Skaven are... just stupid. Compared to other races, that is.

[Naryar]

So I'm playing a Very Hard/Normal campaign, as Bretonnia. It goes alright. And then I meet Ikit Claw.

First fight, they ambush me and ♥♥♥♥ me over because they're ambushing and there's no way to defend against that. Also invisible lords is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ over my strategy real bad and I can't possibly position my lords properly in skaven territory, other than doomstacking. And then I get nuked, and my entire frontline disappears because I happen to focus fire a lord that was attacking first, and then with only archers I can't really fight the ambush reinforcements that are coming. Ambush reinforcements. Does that sound stupid ? Because it is.

Pestilent scheme, okay, I don't know what this is. Spawns a skaven unit, and then it goes off the fog of war right into my towns and I get plagued, which means my defensive units all get it because I was preparing for the next skaven assault.

Then they come at me with ikit, where I can beat (still, pyrrhic victory) because they didn't defend their flanks and Weapon Teams die pretty hard to cavalry, and I had a lot of cav. Then I try to kill all the skaven heavy infantry, which doesn't work well with bret cav considering half of them are not armor-piercing and there are some halberds, which I should rightfully fear as bretonnia. And my bad infantry is inevitably dead due to trying to hold the skaven line while I murder the big threat on their backside.

And then the plague absolutely murders my reinforcement and makes half of my stacks super weak over like five or six turns. Bret reinforcement is already kinda weak. I fear getting them to leave Bastogne because they'll infect the rest of the country. But I have NO WAY to reinforce those armies. For like five or six turns.

I decide after a while to turn the weak lords into biological weapons. Move them forward into skaven lands. It actually seems to work, and I manage to infect Ikit - which is good, except it's the LAST TURN of the plague and I get to face a full stack ikit with super weak plagued lords and then there's another skaven stormvermin stack coming up one turn after.

So what ? Skaven don't seem OP on the battlefield. Their stormvermin gives me trouble because i don't have a lot of Bret anti-armor that isn't cavalry and that doesn't risk getting murdered by polearm infantry (I guess trebs or the elite infantry would work ?), but that's something I can handle, and I can defeat them just fine on the battlefield. Their gimmicks, however, are another story. No other race has the possibility to do things as powerful as just murder an entire blob of army outright, or completely ruin reinforcement for long enough that the skaven force can lose, rebuild an army, and then go forward and win a fight against weakened defensive forces that should outnumber them without the plague.

What do I do ? Are skaven just OP as a second game race with four DLC's, compared to a first game race free-LC ? Do I just entirely delete the plagued stacks and then rebuild them in another place that's not plagued ?

[Garatgh Deloi]

Ambush when attacking is a thing for Skaven, Beastmen and that one High Elf lord, i suggest using the encamp stance to make it way less likely to succeed (perhaps even spending some perk points into ambush defense and equipping items for it if you find any) and also scout with heroes rather then just keeping them in your army (AI don't have the fog of war, you do, scouting is vital against a force that can ambush you on the attack). You can also use your own ambushes (The AI won't know where your army is even if it saw you go into ambush, they might however detect you if lords or heroes happen to move close) and bait to lure Skaven armies you think might be hiding out in cities.

The Nuke is Clan Skyre specific rather then Skaven overall, there is a bunch of limitations to it, but yea if you get hit at the wrong time it can wipe a whole army :P.

When it comes to plague its very much so a double edged sword, if you are lucky it will damage them way more the you, if you are unlucky (or facing clan pestilence) it will completely wreak you and do nothing to them. But yea it can really mess you up without any real counter (Only faction i know of that has a way to resist it is Lizardmen with their commandment against plague).

[chronobomb]

Skaven aren't OP, they just teach you better campaign skills. Getting heroes with Block army and Lords with lightning strike will absolutely destroy Skaven. Best way to avoid an ambush is to use Ambush Stance or your defense stance.

Blobbing is an AI mistake that the player uses against them to massive effect. The AI can use it against you too. If you watch MP, you will notice that all the players have some distance between all their units during campaign so spells and abilities can't annihilate multiple units.

[malkavius77]

It's all fun and games until you bunch your cav up and ikit drops a nuke on them.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

The AI gets one singular nuke, which you can trick it into wasting.

[Chunk Norris ☯]

"What do you do? You die man thing. Yes-yes!"

Haven't plat much of Bret but I hear a viable strategy is to hero focus the Skaven Lord and once the lord is dead it should be MUCH easier.

[lPaladinl]

Imagine complaining about Skaven Ambushes when they usually force Skaven to attack with only one army, and Skaven absolutely suck when forced to use only 1 army for a battle.

[McMuffin]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

Imagine complaining about Skaven Ambushes when they usually force Skaven to attack with only one army, and Skaven absolutely suck when forced to use only 1 army for a battle.

How so? Most of the time the skaven will just pull two crap stacks out their a**es, engage with the doomstack and viola 3 v 1 ambush battle.

