Skaven Tactics

Run up as fast as you can,shielding your lord as you go and chop them to bits

Starting a New Skaven Warband
When starting a new Skaven warband, take the maximum number of heroes (that's 5 heroes + 1 leader). This is important because you need heroes to search for loot at the end of every Campaign game. Give your heroes armour but don't worry about your henchman. For the price armour cost it is not worth it to give armour to your henchman. Better to just give them swords and try parrying. Always give your hero two weapons if possible. You may want to give a flail to a Black Skaven but in most case give every one two one handed weapons. Daggers are free for the first one and they don't have to be represented on the model. Do not buy a Rat Ogre when you are first starting you warband. They are too expensive and you want numbers. See Campaign tactics below for more. Scenario Tactics Fight with pack mentality. Never send one of your guys to fight one on one with one of their guys if you can help it. Always swarm his guys with two or three or more on one. Use your henchmen as fodder. Always put your henchmen in the front and make sure that they get in to battle first followed by you heroes. You want as many of you heroes not "out of action" so you can search for loot. If you have giant rats use them as the fodder because they are cheap and easy to replace. Night Runners should never get in to battle unless necessary. Give them a sling and keep them in the rear. When they've got more experience and are better fighters then you can move them in to the battle. When fighting against a warband with missile weapons use cover to the fullest. Your in a city so you should be able to sneak through and around buildings to avoid his missile fire. Also, go straight for his missile fire guys and try to take them out. Usually they are weak and if your opponent is smart he'll move in with fighters to block you. Once in H-to-H combat, your opponent will not be able to shot at any more. When fighting Possessed or Undead go straight for and swarm his big guy(s). Remember don't go one on one. Unfortunately these are the two warbands that give Skaven the most trouble because skaven have no or little missile fire (but use your slings and throwing stars if you have them) and low leadership will mean fear test will be failed often. But, we should have numbers on our side and we should have lots of attacks and initiative.
Campaign Tactics

Keep your numbers up. Hire new hero to replace any dead ones. Hopefully you won't have to do that too often because you are using you henchman to block. Hire lots of henchman. Your maximum is 20 so use it. Only hire a few giant rats. They are good for missile fodder but die fast and if you have too many you will find yourself taking a route test too early in the game. Hire the amount you would need to loose to route minus 2 in giant rats. Hire a Rat Ogre after you have more than 15 in your warband preferably after you have 19. Buy lucky charms (maybe paint your skaven green and call them leprechauns). They will save you the first hit in the game so if you're charged they will save you and then next turn you'll have initiative (probably) and you can get him first. Get the Sprint and Infiltrate skills first. This will help you to take advantage of your speed and take away his advantage of position on the table and missile fire.

submitted by Ghada sief

I disagree with most people. Armor is crap. Armor is not worth anything. It costs a skaven player 20 points for light armor. Light armor only gives you a 1 in 6 chance of blocking it, and 1/2 the time they have a str. of 4 or higher anyway! For 20 points you can buy another verminkin. My initial army was 13 strong and well-armed. I took all 6 characters, 4 verminkin armed with swords and daggers, and 3 armed with slings and daggers. Later you can get better equipment but forget all about that light armor. If you are paranoid about losing your general you can buy him heavy armor, which might actually make a difference...

Submitted by Dan J Kesterson

DONT take many heroes. take a leader armed with warplock pistols if you can get them or a sling otherwise, give him swords and mabie some armour and leave it at that for a start. then get a rat ogre, these monsters are great for the start of a league or campain cause theyre the hardest things at the start. then get verminkin armed with shields, slings and clubs. if you have enough points try some nightrunners as these guys get a lot of experience. the basic aim of this is to sling your enemies to death before combat and finish em off with the rat oger your leader and a mob of verminkin. Simple

Submitted by John Swiers

Well, that's simple: slings, everyone! When enemies get within 9" (they usually cannot charge at that distance since most humans have M4, not 5 like us rats!) they get a lot of stones in da head and that hurts! I got 11 members in my party, so this means 22 shots in one turn. If someone stands up after that, well let him charge... or charge him yourself!

Submitted by Andrea

Well, being skaven is quite simple. Buy alot of guys and sling them to death. I have 21 rats in my warband (cook book). When those undead or even dwarfs come at me they shall feel the wraith of first 21 shots, then a 42!!! If they survive that i have vermikin with spears ready to get thier attacks worth. Vermikin with a WS of 4 and a BS of 4 are incredible. Also Get tail fight and veskit.With 42 shots of slings and over 50 attacks in close combat, i keep my friends in check.

