Skittershank’s Clawpack is a classic Strike Warband, refreshed for second edition in the Spitewood releases. Originally all about slaying the enemy leader while doing ninja backflips, nobody did better than these assassins at taking down a priority target. Slather some toxins on your blades, check in with your spy rats, and get ready to wall run with me as we sniff out our prey with Skittershank and the boys.

Thank you to Games Workshop for providing the page with an advance copy of this product for review and content creation.

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Skittershank’s Clawpack: Lore

The Clawpack were originally featured in the Nethermaze core box in first edition and feature a band of Night Runners from the Eshin Clan Stryk. Skittershank himself is an aspiring Deathmaster who won the race to get to the Nethermaze first, and as such, got to spearhead the investigation of the maze. For what purpose, I can’t honestly say, and he probably couldn’t either.

Skittershank himself is a ‘lead from behind’ skaven leader archetype we all love, and uses the ‘Running Death’ fighting style. Many of the original cards in the pack for these dudes were clearly taken from a writer who had watched a lot of Karate Kid, and for that, they earned the adoration of many a nerd in our community.

He’d brought along the assassins Snyp Padpaw, who uses smokebombs and poison gases (along with a gas mask of his own dubious design), as well as Kreep Kinwhisper, who throws nets and talks with the little actual rats to scout for him. The mook minions Krowch’t and Skulck mainly existed as bait and fodder while the bigger three figured out how best to find and eliminate the enemy leader. The warband was all about that – ninja moves, misdirection, and elimination of priority targets. They were fun and flavorful.

Skittershank’s Clawpack: Warscroll

Inspire

The mission, should you choose to accept, is simple – find and put the hurt on the enemy leader. It specifies after an action step, so cheating out ping damage with stuff in the power step won’t help you until after the following action step. You also no longer inspire when targeting or hitting the leader with the little guys, it’s all or nothing now.

What is nice is you’re not required to slay the leader. Some leaders are 5-8 health, can heal, get great fortitude, and so on. Just tag them for 3 total any way you can, and inspire no matter what happens afterward. Often you’ll want to finish the leader off anyway since you did all that work, but you don’t explicitly have to anymore.

Marked for Death

Isn’t this the name of something in Hexbane’s Hunters? Stealing from your old Ulgu rivals – a classic (editor’s note, it’s actually Marked for Vengeance, so no, not theft. Also I’m the writer and editor, so my bad. I’ve written >50,000 words in a week so leave me alone).

Any time anybody attacks the enemy leader, you get a free reroll. This is agnostic of the attack made, so you get it on melee, ranged, upgrades, you name it. Pretty handy, especially against some leaders out there with better defense profiles or if you have to dive into a flanked/surrounded position to get to them.

Spiketraps and Snares

This was a signature move on Kreep’s net back in first edition, and now everybody gets it though it’s for melee only. Sorry Kreep! You actually don’t get it at all anymore.

This is a super useful control piece, and I expect it to cause all sorts of problems for people in second edition. After you’ve barbed somebody, they can’t move or they’ll take another damage. They don’t stack, but you’ll rarely need them to. Tag the fighter and they have to stay where they’re at or take another damage, which is some cases will kill them. Keeps that leader from running away, prevents people from moving back onto a token you drove them off of, makes them think hard about whether to charge. Beautiful ability, and really cool that it’s warband wide. Works on upgrade weapons too, and is not a runemark, so go HAM with it.

The most important this to note here is that this is a reaction to a successful melee attack. You don’t need to declare it ahead of time, you don’t need to choose this instead of any other benefit, and nothing locks you out of it. Apply this every time.

Smoke Bombs

Immediately after you attack, you can once per game pop smoke and stagger everybody adjacent to you. You don’t have to hit, it doesn’t have to be melee, you don’t have to stagger your target if you want to drive them back, it’s all good. Diving into a surrounded position doesn’t sound as bad anymore, and if you stagger the leader, that’s two rerolls you have now.

The Jaws Snap

This ability is phenomenal. Effects that push an enemy fighter, previously known as Distraction, are exceedingly rare in second edition. Yes, it’s situational – you can only target the enemy leader, and they have to be in Enemy territory – but in the right circumstances this is a back breaker. Bring the leader back into charge range. Put them adjacent to somebody so they’re flanked. Get one more swing out of a charged out Skittershank. Remove them from that all important Waystone Hex/Treasure Token/Cover Hex they were relying on. You get loads of benefits for your own attacks AND can counterplay and disrupt the enemy plan. In the right matchup, and at the right time, this is huge.

In my test games this ability was a game-winner. You’re going to love the way it feels to say ‘in my power step, The Jaws Snap’.

