I'm meeting my friends skaven this thursday, this will be my first 2k game, since I only have played up to 1500 til now. I know that he's more than probably gonna bring 1 or 2 horde units of clan rats (40 each). A large unit of plauge monks, a hellpit abomination, gutter runners, a catapult and probably some other nasty stuff. This is the list that I have in mind Slann (life) -Focused Rumination -Higher State of Consciousness -Becalming Cogitation (Haven't taken this before, going to be a nasty surprise for the opponent) -Devine Plaque of Protection -Plaque of Tepok Skink Priest -Cube of Darkness Skink Priest -Forbidden Rod Scar Vet -Shield -Cold One -Glittering Scales -Burning Blade 29 Saurus Warriors - Full Command 10 Skink Skirmishers 10 Skink Skirmishers - Javelin and Shields 10 Skink Skirmishers - Javelin and Shields 3 Terradons 6 Chameleons 6 Chameleons 1 Stegadon 1 Salamander - Extra snack 1 Salamander - Extra snack The plan is to let chameleons (and skinks) take care of the hellpit. Chameleons + Terradon against warmachines. Let the skinks and salamanders soften up the big horde blocks and then let the buffed up saurus take care of the rest with som flank charges by the steg. I find taking life a bit boring, but it's just so good. Low casting values, great attribute. Great miscast protection which lets me ignore taking cupped hands, and also lot's of remains in play spells that force the opponent to use his power dices to cancel my spells ( which in conjunction with the cogitation gives him a weak magic phase). One thing that I could take out from the list is the steg to get more saurus and maybe chameleons, but I'm not sure. What do you think?
I like it. Terradons and Chameleons are hopefully going to ruin his day. Remember that warpstone/warpfire counts as magical attacks, so Higher State isn't as good against Skaven. You have the plaque though, so that's good. I'm not sure if Gutter Runners have magical attacks or not, but that may be an issue if he brings them. Steggy will help the saurus a lot, but make sure you take out those warmachines quickly or it may not make it to combat. I'd keep it in favor of more Saurus or Skinks. See if you can find points to make it an ancient. Dropping Higher State and Javelins will net you enough points to upgrade the Steggy or turn both Priests to lvl 2. Could be fun, plus you might get lucky and get the Comet.
Yes I can very much get behind dropping Higher State. I think he's going to use his gutter runners to protect his warmachines. Need to take them out either with rocks or chameleon fire. Ancient steggy is just 40 pts more so I should be able to take him. Not really seeing the point in upgrading the skinks. Yes it could be fun, but one is sacrificial and the slann is going to use the most power dices anyway... Hmm, shadow could be nice. Very effective to lower toughness or strength and use the lore attribute to get out of tricky situations. But Life is great for its miscast protection, if I take shadow I would like to take cupped hands which leaves me with only 4 spells and potentially not very useful ones. Thus it would be nice to have the loremaster abbility. That's 80 extra points right there just for taking shadow. I don't know if it that much of a good deal. Have to give it a thought. EDIT: I could also change cogination for loremaster
I would deffinitely go for shadow or even light. As a rule of thumb i always avoid life. I know most people will argue this to no end, i just find it so boring?? Light and shadow are alot more fun and offensive, which suits my play style better Having said that i am now starting to use a slann-less army I would for that reason recommend one of the 2 and have a game to see how you like them?
Try to get some fire attacks from somewhere for the hellpit, either from magic or a magic wep or standard. Using a sally on him is a possibility, you'll only get 1 hit on him per phase if the templates on him but if it wounds he won't regenerate for the rest of the shooting phase. Then you shoot 2 units of skinks and/or chams on it and relax. A wound by flaming attacks will also negate its 'too horrible to die' special rule or something which allows it to possibly come back to life with d6 wounds. I would avoid using a flaming banner since he will butcher a ton of your saurus before we hit him back on I 1. Magic or shooting attacks will be the preferable way to go. Try not to fight the hell pit in combat is all I'll say.
Last time i played skaven was with my HEs i was running 1 archmage and 2 lvl mages all with lore of light. I had 2 banishment spells and hiting on S6 needless to say it didnt last past my first magic phase. Second phase seen the other one burn