FWIW, Gutter Runners aren't really where the focus should be with Ikit (though obviously they're not terrible). His workshop and the absurd buffs it gives to e.g. Ratling Gunners and the Poison Wind Globadiers (if you have them) means they become utterly absurd. Ikit is basically the master of Dakka and other war crimes. Deathmaster Snitkch (Clan Eshin) is the one who really loves the Runners.
Another general tip for Skaven is that Plague Priests with the Vermintide spell are exceptionally good, and can summon a totally expendable frontline to tie up enemies while you pepper them with depleted Warpstone.
Not only does his workshop give absurd buffs to weapons teams but when using Ikit himself all of his weapons teams are -50% upkeep!
Weapons teams are about as expensive as clan rats for Ikit. You should have a big ol stack of them plus some heroes to catch enemies and some siege to knock walls down.
Gutter runners are... almost 100% worthless for him*. They will just get shot by your own troops. Or kill units you already killed. They’re not entirely useless as it can be nice to kill fleeing troops (weapons teams are slow). But like... it’s not ever that huge a deal.
*you can sometimes use them to get rid of enemy artillery but like... dwellers below should usually be sufficient.
IMO death runners are the best of the “runners” even though they don’t have range and are that it’s the regular poison versions. But you need neither run kill enemy ranger units because you have ratling guns and warp lock jezzails and an entire line of flamethrowers because they are literally as cheap as clan rats.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
FWIW, Gutter Runners aren't really where the focus should be with Ikit (though obviously they're not terrible). His workshop and the absurd buffs it gives to e.g. Ratling Gunners and the Poison Wind Globadiers (if you have them) means they become utterly absurd. Ikit is basically the master of Dakka and other war crimes. Deathmaster Snitkch (Clan Eshin) is the one who really loves the Runners.
Another general tip for Skaven is that Plague Priests with the Vermintide spell are exceptionally good, and can summon a totally expendable frontline to tie up enemies while you pepper them with depleted Warpstone.
The thing is, by turn 20 I can get a lot of Gutter Runners, while I've barely been able to get anything else fun at all. I certainly do know I should be running a ridiculous gunline of things like Skaven Gatling Bois, but I've also had a total of 8 Refined Warpstone by turn 40, so I don't seem to be able to get anywhere with that at this point.
Basically, I'll replace the gutter runners when the game decides to actually let me do stuff that isn't madly running around fending off the 6 AIs trying to currently murder me.
FWIW, Gutter Runners aren't really where the focus should be with Ikit (though obviously they're not terrible). His workshop and the absurd buffs it gives to e.g. Ratling Gunners and the Poison Wind Globadiers (if you have them) means they become utterly absurd. Ikit is basically the master of Dakka and other war crimes. Deathmaster Snitkch (Clan Eshin) is the one who really loves the Runners.
Another general tip for Skaven is that Plague Priests with the Vermintide spell are exceptionally good, and can summon a totally expendable frontline to tie up enemies while you pepper them with depleted Warpstone.
Not only does his workshop give absurd buffs to weapons teams but when using Ikit himself all of his weapons teams are -50% upkeep!
Weapons teams are about as expensive as clan rats for Ikit. You should have a big ol stack of them plus some heroes to catch enemies and some siege to knock walls down.
Gutter runners are... almost 100% worthless for him*. They will just get shot by your own troops. Or kill units you already killed. They’re not entirely useless as it can be nice to kill fleeing troops (weapons teams are slow). But like... it’s not ever that huge a deal.
*you can sometimes use them to get rid of enemy artillery but like... dwellers below should usually be sufficient.
Have you played this on very hard? It's hard to tech up to Ratling teams and I'm barely getting any refined warpfuel from almost anything I'm doing, so they're not that great at the moment and on the third attempt, on Turn 40 I have killed all of Bretonnia, Tilea and Estonia while a weapon team build on turn 75 stalled out to multiple AI armies of greatswords and halberdiers, backed by handgunners. Billions and billions of handgunners....
Currently gutter runners are kind of winning this for me. I'm sure this will change, but that will only change when I get lucky enough to actually *get* refined Warpfuel. I've had 8 in total after the initial bit you start with. Not a lot to work with.
I have indeed played in on very hard. Once you have warpfire throwers basically nothing threatens you in the open field.
How could a weapons team stall to greatswords and halberdiers? Handgunners I can see (because Handgunners are almost as good as your weapons teams, though like, magic...). Your weapons teams counter Halberdiers and greatswords. Slow melee infantry versus AP ranged that slows enemies even further? Yea OK.
On VH a double stack of Halberdiers and greatswords Vs Ikit is just two dead stacks of infantry the same as anything else. Hell, regular old swordsmen are better than Halbs and Swords (at least they have shields to take less ratling gun dmg) for fighting Ikit.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I have indeed absolutely slaughtered those stacks on VH with Ikit. (The knights are the most dangerous thing but they usually don’t have enough to matter)
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I have indeed absolutely slaughtered those stacks on VH with Ikit. (The knights are the most dangerous thing but they usually don’t have enough to matter)
With unupgraded weapons teams at turn 50? How are you getting that much Warpfuel?
Edit: No sarcasm there, I genuinely have no idea how you do that.
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
The Warlock Engineer hero has a chance to collect Warpstone fuel when used as an agent on the overworld. Having several of those repeatedly using Steal Technology on enemy settlements should help get fuel for Ikit's workshop.
Also, you can get rid of buildings you don't want. So with the t3 settlement trick for early Plagueclaw Catapults, you can destroy that and replace it with a Weapon Burrow and get Ratling guns quickly if you don't want to wait for Skavenblight to hit t3, which can be slow even with a growth building in it. Doing this early can lead to you running a deficit with an expensive army, but as long as you're fighting you should be able to make enough money to counter-act that until you get your economy up and running.
