Skaven Act 2-3

[First&Only]

Hello all, been a while since i posted up in here but ive been on other games for a while and now coming back to MCOTD i just cannot put it down again.

I have been rebuilding my Skaven WB after my last 2 failed attempts on Skaven story mission Act 2-3. (It was actually what led me to taking a break from the game.)

In summary on my first attempt Filch gets nailed by the first Daemonette and so mission over. Second attempt my Black Skaven Hero gets crit stunned on the first attack by same starting Daemonette and proceeds to get pummelled by the following attacks. Needless to say it went downhill from there.

So after 2 failed attempts i was in a bad way - dead Black Skaven and multiple injuires all round which are not sustainable in my build.

To that end i am almost back up to level 10 on my current warband. Does anyone have any advice on tactics for this mssion? Can you use Fylch to draw the daemonettes outside one at a time? (Run in be seen and retreat outside.)

Does the Alluress come outside in the courtyard by any chance? No way i am fighting her in the fumes of passion if at all avoidable.

Map locations where the never ending reinforcements will undoubtably appear from (ie to avoid placing weaker members there / 'hiding' nearly dead fighters etc).

I am happy with the mission requirements and purple wyrdstone objectives etc just struggling to get my Skaven through with the 45% (?) crit chance on those daemonettes.

Purple gear all round clearly - I am thinking Luck enchantments on my weapons, Weapon skill/Agility enchantments on my light armour, Lucidity/Evasion on helmets. Carry Focus potions. Healing draughts seem to be a waste of time at only 30HP a go.

Is it worth taking my Eschin Sorcerer with Guidance, Wither and Sorcerer's Curse? Or are the daemonettes massively resistant to magic debuffs? I have Guidance on my Assassin Adept for the Rat Ogre as well.

Black Skaven just don't seem to do well against the Daemonettes. Maybe it was my bad luck though. So i am thinking to bin mine off and roll with:
Assasin Adept
Night Runner
Eshin Sorcerer
Rat Ogre
3 Warpguard
2 Verminkin

[Paranoia]

The Daemonettes can be lured out one at a time.
Poisons work on them, and Sidestep saves lives. As does Globadier healing.

The thing about Daemonettes is that they are Glass Cannons. They die very easily. So the best way to avoid that 45% Crit, besides Warp Poison, is to simply hit them so that they die quickly.


PS: If you manage to gather all the Corrupted Wyrdstones, but somehow the game claims you have not found one, despite having them all on you, you need to walk over the gathering spots again, as one of them failed to trigger.
So do yourself a favor and check that the Found objective counter is the same number as the amount you just picked up.

[First&Only]

Thank you for the reply.
So just need a little luck with not being stunned so I can stay in the fight to hit back.
I've got quick incision scattered around my henchies, sidestep on a lot of guys too, with decent hit chances and dodge % as parry is useless here.
Wasn't aware of the objective trigger issue so I will have to watch for that on my next attempt. As long as I make it that far!

[Prince Kaine]

Originally posted by First&Only:

Thank you for the reply.
So just need a little luck with not being stunned so I can stay in the fight to hit back.
I've got quick incision scattered around my henchies, sidestep on a lot of guys too, with decent hit chances and dodge % as parry is useless here.
Wasn't aware of the objective trigger issue so I will have to watch for that on my next attempt. As long as I make it that far!

A good way to pass all those pesky missions is to have a great MR tank with high crit resist. Go for an lgt warpguard, with a support leader eshin sorcerer boosting him with combat savy and musk of courage, send him alone, to fix as many daemonette as possible, and use the rest of your troops to clean up once there's enough engaged with him.

Another way to do it is a full range poison setup, focusing on BP suppression. You see a daemonette, remove all her BP with one throw, clean it up with range, rince and repeat. just remember with this setup to allways have a defensive overwatch setup of 2 lines (1 hero+1 henchmen, both with BP removal poison active, 1 mastered, 1 basic, then 2nd line with the same setup). The only time you will be bothered is when you will encounter a plague bearer (library is the only one if I remember correctly) and the fight with cultist (spawn is immune, thus a pain to deal with)

[Mikey]

Yeah I remember that mission, did it before I had a MR tank ready, I imagine having one would've made a huge difference.

