# 40K skaven?



## Brother Subtle (May 24, 2009)

does anyone else think a 40K skaven race could be a cool spin?
or are they far to 'warhammer' to be brought into 40K?

i think the idea that they have been lying deep under terra for millenia building themselves up and only going to the surface to plunder new technology and weapons. anyone else want to have a play with the idea?

i think they would be very ork like if they were intersteller. traveling on hulks and the like.


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## High Marshall Mendark (Jan 25, 2009)

Interesting idea, i know id like it. Stealing weapon eh?? I don't think so, aren't skaven sposed to be weak, unlikely one could lift a bolter. I reckon that they'd specialise in subterfuge and stealth with loads of poisoned weapons and deep striking (tunneling) units. They'd be more witty than orks and probably better Initiative, lower strength, average LD, good BS, decent WS, crap T and crap armour but loads of em. Would they use tanks??

Interesting idea though.

They'd have to work as a giant team to win tho, somewhat like eldar in that they have to have a coerced attack to be successful.

or this could happen:


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## admiraldick (Sep 9, 2008)

Brother Subtle said:


> does anyone else think a 40K skaven race could be a cool spin?
> or are they far to 'warhammer' to be brought into 40K?


bearing in mind that 40k is not sci-fi, but space fantasy, there is nothing _too_ 'warhammer' to fit into the game. (it would be very hypocritical to say they 'ratmen' shouldn't be in the game when orcs, elves, lizardmen, dwarfs, demons and knights in shining armour are.)

during the dawn of 2nd Ed, when there was a lot of clarification and expansion to both game's background, there was some discussion of creating a 40k Skaven army; you can see some preliminary sketches for units the Jes Goodwin art book, The Gothic and the Eldritch. Jes himself suggested that he had always felt that Skaven were the perfect race for both games, effectively bridging the stylistic gap in a way that Eldar, Orks and Squats never could.

the ideas sadly never came to fruition, but never fully disappeared either, they resurfaced in 3rd Ed in oblique references to the Hrud and their warren dwelling race. and when the time came to introduce the 2nd new race to the game (after Necrons), they were considered along side Kroot, but ultimately dropped in favor of Tau. when the joke of a book, Xenology, was released, Hrud were 're-imagined' as 'bendies', which is only a small step from 'bender'. many of those who inexplicably advocate a total seperation of 40k and fantasy (presumably because they don't know much about sci-fi and fantasy genres, and have never played any other game), accepted this as silent confirmation that the idea of 'space skaven' was dead.

i think that there is still plenty of scope for the idea in a setting where the same daemons who walk in the one game universe walk also in the other, and its a shame that they could not have been the hrud.



Brother Subtle said:


> i think the idea that they have been lying deep under terra for millenia building themselves up and only going to the surface to plunder new technology and weapons. anyone else want to have a play with the idea?
> 
> i think they would be very ork like if they were intersteller. traveling on hulks and the like.


i had always imagined them being a race that mined asteroids, leading not only to their rather dirty and unpleasant appearence, but also their weapons adapted from mining equipment. though i must admit i hadn't considered them originating on Terra.


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## Cole Deschain (Jun 14, 2008)

I'd favor them as some sort of "Xenos" race... that's secretly the result of some kind of Chaos or Xenos genetic tinkering during the time before the Great Crusade.

Have the Magos Biologis discover that they actually have some _human_ traits...

And then the knowledge is rigorously suppressed, since it's theological suicide.... and since the little beasts are mean.


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## Bubblematrix (Jun 4, 2009)

Sounds like an army which I would love to work on a background for:

The dirty little Hrud, plague carrying vermin of humanity - a genetic embaressment hidden and denied.

I think their best place would be as something very chaosy, a cult based army - the actual race being fairly solitary and only really existing in isolated "gangs" this would give two nice background elements for units.
Either they are the pseudo religious lot who rile the others up to fight as a whole, or they are the underhive savvy gangs of thieves, tinkerers and generally unpleasant individuals.

Key elements in the background (which I think I might get into - now inspired) would be the use of Warpstone devices and the random play style with potentially explosive effectiveness, coupled with fanaticism and a very dark element - plagues, biological weapons, devices, all held together by a disturbing religious element.

For units I would bring forward from Warhammer the tinkering techno stuff with some nice Warpstone bombs, laser devices etc - but all very cobbled together and not safe to the user or target - iron cages (like hamster balls) with fanatics running inside to drive them, D-cannon esq warp hole generators and poison gas rockets.

