Playing Skaven player need help

[Quinten]

Hello to all,
I have beaten most of the players in my gaming group at least once except for this one Skaven player who I just can't beat. He runs what he calls "a true Skaven horde" where he has 200+ models even in 1500 point lists (he's an employee at the gaming store where I [lay gets discounted pricing lol). He also has some sniper guys that consistently kill my corpse carts and mortis engine in one turn before I can heal them. To top things off he runs death-master snitsch with skaven assassin guys that can do a sort of 40k deep strike thing. I charge these guys with my vargheists and he kills half with overwatch and then proceeds to allocate all the wounds to death-master shnitsch who has a once use only 2+++ save for the turn magic item. Vargheists die from combat res. Oh and he runs an assassin just to kill my necromancers. My collection is as follows:
Vlad Von Carstien
Necromancer
Isabella Von Carstien
Cairn Wraith
Necromancer on Corpse cart(Balefire)
wight king BSB
40 Ghouls with ghast
100 zombies (need some for raising though)
50 skeletons with command
15 dire wolves
6 vargheists
5 black knights, lances, barding, full command
5 spirit hosts
mortis engine with blasphemous tome
terrorghiest

My basic strategy is to have a strong attacking centre of ghouls, mortis engine, corpse cart and skeletons with the vlad and isabbella in the skeleton unit with the BSB then have zombies and dire wolves cover flanks and the zombies can provide a bit of a casting bunker (usually take lore of death so he does not need to be central) Black knights and Vargheists are flank attackers while the terrorghiets supports my lines. The spirit hosts (taken in units of one) act as blocks. Am I doing anything wrong? I get wins just not against him. We are playing a game Saturday so any advice is appreciated.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

Snikch has the Dodge special rule. Gives him a 4++. Not sure where that 2++ is coming from. Cloak of Shadows forces a 4+ roll to declare a Charge, Target with spells, etc.

Get into combat with him. Rats are crud in a fight. Focus on his General and BSB if you'd rather have tails than whiskers pointed at you. Don't let his Slaves tarpit your important units. Especially if he has Warp Lightening Cannon(s). They can shoot into combats if it's just Slaves in the row.

Screams are your friend. He won't get Strength in Numbers against them because they are not a Ld test.

 

[hairyjeff]

Get into CC as soon as possible. line your characters up against his general/BSB, but DO NOT CHALLENGE! If you challenge, he can decline without losing his leadership bonuses. instead, just direct as many attacks as possible directly at his leaders- once they're gone, he should be running. As Adam says, screams-against Skaven,I've taken as many as 4 banshees,slaughtering slaves in 2 turns. Because slaves disperse- they may kill a few as they go, but they never rally.

 

[Zhatan]

@Quinten
Ok so I guess the sniper guys are jezzail teams, which would mean that he most likely hits on 5+ to begin with and 4+ when you get close. He would the require 4+ to wound the Mortis Engine and you then have a 4+ regen. So to kill it in one round on average he would need 60 shots.... Seems fishy if you didn't leave something out. How many jezzails does he use?

When it comes to the gutter runners, "assassin guys", they are rough but you should be able to kill alot of them with vargheists or varghulf. You say "he" allocates the wounds to his character? It is you who decide who to hit. If the ward save, 2++ seems wrong, is messing things up then don't hit the character.

-Edit-
Also I forgot to say gutter runners should have a hard time hitting you when fireing "overwatch" =). They get -1 to hit from multiple shots, -1 from stand and shoot and as vargheists are a unit of flyers they are skirmishers so thats another -1. I don't remember gutter runner BS but they should be hitting on 5's or 6's hopefully. Check it out for yourself.

 

[Infernal Skull]

As both a Skaven player and a Vampire Counts player, I'll weigh in on how to deal with Snikch:

First of all, Deathmaster Snikch can't do half of what you're describing.

Like Adam said, Snikch's Dodge ward save is only 4+ not 2+. And his Cloak of Shadows (4+ to charge or target him) only works if Snikch is not in a unit. Snikch does not have any one-use magic items, and since he's a special character, he can't purchase any extra magic items; he only comes with what's in his profile.

