Kings of War 3rd Edition First Impressions: Ratkin

RATS! Rats, rats, rats. I love the Ratkin. I loved them through second, so when I first saw the third edition Ratkin list, it took a lot of getting used to. The army is massively changed, although it looks similar on the face of it. Many of the tools we got used to using just aren’t as reliable as they used to be (*cough*shocktroops*cough*), but once you get over the crushing blow that is the loss of their effectiveness, there’s a lot about the list that isn’t just good, it’s fantastic.

This review is going to look at the pure Ratkin list. I’ve got a lot to say about the Abyssal Dwarf Slave Theme (and not a lot of it is good), but I’ll do that at a later date.

The Fluff

The Ratkin fluff frankly hasn’t changed much and it’s pretty obvious that Mantic are really pushing the Abyssal Dwarf aspect. It’s not something I particularly like and although I always appreciated the origin story, continuing to tie them to the AD slave theme feels like a model sell. That’s fine, but I’d have much preferred if the independent Ratkin had something more solid to build on.

I do like Michael Pearcy’s story thought, I just wish as much thought had been put into the rest of the fluff,but beggars can’t be choosers, it is what it is. If you think my rats still venerate their former masters, you’ve got another thing coming.

Army special rule

Hands down, the Plague Pots army rule is amazing. One of, if not the, best rules in the game. New rats tend towards an attrition/grind force, and without the extra ensnare, at largely defence 4 for the big nerve units, that’s really tough without it. Stealthy is also excellent, if you’re facing gunlines. It nearly makes up for the loss of the Blight. Kinda. Sorta. Nearly.

One big caution – you have to declare it at the beginning of your turn. Before movement. So it’s not a backup for if your Veil of Shadows fails. All too often I forget, and my opponents are quite nice about allowing me to declare it late, but not everyone will be. Consider what you’re doing before you do it.

The units

Right then. Let’s get on with it.

Infantry and Large Infantry

I’ll start with the weakest chaff option. I was a pretty heavy user of regiments of Slaves (a quote which I hope is never taken out of context). Their loss means you’re stuck with the hordes or legions of Wretches. They’re almost identical to Slaves as they were, and can’t be ignored with that many attacks, but I have to be honest, I’ve struggled to put them in my list. I think the new Ratkin army needs a ton of support characters, and the style I’m playing means I need expendable units for the Brood Mothers to drain. Wretches provide a huge low-defence nerve block to do that, but I might as well use multiple Vermintide regiments for the same effect.

If you’re looking at a big unit of chaff to block up the board, I prefer Warriors, or even Spear Warriors. Warriors are 145 for the horde (who weirdly hit exactly as hard as Wretches? Which… is odd). But they can take plague pots, which just makes them a better blocking piece. If you want something to die quickly in a chaff position, Vermintide are a better choice.

Spear Warriors gain phalanx, which is cool, depending on how much thunderous charge you face. But the big caveat to all of these is the fact they hit on 5s, which is terrible. They’re tarpits and objective holders at best.

Shock Troops took the biggest hit, and it takes a lot to get used to. Their attacks went from 25 to 30, which compensates for the elite, but the loss of vicious as well is painful. The main problem is hitting on 4s is incredibly swingy, which either elite or vicious compensates for. Losing that means a round of bad dice leads to a lost game. That reliability is just gone.

BUT, they’re still a solid (you might say, the only solid) choice for a melee block that will actually do damage, so you’re still going to see at least a couple of hordes in most armies. Keeping them alive is the key to winning with Ratkin. You can also give them Phalanx, but for my money it’s too expensive.

Nightmares are now the only large infantry choice, as Brutes have mysteriously disappeared, despite appearing in the fluff (and the character section). Are they expensive? Yes. Are they worse than Boomers? Yes. Do I like them? Not really. Will I use them? Not really.

Ranged infantry

So we still have Clawshots, and we still have Scurriers.

I’m torn, if I’m honest. Clawshots are great – they were always great, and they’re still great, plus they’re now defence 5. You can easily still have your nice line of scoring troops picking off targets, and I’ve won quite the few games with their ability to do end-game piercing two damage.

