Advanced Tactics: More thoughts on the beating the Skaven with an Empire Battle Force

Contents
Introduction
Understanding Deployment
Role of Empire Magic Defense
Role of Detachments
Role of Empire Shooting Phase
Role of Cavalry
Role of Infantry
Putting it all Together: The Battle Plan
Summary

Empire Units and Detachments form the “wall”

Introduction

Over the last year I have played over 40 games with my Skaven army, many of them against tough foes at major tournaments. During that time I’ve learned to appreciate their power and their tactics. My personal Skaven armies tend to be lower powered than the normal Skaven armies that appear at tournaments. I’ve had the pleasure to win several events with them and class myself as an above average player using Skaven.

Understanding Deployment:

One of the things that you will almost instantly learn is that a Skaven player will have more “drops” than you do in a game. Most of my (Skaven) armies have 13 (the Skaven lucky number) or more “drops” meaning that you will have to deploy most of your army before the other player is anywhere near finished. This allows the Skaven player to react to your deployment. Having more drops means that he has an advantage before the game is even played as he can concentrate his power where necessary.

With the Skaven player having more “drops”, you will need a good army setup. A Skaven army doesn’t have a flank; it will stretch from one table end to the other. Even a largish Empire army will rarely deploy that wide.

The first thing you will need to do is anchor your flanks. Normally I anchor one flank using the table’s edge. Impassible terrain can also serve as an effective anchor. Though Skaven do not have cavalry, some of their ancillary units can move 12” per turn meaning that they can get to your flank by turn three.

Most Empire players deploy as far forward as possible. I’ve found that instead of rushing towards a Skaven army, you need to hold back more and instead play defensive early in the game and when the time is correct go on the offense.

If you have read the other articles on Warhammer Empire, you know the serious threat of the Skaven magic and shooting phases. The secret to beating them is to minimize this threat by deploying in such a way that keeps you from taking undue damage from these phases of the game.

This might shock some of you, but deploying back as far as possible is the correct decision. A rule of thumb would be to deploy just short of the 8” (you could even argue the 5”) line. The reasoning is that it will give you two to three shooting phases to destroy the rattling guns before they can open fire. Without the rattling guns to cause panic, your army is relatively safe from failed psychology tests. It will also, in most cases, put your vulnerable cavalry outside of the range of the hated Jezzails.

Role of the Empire Magic Defense:

Brave Empire wizards defend the army against the worst of the Skaven magic phase

Using the “normal” Empire magic defense of the Rod of Power and two dispel scrolls, you should be able to keep your army safe from most warp lightning spells. The usual Skaven magic attack consists of the “twins”. This means two Warlock Engineers and the Stormdaemon. Assuming average rolling you require 7 dispel dice to stop all of their magic. Storing two dice in the Rod of Power gives you six of the seven dice you need. Storing a third dice, while possible, will sometimes leave you without adequate protection due the higher chance that the dice will be lost.

By setting up so far back and careful deployment, it is possible to make the Skaven player waste his first magic phase. By putting screening detachments in front of your main block units you may also keep them safe from harm.

If you have the misfortune of playing against the “triplets” (three warlocks), remember the rule of thumb is to always dispel the spell that is cast and worry about the other ones if they happen. What I mean is that if the first spell is successfully cast with say an “11”, dispel that one because you never know if the next one will be successful or not. Spells cast against important units should always be dispelled. By following the advice above about deploying “back” you are hoping that the Skaven player will waste some of his spells and perhaps injure his own casters throwing warp lightning at non-essential units.

Try your best to hold your scrolls for the mid and late turns. When I play Skaven my foes are often out of magic defense by turn three. This means that I melt their armies into goo piles in the later turns of the game. Know what the probable effects of letting a warp lightning go does to your army. For example a 2d6 Warp Lightning will on average do 7 hits, 6 wounds to an Empire Knight unit and kill two (on average). That same spell can kill 6 of your Swordsmen and possibly cause massive panic tests. Understand the possible results of the spell and its ramifications for panic tests, opening a flank, etc.

Role of Detachments: What are they good for?

Detachments have a different role against Skaven. There is almost no way that they will be able to countercharge a charging Skaven unit. Skaven have plenty of throwaway units such as Slaves, Night Runners, Poison Wind Globadiers, etc to simultaneously charge your detachments as their main Clan Rat blocks charge your Parent units.

