Let's find out.
The Lore
Like all these revamped factions, the Lore section covers events from the Age of Myth up to current events (which in this case is the Soul Wars). Not much is given from the world that was other then the Great Horned Rat saved some of his children and placed them in the various Mortal Realms, commanding them to spread and multiply. Blight City is also hinted that it may have been the original Skaven city (called Skavenblight back in the days of Warhammer Fantasy Battles) and that this city no much larger and is founded on a mass of Warpstone (Magical rock fully corrupted by Chaos according to this book).
Skaven are a cross between the darkest aspects of our society and a cartoon villain. They are egomaniacs, obsessed with their own greatness and believe that they and they alone are chosen and favoured of the Great Horned Rat. They are cunning, cruel and manipulative. They will ally only when it suits them and a quick to back stab them just as quickly. However, for all they posses in such skill to rise to the top, so too do their flaws that equal such benefits. See, arrogance leads to being blind to the flaws of their own self. Not only that, but paranoia is on par with their own ego, so they all believe that everyone is out to get them (and in some sense, that is true). The result sees them spending more time dealing with rivals among their own kind then they do other enemies and even their most cunning of plans can fall apart in battle as they seek opportunities to take out rivals instead of focusing on the opposing army. When things do fail, they are quick to point the finger at underlings to take the fall and shift blame whenever possible. A true Skaven leader is likely to sacrifice a large number of his own minions to escape being killed in combat, for life is cheap in Skaven society and the only life that matters is your own.
Back on topic, the book talks about the Council of Thirteen, which consists of thirteen seats of which twelve are constantly fought over while the thirteenth is left vacant for the Horned Rat himself (because thirteen is the Great Horned Rat's sacred number). When needed, the Verminlord Lord Skreech Verminking will emerge to represent the Horned Rat in order to direct the Council (and punish some of them) in a direction more suited to their God and his own plans.
This brings us to the Shadow Council, consisting of Thirteen Verminlords with, of course, Lord Skreech Verminking being the Thirteenth. Beyond Skreech, the other twelve positions switch and change among the rat daemons on a constant basis. These guys manipulate the Council of Thirteen, but also the various Clans for their own advantages.
Ah yes, Clans. In Age of Sigmar, the term Clans has taken over Clan (so Clan Skryre is now Clans Scryre) and there is a reason now behind this. There are a tone of Clans out there, but all tend to be subsections of one of the main Clans (Verminus, Skryre, Moulder, Pestilens, Eshin and the Masterclan). As such, the term Clans means the various Clans that walk a particular path associated with and aligned to, one of the major Clans. This is also meant to explain why you can play have your army more focused on a particular Clan, yet still have models in another.
But now it's time to address the Elephant (or in this case, Rat Ogor) in the room: Grey Seer Thanquol. Thanquol is one of Games-Workshops most beloved and popular Skaven characters and he is in Age of Sigmar, but unlike other characters from the world that was, he is not a God or Demigod. The last we heard of him was that he had taken a seat on the Council of Thirteen and was looking to seize a seat on the Shadow Council, but that is was hinted that Archaon had killed him. The book has rumored that he was imprisoned by the Great Horned Rat long ago for some major error and that he has gnawed his way out of that prison. Since that time, his ego and paranoia has increased tenfold and is possibly considered insane by other Skaven. None can tell if he is blessed by the Horned Rat or is on the run from him and is extremely lucky, but given the item descriptions, it sounds like his antics have amused the Horned Rat and sometimes he steps in to protect him, but from Thanquol's point of view it seems that his luck is down to his genius and even his Staff of the Horned Rat is more an item he cunningly acquired as opposed to have been blessed with. Clearly, it seems that perhaps he is seeking power beyond that most Skaven can dream of. Maybe he seeks to be the next Great Horned Rat? Given his current state of mind, it maybe possible.
Allegiance Abilities
So this is going to be a big one, as there allegiance abilities are split into two parts, army rules and hero rules. Also note that all Skaven now have the Skaventide keyword and so any army created from this book is a Skaventide army.
