Skitarii in Shadow War: Armageddon

[Battybattybats]

As my White Dwarf has arrived today i thought it a good idea to start a thread discussing the rules, strategy, experiences, modeling/conversions and narrative of running Skitarii in Shadow War: Armageddon.

 

We'll know a lot more, such as how Special Operatives can be taken, when the main rules hit but there's much that can be gleaned already from the issue's rules.

 

With a fair selection of optional wargear including grenades, red-dot sights, telescopic sights, weapon reloads as well as the option to include Rangers with Radium Carbines! and the Juve-equivalent for us being Fresh-Forged, i for one will be tempted to get a separate box to make my Skitarii Ranger kill-team from to more accurately match the gear and upgrades.

 

With Ruststalkers and Infiltrators, who along with the Enginseer make up or Special Operatives, having Move 6" on a nasty model that will likely end-up very useful going by Necromunda. On the other hand we shouldn't get too over-excited on that as the Genestealers Purestrain, one of their 3 Special Operatives, also has move 6" but where we get double move to run/charge Purestrains triple their move! And get bonuses jumping gaps too. So we won't have the fastest close assault specialist.

 

All of this is looking very very exciting.

[MithrilForge]

makes me feel like its Necromunda but with a house Ryza "Gang"

Mithril

[DanPesci]

The more i hear about this the more im excited by it. Definately going to be looking into running both a SW and a skitarri 'gang' (always gonna call them gangs haha).

 

May actually have to pick up WD this month!

[Charlo]

SOOOO glad the Sicarians are in!

 

I can see this taking off at my club in a big way, especially if there is progression etc

 

Will be painting up a kill-clade of Skitarii and blinging them up as such.

[DanPesci]

So are skitarii and cult mech two seperate choices? Or is there just the skitarii for now?

 

(guess cult mech wouuld be harder to bring across)

[Charlo]

So are skitarii and cult mech two seperate choices? Or is there just the skitarii for now?

 

(guess cult mech wouuld be harder to bring across)

 

As far as we know Cult Mech aren't included (aside from the Enginseer).

 

"Adept, the hive has broken out in a skirmish with the foul Orkish horde, shall I deploy a Skitarii force to combat them."

 

"No... Prepare the Kastelans."

[Swan-of-War]

Rangers with radium carbines and not galvanic rifles?  Wonder if I can just proxy Vanguard then

[Magos Takatus]

I don't see why not. At that point it's just a head swap. I'm sure most people would be reasonable about that. Rangers will have well-rounded ranged options if they use Galvanic Rifles to snipe heavy weapon specialists and also gain Radium Carbines for those close range encounters.

 

Now if only GW's webstore would sell individual issues that would be great. I checked now and they finally updated it. :p

[Tiger9gamer]

Is all this in the white dwarf?

 

also Phooey I gotta buy some rust stalkers now if they are part of this gang. I have only been using rangers and vanguard for the longest time. Also I would have thought the servitors would have been used as like, a heavy weapons platform or something for the gang, like a specialist

 

I hope FW gives us some rules for this too. I wanna see how thallax do in this type of gang!

[Vel'Cona]

Pretty excited to have a use for the Rangers I built way back when Codex:  Skitarii first landed.  Shadow Wars just looks cooler and cooler everytime something new comes out.

[Battybattybats]

Some clarifications/answers:

* the white dwarf has the rules for Skitarii Kill Teams and Genestealer Cult Kill Teams for Shadow-War Armageddon. The game rulebook will be needed too. Presumably they'll reprint the Skitarii rules online but you might need this white dwarf for them!

* No Cult-Mech units.

* Rangers in this can take Galvanic Rifles and Radium Carbines as basic weapons! You can field 3 Special Weapons Rangers so Arc, Caliver and Arquebus are in there (note: weapons rules vary in this compared to 40k, a lot of things work a little or a lot differently, especially the close combat weapons of the Alpha)

* There are 3 Special Operatives. It does not say how you field them so they might be only available in some scenarios, or they might work like Hired Guns did in Necromunda. These are An Enginseer (gives an ammo roll re-roll within 6") a Sicarian Rustalker (seems to be SINGULAR, not a squad! Enemies don't get multiple attacks for ganging up) and a Sicarian Infiltrator (Also seems to be Singular not a squad, gets 2 free run moves after set-up but before the first turn to infiltrate, also has 6" Neurostatic bubble)

[Magos Takatus]

Some clarifications/answers:

 

* the white dwarf has the rules for Skitarii Kill Teams and Genestealer Cult Kill Teams for Shadow-War Armageddon. The game rulebook will be needed too. Presumably they'll reprint the Skitarii rules online but you might need this white dwarf for them!