So what do your use your detachments for when playing against a Skaven army?

· They can divert units away from the flank of the parent units. Skaven win by flanking and massed CR. You need to keep that from happening.

· They can serve as “meat shields” to protect their parent units against being shot or magicked.

· Marchblocking is useful against Skaven even if you have very little shooting. Just getting their line out of sorts buys you time to focus your efforts. If one of your “meat shield” units gets torn up by magic or rattler fire, the small remnant can go on the offensive as marchblockers.

· They can be used as a “speedbump”. This means that you send a detachment forward to attract a charge. When the speedbump is destroyed or is fleeing, it opens up a counter charge from either another detachment or a parent unit. Remember Skaven can charge 10”, if you get a “speedbump” unit destroyed or broken their average move will only be 7” this is important to factor into your strategy.

· “Speedbump” unit can also be used to pull the Skaven player into traps. Move the unit up as close as possible so when they flee the Skaven unit will catch them and move their full 10”. Set up traps based on either the pursuit, the overrun, or the possibility of a 10” pursuit.

The important thing to learn is when to get the detachments out of the way to let the parent units go to work. Once you have screened, marchblocked, diverted, etc, you need to get them out of the way for your infantry blocks to do their job. The last thing you need is a detachment rallying right in front of one of your parent units.

The Role of the Empire Shooting Phase:

So what do you do against over 200 rats in the shooting phase? Empire is one of the few armies that can put a hurt on the Skaven in the shooting phase. The mortars of Nuln have sent many a Skaven army fleeing from the field. Deadly Hochland Long Rifles snipe Skaven weapons teams. The answer is what to do when you don’t have these in your inventory?

Most tourney Empire armies don’t have a mortar because it is all but useless against the current generation of armies and taking one or two just in case you run into Skaven is almost silly. What is more the norm are two Great Cannons and a Hellblaster. So how do you use these tools to harm the Skaven?

· First of all you need to protect your guns. Putting them on a hill so they can shoot is always a good idea. However putting more than one on a hill is foolish because of the Tunneling teams. Just understand that the cannon that is on a hill is more than likely dead. Don’t make it worse by placing two of them up there. Instead, place one near your primary infantry unit.

· One of the worst threats to your lines is the array of potent Skaven skirmishers. Usually the Skaven player will take advantage of difficult terrain to deploy his skirmishers behind and then move forward through the terrain to attack your lines. Near such terrain is a good place to put your Hellblaster Volley Gun.

· What do you do with the almost useless cannons? During the first turn, if you have deployed at maximum distance, their best role might be to shoot at Jezzails. Often you can potentially hit two of them with an angled cannon shot. Because of the small sizes of these units two casualties can cause a valuable panic test. At best, the Jezzails will need a “7” or less to pass if they are in the proximity of the Skaven General.

· In the subsequent turns, the Great Cannons should first target the Weapons Teams, starting with the most threatening and moving to the least. This is where a good deployment will aid your cause. One of the cannons should be placed near your primary attack point. Its sole purpose in life is to eliminate weapons teams.

· Lone wizards or other characters are the likely best targets for any subsequent shots. After that it becomes your choice of targets. I would consider shots at Censer Bearers if I can line up two or more. Another choice is to start aiming at the most threatening unit of Clan Rats with the aiming point being any characters in the unit. A good shot and bounce can kill up to 6 Clan Rats if they are deployed normally. That just might be enough for a panic test. A failed “look out sir” roll can change the complexion of a game if it happens to hit the General, BSB, or Warlock Engineer.

· For those of you with normal shooting such as Handgunners, crossbowmen and archers you need to figure out what to do with them. Either they go in front of your army as a meat shield and take the magic and shooting hits for the team or you deploy them off to one flank and write them off. The WORST thing you can do is to deploy them ten wide in or near your lines. They are a weak link and Skaven can and will exploit the hole made by their destruction. If they are a detachment use them as a throwaway unit or rank them up and use them for combat. On their best day they will barely take a rank off of a Skaven unit before it impacts your line.

· The best targets for “normal” shooting would be smaller skirmishing unit, Giant Rat Packs, any unit away from the General’s leadership that possibly may take others with it if it panics. If your army depends on knights for its hitting power, I would make any anti-cavalry units (Censer Bearers and Poison Wind Globadiers) a high priority target despite how difficult they may be to engage.

