Editing Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven (section)

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies/General Battle Strategies===

Skaven were for a time one of the most difficult factions to play in MP before their first and then third DLC, but with the full suite of their weapon teams and monsters now available they're a force to be reckoned with and have many answers to many of the other factions. While you will never win a stand-up infantry fight against anyone that's not what wins you games - it's your ability to turn every battlefield into a twisted version of Omaha Beach, and you're the rats manning the machine guns.

*'''Beastmen''': Unusually, the Beastmen have similar leadership problems as you do but they make up for it by having a lot scarier monsters than you do, as well as having the ability to summon them into the middle of your gunline. Fortunately for you that means you have the range and damage to easily break their problem units before they can reach you, and you will NEED to fuck their leadership up before your lines clash because again, their base infantry will fuck your up handily. They also have some very annoying skirmish units that will require some attention but luckily you have both similar and superior units to counter that.

*'''Bretonnia''': Bretonnia are fucking fast with their many cavalry options and even their piss infantry will beat your frontline with sufficient time. They will almost certainly flank you hard so it's important to stock up on Skavenslave Spears and wolfrats to tarpit those precious Knights while you cut them up with your artillery and Ratling Guns. The two-punch combo of Ratling Guns and Warplock Jezzails works magnificently here, the Jezzails able to thin down their numbers before the charge and the Ratling Guns will mow them down when they get in range. Throw some Warp Lightning Cannons in for extra shredded cheese. In the case of that odd infantry build with Foot Squires and Pilgrims, bring your best tarpits (Clanrats with Shields will do just fine) and go to town on them with Globadiers, Warpfire Throwers, and Poison Wind Mortars.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''Chaos Daemons''': 'Hey what if we had more mobile irondrakes' 'or could bring khorne rapeletters with slaanesh as backup' Chaos daemons will be the bane of your existence. the only thing you can count on is that he WON'T bring any nurgle units

*'''Warriors of Chaos''': Ungodly amounts of armour, infantry that walk right over yours like they're made of nothing, and monsters that deal ridiculous damage. Sounds like a massive pain, right? Not! Remember that you are the Skaven - to fight at range is the most desirable way of fighting and you have some of the best projectile weapons in the game, and on top of that they have some of the best Armour-Piercing capability in the game which means those slow-ass metal hunks they call Chosen will eat warpstone-lead and poison gas like it's the Battle of the Somme redux. You can kite really well against WoC and believe me you want to be kiting lots against Chaos.

*'''Dark Elves''': The Dark Elves represent a faster, killier version of the High Elves and for the Skaven, that's worse news. Lucky for you their durability is much less which means that even your stompy rats like Rat Ogres and Abominations can get some solid work done against their infantry setups. Just watch out for their Shades with Great Weapons and Darkshards who like most archer infantry will rip up your rats if they're even slightly out of position, and the big bad monsters like War Hydras that will inevitably make a beeline for the centre of your line. Blow holes in them with Warp Lightning Cannons as usual.

*'''Dwarfs''': Your arch-nemesis in the mountains has just as good artillery as you do and they can trade really well with your foot ranged because they have better armor and leadership than you do. Don't let them chew up your heavy hitters for too long! Your upside is that a hell of a lot of your roster has great AP and will easily mulch through their lines with proper tarpitting. Flank them hard, abuse your ridiculous magic and don't be afraid to send the occasional Doomflayer or Rat Ogre mob in to put more pressure on their Longbeards. Be wary of Miners with blasting charges and Firedrakes, they can easily interrupt your flank play or the advance of your tarpits with their ungodly amounts of fire damage.

*'''Empire''': The Empire can field a lot of different builds against you so you can never know what exactly they'll throw at you, but their artillery like Hellstorm Rocket Batteries and Mortars will mess up your day if they get the chance to fire. Spread your troops out, bring in some infiltrators or with Vanguard Deployment or Rat Wolves and keep an eye on their fast movers, shut them down with Ratling Guns if they come too close. You can very easily back-flank the Empire with proper micro, and a good Assassin or two with Runner support in the rear can really fuck up their game plan.

*'''Grand Cathay''': Cathay will outrange you and has enough chaff and armor to stand against most of what you can put out. Dwarf's greatest weakness against you was the lack of mobility but Cathay's turtling AND mobility AND magic will be really tough to beat. Also if your opponent brings Lore of Yin and starts sending your artillery shots right back at you you're in deep shit-shit.

