AoS New Seraphon vs Skaven

[Kilvakar]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience in countering some of the Skaven's more ridiculous stuff like their Verminlords being nigh unkillable, warp lightning cannons being able to snipe out most heroes in one shot with overcharge, etc.

I've played a couple games against Skaven recently, and actually won. But both times it was very close, mostly due to shenanigans like I said above. Warp lightning cannons in particular seem impossible to counter unless you are able to deepstrike them turn one. I know that Mortek crawlers are in a similar position, where you basically don't roll to see *if* you do damage, but how much damage you do. Is there anything that can protect our characters from weapons like those?

Also, do we have any ways to help get through the two or three save-after-saves that the Verminlords have? I'd just like to be prepared better next time, lol!

 

[Nart]

I have no real experience with skaven 2.0, but AFAIK, one of the WLC's weaknesses is their range. 24" isn't much. I don't remember if they can extend it and I don't think they are fast enough. I can easily avoid mortek crawlers on turn 1 even with their 43" threat range. The best way to deal with them is, of course, teleportation. But even you want to go coalesced, you can take 20 chameleon skink. They should be able to kill a cannon per volley. You can also cast comet with kroak or slann to remove a couple of wounds and make job for chameleons easier. Until then - try to avoid cannons with heroes as much as possible.

As for Verminlords - IIRC, they are demons, so they are very vulnerable to Celestial Deliverence. Bastiladons will also deal additional damage to them. You cannot do much to their save-after-save, but there's a chance to break Suspicious Stone (or how is it called?) with Slann's Mystical Unforging. It is not very reliable way, but you still can do the damage.

 

[Kilvakar]

Good advice! I haven't tried chameleon skinks yet, but I'd really like to see how they do.

 

[Nart]

Several top-3 lists have included chameleons, so looks like they have some potential. They can spit quite a few mortals and the range is nice.

 

[LizardWizard]

I would Ignore the vermin lord. Kill the clanrats/plague monks, screamingbells/plague furances, and the minor heroes like Greyseers & Warlocks. Plan to always attempt to dispell Warplightning Vortex as well.

 

[Kilvakar]

Thanks for the advice! My magic was definitely still superior, even though they get that weird extra dice to all casts thing, so their spells didn't do much to me. My main problem was that the warp lightning cannon was taking out a hero per turn with how much damage it does, even though it killed itself on turn 3. If it overcharges and gets the warlock engineer buff, and rolls a 1 for the power roll, it's an automatic 24 mortal wounds! Even though on the second turn it rolled a 5 for power it still did 14 damge! Took out my Engine of the Gods turn 2, and took out my Carnosaur turn 3. Nothing I could do about it. Thankfully it killed itself on that turn with the backfire damage.

I was still able to hold on to objectives enough to just barely outlast my opponent in the last game I played, but if they hadn't rolled poorly on some saves with their troops, I would have been dead. Thankfully my Slann was out of range of the cannon, but he wasn't able to do much other than get some unbinds off and drop Comet's Call a couple of times. (I failed one time, even with a +2 to casting, lol!

 

[Za'tek]

The maximum amount of mortal wounds a warp lightning cannon is able to do is 12...
The Warp stone sparks that allow the enginer to buff units do not work with them, as they do not have a damage characteristic but just deal mortal wounds.
On average an overcharged cannon will kill itself in two turns and will deal around 3.5 mortal wounds per turn. (rolling a one still forces you to roll all dice to see if it deals damage to itself) Which isn't that bad with 24 inch range.
It is however extremely unpredictable meaning in some games it might crush everything only to fail completely in others.
If you can snipe the enginer, it becomes way less dangerous, as he is required to be able to overcharge.

 

[Kilvakar]

The maximum amount of mortal wounds a warp lightning cannon is able to do is 12...

He had some sort of special warpstone ability that he said doubled the dice of any weapon he used it on, making the 12 into 24 dice, and rolled a 1 for the power rating, meaning they all did damage. I don't have the Skaven battletome available, so I'm not sure what ability that was specifically. But it could definitely have been a misread on his part.

Not sore about it though, just curious about how we are supposed to counter hero sniping that strong. I'm loving the Coalesced so far, they really play how I always envisioned the Lizardmen were supposed to play. Much more fun than the paper army we used to be.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Lizard wizard and I just did an WLW EP on this check it out.

 

[Nart]

He had some sort of special warpstone ability that he said doubled the dice of any weapon he used it on, making the 12 into 24 dice, and rolled a 1 for the power rating, meaning they all did damage.

I am pretty sure, that your opponent has cheated, probably unitentionally. There's an ability in Skaven tome, called Warpstone Sparks. It does increase damage characteristics of weapons by 1, but WLC doesn't have damage characteristics - its shooting attack is basically a special ability, thus cannot be affected by Warpstone Sparks.

So things are not that bad.

 

[Kilvakar]

Yeah, from what I can tell it's not supposed to work on the warp lightning cannon. But no hard feelings, these things happen. We'll be playing again soon, probably Skaven vs Seraphon once again

I've been playing Coalesced primarily, because they're generally more fun. But I think I'll try @Erta Wanderer and @LizardWizard's suggestions and maybe run a Fangs of Sotek list. Either that, or a Koatl's Claw Firelance list. I have yet to try a Knights and Carnosaurs army, and that seems fun as well.