Guide: Strategy guide for the Skaven mod by Sombre “Die manthings die!”

[Kheldron]

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.

[Kheldron]

E/ STRATEGIES:

One of the things that enthralled me in this mod, apart from being an old warhammer fan, is the number of strategies you can lay for this nation. I’ll try to describe one that I particularly liked but you might come up with as many as you wish, really.

STRATEGY 1: “Bend to the will of the Horned Rat, manthing!”

At first sight, those ratmen might not have impressed you much with their martial prowess. Well, let's say they might not at second sight either
Truth be told, they’ve got a lot to go for them in the middle and late game, what with powerful versatile mages, nice summons/constructs and a forge industry unequalled except maybe by MA Ulm.
Nonetheless.
Though they’ve got such nasty racials as stealth and siege which helps a lot in middle game and darkvision supported by high death magic (->darkness) which kicks asses in late game, their national troops are really subpar to many nations and most indies. There are not many ways, if any, to come out of a fight without casualties if you play this race. So accept it and go further.
All of this implies that you’ll have to focus hard on early expansion in your strategy if you want to reach that mighty late game.

Taking an awake SC pretender is an obvious choice and one that synergizes really well with other aspects of this nation.
Consider an awake Prince of Death with D5N4 or A4D5, dom 10 with Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Cold 3, Growth 2, Luck 3 and Magic 1.
N4 would give you access to nature,a regeneration bless for your sacred & personal regeneration while A4 gives you nice self buffs, storms & staff of storms, arrow fend, fog warriors etc…I prefer air but it’s really up to you.

Your PoD is an indie-killer right out of the box as dom10 will give you awe +2 which added with fear +15 (!) makes you immune to nearly anything at close range. Give him a shield and you can laugh in the face of hundreds of knights supported by crossbowmen. The only thing that can be a problem is huge armies of undead for obvious reasons.
But that’s not the most important thing about Dom10. In fact, if you listen too long to the whispers of the Horned Rat’s minions scurrying in your dark alleys, you may very well end up taking a bath in the sewers as if it were your mom’s womb

Indeed, if you want to try a domkill, this nation is for you above any other. They’ve got easy access to the 2 main weapons of the would-be domkiller: blood sacrifice with H3 priests, the same priests being stealthy to go and sap any resistance under your own enemy’s feet.
You wouldn’t believe how fast the use of these two Massive Conversion Weapons with Dom10 powder can turn the heads of your enemies. Equip a Grey Seer with a jade knife (empower any indie mage for it) and he’ll sacrifice 5 blood slaves a month for the equivalent of 11 (!) temple checks.
With little more than 9 plague chantors or moulder mutators equipped with dowsing rods, you should be able to sustain 9 grey seers bloodsacrificing like hell before the end of year 2. That’s the equivalent of a HUNDRED temple checks with dom 10 per turn when middle game has barely begun!!!

If bloodhunting is not easygoing for you, you should read Baalz guide here for more explanations: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=33753

You can also prepare the land before the tidal domwave by sending 1-3 grey seers preaching under your opponent’s capital or his most valuable plains (be sure to give them 2 astral pearls and script them to cast returning in case of patrols). To add pain to injury, they’ll be able to switch to instill uprising when needed, helped by your eshin assassins.

Finally, you’ll hear the cries of your enemies when they start to realize how the scales you took impact their economy: while turmoil 3 synergizes well with your luck 3 (welcome those uber national heroes and loads of magic gems to fuel your forge industry), you must realize that it becomes turmoil 3 misfortune 3 for your enemy.
As someone put it before me, your good luck is your opponent’s bad luck!
Your scales really are Turmoil 3 Sloth 3 Cold 3 Misfortune 3 for your enemy…watch him suffocate while he soaks it up and laugh ;-)
By the way, depending on your opponents you could take Heat 3 instead of Cold 3 (which is nice for your banelords chill and against coldblooded nations but otherwise…)

As an old RPGer, I rejoice in imagining hundreds of sneaky assassins and preachers scurrying at night in my opponents’ towns, using magic or talent to delude the unwary into believing in a god they can’t fathom.
It’s like during the Vietnam War when the USA were losing their war at home while the troops were fighting far away. No, it’s a hundred times worse. In fact, it’s as if the American people had asked to *become* Vietnamese while the troops were fighting!!!

GUERRILLA

Now, as you surely have noticed, all of this becomes possible IF you can fend off those troops from your own lands long enough. Like the Vietnamese, you haven’t got the means to fight on the same terms, at least in early-mid game. Like them, you will have to resort to some kind of guerilla if you want to survive while your dominion makes the kill.

Luckily for you, the skavens have got a whole arsenal to go for it.

