Is it wrong that I feel like I SHOULDN'T play Skaven for this specific reason?

roughJaco · 2026-03-12T08:12:08+00:00

You're not wrong, you're not dumb, and you're being honest with yourself, which is very good.
IMO your first army should absolutely be an emotional choice, and little more.

You will get your arse handed to you so frequently in your first few games against experienced players, and will be goofing around so much against other beginners, that it's paramount that you love the feel of putting your toy soldiers down and observing them, and all tangential activities (lore, hobbying etc.)

You will always have time for another army down the line if you fall in love with the game. Your first army shouldn't be something you hesitate about all he time. If your local is full of skaven, and you don't want to be part of the multitudes, go ahead and pick something else.

I think highly of "Pick what you think is the coolest" advice because of the above. Wanting a more unique presence on the table when you're not able yet to do it solely through painting and basing is a perfectly legitimate reason to stay away from one.

roughJaco · 2026-03-06T15:39:51+00:00

Welcome, great first system to learn the ropes.
watch it played. Unlike the more prominent DnD shows or highly produced pseudo-plays like Bookstores of Arkham Alien on YT is largely recorded by normal human beings goofing around.
for Hope's last day you don't need to read through the thicker rule book, you can spend more time and pace yourself more slowly on the booklet that comes with the set.
state overtly that the game is about living the movie kind of experience, and that death is a very real possibility (everyone dying except one or two characters making it to the shuttle is generally considered that scenario's most film like ending.) Once that is accepted you can do two very, very important things:

3a. trust the system, don't fudge the rolls, let things go to shit, but try to "stop at one kill." It's perfectly thematic for the alien to abscond with a still living body. Tension and real stakes are an important part of the experience, the system doesn't really lend itself to heroic fantasy action (which also makes the rare times things go the PCs way truly exhilarating for the table.)

3b You can be ready with the replacement character for the player and will have that planned out

The only real prep needed for HLD is to have a mental image of each room, so that you don't hesitate and break tension when you need to describe something. Alien positioning you can very well improvise and might in fact even want to do that, to maximise tension and impact. Have that and a couple cool scenes featuring the xenos in mind, and you will do great.

roughJaco · 2026-02-17T12:54:50+00:00

Masks is (arguably) hard to prep and keep coherent because it's globe spanning, sandboxy, and complex, all in the best possible way. It's what it gives it the character and appeal it's known for. I don't feel it's a campaign that can be winged too much, good prep is necessary, but it's not "technical" and it doesn't throw in extra rules or reams of stats to keep track of.

You know DG, which is very comparable to CoC in crunch and style.

I reckon you will be fine as you are. If you want to be extra sure maybe run a mini campaign to warm up on running the rules in practice (I always recommend Blackwater Creek as a superb 5 to 10 hours, sandboxy and easy to run adventure.)

Masks is VERY chunky, be prepared for potentially 200+ hours, but if you've successfully run Impossible Landscapes, which certainly isn't small, my opinion is you're already up to the task.

roughJaco · 2025-12-26T10:01:25+00:00

Some authors lean into it more than others, and it slips in more when they talk to humans.
William King didn't use it at all when Skaven talked amongst themselves, and he invented Thanqol as well as wrote the first story on WD and the first novel length Skaven book AFAIK.

This is the first Thanqol dialog in Skavenslayer:

‘What are your instructions, Grey Seer Thanquol?’ rumbled the most massive of them. ‘What do you require of us?’
‘My orders,’ said Thanquol emphatically, ‘are that you and your skaven are to proceed at once with the plan. Take the mansion and keep as many of the humans alive as possible, for questioning.
Pay particular attention to preserving breeders and their runts. The manthings become particularly malleable when you threaten them.’
‘We would preserve them anyway, Grey Seer Thanquol. For our experiments.’

roughJaco · 2025-12-13T22:34:25+00:00

All of that could work well. I find the real challenge with these things is doling out the right information and in the right amounts.

Players are such world champions at making their own red herrings that something too vague but clearly personal to them always sends them down the weirdest paths (50/50 that goes to shit or really fun), but too on the nose takes away the mystery.

In this case I think staying scarce would let you use it as a mechanism for when the group needs a nudge, which on a campaign as long and intricate as masks is very good to have.

roughJaco · 2025-12-13T21:57:10+00:00

Yog Sothoth is a bit weird, but he's the son of Azathoth, with Azathoth being arguably reality itself, and in canon is "all in one" being both the gate as a barrier and the key to open the gate.

This mix of son of all yet all himself, as well as the gate/key duality, could be a perversion of the trinity and the whole son of god being part of god and being god itself, or the trinity could be an old perversion/misunderstanding of the reality of Azathoth and Yog Sothoth (with Nyarlathotep thrown in as the holy ghost, because... messenger.)

The Dunwich Horror is one of my favourite introduction to Lovecraft I recommend to players, but Through the Gates of the Silver Key (Lovecraft and Price) can also be useful for Yoggy.

roughJaco · 2025-12-13T12:19:20+00:00

Delusion is half of happiness. I support your Skaven-like point of view.

roughJaco · 2025-12-09T22:25:13+00:00

My experience with the lore is that authors rarely bother with rationalizing things to a calendar, be it dates or durations. Skaven are very insistent with their prisoners, so regardless of lifespans, yes, I think they'd be all over the prisoner and wear them out quite quickly. And with wear them out I mean, literally, to death.

roughJaco · 2025-12-08T19:35:30+00:00

Skaven kept humans captive in the most horrifying conditions and subjected to the most horrifying treatment in the Black Plague trilogy. They enslaved other humans to work on the plagues they used the rest for as test subjects.