Army rules consist of:
Lead From The Back - Skaven leaders have always been cowardly and this rule best represents it, allowing them to gain the Look Out, Sir! rule in the combat phase.
Scurry Away - Instead of pilling in and attacking, your hero instead runs away. Useful if you need to keep him alive a little longer for your master plan.
Overwhelming Mass - The old rules for Clanrats/Stormvermin in which if you have 20 or more models you get +1 to Hit in melee and if you have 30 or more then you get +1 to Wound in melee. This is a rule linked to the Vermintide Keyword, so units from other Clans can now use this rule for their own units.
Strength in Numbers - Skaven bravery tends to be around the stellar number of four, so to show how brave they are in larger numbers, you can add 2 to their Bravery for Battleshock tests instead of 1 for every 10 models in the unit. This makes it more useful to have larger units as they will stand strong early on before tending to break late game (but should buy you all the time you need for your master plan to work).
The second part depends on the Heroes you take. While the General of your army will get to pick their Command Ability (unless their a Clawlord, whom up to six can pick a command ability each) and will determine what units can also be battleline, each Clan hero will have their own style which will effect how they will function in your army. The Verminus Clawlords above are one example, while Clans like Skryre get their Warpstone Sparks from the old Generals Hadbook allegiance (with some alterations) or maybe you have an Eshin Deathmaster, so you can pick one enemy Hero (per Eshin Hero) to be their target that game and Eshin units will get re-roll wound rolls against that Hero.
As such, picking your Heroes becomes more tactical for your army as you may want certain benefits that only some Clan Heroes provide or perhaps you really want to focus on a particular clan, so having more of the same Hero type will work to bolster your army.
Finally, lets talk about Gnawholes. In my Gloomspite Gitz book review I placed the Loonshrine in the Warscrolls section, when really it should have been talked about in this section (since tecnically it is part of having that armies allegiance). Going to learn from that with this review. Anyway, Gnawholes are a free terrain collection consisting of three pieces. These a placed after terrain, but before armies and have restrictions on where they are set up. In battle, if you have a Hero next to it they can send units from their tunnel to another tunnel across the board, essentially allowing you to either secure objectives early or send in counter-attacks later on. They also provide a buff to Skaven Priests and Wizards while counting as deadly terrain to non-Vermintide units. Great feature for Skaven, but you can still play without them and still be effective.
Traits & Artifacts
Oh boy, this one is just too large to have any real discussion on, so I'll really slim it down. The reason is that there are a total of six major Clans and each Clan has its own Command Traits and Artifacts list, which takes up nine pages as it is.
That said, the first three Command Traits are all repeated on each Clan. One let's you re-roll wound rolls of 1 for melee attacks for the General, the other is a sort of 4+ shrug that you use to pass off a wound to a nearby Skaventide unit within 3" of the General and the third is at 1 to Bravery of all Skaventide units wholly within 18" of General. That means the other three Command Traits for each Clan are exclusive to them.
Artifacts are too long to go into any real depth in this short review, but that said, most of Eshin's are Once Per Battle items, with Warpweeper Stars being the only permanent item for battle and since I have no experience with Eshin units I can't really tell how effective these one use items are. Even the Skryre list feels limited to me (apart from the Warpstone Spark generating item, which if you use a lot of Skryre heroes is always a good thing).
Spells
There are three types of Spells for Skaven: Grey Seer Spells, Clans Skryre Spells and Endless Spells. The Grey Seer list has six spells in it, with the ever popular Skitterleap to either send or keep Heroes out of battle and Warpgale to deal with units with the Fly rule.
