The seething hordes of Skaven are an unruly, unreliable bunch, hard to lead and worse to rule. It takes a leader of prodigious skill and cunning to direct such a society – and even the greatest of these are in constant conflict with their mighty rivals.
Yet sometimes figures emerge who can unite the children of the Horned Rat – after a fashion. In fact, the Vermindoom came to pass due in no small part to two ruthless leaders who have lately risen to the top at Blight City – Vizzik Skour and Krittok Foulblade.
Vizzik Skour is a Verminlord, a daemon of the Horned Rat whose existence can be traced back to when Kragnos broke free from his mountain prison. At the moment he escaped, the bells across Blight City tolled a blessed 13 times, and a terrible nether-thing crawled out of the heart of the Masterburrow. This strange entity proved dangerous and difficult to cow, and it was only by sacrificing thousands of rat-thralls in an act of profane worship that it would be calmed.
Later, once the shockwaves of the Vermindoom had reverberated across the cosmos, this protean fragment of the Great Horned Rat was gradually placated by the Masterclan, coalescing into a new being: the abominable Vizzik Skour. He is now a direct conduit of the Great Horned Rat’s divine will – to lock eyes with him is to be driven utterly mad.
As the one true Prophet of the Horned Rat, once per battle Vizzik can re-roll chanting rolls until the start of the next turn, and as a Priest (2) he empowers his allies and rots his foes with Noxious Prayers.
These chittering orations drip with dogma, inspiring a Death Frenzy in the minds of even the most cowardly of Skaven, becoming rabid killers who fight twice in a single combat phase. Should Vizzik’s declamations prove particularly effective, he may even spread this effect to a second unit.
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Where this menacing prophet is content to dispatch thousands of Skaven to their deaths, Krittok Foulblade is a more economical leader, setting him apart from most other Clawlords.
Krittok’s tactics instil a glimmer of hope in his followers, but it is all cold pragmatism – why throw away precious forces today which can be better used tomorrow? As such, his legions of armoured Stormvermin are terrifyingly loyal, and he inspires them to fight more savagely, seeking approval with each assault.
Positively elderly for a Skaven, he is physically frail but cunning beyond measure – and he’s aided in his secret quest to unset the Lords of Decay by the cursed blade he wields.
Bound within it is bound the soul of the Verminlord Doomfang, which sought to use Krittok’s armies to overthrow the freshly crowned Vizzik. The canny Clawlord revealed this scheme – a wager that paid out with a daemon-bound blade. When Krittok needs to fight beyond his means, he can haggle with Doomfang to Strike-First with impossible speed, but this power comes at a price…
Both are available to pre-order on saturday alongside a huge host of other new Skaven – we’ll be covering the calamitous contraptions of the Clans Skryre and the fleshy abominations of the Clans Moulder later in the week, alongside more choice cuts from Battletome: Skaven.
