You suck and this is why. Part I

In light of my shiny new picture, casting it's glorious radiance all over the rest of my blog, I decided I needed an article called this. All props go to DaveHowitzer

of Crew Shaken Not Stirred (they're in my blogroll, check it out because we need more Scotland in the blogosphere). And now I owe him megaplugz. So... I'll do it at the end of this article.

The matter at hand is why you suck. Simple WHFB beginner mistakes, some of you vets might even make these, it's a new edition after all and everybody has to learn. So here's some of the common errors I see in WHFB. I should say, this article is tailored to new gamers, because from the feedback I've gotten about this blog a lot of competitive 40k players seem to be jumping on this and waiting expectantly for me to teach them competitive WHFB. Whatever. So I decided it's much easier to do a "What not to do" than a "What to do" article, so here goes.

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2000 Point MSU Skaven Army. Shooty this time.

So as the counterpart to the close combat army, I decided to do the shooting army article quite quickly. This list has good essentials, but there's a few things I'd like to squeeze in, which is where you guys come in. Basically my main gripes are no poison on the gutter runners, and no storm banner (for anti flyer/when it'd be just plain advantageous). So, on to the list...

Right, I'll start with the list first this time;
IGNORE ALL MENTION OF DOOMWHEELS AND NO POISON. THE LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED

MK I.I

Lord
Grey Seer
Power Scroll
275

This guy is a level 4 wizard, so he's pretty much auto-include. I wouldn't mind my verminlord, but I don't want him without the storm banner. Power Scroll is good Warhams.

Heroes
Warlock Engineer
Doomrocket
45

Warlock Engineer
15

Warlock Engineer
15

These guys are here just to piss people off. Angle them awkwardly in front of a unit, with a doomwheel not far behind them. They can't move forward cause of the engineer, if they charge him they can reform to face the doomwheel and get charged. If they overrun they can get flank charged by the doomwheel. Either way I'm good. Add more units to the recipe for greater fun (and this list has no shortage of units). Basically, these guys are good. I'd prolly put them in units and only bring them out of the units when it's necessary, to avoid unnecessary panic. And suddenly Doomrocket.

Chieftan
BSB
70

He helps with panic, and is a +1 for blood and glory (putting me at fortitude 6).

Core
10 Stormvermin
Standard
Poisoned Wind Mortar
145

10 Stormvermin
Standard
Poisoned Wind Mortar
145

10 Stormvermin
Standard
Warpfire Thrower
150

+3 for Blood and Glory, units that might actually kill something, especially on the flank (which is why I have so many disposable throw away units. Well, one of the reasons). They also give me 3 weapon teams, and 6 different "units" running around. Pretty good in my opinion.

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

Irritating chaff and redirection. As well as being able to kill things (if people overrun in to their range, and it does happen, they're eating 40 shots hitting on 6s) when the enemy's battle line starts to dissolve. However, I might drop a unit for 2 units of 6 giant rats, I'm unsure.

Special
5 Poisoned Wind Globadiers
Poisoned Wind Mortar
115

Another redirection unit, but this one can actually kill stuff. Go figure, right? Mostly here for the redirection and cheap mortar, but PWGs can -seriously- actually kill stuff. And they're not bad at taking out war machines. Seriously.

5 Gutter Runners
Slings
Poison
90

5 Gutter Runners
Slings
Poison
90

5 Gutter Runners
Slings
Poison
90

Warmachine hunters, fast cavalry killers (striking first with WS4 and 2A each, shoopidy woopidy, also slinging them to death works) and another redirection unit. I have a feeling anyone playing against this army will be going nowhere quickly. In the MKI.I I took poison.

3 Jezzails
60

3 Jezzails
60

3 Jezzails
60

They shoot big stuff. Really that's about it for these guys. I reason most folk wont want to waste fire on "only" 3 Jezzails. And thanks to their long range I can put them far back enough, and space them so that even if they're destroyed with shooting, no one will be able to hear them scream.

