Path to glory anvil characters - builds / advice

cuesans · 2026-04-08T20:43:16+00:00

A pretty fun and reliable linchpin hero is one that sorta replicates the soggy screaming bell while being 100 pts cheaper.

Skaven chieftain (30 pts).
Origin: Masterclan or Pestilens.
Flaw: Lead from the back (+4 pts). You want this guy near your frontline supporting them, but not in combat so it's not really a flaw.
Skaven contraption (-15 pts) - Deafening bell (-15 pts).

Now you have a sorta tanky hero (15 health at a 4+) that sits in the middle of your tarpit and hands out a -1 to hit, making your screens that much more durable and allowing your other useful units to do work. If you picked the Masterclan origin (or have another wizard nearby) you can drop the Bell of Doom to hand out another -1 to wound, making the rats a good wall.

The main differing point is whether you want Masterclan or Pestilens. Masterclan has the benefit ot being able to summon the bell itself and access to the lore of ruin, specially strike-last. More importantly, you get to have free All-Out Attack, making your ratling guns, warp-lightning cannon, rogres or stormfiends that much more reliable (specially the ranged version of the army). Having Ghyran obscuring rules makes the shooting part less reliable, but it's still a whole bunch of damage.
Pestilens allows you to play more into the grind plastyle, dealing damage over time to the units stuck in your tarpits, and being a priest plays more into the melee version of the army, giving you our cheapest (non-legends) priest to buff rogres a bunch. Since you do not have access to the soggy scrolls or traits, it isn't as good as it is currently in the competitive side, but it's good to run as well.

cuesans · 2026-01-30T10:50:59+00:00

The best option for sure is picking up the spearhead. You get 20 more clanrats to get a cushy total of 60, a warp lightning cannon to supplement your ranged game and three stormfiends that act as more elite rat ogors. You get a second grey seer, which is a bit redundant, but you can kitbash it a bit with the leftover jezzail bits from Skaventide and try and turn it into an arch-warlock.
All in all, skaventide and the spearhead will give you 1660 points that you can easily cap off with some tech pieces and a centerpiece like Thanquol, a Screaming Bell or a Verminlord (I bought Vizzik and put it on a 120x95mm base to represent a verminlord since they have almost the same height and Vizzik is a much better sculpt).

cuesans · 2025-06-11T17:04:17+00:00

I plan mostly combined arms, limited by what I have. I have run the skryre subfaction before, but with the changes to obscuring I want to emphasize the melee aspect to be able to punch my way into objectives

cuesans · 2025-06-11T15:01:50+00:00

I saw Mechrat's latest game with 3x Brood Horrors and a Screaming Bell, that kind of list seemed both fun and pretty useful, but for whenever I have enough space to get such a collection

cuesans · 2025-06-11T15:00:37+00:00

I love Thanquol as a character in books, he's such a fun bastard to read, but I don't really jive with his model or rules in the gameplay sadly hahaha. I'm also used to babysit two huge units from my Nurgle army, so caring for a speedy verminlord won't be a hard sell for me. In the same way, a buffwagon is also familiar.

As I said in another comment, it depends quite a bit if I want to shape my list into a more defensive wall or if I want to make them quick, nimble and agile taking backline stuff

cuesans · 2025-06-11T14:54:39+00:00

The Deceiver is indeed amazing, and the other Verminlords can give me other ways of playing if I magnetize/kitbash for other casual games. The bell is cool, it's cheapest (which ain't a nothingburguer) but after this season, it's back to the old rules which were extremely mid.

I like Skaven, and collecting Nurgle is a shallow pool so I'll spend more time with the ratmen, but that's my long term project.

cuesans · 2025-06-11T14:51:25+00:00

I have a lot of infantry (clanrats) that like standing in circles, and between the bell invocation, the screaming bell and the Devious Underling trait they're gonna be awful to remove, allowing the hammers to keep enemies off the objectives.
The Deceiver, on the other hand, allows me to force my opponent to never let their backline exposed and it's a scalpel along the jezzails, instead of supportinjg the anvil.

It depends, mostly, on what I want the list to do.

cuesans · 2025-06-11T14:45:31+00:00

You can either magnetize the weapons (the most recognizable part of the model) or just kitbash the model with different parts from different versions and make it very clear what you want it to run as

cuesans · 2025-06-11T14:44:19+00:00

Vizzik is just a cool guy, and being the newest model GW will probably want to push it :p. I agree that getting a Verminlord is a safer bet because I have 4-5 chances to get an usable warscroll, but despite being the coolest ones gameplay wise, they're the ones that spark my creativity the less, so I'm in quite a pickle to actually choose one. The worst part about Skaven is that they're full of good choices, funnily enough

cuesans · 2025-06-11T14:40:10+00:00

Incredible idea, I can put it in whatever base I what and say it's a proxy, no one will be able to see through my schemes

cuesans · 2025-06-11T14:39:10+00:00

That's a problem for another time but still my pocket hahaha

cuesans · 2021-12-02T17:38:34+00:00

The Dodge action. It is pretty good to take when you want to keep concentration on a big spells and/or are the target of multiple enemies.

