Ongoing Skaven painting and a forgotten army.

This week I have been continuing the bulk speed painting of the Skaven Clanrats. Despite a slow start to the weeks painting with lethargy due to work and the heat, I have manged to paint 66 Clanrats!  In addition I greenstuff converted-up the Army Standard Bearer.

 I have also been continuing to slowly increase the numbers of my WIP Chaos Nippon Army. In additon I found another distraction, a forgotten army in a box detailed further on in this Blog post.

Enjoy :)

 Army Standard Bearer converted from a metal Plague Monk model.

 33 more Heroquest Clanrats. 

All of the Heroquest Skaven are now painted. I will be painting up all of the Command models in one batch later.

 33 Clanrats from the Warhammer Regiments boxset.

These are the only Clanrats formed from the Warhammer Regiments models, with all the other same models being used as Slaves. To differentiate them from the Slaves I decided to paint thier hoods blue and give the regiment a form of coherence. They also all have the shield with the Skaven design on them. 

For the Beatles fans out there, I have been referring to the regiment as 'The Blue Meanies'.

 Cloes up front and rear views. 

They are quite nice plastic models and speed paint well, I much prefer them to the Heroquest ones.

 What has been painted so far: 

99 Clanrats, 1 Clanrat leader, the General, a Wizard, 3 Globadiers, 4 Warpfire Throwers, 3 Jezailachis, and the 6 Rat Ogres with 3 Beastmasters. 

 66 Slaves on the painting table! 

I only have these, 5 Command groups, 10 Gutterrunners, 20 Stormvermin, theArmy Standard, and a Wizard left to paint. 

And the varnishing and basing too of course. 

 A small seletion of models forming part of the Chaos Nippon Army.

 I was looking for something the other day a found an army I have forgotten about. 

Back in the 1980's, and on and off since, I bought many of the Marauder Dwarf landsknechts (and Ogres). At the time we used to refer to them as 'Frilly Dwarves'. 

The idea was to make a seperate army of them, something which I have not completed. However considering the lovely models made by White Knight, I might revisit the army sometime, although I still have a lot of other things still to do too!!!

I will do a proper series of photographs for them at a later date.

Next update will be more Skaven! 

Also, with the building of my Chaos Nippon Army I have been re-examining my 1980's C-Series C36 Citadel Hobgoblins, a lovely collection of models with a great Far Eastern vibe to them. If possible I will do an in-depth update of them too.

A Three Legged Chinese Dragon and more Skaven.

I often get distracted, hence the aim of this blog, to focus my collecting and painting. This week I got distracted by the hot weather, and by work, but I also got distracted by another idea for an army.

This is why I bought a Three Legged Dragon!

I always liked the 1980's Citadel Oriental Heroes range, as well as historical Samurai. I have a few of the Oriental Heroes range kicking about in boxes, and I have been buying odds and ends on e-bay. However,  I never really bothered too much with them as in Warhammer Armies they were only avaliable as a Mercenary Contingent for Dark Elves!
But what to do with the models? I could just us an expanded version of the Mercenary Contingent, or use the 2nd Edition list in Ravening Hordes, or the Samurai list for Warhammer Historical, or just make one up. However I had a different idea.

I wanted to field them as a Warhammer Armies army. The Empire list did'nt seem right as I would have to have crossbows and lots of Halberds models which the range does'nt have, and both the Bretonnian lists meant finding mounted Knights. Mounted Samurai are great, but I wanted to just use the Aly Morrison miniatures, still avaliable from Foundry  http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/our-ranges/ex-citadel/samurai  , or models sympathetic to them.
So, to represent Elite Samurai in Heavy armour I hit on the idea of using the Chaos army list. Chaos Warriors and Maruaders would work well, but are very costly in points, but an army of Samurai Chaos Thugs in heavy armour would be great  and have an elite type of profile....

...and so with that idea, I thought I could have Oriental monsters and Oni (I have some Oriental Ogres whic would make great Oni using Minotaur rules). And whilst looking online I found a wonderful Chinese Dragon made by Mirliton (who now produce most of the old Grenadier model range in Italy) for reduced sale at Tritex Games http://www.tritex-games.co.uk/  , and at a bargain price. It would seem that the Dragon was sent in with only three legs, and so I thought with a bit of modelling he would make an excellent Nipponese Wyvern, either as a mount for a hero or a pet for a Wizard.

I will do a proper update on the Chaos Nipponese Army at a later date, but for now... 

 Boxed Dragon!

 Bits!

It is a lovely detailed model.

