Late campaign skaven warband

Well of helloes!

I was trying to find a big cheesed up skaven warband, but I failed... So here's my cheesed up skaven warband!

We're a group who play and have a bunch of house rules and all such stuff... we use most from the rule book but also some of the stuff on mordheimer.

Asassin adept:
- Stats: 6. 4. 5. 4. 4. 2. 7. 1. 7.
- Items: Weeping blades, Throwing knifes, Heavy armor, Cooking book
- Skills: Knife thrower, Eagle eye, Resilient, Hunch

Eshin sorceror:
- Stats: 5. 3. 4. 3. 3. 1. 5. 2. 6.
- Items: Dagger x2, Sling
- Skills: Gnawdoom(spell), Wyrdstone hunter, Street wise, Haggle, Sorcery

Black skaven 1:
- Stats: 6. 6. 3. 4. 3. 1. 6. 2. 6.
- Items: Fighting claws, Light armor
- Skills: Art of the silent death, Strike to injuery, Resilient

Black skaven 2:
- Stats: 6. 4. 3. 4. 4. 1. 6. 2. 7.
- Items: Fighting claws, Light armor
- Skills: Art of the silent death, Strike to injuery, Resilient

Night runner 1:
- Stats: 6. 2. 4. 3. 3. 1. 4. 3. 5.
- Items: Dagger x2, Blunderbuss, Throwing knifes, Long bow
- Skills: Weapon expert, Quick shot, Wall runner, Knife Thrower, Eagle eye

Night runner 2:
- Stats: 6. 2. 5. 3. 3. 2. 4. 3. 7.
- Items: Dagger x2, Blunderbuss, Throwing knifes, Long bow
- Skills: Weapon expert, Knife thrower


2x Verminkin
- Stats: 5. 3. 5. 4. 3. 1. 5. 1. 5.
- Items: Dagger, Club, Sling

4x Verminkin
- Stats: 5. 4. 5. 3. 3. 1. 4. 1. 5.
- Items: Dagger, Club, Sling

1x Rat Ogre
- Stats: 6. 3. 3. 5. 5. 3. 4. 3. 4.
- Items: None

3x Verminkin
- Stats: 5. 3. 3. 3. 3. 1. 4. 3. 5.
- Items: Dagger, Club, Sling

3x Verminkin
- Stats: 5. 4. 3. 3. 3. 1. 4. 1. 6.
- Items: Dagger, Club, Sling

2x Verminkin
- Stats: 5. 4. 3. 4. 3. 1. 4. 1. 5.
- Items: Dagger, Club, Sling


Thats basicly it... I know there proberly is cheat in the list and its more or less broken... But we look very lightly on the game and rules, because we're just having fun... But any huge mistake could ofcause be pointed out!
I was thinking of posting more about how I run the warband, what my plans with it is and why I've picked what I did... But If none is interested in it then there is not so much of a point! So this is more of a test!

You need a sling on your leader, just in case. You never know when you need just a few more inches .

You might find it useful to train up one of your black skaven to be a monster hunter with a DHW, mighty blow, etc to take out high-toughness monsters or high-armour creatures. If you are using optional crit tables a DH hammer, art of silent death, and web of steel can rid you of a multi-wound model very swiftly.

Infiltrate for everyone is super-handy - use infiltrate to get your heroes into position and then use hunch to get a few meat-shields up there with you. Getting the spell summon giant rat for your sorcerer can also help with this - d3 utterly expendable meat-shields that are deployed forward with the sorcerer are quite handy. Buy a magic tome, get the free spell, and sell for half base cost. Or do scenarios where the book is potential loot.

If you can get a hockland sniper-rifle, this will be pretty handy on an infiltrating night-runner and he already has the skill to use it. Rabbit's feet, unholy relics, and tarot cards can help you get this result from the exploration tables.

How much longer will your campaign be going and what house-rules do you use?

Art of silent death only work with unarmed and fighting claws, but yes high toughness monsters (or evil people I play with) are the bane of my warband right now.

Infiltrate I think is good... but not good enough for a whole skill point. And I would reeaally love the extra rats and thats something I'm looking to try and get.

Its funny that you say the snipers because thats just what I'm going to work as fast to as possible, I played a little around with skills and such on my first night runner.. But to the play style I want with him, he got some wrong ones... wall runner and quick shot.. But I do want two snipers.

And right now our campaign is more or less going on endlessly, we playing 1-2 battles every week and we're between 3-5 in one game.

Some of the house rules are... Only roll serious injuery card when dead on a crit.. Human's can have strength 5 as max instead of 4.. You can have as many weapons and such as you want on a figure.. dropped the rule for 'all alone tests'..

In my circle we interpreted the RAI for AoSD to mean that it worked with any melee weapon, but only fighting claws got the bonus attack. I can see how your group would come to the interpretation you use though.

Infiltrate will win a number of scenarios on the first turn; heck, one or two can sometimes be won during *deployment*. To me that is definitely worth a skill slot. With 6 heroes, 3 verminkin, and d3 rats you can put almost a whole warband in the optimum position to ruin someone's day from the get-go.

If you can have as many weapons as you like then you didn't chose wrong skills for your sniper. With a crossbow, sniper rifle, and elf bow and hunting arrows he would have been fantastic sniper. Quick Shot for the bow and crossbow, hunter for the sniper rifle, nimble for the crossbow and sniper rifle, would have been awesome. And wallrunner is not to be sneezed at. The number of times I have seen an I6 skaven or elf trip and break their neck isn't funny. Actually, I tell a lie - it is hilarious, but hardly desirable if they are yours .

