8th Ed. How do you defeat skaven?

[chameleonwarrior]

my best friend is a skaven collector so i would like some tips on how to defeat skaven units, particularly the following:

Grey seers
stormvermin
rat ogres
queek headtaker
ikit klaw

all tips would be appreciated!

 

[cyanhawk]

My regular playing opponent uses skaven. I usually take a temple guard bunker with slann and a scar vet in it. Put the flaming banner on it and it can handle any combat that he throws at it. You can put becalming cog on the slann and get him in range of the grey seer to help with the skaven magic phase.

To deal with the big blocks of infantry I like 2 units of 2 salamanders. you basically wound his clanrat blocks on 4's and they get nor armor save and then have to take a panic test.

A nice block of saurus warriors can hold up or kill off the rat ogres.

Last but not least dwellers below. Skaven toughness = crap. You can wipe out 20 skaven models per casting.

Ikit claw I have never found to be a problem. He looks much better on paper then he turns out in game. Queek is rough and will kill abunch of lizards per turn. Just make sure you kill twice as many rats in return.

The real trick to beating skaven is to deploy smart. He will most likely take up his entire board edge. You want to focus your blocks all in the same area so they can support each other. You need to make sure that anything getting into combat is within range of your slann so you can buff appropriately. And do your best to maintain your formation. It does no good to run down the block of clanrats with no characters in them for the 100 vp if you get flanked and destroyed by stormvermin.

 

[n810]

Oh and Don't forget to take some Salamander, they are murder on big blocks of low toughness troops.

 

[Stonecutter]

As has already been mentioned, stealing 6s will put a serious crimp in the skaven magic phase. In addition, only stop critical spells like plague, wither or dreaded 13th. The sallies are unbelievably good against skaven hordes since a single round of shooting can kill well over 50% of a unit. Personally, I like to use a mix of infantry with a couple skrox blocks supporting my horde-o-saurus The skrox are fast and make excellent flankers, denying ranks/strength in numbers and also being able to inflict a fair number of wounds and causing fear. While skinks will die, the skrox more than make up for against skaven infantry. Another use for skrox is vs rat ogres. Swift reform to maximize shooting and advance up to within 12" and blast away. When the rat ogres charge, stand & shoot. This should result in 2-3 dead rat ogres and since the skrox cannot be stomped, you can finish off the remainder of the unit in CC. If you are really lucky, the shooting will kill the handlers and cause the unit to go stupid, allowing shooting to finish them off at no risk to your skrox at all.

 

[T`hinker`er]

In what formation exactly would you reform to get maximum shooting from a SKrox unit? Keeping in mind that you can only shoot with the front rank. And wouldn't this risk giving up steadfast, which is the best thing about a SKrox unit where the Krox cannot be hit back and do 3, 6, or 9 Str 6 attacks per turn?

 

[SanDiegoSurrealist]

In what formation exactly would you reform to get maximum shooting from a SKrox unit? Keeping in mind that you can only shoot with the front rank. And wouldn't this risk giving up steadfast, which is the best thing about a SKrox unit where the Krox cannot be hit back and do 3, 6, or 9 Str 6 attacks per turn?

You can shoot from the 2nd rank, depending how wide your formation is. 10 wide with 3 KROX is 14 Shots.

 

[Arli]

Can't you always shoot from the second rank?

I may have been playing that wrong. Not counting the Kroxigors. Any skinks in the second rank on the flanks of the Kroxigors should be able to shoot.

 

[Stonecutter]

I generally field 2 units of skrox with 2 krox & 16 skinks + FC. When maximizing shooting, the unit goes 10 skinks wide, allowing all 16 to shoot.