 Assembled, all be it balanced together.

 It is a very large model, the Skaven for scale.

I will Greenstuff thesockets for the back legs (the missing leg was the reat left) and over the cast on feet on the metal base. In this way I will have a snakebodied two armed Wyvern, almost like a giant Oriental Snakeman, both very Chaotic and Oriental in feel.

I am aware that he does'nt have any wings, a vital characteristic for a Wyvern, but many Oriental tales of monsters and Celestial Dragons seem to suggest that they fly on clouds, and so this 'Wyvern' shall too! It saves me mangling the model by adding wings.

 Nicely detailed Dragon/Wyvern head.

Apart from flights of fancy I have also been continuing to paint the Skaven army.
I have'nt got as far as hoped due to many of the distractions I mentioned, as well as the heat, have meant that I have only got 30 Clanrats speed painted. I did manage to also paint 3 Beastmasters, a Wizard, and a regimental leader for one of the Clanrat Regiments.
With the increase in the size of the army and the additional of several more metal models (which are lovely but will require more painting time), and the fact I have been very busy at work, I would suggest that the army will now be finished in mid August rather than by the start, but I will see what progress I make.
Enjoy :) 

 33 Heroquest Clanrats (3 of the test models and 30 from this week). 

I encountered a problem with the speed painting in that the 'new' ratskin Flesk paint in darker than the old Dwarf Flesh. So I have editied the speed painting guide on my blog (see stage Four and a Half):

 http://goblinlee.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/speed-painting-skaven.html

 Apart from tinkering with the flesh I also added a brass look to the Warpfire Thorwers.

 Regimental Leader and Wizard.

As I painted the army Genral Green, I thought I would paint this Wizard with red fur to differentiate them from the bulk of the rank and file Skaven.

 Rear views of both.

 The red bits on the Wizard are spines, no doubt due to the warping effects of Chaos Warpstone.

Beastmasters. 

The one in the centre is a Skaven Command miniature, the other two actual Beastmaster models. I ditched the sheild option for them. 

Beastmasters attached to the Rat Ogres regiment.

 

The next blog update will be yet more Skaven, of which I hope to have painted many more. I will also sort out some of the Oriental Heroes too. In addition, all this Pseudo-Orientalism has also got me looking at my Hobgoblin miniautres again, with an eye to paint stripping and re-painting them too. I will at some point do an update focusing purely on the 1980's Hobgoblin models.

Skaven Weapon Teams and Army List Version 2.

I am still painting the Skaven Army, although due to work and being ill (I've had a summer cold) I have only been able to paint the weapon teams, the Slave Ogre, and the Army General. I am also halfway through speed painting 66 of the Heroquest Clanrats, and so they will be finished before the week is out.

After discussing my first draft of the Skaven Army list I have compiled a second version, which I may still tinker with, but I have settled with the overall framework of the army.
The second version is as follows:

Army General, Level 20 Hero, Hellhoned Blade, Protective Rune Heavy Armour, Warplock Pistol
=148 points.

Army Standard Bearer, Level 15 Hero, Heavy Armour =125 points.

Level 20 Wizard = 230 points.

Level 10 Wizard = 80 points.

10 Gutter Runners, light armour, shield, slings = 145 points.

35 Clanrats, light armour, shield, spear, Standard bearer, musician, Level 10 hero = 294.5 points.

35 Clanrats, light armour, shield, spear, Standard bearer, musician, Level 10 hero = 294.5 points.

35 Clanrats, light armour, shield, Standard bearer, musician, Level 10 hero = 274 points.

35 Slaves, shield, Standard bearer, musician, Level 10 hero = 162.5 points.

35 Slaves, shield, Standard bearer, musician, Level 10 hero = 162.5 points.

19 Stormvermin, light armour, shield, double handed weapon, Standard Bearer, Musician, Level 15 hero with Baneblade [magic sword, not the tank!] =  266 points.

6 Rat Ogres, 3 Beast Handlers, light armour = 259.5 points.

3 Jezzailachis = 117 points.

4 Warpfire-Throwers =324 points.

3 Poisoned Wind Globadiers, light armour = 78 points.

Total =2990.5 points.

