Ok, I’ve decided it’s time I finally contribute somewhat to the community.
Sombre, take it as my heartful thanks for this unbelievably good mod…and incentive to develop more!
You’ll find the mod here:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=34920
Two things:
- this is my first strategy guide and english is not my native tongue so feel free to criticize and correct…everything ;-)
- I mostly play with CBM and this guide was written under the assumption that you would also. If you play vanilla, most of this content should still be accurate with the one big exception that Skavenblight may be the best nation for a bloodstone industry (E1B1 non-cap mages)…with the added bonus of a lot of nice earth-based constructs and earth battlemages! I strongly suggest you tweak the strategies I laid toward this industry.
On with the guide…
A/ UNITS:
The skavens all share darkvision 50-100, poison resistance 35-85, stealth, mountain survival and siege 1!
Skavenslaves:(10g 5r) Chaff troops with terrible fighting stats and mapmove 1. They’ve got abysmal morale and WILL break if you dont spam sermon of courage or mix them with monks. 2 nice advantages : first, the graphic effect is brilliant and secondly, they get 3 lives which make them rather resilient chaff troops...if you can make them stay to show their worth that is
Clanrats:(7g 9r / 8g 14r) These are your basic infantry. They have the distinguished advantage of being your only troops with a shield so unless you plan a specific strategy you will need them to draw enemy fire.
Their stats are subpar to humans so don’t expect them to do much damage and never forget to boost their morale with a sermon of courage. I tend to prefer the spear wielders who can repel and thus survive longer, while being cheaper in resources. A mix of both works quite well.
Stormvermin:(11g 17r) A more expensive version of the clanrat armed with a glaive and better stats. The glaive is really good for repelling with a length 4 and dmg 10 but they only have an attack of 10 and no shield so don’t look at them as an elite shock troop. I mostly use them as bodyguards for mages in the rear.
Pestilens Plague Monks:(8g 3r) These are much better chaff units than the slaves. They’re cheaper, have 2 attacks (one of which causes disease) and can go berserk! That alone makes them invaluable among your low morale troops. Their poison resistance makes them good candidates to support your censer bearers but don’t believe they’re totally immune to poison, you’d be disappointed as they usually get 1or 2dmg/round from it. All in all they’re quite good for the price but lack of shield and armor imply that you put them behind your clanrats at first to avoid fire.
Pestilens Censer Bearers:(25g 6r) Now there you’ve got elite troops ! They’re fairly vulnerable with low armor and defence but make up for it by being sacreds and plunging in your enemy’s ranks like a WW2 bombing kamikaze. They’ve got the same diseasing bite as the monks, are berserk +3 and the plague censer alone would make them worth it. It’s a length 4 weapon which causes a poison cloud on strike! With high attack skill, they’re good repellers and their poison resistance helps them survive the cloud (same as the monks : expect them to die of it sooner or later unless you bless them with regeneration). Whether or not you plan on a bless strategy, you should recruit as many of them as you can in early game.
Eshin Night Runners:(9g 5r) These chaff units get low stats but are equipped with a net so they might have some utility for breaking cavalry charges on your flanks. I don’t find myself using them much.
Eshin Gutter Runners: (20g 7r) This could be an assassin leader in many nations! 2 poison blades, a poison shuriken (your only firing unit) and great speed make them perfect to target rearmost leaders. I usually have at least 5-10 of them on the flanks.
Council Guard: (20g 17r) Nice stats for a skaven but capital-only so you won’t make a strategy solely on them. I mostly use them as bodyguards to my leaders and among the bulk of my army to help on morale checks and deal more damage than your average skaven.
B/ COMMANDERS :
Skaven scout: (20g7r) a scout with the skaven racials.
Chieftain :(45g 17r) your basic leader who can lead 40 troops. It auto-spawns skavenslaves each month which isn’t really interesting. Go for a warlord if you need a leader.
Warlord : (90 32r) double the price of a chieftain but it’s worth it. It can lead 120 troops and has much better stats. Like the chieftain it can also auto-spawn troops though in this case you get a stormvermin each month. If you need a leader and can’t recruit a mage, don’t think, go for this one.
Moulder Packmaster : (50g 5r) can summon 3 giant rats per month which is not much as you’ve got a lvl1 national blood spell to summon 36 per cast! Also, this commander can only lead 10 troops so forget about recruiting one, ever.