Submitted by GangstaDuc

To start with buy all heros, they are good for exploration after every battle. The more money you have the more men you can replace, as if you needed to. It's pretty simple to beat those humies into submission if they are long rangers. Pack your men up into two or three different squads of 3 to 4 a piece. Be sure to put a hero with those henchmen to be the heavy hitter. The henchmen in a fight are usually just good for those extra attack dice. Run your men at his long rangers. Their faster movement usually can get you around those arrows, and if you lose a henchman or two you still have enough to finish him off. I like to put a night runner with a sling on a high building just to draw the arrows, with him over half range away and behind cover it's usually hard for marksmen to hit. The best tactical advice i can give on the subject of weapons is to just buy what you will and may. A flail is good to knock out the bigger men, and the fighting claws are just to kewl to pass up. Personalize your rats and let your heros skills and advancements dictate your overall tactics. You can have quality and quantity with the skaven if you keep your heros up after every battle for exploration.

Submitted by QuiIsIvr

The MOST important thing a Skaven warband possesses is speed. You absolutely MUST use this to it's full extent. This means getting as many into H-t-H as possible. A lot of people use slings as their main defence when playing Skaven (like my main opponent) but this is not the strong point of the Skaven warband. EVERY model I have has some speed/attack advantage. Remember, If you find yourself in a fair fight, you have not planned it right!! Always give your models spears (strike first) or two weapons (bonus attack). Another VERY good thing a Skaven warband has is Night Runners. They get an exp. if they just SURVIVE the game, and since they only need two exp. (!!) to get their first four (!!) advance rolls, they will get these often, and usually become just as usefull as your leader. So even if you just leave them at the VERY back of the table and give them NO equipment, let them have NO contact with the enemy, after two games they each get an advance roll!! And they only cost 20 gc, that is the cost of light armour!! Well in closing I must say that, when playing a Skaven warband, ALWAYS get your troops into H-t-H as fast as possible, because this is where they do best.

Submitted by Silence

Look people, Armour is not worth it unless you buy gromil which in taht case you have a shit load of money just sitting around, what I found that worked out for me is to buy your Gen, Wizard, 2 black skaven. the reszt is up to you, the night runners are shit if you look at their stats and campare them to the black skaven you notice that you will need to lvl them up 5 times to match their stats and they cant use fighting claws! fighting claws are a must. even though the black skaven are twice the cost of a night runner, the black skaven only have 8 experience which only would lvl up a night runner 4 times. which is more worth their money??? and rat ogres, rat ogres are good because they are the skavens only fear causing creature, but he is size large, and does not gain experience... personally i do not like the rat ogres but i take them anyway cause i love the model. For me i bought a general, 2 black skaven and gave them all fighting claws, this gives you a huge advantage over your enemys you can now climb over any wall and you can an additional attack with a parry and a re-roll failed parry. i then get an eshin sorcerer and give him a hammer an dagger. Hammers are a must, they stun an enemy on a 2-4 an when the enemy is stunned yer next attack automatically kills them, for 3 points that is a rather deadly weapon. your total gold amount is at 273, you have 227 gold left for units. i tend to stray from slings and warp lock pistols, missle fire is the cowards why to kill, no hand to hand is no fun. what kind of fun if to just stand their and to shoto at yer enemy? not fun at all, and i have a undead warband that could deafeat and missle dependent army in no time at all, its not to hard. Now you should get around 10 verminkin and give them two hammers if possible and then with your remaining points either buy more verminkin or giant rats or save it for what ever equipment you wish for in the future. This is the way i would play skaven, it may not be you tactic but i found it to work plenty of times for me, leading the horned one to many victorious battles.

Submitted by

Yes well, now to take on the Marienburgers (in response to Sephiroth's most recent tactics sent in to this site under Marienburgers). First of all, when trying to (or rather doing, cause the chance of those preppies winning a game is about 1,000,000,000,000 to 1!) beat a Marienburg warband, especially if they are armed to the teeth with missile weapons, you want to use cover as much as possible!! And if you know this is who you will be fighting, buy 2-3 giant rats and let them take the lead. Because they are the closest model to shoot at, all of those missile weapons will be wasted blasting the crap out of a bunch of cheap rats! Then, DESTROY as much of their heros in H-t-H as possible. In true Skaven fashion, I would double up your warriors when entering the fray, at least 2 to 1. This will make all of those expensive black-powder weapons and long bows useless and keep all of the enemies models armed with them out of the fray, so if the enemy has 15 models and so do you, but 5 of his are marksmen, you have 15 models in combat, and he then only has 10 models that are of any threat. Just wait to see the look on his face when his Merc. Captain gets gutted from behind and all he can do is shoot with 5, 35gc a piece, pistols at a giant rat!! He will then be helpless. Enough of my vengefull rambling... Remember, Strike fast, and always from behind......

Submitted by Silence

Send me in some of your tactics!

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