Dominions is my favorite strategy series. It sidesteps graphical fidelity in favor of deep gameplay mechanics, and shrinks diplomacy and economy to an absolute minimum to make room for more war, with thousands of unique units to recruit and spells to learn. Check out my Dominions 6 review for more details. With no silly, peace-time stuff like treaties and trade to worry about, it's the perfect platform to recreate Warhammer Fantasy's apocalypse.
The base game has a sweet blend of fantasy and mythology, but there's also a fantastic Warhammer mod by creator Sombre, which adds every Warhammer The Old World faction to the game. In a title that's already stuffed with content, this creates an absurd amount of extra detail, with custom mechanics, original spells and more. There's also an absolutely enormous Warhammer map, which I'm going to enjoy covering with my own little flags.
What better faction to seek domination of the Old World with than the Skaven, whose OP rat hordes rolled over a bunch of nations in the rather shaky End Times lore? Especially because I have a treacherous scheme that will bring the forces of good to their knees. And anyone else who gets in my way. Yes-yes!
So let's check out the fighting forces of the Skaven nation. As you might expect, for the most part our roster is cheap, poorly armored, weak, and worst of all cowardly. 10 is considered the average human baseline for most stats in Dominions, and even our good troops don't go much further than 11. In a pitched battle, it won't take many losses before our squads turn tail and run.
So what do we have to make up for these failings? Well our rats can see in the dark, something we might be able to make use of later with the right sun-blotting magic. They're fast: they will at least be able to escape most of the time when they start running away. Plus, every single unit we can recruit has stealth, letting our armies move unseen into enemy territory on the overworld map and strike undefended provinces before slipping away.
An entirely stealthy force would be fantastic in multiplayer, and make fighting the Skaven extremely tricky. Against the AI, which is too thick to be tricked and gets bonus cash to spread forts and armies all over its territory, it's a lot less effective.
At least we have plenty of tools - about 17 different units we can recruit from our capital. We could field Plague Monks which spread deadly diseases to any unit they strike, Gutter Runners who can tangle their foes in nets, or Warp Fire Throwers that shoot gouts of armor-piercing fire.
We're not doing any of that, though. Instead, my plan is to rely almost entirely on a single type of unit, the humble Giant Wolfrat. Mutated rats bred by Clan Moulder, these four-legged fiends have a lot going for them, and you'll soon see why they're the lynchpin of my plan.
Firstly, they're even faster than our regular troops, meaning they'll close with the enemy quickly, and perhaps even swarm into the back line to eat their archers. Secondly, they're dirt cheap. They cost the same amount of money as a Clanrat, but since they don't wear clothes they take half the resources (the other main Dominions currency, representing metal, tools, wood etc).
Their stats are adequate at best, and they'll die in droves, but the best thing our four-legged rats have going for them over two-legged rats is they don't require wages. Most units, from your commanders, to your mages, to your base units, don't just have a recruit cost, they have an upkeep cost too. So 100 Crimson Guard - the most elite troops the Skaven can field, will drain 100 gold a turn.
With no upkeep on these cheap and cheerful rats, I can recruit as many as I like and never slow down. And if I avoid maxing out recruitment for even one turn, I'll have tons of spare gold to spend on mages and castles.
The big problem will be leading these hordes into battle. These are undisciplined troops that can't be given orders, and they have mediocre morale unless led by special Moulder commanders, who can only cart 65 of them around at a time. We can immediately make about 80 per turn in our capital, and the number is only going up from there, so that's not nearly enough.
But I have a fix for that too. A big draw of Dominions is it lets you design your nation's god, with a 'dominion' that determines what your lands will be like, and a bless that affects your sacred troops and leaders.
So meet the Horned God's son, Rat-thaniel. This humble rat man is imprisoned, so he won't be turning up until our first war is done. Because of that (and because I chose a squishy guy for our god instead of an enormous monster) we have loads of design points to play with. I've spent many of them making our dominion as prosperous as possible, so that we can afford more rats.
The remainder go towards the bless. I could've chosen regenerating wounds, fire weapons, or quickness. Instead I've gone all-in on leadership.
This won't make our forces better, but what it means is even the most basic priest can lead hundreds of troops around. They'll also give the wolfrats they lead a massive morale boost that will bring them on par with most other nations. The Vermintide is back on track!
The game begins, and I'm immediately shocked by how well the plan seems to be working. Even though I managed to skip a couple of turns by accident, we're expanding fast, creating hundred-strong armies instantly, which can mop up the independently-controlled provinces with ease. We take plenty of casualties, as expected, but there are always more units to fill the gaps, and with zero upkeep costs to worry about, we're absolutely raking it in. Our coffers are full of gold and large rats!
Getting cocky, I sneak a scout to have a look at a throne near our capital. These thrones are heavily defended objective points, and you need to claim them to win the game. This one is covered in undead. We'll deal with it later.
There's plenty to be distracted by, because I've found our first victim: the realm of Bretonnia. This feudal faction relies on heavily armed cavalry, backed up by hordes of peasants. The peasants should be no problem. As for the knights… well, we'll just have to take Bretonnia out before they can field enough of them.
I don't waste time, declaring war as soon as our borders meet. In true Skaven fashion, we go for a surprise attack. The plan is to strike in Athel Loren South (I'm not sure where the wood elves spawned, but it apparently wasn't here) and take down the palisade there as quickly as possible. Over 300 wolfrats can break down the flimsy wooden walls in one turn, hopefully allowing me to seize a fort before they can retaliate.
