Why are skaven so OP?

[vcassano]

gic: Magic for skaven sucks. OK there are some really awesome spells on the list, but there are only 13 spells. If you start running two grey seers, they eat each others spells up, add a vermin lord in there, and it gets worse, never mind all the little plague priests and engineers. So maybe the spells are good at low points level, but with no other magic options, at higher end games, you are going to be severly limited by having 2 lores for your mages. Some of them might even end up with no spells if you are not careful! Other armies can choose from many more lores, even beastmen get 3 at least (wild, beast and shadow) maybe even more I am forgetful.

Many armies are highly limited in their lores. Skaven's magic is pretty good, not phenomenal (bar 13th) but it really is nothing to complain about. There is a reason big tournaments have been won by double-seer Skaven lists...

Leadership: Skaven still suffer big time. Yes if you play with two big blocks of slaves you are probably not going to fail a test. But that kind of list is boring. A proper skaven list with globadiers and weapon teams and the such, is so open to panic tests. All you need to do is send a volley of arrows at a weapon team and poof. It only has one wound. This causes panic on the nearby units. Now given the ld is high, the more rolls you take the more chance of a failure eventually. This is what gets me every time, people shooting up the support units. the support units are fun though, so don't discount them, unless you want a mathhammer slave horde of boring browness.

But you don't end up seeing these "proper" Skaven lists. That is the problem with them - they have clear and defined weaknesses in theory but in practice they have the means to counter it. In this case, Strength in Numbers.

Slaves: yes they are steadfast, but they die in droves. In droves dear man! Really I prefer my slaves in small units for sacrafices and redirectors, since they are that cheap, but in combat as my main blocks, pfft. Give me clanrats instead.

Use rat darts instead. They aren't supposed to be your main blocks! They are supposed to die and hold units up. Look at their cost and the amount that they can do to hold an opponent. It is ridiculous.

Heroes: Unless you didn't notice, our heroes are the worst in the game. Intentionally. I like it too. They are weedy and have a kittens chance in hell of killing anything, nevermind the vampire lords with red fury. So when heroes come ramming into our armies they do so unmolested. Even if you tool up a lord to counter this, its still not good odds. Only the fellblade is close to good enough and that risky. The best I aim for is my assassin with weeping blade and other tricksters shard killing a bsb or wizard.

See that's the thing, they do have weak heroes on paper. But they also have doomrockets and brass orbs - little, super cheap bits and bobs that are no-brainers yet can have a significant impact on the game.

The abom: really why do people cry about it so much. The movement is random and if you shoot it with a little bit of fire, then it dies horribly. Its expensive too. Yes it destroys things utterly in close combat, but then you should try avoid it no? I will say taking two abombs is pretty disgusting, but one is fun.

Eh they aren't that broken really. If you aren't prepared for dealing with regenerating units/monsters then you deserve to be crushed by them (Beastmen and Orcs and Goblins excluded). Generally they aren't a huge problem; they take some effort to destroy but they are worth a lot of points. They can make for one sided games if your opponent cannot deal with them, but that is mostly their fault anyway. I will say that the rules (like much of the book) for it are an abomination (sorry). The Skaven book is GW's worst in a long, long time.

The doomwheel: again as above except that if you charge it first its completely useless has a low LD score and no stubborn.

Again, I'm not sure that this is a huge problem. Unfortunately some armies cannot deal with it (Wood Elves struggle in particular), but overall I'd say it is so unreliable that it isn't the worst thing in the list. The Skaven book has so many cheap and too reliable options in it, which is its big problem.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Magic: Magic for skaven sucks.

Not at all. Permanent T reduction is awesome. Permanent frenzy (unless the unit loses) is awesome. T tests or die in combat are awesome. Skitterleap is awesome with the kit you can buy. Even the 13th is better in one regard than a comparable big BRB spell because a GS can chose to take it or not.

13 spells should be plenty for two GS to chose from. There are weaker or less useful spells in each and every other lore.

So maybe the spells are good at low points level, but with no other magic options, at higher end games, you are going to be severly limited by having 2 lores for your mages. Some of them might even end up with no spells if you are not careful!

My two L4's in higher end games also have only two lores to chose from. What, pray, is the difference?

Leadership: Skaven still suffer big time. Yes if you play with two big blocks of slaves you are probably not going to fail a test. But that kind of list is boring. A proper skaven list with globadiers and weapon teams and the such, is so open to panic tests.

Two blocks of Slaves make no special kind of list. You can take three or four blocks of Slaves and still include everything else. Other lists open up weaknesses when going heavily block infantry because they cannot afford much support, Skaven don't.