Talking of economy, Ulthuan is a very good target for Undercities. 1 Warlock Engineer nipping off to Lothern at the start builds an Undercity there, and then leaves. You use the pink undercity expansion building coupled with Deeper Tunnels to start spreading the Undercity, and then add the Income and Food buildings + Deeper Tunnels again to each successive UC, and keep the expansion buildings for each one to spread across all of Ulthuan. Since Ulthuan is red territory, bad for Skaven, you'll probably not run into the problem of wanting to take a city that you already have a UC making you money in.
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited May 2021
I am not impressed with the performance of weapons teams. I have quite a few now, but man they do not melt armies of halberd and hand gunners anywhere near effectively enough. I really call nonsense on that.
One wood elf army with zoats and treemen just walked over them as if they weren’t there. Lost two stacks to that and it’s set me back a lot.
Thankfully I built a third army of mostly globadiers and stormvermin. That was a huge set back though.
Edit: Do I need to make my army over 50% weapons teams? How are people using them?
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
This is the basic Skaven army layout I use for almost all battles. 6ish units of Clans/Stormvermin, 3 heroes + lord, 5 Artillery (3 PCs, 2 WLCs), 3 Ratling Guns and 2 Jezzails*. I have yet to meet a single AI army that can beat it, and it's had some victories against multiple stacks of end-game armies (4x Brets with Louie & Alby and well over 12 regiments of royal hippos). Focus firing major threats is important, as is spamming Vermintide and Menace Below to tie them up. And honestly, it works even without Ikit's workshop.
* Against some enemies who spam monsters or war machines, or just anything with low model count, high HP, 3 Jezzails and 2 Ratling Guns is better.
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited May 2021
Well just lost the campaign. Nine orc armies from Grimgor appeared, combined with the 4 Wood Elf armies from the Glade that decided to call a wild hunt that I couldn't push back against enough. Couldn't hold back stacks of pure black orcs with absolutely nothing to stop them and only two armies. I'm going to retry it though, with new knowledge and going to try to rush for catapults early.
Oddly I have been trying that but haven't had any luck. My greatest problem was not having enough money to ever run more than two armies effectively, so once it came to being shit on by Grimgor and company I just didn't have the armies to push them back
I got Tobaro at level 3 immediately, but didn't think to put Plagueclaw building in there! That would have been a much smarter start. I think I'll be going with Kroq-Gar next after I am done with this. The situation is pretty stable and one underway easily gets me back to Skavenblight when I need to defend it from the ghost dwarves who hang out next to me. The gutter runner armies I made have been super efficient, but maybe it's time to replace one of the 10+ clanrats with plagueclaw catapults.
In fairness my first three campaigns of Total War II have been Morathi, Drycha and now Ikit. So I've been punched in the balls from the very start of playing the game. Morathi was brutal to begin with, but then got hilariously easy once I got rolling. But never forget the terrible 150+ turns spent in the jungles of Lustria. I may have picked those two other starts because they weren't anywhere near Lizardmen, but this is the first campaign where I've seen the AI just camp its capital with two armies and just *never* leaves until the second you move away.
Edit: Also that trick of bating enemies in cities with a smaller army is quite clever. I was accidentally doing that with my second lord once his army of skaven slaves was initially ready.
I guess the last bit of advice to offer if you're playing on Very Hard is to watch LegendofTotalWar on Youtube. At this point he's probably got just about every ME campaign covered in his livestreams. He's usually got good early-game strategies, and since he only plays on Legendary they ought to work for you too.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I got Tobaro at level 3 immediately, but didn't think to put Plagueclaw building in there! That would have been a much smarter start. I think I'll be going with Kroq-Gar next after I am done with this. The situation is pretty stable and one underway easily gets me back to Skavenblight when I need to defend it from the ghost dwarves who hang out next to me. The gutter runner armies I made have been super efficient, but maybe it's time to replace one of the 10+ clanrats with plagueclaw catapults.
In fairness my first three campaigns of Total War II have been Morathi, Drycha and now Ikit. So I've been punched in the balls from the very start of playing the game. Morathi was brutal to begin with, but then got hilariously easy once I got rolling. But never forget the terrible 150+ turns spent in the jungles of Lustria. I may have picked those two other starts because they weren't anywhere near Lizardmen, but this is the first campaign where I've seen the AI just camp its capital with two armies and just *never* leaves until the second you move away.
Edit: Also that trick of bating enemies in cities with a smaller army is quite clever. I was accidentally doing that with my second lord once his army of skaven slaves was initially ready.
I guess the last bit of advice to offer if you're playing on Very Hard is to watch LegendofTotalWar on Youtube. At this point he's probably got just about every ME campaign covered in his livestreams. He's usually got good early-game strategies, and since he only plays on Legendary they ought to work for you too.
Legend recommends getting Skavenblight up to T5 before you take any other territory. You can sack other cities all you want but don't capture them. Tobaro is far more valuable as a sack city than under your control. The experience your 2nd army will get ends up being a lot more valuable than another 200gpt. A full stack of Skaven Slave Slingers should be more than capable of holding off all but the strongest armies.
Most important, when playing as Skaven is ABA. Always Be Ambushing. If you aren't in a city, end your turn in ambush stance. Boost ambush chance before any other lord upgrades. Always attack the amy standing outside of a city rather than the city itself. If you aren't ambushing, run away. However, don't be afraid to send a lord into a battle he can't win, as long as he inflicts more casualties than he takes before withdrawing, you are winning. I've seen a single rat attack and withdraw over and over again until and elite army is in tatters and has to withdraw.
One thing I've found with warpfire throwers is that you should:
1. Deploy them in a square formation. Everyone in the unit can always shoot, and deploying them in a square means they rotate faster.
2. Deploy them in pairs. If you can get two units of warpfire throwers to fire at something, then that something is most likely going to run away. And if something gets into close combat you can use the second unit to dislodge it.
3. If you use them late game, deploy them with a halberd bodyguard. Cavalry and big monsters is your biggest problem (fewer shots, more hitpoints per model). Stormvermin Halberds are ok at that duty.
