Skaven screaming bell and abomination

[Genghis Brutus]

Hey I'm new to the board and playing my first game of warhammer in about 10 years against skaven this weekend. I was looking for any pointers to deal with his screaming bell and abomination.

Was gonna run
Supreme Sorceress
Master
Assassin
20 corsairs
20 spears
5 dark riders
5 dark riders
20 xbows
5 harpies
Hydra
20 Executioners
10 cok
Kharibdyss

Thanks guys for any help

[Shearov]

I'm playing skaven tonight too so good luck, although my opponent normally just spams slaves and DWs.

Just in case, my plan for a HPA is a small unit of 12 darkshards with full command and banner of eternal flame. Shoot these at the HPA first in the shooting phase(champ has slightly better chance of hitting the thing) and hopefully do 1 wound making it lose regen. I then have 2 RBTs (although was considering more) to pepper it with shots, that should hopefully weaken it greatly and maybe if I'm lucky see if destroyed. I flamed hit also means when it dies, it dies, rather than rolling 'Too horrible to die'.

I'm not sure about the bell, I'll probably try thr Kharibdyss against it, and hope for the feast of bones, although that probably won't end well.

Maybe with your list give the CoKs the banner of eternal flame, that could see the end of it on a charge,

Hope this gives you some food for thought.

[Genghis Brutus]

Thanks for the tips. I forgot that flaming attacks would be useful so I might just do that with the COK. The last thing I'd want is the thing to rise again once I've killed it! I was thinking of trying the kharibdyss against the HPA and hope for feast of bones.

Wish I had a cauldron to send against the bell. Not sure how to tackle it at all

[General Kael]

If you do send your karibdyss against his HPA try to cast a word of pain on him. If you roll a 5+ it will drop his WS to 0 and you hit automatically, then you can feast on his bones

For the bell your executioners would be able to kill it fairly quickly I would think.

[Genghis Brutus]

More food for thought... I'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow.

Shearov, how did you get on in your battle?

[Shearov]

The battle went well, we managed to kill the slimy rats, although he had quite a strange list.

He had a large unit Stormvermin with four characters and an assasin in (BSB, General with Fel blade, Mage, engineer), which he death frenzied first turn, 2 units of giant rats and 2 units of 100 slaves, as well as a unit of 15 gutter runners.

I had, Morathi, lvl 1 sorc, BSB on foot, 22 BG, 34 Bleakswords, 12 RxBs, Kharibdyss, 6 warlocks.

He had first turn, and marched up and death frenzied his storm vermin, then took a wound from the Felblade. I moved backwards and bunched up hoping he'd kill half his deathstar before combat (on a roll of 1-2 he automatically takes a wound with felblade, and death franzy causes 1d6 of stormvermin to die each turn). He also killed half my warlocks with shooting gutter runners.

I then killed his mage with Spirit Leech, but doombolt from the warlocks was scrolled. Shooting at his gutter runners lead to an extrodinary number of 6s for his dodge saved, i think I killed 2 with 24 rxb shots and 6 RBT shots. I took out a few giant rats and the packmaster with the other RBT.

Eventually we got into combat, my Bleakswords againt his stormvermin and BG and Kharibdyss against a unit of slaves. I managed to get Shroud of dispair off, so although he was steadfast despite losing about 20 slaves to the BG and Kharib, he was rolling on 4's as he couldn't use general or BSB leadership. He made the roll, but the Kharib's abyssl howl made him rreroll and he failed.

The bleakswords lost combat but held on steadfast, whilst the gutter runners who had killed the locks and over ran into an RBT earlier, flank charged the rxbs, who managed to win combat on a musician and turn to face headon.

In the end I managed to kill both slaves easily due to Shroud of dispair, the darkspears got ground down by the deathstar, who then took out the Kharibdyss (I knew I shouldn't have charged the unit, but it was first game with it so didn't want it to stand about saving it's points value! I kept sniping characters with Morathi , the BG got ground down by the deathstar and a flank charge from the other giant rats, but the rxbs cleared the gutter runners so a victory of abuot 350 points for me in a 2000 point game.


How did you get on against the HPA and Bell?