Slaves: yes they are steadfast, but they die in droves.

Against what? Other core infantry will just die over time and not incur that many losses. Everything dies in droves to White Lions or CW. The difference here is that with Slaves it does not matter because you don't get many points for all the effort either.

The abom: really why do people cry about it so much. The movement is random and if you shoot it with a little bit of fire, then it dies horribly. Its expensive too. Yes it destroys things utterly in close combat, but then you should try avoid it no? I will say taking two abombs is pretty disgusting, but one is fun.

The reasons are plain to see: It has random movement, making it unpredictable for your opponent as well. You might have noticed that it can charge 360°, so it's rather difficult to avoid. It can also charge when it overran and just came back onto the table. It is very difficult to shoot because those Crossbows are likely to end up on a completely different table edge, what with a dozen decoy drops. Nobody needs to place his Abom opposite of them. In many cases, it also requires a BSB who is now underarmoured. Lastly, you will need a freaking army of missile units when you're at -3 to hit. Or flaming crossbows + cannon, and even then the slightest aberration in terrain or deployment screws that plan.

15-20 S6 attacks, most of which auto-hit and ignore armour with 4+ Regen and the chance to get back up should come at a much higher cost. Just showing up with a flaming banner is definitively not the solution, you need some 500 points specially dedicated to kill it to have a chance.

[Awilla the Hun]

Of course I'm going to argue that the Skaven are OP... compared to my own army. A Bretonnian horde of peasants can only dream of the decadent Under-Imperialist-Technocrat luxuries of the Skaven, who are without doubt the best horde army in the game. Its infantrymen are cheaper and better than my Men-at-Arms/Red Guardsmen, it can fire into combat, the Storm Banner shuts down enemy missile troops, its leadership is generally better due to Strength in Numbers, it has far more firepower, and it's no slouch in terms of movement either.

On the other hand, my army wasn't built with OPness in mind.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Quite so, Comrade. It seems that the new books slowly but inexorably address these class issues. Under-Imperialists will have to make do with the same hard and honest labour as everyone else when the Revolution has run its predetermined historical course.

[theshoveller]

The reasons are plain to see: It has random movement, making it unpredictable for your opponent as well. You might have noticed that it can charge 360°, so it's rather difficult to avoid. It can also charge when it overran and just came back onto the table.

Indeed. The Abom's biggest strength is that it's a big nasty unit that's very hard (if not impossible) to outmaneuver. Redirecting it into a chaff unit won't slow it down when it can simply charge in any direction next turn. Combine its impact hits, thunderstomp and possible (high initiative) auto-hits in combat and you have a unit that is unlikely to ever have a 'bad turn' on the dice. Even when countered by a dedicated anti-monster unit (potentially an expensive proposition), said unit runs the risk of being crippled even if it wins.

[Athlan na Dyr]

If it couldn't have magic attacks I would be far, far happier
Or the 360 degree charge arc. Or the coming back to life. Or all the other things that make it a pain in my ****...

Still, its not like something to counter a regenerating monster shouldn't be included in any all comers list, whether this be flaming cannons, missile troops or Heavy Cavalry with the Banner of Eternal Flame.
A pity that Hydra's and Abom's necessitate this sort of thing for competitive play and, to an extent, friendly games as well.

[TsukeFox]

If it couldn't have magic attacks I would be far, far happier
Or the 360 degree charge arc. Or the coming back to life. Or all the other things that make it a pain in my ****...

Still, its not like something to counter a regenerating monster shouldn't be included in any all comers list, whether this be flaming cannons, missile troops or Heavy Cavalry with the Banner of Eternal Flame.
A pity that Hydra's and Abom's necessitate this sort of thing for competitive play and, to an extent, friendly games as well.

My abom has never come back to life...=(

[decker_cky]

For me the balance of the WLC comes down to the question, "is there ever any reason not to take it?" and so long as I feel compelled to answer with a resounding "No" it's going to feel a little underpriced. At the current cost it's a bit of a no-brainer, and even if it fails every shot and then blows up you can shrug it off, since it cost you less than 100 points to begin with.

It can definitely feel undependable when you shoot it at a dragon and roll a 2 for the strength value, but that's also a bit of a glass half empty/half full quandary; in the games where you have no big multi-wounders to target you'll be able to get a lot of mileage out of it versus infantry targets (in a way that no other ~100 point cannon can do).

I'm not gonna argue with your points about the PCC, because as I mentioned it feels about right to me. It's just that the Mortar set a weird precedent for future large template stonethrowers.