Their main drawback is that they're so microintensive (and I guess "vulnerable to enemy ranged units"). While I love warpfirethrowers on very hard I would only use them on legendary in an emergency.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
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I am not impressed with the performance of weapons teams. I have quite a few now, but man they do not melt armies of halberd and hand gunners anywhere near effectively enough. I really call nonsense on that.
One wood elf army with zoats and treemen just walked over them as if they weren’t there. Lost two stacks to that and it’s set me back a lot.
Thankfully I built a third army of mostly globadiers and stormvermin. That was a huge set back though.
Edit: Do I need to make my army over 50% weapons teams? How are people using them?
They're amazing if used correctly! The numerous people in the thread pumping them up aren't just lying for funsies. They require more micro than most units, but will get tons of kills once you figure out how to do it correctly. Bethyrm's post is a solid guide on a formation that will work, but you can play around with it as well.
I mean. I do prefer handgunners and volley guns to weapons teams but like... to suggest that gutter runners for 187 upkeep are better than ratling gunners at 106..
I will take a stack of jezzails and gunners anyday over skaven melee/skirmish infantry
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I am not impressed with the performance of weapons teams. I have quite a few now, but man they do not melt armies of halberd and hand gunners anywhere near effectively enough. I really call nonsense on that.
One wood elf army with zoats and treemen just walked over them as if they weren’t there. Lost two stacks to that and it’s set me back a lot.
Thankfully I built a third army of mostly globadiers and stormvermin. That was a huge set back though.
Edit: Do I need to make my army over 50% weapons teams? How are people using them?
They're amazing if used correctly! The numerous people in the thread pumping them up aren't just lying for funsies. They require more micro than most units, but will get tons of kills once you figure out how to do it correctly. Bethyrm's post is a solid guide on a formation that will work, but you can play around with it as well.
Honestly not that impressed. They are alright but have tons of hard counters like zoats (these are the bane of my existence now) and when they fall apart there is no coming back.
In good news though I didn’t give up! In 80 turns I have done nothing but fight orcs and wood elves over two settlements. It’s intense but I am about to exterminate those damn elves once and for all!
Weapons teams (particularly Jezzails) should counter zoats...weapons teams are weak to long ranged archery like high elf archers (because they’re outranges) and weak to full cavalry (IE high unit size and small unit model because they’re fast and cannot be engaged after they land their charge due to not being significantly taller than the rats) . Intermediate monsters are weak to ranged attacks like Jezzails.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Weapons teams (particularly Jezzails) should counter zoats...weapons teams are weak to long ranged archery like high elf archers (because they’re outranges) and weak to full cavalry (IE high unit size and small unit model because they’re fast and cannot be engaged after they land their charge due to not being significantly taller than the rats) . Intermediate monsters are weak to ranged attacks like Jezzails.
You might think this, but it's quite mistaken it turns out. Especially when the AI dumps huge AOE spells right in the middle of the weapons teams. Not to mention them failing to fire if there is a slight pebble in the way in terms of height difference. I'm still using them, but I'm finding that their bugginess, poor AI (just shoot for fucks sake) and such make them more frustrating than fun to use. In my endless pitched battles against the orcs I found them super effective as they have major problems with morale and run easily. Against the wood elves, especially some of their new shit in the DLC that can snipe your engineer out almost instantly and zoats basically cream them. If you get a map that is even SLIGHTLY favoured towards woods or hilly terrain it's basically go home time.
I'm at turn 200 and have only just unlocked the last tier of the workshop too.
It's really just not working for me, but I'm persisting especially because I finally annihilated the filthy wood elves from existence. Going from "I think this campaign is lost" to grinding out an incredibly hard victory and basically burning every tree I could find was quite satisfying. You might wonder what the difference was? 15 turns after I declared I lost, there was a huge army of mammoths that appeared as one of the Norscan factions is doing really well it seems. They mowed through the Greenskins and have almost run them entirely off my area of the map. Now it's just me and the Vampire Counts (they're yellow if that helps anyone remember) as I intended.
To think I almost declared war on him 100 turns ago...
there was a time when I was willing to do the micro for handgunners and their like, which does pay off very well, but nowadays I will take waywatchers with their arc firing and did you just see how fast that unshielded elite unit melted
But then again like, napoleonic warfare is probably my favorite period so letting me just fill the air with lead will always put a big banana grin on my face.
I am not impressed with the performance of weapons teams. I have quite a few now, but man they do not melt armies of halberd and hand gunners anywhere near effectively enough. I really call nonsense on that.
One wood elf army with zoats and treemen just walked over them as if they weren’t there. Lost two stacks to that and it’s set me back a lot.
Thankfully I built a third army of mostly globadiers and stormvermin. That was a huge set back though.
Edit: Do I need to make my army over 50% weapons teams? How are people using them?
They're amazing if used correctly! The numerous people in the thread pumping them up aren't just lying for funsies. They require more micro than most units, but will get tons of kills once you figure out how to do it correctly. Bethyrm's post is a solid guide on a formation that will work, but you can play around with it as well.
Honestly not that impressed. They are alright but have tons of hard counters like zoats (these are the bane of my existence now) and when they fall apart there is no coming back.
In good news though I didn’t give up! In 80 turns I have done nothing but fight orcs and wood elves over two settlements. It’s intense but I am about to exterminate those damn elves once and for all!
There are times when you have to look at yourself, ya know? That's my point. There are a lot of people here with tons of experience using them, who absolutely can use them effectively and can do things with them that you're saying are impossible.
If something seems ineffective, there are times it's user error. In this case, you're dismissing things entirely because you're personally not adept with them or comfortable using them.
There are tons of amazing units that I don't personally like using for one way or another, because everyone has their personal quirks and preferences and skills. It doesn't always mean they're bad, and you're dismissing units that lots of people think are amazing because they're using them in a more effective way than you are.
