Editing Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Skaven (section)

==Building Your Army==

===Buying Your Army===

Protip: if you are ok with modeling, do it. You'll save a lot of bucks, because you can do almost everything with Clanrats, Stormvermins, and Rat Ogres boxes, some scraps, and green stuff. Yes, it's still expensive, but what the hell did you expect from an army that fields more than 150 models at 1000 points? 

Island of Blood is a great way to start up your Skaven clan mainly because if you are interested in Skaven you also probably have an ultrasmurf fanboy (or Eldar nut) that wants to try out Fantasy battles but wants an army to auto-win with. Buy two boxes, sell the spare rulebook and templates and keep the miniatures: you get a great starter for the Skaven army and some money back. (Needless to say use the elves as slaves)
Seriously though you get a good start on the multitude of clanrats/slaves and some pretty awesome looking weapon teams and heroes. The battalion is a decent buy but only if you are planning on running with plague monks. Otherwise its cheaper to buy Island of blood for what your getting. Be warned, you only get 20 hand weapons per 40 clanrats in Island of Blood, so if you plan on not using spears, you'll have to buy some bits, do some conversions, or have <s>retarded</s> mixed units.

Also, don't debate about it just buy the DOOMWHEEL. NO I DON'T CARE IF YOU WON'T USE IT!! You'll want it! Its allure is too strong. Fantastic model too so just give in to the Great Horned Rat and get one... [[C. S. Goto|it will please him]].

===Army Composition===

If you haven't gathered: Skaven are a horde army so you are going to need some big blocks of clanrats and slaves to absorb the enemy's hordes and elite units such as rat ogres, DOOMWHEELS, plague monks, and adorable abominations on the flanks to RIP AND TEAR! The nice thing with Skaven is that even the worst units in the codex can find a use in almost any army. You come from Nurgulite Warriors of Chaos? Clan Pestilence go for it! Do you like fancy, absolutely unreliable tech? Here comes Clan Skyre! Get the DOOMWHEELS rollin'! You like muscles? Clan Moulder then! Rat Ogres aplenty and those adorable Abominations out there to spread the love! Or you can go full [[weeaboo|ninja]] with Clan Eshin and use loads of night and gutter runners! Are these all competitive? Probably not. But regardless of winning potential, they are fun to play.

===Magic Items===
====The Scavenge-Pile====

Many of these items are available to all your lord and hero choices as well as your stormvermin fangleader

*Warpmusket: decent choice for a Warlock engineer hanging back with Jezzails. (although Warpmusket's range is half that of Jezzails, either making it quite useless, or forcing the Jezzails too close the enemy (not that warlock will hit anything anyway, with BS of 3); buy 4 slaves instead)

*Poisoned Attacks: only one you'd probably use this on comes with it standard (assassin) situational use on a warlord (not so situational if you're not giving it a magic weapon and focusing instead on making it a nearly unkillable midget)

*Tail Weapon: honestly haven't bothered using it so can't say if the additional S3 attack is worth it. You can stack it with poisoned attacks though so it could be a good use of 20+ points for the combo if you find yourself fighting monsters all the time; I'm looking at you, dark elves... freakin' hydras...

*Warplock Pistol: not as strong as the musket but still just as useful in the right character's hands. I always give my Fangleader one just so I can elect to stand and shoot. Is it game changing? Heck no! But when the rat version of Clint Eastwood stands in front of a Warrior of Chaos squeaking "You feel lucky punk?" your opponent will give you respect knuckles.

*Rat Hound Bodyguard: if you really just want to give yourself the chance of having your faithful giant rat bite your ankles and kill you be my guest, though, for 5 pts and with only a one in six chance for it to hit you with its S 3 bite rather than your enemy, it's by no means a bad use of your leftover points. Remember to name it Fido.

====Magic Weapons====

*The Fellblade: feel like maxing out your magic item allowance on one weapon? You sure? Really? Ok. This is the one for you. Makes you S10, each wound caused rolls another D6 wounds, and successful ward saves must be rerolled. Ya. It's awesome but it's up to you if you're willing to drop the points on it. Also, you roll a d6 every turn, on a 1 or 2 the bearer loses a wound with no armour save allowed. Only real use for it is if you're facing nothing but ogres...or hydras...the bastards...

*Warpforged Blade: ignores armor so its ideal against armies that run heavy armor all the time. Expensive but useful.

*Warlock-Augmented Weapon: expensive but helps if you feel the need to spout out a ton of higher strength attacks.

*Blade of Corruption: cheap version of the Fellblade without S10. Potentially worth it against Ogres and enemy heroes.