Different from the first draft of the Army list:

• I have dropped the Wyvern as I only intend to use bound creatures such as Dragons to take out other Dragons or monsters (a sort of 'fire and forget' Dragon!), but the Wyvern to me seemed less impressive. 
• I have added an Army Standard bearer for morale and panic tests
• I did consider dropping the Stormvermin, but in the end kept them as I still wanted a smaller more mobile unit with double handed weapons for higher toughness creatures. I also added a magical weapon to the Hero. I like to have at least two magical weapons in an army to deal with Ethereal creatures.
• Reduced the Level 25 Wizard to 20 to save points. 
•  Added Spears to two of the Clanrats regiments. I shall be using the Heroquest Skaven models as Spaermen as the 'hand weapons' look more like hafted weapons to me. So, as long as I inform my opponent I consider it to be fine. 
• Increased the size of the Clanrat units so it requires 9 dead Skaven to cuase a rout test.
• Reduced the size of the Slave units to match the size of the Clanrats, and also added an extra unit of them to bulk out the army and because they are cheap in points. Against advice I did'nt equip them with slings as the battle plan is to get into close combat as soon as possible, and so did'nt think the slings would get used.
• I added Gutter Runners, because I wanted them, and did'nt want an army without some skirmishers. 

I still have 9.5 points, and could probably glean some more points from something if needed. The re-design has also lead to me buying a few more Rat-Goblins (sorry, I mean Skaven!!)  from e-bay, included a Throt the Unclean model (for £1!) for lead the Stormvermin. I have added aporox 25 more models to the army, pushing it over the 200 mark for models in the army.
I am really growing to like the old metal Skaven models, an old range I never really had much dealing with over the years. I am rally enjoying assembling and painting the army.

Enjoy :) 

 Army General with Warplock Pistol.

Yes, he is Green!

 The reason is when I first purchased him in about 1987 I had no real idea about the Skaven, and so painted him green. With the curruption of Warpstone, and the availability of cheap hair dyes I thought why not repaint him green so as to stand out from the rest of the army?

I am pleased with how bright the eyes are turning out.

 Warpfire-Thrower. 

I like these, they seem very iconic of the Skaven army, and also representative of the arcane technomancy of them.

 Second Warpfire-Thrower. 

I painted the hood of the barrel carrier checked as I have noticed that I tend to paint in block colours too often, and intend to paint more patterned fabrics, especially for the Skaven, to break up the mass of standard colours.

 The third Warpfire-Thrower.

I painted this one as a test model a while ago, and just tinkered a little with the paintwork.

 Final Warpfire-Thrower from the right side.

 Two Jezzailachis, showing both sides of the models.

 For the third Jezzailachis team I always wanted to have the Skaven leader model paired with the 'stick holder model' to create a slightly different Jezzailachis team.

 3 Poisoned Wind Globadiers. 

I have turned the third one around to show the rear of the model.

The photograph did'nt really capture the glow of the globes.

 C23 Solid Based Slave Ogre, an unfortunate Ogre is now doubling up as a Rat Ogre. I think it adds a little variety and 'old skool' quirkyness to the army.

 The Slave Ogre in the unit.

I am currently painting up the Beasthandlers, so they should be ready for the next update as well.

Next update will be a continuation of the Skaven Army, with Clanrats, beasthandlers, and anything else I get a chance to paint included.

I am also planning an unusual themed Chaos Army, more of which I shall detail latter on.

Speed painting Skaven.

I have had a very busy week at work this week, and so have'nt had a chance to do any painting beyond the first stage of basecoating 150 Clanrats/Slaves. The only real painting I have done is for this blog update on, ironcially, how to speed paint Clanrats!

I did paint up the Wyvern, although I might add more highlighting and blending later this afternoon.

I also had a very interesting discussion on the compostion of Skaven army lists with the blogger
 24_ Cigarettes. I was not 100% happy with the army list I had written for the Skaven and he has made several interesting suggestions for modifing the list from his experence using a 3rd Edition Skaven army. I have no experence with Skaven of any era as I never fielded an army of them or collected them properly until now.
You can check out his Skaven on his blog here:  http://fullashtraygaming.blogspot.co.uk/

 There were things which I left out, such as Gutter Runners, and an army Standard, which I wanted to add to the army. I also only added the Stormvermin because I thought I should have one hard hitting regiment, but they don't seem too hard hitting, and I have the Rat Ogres for that. In addtion, like the Goblins, I think 30 might be too small for Clanrat Regiment so 36 or 40 might be the way to go.
So in response, I will be re-working the army list during the week. If anyone else has any suggests regarding 3rd Edition Skaven, please feel free to comment.

Apart from the Skaven, I have been picking up a few Heroes of the Known World and Knights of the Empire models from e-bay for my Rieksguard Regiment for the next project, The Empire Army.

