The Skaven : Hell-Pit Abomination

DarkLordD

Hello everyone, how are you all holding up today ?

Today I would like to discuss ; The Hell-Pit Abomination


I hear a lot of negative stuff about the units, and I kind of understand why I think.


This is my first Skaven Campaign in all the time I have been playing Warhammer 2 (with is 1600 hours now) and I am having a true blast. The Hell Pit is one of those units I really really looked forward to, and at turn 147 or so, it become a reality.

So far I have used it very limited. I got 2 now, and got another 2 doomwheels in the same army, and that's it. There was a rogue army raiding my capital region, and because of it I was in the - money wise. So I had to do something, I thought, maybe its possible to just attack them with the aforementioned units, even while the rogua army had 12 untis with 3 of them Chaos Knights.


Well they won, and they don't look THAT BAD as people say. But again, I am just starting to use them, today I will find out most likely how they are truly holding up.


Let discuss. The Hellpit, what are the opinions about this most awesome looking unit !? Truly the pinnacle of Skaven engineering/experiment/magic combined together I would say !

Commissar_G

I haven't played Skaven in a long time (waiting for jezzails) but I could not get them to fight anything end game and actually beat it.

It's gimmick, the resurrect, isn't even that powerful. It just regens 1000hp when near death instead of actually coming back to life like the phoenix.

Vanilla_Gorilla

They're great single unit and monster killers. Though they work best in a blob rather than on their own. In a blob they can soak damage up and belt on something. Alone they'll be surrounded and killed.

DarkLordD

Commissar_G said:

I haven't played Skaven in a long time (waiting for jezzails) but I could not get them to fight anything end game and actually beat it.

It's gimmick, the resurrect, isn't even that powerful. It just regens 1000hp when near death instead of actually coming back to life like the phoenix.

Hey ! fancy meeting you here


Truly ? I thought they could really have a change to revive them self, and on top of that, have a change to regain 1000 health when under 10% health !

so that is not the same as a change to resurrect when they actually DIE ... hmm that is a bumper to say the least !



It is such a shame they are not viable. I will have to try it out myself though. I just need to make them work, they are to awesome to skip upon ! and a nice unit vs large is not to bad either right now in my gameplay !


I think the Hell pit would have been better off as an Anti Infantry unit. A good Anti Infantry unit beside the globadier, would be a very welcome addition. One that is more agile and melee instead of the short range option you have now with Globadiers.

Commissar_G

DarkLordD said:

Commissar_G said:

I haven't played Skaven in a long time (waiting for jezzails) but I could not get them to fight anything end game and actually beat it.

It's gimmick, the resurrect, isn't even that powerful. It just regens 1000hp when near death instead of actually coming back to life like the phoenix.

Hey ! fancy meeting you here


Truly ? I thought they could really have a change to revive them self, and on top of that, have a change to regain 1000 health when under 10% health !

so that is not the same as a change to resurrect when they actually DIE ... hmm that is a bumper to say the least !



It is such a shame they are not viable. I will have to try it out myself though. I just need to make them work, they are to awesome to skip upon ! and a nice unit vs large is not to bad either right now in my gameplay !


I think the Hell pit would have been better off as an Anti Infantry unit. A good Anti Infantry unit beside the globadier, would be a very welcome addition. One that is more agile and melee instead of the short range option you have now with Globadiers.

If you can get them to work, more power to you. In the end I found it more effective to just take more rat ogres or lightning cannons instead.

adreeasa

They are good to fight mounted lords, chariots, mediocre infantry, monsters ( few will wreck it though ); they are even better with some clanrats soaking damage around it. Sure, you can get more effective units, but the game is about fun as well..... 10 star dragons and 10 dragon princes ( with a lord on the dragon ) will beat about anything, but it's not fun for long

DarkLordD

adreeasa said:

They are good to fight mounted lords, chariots, mediocre infantry, monsters ( few will wreck it though ); they are even better with some clanrats soaking damage around it. Sure, you can get more effective units, but the game is about fun as well..... 10 star dragons and 10 dragon princes ( with a lord on the dragon ) will beat about anything, but it's not fun for long

I do agree with that yes I would go for a fun army above an effective army ANY DAY. If I want to play effective, I play MP

But purely about performance, it seems to be a bit underwhelming then ?