Skryre on the other hand, has only a list of three spells. This is because they tend to spend more time building machines then mastering their magic. There is a Chain Warp Lightning spell, a kind of overload type spell to let a Skryre unit re-roll hit and wound rolls until your next hero phase, at which that unit then takes D3 mortal wounds. My favourite is the Warp Lightning Shield, which lets you ignore up to three allocated wounds in each phase, but if you suffer four wound in that same phase, the shield immediately unbound and that Hero suffers D6 mortal wounds (the first three wounds allocated in that phase were still ignored, so that fourth wound is instead D6 mortal wounds). I imagine some Skaven yelling 'I'm invincible' before his barrier explodes and he is vaporized.
Finally, we have three Endless spells, Vermintide, Warp Lightning Vortex and Bell of Doom. Warp Lightning Vortex is three models that a placed in a triangle formation 7" apart and cause mortal wounds to units that within 6" of a Vortex model, with bonuses to those rolls if they are within 6" of 2 and 3 of those Vortex models. Bell of Doom is a predatory spell that grants Vermintide units immunity to Battleshock while within 13" and non-Vermintide units within 13" have -1 Bravery, the spell move 3D6, but on a 13" it is dispelled and all units within 13" take D3 mortal wounds. Finally my favourite is Vermintide, a predatory spell which is a giant mass of rats that swarm forth, which can wound models within 6" of it after it has moved, but also to units that move or charge within 6" of it. Oh, and Skaventide units aren't effected by the spell and can move over it as in the same manner as a model with the Fly rule. Rats, Rats everywhere.
Path to Glory
Compared to Path to Glory book, most of the units have been brought together and put in more limited lists for Clans. Pestilens has now been added to the listings as well to complete the lists. The new Warlock Bombardier has been added, Jezzails have gone down from 3 to 2 and now Weapons Teams have their own list, which of course, brings us to...
Warscrolls
There have been a number of changes to some of these Warscrolls, but one I did notice is that the Poisoned Wind Mortar team is no longer in the book. Despite having a plastic mini that they could of repackaged, they instead just straight up removed it. It still has a points listing in the General's Handbook, but don't be too surprised if it disappears in the not too distant future. Oh, and as for the Warpfire team? They decided to just pump out the old metal model instead of the plastic one. Again, no idea why, but since I don't have the old metal one, I guess I could use another one.....maybe. This also goes for the Skaven Deathrunner from the Silver Tower game as well.
That said, nearly all Skryre weapons have the overcharge option, with new ways to fail it and killing you instantly for failing (after the attacks have been resolved first). This reminds me of the days when we had misfire tables. My Warp Lightning Cannon would explode on turn 1, my Mortar team explode on turn 2 and I still won the game. This feels like Skryre, giving you great killing power at the expense of loosing the unit. Very risk vs reward, which is what I love in my miniature games.
So lets look at a few other ones that I noticed while going through the book (since it is a large book and I'm not an expert with most Clans).
Stormfiends:
Did these guys get a nerf or what. If you were a player who equipped these guys with all the same weapons or mostly the same, you might want to check your bitz box to see if you kept the other options. Now, one third of models (rounding up) can have either Warpfire Projectors OR Windlaunchers, one third of models (rounding up) can have either Grinderfists OR Ratling Cannons and finally, one third of models (rounding up) can have either Doomflayer Gauntlets and Warpstone-laced Armour OR Shock Gauntlets and Warpstone-laced Armour. Skryre seems to have had a bit of an overhaul and the Stormfiends are an excellent example of this (I expect raging from some Skaven players on forums over this unit in particular).
Grey Seers (Both mounted and on foot):
These guys no longer have Command Abilities, but to compensate for that, they (being menbers of the Masterclan) count each Clans own battleline units as their own if they are the General. This means if you have a cheap Grey Seer as General, units like Skryre Acolytes, Rat Ogors, Plague Monks etc count as Battleline units. That and the spell list thing.
Also, they removed the rule where if you rolled 13 on the Screaming Bell you automatically won the game. What gives GW? That was a great rule. Trying to distract your opponent before faking your roll with a rigged dice and then having a good chuckle over it with them before doing a serious roll, what happened to having a little fun?
