Dealing with Skaven

[Jayson1988]

Hey guys,

I am looking at getting back into fantasy after a long, work-related hiatus. My friend plays Skaven, and I have historically used my WoC (mostly because of a lack of hard hitting VC models). As they just came out with the WoC book, I don't want to be just another player bringing the same lists that everyone is sick of playing, plus I absolutely love the VCs.

However, as I have hardly any experience with them, I am wondering how to deal with a few problems in my buddy's Skaven army. Particularly the Doom Wheel (which I know will be a lot less of a problem for a zombie horde than it was for my Chaos Knights, but I am really looking forward to buying a terrorgheist and I want to make sure it lives) and his hell pit abomination (which is a new threat, as a squad of nurgle warriors usually laughed as they permanently cut off it's many heads as it swung blindly and missed). Lastly is the plague furnace/plague monk combination, again, a newer concern as those took a considerable amount of fire power even with my hard hitting WoC, and I know that is harder to find in an undead army.

We tend to play 1500-2000 point games, and he almost always brings both of the aforementioned units. Also, please offer any suggestions, if you have any, as to unique or effective units/combinations for this sized games.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Jayson1988]

Sorry, by both of the aforementioned units, I meant the doom wheel and plague furnace, the hellpit shows up from time to time... That was unclear in my first post.

 

[badfox7]

For the hellpit and the doom wheel I would definately use a terrorgheist. The hellpit has regen so a flaming banner in a unit would get rid of his save. I have also found that blood knights do some damage to both, but against a hellpit it is harder to kill. Maybe two terrorgheists? I love terrorgheists so I never leave home without two.

 

[Jayson1988]

How does the terrorgheist fare against the doomwheels lightning bolts? I know it depends on your roll, but this kid has an ungodly ability to roll high (if I didn't know him since I was a child, I would say he loaded his dice). No joke, in a 40k game with my Tyranids vs his CSM, his Abbadon passed 34 consecutive 4+ invul saves (from monsterous creatures, so no 2+ armor) and effectively killed my whole army with that undefeatable model.

 

[Darbagal]

why would you put your terrorgheist next to his doomwheel without anythng in between? He has random movement and you dont. The doomwheel isnt the major threat. We have a skaven army at home in addition to some others and I woudl worry more about the warplightning cannon and even worse about the grey seer.


Plaqgue furnace with a big unit of monks is a harder unit to move since they are T4, unbreakable, LD10 and usually has a lot of rat bodies. On the other hand it is a large, rather expensive, relatively slow unit and the furnace is a mount so points comes from the hero allowance. The priest dies to anything that even looks funny at him.

One of the main weaknesses of skaven is leadership and they need their characters which means that lore of death caster with some snipe spells can make a mess out of a lot of things. Once characters are gone anything that isnt unbreakable is likely to run away pretty easy.

My next advice would be to try to shut down his magic. If his grey seer is allowed to cast he will hurt you and he is capable of a lot of damage.

 

[badfox7]

I wouldn't put him next to it. I would probably charge right into it. The hellpit will be harder to kill with a scream so that is why I recommended flaming attacks. The doomwheel should die with a scream. I am bold the way I play my terrorgheists though. Maybe use master of the black arts and the black periapt to help out with a strong magic phase and a couple extra dice to help dispel. You will definately need a Lvl 4 magic user though.

 

[Jayson1988]

Ok, thanks for the advice. Do you think it would be manageable to fit in a lv4 probably master necromancer and still have room for a killy vamp hero (possibly red death and a nifty sword or something) or is that just getting greedy for the points. Unfortunately, my army book is on the other half of the world and reading wargaming rules in German is not fun, but I would love a few gg, a tg, a killy vamp, and a master necro without losing too many bodies (since he definitely has a lot). I have a feeling this is going to have to be one of those hard choice match ups, where you have to really sacrifice what would be fun to play with in order to take things that will keep you alive.