It's cool if they don't fit your playstyle or you find them too finnickey to "figure out", but that doesn't mean they're not amazing when used properly. They are amazing when used properly, as many of us have personally verified with hundreds of hours to test and reconfirm.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Weapons teams (particularly Jezzails) should counter zoats...weapons teams are weak to long ranged archery like high elf archers (because they’re outranges) and weak to full cavalry (IE high unit size and small unit model because they’re fast and cannot be engaged after they land their charge due to not being significantly taller than the rats) . Intermediate monsters are weak to ranged attacks like Jezzails.
You might think this, but it's quite mistaken it turns out. Especially when the AI dumps huge AOE spells right in the middle of the weapons teams. Not to mention them failing to fire if there is a slight pebble in the way in terms of height difference. I'm still using them, but I'm finding that their bugginess, poor AI (just shoot for fucks sake) and such make them more frustrating than fun to use. In my endless pitched battles against the orcs I found them super effective as they have major problems with morale and run easily. Against the wood elves, especially some of their new shit in the DLC that can snipe your engineer out almost instantly and zoats basically cream them. If you get a map that is even SLIGHTLY favoured towards woods or hilly terrain it's basically go home time.
I'm at turn 200 and have only just unlocked the last tier of the workshop too.
It's really just not working for me, but I'm persisting especially because I finally annihilated the filthy wood elves from existence. Going from "I think this campaign is lost" to grinding out an incredibly hard victory and basically burning every tree I could find was quite satisfying. You might wonder what the difference was? 15 turns after I declared I lost, there was a huge army of mammoths that appeared as one of the Norscan factions is doing really well it seems. They mowed through the Greenskins and have almost run them entirely off my area of the map. Now it's just me and the Vampire Counts (they're yellow if that helps anyone remember) as I intended.
To think I almost declared war on him 100 turns ago...
You need to use Plague Priests to screen your ranged units. Use your clanrat summons to bog down high threat units. For best results summon your rats behind the enemy so your gunners and fire in without obstruction. I recommend 4 Plague Priests and 2 Engineers in your weapon team stacks.
while we're talking about skaven it is really disappointing to me that they never reduced the cost of stormvermin. they're way too expensive for was is a very mediocre unit
It's been a while since I've played TWW2 now, but I think I used a setup kind of like this:
Ikit Claw up front, one plague priest on each flank. They will tank and summon more distractions if needed.
Single model units don't block line of fire, so if the enemy clumps around Ikit or a priest, it's like shooting fish in a barrel with a bunch of machine guns.
Gun line with 5 jezzails and 4 ratling guns, alternated. Just put them in a line and leave them on fire at will.
Artillery line with 4 catapults, maybe one mortar. Engineer in the middle to boost them.
Maybe one or two doomwheels or doomflayers in case you need to catch something fast.
You don't need melee infantry at all, and at least so far in my campaign I haven't had to micromanage anything.
Doom flayers are super good for also just running in circles in front of your shooters causing enemies to stop to face them or try and chase them down.
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DeadfallI don't think you realize just how rich he is.In fact, I should put on a monocle.Registered Userregular
I know some folks like the challenge but playing on anything above normal seems like a brutal slog to me.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Doom flayers are super good for also just running in circles in front of your shooters causing enemies to stop to face them or try and chase them down.
Doom Flayers punch WAY above their weight class. They have great mobility and good enough mass to push through infantry formations. Once they get into combat, they re really hard for ranged units to hit because they are so small. Artillery that targets them will usually do more damage to their own units then your flayers. I would take them over Doom Wheels any day of the week. Wheels don't have all that much more mass than Flayers, the ranged attack doesn't do a lot of damage, and their gigantic so it's super easy for ranged units to target them.
I know some folks like the challenge but playing on anything above normal seems like a brutal slog to me.
A huge part of it depends on Faction. From what I know, Supply Lines on wood elves are the worst. The last time I looked, their supply lines were screwed up on higher difficulties. The last time I checked as a few months ago and the setup had Supply Lines +8% upkeep on Normal difficulty and +120% upkeep on Very Hard difficulty.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I am not impressed with the performance of weapons teams. I have quite a few now, but man they do not melt armies of halberd and hand gunners anywhere near effectively enough. I really call nonsense on that.
One wood elf army with zoats and treemen just walked over them as if they weren’t there. Lost two stacks to that and it’s set me back a lot.
Thankfully I built a third army of mostly globadiers and stormvermin. That was a huge set back though.
Edit: Do I need to make my army over 50% weapons teams? How are people using them?
They're amazing if used correctly! The numerous people in the thread pumping them up aren't just lying for funsies. They require more micro than most units, but will get tons of kills once you figure out how to do it correctly. Bethyrm's post is a solid guide on a formation that will work, but you can play around with it as well.
Honestly not that impressed. They are alright but have tons of hard counters like zoats (these are the bane of my existence now) and when they fall apart there is no coming back.
In good news though I didn’t give up! In 80 turns I have done nothing but fight orcs and wood elves over two settlements. It’s intense but I am about to exterminate those damn elves once and for all!
There are times when you have to look at yourself, ya know? That's my point. There are a lot of people here with tons of experience using them, who absolutely can use them effectively and can do things with them that you're saying are impossible.
I'm a bit down on them because it's been a real slog and grind, probably against two enemies that were just very good at specifically countering them. Additionally Wood Elves have gone from a joke army to a serious threat, because they have the ability with certain characters to instantly snipe yours out almost as soon as the fight starts. Ikit, for example, usually loses over 50% of his health before the Wood Elves get into artillery range and I just can't murder enough of the bastards that do that. I think the ability is Arrow of Kurnos and it's pretty damn good! I usually lose the engineer and sometimes lord within the first few minutes of any battle, which with Skaven leadership is a huge issue as you might imagine.
If something seems ineffective, there are times it's user error. In this case, you're dismissing things entirely because you're personally not adept with them or comfortable using them.
Oh I'm not dismissing them. My armies are still mostly ratling guns and I'm about to ditch the stormvermin for doomscythes and plague priests. That seems like a really good alternative. I'm coming around to the idea that stormvermin are just really bad and I should stop using them too.
