Queek Headtaker is actually the nicer, if not the nicest of the Skaven, and also the most loyal. He doesn’t lead his clan because his adoptive father, lord Gnawdwell took him in when he was young and despite Queek saying he is the “best-best” he always defers to Gnawdwell’s decisions because he sees him as genuinely a better leader. He has an unbreakable trust with his friend/bodygaurd Ska-Bloodtail (The largest non-mutated Skaven) and after the first time they met and Ska saved his life Queek gave him full access to his harem. I can’t explain how very rare it is for a Skaven, much less a Skaven up-and-coming lord would reward someone like that. Ska now is his right-hand rat and the sole reason he’s alive. He also never betrays any Skaven, sure he’ll run from a fight if he is losing but he and Ska never abandon one another and actually value the lives of the Skaven under them. That’s where the Storm-Vermin and Blood-Vermin come from, Skaven in Queeks clan who actually trust and support one another and it made Clan Moors the most powerful clan but also the most hated by the other clans because the other clans can’t comprehend trust or support of fellow Skaven. Ikit has cool guns, Thanquil is the funniest guy ever, but Queek will forever be the best Skaven and my favorite from the books and games.
Eh he's backstabbed lots of skaven just none that directly work for him(for example he's had a warlock engineer's doom wheel explode and told a assassin to attack a gray sear
Ikit: *blows up the moon and most of the unplayable factions* Skaven: “That still only counts as one!” “To win win without fighting is what skaven slaves are for for.” -Rattzoo, the art art of war.
Thanquol was introduced in Gotrek and Felix 2nd book, SkavenSlayer. He is insanely powerful, but mind bogglingly incompetent. He has a tendency of causing almost crippling casualties among Skaven forces with his plots to seize political power to lead said forces. For example: he ruined 2 irreplaceable Nurgle Relics owned by Clans Pestilens, plunged Hell Pit into a devastating civil war, sabotaged one of Ikit Claw's Doomspheres powerful enough to destroy the entire Dwarfen empire, and once summoned SKARBRAND THE EXILED BLOODTHIRSTER OF KHORNE onto the material plane. All of these by complete accident. One time, a Slann had him dead to rights. Skaven army destroyed, Boneripper dead, Thanquol alone and trying to sail from Lustria to Skavenblight on a wooden dinghy; all while being chased by a Lizardmen army with a Slann powerful enough to create hurricanes leading them. And the Slann just lets him go. Because he calculated that Thanquol is a bigger liability and danger to the Skaven than he is to the Lizardmen or any of the other races. The Slann even almost chuckled. An organic-robot toad thing that has the emotional spectrum of circuit board, almost LAUGHED imagining all the damage Thanquol would inflict to his own species. Thanquol is that cartoonishly bad. If he is ever added to Total War, I hope he is Legendary Hero who is an uber-powerful mage with insane combat abilities that causes negative growth in the provinces and attrition to all Skaven armies near by. That would be the most lore-accurate depiction for Thanquol.
@@whytho1637 These events happened in the Thanquol trilogy and the earlier Gotrek and Felix books. I don't know much about what happened to Thanquol in the End Times. Other than getting a new Boneripper and fighting a few battles.
9:50 honestly agree with every word spoken about Thanquol. He’s a Skaven’s Skaven and if you read about him In Gotrek/Felix’s books or in Thanquols own series, he’s so damn fun even when he’s being one of the most evil bastards ever. No matter what situation he gets himself into he somehow always manages to swindle his way out of it, which convinced him that he is the Horned Rats most favoured Skaven. He affectionately names his Rat Ogre bodyguard “Boneripper” and he’s had 4 to my knowledge. No.1 was the biggest rat ogre he bought from a beast market. Think that one got killed fighting a plague infested Rat Ogre that oozed maggots that could melt flesh. No.2 was a Clan Eshin Rat Ogre that was probably the most intelligent Rat Ogre to ever live, and he wound up eating that one because it was the only food he had in the dingy of a boat he had to sail home in. No.3 is the classic Boneripper, which is the remains of the 1st Boneripper but fitted with cyborg tech by Clan Skyre. It even had a built in Warpfire Thrower and a valve that made it so it couldn’t harm Clan Skyre members. Thanquol found the valve and removed it, torching some Warlock Engineers after doing so. No.4 was in the End Times and was essentially a 4 armed Boneripper except instead of having 1 warpfire thrower, it has 2, and still has 2 free hands to beat the crap out of whatever is threatening Thanquol….unless it’s Gotrek. It will never not be funny that Thanqoul thinks Gotrek is his biggest nemesis, when in reality Gotrek has no idea who he even is 😂 and just foils his schemes by complete accident
He's had more. Original Boneripper was sent to hunt down sewer workers who had seen the Skaven meeting with the Nuln secret police commander. Unfortunately for Boneripper, one of those sewer patrols was Gotrek. The first omnibus of Gotrek and Felix was so good because Thanquol was nominally in charge of the Skaven invasion force but all his subcommanders just nodded and did their own plans which he sabotaged by ratting them out to Gotrek and Felix (pun absolutely intended) including one Eshin guy who infiltrated a costume ball by everyone thinking he had a disguise on. Including Thanquol who blasted him trying to intimidate the other guests.
@@consolescrub4031 Thanquol references that party quite a bit in his book series, specially during the 2nd book where Clan Eshin forces him to accompany a band of assassins on an expedition to Lustria to assassinate a Slaan Priest. it’s quite the sore spot for him as he blames the assassin in Nuln for him ending up in this situation, when in reality Thanquol himself is the one who ordered the Assassin to murder other Skaven instead of focusing on the mission of weakening Nuln for the invasion.
AOS skaven have a rule where you roll 2 6 faced dice, to ring the bell. If you somehow get 13 ( impossible ), you must had cheat so you instantly win the game, Very skaven of you
That was only in the 1st edition. Nowadays, the grey seer can cast once per turn a spell with 3d6 rather than 2d6. If it's a natural 13, the spell is successful and can't be unbound, but you take d3 mortals. If it isn't a naturally 13, you remove one of the dice and that's your casting roll.
