More RATTIES

That could also work and be pretty cool. Although to be honest the charm of single combat will probably drop pretty soon and the chieftain will get a bomb in his face per routine instead.

Single combat would, in my opinion, be very cool and I think that I would personally enjoy it but given how it would slow down the game it probably won’t work well in the long run for most players.

Not to mention that it will probably work better with the Norscans than the Skaven as the Skaven have, as per the lore, no sense of any kind of honor, even less than the Rotbloods.

Main problem with an enemy like the Jezzail is it would likely be as terrible to deal with as Blightstormers, for characters with short or no range.

I was always keen on the idea of introduced big baddies like Hellpit Abominations or even named characters, but maybe not in a direct fight. For example, Deathmaster Snikch would likely kill the entire party with little issue. But if he was more of an environmental boss (think a little like Rasknitt from Vermintide 1), a really cool fight could be made and you may not even kill the thing/character, but rather just deter them or escape.

I believe there are a lot of creative ways to introduce enemies both in and out of our character’s ability to handle, depending on how the enemy/event/encounter is done.

True that jezzails could be a problem but in all honestly its a co-op game and at most half the team will be unable to do range combat while the other half will be able to attack the jezzail with range attacks. I am not sure that’s actually such a terrible problem.

Yes, Jezzails would be absolute @rse to deal with in this game. Unless there was some clear nonranged countrplay, maybe. Like, have the player be notified they’re being aimed at by means of a scope glint or warpstone laser or somesuch, and then you only get shot if you don’t move around enough, and it loses you when you get out of line of sight long enough. So you have a clear counterplay that isn’t just “shoot it”, and it creates a danger of a different kind than what current ranged enemies like Ratling Guns or Archers do.

What if the Skaven has a specific voice line for when he is aiming at someone ?

Bardin: Not Stunty enough Dwarf-thing

Slatz: Tall manling is easy target Yes Yes

Kerri: The Bullet beat the arrow Elfling

Kruber: Shiny Knight wont top my Bullet

Sienna: Candle will be Snuffed

That would make funny line that reveal the primary target while still being challenging

Regarding jezzails: they might be utilized best as some sort of boss support or special event mini-boss encounter. Just some ideas to incorporate them:

  • They could create some sorts of “death zones” in a boss fight.
  • Maybe you have to distract them with dummies and bait their shots to spend ammunition.
  • As a special encounter in a “corridor-like” part of a map where you need to play a little like in a cover shooter.
  • You could make their line of sight visible on maps and give the player a chance to avoid or sneak up on them (maybe just for huge open maps like The Pit)-

Otherwise I already mentioned some ideas a while ago on reddit:
Patrols & Units and
“Scaling” Enemies

Anyways, I think some upgraded versions of already existing enemies could also be a thing (like those legendary regiments in Total War e.g the already mentioned Death Globe Gazrat by @Heretical_Cactus)

I think it could work specially if the boss had two modes, one on one mode aka physical, running and gunning mode aka ranged, basically they would have to make it so when people broke the protocol his buddies would come in pushing with their shields while he would escape to a safe distance and just start sniping with a similar weapon to the chaos champion throwing axe or even magic, something heavy with knock back that would make life a living nightmare if you don’t time your dodges right.

Man, better yet if they made them celebrate and laugh every time a player goes down.

Regarding the player being notified with something like laser.
The problem with approaches like this is that it requires the penalty to be pretty severe if you decide to ignore the beam aka high damage or annoying disability. Just looking at how badly ungor archers are hated I really cannot see the latter one ever being considered.
Also immersion wise it makes no sense that sniping enemy would attack once every 2-3 seconds and do limited amount of damage so the typical balancing that is done to rattling is not really applicable.

The way I see jezzails working best is in some kind of map or boss event where jezzail teams maybe has the team pinned down and they have to create obstruction or something similiar to move around and deal with them.
As a special I see them conflicting way too much with what we already have and to truly give them enough justice lore/immersion wise they would be absolutely hated as special.

Maybe I’m wrong but personally I really cannot create a scenario where jezzails feel like jezzails and still be somewhat interesting to play around.

