You always knew you were chosen-chosen. Even when scratching around in the slave pits you felt the Horned One’s eyes on you. Great plans. Better things.
Now look at you. Ascendent. Chosen for battle in your race’s finest hour. A long way from slaver-whips. Wave on wave of Skaven-kin surging towards lightning-flash beyond the greenish gloaming. Out of these countless thousands it is within you alone that the Great Horned Rat has embodied his power.
But the fighting is away-away, at the far end of a sea of vermin. Your Clawleader hisses at your unit to wait, there will be plenty of killing-killing for all. But when one of your fellow Clanrats slips a rusty blade between his ribs his orders go quiet. This is a sign. Your time has come.
You scrabble over the back of the rat in front, who in turn is scrabbling over the rat in front of them. You scurry towards the clatter-cries of battle, swept up in a flood of teeming bodies. Waves overtaking waves. Everyone eager to fight.
Claws, tails, fur, teeth swarm beneath and above you. Bodies buffet and barge you. A crush desperate to tear-taste flesh and blood. Through the murine tide before you, you glimpse the glow of battle getting closer. Yes-yes!
The surge slows as bodies compact against the front line. The sound of war is close now, somewhere beyond the dense crush of rat-bodies ahead.
The eye of the Horned One is upon you. You cannot wait. You can sense in every fiber of your body, this is the moment of your glory. You impatiently claw at the backs of those of your kin standing between you and your quarry. But this is taking too long. You draw your blade and begin hacking-hacking at those rats that are in the way.
Eventually you burrow your way through, into the front rank. Your head emerges into blinding day. All your life has been spent in shadow, but here is burning-light, arcing from the sky, reflecting off of glinting sigmarite.
You wince for a moment and your eyes adjust. Just in time to watch a great sward swing through the crowd of rats, cleaving through several bodies in one swing; including yours. The adrenaline pushes you onwards, leaving your own flailing legs and tail behind. You drag yourself forward, crawling with front claws, innards slopping about on the grass behind you.
Looking up, you see the almighty frame of a gold-clad demi-god. This must be it; your prey, your destiny, the moment the Great Horned Rat will overshadow you with his power. With joy and ecstasy, you splash about in the puddle of your own blood and viscera that surrounds you, giggling in anticipation of what will happen next.
“You’re mine-mine; storm-cursed,” you hiss, looking up at the mighty warrior above you. A moment’s doubt enters your mind. What if you are not chosen? What if you are about to meet an ignominious end? Name forgotten. Dead rat in the mire, trampled and gnawed upon by your own kind. But, no. Stupid idea. Even as the sigmarite boot falls swiftly towards your face, you can feel the power rising within you. This is your time. Any moment now. You scream “prepare to feel my pow…”
Rats!
The Skaven are a faction that outnumbers all others (combined) by billions. They have access to devastatingly destructive technology, can move between realms without the use of realmgates, possess countless genetically enhanced super soldiers, use biological warfare on an unprecedented scale, have an extensive spy and assassin network that can even infiltrate Azyr, and a devastating mastery of the arcane arts.
By all metrics, they should have conquered the Mortal Realms long ago. So, what has stopped them?
A force equally as powerful and destructive as themselves: themselves.
Each and every Skaven, from the lowliest of Clanrats to the greatest of Grey Seers, believes themself to be the greatest rat that ever scurried the earth, and to be uniquely entitled to rule over and subjugate the others. They will scheme, plot and back-stab their way to the top at whatever cost. Life is cheap to the Skaven, and if you have to lay-low a few thousand of your brethren to advance your own agenda, think nothing of it.
And why would it be any other way? This is exactly how the Great Horned Rat intended it to be.
Following the destruction of the Old World, the Great Horned Rat gathered his fetid offspring into his mouth, persevering them and delivering them safely to the newly formed Mortal Realms. He gifted them with the treachery and narcissism required to ensure his people would always be in conflict with one another, rat-eat-rat, so that only the strongest, wiliest and most deceitful would survive and rise to the top. He then commanded them to go forth and multiply… and also destroy. This is exactly what they have been doing ever since.
The Great Horned Rat then ascended to become the fifth member of the Chaos pantheon, much to displeasure of the other ruinous powers. His influence and strength has been growing ever since.
