Tag Archives: Skaven

Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch

Leave a reply

Finished Nurglitch yesterday.  (Technically, I finished him today, but all I did today was glue the banner on, wash a few small things and varnish him; I did a lot of work on him yeterday.)  Here he is:

I’m not entirely happy with him; I relied a little too much on washes, which might have turned out okay but my Devlan Mud seems to have thickened up a bit.  Still, he’s pretty cool, and I think the base looks great.

Plague Rats

4 Replies

I should be playing WHFB this coming Tuesday.  Hopefully, timing work out such that I get not one, but two games in.

I’ve been working on painting some miniatures for the army, too.  I’m not quite up to powering through a full unit of 25 in a single week just yet, but it’s entirely appropriate to paint Nurglitch. He’s maybe halfway there, but I hope to find some time to finish him before Tuesday.

(Hastily taken with my phone this morning.)

This is the list I’m looking to use:

Rashputin Marches
Bubonic Court of Nurglitch – 2250 points

Lords & Heroes
  • Nurglitch – General
  • Plague Priest – BSB, Stormbanner
  • Festering Chantor – Dispel Scroll x2

Core

  • Plague Monks x26 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon, War Banner
  • Plague Monks x26 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon
  • Pusbags x20
  • Pusbags x20
Special 
  • Frothing Giant Rats x25
  • Frothing Giant Rats x25
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10

Rare

  • Rat Spawn
  • Rat Spawn

We’ll see how it does.  Not many changes from before: pretty much just dropping the Lvl 2 upgrade on the Festering Chantor and using the points for more bodies.  I was pretty happy with how everything worked out in the last game, and I’m not sure that any of the other units would be that much more useful.

(God, doesn’t that image make you want to hurl?)

Rumor Roundup

Leave a reply

More for reference than anything else: the Warseer Skaven Armybook Rumor Roundup.

The (Bubonic) Court Is in Session

Leave a reply

Only got one game in with the Bubonic Court last night, but it was a pretty good one.
We ended up bumping things up to 2250 because of my concerns that, after dropping 575 for Nurglitch, there wouldn’t be enough left over to make a viable army; I think I was probably right.
What I ran:
An Itching, Burning Sensation
Bubonic Court of Nurglitch – 2,250 points
Lords & Heroes
  • Plague Lord Nurglitch
  • Plague Priest – BSB, Storm Banner
  • Festering Chantor – Lvl 2 Upgrade, Plague Censer, Dispell Scroll x2
Core
  • Plague Monks x24 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon, War Banner
  • Plague Monks x24 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon
  • Pusbags x20 – Musician
  • Pusbags x20 – Musician
Special
  • Frothing Giant Rats x25
  • Frothing Giant Rats x25
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
Rare
  • Rat Spawn
  • Rat Spawn
What Mike ran:
Khainite – First Cut
Dark Elves – 2,250 points
Lords & Heroes
  • Death Hag – General, Cauldron of Blood
  • Master – BSB, Heavy Armor, Sea Dragon Cloak, Dark Steed, Ring of Hotek, Crimson Death
  • Dark Elf Assassin – Extra Hand Weapon, Manbane, Rune of Khaine
  • Dark Elf Sorceress – Level 2, Dispel Scroll, Darkstar Cloak, Dark Steed
  • Dark Elf Sorceress – Level 2, Dispel Scroll x 2
Core
  • Crossbowmen x10 – Shields
  • Dark Riders x5 – Musician, Repeater Crossbows
  • Dark Riders x5 – Musician, Repeater Crossbows
  • Harpies x5
  • Harpies x5
Special
  • Cold One Chariot
  • Har Ganeth Executioners x16 – Standard, Musician
  • Witch Elves of Khaine x20 – Standard, Musician
Rare
  • Repeater Bolt Thrower
  • Repeater Bolt Thrower
  • War Hydra
I truly did start the game expecting to be wiped off the table in half an hour… in the end, though, the game had a lot of back-and-forth and was pretty close. We had to call the game at the end of the fifth turn due to the store closing, but I think I had a pretty good shot of winning had the game gone on to the sixth turn.
That said, there were three things that made the game as close as it was:
  1. Mike’s list. The list he ran was different from his usual list; including units he’d never really run before and leaving out units he’s come to rely on. He wasn’t running a deliberately bad list, but it was something new and not particularly optimized.
  2. The winds of magic hating him. Eternally hating him. His casters miscast every. single. time.
  3. His assassin was unable to drop Nurglitch. Eight hits became two wounds, neither of which were able to penetrate Nurglitch’s foul misasma of funk.
That’s not to say I played a perfect game. Far from it. I dropped the ball in a number of places.
  • I did an execrable job screening my Frenzied units (nearly all of them) with my non-Frenzied units (Pusbags). I didn’t. Instead, I deployed them the way I normally deploy my Skavenslaves: in a fat block waiting to either catch an enemy unit in the flank or flee from a charge, setting up a flank charge for another unit. What I should have done is stretched them out in two ranks of 10 Pusbags each and screened my Plague Monks from charging off.
  • Casting wasn’t great. Although I didn’t roll a bunch of 1’s, Nurglitch lost Plague to an excellent casting roll turned into a miscast by the Ring of Hotek. From that point on, I didn’t have much ability to get off Pestilent Breath due to range and dispell dice and I never really wanted to cast Death Frenzy. In an army that will never lose Frenzy, it looks very useful but it’s absolutely a death sentence.
  • This also means that Warpstone Tokens weren’t particularly useful, and it also means the Level 2 Upgrade for the Festering Chantor was a complete waste.
  • I consistently forgot that Giant Rats are M 6 and not M 5. At 12″ charge distance is very different from a 10″ charge distance. I don’t know if that would have helped (I’m sure I would have caught Mike’s Dark Riders with them) or hurt (I’m not sure that having them tied up in combat and not soaking up Bolt Thrower fire would have been a good thing), but it’s a fundamentally dumb thing to forget.
  • I also consistently forgot that I had the War Banner. +1 CR matters, damnit!
The army was well outside of my comfort zone, and played very, very differently than what I’m used to. That’s fun. It didn’t hurt that there were a number of things worked pretty well for me, either.
  • Fewer units meant that each real block of rank & file had at least one character in it. One unit of Plague Monks had, for its fronk rank, Nurglitch, a Plague Deacon, a standard bearer, and a Festering Chantor. The other had a Plague Priest and a Plague Deacon up front. That added both a leadership boost that Skaven really love to have and a great deal extra punch, which the Plague Monks really need.
  • Nurglitch is a big, tough, bastard. I don’t know that he’s worth nearly 600 points, but he threw out a number of attacks that I’m simply not used to, had an extremely high toughness and a ton of wounds. Statistically, he should be able to survive the Assassin he saw last night (but just barely): the Assassin threw out 8 attacks with Manbane (4 base attacks, extra hand weapon, bonus from the Cauldron of Blood, and 2 attacks from Rune of Khaine), 7 of which should hit, 4.6 of which should wound, only three of which should get through Nurglitch’s 5+ Ward Save.
  • Having some hard-hitting characters in the units, plus Frenzy never going away, plus the regular Skaven static combat resolution helped a lot.
  • The Rat Things did quite well. Stubborn 10 is another thing I’m not used to. Their strength could be higher, I feel, but they seemed to do quite well tying up units.
All in all, it was a fun game that was full of back-and-forth, something I’ve found lacking in WHFB. I’m going to fiddle with my list (and paint up Nurglitch) and try to fit in another game or two with the Court.

