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So far Skaven seem pretty fun, I'm just starting out with them. So their racial combat gimmick is they get better combat performance when there's a ton of them, but when their leadership tanks they get speed bonuses, I love it. I also really like how Queek gets some armor piercing options in his skill tree. He'll be very interesting vs the dwarves in the grand campaign, since it seems like the Skaven are better suited for dealing with Dwarves compared to Greenskins; they get more opportunities to ambush, can summon up units to disrupt missile troops, and spread corruption around.
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Sep 28, 2017 16:21
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 00:49 |
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How balanced did they really make the food mechanic? Because having an excess of food isn't nearly as beneficial as being severely short on food; for example the Leadership bonuses you get for having surplus only benefit you in your own territory, but the potential penalties are factionwide. The global bonus to growth will be nice now that you can potentially settle anywhere, but late game I'm not sure if it is as useful as other things or more things on top of this. My guess is late game you would be using that excess food to summon more rats in big battles, than hoarding it for the bonuses. My other concern is the AI. It seems like stifling Skaven food production can basically cause their empire to implode. Once they get into the red, they start heavily getting penalized not just on public order and leadership but also income. This just seems like it would cause them to go into a downward spiral and get knocked out much quicker than other factions.
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Sep 28, 2017 16:27
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I find it aggravating there's no naval battles. Auto resolve seems really skewed against Skaven and it is easy for a high elf stack to dart in and ruin your day. 09 dub c
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Sep 28, 2017 18:28
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I like that they made 'expendable' an actual unit trait now. Other units don't care if they get massacred, unless those other units are also 'expendable'. This presents a weird problem. I would've figured the trivial upkeep costs of Skavenslaves would encourage you to bring stacks of primarily slaves, since they could just wear down stronger units through weight of numbers. But since fellow units of slaves will be affected by the ld malus, they'll all just mass route. This means you're probably only going to want a few of them in your army, which kind of defeats the point of such a unit. Worse, Queeks discount on Clan Rats makes their upkeep almost as cheap as Skavenslaves anyway, so with him it seems like it's not even worth it since for a tiny bit more upkeep you have a unit that is not necessarily good but considerably less crappy.
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Sep 28, 2017 19:10
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DeathSandwich posted:IIRC even though Skaven have low leadership, they also rally faster and more consistently than any other race unless completely shattered. This can actually work to your advantage if your front line slaves break. If they chase the routing slaves you can run in and flank them with your non-routing poo poo and when the slaves rally they have a mini hammer-and-anvil attack that they can't really defend against because they scattered their poo poo to chase yours. If they don't chase the slaves and go after your next line of infantry, when the slaves rally you just bring them in behind and flank the poo poo out of the enemy. They won't do much damage but you'll get some leadership penalties that way. Good point, they also naturally get buffed speed when routing which seems good for setting up flank charges or crossfires on enemies that get kited. Queeks red line has some  restrictions, buffs that only kick in when the unit gets to rank 7 veterancy. Maybe they can easily buff the starting rank of these units, but while the buffs were good they weren't good enough to be gated behind rank 7 veterancy in my opinion.
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Sep 28, 2017 19:54
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Did they fix the artillery range bug? I noticed Skaven warlock engineers can get +9% artillery range but the problem is that I know for sure the dwarves version doesn't offer any damage if firing out past their stock range.
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Sep 28, 2017 21:20
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With Skaven it seems like you want to chop up prisoners for food 90%of the time .they make plenty of money from their settlements, and replenishment is important but food is even more so. Food surpluses let you expand extremely quickly. Normally any other race would take like 4-6 turns to get a tier 2 settlement going from a colonized ruin, but Skaven can get it instantly. This also means these settlements are less vulnerable. The building pre reqs for tech are annoying, but at least you have 8 slot capitals now and combined with jumping straight to a tier 3 settlement makes it less difficult to manage.
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Sep 28, 2017 22:32
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I also noted campaign map runs really slow.
