Unstable technology and Skaven go together like Stormcast Eternals and hammers, like Orruks and a Waaagh!, like Ossiarch Bonereapers and an unwavering dedication to harvesting bones. The Clans Skryre are a sprawling conglomerate of enginecovens, who worship the Great Horned Rat as the Dark Innovator – a machine-deity made of cogs, wires and metal, with a mechanised mind constantly fizzling with ideas for twisted new killing machines.
Warplock Engineers worship him by building these war machines and weapons, tinkering obsessively to create death-dealing contraptions which burn, flense, scour, and shock their unfortunate victims… almost as often they explode in the faces of their operators. The Clans Skryre maintain their position of power by then auctioning these deadly machines off to the highest bidder, and it is rare to see a Clawlord go to war without a complement of Warp Lightning Cannons, or a Warpspark Weapon Battery or two.
The ruling members of each Skryre clan are the Arch-Warlocks, masterful inventors who excel in the schools of experimentation and engineering that their clan specialises in. Each is responsible for the creation of a number of techno-arcane weapons, and leaves behind them a legacy of explosive malfunctions and a tally of dead allies and enemies too vast to count.
As Overseers of the Enginecovens they command their subordinates with great effectiveness, enabling ranged weapons to use Covering Fire without spending a command point.
Weapons teams are a mainstay of the Skryre arsenal as hiding a rat with a volatile warpfire thrower in a chittering horde of Clanrats is one of the safest ways to get them to the frontline, and far away from important Warplock Engineers. A Hidden Weapon Team can’t be targeted outside of 13” if conditions are met, ensuring that Warpvolt Scourgers, Ratling Guns, and Warpfire Throwers can get their lethal payload in range – or as close as possible before their cowardly allies scatter.
The boffins of Skryre aren’t entirely focused on making ranged weapons, despite it being their favoured distance to reign death from. Their talents also extend to creating the industrial mechanisms that allow for the constant expansion of Blight City, including the reality-boring Warp-Grinders.
These machines generate a powerful, reality-mulching beam of energy from a large warpstone crystal, tunnelling through the firmament itself, or anything stupid enough to get in the way of the thralls and warlocks that steer it. These Tunnel Skulkers often bring along allies, hoping to unleash a cunning Warp-ambush upon their foes, deploying well within charge range.
It isn’t uncommon for Warp-Grinders to be followed by Doom-Flayers, another slightly more prosaic tunnelling machine appropriated by some genius inventor and turned into a barely-controllable death machine, fitted with an array of terrifying and relentlessly spinning blades. The sight of a pair of Doom-Flayers popping out of a tunnel created by a Warp-Grinder is enough to rattle the staunchest of opponents, transfixing them as the cackling Skaven pilot steers a contraption of Whirling Doom directly at them.
The Clans Skryre have also been manufacturing deadly poisoned wind globes to hand out to aspirational acolytes, and Warplock Galvaneers have been seen accompanying their Arch-Warlock masters, supercharging friendly Warpvolt Scourgers and unleashing their own crackling energy weapons.
All of these deadly contraptions – and the Skaven deluded enough to believe that they won’t be blown up by them – are available to pre-order on Saturday. Chaos generals keen to wield the fearsome firepower that the ratmen can now bring to bear will want to tune in tomorrow, when we’re discussing the Armies and Regiments of Renown on offer in Battletome: Skaven.