The Role of the Cavalry:

Empire cavalry are vulnerable to the Skaven magic and shooting phases. A Skaven army has little defense against a cavalry charge so their defenses are usually geared to taking them out.

Cavalry on the Defensive:

· Unless your army is primarily a cavalry army, your best bet is to use Cavalry on the defensive. Most Skaven units cannot break an Empire infantry unit in combat. However the same is true of the Empire. A timely charge into an existing melee however will not only tip the melee in the Empire’s favor, but gives you a fast unit for pursuit.

· To use cavalry on the defensive it is vitally important that you avoid temptation and hold them back out of range of spells and shooting.

· In this style you allow the Skaven Clan Rat units to charge your main blocks. Normally an Empire unit will hold on the initial impact. This leaves the Clan Rat unit vulnerable to cavalry charges. The Skaven player will of course know this. That is why you need to learn to use your detachments to help set up this situation by diverting the assisting unit away from the melee. In other words you need to isolate the Clan Rat block so that it can be destroyed one on one. Isolating a single unit is a difficult thing to do since their primary blocks usually outnumber your primary blocks.

Cavalry on the Offense:

Empire cavalry can devastate a Skaven army if properly played. Skaven armies have so many tools to strand, delay or take out cavalry, so that unless you have a LOT of cavalry (or a grandmaster with Laurels), cavalry on the offensive, as a strategy, is almost certain to fail.

· Consider massing your cavalry on a single side of the battlefield. Deploy your artillery to take out weapons teams and units of Jezzails. In order for a cavalry attack to work, the shooting and magic threat must at least be diminished, it not outright destroyed. The reason for massing your cavalry should be self-explanatory but it is really to dilute the frontage of the Skaven army and to pull the anti-cavalry assets to one side of the field. Moving these devastating weapons away from your less mobile elements will go a long way to preserving them. The last thing you want to do is have your infantry moving at 4” per turn into concentrated Jezzail, rattling gun, and magic spells. The cavalry should pull some of the assets away so that the infantry have a chance to live a bit longer or even go on the offensive.

· The flank of a Skaven army is its vulnerability. If you can break through a flank the Skaven army is all but beaten.

· A means to break up a Skaven army is to move a throwaway cavalry unit into the midst of their lines. This move is to break up their advance and hopefully allow the Empire to only fight a small portion of the Skaven army at a time. Remember that even if the unit is charged or destroyed it will marchblock or delay a number of units perhaps allowing the rest of your plan to take place. Better to sacrifice a small unit and preserve the rest of your army. This is especially true if your shooting or magic has been ineffective at reducing the Skaven shooting and magic phases. A suicide unit might just delay the Skaven long enough to get just one more shot with your artillery.

· Be aware of the ancillary cavalry killers in the Skaven list such as the Poison Wind Globadiers, swarms, and Censer Bearers. These are especially nasty if used in conjunction with each other.

· If you are going to charge a Skaven line, charge it in totality. This means that if you have three units of cavalry, you should be declaring three charges. A fleeing unit might open up a charge on a choice unit behind. By engaging all at once you lessen the risk of a countercharge in the following turn should your attack stall.

· You can use your cavalry in much the same role as the Skaven use their slaves. Move them right up to the unit you want to divert and make the Skaven charge you. This may put the initiative back on your side of the table. If you have deployed well and use the extra time and space to deplete the Skaven shooting phase, you may cause HIS attack to stall.

The Role of Infantry: Forming the Wall

Units such as these Empire Spearmen with the War Banner are vital to forming “the wall”

Down through history the best use of infantry is to seize and hold ground. This is difficult to do against the Skaven because they are one of the best infantry armies in the Warhammer world. So how do you defeat them?

Unless they have a hero it is difficult for any Skaven unit to break a fully ranked up Empire infantry unit. They just don’t have the hitting power in combat. What they depend on is outnumbering you and gaining the valuable +1 on CR. As long as you can keep them in front of you, you are generally safe baring bad dice rolling.

Your strategy then is to force them to attack a massed wall of infantry. This means that either you need to deploy your detachments narrowly or you need to just use them in other roles. For example a TVI-style Empire infantry army often has three or even four combat infantry units. These should be deployed so that there are no weak gaps in between the units and so that they have no flanks. If you have followed the deployment suggestions, you will have anchored your flanks in some fashion either with troops or with terrain/board edge.

