I'll take that over what they used to be. All Warp-Fire throwers or Ratling Guns. Whichever one did the most MW after popping out of a tunnel. As of now, they're an oomph unit, that provides support at multiple ranges, or in melee when needed. Because they're still bulky and able to take some hits if you need to slow something down to keep your PM or Blobs of Rats out of a danger. They're not aces, auto-take, etc, but they're okay.
Chances are that it would have only been ratling guns in that circumstance - warpfire throwers have always lacked the necessary range to engage enemy units on the turn they deep strike, despite being the more potent option. As for being a support unit, my experience with them has consistently been that they need more support than they can provide for other units. Really, the only reason to take them is if you would rather not pay for one of the most financially expensive battleline units in the game as Clan Skryre, and even then a clawhorde makes for a more effective use of those points to get the minimum number of battleline units on the table and then some.
How do you find Stormvermin perform in 20s? I'm just playing with the idea of how viable a Verminus army would be (with a grey seer or 3 thrown in), because I hate myself so much I want to paint 200+ clanrats apparently
At 20-strong, stormvermin are at the threshold of being an effective unit for what they're worth. They're not at imminent risk of losing the benefit of the Clanshields special rule (+1 to armour saves for a clanrat/stormvermin unit with 10+ models), start with a decent +4 bravery bonus due to having at least 20 models, and they just barely get their first tier of horde bonuses (+1 to-hit when unit has 20+ models).
At 200pts for a full horde of 40 clanrats, which gives them +8 starting Bravery, +1 to hit, +1 to wound, and +1 Save, spending another 100pts on a clawlord for the Gnash-gnaw on their Bones! command ability (+1 attack) turns the unit stat-wise into discount basic stormvermin that happen to come in bulk and are only slightly worse at piercing armour. If you're looking for the hard math of this, 300pts invested in a full horde of clanrats and a supporting clawlord makes each clanrat in the unit worth about 7.5 points each, which is little more than half the per-model cost of a minimum-sized (10-rat) and unsupported stormvermin unit (14 points per stormvermin) whose only advantages are a weapon rend characteristic and higher starting armour save before Clanshields is applied. Whilst it can be argued that after horde bonuses a still-unsupported full-sized unit of 40 stormvermin are objectively better quality troops regardless whose stat advantages are worth the discounted 12.5 points per model, that also happens to be a 500pt unit whose stats are counter-balanced by having half the wounds and two-thirds the potential attack output of 2 full hordes of clanrats with shared clawlord support for the same pricetag. With that said, if you're still intent on playing a Clans Verminus horde army, I highly recommend you pay the 180 points for a claw-horde warscroll battalion. It requires 1 clawlord, 1-3 stormvermin units, and 2-9 clanrat units, and, on top of the usual benefits of using a battalion warscroll, it allows you to make the clawlord's command ability even more cost effective as it will now affect all in-battalion units wholly within 13" instead of just one Clans Verminus unit within range.
Keep in mind that Stormfiends are only battleline for Skryre, not Moulder. Clan Moulder can use them in a Moulder-only army, but not as battleline and they don't benefit from any of the Master Moulder/Packmasters' abilities as they lack the required keywords.
Thanks for picking that up. My recollection of the battletome was a bit hazy as I didn't have it with me while writing that post.
You're welcome. I'm actually making a Clan Moulder army at the moment, and trust me, I'm getting tired of painting Rat Ogors and Giant Rats, but both are reasonably cost-effective battleline. Rat Ogors rock!
How well do you reckon it'd work? Using a similar principle as some Seraphon lists that drop 200+ skinks, i feel it could have some success. The idea of covering the board with rats just feels really appealing.
It has its good points, and its bad points. Swamping the enemy with bodies 1: restricts the enemy's ability to teleport around the board, 2: Painting that many rats... UUUUGGGGGH. 3: The entire concept of such an army involves swamping an enemy unit with saving rolls until they fail a bunch. This doesn't work against some armies. 4: serious lack of mortal wound output. 5: Khorne. Blades of Khorne. Blood Tokens. That could generate a LOT of them.
Would a screaming bell or a second plague furnace be better? Also, this is more of a rules question so maybe i should post there, but I'm getting conflicing info on Plaguemonks. The AOS app says they can still take both banners (on 6s they do extra damage, and when they die in melee they can roll to return mortal wounds), but there's supposedly an updated warscroll where the extra damage on 6 is removed? Does anyone know?
https://www.games-workshop.com/reso...s//AoS_Skaven_Warscroll_card_Plague_Monks.pdfthis is the new warscroll. and you need both to properly buff monks
Okay, so they still have the extra damage on unmod 6, but they lose rend from the musician? Given the nerf are plaguemonks still worth taking? And what does a screaming bell offer plaguemonks?
yes they are still good. the bell gives immunity to battalshock acses to spells and fairly good random debuffs