Skaven VS Gunline Armies

[Mishaman]

What to do when facing a nice cluster of warmachines and shooting infantry somewhere on top of a hill in a cozy formation ? Especially when you know they have no intention to meet you ? ... units of Knights on each side waiting to hit your flanks as soon as you come close and engage a horde unit of halberdiers parked in front of the shooty goodness....Or simply the tough as nails dwarfs with no desire to move at all and shutting down most of the magic ?

I was just thinking about and i am sort of in a loss.

Do you full speed ahead while the Storm Banner and hopefully a howling Warpgale are stirring up the clouds in the sky ?

or maybe, if you are lucky enough to play a somewhat shooty armylist of your own, stay put and blast away hoping to "outshoot" your enemy and wither the storm by soaking up casualties ?

Anyone care to share ?

So far i've faced a relatively balanced dwarf list but as i start facing other armies (my meta is fairly competitive and people bring cut throat lists) i would like a heads up.

Thanks guys

[Valaraukar]

You have many tools at your disposal, doom rocket will make a mess of a clustered formation, warplightning cannon due to it's template, gutter runners possibly with an assassin with the infernal bomb for giggles and as you have said storm banner in the crucial turn before charges will severely reduce the effect of any shooting. As to the knights, again you can shoot them back with Jezzails, the warp lightning cannon and the Doomwheel which can also threaten them with a charge if placed carefully all making a mockery of their armour, you can also run a lot of chaff such as rat darts (pack master + 5 giant rats ranked 3 by 2) who can get in the way of both shooting providing cover for your blocks and block / redirect charges. They also function as deployment drops so you can see their set up before committing your key units.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

What to do when facing a nice cluster of warmachines and shooting infantry somewhere on top of a hill in a cozy formation ?

Just march towards them and overrun at your leisure should your Gutter Runners have proven unsusccessful for some weird reason.

units of Knights on each side waiting to hit your flanks as soon as you come close

What flanks? Why don't you engage the Knights with a couple of units simultaneously?

[Bassik]

Gunlines an issue for Skaven? We have so much disposable rats, we just have to march forward and there's bound to be enough survivors to finish the job. Also: Stormbanner.

[BlackPawl]

* One or two units of 6+ Gutter runners with slings and poison

* Skitterleap (an assassin or a warlock with crack' call / brass orb - or my own favorite: plague priest with cload of corruption in the middle of the enemy battle line)

* target sarturation: give him enough targets so he don't know what to shoot first (HPA, Bell, RatOgres, Furnace etc.)

* Doomwheel

* Stormbanner

* small ratdarts so you can slip through the enemy line and attack the warmachines / redirect attackers

* skaven should not have a flank - except the table edge

* A Bell and a 10-12 for ringing - can kill some warmachines - but a bell itself is in danger from a few hits from cannons too (so this is a risky one)

* WLC - but you can not rely on them to knock out warmachines because you could also roll a S2 or S4 - but it is good against heavy armored knights (and very good against targets with more wounds)



My main opponent is an empire player and till now (with sometimes a little bad luck in his shooting phase) my main troops could mostly get intact into close combat.

[Tigranius]

Stormbanner, one of the most overpowered items vs anything that shoots. What more can you ask for?!
Cheap ass throw away infantery. How do you make it to the gunline? Soviet style fighting; you swarm the basterds with regiment upon regiment .

[russellmoo]

Take the stormbanner and use one of the following options

1- Take as many ratmen as possible- he won't be able to kill enough of you- then use magic and weapon teams to finish the job

2- Load up on rare choices and T4- some warp lightning cannons, and 2 hpa's plus a horde of plague monks with a character carrying the shadow magnet trinket, maybe some censor bearers- all of these things are durable by regular skaven standards

3- Go fast- take gutter runners, the banner of swiftness, giant rats, rat ogres, hpa, and even a horde of night runners- they all move across the table very quickly-