During the Age of Myth the Skaven, on the most part, kept out of sight. One clan, Tichritt, did dare to raise its head above the parapet and attempted to advance against the dominant forces of Order, but they were swiftly beaten down and obliterated by Sigmar, leaving the others to learn the value of biding time.
In their underground warrens, Skaven numbers grew exponentially. The discovery of gnawhole technology allowed them to spread far and wide and to inhabit the nooks and crannies between realms as well. Soon there were untold billions of rats spread throughout the realms. Cities carried out their business completely unaware of Skaven tunnels and settlements teeming beneath them. The colossal Blight City, the Skaven capital, was founded and then expanded to a mind-boggling size, occupying a space outside of the realms, but connected to them.
During the Age of Chaos, the Skaven were emboldened by the proliferation of chaos energies about the realms. Indeed, of all the Chaos factions, they were the best placed to make the most of this dark time as they were already present in the realms in huge numbers. Sensing that this was their time, the Skaven began to prepare for conquest. Only, to a race as self-obsessed and despotic as the Skaven, the prospect of more-more power is truly maddening.
The two largest clans of the time, Verminous and Ikk, each scrabbled to be the top clan and to take full advantage of the Age of Chaos. This rivalry soon escalated into a bitter civil war, dragging the other clans in, forcing them to take sides. Rather than pressing their advantage, the rats spent the whole time killing each other. As a result, the Skaven, pretty much, ended up skipping the Age of Chaos altogether.
Since then, the Skaven have been present in the realms, but not in a truly meaningful way. Having said that, some individual clans have done alright for themselves so far. Clans Pestilens made some considerable gains in Ghyran through its association with Nurgle, and Clans Moulder and Skyre have had much success in Ghur, using it as a playground to experiment with all manner of new technological and biological monstrosities.
Indeed, if it weren’t for Clan Eshin infiltrating and vandalizing Nagash’s Black Pyramid his right of death would have wiped out all life in the realms and ushered in an age of death. Still, the Skaven intervention resulted in the devastating Necroquake, which cost untold lives and unbalanced the very fabric of magic, something which the skaven were immensely proud of.
But, other than that, the Skaven have always just sort of been there, but not in any kind of meaningful way. They hadn’t really been baked into the AOS setting and have remained more of a hang-over from Fantasy Battle days. Until now, that is.
Ratacylism
With his newly cemented place in the ruinous pantheon, the Great Horned Rat has collaborated with Archaon the Everchosen to mastermind perhaps the greatest blow to the mortal realms since the Necroquake. Through corrupting essential arcane ley-lines, the Skaven have managed to manifest Blight City into the Mortal Realms. A huge part of the massive, inter-realm capital city, along with its resident hordes, has erupted into the realm of Aqshy, an event now known as the Vermindoom.
A huge swath of the realm of fire is now known as the Gnaw, a ruined and corrupted land ruled over by Skavenkind. A new era also calls for a new master. Vizzik Skour, self-titled prophet of the Great Horned Rat, has risen to prominence, claiming the supremacy over all others. Skreech Verminking, who masterminded the Vermindoom and who had previously held dominance over all other Skaven, is none-to-pleased about this, as you can imagine.
This fits. The Great Horned Rat loves to see his children infighting and back-stabbing, so why should Verminlord Skreech be above competition? Skreech was always the one Skaven bold enough to claim to be the voicepiece of their god, and the Vermindoom would only serve to see him grow even stronger. Is it likely the Horned One would allow this kind of power to go unchecked?
But one thing is certain: The ramifications of the Vermindoom are truly terrifying for anyone who is not a rat (and, probably, a great deal who are too.) Not only does it deposit a mindbogglingly large army right at the doorstep of some of Sigmar’s most strategically important bases, but Blight City is connected to every other realm through its warrens of gnawholes, including the Realm of Chaos. This probably makes it the most strategically significant location in the mortal realms, even more so than Arachaeon’s Eightpoints.
Although the bulk of the problem is in Aqshy, the spires and belltowers of Blight City pierce their way into every realm, meaning the Skaven are now everybody’s problem. Even the realm of Chaos has been invaded, and the Great Horned Rat has wrestled significant territory from the other four gods, creating his own little corner in hell.
However, the biggest and scariest implication of the Vermindoom is that the Skaven seem to have finally gotten organised. Does this mean they are finally going to be able to harness the full potential of their combined might? If they do, there can be little doubt of the results – utter annihilation.
But, on the other hand, they’re Skaven. They’re going to mess it up. And it’s going to be amazing to watch when they do.
