How to Play Skaven in Warhammer Age of Sigmar (4th Edition)

Skaven army rules lean into two ideas: a swarming, tunnelling horde, and expendable warriors who slip away rather than die in place. Confirmed 4th-edition traits include:

• The Lurking Vermintide - lets you hold Skaven units in reserve ("in the tunnels below") to deploy later.
• Splinters of the Vermindoom - lets you maintain Gnawhole terrain features (up to three) on the battlefield, placed with restrictions relative to enemies, objectives and terrain.
• Gnawhole Ambush - brings a reserved unit onto the table near a friendly Gnawhole (and away from enemies), threatening surprise charges deep in enemy territory.
• Always Three Clawsteps Ahead - once per turn, a non-Monster Skaven unit can make a Normal Move during your opponent's Hero phase, for repositioning and objective grabs.
• Too Quick to Hit-Hit - your Skaven infantry and cavalry take no mortal damage when they Retreat, so you can peel out of combat freely and re-engage.

The overall effect: you are hard to pin down, you dictate where fights happen, and you can throw fresh units into the enemy backline from the tunnels. Warpstone-fuelled unreliability is expressed mostly through units and the Skryre formation rather than the core traits - powerful effects that occasionally backfire on you.

The 2024 battletome gives Skaven four clan-themed battle formations. Pick the one that matches the clan core of your list:

• Warpcog Convocation (Clan Skryre) - buffs a handful of Skryre units each turn via a dice roll that can add rend or wound bonuses to their shooting - but can also chip damage onto your own units. The gunline/artillery pick, embracing the risk-reward theme.
• Fleshmeld Menagerie (Clan Moulder) - each turn roll per chosen Moulder unit: results grant bonus melee attacks and sometimes a ward save, but a bad roll costs you mortal damage. The monster/beast brawler pick.
• Virulent Procession (Clan Pestilens) - lets chosen units pile in and grind out mortal wounds in combat, rewarding a plague-monk melee swarm.
• Claw-horde (Clan Verminus) - hands extra Rend to a few Verminus melee units, turning cheap Clanrats and Stormvermin into a sharper hammer.

Note there is no dedicated Clan Eshin formation, so assassin/skirmish builds slot into one of the above. Because relative power shifts with Battlescrolls, choose primarily around which clan you actually own and enjoy, then check the current season for tuning.

• Clanrats - the cheap battleline core; their job is to hold objectives, screen, and soak charges. Expendable by design.
• Stormvermin (Clanrats' elite cousins) - tougher, better-armed infantry for a Verminus hammer, especially under Claw-horde.
• Clawlord - the staple Verminus hero/general, including a mounted variant; a durable combat leader for the horde.
• Grey Seer - the signature wizard, generating and spending warpstone-fuelled magic; central to a spellcasting build.
• Warlock Engineer / Clan Skryre war-machines - Warplock Jezzails (snipers), Warpfire Throwers, and cannon-type artillery deliver huge damage that can overheat or misfire.
• Rat Ogors and Clan Moulder beasts - fast, hard-hitting monsters and mutants; the Hell Pit Abomination is the iconic bruiser that regenerates and rampages.
• Plague Monks and Clan Pestilens - swarming melee that trades bodies for mortal-wound output.
• Clan Eshin (Deathmaster / assassins) - hyper-mobile character-killers that infiltrate and pick off enemy heroes.
• Screaming Bell - a mobile wizard platform and morale/support engine for infantry-heavy lists.

Exact warscroll stats and which specific war-machines are strongest change with points and Battlescrolls - verify the current profiles.

Skaven are a tempo-and-attrition army. Your plan usually looks like this:

• Flood the board. Deploy cheap infantry wide to grab and hold objectives. You want more bodies on more points than the opponent can clear.
• Set up the tunnels. Place Gnawholes and hold key units in reserve so you threaten multiple parts of the table at once.
• Pick your moment to strike. Use Gnawhole Ambush and the free Hero-phase move to drop or reposition a threat where the enemy is weakest, then charge.
• Trade up with war-machines and magic. Skryre guns, Moulder monsters and Grey Seer spells delete key enemy units; you can afford to trade fragile chaff for their elites.
• Retreat and re-swarm. Because your infantry take no mortal damage retreating, peel out of bad fights, let shooting finish the enemy, then re-charge with fresh units.

Lean into the numbers game: every ratman is expendable, so spend them to buy position and to protect your expensive, game-winning tech pieces.

• Overcommitting fragile units. Almost everything Skaven dies easily. Feeding good units into a fight one at a time, instead of swarming, gets them ground down.
• Forgetting they're expendable. New players hoard Clanrats; Skaven want to spend chaff to screen, tarpit and grab objectives.
• Ignoring the risk-reward tax. Warpstone tech and the Skryre/Moulder formations can damage your own units on bad rolls. Plan for the misfire; don't stake the whole game on one unstable unit surviving.
• Poor Gnawhole/reserve placement. The tunnel game is your edge - sloppy Gnawhole positioning or holding too much in reserve wastes tempo.

Where they struggle: elite, high-save armies that don't care about volume of low-damage attacks can blunt the swarm, and hard-hitting alpha strikes can shatter your fragile lines before your numbers tell. Battleshock and clearing your screens fast are the classic answers opponents bring - keep reserves and Gnawholes to rebuild pressure.