Skaven – Warscrolls

The title of Clawlord is not awarded through ceremony; it must be seized via cunning and violence. Clawlords of sufficient prestige may acquire a freakish mount known as a Gnaw-beast. These gangly-limbed and whipcord-fast horrors are bred by the Clans Moulder to possess a self-destructively swift metabolism. No matter how voraciously it feeds, the black hunger pains the Gnaw-beast constantly, granting it a frenzy that only fear of its master can curb.

At the head of every Skyre clan stands an Arch-Warlock. They are the masters of the various schools of lethal science practised by their clan, and they have personally overseen the creation of all manner of temperamental, but utterly deadly, techno-arcane superweapons. An Arch-Warlock's mind is a thing of whirring brass gears, constantly churning out new schematics of death.

Clawlords command from the very back ranks - the most honourable of all positions within Skaven society. After all, why should a leader sully their own blade with violence when there are plenty of minions able to die on their behalf? Clawlords expend the lives of their underlings freely, safe in the knowledge that there are always more where they came from. The wisest amongst them also make sure that they always have an escape route to paw - even if they must cut through enemies and allies alike in the process.

Deathmasters are singularly adept killers. A significant part of their training centres around defying the self-interested Skaven mindset and honing the ability to set aside their own ambitions for the sake of their mission. Skulking unseen amidst the melee, Deathmasters wait for their target to leave themselves exposed before striking with great acrobatic ferocity, wielding an array of esoteric weapons such as warpstone throwing stars and weeping blades that can kill with the lightest scratch.

Most devious of all Skaven are the Grey Seers. These are the agents of the Masterclan who work to manipulate Skaven society from the shadows. With a hissed incantation and flick of their claws, a Seer can summon storms of warp lightning, blast enemies with withering energy or teleport great distances in a blink. Grey Seers also possess a natural affinity for warpstone; their staffs of office are imbued with chunks of the corruptive realmstone, and many will consume shards of the substance to fuel their ruinous spellcraft.

Canny and cruel in equal measure, Krittok Foulblade has a profound instinct for where his minions' deaths can best serve him. He also understands with a rare clarity that even meagre displays of largesse, however falsely intended, can spur a measure of loyalty from his underlings. This same cold and calculating mindset is extended by the Clawlord to his dealings with the daemon-blade Doomfang, for the raging Verminlord trapped within its steel must be bargained with constantly if its powers are to bolster Krittok's own warrior abilities

It takes an especially deranged Skaven to rise to the rank of Master Moulder. They are the overlords of the Clans Moulder, dark luminaries in the arts of flesh-grafting, each devoted to crafting ever more grotesque nightmare-beasts. Master Moulders are experts in stitching muscle and flesh into new forms, and they use warpstone to trigger mutations that twist a mortal corpus beyond recognition. Master Moulders take a warped pride in the monsters they have brought into unholy life and consider the battlefield successes of these creatures to be firmly their own.

Warlock Bombardiers are besotted with indiscriminate carnage. Their obsession with ballistic devastation finds realisation in the creation of Doomrockets. These are amongst the most potent, and temperamental, weapons that a single Skaven can wield, capable of blasting formations to ashes. More is always better, says the ratman mindset, and so Bombardiers gleefully strap additional warheads and power sources to their missiles. This certainly results in a satisfying explosion - though not always one that consumes the intended target...

The most common class of Warlocks are known simply as Engineers. These are responsible for the construction and operation of the many mass-produced wonder weapons of the Clans Skryre. Less inclined to face their foes head on, many Warlock Engineers carry ranged weapons of their own creation, with warplock muskets being a perennial favourite. Of course, the Engineers cannot help but attempt to push these weapons to their limits, thoroughly convinced of their own genius - until the musket detonates in their claws, that is.

A Warplock Galvaneer is a connoisseur of electrically charged annihilation. These twitchy maniacs are obsessed with channelling the voltaic energies that course through the veins of the Dark Innovator, and they see the battlefield as the perfect arena in which to test their latest creations. Wielding battery-powered warpvolt obliterators, they scamper into the fray, their weapons spitting crackling arcs of warp-corrupted lightning that scorch flesh and turn even heavily armoured foes into jerking, smoking corpses.

Plague Priests shriek blasphemous prayers that unleash the dark diseases of the Great Corruptor upon their foes. Those not wasted away or withered into ooze are swiftly slain by blows from the priests’ warpstone-capped staves and smog-belching censers.

Skreech Verminking is foremost amongst the Great Horned Rat's daemonic brood. His twisted soul contains the collective knowledge of the Skaven: the shadow shifting of Eshin, the warped ingenuity of Skryre, the fury of Verminus, the plague-mastery of Pestilens and the fleshcraft of Moulder. Verminking draws upon these boons, and the fearful obedience he commands in all Skaven, to dominate the battlefield.

