Any tips for playing Skaven?

[Unity's Helm]

I keep getting steamrolled early when the campaign begins as both clan pestilence and queek. Does anyone have any ideas to help survive?

[Ardariel]

Yap, but first of all - do you have any dlc?

[Unity's Helm]

Originally posted by Ardariel:

Yap, but first of all - do you have any dlc?

I have yet to buy any. I got the one free skaven guy but that is it so far.

[Power and Wealth]

Without warplock or ratling guns you will struggle against pretty much everybody.

[Kaaz]

pestilence is a difficult start, i find this way works for me >

take 1st minor settlement at lvl 3,
get plagueclaw catapult building (you cant upgrade it, but its super handy.) and an engineer.
stockup on plagueclaw while you work on building other stuff.
send engineer to build an undercity on Itza or similar.
Build Plague Cauldron and start corrupting the world.

in battles use your cheap summons to slow down enemy advance while you bombard with plagueclaws.

[Chaoslink]

The typical strategy is to get a food surplus then intentionally lose your capital or take another provincial capital at as high a level as you can. Under ideal circumstances, you’ll have access to at least T4 stuff long before most factions have T3. Then you leverage that into gaining advantage. You’re a ranged faction. Think dwarves, but more numbers rather than thick armor.

[burningmime]

Turtle up until you can get Plagueclaw Catapults. Then roll around with an army of skavenslaves + 6 catapults. Get a second army of just skavenslaves to follow them. Fight battles manually. Cheese the AI with catapults. Win. Win, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you. Win.

[Samielek]

dont buy clanrats, they are pretty useless for their upkeep cost. With your main army have always 1 full of skavenslave as meatshield.

[[AJSA]MeloDeath]

warpfire and globe are you damage dealers try to rush them quick and any campaign is alot easier no matter the diffculty

[Mr Robert House]

With no dlcs, your best units are artillery, plague claw catapults and warp lightning cannons.

Originally posted by Archaos the Mad Bro:

Without warplock or ratling guns you will struggle against pretty much everybody.

They were perfectly playable before that dlc, although it was a huge buff

Quickly capturing a tier 3 settlement and building the engineering building, walls and some money building is a good start.

[Kaaz]

warpfire throwers tear saurus apart (flank the shield versions.)

[Hieronymous]

Pairing your main army with an army of skaven slaves is how I get through a skaven slump. For 500 bucks in upkeep you get to deplete the enemies vigor and ammunition.

[Emilia Tempest]

Depending on what campaign you play:
Mortal empires
Queek: Focus down the greenskins near you, build up your armies with flamethrowers/globadiers/plauge claw catapults and get an full stack of skavenslaves (skavenslave slingers are the best but on lower difficulties you may want some skavenslaves spears).
There is a orc faction above you and it will declare war on you, so you either blitz down to Karak Zorn with a bunch of plauge claw catapults (which you can get by rushing a minor settlement to tier 3 with food).
Then just jump from karak zorn into the lizardmen teritory to its right and attack them right away.
Or you expand to the right and slap the tombkings+vampiers out, then expand south to slap Kroq-gar and after that you should be set.

Skrolk: Get the ruins and pump it up to tier 3 with food. Then build up for globadiers as they rek saurus. Get as much as possible and gas all of lustria. Ofc focus on Gor-Rok first before anyone else. Also, make sure you got at least one plaugeclaw-catapult in your army for siege attacker.

Vortex
Queek: take the province and push the first settlement you get from the highelvs to tier 3. Get globadiers as there are a lot of lizards. Get a few(1-3) plauge claw catapults and a army of skavenslaves. (recruit the globadiers and catapults after you took the province)
Dont take the sea settlement, just blow it up if you take it and be done with it as its not worth investing money in it.
Then you should be set to fight. Also, ignore the rituals. Its a noobtrap to quickly do them. And btw. if another race gets to the final, you can simply fight the event battle and win the campaign that way. So you dont even need to do the rituals.

Skrolk:
Well I... actually dont have a plan cuz I've never played him on vortex. But I guess just get your region, get a tier 3 settlement. Get globadiers+plaugclaw catapults. Get a skaven slave army and done.

Campaign advice:
Use your skaven slave army as bait, put your strong army in ambush stance around it. Preferably behind the bait.
Take your time with sieges, use all your ammo before going on the walls. Destroy some towers to make it easy for your missles to attack the walls.
In ambush battles, just take a good defensive position. Your strong army doesnt have the skaven slaves so do be wary of where you position.
Dont rush every single settlement, only focus on getting tier 5 settlements with food when you got enough settlements to boost it (I think you need 5 settlements before you can do that). Do not shy away from going into the red with food for a tier 5 settlement.
Maybe get a sack city (a city of a faction you keep sacking each turn to farm them for food/money/exp) and farm it and their rebellions. Yes, an army of skavenslave slingers can take care of a tier 1 garrisson.

[Mr Robert House]

Occupying territory at atleast tier 3 is the main thing about a skaven campaign, if you can’t, just sack it, get some food from somewhere else then occupy it at max tier. Capitals should be occupied at tier 5, and then build walls, the ai will never retake them unless they have multiple good armies.