I can see Skaven in 40K. I just see them being insanely bureaucratic, signed in 13 times, accounting for how many droppings they leave. Truly going wild with it. Then i see them tunneling through the warp straight through the intestines of their great horned rat. Insanely disgusting and very skaven. I just see them as humans, with no morality and obsessive behaviour turned all the way up.
The only thing that I’ve found that comes close to being similar to the Skaven are the Kabal (I think that’s what they’re called.) from “The Spooks” series of books. But instead of Rat men, they are Wolf headed men that live in the Arctic, have a massive expanding empire that seeks to conquer the world, Casually breed monstrosity horrors as they’re own personal weapons, believe that they are the ones who are truly the inheritors of the world, politically infight to a HORRIFIC degree with their own mages and magic. And to top it all off, Humanity BARELY knows about them because it’s kept as a deliberate secret away from the majority by the select few of a secret order of humans that routinely face the supernatural. They’re the closest thing that I can think of that is directly similar to the Skaven, but it’s a rare, obscure and discreet source of comparison or inspiration. But yeah, The Skaven are still bloody awesome, and I say this as a Greenskin lover!!! 😂
Ah about the entire army getting deleted from AOS, it was the Beasts of Chaos. It got shunted into The Old World game mainly because the models are quite old and never got updated (but definitely not that old when you compare them to Skaven) and GW actually trolled the BoC players. Kragnos a giant centaur was thought to be a gift for BoC but it was actually for GA destruction (orruks, ogres, giants)
“Hi-Greetings, I am am Thanquol, and Welcome to Jackass!” *says while skinning 5 infants 3 different ways* -Skaven Grey seer Thanquol. Sorry, I miss typed; I mean 3 infants 5 different ways. 15:25 *Thorgrim Grudgebearer approves*
I think it was in the 5th edition rulebook they had an exhibition match involving 3 skaven players and one brettonian player, with the goal of the game that while the skaven are "allied" there is only one real winner determined by accomplishing victory objectives in the match, and then all every player was given secret objectives. The brettonian player had to hold a fort in the center of the map, one skaven player knew the fort was actually worth double points over what the others knew, one skaven player knew one of the objectives outside of the fort (Warpstone meteors with the fort having been the primary impact site) was actually an illusion created by his clan and was worth 0 points, and one skaven player knew of a secret tunnel route and had snuck advance units in to snag warp stone before the others. What resulted was quite a funny read, with the tunnel skaven emerging early on to take one of the meteors and start the bickering among the three, one skaven trying desperately to get his "allies" to commit to assaulting the fort to soften them up for him so that he could swoop in and steal the double points, the third skaven spending the whole match being incredibly petty and uncooperative with the other two while he went around collecting far away meteor sites for points since he knew the one that was taken early was an illusion and he didn't trust the other skaven player trying to convince him to attack the fort, all while the brettonian player just laughed at the chaos and kept nettling the other players to continue being petty with each other.
Thanquaol is great, his first appearance was in gotrek and Felix book 2. He makes many appearances in their books. But he also has a spinoff series of books and is one of the few characters who makes it into age of sigmar alive. (Because despite being a failure he really does exhibit all the traits and virtues of Skaven and the great horned rat)
I frequently wonder how 40k would manage having both the Skaven AND Orks, especially if they somehow combined forces. You'd have all the goofiness of both races, with the world ending potential of both races. I'd love a box of Skaven wearing scrapyard Ork armor, or something like a Plague Monk riding a Squig. I just ordered a couple boxes of Plague Monks, very much want to try kit bashing. Would absolutely love to give a Plague Monk a chain/energy sword and a Storm Bolter. Maybe some Drukhari wings too, cause fuck it.
Im 40k there is a planet with ratmen next to the eye of terror but its not a small story of the planet mutating the people go to the planet into ratmen. The skaven i feel needs alot of work to fit in 40k as everything that makes the skaven already exists in 40k constant back stabbing so much its comedic we have the impirium, living under cities waiting to attack we have genestealer cults and the mad tech we have the orks so skaven would need alot of work to fit in 40k
If I had to choose which Warhammer fantasy units were my favorite it’d be a toss up between the skaven jezzale teams (bigass sniper rifle with a shield) and the dark elf assassins.
40k actually has beastmen as imperial abhumans but they've been neglected and written off as being so persecuted by the imperium that most military branches don't even allow them to serve anymore while others will just kill them on sight. Maybe there's a chance we'll get them back as part of Guilliman's reforms in order to get more bodies into militarum, but I'm not holding my breath.
Redwall has armies of rats. It's a book series written by Brian Jacques if I remember. They're the "bad side" usually and mice are good. Things like snakes, lynxes, and most predators are usually seen as bad guys. Things like badgers, rabbit & hares, mice, and things like that are good. Birds can be either depending on what it is. Same with foxes but they're like the skaven, out for themselves lol. Really awesome books! They're young adult books so not hard to read or too complicated plots so don't expect something profound lol. I recommend them
Oh my god! Wave of nostalgia just hit me like a truck lol. I loved the Redwall books as a kid! Couldn't remember what they were called and haven't thought of them ever since, but thanks for reminding me.
