tommorrow im fighting skaven...
And i have never fought them before :o so any tips on how to fight them would be fantastic :D

Flank.

Flank, flank, flank, flank, flank.

Their Ld goes to hell when you do.

Also, if he brings an abomination/wheel or both, be thankful. You can use fire against the abomination for easy VPs (and a crushing blow to his plan) and the Casket vs the wheel.

If he is smart and takes piles of 50-man units of slaves and plague monks, well, good luck.

Also, any weapon teams he has should be easy pickings for your archers. Insist on True Line of Sight, per the rules, and watch those things die.

Warp Lightning cannons and doom wheels have shootings attacks at Str of an artillery dice roll doing either D6 or D3 wounds. Those things can and will pretty much insta gib chariots and knights. With a good roll your sphinxes are dead too. Look out for them

For you attacking him you want to

1) Stop those 2 things listed above, specialy if your low on infantry.
2)Snipe / assassinate his general. Lore of death works a treat here. Once that LD bubble is gone hes stuffed.
3)Go for any wizards, scorch and the 13th spell both realy realy hurt :P

unit of chariots with flaming banner can be very usefull for taking out those pesky hellpits abominations.

Seeing as my main army is Skaven - until I get started properly on Tomb Kings anyway - I can think of a few things that might help when you play a game against them;

- As already mentioned flank and rear charges are the way to go, it will deny them the Strength in Numbers rule which will help a great deal, likewise taking out the General or BSB would also be helpful, as that un-movable Ld.10 horde is back to its low Ld. with no re-rolls from the BSB. Skaven are a low leadership army once they lose their 'perks' and once something starts to flee, everything else tends to follow in my experience.

- The Hell-Pit Abomination? kill it with fire. The Banner of Eternal Flame on a unit of Chariots is a good solution as hopefully those impact hits can kill it before it can strike back - which given the chance, it will, with a lot of attacks.

- Shooting could be quite effective against Skaven as they generally have T3 all around, but the usefulness of that would depend on if your opponent fields huge hordes, and with Slaves at 2pts each, could easily afford to lose a few models.

- Gutter Runners with poison and the Ambushers rule could cause an issue if you field a Sphinx, but like Skinks can be dealt with by shooting.

- There are a few spells which come to mind - Cracks Call - that could cause a few problems considering Tomb Kings low initiative, not to mention the Dreaded 13th, so if you don't have a Liche High Priest to help with dispelling, a Dispel Scroll might be handy. And speaking of magic, don't forget to take the Casket of Souls!

My only experiences with Skaven are playing with them, not against, but I hope any of that helps. :)

The SSC is your friend. Keep an eye out for any units he might have outside the leadership bubble and look to send them scurrying off the table.

Golden Death Mask King. Take it and love it.

You have to trim down their numbers before the Death Mask can really start making an impact. Even Clanrats have Ld8, if they have a full rank bonus. The SSC is great for that, even if they don't fail the Panic test it provokes - you can get a lot of rats under that template, and even S3 is scary to them.

All of the advice given so far is spot on. Additionally, go after their characters...with a vengeance. Drop SSC shots on them and pray they don't scatter and don't be afraid to try to Death-snipe with Spirit Leech, Laniph and Bajuna. Skaven LD nonsense is much easier to deal with when their general and BSB are gone.

It has only been mentioned twice above, which isn't nearly enough: a level 1 death mage (in a prince unit for shady FAQ rules) will make your life that much easier for so few points.

Light, on the other hand, requires more investment, but a lvl 4 light with timewarp and speed of light will do wonders! especially the plaguefurnace unit you might encounter looses attacks rapidly when you attack first.

also notice that TG have the same initiative as plaguemonks(!), so don't get all depressed and say 'you're skaven so you can probably go first.' furthermore, only when popping the plaguebanner (one use only), skaven are a match for the mighty tomb guard. untill it's used, confront them 5 wide only, after that, reform and lay waste.

knights can take huge amounts of punnishment before problems arise. I have seen 3 of them shrug of 50 str 3 attacks with ease. probably don't run them into stormvermin or rat ogres. as long as there is less than 6 of them, btw, rat ogres die with surprising ease when charged with charriots.

LOOK OUT FOR WARLORDS. They bring the fellblade and kill charriots, knights and ushabti at rediculous rates. they should be sniped.

and all that

This is awesome good info. We should have a thread for what we should do against each army. Super helpful. Thanks guys!

I forget, do Skaven get a SiN bonus to Spirit Leech and Unmodified LD?

