves
3x 40 clanrats
1x 40 plague monks
plague priest, grey seer, chieftain(bsb), 2x warlock (one w/ doomrocket, one with nothing as a diversion, both dropped in slave blocks)
healthy smattering of magic items, don't really remember.
oh, and 2x blocks of 5 gutter runners w/ poison slings.
ReplyDeleteok done posting now
Thanks again for the information and the lists! It is a little similar to my list, but I only took x1 WLC and I had one less block of CRs...
Delete...still, good to see that I am thinking in the right direction!