It's cool if they don't fit your playstyle or you find them too finnickey to "figure out", but that doesn't mean they're not amazing when used properly. They are amazing when used properly, as many of us have personally verified with hundreds of hours to test and reconfirm.
So I guess I should state I kind of play the game in a soft Ironman, where I try not to reload or not accept results that happen. So if I lose an army, I have to find a way back from that defeat etc. It makes the game very intense, but more fun - especially because the AI can be readily exploited like with ambushes etc. The issue I have with guns is that I can't see how they aren't instantly doomed by some maps. As I mentioned before, I got a map that had trees literally everywhere and undulating hills, so basically no LOS to the enemy army until they were within white eyes level of visibility. It was pretty hard to deal with and was essentially an instant loss of Ikrits army. What could I do? 5 zoats, 3 forest dragons + lord, bunch of wardancers and 4 units of other cavalry just doesn't seem possible to stop at all with that army.
My army needs to drop the stormvermin - 6 stormvermin with shields seem to be tissue paper and that's really sad. But I'm running 2 plagueclaws, 1 engineer (can't keep more than that alive due to relentless AI wounding or assassination attempts), 2 lightning cannons, lord, 5 ratling guns, 2 jezzails and probably 2 more ratling guns or something (I forget). I'm tempted based on suggestions here to try using doomscythes and plague priests (depending on how many plague priests I'm allowed?), because that would allow more dakka and it means the ratling guns ideally shoot more.
My main issue with this army is that it just seems to have instant losses, which I now just shrug and reload to avoid. Perhaps I should feel bad about that, but I'm not losing an entire army just because I can't decide I don't want to fight on the wrong kind of hill.
I know some folks like the challenge but playing on anything above normal seems like a brutal slog to me.
A huge part of it depends on Faction. From what I know, Supply Lines on wood elves are the worst. The last time I looked, their supply lines were screwed up on higher difficulties. The last time I checked as a few months ago and the setup had Supply Lines +8% upkeep on Normal difficulty and +120% upkeep on Very Hard difficulty.
Honestly, I think I'm becoming rather done with very hard because of this. I like the number of armies and epicness that happens, like fending off 27 orc armies outside of Skavenblight was incredible non-stop action, but the fact it screws around with your economy side so much is a complete pain. I would like a Very Hard that gave me the normal economy stuff, but let the AI have its doomstacks and occasionally really challenging quick tech, so I have to beat superior forces with lower tier units and being clever.
if you're playing battles on VH as well then melee are extra useless. it's all kind of silly and why doing standard melee death pits on normal can be more challenging than massing ranged on VH.
stormvermin in particular are incredibly cost inefficient and one of the worst units around outside of queek's army. very disappointing
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Yeah I wish I had teched to upper tier plague stuff first. Plague monks are great and there I should have stuck to what I knew was good.
1) not for Ikit. Anything in front of your gunners is a wasted unit.
2) they do not follow the normal way in which heavy infantry scale and people will often choose the wrong unit.
The good thing about Stormvermin is that they have 120 units and 48 melee defense and 38 MA with 90 armor and 35% shields. This is far better than Grave Guard quality (36 MD, 22+8 MA) though the cost definitely is high. This is pretty good in terms of elite infantry stats.
The bad part about stormvermin that you probably chose the unit with 45 MD, 25 MA, and no shields instead. Because you were used to “spears have better defense” and are therefore the better unit.
Now, Stormvermin aren’t going to win against enemy elite AP infantry. But they will still walk all over regular infantry. And they do hold really well.
stormvermin only have 36 MD, coming to 44 with strength in numbers. lower than every other armored shield and sword unit except graveguard who come with their own advantages and are cheaper. they really need to get dropped to around the 900/200 price range, but at this point if they thought it was a problem it would have been done.
stormvermin only have 36 MD, coming to 44 with strength in numbers. lower than every other armored shield and sword unit except graveguard who come with their own advantages and are cheaper. they really need to get dropped to around the 900/200 price range, but at this point if they thought it was a problem it would have been done.
But not other 120 unit cards.
Longbeards are 48.
Tomb Guard are 41
Sword masters are 48
Temple Guard are 38
Chosen are 62(but 80 units)
Depth Guard are 64(but 60 units!)
Eternal Guard are 44
Marauder Champions are 53
Stormvermin also have 38 speed.
Most armies don’t even have a high armor, shielded unit. You don’t need a lot of Stormvermin. But when you need them they do their job.
half of those units aren't armored and shielded. chaos warriors would be the direct comparison for chaos, coming in with 44 MD, silver shields, and being cheaper. chosen have a smaller unit size but they will hold out forever because the things are damn near invincible in melee. temple guard I forgot about since they fill a very rare role of being armored, shielded, and anti large.
stormvermin also only have 38 speed when their MD is off, dropping them back down to 36. at that point they are getting outdone by dirt cheap empire spearmen with their 42(!) MD and silver shields. about the only thing stormvermin are effective against are unarmored units, non armor piercing units which.. who cares? you're better off with clanrat spears and putting that cash into other units. one unit of stormvermin is 262 upkeep, a clanrat spears and a warpfire thrower is 275 upkeep.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Stormvermin are expensive not because of their unit stats but because of the army they fit into. If Skaven had an insane back line as well as disposable frontline summons as well as cheap t3 decent infantry that would be ridiculous.
I mean, that's not fair to someone like me who doesn't have the dlc and doesn't have all those insane backline units and just really likes stormvermin. there's no point in having units not be useful.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Their base game backline is already great, as is their spellcasting. Ikit just turns that up to 11 (and beyond...).
And Stormvermin aren't useless just because they're slightly more expensive than their stats might justify (just like Saurus are slightly too cheap for their stats). They fulfil their role well enough to finish a L/VH campaign.
Honestly, if there's a Skaven unit I think doesn't earn its spot, it's the Plague Monks. Even when playing Clan Pestilens, they're just... not competitive.