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Sep 29, 2017 01:48
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Does anyone have a basic rundown on each of the Skaven units based on using them and having them used against you? So far the units I've used feel like all the goblin variants.
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Sep 29, 2017 04:53
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What's the sphere-thing on the end of the boom on the Skaven ships? Bathyscape? Hamster ball? Wrecking ball?
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Sep 29, 2017 07:18
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Fans posted:If you're struggling with Skaven the answer is "Build more armies full of trash units and go raiding" Yeah I'm just figuring this out. For some reason I thought building more armies would just make the food problem worse, but it seems to be tied to upkeep cost not stack size. So my 12g/turn slaves never set me back more than 1 food a turn.
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Sep 29, 2017 08:16
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Hahaha the Tier 3 gold mine for Skaven is: "Although they have no use for it themselves, Skaven purposely mine gold to inconvenience other races" 
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Sep 29, 2017 08:17
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Queek's start is harder than I thought. Just getting bogged down by Kroq Gar and Lizardmen in general are a tough nut to crack. Though I am really amused at how quickly and frequently skaven units rally. They're practically cycle charging with how often they run away and come back.
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Sep 29, 2017 15:05
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How are poison wind gloabiers? They just sit there and chuck tennis balls at enemies, and it doesn't seem like they are as spectacular as I'd hoped (I was hoping they'd be like the dwarf satchel charges but with poison). Warlock engineers are really cool, since they are like a dwarf engineer and a wizard rolled into one. How do you guys usually build your Skaven cities? I always like focusing on growth to get them to tier 5 ASAP but there's so many drat building you need to progress in the tech tree it's a little confusing to decide what I should focus with early on. Anything that generates food early on is good, and it seems like it is better to hoard food to get the bonuses and use the quick settlement skills mid to late game since early game there's fewer threats. Is there any artillery in any of the new armies that can damage walls?
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Sep 29, 2017 19:11
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It is really fun to suicide bomb a deployed unit of Clan Rats. The only tricky part seems that the warp bomb doesn't seem to work on routing units. Still, I managed to pull it off vs clumped high elves and that one bomb killed Luke 350 of them in one shot.
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Sep 30, 2017 01:46
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I noticed underway now cannot pass forests, only mountains. I'm assuming world roots/beast path is the opposite limitation. While I understand it helps balance the factions and make their movement mode more unique, it's irritating for the Skaven because there's not many terribly useful places I've seen to use it. I'll look forward to invading the world's edge mountains with Queek though. Skaven are gonna turn the badlands into an absolute clusterfuck.
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Sep 30, 2017 01:57
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I realized how to make wood elves and Norscans unique settlement properties work with tent climate system: Wood Elves wouldn't be affected by climate, they could grow outposts anywhere with no penalty. However by default they can only build a tier 1 outpost still, with the exception of other native elf areas like Ultulan. You can do mid-late game research to unlock the ability to upgrade the outpost settlements further. Norscans aren't affected by the climate of Port settlements, and have a broader tolerance elsewhere so they'll still face some penalties but it'll be more manageable.
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Sep 30, 2017 04:24
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I like the Skaven ability to have reinforcements pop up in the middle of battle, but there are a few things I wish you could also do with it: -Get a partial food refund for any of the extra ones you didn't use that battle, assuming you won the battle. -Allow you to charge up multiple uses over time instead of having to wait for the full cooldown each time, so you can save up a whole bunch of them and have like 5 units of clanrats appear when things get really hairy.
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Sep 30, 2017 06:06
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So it seems like there are two interesting campaign strategies: -Try to stay ahead in the ritual game, which gives you bonuses and gives your lords intervention armies and chaos stacks to level up on. Many legendary lords can get crazy momentum if you level them up enough early in the game. -Turtle up and try to styme the enemy's final ritual, trying to ensure your territory is under less pressure so you can build up your factions economy and tech.
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Sep 30, 2017 17:07
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When you click on Skaven in ships they say "Ahoy-hoy!" 