Rare
Warp Lightning Cannon
90

Warp Lightning Cannon
90

My golden boys of 8E. These things just DESTROY STUFF. Seriously, last game, my 2 took out a manticore (ok the stormvermin did all wounds but one, but shoosh), did about 8 wounds to hydras, one shotted a chariot, as well as killing other random infantry that so happened to be hit by the blast. Good times.
Plagueclaw Catapult
100

Plagueclaw Catapult
100

I'm trying these out at the moment.

So there we have it. This list basically shoots and magics the enemy army, as they're forced to sullenly trudge across the board at a snails pace, through an army of redirectors and chaff units. No single unit is worth more than 150 pts, if you exclude the grey seer. So killing off units is supposed to feel a bit like pissing in the wind. At least, that's the plan.

I'm unsure of running without an anvil, but Chumby urges me to try it, so try it I shall. What I'm going to do is if I find myself lacking punch, I'm going to reduce the number of units in the list and increase the hitting power. But I'll need to test it to see that.

So there we have it. 2000pts of MSU avoidance and shooting. This looks fucking fun to play against. Admittedly an irresistable casket of souls could ruin my entire army in one fel swoop. But what can you do.

I hope you enjoyed the article.
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Premeasuring. The good. The bad. The Snuggly.

Ok now unless you live under a rock, outside earth's atmosphere, in a cave, or in Kilmarnock (I kid, I kid) then you'll know that premeasuring is now totally 100% legal in 8th edition. And I'm here tonight to talk you through the good, the bad, and the snuggly.


So, premeasuring, lets go through this in order.

The Good:

Ok, the first and most obvious improvement it has on your game, and in most players minds is the shooting phase. So lets start there. First off premeasuring is amazing, as it ensures a shot is never wasted. If you move up to find you're out of range of EVERYTHING, well you could have calculated that in the movement phase, so why didn't you move, or, if you would have still been out of range, march? No excuses now. In addition, now War Machines don't have to guess (what'd the point be if you can premeasure). If you are an army that has warmachines, this is very very good. If you aren't, then pray. But seriously, it always seemed unfair to me, I knew a guy who was blind in one eye and had awful depth perception, so couldn't use guess range weapons at all (he also had to magnetise all his models). So it always peeved me off, that once you get good and experienced you almost never guess wrong anyway. Anyway, +1 for no more guessing! This makes mortars and stone throwers very good, as they suffered the most from bad guesswork.

In addition, it makes target priority easier. You know exactly when things will be hitting your lines. This is a good thing in my opinion. However, random charges do occasionally break games (dwarfs charging 15" and suchlike). But most of the time, it's a good'un.

Tying in to that it means you can better decide whether or not to charge. Yeah this is offset by random charges and suchlike, but it definitely helps, especially if you know the averages on dice. I usually go for charges if it's 6"+M away. Of course, in make or break moments, I've gone for charges M+>=10" away. It depends on the moment. But premeasuring helps with this too.

Another thing is it makes working out aura's and such much easier. For example, the BSB aura, the aura of your engine of the gods etc. You can make sure everything is within 12". It's a minor advantage, but it always sucked when you mismoved by half an inch and your unit ended up out of range.

Finally, and this has only helped once with me in 8E, but some of you 40k'ers out there might know the idea behind castling against drop pods, where you give them just too little space to land in your castle. Well it's a tactic I use a lot against flyers, to stop them soaring over my lines and charging my general. Basically I put a tarpit/redirector about 35mm in front of the unit i'm protecting. Means they can't charge, which is good.

The Bad:

It takes away the ability of seasoned players, or people who're just good at
guessing ranges to totally outplay (and I use play loosely) someone with an
inferior knack, smaller amount of experience, or reduced depth perception. In my opinion it can get really stupid among younger and less experienced players, because I do not approve of seal clubbing. Honestly, that's about all you lose from being able to premeasure. It hasn't changed very much for the worse. I want to clarify, I was amazing at guess ranges, so I wasn't one of those guys that got clubbed. I suppose it sucks if you play an army that didn't use guess range weapons. But I play skaven, so ha!

