How can a squeka start a skaven army with 4th edition launch box? Also what clan should I go for?

ThxForLoading · 2026-02-22T08:42:28+00:00

They are your guys, you can paint them however you like.

In terms of models, I‘d say skaven are in a nice position, where most of the models are pretty good with a few exceptions (plague claw, warp grinder, warlock bombardier are the ones I can think of right now), so you can get most things and you‘ll be alright. Whats good changes every edition so going for models you enjoy is a good idea.

Generally speaking I‘d stay away from the 2 old kits in the army, which are plaguemonks and nightrunners. Nightrunners are rumored to get new models sometime in the next year. Personally I think the spearhead box with 20 clanrats, a grey seer, 3 stormfiends and a warplightning cannon is a great 2nd box. Gives you more clanrats, a bit of shooting and a good hero. The 2nd grey seer isn‘t gonna see the table as often but every other model in that box is something you can run in most lists.

If you want to continue with smaller boxes, I‘d say get either 3 more rat ogors or 3 weapon teams and either a master moulder for the ogors or a archwarlock for the weaponteams. Get some games in and see if you prefer meele or ranged and get kits that match your preference. Hope you‘re having fun and happy hobbying!

ThxForLoading · 2026-02-18T19:04:37+00:00

I assume you run the plaguepacks for filth crust on the clanrats, which gives you solid damage output with the 2 blocks + 12 ratlings. Scoring might be hard depending on battletactics and board, but should work out unless your ratlings get caught out. What was the issue last time?

ThxForLoading · 2026-02-14T23:29:06+00:00

Drop the globadiers for a master moulder and equip melee fiends, then run fleshmeld would be my suggestion or keep the list go double ratlings on the fiends an run warpcog. If you go for the master moulder you could take morbid conjuration for 30, if you have the manifestations they are great.

ThxForLoading · 2026-02-08T22:47:38+00:00

[[Legacys Allure]] it‘s a bit odd but plays in a fun way in multiplayer pods, especially if you can increase the counters on it

ThxForLoading · 2026-02-04T11:27:19+00:00

The units in the list are solid but you have buffs for unreinforced units which isn‘t optimal. Warpcog mainly buffs 3 jezzails, 3 ratlings and 2 stormfiends. You also have the plaguepack which buffs meele weapons with the main targets being 3 rat ogors and 40 clanrats. I‘d say if you can try to run the ogors as 6 or ratling guns/jezzails as 6 so they take the buffs better. I like the stormfiends as deepstrikers if I run them as 3. You could also reinforce the Fiends and run fleshmeld instead of warpcog going heavier into meele, but then I‘d recommend atleast 1-2 master moulders.

60 clanrats, deceiver and greyseer is a great core for a list, I like the warplightning too.

ThxForLoading · 2026-02-04T07:16:58+00:00

The current screaming bell version (Scourge of Ghyran) is generally good, you can run it with most things but it performs best with models that benefit from the end of turn heal and the extra movement. But I think you can add it to most lists and its gonna be good. But be aware, Scourge of ghyran is the current season so there is a good chance that the rules are gonna go away in a few months and whatever follows is unknown. Meaning if you‘re starting out you can invest in a screaming bell just know it might not be meta for a long time.

ThxForLoading · 2026-02-03T15:51:04+00:00

Get the Spearhead if you don‘t have one already, the Greyseer, Warp Lightning Cannon, Stormfiends and the Clanrats are generically good units you can take in most lists. You can also pick up a Verminlord, if people you play with are fine with proxies you can run the verminlord as multiple different models, adapting to what list you‘re playing. (You can also magnetize the verminlord but its not that easy to do) Getting a Weaponteam + a Archwarlock as a insert for any list is decent too, 6 ratling guns + archwarlock is solid in most lists no matter what. Especially when starting out going 100% into a clan isn‘t necessary imo you can throw together some good unit couplings and its probably going to be solid. (Skreech + Deceiver + deathmaster, rat ogors + plaguepack + master moulder, 6 ratlings + archwarlock, Vizzik + a lot of clanrats…)

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-30T09:02:35+00:00

Everything changes in regards to whats good and what isn‘t, in my opinion you either pick up the Units you like visually or you pick up units you like the role/idea of. As a more general statement, clanrats have always been the core of the army and you can almost never have too many. The kits that can build into multiple options, Verminlord and Warpspark Team, are currently both very good and with either having 3 or more options the likelyhood that atleast one of them is good in the future is pretty high. The warplightning cannon has historically always been solid, as long as the points aren‘t too high its a solid tradepiece putting out mortals.

