# Good all round skaven army?



## Dal-the-Heretic (Feb 8, 2011)

I'm looking to learn how to play fantasy, I've never played it before. I wanna start a skaven army, just cos I like the models. Can anybody give me some advice on what makes a good all round army, units to have, how many etc etc.
I like the headtaker model, do I need a certain size army to have him? Is he any good?
Cheers


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## VeronaKid (Jan 7, 2010)

The strength of the Skaven army lies in being able to take absolutely monstrous hordes for much fewer points than other armies. So, the best way in my opinion to maximize the army's effectiveness is to maximize the number of big infantry units. Since Island of Blood came out, this is no problem; there are tons of plastic Skaven available on eBay for this very purpose.

My advice for someone starting out with Skaven would be to start with two 40-man Clanrat units with full command and spears. Against other low-skill armies, you can put them in horde formation (10 files wide) and put out a lot of attacks. Against elite armies, you can minimize your frontage (5 files wide) and use the Steadfast rule to your advantage. Let the Clanrats die while your other, more killy units do their thing.

Queek is an absolute monster in HTH, and he has great Leadership. Unfortunately, you can't fit him and a usable Grey Seer into a 2000 pt army. I personally think that the Seer is too valuable to miss out on, but if you wanna go killy over magic (keeping in mind that only the Grey Seer has access to the Dreaded 13th Spell, which is potentially game-winning), that's up to you. Queek is a beast, and will take down all but the toughest characters in a challenge. I don't think that his special ability to buff Stormvermin is all that great, since it makes that unit as expensive as other elite infantry (which they most certainly are not), but again- that's up to your preference.

The Hell Pit Abomination is very popular these days, along with Warp Lightning cannons. My three personal favorite Skaven items, the three I would never write an army list without, would have to be Warpfire throwers (I've seen them rout entire units of elite infantry with one shot many, many times), Poisoned Wind Mortars (move and fire template weapon? Hell yes!), and Plagueclaw Catapults (Large Template/No armor saves/uber cheap for the bang).

Hope this helps. Best of luck.


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## Dal-the-Heretic (Feb 8, 2011)

Awesome cheers. 
Anybody else got any advice?


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## blackspine (Jun 9, 2010)

You can shoot into slave units.
w/o hitting your own unit.
Very controversial in the WHFB world, but very effective.

Won't win you many friends, but slave blocks, with this are beyond nasty. For 200 points you can field blocks most armies could never even approach.


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## Dal-the-Heretic (Feb 8, 2011)

Read that it's hard to cast the 13th spell, because of how deadly it is. Seeing as I don't know about fantasy, I'm sure you can help me with this. How do you cast the 13th spell?


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## Alsojames (Oct 25, 2010)

By rolling high and hoping your opponent doesn't dispel it.

My advice, don't take those ginormous blocks against a Dark Elf army with Lokir Fellheart. He'll kill you DEAD.


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## Jolly Puggles (Aug 4, 2009)

I'm going to be controversial and say that a Grey Seer at 2000pts is a vulnerable point-sink. For about the same number of points, you can field four Lvl.1 Warlock Engineers, which both protects your magical potential by having it spread across 4 figures instead of tied up in one and also means you can field four guys casting Warp Lightning...which lets face it, is a bad-ass _magic missile_. If you're that way inclined, as well, it also gives you a greater point value to spend on Magic Items for your wizards than fielding a single Grey Seer.

My advice for a starting army would be to grab a Warlord (buy the Queek miniature if you want, but I'd stick with the basic Warlord stats to begin with) to be your general, a Battle Standard Bearer and a couple of Warlocks. That should cover your character choices for any games up to about 1,500pts. For your main units, get some Stormvermin (40 should do) and Clanrats (2 units of 40) and Skavenslaves (another 2 units of 40). Three Weapon Teams of your choice (I recommend Warpfire Throwers) to accompany your 'Vermin and Clanrats. Then think about what sort of army you want...if you're going to focus on a single Greater Clan, get yourself a significant unit of the appropriate type (Gutter Runners for Eshin, Plague Monks for Pestilens, Rat Ogres for Moulder or Jezzails/Globadiers for Skyre) and you should be good for about 1,500pts.

Once you've played a few games with that little lot, you can think about getting yourself a Seer (Bell optional), more Greater Clan units and the really Big Guns (like the Abomination, Warp-Lightning Cannon, etc.). However, I highly suggest that for every 'specialist' unit or model you have, get yourself another unit of Clanrats, Slaves or Stormvermin...any Skaven army worth it's salt has at least 1 model for every 10pts in the army on average (i.e. at 2,000pts, you should have at least 200 models!). Remember, the Skaven's biggest strength is the fact that they can Horde better than almost any other army and Stormvermin epitomise this...they may not be the best infantry going, but I would contend that they are one of the best _value _infantry units in the game. The more of them you have, the better.


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