As well as being one of the best and most well-known Skaven players in the world, Keegan runs his own YouTube channel where he looks at competitive Age of Sigmar.
Peter: Welcome to our first Chat with the Champs.
I’m pleased to welcome Keegan Graves to talk all things Skaven (and more).
I’ll start, shall I? This question is on behalf of Scott, who asks what thoughts you have on creating a fun narrative list that’s not meant to be competitive, he’s looking for tips for the NOVA narrative event later this month.
Keegan: I mean, when people think of “fun” for skaven, they usually think clans skryre. I think the bombardier is a good place to start. He’s not good, but he’s a lot of fun when his rocket does 12 damage. Start with a bombardier and a couple doomwheels with the pit tinkerer heroic trait to make them funny. Honestly, I think a lot of stuff in Skaven is fun, so I’m probably going to be competitively biased with my answer, haha
I would say Bombardier, a few doomwheels, a warp lightning cannon. Lots of clanrats, a verminlord deceiver to teleport around and stab people, and maybe a HPA (Hell Pit Abomination).
It’s a good mix and will make for great moments in the game.
Matt_the_Rat: How many clan rats do you own?
Keegan: I haven’t counted in a few years, at least 160, I think? 160ish Clanrats and 80 Plague Monks, I believe.
Peter: What’s your opinion on the current balance of the game?
Keegan: I would say the game is actually relatively balanced right now. The gap between the best and worst armies isnt huge, and I still think the worst armies can still do well at GTs.
The best armies in the game are probably Cities, Nighthaunt, and Daughters. and the Khorne AoR is super overpowered and needs to be nerfed.
Archi: Best competitively you mean? Because what about Stormcast and Ossiarch Bonereapers?
Keegan: Ossiarch are B tier at best. They are struggling a bit imo.
Privileged: Sylvaneth, cos I like pain?
Keegan: Better than Stormcast and OBR in my opinion. They actually have some gas and Warsong is VERY good in this current meta. Ward removal/ward stripping is so strong right not.
Matt_The_Rat: What do you consider are Skaven’s best and worst matchups in the current meta?
Keegan: Highly highly depends on the list you’re running, but I will talk from the perspective of the list I’m currently running. 40 monks, soggy bell, furnace, 6 rogors, 6 ratlings, and 2 soggy terrors. We do well into most of the top tier armies at the moment because of the furnace. Cities can be tricky for my list in particular though. Kruleboyz with kragnos specifially can also be hard. As for easy matchups with that list: Fyreslayers and Nurgle get absolutely slaughtered by it. It’s hilariously one sided.
Carson W: Why did you abandon Ogors?
Keegan: Foot ogors are stronger than BCR, and I dont have a lot of painted foot ogors. Also Skaven requires less brainpower because I have so much practice with them.
Archi: I was thinking of buying the Daughters of Khaine spearhead JUST because of the snakes.
Keegan: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but snakes are not that good haha.
It’s all Witch Aelves right now.
Privileged: DoK will get a nerf soon most likely. Buy with caution imo.
Keegan: I could see it. Honestly what made them so strong imo is the nerfs to shooting and introduction of obscuring. DoK’s biggest counter had always been guns.
Oli.Oli: What units do you think are going to get points increases next battlescroll?
Keegan: For Skaven? For us I think we see Soggy terro and soggy bell go up almost certainly. Deceiver may go up, though I don’t think he needs to. Flayers may get a small bump. I honestly think not much else needs to go up. Our book was way WAY over-costed at launch and I think most of it is FINALLY getting where it needs to be.
Seracrooce: Cutest opponent you’ve ever played?
Keegan: Jeez thats a hard one. Probably one of my regional friends. His name is Obed and he plays KO. He wears a chefs outfit and chefs hat and rolls his dice into a frying pan. He also has way too much fun with the game
Jakovasaur: Is Soulblight strong?
Keegan: Probably top 10 armies in the game? Barrow knights are very very good.
Seracrooce: What would win, Alarielle and Bownoths or Slaanesh monster mash?
Keegan: They are both absolute losers, the real winners are those who decided not to play either of those armies.
In all seriousness probably slaanesh monster mash? Slaanesh can close the distance very very quickly, and any of them can easily kill anything in sylvaneth that they touch also -1 to hit the big guys hurts sylvaneth’s output a lot. It’s not an easy win tho prolly a close game.
Privileged: How do the new skaven play for you? Are they competitive or meh overall? Several new unit/models release have seemed lackluster?
Keegan: They are extremely competitive, they are probably top 6 armies in the game? They are very counter meta.