WLC isn't always taken (largely because of armies loading up on double Aboms). If Aboms were balanced, they'd probably be an always take item. But I think that's a bad way of looking at things. Sometimes you just take things because they're the only tool for a job. Empire always has at least two cannons, even at 120 pts. I'd argue they're balanced at 120 pts though.

A WLC could be a bit more expensive (10, maybe 15 pts), but they aren't as good as empire cannons, even with the advantage against monstrous infantry and the option to shoot infantry. As I mentioned, the misfire chart should be scaled that little bit harsher, but overall, they're balanced.

There's also the issue of it being Ld5, which can cost you shots.

The biggest problem with WLCs is probably slaves being underpriced.

[ScytheSwathe]

Magic: Magic for skaven sucks. OK there are some really awesome spells on the list, but there are only 13 spells. If you start running two grey seers, they eat each others spells up, add a vermin lord in there, and it gets worse, never mind all the little plague priests and engineers. So maybe the spells are good at low points level, but with no other magic options, at higher end games, you are going to be severly limited by having 2 lores for your mages. Some of them might even end up with no spells if you are not careful! Other armies can choose from many more lores, even beastmen get 3 at least (wild, beast and shadow) maybe even more I am forgetful.

This sounds like the source of your problems, too many points spent on redundant wizards.
Dont take a vermin lord? They are not great, how many points are you playing anyway? How many wizard levels? I dont think there's ever enough dice in the winds of magic to justify more than 6 wizard levels. 8 at a push (i.e. 2 grey seers, an archmage and 2 lvl 2 mages or whatever) but this is very high.

Also even with 13 spells you can support 4 grey seers withough any of them getting less than their fill of spells (all take 13th and take 3 of the remaining 12 at random), so evidently youre doing something wrong here! Try just a seer and a lvl 2 and see how you get on. Incidently, plague and wither are the truely devastating spells available. Scorch, and death frenzy and the -1 to hit thing (whatever its called) are also hugely useful. 13th is situational at best. I pretty much only use it to gain break points by spawning banners in my free clanrat units.

Leadership: Skaven still suffer big time. Yes if you play with two big blocks of slaves you are probably not going to fail a test. But that kind of list is boring. A proper skaven list with globadiers and weapon teams and the such, is so open to panic tests. All you need to do is send a volley of arrows at a weapon team and poof. It only has one wound. This causes panic on the nearby units. Now given the ld is high, the more rolls you take the more chance of a failure eventually. This is what gets me every time, people shooting up the support units. the support units are fun though, so don't discount them, unless you want a mathhammer slave horde of boring browness.

Weapon teams dont panic main units as I remember. Even so, all your main line units should be within range of at least one of your general or BSB, and beyond that you can accept that jezzails etc left alone will run at the first sign of danger, this isnt enought o cripple the list. Place your characters more carfully I would say fixes this.

Slaves: yes they are steadfast, but they die in droves. In droves dear man! Really I prefer my slaves in small units for sacrafices and redirectors, since they are that cheap, but in combat as my main blocks, pfft. Give me clanrats instead.

They die in droves? I hadn't noticed old boy, I play little attention to the proletari-rat... They are supposed to die in droves. Even one unit of 50-60 will provide a headache to your enemy, too cheap to be worth shooting, and too many to risk fighting with a main line unit. They even take down a foe now and then. they are actually fantastic for weakening elite units before your clan rats finish them off. As stated, rat darts are the redirectors of choice.

Heroes: Unless you didn't notice, our heroes are the worst in the game. Intentionally. I like it too. They are weedy and have a kittens chance in hell of killing anything, nevermind the vampire lords with red fury. So when heroes come ramming into our armies they do so unmolested. Even if you tool up a lord to counter this, its still not good odds. Only the fellblade is close to good enough and that risky. The best I aim for is my assassin with weeping blade and other tricksters shard killing a bsb or wizard.

Yep, but at 15 points for the cheapest hero that doesnt even matter. Let enemy heroes go unmolested, just hide your own at the back of the unit, then grind down the enemy unit and eventually overwhelm the rival champion in a sea of fur and daggers ( or win on combat res)

The abom: really why do people cry about it so much. The movement is random and if you shoot it with a little bit of fire, then it dies horribly. Its expensive too. Yes it destroys things utterly in close combat, but then you should try avoid it no? I will say taking two abombs is pretty disgusting, but one is fun.

The doomwheel: again as above except that if you charge it first its completely useless has a low LD score and no stubborn.