So the Skaven 6th edition book literally told the player "learn to laugh when your models kill themselves", it summarized the Skaven very well, especially since that was back when your best spell (plague) could accidentally blow back and kill your army. I didn't realise Pancreas liked Nagash so much, considering he's Fantasy's biggest loser. That's not a joke either, his whole existence is that he's super salty because he wanted more, he decided to be a terrible person in order to get it, then he whined about the consequences of his actions. All of his grand designs ended in failure, and before the End Times decided to bring him back for no reason (no they didn't need to, they could've empowered anyone who was currently around instead of bringing back Nagash), he was so weak he couldn't even take physical form or wield magic properly anymore. Even in the End Times he immediately wastes everyone's time by going down to destroy Nehekhara, proving why he never should've been brought back in the first place, and then when he comes back to help out fight against Chaos, he completely fails again. The book even uses him and his treatment of Mannfred as justification for why Mannfred decided to kill off the whole world. The best part is that even in AoS Nagash is an absolute loser. The dude planned to betray his allies for no reason (there was also no good reason for Sigmar to let him out of the prison he found him in), he declared ownership over all the dead when he had no real right to them and nobody else agreed he should have them (his argument is that might gives him the right to call himself the god of death, but he also runs away when he gets challenged because he's a bitch), he ran away when chaos invaded, he ran away when Sigmar was pissed Nagash betrayed him, he lost multiple fights to Archaon (one of which destroyed his body completely), he lost his pyramid and completely ruined the realm of the dead by trying a plan that didn't work (shocking), he lost to Teclis when he tried invading, and even when he tried to challenge Chaos with supposedly the greatest strategist the realms had ever seen, he lost again (no, losing your whole army and claiming you'll win when you rebuild them is not a victory, it is a loss). Nagash is so stupid, he made Mannfred one of his Mortarchs (they're the people who rule when he is absent), because he assumes there's no way Mannfred, a serial backstabber, would backstab him AGAIN. I think the last thing that happened with him currently is Teclis blasted him and his body away, so for the third time now (at least, and that's just AoS), Nagash is stuck in a limbo where he cannot do anything and he needs everyone else to bail him out again. He's arguably the greatest loser in any Fantasy setting, even more than Thanquol, and Thanquol is a rat who, because he wanted to save money, watered down poison for his enemies so much it was safely drinkable. As for 40k, The Hrud used to be the Skaven in 40k, however they had sad a much sadder backstory, making them sad rats instead of Fantasy's mad rats. GW would later retcon the Hrud to be slime monsters.
To preface the following comment. I do not hate you, I respect you have an opinion and the following is all in good fun and any comments made against the person I am replying to are made in jest and good faith. What in the fuck? Nagash is the best hope for all beings in Warhammer. The dead do not feed Chaos and everything dies eventually. Nagash was… well is fairly petty and can be a bit of a dick… IF you cross him. He may have started as a douchebag mortal but he has grown and changed into what the realms need. Nagash may not have a “proper” claim to all the souls of the dead but he took that claim anyway by way of he could do it and no one could feasibly stop him. He then devoured all the other “proper” gods of death because they were too weak to stop him. He conquered death and that says a lot about his power. You know what else says a lot about his power? He makes the Skaven willingly work with non-Skaven and not betray those non-Skaven because they know what a threat he is and how powerful he actually is. His lack of respect of the Skaven is probably his greatest flaw… Nagash also treats his followers fairly and well, as long as they do what he tells them and before you hold that against him, what ruler doesn’t punish those who disobey them. His rules and orders seem a bit arbitrary at first but when you consider he is the god of death it starts to make sense. Even punishing doctors, nurses and healers for keeping people from dying makes sense when you consider some of the less than natural things they do to keep people from dying. I don’t think Nagash will punish a doctor for cleaning a wound that is infected or stitching up an otherwise fatal wound. I think it’s when these healers start calling on other gods and using unnatural methods to prevent death that they get put on the list. Again, not very open minded but who in Warhammer is? He even lets other religions have their afterlife and protects said afterlife. You just have to have a god of death be over your afterlife and that god of death needs to be named Nagash. Not a steep price to pay for an eternity of your chosen afterlife and security from you souls being messed with by chaos or others, at least as safe as they can be in Warhammer. Even then Nagash will go to great lengths to get your soul back if it is stolen. Granted it’s not because he necessarily cares about you individually but your soul is part of his realm and no one gets to take his subjects. He even cares about justice and punishment for those who commit crimes against the living and the dead. The Nighthaunt are the perfect example and even then there is some room somewhere for eventually being free. If you fail you can even get a chance to redeem yourself eventually. As for why he chose Mannfred as a Mortarch… Look, the dude is a master manipulator and schemer and ensures that any among the ranks of the death gods armies that are trying to overthrow him will be foiled in some way by Mannfred. He is a unique solution to a problem of being a death god that wants his undead to have some level of personality and autonomy, rather than an endless horde of mindless servants. I mean there are those as well but Nagash at least has that level of benevolence to allow his subjects some free will and room to live as they like as long as they follow his rules. In summary, Nagash is a lot like, what i understand at least, Dr. Doom. He isn’t wrong, he’s just an asshole about it. Everyone would be better off with him in charge and him as a complete and total dictator. Because part of his ego is he wants genuine, actual love and admiration from his subjects and isn’t so greedy or self-centered as to understand that happy and safe subjects will give him exactly what he wants. I have no doubt that if every other non-chaos faction bowed to him and declared him as their god, he would have some measure of mercy on even the soul thief himself and welcome them into his kingdom of undeath. Then Chaos would be defeated and destroyed and all would live happy, safe lives of eternal peace in undeath. He might even allow realms of the living to exist again, so that new subjects could be made and he would protect them. We see this with the Bonereavers and their taxes. If you serve Nagash, pay your taxes and follow the rules, they will not only leave you to your devices but also protect your borders and even take some part in your culture if allowed. Nagash is slowly becoming more benevolent and considering the scale of time for an eternal god of death, this is actually a breakneck pace realistically speaking. So don’t think Nagash is lame because he has been beaten. He was only beaten because everytime, the supreme faction that would conquer all of fantasy and AoS easily, if they weren’t so busy fighting themselves, stopped infighting and worked together with the other factions to stop Nagash. Because he would have succeeded. It was never a question of “if” Nagash could do what he was doing. It was going to work 100% guaranteed because he is that skilled and powerful. He had to be stopped by the most unlikely alliances in the history of Warhammer. The Skaven and the other factions. Also, the Skaven and other Skaven. Nagash has his flaws. He can get a little overconfident. But have you met Nagash? He’s Nagash! Of course he’s going to be over confident. You know whose fault it really is? The Skaven… He just needs to go do some push ups, sit ups and drink lots of juice and he will be back on top. And yes I think Nagash is kind of a Vegeta of Warhammer. He would also be awesome if he was voiced by Lanipator. Now I am rambling. Nagash 2024!!! Lol
@@XionDarkblood13 Nothing you wrote explains why they needed Nagash as the god of death, instead of literally anyone else they could've empowered, who would have been far less petty, more willing to work with others, and who wouldn't have done at least half a dozen plans that result in them losing everything (not to mention the amount of times he plotted to betray his allies for no good reason). Also for the record, you can't try painting Nagash as a guy who has the best in mind for people, especially when you try to claim he's in the right for going after doctors, just as an example. The lore is full of Nagash doing the worst things for little to no reason or gain, and he does not care about the morality of other people, all he cares about is whether or not it gives him more toys to play around with, which is why good doctors will also find themselves made into vengeful ghosts as well. To sum up, Nagash is a child throwing an eternal tantrum because he always wants more and the adults told him no.
