skaven rat spawns

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

how many can they spawn per battle? Or does it differ by faction?

[Dreagon]

Depends. I think they have 2 or 3 charges available at all times. They get more in areas with high skaven corruption or if they buy them with food. I think queek or clan mors in general gets extra charges.

[CrUsHeR]

In WH3, the base number of Menace Below uses depends on the level of Skaven Corruption in the province. The wiki doesn't have numbers, IIRC it starts with 0 and caps at something like 5 uses at max corruption?

Then they can invest food to get more uses, probably up to +5.

Clan Rictus gets free +1 uses during their war declaration buff.
Clan Mors can purchase up to +5 extra uses for food.

Perhaps some landmarks add even more, don't remember.


So all in all, there can be anything between 0 and A LOT of Menace Below. There should be an icon with the army ability before battle, showing you the number.

If playing them yourself, i'd recommend to get some sources for extra corruption. Battles will instantly push it up, and anything like the Priest / Sorceror ability, and the Corruptive lord skill can help to get the next threshold faster.
Pestilence buildings and the Skavenblight landmark also add extra Adjacent Province corruption.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Dreagon:

Depends. I think they have 2 or 3 charges available at all times. They get more in areas with high skaven corruption or if they buy them with food. I think queek or clan mors in general gets extra charges.

Nah it definitely starts with 0 if there's no corruption. The wiki still lists it at 3 fixed charges, which was probably in WH2.

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Originally posted by Dreagon:

Depends. I think they have 2 or 3 charges available at all times. They get more in areas with high skaven corruption or if they buy them with food. I think queek or clan mors in general gets extra charges.

Nah it definitely starts with 0 if there's no corruption. The wiki still lists it at 3 fixed charges, which was probably in WH2.

so basically if I'm attacking skaven territory that have high corruption I'll always have to deal with at least 5 menace belows?

[wpegg]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Nah it definitely starts with 0 if there's no corruption. The wiki still lists it at 3 fixed charges, which was probably in WH2.

T'was zero in WH2 as well for 0 corruption. I think the wiki's just wrong.

[wpegg]

Originally posted by Oedipus's Stepdad:

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Nah it definitely starts with 0 if there's no corruption. The wiki still lists it at 3 fixed charges, which was probably in WH2.

so basically if I'm attacking skaven territory that have high corruption I'll always have to deal with at least 5 menace belows?

More if you're fighting Queek or Snikch, They can spawn about 8 of them. Before the battle you can look at the small icon on the left of the army to see how many charges of menace below it suggests they have, but I've found this to be undependable.

[Ire]

Dont forget that its also a spell that plague priests and grey seers can cast. I forget how many charges, 5? 7?

Plus a diffrent spell for summoning plague monk units

plus a diffrent spell for summoning stormvermin

plus packmasters can summon rat hounds.

Plus thrott can summon rat ogres

Plus the triad RoR can summon shadow clones

soOOooo
when your fighting a 20 stack, depending on its hero/lord composition, you could be looking at a *lot* of rats. As it should be. Not a good idea to bring arty crews. (Hybrid units and cav are pretty much the best bet when you're assembling an anti-skaven army)


I just wish they didnt have 100 simultaneous heart attacks and die after xx seconds just because they came out of the ground. But I dont like how summons go poof to begin with - I had good times invading nuln with a 3 necromancer stack :P. Maybe if they just couldnt rally after being broken once or something instead. Alas.

[Ire]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

If playing them yourself, i'd recommend to get some sources for extra corruption. Battles will instantly push it up, and anything like the Priest / Sorceror ability, and the Corruptive lord skill can help to get the next threshold faster.
Pestilence buildings and the Skavenblight landmark also add extra Adjacent Province corruption.

The tradeoff here is the more skaven corruption in a province, the less food it generates. So you end up in a weird situation where ideally you want as little corruption as possible in your home territories and as much as possible in everyone else's.

[Father Ribs]

Originally posted by Oedipus's Stepdad:

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Nah it definitely starts with 0 if there's no corruption. The wiki still lists it at 3 fixed charges, which was probably in WH2.

so basically if I'm attacking skaven territory that have high corruption I'll always have to deal with at least 5 menace belows?

The AI will pop them every time the timer comes off, so if you're waiting for reinforcements or they're paused waiting for reinforcements, you'll be able to deal with them a lot easier than if they're attacking while their main army is attacking. Keep a unit of cavalry and some fast heros near your artillery/missile troops to immediately charge, and turn off shooting so you don't blow up your formation trying to kill short-tails.