*Weeping Blade: a solid option at a good points cost. Armor piercing is always nice and d3 wounds is a bonus that will pay off more than not.

*Dwarfbane: must have against dwarfs (if you haven't guessed) otherwise skip for one of the BRB options instead.

*Blade of Nurglitch: cheap as chips but hardly useful. Unsaved wounds cause -1T. Marginally effective vs WoC and Ogres.

====Magic Armour====

*Warpstone Armor: 4+ armor save; successful saves inflict damage on who done hit ya and your warlocks can wear it. Use it, love it.

*Worlds Edge Armor: 4+ armor save that disappears the second something strong enough breaks through it. Cheap but I'd pass.

*Shield of Distraction: interesting. -1A to enemies in base contact with the model, but situational, and there are better options in the BRB.

====Talismans====

*Foul Pendant: cheap 5+ ward. Thanks. :)

*Shadow Magnet Trinket: can be really useful in a wizard bunker; which for the Skaven means a Warlock engineer and his unit of Jezzails. Any enemy archers or riflemen are going to have to throw a lot more dice at them with this trinket on hand. -1 to hit from shooting may not sound like much but when you take a BS3 bowmen shooting at long range will need 6+ to hit and that's with your jezzails sitting out in the open. A solid choice should you choose the Jezzail-Warlock combo. When used on a Screaming Bell it gives your Grey Seer, Bell AND whatever troop type is pushing the bell a -1 to hit from ballistics helping the unbreakable horde get to battle with less casualties. (Probably works with Plague Furnace too)

*Rival Hide Talisman: one use only to make your opponent reroll all successful to hits in base contact. Cheap. Extremely Situational. Yet potentially game changing in a challenge.

====Arcane Items====

*Warpstone Scroll: do you face eagles a lot? Like more than Sauron's orcs in LOTR? Then this scroll could be for you. But its expensive and the Skaven have plenty of weapons to counteract flying units.

*Warp-Energy Condenser: now we are talking! Slightly better chance at channeling but that's not why you pick the WEC. You pick it up for a more powerful warp lightning attack. The extra hits are well worth the cheap cost of this beautiful piece of vermin engineering. 

*Scrying Stone: one time use 3+ ward save. I'd pass.

*Warpstone Tokens: sweet sweet Skaven crack. Allows you to throw more dice at whatever spell you NEED to get off. Has the potential to roll a one and wound you but hey, you didn't choose Skaven to play it safe. And you really want The Dreaded Thirteenth!

====Enchanted Items====

*Skavenbrew: a highly amusing item of much debate. On a roll of a 1, somebody spiked the punch bowl and a bunch of rats fall down dead. 2-3 gives Hatred to everything because Skaven are mean drunks. 4-5 gives Frenzy because they’re really mean drunks. 6 means they reach an Angry Marines level of rage, getting +2 frenzy instead of +1, but since they aren't Astartes every movement phase D6 of the little blighters have heart attacks. Skavenbrew... it's a good thing.

*Skalm: regenerates all lost wounds (unless you’re dead). Its usefulness depends on who you are facing.

*Pipes of Piebald: force charging unit to perform Ld test or fail charge. Kind of counterproductive in an army of tarpits... but still useful on Plague Monks. It can be useful on jezzails as it can allow you to get another round of stand and shoot/shooting off. Alternative take: grab this beauty and stuck it in any hammer unit against low ld/high movement armies. It's priceless.

*Portents of Verminous Doom: -1Ld isn't all that useful but there are tactical applications for it, main one that comes to mind is Beastmen's primal fury. Less than situational but again, I'm no tactical genius. (actually, since it stacks with the banner, you can use it to basically create a LD trap on anyone dumb enough to come for you, as they will have to test at -2 LD, and reroll it if they pass it!)

====Clan Eshin Tools of War====

*Warpstone Stars: a nice choice for the assassin that thinks he's badass enough to take down that hydra alone. 3X multiple S5 shots multiplying into D3 wounds. Probably won't kill a monster outright, but will soften him up a bit.

*Infernal Bomb: for a decent cost your assassin can drop a nice little present near or in the path of anything you don't want heading your way. It detonates on a 2+ and you really want to target either monsters or hordes with this puppy. In practice hordes are the better target due to the time consuming movement needed to get around the bomb. Area denial is a great thing to have in watchtower games too so pick it up if your slaves are too spineless to do it on their own.

*Smoke Bombs: really nice if you want to make sure your assassins stay around a bit longer. But if you had to use this you're probably doing it wrong or they had the devil's luck rolling charge distance on your lone assassin.