Lucky you are Skaven - dropping the 'all alone' rule is a serious buff for you. One of the Skaven's few weaknesses is their low leadership so eliminating one of the reasonably common tests make them quite a bit stronger.

Now I'm thinking to yeah drop the long bow and take crossbow and sniper, then get nimble and skip the hunter... I keep my models moving because I like to have them as a big group, not leaving snipers back on roof tops for themself if I can help it... But with that it would be shoot with: sniper, crossbow, sniper, crossbow, throwing knifes.. and then a blunderbuss when needed.

I want a sniper mostly because one of them I play with are playing robin hood... all bows, all hunting arrow, its like "2+ 4+ 4+ you dead" I just want to stay 37 inch away with two models and go... "No you"

And I play against possessed and carnival who both have models which are like... toughness 5, resilient, strength 5-7.. 3-5 attacks, and ofcause sprint, leap, extra movement... I have leaned that you do not simply go hit one of those with a rat ogre... because you will lose.. fast...

Are you using house rules for gaining experience? Because I noticed that 1 of your henchmen group have 3 attacks and other BS 5 which is impossible to get by normal rules.

Ohh yeah skipped the max of 1+ to any stats, tho there is still the max race stats.

Warplock pistols with pistoleer might help against those high-toughness models. Only 2 shots, but resilience doesn't work vs ranged.

Warplock pistols... was thinking it for my spellcaster because then he can pick between a bunch of strength 1 or a single strength 5... both at 8 inch.. but could also take them for my runners and adept... so many money.. so many items...

I think your caster would be better off with mind focus and magical aptitude rather than pistoleer and eagle-eye. Personally, I would have taken either of those two over any of the warpston hunter, haggle, or even sorcery. Rerolling 1 dice when casting is a better benefit than a flat +1, and the quick-shot-for-casting magical aptitude also something I value more. I tend to only get sorcery once I have 2-3 spells, depending on the difficulty.

Personally I tend to give the brace to my leader because he is often supporting the melee heroes, but not always charging headlong in with him, in true skaven fashion. First he gets tactician and hunch though, because the leader should be doing leady stuff :-).

Well I wouldent have any skills for shooting on him, would just be for when gnawdoom just dont do enough, like a toughness 5 monster, and well I got all those warpstone hunter, haggle and streetwise because he's just my trader who make it alot easier to explore and such, he almost always just stand in the back of my army doing nothing because he need to not die.

And I'm abit afraid of magical aptitude because it got a good chance of stunning you and with the roof top archers I'm against, it would be impossible to not die if he just lay down like a big target that scream 'shoot me'

I also think I more would have warplocks on my night runners (Damn pack mules) because my leader got those 3 S4 throwing knifes who can be targeted on who ever, not just the first...

But yeah thinking of also taking tactician because there is like no space on the 8x8 inch space for 20 rats and 1 rat ogre...

Magical aptitude isn't something you use all the time, every time, but an extra gnawdoom or fireball can sometimes save your life and a double-cast of Flight of Zimmerman from an infiltrating caster can be a thing of loot-whorish beauty.

In any case, if you are lying down or stunned you are just as easy to take out of action as if you were standing there just after casting, and if you are in a shooting duel with rooftop shooters it is marvelous for shooting through windows. What you do is you cast the spell through the window, then cast again. Either it works and you get your spell off or it fails and you are now out of line of sight from their return fire. If you were only knocked down then you can simply stand up and cast through the window again at no penalty on your turn.

I prefer to give Streetwise to my leader because that way I can stack it with the opulent coach (+3 rare trade) for a +5. That means you auto-find anything rare 7 and find rare 12 on a 7+. That being said there is no reason you can't have streetwise on your caster too.

I found that when I put long and short range weapons on my snipers they would generally either not use the short-range weapons or be targeted as easier targets by my opponent's melee models. You are right about the knife fighter or pistoleer thing. One or the other, both tends to be redundant.

Oh, and don't forget your nightrunners are equipped from the henchman table so they can use clubs without needing a skill. They are pretty cheap and would be better than a second dagger.

you can never get heavy armour for skaven*?

hmm... yeah will think over all those idea's Lord 0 and it was a total mistake from my side to take heavy armor, I had forgotten about the rule with not all are allowed to have whatever armor they want! so yeah...

but also went over some of the rules and such and we now dropped our weapon rule, about being allowed to have as many weaon as want... so now its just two melee and two shooting ones! and henchmen stat up is now also as normal!

So because of all the changes.. my warband is more then cheat... So I'm just starting up a few one... tho I really love having big warbands because in our group we kinda feed on the one with the biggest rating... and thats not so fun...

For a starting-to-mid warband 9 is a more efficient size for your warband anyway - it is a good balance between numbers and income. Typically I use the 6 heroes and 3 giant rat meat-shields.

That being said, in my group we are a pretty competitive bunch so, ironically, this somewhat risky start is less risky for us because everyone else will be doing the same so noone will have to face a big warband right from the start .

In my group we have a house-rule that all casters can pick their first spell and then they roll for the rest. Usually I pick a blast spell to get some xp for my caster, but sometimes for Skaven I will choose Children of the Horned Rat and give him a sling for the xp; the extra d3 meatshields that don't even cost 15 gold are pretty good at the start of the campaign.