# Skaven infection



## davidg32 (Dec 19, 2008)

Alas with the holidays in full gear I have come down with Skaven fever and find myself seeing thirteen everywhere and ratmen in the dark corners of my room. I am looking to start a Skaven Army and am looking for any ideas as far as theme, army composition or any advice you think would help. Looking forward to being inspired my friends.


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## Baalirock (Oct 6, 2008)

Well, there are definitely a lot of ways that you can take a skaven army. The ratman certainly leave a lot of room for options. Obviously, the army book should be your first purchase, if you haven't already bought it. Battalions are also a good starting point, no matter where you want to take the army. Skaven have a lot of great looking units like Poison Wind Globadiers and Gutter Runners, but they're not necessarily the most effective on the battlefield under the current army book. 

Opponents will always fear Censer-Bearers and Jezzails, and rightly so.

Be prepared for your units to run away. A lot. 

Put together a list of what you like, and we'll be happy to critique it for ya.


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## davidg32 (Dec 19, 2008)

I'll be getting my hands on the army book soon enough. I like the idea of huge units of clan rats, storm vermin, plague monks, plague censor bearers, warp lock jezzails and the warlord.


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## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

Welcome to the Fantasy forums David!  You seem to like most of the really good Skaven units which is always a plus, I would suggest you seriously look at slaves to hold hands with your clan rats. Slaves are fantastically cheap and make good units to shoot through! Clan rats are better as medium blocks as I believe there is a restriction of the same number of other units as clan rats?


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## Critta (Aug 6, 2008)

Yeah - I think squeak is talking about the mainstay rule. You'll see when you get the book, but you're going to need to base your army around at least 2-3 blocks of clanrats.


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## Blackhiker (Dec 28, 2007)

To start off your army I would suggest getting 2 battalion boxes for a large core of clanrats, and a decent amount of plague monks for mass attack not to mention the rat ogres which are awesome. After that get a couple of characters and then whatever strikes your fancy.


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## Inquisitor Aurelius (Jun 9, 2008)

Kill-Kill man-things! Dwarf-things! Elf-things! For Council! For Horned Rat!

Heh. Always loved the Skaven, if for no other reason than that it's so much fun to imagine their leaders exhorting the cringing, cowering slaves and Clanrats to rush at a block of Black Orcs or something, just to tie them there while the Warp-lightning Cannon charges up. Never played 'em myself (I didn't relish the thought of painting two hundred Clanrats), but they seem like a fun army. And due for an update in the not-too-distant future, I hear. But until then, here's a killer combo for your Warlord: Desolate Blade, Enchanted Shield, Warpstone Amulet, Bands of Power. Also, heavy armour. That's a 3+ armour save, 4+ Ward, and strength six, increasing to ten(!) if you manage to fire the bound spell - which you should, with a couple of kitted out Warlock Engineers to soak up Dispel dice. Alternatively, you could save a few points and take the Languisher Sword instead, which would decrease your strength by two but give you ASF - very useful against those dastardly Elf-things I mentioned earlier :spiteful:. Actually, if you drop the defensive items and go with the LS, you can pull off a similar trick with a Chieftain, which would allow you to field a Grey Seer in 2,000 and all but guarantee that by the time you activate the Bands your opponent will be powerless to stop them from going off. Try it. You'll like it :grin:.


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## davidg32 (Dec 19, 2008)

Thanks for the advice so far. I'm leaning towards building a solid core of clan rats at this point. Any ideas on painting composition? I am contemplating a marble look for the rats armor and clothes to go against dark brown fur, kinda like a death wing look, any thoughts or feedback would be great.


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## bobss (May 18, 2008)

Although im not 100% sure on what exact paints to use, i know you can achieve i pretty good effect, and fast using drybrushing and inking


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## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

As far as painting goes I would advise keeping your scheme as simple as possible, you may well regret a complex scheme when you are on clanrat number 224 and still have a load more looking at you waiting for some love. Do a test mini if you are unsure and see what you think of the finish and effort once done.