If by "overwatch" you mean standing-and-shooting with their throwing stars as you charge, that shouldn't wipe out half your unit. Each Gutter runner (and Snikch) only get 1 shot, and that's at -1 to hit against a charging enemy. Furthermore, the range of a thrown weapon is only 6 inches. So unless you're charging from less than 3 inches away, he'll have the penalty for a long range shot, as well. That's -2, which means his Gutter runners will be hitting you on a 5+ and Snikch will hit on 3+. He should hit with fewer than half of his shots, and you've got a higher toughness and multiple wounds, so he should be lucky if he kills one model with shooting.

Your opponent doesn't decide where hits are allocated. Shooting attacks or magic attacks (from Gaze of Nagash, or a Banshee scream, for example) always get allocated against rank-and-file troops unless there are fewer than 5 in the unit, in which case they get randomized. In hand-to-hand, you decide which enemy models your models are attacking. (A model can strike any enemy in base to base– a character, a champion, or rank and file troops.) So, just don't direct any attacks against Snikch and wipe out the rank and file troops. (His 4+ ward won't come into play, either.)

Don't forget your fear test at the start of the combat. If they fail they will be WS 1 for the round of combat. And remember that Snikch and other assassins never confer their leadership to units they've joined. If he's using Gutter Runners to tunnel into your back field, they'll likely be out of range of the general's inspiring presence, and will only be leadership 7.

Take 2 Banshee heroes and keep them in the middle of your army where they can react to the Gutter Runners when they pop up. (Keep them in units to protect them from shooting, since almost all of his ranged attacks count as magical attacks.) When ready, move out of the unit and scream with both of them and you can potentially panic the unit. Position the Banshees so when the unit flees from them (they flee directly away from the source of the panic) they'll either run through one of your other units and get wiped out, or off the table if they're close enough to the board edge. (And remember, unless Snikch is alone, his cloak won't stop you from targeting him with a scream.)


Otherwise, you've got a solid infantry core, which should be able to match him in a fight. I'd recommend a large horde of Grave Guard. Definitely with great weapons, since you'll be striking last anyway. You also have the advantage of resurrecting your losses and he doesn't. So, like Adam said, just get across the field and get into combat as quickly as you can.

One last bit of advice: Skaven characters can't start in the back rank anymore (that was a rule from a previous edition) they only move there as the result of refusing a challenge. So never challenge him– that will force him to keep his characters up front where you can direct as many attacks at them as possible.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

[Zhatan]

Ah yes as @Infernal Skull pointed out the Gutter Runners might also be shooting at long range which would be another -1 to hit and that would put them at 7+ to hit which negates their poison.
The person you are playing might not know the rules all that well or he might be trying to cheat you.

 

[Aterak]

Yeah I have played both Skaven players in our group up here and both run very different armies.
After a few games with one I picked up the skaven book when I thought about collecting them so I have the book to hand when writing this.

I won't bother reiterating what the above have said but it is all correct.

If he has lightning cannons don't put blocks behind blocks, the original cannon ball line is the same as a normal cannon its the "explodes where it lands" that kills more.

Now I play with on average 145 zombies a game. I will always spend my full core points allocation on them, This goes against what some people believe to be the "best practice" but I have not lost a game in months using the tactic so am reasonably happy it works. So IMO just deploy all the zombies, all of them. Two blocks of 50.

The theory behind it is that I field all my zombies (in larger games I can field all 200 of them) then I do not need to use my power dice early on to raise them to a "survivable" level.
Your power dice can then go onto any death spells or ranged damage spells to try and take out his long ranged stuff.
- That is a point I should raise, he seems to like picking of targets at range, It might be worth not fielding the vampires as special characters and just getting a vampire with Forbidden lore FIRE. Even the Sig spell can shoot 48", maybe even both of them two 48" 3D6 S4 hits is not bad. You have two necros for your LoV as long as one is master you need not use your vampires as generals.
With not "needing" to use dice on IoN on turn one you can shoot away to your hearts content.
The dead ones can be re distributed to other units that need more guys dependent on your opponents deployment/re deployment which gives you a tactical advantage.

No idea what you mean by a deep strike though, If its the drill team thing then he has to use a coin to show where it comes up and can only come in on turn 2 +
If its the sneaky infiltrators thing its basically an ambush where he comes on from a table edge.

I honestly, unless there is a bunch of info missing from your post think that this guy is a pulling a fast one on you and anyone else he plays.

So yeah to reiterate on the above in a probably more liner thought path, using the models you have.

