So while I'm taking a break from working on my latest Animated Reflections post, I wanted to quickly look at some issues I have with the Skryre Allegiance and its lists.
As I was deciding what to do with my old Skaven, the option to produce a small Skryre themed force became a possibility and going over the Skryre Allegiance compared to the Chaos Allegiance, I am finding it difficult to decide why I would use the Skryre one over the Chaos one, at least when it comes to fighting Order (against other factions,Skryre proves to be on par with what you can do, maybe better depending on your opponents list).
I mean, if you are versing Order, I can't see why you wouldn't choose Chaos when the Dark Avenger Command Trait lets all friendly Chaos units within 10" of your General get +1 to hit verses targets with the Order keyword. Giving your Weapon Teams, Jezzails and Doomwheels this bonus would give a much greater advantage, though at the cost that units like the Skryre Acolytes not counting as Battlelines I guess (just find cheap Battleline units at minimum model count to fix that I guess). Not only that, but things like the Chaos Talisman or Favour of the Gods would help to keep your General alive (perhaps a caster or two with Arcane Shield to boot).
The Skryre ones seem to be heavily focused on a style of play. The Deranged Inventor Command Ability is focused on Skryre War Machines, but given that really only a Doomwheel could benefit from it the most means that your General would have to keep up with them. The Traits of Cunning Creature and Verminous Valour are designed to keep your General alive longer (I can see Verminous Valour working with a group of Acolytes, though if your opponent catches on they may just wipe the unit out quickly to hinder its effect). I can't see anyone picking Malevolent as there is no Artifact in the list to increase your attacks and the number of attacks for both Skryre Heroes are limited to one or two. Masterful Scavenger seems alright if you want more Warpstone Sparks and I feel Overseer of Destruction is also quite useful, as it lets your Skryre Weapon Teams within 6" re-roll hit rolls of 1. So things like Ratling Guns and Doom-Flayers may benefit from this ability (as they tend to have more then one attack for their main weapon), but no real use for a Warpfire Throwers main weapon.
The Artifacts are very much in the style of risk vs reward. All of them seem to have an element of risk for a possible benefit. I do have to wonder about the Brass Orb as it states in the shooting phase roll a dice and on a 6 or more it slays the closest enemy model. 6 or more? As I recall, this has no 'To Hit' rating, so as such can never benefit from modifiers so I don't know how you can get a roll higher then 6 on a single D6 dice (unless you want to argue that it just says dice and therefore you could roll a D20 if you wanted to be a real smart ass about it). Also, do Warpstone Sparks grant you a re-roll? Not sure on this one. I feel most seem underwhelming in how interesting they are. It's not that I'm against risk vs reward (heck, my old 8th Ed Skaven were dying from killing themselves then from enemy attacks), it just feels like they could have been more creative with the crazy devices they could have (like where is the Warpstone Bomb that is attached to the heart that detonates when they kill you? That was one of my favourite Lore devices they use). I feel the Assassins-bane Rigging, Esoteric Warp Resonator and Brass Orb will probably be the more chosen, though I guess Vigordust Injector might be useful if you know that the Skryre unit you are using it on was going to die when the enemy retaliates after, so get the extra bonus in before you go out from it (it says charge and to hit rolls, so I could also assume it could be used for range to hit rolls as hell). I think Vial of the Fulminator feels more like a one use only item unless you plan to run a lot of Doomwheels that could be sent off, but you wouldn't get many uses even if you did do that.
For the Battle Traits, Strength in Numbers seems almost pointless as a majority of your units are either single or are far too expensive or weak to have more then 10/20/30 models in a unit to get the most out of it (you'd only get Acolytes to 10 or more models and even then I wonder why you would even do that as they are so weak that you'd loose enough to bring you under the needed number for the effect to be useful). The Warpstone Sparks is far more interesting a mechanic, with you only being able to use once per phase and a chance to take D6 mortal wounds on the model that uses it for with a single re-roll for a spell cast for a Skryre Wizard, to hit or to wound roll for a Skryre Hero or to double the damage characteristic of a weapon used by a Skryre model in the army for one successful attack (might be good for something that does 2 or more damage). I have to wonder how to use it in conjunction with a Warlock Engineers Warp Energy Condenser as on that it does D6 mortal wounds instead of D3, but if you fail to cast you take D6 mortal wounds. So do you take the risk of failing to cast and take D6 mortal wounds, or do you use a Spark in order to avoid it, but still risk taking D6 mortal wounds. Actually, the more I think about it the more fun it sounds (Gambling your life with Snikkitch, the latest in Skaven entertainment).
Again, I feel playing a normal force using the Chaos Allegiance Abilities and Artifacts would be far more effective at winning a game over an Order army, but the Skryre one just sounds like it's designed to cause you more pain if you get a few bad rules or make a single mistake. It does feel like being back in the old 8th edition style of having powerful tools, but them being extremely unreliable and bad for your health. I just feel it could have used a bit more creativity in some of the Traits and Artifacts, but I guess it all depends if you play to win or play for fun really. For the most part, I'll stick with it (if anything, just to see just how horrible wrong things can go. Should prove fun).
Honestly, I can't remember if I was suppose to be complaining about it or complimenting it. There was suppose to be a point somewhere in all this, but who knows. Until Skryre get an actual update with some crazy new gadgets, I'm still fine with what they currently have (just wish there wasn't so much of a focus on having Stormfiends, cause those things are expensive).
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