They handily beat DoK and Nighthaunt, have an even matchup into cities, and even have play into the khorne AoR. They also don’t lose to very much. They are great at scoring tactics and keeping in the game until the end.
In order to keep up with skaven you need speed, high single target damage, decent board presence, unbinds, and it helps to have anti ward tech and recursion
Oli.Oli: What is ur least favourite matchup for skaven rn?
Keegan: It’s 100% the khorne AoR but that feels like a cop out answer. I think cities is probably the most frustrating? They have so much that is good against you and its extremely mentally taxing to play.
I played cannon cities twice in a row day 2 of the last GT I went to. I was DEAD by the end
Privileged: And SoG Zenestra is OP
Tbh she’s not THAT bad. I’ve found you can actually counterplay cities by just ignoring her. Her mortal wound blast isn’t that good into the furnace and bell because they have wards and heal a lot and we have the bodies to just run at cities and overwhelm them.
The more annoying part of cities to me is the command corp, they require way too much effort to kill and exra command point spend ability they have is so incredibly annoying to play against
Peter: What do you think to this GHB?
Keegan: Honestly, this is the best GHB we’ve gotten in years. It completely eclipses every GHB from 3rd edition, and a lot of the 2nd ed ones too.
It’s fun, flavorful, and adds interesting mechanics. It makes terrain actually matter, it made battle tactics actually fun and interesting rather than just a checklist.
A huge issue I had with third ed is that every time it got to the start of a players turn the game just ground to a halt while they looked through cards and tried to decide what to do. The GHB fixed that entirely. So hats off to GW for the best update yet haha.
Peter: When’s your next tournament?
Keegan: So I’m actually on the fence right now. I am signed up and was planning to go to flying monkey.
However, Borderlands 4 launches on the Friday night before the event and I am a fiend for that series, so I’m in quite the dilemma.
But other than (maybe)monkey, I’ll be at vault wars, Oklahoma open, World Championships of Warhammer in Atlanta, and US Masters in Seattle
Oli.Oli: What team are you for Masters?
Keegan: I’m on Great Plains. Which is essentially players from: Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. But North America is roughly divided into 10 regions, and each region puts forth a team to represent them each region also has their own methods for determining what players are on their team
Privileged: Is it best to join a team if being competitive at those levels? What’s the benefit?
Keegan: Well, I recommend joining a club first so you can practice a lot and get to know your locals.
Rhinoceruption: What is the worst chaos god and why is it the subpar horned rat?
Keegan: The worst chaos god is Slaanesh because he’s lame and stupid.
Oli.Oli: When are you going to upload again on the YouTube?
Keegan: When my schedule opens up and I have time to record and edit videos. Probably not for a while because I’m going back to school this fall. I’m try and make a few videos when I can tho.
Privileged: What do you anticipate pros and cons for Helms of Hashut? What could ruin their release? GW doesn’t have a great track record with dwarves
Keegan: I don’t think anything will ruin their release unless their rules are absolutely horrid.
I think the army will be fun to paint and fun to play, but I can anticipate them being extremely unfun to play against. Rend 3 shooting and 30″ range artillery doesn’t sound like something most players are going to be overjoyed to fight haha
Privileged: Like what do you think? I love the preview of the HoH
Keegan: Oh I’m fully on board. I love dwarves and I love chaos. I’ve been waiting for a dwarf army that appeals to me. I don’t love berserker dwarves or steam punk. But plate armor with axes and spears and artillery? Sign me up!
Archi: What are your thoughts on spearhead gamemode, is it balanced if so/not why
Keegan: Honestly I haven’t played a single game of spearhead in my life man. I do not like skirmish games haha. I like big armies and lots of things to do.
I played a single game of warcry and said, “this isnt for me”
I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s legitimately fun and well made and I’m glad to hear it.
Derek.H: Can you explain how you approach games on a macro level? A lot of time I get to my movement phase and am unsure of what the hell I’m trying to do setting up subsequent turns.
Keegan: So I tend to play very reactively, and make sure all my plays build towards some form of grand strategy. I identify key targets in my opponents army and I want to eliminate them in the first 2-3 battle rounds. All while setting up for scoring in turns 4 and 5.
I make sure to always plan that my opponent will double turn me, and I always plan for my opponents abilities to go off. Then basically I react from there.
With movement specifically, I want to make sure I’m staying in my buff zones for future turns and always planning to be safe when I get charged by my opponent.
Boggy: Why are Skaven the best army in the game and why do all the other armies look like a cheap copy of them?
Keegan: Because the great horned rat is the best god, and everything else pales in his greatness.
