The New Skaven Army Book -- First Impressions

Posted by Ranillon on 18. November 2009 12:45

I have been going through the new Skaven codex -- rats, big rats! -- since I got my copy last week.  It's interesting and intriguing to be sure.  Here are my first impressions.

1)  Thank Goodness for Plastic:  I understand that GW has been moving toward all plastic anyway, but for a huge army like Skaven it's an especially welcome development.  For one it makes things (somewhat) cheaper considering that you can easily have rat armies of 200+ models or more!  It also makes conversions easier.  The only problem is that it makes for a lot of shaving to clean the models!

2)  Great New Big Models:  The new Screaming Bell and Plague Furnace kit is just amazing.  It's large with an equally large amount of detail.  Likewise, the Doomwheel is just as good and far superior to the old metal version.  They are impressive enough to almost make me get them on general principles.

3)  The Missing Great New Big Model:  By comparison, it's disappointing to see that the Vermin Lord model has not been updated.  It was fine for ten years ago, but is now clearly outdated.  If I had a Skaven army with him as a member I'd do an entirely new conversion.

4)  The New Plague Army:  It's nice to see that you can take a reasonably well-rounded Plague Monk (Pestilens) army now, although you need to take Skrolk in order to make it work.  At a massive 470 points he is such a huge part of a force I wonder how effective a Plague Army would be in the end.  Still, it would be a very colorful.  It would also be smaller than the average rat force making it less of a daunting taste to construct and paint.

5)  Expendable:  You have to like Skavenslaves (at least as units) nowadays.  They still have a toughness of three and at a mere two points each (why add equipment) you can have a lot for a little.  The new "Cornered Rats" rule is rather handy as it allows the slaves to (if you time it right) conveniently disappear when it is time to attack with your real troops.

6)  Orky Without Being Orks:  In some ways Skaven are just orks with whiskers.  You see that in all of their strange and wacky inventions that can all too easily hurt them as much as the enemy (what is more orky than that?).  The new book provides a number of new selections (even if you can only take one weapon team) and they are always the sort of things that attract one to playing an army.  My only real question now is how well some of these new rat toys may actually work.  I look forward to reports on their effectiveness.

More thoughts as I continue through the book...