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Vanguard: The Skaven Swarm Forth, Swiftly Followed by Nighthaunt and Daughters of Khaine

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Your beady eyes were not deceiving you – Vanguard: Skaven clawed its way out of a gnawhole in yesterday’s Sunday Preview and into the scorching light of day. Yep, it’s a teeming, scurrying, avalanche of ratty fury.

This Vanguard box is coming to pre-order this Saturday alongside Battletome: Skaven, so let’s commune with the Council of Thirteen and take a quick look at its chittering contents.

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Leading this Vanguard of vermin is a venerable Grey Seer. These master wizards are marked from birth with grey fur, a sign of great providence among the Skaven. Operating under the orders of the machiavellian Masterclan, they cast powerful sorceries and formulate cunning schemes that never, ever backfire.*

Every good leader needs a seething mass of bodies to hide behind, especially in a world full of fire-spewing dragons, giant bloodthirsty sharks, and vengeful tree spirits. Swarms of Clanrats provide distractions in abundance, and new rules mean a unit of 20 can swarm the enemy with extra reach on their weapons – so every single rat can get stabbing with their Rusty Spears or Rusty Blades. 

Every good Grey Seer needs a catastrophically powerful weapon to gamble on in the heat of battle, a role filled by the Warp Lightning Cannon. This techno-arcane weapon fires devastating bolts of pure warp lightning at its foes, erasing whole units and giant monsters alike in an emerald green flash!

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These ratty cannoneers can often get a little overconfident, though, overcharging the warp generators of the cannon, often with disastrous consequences for the crew and whatever is on the business end of this Clans Skryre monstrosity.**

Those maniacal engineers are even lending the Vanguard box some extra punch with a trio of Stormfiends. These elite vat-bred horrors wield a variety of death-dealing doohickeys. Each vile weapon is designed with a particularly diabolical purpose in mind – from wiping out elite infantry, slaying hordes, or felling foul monsters. Combine this with the potential to tunnel into the battlefield at any point and you’ve really got a unit to be feared.

It’s not all just fun for the Skaven, though – two more Vanguard boxes are also heading to pre-order.

The Daughters of Khaine receive a den of Melusai Blood Stalkers, led by a Melusai Ironscale, backed up by Doomfire Warlocks and violent Witch Aelves. The Nighthaunt receive a howling tide of sprites helmed by a Knight of Shrouds, followed by a Chainrasp Horde, Grimghast Reapers, and a swirling mass of Spirit Hosts.

All of this is available to pre-order this weekend. Vanguard boxes are an ideal way to reinforce an army, or a brilliant means of  getting a new army onto the table quickly – and save a bit of money to boot!

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* Grey Seer’s plans never go wrong. They just go right in very unexpected ways.

** It is quite funny when it happens though.