*'''Greenskins''': While Orcs and monsters may seem like the scariest threats, you really need to keep your eyes peeled for Goblins. You have the firepower to turn a mob of Orcs into swiss cheese before they can haul their asses into melee, but Goblin Wolf Riders and Forest Goblin Spider Riders can hit you unexpectedly fast and hard. You should also remember that Greenskins can fill there WAAAGH! meter from any melee combat, so throwing Skavenslaves at them can actually benefit them in the long run. Not that you should avoid throwing chaff at the enemy entirely, but its better to withdraw from combat if at all possible.

*'''High Elves''': Not an impossible matchup, but it largely depends on what the Elves field in their army. Your big advantage here are your numbers and the liberty of being able to just choose targets. Therefore, fight as any proper Skaven should do: Dirty! Use Howling Warpgale against those Dragons, pin the Elven cavalry down with Ratling Guns and decimate their Spearmen with Globadiers or Mortars. If you know how to make use of tarpits, this will be going well.

*'''Kislev''': Ratling guns, Ratling guns, Ratling guns. playing the missile game against Kislev's low-armor and relatively poor numbers units is your greatest strength, Kislev's unbreakable 'by your blood' only comes into account when they're in melee making shredding them from range even more enticing

*'''Khorne''': Khorne powers up by killing your infantry. you have a lot of infantry. you can't outrun the Bloodletters with the majority of your units so at best bring Gutter Runners and pray he didn't bring too many Furies. bring what weapons teams you can and try and have a frontline of Heroes or Rat Ogres

*'''Lizardmen''': Lizardmen are the bane of your existence. They are easily able to bring everything to the table you don't like: Scary monsters, flying units, ''lots'' of powerful AoE magic, and decent cavalry. Saurus Warriors easily chomp through your Slaves and Stormvermin and their abundance of giant fuck-off dinosaurs makes sure that your already subpar frontline has a hard time. A match against Lizardmen often means rapid redeployment and singling out key targets. If the opponent is bringing Skink Priests or a Slann, make sure that your front line is sufficiently spaced out to minimize their vortex spells. One key advantage you have over Lizardmen is your great arsenal of ranged firepower; make use of your range and your numbers to keep the big things busy. Warplock Jezzails are invaluable, as well as Warp Lightning Cannons.

*'''Norsca''': Similar ordeal to Lizardmen, however their cavalry option mostly either suck or are vulnerable to tarpitting. Their monsters are scary but mostly unarmoured and their infantry will thrash yours with very little trouble. Don't even think about bringing Moulder beasts to this matchup, Norsca has no shortage of Anti-Large options and their monsters are much more powerful than yours. However, at long range, you have a strong advantage. Kite their infantry, keep their monsters busy and snipe them with Jezzails or Warp Lighting Cannons. Ratlings have no trouble tearing through Marauder hordes. The best way to win this matchup is to keep the scary things away from your gunline.

*'''Nurgle''': If you can't win this just uninstall. Nurgle has great issues with manuvering giving loads of time for your ranged arsenal to rip him apart, Howling Warpgale can completely stonewall his flying units giving easy targets for Ratling Guns. Demolish Nurgle's flying units and since every unit in your roster is faster than any non-flying unit in Nurgle's arsenal you can just run around the battlefield re-setting up your units and shredding his infantry. A very easy matchup.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': You've got a lot of options here. Ogre's high mass monstrous infantry can only do so much if you bring enough Skavenslaves. Ratling Guns and Jezzails will shred through the low-armour Ogres. The biggest threat to you are their Gorgers. Swamp the Ogres with chaff and rip them apart. I wouldn't recommend the kiting game with Gutter Runners as Sabretusks and Gorgers WILL outrun and eat them.

*'''Slaanesh''': Oh boy, this is not great for you. Slaanesh's monsters, chariots, and cavalry all clock in at around 100 speed, including their Lords. Their infantry is a about half that, close to Deathrunner speed. They will close the distance with you blisteringly fast. Once up close they are going to have a lot of leadership debuffs and armour piercing. Your infantry won't hold against them and the armour on your weapon teams means both jack and shit. If you bring any kind of ranged units you had better protect them very well. Assume your back line is going to get swamped. This might be a good battle to bring in the Moulder monsters. Slaanesh's AP means nothing to their lack of armor and with Throt and a Packmaster around you can keep their leadership a bit more stable. Some Eshin skirmishers might be helpful too but only as a distraction -- Slaanesh will easily run them down.

*'''Skaven''': Skaven excel at disruption and that also applies to other skaven. Bringing artillery and weapon teams is very risky, they're not going to accomplish much if the crews are getting pelted to death by Gutter Runner Slingers or blended by Doomflayers. Consider leaving the big guns at home and beefing up your infantry/monster game instead.

