WFB Tactics: Island of Blood and Amassing the Skaven
With Island of Blood just around the corner let’s take a look on just how to begin building up your Skaven Horde.
Mr. Black here, and this week I’ll be talking about, you guessed it, Skaven.
For anyone keeping track of the Warhammer Fantasy world Island of Blood will be debuting in just two short weeks, giving players a great new range of miniatures to either start or add to an existing collections. No small part of this is a (relatively) cheap way to get a decent amount of Skaven- and trust me, you will want to cut monetary corners all you can.
First let me say the actual models in the Skaven half of the starter are amazing (not that the High Elf ones aren’t great as well). The characters are, well, characterful, the Rat Ogres look intimidating and not goofy like the older sculpts, and the Clanrat/Skaven slave units all rank up fantastically, so just getting into this you’re getting a good deal just in the visuals of the new models- but as much as I could sit here and compliment them, we’re here to talk about building up your army using this as a base.
So, looking in the box, you’ll be getting the following:
-Warlord/Chieftain
-Warlock Engineer
-Warpfire Thrower
-Poison Wind Morter
-Rat Ogre x2 and Packmaster/Master Moulder
-20x Clanrats/Skavenslaves with Spears/Shields
-20x Clanrats with Hand Weapon/Shield
Now the actual Island of Blood has it’s own wargear set-up for small games vs. the High Elves, but I won’t be taking that into account as right now we’re looking at expanding this force into a higher point army. All in all, without adding any wargear to the Warlock Engineer, Warlock, or Packmaster the army comes out to around 550 pts. assuming everything is WYSIWYG.
For the sake of this article we’ll be working on bringing the total up to 1000, which is a decent size for a new army just to learn it and get the feel for it.
First things first, as with any new army, you must decide the direction in which you wish to build your forces. Do you want to join the ranks of Clan Pestilens’ Plague Monks? How about unleashing the creatures of Clan Moulder? Perhaps the arcano-tech of Clan Skryre is more to your liking? Or hell, maybe you just want to be a ninja, in which case we have Clan Eshin for that. As I said, there is a world of different styles and flavors that Skaven come in, so before anything else I urge you to pour through your Army Book and decide just what will suit you best- there is nothing worse than buying a whole pile of miniatures only to later decide you’d rather have gone a different route, this is especially true with the amount of Skaven you’re going to be buying, so make every choice and dollar/pound/euro/etc. count!
There is good news though, regardless of which route you wish to take with the Skaven the Island of Blood starter provides a solid base to grow from, or at the very least gives you good trade material should you decide you don’t like Rat Ogres or Warlock Engineers.
This being said, let’s look at what we have to work with:
*Note: Due to GW’s policy on releasing Army Book information, if a unit has no upgrades I’ve replaced it’s cost with XX, as otherwise it would be denoting the individual model cost.
Warlord/Chieftain– Let’s be honest here, in the starter (and probably most early games as well), you’ll be using this guy as a Warlord. There is just simply no reason to run him as a Chieftain until you get more models, and even then the Warlord is a great buy. One thing to understand is that Skaven need a strong leader, without one the army will crumble apart as the individual units simply don’t have what it takes (usually) to withstand prolonged assault. Yes, Steadfast helped Skaven tremendously this edition, but you’ll need a good General to make the best use of that.
As far as wargear loadouts go I’m in the camp that while he may have decent melee stats the Skaven General has no place on the front-line- He’s just to important to lose. Thus I usually kit mine out for survivability, in this case using Armor of Silvered Steel and Skalm to give him a good armor save and the ability to heal. Other nice options are the Helm of Command to make him Stubborn and, if you truly must have him fit for melee, the Sword of Swift-Striking will aid him with ASF (and usually re-roll To Hit due to his high initiative), but for the sake of brevity we’re going with the above listed gear and moving on!
Warlord: Armor of Silvered Steel, Skalm- 168 pts.
Warlock Engineer– The Wizard of the starter set and one of the two available in the Hero section of the Skaven book (the other being the Plague Priest). I love these guys, I love the concept, the look, and I love all the little bells and whistles they can get! There are many ways to outfit them, but seeing as how our starter has only given us one I go with my standard build and one I find most optimal: a Doomrocket, Lv.2 Wizard upgrade, and a Warp-Lightning Condenser.
This guy is pretty simple; you’ll always have Warp Lightning and one other spell, if it’s Skitterleap then you have a teleporting threat to harass with, if it’s another spell, just stick him in a unit and blast away, keeping the Doomrocket for when the optimal time arises or, in true Skaven manor, whenever something gets even remotely close to you. All in all the Warlock Engineer is a good buy for his points, given the dual threats he’s bringing to your forces.