Also the shaddy assassins, street thug gangs and big rat ogre esq brutes with electrical skull clamps. Maybe something like the Harlequin troupe unit, so you select a few different "specials" to make a gang better.

The other basic unit would be a squad of "plaguespeakers" kind of fanatic monks, maybe armed with simple projectile guns and low power stolen laser technology. The monks would also send forward "fanatic" squads with explosives strapped to themselves - would be a good unit as people would simply need to keep away from them or risk being exploded on.

Basically bring all the skaven atributes and tech them up a bit, their existence as "hangers on" in the universe would be good, basically they could have always been there and multiplied in the less savoury parts of the universe, then they band together when the monks start a kind of evil crusade.

Anyway, probably gone too far with this - but having built a skaven army before - the idea of a 40k skaven background sounds good (I feel a custom army coming on)


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## dark angel (Jun 11, 2008)

someone actually made one of these armies its on Heresy somewhere but i can remember which section i saw it in


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## Wolfgang_Molder (Mar 3, 2008)

you don't need to tweak the fluff of fantasy to have "space skaven" in 40k, the fantasy stuff fits perfectly, rats mutated by the influence of warpstone no change required at all, warp stone, warpspace it's all the same


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## Bubblematrix (Jun 4, 2009)

Indeed, the the fluff works nicely, but the bit needed would be "where the hell have they been all this time" unless they would be written straight into the fluff as if they had always been there - either way, I would like to see them, then I can have two skaven armies


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## Inquisitor Einar (Mar 6, 2009)

a 'they have always been there' approach would probably work best.. classify them as sub-human mutants, who live in the underhives of the imperium, sneaking onboard imperial vessels and such. That would definitely be a good place for them.

Otherwise, you don't have to add much more to their fluff I think, they're the dregs of Warhammer fantasy, they can live in the dregs of the 41st millenium.


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## Eclipse41970 (Jul 17, 2009)

I've had a small Skave 40K Kill team for a few years. Added some weapons form the Dark Eldar sprue. I think of them just like real rats in the dark ages and age of sail. Always lurking below decks of event the most revered Imperial Battleship, and jumping ship to invade the underhives and lower reaches of every world. My grey rats follow Nergle.


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## Kilo (May 28, 2011)

This thread looks pretty well dead but I'm going to post there any way.
To be completely honest I had just talked to one of my friends about this the other night but with my idea I was going to have them run side by side with my Chaos Space Marines.


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Thank you for your wonderful contribution. I would rep you if I wasn't on recharge.


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## aboytervigon (Jul 6, 2010)

Please don't in future bring back a thread thats 3 years old though, even though it is an interesting Idea.


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## Hellados (Sep 16, 2009)

But as it is back you know we could use the IG rules for them, re-do and/or remodel the tanks into some orkish kinda stuck together with tape cool looking vehicles 

I love the idea SO much, the op said something about lizard men in 40k, well who are the lizard men in 40k?????


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## Kilo (May 28, 2011)

@aboytervigon: Sorry about bring this old thread back I just wasn't sure if I make a new thread since there was one already.

@Hellados: I think the taped together tank thing would look awesome with the Skaven. But my main issue would be could I use the Warhammer Skaven stats and just give them guns or would I need to alter the squads to match or resemble that of the Imperial Guard.

As for who the Lizard Men would be I have no clue, sorry


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## Hellados (Sep 16, 2009)

Oh you really really cant use any of the Warhammer fantasy rules, 2 completely different rules, you would have to do something like I suggested and use the Imperial Guard codex with a counts as, so a 'this big rat here uses the Ogryn rules, this big tank with the catapult uses the leman russ rules, this weird looking thing uses the Sentinel rules, this air ballon thing uses a valkeryie rules' i mean it takes a little more thought then that but still


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## Kilo (May 28, 2011)

This sound like it can be done with a lot of time and patience good thing I have both.:biggrin:


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

My thoughts on this:

The 'skaven in space' idea does not work. The 40K universe is on a completely different scale to fantasy. A race of mutant rats running under the streets of empire cities works because its all on one planet - it doesnt work in 40K.

The races represented in 40K need to be on multipul planets and in great numbers, otherwise you are left with a race that can only fight one other army without looking really odd. Mutant space rats only on Terra - why are they fighting dark eldar - you have to try and shoe horn in a reason why the dark eldar are on terra. This concept would make a great necromunda type game (or simply another 'gang' for necromunda).