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Stormvermin are expensive not because of their unit stats but because of the army they fit into. If Skaven had an insane back line as well as disposable frontline summons as well as cheap t3 decent infantry that would be ridiculous.
It's more that they don't have great leadership. My problem with them is how they crumble and retreat to any sustained attack, instead of holding onto a flank for things to kill the rest of the army. Like temple guard hold the line and just don't move, which is basically their job and the job of any tier 3 infantry unit.
My tactics have been adjusted and the best revelation is the Doom Scythe as suggested by That_Guy \. The little fellow just keeps going on and on and on like the murderous version of the energizer bunny. I've replaced 4/6 stormvermin with them and I have 2 plague censer bearers as the remaining two melee units. They've been doing a very good job at holding the line and messing around with enemies that get near the gunline. This has vastly improved things because you can just charge the doomscythes in and they'll hold enemies in place for the guns to kill them.
I've lost a couple of armies to the dreaded "Small hill prevents everyone from firing for absolutely no reason" thing, but otherwise it no longer matters. My eight armies are moving around the map slaughtering orcs at whim. Soon I will finally, by turn 298, be in a position to attack the Vampire Counts in Bretonnia.
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Not only does his workshop give absurd buffs to weapons teams but when using Ikit himself all of his weapons teams are -50% upkeep!
Weapons teams are about as expensive as clan rats for Ikit. You should have a big ol stack of them plus some heroes to catch enemies and some siege to knock walls down.
Gutter runners are... almost 100% worthless for him*. They will just get shot by your own troops. Or kill units you already killed. They’re not entirely useless as it can be nice to kill fleeing troops (weapons teams are slow). But like... it’s not ever that huge a deal.
*you can sometimes use them to get rid of enemy artillery but like... dwellers below should usually be sufficient.
Edit:
Upkeep for Ikit:
Gutter runners: 187
Poison gutter runner slingers: 212
Clan Rats(shielded spears): 93
Ratling Guns: 106
Warp lock Jezzails: 112.5
Warp fire Throwers: 87.5
Clanrats(shields): 87
IMO death runners are the best of the “runners” even though they don’t have range and are that it’s the regular poison versions. But you need neither run kill enemy ranger units because you have ratling guns and warp lock jezzails and an entire line of flamethrowers because they are literally as cheap as clan rats.
The thing is, by turn 20 I can get a lot of Gutter Runners, while I've barely been able to get anything else fun at all. I certainly do know I should be running a ridiculous gunline of things like Skaven Gatling Bois, but I've also had a total of 8 Refined Warpstone by turn 40, so I don't seem to be able to get anywhere with that at this point.
Basically, I'll replace the gutter runners when the game decides to actually let me do stuff that isn't madly running around fending off the 6 AIs trying to currently murder me.
Have you played this on very hard? It's hard to tech up to Ratling teams and I'm barely getting any refined warpfuel from almost anything I'm doing, so they're not that great at the moment and on the third attempt, on Turn 40 I have killed all of Bretonnia, Tilea and Estonia while a weapon team build on turn 75 stalled out to multiple AI armies of greatswords and halberdiers, backed by handgunners. Billions and billions of handgunners....
Currently gutter runners are kind of winning this for me. I'm sure this will change, but that will only change when I get lucky enough to actually *get* refined Warpfuel. I've had 8 in total after the initial bit you start with. Not a lot to work with.
How could a weapons team stall to greatswords and halberdiers? Handgunners I can see (because Handgunners are almost as good as your weapons teams, though like, magic...). Your weapons teams counter Halberdiers and greatswords. Slow melee infantry versus AP ranged that slows enemies even further? Yea OK.
On VH a double stack of Halberdiers and greatswords Vs Ikit is just two dead stacks of infantry the same as anything else. Hell, regular old swordsmen are better than Halbs and Swords (at least they have shields to take less ratling gun dmg) for fighting Ikit.
Except a 40 stack of greatswords, mortars, handgunners and knights.
I learned that the hard way. Now that doesn't happen, because I've not let them live long enough to get that far.
Edit: Though I will say I also screwed myself by failing to turn off skirmish mode on the weapons teams repeatedly.
With unupgraded weapons teams at turn 50? How are you getting that much Warpfuel?
Edit: No sarcasm there, I genuinely have no idea how you do that.
Also, you can get rid of buildings you don't want. So with the t3 settlement trick for early Plagueclaw Catapults, you can destroy that and replace it with a Weapon Burrow and get Ratling guns quickly if you don't want to wait for Skavenblight to hit t3, which can be slow even with a growth building in it. Doing this early can lead to you running a deficit with an expensive army, but as long as you're fighting you should be able to make enough money to counter-act that until you get your economy up and running.
Talking of economy, Ulthuan is a very good target for Undercities. 1 Warlock Engineer nipping off to Lothern at the start builds an Undercity there, and then leaves. You use the pink undercity expansion building coupled with Deeper Tunnels to start spreading the Undercity, and then add the Income and Food buildings + Deeper Tunnels again to each successive UC, and keep the expansion buildings for each one to spread across all of Ulthuan. Since Ulthuan is red territory, bad for Skaven, you'll probably not run into the problem of wanting to take a city that you already have a UC making you money in.
One wood elf army with zoats and treemen just walked over them as if they weren’t there. Lost two stacks to that and it’s set me back a lot.
Thankfully I built a third army of mostly globadiers and stormvermin. That was a huge set back though.
Edit: Do I need to make my army over 50% weapons teams? How are people using them?
This is the basic Skaven army layout I use for almost all battles. 6ish units of Clans/Stormvermin, 3 heroes + lord, 5 Artillery (3 PCs, 2 WLCs), 3 Ratling Guns and 2 Jezzails*. I have yet to meet a single AI army that can beat it, and it's had some victories against multiple stacks of end-game armies (4x Brets with Louie & Alby and well over 12 regiments of royal hippos). Focus firing major threats is important, as is spamming Vermintide and Menace Below to tie them up. And honestly, it works even without Ikit's workshop.