First, you have among your commanders those sneaky bastards called eshin assassins. With or without equipment they can wreak havoc in the commanding line of your opponent’s army or instill uprising to prevent cheap reinforcements. They rightfully deserve a fort of their own to recruit one per month. Against battlemages try equipping one with a lifelong protection and a black bow of botulf.

Secondly, your skavens are all stealthy little murderers remember? You will soon be able to make at least a squad per turn which will be able to sneak behind your opponent’s lines and attack his PD, causing unrest and never stopping to wait for retaliation. Or, you could very well wait for that retaliation with a nasty surprise of your own, like teleporting some grey seers with skellispam or shadowblasts to support your troops or even gating a grey seer with a full army in darkness in late game.
This also solves the mind hunt problem as once your opponent will have got some of his most valuable astral mages feebleminded he might not be so liberal with this tool afterwards.
An added bonus of teleporting/gating a grey seer is that you may build a temple the very turn you gate him in and start blood-sacrificing in the middle of your opponent’s dominion for further mischief.

One good thing about a huge domwave is that your enemies will sooner or later have to build costly temples instead of troops to try to fend it off and priests instead of mages which further disrupt their strategy/economy and lessen the threat to your own territory. Another interesting thing is the “Eyes of god” effect of having your dominion so widespread since you learn a lot from those provinces you converted: information is key as always.

Additionally, the use of a flying SC pretender is not only perfect for early expansion, it also gives you a prime guerilla tool, especially after you’ll have him equipped. The fear effect is also perfect to disrupt your opponent’s plans as his fleeing armies scatter on the landscape, where stealthy troops await to slit their throats.

Finally, your versatile site searchers and lucky scales should have filled your treasury by midgame with loads of gems your skryre blacksmiths should take advantage of. Bane lords in middle game then Verminlords in late game should provide you with ample means to protect your lands and retaliate.

In late game anyway, dompush becomes but one of your weapons as SCs and strong magic win the day...and you've got plenty of it. Access to good SC chassis (Verminlord & Elemental Royalties ), a forge industry and now strong Astral, Death, Earth, Fire & Blood...what else would you need?

EARLY EXPANSION

Turn 1: Make a prophet of your leader, send your scout and set you pretender on research Conjuration. Recruit a Moulder mutator and 6 plague censer bearers.

Turn 2: Alchemize 2 astral pearls to make a BS tower shield for your pretender with the mutator. If you picked air as secondary path you could go with air shield but your pretender will really be tougher with the tower shield. Join your troops in one block to help for morale issues, your plague bearers on the flanks and go take that easy adjacent province which gives you the most resources. Don’t forget to ctrl-click as your armies are stealthy, I can’t help but forget that once in a while and curse myself the turn after. Recruit a plague chantor and plague censer bearers/monks.

Turn 3: Equip your pretender with the shield and send him to take the toughest adjacent province, anything but undeads. Send your prophet on the easiest one or undeads. If possible, recruit a leader on your first province taken to bring reinforcements to your prophet on the next turns.

Afterwards: Research conjuration 2 then switch to thaumaturgy 2 for the site searchers then rank up the construction ladder. As soon as you get conjuration 2 set your D1 plague chantors on casting dark knowledge. If you get some death gems events and/or find quickly some death sites, start asap to summon some shades to help your expansion armies. Ethereal, stealthy and poison resistant they go quite well with your censer bearers.

You should bring reinforcements to your first expansion army then start to build the second one: clanrats with monks in the front middle, plague bearers and gutter runners on the flanks should take care of most indies. Take a plague priest to spam sermon of courage and the occasional banishment. For the toughest indies, use your pretender and fly to strategic points to secure your territory while your armies catch up.
Don’t ever hesitate to sign any NAP to help you live to the middle/late game. Would it surprise you if I told you that having a flying SC pretender goes a long way to convince your neighbors of signing NAPs in early game?
But look again, what’s really treacherous about the skavens and this domkill strategy is that you may very well kill your enemy without ever officially breaking that NAP!
Oh, deceitful children of the Horned Rat how much I love you

You should target a forest to build your first fort (800gp) around turn 6-8 depending on your luck with gold events. Turmoil/luck 3 is really most powerful in early game as the events you get are often better than having order 3. It’s much less the case in late game when you can only get so much events (4-5 max) while you can have so many provinces where order 3 kicks ***. That’s one of the reasons I took growth 2 to compensate somewhat if the game lasts.

Recruit at least 2 warlocks to site search and lots of plague chantors on your secondary forts. The B1 chantors should start bloodhunting when you begin researching construction. At the same time, start recruiting your grey seers and send some to stealth preach under your main opponent’s capital while you save the rest for bloodsacrifice.
By the way, you should think carefully to where and when to build those necessary temples you plan to paint in red. Blood red.
One trick is to build them on the very provinces you plan to bloodhunt as your grey seer will then have his monthly supply of slaves without need of a costly lab or too much micromanagement. Additionally, a grey seer is a great support to your PD in case of a raid which will occur sooner or later. If you can do that close to your border with that annoying opponent the better. If you've got a forest province with around 5000 pop bordering your enemy, don't think, build a fort and bloodsacrifice like hell behind the protection of your walls.