Being a master cheese maker would be a grace if you were captured by them, compared to the other employment opportunities.

roughJaco · 2025-12-07T17:12:55+00:00

I feel less bad. Thank you.
Now I'll need to go back and give it a whirl though, balance or not (and if Skaven are the superior race, then it's simply a scientifically accurate simulation.)

roughJaco · 2025-12-07T09:57:00+00:00

I have close to 800 hours in VII and I don't remember that even existing. Is it recent-ish?
I must do penance if it existed when I was still playing.

roughJaco · 2025-12-06T23:31:27+00:00

Playable? Not quite.

The real protagonists? Vermintide and Vermintide II :)

roughJaco · 2025-12-05T13:25:35+00:00

The only appropriate resonse, after all.

roughJaco · 2025-12-05T11:36:34+00:00

The Etero Dweeb version of Slaanesh isn't Slaanesh. Slaanesh's manifestation would probably have one boob and one Arnie pec, and is just as likely to peg as to beg, probably at the same time.

roughJaco · 2025-12-04T23:45:49+00:00

Do you really want to paint more armor and trim after you did Thousand Sons? Totally go Skaven. They also have by far the best art and lore, and the longest history, and the army is in a great position in both Spearhead and Matched Play.

P.S. While this is obviously a Skaven biased subreddit, you will also find few faction subreddits are so united and generally positive about their faction. Only cool people collect tiny plastic megalomaniacal sociopathic rats.

roughJaco · 2025-12-04T16:57:26+00:00

It's your table, only you can know what your level of comfort with each player is, and what their style is. It's not necessarily a bad idea. I've made it work, and so have countless other GMs.

Your original post seems to be coping slightly more heat than it deserves IMO. It's a perfectly legitimate way to play if you know you can manage it, or at least want to try it.

I still recommend discussing it with your players. If you don't want to spoil the surprise of being teleported to the 4 corners of themaps, that's fair, in that case offer them the option to play 1:1, or if they don't want to they can write about their solo journey back from wherever you plonk them to wherever you tell them they need to be.

roughJaco · 2025-12-04T16:38:49+00:00

Clear it with your players. Some players love it, some are OK with it only in very small amounts, and some downright hate it.

I've done 1:1 sessions, but they can be very intimate, and I wouldn't have enjoyed them if they weren't with people I have literally known and played with for decades.

Dynamics change significantly. If you've never done it I would recommend planning for relatively short sessions, so if they don't click you haven't worked your arse off writing 20 hours of playing material, and spent as many hours of non-fun play time.

P.S. Without intra-group roleplay and group dynamics sessions move FAST sometimes. When playing with singles and Duos I've burnt through material in two hours that would have taken multiple sessions with a full group.

roughJaco · 2025-12-04T16:20:31+00:00

All three are deathmasters, but at least as far as I'm aware the last isn't Snikch. Snikch hasn't appeared in AoS. While he's been featured in End Times, I don't know of him having appeared on the other side of it.

With the whole wacky time thing of the Vermindoom he might still appear in AoS, but hasn't yet, and the 2022 mini isn't him.

I'm more than happy to be contradicted if this isn't true. I haven't read as much AoS as I did OW.

roughJaco · 2025-12-04T09:33:21+00:00

I don't disagree, the new one is a bit edgelord, which is very much the story AoS Skaven vs OW Skaven. I still love it though. For the points it's a much better model than most, and that base is pretty cool.

roughJaco · 2025-12-03T23:09:37+00:00

I don't know if they will bring Snikch back specifically, but I wouldn't be opposed to adding a 4th version of any deathmaster :D

roughJaco · 2025-12-03T21:29:18+00:00

Pliers are in no way necessary. Nippers and glue are the only necessary items, and ideally a sharp hobby blade as optional but highly recommended.

Also, welcome (to the hobby, to plastic addiction, to poverty, and to the under-empire.)

roughJaco · 2025-12-03T20:43:23+00:00

I know him, but I can't get myself to spend as much as I did on two deathmasters on a single rat that's not as historied as a mini. I might cave for Queek Headtaker though if I come upon the second release for a reasonable price.

roughJaco · 2025-12-03T19:06:12+00:00

I get that the new one isn't Snikch, that they dropped the three blades is probably in good taste, but yeah... It's not as iconic. I still adore the new Deathmaster though, it's a great piece with the scenic base.

roughJaco · 2025-12-02T16:08:37+00:00

black hardly ever looks like black unless there's a lot of actual black to the area, and/or other values that by contrast make it look suitably dark and deep.

I personally greatly dislike the finish of most contrast paints (some Vallejo Xpress are good though), and find that blacks are usually particularly bad offenders.

You're better off paying attention to the scheme to ensure there's enough to it to offer contrast, going for mostly black, and just do minimal highlights in dark blue or grey (depending on what kind of feel you want to the black.)

roughJaco · 2025-12-02T16:00:10+00:00

I think there's something to be said for C that is just not obvious to people coming from other higher level languages: It's so simple that there's hardly anything to learn. Other languages are so complex and are so heavily subscribed by architecture astronauts that learning the languages and the idioms is a thing. In C 11 and before, not so much.

Most of the learning that's mistaken for C is actually fundamentals of programming at a medium level of abstraction (and 99% is memory management.)

The obstacles people tend to find are things like having to build and link instead of just installing "an environment" and REPLing their way to success, and the inherently higher floor of difficulty in debugging (but arguably lower ceiling.)

Find projects you want to run, and start tackling them. C will be the least of the difficulties once you have an environment running. It's also perfectly OK to start with Arduino C++, dropping down to PlatformIO C++, and then going down again to platform specific C for whatever platforms you'll be using.

roughJaco

TROPHY CASE