* Against some enemies who spam monsters or war machines, or just anything with low model count, high HP, 3 Jezzails and 2 Ratling Guns is better.
Oddly I have been trying that but haven't had any luck. My greatest problem was not having enough money to ever run more than two armies effectively, so once it came to being shit on by Grimgor and company I just didn't have the armies to push them back
Edit: OR is there a way out? Hmmmm.
I guess the last bit of advice to offer if you're playing on Very Hard is to watch LegendofTotalWar on Youtube. At this point he's probably got just about every ME campaign covered in his livestreams. He's usually got good early-game strategies, and since he only plays on Legendary they ought to work for you too.
Legend recommends getting Skavenblight up to T5 before you take any other territory. You can sack other cities all you want but don't capture them. Tobaro is far more valuable as a sack city than under your control. The experience your 2nd army will get ends up being a lot more valuable than another 200gpt. A full stack of Skaven Slave Slingers should be more than capable of holding off all but the strongest armies.
Most important, when playing as Skaven is ABA. Always Be Ambushing. If you aren't in a city, end your turn in ambush stance. Boost ambush chance before any other lord upgrades. Always attack the amy standing outside of a city rather than the city itself. If you aren't ambushing, run away. However, don't be afraid to send a lord into a battle he can't win, as long as he inflicts more casualties than he takes before withdrawing, you are winning. I've seen a single rat attack and withdraw over and over again until and elite army is in tatters and has to withdraw.
1. Deploy them in a square formation. Everyone in the unit can always shoot, and deploying them in a square means they rotate faster.
2. Deploy them in pairs. If you can get two units of warpfire throwers to fire at something, then that something is most likely going to run away. And if something gets into close combat you can use the second unit to dislodge it.
3. If you use them late game, deploy them with a halberd bodyguard. Cavalry and big monsters is your biggest problem (fewer shots, more hitpoints per model). Stormvermin Halberds are ok at that duty.
Their main drawback is that they're so microintensive (and I guess "vulnerable to enemy ranged units"). While I love warpfirethrowers on very hard I would only use them on legendary in an emergency.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
They're amazing if used correctly! The numerous people in the thread pumping them up aren't just lying for funsies. They require more micro than most units, but will get tons of kills once you figure out how to do it correctly. Bethyrm's post is a solid guide on a formation that will work, but you can play around with it as well.
I will take a stack of jezzails and gunners anyday over skaven melee/skirmish infantry
Honestly not that impressed. They are alright but have tons of hard counters like zoats (these are the bane of my existence now) and when they fall apart there is no coming back.
In good news though I didn’t give up! In 80 turns I have done nothing but fight orcs and wood elves over two settlements. It’s intense but I am about to exterminate those damn elves once and for all!
You might think this, but it's quite mistaken it turns out. Especially when the AI dumps huge AOE spells right in the middle of the weapons teams. Not to mention them failing to fire if there is a slight pebble in the way in terms of height difference. I'm still using them, but I'm finding that their bugginess, poor AI (just shoot for fucks sake) and such make them more frustrating than fun to use. In my endless pitched battles against the orcs I found them super effective as they have major problems with morale and run easily. Against the wood elves, especially some of their new shit in the DLC that can snipe your engineer out almost instantly and zoats basically cream them. If you get a map that is even SLIGHTLY favoured towards woods or hilly terrain it's basically go home time.
I'm at turn 200 and have only just unlocked the last tier of the workshop too.
It's really just not working for me, but I'm persisting especially because I finally annihilated the filthy wood elves from existence. Going from "I think this campaign is lost" to grinding out an incredibly hard victory and basically burning every tree I could find was quite satisfying. You might wonder what the difference was? 15 turns after I declared I lost, there was a huge army of mammoths that appeared as one of the Norscan factions is doing really well it seems. They mowed through the Greenskins and have almost run them entirely off my area of the map. Now it's just me and the Vampire Counts (they're yellow if that helps anyone remember) as I intended.
To think I almost declared war on him 100 turns ago...
But then again like, napoleonic warfare is probably my favorite period so letting me just fill the air with lead will always put a big banana grin on my face.
There are times when you have to look at yourself, ya know? That's my point. There are a lot of people here with tons of experience using them, who absolutely can use them effectively and can do things with them that you're saying are impossible.
If something seems ineffective, there are times it's user error. In this case, you're dismissing things entirely because you're personally not adept with them or comfortable using them.
There are tons of amazing units that I don't personally like using for one way or another, because everyone has their personal quirks and preferences and skills. It doesn't always mean they're bad, and you're dismissing units that lots of people think are amazing because they're using them in a more effective way than you are.
It's cool if they don't fit your playstyle or you find them too finnickey to "figure out", but that doesn't mean they're not amazing when used properly. They are amazing when used properly, as many of us have personally verified with hundreds of hours to test and reconfirm.
You need to use Plague Priests to screen your ranged units. Use your clanrat summons to bog down high threat units. For best results summon your rats behind the enemy so your gunners and fire in without obstruction. I recommend 4 Plague Priests and 2 Engineers in your weapon team stacks.
Ikit Claw up front, one plague priest on each flank. They will tank and summon more distractions if needed.
Single model units don't block line of fire, so if the enemy clumps around Ikit or a priest, it's like shooting fish in a barrel with a bunch of machine guns.
Gun line with 5 jezzails and 4 ratling guns, alternated. Just put them in a line and leave them on fire at will.
Artillery line with 4 catapults, maybe one mortar. Engineer in the middle to boost them.
Maybe one or two doomwheels or doomflayers in case you need to catch something fast.
You don't need melee infantry at all, and at least so far in my campaign I haven't had to micromanage anything.
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Doom Flayers punch WAY above their weight class. They have great mobility and good enough mass to push through infantry formations. Once they get into combat, they re really hard for ranged units to hit because they are so small. Artillery that targets them will usually do more damage to their own units then your flayers. I would take them over Doom Wheels any day of the week. Wheels don't have all that much more mass than Flayers, the ranged attack doesn't do a lot of damage, and their gigantic so it's super easy for ranged units to target them.
