someone explain Skaven skirmishers please?

[Green]

Skaven have 3 types of skirmishers: Night Runners, Gutter Runners and Death Runners.

I obviously can read the stats but I would like to understand, both lore-wise and on Tabletop, what the difference between these skirmishers was.

Were some meant for melee? Were some "fast firing"?

Thanks for the replies!

[wwolf69]

Just tiers of power, where gutter runners are footmen while deathrunners are elite.

[Chameon]

Night Runners are cheaper and basically untrained, they're the apprentices of Clan Eshin and most comparable to other clan's clanrats in terms of general expense spent on making sure they're competent.

Gutter Runners are trained and skilled at not dying, across several years. They're most comparable to a midway step between clanrats and stormvermin for the most part, as they have earned the right to use some of the fancier weapons.

Death Runners are Storm Vermin's equivalent in terms of competence. I'm honestly not sure if they're a full promotion from Gutter Runners, or if they're a name applied to a variation of Gutter Runners that has been officially taken to be trained to become an Assassin, but they're the hyper-elites of Clan Eshin.

Then you have the final step, the Assassins of Clan Eshin, the heroic unit. These skaven have been trained in the arts of the Ninja. They're ridiculously competent, they use poisonous weapons, they can fight while wielding with their tail, they can use ranged weapons, melee weapons, they have a suite of available equipment, the weapons they -do- wield, the Weeping Blades are the stuff of nightmares.

Basically Clan Eshin's numbers are primarily best thought of as Skaven's equivalent to horse archers. They're not meant for melee, primarily, but they are good ENOUGH at it. As I understand it, the tabletop strategy for them was to use their shurikens to get a shooting round on the enemy and then charge them, basically using them to go for the opposite advantage of what plague monks pushed for, gain a swift 'minor' numerical advantage in terms of damage dealt, then move into melee, where Plague Monks main selling point was that they could sit around for longer and take a few more hits.

Or, in translation, Eshin's units sound like they were best used as hybrid infantry. I'm FAIRLY certain Death Runners are a new thing, but I'll confess to a lack of evidence for that.

[Green]

thanks Chameon, very instructive! :)

[Chameon]

Originally posted by Green:

thanks Chameon, very instructive! :)

You're welcome man, have a great time, always happy to talk Skaven.

[THEDOSSBOSS]

Originally posted by Totenwache:

Most importantly though, Death Runners are no skirmishers. The third "type" are still Gutter Runners with poisoned weapons.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Death runners in this game are better than stormvermin, and act as an elite (though comparably crappy) AP unit.

[RED /(Weber)\]

Death runners are melee, and can sneak, Gutter/Night runners are ranged. And can sneak.