Manic's Slow Skaven Project

ManicMan

Member
Thanks ^_^

I'm slowly working on the second in the unit.. while hoping to have my first Clan Rat unit finished this week.. Can't say I'm 100% happy with them but fair enough.
 

ManicMan

Member
Taken... well. I did finish these last week, and like I said, not 100% happy so I might see able some tweaking on some of them.. and this is a bad shot, busy day and trying to sort out decent space etc.. But..
CRUnit1.JPG
That is the first unit of 30 Clan Rats technically under the Command of 'Snarker Blōddragan' cause I'm a bit crap with names but going for what was the style for them in the 80s/ early 90s. (he is the Second on the.. Left as you look at it.. Stands out with the shield on his back). He is a Ral Patha Rat man.. I'll atleast take a better shot of him (no name on his base yet). Already shown 'Skarr Bladefell' who is the unit's champion, and there is the Standard which.. I'm not gonna redo but I think I can print a bit stronger now cause I have toyed around with how much ink the printer puts down.

The Unit , part from the Leader, Champ (Ral Patha) and Standard (Citadel) is made up of a mixture of 3ed Plastic Skaven from Fantasy Regiments, AHQ Plastic Skaven and 4ed Plastic Skaven (which were basically an upgraded form of the AHQ ones). The AHQ ones all have AHQ shields (even if some of them technically don't make sense (Clan Eshin shields for normal Clan Rats?... maybe?) others have a mixture of some 4ed Skaven Shields, some blanks with Skaven Icons from.. 4/5ed or there abouts, the odd Goblin/Org shield from FR (Skaven are said to pick up stuff like that from the battlefields so why wouldn't one think "Ohh, nice shield, Gonna grab that" and cause I kinda started to run low on them, I made up some laser cut shields which are just 2mm plywood in small circles with some wood effect texturing engraved. Can't see them clearly here (hide them in the ranks) but they don't come out too badly.. though I probebly should have engraved a bit deeper.. the texturing still shows through a bit.

Currently slowly doing my Globadiers and one of my Packs, This one lead by 2 Pack masters, including Throt the Unclean, who I got a little while back in a lot, which I was pretty pleased with. I really should finish up a Jezzail team who are... over 50% done..
 

Loose Loser

Member
Nice, colorful as ever. Never had those AHQ rats but I do have those 4 ed. plastic ones ( briefing goes wrong on those. They don't rank at all. Even with plastic tabs removed they're nightmare ) and I do have those 3ed plastic ones and they do rank more less but they, as general rule, look there somewhere. Good thing is their heads could be moved. Didn't try that as they're already glued.
 

ManicMan

Member
the 4ed do Rank far better then the AHQ ones but yeah, not always perfect. Thus the problem with dynamic poses and ranking when it comes to larger creatures
 

ManicMan

Member
yay.. Didn't take long cause they are a pretty simple paint, but I got 6 GIANT rats (which depending on your version really, might be said to be wolf-rats .. 3rd Says 25mm base for Giant rats.. nope.. this are on horsey bases (and seriously, reading the description from 3ed Rule book.. the image is nothing like that and neither are any models they released.. They are basically describing a larger version of Brown Jenkin..) so that's about 25x50mm, which lines up with Wolf-rats. but for some reason, Wolf-rats disappeared after 3th though might have come back way later.. Comparing 3th wolf-Rats to 4th Giant Rats in terms of stats... Wolf-rats have 1 extra point in there weapon skill.. so.. more dangerous.. So.. depends on if they will be counted as Giant Rats or Wolf-Rats.. I do have a group of Citadel Giant rats to paint up so I got some option there..

I'm currently working on one of the two Pack masters for the unit and.. Hopefully I'll take a photo over the weekend of the pack on their tray.
 

ManicMan

Member
sigh.. anyway.. Quick shot of the Rats on the tray
GiantRats.JPG
Rats are Resins done by Admin Eric a while back, I did one of them for my Pain Rat for my Dungeon Master set, and I do have another painted up as a spare since.. Didn't want to leave one out. I think they got a tiny bit of damage in my storage but these bits work well for 'battle damage' (basically a couple of claws and one (hard to see in this image) is currently singing 'All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth
 

ManicMan

Member
those resins aren't, .. Have to ask Eric for just where they came from.. 3D Resin prints from his collection. Though I do have the much smaller citadel ones, which are.. I think the 93 marauder ones which were on sale for some time
 

Eric

Administrator
Yah, ratties! They look good, you've done a nice job basing them and I like the green eyes. They were rats from Titan Forge FWIW. Maybe catching up on your thread will inspire me to finish up my Mouslings!
 

ManicMan

Member
23_PoisonWind.jpg
annoying, I think a brush hair was stuck on his head in this but oh well..
This is my second Poison Wind Globadier. I was basing it when I noticed, I based the leader like my normal bulk troop, which is just a bit of grass paper-thing (mat? roll? whatever it's called) cause that is quicker and does fine, where this is more fancy.. but doesn't really matter. This is a classic Jes Goodwin and I've got another of this model to add to the same unit.
 

ManicMan

Member
^_^. I did noticed as I was painting him that.. I seam to have painted a Rat version of the Joker.. (the purple and green colour scheme ^_^)

Oh a side note.. going from some bits I got a while back including some skaven parts from.. I think 5ed... Why do I seam to have a few Death of Rats minis? I'm guessing.. they had some kinda antro rat for plague monk spree? It just doesn't seam to fit with the Skaven at all.. it's a bit confusing to me.
 

ManicMan

Member
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..
 

Fimm McCool

Member
Yay! The world needs more Rat Golems. :) It's a shame it never got an actual miniature, I reckon it would have been pretty awesome, but it's also great in that it gives everyone a chance to come up with their own spin on what it might have been like.
 

ManicMan

Member
I've got what should be a great part on it's way with some other bits then it should be enough (atleast for now) to test fit and see what I think.

I've seen that Skaven Mechanic figure.. not bad, doesn't seam THAT rare as there are atleast 2 for sale when I last looked but it's not a prototype I wanna spend £200 on.. also it's.. well, it's a nice figure and all but shouldn't it be a Clan Skryre warlock Engineer? too much on the pure techy side really, less on the magic side.. Warlocks and Seers are the same thing, just different ranks after all.
 

Fimm McCool

Member
It's a figure I can see why they didn't release it. Fun an' all but it doesn't say 'Quirrick' to me, more like a 40k Skaven... Rats in spaaaaaace....
 
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