@@lich109 well, I mean he ate the other gods of death. It’s not really a matter of needing or wanting Nagash. He took it. You could also argue “better the devil you know” as to why sigmar released him in the first place. I’m not gunna lie, I don’t know a ton of lore. I just like Nagash and the nighthaunt make my edgelord heart swoon lol. I may have also watched pancreasnoworks Nagash propaganda video and really got into it.
@@XionDarkblood13 But he didn't "take it", he was first empowered by the wind of death thanks to Mannfred and Arkhan, but this was a terrible idea that backfired horribly, and then he was trapped at the start of AoS and Sigmar chose to free him for no good reason, and even then it was also a choice to allow him to eat the others. Nagash as the god of death is a choice from multiple characters across multiple settings. You still aren't saying why they needed Nagash specifically instead of somebody else who doesn't fail at the rate of a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
@@lich109 I got nothing man. I just started learning fantasy/AoS/TOW lore. Nagash just seems cool and I think you aren’t giving enough credit on how close he came to succeeding each time. Really, at the end of the day, bad guys gotta lose. Nagash wins and there is no more warhammer to play or write (or sell). I would say a Saturday morning cartoon villain would be someone who loses because they can’t actually do what they set out to do. Like, they aren’t actually strong enough or smart enough or skilled enough. Nagash did have all his plans in the bag and if there hadn’t been interference he would have succeeded. Up until the finish line he got shit DONE. I’m trying to learn more about what he did in fantasy, but in AoS he built that pyramid and changed the entire realm of death magic and inverted how it works. That alone is a major victory for him. His plan failed and still brought about an apocalyptic level threat with the rise of the nighthaunt (I’ll be 100% honest, I adore the nighthaunt and everything about them. The lore, the models everything is so cool and makes me so happy and so by extension I am a Nagash supporter. They are what brought me from 40k to the fantasy side and I have only had a week or so to learn the lore ) Nagashes biggest flaw is he hasn’t learned to not underestimate the Skaven. I’m not even mad about it. Idk the full lore of Nagash from fantasy and it sounds like there may have been some of that cartoon failure villain from then. I just really like AoS Nagash and the idea of a benevolent but extremely arrogant character who has the best plan to save the universe from chaos and can pull it off but is such an arrogant asshole no one will follow his plan. Again it’s the Dr. Doom thing. Plus, again my bias is showing, I’m an edge lord and the entire death faction as a whole is my jam. Fuck the gods! Fuck the demons! I’d rather just die! lol and Nagash is like “what about if you died and could stick it to chaos and order and destruction?” “You son of a bitch I’m in.” It’s also why I like perturabo and the iron warriors in 40k. I get your point, it’s hard to argue anything wrong with what you’re saying. It’s meta that Nagash has to lose and it can be hard to justify it lorewise. I don’t know that much about sigmar but if I had to hazard a guess, he’s like the emperor from 40k and is also arrogant and thinks he knows best (and he might idk) and so thought he could control Nagash or handle whatever schemes he came up with. I mean, by your logic, you want someone who fails everytime as your enemy. Like he can handle the logistics and is able to work with us when the chips are down and if he acts up I can beat him down. If I made a OC procession of nighthaunt it would have the origin of a Nagash supporter who died to the Skaven and knows Nagash will never take them seriously and is secretly forming an anti-Skaven rat hunter squad to try to help Nagash succeed in the future. He’s trying to hide it from Nagash too, because he would probably be destroyed for implying the Skaven are a threat to Nagash.
I highly recommend overlord 1 and 2 those games are good and just mentioning them brings back good memories, not enough games allowed you be unapologetically evil.
I could be petty as a Ork player so I chose not to... As Skaven I couldn't, because my petty revenge was announcing that I actually won because I killed more of my army than you did.
In 40K, there are technically the Stryxis. Not that close, but...
And then there IS humans
Queek Headtaker is actually the nicer, if not the nicest of the Skaven, and also the most loyal. He doesn’t lead his clan because his adoptive father, lord Gnawdwell took him in when he was young and despite Queek saying he is the “best-best” he always defers to Gnawdwell’s decisions because he sees him as genuinely a better leader.
He has an unbreakable trust with his friend/bodygaurd Ska-Bloodtail (The largest non-mutated Skaven) and after the first time they met and Ska saved his life Queek gave him full access to his harem. I can’t explain how very rare it is for a Skaven, much less a Skaven up-and-coming lord would reward someone like that. Ska now is his right-hand rat and the sole reason he’s alive.