The construction path will open up all that you need to further your goals. Start forging dwarven hammers at const 2, then dowsing rods and skull mentors at 4. As soon as you get the dowsing rods you should be bloodhunting 2-3 provinces to sustain your blood sacrifices.
With warlocks&dwarven hammers, the skulls will only cost you 6 gems apiece which should speed up your research till construction 6 where you’ll get those 3 gems lightless lanterns! Now you’ve got an underground MIT lab of your own to rank up any path you wish at lightspeed.
Construction will also give you access to those nice national constructs. I have a particular liking for the doomwheel (this is wrathful skies made wheel!) but they all get their uses depending on your foes.

The paths you select afterwards really depend on your opponents but conjuration and alteration should be priorities imo.
Conjuration will give you bane lords and verminlords that you’ll equip with your unequalled forge industry.

Alteration will give you arouse hunger and blight for guerrilla, then darkness at lvl 6 which should be cast with your grey seers in every major fight. And I mean it. You’ve also got fog warriors at lvl7 castable by your pretender, then of course army of gold at lvl 9. A skaven army of gold supported by your warlocks&grey seers, lead by a fully equipped verminlord in darkness is all you need really.

Evocation can be nasty with all your fire, earth, death & astral mages. You've got several deadly national spells like warp lightning, particularly if you face heavy protected foes in the early game. Don't forget nether darts, especially if you grab some astral indies to communion. You also get Mind hunt at lvl6 if you also research
Thaumaturgy for soul slay.

Enchantment gives you skellispam then undead hordes and even thunderward, castable by your pretender which goes really well with your friendly firing doomwheels. You’ve also got arrow fend a bit further up the ladder.

Thaumaturgy gives you teleport and gateway to travel your grey seers around as well as a lot of nasty death spells and soul slay to mind hunt.

Blood doesn’t feel as useful in this strategy as you will have use of your blood slaves for blood sacrifice so I wouldn’t go for this path until you’ve ranked up all the others.

Enjoy!

[Kheldron]

STRATEGY 2 : “Breeding the swarms of the Horned Rat”

This second strategy is still a lot RPG-oriented as it makes use of the fast-breeding nature of the ratmen.
They’ve got several things going for them in that they have some early national spells to summon swarms of giant rats.

Take an awake rainbow Great Sage

Turn 1: Research blood 1 with you pretender, make a prophet and send your scout. Recruit a moulder mutator and 6 plague censer bearers.

Turn 2-4: Finish blood 1 then go for enchantment 3. Send your prophet to take some provinces while you recruit 3 more moulder mutators, 6 plague censer bearers a turn then clanrats with spears and gutter runners. Recruit an indy leader to bring reinforcements to your prophet. On turn 4 send your 3 moulder mutator to the nearest province of around 5000 pop.

Turn 5-6: Start bloodhunting with your 3 mutators and set taxes to 0 there. Recruit a leader to bring back the slaves on turn 6. Recruit a grey seer, a plague chantor and same troops as before.

Turn 7-9: cast breed rat swarm with your mutator. Finish enchantment 3 to get raise skeleton. Recruit a plague priest. Script your Grey seer with divine blessing then skelispam while your plague priest spam sermon of courage. Put your clanrats and giant rats in the middle and your seer and priest not far behind. Plague censer bearers on the flanks with gutter runners.

Afterwards : You should breed rat swarms on a monthly basis and send them with indie commanders to reinforce your expansion armies. Get to blood 4, empower some moulder mutators and start to summon the cavalry of the 7th circle : hordes of demon knights are as fearsome and effective as they seem.
Afterwards you should go for construction and start your MIT lab all over again.


STRATEGY 3: “Rise of Clan Pestilens”

Don't you think those sacred plague censer bearers deserve a bless strategy of their own? Yes they do.
Think Mictlan. This blood nation with high magic diversity and jaguar warriors has a lot in common with skavenblight. Most of what you'll read on Mictlan can be efficiently used here.

Plague bearers are quite cheap recruitable-anywhere sacreds with high destruction potential. Unfortunately, they are skavenish from head to toe : most of the time they'll kill themselves as much as your enemies!

I like to take an imprisoned A9S9N4 oracle with Ord3 Slt3 Col2 Mis2 Mag1.
You should note this triple bless is an all-defensive one, on purpose.
To the contrary of jaguar warriors, they really don't need anything more to kill things like a F9 bless. They hit quite well, especially when they go berzerk, and their poison cloud is on strike so they can fight even high defense cavalry. Besides, a F9 would be quite unthematic as flaming weapons override the poison cloud...

