When the playtest lists for Uncharted Empires first came out (I remember, I had just got home from Origins) I ran down stairs pulled out my old Skaven miniatures to use as the new Ratkin army. I loved the skaven ramshackle war engines, though once I had to actually start painting rats I lost interest. Now with them being added to Kings of War, and with a backstory that tied them into the Abyssal Dwarfs that I already played, it was time to bring them back out and finish them off.
I used them for several playtest games (and it seemed that each week they would get nerfed again and again), but never got to actually painting the rest. The problem I found is that I wanted all the cool toys, but it was the 'boring' core of the army that actually won games. Death Engines just don't do it - you need lots and lots of rats (Erich Trowbridge has been fielding 300+ models in his 2250 list ( the last one I saw had two hordes of schock troops, four hordes of blight and 12 regiments of slaves (plus three storm criers and a wizard). That is just under 500 rats!!! (and even going MMC it is still over 250 models!). So again they got shelved for a bit.
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| 1000 pt army |
However when I decided to expand my How You Use It! armies, they were on the list. And I have FINALLY finished them (at least the 1000 pt demo force). You can find the army list
here.
Of course, the basis of the army is rats. Lots and lots of rats. I have another horde of these to eventually paint
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| Horde of Warriors |
The shock troops (not storm vermin) have more armor, with elite, vicious and crushing strength(1). The best fighting unit in the army. I have enough to expand these into a horde.
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| Regiment of Shock Troops |
The blight are rats that carry plague and disease. With both stealthy and ensnare, they are hard to hit (and thus hard to kill).
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| Regiment of Bight |
Clawshots have piercing(2) with great range. The shields give them a little better defense than you would expect. I picked up some of the skaven warplock jezzails off of ebay, but unfortunately several of them came without the pavise shields. I used some
wax green stuff molds to duplicate the designs I did have and create some of the missing ones.
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| Troop of Clawshots |
Brutes are the monstrous creatures created to smash anything in their way.
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| Regiment of Brutes |
The weapons teams (I do wish I had a ratling gun for one, as it is the one that makes sense for the "storm of lead" upgrade) are mobile war engines to move up with your troops, delivering breath attacks before your forces pile in.
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| Weapons Team |
I loved the Skaven Doom Wheel, and it really needed to go in the army as a Death Engine. I had to move the banner down as it was way too tall to fit in my transport cases. Unfortunately the other cool models (screaming bell (another death engine), warp lightning cannon (shredder), plague claw catapult (artillery), and hellpit abomination (mutant rat-fiend) didn't make the cut, especially for a demo army.
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| Death Engine |
The old skaven warplock engineer is a warlock with a gun - to represent his lightning bolt spell.
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| Warlock |
And then an inspiring swarm-crier to go with the rallying (from the warriors horde and death engine).
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| Swarm-crier |
Because it is all fun and games . . .
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