My main issue is that (at least, over here), you are seeing a LOT of Nightstalker armies. If you’re facing Nightstalkers, three troops of Clawshots is nearly 300 points of pointless, and that’s an issue for me. I know the same applies to every shooting force, but I’m trying to make all comers armies, not rock-paper-scissors.

But that’s just me! I know people who love them, and take them, and I have several lists with them, so they’re the most solid ranged option we have.

Scurriers, my jury is out. Duellist, Scout, and Vicious is very nice for an early attack force, but at defence 3 and super low nerve, they’re extremely fragile. I know some players make good use of them, but I don’t think we’ll see many high ranking armies featuring them.

Cavalry and chariots

Now Hackpaws, I think are underrated. A nice defence bump from 3 to 4 makes them pretty points efficient. They’re fast, Nimble and Vicious, and if you can keep them alive in time to hit something, they hit pretty hard. I think a regiment makes a good flanking force, and 100 points for a troop as chaff isn’t to be sniffed at.

We still have the chariot option of Tunnel Runners. Despite modelling two regiments (which was very painful), I never found a use for them in second. Hitting on 4s means they fluffed more often than not and they were (and are) so damn expensive.  You need to keep them Rallied to keep them alive, and as they are now regiments, they no longer have Rally themselves and there are no cheaper Rallying characters to run with them. That means if you run them, you’ll probably want to pair them with the Mutant Rat Fiend or the Demonspawn, but more on that later.

What has changed in their favour is the price of Brew of Sharpness. So there’s that to consider.

Swarms

Now we’re talking kiddos. In V2 the choice was always Slaves vs. Vermintide, and I always went Slaves. Now we don’t have Sslaves, guess who’s prom queen?

Ranging from troop to legion, the little fellas are absolutely terrible in melee. They are Nimble, so hordes can do fun pivot things, but that’s if they ever survive a round of combat, which they don’t. What they’re brilliant for is a dual purpose chaff and Drain Life battery. I would say my lists started with 7 regiments and now has 2 or 3, but that’s list building for you. They have great synergy with Mutant Rat Fiends and Brood Mothers, and there are players building whole lists around wave after wave of vermin. Personally I find their melee 5 means you need something else to punch while they take up peoples’ attention, but I’d be surprised if you didn’t see some in most lists in that chaff/battery role.

War Engines

So we’ve got Weapon Teams, and the Shredder. Weapon Teams have gone from indispensable to ok thanks to the ranged rules changes, and the Shredder has gone from terrible to takeable thanks to ignore cover. They’re both takeable, but I think only in an army that’s relying on ranged to do the job. So again they fall victim to my “I have to play Nightstalkers” rule. Your mileage may vary.

Monsters and Titans

Death Engines were super popular in V2, which means lots of people have models, and will want to use them in V3. The two flavours are melee (Impaler) and ranged (Spewer). But I can’t see why you’d ever take the Impaler over the vastly superior Mutant Rat Fiend, and the Spewer is super expensive for what it does.

But the Mutant Rat Fiend? This dude is legit. If you’re facing a lot of war engines, you have to be very careful with him, but he’s still pretty hard to kill at -/18 with Regen, Radiance of Life, and a Brood Mother nearby. He doesn’t hit immensely hard, but 10 attacks on 3s is more reliable than a Giant, and CS2 with Vicious is good enough for most things, so in a flank he’s lovely. Big fan.

Heroes

So we have a bunch of heroes. Including some of the old favourites (give me a wave, Swarm Crier!). There are lots of interesting options, and what you use will depend on your play style, but what’s interesting is that all of them, bar possibly the Master Scurrier, are pretty fantastic. And even he has a use in some lists.

The Brood Mother is the core of the army. Don’t leave home without her, and preferably two. I’d take a pass on the Blight Staff (I give mine the Trickster’s Wand, and the other one Boots of Levitation if I can afford it), but that “Eat the Weak” Drain Life is what wins your games for you. Plus she scores. And has Radiance of Life. God she’s amazing.

