8th Ed. The Ultimate Skaven Thread

I'll have to take one once I start slapping paint around, all that flesh is pretty daunting though. Haven't settled on what I'm going to paint their armour etc either. By mixed weapons I mean I gave each model one weapon choice on the left hand and one on the right Look more interesting that way and slightly better for WYSIWYG if I want to load out each model as something different. The kit doesn't even come with options to make more than one of each type anyway which sucks!

So how else can we brainstorm to fix Rat Ogres and Stormfiends? Maybe giving Rat Ogres some kind of Fast Frenzy-charge with extra movement to make them more unpredictable? As well as a 5 or 6 save thick skin...

 

As much as I like your desire to boost units that are substandard in your eye with fan-made rules, personally I only favour it for armies that are generally considered to be lower tier, so I approve of Orcs and Goblins, Tomb Kings, Bretonnia and Beastmen getting glow-ups (indeed I've produced a list of improvements to help boost Tomb Kings and working on a Beastman 8th Edition book whenever I get a minute to spare), as well as any fan-made books for Chaos Dwarfs that actually give them a decently-sized army list, all of which can raise those armies to be on a level playing field, but Skaven in particular is generally deemed to be a pretty good army, and if we just keep on boosting substandard units for all the armies in the game the powercreep will keep on running

 

Well I shamefully made a large late night online order the other week, so now got the plague monk AoS battleforce, some Stormvermind, a hellpit abom and a doomwheel. Probably the most brand new miniatures I've ever bought all at once before. Brilliant kits, it's great how much extra stuff you got in the old GW kits, I could make 4 or 5 rat swarms with all the spare little rats! Now the daunting task of clipping, trimming and assembling! It was also heartwarming to see most of them still came with square bases!

Surely it's not powercreep if you're just trying to buff the weakest units in an army, until it's at the point there's no "must haves" or "never use" units left?

 

I've noticed that with the Skaven kits too, though I've been using all my spare rats as Giant Rats... I now have 26 of the little buggers without having bought a single Rat Ogres and Giant Rats kit

I still find it interesting to see that GW have decided to provide square bases again with kits they sell online only, it makes me wonder if they've been planning TOW for far longer than we think. I just wish they'd get on and release it!

But getting the buffs for those units right and making sure they either don't supersede the power of existing 'top' units or remain a flop can often be difficult and will require a lot of playtesting, and in addition will prompt Fantasy players in general to have to pick up more paperwork to play the game (i.e. the rulebook, their army book and all the most recent amendments for their units). Additionally, making an underused unit more powerful can open up new trends in power and result in players crying out for other units to be boosted, which will just return us to where we started but with different units. I'm not saying it isn't possible, and as I said before I like the idea a lot, but it would require a lot of work and dedication, not to mention support from a significant group of players in the playerbase, otherwise all the time spent will be wasted.

Personally I want to get all the armies as roughly equally balanced as possible first, and while it is tempting to give Dark Elves, High Elves and Warriors of Chaos significant nerfs, I feel balance would be best achieved by making boosting the underpowered armies a priority.

 

Interesting. I haven't bought any models from GW for a while, so I didn't know that.

I think you're on the right track there. If you boosted the underdogs (especially those that didn't get an 8th Edition release like Beastmen, Skaven and Brettonia) that would be best in my opinion as well.

 

As per my exact plan:

So far I'm over two-thirds complete in writing an 8th Edition book for Beastmen (bestiary, spells and magic items done, just the lore and the army list sections to go, both of which have already been started), have begun books for Bretonnia and Skaven, and you've all seen my errata for Tomb Kings. Greenskins I'm not sure how to errata, my gut feeling is to just give them some of the additional units they've got since AoS arrived to play with in Fantasy, as to be fair, while they have a good-sized roster they only got one new unit in 8th (the Arachnarok) and their roster hasn't changed that much since 6th Edition (at least). Certainly Gore Gruntas and Brutes would fill in noticeable gaps in the list (Monstrous Cavalry and non-Stupid Monstrous Infantry, both of which they currently lack reliable counters against), and the additional options that have appeared in units like Squig Hoppers (Boingrot Bounderz), Fanatics (Sporesplattaz) and Mangler Squigs (can now be ridden by Warbosses) would give them a bit of a shake-up. As with Tomb Kings I don't want to change them too much (certainly I'm keeping the Animosity rule and everything else that makes them fun, even if it can often be disadvantageous), just enough to level the playing field for them against the bigger boys out there.

 

Apparently, Skaven could field looted Steam Tanks in 6th Edition...


It's stuff like this that makes me really want to try 6th, or at least 6th army books with 7th Ed rules given they're very similar and I already have 7th rules. This looks like the edition where GW really cared about Fantasy and tried to do as much as possible to liven up people's gaming experiences.

 

Amazing!!

Exactly this

Grrr, Imrahil

 

Well I've had a few games of One Page Rules with my rats now, and there's finally an 8th ed scene started up in a nearby town so hopefully I'll actually get a WFB game in sometime! Of course playing some games means inspiration to sit down and paint new models!