So, what exactly do the Skaven want? What is their goal? The Great Horned Rat’s vision for the future is a desolate void, where all resources have been consumed and famine and destitution are the only things found in abundance.
There is absolutely no sustainability to it. The other Chaos powers have at least some understanding of how their society should be structured once they have gained power. But in the same way populations of rats in the real world boom and crash depending on resources, with no foresight or planning, so the Skaven are driven entirely by the base need to consume and destroy.
Their whole society is structured to nurture selfishness and self-destruction simultaneously. The Council of Thirteen are the supposed rulers of Skavendom, with each of the major clans being represented, some gaining more seats than others depending on how powerful their clan is at any one time. One seat is always kept empty for the Great Horned Rat.
Each of the seats on the council is situated in a tall tower, surrounded by defensive weaponry, and outside of sniper range from any of the others. Here they can scream insults at each other through an interconnected com-system without the risk of assassination. Beneath is a grand hall large enough for two armies to battle out any disagreements their leaders might be having above.
Credit: Pendulin
Rat Packs
But what exactly does a Skaven army look like? The Skaven are one of the most diverse armies in the Mortal Realms, with different clans specializing in different methods of warfare, but if there was such a thing as a typical Skaven army, it might look something like this…
Firstly, the Skaven never attack in small numbers, so to start with you’re going to hear a rumbling from far away. The ground’s going to look like it’s bubbling in the distance until the throng gets closer and you start to realise it’s actually thousands upon thousands of rats teeming towards you.
Initially this will be ordinary rats, like you might expect to see in the kitchen of your local McDonalds, but you’ll soon begin to see just as many of them taking humanoid form, wearing rags, make-shift armour and carrying rusty blades. These will be the Clanrats, the most numerous and expendable of units, and the staple unit of Clans Verminous. Somewhere leading from the back will be a cowardly Clawlord urging his troops on.
Clans Verminous worship the Horned Rat as the great slave master, the King of Lashes. Their philosophy is the notion of strength in numbers. They can afford to throw body after body at the enemy in the hope of wearing them down. For every Clanrat you hack down, there are more behind, ready to swarm you.
You may also notice crowds of particularly rabid rats, clad in green habits and covered in weeping pustules, scattered among the hoards and surrounded by plumes of toxic smoke. These are the zealous Plague Monks of Clans Pestilens, who worship the Horned Rat as the Great Corrupter, the spreader of disease.
They are masters of biological warfare, unleashing hideous plagues upon their enemies in their quest to discover all thirteen of the Great Plagues. (They’re on number nine at present.) They will be whipped into frenzy by the putrid sermons of Plague Priests.
If you find yourself too close to these foul creatues you’ll soon start to find your skin coming out in painful hives, or your eyes boiling within your skull. Indeed, with Plague Catapults hurling massive globules of noxious gunk across the battlefield you don’t even need to be all that close to fall prey to the horrifying plagues of Clans Pestilens.
Indeed, Skaven’s ranged game is pretty strong, thanks mostly to the innovations of Clans Skryre. These are the crazed engineers and inventors. Green warp-laced chemtrails scar the skies above the battlefield as deadly projectiles scream towards you. Skaven weapons teams line up and unleash showers of bullets or greenish flames from their various rickety and deadly contraptions. All of this overseen by the inventive insanity of the Arch-Warlocks, Warlock Bombardiers and Warlock Engineers.
But that’s not to say Clans Skryre are against the idea of getting up close and personal. They employ foot soldiers like anyone else, with teams of Acolyte Globadiers eager to get close enough to hurl their balls of ‘poisoned wind’ at their enemies and deadly Doom-Flayers and Doomwheels hoping to plough a furrow through as many enemies as possible, but often flattening just as many of their own kind in the process.
But it is when two clans come together that the terrifying potential of the Skaven can really be seen. When the engineering mastery of the Clans Skryre meets the mad-science of the flesh-shaping, Frankenstein-esque Clans Moulder, we end up with truly terrifying abominations like Stormfiends and Rat Ogors, both of which are hulking monstrosities with various gadgets and weaponry grafted on to them, that you really don’t want to meet on the battlefield. Both breeds are aggressive and stupid, with Stormfiends only being less so thanks to the ‘brain rats’ plugged into them to increase their efficiency.