Archi: It always seems like I have less on the battlefield then my opponent and most of my losses come from me being overwhelmed (I don’t just play skaven but I do play them).
Keegan: Well sometimes you may have less units than them, it all depends on what your playing and what the jobs of the unit you’re bringing are
With skaven, I know I will have 2-4 screens, and their job is to block my opponents hammers from getting into my juicy stuff so I can counter charge and kill their stuff.
Skaven is very much a counter charge army. Not like the command ability. I mean in the sense that we like to tie things up with clanrats, then hit em with buffed up rat ogors. Then in their turn you 3 clawsteps a screen back up to protect your rat ogors
It’s definitely easy to feel overwhelmed, just remember its fine for your screens to get charged and die, just protect your hammers and make sure you hit them back hard
HahaMustard: First off congrats with the recent record boss, you are killin it! To someone trying to improve at AoS, what would you say is a “game changer” to playing at a high level, that newer or intermediate players don’t do in their games (sorry for the awkward wording)
Keegan: I would say the 3 main things that I had to learn to actually start being good are as follows:
- How to deploy correctly – Screens in front, double layered into hyper aggressive melee armies. Always make your opponent go first if you can.
- How to stop myself from overextending – Never take a double turn unless you’re 110% sure you will hard cripple your opponent. Never leave the protection of your buff auras and spell range. Always make sure you have a screen or durable unit to protect your squishy units with. Don’t be greedy at the cost of winning the game. It’s better to make safe plays that pay off than risky plays that lose you the game.
- How to have strong mental – Do not let bad dice get to you. It’s a dice game, you will fail 2+ rolls, and charges, and your units will whiff. A good philosophy is assume everything your opponent attempts will be successful, and assume your units will do less damage than average. It’s better to overkill than to underkill. Additionally, always assume you will lose priority. Plan around bad things happening and have back up plans for everything.
derek.h: How do you avoid getting overwhelmed when you have a double turn looming? Double layering screens isn’t really viable in this economy
Keegan: I generally rarely put myself in situations where I am going to get double turned. There are so many downsides to taking a double turn these days anyway, and the biggest one is that you can get doubled back. However, if I know I’m going to get doubled, you basically HAVE to double layer your screens if you’re playing skaven. We are too fragile to survive a double turn from an army like slaves or stormcast unless we feed them screens for 2 turns. Saving a command point for strikes last in their turn can help a lot, as well as utilizing triple redeploy and the terrain to create choke points.
Tweakedsynth: How do you handle armies like SBGL that can score real well without ever fighting you?
Keegan: I take the fight to them. Barrow knights and blood knights do actual zero damage off the charge, so charge them and tie them up. You don’t need to kill them, just dont let them get where they want to go. The heroes aren’t horribly durable if they cant heal so try and one shot them. Kill their terrain as it lets them summon onto the objectives. Target their scoring units like vamp lords and vargheists.
Another thing is look at what tactics they have and try and deny them. A lot of SBGL players run scout, so just shoot off all their scouts. If you make them panic when they realize they wont score anything by not interacting, you can make them rush into combat and make mistakes
Skaven is one of those lucky armies that can run good shooting, and still also score well. So we can play non-interactive and score well if we need to as well
Tweakedsynth: I think I need to put ratlings back in my lists. I’ve been running bell, deceiver, 2 terrors, 6 rogors, 4 flayers, and 40 clan rats mostly. I also keep trying to make skreech, deceiver, and deathmaster work but can’t find a version I like and Bell probably too good to ignore.
Keegan: I would also say don’t be afraid to be aggressive with your deceiver. He’s good at surviving for a reason
I usually throw him on a flank alone and have him harass and hunt heroes and treasure units and if he gets charges he just fucks off.
Bogarl: Do you have any recommendations for new players to more elite focused armies (obr in my case)?
Keegan: With an army like OBR, you have to rely on the durabilty of your troops. You also very much need to fight on your terms because you can get split up and focused down if you let your opponent dictate the pacing of the game. Katakros + any of your 3+ save troops is a great combo. Immortis guard are super durable when buffed up. Stalkers too. You have to play into the durability of your troops real hard.
Matt_The_Rat: What’s your opinion on the 13+ Deathbringer list in Singles?
Keegan: If your opponent has any sort of AoE mortal wounds you’re absolutely cooked. If they have crit mortals you’re absolutely cooked. If they rely on a low number of attacks that hit on 2s or 3s and they aren’t OC 90000, it’s really really really good.
Legitimately
Thank you to Keegan for spending the time and chatting with us all on Discord. We’ve other chats coming up soon if you want to take part. Just join our friendly Discord Server.