What this might mean for your typical Empire forces is that you have to vary from your normal deployment scheme. In other words you can’t allow weak spots in your line. For example a TVI-style list will have three units of cavalry. Instead of leaving a low CR unit like nilla knights in your lines, they should either be deployed in front of your infantry or massed on one side. You’ll just have to learn from experience where to put them.

Putting it all together: The Battle Plan

Now that you have learned the “role” of all of the pieces of your army, it is time to come up with a battle plan.

· The MOST IMPORTANT part of your battle plan will be in deployment. It is absolutely vital that you follow the suggestions above regarding deployment.

· Your movement scheme is predicated on how well you’ve followed the directions for shooting and magic. What you will want to do is to stay as far back as possible until the Skaven shooting phase has been diminished. Moving forward too soon will result in needless casualties.

· Your goal is to rapidly close with the Skaven in one brutal turn with your infantry assets. The entire part of this strategy is to keep those assets intact. Just like in the TVI tactica, your goal is to protect your blocks of troops. EVERYTHING in the remainder of your list is expendable and should be dedicated to preserving your massed infantry.

· Standard TVI tactics will struggle against the Skaven. They will outnumber even a horde Empire army by 75 to 100 models. Compare my 2000 pt Empire army with its 120 models to my 2000 pt Skaven army of over 225. In other words Skaven will almost always have more deployments, and more maneuver elements that you will. You must carefully pick the turn to advance.

· Once the major threat to your infantry are destroyed (the rattlers); you need to close rapidly. The goal again is to have the Skaven charge you, not for you to charge them. This should be standard Empire tactics versus ranked enemy units.

· Once the armies have closed to charge range you can play it as you see it. If the Skaven will allow you to charge en masse, then go for it. Charging a Skaven army one unit at a time is exactly what they want. The nice thing about Skaven when you break their units is they rarely return. If you can manage two or even three units charging their line on a small frontage it will be worth it. You will need to do everything you can to avoid getting flanked after the break through. That is where your detachments and cavalry are necessary to divert counter- charging units away from your vulnerable flanks.

· Let’s assume you have deployed at or near the 8” line. What will the Skaven army do? Most of them will advance 10” towards you line to get into magic range. This means that the rattlers cannot fire. If you get first turn, your priority will be to snipe the rattlers closest to your infantry blocks. All shooting and magical attacks should be to that goal. If the Skaven move their full movement, chances are that you will be out of their range again, giving you three full shooting (and magic) phases to kill the rattlers.

· Your rush needs to be timed to minimize harm. Assuming that the Skaven army has moved 10”, they are now 18” away from your army. Again if the shooting threat has been handled, you can either advance or give them one more round of shooting. It is doubtful that they will advance into your charge range, so take advantage of their tentative moves and rush forward your full 8”. Your goal is to make them charge you be being so close to their army that they MUST charge you or have you charge them in their turns (preferably the later turns).

· If you win the melee and cause them to break, make certain your flank is protected. Use throwaway units such as Nilla Knights, detachments, and Pistoliers to pursue. Do not pursue if it would open you up to a flank charge. It is vitally important that you keep your lines intact. Assuming that one of your units has a Griffon Standard, another lead by a combat hero (Elector Count or BSB), and perhaps either flagellants or Greatswords (or both) the Skaven army cannot beat these units in one-on-one fights and will break against wall of Empire steel.

Battle Plan in a Nutshell:

1. Deploy back as terrain and the depth of your units permits.
2. Use shooting or magic to counter and either neuter or eliminate these phases of the game.
3. Once the threat is diminished advance as a WALL of troops with no gaps or flanks.
4. Make the Skaven player charge your lines and hopefully break or hold them in one glorious turn.
5. Use detachment and cavalry to avoid counter-charging units.

Summary:

As you can see this is a counterpunching strategy just like the TVI/Battalion concept strategy. The difference is that because the enemy has the advantage in most phases of the game, you will need to do something to counter these advantages. Unit on unit the Empire is superior to the Skaven; the problem is that they will have two to three times the CR units of an average Empire army. Your goal is to only fight on a small frontage, keep your infantry lines intact and break them, hopefully causing massive panic tests and allowing you to sweep deeper into the Skaven lines.

Atchman

atchman2 (at) yahoo.com

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