First game VS new Skaven (long post, sry!)

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Nemi
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First game VS new Skaven (long post, sry!)

Post by Nemi »

Hi all,
with the return of my old nemesis, the Skaven, I thought it would be nice to more actively join the druchii community again.
Had my first game against them 2 days ago. It ended in a scant victory for the Skaven horde (or rather the Skaven impact-hitting, regenerating, auto-hitting monsters).
A lot happened, which I could/would have done otherwise, due to our lack of knowledge of the new book (we only started to read just before our match).
So, naturally my friend wanted to try everything new. We played 2500 points and his list consisted of...

Grey seer on bell in a lot unbreakable stormvermins + doom-flayer
BSB with -1LD banner also in stormvermins
Plague priest on Plague furnace in a lot unbreakable monks
(the German book actually says "stubborn", but 2 people were insisting it´s unbreakable and so we just played it that way, would be nice if anyone could clarify that?)
about 8 censer bearers roaming around the monks
20 clan rats with warlock eng. (lvl 1; 2 dispels) + ratling
20 slaves
10 jezzails
Doomwheel
Hellpit abomination + spikes

I can think of a few "upgrades" to this list (stormbanner coming to my mind), but I guess I´m going to face a lot of lists like this soon.

Since old skaven tended to shoot my cavalry to tiny pieces, I went with an infantry list.

Hero on Dark steed with pendant ( I hate jezzails)
2 Sorcs (2), 2 dispel scrolls, one with familiar roaming around, one with dagger in 20 warriors
10 rxbs
5 dark riders w/ rxbs
2 units of 20 BG w/ full command - one unit with hag graef + soul render and one with assassin (MB, RoK) + ring of hotek
12 witches with assa (MB, RoK)
5 shades with assa (MB, RS)
hydra
2 RBTs

I know, not very creative, but I´d assume a force to reckon with.
(I actually felt bad for 3 assassins, but I soon found out I might need them dearly)

So, just a short overview about the battle (I know this post is getting too long, hope anyone´s going to read it...)

Seeing that I did not know the rules of the doomwheel I set up my Hydra just opposite of it on the right side (next time I´m going to think twice about that). Middle 2 BGs/witches/warriors against his blocks. Left flank DRs + shades against censer bearers and hellpit abo.

Lost my Hydra on turn 2 against doomwheel since it does not need LOS to charge, which I did not know (and autohits on S6 a lot). Only breathed on a few rats so far... (keep in mind that getting charged is not the only danger, it can also possibly dish out 3 S10 shooting attacks on the closest target per round... and I felt so good with my hydra in the forest on turn 1...)
Left flank censer bearers where killed by assa, although I lost the shades to To tests. Magic and shooting did not enough for me in the beginning, yet his magic was also net very effective.
Hellpit abo autohit witches + assa to death ( only 2 wounds with assa on HPA). One first turn through CR, but stubborn. Second turn monks arrived.
He had a lot of luck overrunning with his monks (12") into BG after melee with monks killing astonishing 15 BG with To tests and the smash attack of the furnace. Naturally, my remaining stubborn BG fled 2" (!) on a roll of 12.
Had the monks down with shooting in the subsequent round, so they couldnt move the furnace anymore.
Doomwheel wreaked havoc on my right flank killing the warriors with sorc after moving 15" around a forest and then again 17" after misfiring (still not sure if we played that right, does it really move twice a turn this way?)
Meanwhile in the middle... the very one moment with the luck on my side in this game, when I finally shot the HPA and he rolled a 1 and it stayed dead, dead, dead... (no, I wasn´t able to hurt it with fire magic, although I tried a lot)
In the middle I did my very best to obliterate the bell with my assa (hope MB works against bell and furnace, couldn´t find anything in the German book saying that they´re immune to poison, please don´t spoil my day!), but I rather failed. After 7 subsequent rounds of combat I finally managed to kill the bell and the rest with it (oh yeah, obviously rolled a thirteen for the bell on our second round of melee and every rat tried to kill my BG, yet he only managed to kill about 3, but he did kill my assa roaming around(used to be in shades) with the damage everyone in 24" gets)
Doomwheel then again misfunctioned and (how could it be any different) ran into BG. My assa almost finished it for good, but the auto S6 hits are nasty...
Since it was just a fun game, I charged furnace with my general in the last turn (he at least killed the BSB) dying on To tests...

So everything ended as I said in a scant victory for the rats. He was very lucky with the dice rolls, while I was a little worse than mediocre I guess.
So I´m pretty sure I´m going to beat Skaven anytime soon (I also did in 6th often enough), but they´re more than up to the fight now again.