What about a Skaven that is holding a Gun (Like the Blunderbuss) and hunt the Heroes and shoot once before retreating and reloading and starting back again

  • High Damage/stagger
  • Low accuracy (likely to kill their own unit)
  • Loud but moderately fast (More like the Hook Rat than the Ratling Gun)

Are there any Skaven Clan that could make great inclusion
Clan Skurvy

Clan Volcn

  • Torch Bearing Rats ?
  • Pyro maniac

Clan Gangrous

  • Edward Scissor hand
    image

Clan Ektrik

  • Tesla Coil and electricity based weaponry

Clan Mordkin

  • Bone ascetic but no idea on what they could bring

Eshin could bring their Triad:
3 Skaven assassin that work together and Single out one Heroes and try to have it face one of them so that the other 2 can backstab it
They would not approach the U5 when they are too close to each other, preferring to agitate one of them then retreat to separate them
image

I like the idea of another Warlord Clan coming in to take command and help Clan Fester but we should remember that according to the lore Clan Fester is under Rasknitt’s pull because their brood mothers have caught some strange illness, which has lead to them being kind of ostracized for other clans not wanting to catch the illness themselves. Clan Fester is, as far as I’ve understood, primarily doing Rasknitt’s bidding because he has promised that he can cure the illness and Clan Fester see no other way out.

Its kind of sad the way they are used and exploited by Rasknitt although that’s life among the Skaven.

But if we get past this part I can totally see some other Skaven Clan coming in to take advantage of the trail of destruction that Clan Fester has already caused. And perhaps shanghaiing what is left of Clan Fester for their own ends. That could allow us to get in a new Warlord Clan, a new villain and explain why the Skaven villainy continues. Might need to explain the continued alliance with the Rotbloods and Beastmen but that should be possible to do without too much effort.


But in regards to the jezzail. I don’t really see the big problem. We can modify the jezzail to work more like a handgun if needed and there are also the case of the Ratling gun which might not per necessity work like a “real” Ratling gun would.

So if long ranges are a problem, give the Skaven a lighter version to carry around or make them spawn at fixed positios from where they won’t move and thus they can’t spawn in impossible locations.

Jezzails would have the same problem as ungor archers if they’re not given a specific combat routine to make them unique to fight against and they have to do something that isn’t covered by other Skaven units.

Since their models look like this https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99810206002_SKAJezzails01.jpg I’d guess the best way to use them is as shielded ranged elites. Slow moving, armored/super armor in the front and vulnerable from the rear. Not sure I would want to ever fight more than a handful on huge maps like Athel (which is probably where they should be, all things considered).

My thoughts against having jezzails in game is if they don’t change the flow of combat or just unfun to fight then they’re a waste of gigs that could go to something better.

I disagree.

If badly implemented then, yes, they would probably not add much. But they could easily add a greater focus to manouvering as oppose to positioning in battle but this time with damage dealing as opposed to area denial. The same kind of stuff that almost all the Skaven specials already add, except the Gutter Runner, in that they tend to affect how the players can move or not move, more than any damage dealt. Here on the other hand we would have a special with a focus on doing damage to the characters.

Anyway, to return the topic to proposing more Ratmen for the Ü5 to kill, maim and burn.

Ideas for new Skaven Lords along with some notes for them. :slight_smile:

Egomanical Skaven Grey Seer Apprentice

The idea is that after Rasknitt’s death a con man Grey Seer Apprentice talked his way into leading off a partion of the Pactsworn to follow him on a quest to, well, advance his standing among the Skaven.

The important part is anyway that he uses and expends his followers on getting hold of stuff for and conducting a ritual which he thinks will make him a big and powerful Grey Seer, just in time as the Ü5 arrives - done in a cutscene. But the result is less of a powerful Grey Seer and more of the Vermin in question being infused with a wind of magic and becomes and anchor for it.

Thus the final fight terrain is transformed by the winds of magic into essentially a Weave kind of terrain. And given special powers by the wind of magic in question, the Ü5 will have to take down the manical Skaven before he causes a new magical catastrophy.

The part with this is that it can be varied and randomized for each walkthrough with what wind is going to be encountered at the end fight, which will affect what kind of stuff the Apprentice gets to boost him.

Some Examples

Beast: There could be totems healing the vermin and he is transforming between his cowardly self and a Rat Ogre’s form and so back and forth between these. Perhaps with the “energy blast” that comes with the Tzeentchian Twins on the event to tell when he’s changing forms.

Metal: The Skaven in question gets the bladestorm, becomes armoured, and perhaps has his arms transformed into blades for the kind of duel-wielding attacks that Skarrick does.