He also never betrays any Skaven, sure he’ll run from a fight if he is losing but he and Ska never abandon one another and actually value the lives of the Skaven under them. That’s where the Storm-Vermin and Blood-Vermin come from, Skaven in Queeks clan who actually trust and support one another and it made Clan Moors the most powerful clan but also the most hated by the other clans because the other clans can’t comprehend trust or support of fellow Skaven.
Ikit has cool guns, Thanquil is the funniest guy ever, but Queek will forever be the best Skaven and my favorite from the books and games.
Eh he's backstabbed lots of skaven just none that directly work for him(for example he's had a warlock engineer's doom wheel explode and told a assassin to attack a gray sear
Ikit: *blows up the moon and most of the unplayable factions*
Skaven: “That still only counts as one!”
“To win win without fighting is what skaven slaves are for for.”
-Rattzoo, the art art of war.
and to eat-kill when running low on black corn!
Thanquol was introduced in Gotrek and Felix 2nd book, SkavenSlayer. He is insanely powerful, but mind bogglingly incompetent. He has a tendency of causing almost crippling casualties among Skaven forces with his plots to seize political power to lead said forces. For example: he ruined 2 irreplaceable Nurgle Relics owned by Clans Pestilens, plunged Hell Pit into a devastating civil war, sabotaged one of Ikit Claw's Doomspheres powerful enough to destroy the entire Dwarfen empire, and once summoned SKARBRAND THE EXILED BLOODTHIRSTER OF KHORNE onto the material plane. All of these by complete accident.
One time, a Slann had him dead to rights. Skaven army destroyed, Boneripper dead, Thanquol alone and trying to sail from Lustria to Skavenblight on a wooden dinghy; all while being chased by a Lizardmen army with a Slann powerful enough to create hurricanes leading them. And the Slann just lets him go. Because he calculated that Thanquol is a bigger liability and danger to the Skaven than he is to the Lizardmen or any of the other races. The Slann even almost chuckled. An organic-robot toad thing that has the emotional spectrum of circuit board, almost LAUGHED imagining all the damage Thanquol would inflict to his own species. Thanquol is that cartoonishly bad.
If he is ever added to Total War, I hope he is Legendary Hero who is an uber-powerful mage with insane combat abilities that causes negative growth in the provinces and attrition to all Skaven armies near by. That would be the most lore-accurate depiction for Thanquol.
Do these events happen in his book series or just the endtimes?
Please I need to know
@@whytho1637 These events happened in the Thanquol trilogy and the earlier Gotrek and Felix books. I don't know much about what happened to Thanquol in the End Times. Other than getting a new Boneripper and fighting a few battles.
@@beomcheolkim8543 Damn I really gotta read the Thanquol books
How do you summon a demon by accident?
9:50 honestly agree with every word spoken about Thanquol. He’s a Skaven’s Skaven and if you read about him In Gotrek/Felix’s books or in Thanquols own series, he’s so damn fun even when he’s being one of the most evil bastards ever.
No matter what situation he gets himself into he somehow always manages to swindle his way out of it, which convinced him that he is the Horned Rats most favoured Skaven.
He affectionately names his Rat Ogre bodyguard “Boneripper” and he’s had 4 to my knowledge.
No.1 was the biggest rat ogre he bought from a beast market. Think that one got killed fighting a plague infested Rat Ogre that oozed maggots that could melt flesh.
No.2 was a Clan Eshin Rat Ogre that was probably the most intelligent Rat Ogre to ever live, and he wound up eating that one because it was the only food he had in the dingy of a boat he had to sail home in.
No.3 is the classic Boneripper, which is the remains of the 1st Boneripper but fitted with cyborg tech by Clan Skyre. It even had a built in Warpfire Thrower and a valve that made it so it couldn’t harm Clan Skyre members.
Thanquol found the valve and removed it, torching some Warlock Engineers after doing so.
No.4 was in the End Times and was essentially a 4 armed Boneripper except instead of having 1 warpfire thrower, it has 2, and still has 2 free hands to beat the crap out of whatever is threatening Thanquol….unless it’s Gotrek.
It will never not be funny that Thanqoul thinks Gotrek is his biggest nemesis, when in reality Gotrek has no idea who he even is 😂 and just foils his schemes by complete accident
He's had more. Original Boneripper was sent to hunt down sewer workers who had seen the Skaven meeting with the Nuln secret police commander. Unfortunately for Boneripper, one of those sewer patrols was Gotrek. The first omnibus of Gotrek and Felix was so good because Thanquol was nominally in charge of the Skaven invasion force but all his subcommanders just nodded and did their own plans which he sabotaged by ratting them out to Gotrek and Felix (pun absolutely intended) including one Eshin guy who infiltrated a costume ball by everyone thinking he had a disguise on. Including Thanquol who blasted him trying to intimidate the other guests.
@@consolescrub4031 Thanquol references that party quite a bit in his book series, specially during the 2nd book where Clan Eshin forces him to accompany a band of assassins on an expedition to Lustria to assassinate a Slaan Priest.
it’s quite the sore spot for him as he blames the assassin in Nuln for him ending up in this situation, when in reality Thanquol himself is the one who ordered the Assassin to murder other Skaven instead of focusing on the mission of weakening Nuln for the invasion.
AOS skaven have a rule where you roll 2 6 faced dice, to ring the bell. If you somehow get 13 ( impossible ), you must had cheat so you instantly win the game, Very skaven of you
That was only in the 1st edition. Nowadays, the grey seer can cast once per turn a spell with 3d6 rather than 2d6. If it's a natural 13, the spell is successful and can't be unbound, but you take d3 mortals. If it isn't a naturally 13, you remove one of the dice and that's your casting roll.
So basically the skaven are a mix of starscream and jack horner on a species wide scale.
I can see Skaven in 40K.
I just see them being insanely bureaucratic, signed in 13 times, accounting for how many droppings they leave. Truly going wild with it.
Then i see them tunneling through the warp straight through the intestines of their great horned rat. Insanely disgusting and very skaven.
