Constant food shortage as Skaven

[Pak0tac]

Using just a single stack, 5 cities under my control + 2 undercities both with food buildings.
80% of the time when i capture an enemy city, i rez it for the food bonus.
But still in the end my food supplies are empty and food income is at -11

also skaven units suck? Gatter Runniers cant 1v1 against a tier 2 night elf bow units?
4 top tier melee units cant deal with 4 units of spears?

[Welshy]

Which Rat faction are you playing? My guess is Eshin or Clan Rictus but not sure.

Look for provinces with the Pastures leaf icon. This allows for a food building chain.
Also the Exotic egg icon allows for extra food.

Everytime you increase the Menace below skill when going into battle uses tonnes of food so use increase/decrease accordingly to your food situation.

Increasing settlement levels also uses food. So be aware of this.

How often do you use Raiding stance?

Skaven are one of the Top factions ingame right now alongside Elfs. Ofcourse gutter runners will struggle to fight 1v1 against Elf archers but use a Menace below to pin the Enemy archer unit & then Gutter runner them down.
Skaven excel at hit & run.

Another big thing the Skaven Excel at is swarming and outnumbering the enemy. Cheap units = more units.

Ambush is one of your best friends as the Skaven.

You should not be having issues with food what so ever unless you're increasing menace below every battle and increasing the level of settlements you capture everytime.

[troj]

Don't play Skaven by putting units 1v1. Swarm the enemy, flank them flank and overwhelm them with the Skaven's big numbers. Lore of Ruin is crazy strong too. To me they are the most powerful WH2 faction.

[Gnarl]

My last skaven game food would be a rollercoaster of ups and downs, with me either flush or at bottom. I would work on food tech, food buildings, undercity food, and pretty much always take food choice for battle outcome. The penalty for no food isn't really so bad either if you don't linger at the bottom.

Not sure which legendary lord you are playing but gutter runners are very powerful if you attack from multiple angles. But for most lords, I don't think you need them.

[Chaotic Entropy]

There are a lot of food consuming buildings that you'll want to use pretty sparingly.

[Velkhana's Summer]

For me its habit. As Skaven 1 Province is all you need for 50 turns minimum. Undercities are broken. 1 stack is all you need cause of how op ambush is on skaven. And in almost every battle you should not need to spend extra food on summons. Set up fights that allow you to attack an army twice to get the food bonus doubled. Never spend food colonizing until your food bar at the top is at the minimum 1 bar before max, so almost full green. Skaven don't really benefit from above ground expansion. They reap benefits by taking dirty fights and wreacking havoc on unprotected settlements with overwhelming numbers and warp magic. By far the most free to roam faction outside of hoard factions on the campaign map. Absolutely love playing them, normally its not do I want to play another Skaven campaign but rather, WHICH LORD DO I CHOOSE?! They are all so much fun honestly and thats even including things like Tretch even though he has his haters, his starting units, location, and vanguard deployment makes fighting battles much more interesting especially when you can put a doomwheel behind enemy lines from the start LOL

[wrought82]

of course you're gonna have a hard time with skirmish units against ranged. AI is hillariously badly programmed tho so often you can charge them and win that way because the archers will try to run away.

skaven are big on ranged and skirmish ranged. melee is pretty bad. not useless but defo subpar

[Hrodh]

Running out of food, money or slaves shouldn't happen as Skaven... That requires effort.

What Clan are you using, how is/are your army/armies set up and how much terretory do you own? Two lords, one full of slaves and another without anybody can raid and Sack a minor settlement for a permanent 6 food from raiding and usually 4 food from the battle. Just keep one faction close to you barely alive and Sack them over and over again while raiding their region during the end turn.

[jackhickman999]

You can raid to gain food iirc. Did you say you're razing settlements? I wouldn't do that, I would actually increase the level of settlement if possible. Skaven are about weapons teams more than anything on campaign.

[Cultist]

Four basic rules for playing Skaven:

1) all melee units are trash, so get the cheapest ones you can and eventually phase them out for more ranged units or artillery.

2) Plague priests (hero unit) can summon clanrats using spells, which means you can make armies with no frontline and still have one, as long as you have plague priests that are at least around level 5.