Pustulent Rat Spawn

Leave a reply
In preparation for next week, I had to dig around to find the Nurglitch I’d assembled and gap filled about a year ago. I also searched, in vain, for the Lord Skrolk miniature I know I own (but can’t seem to find).
Anyway, here’s Nurglitch, Arch Plague Lord of Clan Pestilens in all of his pustulent glory.

I also assembled a Rat Spawn. I’d orginally intended to use the Chaos Spawn model as a base and throw in some Rat Ogre bits… but that really never really came together. I have to say; I appear to have unreasonable expectation for the Chaos Spawn kit; it seems particularly unable to produce what I’d like it to produce. (See also: The World’s Crappiest Daemon Prince.)
Instead, it ended up being a Rat Ogre with a couple of Chaos Spawn bits and a hunk of green stuff. It’s not as impressive as I’d hoped, but it’s sufficient. Better than the Daemon Prince, that’s for sure.



Those snakey things in the background are D&D Minis I’d considered sawing into bits and using as a lower torso… but I ended up deciding against doing that. It’d be weird to have a snake-like lower body… and a tail.

Making Sausage

2 Replies
Mostly just thinking out loud here:

With the Bubonic Court and, according to rumors, the new Skaven book, I can take Plague Monks as Core. It’s probably ill-advised, but what the heck:
Plague Monkapalooza
Bubonic Court of Nurglitch – 2,000 points
Lords & Heroes
Plague Lord Nurglitch
Plague Priest – BSB, Storm Banner
Festering Chantor – Plague Censer, Dispell Scroll x2
Core
  • Plague Monks x25 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon, War Banner
  • Plague Monks x25 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon
  • Plague Monks x25 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapon
Special
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
Rare
  • Rat Spawn
AT-43 is also on the top of my mind, since I’ll be playing it in a few hours. Mind you, I’m sure none of these are good and, if they are, they’ve probably been done to death at this point. This is mostly mental sausage-making as I try to process the game. Expect more!
One list I’ll be able to easily run when my final orders come in is:
Red Block – Supra
  • Dragonov Kommandos x9 – Sergeant, Sniper Gun x3, Electronic Warfare x2
  • Dragonov Groupa S
  • Krasnye Soldati x15 – Vrachov, Rocket Launcher x3, Medic x2
  • Dragomirov Kolossi – Dragomira
  • Sierp x3
Or maybe even drop the Krasnye Soldati and replace them with even more Dragonov Kommandos.
The list I plan to run this evening (at first, at least) is:
Red Block
  • Krasnye Soldati x14 – Vrachov, Rocket Launcher x3, Medic x2
  • Krasnye Soldati x12 – Tymofieva, Grenade Launcher x3, Mechanic x2
  • Dragonov Kommandos x9 – Sergeant, Sniper Gun x3, Electronic Warfare x2
  • Sierp x2 – Sergeant
  • Urod
I’d like to work up a list that lets me load up on Kolossi… but it just ain’t happening at 2,000 points. The list that gives me the most options there is Frontline and, with that, I need to ensure that I have enough AFVs to stick around… and it’s tough to find points for both those and TacArms with only 2,000 points to spend.