I just see them as humans, with no morality and obsessive behaviour turned all the way up.
17:20 the best way to think of the verminlord is like daemon princes/greater daemons of the Horned Rat
The only thing that I’ve found that comes close to being similar to the Skaven are the Kabal (I think that’s what they’re called.) from “The Spooks” series of books.
But instead of Rat men, they are Wolf headed men that live in the Arctic, have a massive expanding empire that seeks to conquer the world, Casually breed monstrosity horrors as they’re own personal weapons, believe that they are the ones who are truly the inheritors of the world, politically infight to a HORRIFIC degree with their own mages and magic. And to top it all off, Humanity BARELY knows about them because it’s kept as a deliberate secret away from the majority by the select few of a secret order of humans that routinely face the supernatural.
They’re the closest thing that I can think of that is directly similar to the Skaven, but it’s a rare, obscure and discreet source of comparison or inspiration.
But yeah, The Skaven are still bloody awesome, and I say this as a Greenskin lover!!! 😂
Fiction-wise, I would say the closest parallel to the Skaven would be the Skeksis from Jim Henson's Dark Crystal.
Or The Rats of Nimh.
Warcraft Goblins are pretty close.
Ah about the entire army getting deleted from AOS, it was the Beasts of Chaos. It got shunted into The Old World game mainly because the models are quite old and never got updated (but definitely not that old when you compare them to Skaven) and GW actually trolled the BoC players. Kragnos a giant centaur was thought to be a gift for BoC but it was actually for GA destruction (orruks, ogres, giants)
“Hi-Greetings, I am am Thanquol, and Welcome to Jackass!” *says while skinning 5 infants 3 different ways*
-Skaven Grey seer Thanquol.
Sorry, I miss typed; I mean 3 infants 5 different ways.
15:25 *Thorgrim Grudgebearer approves*
I think it was in the 5th edition rulebook they had an exhibition match involving 3 skaven players and one brettonian player, with the goal of the game that while the skaven are "allied" there is only one real winner determined by accomplishing victory objectives in the match, and then all every player was given secret objectives. The brettonian player had to hold a fort in the center of the map, one skaven player knew the fort was actually worth double points over what the others knew, one skaven player knew one of the objectives outside of the fort (Warpstone meteors with the fort having been the primary impact site) was actually an illusion created by his clan and was worth 0 points, and one skaven player knew of a secret tunnel route and had snuck advance units in to snag warp stone before the others. What resulted was quite a funny read, with the tunnel skaven emerging early on to take one of the meteors and start the bickering among the three, one skaven trying desperately to get his "allies" to commit to assaulting the fort to soften them up for him so that he could swoop in and steal the double points, the third skaven spending the whole match being incredibly petty and uncooperative with the other two while he went around collecting far away meteor sites for points since he knew the one that was taken early was an illusion and he didn't trust the other skaven player trying to convince him to attack the fort, all while the brettonian player just laughed at the chaos and kept nettling the other players to continue being petty with each other.
If you gave a skaven a potion that would 90% of the time kill them and 10% of the time giving them super powers... they will drink it 100% of the time
Not before eating you though
8:58 both is good truer words have never been said
Verminlords are the greater deamons of the skaven
They’re only in AoS.
@@evandonnelly2760 no they are not
@@evandonnelly2760Verminlords were a thing even back in fantasy
Thanquaol is great, his first appearance was in gotrek and Felix book 2. He makes many appearances in their books. But he also has a spinoff series of books and is one of the few characters who makes it into age of sigmar alive. (Because despite being a failure he really does exhibit all the traits and virtues of Skaven and the great horned rat)
I frequently wonder how 40k would manage having both the Skaven AND Orks, especially if they somehow combined forces. You'd have all the goofiness of both races, with the world ending potential of both races. I'd love a box of Skaven wearing scrapyard Ork armor, or something like a Plague Monk riding a Squig.
I just ordered a couple boxes of Plague Monks, very much want to try kit bashing. Would absolutely love to give a Plague Monk a chain/energy sword and a Storm Bolter. Maybe some Drukhari wings too, cause fuck it.
Im 40k there is a planet with ratmen next to the eye of terror but its not a small story of the planet mutating the people go to the planet into ratmen. The skaven i feel needs alot of work to fit in 40k as everything that makes the skaven already exists in 40k constant back stabbing so much its comedic we have the impirium, living under cities waiting to attack we have genestealer cults and the mad tech we have the orks so skaven would need alot of work to fit in 40k
If I had to choose which Warhammer fantasy units were my favorite it’d be a toss up between the skaven jezzale teams (bigass sniper rifle with a shield) and the dark elf assassins.
40k actually has beastmen as imperial abhumans but they've been neglected and written off as being so persecuted by the imperium that most military branches don't even allow them to serve anymore while others will just kill them on sight. Maybe there's a chance we'll get them back as part of Guilliman's reforms in order to get more bodies into militarum, but I'm not holding my breath.
They have only recently resurfaced as a Chaos Killteam cause GW will never give the beasts a break.
Redwall has armies of rats. It's a book series written by Brian Jacques if I remember. They're the "bad side" usually and mice are good. Things like snakes, lynxes, and most predators are usually seen as bad guys. Things like badgers, rabbit & hares, mice, and things like that are good. Birds can be either depending on what it is. Same with foxes but they're like the skaven, out for themselves lol. Really awesome books! They're young adult books so not hard to read or too complicated plots so don't expect something profound lol. I recommend them
Oh my god! Wave of nostalgia just hit me like a truck lol. I loved the Redwall books as a kid! Couldn't remember what they were called and haven't thought of them ever since, but thanks for reminding me.
So the Skaven 6th edition book literally told the player "learn to laugh when your models kill themselves", it summarized the Skaven very well, especially since that was back when your best spell (plague) could accidentally blow back and kill your army.
