Skaven....help please !!!!

[Malmorte]

I have been playing a skaven playing recently and he just can't really be beaten, he's beat me sixs time so far. He has a unique combo of things to stop hust about anything. I've tried so far WoC and Bretonnian and he crushes everything. I've tried warriors, marauders, (lots of them) 3 units of lances with bret and a Lv.4 with life, but to no avail.

He has
Grey seer powerscroll Lv.4 w/ screaming bell
plague priest lv.2 dispel scroll
engineer w/doomrocket
BSB

50 slaves
50 slaves
40 clanrats
33 clanrats

14 jezzails

2 Hellpit abominations

He plays the following. Any large blobs of infantry(like marauders are flamed with the doomrocket. It is NASTY. A large template on T3 infantry???) He powerscrolls dreaded thirteenth on any elite infantry( warriors of chaos, or any witch elves or BG if I take them in the future)

Plague on any infantry, and fires the jezzails on anything annoying-knights or annoying elite infantry. And they punches through any armour.

Then he closes range, jams me with his slaves and clanrats in combat that are steadfast with re-rollable Ld 10, and the hellpits smash my jammed units, and hellpits with impact hits and thunderstomp are just evil. And he makes sure to kill anything carrying the flaming banner from afar.

I am for triyng a dirty druchii list with 2 x 20 WE, 26 corsairs, 25 warriors, 2x hydra. SS w/dagger cauldron, and the like, but he will doomrocket one unit of WEs and dreaded thirteenth the ohjter, leaving me without a very powerful hammer. And hellpits take hydras one-on-one.

Any help?????

[Zenith]

Hmm skaven im not a fan of battling those rats.

Id say, dark magic for sure. I witnessed a DE player who made good results with a Lvl 4 dark sorcerress on a pegasus. He took the powerscroll as well to cast soul stealer and black horror on fat units, his other sorcerres tried to cast chillwind at the jezzails.

Then the SS ate a Black dragon egg and blow a hole trough some clanrats who took so many casulties it fled.

I was truly amazed at his bold but destructive way of handling those rats.

The only thing i would add would be a Master on pegasus with armour of servitude or the pendant to deal with those jezzails to ensure they get whiped out.


* If his grey seer is using the powerscroll then he is bound to make some miscasts and suffer a wound or two. You should consider the feedback scroll for his next magic fase. And frie him.

Some other items may be, the cross pendant for 5 points. and some MR items.


* Would he use his doom rockten on 15 or perhaps less corsairs? I dont think so when you have lager units standing next to them. He might regret he ingnored the corsairs, when he finds out there is an assassin in there with the frenzy banner. put them in a 3 x 5 formation so it looks especially small and threatless to shoot them. Once the unit is in combat use the assassin, in your next turn use the combat-reform so that as many units are in combat. A augment or a hex might help there as well.

I hope you can send a review of some sort on your next battle against the sewer filth

[Handsome jack]

Hydra's can deal with the hellpits, the key to the skaven list like this is the slaves being steadfast, take spears 5 wide by at least 8 deep and combo charge with COK or coc and try to get back to the bell unit. The greyseer can be struck by your unit in close combat just don't issue a challenge as this allows him to refuse and hide the greyseer. Small units of shades harpies and black riders can deal with the jezzels. In close combat the hydra can use his breathe weapon that is flaming to stop hellpits regen.

[Malmorte]

mmm if a hydra fires its breath weapon in close combat do those hits count as
flaming?

[Minigrift]

mmm if a hydra fires its breath weapon in close combat do those hits count as
flaming?

Yes, of course

[Tethlis]

In my experience, a Hydra can't handle a Hellpit Abomination, unless you're talking about lucky dice. The HPA has higher Initiative, meaning that the Hydra can and will take wounds before it gets chance to use that breath weapon, and by then the breath weapon will be needing 6s to wound. This is assuming the Hydras aren't blown away by Jezzail fire beforehand, since that Skaven player seems to be taking quite a few of them.

If you're really looking to get dirty, then I think a pegasus-mounted unkillable Dreadlord and a Sacrificial Dagger Supreme Sorc with Shadow are going to be crucial, with perhaps a Dark Magic Level 2 with Tome of Furion/Lifetaker. The logic behind the magic setup is that you have two default spells which will make those Jezzails useless; Miasma and Chillwind. You'll also have some great augments and hexes at your disposal as well. Lifetaker is also just a generally useful option for doing a bit of hurt to Jezzails over multiple rounds. Ultimately, every spell you cast has the potential to seriously hurt your opponent. The Dreadlord will then be in a position to either hunt Jezzails, tie up an HPA and kill it over time, or go for a charge on the Greyseer on bell. As long as you have the Crown of Command, you can pretty much rely on the Dreadlord staying in any combat you commit him to.