Mogwai_Man

Its a good unit thats meant to fight single entity large targets

TheShiroOfDalton

The HPA suffers from a pretty serious flaw, it does no splash damage. It throws units around a lot when it hits them, but only one model actually suffers damage. That means a basic unit of spearmen of any kind can easily poke it to death because the HPA will take ages to even eliminate one single model out of the unit. The Too Horrible To Die rule is also badly implemented as its effect gives you a 50% chance of losing the HPA before it even lost all HP and even when it procs the HP gain is very low. With that fifty-fifty chance it should at least restore the HPA to half health.

DarkLordD

Ephraim_Dalton said:

The HPA suffers from a pretty serious flaw, it does no splash damage. It throws units around a lot when it hits them, but only one model actually suffers damage. That means a basic unit of spearmen of any kind can easily poke it to death because the HPA will take ages to even eliminate one single model out of the unit. The Too Horrible To Die rule is also badly implemented as its effect gives you a 50% chance of losing the HPA before it even lost all HP and even when it procs the HP gain is very low. With that fifty-fifty chance it should at least restore the HPA to half health.

I noticed it trows units around a lot, very very annoying. Nobody has time to keep pressing the attack button on a unit after it flies away.

Zergles

Hellpits are good. They just have a niche. You can't have a bunch of them and expect it to pay off.

They are your best unit for dealing with TKs, VC, and Lizardmen. To an extent, Greenskins and Norsca too. Any enemy that can bring a ton of monster OR is low leadership is a great reason to bring one or two A-Bombs.

Sad fact of the matter is, you have to swap them for other units sometimes.

Nyxilis

They can splatter other large units, but not solo. Usually I tie the large up with spear stormvermin then send it in. That combo seemed to work fairly well.

That said, it's got some issues because it's attack animations slow down it's actual dps rather bad. It definitely needs a little tweaking.

Kayosiv

I've never l liked how low it's charge bonus is.

In tabletop the Hellplit has impact his and is devastating on the charge. Considering it's middling speed, cycle charging with it would be difficult anyway. I'd support upping it's charge bonus to respectable numbers.

_redzone_

My only experience with hell pit Aboms is fighting agaisnt them

I had an interesting super small scale fight agaisnt a skaven army with one fielded and I was using Skarsnik and his gobbos.

The both fights I sent skarsnik to deal with the HP abomination and on the first try I ended up losing the fight because it triggered the 1000hp heal and I couldn't kill it

The next try it didn't and I won...

I would never count on a dice roll like that if I was playing skaven, but there are those times they make a difference I guess.

Every other fight I saw them in i just focused with ranged infantry, GREENSKIN ranged infantry, and I forgot about it for the duration of the fight. Under focused fire the thing would just melt, even to **** ranged units.

DarkLordD

_redzone_ said:

My only experience with hell pit Aboms is fighting agaisnt them

I had an interesting super small scale fight agaisnt a skaven army with one fielded and I was using Skarsnik and his gobbos.

The both fights I sent skarsnik to deal with the HP abomination and on the first try I ended up losing the fight because it triggered the 1000hp heal and I couldn't kill it

The next try it didn't and I won...

I would never count on a dice roll like that if I was playing skaven, but there are those times they make a difference I guess.

Every other fight I saw them in i just focused with ranged infantry, GREENSKIN ranged infantry, and I forgot about it for the duration of the fight. Under focused fire the thing would just melt, even to **** ranged units.

Yes I know what you mean. I have bad fights against it to when it would heal quite often and didn't war to die. Other times it was really not a big deal.

It's such a strange strange unit. I do use it now, 2 in my main army, it's just to cool to pass on. I'll find a use for it. Using it as a tank now, kinda works. And if course I use it against middle tier cavalry, large monsters for pinning then down.


I would have loved it to be better. It's such a crazy cool looking unit. And definitely a true horror in the lore. They didn't give him the fearsome name in game as it deserves.

SakuraHeinz

I dont know why every single giant Monster gets a thread, they are not supposed to be overpowered at everything, they have their roles too, if you send hammerers or chosen against Nasty skulkers they will lose a lot of units cause they are not supposed to fight them.

Hellpit is should fight non anti-large cav armour piercing infantry etc, and never send your giant monster alone in the fight it will probably get swarmed.

stankgangsta

It is ok vs infantry and other monster but will lose to elite infantry and specialized monsters. I tend to include them in my late game armies because having a tough monster is almost always useful

psychoak

It's got regeneration, clearly you never want it to be taking large quantities of damage fast.

Clear off the enemy ranged units, and keep it supported. Do this, and it will kill star dragons, kharibdyss, and carnosaurs. Duel them instead, and it will die, without regenerating a significant portion of it's massive health pool.

steam_165171714789pPAEKOH

psychoak said:

It's got regeneration, clearly you never want it to be taking large quantities of damage fast.

