Skaven army composition?

[Distracted_Recon]

I really enjoy playing Skaven and I'm currently in the middle of a Mortal Empires run as Clan Mors, just normal difficulty. What army comps are good though? I just can't seem to figure out a good frontline. Stormvermin are too costly and plague monks don't have much armor. In general, I struggle a little to make solid army compositions for the skaven. It's a bit difficult imo. Does anyone have good suggestions?

[Mr Robert House]

Escrito originalmente por Distracted_Recon:

Escrito originalmente por Xaphnir:

Stormvermin halberds will last about as long as clanrat spears when hit by monsters or other large units with a lot of armor piercing damage. Plague Priest Vermintide summons will hold up better as a front line, especially over multiple battles.

I'll be honest, I have no idea how that can be managed. I've had multiple battles against greenskins where my frontlines collapse very quickly. I have a lot of ranged units but then they just get overrun by cav. I try to send my SV to deal with them but by then my arty is basically useless. Am I positioning this incorrectly? Too far back and they won't be hitting anything though... My SV and monks barely hold now, nvm using summoned units. I get overrun so fast and there isn't much I can do.

a that’s why summons work so well.

Getting overrun? summon more clan rats
Want to pin an enemy down then recklessly fire at them? use summons, who cares if you hit them

and after a battle you’re at full strength, because all you used is winds of magic

[Distracted_Recon]

I understand your reasoning there and summons are very useful in that regard, just tarpitting your enemy. Considering however that gunners need a clear LOS and should be dealing with armored, and warplocks should be shooting high priority, where's the killing power? I could use warpfire but I find those too situational and they also need a clear LOS. Globadiers/bombadiers could also work but once the summon is wiped out, the enemy will simply move forward and disrupt. This is already happened to me multiple times of course... bad terrain on maps doesnt help either. I'm still fairly new to this game as well so I make mistakes.

[Mr Robert House]

Escrito originalmente por Distracted_Recon:

I understand your reasoning there and summons are very useful in that regard, just tarpitting your enemy. Considering however that gunners need a clear LOS and should be dealing with armored, and warplocks should be shooting high priority, where's the killing power? I could use warpfire but I find those too situational and they also need a clear LOS. Globadiers/bombadiers could also work but once the summon is wiped out, the enemy will simply move forward and disrupt. This is already happened to me multiple times of course... bad terrain on maps doesnt help either. I'm still fairly new to this game as well so I make mistakes.

I use 4 plague priests, and do all my summoning at the edge of the range of the rattling guns. By that point the catapults and poison mortars are already doing serious dps to infantry, single entities are getting killed by jezzails. Try to summon clan rats at either side of your force to keep the rattling guns firing down the middle. Also you can cast bless with filth on rattling guns to slow down the enemy even more. The plague priests, lord and engineers are your last line of defense and can tank low tier stuff pretty well.

I don’t use warpfire throwers, globadiers or anything with less range than rattling guns. They can do serious damage with good micro but there’s a big margain for error.

[identity]

Plague monks may have no armor, but they make up for it in damage and high leadership (for skaven). I've had monks fight almost to the death before, and thats a really understated benefit, and also why I hate fighting against slayers. The longer they stay in battle, the bigger chance the enemy will pick up and rout first.

[Tenshin51]

Escrito originalmente por Distracted_Recon:

I'll be honest, I have no idea how that can be managed. I've had multiple battles against greenskins where my frontlines collapse very quickly. I have a lot of ranged units but then they just get overrun by cav. I try to send my SV to deal with them but by then my arty is basically useless. Am I positioning this incorrectly? Too far back and they won't be hitting anything though... My SV and monks barely hold now, nvm using summoned units. I get overrun so fast and there isn't much I can do.

Are you using Plague Claw Catapult or Globadiers?
'Warp Lightning Cannon is harder to use due you need to deal w/ LOS but quite decent dealing AP damage long range. Can be use to snipe armored unit like Lord.

W/ Plague Claw Catapult and Globadier their attack can be arch which makes them easy to use. W/ P Catapult, I suggest target the ground by using Alt and right click the ground. Your catapult will still fire if your units are engaging enemy unit.

What is your main line position looks like? Don't make your main line or meatshield into thin formation and spread. You could try to use double line so that you can have reserve.

Having reserves will help you deal w/ cavalry, saturate a line and makes your tarpit hold much longer. I also suggest don't make your line to tight if you are dealing w/ artillery and magic.

[Distracted_Recon]

Escrito originalmente por Tenshin51:

Escrito originalmente por Distracted_Recon:

I'll be honest, I have no idea how that can be managed. I've had multiple battles against greenskins where my frontlines collapse very quickly. I have a lot of ranged units but then they just get overrun by cav. I try to send my SV to deal with them but by then my arty is basically useless. Am I positioning this incorrectly? Too far back and they won't be hitting anything though... My SV and monks barely hold now, nvm using summoned units. I get overrun so fast and there isn't much I can do.

