To be fair, it is very strong in close combat with weapon skill 8 combined with initiative 10 means that it will hit before (or at the same time) as anything that isnt an elf and will often hit on 3+ (the best possible without modifiers) with an impressive 5 attacks

And at strength 6 with D3 damage for every succesful wound, there are few models that can comfortably face this literal demon.

Even if it somehow lost a combat, being a demon, it is unbreakable, meaning it will not leave the battlefield until it is dead.

On top of a monstrous melee output and unshakeable will, it is also a level 4 wizard, having access to both the lore of plague and the lore of ruin, as well as being able to swap one of its generated spells with the aptly named 'dreaded thirteenth spell'.

I will not get into 8th ed magic (technically 6th ed magic but whatever) at this time but suffice to say the above paragraphs spells a very powerful datasheet.

And it better be, at a whopping 500 points cost, it takes up a whole 4th of your army and half of your lords and heroes allowance.

A fourth of your army into one unit, needless to say, a big investment for any system so its sudden loss is always a large blow to your entire army so, you think, it must be fairly tough to compensate for the massive target you paint on it by explaining its rules to your opponent, right?

5 wounds is just ok, 100 PTS per wound is expensive but the rest of the statline and rules mostly makes up for that.

Its below avarage for a monster at toughness 5 but that should still be enough to shrug off most small arms fire.

The armor save... is nonexistent, which makes sence Ig considering that it isnt actually wearing armor.

But the Verminlord is a demon, born from a dark and cheesy corner of the warp and summoned into the world that was in a ritual which is equally as dangerous for the summoners as it is for their enemies, surely, it must be afforded some kind of protection for the blades and bullets that peirce through its thick, matted fur?

a 5 plus ward save, for five hundred points, you get a 5 plus unmodifiable save.

Now before I get started I want to say that this issue is shared with every other daemon (except khornes lucky bastards) throughout whfb 8th edition but it is an issue worth mentioning, especially when your 500 point sink can and will croak from the first gust of wind that succesfully ruffles its hair (possibly literally).

Now without getting into the troubles of running a monster while cannons exist in the same game I would like to share a personal story.

The fist time I played with the (this) Verminlord was on a 2v2 tournament in my local club, each player would get assigned a teammate and 1000 points with which to build an army. I had recently bought and painted this Verminlord and with the armybook itself hyping it up I practically had to run this in my list, even if it took up half of my points.

Now, this was about 3 years ago so my memory is a bit fuzzy so I cant give you all the details.

I dont remember what army my teammate was playing but our stratergy mainly focused on dividing the table into two halves, one for each of us, divide and conquer and all that.

The first game on my half of the table stood a force of lizardmen, with a vanguard of skinks, naïvely I thought being nigh unstoppable on the battlefield meant the Verminlord could handle a light shower of poison darts, Not so dear reader, of course the darts found their mark and the poison proved to much for the Giant rat that makes all of the rules, felling it in the first round of shooting.

This was, at the time, infuriating and im lucky to have friends that will let me crash out at rules written specifically to spite me, but I did cool down and reasoned that it must have been a fluke.

The next game on my half of the board I found myself staring down the barrel of a gun, several actually, as I was facing a contingent of brave empire soldiers.

Again it was a while ago so the details leading up to the mass stabbing are fuzzy but the event itself is clear in my mind.

The verminlord, sole survivor of my skaven faced a 30 strong unit of stubborn empire greatswords, the seargant of said unit bellowed out a challenge at the hideous beast, not shook by its terrifying visage he would bear the brunt of its attacks for his allies for the initial combat. The verminlord had to answer, being the only eligible combatant on his side of the combat meant that denying the challenge meant that all his attacks would be forfeit. The challenge combat itself was not the problem, no, the Verminlord struck first, killing the seargant and scoring the max amount of overkill for combat resolution, a combat resolution it would never see, as the remaining greatsword soldiers closed in and banished the Verminlord faster than you can say Carroburg Crimson.

Now the more cultured among you may have spotted a lie in the previous paragraph. See, rules as written, the verminlord, having nothing else to fight, could have simply denied the challenge and tore into the ranks of the greatsword unit, possibly costing it the numbers neccessary to take it down in a single turn.

I didnt know this at the time and neither did my opponent so it is what its is, but I am nonetheless bitter to this day.