Warlock Engineer: Doomrocket, Warp-Lightning Condeser- 150 pts.
Clanrats- Technically the starter comes with 20 Clanrats and 20 Skavenslaves (denoted by the spear-wielders lack of armor), but really you can just ignore this and play them as basic Clanrats and no one will argue. For myself the basic blocks of Clanrats are there to tarpit the enemy (well, most things in the army live for that purpose…) so I usually end up giving them Sword and Shield; the armor save isn’t the best, but assuming you’re going against the average Strength 3 then you’ll make your save 1/3 of the time, then have the added benefit of a Parry save as well. Some will argue the use of Spears but I can’t justify the loss of the extra armor and save for a mere five extra attacks.
Looking at Weapon Teams the starter gives you two options: the Warpfire Thrower and Poison Wind Morter, both solid choices and in reality are going to be the true killing power of the unit you buy them with. Words of advice on use are simple: keep them close enough to the unit to gain their Ward Save but do not place them right next to the unit, for fear of an explosion (oh, and get use to things exploding- it’s half the fun of Skaven!)
Clanrats x20: Shield, Musician, Banner, Warfire Thrower- 172 pts.
Clanrats x20: Shield, Musician, Banner, Poison Wind Morter- 167 pts.
Rat Ogres– You get two and a Pack Master, the minimal amount needed to run the unit, and while they’re good for the initial starter, having a unit of only two of them isn’t going to cut it. Rat Ogres are the melee hard hitters for the Skaven army, boasting a high number of high strength attacks there are few things the unit can’t smash their way through- Given the proper numbers. Also included in the unit is the Pack Master, who you can upgrade, should you wish, to a Master Moulder and thus allow a few more weapon options. Personally, I’m not a fan of that. In 7th edition you could reliably clear his “kill zone” and prevent any returning strikes from doing him in- not so in 8th edition now that we have the Step Up rule. So for me I just take him with a plain ol’ Whip and let him lead from the rear.
Rat Ogres and Packmaster (x2): – XX pts.
Alright, so add everything above together and we have the following:
Warlord: Armor of Silvered Steel, Skalm, Halberd- 168 pts.
Warlock Engineer: Doomrocket, Warp-Lightning Condeser- 150 pts.
Clanrats x20: Shield, Musician, Banner, Warfire Thrower- 172 pts.
Clanrats x20: Shield, Musician, Banner, Poison Wind Morter- 167 pts.
Rat Ogres and Packmaster (x2): – XX pts.
Coming out to a grand total of: 745 pts.
Not bad for a mere starter set and fairly easy to boost up to 1000 pts. From here there are several ways to bring the bulk of the list up to 1000 and in doing this it will help develop the overall theme you want your army to possess, whether you want to go heavy Plague Monks or kit out more Warmachines and weapons crews. I will note that I am a fan of adding a BSB as soon as you can but have forgone that in lieu of, to put it simply, adding more cool stuff to the forces (its inevitable, once you get your hands on the starter you will want to buy more).
Below I’ll list some basic additions which can help you get to 1000 via only a few more purchases:
Clan Pestiline
Plague Monks x20 (Musician, Standard)- 155 pts.
Plague Censer Bearer x6- XX pts.
Also, in keeping with theme, replace the Warlock Engineer with:
Plague Priest (Lv. 2 Wizard Upgrade, Plague Censer)- 151 pts.
997/1000
Clan Moulder
Hellpit Abomination
+1 Master Bred Rat Ogre XX pts.
-1 Wizard Level to the Warplock Engineer
or
+1 Master Bred Rat Ogre
-1 Wizard Level to the Warplock Engineer
Rat Ogres (x3, Master Bred Rat Ogre) 143 pts.
Giant Rats (x12, Master Moulder w/ Electro Whip) 92 pts.
1000/1000
Clan Skryre
Poisoned Wind Globadiers (x6, Bombadier Upgrade) 65 pts.
Warplock Jezzails (x5) XX pts.
Warp-Lightning Cannon XXpts.
1000/1000
Clan Eshin
-1 Wizard Level to Warlock Engineer
Night Runners x12 (Slings)
Night Runners x12 (Slings)
Gutter Runners x5 (Poison, Slings)
996/1000
~Skaven offer a ton of builds for the aspiring player and the above only represents a small fraction of those options. With the Island of Blood starter mere weeks away we’re sure to see a literal swarm of new players rushing into the faction, but as always don’t get in over your head! Start small and work your way up, least you fall before the crashing swarms of the Horned Rat’s chosen!
