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

===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.