Warhammer Fantasy Battle Reporter Forum

Since I'm 95% sure that I want to play Skaven as my first army, I've been thinking about the composition of my first army. The limit is going to be 500 points.

General:
Chieftain with warpstone armour and a enchanted shield: 90 pts
This will give him an armour save of 2+ and every successful save against a melee hit gives an automatic counter-hit (not attack) at S4.

2 x 20 Clanrats 200 pts
1 x 20 Plague Monks with extra weapons 160 pts
1 x 1 Rat Ogre 50 pts

Total: 500 pts

I'm thinking of re-equipping the Chieftain because he's taking up so many points, but all I could do with them would be to drop a Clanrat and take up the second Rat Ogre or to take 1 x 6 Giant Rats. I don't think the last one is a good option, though, as the rats are too few to make a difference. And the first option would leave one unit of Clanrats with a lower rank-and-file bonus and my general without any upgrades (i.e. with light armour, no shield and one measly one-handed weapon) - I'd have to drop more troops to buy these and I don't want to lose my rank-and-file boni.

So, what do you experts think? I'm fighting against Wood Elves, but this is the best that I have at the moment.

Have you considered taking standard bearers ? If you're facing Wood Elves you're unlikely to make it inot combat without taking some casualties from long bows (note: make sure you shield you Rat Ogre from fire). This will mean you are unlikely to get a full +3 rank bonus in combat, in fact you might find it difficult forcing your enemy into combat if they take all missile troops.

Any idea what models the Wood Elf army will be bringing ?

Unfortunately, I haven't got the Skaven book with me right now. To be honest, if you've read it a few times you already have more Skaven experience than me

I did indeed think about standard bearers - some hours after my post. ^^ I'll need every bonus I can get, so I'll have to change some things and get at least one standard...

But first: My enemy is as fresh a player as I am and will have access to battalion-troops alone, like me. That means:

Up to 24 Glade Guards
Up to 8 Glade Riders
Up to 12 Dryads
Plus a general - most likely a Noble or a Branchwraith, as a Spellsinger is a bit too expensive.

So the only pure melee option she has are the Dryads who are skirmishers (useless in this encounter, I think) and cause fear (that's something I'm not looking forward to).

I'm pretty sure she's going to bring a range heavy or purely ranged army. I'd love to take a magic banner with me (the Shadowbanner which gives a 4+ save on normal and magic missiles) but that's another 35 points that I don't have.

Standard bearers cost 10 points... I could lose the enchanted shield on my Chieftain (10 points) but I'd rather leave a few clanrats behind.

Shielding the Ogre... I was thinking of having him advance on one flank and slightly behind the rest of my units, but I'm not sure if he's of any use there. I don't get the flank bonus on combat resolution with a unit strength of 4, do I?

I would definitely lose a couple of clan rats to take a normal standard in this instance. Also the shadow banner will greatly increase the likelihood of your rats making it into combat and is worth including in my view.

This might mean shaving a few clan rats off both units.

How big is the wargame board ?

Remember that Dryads are skirmishers so they cannot negate your rank bonus. However, if 5 or more attack they do get their own flank (+1) or rear (+2) resolution bonus.

The drayds will only cause you a problem through fear if they outnumber you and win the combat res. Then you automatically rout !

Are you setting any objectives like winning table quarters for Victory points or is this a battle of annihilation

Since we're both beginners, we're going for the standard 6 rounds with victory by points, but I'm not sure if we should include table quarters... In a 500 points game they can make a huge difference, methinks. The table will be the suggested 48'' x 48''. I will make sure that I've got some cover between me and them longbows!

I'm at work right now, so I can't recalculate stuff, but I will look into the whole banner issue tonight.

Edit: Let's see... That's the Shadow Banner and two non-magical ones (one as a preparation for the Shadow Banner), amounting to 55 points or a whopping 11 Clanrats! I might as well loose the Rat Ogre then... Aaah, what to do, what to do? Well, the Shadow Banner is a must, definitely. But at least one rank down in both units of Clanrats? That's a lot. It will lower their Ld to 8 in one and 7 in the other unit.
Maybe I'll just forget about the Ogre. He's strong, but I don't think he will be that much help in this battle. Bad weather, what with the hail of arrows and such.

500pts is a real toughy for army selection. There are so many options you are denied.

If you use table quarters for Victory Points you really need extra units (ie, at least 4 so you can capture/hold them all). You should probably ignore table quarters and fight to the death instead.