I didn't realise Pancreas liked Nagash so much, considering he's Fantasy's biggest loser. That's not a joke either, his whole existence is that he's super salty because he wanted more, he decided to be a terrible person in order to get it, then he whined about the consequences of his actions. All of his grand designs ended in failure, and before the End Times decided to bring him back for no reason (no they didn't need to, they could've empowered anyone who was currently around instead of bringing back Nagash), he was so weak he couldn't even take physical form or wield magic properly anymore. Even in the End Times he immediately wastes everyone's time by going down to destroy Nehekhara, proving why he never should've been brought back in the first place, and then when he comes back to help out fight against Chaos, he completely fails again. The book even uses him and his treatment of Mannfred as justification for why Mannfred decided to kill off the whole world.
The best part is that even in AoS Nagash is an absolute loser. The dude planned to betray his allies for no reason (there was also no good reason for Sigmar to let him out of the prison he found him in), he declared ownership over all the dead when he had no real right to them and nobody else agreed he should have them (his argument is that might gives him the right to call himself the god of death, but he also runs away when he gets challenged because he's a bitch), he ran away when chaos invaded, he ran away when Sigmar was pissed Nagash betrayed him, he lost multiple fights to Archaon (one of which destroyed his body completely), he lost his pyramid and completely ruined the realm of the dead by trying a plan that didn't work (shocking), he lost to Teclis when he tried invading, and even when he tried to challenge Chaos with supposedly the greatest strategist the realms had ever seen, he lost again (no, losing your whole army and claiming you'll win when you rebuild them is not a victory, it is a loss). Nagash is so stupid, he made Mannfred one of his Mortarchs (they're the people who rule when he is absent), because he assumes there's no way Mannfred, a serial backstabber, would backstab him AGAIN. I think the last thing that happened with him currently is Teclis blasted him and his body away, so for the third time now (at least, and that's just AoS), Nagash is stuck in a limbo where he cannot do anything and he needs everyone else to bail him out again. He's arguably the greatest loser in any Fantasy setting, even more than Thanquol, and Thanquol is a rat who, because he wanted to save money, watered down poison for his enemies so much it was safely drinkable.
As for 40k, The Hrud used to be the Skaven in 40k, however they had sad a much sadder backstory, making them sad rats instead of Fantasy's mad rats. GW would later retcon the Hrud to be slime monsters.
To preface the following comment. I do not hate you, I respect you have an opinion and the following is all in good fun and any comments made against the person I am replying to are made in jest and good faith.
What in the fuck? Nagash is the best hope for all beings in Warhammer. The dead do not feed Chaos and everything dies eventually. Nagash was… well is fairly petty and can be a bit of a dick… IF you cross him. He may have started as a douchebag mortal but he has grown and changed into what the realms need.
Nagash may not have a “proper” claim to all the souls of the dead but he took that claim anyway by way of he could do it and no one could feasibly stop him. He then devoured all the other “proper” gods of death because they were too weak to stop him. He conquered death and that says a lot about his power. You know what else says a lot about his power? He makes the Skaven willingly work with non-Skaven and not betray those non-Skaven because they know what a threat he is and how powerful he actually is. His lack of respect of the Skaven is probably his greatest flaw…
Nagash also treats his followers fairly and well, as long as they do what he tells them and before you hold that against him, what ruler doesn’t punish those who disobey them. His rules and orders seem a bit arbitrary at first but when you consider he is the god of death it starts to make sense. Even punishing doctors, nurses and healers for keeping people from dying makes sense when you consider some of the less than natural things they do to keep people from dying. I don’t think Nagash will punish a doctor for cleaning a wound that is infected or stitching up an otherwise fatal wound. I think it’s when these healers start calling on other gods and using unnatural methods to prevent death that they get put on the list. Again, not very open minded but who in Warhammer is?
He even lets other religions have their afterlife and protects said afterlife. You just have to have a god of death be over your afterlife and that god of death needs to be named Nagash. Not a steep price to pay for an eternity of your chosen afterlife and security from you souls being messed with by chaos or others, at least as safe as they can be in Warhammer. Even then Nagash will go to great lengths to get your soul back if it is stolen. Granted it’s not because he necessarily cares about you individually but your soul is part of his realm and no one gets to take his subjects.
He even cares about justice and punishment for those who commit crimes against the living and the dead. The Nighthaunt are the perfect example and even then there is some room somewhere for eventually being free. If you fail you can even get a chance to redeem yourself eventually.
As for why he chose Mannfred as a Mortarch… Look, the dude is a master manipulator and schemer and ensures that any among the ranks of the death gods armies that are trying to overthrow him will be foiled in some way by Mannfred. He is a unique solution to a problem of being a death god that wants his undead to have some level of personality and autonomy, rather than an endless horde of mindless servants. I mean there are those as well but Nagash at least has that level of benevolence to allow his subjects some free will and room to live as they like as long as they follow his rules.
In summary, Nagash is a lot like, what i understand at least, Dr. Doom. He isn’t wrong, he’s just an asshole about it. Everyone would be better off with him in charge and him as a complete and total dictator. Because part of his ego is he wants genuine, actual love and admiration from his subjects and isn’t so greedy or self-centered as to understand that happy and safe subjects will give him exactly what he wants. I have no doubt that if every other non-chaos faction bowed to him and declared him as their god, he would have some measure of mercy on even the soul thief himself and welcome them into his kingdom of undeath. Then Chaos would be defeated and destroyed and all would live happy, safe lives of eternal peace in undeath. He might even allow realms of the living to exist again, so that new subjects could be made and he would protect them. We see this with the Bonereavers and their taxes. If you serve Nagash, pay your taxes and follow the rules, they will not only leave you to your devices but also protect your borders and even take some part in your culture if allowed. Nagash is slowly becoming more benevolent and considering the scale of time for an eternal god of death, this is actually a breakneck pace realistically speaking.