Her upgrade is Mother Cryza, which I have to be honest, I have struggled to fit in, due to her cost. If she’d have kept the Radiance of Life, I’d be down, but it’s Cloak of Death instead, so I think she fits better in armies that are relying on nibble damage to win (i.e. the Vermintide waves). If you kit her out to be actually useful, i.e. Bane Chant and Veil of Shadows, she’s eye wateringly expensive.

In fact, if you want an extra Bane Chant/VoS caster, you might as well go for the cheaper Warlock, which I’m begrudgingly having to thanks to war engines.

I think the War Chief (mounted) and Night Terror, are almost interchangeable. They’re both fragile, but the War Chief inspires, without doubling attacks in the side. He’s never killed anything for me, but he is annoying, especially with the mournful blade. The Night Terror remains a solid choice, but I had to drop him for the aforementioned Warlock, because war engines.

The Brute Enforcer is another interesting choice. Some units have lost Rallying, so having a Nimble scoring hero with Brutal is really nice. Imagine if they made useable units of them? That’d be a thing.

Then there’s the other special units. The Demonspawn has got a new name (Scudku-z’luk, Demonspawn of Diew, Scud the Bud, Scuddy, Scud of the EU… you choose), and he’s even better than he used to be thanks to a nerve bump. But holy shiz on a stick he’s expensive. He’s still one of your few real punchy hammers though and your only flying option, so I find it hard not to take him.

And the Tangle. The wonderful wonderful Tangle. If you’re relying on only a couple of units to do the real work in terms of damage in your army, you know what you don’t want? Wavering. How about an Aura of Fury? Also, how about access to Weakness (4) and Bane Chant (4). Holy yes please Batman.

Army builds

So to my mind, there are two or three core builds for Ratkin so far. The first is what I’m, somewhat reluctantly playing. That’s core units of Shock Troops surrounded by enough support and healing to allow them to grind out the enemy. They’ll kill most things in two punches (one if you’re lucky enough to get them off a hill with a Bane Chant and your dice are good), so you need to be able to survive the counter punch. With a Mutant Rat Fiend double charging, they’re good to go, but again, you can’t really take a hit because defence 4. So, Plague Pots are a must.

The second is the swarm of doom (© Michael Pearcy).  I tried it, but just couldn’t get it to work – if practically everything you have is hitting on 5s, you need to be super good with your positioning, and I’m basically not super good at most things. You clever players will no doubt get it to work, and I can imagine it will be super annoying to play against. Which pleases me.

The third is combined arms shooting, which the list still does really well. Clawshots, Weapon Teams, not-as-good-Boomers, er, I mean Nightmares – they combine to make an effective gunline over the top of your waves of chaff. But against that one unlucky match up, you’re really going to fall on your ass. But that’s V3, I guess!

One thing I’ve noticed is that where we used to be the kings of unit strength, to get the units we (or rather, I) need to synergise in a list properly, we’re now on the low side of the horde armies. It’s a bit of a shame, but something to be aware of. I suppose you could just take 3 hordes of warriors if you fancied it.

So here’s a sample 2300 grind list. It’s not tournament winning, but it’s pretty good. I’ve even given you some Clawshots, how nice am I?

	Points	Size
Shock Troops	220	Horde
Potion of the Caterpillar	20
Plague Pots	15
Shock Troops	220	Horde
Boots of Striding	15
Plague Pots	15
Spear Warriors	180	Horde
Staying Stone	5
Hackpaws	150	Regiment
Mutant Rat Fiend	220	Titan
Clawshots*	95	Troop
Clawshots*	95	Troop
Vermintide*	65	Regiment
Vermintide*	65	Regiment
Brood Mother	120	Hero (lg inf)
Trickster’s Wand	15
Brood Mother	120	Hero (lg inf)
Warlock	90	Hero (inf)
Bane Chant (3)	30
Veil of Shadows (2)	25
Sacred Horn	15
Scudku-z’luk, Demonspawn of Diew (1)	345	Hero (titan)
Tangle (1)	160	Titan
	2300

Unit shots provided by Josh Rosado (thanks Josh!) and me

Many thanks Alex Kus for his proof reading excellence.