 

* No Cult-Mech units.

 

* Rangers in this can take Galvanic Rifles and Radium Carbines as basic weapons! You can field 3 Special Weapons Rangers so Arc, Caliver and Arquebus are in there (note: weapons rules vary in this compared to 40k, a lot of things work a little or a lot differently, especially the close combat weapons of the Alpha)

 

* There are 3 Special Operatives. It does not say how you field them so they might be only available in some scenarios, or they might work like Hired Guns did in Necromunda. These are An Enginseer (gives an ammo roll re-roll within 6") a Sicarian Rustalker (seems to be SINGULAR, not a squad! Enemies don't get multiple attacks for ganging up) and a Sicarian Infiltrator (Also seems to be Singular not a squad, gets 2 free run moves after set-up but before the first turn to infiltrate, also has 6" Neurostatic bubble)

That's an interesting way to make an infiltrate rule. I like the Ruststalker rule. The idea that the more people pile into combat against it the faster it attacks is pretty nasty, and was a powerful rule in 40k. It sounds pretty good to me.

 

:edit: Didn't the Eversor assassin have that rule?

[Vel'Cona]

Necromunda rules with modern 40k units?  I'm 100% sold on this!!!  :D

[Xisor]

I'm sensing a homebrew supplement to allow a gang of electropriests to get in on the game!

 

Moreover, the Ad Mech units, Skitarii especially, look absolutely gorgeous at that level. They're insanely good quality so getting to really go to town in "personalising" them should be a huge amount of fun. (Well, enshrining idiosyncratic optimisations, no doubt..!)

[Tiger9gamer]

Well, I played two games last saturday to get a feel for it, and barring any rule mess ups the skitarii are quite good at shooting in this. The radium carbine and galvanic rifle are strength 4 so you will subtract armor from your opponent's models, and when in range you are hitting on 2's so it is hard to miss. Arc rifles are strong as heck too, letting me hit most things on a 2+ when it got down to a ccw brawl. 

 

I haven't really tried to do a lot of close combat, but we can be fairly even in a fight if not going up against marines.

 

we are fairly expensive though. 1,000 credits got me one leader, two arc rifles, three rangers and one fresh forge with various weapons, but the missions I played had all my force on the field versus half the enemy's kill team so it may be eschewed.

[Cryptix]

Not to burst your bubble but that was illegal - strength modifiers only applies to CC weapon. Otherwise, you use weapons base rend. This does apply to pistols in melee.

[Tiger9gamer]

Not to burst your bubble but that was illegal - strength modifiers only applies to CC weapon. Otherwise, you use weapons base rend. This does apply to pistols in melee.

ohhhh okay, that makes more sense. it was a test game so we both played it wrong I guess, I had assumed that it was the same across the board at any rate.

[Emperor's Furor]

Is it worth swapping the cord claw and razor on the runestalkers for the pair of blades? From my understanding the cord claw and razor do multiple wounds whilst the pair of blades are more defensive?

[Magos Takatus]

That sounds right. Multiple parries from the paired swords would help force re-rolls on high dice rolls from the other player and increase the odds of them rolling fumbles. The other option would cause d3 wounds per successful hit, which is pretty nasty.

[Emperor's Furor]

What do you think about this list:

 

SKITARII RANGER ALPHA -  x2 Phosphor blast pistol - 230

 

SKITARII RANGER - Galvanic Rifle - Red Dot Laser Sight - 135

 

SKITARII RANGER - Galvanic Rifle - Red Dot Laser Sight - 135

 

SKITARII RANGER - Galvanic Rifle - Red Dot Laser Sight - 135

 

SKITARII SPECIALIST - Arc Rifle - 130

 

SKITARII FRESH-FORGED - Radium Carbine -100

SKITARII FRESH-FORGED - Frag grenades - Omnispex -130

 

- 995

[Magos Takatus]

I don't know about the viability of the list, but I hope to see this dual-wielding Phosphor guy. He will melt through anything that fails an armour save with the D3 wounds. Good conversion fodder is another good reason to see it. :)

[StaggerLee]

I ran my skitarii today in shadow war for first time, was awesome!

 

[Magos Takatus]

That's some pretty impressive terrain you have there. No wonder the game went well!

[StaggerLee]

Thanks! MAD gaming terrain on kickstarter! Its incredible!!!!!!

[Charlo]

Oh that just looks plain AWESOME.