[Jvh792]

Against the Hell pit abomination, witches with flame banner. The rape and pillage that thing. Or anthing with mind razor and flame banner.
Against the Bell unit. If he doesn't have a lot of bad ass combat characters, try hydras to just grind the unit into the dust.
Against regular rats, withering is great. Enfeebling is great. miasma is great. Shadow magic is good at winning combat versus rats.
What will kill you though, are meat grinders. If you don't have a bleaksword bus, you will be hard pressed to break the rat units.
Although, sisters of slaughter take away their LD bonus from ranks. Dark magic has that spell that makes it so you can't use the general's leadership.
So you could spam sisters of slaughter with a dark mage and just break rats left and right, and run them down (which is difficult because they flee extra inch). Using Peg masters can help you to catch the rats that break with the best of 3D6 pursuit.

[Jvh792]

Bladewind, also amazing on rats. Pretty much designed to kill them. Black horror too. shiz. Dark magic was literally made to kill rats...

[Genghis Brutus]

So my friend and I had the battle on Friday at Warhammer World and it was epic. The result was in the balance until the last turn and it was very enjoyable.

He ran two large units with several other support units:

- Screaming bell, grey sear, BSB and 70 clan rats
- Plague Furnace, plague priest and 40 plague monks
- mortar crew
- 20x Night runners & warp grinder
- HPA
- 3x Rat Ogres
- Doomwheel
- Plagueclaw catapult

My army was

- SS on Cold one (feedback scroll)
- 20x corsairs with General (armour of destiny)
- 20x spearmen
- 20x darkshards
- 20x executioners with Assassin (manbane)
- 5x Dark Riders
- 5x dark riders
- 10x COK with banner of eternal flame
- 2x Reapers
- hydra
- kharibdyss

You can see the setup from the photos. My plan was to avoid the plague monks, send the COK with banner of flame to take down the HPA, Dark riders to take out the catapult and executioners, hydra and DR to take down the screaming bell unit. My set-up wasn't great as I think I handicapped my RBT.

His first turn was crazy and meant I was fighting from behind for most of the battle. He managed to cast a plague spell (irresistible force) on my corsairs which killed half of them and then it jumped to the spearmen, killing 8 of them as well. I dispelled 'cracks call' directed at the hydra. His catapult scored a direct hit on the COK causes them to panic off the board (forgot that they shouldn’t have done the panic test due to stupidity [face-palm!]). Luckily his doomwheel killed a rat ogre and caused them to flee so it wasn't all one sided!

My hydra survived several rounds of combat alone against the screaming bell unit. Managed to get him aligned against the BSB and just clan rats so he kept killing enough to win the combat rounds. Eventually I got a successful charge with my executioners to join them and had them focus on the screaming bell, and a rear charge with the DRs. Eventually the bell was toppled and the entire unit was wiped out after it was caught fleeing. On the other side I managed to avoid his plague monk unit and wound the HPA with the bolt thrower. The HPA and kharibdyss fought a one sided battle with the kharibdyss failing to cause a single wound!

I used dark magic and it was very successful killing the night runners that tunnelled behind one of the RBT and scoring the killing blow against the HPA, in the final turner, after it had charged the remaining corsairs and killed my general. However, with the roll to see if the HPA would rise from the dead the scores were:

Skaven VP:

Master: 128
BA Corsairs: 250
10x Darkshards: 120
Dreadspears: 210
COK: 340
2x RBT: 140
Kharibdyss: 160
Total: 1348

DE VP:

grey seer: 500
BSB: 80
Clanrats: 445
Night runners: 220
Rat Ogres: 128
HPA: 235
Total: 1608

difference: 260

So was looking a minor victory to the Druchii before the resurrection roll... which came back as a 4! After consulting the skaven FAQ I was relieved to see I get the VP as it counts as dead, and with that the victory!

Thoughts after the battle:

The hydra seems much better than the Kharibdyss with the only obvious difference being the initiative. Sending the hydra against weak rank and file was a blood bath and great fun for me.

Dark magic was extremely effective for me and suited an aggressive mentality.

Skaven magic can be destructive but also unpredictable. My opponent went all out to cast the 13th spell (but wasted it against the remaining dreadspears!). Cracks call would be devastating to the hydra. He managed to cast it once but luckily i rolled a 2 on the initiative test!

Executioners rock!


Thanks for all the advice!

[Genghis Brutus]

More pics

[Kargan daemonclaw]

agreed, unpicking the stubborn 10 with reroll slave blocks which hold you up but allow the skaven to shoot you is key to breaking the skaven army.