For what it's worth, I saw an army (IRL not on the net) of skaven that was absolutely brilliant and very simply painted. APrts form the furs that were some sort of light greyish brown, the clothes and armor were black and red with a strong 60's "people's republic of china" look (a banner even has a shaven version of Mao portrait).
I leave the discussion of the taste of such a theme aside and my point is that it took 3 colours (apart from the metallics which were all painted in rusty steel and some warp stone here and there) to make it look stunning. If too much colors frighten you, this can be a simple way to smooth th epainting process.
Another tip to help would be to select 3 or 4 colors (complementary if possible) and to apply them randomly on all models. This helps to create a strong coherence without having 2 figures apinted the same way. some the colours can even be close. For example, the peasants of my bretonnian army are all painted in 4 colors being light brown, medium brown and dark brown and dirty white. Not two miniatures are painted the same way and yet looking at the units really gives a coherent feeling.