Vampires as vampires not characters, that way you can tailor your spells to deal with range.
Deploy all zombies to begin with it will give you mass and mean you don't have to waste power dice early on.
Master necro and maybe another Necro or master but not on a corpse cart. That thing is a fire magnet and wins you nothing as a mount, since it cannot march you will fall behind.
So two LoV and maybe 2 Fire to get rid of his range.... If you get cascading fire cloak off on a unit all the better.
Terrorgheist in generals march bubble so you can fly scream on your first turn if there is a target.
Spirit Hosts might be good against skaven slaves since I don't think they are magic but yeah watch for cannons.
Varghiests in two units of three so you can multi charge a unit also means he cannot mass fire on you.
All skeletons and ghouls if you can fight numbers with numbers.
Snipe his characters, Death magic maybe on a guy instead of fire because they do not get their strength in numbers since its not a test.

The other things like dire wolves and Black knights, your cairn wraith and your other guy I would honestly leave out they are to small in number to survive combat Res/ shooting in the wolves case.

This should be a war of attrition, numbers vs numbers but that’s what we excel at.


~Aterak







~Aterak.

 

[Quinten]

Thanks for all the advice! I will ask him about some of the rule issues but the reason the sniper teams are killing my guys is not because they are getting so many hits it is because they get multiple wounds on the mortis engine. Sorry about the 'overwatch' term just stuck in 40k. I guess he did come in on a table edge so it might be a sneaky ambush thing. I will consider using my vampires as regular vampires and not special characters. Maybe on some of the other things he is just getting lucky? I will watch what kind of rolls he is getting. He doesn't run lightning cannons although thanks for the advice on how to deal with them. I have never tried running all of my zombies since I usually spawn some as blocks with raise dead but it is not something I wouldn't try. I'm really new here so I have a question just about the forum. If I want to post an army list(s) based on what I learned from this discussion should I post it here or in the army lists section? Thanks for all the advice.

 

[Aterak]

Yeah the army list section is the best place to put such a thing.
I have just looked at the Skaven Army book and unless it has been FAQ(ed) They do not cause multiple wounds.
I may also be blind, but I'm pretty sure they don't ;;
As for the 40 deepstrike comment that was a question on my behalf because I know some people like the Tomb kings also have a thing that lets them drop pod (reduced scatter) anywhere on the table.
I was sure assassins could not do that.

I find that by turn 2 or 3 enough of my zombies have died to allow me to Invocation them back into a unit in combat or "raise the dead" them behind an enemy for a flank charge... If all my zombies survive until my third turn then something is very wrong.

But yeah glad to perhaps have helped, let us know how it goes and good luck.

~Aterak.

 

[Quinten]

The assassin guys did arrive from the table edge and I'm not sure if were talking about the same unit with the sniper guys as these ones had the multiple wounds special rule. I don't know if they were actually snipers but he had one of the ramparts on a building full of them. I will post some army list ideas in the appropriate section.

 

[Infernal Skull]

It sounds like you're talking about a unit of Warplock Jezzails. Jezzails are 2 Skaven on a cavalry base, the one up front has a large shield and the one in the back has a long rifle. (That's the only thing he'd have a large group of that fits the description of a sniper.)

Jezzails do not inflict multiple wounds and there's no shooting unit in the Skaven army that does inflict multiple wounds. You should take a look at your friend's Skaven book, because it sounds like he's not understanding how the things in his army work.

Having said that, there are a few individual models like the Warpfire Thrower, Warp Lightning Cannon, Doom Wheel, or an assassin with the Warpstone Stars magic item that can cause multiple wounds, just not units of them.

 

[Quinten]

I don't think they were jezzails as they were not on Calvary bases. I know skaven can take various weapons team could it potentially be something else? Just normal gunline guys that do multiple wounds? I also posted an army list in the appropriate section.

 

[Infernal Skull]

If he has really old models, there once was a time when a Jezzail team was made up of 2 models on regular square bases.

 

[Quinten]

I will tell you all what they tomorrow night after I play him

 

[Quinten]

What they are* sorry for the typo

 

[Quinten]

Sorry did not have internet for a while. Ended up playing ogre/wood elf alliance and I beat them. Thx for all the advice.

 

[Infernal Skull]

What did the sniper models turn out to be? I'm on the edge of my seat!

 

[Quinten]

Unfortunately like I said I was unable to play him. May be able to play him this weekend if I do I will post telling you all.