Fuelled by an addiction to warpstone and delusional self-confidence remarkable even for a Skaven, Thanquol is constantly devising new schemes to secure a seat upon the Council of Thirteen. That most of these plans go awry is irrelevant; Thanquol is a master at spinning disasters to his advantage - as well as obliterating the bodies and minds of enemies and naysayers with powerful spellcraft. Thanquol is accompanied at all times by a colossal Rat Ogor that he calls Boneripper.

Avatars of foulness, a Verminlord Corruptor is vile beyond words. These rat-daemons are entities of utmost reverence to the Clans Pestilens, for they embody the Horned Rat's fascination with collapse and decay. Bloated parasites burrow through their matted fur and pestilential slimes drip from the sickle-blades known as Plaguereapers. Buboes throb across their towering frames, and the air around them becomes choked with noxious yellow fog.

Verminlord Deceivers are the least seen of all their daemonic brood. They are the hidden paw and favoured assassins of the Great Horned Rat, utterly one with shadow. Even the Nightlords of the Clans Eshin may struggle to detect such a daemon's presence, save for red eyes flashing in the darkness and a susurrus of whispers slipping from empty caverns. These are deliberate ploys by the Deceivers, masters of illusory concealment and teleportation magics. If they truly do not wish to be perceived, only the most incisive observer can hope to detect them.

Warbringers are the most commonly seen of the Verminlord broods. They embody the Great Horned Rat's desire for carnage, his hunger to sweep away all that stands proud and replace it with shattered ruins through which rodents swarm. Arrogant, belligerent and territorial, Warbringers are often found dominating the Clans Verminus, who share much of their bloodthirsty world view. This stewardship, however, resembles less a protective guardian spirit and more a fell-handed tyrant bidding their screeching minions to fight with ever greater ferocity - or else face their inevitably fatal judgement.

All Verminlords are conniving, as befits the daemonic progeny of the Great Horned Rat. The Warpseers, however, are manipulation given form. Their eldritch abilities go beyond those of even their fellow rat-daemons; they wheeze the stuff of sorcery, tugging at the threads of possibility and ploy with each swift lash of the tail. Engulfed by billowing gales of warp-energy, these Verminlords orchestrate the doom of armies, gleefully sending thousands of minions to their deaths to facilitate their deranged stratagems.

Created in the apocalyptic fires of the Vermindoom, Vizzik Skour is the chief priest of the Horned Rat, Lord of the Gnaw and master of the mind-shattering death frenzy. The force of this daemon's diabolic zeal is enough to crack the land and drive the Skaven swarms into a frothing madness.

Of all the strange constructs fashioned by the Skaven, Screaming Bells are perhaps the most diabolical. From a rickety conveyance of wood hangs a great brass bell, studded with warpstone and marked with glowing runes. A Grey Seer, a prophet of the Horned Rat, scrabbles across the bell, hurling commands at their minions below and conjuring storms of magic from their bizarre pulpit. Then the device rings, and all hell breaks loose.

Plague Furnaces are mobile altars of corruption, rotting pulpits from which priests of the Pestilent Brotherhood can preach the Withered Word. Pushed by toiling packs of Plague Monks, a Plague Furnace is a ponderous construct. Its decay-eaten structure creaks and whines as it rolls forwards on grinding wheels, while thick clouds of toxic smoke emanate from the censer at its heart. This is no ordinary gas; it is laced not only with warpstone but also with the gurgled incantations of the Plague Priest who commands the Furnace.

The Acolyte Globadiers of the Clans Skryre are tinkerers and artificers, miners and munitions carriers. They are a step above the thrall-rats that toil on the production lines or serve as fodder for weapons testing, and they scheme constantly about attaining the status of Warlock. The masters of the Clans Skryre are well aware of this, and they are little disposed to acquiring new rivals.

Clanrats are the unwashed masses of the Clans Verminus. They are the dregs of the ratmen’s society, considered utterly disposable by their masters. No matter how many are spitted on pikes, crushed by bludgeons or riddled with arrows, the tide of mangy fur never seems to slacken. In turn, they fight with whatever rusted spears and blades they can scrounge up, as well as their own claws and teeth when necessary. Clanrats are nimble but undisciplined soldiers and, like most Skaven, are prone to wavering at the slightest threat. Only when sufficiently motivated by fear, hunger or overwhelming advantage can they be trusted to press the advance – but when they do, they can reduce entire armies to piles of gnawed bones.

Night Runners are the lowliest acolytes of the Eshin and are seen as an entirely disposable asset. Often their fate is to be hurled into the enemy's path and provide a distraction with their messy deaths, allowing more adroit killers to carry out their subtle missions amongst the mayhem. Still, disposable as they are, Night Runners are trained and equipped to a level beyond their equivalents in the other Great Clans.

Plague Monks form the foetid congregations of the Clans Pestilens. Though inherently cowardly in the manner of all Skaven, on the battlefield, they are seized by a zealous fervour that is both bizarre and extremely unnerving to behold. Clad solely in fly-eaten robes and carrying all manner of strange religious paraphernalia and relics, they surge forwards like a mouldering landslide. Driven on by their rabid mania, they swarm against the ranks of the enemy, lashing out in a furore with blades and withered staves.