Seriously guys, I can't think about anything that's "bad" about premeasuring. As long as both parties can premeasure, it's fine. I don't get why so many people bitch and moan about it.

The Snuggly:

It stops a lot of arguments and debates dead. The ability to premeasure has done a lot for that situation in my area. No more "Aw I thought I was in but i'm out by half an inch, i wouldn't have redirected to them otherwise, can I take it back please?". Now there's no reason to not know, you had ample oppertunity to premeasure. Admittedly random charges again rears its ugly head to stamp all over the dreams of the innocent, and it often means you're out by hairs breadth's. But this stops a LOT of bickering in the shooting/magic phase. And because you can premeasure prior to magic/shooting I'm totally merciless when it comes to "can I just have it?".

This makes me feel snuggly, less arguing is good for our souls.

Hope you guys enjoyed the article!
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I hate...

Something about 8th edition. This is something I'm going to do at the prompting of someone I have to say I admire (shameless flattery). Not homo. But seriously, if you somehow find your way here without knowing this guy then... The mind boggles. But here's his blog. http://dethtron.blogspot.com/ so go check it out.



Why do I bring this man up? Because this post is about hate. Not that dethtron hates everything, but he does have an air of disdain for a lot of the forum-centric warhammer world, and besides, this was his idea (indirectly).

Something I'm going to do for you folks is every sunday I'm going to do an article on something somebody hates about 8th edition, and how we (or they) can deal with it. It could be anything, from how luck-sack the game can be to how Teclis should just shrivel up (more) and die. So I'll pick whatever I want from the comments, and write an article about it. Like I say, anything. I will pick and choose, so if you want your idea to be chosen, make it something I could actually write an article about! If you have a specific hate however, I might just make it more general. For example, "Oh man I hate how bad Greatswords are for their cost!". I would probably write an article on overpriced troops/units or somesuch.

Anyway, hope you guys come up with some good ideas, if you don't, I'm going to do one anyway. And remeber to check out Dethtron's site (the article itself and joke at the end of the article are both inspired by him, hence the plugging).

Archnomad.

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As promised, the (MSU) Skaven Combat Army.

Well I mentioned it in the comments at least. Now this will be a living thread (as will the (MSU) shooting army thread. When it gets made. Now the reason I bracketed MSU is because that's very much subject to change. MSU is something I haven't really looked in to playtesting extensively. The reason I'm starting with this thread is because I think it's going to be much much harder to perfect properly, so want to get a good head start.

WARNING: This article is kind of long. I give an overview of most skaven units, some list synergy, as well as go on a rant about the Verminlord. However I think it'll let you get inside how I think my army's through, so go ahead and read it, have fun. :3

Right, let me start by saying the premise. The idea of this list is to run a skaven army that doesn't let the enemy do very much to my 3 big hitters, while allowing those 3 big hitters to run riot all over the enemy's lovely models.

Want to get something out the way first....

(Skip this if you do not care a bit about Vermin Lords, and making "bad" units "good")
____________________________________________________________

But Will, you're taking a Vermin Lord. Do you enjoy losing? Well, I retort. Think about this. A WoC Daemon Prince who is a level 4 wizard with a D3 wounds item (I'd call that item around 30pts) is close to the cost of a Verminlord. But then you have to consider the army the Verminlord is in, in addition the fact a Verminlord has better stats than the Daemon Prince. Admittedly, a Daemon Prince doesn't afraid of anything, and is stubborn. But it's skaven. I mean, not even a Hellpit is ITP. Which is why I feel, even in this MSU army the BSB is so damn important. And BSB with Hellpit = funsauce (on the offchance you roll something stupid like feed, then a one for thunderstomp). But back off tangent, the Verminlord is something that has synergy with this list, and creates a mess of most opponent's target priority. Admittedly he's fragile, which is why I believe the Stormbanner is necessary too.

