ugh.. Fimm's look at White Dwarf 195 showed a Warhammer Quest 'add-on' for Skaven, 'Domain of the Horned Rat' by Gavin Thorpe (with friends). I've never played Warhammer Quest, the kinda follow up to Advanced HeroQuest.. in fact, I only got Advanced Heroquest .. last year was it? maybe the year before? either way, I haven't played that yet ^_^; Converting from WQ to AHQ is pretty easy but.. wonder if I can do it for HQ.. anyway, that aside, it introduce a special character creation. The Quest features Warlock 'Quirrik' from Clan Skrye, who is.. mm.. a somewhat interesting character. Very knowledgeable on Warpstone, and very cunning and wanting to gain power, maybe for his self, or maybe for the Skaven as a whole.. a little unclear but doesn't really matter.. In his secret laborator is a large warpfire generator and he was working on his new creation, the Rat Golem!
To quote the issue:
The Rat Golem is a prototype of a new Skaven Creature. It is a mechanically modified Rat Ogre, with chunks of warpstone embeded in parts of it's body to provide it with a resistance to magic and the ability to heal itself. However, it is even more stupid than normal Rat Ogres, and frequently needs repairing. It needs no food and instead draws upon the raw power of the warpstone within it to live. This source of energy is somewhat slow and erratic though, and the prototype is still unreliable. Once (if?) Quirrik manages to solve these teething problems, the Rat Golem will become one of the most powerful creatures in Skaven armies, only surpassed by the Dreaded Vermin Lords, Daemons of the Horned Rat (or so Quirrik claims)
Two kit-bashed prototypes are shown. one by Andy Jones, which two images are shown and one by Gavin Thorpe. Personally? the Gavin Thorpe one isn't up to much.. while he says it is bedecked with pieces form every corner of the Citadel range, it's mostly boneripper. In fact, from what I can see, the the only change is instead of the single left arm, there is a bit og putty and two new arms.. one is a claw which remines me of a Daemonette arm but I don't think it is, and one with what might be a buzz saw.. not really a lot of parts.. however, Andy Jones one does use alot of parts from all over the ranges.. if it wasn't that fact of two images saying they are Andy Jones and clearly showing the same one, I would have said they are mis-labelled.. This one is the torso and head of a 4ed Rat Orge with standard citadel wheels from.. well, could be imperial or dwarf.. they used them for alot.. two tanks on it's back, a bottle carriage which at first I wondered if it was from the Doomwheel, but it's not, and like twin swords attached to the bridge of his nose. far more interesting and more to the mechanically modified idea (unless you want to take that to mean it was modified by a machine more then modified WITH a machine).. though neither really have lumps of warpstone...
Either way, While I dislike what the Skaven seam to have become these days, which is very much a tech group with Cyborg Rat Ogres and modern age weapons with little or no changes to make them fit in with the fantasy, or even Fantasy-steam punk) era, something about this is a prototype of a warlock who wants to be king sounds good to me.. Gotta have one.
well.. As Andy Jones one looks far better to me.. I've decided to use that as a base in that, top half rat Ogre.
I don't have any spare 4ed rat ogre torsos and don't fancy hunting for one and using it, so I found a printable like-for-like generic 'vermin Hulk' which is very close to the 4ed rat ogres but meant to be original and but don't look quite right to be the same.. though some of it is a little softer then I would have expected but that is probebly due to the sculpture. My current FDM printer has a great accuracy and with a 0.2mm nozzle, It has 0.1mm layer height. so takes a bit of a time but produces something more then good enough. Going through some scrap bits, I've got a 2 part Rat Ogre head which is 4Ed like (there was another Rat Ogre head but that is too cyborg.. even for this for my tastes for the head). the head fits the body fine. I have a bit that looks a bit like some 40K gun turret BUT I'm debating, that would make a nice machine bit 'steam pipes' for the back of the Rat Ogre.... how it is putting off steam? not sure.. warpstone powered.. Hey, maybe it's just as a way to help funnel some flumes and keep the organic part from overheating? hard to say, hard to think if I should care a bit more ^_^:
adding to that, I printed two wagon wheels which look alot of like the old citadel wheels (tons of companies make wheels like this, they were historical designs). A kinda turret hatch from a 40K tank of some kind which works fine for a link between organic body and the machine bed. A Pair of warpstone.. probebly from a staff for some 5/6th sprue.. but that'll probebly add to it, as well as an old 'broken' 0.4mm 3D printer bass nozzle. Gonna hunt out a metal screw of a fair size for part of the bed. the idea is, again, a bit like the Andy Jones one, to have two wheels under the Rat Ogre torso with an extending counterweight at the back with the nozzle tip at the end. Cocktail stick works great as the axle.. just need one final piece of the main bit.. that's the connection between the screw/nozzle counterweight, and the axle/wheels.
Once I've started to get this together, even as a bluetact testing, I'll try to take a photo.. painting might be some time though ^_^ just really got me in the mood to wanna try something like this. There will be some crystals added to be chucks of warpstone.. I got some nice little resin ones and I'll probably sculpt bits anyway..