Heavens: The Apprentice manically claims to see the future and the whole cosmos, leading him to get the dodge ability and also call down lightning strikes on the Ü5.

The Ratborg

That a Skaven Engineer hired by Clan Fester is close to finishing his masterpiece and sets of with some, or many, Pactsworn to loot and pillage a Dwarf workshop and an Imperial Metal Mage’s residence in order to get his hands on what he needs. In the first two parts the Ü5 drives off the engineer before he can finish his looting and in the third installement he is finally cornered with his warpstone powered mechanical exo-skeleton, ready to take on the Ü5, only to be brought down by our heroes.

Vermin Triumvirate

That three Skaven have joined forces, or rather one big Skaven is pushing two smaller Skaven around to do what he wants, after Rasknitt’s death to claim leadership as mighty warriors. The idea here is that the two smaller Skavens are found killed by the Ü5 at the end of the first two levels, after they have served their purpose for the big Skaven.

The third part is finally confronting the large Skaven who, as an absolute bully-coward, sends in a bunch of Stormvermin before he himself joins the fight with the Ü5. Potentially his third phase is trying to block and avoid the Ü5 while screaming himself shrill for his minions to die for the protection of his craven hide.

Rampaging Skaven Beast Boss

Finally an idea that a Skaven leader, of some sort, has invested a ton to gather up resources to buy one, or more, massive monster from Clan Moulder and so tries to unleash the beast on the Ü5. But the Skaven has taken on more than he can chew and so the beast breaks loose, kills the Skaven leader and then attacks the Ü5.

Given that this fight could be with few or no enemy minions the beast can, or should, be very powerful or perhaps something as dangerous as trio of Rat Ogres or something like that. The main, and hopefully funny one at that, point is that the Skaven has bought himself something he can’t control and it blows up, or punches him, in his face.

Wouldn’t that make it a bit redundant ? Like we just fought a Grey Seer, I would prefer to have Warlord from other clan try to take over:

Plague Deacon:

  • Lore of Plague
  • Plague Monks
  • Introducing new elite/special (eg:Censer Bearer, Plague Priest and Plague rats)

Master Warlock Engineer:

  • Lore of Ruin/Skaven Technology
  • New Special

Eshin Assassin (or a thrall Clan

  • Lore of Stealth
  • Dodge more than armour

Master Packmaster:

  • Regen
  • Pet monster
  • New Monster/elite/special:
    –Throtling
    –Giant Rat
    –Chimearat

The weave mechanic can be hard to control, it’s better to have a certain degres of stability on the boss, (the Beast for the Moulder Boss, Metal for Skryre and Heaven for Eshin)


So an armoured Stormfiend that is the regular size of a Skaven ? Clan Skyre could fit it without any Exo skeleton, they are quite augmented already


So it work as 3 Boss who are not really related/fight together
Maybe we could have the Rat King and his litter that fight together (More Tanky than Stormvermin)

I’ll start with a clarification. In one my posts I referenced the last Skaven Armybook to WFB as 8th edition. It was in fact 7th edition. My mistake.


I feel this depends on it is done. Both Halescourge and Nurgloth are Chaos Sorcerers but I don’t think that anyone will feel like these two fights are the same, despite their similar nature. Likewise I feel that another Grey Seer can be done the fight is designed to be different from each other.

And it also comes from the idea I had to make a fight incorporating Weaves for which I couldn’t find a good way to explain the situation other than that a mage of some sort was tampering with things that he should leave alone. Hence why I settled on a Grey Seer.

You are however entirely right in that there are other mages than Grey Seers for the Skaven. I don’t know how or why but I had forgotten that Plague Deacons and Warlock Engineers can use magic. So thanks for bringing this fact on the thread. :slight_smile:

These two could be really cool and add some more shenanigans to the Skaven presence in the game.

I would however mention that according to the lore I’ve seen on a quick glance Plague Deacon is actually rather low on the Pestilense pecking order and the Plague Priests seems to be the ones with magic and an elevated place in the hierarchy.

Thus I would think that the named character should be a Plague Priest and the new special the Censer Bearer. I feel like a Plague Deacon would risk becoming little but a Plague Monk with some chance for casting a spell now and then.

I agree on everything save on the “Lore of Stealth” part. Clan Eshin assassins does not, to my knowledge have access to magic nor do they allow their client/thrall/underling Warlord clans to become assassins, its for proper clan members only.