Abomb: I son't use one, no comment. Doomwheel, Yeah, its a bit eccentric, but never useless, Even when charged it remains T6 with a decent save, still gets some grind attacks and many low S attacks, if charged by something more elite, it still uses thoses lightning bolts in combat, and its only a small fraction of your army, expect some of your opponent's plans to work out now and then, just keep faith in the rest of the army.

[Awilla the Hun]

Quite so, Comrade. It seems that the new books slowly but inexorably address these class issues. Under-Imperialists will have to make do with the same hard and honest labour as everyone else when the Revolution has run its predetermined historical course.

Perhaps, Comrade. But is it not also the case that many new books are written by Matt Ward, that prince of counter-revolutionaries with his bizarre and dangerous worship of super-human imperialists?

[Drasanil]

Skaven have no rule for voluntarily hiding in the back rank this edition. I think you're either thinking of the previous book.

Ah you're right, been a long time since I played against Skaven. Still getting a dirty cheap behind the lines unit to hide your BSB and Warlord is a very viable option for them.

[TrojanWolf]

So I am a skaven player, so naturally loyal to my beloved courageous honourable warriors, so I have to give my 2c (warpstone) to this thread...

I must be doing something very very wrong. Cheesy or broken to me is something that takes a new player and allows him to win easily. I have been playing for a decade and can't win with the new skaven, using all the bells and whistles.

This is what I think:

Magic: Magic for skaven sucks. OK there are some really awesome spells on the list, but there are only 13 spells. If you start running two grey seers, they eat each others spells up, add a vermin lord in there, and it gets worse, never mind all the little plague priests and engineers. So maybe the spells are good at low points level, but with no other magic options, at higher end games, you are going to be severly limited by having 2 lores for your mages. Some of them might even end up with no spells if you are not careful! Other armies can choose from many more lores, even beastmen get 3 at least (wild, beast and shadow) maybe even more I am forgetful.

Leadership: Skaven still suffer big time. Yes if you play with two big blocks of slaves you are probably not going to fail a test. But that kind of list is boring. A proper skaven list with globadiers and weapon teams and the such, is so open to panic tests. All you need to do is send a volley of arrows at a weapon team and poof. It only has one wound. This causes panic on the nearby units. Now given the ld is high, the more rolls you take the more chance of a failure eventually. This is what gets me every time, people shooting up the support units. the support units are fun though, so don't discount them, unless you want a mathhammer slave horde of boring browness.

Slaves: yes they are steadfast, but they die in droves. In droves dear man! Really I prefer my slaves in small units for sacrafices and redirectors, since they are that cheap, but in combat as my main blocks, pfft. Give me clanrats instead.

Heroes: Unless you didn't notice, our heroes are the worst in the game. Intentionally. I like it too. They are weedy and have a kittens chance in hell of killing anything, nevermind the vampire lords with red fury. So when heroes come ramming into our armies they do so unmolested. Even if you tool up a lord to counter this, its still not good odds. Only the fellblade is close to good enough and that risky. The best I aim for is my assassin with weeping blade and other tricksters shard killing a bsb or wizard.

The abom: really why do people cry about it so much. The movement is random and if you shoot it with a little bit of fire, then it dies horribly. Its expensive too. Yes it destroys things utterly in close combat, but then you should try avoid it no? I will say taking two abombs is pretty disgusting, but one is fun.

The doomwheel: again as above except that if you charge it first its completely useless has a low LD score and no stubborn.

Again just my 2 c

I do see where you're coming from on some points, but I don't completely agree with you.

On magic: With the way dice are generated in 8th, why would you have three Lv4's on the field outside of SoM anyway? At the absolute most I'd have either two Lv4's or one and two Lv2's. Not that I wouldn't mind being able to use another lore every now and again, but there's certainly nothing wrong with what we've got. Most of our spells are fantastic, and the few that are situational can easily be swapped out when rolling spells anyway. Skaven magic is great.

On leadership: I agree. I've never actually fielded a Slave horde, because it's boring and seen as broken. Leadership is still pretty good even without them though, considering the combination of almost-always-Steadfast and SiN. Combine that with a Seer on a Bell, and that's a pretty big bubble of Ld10. Even without a bsb Skaven have a fairly decent chance of sticking around.

On Slaves: Yep, I love my Clanrats as fighters and to hold stuff up too. Slaves are there to work, dammit! I want warriors in battle! (not WoC, I used to play 'em but now find them a terribly dull army in comparison) I know it's also fluffy to drive them into battle, but the only reason I use them is when I'm also fielding a Doomwheel, and that's just to soak up the bolts when the engineer doesn't feel like behaving himself.