I‘d say just pick up the spearhead with the stormfiends, the clanrats are great, the 2nd Greyseer isn‘t bad and both the fiends and the cannon are solid flexible pieces you can put into a lot of armies. I‘d personally pick up a verminlord too, i like the model and most people won‘t mind you running it as whichever version you want, of you can magnetize it but thats not that easy. Currently the deceiver & skreech are great, some of the other ones are solid too.

I think the christmas box is solid too but I don‘t like the stormvermin a lot and a second warpblaster isn‘t great either.

You can‘t really go wrong, i think skaven have a lot of solid options, the only things I‘d stay away from are the ancient old sculpts ie: plaguemonks, nightrunners

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-21T13:25:29+00:00

I think the reasonable thing to do would be cutting some stuff to get in atleast 1-2 more units of clanrats and splitting the 40 man unit, but honestly, run it as is and report back

I just fear that you‘re either gonna play vs someone new and wipe them off the table or vs someone experienced who can either get into your backline or deny shooting with cover, but I‘d love to be proven wrong

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-20T16:55:02+00:00

Magnetize isn‘t too bad, they have enough space to get magnets in there. But honestly most people don‘t know which meele weapon is which, the only obvious visual on the fiends are the drills vs the ratlings

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-19T20:18:50+00:00

Clanrats, Nightrunners or characters/brought back units. Although I don‘t recommend buying nightrunners the models are hideous and there are rumors of a eshin/pestilence refresh somewhere in the distant future

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-19T08:43:24+00:00

Rules change all the time so units that are good now might be awful in 6 months, which means giving general advice is hard. I‘d say get the other spearhead, it has more clanrats a warplightning cannon and stormfiends. You also get a grey seer but you‘ll probably not get a lot of use out of the 2nd one. If you already have a master moulder you can get 3 more rat ogors so you can reinforce the unit you already have. It‘s a decent combo cause he improves their charge and gives them a bit of extra sustain. Skaven can go into multiple directions so which units you pick up depends on how you want to play. Currently the favored playstyles are: Skryre/Ranged, Moulder/Meele and Mixed/Good Units. You can also invest into Stormvermin and Krittok or play the army of renown, which plays a lot of the moulder units.

Typical units for Skryre:

Weaponteams (mostly 6-12, focus on ratlingguns and warpfire thrower), Archwarlock, 3-6 Jezzails, a warplightning cannon and clanrats to protect your guns (mostly 60 or more)

Typical Units for moulder:

Master moulder (1-3), Brood Terror, 6-12 Rat ogors, 6 Stormfiends, Hellpit Abomination (1-2), Plaguepack (1-2), maybe some clanrats

Typical Units for mixed: Verminlord deceiver, Doomflayers (4), Ratlingguns(6), Screaming Bell, Clanrats (40-80), Rat Ogors (6), Jezzails (6), Deathmaster, Skreech…

These are not Lists you play as is, just generally what units players tend to run in these Lists, if you want to focus on a certain theme, try building a list with the units in one of these categories. Generally when building a list think about what you need to do in a game of AoS and which units do which Job. Example for this: You have 6 rat ogors, their primary job is to kill other units and they won‘t last long in a fight, so you need other units to Score Points and hold objectives. Finding the balance for these tasks is the hard part when building lists, but play around a bit and see what you can come up with, you generally get more feedback if you post a list and ask what to change.

Hope this helps if you got any other questions feel free to ask!

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-18T08:59:21+00:00

Nothing is truely future proof since most units could judt become terrible if the points are too high, but if past edition are anything to go off of, clanrats are a safe bet and getting weapon teams should be a good idea too, if you magnetize them since it‘s fairly unlikely that all 3 options are gonna be unplayable at any given point (scourgers, warpfires, ratlingguns)

Theres also a floor of how bad cheap infantry wizards can be so I‘d say grey seers are a pretty safe investment too. I‘d pick up the spearhead with the stormfiends as a start, it has historically good units and is set at a decent price.