====Clan Skryre Gear of War, AKA the fun stuff====

*Brass Orb: Mournfang Cavalry getting you down? Demigriphs ruining your day? What about that big ol' stonehorn? Well get out your cheap as chips warlock, equip him with this, send him to his doom and put on your best trollface as 3 Mournfangs fail their initiative test and disappear! Now its not really safe, as they still could pass the test or you could scatter horribly but its a really cheap counter to those monstrous infantry options a lot of new armies are getting. Or you could just throw it at a horde of dwarves. Best part, a misfire places the template on the thrower, so get into base contact for a guaranteed hit. Also a really nice counter to the [[Glottkin]], what with their I of 1.

*Doomrocket: rumor has it that it was developed by [[Doomrider]] himself. A cheap and fun way to make large horded up infantry disappear but this rocket is so freaking sporadic that it can overshoot or undershoot with reckless abandon. You nominate a direction and select anywhere from 4 to 10 dice to see how far it travels. If 3 or more 1's are rolled it misfires. Get into a position where at least 3 enemy units could be hit for maximum damage. Skitterleap is your friend here.

*Death Globe: the Brass Orb's little brother, effective at bringing down cavalry and infantry alike on a 4+ with no armor saves, but you should only target models with 1W with it. Use the Brass Orb for the multiwound ones.

*Warlock Optics: +1 BS for your Warlock and he ignores cover modifiers. Stick it on a Warpmusket Warlock. (though seeing that you already have at least 1 warlock (since this item is worst of all skryre goodies), just ditch it and get another jezzail. it's cheaper and more effective)

====Clan Pestilens Befouled Items====

*Warp Scroll: it's a bound spell, so only cast it if you know your opponent has no dice left. Target the most numerous horde of enemy troops on the field and let loose as every model takes a S2 hit with no armour saves allowed. Is it great? Your call. Though there are better options like...

*Plague Banner: ... this. One use only, all Plague Monks in the unit get rerolls to hit and wound. Activate this on a flank charge and watch the enemy melting. It may only be once in a couple of games that you can pull this off but it's worth investing into if you really like your rotten rats.

====Clan Moulder Beast-Prods====

*Shock Prod: you get to ignore armor saves. Decent, but Rat Ogres tend to RIP AND TEAR good enough even without it.

*Electro-Whip: +D3 attacks while attacking from the rear rank. With a Master Moulder able to attack from behind Rat Ogres or multiple ranks of Giant Rats, it could be very useful. Buuuut, that is impossible, since Master Moulder must fight in first rank, being a champion, see FAQ (apparently, the FAQ were written by Ward).

====Magic Standards====

*Sacred Banner of The Horned Rat: expensive but worth the investment against certain opponents. All enemy units within 12" have -1Ld and any unit in base contact with the banner must reroll successful Ld test. Morale can be everything in battles and being able to weaken your opponents resistance is a great boon. Careful though: a unit with this banner will be heavily targeted so plan accordingly.

*Storm Banner: a beastly beastly banner. Seriously any elf player or dwarf gunline that has faced a Skaven army hates this banner. Once activated it disallows flying movement and all missile fire has a -2 modifier. It also affects magic attacks that don't require BS by making them roll a 4+ before they can use the spell itself. At the end of each player turn on a roll of 4+ the effect ends. Beautiful.

*Grand Banner of Clan Superiority: a decent cost for a banner that adds D3 to combat resolution as opposed to the usual +1. Worth it in most situations, but not necessary if you're going to have a significantly larger number of ranks and therefore be rolling Break tests on standard LD. Makes it a good banner for units that will be far from your general and BSB. 

*Shroud of Dripping Death: generally a banner not worth taking as it only affects models in base contact and activates a smaller attack if you are fleeing. Not useless but generally overshadowed by more favorable ones.

*Banner of the Under-Empire: a nice banner to put in a unit of Stormvermin. At the beginning of each and EVERY close combat phase the enemy unit in base contact with this puppy suffer 2D6 S2 hits. May not sound like much but the weight of hits will equate to more wounds caused which leads to a better combat resolution. A worthwhile investment.

*Dwarf-Hide Banner: cheap and causes Hatred Dwarfs and Dwarfs in contact gain hatred too. Dwarves already hate Skaven in their new book so you might as well take it if you're tailoring a list to them.

*Banner of Verminous Scurrying: allows the unit (once per game) to march at triple speed instead of double at the cost of a few skaven falling down dead. Useful if you need to get into a different position quickly and cheap as well. Excellent on a group of Plague Monks to get into position on someone's flank, as the S3 hits will be less likely to wound them and they won't panic.

