The Rat Men

I Recently got a text message from my cousin, we'll call him "scruffy," that seemed quite odd to me.  Scruffy and I are as close as two people who live several states apart can be.  We converse regularly, he was my Best Man at my wedding, and has been and will always be one of my best friends.  At a younger age Scruffy would come visit his grandparents, who live in the same town as I do, for the summer and we would hang out all summer long.  I actually lived at their house during the summer more than I lived at my house.  as a result, Scruffy and I got into the same things, including Warhammer.

As I built up my High Elf army Scruffy built a Dwarf army.  this was advantageous in several ways, the first being that we could actually play against each other when we weren't at our local gaming store of choice (Games People Play at the time).  As time wore on though, Scruffy drifted away from the hobby.

It wasn't really his fault.  I went on a two year mission to Taiwan for my Church, and he had to get along without me.  Since I was the only person he knew that played Warhammer, he stopped.  that was nine years ago that I left for Taiwan.  Which Brings us to his random but interesting text message.

"I have officially started a Skaven army."  That was his message.  Apparently the appearance of my blog had some how ignited a fire from a spark that was burried deep inside him, a fire to play Warhammer.  His army of choice? Skaven, the lowly (literally and figuratively) rat men that threaten society from their subterranean Under Empire.  So, to honor Scruffy and his choice to start playing Warhammer again and his choice in army, I give him this blog entry, a look at the Skaven.

As you can see by the image to the right, the Skaven are a true "horde army."  To any non-warhammer players out there, this simply means that their troops are not very well trained, but what they lack in skill they make up for in numbers.  Skaven, put simply, will beat you with magic, firepower, and lots and lots of rats. 

In Warhammer, armies are built to an agreed upon points limit, usually between 2,000 and 3,000 points.  Each model in your army list will cost a certain amount of points, and Skaven don't cost very many points at all.  A skaven Slave will cost less than a quarter of the points as a High Elf Spear man, and a Skaven Clan Rat about half.  So, for every Spear Elf I buy for my army, Scruffy can have almost twice as many Clan Rats, and four times as many slaves.  This comes in handy when you concider that the Skaven have a special rule called "strength in numbers" which basically a higher Leadership score the more Rats you have in each unit.  Add that to the new "steadfast rule" (if you have more ranks than your opponent in the combat, you're stubborn), even if Skaven lose the combat they aren't likely to run away.  Keep the General and Battle Standard near by and they won't be going any place any time soon.

The second thing the Rats do well is shooting.  This army can rain down almost as much firepower as a Dwarf army, and it's probably twice as deadly.  the problem is that this shooting isn't very reliable.  Take the dreaded "Ratling Gun."  Is contraption, like almost all Skaven weaponry, is almost as likely to shoot their own army as it is to shoot their enemy.  This adds a fun and exciting element to the game.  the feeling that anything can go wrong at any moment is something that isn't present with most of the other armies. 

Add that shooting to the craziness that is the Doomwheel and the Hell-Pit Abomination and ou have a recipe for an army that is just as likely to kill its self as the enemy.  Like I said, this is part of the fun on the Skaven army.

Magic is the third and final thing the Skaven do well.  their Grey Seers and Warp Lock engineers and Plague Priests can magic you to death as well as the most tooled up Slann in the game.  All-in-all, a superb army to say the least!