 

[Vampire Count]

You don't deal with Skaven, they deal with you.
You just have to hope they roll badly and self-destruct, and you roll really well. If not, the rats walk over everything.

 

[Vipoid]

Sorry, by both of the aforementioned units, I meant the doom wheel and plague furnace, the hellpit shows up from time to time... That was unclear in my first post.

Terrorghiest seems like the best bet against a Doom Wheel. Could also be worth a shot against the HPA (otherwise, something with flaming attacks - maybe hexwraiths).

With regard to the plague furnace, what about a Vampire Lord/SGK blender? I can't attest to this myself, but it seems like it would be a good bet. With T5, he shoulnd't have much difficulty passing the toughness-tests from the furnace. And, with T6 and no save, it seems like a blander lord with ogre blade and red fury could potentially kill the furnace in a single round of combat.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

The Plague Unit of Doom have a lot of trouble dealing with armor (I've played enough battles against Brets, believe me). I'd send the Blender Lord Black Knight bus down their throats and laugh, because the Furnace, and definitely the Priest riding it, blend easily.

As for the Doom Wheel, I would keep your Tbat away from it. Those lightning bolts can ruin her day very quickly. Don't try her scream at an Abomb either. It has a surprisingly high Leadership. The best thing to do against those units is to use their random movement against them. Chances are both will be in odd positions very early, so have toys lying around to speedbump their advancement and to take advantage of the good odds they'll be positioned at least somewhat disadvantageously. Ethereals would do this job against any other army, but both Ratty units in question have or can get cheap magic attacks.

 

[bigbadbat]

Plague furnace/monk horde is frenzied, use that to your advantage. I always bait mine into some woods or near impassable terrain. It has to over run!
The biggest threat to me from skaven is big blocks of slaves. You'll get caught up in a steadfast block for a turn or two and have to endure some terrible shooting attacks and magic.
Doomwheel is tricky, best bet is to bog it down or get a charge off with some high str attacks as it is not unbreakable or stubborn.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

There's always Heroic Killing Blow. Works on Chariots, so the Doom Wheel and the Abomb are both threatened. Obviously a gamble trying to get a 6 on one attack, though.

 

[TheMagicAngle]

Screaming the HPA to death is pretty risky, if it's not already in combat. That thing has a ludicrous 360 degree charge arc, so even if you get behind it and scream, it'll delicately pirouette on the spot and then eat your 'gheist for breakfast. I'd recommend putting a blender lord in a unit with the Banner of Eternal Flame and having him chop the damned thing into tiny pieces. Just remember that you can't get the flaming attacks if your lord has a magic weapon.

In my experience, the big advantage that we have over skaven is speed. Take a whole load of bats and dogs to eat up his WLC and weapons teams. Then use a black knight bus + blender to take out his plague monks and storm vermin. If he's taking masses of slaves, you're in trouble - you can always try matching his slaves with a huge load of zombies, and striking early with Wind of Death.

 

[LevDaddy]

Wind of Death!! Wind of Death! Probably more useful against Skaven than any other army.

 

[Jayson1988]

Ok we'll I don't have my book nor a skaven one, but his armies usually revolve around something like this:

Lv.4 grey seer
Lv. 1 or 2 engineer
Doomwheel
Hpa
Plague furnace with some (maybe 12-15 or more monks... Idk, it's been a while)
Sometimes a wlc
A unit of jezzails (although probably just to take down my chaos knights so he might free up some points here)
A unit of slaves
Either rattling guns or warp fire throwers (depending on his mood)
A unit of storm vermin
A few units of clan rats.

Mind you this is just his primary list of things to play, some show up in some games while others don't and he probably uses squads that are smaller than optimal, but I'm not so worried about the little guys. Typically all nurgle units just had a field day being untouchable by their low ws, but with vc, idk what I should do.

From what I'm getting out of this and other posts is that I will definitely need a tg, a Lv. 4 master necro with some items, a killy vamp and maybe a banshee or 2 mixed in other squads for their screams and a necro with death magic. I know not to let those dirty slaves tie up my squads (as that's our job anyways) and they'll just be shot at (wts). I need to send the Killy vamp into the hpa and tg into the dw if I can get the charge and avoid lightning bolts. Any other tactical advice?