Such is the blasphemous defiling of nature practiced by the Clans Moulder. The Master Moulders take great pleasure in crudely splicing together flesh, bone, steel, machinery and warpstone – just to see what happens. In many ways this is an act of worship to the Great Horned Rat, who they see as the Writhing Broodsire – a teeming mass of flesh and muscle, twitching with claws and teeth and who knows what else.
Perhaps this is best embodied in the Hellpit Abomination and the Brood Terror. As you look across the tsunami of vermin surging towards you, you’ll not be able to fail to notice these colossal bulges of flesh undulating forward, most likely helping themselves to the occasional Clanrat as a pick-me-up snack on the way. These creations are venerated by Clans Moulder, as a sacred image of the Great Horned Rat.
At the current moment, emboldened by the era of the beast, Moulder, who deal specifically in beasts, are an ascendant power in Skaven society. But the unending wars have bulked Clans Skryer’s fortunes too, as they have sold their technologies to other clans to make for themselves soaring profits and influence.
This completes all that you might see in a typical Skaven army. But when it comes to the Skaven, it is the things that you can’t see that should scare you the most.
Clans Eshin are the ninja-spy-assassins of the ratmen. Skulking in the shadows, slipping into the back ranks to take out commanders and generals (often on both sides of the battle!) Whether it be teams of Night Runners or a sing Deathmaster, these professional dealers in information and death are feared as much by their Skaven brethren as they are by the forces of order.
Often other clans will employ the service of the Eshin to spy on, or do away with, their political rivals, knowing that there are few within Skavendom who can resist them. Perhaps the thing that unsettles the Skaven leadership the most is the knowledge that the Eshin could effortlessly destroy all their rivals and take over, yet choose not to.
But this kind of paranoia and mistrust is perfectly characteristic of the relationship between the clans. However, no clan capitalizes on this fraught, back-stabbing and self-serving culture more than the Grey Seers of the Masterclan. Posing as ‘advisors’ the Grey Seers manipulate and control their leaders to their own ends.
Chances are, you’re unlikely to see one on the battlefield – not because they are masters of disguise, like the Eshin, but because they’ll be cowering at the back, spurring others on to their deaths, and casting vile sorcery upon their enemies from the back ranks, behind a shield of living bodies. Some Grey Seers are bolder. Thanquol, for example, rides to battle upon his companion Boneripper, a four-armed, over-sized rat ogor. This enigmatic Grey Seer hails from ancient times, possibly even as far back as the Old World. The only thing that matches his all-consuming obsession with gaining a seat on the Council of Thirteen, is his all-consuming addiction to warp stone.
Other Grey Seers command their underlings from atop war machines known as Screaming Bells, which tear the air with ungodly peels that resonate with demonic power and send their enemies mad with terror. These oversized tocsins have also been known to summon beings from deep in the Horned One’s realm: The Vermin Lords. Whether it be a pestilential Verminlord Corruptor, clandestine Verminlord Deceiver, belligerent Verminlord Warbringer or conniving Verminlord Warpseer if you happen to see one of these manifestations of raw Chaos power skulking about the battlefield, you know you’re going to end up having a very bad day.
Worse still, you may be unfortunate enough to come across Lord Skreech Verminking on the field of battle. If this be the case, then you can be assured that you have the full attention of the Horned One. He/ they are the ancient and twisted amalgamation of twelve Skaven souls that once failed their god, and were imprisoned and then spliced together as punishment. Skreetch can draw upon the skills, memories and abilities of each of them at will.
He is the closest thing to the incarnate will of the Skaven lord. Well, he was. I’m sure Vizzik would have something to say about that now.
Welcome to the Rat Race
The Skaven are one of Games Workshop’s most unique creations, but at the faction’s heart is a pretty simple concept – the ‘rat race’ personified. That ugly part of our nature that wants to reach the top; to achieve our ambitions and step on anyone else in order to get there.
Yes, like everything in Warhammer, this has been magnified to an absurd level, but the duplicity and scheming that comes with excessive obsession with one’s self or ambitions is all too recognizable if we look hard enough.
We see it in our parliaments, businesses and jobs – those who think they’re god’s gift to man because their suit costs more than your education, or because they’ve managed to get hold of some sort of fancy car or job, but they’re no different to every other Clanrat among millions who thinks they’re uniquely blessed by the Great Horned Rat. To quote Lily Tomlin, even if you win the ratrace, you’re still a rat.
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