Problems with skaven in casual games

Some of my friends just started a small mordheim campaign, and we have quite some problem with a guy playing skaven.
His warband is filled with sling and just the assasson and the 2 balck skavens with h2h weapons, exept the almost mandatory 2 knifes.

But so far none have been able to beat it in any way, he just lets the skavens form a circle around you and and sling you to death, or he lets us run after his models, and chooses where and when he wants to attack so he'll kill most the other warband just in the turn before we rout. (need only 1 model before routing hell mass assault you, to get more kills)

So could people pls help in some way or another

And sry if it sounds like squelling but we try to make it a fun and casual place to play, and right now it really isnt

ill tell you a secret, slings are good, but will get owned by anything better then shortbows...so ranged game it like mad. also, anything fear causing kills us rat folks...

things to keep in mind.
The rats will allways outrun you...
They love to hide
Mass ambush wins them combats, they have numbers on their side.


as a skaven player, ill tell you the truth, i rarely win games. here are my biggest weaknesses
anything that makes me make a leadership test
slings are shorter range then most missile weapons
Str 4 attacks
open ground. I hate not having cover to hide in.


as far as how to take them out...i have one enemy...one dreaded bastards that is a total pain in my ass....that gorram elven ranger....super long range, a 12 inch spot range for hiddin models, armor piercing arrows...god i hate that guy

In addition to Lydor's excellent advice it would help to know the other warbands involved as most Mordheim advice is warband specific. For example mercenary warbands must tackle skaven in a completely different way than undead warbands. And Middenheimers will have a different strategy than Reiklanders, etc.

Also what are your house rules?

Edit: noticed the first post. WELCOME ABOARD!

Skaven are indeed overpowered. Check out some house rules, or even rules modifications.

Skaven are not overpowered - I have been both a user and an opponent of skaven and they are not broken at all. Top-tier certainly, but not broken.

One of the biggest things I have seen repeatedly, especially when just starting, is insufficient terrain. If you are using only one set of terrain then you are using too little. As a guide you will need 3-4 sets or equivalent in order to properly cover a table. When the table is sufficiently covered it becomes a lot harder for them to use their numbers properly with so many choke-points on the table.

Also, while they start hard they do lose a little of their power as the campaign goes on. They can't use mounts, they can't use heavy (or, more importantly Gromril) armour and their Ld means they will often run away before victory.

House rules we are using that affect this situation:

Anything that shoots twice in a turn has -1 to hit on both shots
Shields give a 5+ save.
Then have dual wielding give a -1 to all attack rolls.
New skill, Dual Wield removes this modifier.

These changes have made hand weapon and shield much more viable option, nobody dual wields until their WS gets higher or they can pick up the skill.
All these rules affect the Skaven just as much as any other warband.

But as the posters above have said, really it's down to tactics and terrain. I don't think Skaven are overpowered, any more than a Goblin warband that starts with 16 models fighting Dark Elves starting with seven is overpowered.
Fighting hordes with small numbers is an interesting tactical problem.

qboid wrote:

House rules we are using that affect this situation:
Anything that shoots twice in a turn has -1 to hit on both shots

Do the Skaven suffer another -1 for the Sling rule? Slings already had this rule from the Rules Review.

As for the terrain suggestion, lots of terrain also hurts warbands who are trying to shoot the rats down. When I run a shooty warband attacking rats tend to hide and move in slow. If they run they can't hide and they get shot.

Also Blunderbusses as in more than one, although one is often enough to scare them. Nothing breaks up a T3 horde like a template weapon.

On another front, how does the OP choose scenarios? As the most likely candidte for highest rated warband the Skaven ought to be getting Surprise Attacked on occasion.

No,we are playing from the rulebook, and weren't aware of that review.
We just took it up as it seemed unfair the DE had a -1 for shooting twice with repeaters and no one else did.

Our rules are all fluff based really, and we reasoned shooting twice with anything means both shots would be rushed.

We also ruled that guns and xbows can never fire twice due to reload speed, again more from fluff reasoning than anything else.

I'd recommend the Living Rulebook downloads from Specialist Games or Tabletop Geeks. Many of your house rules will become redunant, others will still be needed. The downloaded rulebook means its easy for new players to pickup the game.

I'm a big fan of the single shot only crossbow, but I'd be lynched if I suggested it.

I play Orcs iin the current campaign, and it was me that suggested that one.

Im afraid you're going to have ot help me out with the living rulebook Von, i have seen it mentioned before but cant seem to find it.

http://tabletopgeeks.com/downloads/#OptionalRules doesn't list it, and Specialist Games resolves to
http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/ which seems to have no downloads at all?

Quote :

Out of print games are published on the GW site under the SG resources section.

Odd, but I can't remember where I downloaded them since it was so long ago. I found the above quote on a specialist games thread but no link. So apparently you have to go to the GW site now. My computer no longer plays well with GWs updated site so I can't confirm from home.

Specialist games does have an FAQ section with downloads. You can download the Rules Review document which lists all the rules changes and page numbers. A link to that can be found in the sticky topic in Rules and Gameplay on this forum.