So - that concept is out - but what can you do? Well if you want to get 'skaven in space' into 40K you need an entirely new concept for them. Junk merchants on junk ships floating around in space salvaging things - seems too similar to the concept of Ork ships. 

Basically - its a non-starter unless you want to completely re-write the 'skaven' concept in order to get them into 40K. And if you do that - why bother using skaven - use a new race entirely.


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## locustgate (Dec 6, 2009)

Bubblematrix said:


> The dirty little Hrud, plague carrying vermin of humanity - a genetic embaressment hidden and denied.


The only problem I have with the Hrud being the 'skaven" of 40k is that they look NOTHING ALIKE and the whole aging if you get to close thing.


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## Hellados (Sep 16, 2009)

or you could just rip of the Orks entirely. . . . .

So the Skavens live of the underbelly of civilisation tunnelling away under the foundations of society scavenging and stealing away using dark magic to help them and aid them in surviving the harshness of life.

It wouldn't be that hard to hide within the mess that is the Imperium,especially if that particular part is not Terra but some back water out of the way forgotten about corner of some long ignored subsector.

Rather then pick holes why don't you try and make the guys idea work? He could of signed up just to put forward this idea and then become a valued member, but no he gets told of for starting up an old thread and then shot down about his idea. Bollocks i'm gonna make a Skaven army who use the GK codex. . . . so sue me


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Erm, it's a discussion. I'm not shooting anyone down, I'm simply giving my imput and advice. Otherwise what's the point in posting? Make silly suggestion (not saying this one is silly!) then everyone doesn't want to offend anyone so everyone just posts pleasantries and no one gets anywhere.


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## Hellados (Sep 16, 2009)

hehehehe good point, my bad, how else could we make this idea work though guys, it's obvious on the direction my thinking is taking me.


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## Kilo (May 28, 2011)

Well guys how about something like this the Skaven's could have stowed away on a Imperial Guard ships. Then sometime during flight they took over the ship stealing weapons, armor and, vehicles. They ended up taking the ship while in a warp storm and the ship was attacked by deamons of chaos. This prolonged exposer to the warp and the factor of their loses made them abandon the great horned rat and embrace the the chaos gods. They now travel the stars with the Chaos marines and deamons as pirates.


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## Dark Archon (Feb 27, 2011)

you are aware that 40k isnt fantasy in the future right?

them being space pirates however is a workable idea if refined, wouldnt take much effort. maybe an ancient genetic experiment for some things and they took off and bred like crazy?


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

If you want to shoehorn skaven into 40K you have to make them fit in all of these instances:

1) They have to be either galaxy wide (like Orks and necrons) or have an empire (like the imperium and Tau) or come from somewhere that can reach everywhere else (like eldar, dark eldar chaos and nids).

2) Little rat men living under the lowest levels of hives doesnt work because they need to be able to communicate with little rat men on other planets and that just doesnt make sense.

3) solutions:

a) They have access to a 'dark' portion of the webway, one of the parts that the eldar closed off. This allows them to 'pop up' pretty much whereever they want and can still give them a subterrainian feel.

b) They can still be wacky inventors. Their 'engineers' tap into the warp to create chaos monstrosities and power their 'vehicles'.

c) They dont worship chaos, but they are still mutated by it.


Thats my two cents.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Mutants? Using scavenged Imperial weaponry? Simple. 

In fact, a friend of mine is doing exactly that. Even has skaven warpfire throwers instead of lascannons on his vendetta. Simply uses the IG codex. 

There`s an unwritten rule called "counts as" so as long as it fits the theme you can do this without any problems.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Serpion5 said:


> Mutants? Using scavenged Imperial weaponry? Simple.


Oh, if you want to get one army into the game fine - but they arent 'skaven' they are just furry mutants.

Perhaps I have missed the point - werent we trying to shoehorn the skaven 'race' into 40K?


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## Hellados (Sep 16, 2009)

I love the kilos idea of kinda like a pirate civilisation popping up here and there to steal and salvage. they get everywhere and steal lots 


counts as IG ! ! ! ! !

@Serpion5 where are the pics??????????????


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## Kilo (May 28, 2011)

@Maidel Your completely right I'm trying to shoehorn the Skaven 'race' in to 40k

@Hellados The Pirate thing just seems to suit the Skaven. Plus whats cooler then Space Rat Pirates 

@Serpion5 I agree with Hellados can we see some pics?


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