Would be interesting to hear your opinions about how to handly to unbreakable blocks of impact-hitting, To test-dishing blocks, a stubborn uber-hydra (Hellpit abo) and all that nasty stuff skaven can throw against us now.

I´m happy to have a worthy opponent with the new Skaven again and I thoroughly enjoyed that game ( although all these special rules with the furnace and so on tend to make the game very long now that you´re not yet used to the rules).
But I kinda do wonder if all those stubborn monsters and unbreakable blocks go with the Skaven fluff?
And btw, I really hate stuff that can charge without LOS (Hellpit, doomwheel)...

Sorry again for the long post, if you made it till here you definitely should respond or it was in vain ^^

Nemi
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Post by Phierlihy »

I faced the Skaven and the Furnace destroyed me. I have no idea what to do with these things...
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Post by Sassmaw »

If you playing a plauge army your in for a ruff day. T tests left right and center eat elves for breakfeast.
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Post by Scytale »

We played a double game (1250 pts only) yesterday and they weren't half bad. My mate had 25 clanrats with plague mortar, 25 clanrats with mortar, running for help special character, lvl 2 dude with 2+ hits on warp lightning and a scroll, 6 jezzails, 10 globadiers with (ta-da) plague mortar (*sigh*) and 10 night runners. Oh, and 2x25 slaves.

I'd be unfair to call them broken, but they are VERY strong. Here's a few things that come to my hangovered head:

-The mortars cost 65pts, have a 4+ ward against shooting and magic while they're within parent unit. Like all their weapon crew attachments. Unlike others, they can hide behind the unit and draw LoS for shooting the small pieplate (no partials, so does almost as much damage as 'old' 5'' ones), but will scatter double. The range is 24'' and it can move and fire.

-Night runners no longer skirmish. My mate overlooked that and says he'll buy them the tunneling upgrade. That seems reasonable and they'll probably play like killy non survivable dwarf miners. They have throwing stars and 6+ ward but are overall a cool unit. If I'd ever play skaven (which I won't because they're smelly rats), I'd surely pick clan Eshin.

-Slaves are 2pts and for a bloke that will make a really wide (let's say 10-20) movement tray, they'll be great screeners. At 2 pts/model and don't cause panic, yes please! So basically same as before. Take 40 and it's hard to cause panic and even harder (hill or templates) to hit the stuff scuttling behind. Your opponent WILL need them to fail the test eventually because moving that big a unit out of the way would be a pain. I'll still toy with that idea a bit more because it seems cool and fluffy.

-Here's a big one for me. Jezzails aren't skirmishers anymore, they have a 4+ save in CC as well as against shooting, need BS (3 for normal ones and 4 on the champ), str 6 all that poop and have only 1 wound. That's right, all you need to do to kill the freaking 20pts rats is cause one wound on toughness 3 and a 4+ armour. They're still good but much better game balance wise imo.


I could speculate a lot after 3+ hours of reading the book but I'll leave that for when I actually get to face all their shiznit. Furnance and Bell look sick (I love the fact it rings if you hit it with shooting with str 5 or more :D ), abomination more so...meh. We'll see what sick combos the underempire can come up with. :)
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Post by Minsc »

I played a 2500 pts game vs Skaven yesterday as well, I did score a solid due to some luck and by staying the hell out of his Furnace+PMonk unit's way. (The Furnace feels like a unit of plaguebearers with a Herald in it - untouchable!)

I won by basicly killing everything except for the big unit of censers and 2 plaguemonk units wich spent the whole game chasing shades and harpies. The Doomwheel died to some lucky shooting and the Abo died due to bad dicerolling on his part.

The new Skaven, especially if they got alot of clan pestilence units is really nightmarish for any elven army!

He had:
Grey Seer on Clock
Plague Priest on Furnace
Chieftain BSB
Assassin

2x25 slaves with slings (Killed more skaven than dark elves)
25 clanrats with shields and spears
25 stormvermin /w FC (clock and Assassin)

2x25 Plague Monks (Furnace and BSB)
(unit a) had the T-test or take a wound banner and unit b) had the banner wich inflict's S3 hits on everything in b2b.)
2x Plague Mortars
5x Plague Censers
10x Plague Cencers

Hellpit Abo with Spikes
Doom Wheel

I had:

Lvl 4 H.Sorc
Lvl 2 Sorc
Master BSB
Hag /w Cauldron

30 Spears
2x10 RxB
5 Harpies
5 DR's /w RxB

14 Exec's
14 BG
6 Shades /w GW
7 CoK

Hydra
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Post by Irishlad »

Right well i have a bit of an agreeance with you my fellow druchii, i faced off the Rats with a 2000 point list, ( if you wish for a points list, then please pass a reply to this post )

So basically, this was on Saturday 7th November, new rules had just arrived out for the rats.