In the end, it's all about picking your fights, and making sure you can gang up on opponents (just like the regular missions really).

Particularly important is to not get caught in doorways by Daemonettes, as they can be very difficult one-on-one.

The Alluress will come out of her room, I am pretty sure I fought her outside in the end.

[First&Only]

Thanks for the replies.
General tactics I'm happy with for skaven. Swarm and hit and run etc.
I'm maybe 5 missions away from my next attempt as Rat Ofre will be level 10 then. To get a new warpguard up for LGT is a nice idea.
Wouldn't the AI just bypass him once he is in combat with one enemy and go for my sorcerer though? See a lot of that in the skirmish missions if they can

[Mikey]

Originally posted by First&Only:

Thanks for the replies.
General tactics I'm happy with for skaven. Swarm and hit and run etc.
I'm maybe 5 missions away from my next attempt as Rat Ofre will be level 10 then. To get a new warpguard up for LGT is a nice idea.
Wouldn't the AI just bypass him once he is in combat with one enemy and go for my sorcerer though? See a lot of that in the skirmish missions if they can

I think they will engage him if he's the only available target, but obviously that means making sure he can survive on his own for a few rounds (ie, enemy hitchance must be a flat 1%).

[First&Only]

Can you build a LGT warpguard to have that high a melee resist that means enemy hit chance is below 10%?
Or is that with book of training weapon skill included etc and before enemy debuffs like insult etc.

[Prince Kaine]

Originally posted by First&Only:

Can you build a LGT warpguard to have that high a melee resist that means enemy hit chance is below 10%?
Or is that with book of training weapon skill included etc and before enemy debuffs like insult etc.

You can quite easily reach 100 MR with a lgt warpguard, provided you have rune of shielding, purple shield, and 2 support using combat savy mastered+basic. Pump in as much stun resist as you can, finish with a bit of crit resist, and you should be more than safe, what kills you is not the occasional crit, but the stun it causes.
If you have a globaldier to heal it should be even easier and allows you the use of cauterize to even avoid the light wound effect.

Of course the rat will deal no damage, but it's not there to do some, but to tank.

My easy setup would be:
Sorcerer leader, with musk of courage, mastered combat savy, and probably bless with filth mastered to have my tank still doing damages.
Sorcerer hero, with basic combat savy, mastered warp lightning, loads of magic penetration, in charge of speeding the kill all the daemonette process.
A globaldier, specialized in damaging poisons+healing globes
and the tank LGT warpguard.

3 tanky hench, to hold the line behind, in case some daemonette pass him, 2 shuriken throwers able to throw 3 attacks/round for the clean up.

Edit: if you want a complete skill by skill build I can do one, just ask.

[Mikey]

Don't forget that a Globadier with Enriched Globe can give you a nice boost of:
+15% melee resist
+15% crit resist
+15% stun resist

There's a few other buffs as well, but those are the main ones for this scenario (mastering the skill lets the buff last for two turns, which you will definitely want).

It's AOE as well, so you can easily get it on 2-3 rats without worrying about positioning at all, I regularly uber-buff more than half my warband before getting stuck in.

[Prince Kaine]

Originally posted by Mikey:

Don't forget that a Globadier with Enriched Globe can give you a nice boost of:
+15% melee resist
+15% crit resist
+15% stun resist

There's a few other buffs as well, but those are the main ones for this scenario (mastering the skill lets the buff last for two turns, which you will definitely want).

It's AOE as well, so you can easily get it on 2-3 rats without worrying about positioning at all, I regularly uber-buff more than half my warband before getting stuck in.

Yeah.... except that the bonus is random and that past the 1st turn you will be boosting daemonettes when throwing it..... That is why I do not use it to boost a real tank. It's a good skill, don't get me wrong, just not adapted to this kind of setup.

[Mikey]

Originally posted by Prince Kaine:

Yeah.... except that the bonus is random and that past the 1st turn you will be boosting daemonettes when throwing it.....

The bonus is only random if you only use the skill once or twice. Since a Globadier easily has enough red pills to apply all the bonuses, that part's not really an issue. It also lasts two turns when mastered, which is crucial. So from turn three onwards, you can boost enemies if you're not careful, that's true, but still.