EDIT: Nevermind!
Q: When taking a Leadership test, sometimes you have to take it on
your unmodified leadership. What is your unmodified leadership?
(p10)
A: Your unmodified Leadership is the highest Leadership
characteristic in the unit. Do not include any modifiers from
any source, for example, Strength in Numbers, Inspiring
Presence or the Doom and Darkness spell.

further explain this, please (the prince part)

The reference (should not be called shady since it's a clear, unambiguous use of the rule which is clarified by the FAQ - saying it is shady unfairly paints its users in a negative light) is to the FAQ that clarifies that a model's unmodified Ld is the best Ld available in the unit.

Thus, a liche using the spell can draw on his prince or king's Ld to kill things better.

To clarify, they're talking about sticking a cheap Lvl 1 Death Priest with the Spirit Leech Spell, in with a unit led by a Tomb Priest/King to use the unmodified Ld9/10 against Skaven's weak Ld to snipe characters.

yeah, I know, sorry. Was painting myself too, btw, because I do this all the time. just that my skaven pal likes to make a fuss about my cheap liches-army being desigend by crudace just to annoy hardworking skaven players :P. He indoctrinated me so much that in irony I call it shady all the time.

edit: all the same, that illustrates how good sniping works!

edit 2: did I mention you should SNIPE skaven characters?

Late, but take the casket and take chariots.
Easy.

Quick Q - Can I target the Plague Furnace (in a unit of Monks) with the Casket? I know there's a special rule that lets you single out the Furnace with some shooting.

How does that work?

EDIT: Meh, nevermind. With SiN and MR2, it's probably not a good target anyway.

nope, but 40 arrows can be really worth it, though i prefer to have arrows dwindle the monk's numbers, and target the furnace with catapults instead.

The Furnace is Frenzied. Force it to overrun by using Horsemen / Horse Archers / Popping out Swarms / Scorpions / 10 man sacrificial skellies at an angle to remove it from the game / flank charge it with something killy.

Totally.

Even better is doing this after casting Vengeance on it. If it charges and then overruns, that's 2 Dangerous Terrain Tests for a unit with probably 40 models in AND 2 for the Furnace which will take D6 wounds if it fails.

Of course, being Ld10 (usually) and having two shots are restraining frenzy (usually), it's not likely you'll force it to charge, but still, not a bad little trick to try to pull.

True. If it restrains you're effectively freezing it for a turn, or you will make your opponent waste shooting/magic on some weak horsies, or charge it with something else and maybe put a chink in his battle line and strategy.

EDIT: I just thought of something, if you flank charge something that has Vengeance on it, and it combat reforms to be front-to-front, that would be considered 'moving' and force dangerous terrain tests, right?

Reforming in Dangerous Terrain doesn't make you test.

The spell says "testing every time it moves". My thinking here is reforming falls under the realm of 'any movement'.

This may be a weird q but i play againt a skaven oppenent who is lets just say not so forthcoming about the rules all the time....where does is show that they lost strength in numbers/other ldrship bonuses when flanked? Been trying to explain this away to me for ages

Thanks :)

It's in the Strength in Numbers rule itself - it says they get a Leadership bonus equal to their rank bonus. If they don't get a rank bonus (which is what happens when you get disrupted via a flank or rear charge from an opponent with a rank bonus of his own), you don't get the Leadership bonus (or rather, you do - it's just +0). I'm pretty sure that's also in the Skaven FAQ if you think he won't buy the explanation of some guys over the Internet.

Excellent thank you very much...he gaurds his book so we never see it...i know hes a nice guy just a bit odd with things like that. Have my first match vs him since the new book today so here goes :) very helpful time for this topic to be brought up lol

Just some additional tips . . .

If you flank him and win combat, he can only reform on his Unmodified Leadership. For slaves, that's virtually impossible.

The Gutter Runners with poison need to be killed first, before the Abom even. Poisonous slings will drop half your army if you aren't watching.

Death magic is your friend.

Cracks' Call is the only spell you need to absolutely stop. Everything else is negotiable.

The War Sphinx is your best unit against his rank and file, especially with Thundercrush.

Against a Bell or Furnace, direct your shooting attacks against it (after Gutter Runners) since you are allowed to target that separately per their rulebook. You need 6s to wound but they will go down against massive fire.

Excellent some great tips looking forward to putting them to use tonight!!

Decisive victory!!! Thanks for all the help :) first win in ages against his skaven army :)

Congratulations! :)

Planning on putting up a battle report?

Yeah, a batrep would be great.

I just had a battle vs Skaven that ended in a very hard fought draw. I'll have a batrep on my league thread tomorrow.

You gotta love it when a WLC rolls a 2 for the bounce/power roll, but then rolls a 6 to wound, and a 6 for wounds, and takes out a Sphinx in one go.

Blargh.