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## Inquisitor Aurelius (Jun 9, 2008)

Rusted armour, while a bit unoriginal, is a tested-and-true classic, and a fairly easy effect to achieve. There are at least a dozen ways to do it, but I like a Scorched Brown basecoat, drybrushed with Blazing Orange, and liberally stippled with Boltgun Metal. If that looks a bit flat, a wash of Devlan Mud should shade it more than adequately. It can be a touch messy, though, so it's probably best to do it before the fur - any stray streaks of brown on the armour shouldn't really ruin it anyway.


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## davidg32 (Dec 19, 2008)

I'm actually not to familiar with the stiplling technique. How do you go about it?


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

The basic idea is to get your main armour done, then choose a second colour.

Being scavengers, Ratmen are likely to have armour nicked from Dwarves, or Goblins, or Men.

Dwarves tend to be silverish, due to Gromril, and Men tend to be Silvery metal, due to steel manufacturing.

Goblins nick it off the dead bodies of whatever they kill - usually Dwarves and Men, again.

So for Skaven, the typical colour is to get a nice dark silvery colour - a black basecoat, followed be a Tin Bitz complete basecoat, nooks crannies and everything.

On top of that, make a mix of Chaos Black and Boltgun Metal, and drybrush lightly over the top of that. Finally, Drybrush a lighter amount of Boltgun metal on its own over the top of the armour.

For the stippling, choose a rusty colour. Tin Bitz, Brazen Brass and Shining Gold work well together, when mixed.

To stipple, get a ruined brush, and a very light amount of the paint on. Slowly drag it across the surface of the armour, and repeat, but in strokes across one section rather than the whole of it, as if you drybrushing.

I don't think it's that good an effect, and by washing a small amount of tin bitz mixed with a brown colour, you can get a fantastic effect, that's far more simple to do.


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## davidg32 (Dec 19, 2008)

Hmmm well I got my hands on the Skaven Army Book as well as a Globadier. I am trying to figure out a color scheme for the army and have hit a mental block. I really want to go with a marble kind of Death wing looking color for the armor and either gray or scorpion green for the cloth / underside of the clothes. Any other ideas or thoughts?


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## Inquisitor Aurelius (Jun 9, 2008)

Vaz said:


> To stipple, get a ruined brush, and a very light amount of the paint on. Slowly drag it across the surface of the armour, and repeat, but in strokes across one section rather than the whole of it, as if you drybrushing.


Not how stippling works. What you want to do is take a stiff brush (as Vaz said, ruined is best, since the process will ruin a good one really quickly anyway), load it as if you're going to drybrush, but then use sort of stabbing motions rather than actual strokes to apply the paint. Well, not stabbing, more like poking. But you've got to put a bit of force into it. Fantastic for rust, as I already mentioned.

As far as the Deathwing colours go, I don't think it's a good idea. It could look neat, sure, but it's not Skaven. Really, the armies of Chaos are the only ones likely to have anything other than metallic armour. But you could paint them Tentacle Pink if you wanted to, I suppose - it's your army.

Grey and green could definitely work for the cloth, though, I'll give you that. Just remember to dirty it up some, particularly if you're going to use something as bright as Scorpion Green.


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## davidg32 (Dec 19, 2008)

So I'll probably end up going with the rusted metal effect for the armor and the either gray or green for the cloth. I'll post some pics as soon as I get some models painted. Thanks Inquisitor Aurelius you have been very helpful.


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## TheVermineDwarf (Dec 30, 2008)

Hey im generally new to skaven having played them for around 6 months, but i find that clanrats in a block of 25 always do really good (except when charged by a group of ogre ironguts with a tyrant that minus's three to leadership, but thats for another time) i give one unit spears and one runs with my Grey Seer's bell and the other has a ratling gun. I am currently running a block of 15 plague monks but plan to increase it to 20 and add a plague priest (liber bubonicus and warpstone token). I run two rat ogres, but im thinking of deleting them. I have some giant rats (3 packs) but idk they do decently but im contemplating boosting them to 4 or taking them ot completely. Never go wrong with a good warlock engineer with storm deameon and warpstone amulet ( if all goes well 3d6 str 5 hits) My BSB either carries Storm or Sacred of the horned rat which both have their advantages. I carry jezzails 7 now but hoping for ten they always do great. I dont have slaves but have proxied them and they do all right and i usualy run 13 gutter runners but there really expensive so im thinking about bumbping them down to night runners. Thoughts?


