Manic's Slow Skaven Project

[Gobbit Snotrag]

I always thought that kept trying to downplay Skaven connection to Chaos. They were the Skaven: Chaos Ratman after all. 3ed Armies says "Skaven are the children and Servants of Chaos". Over time (though kinda early) they worshipped the Chaos dæmon God 'The Horned Rat', who in 4ed giant what is said to be his only Dæmon, The Vermin Lord.

In 3ed, they were able to have chaotic attributes. To my knowledge, I would say only 2 figures were ever released which really show any of these. Thrott the unclean, had an extra arm. He later became a special character in 4ed. And Boneripper, a Mutate Rat Ogre.. again, with a third arm.

Looking in the loft for some stuff, I found SOME stuff I wanted but not quite, but did come across where some other stuff was.. including the 2ed Blood Bowl. I know it wasn't complete when I got it and inside was.. maybe a team worth of figures, not quite sure. Most plastic humans (but not the ones which DID come with the base set.. odd.. in fact, I think it was more 3ed box set.. doesn't matter) but metal which I took as Star Players from the 2ed star players (also a flier with new news on star players, but didn't include all the ones they released. Also I took them as Star Players cause they looked more fancy then the normal metal players).. Of the four, There is Withergrasp Doubledrool, the Human Mutant Blitzer.. (really? more Chaos to my mind), Barik Farblast, Dwarf lineman with Bazuka, a human I don't recognise (looks Bret with a large helmet though Looking up, appears to be third edition Griff Oberwald) and the fourth, in the light, looked very interesting.. A Mutant Skaven but I didn't recognise it.

Now, Blood bowl second edition DID have a skaven Mutant star player.. just a skaven with 3 arms. But this wasn't it.. Getting it into better light, It's Slarga Fourstrike, Mutant Beastman Lineman. a Beastman with 4 arms. What type of Beastman? No glue.. doesn't look goat, which is good.. infact. looks likely ratty, but not quite Skaven.. Here is a photo from Lost minis:
View attachment 15668
No tail, but kinda ratty.. or mutant ratty.. Not sure what kinda beast. Wolf maybe? but nose is wrong.. But I looked at it.. and thought 'Add a tail, it's a mutant Skaven!'.. first problem.. figure undamaged (well, missing tab which was clipped off..) don't really wanna butcher a decent figure.. but I'm kinda figuring.. what the hell.. I'm just sticking (maybe a bit of pinning) a tail.. that doesn't do much harm.

Okay, it's only an arm mutation, but still. While 4ed removed the idea of Champions being solo, as they could only be in a regiment, Chieftains could be solo and you can have a bunch of them. Again, 4ed also removed chaos mutations from Skaven, as I said before trying to remove the chaos side more and more), I'm doing stuff up which can be used in 3ed or 4ed on the whole, so it's fine with me ^_^

Oh that's interesting! I didn't know about a conscious move away from Skaven's chaos roots - but I think you're right.

They were originally a particularly stable kind of beastman. (Some beastmen were originally human too but that's another rabbit hole). Having said that, I never rolled any mutations for my army. Don't they eat warpstone?!

I've seen a couple of nice Skaven mutants in Bloodbowl including one with two heads. Odd there weren't more 3'ed WFB mutant miniatures.

Does the increduility about Skaven still exist in the cities of the Empire? People don't believe they are real. It's not logical, but quite a fun idea.

 

[ManicMan]

I'm always in too minds on the eating of warpstone.. even to Skaven, which were mutated by the warpstone, it's a Chaos element really. in 4ed, Thanquol was addicted to warpstone snuff but has built up a resistance to many of the negative effects by eating some warpstone, so he gets to reroll any warp test. Warpstone still mutates and brings madness. I think for eating, only some do it and only the 'best of the best' have been able to survive and build up such resistance, else they become mindless insane mutates. Which is one of the ways the Rat Ogres were created. Clan Moulder does some crossbreeding but also highly uses warpstone to cause the mutations needed to create there beasts. They say they are mostly from slaves, but they only really have 2 types of beast, Giant Rats and Rat Ogres (earlier one they could also use many Chaos beasts, and they are also normal monsters like normal rats etc) and I can't see how the Giant Rats are from slaves.. they are just from Normal rats ^_^

WFRP is meant to be set a bit later time wise then WFB and Skaven are still only known by a few, as they hide in the shadows and the under-empire, many of the average person has only heard rumours which they don't believe, so I would take that pretty much sure for WFB. Personally, I've never gone in for the later 'everyone is sad and miserable all the time' 'grimdark' side of Warhammer. The average person is probably just the same as people always are. Some places in the empire are probably pretty fine and rarely deal with being attacked or anything so are pretty happy in there ignorance of things like Chaos and foreign lizardmen invaders.

another interesting thing is in 3ed, there were thirteen lords of Decay. In 4ed, there were only twelve, with the thirteenth seat in the Council of thirteen being the horned rat. While most of the skaven lore didn't really change too much, there are a number of small tweaks over time like that.