I was confident about my list, a nice infantry block with cavalry and extra units.

As one has noted,, the doomwheel done exceptional amount of damage to me,, luckily, it lost control twice and went away

The ratling gun is a major hazard for dragons may i add, i nearly lost my dreadlord and the dragon, tho i kept him in in time,, i was tearing away at him good then my rolls started failing on me,,

magic was scaring me cos of the Skavens '13th' Spell'... crap yourselves people,, this 25+ spell can turn anything into a single clanrat,,including Steamtanks, entire units, dreadlord and dragon combined................... you dig?

The battle was drawn ,but as far as the new guys are concerned,, the jezzails are absolute tossers!! best way to maybe deal with them is harpies and or Shadowblade
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Post by Irishlad »

What actually happens when the bell rings now? i hear it causes fleein units to automatically rally etc and cause frenzy at the same time? or am i being handed fluent jibberish?
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Post by Nemi »

The bell´s effects are not too exaggerated. A few things are only bad if you´re in close combat (reroll to hit/wound, additional attacks). 13 still rather hurts (especially when you´re in close combat with the unit!)
Btw, you´re only allowed to cast the dreaded 13th spell on an infantry unit (so no killing dragon/stanks...). But, in fact, I always dreaded (!) it, cause of my BG blocks.

Had my second game (3k points) by now and this time the abomination was a real pain... yes, it was alive with 5 hp after using 2 (!) assassins to kill it. Killed 2 assassins, 12 witch elves and half a unit of BG in the entire game. Hurts...
But aside from that I really don´t see how to reasonable deal with the doomwheels. They ARE just totally exaggerated.

By the way, it was a solid victory for me this time, although it looked even better in the beginning. But as long as you can´t eliminate the bell/furnace in one turn (dreadlord w/ exe axe and assassin w/ MB didn´t do the trick...), they still just deal out so unreasonably much damage it´s just sick.

After all, still a fun game. All those To and autohits are totally over the top (general died against To tests, obviously) and I wouldn´t dare using WoC against Skaven. Just no Skaven attack seems to leave an armor save...
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Post by Scytale »

Srsly guys, srsly. The dreaded 13th spell does 4d6 damage, which averages to 14. 14 Black Guard? Whatever. I've had people cast gateway on my Blood Knights and Dragons, instawhacking them. Adn those few clanrats he gets...big woo. It's cast on 15+ and as you can probably calculate, the difficulty after 7 rises exponently. + I don't think Skaven players have any items that help with miscasting and all. Some more maths:

average on dice:

1: 3,5
2: 7
3: 10,5
4: 14
5: 17,5
6: 21
7: 24,5

As you can see, even 7 dice are not enough to cast it in theory. You could give me a hard time about how it's all statistics and all but it's the most tangible thing we've got. Anywho, if you pack the ring of hotek, it's impossible for the skaven player to cast it with more then 6 dice, unless he rolls double 6. That's right, impossible. It's not statistics anymore, it's a fact. You can't roll 7 6 sided dice and not have at least one repetition of dots. Pretty cool huh? So in best case, he's trading his grey seer for your best infantry unit (I'm not sure how it affects characters), and that's one out of 6. I can live with that.

But Nemi made another good point. Next to all gun and special attack and whatnot ignores armour save and causes d3, d6 wounds. For all our gothy and cool look, we're still sissy toughness 3 elves under all that armour and when something always wounds on 4+ and ignores armour saves, you can just look in amazement and wonder how chaos warriors are faring. And remove your 7pt spearmen.

Skaven are very good, if unreliable. When they work they work wonders. But all things considered, we'll fare much better against them then most armies out there.

Still, they nudged my dream of an all corsair army even more towards the 'no'. Stupid rats. -.-
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Post by Layne »

Very well spotted sir. And to cast with six dice he has to average better than four, or get IF. [And still miscast. Asshole.]
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Post by Venkh »

Well i played a 2k game vs the Skaven last night and got completely whipped.

The storm banner was on every turn and the abomination zapped by hydra in turn 1 taking it down to 1 wound.

I really hope the storm banner gets nerfed soon. It is ridiculous as it is.
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Post by Nemi »

So did it turn off and he reused it?
Storm banner is "one use only" in the German army book already
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Post by Minsc »

The storm banner was on every turn and the abomination zapped by hydra in turn 1 taking it down to 1 wound.


The stormbanner was one of the first questions for the upcomming Skaven Direwolf FAQ and GW has already confirmed that it's one use only.
(wich ironically gives Skaven 13 one use only items.)
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Post by Venkh »

Yes the guy played the banner as multi use. It was a little harsh to say the least and as Im a good egg and it was a friendly game I diddnt complain. Much :)

My real mistake was putting my big stuff on the same flank as the wheel. It is ideally suited for taking multi wound targets down.

