Lone Wolf Grand Tournament Army

For those in the Warhammer world with your head in the sand, the Lone Wolf GT will be held next weekend, August 19th-20th in Dallas, Texas. It is the annual GT put on by the good guys of the DAWGS, or Dallas Area Warhammer Gaming Society. Of which I am a member and where the name DAWG Bone Yard comes from.

I will be playing in the GT with hopes of doing well. I will be running my Skaven semi-horde army of 288 models. It is the same army I was playing in the battle report last week.

Here is a breakdown of my army:
Skaven Army 2248 points

Characters: I like 4 characters. I almost always play 4, but I like to go minimalist on magic items.
Warlord with Heavy Armor, Great weapon. This is about as minimalist as you can get. He is there for one reason, Ld 10 within 12" of him. He can show up with 4 str 6 hits in desperate situations, but never till the last turn of the game.

Plague Priest with flail. Again, no magic items. He is there for his 4 str 6 attacks and Toughness 5 makes him a bit tough to kill. He does ok, till he runs into the lord or tricked out character. He gives the Plague Monks a bit of a punch.

Warlocks full gear. So they are 2 2nd levels with 1 spell and pistols. I like this setup. You never know when that 1 pistol shot when you turn the unit, or stand and shoot can knock down a unit just a bit. And in hand to hand they get a str 4 attack and str 5 (-3 armor save) the first round of combat, giving them a bit of a punch.

For magic items I give one the storm daemon, which I have found is needed to give the skaven magic phase that little boost to make it really, really good. And the warpstone charm. What a great item. I always take this, if not on a warlock, then on my Warlord. But stopping a mistcast at a crucial stage, keep the storm daemon from running out, or stopping a 1 for the number of hits from warp lightning, can be outstanding.
The 2nd warlock gets 2 dispel scrolls. These are to stop the game winning spells. I have a tendency to use them too quickly, at this GT, my goal is to have 1 left going into turn 6.

Core: Oh yea, I love the core troops. The more the merrier and I bring a ton to the table.
4 units of 25/24 Clanrats. 25 if no character and 24 if I plan on putting a character in them. Standard and musician only. 10 points for a WS3, str 3 attack is a waste, so no champions. But 5 points for a troop that gets a 4+ armor save in combat is great.

4 units of 20 slaves with musicians. At 2 points a pop, how can you go wrong. The musican has allowed them to win a lot of combats and raises their chance to rally a lot for only 4 points. It is well worth it.

2 units of 18 giant rats and 3 handlers. 90 points for 21 models is barely over 4 points a model. And running them 4 wide I get 7 attacks on the charge. They move 12", have 3 ranks and 7 attacks and Ld 8 all on their own on the far flank.

So I've only spent 900 points and have 220 miniatures on the board. The above 10 units make up the bulk of my army and now allows me to spend my other points on some specialty units to give the army some punch.

We will start with 2 Ratling Gun teams. Yep everyones favorite weapon to hate. And while I think its unsportsman to bring 3+ of these, every Skaven army should bring 2. To not bring any is just being silly and caving into those crying cheese. Every army has their own set of cheese, ours is just easy to spot.

2 Rat swarms, a bit pricey, and will not be worth it after 7th edition, but right now, they are the best unit a skaven general could ask for. Favorite tactic with them is the stick and flank. See next weeks, Tactic of the week. They also work great for shielding the warlocks from those assassination attempts.

2 units of 6 Night runners with extra hand weapons. Not usually that great but for 42 points, how can you go wrong with them. When they are really needed, they can come up big for you.

7 poison wind globadiers. I still strugle to get these guys in the critical situation, usually they run around all game to get off one throw and do 1 wound. But for heavy knight armies, they are great.

Special:
19 Plague Monks with standard and musician. I usually give these guys the banner of hatred, but I had to trim some points so left it off this tournament. I hope I don't regret this, but it did cost me a game and a tournament before, so I'm dropping it. I run the plague priest in here, and these guys along with the plague censor bearers can give it some real punch.

5 Jezzails. Enough to shoot a few knights as needed, but not enough to make my knight opponents cry.

6 tunnel runners with poison hand weapons. These guys are just great. super for taking out warmachines, but fast enough to go after other soft targets like lone characters, fast cav and others.

6 gutter runners with poison hand weapons. Same as above, but scouting insted of tunnel.

Rare:
6 Plague Censor bearers, Frenzy, hatred, flails and fog of death. Enough said.
But these guys have won whole games for me, and have also failed horribly. Hopefully, they will work great this coming weekend.

Well, that is my army. 288 models of Skaven furred goodness.
Comments about the army are encouraged.

Last time I ran a skaven army in a GT was the Battle for the LoneStar Dallas GT almost 2 years ago when I went 4 wins and 1 draw and took Best Overall.

I'm not counting on doing that well again, but I am hoping to do well overall or in best general.

Ben