If you're running a Globadier anyway, it's a great boost to make sure that the tanking unit in question gets to that coveted 99% effective resistance on turns one and two while you're getting everything else set up, especially if you haven't had the luck to find the perfect gear and enchants yet.

Originally posted by Prince Kaine:

That is why I do not use it to boost a real tank. It's a good skill, don't get me wrong, just not adapted to this kind of setup.

Well as always, YMMV, but I find it very useful indeed. You're right, if you have one rat and three daemonettes surrounding him, then it's obviously a very bad idea to use in on them, I thought that went without saying :)

I will say, though, that it's a rare case where I can't place the globe so it only hits my guys, even if they're engaged.

I suppose it all comes down to what level of reliability you need, it's certainly less reliable than certain other boosts, but on the other hand it stacks with those, and it has a pretty low investment for its return when you DO get to use it (which is most of the time).

[First&Only]

Ive played Skaven a while now - second warband playthrough and it seems there is a lot more nuances to builds and ways of creating an 'offensive package'. I completed the campaign mission with Mercs and only a few hiccups and retries - found my build was durable but just dull - seemed to take ages/numerous turns to wear down the enemy as everyone could tank but deal little damage.
Skaven are certainly more fragile but the debuffs/poisons etc are nice and fun.
I have all the DLC but ive never used a Globadier or any other DLC character for that matter. Something about trying to complete the game / campaign with original content appeals to me.
If i am unsuccessful on this next act i will look at bringing in a Globadier and building towards an LGT Warpguard.
My current 3 are level 10 - so what is the earliest level / amount of skill points needed to buy LGT for a warpguard? Thinking to buy one at lvl 3-5 as a hired sword would save time over a lvl 0 recruit

[First&Only]

Originally posted by Prince Kaine:

Of course the rat will deal no damage, but it's not there to do some, but to tank.

My easy setup would be:
Sorcerer leader, with musk of courage, mastered combat savy, and probably bless with filth mastered to have my tank still doing damages.
Sorcerer hero, with basic combat savy, mastered warp lightning, loads of magic penetration, in charge of speeding the kill all the daemonette process.
A globaldier, specialized in damaging poisons+healing globes
and the tank LGT warpguard.

3 tanky hench, to hold the line behind, in case some daemonette pass him, 2 shuriken throwers able to throw 3 attacks/round for the clean up.

Edit: if you want a complete skill by skill build I can do one, just ask.

If you have a little spare time id be interested in a few detailed suggestions on builds - given that my warband does well enough on HArd difficulty and i can come through on Brutal i may just like to change one or two guys based on your builds for something new and different as opposed to a complete new warband.

[Mikey]

Here's my (so far theoretical) Melee Resist LGT Warpguard:

Attributes:
===========
Strength: 6
Toughness: 8
Agility: 17
Leadership: 4
Intelligence: 9
Alertness: 15
Weapon Skill: 16
Ballistic Skill: 2
Accuracy: 10

Skills:
=======
Warp Immunity Basic, Defensive Stance Mastery, Armour Proficient Basic, Lad's got Talent Mastery, Shield Specialist Mastery, Awareness Mastery

Books:
==========
Book of Training: Alertness, Mental Grimore

Equipment:
==========
Helmet (masterwork), Heavy Armour (masterwork), Spear (masterwork), Shield (masterwork)

4 Skill Points left to do with as you please (6 with the Tome).

I have actually built this guy up to Rank 10, but have so far kept him a Henchman, as he does well enough there, at least until my current Warpguard hero bites the dust (if that sad day ever comes).

I'm sure it can be improved on here or there, but it's a starting point anyway. Enchant of Weapon Skill on chest if you have it, Agi+WS also works (I forget what the name of that combination is).

Also, Knowledge:Mordheim is better than Armour Proficient, at least theoretically, which frees you to put an additional point in Toughness over Strength (personally I prefer the extra loot slot that Strength 6 provides).

[First&Only]

Cool thank you for that. I've just found a Level 7 warpguard in hired swords without injury. Bought his services and near enough built him in line with your specs. Albeit I went for unstoppable for extra stun resist. Still got 3 levels to promote him so will push up the stats as needed

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1127163607

Mace of Luck
Shield of Shielding
Helmet with ...?
Heavy Armour of Champions (Agility + WS)
All Purple gear