____________________________________________________________

Anyway, the rest of the army is pretty much just redirection, or dealing with threats those 3 units struggle with (high initiative monsters, or really good saves on killy troops (so chaos knights, heralds on juggers). And that (sadly) means Jezzails and PWMs. This doesn't mesh too well with the Stormbanner, but ah well what ya gonna do? Now you might ask "is this not just a shooty army with 3 big combat units?". The answer is a resounding "Yes." but those big combat units take up half of your points.

____________________________________________________________

Anyway, all that said, here's Skaven Monster Mash MK 2.O

Lord
Verminlord
500

The big daddy. Already spoke about him above, but I also feel I should mention that the model for this guy is tiny. He is so, so, so easy to hide.

Heroes
Warlock Engineer
Doomrocket
45

The general. Now I know that'll make most of you baulk, but according to my math the chance of passing LD8 rerollable is only 5% worse than LD9 rerollable, which applies to the big slave block. Anything else will either panic with or without the chieftan or is LD8.

Chieftan
BSB
Banner of Eternal Flame
80

I sometimes get looks for the banner. But I've been known to put him in a unit of Jezzails/Poisoned Wind Globadiers. Then who's laughing? I was actually going to field 8 Jezzails in one unit and add this guy, but I decided it's best as a situational thing.

Warlock Engineer
15

Hit girl. I'm going to get in your way. Ha ha ha. Kudos if anyone gets the reference...

Core
10 Stormvermin
Standard
Stormbanner
Poisoned Wind Mortar
195

Standard for Blood and Glory. Poisoned Wind Mortar for winning games.

10 Stormvermin
Standard
Warpfire Thrower
150

I felt I needed more flaming attacks. I hate regenerate.

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

Chaff. They irritate people.

53 Slaves
Musician
108

I felt the army needed one anvil. There's sometimes units you just don't have time to deal with. That's where these guys come in.

Special
5 Poisoned Wind Globadiers
Poisoned Wind Mortar
115

Cheap Poisoned Wind Mortar. And PWGs aren't bad. Mine usually do a few wounds to a monster/cavalry unit in a game, which justifies their points cost. They can also hunt warmachines (no really) and redirect stuff.

5 Gutter Runners
65

5 Gutter Runners
65

Cheap ass redirectors and war machine hunters. I don't think it's worth 25pts to make them poisoned.

4 Jezzails
80

3 Jezzails
60

Kills armour and big things so my Verminlord and Hellpits don't have to. Zounds.

Rare
Hellpit Abomination
235

Hellpit Abomination
235

Omnomnomnomnomnomnomnom....

____________________________________________________________

So there we go, I feel that sums up how I came to this list pretty well. I want to say though, this isn't me declaring this the best Skaven Combat army in the world. I just think it's a good list and I'm going to have fun playing it. I think it's competitive and pretty well thought out, but I welcome people disagreeing with me, as well as any fixes and suchlike.

Hope you enjoyed the article.

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Skavenblight's Design. I need an artist (and some shameless calls out to other bloggers)...

So folks, here's the deal. I need a bit of a hand, and an opinion on my blog.

What I need from you all is an opinion. Based on some feedback by Lauby I want to know, does the black background bother people. I personally dislike white, and bright backgrounds, so I chose the black. However if it bothers people I'm more than happy to change it. Now, I don't have quite enough of a following to bother with a poll, so just comments will do for now folks.

Speaking of comments, if you're up for throwing my blog in to your blogroll (in return for me doing the same) just give me a shout. Or an email. Or some other method of communication, whatever.