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## davidg32 (Dec 19, 2008)

That is some sound advice. Seems like a good mixture of troops to specialists. I was thinking of going with a warlock engineer with warp lock pistol but Im not sure modelling wise how to go about that. For my 500 pt starter block i was going for Warlock engineer, 2 blocks of 20 clan rats, 4 globadiers, and 8 jezzails. Think this is a good base for a Skaven force? Also, would you say it is vital to have at least one unit of giant rats in order to have a unit to buy time for the rest of the force?


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## TheVermineDwarf (Dec 30, 2008)

i personaly have my giant rats sweep and take the flank becuse of their 6 move and i think globadiers are a waste of points honestly but if u take a warlock engineer give him all points a storm deamone and warpstone amulet and he kills everything and never take calnrats less than 25 so u have at least three ranks when ur in combat bc an autommatic 4 to combat resolution pwns face. I'm also a huge fan of plague monks and u can take 15 with a 4 plus ward save and 3 attacks each for 180 pts


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## Grik (Jul 28, 2008)

squeek said:


> Slaves are fantastically cheap and make good units to shoot through!


Boy if that isn't the understatement of the century! I mean they are only a few points a model! AS a Lizardmen player, I'm glad to see more Skaven players emerging. That just means more sacrifices for Sotek! Any really what's not to like about that? :biggrin: A solid army of clan rats is a great place to start. You have to take some Plague Monks or Jezzails, or both, they are just too good not to take. I hate facing them, but they are worth it. They will almost always earn their points back and then some. Just have to make sure you keep a Hero or Lord around for his leadership. Oh wait Skaven get +1 Leadership for every rank beyond the 3rd. Or was that Goblins? I can't remember.


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## Gavalon the Great (Jan 1, 2009)

I love Skaven.

They are the complate antithesis of 'Hero-Hammer', and are just so exquisitely evil and pathetic (at the same time) that they just make you wanna spit. :biggrin:

The trick with a Clan Generic (aka, Warlord Clan) style army is to remember that your only hope of success lies in unleashing a veritable tsunami of fangs and fur. Your troops out-shoot & out-fight nobody, so what you need to rely on are the basic tactical fundamentals of out-number + ranks + flanks = victory. Combat res is your friend, cos Skaven have nothing that will kill things reliably by shooting or the usual mano i mano Heroic nonsense.

Numbers are your friend. Buy basic troops as much as possible, and don't gun them up. Sword, shield, banner + muso are all they need. Your strength lies in having an absolute bucketload of cheap throw away troops to hurl at the enemy, so that 2 or 3 units of 20+ fleeing will mean nothing to your average Skaven commander (whereas it would mean utter doom & destruction for any Elf army).

This is precisely why Slaves are an absolute must. My principle is to get one Slave unit for every Clanrat one, and throw them in the front line. In big enough blocks within command range of your Warlord, and they'll be Ld 10 (Skaven special rules - ya gotta luv 'em). When they get charged, just flee 'em, and nail the enemy unit with counter charges to front and flank for a good big win.

BTW: at 2250pts (standard for Australian tournaments), I tend to run close on 400 Skaven. As in: "That's not a Horde! *This* is a *Horde*!!!:shok:

Keep your Warlord basic. Mine runs with no magic items or anything other than heavy armour + shield, and he comes in under 100pts. He's not there to play the Hero - he's there (in the back rank, of course) to make sure that others have that nice fat leadership factor to endure anything that comes their way.

Apply General Patten's dictum that "Victory does not come about by dying for your country - it comes about by having the other b****** die for his". For Skaven commanders, priority #1 is their personal survival. Anything else is purely secondary, so if you can keep him out of harm's way and let others run the riskd for him, you're halfway to the post-battle smorgasboard to end the black hunger.

That should give you some ideas for starters. I can really recommend a forum called "The UnderEmpire" - very supportive and constructive community (google it, or pm me for the link). Tell them that Xh!n Tarat sent you (you'll get looked after by some very knowing players then).

Skaven are bags of fun - probably the most anarch-eek-ic fun you can have playing fantasy. They really do break all the rules & conventions of your basic fantasy army.

But remember: Hero-Hammer they ain't.

(This really has got me thunking about finishing off my spare Skaven armies when my Word Bearers are done!!!)


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