Woe betide any greater demon, treeman or dragon that fnds itself closest to one of these things. Its ranged attacks are lethal to them.

In hindsight, the snaswer to the wheel is to face it with cheap ranked units take a few zaps and then charge it when it gets too close and kill it with CR. Unlike the abomination, it cant reliably break static CR or 5 or more.
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Post by Scytale »

Doesn't the ruling of the wheel prevent it from shooting the same unit more then once in a turn? It's just one whack with the power of artillery dice, and on a missfire, things go badly wrong. (unless he rolls a 6 ofc).
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Post by Venkh »

No, you roll the zaps one at a time resolving each completely before the next shot is resolved. The closest unit friend or foe is always the one targetted.

At least we wont be seeig the things rolling in tandem!
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Post by Silverheimdall »

Also make sure he's playing the Doomwheel correctly, if it starts in the Front arc of your unit, it cannot charge the flank! It has to charge the front.
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Post by Nellamik »

Well I played my absolute first game as Dark Elves today at 2300 pts. I went up against Skaven (who i have never played against) and kinda got creamed. He had the Doomwheel which I shot up a bit with everything I could, got it down to 3 wounds, then I charged it with a 15 spearmen and a assasin. I eventually took it out but it didn't leave much left. In the meantime he had the furnace chasing me into a corner.
He also had a plauge morter and a flame detachment thingy that really took a toll on me. I don't know anything about the Skaven army but I was heavy on magic which helped me the most, with Morathi and 2 L2 Sorc. plus the cauldren. On my first turn I rolled 3 miscasts (That didn't help) but only lost a level on one L2 and some Xbowmen due to a scorch spell he could cast on me as a result.
But later I hit him pretty hard with the Black horror and took out a large unit in 2 turns. I need to know more about this rat pack before I go up against it again.
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Post by Phierlihy »

Well I have good news about Bells and Furnaces...sort of. This may get FAQd but from what I read of the book, and anyone can feel free to quote something back to me if this is incorrect, the Bells and Furnaces are bought as "special" mounts for the Grey Seer. However as the term "special" is not defined anywhere I can find, if we kill the Seer on top, as a "monstrous mount" they pop out of the unit pushing them. Suddenly it's not moving and the unit that was pushing it aren't Unbreakable anymore. Versus Skaven, I've been bringing RBTs!!
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Post by Nellamik »

So how do we get at the Grey Seer? Reapers?
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Post by The buoyancy of water »

There's also a rule saying neither the seer or the unit can ever leave the bell/furnace. So the "mount" can try to leap out of the unit, but the unit will just follow it...

As a Skaven player from what I've seen here people have been playing against folks that have been suckered into taking all the shiny new things. These things are so expensive that taking a bell, furnace, doomwheel and A-bomb a list short of 3000pts is, frankly, daft. Far nastier lists can be made if you avoid too much shiny new stuff. Eg, my 2250 list has a unit that dishes out 26 S5 attacks a turn and I still have a furnace, doomwheel, 2 censer units and much more. By avoiding too many new things Skaven players can create lists with a lot of threats to deal with.

Cheers,
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Post by Phierlihy »

Actually it says "While the Screaming Bell has at least one wound remaining, the Grey Seer and the unit pushing it are Unbreakable, however, neither can voluntarily leave the Screaming Bell." And I'll quote a similar rule that Dwarves will never "voluntarily' abandon their warmachines. But they do it if they fail a Terror test. And in this case, a riderless mounsterous mount does not have the option to leave the unit, it is mandatory (as opposed to voluntary).

Now that's my take on things but if someone can show me something different, I'm totally willing to change my tune!
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Post by The buoyancy of water »

Well the bell/furnace cannot move on its own, so it would have to stay put while the unit moved away. However the unit can't move away. So both units stay still forever because the bell can't move and the unit can't leave..? Also they are described as "special mounts that are pushed by the accompanying unit" (or something like that, I don't have the book here) so they are not normal mounts that would be forced to leave a unit when the rider died because they physically can't.

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Post by Comrade igor »

The Buoyancy of Water wrote:Well the bell/furnace cannot move on its own


That's right, so when it gets chucked out of the unit it is nigh useless.

Until the FAQ comes, the best point of reference is the Corpsecart FAQ whereby it states that the CC is a mount but it leaves the unit once the necro dies, the bell/furnace is no different - needing rats to push it does in no way override the fact that it gets pushed out of the unit in the current state of the rules.
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Post by Nellamik »

Correct me if I got this wrong, so you are saying if you charge a Bell/Furnace with something that causes Terror and they don't pass ledership they become useless. What LD do they use?
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