Demz Skravens, yo!

  Recently, Games Workshop released two new warbands for battles in the Mirrored City.  My wife was still bitter about the losses and retooled her deck and was eager to give it a go again.  Meanwhile, I wanted to try out the new rat-men and see if I could crush dreams and hopes with them as well.

  Each of the warbands has a different 'strategy'.  It starts with how many modes they have, followed by how tough and fast they are.  Finally, the objective cards are chosen in order to take advantage and 'capitalize' to win the game.  I understand how the first four work- the Stormcast are few (only 3 models), slower (only 3 movement), and tough as nails (shield defense with 4 wounds!); the Bloodreavers are many (5 strong including 2 chumps), fast but weak (5 move but only 3 or 4 wounds with dodge defense), and actually do well with claiming objective points; the Ironjaws are fewer (4 guys) and slow but tough (2 move and shield defense with 4 wounds) and get their objectives through bashiness and surviving the pinpricks others toss at them; and the Undead are many (7 models with 3 red-shirts), slow (2 move), and weak (2 damage and a dodge defense), but they come back and stack all kinds of upgrades to steal objective points.  All of this is simple, so the Skaven can't be that hard, right?

  Well, see, there's a lot of collusion and back-stabbing and other unforeseen obstacles that would keep the glorious rat-men from any success and that's what I'm going to blame my failure on.  Let's see where it may have started...  So Skaven are many (5 in number, with three being rat-chumps), fast (5 move, plus alot of extra movement from upgrades and ploys), and, you guess it, weak (2 wounds, 3 if you're lucky, and mostly a dodge for defense with an odd shield and double-chance).  They don't cause much in the realm of damage and they're not very long range.  Knowing that, getting glory points just from killing the enemy isn't reliable, meaning that getting upgrades early wasn't really dependable either.  So how do I play these guys?

  Just like the skeletons, I recommend putting the Petitioners (their 'chumps', or just weakest ones) on objective-taking duty, and use the three champions to go bash some face, die, return, and bash some more face.  Skaven, seeming similar, would be set up with that in mind.  However, unlike the Undead, if I get stuck in combat, there's no coming back or fighting my way free, and that's where my weaknesses really showed. 

Deployment

  In our first game, the Undead won the die roll and set up the board in the 'bottleneck' style and put most of the objectives on her side of the board.  Better, Nagash was smiling on her because they all corresponded to her artifact-based objectives!  She was smart in her setup and I thought I was too.  In fact, I saw an opportunity to 'jump' her Champion like the Bloodreavers would and took it when my turn came around...

First End Phase

  So the First turn saw me having objective cards that allowed me to lose a couple of rats, do exactly enough damage to kill someone, and enemy leader kill an enemy to score.  I lost one of my chumps but the other (the Festering Skaven) simply would not die.  When he struck with his one-damage attack, he failed to actually cause any damage on the Champion or any other opponents that phase.  And without that damage, my Leader (Skritch, I think) couldn't put out enough damage to kill anyone either.  It was only a ploy at the end of the turn that caused damage with the loss of one of my chumps did anyone go down, but I still couldn't score anything.  My wife was obviously enjoying herself...
 

Second End Phase

  Trying with all the might found in the sewers, the Skaven pushed and finally did some damage.  But it meant little to the Undead as they trapped the rats and gained Glory Points through a storm of magically-motivated movement.  It wasn't long before I realized that I was falling too far behind and couldn't win this game.  Obviously, someone within the ranks betrayed us and let the enemy know our plan...  

Final End Phase

    One of the best parts of Shadespire is that the game is only 3 turns, or twelve total activations per player.  And in this game, thank goodness.  More magical movement and well-placed support meant that my warband was quickly executed, including the Lurking Skaven I brought back with a ploy last turn, and Skritch- my leader!  Well, there went some other possible objective cards.  When the dust cleared, I lost with a score of 13-6.  These Skaven should have won.  There must have been some back-stabbling involved...

Victory, Nagash.

Deployment

  Not being one to pout like a baby (in this game, anyway), we chose to give it another go.  For the second game, it would be the same cards but I would actually win the roll-off to set up the board and the objectives.  I chose to set up the traditional wide style so that I would have more access to her objectives (maybe I could take them and deny some of her points) as well as simply outrun her mean guys.  I still wasn't confident (after all, I hadn't rooted out the mole in the ranks of rats yet...), but I had a better plan.  

First End Phase

  My luck continued, having found some warpstone dust somewhere, and I was able to jump out and slay one of the Petitioners straight away, gaining a Glory Point quickly.  But the winds of Nagash continued to push the skellies around and I watched as she gained a ton more Glory Points.  Again.  I think my wife's work on her deck may have had some impact...  

Second End Phase

  Just as I was finally able to dish out some punishment, I was also able to take advantage of my 'surgical' objectives, specifying who could do how much and when, and score many more Glory Points.  My wife watched as I methodically attacked and pushed her deathrattle warriors around and I was proud.  By this point, we're actually tied.  Woohoo!  Maybe I've figured these rats out!

Final End Phase

  The mayhem continued as we both maneuvered to claim points and mop-up the wounded.  I realized her strategy at the last moment and it cost me.  I didn't understand why she wasn't bringing her dead back and magically moving them to claim anything only to remember that she had all the artifacts that multiplied her objectives.  So I sent my bodyguard (Krrrk) to attack and push one of her skeletons off of one of the objective points and failed.  The last ditch effort was sabotaged and it resulted in the Undead once again stacking up Glory Points like an accounting calculator.  But it wasn't without a fight and the game ended in a score of 14-10!  

  Overall, I think the Skaven are definitely a bit harder to use than the others.  They only have one strength, their speed, and all the rest depends on a very well constructed deck and cunning use of ploys and timing.  But the game isn't so unbalanced that I see this as the worst or anything like that.  I just think that there might be a learning curve.  Now to test out those Dwarf Slayers!

Happy Gaming!