Armies on Parade: Skaven

It seems this is the year in which I am crossing off my list many projects!

I made big efforts at the beginning of the year to improve my painting speed and I can really see it is paying back as I am able now to paint fast and with acceptable quality. Of course that means that I did some horrible things along the way, but hey, at least they are painted.

In any case I am already over 100 miniatures painted this year and still two months left to go!

This post is wrapping up the extended Skaven project.

Originally, I closed this project back in 2017. But, after I decided to extend the army to match a 4,500 point army for The Ninth Age, I needed to paint and base a few additional figures.

Well, here is the full painted Army in all its stinking glory!

I am quite happy at the speed and quality I managed to maintain while painting the last stretch. It was roughly a little bit over a month to paint almost 40 miniatures including several big ones.

Here is the mega list of the whole Army:

• 1 Tyrant on Monstrous Rat
• 1 Battle Standard Bearer
• 1 Skrolk Lord of Plague
• 1 Ikit Claw Chief Engineer
• 1 Snikch Assasin Deathmaster
• 1 Gnawdoom Greyseer
• 1 Thanquol Greyseer
• 1 Queek Head-taker Chieftain
• 1 Vermindaemon
• 1 Hero Engineer
• 1 Assasin
• 60 Clanrats with Command Group
• 1 Extra Clanrat Standard Bearer
• 22 Slaves with Standard Bearer
• 29 Stormvermin with Command Group
• 1 Stormvermin General
• 18 Plague Monks with Command Group
• 1 Extra Plague Monk Standard Bearer
• 4 Giant rat handlers
• 36 Giant rats
• 15 Gutter Runners
• 8 Poison Wind Gobladiers
• 10 Plague Censer Bearers
• 5 Rat Ogres
• 1 Screaming Bell
• 3 Warpfire Thrower Teams
• 4 Warplock Jezzails
• 2 Doomwheel
• 1 Warp-Lightning Cannon

And here are a bunch of slightly blurred photos of them in battle formation.

Genestealer Cult conversions

From the Army list I showed previously, there were a few miniatures that I did not manage to buy/find second hand.

Originally, I was not planning on buying a full 40K Army, but once I decided to do it, I wanted to keep the costs as low as possible as well as sticking to a very fixed restrictive list and avoiding going all-in and ending up buying all of the Codex troops... with that I mind, I bought all miniatures second hand for 40%-60% of the retail price. To keep the price low, I really could not afford buying a whole box just to keep a handful of miniatures, so it was time to dig into the bits box and greenstuff...

One of the figures I needed was a Neurothrope, and they are sold only in a box which I did not want to buy, so after browsing a bit the web I found this great post that gave me the inspiration to build my own.

As I did not have access to all the components mentioned there, I improvised a bit. Instead of using a Trygon head crest I used a crest from a Warrior and a few other bits. And instead of a Warrior tail section, I used a Warrior gun. In the end, I managed to get a somehow reasonable result. The miniature is less bulky than the original model and somehow it reminds me of a Zerg, which is anyway more or less a Tyranid, that's why I hope that once painted is ok.

Maybe I just need to make the back part of the brain bulkier. I will think about it.

There is also an Aberrant unit of 10, but I have only 9, although there are plenty of Hybrid Metamorphs lying around... therefore, I just took a pair of legs and added lots of greenstuff on top to model a huge torso, appropriate for an Aberrant. To top it off, I added an Aberrant head and a Power Hammer.
I think this one turned out more or less fine.

Lastly, I wanted to have a Kelermorph, but you can only find him in the Kill Team box, which I did not want to buy just for one single mini, therefore, another conversion was needed... I took a Hybrid Metamorph, gave him three cool looking guns (one of them from the Delaque gang), a backpack full of stuff and with greenstuff I modelled the robes. Out of the three, this is the one I like the most.

I have also done some minor conversions with greenstuff, like adding a new head to a classic Space Crusade Genestealer, but I will just show them when they are painted as there is not much to say about those conversions.
Now, onto the painting table!

Genestealer Cult Army

Back in March I posted for the last time about 40K. There, I showed my Genestealer Cult Kill Team and I hinted at the fact that I was planning to grow it into a full sized 40K Army.

