skaven

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Summer Painting Roundup

Posted by Comrade on August 24, 2022
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I’ve been toiling away on a handful of small projects this summer, just to keep the ol’ brush limber in my hands. My output tends to slow down a bit during the summer, and it’s doubly so this year, because I recently replaced my old laptop with a proper gaming rig, which has led to quite a bit more video games in the evenings after work.

But it’s not all bad! The games I’ve been playing have actually inspired my recent painting efforts. Back in April I jumped into Vermintide 2 – the extraordinarily satisfying game of slaughtering Skaven and Nurgle warriors in the good old End Times. That inspired me to pick a few unpainted Skaven models from my lead mountain and give them the proper treatment.

This guy is a metal Skaven rat ogre from the “Middlehammer” era, when the overall Skaven aesthetic had settled into its current form but most premium models were still being produced in metal. I’ve seen this guy referred to as a Mordheim model as well.

He was great fun to paint up, and it seems I was just getting started with Skaven!

Up next were a pair of two-rat weapon teams, also metal.

Nothing special, just savage rat warriors in dirty flappy robes, hefting oversized firearms that are just as likely to explode in their faces as to fire for effect. What’s not to love?

These models will slot right into my all-metal vintage Skaven army that I completed a couple years ago.

Next up on the workbench were some dwarf units. These were inspired not just by Vermintide, but also by the excellent Deep Rock Galactic video game. DRG, if you’ve not heard of it, is a delightful sci-fi shooter starring four plucky space dwarves who are sent into the dim subterranean caverns beneath a dying planetoid to mine minerals, slay bugs, and hopefully escape with their lives.

The salient point here is dwarves. Time to paint some, then!

This guy is a nearly nude feral berzerker who seems to have a penchant for wearing and wielding the bones of his fallen foes.

John printed this guy for me from a file he scooped up from one of his many Patreon subscriptions. The model was a ton of fun to paint!

Finally, we have a unit of models that I acquired and painted up solely because of how it performs in a game. This is a bit of a rarity for me – I am much more likely to paint something because it appeals to me, versus painting it because of its utility in a particular ruleset.

In any case, spearmen are highly effective in Age of Fantasy, which has been our go-to game for Warhammer-sized fantasy engagements. Whenever my opponent plonks down a unit of spearmen, it dramatically affects the course of the game. Well, two can play at that game. To wit: DWARF SPEARMEN

These are plastic models from the Oathmark Dwarf Infantry boxed set. The kit is serviceable enough – there are a few details I don’t like, but overall it’s a good value and easy to assemble. The kit itself contains enough for 30 (!) models, and I only built 10 for this squad of spearmen, so I’ve got plenty more waiting in the wings.

I mounted the dwarves on scenic resin bases that appear to be broken flagstones or masonry – perhaps evoking a battle in a crumbling dwarf fortress? The bases fit neatly into a movement tray for rank-and-flank games, too.

Anyway, that’s a sampling of what I’ve been up to this summer. Stay tuned for my next painting post, which features 100% more crocodile men!

Fully Painted: All-Metal Skaven Army

Posted by Comrade on January 12, 2021
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Hark, dear reader — do you hear? The bell has tolled thirteen dolorous peals, signifying the completion of the great task which I set before myself two years prior. It is time to share with you my newly completed Skaven army in all its creeping, coiling, loathsome glory!

Regular readers will know that collecting and painting up a Skaven army composed of the old-school metal figures that I coveted as a kid is a goal that I’ve striven toward since the middle of 2018. I certainly took my sweet time with this project, chipping away in bits and pieces between several 40k projects and a couple other fantasy endeavors. Now it is time to show off the fruits of my labors!

Keen-eyed readers will immediately notice that this isn’t a Warhammer-sized army. It’s true — I collected and assembled this army primarily to play mid-sized skirmish games like Dragon Rampant and Saga: Age of Magic. Most of the unit sizes are in multiples of 6 and 12 figures, which align well with those rulesets. With a little work, I can probably reconfigure this lot for Warlords of Erehwon or Kings of War.

For those who want to catch up on this series, here are links to past entries:

I’ll share some detail shots a little later in the post, but for now let’s run through the units in the big photo above.

