Ratkin

Ratkin are the Skaven of Kings of War. Introduced in the Uncharted Realms supplement for second edition, they are also one of only two armies to have access to the "Rallying" special rule introduced there (the other being Brotherhood).

Background

One dark and dreary day in Tragar, Bharzak the Grim was in a foul mood, foul even for an Abyssal Dwarf. Production was down, slave levies were down, and profits were down. He needed more slaves to get profits back where they should be, but his current crop were no good. Elves were too weak, orcs were too dumb, demons were too evil, and goblins were too lazy. Bharzak decided to go round up some dwarfs from the Free Dwarf Lands, but they proved to be a huge pain in the ass when it came to slave labor.

In a fit of rage Bharzak slaughtered all his new dwarf slaves. Realizing this put him back at square one, he got even angrier and threw their corpses into a heap. This heap was soon swarmed by rats, giving Bharzak an idea. He realized if he couldn't capture a good slave race, he could just make one like Garkhan the Black did. Bharzak, now obsessed with the idea, locked himself away in his laboratory.

Thirteen years passed and everyone apparently forgot about him. I'm guessing that production also went down, but it's hard to say if anyone noticed that either when your bosses are all lunatic demon lords. Anyway, Bharzak emerged from his lab with an army of humanoid rats at his beck and call. Calling this race the Gnorr, Bhazrak reveled in creating a race that was short-lived and cruel, but would breed out of control, meaning he could work the Gnorr to death, but always have a steady supply of new slaves since they didn't write fapfics, they lived them. Soon his creation was the most popular form of slave labor in Tragar. PROMOTIONS all around!

As one would expect, things went not as planned for the Abyssal Dwarfs. Seems they made the Gnorr too much like goblins, so they realized they could be running things and driving machines that go haywire and explode instead of just making them. Over many years they learned the engineering and magical secrets of their masters. At the same time, they diverted many rats to dig tunnels out of Tragar. Once everything was in place, they launched a simultaneous revolt across the country.

Thousands of Abyssal Dwarfs were killed in the opening acts of the rebellion. After humiliating the forces of the Abyss worse then the Varangur did, the entire race booked it down their tunnels to the east and were gone before the Abyssal Dwarfs with their low speed and wavered status could catch up. Seemingly gone, no one heard from the Gnorr for over a century.

In recent times a strange race of humanoid rats have been seen all over Mantica. There haven't been any publicly confirmed encounters, but the stories give them a host of names from the Scourge, to the Swarm, to the Skitterfangs. Rejecting their slave name of Gnorr, they seem to call themselves the Ratkin, but given that they seek no formal contact with other races, it is understandable that no one else knows this.

On the Tabletop

Tactics can be found here: Kings of War/Tactics/Ratkin

You are the horde army, so take advantage of cheap hordes of infantry. You also got decent monsters and war engines that can go between your giant blocks of infantry. At 2000 points it won't be uncommon for you to fill your entire deployment zone's front line, and at 3000 points expect to fill the entire zone front to back.