Games Workshop - Warhammer Age of Sigmar - Skaven Clanrats

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The most expensive unit in the Skaven arsenal, Thanquol is the mainstay of competitive play and worth every point. Thanquol has access to the most powerful spellcasting in the battletome, being a two-spell caster with a degrading cast/dispel/unbind bonus that starts at an impressive +3. He can also choose to guzzle some warpstone for one of his casts each turn to roll 3d6 for a cast and choose two to use as the casting roll (or if the roll is a natural 13, to take d6 mortal wounds and have the spell go off without opportunity to be unbound). The issue here is that there aren’t that many spells worth using this spellcasting ability on: his warscroll spell has a 3” range for some unreliable mortal wounds, the spell lore he has access to is of limited utility as he can’t Skitterleap himself, and as a named character Thanquol can’t take flaming weapon. From -1400 IC to -1300 IC the skaven wander across the world, establishing strongholds in Araby, the Darklands and the Southlands including what would become Hell Pit. Lord Viskrin instructs Clan Eshin to travel to Cathay and build their stronghold there. [2c] The Plague Priests of Clan Pestilens also have terrible powers of plague that are akin to magic but are gained through different methods. [1g] Clan Prestilens claim that the disease and plague is a gift of the Horned Rat and so their magic is also a divine blessing. [4a] Staff of Rightful Supremacy – A very interesting artefact that you likely won’t see taken all that often but is situationally excellent. The bearer gains a 13” aura of -1 to cast for enemy wizards. Also you get a once per game auto dispel for an endless spell within 13”, but only in your hero phase (note that the dispel attempt doesn’t have to be the bearer, so you could attempt it with another hero and still trigger the artefact).

Lumbering Behemoth – Changes the Hell Pit’s move from 2d6” to 7”, and also means they always charge 7” instead of rolling. Unless you’ve cooked your dice, this works out to be a nice reliability boost. You can know that you’re guaranteed into any enemy you’re 14” away from, but equally you’re guaranteed to not be able to get into combat with anything any further away than that and redeploy can be awful for you here. Once the terror of Age of Sigmar, now heavily toned down but still good. You get to set up a triangle of vortexes, with a pretty tight 13” range on the first one to go down. A new addition this edition is also the requirement for each vortex to be more than an inch away from every other kind of model and spell, which can really hamper your ability to get it into a position to hammer your enemy to best effect.Beyond this, Stormfeinds have enough melee power to take care of themselves if charged by anything but the biggest melee threats (and that’s after they get a horrific unleash hell) and a big chunk of wounds that makes them unusually difficult to remove for a Skaven unit. If you’re running a unit of 6, you will have to take 20 damage to remove the first gun from the unit.

Skaven Under-Empire: Skaven settlements appear as ruins to other factions, until discovered. Additionally, Skaven can establish secret Under-Cities beneath enemy settlements. At first you’ll be like “why are these Artillery” and then later you’ll be stroking your chin like “why aren’t Longstrikes Artillery”. Friends, these are just Skaven Longstrikes. You get half the shots, but they’re half the points. This actually works out pretty well! Because they’re Artillery and Single you’re limited in how many total you can get, but they’re cheap enough that unlike Longstrikes you don’t need to invest anything extra into them for them to do a decent job. You can take as many as you can and make pew pew noises or you can take one or two units and they’ll be OK. Warp Lightning Cannon Larger groups of ratmen are also bolstered by the Strength in Numbers rule. This adds two to your Skaven’s Bravery score for every ten models in a unit, meaning that, whilst their Bravery is comparatively low, with enough bodies behind them, any Skaven becomes a hero. Supreme Manipulator – Gives you a reroll on the Heroic Leadership heroic action. It’s OK, command points are very nice, but you can do better than this. Bonefodder - The Bonefodder are a unit of Clan Mordkin Skavenslaves desperate to escape the worst levels of their lair.Not the highest placing Skaven list at the event, but a good example of the ‘classic’ competitive approach to Skaven – Thanquol, Stormfiends, Clanrats, buff pieces and flavour to taste. Warp Lightning Shield – CV6, until your next hero phase the caster ignores the first 3 wounds caused in each phase. If they take a fourth wound in a phase then they suffer 3 mortal wounds and the spell is unbound. The 1%. If you’ve got an Engineer babysitting Warp Lightning Cannons and no other Skryre units then this is their spell.

Chain Warp Lightning – CV7, each enemy unit within 13” takes one mortal wound. Your Engineer’s warscroll spell is better than this. The Skaven worship the Great Horned Rat, a malevolent deity who embodies all the treachery, destruction, disease and malintent of the Skaven. The Horned Rat is served by the Grey Seers, a priesthood of white-furred, horned rats with great spellcasting powers. This caste of sorcerer-priests stands apart from the clans. Above the slaves, clans and seers are the Council of Thirteen, the shadowy governing body of Skaven society. This council contains representatives from all the major clans, as well as the leader of the Grey Seers. The thirteenth seat on the council is traditionally reserved for the Horned Rat himself. Skaven is the best faction for siege holding and taking. Most of their units are infantary which can climb over the walls; they have powerful gate breakers (and even wall breakers!), the catapults can produce absolute carnage on and over the walls all the while, the enemy army is being overwhelmed by a continual flow of rats. Warp lighting can hit units on the wall, Ratling and Jezzai can snipe any flying units as well as other characters. The Verminus Command Traits are not fantastic, certainly not good enough to be worth throwing points at mediocre heroes over. Without wanting to dwell on the past – this used to be an ability that just handed the traits over without having to spend a heroic action, and it used to work on the Verminlord Warbringer, and nobody ever made use of it anyway. It’s worse now, so unless you are very committed to a specific bit, it probably isn’t going to be a mechanic you chase. Clans Skryre Warpstone Sparks

Slave Rats - Although not official considered a part of the army, the Slaverats of many clans still play an important and vital role during the heat of battle. Their main purpose in the battlefield is to swarm head-long against the front of the enemy army, tiring or absorbing much of the fighting while the more proper soldiers of the clan rush in afterwards to support them. They would also do menial task when not in the battlefield, which includes labour, mining, tunneling, or even, in dire times, becoming a reserve food supply for the Skaven army.