The Stinking Things

Leave a reply

I’ve been very excited since we got official confirmation of the upcoming new Skaven armybook. The loathsome ratmen are what got me into the hobby (16?) years ago and, even though I’ve ultimately found frustration with Warhammer, I still love the Skaven more than anything else Games Workshop’s produced.
I can’t quite manage enthusiasm to play them again, right now, before the new book’s come out. Every time I grind out a list, it looks remarkably like the lists I’d played with before taking a break from the game… lists that I know will take forever to play and won’t be particularly successful. I’d like to push my ratmen around… but I want something different.
Enter: The Bubonic Court of Nurglitch. I’ve got Nurglitch. I’ve got 25+ Plague Censer Bearers and over 100 Plague Monks. I can do this. I certainly thought about it when I really set into playing WHFB, so why not?
I’ll be fighting my WHFB arch-nemesis, Mike, and his Dark Elves on the fields of Killpeopleburg next week. The list I’m planning to bring is really only half-considered, but could be fun.
Stinkclaw
Bubonic Court of Nurglitch – 2,000 Points

Lords & Heroes
  • Plague Lord Nurglitch
  • Plague Priest – BSB, Stormbanner
  • Festering Chantor – Plague Censer, Dispell Scroll x2
Core
  • Plague Monks x24 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapons, War Banner
  • Plague Monks x10 – Full Command, Extra Hand Weapons
  • Rotten Rodents x25 – Full Command
  • Pusbags x20
  • Pusbags x20
Special
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
  • Plague Censer Bearers x10
Rare
  • Rat Spawn
  • Rat Spawn
The Censer Bearers are in larger units than they need to be, but why not? Plus, I’d like to stick Nurglitch in one of them, so bigger means more survivable means better.
Two Rat Spawns should be fun: I’ve got bits for a Chaos Spawn and I don’t know how many Rat Ogres floating around, so I should be able to construct one without any trouble (and will likely have a good time doing it) and will use a Carnifex conversion I got in a bulk trade a couple of years back for the other.
The Plague Priest will go in with the Rotten Rodents; the Stormbanner will buy me at least one turn to close on the enemy; if it persists, I lose nothing, however, since I don’t have a single bit of shooting. The Festering Chantor will go in with the large Plague Monk unit.
We’ll have to see if a block of Plague Monks can survive. Normally, they can’t: T 4 is nice, but it can’t make up for the total lack of armor save, and they’re simply not good enough at killing to offset how easily they die. Since Rotten Rodents, the Clanrat replacement, are pretty much in the same predicament (they’re fundamentally Plague Monks who’ve traded Frenzy for Light Armor), I figure I might as well give it a shot. Might be worth it to try juicing up their damage output by replacing War Banner with Banner of Burning Hatred.
Ultimately, it’s sure to play very, very differently than what I’m used to.

Painting Progress – 20090404

Leave a reply

There’s a disconcerting lack of pictures here, and that’s really supposed to be the primary focus of this thing.

Still, this isn’t terribly surprising; I’m kinda-sorta in between projects. I’ve just decided to abandon my Tyranid army (to eBay, Batman!), have been waiting for War of the Ring to come out, and have been stunned and frustrated by actually playing Skaven in a local Fantasy escalation league.

So, in the interests of vomiting up painted content onto the shoes of the internet, I give you: some of the stuff I’ve painted over the past month or so:

I blew through 25 Stormvermin in a single week. I still really can’t believe I managed that. It was far, far more than I should have attempted because it contributed a great deal to my Skaven burnout.

I just finished a fourth squad of Deathwing Terminators. This is one of my “Devestator” squads: nothings special save for the Cyclone Missile Launcher.


I also painted up a power armored Librarian in a day for a friend to use in my Rapid Fire Tournament.

Next up on my to-do list are some Tau Barracudas (Barracudae?) for Aeronautica Imperialis and some Haradrim Warriors for Lord of the Rings/War of the Ring.