So don’t think Nagash is lame because he has been beaten. He was only beaten because everytime, the supreme faction that would conquer all of fantasy and AoS easily, if they weren’t so busy fighting themselves, stopped infighting and worked together with the other factions to stop Nagash. Because he would have succeeded. It was never a question of “if” Nagash could do what he was doing. It was going to work 100% guaranteed because he is that skilled and powerful. He had to be stopped by the most unlikely alliances in the history of Warhammer. The Skaven and the other factions. Also, the Skaven and other Skaven.
Nagash has his flaws. He can get a little overconfident. But have you met Nagash? He’s Nagash! Of course he’s going to be over confident. You know whose fault it really is? The Skaven… He just needs to go do some push ups, sit ups and drink lots of juice and he will be back on top. And yes I think Nagash is kind of a Vegeta of Warhammer. He would also be awesome if he was voiced by Lanipator. Now I am rambling. Nagash 2024!!! Lol
@@XionDarkblood13 Nothing you wrote explains why they needed Nagash as the god of death, instead of literally anyone else they could've empowered, who would have been far less petty, more willing to work with others, and who wouldn't have done at least half a dozen plans that result in them losing everything (not to mention the amount of times he plotted to betray his allies for no good reason).
Also for the record, you can't try painting Nagash as a guy who has the best in mind for people, especially when you try to claim he's in the right for going after doctors, just as an example. The lore is full of Nagash doing the worst things for little to no reason or gain, and he does not care about the morality of other people, all he cares about is whether or not it gives him more toys to play around with, which is why good doctors will also find themselves made into vengeful ghosts as well.
To sum up, Nagash is a child throwing an eternal tantrum because he always wants more and the adults told him no.
@@lich109 well, I mean he ate the other gods of death. It’s not really a matter of needing or wanting Nagash. He took it. You could also argue “better the devil you know” as to why sigmar released him in the first place. I’m not gunna lie, I don’t know a ton of lore. I just like Nagash and the nighthaunt make my edgelord heart swoon lol. I may have also watched pancreasnoworks Nagash propaganda video and really got into it.
@@XionDarkblood13 But he didn't "take it", he was first empowered by the wind of death thanks to Mannfred and Arkhan, but this was a terrible idea that backfired horribly, and then he was trapped at the start of AoS and Sigmar chose to free him for no good reason, and even then it was also a choice to allow him to eat the others. Nagash as the god of death is a choice from multiple characters across multiple settings.
You still aren't saying why they needed Nagash specifically instead of somebody else who doesn't fail at the rate of a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
@@lich109 I got nothing man. I just started learning fantasy/AoS/TOW lore. Nagash just seems cool and I think you aren’t giving enough credit on how close he came to succeeding each time. Really, at the end of the day, bad guys gotta lose. Nagash wins and there is no more warhammer to play or write (or sell). I would say a Saturday morning cartoon villain would be someone who loses because they can’t actually do what they set out to do. Like, they aren’t actually strong enough or smart enough or skilled enough. Nagash did have all his plans in the bag and if there hadn’t been interference he would have succeeded. Up until the finish line he got shit DONE. I’m trying to learn more about what he did in fantasy, but in AoS he built that pyramid and changed the entire realm of death magic and inverted how it works. That alone is a major victory for him. His plan failed and still brought about an apocalyptic level threat with the rise of the nighthaunt (I’ll be 100% honest, I adore the nighthaunt and everything about them. The lore, the models everything is so cool and makes me so happy and so by extension I am a Nagash supporter. They are what brought me from 40k to the fantasy side and I have only had a week or so to learn the lore ) Nagashes biggest flaw is he hasn’t learned to not underestimate the Skaven. I’m not even mad about it. Idk the full lore of Nagash from fantasy and it sounds like there may have been some of that cartoon failure villain from then. I just really like AoS Nagash and the idea of a benevolent but extremely arrogant character who has the best plan to save the universe from chaos and can pull it off but is such an arrogant asshole no one will follow his plan. Again it’s the Dr. Doom thing. Plus, again my bias is showing, I’m an edge lord and the entire death faction as a whole is my jam. Fuck the gods! Fuck the demons! I’d rather just die! lol and Nagash is like “what about if you died and could stick it to chaos and order and destruction?” “You son of a bitch I’m in.” It’s also why I like perturabo and the iron warriors in 40k.
I get your point, it’s hard to argue anything wrong with what you’re saying. It’s meta that Nagash has to lose and it can be hard to justify it lorewise. I don’t know that much about sigmar but if I had to hazard a guess, he’s like the emperor from 40k and is also arrogant and thinks he knows best (and he might idk) and so thought he could control Nagash or handle whatever schemes he came up with. I mean, by your logic, you want someone who fails everytime as your enemy. Like he can handle the logistics and is able to work with us when the chips are down and if he acts up I can beat him down.
If I made a OC procession of nighthaunt it would have the origin of a Nagash supporter who died to the Skaven and knows Nagash will never take them seriously and is secretly forming an anti-Skaven rat hunter squad to try to help Nagash succeed in the future. He’s trying to hide it from Nagash too, because he would probably be destroyed for implying the Skaven are a threat to Nagash.
There's a Skaven in Hololive
I highly recommend overlord 1 and 2 those games are good and just mentioning them brings back good memories, not enough games allowed you be unapologetically evil.
The channel 40k theories has a homebrew of the week video about the skaven being in 40k and I think it works well
Skaven are getting a range refresh
The Verminlords are the greater demons of the horned rat, straight out of the realm of ruin.
I could be petty as a Ork player so I chose not to... As Skaven I couldn't, because my petty revenge was announcing that I actually won because I killed more of my army than you did.
There’s actually a THIRD inspiration for the Skaven:
The Nazis.
I’m not joking, in Warhammer Fantasy they used to call themselves the “Master Race”.
The amount of cope Pancreas has regarding pricing is hilarious.
27:15 skaven are already in 40k they are just called Ratling
They’re not rat people though. They’re hobbits