Arch-Warlock/Warlock Engineers/Warlock Bombardiers:
They now have an overcharge on their melee weapons (range weapon for the Bombardier) so that there damage characteristic increases for the attack, but an unmodified hit roll of 1 will dish out D6 mortal wounds to your Hero. Even their Warp Lightning Storm (Arch)/Warp Lightning can be overcharged, but watch out as failure to cast or if the spell is dispelled then you will take a back lash of D6 mortal wounds. This was changed from when the Warlock Engineers were able to overcharge their Warp Lightning spell and only suffer the D6 mortal wounds if the casting roll failed.
Warp Lightning Cannon:
Now has a normal save of 4+, removing the bonus save vs shooting to give it a regular save. It also has it's own overcharge ability (if there is a Warlock Engineer within 3" of it) which lets it roll 12 dice instead of 6 for its attacks, but for every unmodified roll of 1 on those 12 dice it takes D3 mortal wounds. So I guess you either have to roll lucky or use it as a last ditched effort, otherwise you could end up loosing this weapon too early in the game.
Warpfire Throwers (Various units):
So instead of doing D3 mortal wounds (D6 on an overcharged) it is now pick a unit within 8" and roll a dice for each model in that unit and on a 4+ it takes a mortal wound. This changes the tactics of using them against Hero and Monster units and more against grouped units, which in my opinion is more like what a flamethrower like weapon would do. I imagine it will make some players alter their lists to make this change in tactical style.
Deathmaster:
Formally known as Assassins, there have been a few changes with his attacks. His stars now have twice as many shots, but wound on a 5+ instead of a 4+, yet if you roll an unmodified 6 to hit, it counts as two hits instead of one. He can also run and shoot as well. However, he no longer gets the bonus vs heroes (my guess is that if you want a hero killer then you should probably have him as a General) and while his Weeping Blades are still the same, his Fighting Claws option has lost its re-roll to hits of 1 in exchange for upping it's attacks from 5 to 7. Depending on what you want your Deathmaster to do will determine which melee weapon you want, but I will admit I have no idea if the changes are good or bad, mostly cause I've never used them beyond the old 8th Ed Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
Clanrats/Stormvermin:
They have been brought into line with current command units (so 1 banner/1 bell ringer per 20 Clanrats and 1 banner/1 drummer per 10 Stormvermin) and their shields for both units are no simply add 1 to saves if you have 10 or more models in a unit. Stormvermin had the biggest change, having their Murderous Ferocity rule removed, but have had their pitch battle profile changed from unit size max from 30 to 40 (to match the 20 you get in a box), yet the points cost for having the maximum amount is still the same as that in the General's Handbook and now are a Battleline unit regardless of General in the Skaventide army (due to the new Skaventide keyword).
Rat Swarms:
There still here and that just makes me happy.
(Side note, Skaven don't have allies unless your General is of Clans Pestilens, then they can pick Nurgle allies. Yes, any unit with Nurgle keyword, not just Deamons as it once was).
Battalions
With the exception of the Masterclan, each Clan has at least one Battalion, with my mortal enemies of Clan Pestilens getting four (three small ones which a needed to form one big one). The Clans Skryre one still has the same minimum unit limits (minus the Mortars) and for the bonuses granted are still good, with the points cost altered now to adjust for it.
The Clans Verminus one is quite easy to put together (let's face it, most Skaven players have Clanrats and/or Stormvermin) and grants them the bonus of when the Clawlord used his Gnash-gnaw their Bones Command Ability, it effects all Verminus units in this Battalion if the are within 13" of him (and if he is leading from the back, a Skaven wall of bodies around him shouldn't be too difficult to do this). The Clans Moulder one grants a buff to the Master Moulders Command Ability to bring back a destroyed unit on a 4+ instead of a 5+ and in the Clans Eshin one you want the Deathmaster hidden so that in the combat phase in which he reveals himself, all units in this Battalion get to re-roll hit rolls for that phase.