For the rest of your force, I would try to make sure you include a hefty unit of Cauldron-buffed Cold One Knights. Dreaded 13th only works on infantry, so if your primary combat unit is cavalry, they'll be immune. With Dreaded 13th and the Jezzails out of the picture, the Cold One Knights have pretty free reign over the battlefield (just don't let them receive a charge from the Hell Pit Abominations.) Small units of 5-7 Witch Elves can be useful as well; not only can they do major damage to a Hellpit Abomination, but they can also sneak into the Skaven player's backline to threaten the jezzails or character bunkers. They're a waste to use Dreaded 13th on, but can be useful for threatening some of his more valuable models.

With those units as a backbone, I think you can fill in the rest with pretty much any Core/Special/Rare units you're familiar with and accustomed to using. Harpies will be a must-have for delaying those slave blocks and HPAs, and are also decent for suicide charges on that Doomrocket engineer as well.

Lastly, use your disposable units to help muck up his deployment. With lots of infantry blocks and two monsters with random movement, it will be relatively easy for you to delay and slow down his battle line and make it tougher for his units to support one another. If you load up one flank with your best units, and manage to preserve them for his ranged threats, it isn't tough to fight his oncoming blocks peacemeal and beat them fairly easily.

Edit:
GW also just changed the ruling on the Power Scroll in the latest White Dwarf:

Arcane item one use only. A power scroll can be used when the wizard makes a casting attempt. During that casting attempt, the casting value of the spell is halved. You cannot choose to boost a spell when using the Power scroll

So your opponent can no longer zap you as easily with it.

[Handsome jack]

The hydra only needs to do one wound with his breathe weapon to take away the hpa's regen making the 7 strenth 5 attacks with hatred not saveable. The hellpits attacks arent flaming so you will have regen and he will need to be extremely lucky to do signifagant damage to your hydra. Even if he rolls the 3d6 attacks[his best] he will avarage 11 hitting on 4's wounding on 3's avgs 4 regen leaves only 2 wounds, return goes 2d6 strength 3 flameing hits avg 1.16 then 7 attacks hitting on 3's rerollable for hatred hits 6 wounding 3 more. I like the miasma chillwind combo for nerfing the jezzels

[Tethlis]

My understanding is that the breath weapon is resolved at the same Initiative as the Hydra's other attacks, so I see no reason why the HPA would lose Regeneration. The breath weapon and seven Strength 5 Attacks are all resolved at the same Initiative "step", so Regeneration is still in play when resolving the Hydra's melee attacks.

Also, I don't think you can play the math card without taking other factors into account. Another factor for the Flailing Fists attack is that any model wounded suffers -1 to hit, so the Hydra only hits on 4+. Also, the HPA may be doing impact hits (a big factor) and the handlers get to attack also (a minor factor). Also, I believe the Avalanche of Flesh result is more dangerous for the Hydra; 2D6 auto-hits, plus a free hit if an Initiative test is failed, does more to a Hydra than 3D6 attacks hitting on a 4+.

[Handsome jack]

I believe your right about at what I the attacks occur but by choosing to strike first with the breath weapon I've had it ruled at all three rounds of ard boyz to negate regen for the remaining attacks, also by doing one wound with flaming at any time the HPA can't rise from the dead. The impacts are something to watch for but the HPA has limited movement it has to pick a direction then move in a straight line so it's something you can screen. The hydra isn't a sure thing but it's a much better match up then watching him stomp your infantry. Flaming witch elves are the best but I find that the skaven that have faced them once find them and shoot them down

[Malmorte]

Well thanks for all your advice, we played and I won a major victory. tethlis, though I read your advice after the battle I used your tactics and you read the play before I actually played.

I took drealord w/ pendant, soulrender amd regen on CO
Lv 1 fire sorceress and earthing rod
lv.2 metal sorceress w/ d.scroll
cauldron BSB

2x 20 WE
30 spears,
2x 12 xbows
hydra and 5 cold ones w/ flaming

I reasoned I didn't need a power scroll, as I if rolled high on
winds of magic I would roll all of the dice at once and force the spell
through abusing druchii sorcery. I simply fired fireball every turn with every dice at full power. By turn two I killed one hellpit.

His jezzails knocked several wound off the hydra, before my xbows shot them off the board.
I deployed on unit of WE in one rank 20 across so the doomrocket can't hurt them, and the onter 2 ranks of 10 w' the 5+ ward from the cauldron. He was forced to fire the rocket at a unit of xbows and missed. Dreaded 13th killed 10 WE from one unit and the lost 3 levels from the miscast.

In combat we charged in turn 3. the warriors killed one unit of 33 clanrats, the hydra, though reduce to S2, raped a unit of slaves. My WEs each charged a unit of slaves but eventually died. The surviving hellpit hit and killed the wounded hydra together with the bell unit. They overrun in the COK. They killed all the COK except the DL and one knight who wounded the hellpit twice. In the last two turns the DL held and finished of the 2nd hellpit and my army finished off everything except his screaming bell unit.
His one surviving unit of slaves charged the cauldron but the fenzied brides of khaine see them off.

Major victory to the Druchii !!!