A. Warp Lightning Cannon – what’s that, a plastic model? Yes, it’s true. Purists need read no further. I have included just a handful of plastic models in this army … mostly larger models. In this case, I acquired this Warp Lightning Cannon nicely painted and finished, so it was an easy one to include.

B. Packmaster and Giant rats – barely glimpsed behind that hill!

C. HQ units – various beautiful old models including Thanquol, Lord Skrolk, and the “Middlehammer” version of Deathmaster Snikch, plus a few more.

D. Weapon teams – Warp Grinder and Warpfire Thrower

E. Crossbow rats – these are monopose metal figures from Heartbreaker Hobbies’ wererats line.

F. Poison Wind Globadiers – possibly my favorite individual Skaven models, and strangely pricey these days due to the fact that they’re still a valid unit choice in Age of Sigmar despite being available only as metal, 20-year-old sculpts.

G. Weapon teams – Ratling guns x2

H. Rat Ogres – another pair of plastic figures, also acquired nicely painted and ready to play.

I. Clanrats – gorgeous old figures from Jes Goodwin’s C47 range. Here’s a closer look!

J. Skaven Slaves – Another batch of metal models that are rather pricey these days. Just basic slaves with spears and leg irons.

K. Stormfiend – The newest addition to the army, I acquired this plastic model nicely painted a few weeks ago. I like the idea of a single Stormfiend lumbering at the rear of my army, hissing and clanking and ready to exploit a break in the enemy’s line.

L. Plague Monks – featuring a custom banner vinyl banner

M. Stormvermin – the classic Skaven shock troops.

N. Gutter Runners – eight sneaky assassins plus their leader, Veskit the Executioner

Now it’s time for some close-up photos! I borrowed a nicer camera to take some macro shots, which really give the sense of a mass of chittering rats surging forward on the battlefield.

Note: All photos should be clickable, so you can view slightly larger versions if that is your desire.

Miniatures photography is almost as fun as actually playing games with these guys!

More pics below showing the spear-wielding guys at the vanguard of the assault.

I had a lot of fun acquiring and painting up some of these nifty character models. Here’s a closer look!

Now back to the rank and file! Imagine this gnawing horde charging at you across the battlefield, slashing the air with their rusted weapons and chittering in their foul rat-pidgin.

After I took these fun new photos, I realized I had missed one model: my Doomwheel! It sat ignored and unloved on a shelf while I was gleefully arranging these pics. Oops! Here it is, lest it get overlooked.

This army project was a real joy to tackle over the last few years. From researching to acquiring the models to painting up the units, I learned a lot about the Oldhammer-era history of this fun fantasy faction. I am pleased to report that I ended up with the exact army that I wanted, beholden to no particularly game or ruleset or army list or special rule.

I hope to do a similar post later this year for my dwarf army, with lots of nice photos and group shots — stay tuned!

Painting Skaven: Vintage Metal Clanrats

Posted by Comrade on January 1, 2021
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I must admit, I was saving the best for the last when I embarked upon a journey two years ago to paint up a Skaven army featuring the vintage metal figures that had so inspired me as a younger person. I knew the last batch of figures I’d be painting would be my beloved clanrats: those scrappy fighters who make up the bulk of most Skaven armies.

By this point, I’ve already painted Stormvermin and Plague Monks and Gutter Runners and weapons teams galore to give my army some versatility. All that remains is that solid core of warriors. OK, maybe not so solid — these are Skaven we’re talking about, after all.

I knocked these guys out in the waning days of 2020, so although this blog post is dated January 1, 2021, these figures represent my output in the previous year. Most of the sculpts are from the famous C47 range of Skaven sculpted by Jes Goodwin in the late 80s and early 90s. I adore them as examples of how Skaven looked and behaved before the lore had been fully developed.

As with the other units I’ve painted up so far, I did 12 of these guys. Twelve is a number that is well suited to both Saga: Age of Magic and Dragon Rampant, which are the two rulesets where I’m most likely to field these guys.

I’m particularly enamored with these figures, as they’re armed with a hodgepodge of weapons and armor that really represents the essence of the Skaven to me — grab whatever’s handy, strap on some armor bits looted from a still-warm corpse, and rush back into battle!

Now we’ll walk through some close-ups of the various figures in this unit.