*'''Tomb Kings''': Watch out, Tomb Kings can move unexpectedly fast with a lot of chariots and monsters, and will hit your front lines a lot faster than you would like. The monsters are the biggest threat, and you can focus them down pretty quickly, but any TK player with half a brain will bring a Necrotect to patch up any injuries their constructs may have, so make sure you finish each monster before moving on to the next. And keep an eye out for their Screaming Skull Catapult, they cause even more moral damage than normal artillery and can quickly shatter the enemy rats.

*'''Tzeentch''': Flamers, Flamers, Flamers, bring Jezzails and take them off the field as fast as possbile, bring strong magic to blast through barriers and resistances and bring Rat Ogres and other mobile units, making sure Tzeentch never has the option to put up his barriers after the first engagement is critical.

*'''Vampire Coast''': Free fodder for your Ratlings. No really. You have the best ranged arsenal in the game at your disposal, it has better range than anything on foot the Vampire Coast fields and the Vampirates are also very slow. While many of their units cause Fear and Terror, if any unit reaches your frontline, you're playing Skaven very, very wrong. Get Ratling Guns, some Warplock Jezzails against the big stuff. Clanrats should do well enough against their frontline barring Depth Guard. Keep an eye out for Mournghuls; they have stalk, vanguard deployment, and move surprisingly fast for creatures with no legs. And if they do manage to hit your lines they have enough regeneration and anti-infantry damage to rip straight through your chaff and devour the big guns you were protecting.

*'''Vampire Counts''': The mobility of the Counts makes large gunlines and artillery a dangerous proposition, since Vargheists and Terrorgheists care very little about what may be going on on the ground and you can cast Howling Warpgale only so often. Luckily for you, the Twisted and Twilight happened and brought with it a scary arsenal of mutated horrors that match those of the Vampires. This is one of the few matchups where Stormvermin and Plague Monks can truly shine, as the Vampires Skeleton Hordes and Zombies stand no chance against them and Halberds have little trouble to come out on top against Black Knights, Blood Knights, and the like. Stormvermins better morale also helps out against the Fear every unit of the Counts cause. The occasional Chieftain and/or Mutant Rat Ogre helps a lot of with the Vampire Lords themselves, especially when the Chieftain sits on a Bonecrusher. You might also want to bring a Warlock Master for magic damage against Mortis Engines and/or Hexwraiths.

*'''Wood Elves''': Wood Elves are... complicated for you to deal with. In a straight ranged duel, you have the advantage; though they have very powerful and flexible archers, they lack any and all artillery to contest yours. Warplightning Cannons are great for sniping the giant, slow-moving Treemen and the Plagueclaw Catapults will chunk any of their infantry quite quickly. A combination of Ratling Gunners and Warplock Jezzails will deal terrible damage to a significant majority of their infantry as they get in range, though once they get ''too'' close you will start to have problems. As a glass-cannon faction, Wood Elves melee infantry can butcher vast swathes of your infantry at record speeds and are fast enough that kiting them will prove difficult even in ideal terrain. Death Runners and Wolf Rats are your best melee infantry unit against the unarmored Elves, though they'll evaporate against War Dancers and Wildwood Rangers. Units like your Rat Ogres, Hellpit Abominations and Doom-Flayers will kill virtually any Elf-thing you point them at, but the abundance of spear units in their front line will still deal not insignificant damage to them in the process. Beware their Great Eagles and cavalry; they're extremely fast and can effortlessly flank your units to get at your vulnerable ranged back line. Keep a few units of Stormvermin in reserve to block these charges.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''C'''

Good news: you can spread the field with Clanrats and slaves to swarms points and take them will full on numbers, all while guns can pepper your enemies from a distance and monsters can use their mobility to lend support where they can. Bad news: your troops have the staying power of a tissue box in front of a cannon, so if your opponent brings a form of effective wave clear a lot of rats are gonna die and you can kiss those points good bye. Your best strategy is to do what Skaven do best, spread the field to try and overwhelm your enemy through sheer numbers. Rat Ogres are especially going to be good here as their mobility and high AP weapon strength mean they can lay the hurt down where ever you need them to. In terms of what to bring other units to bring, depends on the match up. Weapon Teams can be good against slower factions, Wolf Rats can be good for picking away an archer/gunline focused faction, and some monsters can be good at dealing with rush factions. Consider your match ups and remember, the more rats the better.