Moulder Mutator: (130g 8r)(E1 B1) This is your only mage with a guaranteed blood pick and the only one able to cast most of your national blood spells. They can alternatively summon demon knights with empowerment/booster and lead up to 40 troops with standard 10. Quite good for the price. Interesting enough they seemed to catch way more blood slaves than a B1 mage should in my tests, though I've no idea why.
Pestilens Plague Chantor: (65g 5r) (H1 100%BD) Your main researcher if you took magic 1+ as he’s sacred and really really cheap! Those with blood picks shall be your main bloodhunters once equipped with a dowsing rod and the others deathsite searchers as well as researchers. You also only need a temple in a fort to recruit one.
Pestilens Plague Priest: (160g 9r) (H2 D1 50%D 50%B 20%BD) A really nice priest-mage commander with death&blood magic, the ablility to spam sermon of courage on your low-morale troops is a nice addon to your army. They can also lead 40 troops making them good all round commanders. Your only mage able to summon plague rats given the right picks, his only weakness is berzerk which is really bad (though thematic) for a support casting commander.
Eshin Assassin: (80g 4r) Equipped with two weeping blades and blessed with uber stats, this is a really nice assassin who can kill most commanders without further equipment. Able to instill uprising when there’s nothing to assassinate, they deserve their own fort to recruit one per turn imo.
Skyre Warlock: (110g 8r) (100%EF 80%EFD) Good mage all round that can be a battlemage or a F/E/D site searcher for 110g. The only problem is when you recruit one you don’t recruit a grey seer/warlock-engineer which are way better.
Skrye Warlock-Engineer: (230g 24r) (F1E1D1 85%EF 30%EDF) A good battlemage given the right picks, it’s also a really good forger as it have access to up to the best 3 forging paths with the added bonus of a 10% reduction! They can forge you a bunch of skull mentors/lightless lanterns to boost your research or all the dwarven hammer/firebrand/charcoal shield/etc...to equip your thugs in no time. Given easy access to F2/E2 they’re also your main site searchers when they’re not involved in battle or forging.
Grey Seer: (330g 1r) (H3 D2S2 110%DS) Aaaah grey seer! This cap-only mage is usually at the core of any strategy I tried and it would be criminal not to recruit one per turn from early year 2 and after. Not only do they have access to high astral and death, which may be the two mightiest paths, they are stealthy H3 preachers who can also blood sacrifice/instill uprising/prevent bad events and lead 80 troops!!!
C/ NATIONAL SPELLS/SUMMONS:
They’ve got a bunch of these and most are quite useful and/or powerful though they often have drawbacks. Use wisely the magic of the Horned Rat!
Vermintide (conjuration 4, D2H1): national version of raise skeletons except it's giant rats, which is worse for 50 fatigue (!). I usually skip this one and go for skelispam unless I face lots of priests.
Contact Verminlord (conjuration 8, D4S4, 40 Dgems): Tartarian-class SC. S3D3B3H3. Sacred. Fear+4.Standard 13. PR100. Demon. Stealth+10. Autocast Divine Blessing at start of battle. Teleport, soul vortex, blood vengeance...they're amazing! Your main SC chassis when you reach late-game and one that isn't insane or need GoR...at conj8 and readily summonable by your grey seers with little boosters.
Minor Warplightning (evocation 2, E1): typical skavenspell, launches 3 AN dmg 13+ lightning bolts with range 20 and -2 precision. Watch your back!
Pestilent Breath (evocation 2, D1H1): an AoE 4+ range 20 poisonous attack.
Warplightning (evocation 4, E1F1, 1 Egem): Same as evoc2 except it costs 1 gem and 100 fatigue for 12+ AN dmg 13+ lightning bolts and precision 0, range 25. More expensive but better than orb lightning and one lvl earlier!
Outfit Globadiers (construction 2, E1D1, 4 Egems): summons 6 globadiers which throw globes of poison cloud at range 14 with precision -3...with base precision of 7! With total precision of 4, expect them to land on your own troops as often as not.
Outfit warpfire throwers (construction 2, F1D1, 5 Fgems): summons 2 warpfire throwers who can shoot 2/turn a 10dmg fireball at range 10 with precision 6.
Mass globadier production (construction 4, E2D1, 16 Egems): same as earlier but summons 24 of them.