On the right in the photo above is Throt the Unclean, an early example of the zaniness that infests the Skaven range. Look closely and you’ll see he is sporting a third arm! Interestingly, Throt lacks a tail, which suggests to me that the arm was grafted onto his body to replace his tail. Neat detail!

The standard bearer is a bit of a slapdash effort. I painted him up and realized I didn’t have a suitable battle flag to affix to his standard. So I dug around in my bits box and found a couple clipped off tattered robe bits from some Nurgle models. A bit of repositioning and they can do an acceptable job as some flapping rags to inspire the Skaven warriors.

I love the variety of weapons on these figures. On the three figures above, we have four distinct weapons: a pick, a dirk, a morning star, and a butcher knife. Plus two shields! And that duel-wielding Skaven is wearing like one-quarter of a suit of ill-fitting armor.

These figures date back to an era when models were created based solely on how badass or awesome they looked, rather than how they might conform to a set of wargame rules. Ah, the glory days! Bless you, Jes Goodwin.

As with many early Warhammer figures, these models are loaded up with satchels, pouches, scabbards, scrolls, vials, and other accoutrements of battle. I particularly love these details because it makes these guys look like raiders and battlefield scavengers. They’ll lop off your hand in combat, but they’re just as likely to pause and yank the rings off your fingers before loping back to the melee.

I sprinkled on some rust effects, nothing major, just a hint here and there to suggest that these blades and armor bits have seen better days.

Astute Oldhammer fans will probably notice that, strictly speaking, not all of these figures were sold as “clanrats” back in the day. A few are slaves, or warlords, or whatever. I acknowledge this, and dismiss it out of hand with a stern yet friendly admonition: once a figure has crossed my workbench, it loses all trappings of its former life and becomes precisely what I wish it to be in my army. Thus, these are clanrats.

With the completion of these 12 figures, I’ve officially completed the last unit in my all-metal Skaven army. I have a few single figures left that I’d like to get around to painting, but in general this project is complete. I will do a wrap-up post later in January with some photos of the whole army (including some recent additions that haven’t yet been seen by my blog comrades). Stay tuned!

2020 Year in Review: The Year of Fantasy

Posted by Comrade on December 7, 2020
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I’m preparing to close out 2020, and as I often do, I took stock of my painting and hobbying for the year and found something surprising and unexpected: I painted exclusively fantasy figures for the whole year. No sci-fi, no Warhammer 40,000, nothing with a laser gun or energy sword. Wow!

This is almost certainly the first time this has happened in my gaming career. I’m not sure precisely how this came to pass. The pandemic certainly had something to do with it… in terms of games played, I mustered just four sessions — only two since March of this year.

Another factor was the anticlimactic arrival of Warhammer 40k’s much anticipated new edition. The pandemic meant that my game group couldn’t gather to try out the new game, so the arrival of the new edition was basically a non-event, at least for me. I still haven’t played a game of 9th edition, actually. Ho hum! Here’s a picture from the last time I played 40k at our end-of-the-year apocalypse game in 2019.

For 2020, I managed to get in a couple games of Saga: Age of Magic early in the year, before all this pandemic stuff turned the world upside down. Those early games got me excited to revisit my all-metal Skaven army as well as my beloved dwarf army, which I built back in the early 2010s and have been augmenting periodically over the years. Both armies fit nicely into Üthdyn, our homebrew fantasy setting that we have been tinkering with for a few years.

I find that a strong narrative framework always helps me get “in character” and plan out my painting and hobbying. Üthdyn was the spark that lit my torch through the long dark of 2020, it seems.

I’ve organized a few posts from the past year so you can read about my work on my Skaven and Dwarf armies, if you wish.

Skaven

Dwarves (or Dwarfs, if you prefer)

So although 2020 was a thin year for actual tabletop gaming, I still managed to make a great deal of progress on two beloved army projects. I am very close to actually completing my Skaven army…just one last unit of clanrats that I’m finishing up right now. After that, I’ll call the army “done,” although I still have a small pile of oddball figures that I’d like to add as time allows. But it’ll be nice to officially finish the army! I’ll be sure to take some glamor shots of the whole rat horde and share them here.