3) Skaven fight better in areas that have high skaven corruption, because it gives you more free summons (Menace below). This also means skaven are generally stronger when defending (because their own territory naturally gains skaven corruption through expansion), but this doesn't mean they're a defensive faction - in fact, quite the opposite. Just know that you are at a disadvantage when attacking in an area with low or zero skaven corruption.

4) Don't expand too fast, and don't expand into a major settlement unless you are close to your food cap. It's tempting to expand quickly with Skaven because they can spend food to upgrade captured settlements, but overdoing it will lead to your downfall as the stacking penalties for low food can really hurt you when applied at the wrong time.

I would also say that Prophet & Warlock DLC is a must for playing skaven in campaign. The impact of ratling guns and jezzails cannot be overstated, whether or not you are playing as Ikit Claw. In terms of balance I really think they should be core units and not locked behind DLC, but it is what it is.

[Edifier]

Originally posted by Sgt.Summer:

Using just a single stack, 5 cities under my control + 2 undercities both with food buildings.
80% of the time when i capture an enemy city, i rez it for the food bonus.
But still in the end my food supplies are empty and food income is at -11

also skaven units suck? Gatter Runniers cant 1v1 against a tier 2 night elf bow units?
4 top tier melee units cant deal with 4 units of spears?

Most Skaven units other than the Weapon team units are basically crap. So they are mainly there so your stronger ranged units can deal with the enemies.


The Weapon teams being, Warpfire throwers, Ratlinggunners, Warp Jezzails and the other units.


But to increase food income you'll want to do this.

1: Build Under Empire with a Warlock engineer on a far away continent. Focus on the building that spreads it around, the one that gives food and first Stealth option. This should be enough so it isn't detected.

2: Put on the Food income commandment on each province you take over. As each province take 1 food.

3: Upgrade the food storage in the tech tree. It can help a lot to negate the negative side effects of having little food.

4: Unless you need to Ambush an enemy, use Raid stance a lot.

Having played Skaven again recently, food is an issue when you want to capture a lot of settlements. Getting it back when there are no enemy army nearby is also annoying.

Originally posted by Hrodh:

Running out of food, money or slaves shouldn't happen as Skaven... That requires effort.

What Clan are you using, how is/are your army/armies set up and how much terretory do you own? Two lords, one full of slaves and another without anybody can raid and Sack a minor settlement for a permanent 6 food from raiding and usually 4 food from the battle. Just keep one faction close to you barely alive and Sack them over and over again while raiding their region during the end turn.

You'll run out of food if you want to conquer a lot of places because making a city to tier 3 or higher cost a lot of food. Food that you can't quickly get back unless you're in end game.

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by Edifier:

Originally posted by Sgt.Summer:

Using just a single stack, 5 cities under my control + 2 undercities both with food buildings.
80% of the time when i capture an enemy city, i rez it for the food bonus.
But still in the end my food supplies are empty and food income is at -11

also skaven units suck? Gatter Runniers cant 1v1 against a tier 2 night elf bow units?
4 top tier melee units cant deal with 4 units of spears?

Most Skaven units other than the Weapon team units are basically crap. So they are mainly there so your stronger ranged units can deal with the enemies.


The Weapon teams being, Warpfire throwers, Ratlinggunners, Warp Jezzails and the other units.


But to increase food income you'll want to do this.

1: Build Under Empire with a Warlock engineer on a far away continent. Focus on the building that spreads it around, the one that gives food and first Stealth option. This should be enough so it isn't detected.

2: Put on the Food income commandment on each province you take over. As each province take 1 food.

3: Upgrade the food storage in the tech tree. It can help a lot to negate the negative side effects of having little food.

4: Unless you need to Ambush an enemy, use Raid stance a lot.

Having played Skaven again recently, food is an issue when you want to capture a lot of settlements. Getting it back when there are no enemy army nearby is also annoying.

Originally posted by Hrodh:

Running out of food, money or slaves shouldn't happen as Skaven... That requires effort.

What Clan are you using, how is/are your army/armies set up and how much terretory do you own? Two lords, one full of slaves and another without anybody can raid and Sack a minor settlement for a permanent 6 food from raiding and usually 4 food from the battle. Just keep one faction close to you barely alive and Sack them over and over again while raiding their region during the end turn.