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Oct 1, 2017 04:59
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Those shipwrecks and mysterious islands are not only a great source of money, they're also a great source of experience for your secondary lords. Previously, my secondary lords used to be relegated to rear-echelon guard duty, warding off potential rebellions or factions pressuring me from a distant flank. The problem was that they wouldn't get much exp doing this; besides crushing rebellions they'd be sitting passively for much of the time. But with Skaven a lord+full stack of slaves costs virtually nothing and they can ply the seas for treasure and exp, and level up pretty fast in doing so. I love all the goodies hiding out in the ocean!
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Oct 1, 2017 14:36
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Skaven combat maps are cool, but the 'smog' effect gives me eyestrain.
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Oct 1, 2017 16:59
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Doomwheels are so much goddamn fun. Tearing around the battlefield, pissing warp lighting all over the place, and best of all even when they apparently get bogged down they just kind of jam their way through crowds of enemies.
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Oct 1, 2017 20:24
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I've been playing around with the Gutter/Night runners recently. The regular and slinger versions seem pretty similar. Vs dinosaurs, they are useful for kiting them around when they go berserk. I would also figure that the plague censer plague monks would be good against infantry sized armored units, but they haven't been that great, more of a support unit I guess.
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Oct 1, 2017 21:39
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My Skaven unit feedback: Slaves- excellent chaff unit that doesn't affect the leadership of the rest of your army. Slingers are also pretty good for the cost. Clan Rats- Below average T1 infantry but they're also really cheap and your main unit for dwellers below. Combined with vernintide and menace below you can send up a lot of additional Swarms of rat men. Assuming research upgrades apply to the summons, you'll get a lot of mileage out of clanrat upgrades became you use them so much. I do find it tricky to decide between going bargain basement on units in the form of slaves or steady upgrade them. I'm not sure if shields or spears really do very much of a differnce for such flimsy units. Stormvermin- The best standard infantry with actual armor protecting them, but for the cost and upkeep it might not be worth bothering, I'm not sure. The Halberd ones at least give you some protection against cavalry and monsters but there's no shortage of cheaper rats to serve as ablative shielding. Gutter/Night/Death runners- Great annoying skirmish infantry that seem useful vs slow gullible targets like saurus or dinos. Slinger versions just seem like upgraded slave Slingers, so I'm not sure if it's worth it. Poison versions make the gimmick even better, and the upgraded ones also get melee defense which will make them nice vs other anti infantry light units. Rat Ogres/Hellpit Abomination:The Ogres function similar to trolls. They wreck stuff in melee but have pretty low leadership. The Abomination is nice but I had assumed something so cronenberged would be fearless but apparently it's not, which is a real bummer. Leadership is definitely something all Skaven units need to contend with. Plague Monks/censers- Poison is a good force multiplier and combining it with armor piercing on the censers could allow you to chew into dangerous heavy infantry. Frenzy is kind of wasted on units with iffy leadership since you can lose our easily but it's still solid in combination with everything else. Poison/Death Wind Globadiers/warp fire throwers- Poison globes are decent for damaging large units and seem comparable to troll hammer torpedo irondrakes, with the advantage of unlocking them way faster. Haven't tried death wind yet but warp fire throwers are devastating and definitely something you want in your armies. Plagueclaw catapult/warp lightning cannon/Doomwheel- The catapult wrecks leadership making it like a Gob Lobber RoR unit. Warp lightning like others described is like having a squad of luminarks firing as rapidly as cannons. Supported by an engineer they'll snipe large flyers and dangerous units easily. The Doom wheel basically shoots the warp lightning gun at short ranges and functions as a chariot. It's gun shares the upgrades as the other warp weapons/artillery making it really nasty if you micro it well. Panfilo fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Oct 1, 2017 |
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Oct 1, 2017 22:30
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The two rites can help soften up tough enemies. The engineer one wrecks a city so you can devastate it right before attacking to make it easier to conquer. The Plague one can cause attrition to enemy armies and you can try to time it so you engage them right when it wears off so you don't catch hit Plague yourself.
