Fire Everywhere

It was time again for the Skaven to creep out of their tunnels and plague the Old World. With the release of the Thanquol End Times book, and a whole bevy of new Skaven models with it, my passion for the ratmen is riding very high. Painting time was a bit more rare, so unfortunately not too much progress to show off. But at least something got painted: a unit of 5 Giant Rats and a Packmaster.

Commonly called a "rat dart": a small group to block charge lanes and try and draw chargers out of position to reveal their flanks. I love it solely for the teeny little movement tray!

I've got a much bigger project in the works which I used in this game nearly painted. But it's not fully painted so not ready to reveal (so much I won't even mention its role in the battle report). So stay tuned for the next update, which should come very soon. This coming Sunday I am running a massive battle similar to my Nagash Event, this time featuring the forces of Nurgle as foes. So I'll keep my update on the new painting project until then.

This battle was a meeting engagement, a fight where units show up in random portions of the deployment zone. Neither I nor the Empire were too bothered by this, as they were compact and my forces numerous. The Empire list was two Steam Tanks, a big unit of Knights with a character, Greatswords, Spearmen horde, Cannon, Mortar, Engineer, and two Life lore wizards. My force was infantry and shooting heavy--managing to put five successful shots of warpfire out on one wonderful turn.

 The Life Wizard got into the melee with his Greatswords unit, managing to hit and wound rat swarms every time he swung. The rats were eventually ground down, but they inflicted a large number of casualties on the Greatswords over three turns of combat.

 The Gutter Runners turned up with their Warp Grinder on turn two, and charged the Engineer on his Mechanical Steed. They proved to have packed rubber daggers however, as pretty much every fight they were in took more turns than it reasonably should have. I blame Clan Pestilens, no doubt selling inferior poisons to their rivals in Clan Eshin. 

 The Horde of Spearmen, considerably lessened in number by successive waves of Warpfire, faces down the remaining Skavenslaves: considerably lessened in number by successive castings of Death Frenzy (which didn't help at all when they got to the Spearmen). At least losing 21 models to my own spell earned a Skaven Achievement.

A Warpfire Thrower sends another gout of flame into the Knights. This was the story of the match: warpfire simply causing too many casualties. The character who led the knights was slain by a single warpfire shot after his entire unit was annihilated around him due to the sticky flames. 

Not pictured is the other part of my success in this battle: a Warlord with The Fellblade. He wasn't fully painted (rather barely painted: just his fur thus far), hence the lack of photos. But he only suffered one wound to the corrupting power of the sword all game, and managed to completely destroy one Steam Tank in a single round of combat--and took seven wounds off the other in a later combat, leading to it exploding due to its own steam pressure at the start of the next turn. The weapon really is amazing when the foe is fielding big scary stuff. Worth the points at least in this match-up.

Not to be confused with the 40k Fellblade. Though I bet this would give those Steamtanks a thrashing as well.

Overall it was a really fun game. My Skaven beat the Empire by 759 points--a solid win in the old scoring notation. There was plenty to celebrate on both sides, as the Greatswords definitely took everything I could throw at them and kept rolling and destroying units till the end. The other fun part was my Plagueclaw Catapults proving to again be controlled by the enemy more often than not. One had two decent hits before it misfired and blew up. The other one managed to misfire once, allowing my opponent Tom to re-position the blast onto the unit of Clanrats hiding my Warlock Engineer Gnawfire. Then on the subsequent shot, it managed to miss and deviate the shot so far it covered that exact same unit again, causing even more casualties and making the unit panic from the poison splash. There definitely seems to be a conspiracy that the Plagueclaw Catapults only work well when I field my Clan Pestilens-themed force.

Fully Painted Models
Skaven: 59
Dwarfs: 41

Battles
Total 2015: 3 (Win/Loss/Tie: 2/1/0)
Total 2014: 15 (Win/Loss/Tie: 8/6/1)

Skaven:
4 Wins (Empire 1, T&T Daemons and Dwarfs, Siege Dwarfs and Bretonnians, T&T Daemons and Empire)
5 Losses (Empire 1, Dwarfs 1, Daemons 1, T&T Daemons 1, T&T Dwarfs 1)

Dwarfs:
4 Wins (Dwarfs 2, Wood Elves 2)
1 Loss (Dark Elves 1)