Vermintide 2: The Ratpack DLC
Okay so I had a crazy… LUDICROUS idea.
Vermintide, but playing as skaven heroes. Now hear me out! There already exist skaven that could theoretically in lore have the weapons and combat styles to fit the hero classes currently existing in game.
Kruber - Stormvermin.
Kerillian - Gutter Runner/Night Runner
Sienna - Grey Seer/Plague Monk
Bardin - Warlock Master (Flamethrowers, gatling guns galore!)
Saltzpyre - Plaguemonk/Warlock Master
The skaven have quite the large arsenal of weapons and spells at their disposal. So the idea for a game or DLC featuring what I call “The Ratpack” would be centered around a crack squad of named Skaven basically laying the ground work for their clan, only to be betrayed by said clan at the end of the DLC/game arc and forced to scamper-flee (Or die if you’re overwhelmed.)
Now it can be skaven v Skaven, but let’s think for a moment… technically we have all the units that could theoretically fit for the human side. Or I should say… human-dawi side.
Packmaster - Rat Catcher
Blightstormer - Brightwizard with a fire tornado
Stormvermin - Heavily armored Dawi (Possibly old grumblers with great axes)
Chaos warrior (Big brute) - Heavily armored Human (This could just as easily be swapped with stormvermin suggestion tbh)
Berserkers/Plague Monks - Dwarven Slayers
Warpfire thrower - Dwarven Irondrake
It doesn’t take much creativity to make these units fit and show they have counterparts in the other factions.
The opposite to skaven are dwarves, the opposite to chaos are the lawful humans of the empire, the opposite to beastmen… guess what… wood elves boom.
You could literally make an entire Vermintide game from the perspective of a crack skaven squad, and all you’d really have to do is fix all the broken landscapes and remodel the Chaos/Skaven/Beastmen into Humans/Dwarves/Wood Elves. Though obviously the humans would be more numerous and the dwarves would be harder to kill but rarer. Wood elves just being flighty and faster.
Even so, I do believe there is potential in a Vermintide game feature skaven or at the least a DLC. Most of the weapons/spells would be re-skins of current existing weapons/spells, which is basically already being done (See Sienna/Bardin = Warpfire thrower, and Outcast Engineer Bardin = Ratling Gunner… lets not forget that Kruber got a polearm… you know who else uses polearms… stormvermin… :3)
Even the hordes and patrols can be explained. Patrols being nightwatch essentially, and the hordes being the alarm bell being rung for leaving behind so many bodies in your ratty wake.
Share your thoughts, draw some attention if you like. Would you like to see “The Ratpack” a bickering crack, bad A squad of skaven boyos, thrashing their way through the land under the cover of night? It’s not hard to picture and it’s definitely doable with just some model/environmental changes.
Leave a comment, and good hunting!
P.S. Maybe the voice actors of the skaven from Total War: Warhammer 2 that voice the legendary skaven lords can cameo and become the voices of ‘the ratpack’ members.
P.S.S technically a gutter runner/night runner could also work for saltzpyre, given they have some versatile ways of fighting, much like our dear witch hunter with his pistols. (Most likely tail weapons will be involved.)
P.S.S.S I thought of some of the weapons that can be flip-flopped.
Like take Sienna’s flaming mace, literally can be turned into a plague monk censer for the plague monk boyo. Sienna’s little flame dash ability, remove the dash and turn it into a line effect and you have Scorch or Crack’s call.
Maybe for the gutter runner/night runner instead of having a pistol and sword like salty boi, they have a tail blade, or tail sling attachment for that extra versatile way of killin’.