Finally, I need an artist. I would absolutely adore you if you made me a title pic (skaven related ofc, preferably skavenblight related) and I would shamelessly plug you, have you mentioned on the front page, and whenever anyone says "picture" I'll go on a 50 word rant about you once made me a title picture. If you feel like you're up for the job, hit me up on this, or my email address (i_am_billy_worship_me@hotmail.co.uk). My (srs) business address is still down... so we have to work with the hotmail account that makes me sound conceited, but is actually an Illwillpress quote.

Anyway, comments are always welcome, as are people adding me to their blogrolls. Huzzah.
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Eighth Edition Skaven Lists

So, before I go in to any in depth articles, thoughts, whatever, I'm going to post up these two skaven lists I use (or use some variation of). They're both 2000 points, but both play pretty differently. Mainly, one is a lot shootier.

So, here's the first list.

Skaven 2000 Point Monster Mash

Lord
Verminlord
500

Heroes
Warlock Engineer
Level 1 Wizard (Ruin)
Doomrocket
Warp-Energy Condenser
115

Chieftan
Shield
47

Chieftan
BSB
Storm Banner
120

Core
55 Slaves
Musician
112

55 Slaves
Musician
112

55 Slaves
Musician
112

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

30 Slaves
Musician
62

Special
4 Jezzails
80

4 Jezzails
80

4 Jezzails
80

Rare
Hellpit Abomination
235

Hellpit Abomination
235

Ok, so this is list one. It basically plays on target priority. It's very difficult to down a Verminlord and 2 Hellpits. I originally ran more troops, 2 hellpits and a grey seer, but the Verminlord actually fits in here really well. This list is pretty much push em up, with all the interesting plays coming from the Verminlord. He plays like a Daemon Prince. But if you roll things like Pestilient Breath and Vermintide, he's actually a really good (and nasty) unit. Very fragile though. However the storm banner is here to help! Rest should be pretty self explanitory. The Jezzails are only there because nothing else in the list can really deal with things like Chaos Knights/other good save units well. Same goes for big killy monsters. The slave slingers are being tested at the moment. If I don't like them I'm going to take 6 warlock engineers, or maybe 4 units of giant rats and 4 engineers. Something like that anyway. Small redirection/annoyance unit. I am also very easy to take out in Blood and Glory, but I want to test that scenario, as I reckon it'd be difficult to get to my characters if they're bunkered up. Depends whether or not they can assassinate me with magic. One Power Scrolled Fate of Bjuna and I could lose right there. Playtesting on that required, otherwise i'm going to throw in some cheap standards.

On to the second list. This one I'm still not so sure about, but I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy testing it.

Lord
Grey Seer
Power Scroll
275

Heroes
Warlock Engineer
Level 1 Wizard
Doomrocket
Warp-Energy Condenser
115

Chieftan
BSB
70

Core
20 Slaves
Slings
50

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

50 Slaves
Musician
102

50 Slaves
Musician
102

50 Slaves
Musician
102

10 Stormvermin
Standard
Poisoned Wind Mortar
145

10 Stormvermin
Standard
Poisoned Wind Mortar
145

Special
5 Poisoned Wind Globadiers
Poisoned Wind Mortar
115

5 Gutter Runners
Slings
65

5 Gutter Runners
Slings
65

5 Gutter Runners
Slings
65

Rare
Warp Lightning Cannon
90

Warp Lightning Cannon
90

Doomwheel
150

Doomwheel
150

2000

This list is pretty damn shooty. All told. It's again fairly self explanatory, but my playstyle prefers the first list. Although I do love (and I mean absolutely love) the Warp Lightning Cannons. They are amazing. Fantastic, easily one of the best skaven units this edition. Still, I can tell this list is rough, and playtesting will definitely sand out a fair few edges with it.

So there we go. I'm going to be tailoring and working on list #1 first of all. It just suits me more.
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Eighth Edition Thus Far.

