• The forum software have been upgraded to the latest version.

    If you notice anything that looks off, or does not work, please let us know.

    For more information, click here.

8th Ed. Skaven trouble... need backup

wolfmage
Temple Guard

wolfmage

New Member
Messages
217
Likes Received
1
Trophy Points
0
I'm sure I'm not the only one to have noticed but I am probably one of the worst affected in the release of the Hell-pit model.

As it goes I am pretty used to facing them as a single model in every other Skaven army I play [We have about 6-8 skaven players and more on the way] and one is a pain. My new problem is that with the release of the model for every 1000 points I play I can guarantee the arrival of a hell-pit now even in larger games one was a pain, but how am I supposed to deal with 3-4 or even 5 in team games.
 
I heard of a tactics that might not be a good strategy overall, however against hydras and especially HPA:s it will probably at least deal with that problem.

The idea was to put a skink chief with the banner of eternal flame in a skrok unit. This together with 1-3 10-man skink skirmisher units would give you very good chances of taking down a HPA from afar each turn (6 wide unit of skrox would give 9 shots which would wound at least once assuming you dont get to double tap with regular skinks) while 2 units of 10 skinks that get to double tap will in average score 6.7 wounds.

Since the HPA doesnt get regen after the first wound from the banner the other units will have a field day. The skrox unit will also have a fair chanse against the HPA in CC.

Other than such a tactic I would suggest equipping a Scar-vet with a flaming weapon and some other monster-hunting gear and use him to chase them down.
 
Here's a combo of the 2 solutions--which is more versatile against all armies. A scar vet wit the banner. He can monster hunt--especially against regen--stand toe to toe with most characters with his 1+ armor save. And the more expensive version has a 2+ ward against flaming:

Cheap(er)= Scar Vet + BSB + Banner of Eternal Flame + Cold One + Spear + Shield + Light Armor

Better = Scar Vet + BSB + Banner of Eternal Flame + Cold One + Great Weapon + Dragon Helm + Light Armor

Stick him with Jav skinks to fire on regen critters, or keep him with a saurus unit or a skrox to cut them down...
 
The problem with a BsB chasing him down is that he can either have a magic banner OR magic items; he can't have both :/

Some form of flaming attacks to get rid of regen or a Carnosaur with its d3 wounds, or a very fighty Oldblood with the Burning Blade of Chotec. You could come up with a couple of builds with that which would all be effective. You can also do a unit of Cold one Cavalry with the magic Standard. Once he has suffered the flaming attack you can rip through him with whatever you have at hand. Cold Ones with the banner would be nice as they will have an armour save still and a fair amount of attacks that would get in but it is a pricey unit. The Oldblood would cost you in the realm of 250 points but can be well worth it. Stick him in a unit of Saurus and they will most likely manage the job.

I am still a huge fan of the Blade of Realities... They take a LD test for EACH hit scored with their own unmodified LD... You will statistically get around 3-4 hits and his LD 8 means he will most likely fail one of those three LD tests... And no saves of any kind are allowed so that is one sexy Abom killer...
 
I like the idea of the blade of realities.
Another idea is getting the charge on him with a ancient steg. That should at least hold him and might possibly kill him since the impact hits are on 3+ to wound.

However there is no easy way of killing a HPA. They will make their points worth of points as long as they dont get a tripple for movement in the first couple of turns.

And I would suggest against CoC. Hitting last against so many S6 hits means that you will lose a fair number of them before even getting to hit back. To tie the first round will be hard and you will probably never have a chance in the second round.
 
Now, i've never had the chance to see one in action nor have i read the rules for its attacks.. How many does it have?

And as I said, its an expensive unit ;) It would work okay if it was flanking while your unit of TG and Life Slann soaked up the attacks but CoK are my idea for Slann lists. I use Oldbloods so Blade of Realities is my favorite idea ;)
 
Brief assumption of hell pits attcks based on a d6 roll

can hit you lots and lots
fall on everything in base contact if you fail initiative test
does one attack with multiple wounds.

All at str6

Thanks for the feedback everyone thinking of a combination of skinks, a stegadon and s.priest closing his eyes and hoping as he points ruby ring of ruin in it's general direction.
 
Take a Slann with Lore of Fire cause 1 wound with a fireball spell, that will negate his regeneration for the turn, and then plunk it to death with a hail of blowguns.
 
SanDiegoSurrealist said:
Take a Slann with Lore of Fire cause 1 wound with a fireball spell, that will negate his regeneration for the turn, and then plunk it to death with a hail of blowguns.
Click to expand...

That is not quite correct.

Wounds caused by Flaming Attacks cannot be regenerated, and if a unit is wounded by a Flaming attack it loses the Regeneration rule for the REMAINDER OF THE PHASE (not turn). So hit with fire ball would negate regen though the magic phase only. pg 74 Rule Book.

However, he would not get to roll for regen vs the fireball either. A Rather poor strategy considering it it Toughnes 6 and has 6 wounds.

Any Skaven player bringing the A-bomb needs to rethink his ability to play. If you have to bring something so asininely broken to compete, they must not be very good at the game. As a Skaven player I would be embarrassed to field an Abomb.
 
Batu said:
SanDiegoSurrealist said:
Take a Slann with Lore of Fire cause 1 wound with a fireball spell, that will negate his regeneration for the turn, and then plunk it to death with a hail of blowguns.
Click to expand...