Enjoy :)

 Speed painting Skaven:

The idea is to paint the scores of Skaven to a good battlefield standard. They won't be as detailed as say the Slann or Goblins I have painted, but I don't think they need to be as they will be in big blocks of dark coloured miniautres. 

I have chosen one of the Heroquest Skaven (left) and one of the Warhammer Regiments box set Skaven (right) as examples as they are the most common models in my army, and often form the bulk of any Skaven army of this era which includes plastic models. I will be (and have with the Rat Ogres and a few test models) be using the same process for the metal models that form weapon teams or some of the other specailist troops. However with them I will also add more detailing and use a few extra colours, using the speed painting process as a basis from which to work.

So first step, undercoat them black.

 Secondly, drybrush the whole model with brown, I used Citadels Mornfang Brown, but any colour will do. I would suggest avoid using a very dark brown as it does'nt show up as well against the black and may require a further highlight. 

I have dyrbrushed the sword blades too to suggest rust, but that is only my personal choice.

 Thirdly drybrush with silver, I used Citadel Runefang Steel. I find that using silver gives a good highlight and on top of brown gives a good dirty rust effect.

 Fourth, paint the hands, feet, face, tail, and ears a pink-ish flesh colour, I used Citadels Dwarf Flesh, which usefully for this army is now named Ratskin Flesh.

I did'nt highlight the flesh on the Clanrats, which I have done on the Rat Ogres I painted last week, and will do on the weapon teams. This was only becuase I was painting fast, and the flesh colour will act as it's own highlight when I ink the models later.

EDIT:

Games Workshop changed the paint Dwarf Flesh to Ratskin Flesh, which while they stated was the same paint, is'nt. Ratskin Flesh is a lot darker. With the speed painting technique above the effect looks very dark and so as a Stage 'Four and a Half' I now highlight the Ratskin Flesh with Kislev Flesh, as illustrated in the example above.

 Rear views, with the ratty tails.

 Five, paint the white.

 This is usually for the Clan motives on the sheilds, and for added details the teeth and claws, which again I did on the Rat Ogres and Weapon Teams but not to concerned on the Clanrats and Slaves.

 

 Six, the clothes.

 I chose to drybrush lightly over the brown with Vallejo German Field Grey as it is a suitable grubby colour and with the brown underneath gives a dirty effect. 

I also added a heavy contrast highlight of the grey mixed with white, the only two stage colour in the speed painting, to suggest old faded clothes, and to again tie in with the inking later. 

I have shown the rear views of both as they is more cloth visable than the front.

 Seven, paint the eyes. 

I have painted the eyes using Vallejo Fluorescent Green mixed with a little white to give that bright Warpstone infused glow. Red is a more standard choice, but I like the green.

 Eight is the detailing. 

Both models have a few little details on them, I have chosen to give a quick drybrush of red to the pouches, and siler to the dagger (whci I forgot to do when I painted the swords!)...

 ...and black on the sword handle. 

It's up to personal choice how much detail to do. I will be varing the colours of the pouches, and the cloth hoods as I go along to give variation and break up a too uniform look. I have found with other models I have painted (for example the Bretonnian Rascals) that is does'nt add too much extra painting time and adds variety.

 And finally stage Nine, ink wash. 

I used Citadels Agrax Earthshade, but Armypainter or just watered downblack paint can work just as well. I however like Agrax. It ties all the elements of the drybrushing together and the shading allows the drybrushing to become the highlight.

 Rear view, and done. :)

Excluding the undercoating, each Skaven takes about 4 minitues to paint, which is helped when painting in batches as the paint has already dryed on the first one by the time you have completed that particular stage of the last one.

 Ranking Heroquest Skaven. 

The models were designed to be on 25mm round bases and not ranked up. The weapons are annoying as they are too large to properly fit together. The solution (as shown in White Dwarf #137) is to have half the regiment facing one way, and the other half the other way )I have seperated the two halves for the phtotograph). They don't 100% fit, but it is close enough not to worry about too much. Also, if they are on a movement tray they will keep together.

As the weapons are quite long I am considering counting them as spear armed Skaven.

 I would suggest the these two sculpts of Skaven are placed on the edges of the regiments as the weapons do stick out a lot. Of course they can always be converted with weapon swaps.

 Wyvern. 

I have started with the Fluorescent green on black undercoat and then highlight with a mix of green and white, and then a highlight of rose pink. Might tinker with the highlighting later and give him a green ink wash (or maybe yellow or red?).

Heading for the trees! 

Next blog update I should have some painted up Clanrats! :)