On the other side, they die 3 times faster than your average jaguar warior : they've got abysmal protection and defense (especially with berzerk), no second life, and they even poison themselves, hence the bless.

A9 is really good as it gives you that early air shield and later on synergizes really well with your friendly-firing lightning-artillery, especially the doomwheels. Warp lightning in the evocation tree becomes a lot more attractive and deadly...and it already was.

S9 gives you the needed twist fate, MR+3 for your demonic verminlords in late game and helps you cast the biggest astral spells in late game. Interesting enough their poison cloud can trigger berzerk without wasting twist fate.

Finally N4 is vital to offset the poison cloud as even with PR85 they take 1-2 dmg a turn. The lessened chance of afflictions is a bonus.



Well, this guide is already longer than I thought possible at start.
Thanks again Sombre and please please don't stop the good work :-)

[Ferrosol]

Good guide. *shamelessly points to his own Skaven Guide* for further if somewhat different tips. Generally don't overlook the Skavenslaves their multiple forms give them the same sort of staying power of a mictlan jaguar warrior or van skinshifter. Sure damage wise they suck and they really need a Sermon of courage spammer to keep them on the battlefield but as chaff they are fantastic. Also you can always mix a few council guards or even plague monks in to stiffen their morale.

Personally I like a S9 D? N4 bless myself for the censer bearers. The S9 ensures they survive long enough to get to the enemy while the N4 reduces the amount of afflictions they rack up while the affliction chance from the D bless applies to the poison clouds so anything you don't kill is going to be crippled.

Also for research I would suggest at least initially that you focus most on Cons research to get your excellent lightning throwers and poison slingers. After that you can either go for the various site searchers (Conj1 evo2 Thaum2 etc) or go for your higher level stuff in Cons.

Edit.. Actually don't check out my guide its old and out of date. I should probably post the updated version that's been sitting on my hard drive for a few months.

[Kheldron]

Well, I was rather unimpressed by the skavenslaves even with their different shapes but I promise to test again with some plague monks inbetween. That definetly sounds like a good idea

Regarding the bless I had the same idea as you of testing a D bless since AoE dmg benefits a lot from it but even with N6 they crippled themselves more often than I could bear. The nice thing about the air+astral bless is that you'll still have your twist fate ready for close fighting, even after several rounds of incoming fire. I admit it costs a lot of points.

As you noticed, construction is my first deep path of research but it won't do me any good if I can't fuel it with those necessary gems imho. I must confess I didn't even try without a nice gem supply as once I start forging dwarven hammers, my forge industry becomes rather intensive.

Thanks for the comments and looking forward to see your guide updated

[rdonj]

Yeah, the skavenslaves, whilst absolutely terrible fighters, do offer a few advantages. With their multiple shapes, they're extremely resilient against things like fireballs or thunderstrikes, and they can even be used to soak up missile fire. Being size 3 is advantageous for this as it reduces the overall number of hits you have to take, and reduces the options an opposing player has for scripting missile units. And if they can just survive for a couple of rounds of melee with high encumbrance enemy elites, your regular troops can walk in and kill them much more easily than they'd otherwise be able to.

Plus, if you consider that a lot of the best skaven magic/weapons are highly inaccurate... what better to get blown up than some slaves you expected to die anyway! Of course, rats can fill this role as well. They're just not quite as perfect for the job.


Thanks for the guide

[Sombre]

I'm bumping this because I can and because it would be nice to know how many people have given skaven a go. It's still probably my best modding effort and I just like to hear than people enjoyed it.

I have made updating it my next dom3 objective. Nothing major, just some tweaks to balance really. Happy to hear suggestions!

[chrispedersen]

I love it Sombre.. I just think its too strong for MP play.

[Sombre]

How's that?

A few people have been telling me it's too weak.

[chrispedersen]

Hmm.. It was argadis that was too strong. Skaven: It requires a fair amount of sophistication in the placement of your units. So its easy to play them wrong.

Here's a few comments:

I think the strengths of the slaves (most of the units) are 1 pt too strong.

Pro: Interesting options. The pretender I prefer is a S9W9N4 oracle. Other options are an B9 N4 X9 Fob.

It would be better if there were a thematic pretender with a high dominion. I'd like to see something like a Death/Blood/Nature pretender chassis - to encourage afflictions.

I'd love a similar chassis with Air - although unthematic it would be a fun option.

The national sneak ability is fun as hell. Summons are good. Too bad you can't rename fort types. Warrens would be cool.

Perhaps you could make a warren special site. Summons skaven slaves, spreads disease?
Somehow rats should have sailing or amphib.