If all else fails I can e-mail them to you if you PM me an address.

The living rulebook is on GW's site, together with some other Mordheim material:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat480008a&categoryId=1100010&section=&aId=5300009


In my experience, Skaven are certainly not broken. Since i run human mercs a lot, my most common method of dealing with is to hose them down with blunderbusses if they come anywhere near me.

Cheers VK, i will have a good look later on.

Hopefully, you're using the updated rules for slings. This helps immensely in beating sling-happy skaven players.

Haha, I have been beating the tails out of the scavens the last times I have played against them. Try putting up 2 possessed and 3 beastmen against them and support with the magister and a couple of mutants from the cult of possessed and you will see they are going to be dead as little rats Possessed causes fear, they run 10 inches and they have 2 wounds and you can give them a really nice mutation or 2...

And hey, don't worry about loosing a couple of games, it doesn't matter as long as you don't die with a lot, your warband will still be better, it will still get resources and you will have a better warband to beat them up with. It is not uncommon that the loosing warband comes out of the fight more lucky than the winning warband!

Skaven are not overpowered. What you have is a phenomenon common to multiplayer games with differing teams. If properly designed, all sides will have strengths and weaknesses. Some of these will be more obvious and easier to use/exploit than others. The Skaven strengths are really obvious and easy to use, their weaknesses are a bit more difficult to detect, and require a bit of planning to use against them. The result is newer players tend to think the Skaven are overpowered. I sometimes think , talking end campaign where all warbands are maxing out, the Skaven might actually be underpowered...

(Slings were a different issue, and were a problem, but Skaven weren't the only ones who could abuse this.)

It's really easy to see how mass models and fast runspeed can be used to your advantage. It takes a bit of playing to understand how restricted they are in terms of leadership rating and lack of hired swords availability. The leadership rating is their key weakness, and admittingly it doesn't always apply at the beginning of the campaign. As the campaign moves on though, the Skaven will find themselves routing far more often than your typical warband, and there's not much they can do about it.

On a side note, this reminds me of the computer game Warcraft 3 when I was into it for a few months. Now, the races were always in flux, but at this time Blizzard's forums were filled with people saying the Undead needed a boost, and they were weak compared to other races. A strange thing though, in tournaments and onine ladders/matches, the Undead were dominating. In the latest lan tournament, 5 of the top 8 places were Undead, with the winner playing Undead as well. So, the Undead weren't underpowered, they were just very difficult to use properly, above what the average player could manage. But in the hands of a highly skilled player, the Undead were actually overpowered, and were cleaning house in tournaments and ladders.

Now, I realize this is opposite of what the Skaven are but the dynamics of what is occuring are basically the same. Warcraft 3 had several easy to use races, one hard to use, Mordheim has one really easy to use, and the other's a mix (original warbands). The result is a lot of people think the Skaven are overpowered because of their ease of use.

I could also go into how in the computer game Call of Duty the average person thought the PPSH or Thompson weapons were overpowered, but in reality it was the MP44 (abhorred by the average user) and BAR that were the overpowered weapons. But if I start talking about CoD I will be here all day...

I agree that slings are bang for the buck one of the best weapons, and give that to a horde warband list is really good.

But 7 marksmen with Crossbows is usually better.

thx for all the input, i think the way we are gonna go is with the extra rules mentioned above it seems
better to make overall rules insteed of any race specifik rules, and i like the idea that shield and handweapon, are good enough to use, just a follow up question for that rules, does shield and spear also give the extra +1save.

To answer the question of what warbands we are playing, we have a few mercenaries, a orc & goblin, a witchhunter, 2 dwarfs so far plus the skaven ofc.

pantera wrote:

Does shield and spear also give the extra +1save.

Since its a house rule you can decided that yourself. For my group no, but our rules were based on Warhammer Fantasy Battle 6th edition.

pantera wrote:

To answer the question of what warbands we are playing, we have a few mercenaries, a orc & goblin, a witchhunter, 2 dwarfs so far plus the skaven ofc.

Then the mercenaries should stand back and shoot when they can. Blunderbusses should cover the Skaven's most obvious jump off points for assualts on the shooters.

The Orc and goblin should concentrate on being an orc player to meet those weedy rats with tough orc hide and a few choppas. Crossbows help too. Personally I see a troll as the solution to any problem (that doesn't involve climbing).

The Witch Hunter heroes should shoot (with crossbows). Protect them with the warrior priest, flagellants and hounds.

The Dwarfs should laugh at the skaven as they shoot them down (with crossbows.) Make little short dwarf forts out of every building and have the Troll Slayers deal with disgruntled callers. Who cares if you are outnumbered? Dwarfs are impossible to wound, won't die and make tons of cash whether they win or lose.

Everybody should stop chasing the rats. Let them suffer the missile storm as they run at you.

Also do you play lots of one on one games or big multiplayer games? If you do multiplayer just gang up on the rats. Sorted.

Von Hurst has said everything I was going to say.

Basically get weapons that out range them, then when they get into range charge them.