8th Ed. Help with a Skaven onslaught

[mcasefire]

So I am playing in a 3000 point tournament this weekend. One of the guys who gives me the biggest problem is a skaven player. He usually brings 2 hellpits, and 2 or 3 lightning cannons. Any thoughts on how to combat this? Other players that will be there are dwarf, Ogre, VC, Wood Elves. But my biggest concern is this skaven player. If you have any ideas for me please help. Thanks

 

[Arli]

You could take the ruby ring of ruin on a character. You could also go heavy on salamanders and skink skirmishers. That way, you could burn one with the ring, then burn another with a salamander. Then once they are burned, poison them off the table.

Or you could take Lore of Fire on your slann. That may limit you against other armies though.


That's all I got.

 

[ForgottenKnight2001]

2 hellpits and 2 lightning cannons is a nasty army to fight against. Against the rest of the army, I'd suggest 2 slanns. 1 Life (for dwellers which would completely wreck his hordes or units and +toughness which would shut down his abombs) and maybe shadow (reduce that abom to str 3 or Okkrams them to make them str 7) or fire (get rid of that darn regen).


A lord on a carnosaur could potentially kill an abomb outright if you have a slann w/ light to buff him (but you'd be better to put a unit against it).

If you have 5 wide skinks 5 or 6 rows deep, that means he has to kill 20 skinks to get rid of your stubborn. You may not, or you may cause a wound, but tying a 250 point abomb up with 100 points of skinks would be well worth the cost. Putting a unit of skrox w/ 2 kroxigors @ str 6 and 30 skinks 5 wide to tie them up. Once the abombs are out of action, the rest of his army shouldn't be horrible.



Remember to keep your slann out of line of sight of the cannons if you can since they're magical and having the "ethereal" ability won't keep him safe.


Use chameleon skinks



In terms of a lore for your battle, dwellers would probably be your best bet against skaven, wood elves and dwarves and the resurrection against getting your temple guard in combat with ogres.


I'd be tempted to field a lord on a carnosaur, except for the fact that the dwarves and skaven can both one shot it. I'd take 2-3 steggies to make him pick and choose his shots, a slann in a TG bunker (w/ life) and units of skinks to tie up the big stuff.

 

[ForgottenKnight2001]

Or you could take Lore of Fire on your slann. That may limit you against other armies though.

I thought of suggesting this. Fire can really burn off that regen, but you need to magic him to death after hitting. Unfortunately, I don't think the poison after magic works because the BRB says "it loses Regen for the remainder of the phase (it can be used later in the turn though)" So your magic phase makes him lose it, but when it comes to shooting, he's got it back again (unless you can get flaming shots)

If you take a Slann w/ fire, make sure you take at least 2 skink priests. You don't want to have your Slann in LOS of the cannons or in charge range of the abombs, they'll wreck him.

 

[Arli]

There is a flaming buff also that will give a unit flaming shots and a +1 to hit (I think).

 

[The Hunted]

IIRC the signature spell from the Lore of Light is also a flaming spell. That means you could take the Lore of Light (a fine lore) and still have acces to flaming attacks. Granted, it's only 1d6 S4 of flaming magic missile..but you will have the advantage of a strong lore.
Just a heads up.

The Hunted

 

[ForgottenKnight2001]

There is a flaming buff also that will give a unit flaming shots and a +1 to hit (I think).

Good call, Flaming Sword of rhuin would give them the magical flaming poisoned double shot attacks (that's a mouthful) and +1 to wound which means wounding on 5's instead of 6's on the ones that don't poison.

I gotta play my elves or chaos more often so I try different schools of magic.

 

[Stonecutter]

The biggest worry in that skaven list are the HPAs. Another option I have used dealing with a near identical army is bringing a slaan with the crown of command and flaming banner along with a unit of 3-4 skrox or just 30+ skinks (no TG in the army). The slaan starts in a horde of saurus with the big skink/skrox unit nearby. When the helpit gets within 18", move the skinks into range and have the slaan join them. They now have ~20-30 poison, flaming attacks and, if they get charged, the close combat attacks are also flaming. With a little bit of luck, you may be able to drop a HPA with one round of shooting - especially if you move other shooters within range and hit with the flaming attacks first since all the shooting after that cannot be regenerated. Just watch out for the storm banner as your javelin skinks will have to be within 6" to get autowound if the banner is working. Once the HPAs are done, the rest of the army can be dealt with in detail since skrox and saurus do very well against skaven. Another advantage of the skrox unit is that it will work well against all the other armies as well and is fast if you don't need the flaming attacks so it can be into the rear or flank of your opponent's army quickly.

 

[Pyre]

I could definitely see this as one of the times that Fire really shines, especially if you went nuts and put two Slann both with fire on the table. Give both rumination and the sheer amount of damage they could put out would be awesome to behold. Remember once something gets hit with ONE fire spell all other fire spells targeting them get an additional D3 to the total casting roll, so you'd be throwing dice + 9-10 on average after the first fireball get through so throwing bigger ones after would get a lot easier. Flame Cage on a horde of toughness three infantry is amusing as hell too...

As for Light, remember that the default spell can be boosted to strength six flaming with a 48" range! That's a nasty surprise for an Abomb, and follow that up with a Banishment or two and suddenly he's not so scary. Plus the double movement from a large scale Timewarp would get you into combat a LOT faster, and Net means those cannons cannot fire for a turn since they automatically fail the strength test (and Net can have a 48" range as well).

Against Skaven otherwise, a combat heavy list of Saurus and Temple Guard should do OK once you get the Abomb's and the cannons out of the way. Clan Rats and Storm Vermin both get ground down pretty quickly by either of our "heavy" infantry units, though Plague Monks can still be rough. Also, and you probably already know this, but you can target the Bell and the Furnace separately with shooting and enough poison attacks will put a few wounds on the things.



Pyre

 

[Taipan]

So I am playing in a 3000 point tournament this weekend. One of the guys who gives me the biggest problem is a skaven player. He usually brings 2 hellpits, and 2 or 3 lightning cannons. Any thoughts on how to combat this? Other players that will be there are dwarf, Ogre, VC, Wood Elves. But my biggest concern is this skaven player. If you have any ideas for me please help. Thanks

What an amazingly original Skaven list to be fair though, they do lack real heavy hitters outside of Special and Rare.

Lore of Fire is garbage, don't take it. Removing Regen doesn't matter, you need to nuke the Hellpits early on.

Lore of Shadow offers both an Initiative reduction (Miasma) and a nuke (Pit, which only scatters D6" with the small template, so barring a bad roll you'll never miss). It also has Mindrazor, for smashing up heavily armoured units like Dwarves.

Lore of Light is going to be a big help against Skaven (going ahead of them with 'Speed of Light', chewing apart their pathetic infantry with 'Timewarp'), and also good for fighting High Elves (you need 'Timewarp' up to even have a chance in combat, 'Pit' won't work because of their high Initiative).

Lore of Life has 'Dwellers', which if combo'd with 'Enfeeble' from the Shadow Slann, will annhilate both Hellpits and entire units of Elves and Dwarves easily. Regen is also handy for when the dirty Skaven try to drown you in bodies.


Killing the Warp Cannons is going to require longer ranged measures. 'Pendulum' from the Shadow lore is handy for this, but Camo Skinks are also a good option. 'Pha's Protection' is also a good one to cast from the Light lore, as it forces your opponent to roll a 4+ to even fire his artillery.