You'll notice we're supplementing our armies with another troop type now: Rat Ogres. These are heavy hitters that can punch through more armored foes, and because they go berserk when injured, they'll stay on the field even if everything else runs away. We can only make five a turn though, so they'll always be an accompaniment to the main course of wolfrats.
In our first strike, numbers win the day, and as our beautiful skittering hordes run joyously through the Bretonnian streets looking for villagers to eat, the first skaven-built forts are coming up. We're a bit behind schedule on these, but I'm constructing tons of them now with all our extra gold. They'll be crucial for building more armies and mages - we can't just do everything from Skavenblight.
As we have more than one fort now, it's time to mention the Skaven's unique Clan Pacts mechanic. See, our capital can build a little bit of everything, but other forts have a very limited pool of troops until you dedicate them to a particular clan. When you do, this unlocks a specialized roster, including some unique units that even the capital can't build.
Our first fort is going to be Moulder, of course, and this not only lets me recruit wolfrats and rat ogres there, but also giant rats, and really big bonebreaker rat ogres (just one per turn), which hit like an absolute truck. Shortly, we'll want Skyre and Pestilens forts for their mages, but almost all our troops will be coming from Moulder.
We've also been accumulating random heroes over the course of the game. Most aren't actually that useful to me, since they're not holy and don't benefit from my leadership bless, but one - Deathmaster Snikch is an exciting new toy. A hard to hit assassin, Snikch can sneak into enemy territory and pick off characters in one-on-one fights. Here he is sidestepping a cold bolt from a Grail Damsel and going in for the kill.
In the first few battles, our wolfrat armies fare very well against Bretonnia's force, chewing through the badly armored infantry with relative ease. Their missile troops are a bit of a problem, but we can usually get to them in melee before they plink us to death. Meanwhile, their elite cavalry doesn't go down easy, but our troops can surround their horses one by one, and slowly nibble their riders to the ground.
Not everything goes perfectly, however. This battle, for instance, reveals an oversight on my part: I forgot they have flying troops. This fight ends early as ten pegasi soar over the heads of our massive wave of rats and slaughter the lone Pestilens plague priest leading them, making the entire army rout. Fortunately, there are plenty more where that came from.
More setbacks: I'm starting to realize we got lucky with our first fort assault, because Athel Loren had hardly anyone protecting it. These structures create chokepoints that are disastrous for my strategy. The gates only have space for a few troops at a time, which suddenly removes our numbers advantage. Even worse, Bretonnias' walls are lined with longbowmen we can't harass, so our attempt to take Castle Bastonne turns into our own version of the Battle of Agincourt, with us playing the French.
In general, our numbers advantage is bringing Bretonnia down slowly, but we're going to need some more tricks to keep this campaign on the rails.
Hastily, I put together a new fort-taking strategy. We put the big rat ogres at the front to try and punch through the narrow gate, and start buying poison globadiers so that we can return fire. We also embark on our first serious use of magic, with the spell Skitterleap. This grants temporary flight to small groups of units. We try to focus it on our larger rats, sending them in at random to disrupt the enemy's backline.
It goes very well. One Bretonnia fort falls, and then another. But then, more drama, as our assassin stumbles into a Bretonnian hero named Melusine of the Well - some sort of fey siren?
Our plucky hero slashes through her retinue of water elementals in just a single turn. It's an impressive feat, but this buys her time to use magic. One ball of frost connects, then another. The Deathmaster is out cold. Well, no, actually he's dead, I just wanted to make a nice ice pun.
"Noooo," cries a Grey Seer from the capital. On the exact same turn Snikch eats it, we dedicate our first fort to Clan Eshin, so from now on there'll be an assassin trained every turn to avenge their master
The war is all but wrapped up by now, and in another few turns, we're ready to pile in on Couronne, the Bretonnian capital. This is where their god lives, so I'm a little nervous about this fight. Some gods are huge monsters that hit for immense damage, others well equipped titans.
Since we haven't seen the Bretonnian's god yet, I'm particularly worried about the possibility of an immobile pretender. This class of pretender god can't move, but they're insanely good on the defensive. If the enemy is led by a rocky menhir, the weak bites of our wolf rats won't be able to pierce its high protection stat, and there's a good chance we could lose hundreds or even thousands of units as it unleashes spells on us. We have over 2,000 wolf rats in total now, by the way, and I'm having to be careful not to overload provinces, or else our troops start to starve.
Fortunately Bretonnia's been just as cheap with their pretender build as we were: their leader's also just a guy. This enchantress can tie a few rats down with 'false fetters', and create illusory soldiers to fight for her, but the only thing an army this large really fears is mass AOE.
And it turns out Bretonnia's run out of men. This fort is full of squishy wizards, more than troops, and we get revenge for that pegasus attack by skitterleaping troops onto them, with predictable results. We've got warlocks firing warp lightning, and rat ogres running riot, and it turns out to be overkill.
Just before our battle with Bretonnia draws to a close, news from Skavenblight! Rathaniel has awoken, ready to lead our hungry horde to new targets. There are many options now. We could fight the empire, the orcs, or the dwarves. Or maybe we could get a bit ambitious, and take on them all at once?
If you enjoyed this little AAR and want to see more, let me know at the Wargamer Discord!