Outfit warplightning throwers (construction 4, E1F1, 7 Egems): same as the warfire thrower axcept they cast a small version of orb lightning. 7 AN dmg 4+ ligthning bolts at range 15 with precision 4.
Mass warpfire throwers production (construction 5, F2D1, 20 Fgems): same as earlier but summons 8 of them.
Mass warpligtning production (construction 6, E2F1, 28 Egems): same as earlier but summons 8 of them.
Construct Doomwheel (construction 7, E2F2, 10 Egems): The best skaven construct imo. You should equip the driver unless you wish to lose control. It can trample with size 5 after you'll have exhausted your 3 main weapons, all casting AN dmg 4+ lightning bolts with precision 5 and only one ammunition: the first one casts 8 bolts at range 32, the second one 16 bolts at range 16 and the last one 32 bolts at range 8. Agreed 4+ isn't much dmg but when it's AN and you cast 56 of them in 3 rounds, they make wrathful skies look like a kid plaything if you mass them! What's really great about the way Sombre made them is that if you don't give them a particular order they will cast at range 32, move, cast at range 16, move, cast at range 8 then trample anything that's left.
Construct Screaming Bell (construction 8, S3D2, 33 Sgems): That's a grey seer on a bell. Better stats but Move 1/5 and not stealthy (of course). S4D3H3. Sacred. fear+5. Standard 20. PR100. Darkvision 75. Fortune teller 25. autocast fanatism at start of battle.
Skitterleap (enchantment 2, D2S1): equivalent to the sandals of the crane it teleports some troops around the battlefield. AoE 1. Range 5.
Favour of Nurglitch (enchantment 3, D1H1, 1 Dgem): AoE 45 immunity to poison for 100 fatigue and 1 gem.
Death Frenzy (enchantment 4, D2H2, 1 Dgem): AoE 25 berzerk for 100 fatigue and 1 gem.
Breed rat swarm (blood 1, B1E1, 13 bs): summons 36 giant rats.
Moulder Pitbreeding (blood 2, B1E1, 10 bs): same as crossbreeding but lvl2 instead of 3
Breed pestilens plague rats (blood 3, B1D1, 13 bs): summons 10 giant rats with plague bite.
Breed rat ogres (blood 4, B1E1 ): summons 5 Rat ogres. HP 30, prot 6, 3 strength 17 attacks, berzerk.
Improved moulder pitbreeding (blood 6, B1E1, 20 bs): same as improved crossbreeding but lvl 6 intead of 7
Mix a thousand poxes (blood 7, B2D3, 77 bs): summons the cauldron of a thousand poxes mounted by a pontifex. D3B3H3, sacred, standard 12, PR100, darkvision 75,surrounded by a poison cloud and autocast Foul vapors at start of battle! Move 1/6.
D/ NATIONAL HEROES:
Ikit Claw (F3 A2 E3 S2 D2 N2, SR 100, PR 75, forge 20, siege 20, stealth, darkvision 75, reinvig 5)
Master of clan Skryre, this guy kicks the *** of a celestial master. His stats tell more than I can.
Thanquol (S4 D4 H3, sacred, PR50, stealth 20, darkvision 75, fortune teller 50, spy, autocast twist fate at start of battle, can summon Boneripper)
Boneripper: Thanquol’s rat ogre bodyguard. 45hp 3 attacks, regen 5hp, SR50, FR50, PR50, mindless, berserk+4, darkvision 100.
Snikch: Master of clan Eshin. A killing machine which autocast darkness (!!!) at the start of battle. 3 poison attacks with high attack & defense, darkvision 100, stealth 40, ethereal, siege 10, PR100, assassin and spy.
Queek: Champion of clan Mors. Warlord with better stats and equipment (prot 22, 2 nice attacks, standard 10)
Skrolk: Master of clan Pestilens. D3 B2 H3, 33hp size 3, sacred, PR100, berzerk+5, fear+2, blind, swamp survival, drain life attack, auto summons censer bearers each month, autocast flyswarm at start of battle.
Throt the Unclean: Master of clan Moulder. E2 B2. HP40 size3. Regenerates 8hp. Fear+0. Animal Awe +9. Standard 15. PR100. Mountain&swamp survival. stealth&siege. 3 attacks with nice stats. Autosummons One Moulder rat ogre each month.