Same with Skryre, Pestilens and Moulder. The Skaven of the Warlord Clans don’t really get to play with the cool stuff by association with the Great Clans.

We could have a Clan Eshin Sorcerer as seen in “Children of the Horned Rat” (WFRP 2ed) as a Eshin mage though.

Excellent additions which could be cool to face. Especially the Chimearat which would make for a very different challenge to what we’ve already seen from the other beasts and probably require more coordination by the team to take down.

Could work. Although to be honest I would probably give Eshin something else than Heaven as the three I picked were simply the three that came first to my mind.

Not really.

The basic idea is a boss who has a exo-skeleton with various mechanical gadgets and abilities to it. A sort of Skaven Ironman if you like. (No, I don’t know much about Ironman and Tony Stark, only that its a reference that could work here by the use of a technological suit that allows him to do various things his biology would not be otherwise able to do.) With the Warlock Engineer being able to do many different effects without access to magic.

Hence a mechanical as opposed to magical source for his stuff.

Again, not really.

The two lesser Skaven are not meant to be fought by the Ü5 but rather build up the final boss on the third map. The idea is that the Ü5 find the corpses of these Skaven and clues they were killed by brutal treachery by their own side after their “boss” had no more use of them.

Hence it would follow, somewhat, the model from the Drachenfels maps in that on the first map, we find the first corpse and the characters’ comment on there being little sign of struggle, the victim must have been taken by surprise, perhaps betrayed by his allies.

Then the Ü5 follows to the next place the Skaven are headed and there they find the boss having just killed his second companion after the task there was completed. There’s a cutscene where this Skaven warlord triumphantly exclaims what a great warrior and cunning leader he is, before he orders a ton of minions to kill the Ü5 before he himself legs it.

In the final map the Skaven warlord is cornered and forced to fight in which his cowardly tactics and nature comes even more into the open. As described in a previous post.

I know nothing about lore except what the game gave me, and even that is basically what i managed to absorb, all my ideas for enemies come from a gameplay perspective. But if i could add more enemies, i would want something that cast spells, specially ones that uses the game illumination, heres some unrequested sugestions for enemies that (in my opnion) could make good sum into the rage rollercoaster that is vermintide 2.

Shadow priest - a special unit that much like the darkness weekly/twitch mode dark segment, generate a localized artificial darkness that stays until you kill him (or her), make his staff blink sometimes to give a clue where he is.

Portal Mage - a special unit that throws a portal on one of the players and teleports him to some unknown realm arena where said player must fight either a horde or a set of armored units by himself until either friends kill the mage or the horde is done, has a small chance to have sack rats in it NO DISABLERS.

Necromancer - a special unit that creates a never ending horde of slain enemies (in skelleton form of course) he can also (if left alive for too long) revive a previously slain boss but with only a third of its original hp and strenght. (but it keeps coming back until its master is slain)

The 'Choo Choo’mancer - a special unit that much like the blightstormer starts forming a line on the floor where then a railroad appears and a ghost freaking train breaks through it from one end to the other where it seems to be coming out of a portal and into another damaging and knocking far away all units on its path.

All royalty free, knock yourselves out.

Pretty cool ideas but the only idea I could see work according to the lore is the “Shadow Priest” in the form of Clan Eshin Sorcerers. Perhaps some Chaos Sorcerer could do the portal thing, but that’s at best “maybe but probably not” case.

Make the Eshin triad a special mini-monster (doesn’t drop loot die) that spawns in specific circumstances in certain maps and whenever a survivor strays too far from the rest of the group. Make them something of a Chaos Warrior healthwise, unarmoured but fast as a Gutter Runner and three of them spawn and make a straight line on the lone survivor to eliminate him ASAP. Like a 3 Nemesis stalker type enemy.

When engaged in combat, one of them goes into a defensive stance where he parries attacks whilst the other two try to pounce/hit the survivor (I’d rather they hit instead of pounce).

I didn’t think about them as being a possible equivalent of the Chaos Warrior, maybe a patrol with 9 of them would be to dangerous but who know it could be fun

Only in terms of health, they’d have strong attacks but with long windups (Mauler/CW) and no armor. They’d move fast, though. Able to block/parry attacks whilst on the defensive and able to dish out damage (the other two who are not on the defensive).

They could spawn in specific points in certain maps as a mini monster, and/or on the condition that a player strays too further away from the rest of the group as a way of punishing said player besides the current increase in disablers.