On heroes: This is true, and also why my clawleaders tend to feel a large paw on their backs whenever the enemy's big bad lord feels like single combat. Chieftain bsb's are really cheap though, and mine never leaves home without his Storm Banner. Which quite frankly, is a pretty nasty piece of work when facing a shooty army (or a HElf army that likes his eagles). Being cheap and easy to hide is probably why people hate them, especially when Verminous Valour is considered.

On the Abomination: Sure, with the right tools it's easy to kill (and with a 10pt banner of fire available to just about everyone), but an unprepared enemy can be torn apart by it almost without pause. I've had the thing die, then get back up and maul a unit of Chaos Warriors. It's hardly expensive for what it does, but once it takes that one flaming wound the threat is lessened. I'd be more than happy to pay more points for it.

On the Doomwheel: I agree here, it's certainly more situational. The bolts are nasty if you go for the right target, and it's not the easiest thing to control. I wouldn't call it my unit of choice, but then again I generally play Clan Moulder and only take Skryre weapons sparingly.

I'm just glad to know there's another Skaven player out there who doesn't just go for a WAAC list.

[Snake1311]

Lord Squidar: trolling or trollbait?


I particularly liked the bit where you said Skaven heroes are bad, and then even the people aruguing with you decided to jump on the bandwagon and agree.

Skaven heroes are not bad. The combat ones (chieftan/warlord) have basic human stats, plus higher initiative, and are costed accordingly. Plague priests are decent as a T4 caster, engineers are dirt cheap and have access to amazing equipment, grey seers are only marginally more expensive than the cheapest L4 casters, with free warptokens included and access to 13 spells compared to 7 (remember other mages have to declare their lore at list creation).

Skaven are topping all powercharts in all circumstances, comped/uncomped/ETC/whatever. If you really are struggling to perform and aren't just trolling everyone, I suggest reconsidering your list selection, strategy and tactics. Skaven have multiple tools to deal with virtually everything, and their two supposed weaknesses (leadership and reliability) are countered internally by their special rules and by cheap point costs allowing redundancy.

[Draconis]

So it seems that the balance to Skaven is, they are a high skill, hard to learn army but once you do, they have the answers to everything. They synergize well and this in turn makes them a monster of an army. So under those guidelines, I see no reason at all to dumb them down. Seems they need to bring all the others up to par. Every army should be played this way, to where the skill needed to learn allows you to build a damned good army that synergizes with itself well. Every game I play, from board to video, there are always champions/armies that have a high learning curve, and those ones end up being the most powerful. Its a reward situation. you take the time to master, and you'll get the reward. Every army should be this way.

[Askari]

So it seems that the balance to Skaven is, they are a high skill, hard to learn army but once you do, they have the answers to everything.

I don't think you need particular skill to use 2 Abominations, a Warp Lightning Cannon, blocks of 100 Slaves and a Grey Seer. At least not beyond "Oh, they might be threatening, I'll 13th them and if that fails, stall them with Slaves". No army should have an answer to everything. I say this and I (now) play Skaven, it's very difficult to create a list with things I like without it seeming like I'm powergaming...

[The bearded one]

Skaven armies always look impressive on the table though, hundreds upon hundreds of models all over the place!

[IcedCrow]

Very few armies require actual skill to play as opposed to just taking advantage of current edition meta. I guess that could be the skill. Note I said few armies, not no armies.

[MOMUS]

Skaven are just annoying, they have a very good book thanks to several years of being the favourite army of some of the most prominent developers. Naming no names

Why did a race that spends most of its time in tunnels preoccupied with infighting, develop a really deadly cannon, catapult and bell tower/furnace on wheels?

[Draconis]

Needs of the times. "Hey, we are assaulting the human city with big walls. We need something to take it down. Develop it NAO!" "Yes boss." I call it a catapault.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

WLC isn't always taken (largely because of armies loading up on double Aboms). If Aboms were balanced, they'd probably be an always take item.

Meh, I actually hate to see either.

A WLC could be a bit more expensive (10, maybe 15 pts), but they aren't as good as empire cannons, even with the advantage against monstrous infantry and the option to shoot infantry. As I mentioned, the misfire chart should be scaled that little bit harsher, but overall, they're balanced.

At a 30 point difference? Hardly. Ignoring armour at all strength values makes it more dangerous against heavily armoured stuff, and its attacks are magical.

There's also the issue of it being Ld5, which can cost you shots.

Has that been FAQ'ed? It's Ld 7 in my book.