You'll run out of food if you want to conquer a lot of places because making a city to tier 3 or higher cost a lot of food. Food that you can't quickly get back unless you're in end game.

Just adding to the pointers...

1. Build Undercities in red climate settlements, preferably rich ones like Lothern, and very far away ones like Naggarond. If you're playing as Clan Pestilens, even Altdorf will do, or Karaz-a-Karak, or Black Crag. It won't be for a very long time before those guys come hunting for you... Also, Undercities used to cost 1 food up front just for existing, now they cost nothing until you build food-consuming buildings in them. So, abuse that: build food buildings, and then income, as long as the Undercities can pay for their own food upkeep and remain hidden, you're good to go.

2. Each settlement takes 1 food, not each province... But the food commandment gives 2 food, a building in the major settlement gives 1 food. So, a 3-settlement province will pay for its own food upkeep.

3. Food making in tech tree is very, very good. You want to rush those as soon as you can, maybe except the one that requires you to build the Rat Ogres building. You can build the building, research the tech, then demolish the building after you've researched the tech, you keep the researched tech and Rat Ogres at the moment aren't worth much... They can be useful, but in campaign you don't really need them, they're not essential.

4. Raid an unoccupied ruin. It doesn't give you income but it gives you food. You can also raid your own province, preferably just a minor settlement that you own. So if rebellion pops up, you just kill them for more food, exp and money.

5. When looting a city, minor settlements should be insta-built to T2 at least. This lets you grow it to T3 quickly. If you have the spare food, insta-build to T3 so you can get walls up quickly. If you're looting a major settlement, try to insta-build to T4, as the transition time from T3 to T4 can be a long wait. Also, your food-making building becomes available at T4, and doesn't improve food production beyond it anyway.

[Coffee Daemon]

On the topic of skaven, is there anything, ANYTHING that stops the tide of Gor-Rok?

Early game, just got my first 2 units of Ratlings, along with 6 units of Warpfire throwers and it just seems no matter how many units I put in front of them, they just walk through and engage my weapon teams. Nothing stops the advance and I just cant kill them fast enough, or even hold them back.

Obviously I've been surviving off massed warpfire throwers and Itza has only one settlement left but the constant swarm of high-lvl decently armoured melee fighters that never break (and if they do break they KEEP ON FIGHTING, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell).

Wondering what I'm doing wrong, tbh. I know skaven suck to start but the Lizardmen matchup is just cruel.

[Hrodh]

Originally posted by Coffee Daemon:

On the topic of skaven, is there anything, ANYTHING that stops the tide of Gor-Rok?

Early game, just got my first 2 units of Ratlings, along with 6 units of Warpfire throwers and it just seems no matter how many units I put in front of them, they just walk through and engage my weapon teams. Nothing stops the advance and I just cant kill them fast enough, or even hold them back.

Obviously I've been surviving off massed warpfire throwers and Itza has only one settlement left but the constant swarm of high-lvl decently armoured melee fighters that never break (and if they do break they KEEP ON FIGHTING, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell).

Wondering what I'm doing wrong, tbh. I know skaven suck to start but the Lizardmen matchup is just cruel.

Why so many Warpfires and so little Rattlings? Reverse would be good, so 2 Warpfires and 6 Rattlings. Add 2 Jazzails for Lord or Dino sniping, 4 Catapults, 2 Plaguepriests and the Lord and you have an army that's really good. It's basically just holding out til you have that army and after that, it should be a walk in the persilence ridden swamp.

[matlajs]

I am playing eshin right now but don't play rats so often. Was struggling with food up to some point. Or rather i had a problem until i captured capitals on lvl 5 and that took me several turns to get back. But i armed few armies and sent them further to empire and food is flourishing :D I am at war with at least 10 factions so food keep coming itself.

Myself struggle to spread undercities, since bordering factions i am going to capture nonetheless and sending engineers to spread it further, which are sparse, seems to me waste of best agent type for an army.

But on the bright side, there is a at least 2 ways of playing them. i still am tempted to spread it as mad and then build that army spawning building on a same turn in several cities and overwhelm someone basically in few turns.

[Chaoslink]

I mean, going into a faction like Skaven expecting them to 1v1 anything is laughable. That’s like expecting zombies to 1v1 for the vampire counts... not their purpose...