[Arthur two sheds Jackson]

ikit carry a singular nuke with the name of the players on it, its just fate as soon as you ll be fighting him you ll be blown sky high

[Naryar]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

Imagine complaining about Skaven Ambushes when they usually force Skaven to attack with only one army, and Skaven absolutely suck when forced to use only 1 army for a battle.

Not what my experience got it, I got ambushed by a weak stack, nuked to oblivion and then ikit's stack happened as I had basically just the middling Bret archers to fight him.

[Vanidas]

Solution:

Play as Skaven.

[Jeslis]

Considering how many streamers Ive seen who select like 6 units and order them all to attack the same thing.. I can easily see how Ikit could be trouble for some.

For people who build/setup a proper anti skaven army, and play the campaign map to offset skaven ambush tactics (and ai march/multi lord attacks in general), skaven are a complete joke.

Im not *trying* to be super mean here to you OP. I once was a new player too... but this really is a case of 'learn game mechanics and it wont be hard any more'.

I'll caveat/disclaimer the fact that I absolutely hate the brettonia gameplay mechanics and avoid playing them every time... So its possible that Brettonia is just especially hard against skaven.

Tips:
1. Learn the 'avoid getting ambushed when its not your turn' tactics (ambush stance if your faction can, otherwise encamp or be in a city. Ambush is also a lightning strike, so being in a reinforcement circle wont help you.)
2. Use cheap reinforcements (a 2nd lord with a REALLY cheap frontline army if possible, but be aware that this lord could get picked off easily if ambushed/LightStriked alone. Keep out of range of enemies and use hero scouts to ensure distance.)
3. Autoresolve skaven battles (Autoresolve doesn't use magic, or nukes, and skaven autoresolve is awful. Note; Warpfire throwers and Death Globe Bombadiers are the 2 good autoresolve units for skaven. If there are 6 of them or more, it will be a bad autoresolve usually.)... Skaven walls, especially Tier 5 walls are some of the most dangerous things. You really don't want to play that battle.
4. Always autoresolve YOUR ambushes (when you ambush them) - there is a hefty bonus that applies to the ambushing army. You can notice this especially painfully if you autoresolve when skaven ambush you, and then see what you were fighting and go "Wait, I coulda beaten that!"

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by Naryar:

First fight, they ambush me and ♥♥♥♥ me over because they're ambushing and there's no way to defend against that.

Just because you don't know how to defend against it doesn't mean you can't. Encamp stance gives +75% ambush defense. Adding that that was part of the nerfs directed at Skaven several months ago.

Originally posted by Jeslis:

4. Always autoresolve YOUR ambushes (when you ambush them) - there is a hefty bonus that applies to the ambushing army. You can notice this especially painfully if you autoresolve when skaven ambush you, and then see what you were fighting and go "Wait, I coulda beaten that!"

Don't do that, there are times when the bonus from ambush isn't enough to avoid significant casualties or even win. Ambush is not a guaranteed victory. The only advantage auto-resolving gives over manually fighting is that the enemy will be wiped out if you win.

Originally posted by Arthur two sheds Jackson:

ikit carry a singular nuke with the name of the players on it, its just fate as soon as you ll be fighting him you ll be blown sky high

It's not so much that it gets saved for the player as it is that it can't be used in auto-resolve, so AI Skryre can't use it against other AI. It also can't use it against you if you don't manually fight them.

[optimusrhyme]

Always use the encamp stance when moving if you think skaven are nearby. It makes it 75% harder for them to ambush you. Use heroes to assassinate their wizards before you attack them. Spread out so when the inevitable nuke comes it only hits two of your units. Always have a melee unit hovering over your artillery to counter the menace below ability. Build fast armies; cav, flying units, anything with vanguard deployment. Taking out skaven weapon teams and artillery is your top priority.

[Naryar]

Actually, skaven autoresolve WILL mess me up if I fight them, even with a lord advantage ! Sounds extremely weird. Must be the weapon teams. Like reverse lizardmen, because skaven usually need lots of advantage to win against them, at least early game. Or maybe I just didn't doomstack enough to Grail and Hippogryph knights... I can handle ambushes alright, because it turns out on the long term they're rare enough. It's just the lot of skaven *gimmicks* that piss me off. Ambushing them back is very meh when you're a Bret and get punished for it.

I have no issue in fighting them, Bretonnia HAS a pretty good roster against skaven, it's not like i'm a slow army. Though their heavy infantry is giving me the most amount of trouble.

I'll try the peasant blob scouting lords (they are free, after all) and the scouting agents (i hate overuse of agents like AI does it, but eh. It was bad enough with the witches and the inquisitors in Medieval 2...).

[Testikles]

The Auto Resolve / Loss Prediction meter will change in the update on Wednesday anyways, then it you can see on the pre-battle screen what you would loose. This will remove the danger of autoresolve which maybe will help with this issue.