Well, in the meantime I have painted over 100 Fantasy miniatures and the whole Space Hulk, but none of my new GC Army. At least I managed to snitch all of the necessary figures second hand at bargain prices... small victories :)

At the moment I have 23 painted miniatures for the Army, which is not too bad considering the fact that the Army has almost 90!

The guidelines I kept in mind while building a 2,000 point list were:

• lots of Genestealers
• very little or no Heavy Support / Tanks

I like the idea of the Cult being mostly on foot and being led by a massive force of Genestealers with the Patriarch screaming ahead, so that was the first thing I put in the list.

After that I added a few of the miniatures I'd like to have, such as the Aberrants with an Abominant. To top it off a few basic squads of cultists with some of the nice heroes like the Primus, Clamavus and Kelermorph. To round up the points I added a few Tyranids to provide a bit of Physic support and some Swarms to hold off some Troops.

Even though I did not want to have too many tanks, in the end, I could not resist the idea of having one single tank, if it is a massive beast like the Stormsword! I always wanted to have one Baneblade and I never managed to add it to my Imperial Guard. To be honest, back in the day, the miniature was not available in plastic like today so it was much more difficult... In any case, the Baneblade is the only thing I have not bought yet and I consider it a 2020 project, because I want to build it properly so I have the eight variants, also known as the Octablade.

Here is the list, what do you think about it?

1) Tyranid Battalion Detachment - Hive Fleet Kraken

• HQ
• Broodlord
• Neurothrope
• Troops
• 20 Genestealers (2 painted)
• 20 Genestealers
• 3 Ripper Swarms

2) Genestealer Cult Battalion Detachment - Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor

• HQ
• 1 Abominant
• 1 Patriarch (painted)
• 1 Primus (painted)
• Troops
• 10 Brood Brothers (painted)
• 10 Brood Brothers
• 10 Brood Brothers
• Elites
• 10 Aberrants (4 painted)
• 1 Clamavus
• 1 Kelermorph

3) Imperial Guard - Super Heavy Auxiliary Detachment

• Lord of War
• Stormsword

First thing I am painting, after assembling all of it, is the Broodlord and the Genestealers... I have 2 painted so only 38 left to go! Can I do that before the end of the year?

Tyrant on Monstrous Rat

This post makes me quite happy as it marks the very last one I plan to have for a painted skaven. I want to make another one with a group photo, but it won't be because I have just painted another figure.

This is also a significant milestone in 2019 as not only I have finished my goals for the year, but also one of the stretch goals! And I have painted almost 150 figures now... let's see how far can I go.

I have labelled this as oldhammer even though it is clearly not, but I just want to keep the whole army under one label. It is the figure from Forgeworld but I have decided to paint it using the same techniques as for the rest of the army, making sure it fits well with them.

The rat is pretty massive and it is way bigger than its base size, I was forced to buy a new case to transport it together with the cannon as they are both simply way too big for a regular case.

I painted this one with a white basecoat which I don't usually have because most of it is skin and I did many layers of washes and some dwarf flesh to get that (hopefully achieved) putrid look.

It's quite difficult to make good pictures due to the size, when one part is in focus the other side is out of it, so I have made tons of pictures to try and capture it. I hope you like it.

I am already working on the next stretch goal, let's see how that goes...

Painted in 2019

Warp-Lightning Cannon

Today I am sharing the last Warmachine that I plan to paint -ever- for my Skaven Army, a Warp-Lightning Cannon.

And the only one that is not really an oldhammer model. While it is true that I have a few more recent models in the Army, here and there, I did not have until now a big one such as this Cannon. Unfortunately, both for T9A and for more recent versions of Fantasy, a Cannon is a must-have for the rats and there is no alternative model unless I build it myself, and I did not want to do that...

Therefore, I have done the next best thing, get one of the recent models and attach a classic figure to it as master.

As I am basing all of the warmachines, I put it on a round 75mm base to follow the T9A guidelines, although I must say it is way too small for this figure.

I have used the same techniques I used for the other warmachines, that is, to pain it mostly with different shades of brown and go heavy on the weathering, rust and similar effects. While that is quite easy and fast to do, in the end it took me much more than what I thought simply because of the sheer size of it. It really stands out when placed next to my Army as it is easily twice the size of the Vermindaemon! You will see that on the family picture I will make after I paint the last miniature I have on the list, which is the Tyrant on Monstrous rat that I am already painting...

Painted in 2019