Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Death of the Uber-Skirmisher

With the advent of 8th, one thing that you would quickly realise if you were a Plague Censer Bearer is that "you're not in Kansas anymore, Toto".

Under 7th no self-respecting Skaven army went anywhere without at least one unit of PCBs. These uber troops could clean out charging Chaos Knights, deal with blocks of Dwarf Longbeards etc through a combination of their gas attacks and high number of re-rollable Str 5 attacks. A favourite ploy was to put them in front of a unit of Chaos Knights daring them to charge in a pact of mutually assured destruction (but for half the points investment and the removal of the Chaos key threat).

Not anymore! The introduction of Initiative steps for combat and stepping up for casualties has seen the effectiveness of PCBs reduced significantly. Now they are more support troops with a different (primarily flanking) role.

And this is one of the refreshing things about 8th. You need to learn new tricks and tactics. What has worked in the past may not necessarily work now. I'm sure Wardancers in a Wood Elf army are waking up to a similar realisation.

So strap yourself in Dorothy - it's gonna be one hell of a journey!

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