Final Thoughts
Where do I begin. Let's start with what was not here. The removal of units that have a plastic version but not an official packaged version. The Deathrunner and Poisoned Wind Mortar are certainly two that I have no idea why they were removed. Much like the Gloomspite Gitz, I really don't understand this decision and the lack of anything new doesn't help for many other Skaven players (Eshin just lost another Hero and they haven't had much love in some time). Heck, we are still waiting for the return of the Warlord on Rat Ogre Bonebeaker into Age of Sigmar.
I also feel that not a lot of information was given about Thanquol, his motives and his future plans. I can only hope that we get C.L.Werner working on a new Thanquol & Boneripper series, cause I loved his previous series and am so looking forward to new tales of my favourite Skaven by my favourite Skaven writer. While the lore is good and gives you a great idea of what's going on, due to the constantly shifting Council of Thirteen, it feels near impossible to even feel like they are a threat. You knew most of the names of them back in Fantasy Battles because they had secured their seats for so long and were rightly feared, but this lot feels like a bunch of nameless bags of hot air and while Verminking might be the ever powerful Verminlord, we still don't know how much power he has compared to the Great Horned Rat. Like, is he really speaking for him? Is the Horned Rat taking over his body to speak or is he just pretending to speak for him to advance his own plans? I feel this is the one book where I never really got what the Great Horned Rat was really doing beyond 'these are Skaven and this is what Skaven do'. Perhaps a short story with the Horned Rat commanding Verminking or something may have helped established the connection a bit more. Also, strangely no mention of Breeders, female Skaven that are bred and drugged to be large and stupid so they are easier to use for breeding. May not seem like much, but Breeders are an important part of the Skaven race and to get no mention just strikes me as a little odd, considering you have to explain how they are capable of multiplying and spreading so far across the Mortal Realms.
So what about the good then? Well, this book unites the Clans in a way that lets you play them as a mixed bunch or as a single focused Clan. The rules and lore are designed to give you everything you need to form your own sub-faction Clan and create a group of Heroes to add to the playstyle (and hopefully back stab each other after the battle is over). The addition of Endless Spells means you may have to consider getting spell casters into your army, almost as a must have and the Gnawholes grant not only a few neat bonuses, but are an excellent way to move some of those larger units to places they are needed most.
I love the changes to most of Clans Skryre's inventions. The whole 'Risk vs Reward' style is one I'm more familiar with in Skaven and yes, while it was there previously, you had a better chance of surviving D3 mortal wounds then out right obliteration. Still not sure on the overcharges to spells for their heroes as it means that if you were to try to pull it off, it would have to be the last spell you cast for it to have a chance (and of course, be near a Gnawhole for that +1 casting bonus). Still as a massive Skryre fan, I feel I can work with these changes. After all, where's the fun playing Skaven if things don't go wrong so you can blame some underlings and have a few rivals suffer 'accidents'.
Beyond that, I am not too familiar with the other Clans to determine how well a single Clan themed army would go. I naturally assume that Clans Verminus and Pestilens will do fine, but as for Moulder and Eshin, I feel they might not do as well. I guess we'll see in the future how that all fairs out.
Overall, I feel this is the book that Skaven players have been waiting for. It consolidates all the Clans into a single book and still makes playing your favourite Skaven group viable. There are some rules and points changes that players may agree/disagree with, but overall this was a book I can absolutely recommend for any Skaven worth his fur. If GW keeps going in this direction with consolidating factions to be of a similar align with that of the old Warhammer Fantasy Battle, then you can expect not only more fun armies to battle with, but more previous players returning also. From all that I'm hearing at the moment from so many people, this truly is a great time for Age of Sigmar and Warhammer fans alike.
Finally, Skaven given the great-grand treatment they rightfully deserve. The will of the Great Horned Rat will be known and ruin shall be brought forth to all the Mortal Realms. We shall see all fail-fall until Skaven recognized as the true unrivaled and superior species yes-yes! Skaven shall rule all!
~Grey Seer Skratchnsniff
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