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Oct 2, 2017 00:04
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Skrolks Liberals Bubonicus quest is so much fun. Basically it's your army vs constant Swarms of zombies, an FPS Destroying chaff vs chaff killfest. Skrolk, an engineer, and two batteries of plagueclaw catapults flattened so many zombies with AoE attacks, it was very entertaining. Breath spells in particular are great against squishy units and the engineer gets one that is super long and narrow.
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Oct 2, 2017 18:53
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Hellpit Abomination has a chance to go "lol nope" when it gets to 0hp and instantly jump back to 10% health. I had this proc twice in a row one battle which was instrumental in turning the tide (and saving my monster).
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Oct 2, 2017 19:56
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Randarkman posted:City defense as the Skaven is different. Basically, you can't really depend on your infantry to hold the walls effectively, particuarly against Kroq-Gar's posse of swole saurus boys. What you do have however are warlock engineers (warp lightning seems decently effective against untis blobbed up in close combat), artillery, menace below and the warp bomb ability. Seems like you basically want to do something more akin to guerilla fightning where you pull back into the settlement gradually rather than try and hold the walls or the gate or anything silly like that. Use menace below to tie down units moving into dangerous positions and when their health drops low and they are surrounded martyr them for the Horned Rat. It might also help to invest some food into some extra uses of menace below. I also found moving vanguard units like gutter runners and night runners outside the wall and skirmishing with the enemy effective as a delay to allow my towers as long of a window to fire on the enemy as possible. Menace below right behind a blob of dudes hitting your gate or going up ladders then blow them up with a warp bomb can get an insane amount of kills. I actually find Skaven good on the siege defense because they have good AoE spells, menace below and the opportunity to Sally out and ambush the besieging army. Their wall layout is nice too with perpendicular wall positions to let you shoot at guys attacking your gate. Slingers have crappy range but I think the Gutter runner versions have almost archer range compared to slaves.
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Oct 2, 2017 20:48
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What units do you use for armor piercing melee work for Skaven? They don't have a great weapon version of Stormvermin, only sword+board and Halberds. I suppose censer bearers fit the bill, since they have armor piercing, armor sundering, poison, and frenzy. Though they have like no armor so it seems you need to bog down units with slaves/Clan Rats and attack from behind with the censer bearers.
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Oct 2, 2017 22:59
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Queek will be fun in mortal empires when you start in Skagenblight and use your ratty cunning to beat Skarsnik and Belagor to Karak eight peaks and rule over it on a throne woven with the most lustrous of long beard.
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Oct 3, 2017 01:03
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Assassins arent as great at assassination in battle as I thought. On the strategic map, they are great because you get tons of ways to crank up their assassination chance and it is refreshing to clear a path after dealing with enemy agent spam for so long. On paper, they should be effective but they are squishy and take a lot of micromanagement. My way of using them in combat is to stealth them, have them sneak around the enemy's line and beeline for their casters or flimsy lords. He gets a nice speed/charge bonus and I like giving him a potion of speed on top of that. Something else I want to look at is having an army that has an engineer with 3 points in Sapper. For dwarves, +15% speed on missile units isn't that great because their base speed is pretty low. But I'm guessing for Skaven ranged units include their skirmishers and combined with the +10% movement research upgrade results in a really zippy pack of rats that might be able to kite slower cavalry or monsters around. This could be especially good vs Lizardman as you can cause their dinos to rage out then kite them across the map where they are too far away to do anything for most of the battle. Panfilo fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Oct 3, 2017 |
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Oct 3, 2017 05:18
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Pendent posted:People who are having issues with Skaven- what difficulty are you on? I basically always play on hard and am sort of confused at the issues you're having. I want to be sure you're not playing on very hard or something before spouting off with advice that may not apply. For me it was whiplash going from a passive race like dwarves to a numerous squishy race. I didn't enjoy Skarsnik as much as other people did, and I think if people did well with him they'd do well with Skaven because the principles are the same. Thematically I like the mad scientist Rats the artillery and magic are satisfying to use but my micro skills are lacking and as Skaven you tend to juggle more units than other races. Then there's the fact that they rally so much so it feels like you're constantly redirecting and micromanaging to eke out a win. Don't get me wrong, they are fun, it is just a polar opposite playstyle than I am used to.