Are you using Plague Claw Catapult or Globadiers?
'Warp Lightning Cannon is harder to use due you need to deal w/ LOS but quite decent dealing AP damage long range. Can be use to snipe armored unit like Lord.

W/ Plague Claw Catapult and Globadier their attack can be arch which makes them easy to use. W/ P Catapult, I suggest target the ground by using Alt and right click the ground. Your catapult will still fire if your units are engaging enemy unit.

What is your main line position looks like? Don't make your main line or meatshield into thin formation and spread. You could try to use double line so that you can have reserve.

Having reserves will help you deal w/ cavalry, saturate a line and makes your tarpit hold much longer. I also suggest don't make your line to tight if you are dealing w/ artillery and magic.

I use both, but I only use Globadiers with meat shield units (i.e Slaves and Clanrats) I use P Catapult with my main force. I try to make my lines tightly packed and not spread thin like you mentioned. and I usually try to put reserve units behind them. On my current campaign it's usually Monks because I desperately need any AP units upfront which consists of SV and gunners.

[Dean Winchester]

1 lord
19 heroes

Every time

[Xaphnir]

Escrito originalmente por Lampros:

I always do; but they still move around :(

They shouldn't unless the target is out of their range or they're unable to fire on their target when you give the order.

[SaintOfHolyFire]

Escrito originalmente por Zane87:

My Moulder composition has been
Lord, 2 packmaster (1 scavenger, 1 replenishment), 1 plague priest, 1 engineer.

Packmaster = regen, fast tarpit and 2 summons each, plague monk up to 4 summons + free pestilent breath, engineer for warp lightning, doomrocket and movement. This is what I'd do for all factions from now on, especially since a packmaster does better in AR and battle than the assassin he replaces.

Eshin sorcerers are nice but imo worse than plague priests due to lack of summons which you want as tarpit.
Chieftains are also not bad but I don't need training and the boneripper is too big so a lot of friendly fire.


For the actual army composition:
3 warp lightnings, 3 ratlings, 3 stormvermin, 2 poison wind mortars, 2 warpfire throwers and 2 more broodhorrors.

Broodhorrors are great in general cause fast, strong and Regeneration. Not as tanky as a hellpit but smaller hitbox so less FF. And they actually can chase stuff.

Stormvermin (swords and shields) are debatable and should be replaced as seen fit. For Moulder they can be mutated with regen and stalk which is quite nice on them, plus they help a lot for AR (their main advantage imo).
The shield variant can however tank a lot of missile fire and AI focuses on them, so less for to more vulnerable troops.
Many prefer plague monks here but for taking shots they are way worse, similar terrible in taking a charge and my setup focuses on my units not getting into a prolonged melee but avoiding it with summons, tarpits and leadership shocks due to missile fire and spells. I thus have 0 use for added melee capabilities of plague monks and the one job they have - tanking shots - is one stormvermin or even Clanrats can do better.

One can replace 1 of them with halberds for the back/flyers if needed or replace all 3 if them with the doomflayers, as those are small = less friendly fire and have good armor +hp so are good tarpits.
Plus their attack animation makes them dodge missiles fired at them.

Warpfire are in between the ratlings to apply last second morale debuffs and they help a lot with stuff that can be nasty like unbreakable infantry or tons of chaff. Imo ratlings and warpfire complement each other very nicely.

Mortars are imo the better plagueclaws and are superb killing chaff at a range and enemy archers. But be careful for FF and manual aim them.

Warp lightnings finally are your main snipers and anti-artillery pieces (together with menace from below). They also can stall the advance of a lot of monsters due to knockdown and they are also good against infantry.


Also obviously all infantry and monsters are not placed in front of the firing line if warpfire/ratlings but at the sides. If an enemy might make it through you can send heroes or summons stuff, or your monsters.
Infantry only tanks shots and maybe the few units attacking from the side your monsters/heroes can't deal with.

Behind the warpfire/ratlings are the mortars left and right and in the center the engineer and behind those the 3 warp lightnings.

1 stormvermin at the back just in case. This one can easily defeat 2vs1 armies or more.