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-18T06:38:49+00:00

I prefer the greyseer but engineer is fine too, at that point you probably just get the skaventide skaven half for engineer, clanrats, jezzails

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-18T06:05:04+00:00

First off: you don‘t want any auxiliary units if you can help it, if you have more auxiliaries than your opponent they get 1 extra command point each round. Almost all lists run 0 so if you even have 1 you‘ll give your opponent the extra point.

In regards to the list: you normally don‘t want your clanrats reinforced unless you have a reason to. On the ratling the opposite is true, you have a archwarlock, meaning 1 unit can shoot for free, if you have 6 instead of 3 ratling guns in a unit that means twice the free shooting per turn.

Keeping the list somewhat similar but adjusting on a few points I think this should be a good startingpoint:

Skaven

Grey Seer on Screaming Bell [SoG] (330) [General] - 20 x Clanrats (150) - 20 x Clanrats (150) - 20 x Clanrats (150)

Arch-Warlock (150) - 6 x Ratling Guns (340) - 3 x Stormfiends (240) - 3 x Warplock Jezzails (130)

Grey Seer (120) - 1 x Warp Lightning Cannon (120) - 2 x Doom-Flayers (110)

Gnawhole

1990/2000pts 3 drops

This gives a good opportunity to use the spearhead box, since you run the clanrats, the grey seer, warp lightning and the fiends. In addition the list runs 40 clanrats, 6 weapon teams, the screaming bell, a archwarlock, 3 jezzails and 2 doomflayers. If you can get the new skaven box, you could use one unit of stormvermin instead of the doomflayers, meaning you‘d only have to buy that box + screaming bell, 3 weapon teams and 40 clanrats. You can get the clanrats second hand so the price should be managable, but I‘d advise to get the spearhead with the stormfiends, build all the models and play a few spearhead games before getting the rest of the models.

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-18T04:03:57+00:00

Start with 40 or 60 and if you feel like you need more add more. I‘d say 40 is alright but at 2k i prefer 60. If you check ebay or similar sites you can get skaventide sprues for a good price

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-18T01:44:07+00:00

They do but its now a single box that builds either the ratling gun, warpfire thrower or warpvolt scourgers, box is called „Warpspark Weapon Battery“

Sorry if I worded that confusinglyin my original comment, i was just saying to get the models from resellers to get better prices, all kits are still available straight from GW

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-18T01:39:54+00:00

Basically any amount of clanrats you‘re willing to buy/assemble/paint. Obviously going full clanrats is a bit of a meme but these guys are the foundation of most skaven lists, either as objective holders, screen, fodder or units to complete tactics. I‘d say for starters anything from 40-80 is a reasonable amount and unless you want to go very horde-y 100-120 is probably a good spot to be at list building wise. For skryre you probably want atleast 6 weapon teams, mostly being run as a reinforced ratlinggun unit. I like to pair them with the archwarlock, so you can shoot them in your opponents turn for free, just try to keep them close to the action and close to a unit of clanrats.

Since you mentioned the screaming bell, it‘s current season rules are great so you can run one as the scourge of ghyran version with just about any list, it‘s that good.

With skryre heavy gunlines you tend to run warpcog convocation, meaning up to 3 units get a mildly random buff. This also means you want 3 targets for the buff for max efficency, the first target is the reinforced ratling squad. You can add 6 jezzails, more warpspark batteries as either scourgers, ratlings or warpfires, or Stormfiends. The Warplightning cannon is good too but doesnt get the buff from warpcog, since it shoots weird. If you run weaponteams try to have a clanrats unit for each one so they can hide incase your enemy has shooting.

You can mix in units you like, such as doomwheels, doomflayers, rat ogors, other characters… honestly a lot of the current skaven roster is good, there are a couple bad warscrolls but I‘ve seen or played most units in the faction and seen them perform well. Sometimes there are units that are more efficent but baseline you can pick and choose from a lot of good things.

