G'day,

One of my regular opponents plays Skaven, and he plays them very well. He's a very good player, and he also plays to their strengths. And boy, do those Skaven have strengths.....

Typically he'll take;

Grey Seer, often on the Bell
Plague Furnace
Doomrocket/Condensor Warlock Engineer (Warp Lighting of course)
Abomination
2 war machines, either a WLC/Plagueclaw or two WLC
2 units of Gutter Runners
Storm Banner
3-4 units of 35-40 slaves
Naked Warlock Engineer or two, to divert charges for 15 points.....

So basically everything in the Skaven list that's strong, and can make it into 2,400 points. I'm not saying that he's cheesy, but (like me) he takes the best that he can (though we don't allow special characters or the Power Scroll here).

I could tailor my list to beat him, but that's not the accepted practice here. Besides, I like to practice my all-comers list, even if it's not perfectly matched vs any particular army. I normally take;

Runelord, no anvil, MRoBalance, Spelleater, Spellbreaker
BSB with 1+ re-rollable armour, RoPreservation, RoFire
2 naked Dragonslayers
2 units of 30 GW Warriors
20 Longbeard Rangers
25 Hammerers, MRoGrugni
S5 Grudgethrower
Flaming Cannon
Organ Gun

I find that my Runelord deals with the magic phase without problems; even with 6-8 levels of magic, very little gets through that isn't IF. But even with no real magic, his shooting, dominance of the movement phase and above all his combat ability overwhelms me. Main problems I have are;

Dead War Machines: I need my shooting to kill or badly wound the Abomination and Furnace, so that I can kill them in a single phase. The problem is that the Storm Banner normally neuters my shooting for the first turn, and then the Gutter Runners come on and poison them over the next few turns. And now that he's running the Screaming Bell, if he rolls an 11-12 on the bell table, he does d3 wounds to each machine automatically..... So my war machines aren't surviving to do enough damage, and they give him 450 or so points into the bargain.

My only answers to this is to protect them by keeping my troops back on the baseline, around the machine to keep the Gutter Runners out. I need to kill the Abomination first, and then shift fire onto the Bell, ignoring the Plague Furnace. Wounding the Bell with a war machine rings it for free of course (it wouldn't be the Skaven book if a bad result also had a benefit). But I can't reach it to kill it anyway, due to all the "I Swear too much" in the way, so I have to shoot it.

Movement Disparity: I get it, we're Dwarves, and we're not meant to move fast. But Skaven don't have cavalry, so you might ask what I mean by this. The problem I have is that his units are substantially faster on foot (M5/6 vs our M3) but that there are also many more of them, because they're cheaper. Whether it's a unit of 40 Slaves, 6 Gutter Runners or a simple 15 point Warlock Engineer, he can control my movement and charges. It could be by simply blocking a good charge (he's going to give his Warlock Engineers orange crests in honour of their Slayer-like desire to die....) or by threatening a flank charge on the succeeding turn, he makes it next to impossible to bring decisive force to bear at a critical point.

The only answers I have are to amend my list, to either include more movement-control units myself (10 shield Warriors, Gyrocopter etc, thanks RedZeke) or to go to fewer, bigger blocks of 45 that'll blow straight through anyway. Whether these will work against other armies I'm not so sure.

Combat: Units of Slaves or Clanrats aren't the problem of course. The problem is units of Slaves with an Abomination. Or a deep unit of Plague Monks with a Furnace on the Charge. Skaven are meant to be a horde army, but their real combat ability is in their big gribblies; the rest is window dressing and support. I've learned that the Furnace isn't too bad, especially if you charge to remove the impact hits and delay the giant wrecker attack (his turn only). But that's a job for the Hammerers, who need their S6 to wound easily, and their Stubborn to survive the mass casualties they'll suffer. I don't need to talk about the Abomination do I..... If we don't wound it with shooting, it'll survive for at least 2 phases, which should be enough to wreck, and in some cases, destroy a whole unit. And if we don't kill it, we might wear a unit of 40 Slaves in the next turn, who'll remove Steadfast. I have the RoFire on my BSB as the backup, but I might add one to the Dragonslayer as well, to make it possible to kill it in a single turn.

As you can see, I've lost a bit of faith in the might of my artillery. While I can wreck Elves and most other armies with it, I'm finding that Skaven have all the answers to it, and that I need something to back it up.

So, that's how it stands for me at the moment. If you have any advice on dealing with Skaven, I'd love to hear it, as long as it fits within the bounds of an all-comers list.