Somehow you need to corner some of those Elves as quickly as possible. Try attacking a single elf unit with you whole force. That way the others cannot fire into the combat. Although, if the Elves are smart they will keep their longbows well away from your units and move away from any combat so they can get a few shots on you as you close them down.

Also, don;t forget there will be at least 1 wood on the board (it's a default allowance for Wood Elves) and the Elves will want to occupy it. There's no way you can successfully assault Elves in a wood with a single unit because they can maneuver at full speed within the wodo whereas your units cannot. You will need at least 2 units to assault the wood.

The more I think about this the more I'm thinking that you should choose more smaller units and attack enmass with all of them against the dryads. You still get to add your ranks up in the fight but you will not get as many because more troops with be used making up the 1st rank of each unit.

How many clanrats can you take if you use the magic banner ?

Another option is to go with the cheapest hero you can get and lead from the back (out of the 1st rank).

I need to have another look at the book, this is getting quite interesting now.

Hokay, this is getting complicated. ^^


I guess we're going to that because a) both players are quite inexperienced and thus we would like to keep it simple for now and b) table quarters get interesting in bigger battles where you can actually spare a few units to capture them.


Luckily, Skaven are as fast as (and in some cases faster than) elves. The Glade Guards can't possibly keep away from me if they want to keep shooting and the Dryads probably want to get into combat quickly. If my enemy makes that mistake (i.e. sending his Dryads at me alone), I won't have to worry about them as much. 40 Clanrats and 20 Plague Monks should make short work of them and the trees will definitely be outnumbered, so fear is not as bad as it could be.
The biggest problem still are those Glade Riders. After I've dispatched of the other units, I'm thinking of spreading out a bit and cornering them, with my Monks in the middle (so they can rush to help either way).
I'll keep my army together until then, that will help when I attack the wood(s).


The maximum number of rats I have is 40. I simply don't have more models. I could drop all the fancy stuff from my Chieftain (which is the cheapest hero of the Skaven, but luckily one with relatively high Ld) which would save me a whopping 45 points - enough for the magic banner.
Rats can't be less than 20 models a unit, so I can't split them up more. I could make two units of Plague Monks with 10 models each, but that would also reduce the effectiveness of the magic banner.

New army composition:

General:
Chieftain: 45 pts

2 x 20 Clanrats: 200 pts
1 x 20 Plague Monks with extra weapons and the Shadowbanner: 205 pts
Alternatively:
1 x 10 Plague Monks with extra weapons and the Shadowbanner: 125 pts
1 x 10 Plague Monks with extra weapons: 80 pts
1 x 1 Rat Ogre 50 pts

Total: 500 pts

The rats are tough to work with and I think that current army comp you have will work well for you. With skaven you generally need to keep larger units so to avoid any sort of leadership tests from shooting casualties.

In 500 points your going to outnumber the elves 3 or 4 to 1 usually, especially with that many folks. You should maximize this effect that you have and the fact that he probably won't have enough shots to take down all the rats.

I would rather recommend placing your plague monks on flank rather then in the middle. Calvary cannot stand up to front charge against an infantry unit because of all the bonuses you'd gain for combat resolution (+3 for ranks usually, +1 for outnumbering, and +1 for having a banner). By placing your Monks on the flank, with their S4 frenzied attacks (and poisoned I think?) your opponent will think twice before charging into the flank of your main force. Also, by keeping the monks to the side, you don't focus all of the fire on them, since they have no armor.

Other then that, it's go time! Try it out and see what happens!

I wasn't going to place the Plague Monks in the center for the whole battle. I was thinking about doing that for when I went Glade Rider hunting. I need to spread out to catch them, most likely, and I want my monks to be close by so that I can charge in when one of my other units engages with the cavalry. With the Shadowbanner they get a 4+ save to all missiles which is better than the armour save of my Clanrats, so I'm pretty confident that the enemy will have a hard time whittling them down quickly enough.

For the rest of the battle (which will most likely take place before all that) I wanted to keep them on the flanks, yes.

Ahh I understand now, guess I missed something before.

Catching calvary is tough, but good luck hunting them! A gatling gun with one of your units will go a long way on destroying those pesky calvary units.

I'll get a ratling gun next month, maybe. They seem to be fun. ^^ But as of now I can't afford any more models. So I'll just have to hope that I can catch them.

But first... I'll have to paint my models.

the only problem with running your alternate list is Clanrats-if you are using old rules you MUST have at least 1 unit of Clanrats per each additional unit of anything else-In this case bringing 2 units of Plague Monks you would have to have 2 units of Clanrats - But if you are able to use the new rules you would not need the extra clanrats

the thing is on a 4'2 table with 500 points aside i dont think you can win.