===Magic===

====Skaven Spells of Ruin====

*Skitterleap (5+): a rather cheap and effective way of getting important characters out of harms way. Any infantry character within 12" can be placed anywhere on the board as long as they are at least 1" away from the enemy. So if your warlord or BSB is about to bite it in the next combat phase you can easily place him into a nearby unit with out losing that precious bonus they provide. Grey Seers can elect to take this as one of their standard spells.

*Warp Lightning (6+): Warlocks that are at least level 1 can take this by standard. An amazing magic missile that causes D6 (+2 with the Condenser) at S5. Cheap enough to spam with several different Warlocks, but Gray Seers should focus on something else.

*Howling Warpgale (7+): remember the Storm Banner? Well this spell does the same thing only it's -1 to hit and doesn't affect the magic abilities of your opponent. though it stacks with the -2 from the banner. Engage Trollface.

*Death Frenzy (9+): gives a unit +2 frenzy attacks instead of +1 and cause D6 automatic wounds to the unit. Not the greatest spell but useful in the occasional flank charge scenario.

*Scorch (10+): a very reliable small template S4 hit that's flaming and causes panic on unsaved wounds. Extremely useful and more powerful than Warp Lightning on large blocks of infantry.

*Cracks Call (11+): this spell is nasty in all the right ways. Form a 4D6-long line from the caster and any models under the line either passes an Initiative test or dies. If a building is in the lines path it collapses on a 5+ and any unit occupying it has to take the initiative test on top of that. A bit random due to not knowing the exact distance the line will be, but fantastic on any board with a lot of buildings to occupy.

====Skaven Spells of Plague====

*Pestilent Breath (5+): a flame template spell and therefore quite useful. Causes S2 hits with no armor saves allowed, it can be cast in close combat causing d6 hits instead of using the template. Very cheap to spam with multiple Plague Priests, who can take it as a standard spell.

*Bless with Filth (7+): gives a target unit poisoned attacks, especially effective on frenzied Plague Monks in CC. The best part is that it can effect units already in combat, so if you need a few more wounds this spell is a solid choice.

*Wither (8+): oh hell yes! Target unit within 12" gets -1T, I'll let that sink in. You say big whoop? Well hold on I haven't mentioned the best part: it last all game and it STACKS.Get two Plague Priest casting this on a T3 unit in the same turn and they will be wounded on 2+. Insert evil laugh. Remember if a model's toughness reaches 0 it is removed as a casualty.As each spell can only be known once in each army (unless it's the models substitute spell - effectively the signature for that character e.g. warp lightning for warlock engineers)its not possible to have this spell twice but could be cast over two or more turns as it stacks (not if you only have 1 wizard with the spell; one wizard cannot have multiples of the same "remains in play" spell active at the same time). Now that the end times are rolling out though... this is one of the most broken spells in the bloody game.unit of nurgle chaos warriors being a pain? Cast this baby 4 times on them and BOOM they're gone.

*Vermintide (8+): ''Cracks Call lite'' It's effective and hits a lot more models but is restricted by impassable terrain and water. Causes 3D6 S2 to any unit caught under the template (which has a 4D6 range) so combined with a couple of withers from the turn before it can be quite catastrophic.

*Cloud of Corruption (11+): kind of a mixed bag. You roll a dice for each unit within 12": on a 2+ (enemy unit), 4+ (friendly unit) or 5+ (Clan Pestilens) that unit takes D6 S5 hits with no armour saves allowed. Not bad if you have no friendly units nearby but will probably bite you in the butt if you cast it at the wrong moment.

*Plague (13+): neat and quite potentially hilarious. Units within 18" must take a Toughness test per model: if failed, model loses 1W. If cast on a unit in CC it affects all units involved. After that roll a D6, if you roll a 1 your opponent gets to pick one of your units to infect. '''FUN*'''

====The Dreaded Thirteenth Spell (25+)====

Roll up your sleeves and eat some Warp Tokens 'cause if you pull this off you WILL have a trollface as big as a [[pauldron]] whilst your opponent rage-quits. Select a unit... no, not the small group of Swordsmen, pick that unit of Warriors of Chaos, that unit of White Lions looks good too... Much better. Now roll 4D6... 12. Before your opponent can sneer that your roll was below average, 12 of his soldiers are dead, just like that. Wait, that was a small unit and there's no survivors? Now all of them are Clan Rats instead, and you control them. This does include special characters, so you can just unleash your trollface when Teclis suddenly grows a twitchy nose and tail.
There is a reason the spell stands alone. It's game breaking and Grey <s>Knights</s> Seers can elect to take it standard. Only use against opponents you don't mind never fighting again.