Correctly me if I'm wrong but is this the point of the Hell Pit in table top? That it can come back from the dead entirely? Isn't that what makes it so monstrous?

My impression was that Skaven table top were very high-risk high-reward. That units could just explode, or fire into the backs of their own troops. The HPA fits into that by giving you a chance of coming back entirely from the dead.

It seems the big trouble with the HPA is the trouble with Skaven as a whole. They can't implement the risky nature of the table top in Total War, so instead we get a watered down version that simply has a regen.

If it was a unit that could literally come back from the dead at full HP then would you be essentially rolling the dice on paying 2-for-1. That would make bringing them to battle far more worthwhile, or a terrible disaster.

Zergles

endikux said:

psychoak said:

It's got regeneration, clearly you never want it to be taking large quantities of damage fast.

Correctly me if I'm wrong but is this the point of the Hell Pit in table top? That it can come back from the dead entirely? Isn't that what makes it so monstrous?

My impression was that Skaven table top were very high-risk high-reward. That units could just explode, or fire into the backs of their own troops. The HPA fits into that by giving you a chance of coming back entirely from the dead.

It seems the big trouble with the HPA is the trouble with Skaven as a whole. They can't implement the risky nature of the table top in Total War, so instead we get a watered down version that simply has a regen.

If it was a unit that could literally come back from the dead at full HP then would you be essentially rolling the dice on paying 2-for-1. That would make bringing them to battle far more worthwhile, or a terrible disaster.

Basically. The issue with Skaven's TT "Random Numbers Game" nature being brought into TW is that it would ruin your campaign at some point. Eventually you'd lose all of your armies faster than you could replenish them. Or you COULD get lucky and just faceroll the whole map.

CA had to bring that down to a reasonable level. In the TT all Skaven war machines and artillary had a chance to simply explode. And Rat Ogers had the "stupid" trait and had to pass leadership tests to actually be useful.

CA could have done a better job at bringing it over to TW. But they had to think about ALL of the Skaven strengths and weaknesses. Skaven should technically have nearly unbreakable leadership so long as you have a big army. But they couldn't do that (hence Skurry Away taking the strength in numbers trait's place) and they had to make sure you couldn't lose an entire army based on RNG..

In the TT it worked because you only played one battle at a time, and the Skaven special rules balanced out. But in TW? Nah. You'd be guaranteed to eventually lose because somewhere, somehow, all of your Doomwheels would explode with no way to get new ones, your Abombs would never come back, your artillary would explode, your weapons teams would backfire etc.

BrynjarK

The hell pit should be the last weapon you use to break their morale once and for all. After you killed heroes, tied up monsters and archers. Combine it with spells/rat ogre flankings and you should have the enemy on their tails(bums) soon

DarkLordD

_redzone_ said:

My only experience with hell pit Aboms is fighting agaisnt them

I had an interesting super small scale fight agaisnt a skaven army with one fielded and I was using Skarsnik and his gobbos.

The both fights I sent skarsnik to deal with the HP abomination and on the first try I ended up losing the fight because it triggered the 1000hp heal and I couldn't kill it

The next try it didn't and I won...

I would never count on a dice roll like that if I was playing skaven, but there are those times they make a difference I guess.

Every other fight I saw them in i just focused with ranged infantry, GREENSKIN ranged infantry, and I forgot about it for the duration of the fight. Under focused fire the thing would just melt, even to **** ranged units.

Yes I know what you mean. I have bad fights against it to when it would heal quite often and didn't war to die. Other times it was really not a big deal.

It's such a strange strange unit. I do use it now, 2 in my main army, it's just to cool to pass on. I'll find a use for it. Using it as a tank now, kinda works. And if course I use it against middle tier cavalry, large monsters for pinning then down.


I would have loved it to be better. It's such a crazy cool looking unit. And definitely a true horror in the lore. They didn't give him the

SakuraHeinz said:

I dont know why every single giant Monster gets a thread, they are not supposed to be overpowered at everything, they have their roles too, if you send hammerers or chosen against Nasty skulkers they will lose a lot of units cause they are not supposed to fight them.

Hellpit is should fight non anti-large cav armour piercing infantry etc, and never send your giant monster alone in the fight it will probably get swarmed.

Because we are just having a talk for fun reason. Nothing more nothing less. Doest always have to be a plead for a change, I come to this forum to share excitement of our shared love for the game, and discussing diffrent units is for me one of them .

Good day.