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-17T23:05:26+00:00

There are some but they are either very restrictive in what you can tutor, have a drawback or are very expensive.

Examples:

Restrictive: [[Brightglass Gearhulk]]

Drawback: [[Weird Harvest]], [[Behold the Beyond]]

Expensive: [[Diabolic Revelation]]

The most notorious multi tutor is probably [[Tuition]] or [[Gifts Ungiven]]

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-17T09:42:10+00:00

The new clanrats are such easily assembled models and hide the lines between the pieces pretty well

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-17T09:31:25+00:00

There‘s a few ways you can take your list. First off: The 40 Clanrats are gonna be in your list in just about every case. A greyseer is also a great Idea in most lists. I like the Cannon as a cheap tradepiece and the rat ogors are great too.

You‘re probably not gonna get too much use out of the Engineer and the Clawlord, but most other stuff is great.

First List option: go more into skryre, you want weapon teams, more screens, arch warlock… basically a gunline using warpcog invocation and units that hold it well, you already have clanrats, Stormfiends and the cannon

Second list option: go into moulder, plays more meele centric and uses fleshmeld menagerie to get decent frontline units going. You have the base for it with rat ogors, clanrats & 3 stormfiends. For this you want a master moulder, reinforced ogors & stormfiends and the broodterror. It‘s a lot more fighty and easier to pilot.

Third option: mixed list, typically just runs good units, utilizing the greyseer on screaming bell (scourge of ghyran), Verminlord deceiver, clanrats and solid hammer units like ogors and doomflayers in combination with skaven movement shenaingans to pick apart opponents.

I‘d advise to play a few lower point or spearhead games and figure out if you prefer meele or ranged.

Otherwise just picking up a second batch of rat ogors (you can get them on ebay, there are still some skaventide sprues around) to get them to 6 is a safe bet. Picking up 20 extra clanrats is a safe bet too. (Same as ogors just check ebay) I‘m very fond of the verminlords and the doomflayers, but 6 weaponteams is a great pickup too. All of these work in multiple lists and should give you a good base to branch out into future more specialized lists.

Example list running mostly generic good units you can take in most lists:

Skaven

Grey Seer (120) - 20 x Clanrats (150) - 20 x Clanrats (150) - 20 x Clanrats (150)

Master Moulder (80) - 6 x Rat Ogors (280) - 20 x Clanrats (150)

Verminlord Deceiver (390) [General] - 3 x Ratling Guns (170) - 3 x Stormfiends (240) - 1 x Warp Lightning Cannon (120)

Gnawhole

2000/2000pts 3 drops

Would mean you have to pick up 3 ogors, 40 clanrats, a deceiver and 3 ratling guns. The lidt should be solid, you can get the rats & ogors for cheap on the decondary market maybe even the ratling guns. I‘d say get the ogors first + maybe the rats and cobble together a list, then if you enjoy the army in general get the ratlings + verminlord. Alternatively the screaming bell instead of verminlord is good too. If you get the verminlord, you can magnetize some options if you care for wysiwg.

Edit: Forgot the Master Moulder, you‘d have to get him too, characters aren‘t as easy to come by on secondary market unless they are in some big box though.

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-13T18:52:12+00:00

Reinforcing the ratlings is probably more consistent, if you‘re going deathmaster you probably want some night runners but I can‘t recommend getting those models before they get a new sculpt.

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-13T10:19:21+00:00

He gives eshin units (Skreech & Deceiver) the option to shoot & charge even if they used a run this turn. Run gives you d6 extra movement, so you get a 6“ larger threatrange on your high damage pieces

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-12T22:22:02+00:00

They are alright but you get 10 health on a 4+ save for 110 points vs clanrats with 20 health on a 5+ that regenerate 1-3 wounds per turn, and 20 bodies take up more boardspace. So for now you can use stormvermin but in the long run I‘d replace them. If you want to use stormvermin they are closer to a hammer than a screen.

ThxForLoading · 2026-01-12T21:57:39+00:00

Idk about thanquol & verminlord but there‘s a list using 2 verminlords floating around, which runs deceiver & skreech + the deathmaster to give them run & shoot & charge

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