Skittering Blur

In your power step (so right before your opponent takes their turn), they can’t target any Assassins next turn. Those three big guys? Safe for another activation and subsequent power step, so again, diving into the fray doesn’t immediately spell doom for you. Notably, this doesn’t stop ploys that are played in that current power step, so be cautious. However, when you need to keep one of your three main rats alive this can be solid gold. #GottaGoFast

In a scenario where your minions have already died, this means they straight up can’t attack next turn, and can’t play ploys on you at all. Hope your opponent likes to take the Focus action!

Skittershank’s Clawpack: Fighter Cards

Slynk Skittershank

Your leader, who is immediately threatening 3 damage. 3 swords isn’t a fantastic attack profile but remember you get a free reroll against their leader, maybe even having them staggered and/or flanked if you’ve applied your warscroll abilities early. 4 health and 2 dodge with move 4 is a solid profile for a 2-bounty fighter, and considering you don’t need YOUR leader for any of your warscroll, some people might be ok risking him for the big hit. He’s pretty competent at cleaning up medium to small enemies too.

Snyp Padpaw

My man can fly even uninspired. That makes him better at getting over the minion wall and into the leader’s face. He also starts at 2 dodge with 4 health, so he’s no slouch, and while he’s only putting out 2 damage with 3 swords, remember the reroll against the leader. He inspires to gain a move and add cleave to his profile, so he’s a decent brawler but also nothing to write home about.

Kreep Kinwhisper

Kreep Kinwhisper has fallen a notch in this refresh – the barbs reaction now no longer applies to him since he doesn’t have a melee weapon. What he does have, though, is a pretty good 2 hammer 3 range attack with stagger and the same decent 4 health 2 dodge profile the other assassins come with. His major advantage is that he is a 1 bounty fighter, so you’re much less worried about putting him into a risky position. Consider using this guy as your Smoke Bomb caddy or setup man for your bigger hitters to finish the target off.

Krowch’t

Krowch’t is bait. Always has been. Two swords is trash, as is 2 health 1 dodge. He does have access to 2 damage though, and two swords with a reroll into the leader sometimes can hit. Scratch what I said earlier- THIS guy is the smoke bombs caddy. When inspired he actually is a pretty good fighter for 1 bounty, in the unlikely event he survives that long.

Skulck

Another victim of the ‘barbs doesn’t apply to ranged attacks’, Skulk is best for skulking in the back, chucking rocks and otherwise taking up space. 2 hammers at range is a decent attack from a minion-coded fighter, so you can run him onto features for delving, holding, disrupting, what have you. They’re gonna ignore him unless he looks like an easy target, so maybe run him onto an Aqua Ghyranis token and pray he survives to net you a glory.

In Practice

This warband was run through four test games: Three with Cataclysm/Wrack, and once with Blazing Assault/Raging Slayers. BA/RS semed ok on paper, but getting yet another reroll against the leader wasn’t really enough to make up for the terrible objective package (and they never ended up killing the leader or inspiring all game anyway). CC/WnR was a much, much better pairing for them. In one game, The Jaws Snap brought the leader up into a perfect assassination spot, and in the other it was done with Damned if you Do. Boosted mobility with Flee! even let Skittershank hurtle seven hexes into a leader’s face one time, and that was just golden. The third time, 3 damage was enough do immediately down the leader after a Wrack stagger and Skittershank saying ‘hello’ in activation 2.

This team is fun, all of their warscroll abilities are good, and they treated me right in those test games. Five star experience!

Potential Pairings

Let’s face facts – you’re diving the leader. You’re going full throttle. You’re thinking about taking Blazing Assault. The real question is, which other deck might you pair it with? There’s a solid argument to be made for Countdown to Cataclysm since you can get extra ping damage and a plethora of push tech. You can play Pillage and Plunder if you’re into that and do have two little guys who aren’t good for much besides delving, and imagine the fantasy land where you grab Strip the Realm when you lure their leader off a token in the last power phase. Wrack and Ruin provides yet another distraction, extra stagger, some mobility boosts, and pings to target the leader, and is a great take for them.

When CC/Wrack were combined in practice games it worked smooth as butter, so consider starting there.

Reckless Fury is something you could consider, though the bounty distribution and 5-fighter makeup of the warband limits this approach. You could also suggest angling for Raging Slayers – what harm is yet another reroll going to do? Your ability to pull their leader, say the assassins can’t be targeted, and penchant for hitting the leader will make scoring that difficult package a little easier for this warband than most.

Wrap

I won’t lie, these guys look pretty scary to face and I expect them to do quite well in the coming meta. Swords on their profiles are deceptive with the amount of reroll they’ll have available, and once inspired, they can clean up the rest of your warband with ease. You can run, but you can’t hide, and you’ll just have to hope Hunting Grounds does enough to deal with the onslaught of assassins ramming down your throat. Whether you’re headhunting or being the head-hunted, I hope you enjoy these Teenage Mutant Ninja Splinters!

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Thanks again to Games Workshop for providing me with this product so that I can produce this review content.