A huge part of it depends on Faction. From what I know, Supply Lines on wood elves are the worst. The last time I looked, their supply lines were screwed up on higher difficulties. The last time I checked as a few months ago and the setup had Supply Lines +8% upkeep on Normal difficulty and +120% upkeep on Very Hard difficulty.
I'm a bit down on them because it's been a real slog and grind, probably against two enemies that were just very good at specifically countering them. Additionally Wood Elves have gone from a joke army to a serious threat, because they have the ability with certain characters to instantly snipe yours out almost as soon as the fight starts. Ikit, for example, usually loses over 50% of his health before the Wood Elves get into artillery range and I just can't murder enough of the bastards that do that. I think the ability is Arrow of Kurnos and it's pretty damn good! I usually lose the engineer and sometimes lord within the first few minutes of any battle, which with Skaven leadership is a huge issue as you might imagine.
Oh I'm not dismissing them. My armies are still mostly ratling guns and I'm about to ditch the stormvermin for doomscythes and plague priests. That seems like a really good alternative. I'm coming around to the idea that stormvermin are just really bad and I should stop using them too.
So I guess I should state I kind of play the game in a soft Ironman, where I try not to reload or not accept results that happen. So if I lose an army, I have to find a way back from that defeat etc. It makes the game very intense, but more fun - especially because the AI can be readily exploited like with ambushes etc. The issue I have with guns is that I can't see how they aren't instantly doomed by some maps. As I mentioned before, I got a map that had trees literally everywhere and undulating hills, so basically no LOS to the enemy army until they were within white eyes level of visibility. It was pretty hard to deal with and was essentially an instant loss of Ikrits army. What could I do? 5 zoats, 3 forest dragons + lord, bunch of wardancers and 4 units of other cavalry just doesn't seem possible to stop at all with that army.
My army needs to drop the stormvermin - 6 stormvermin with shields seem to be tissue paper and that's really sad. But I'm running 2 plagueclaws, 1 engineer (can't keep more than that alive due to relentless AI wounding or assassination attempts), 2 lightning cannons, lord, 5 ratling guns, 2 jezzails and probably 2 more ratling guns or something (I forget). I'm tempted based on suggestions here to try using doomscythes and plague priests (depending on how many plague priests I'm allowed?), because that would allow more dakka and it means the ratling guns ideally shoot more.
My main issue with this army is that it just seems to have instant losses, which I now just shrug and reload to avoid. Perhaps I should feel bad about that, but I'm not losing an entire army just because I can't decide I don't want to fight on the wrong kind of hill.
Honestly, I think I'm becoming rather done with very hard because of this. I like the number of armies and epicness that happens, like fending off 27 orc armies outside of Skavenblight was incredible non-stop action, but the fact it screws around with your economy side so much is a complete pain. I would like a Very Hard that gave me the normal economy stuff, but let the AI have its doomstacks and occasionally really challenging quick tech, so I have to beat superior forces with lower tier units and being clever.
stormvermin in particular are incredibly cost inefficient and one of the worst units around outside of queek's army. very disappointing
1) not for Ikit. Anything in front of your gunners is a wasted unit.
2) they do not follow the normal way in which heavy infantry scale and people will often choose the wrong unit.
The good thing about Stormvermin is that they have 120 units and 48 melee defense and 38 MA with 90 armor and 35% shields. This is far better than Grave Guard quality (36 MD, 22+8 MA) though the cost definitely is high. This is pretty good in terms of elite infantry stats.
The bad part about stormvermin that you probably chose the unit with 45 MD, 25 MA, and no shields instead. Because you were used to “spears have better defense” and are therefore the better unit.
Now, Stormvermin aren’t going to win against enemy elite AP infantry. But they will still walk all over regular infantry. And they do hold really well.
But not other 120 unit cards.
Longbeards are 48.
Tomb Guard are 41
Sword masters are 48
Temple Guard are 38
Chosen are 62(but 80 units)
Depth Guard are 64(but 60 units!)
Eternal Guard are 44
Marauder Champions are 53
Stormvermin also have 38 speed.
Most armies don’t even have a high armor, shielded unit. You don’t need a lot of Stormvermin. But when you need them they do their job.
stormvermin also only have 38 speed when their MD is off, dropping them back down to 36. at that point they are getting outdone by dirt cheap empire spearmen with their 42(!) MD and silver shields. about the only thing stormvermin are effective against are unarmored units, non armor piercing units which.. who cares? you're better off with clanrat spears and putting that cash into other units. one unit of stormvermin is 262 upkeep, a clanrat spears and a warpfire thrower is 275 upkeep.
And Stormvermin aren't useless just because they're slightly more expensive than their stats might justify (just like Saurus are slightly too cheap for their stats). They fulfil their role well enough to finish a L/VH campaign.
Honestly, if there's a Skaven unit I think doesn't earn its spot, it's the Plague Monks. Even when playing Clan Pestilens, they're just... not competitive.
It's more that they don't have great leadership. My problem with them is how they crumble and retreat to any sustained attack, instead of holding onto a flank for things to kill the rest of the army. Like temple guard hold the line and just don't move, which is basically their job and the job of any tier 3 infantry unit.
My tactics have been adjusted and the best revelation is the Doom Scythe as suggested by That_Guy \. The little fellow just keeps going on and on and on like the murderous version of the energizer bunny. I've replaced 4/6 stormvermin with them and I have 2 plague censer bearers as the remaining two melee units. They've been doing a very good job at holding the line and messing around with enemies that get near the gunline. This has vastly improved things because you can just charge the doomscythes in and they'll hold enemies in place for the guns to kill them.
I've lost a couple of armies to the dreaded "Small hill prevents everyone from firing for absolutely no reason" thing, but otherwise it no longer matters. My eight armies are moving around the map slaughtering orcs at whim. Soon I will finally, by turn 298, be in a position to attack the Vampire Counts in Bretonnia.
Something I wanted to do on turn 80!!!!!