Starting this off with a general musing on what I've learned so far with skaven in eighth edition, as well as what I've learned from other armies. Now I should say all I've played against with any degree of regularity has been High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, Ogre Kingdoms, Vampire Counts, Empire, Orcs and Goblins, Daemons of Chaos, Warriors of Chaos and Beastmen. So, that said, here's what I've learned so far about 8th edition.


The first and most important thing I want to crush. Hordes haven't been very good. Units that're that wide are very easy to manouvre around or just totally stimmy with many cheap units, before you absolutely crush them with a flank/rear charge. However, hordes (not 10 wide, just a lot of models, for example, I run slaves from 9 to 13 ranks deep) are a very effective unit from what I've seen. With cheap fodder troops you can make a mighty anvil.

Ok, so next up. A lot of people seem to think monsters have died a death. Especially near the start of the edition. This is obviously not true. A lot of lists near me field two to three (sometimes four or five) monsters. With high toughness, usually a decent to good save, and the ability to crush one, two, sometimes three, four ranks of infantry they're very good shock units. Fair enough cannons hurt them, but they always did that.

Magic. This is something that will probably get a whole article to itself in the near future. However, people said "now I don't need to take a wizard" when they learned you get free dispel dice. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you have a Slann sitting bringing his whole army back to full strength you need every ounce of extra dispelling oomph you can get. On the flip side, some spells are ridiculously powerful, with very little cost or risk. Magic is a force to be reckoned with now and I'd definitely take a level 4 to every game of 8th edition I play.

Shooting. This is another one I'll probably end up writing a whole article for. But hey'o. In a nutshell, Dark Elf Shooting is good, but otherwise shooting that relies on BS is bad. Things like mortars, cannons, catapults and suchlike are all pretty good. Especially against ridden monsters. With the speed of Warhammer however, and the resilience of most armies across the table (and the speed they can cross it) an all out gunline is very hard to do, in my opinion. But you can definitely run a gunline with a few good anvils, or just have a very mobile "Run 'n Gun" style list (for example, Tzeentch Daemons can do this).

Combat. Huh, here we go. Basically, it's good. The changes were for the better, in my opinion. Steadfast makes core troops good, and cheap troops great. Striking in initiative order makes elite high initiative guys fantastic, see chaos warriors. One thing I did notice though is combat is Killtacular. Static CR counts for very little these days, which means my slaves almost always lose and my combat units almost always win. This is something I'll probably do with my next article. But combat is a lot more fluid and involved now, I like it.
So that's probably the more general principles, a few basic things I'm going to say;

The Power Scroll is very good. Slann are very good. Engines of the gods are very good. Salamanders are good. Teclis is batshit broken. The Dreaded 13th is just nuts. Hydras are ridiculously good now. Life Magic, if you've played against/with it properly, you'll know. ASF is crazy good. People need to learn to (ab)use swift reform more. All my slaves have musicians for a reason, it's a fantastic rule. Slave and goblin anvils of around 40+ guys are very good buys these days. Same goes for gnoblars. I'd always take a level 4. I'd always take something quick for warmachine hunting too.

So, that should get the ball rolling. I'm going to be using this as a reference point and coming back here to pick out things to write articles on. If you manage to wander deep enough into the crevices of the internet to find your way here, then please leave a comment if you have any preferences as to what I should write about first.
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The Beginning of Something Wonderful...

So this is the grand opening of my blog I suppose. So here's what I'm going to put in it:

Warhammer 8th ed musings.
This isn't limited to any particular army. I see way too many 40k blogs these days, but WHFB seems to be mainly constrained to the forum. Well as the disbelieving friend said to the inventor of the feces-powered helicopter, THIS SHIT WILL NOT FLY. Here I'm going to talk about everything 8th ed that crosses my mind and I can be arsed talking about. A fair bit of it might be skaven related, but that's only natural from a skaven player.

So I bring you this, my humble attempt at a WHFB blog. Gonna say here, everything on this is my opinion. Getting that out the way now, feel free to disagree. Discussion and debate is good, but keep it friendly.

Starting now. Read more!