My dwarf army is in great shape and I have more than enough units to play most any game that comes across my table, from Saga: Age of Magic to Open Combat to Dragon Rampant to Song of Blades & Heroes, maybe even all the way up to Kings of War! But the allure of the bearded chaps means that I have plenty more unpainted dwarf models to work through. It’s been a real joy to discover and paint up some of the newer models that have come along from producers like Scibor and MOM Miniatures, as well as old favorites from the class Warhammer Citadel range. With a simple and consistent paint job, you can tie them all together into a cohesive and formidable tabletop army.

So — more dwarves in 2021, I think! I’m hoping to clear my palette by early 2021 as I am expecting the arrival of the Into the Abyss chaos warriors that I backed on Kickstarter. Stay tuned!

Saga: Age of Magic – The Plague Caravan

Posted by Comrade on July 27, 2020
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Earlier this month, John and I dared to play a game of Saga: Age of Magic on his back porch. We had physical distancing and a nice breeze, as well as face masks for both of us, so we felt that we had taken all reasonable precautions. After a long drought, we were excited to get some newly painted miniatures onto the battlefield, both for John’s Great Kingdoms army and my Masters of the Underearth (Skaven) warband.

The game was a follow-on to the outcome of our previous game, which saw a rout by a ratmen raiding party harrying the defenders of a fortified village. For this game, the ratmen had secured a slightly more … pungent … booty, in the form of three rotting coffins, each containing the noisome remains of a plague victim. The ratmen were scurrying off with the caskets so that their crazed alchemists could use the bodies to brew up some dastardly poisons. Only the stout defenders of House Begovic stood between the ratmen and their goal!

You can see the caskets, being borne by a swarm of rats, in the photo above. The goal was to escort them across the battlefield and exit through John’s table edge. I’d have to keep moving at a pretty good clip to ensure a reasonable chance of winning. No dithering and no time wasted on fruitless combat!

After deployment, I committed most of my forces to the right flank, as seen in the photo above. I was trying to stay as far away as possible from John’s unit of mounted hearthguard. At eight strong, they were an incredibly powerful and hard-hitting force on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the best I could do was delay their arrival.

So I started maneuvering away from them, angling up the right flank and positioning some of my ratmen as blocking units to slow down the attackers. It worked! For a couple of turns, anyway. My newly painted levies with bows occupied this encampment, staying in cover and delivering fairly effective missile fire throughout the game.

Likewise, this unit of levies shadowed the hearthguard on the opposing flank, always threatening to burst from cover and poke the cavalry with their spears. They actually jumped into combat toward the end of the game and, I think, inflicted some casualties!

The caskets moved slowly, and I had to keep the rest of my force arrayed around them to provide a support. It was only a matter of time before John’s hearthguard caught up to them and surged in for a massive assault.

Oh look! There it is. CHARGE!

The charge wiped out an entire unit of warriors that had been protecting the caskets, leaving the poor little rat swarms dangerously exposed to the thundering hooves of the hearthguard. On my turn, I got incredibly lucky with a pair of quadrupedal creatures, which managed to annihilate about half of the horsemen in a single savage round of attacks.

That combat tilted the game in my favor, at least temporarily.

The quadrupedal creatures are Chaos Centigors from Warhammer Fantasy. I love the miniatures and figured I’d get them onto the battlefield alongside my Skaven. After all, why do we play Saga if not for opportunities to mix and match miniatures from our collections?

After that, the game became a rat race — no pun intended. I had pushed through the initial battle line (at great cost) and now had a slim chance to make a break for John’s table edge.

Unfortunately, my rat swarms were mauled and nearing exhaustion. John still had several highly mobile units that were ultimately able to chase them down and skewer the poor rats one by one. Oh well! I take heart in the knowledge that John’s surviving warriors caught the plague and died horribly after the battle was won.

This game represented a personal best for me in terms of rules comprehension and overall grasp of strategy and tactics. Saga is a really complex game, with a lot of decisions to be made at various points throughout the turn. Playing against a worthy opponent like John requires the utmost attention to detail! I am getting better with the Masters of the Underearth army. I intend to use the same army list for my dwarf army, which will be helpful for digging deeper into the tactics of this particular army. We’re playing again soon — stay tuned for more!