That is not quite correct.

Wounds caused by Flaming Attacks cannot be regenerated, and if a unit is wounded by a Flaming attack it loses the Regeneration rule for the REMAINDER OF THE PHASE (not turn). So hit with fire ball would negate regen though the magic phase only. pg 74 Rule Book.

However, he would not get to roll for regen vs the fireball either. A Rather poor strategy considering it it Toughnes 6 and has 6 wounds.

Any Skaven player bringing the A-bomb needs to rethink his ability to play. If you have to bring something so asininely broken to compete, they must not be very good at the game. As a Skaven player I would be embarrassed to field an Abomb.
Click to expand...

While you would not be embarressed to field a slann with 25 TG and life/light and cupped hands, or salamanders for that matter.

Come on, most players use their best units. If he brings one HPA in 1500p I just have to deal with it. And I am glad that LM are an army that can deal with everything unlike some crippled armies out there.

Also a HPA is only T5 so with enough lore of fire hits it goes down. A combination of a fire slann and a skink with str6 magic to take over when a wound has been suffered should be able to take the HPA down quickly.
 
anyone got a page number on regen being negated I haven't seen that.
 
I play as skaven and I always take a hell pit :D

But it's really not that hard to kill, it just requires planning before hand,
a kitted out oldblood can do it, a unit assigned to killing it with banner of eternal flame will usually trounce it
again a slann can do some damage, lore of fire does work in some respects as it is toughness 5, and would not get any saves, skink blowpipes would do a number if after say 2 shooting phases. the only real defences are kill it with stuff that negate regen, heroic killing blow etc or just do what my friend does and devote the majority of his force to killing it whilst my rat ogres steam roller the remainders.
 
Take a Slann with Lore of Fire.
Click to expand...

I disagree, I would say that Lore of Fire is quite counter-intuitive in my opinion. Slaan should be casting things like buff spells.

Slaan should be backing up the fighting units of your army so you can finish them swiftly. For example: "Curse of the midnight wind" would screw over a unit of clanrats trying to take on your warriors, because they can only *ever* wound on a 5+, and re-rolling that vital six would case trouble.

There is a lot of things capable of killing the hellpit without sacrificing your combat prowess. Lore of Heavens is my favourite for this, because it gives you access to S6 magic missiles, yet it also gives you a leadership debuff and the curse to mess up the rest of his rats. But this isn't the only lore that will do this, because Pit of Shades and Okkam's Mindrazor will kill it too, as will Spirit Leech and the Purple Sun from Lore of Death. The Amber Spear, Wyssan's Wildform, Savage beast of Horros too.

There's no need to try and "pre-empt" your opponent's list, and I think it is against the fluff to try and do so. In addition, as I have just proved, we don't need to rely on pre-empting the enemy list to win, well, in a magic heavy list anyway. Besides, how would you feel if you played Dark Elves, and the dwarf gunline you're facing suddenly has a load of flaming cannonballs?

We also don't need to rely on Life or Light either, and I almost never do by the way. Nor do I use big units of Temple Guard.
 
I take a slann in a unit of 20 temple guard. I make him the BSB with the banner of discipline. Until last week, my favorite lore was lore of Light. I use a primarily skink list though and like the speed. I have had huge success with the Lore of Life this past week. It has made game winning changes in close combat and the overall game. That said, I will never take a slann and take lore of Heavens. I can get 2 skinks (one with plaque of tepok) to do that job.

I also take a skink priest with the forbidden rod and the amulet that grants a 4+ on the first wound. This is invaluable! Last Saturday, I had a turn where I rolled 5 on the winds of magic (my skaven opponent had 4 dispel dice to start then channeled one). I used the forbidden rod and gained an additional 4 dice for the magic phase. The priest took 3 wounds, but that was ok because he was there to die anyway.
 
@Arli

For some reason, temple guard just don't do the trick for me. Am I just rolling bad with them or something? Because they keep losing against things like normal orcs etc who you expect to die in one round.

Btw, forbidden rod strategy looks pretty good to me. I'll take a note of that one.
 
The key with the TG is to take a scar-vet or an old blood as the unit champion. Challenge the unit you are in combat with. Use your unit champion instead of the scar-vet or Old one. Then when you heal the unit using lore of life, the first model back up is the unit champion again. Using Lore of light, you could go with the speed of light spell getting WS10 I10. Hell, maybe even birona's time warp (lower level would be easier to get off), so you could re-roll your misses as well.

All of the players in my local club try to destroy my temple guard before it gets into combat.
 
For some reason they just don't do it for me, though. Like they'll go into a combat with every advantage then fluff their attacks, then my Slaan runs away from combat. Last time I didn't take a temple guard at all lol.
 
Its because all the chaotic energy from being called a slaan rather than a slann curses the TG.

I try to afford the Ring of Rhuin on my life slann, it gives a flaming attack that can remove regen for the phase and either forces extra dispel dice to be used to counteract the slann's free dice or people let it through to save dice for other spells.
 
If you had a few skinks around you could absolutely lay waste to the hellpit with thunderbolt/chainlightening, and all without sacrificing the slaan's lore. It would be pretty funny to kill a hellpit while bringing lore of life.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top