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Oct 3, 2017 05:30
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KPC_Mammon posted:I play Skaven on hard and half clan rats / half plague catapults facerolls everything as Queek. I'm gonna try this on my next Queek attempt. I'm curious, do research and lord skills apply to menace below/vernintide summoned Clan Rats?
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Oct 3, 2017 05:33
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KPC_Mammon posted:It doesn't look like lord skills do. Tech probably does, mine have a defense bonus but no extra attack. I guess it would get kind of OP if it did, since Queek can potentially get something like FIFTEEN uses of Menace Below lol.
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Oct 3, 2017 05:42
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Whats the command to target ground with artillery? That's useful to use; I noticed that some enemy units actually try to dodge the catapult shots which I hadn't previously seen. I know they used to avoid bombardment spells (unless engaged in melee) but I saw skins actually run back and have the catapult shots whiff.
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Oct 3, 2017 05:50
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Krazyface posted:I have a hard time getting heroic victories in this game. Either I beat them with my army intact, in which case it's Decisive, or I get chewed up (which means the army needs to replenish for two turns, and maybe replace a couple saurus), and get Pyrrhic. My way of getting Heroic victories as Skaven is in siege defense. I had one just now where I used the garrison's warlock engineer to use his warp lightning ability on blobs of Saurus that just popped out of their siege tower. They are so tightly packed at that point you knock off like 80% of their total HP right off the bat and you have enough winds to usually get quite a few zaps in during the battle this way.
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Oct 3, 2017 06:20
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I agree that the Screaming Bell needs an amp or something, its not nearly loud enough. I mean fer chrissakes there's a Grey Seer swinging around on top of it like a chimpanzee flailing around, that thing should be deafening!
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Oct 3, 2017 06:56
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Some other nice things about Skaven I am noticing: -Death Frenzy is great on Doomwheels. You end up with an absolute monster truck of a chariot. Like most other Chariots, the Doomwheel is armor piercing as well. Its also a great spell for Rat Ogres too. -Hordes of slaves/clanrats getting the poison spell (or Pestilens clanstone buff) multiplies their effectiveness against dangerous enemies. Combined with other Leadership-draining attacks like Plagueclaw catapults you can get comparatively strong units to break pretty quickly from all the debuffs. -Similarly, using Wither also has a similar effect (or Mors clanstone buff) along with Death Runners and/or Censer bearers to debuff enemy armor to the point of being trivial for cheap units to damage. -Many upgrades/research improve melee resist on Skaven. Outside of Stormvermin you're never going to have a lot of armor but that's ok since melee resist is often better; armor piercing units tend to have lower dps/attack speeds and will do poorer vs units with melee resist. -Night/Gutter Runners can get an obscene amount of speed increases with Lord/engineer skills and research. This makes the skirmish versions extremely hard to catch. Slinger variants are basically straight upgrades of of the slave slingers, with the important distinction that they get progressively better base range. -Crown of Command is extremely useful for Skaven. Just having a unit of slaves/clanrats stay in melee for a few seconds longer makes a huge difference, especially when using Warp Bombs.
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Oct 3, 2017 15:55
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 00:49 |
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thebardyspoon posted:Yeah my Skaven game has turned around, I was just expanding too quickly and not actually teching up. Now I can field decent armies and have decent money coming in (though still not as much as every other faction, I have the wheel things in the capitals, a warlock in my big money provinces and everything, need to raid more I guess).  I think a few things are important to either Skaven campaign: First, you have to be decent at managing slaves and clanrats because even if you rush the advanced tech you're still going to have to deal with the chaff units at a point that might really determine how well your whole campaign will go. Second, you have to manage food well, finding the balance between rapidly upgrading cities/getting extra charges of Menace Below, and hoarding the food up to get the global bonuses.
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Oct 3, 2017 16:05
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