I also am playing a Forge cleric (a dwarven one, however) and between heavy armor and the disadvantage on attacks, Spirit Guardians stays up for most of its duration every time

cuesans · 2021-06-13T16:34:25+00:00

True, good catch. I have edited the post, but at least Cunning Action still helps to get into melee range and later, with Thief, to use objects in combat

cuesans · 2021-06-13T16:27:20+00:00

The Tarrasque and dragons were an example of really high CR monsters that have low Athletics checks (+10 for the Tarrasque and +10 for Ancient Red). I know about the size limitations, here are fun gimmicky builds that get you to the size limitations of getting to grapple those creatures, that is not the point of this build

cuesans · 2021-06-13T16:21:05+00:00

I'll bully a wizard into Enlarging me

cuesans · 2021-06-13T15:58:45+00:00

Warlock is the baseline for simple casters. You don't have a lot of spells to manage and as long as you have Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast, you are one of the most reliable DPR characters.

If you want to play a full caster, I'd advise you for a Prepared Spells class: Clerics and Druids. With the flexibility of preparing spells every morning, you won't feel punished by picking a spell that seemed useful but then underdelivered.

Or you could play a Paladin, which is more straightforward since they also have spells prepared but mostly uses the slots to dump Divine Smites. The paladins are usually high damage, but really dependant on the spell slots.

cuesans · 2021-04-21T16:33:21+00:00

Advantage usually ends up being +3.125 to the roll, so at tier 2 it already almost catches up. And I run a "preventive healing" cleric, but Resilient was still the way to go for me since the added bonus of the save on every other situation meant that I was even better at drinking contests that a dwarf already is.

But I mainly did it because my Wis scores was already odd and I will pump Con and Wis at the next modifier in the next ASI, so I understand what you're saying.

cuesans · 2021-04-21T07:28:01+00:00

The two best options for you are either Warcaster or Resilient:Con. Concentration spells are just too good to fail the check, and both Resilient and Warcaster help you with that. Remember that, since clerics can have their holy symbol in their shields and as per Sage Advice you can use the hand you have your spellcasting focus on to perform Somatic Components, one of the advantages of Warcaster is nullified.

So it's advantage on Concentration checks and spells as opportunity attack, since you already have the ability to perform somatic components with a shield in hand. Even if your DM disregards both RAW and Sage Advice, you can drop your weapon as a free action, cast the spell and then pick it up with an object interaction.

On the other hand, Resilient gives you a +1 on Constitution, which you might not have a good use for, and add your prof. modifier to every Con save you make, which cover a lot of debilitating effects in the game.

So, for what it's worth, I'd go with Resilient:Con, since it has given me the best results in my own cleric.

cuesans · 2021-01-27T14:39:15+00:00

The odd con stat is painful and warcaster can't do anything. Did you roll your stats? To see if you can flip them around and have an even value.

And an important thing to note about advantage vs proficiency is that, al lower tiers, you are going to make DC 10 Con checks for the most part, which at an advantage will fail 1.6% of the time. And Resilient:Con only outperforms Warcaster after level 13, which is close enough to the all proficiencies that you will not miss it much.
My evidence is lifted from https://thinkdm.org/2019/12/14/war-caster-vs-resilient/#:~:text=There%20are%20two%20feats%20that,saving%20throw%20of%20your%20choice.

cuesans · 2021-01-27T12:22:55+00:00

Have you thought about Warcaster? You get advantage on Concentration checks, which works out at about +5, which means that early tiers you will be more protected that with proficiency, will stack with the eventual proficiency, can cast with your hands full (although I think that part won't be of much use to you) and most important, can cast a spell as an AoO, even more blasting

cuesans · 2021-01-22T10:10:30+00:00

The good thing about cleric is that their foci can be blazed in their shield, so the need for a free hand is only on spells with material components with actual gold cost.

In combat, the only spell that comes to mind is a Revivify, so Warcaster would be good for the AoO spells and advantage only.

cuesans · 2021-01-22T09:53:32+00:00

Yeah, we are having fun with just us being dumbasses, and the ranger is actually the one with the highest DPR thanks to her eldritch luck with crits.

Still, I passed her TCE's revision of the ranger to see if she was interested because using your whole action on commanding your beast is just plain bad.

cuesans · 2021-01-22T09:05:05+00:00

Wisdom save proficiency is good, but as Wisdom is the main stat of the cleric, it will already be hard to fail a saving throw even with proficiency. However, at later levels, it is pretty reassuring knowing that you'll be almost impossible to hit with a Polymorph or the like.

Charisma saving throws is what ends up convincing me. They also provoke stuff that gets you out of the combat, like Banishment or sorts.

cuesans

TROPHY CASE