A Plaguepack is formed of a Plague Priest and their entourage. These fervent ratmen are devoted to the Great Corruptor and his vision of a befouled cosmos. While their master proselytises, the most favoured (or troublesome) of the pack swing a mighty plague censer, breathing deep of its noxious and blinding fumes. Alongside a Plaguepack scuttle rotten rodents, some carrying shards of warpstone crystal - a useful power source for any Plague Priest mid-catechism.

The power of the Clans Moulder is built on the broad shoulders of the Rat Ogors. These rabid war-mutants are created by grafting nimble Skaven to the muscled bulk of ogorkind through strange cryptosorcery and infusing them with warpstone shards and unguents. These misbegotten warriors are pumped full of all manner of toxic serums designed to magnify both their regenerative properties and their natural frenzy. A mixture of pain and gnawing hunger sees them tear at enemies in a blind fury, ripping off limbs and wolfing down flesh.

Ratling Guns are amongst the most commonplace of the weapon teams that emerge from the forges of the Clans Skryre. Powered by complex warp-steam batteries and activated by a hand-crank operated by the weapon's loader, Ratling Guns are notoriously difficult to aim. The sheer volume of bullets they unleash, however, can shred an enemy cohort regardless.

The Clans Moulder and Clans Skryre have long enjoyed a profitable, if fraught, alliance. Stormfiends are one of the many horrors engendered by these collaborations. In appearance, they resemble a Rat Ogor granted even greater bulk through potent warpstone serums, and they can wield various deadly Skryre firearms without tearing themselves apart through recoil.

Unlike most Skaven warriors, who tend towards being stooped and rangy, Stormvermin are immediately identifiable by their comparative bulk and general aura of menace. Hand-picked from the most promising spawn of a litter – usually marked by having devoured many of their brood-mates – they are subjected to especially brutal training regimes by their Clawlords. This results in ratmen that are able to fight with a degree of precision and focus uncommon to their kin.

Within the voluminous barrel of a Warpfire Thrower sloshes a particularly incendiary and evil concoction. When the Skaven gunner depresses a trigger, this liquid is fed through crude piping to spew out of a brass nozzle, igniting on contact with the air to produce sheets of blinding green flame. So deadly is this compound that it cannot be doused through conventional means; those whom it strikes can only burn to death in agony as the fire leaps across tightly packed ranks of infantry.

Long-range warfare is a respected art amongst the Skaven; it is, after all, the method of combat least likely to involve personal danger. Skilled snipers amongst the Clans Skryre take up Warplock Jezzails, from which they can spit death from the rearmost ranks. Two ratmen are needed to carry a Jezzail; the second Skaven makes themselves useful by clutching a pavise shield that props up the heavy rifle and provides a measure of defence against return fire.

One of the many forms of weapon forged in the hellish foundries of the Warlocks, Warpvolt Scourgers channel the power of warpstone into volatile warp lightning, which travels between twin orb-like conductors before leaping forth to bring voltaic destruction to the enemy. Flesh and soul make perversely fine conductors for warp lightning and foes who are packed in tight are sure to be caught in a Scourger's fury, blasting them to oblivion and leaving them fatally convulsing.

Skabbik Plagueseeker is on a holy quest – holy, at least, to the rancid congregations of the Clans Pestilens. Within the Wyrdhollow, he seeks nothing less than an ingredient to one of the Great Plagues, a mythic disease with the power to change the course of history. Skabbik’s Plaguepack wetly skitter forth to bring pestilence, rot and death to the enemies of the Great Horned Rat. Should the Plague Priest’s noisome acolytes succeed in their task, the Mortal Realms themselves may be entirely reduced to a rancid, rotting mulch.

Slynk Skittershank embodies all the devious cruelty of the Eshin clans. He prefers to ambush his foes, slashing them with twin toxin-dripping blades before scampering into the safety of the shadows, where he can watch them succumb to his agonising concoctions. At the fore of the Clawpack is Snyp Padpaw, a grizzled Clan Stryk veteran. At his side, Kreep Kinwhisper uses a cage filled with screeching ratlings to track down prey. Meanwhile, Krowch’t backstabs his foes with his razor-sharp dagger, and Skulck picks off enemies from afar with his trusty sling.

Skritch Spiteclaw is a particularly cunning Skaven warlord who has assembled an impressive horde of cut-throat vermin to serve his will. Though he prefers that his minions fight and die on his behalf, when cornered, Skritch becomes a whirling dervish of spiked steel and ripping claws. Skritch Spiteclaw entrusts the command and discipline of his verminous ranks to the sadistic taskmaster Krrk the Almost-trusted. Though for now he is content to spend Skaven lives at his master’s command, the foul-spirited Krrk has his own ambitious schemes for power.