Thank you fellow moulder clan user

[Sn3z]

You can spam SV on Queek, I can't check again but his buffs allow like rank 7 SV and their upkeep is similar to clan rats(recruit in the starting settlement), also his buffs make SV (with sword so powerful, they trade up just fine, combined with red skills) all you need is some range to counter other missiles and monsters to further pad out the SV

[veracsthane]

as others have said it depends on which faction you play as. for the best late game doomstack its
3-4 plauge preists
2 egineers for ammo and range ect
2-4 jazzels
4-8 rattling guns
2-4 plauge catapluts


2 mortors for seige because lol their seige damage is so damn high when paired with plauge priest youll get army losses before you even go in

this changes with moulder and eshin

eshin leans very heavily on assassin rats the mages are basically worthless outside of seiges

someone with more experinace can correct this but it will be like
2 eshin mages
4-6 assassians
4-6 eshin pike guys
gutterrunners with poison to fill it out

the mages are for the missle resistance im not joking when i call them a trash unit. just awful even the damage vortex isnt that great if you didnt need the missle resistance i wouldnt even bother with them. this is mostly until mid game where you need money badly. late game it shouldnt matter.

skroll and pestilance

same 3-5 plauge rat heros
6 plauge catapults
2 jezzals
plauge monks to fill it out.

you wont need rat summons. plauge catapults are just dumb. if you ambush the ai will bunch up, a plauge vortex over cast once with those 6 plauge catapults espically gold ranked catapults will make their army disappear before you need rat summons.

always about 2 plauge mortors on one army for seiges

someone else is gonna have to swing at moulder because i dont really play them tbh and i dont know their mechanic well i just know its less units and more his mechanic that makes a huge diffrence.

queek you cant use grey seers which doesnt matter really.

you want 4-6 war cheifs heros forget their name they get loyalty buffs to fix the issue with grey seers
4-6 plauge catapults
6ish storm vermin with spears
2-4 things of rat orgers to run down archers and merc archers

people will hate me for this last one but your gonna be fighting alot of stuff as queek that requires armored anti large and until you have the heroes to off set the loyalty issues its not worth worrying about. they are cheap and hardy and if you dont blob them they do very well at what they do. also warcheifs do dummy damage unless you cant group them and focus down targets which happens without the stormvermin spears

the 2 most important things for rat armies
ambushing
food management.

for unit picking weapons teams have jobs.

ratling guns as fun as they are are suppression and sustained dps

jezziles you never want more then 4 and they are for poping the lord and heroes for the most part

warp flamers you will never need more then 2 and they are the poor mans plauge monk heroes they flank and hit the infantry from the side and kinda just melt them.

globaldiers are for ather loren and seiges. they are great for posioning the world and kill everything including freindlies which can be how you break ather loren when paired with plaugemonk heroes. always a great idea to use the under empire to nuke the oak of ages.

plauge motors are broken in seige battles. if you have 4 of them then you wont even need the mages you just need the plauge catapults to kill the towers so towers dont kill them.

youll be able to think about a battle and know if you needed it or not.

the game gives you too many heroes. you can literally make 5-6 hero doomstacks that just respawn. i was doing a normal vortex and only having lustria which is smaller and not fully developed i had 10-20 of each hero types available. lean on them.

[veracsthane]

there are people talking about plauge claws vs warplightning cannons

plauge catapults are almost always better thanks to the line of sight issue.
you can use egineers howling warpgale and jezzals to do what warp lightning cannons are supposed to do with higher utility and reliability.

you do you but warplighting cannons are almost worthless unless dino hunting and rattling guns and jezzels do it better and you dont have to butcher an army to retool it. it suffers from loss of identity.

[Chunk Norris ☯]

As Queek you get 2 Menace Below, Add 1-2 Pack Master, 1 Plague Priest and you'll have your front-line fighters all in summons. Plus depending on the skaven corruption level you can summon even even more rats. Those are your front-lines.

Then with Artillery, rattling gunners and other weapons you try to chew the enemy down before they reach you.

You can also get some of their other faster moving units like Rat orgers or others to flank and further keep the enemy in the field for your guys to shoot.

Although typically instead of mass summons I tend to feed the enemy horde by sending the units in 1-2 at a time to have them swarm the summon, so my gunners and artillery and magic can make short work of them.

Clan Moulder can also turn their own units into bombs.

[veracsthane]

Escrito originalmente por Snow ☯:

As Queek you get 2 Menace Below, Add 1-2 Pack Master, 1 Plague Priest and you'll have your front-line fighters all in summons. Plus depending on the skaven corruption level you can summon even even more rats. Those are your front-lines.

Then with Artillery, rattling gunners and other weapons you try to chew the enemy down before they reach you.

You can also get some of their other faster moving units like Rat orgers or others to flank and further keep the enemy in the field for your guys to shoot.

Although typically instead of mass summons I tend to feed the enemy horde by sending the units in 1-2 at a time to have them swarm the summon, so my gunners and artillery and magic can make short work of them.

Clan Moulder can also turn their own units into bombs.

the problem with menace below is the cd. there is a limit both in time and spawns. its not really a queek thing if you spend a few turns raiding its based off skaven curroption. queek just gets it without the raiding.

[Dean Winchester]

nice necro