Can anyone else point out some effective units and what can be used to handle an opponent who will look more or less like the army above?

I appreciate the advice, hopefully once I get the harder hitting units to make my vc more than just a cool looking mob on a shelf, I will like their play style as much as I like their lore/feel/non-zombie-or-spirit-host models.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

Bear in mind the tg doesn't need to be in combat in order to scream at a unit that's in a fight. Charging the tg into a Wheel means he'll get his lightning at you before you get to scream, effectively taking the Tbat's best weapon out of that round of fighting. Stealing a charge to take away the Wheel's impact hits is a good idea, but I would make that charge with a different unit. The charging unit will be closest to the Wheel, meaning they take the lightning, and your Tbat can scream at the wheel in safety. It'll take some maneuvering, but that's what a Terrorgheist is good at. Be crafty and you can pull it off.

 

[Jayson1988]

I did not know that... That kind of play style sounds kind of nice, tarp it's and trickery. Thanks for the tip.

 

[badfox7]

I thought you couldn't scream into combat unless if it was in combat. It is distributed as shooting and you can't shoot in to close combat.

 

[Jayson1988]

Whichisbs since they can...

 

[Adam_Barrow]

@badfox The faq cleared this up. The scream is distributed as shooting, happens in the shooting phase, but it is not a shooting attack, so it does not follow the rules for shooting, only the rules presented in the armybook. You can scream into combats in which you are not taking part. There's very little reason to send a Terrorgheist into combat now, as its screams work best when it's sitting at full Wounds.

 

[LevDaddy]

Bear in mind the tg doesn't need to be in combat in order to scream at a unit that's in a fight. Charging the tg into a Wheel means he'll get his lightning at you before you get to scream, effectively taking the Tbat's best weapon out of that round of fighting. Stealing a charge to take away the Wheel's impact hits is a good idea, but I would make that charge with a different unit. The charging unit will be closest to the Wheel, meaning they take the lightning, and your Tbat can scream at the wheel in safety. It'll take some maneuvering, but that's what a Terrorgheist is good at. Be crafty and you can pull it off.

Doesn't the Doomwheel only shoot in its shooting phase? Charging it shouldn't mean that you get shot, meaning you can take it out before it shoots in its phase.

Either way, charging a unit of chaff in there with the TG backing it up, or having a screening unit between the Doomwheel and the TG is the way to go, you'll get two rounds of screaming before it can charge the TG that way, ideally.

I like the idea of having a bus of Zombies or Skellies with 3 Banshees in the front own the flank that the Doomwheel is on. 3 Screams should take it out, and then that flank should be all yours to set up some charges into the heart of his army or Warmachines.

 

[TK_]

I actually have a question about the screaming into combat thing. My Skaven playing buddy is used to shooting into a combat involving slaves and he brought up a valid point: since the shots fired into a combat randomize (right?), how does this work for screams?

 

[Vipoid]

I actually have a question about the screaming into combat thing. My Skaven playing buddy is used to shooting into a combat involving slaves and he brought up a valid point: since the shots fired into a combat randomize (right?), how does this work for screams?

The randomise rule only applies when the Skaven player is shooting into a combat involving his own slaves.

The rule (including the randomisation) is a special ability of the skavenslaves, not a general rule.

 

[Rizzo]

Skaven FAQ removed the randomization of shooting into slaves. The Poison Wind Globadiers still randomize because of their own rule, but all other shooting into slaves hits the intended target. Also note if there is a character in the unit of slaves you can NOT shoot into that combat.

 

[Rizzo]

Skaven FAQ removed the randomization of shooting into slaves. The Poison Wind Globadiers still randomize because of their own rule, but all other shooting into slaves hits the intended target. Also note if there is a character in the unit of slaves you can NOT shoot into that combat.