On the Painting Table: Skaven Characters!

Well LAST Christmas (before the one we just had) I got a bunch of Skaven miniatures in my sack. In typical fashion I spent a year getting round to painting them.

And here they are!

This is the dude from the Warhammer boxed game Isle of Blood.

He's amazingly nice but in some ways I kind of don't like him.

Then there's this Craventail chap.

Reasonably cool I guess.

Observant viewers may notice he has a solid gold ponytail.

(Grins inanely)

And then there's this happy chappy!

I actually like him best! I'd love to make a rat ogre with the warlord on his back but haven't got round to it. I'm kind of hoping GW will produce one sometime. This is the miniature I would probably use if I was going to do a conversion.

All of these models are going to be special characters in my campaign at some point. For now they're just lying in wait.

And of course we've already seen Killbloater!

Special Character: Killbloater

While Frostclaw has long led the armies of the Skaven of Spikehole on the front lines, backed up (and manipulated) by Skarskrit, the Greay Seer, there is another rat man of greater stature and more devilish cunning than either of them who is yet to show his face.

Killbloater... Lord of Spikhole and leader of all the Skaven within the Border Princes.

Using pure warpstone juices as a daily elixir, Killbloater has grown to enormous girth and muscle mass, easily lording his power over the lesser creatures around him. But as the Warpstone has multiplied his strength, so too has it sharpened his mind.

Killbloater has unsurpassed cunning for a Skaven, and worse, he holds in his belly the throbbing power of a mystical artifact of unimaginable power, crafted by the Old Ones themselves.

He holds in his belly one of the lost Eyes of Nippon, passed down from clutching claw to clutching claw over a thousand generations.

With no conception of how to use it to its fullest potential, Killbloater simply swallowed the jewel and now pulses with preturnatural prowess and longevity on the battlefield; a force of unbridled lethality.

Upon the frame on his back, Killbloater carries what appears at a glance to be the dismembered corpse of a woman, the bones from its arms removed; the empty skin used as rope to tie it in place.

But listen very carefully and you will hear the dry lips of this poor creature begging for mercy as the fowl sorcery of the Skaven and the proximity to the Lost Eye of Providence keep her alive beyond all reasoning.

The identity of this woman is unknown. No clothes adorn her naked mutilated flesh to help iodentify her, but she is clearly of noble birth.

And surely she is missed.

	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
Killbloater	5	6	4	5	4	3	7	4	7

Points: 190 

EQUIPMENT
2 Hand Weapons
Heavy Armour

The Lost Eye of Providence (Enchanted Item)

Grants +1 Strength (included above), a 4+ Ward Save & Regeneration (6+)

Killbloater is a model I bought from BaneLords (via my good friend Neil, who felt he was far too big to represent his Mordheim commander)

The Spike Hole Horror!

With the success of the Hell Pit Abominations  spreading through the under-empire of the Skaven, the bar was raised to produce some new killing fiend of even greater power.

But it wasn't Throt the Unclean and Clan Moulder who perfected this new beast. It was the warlock engineers of Spike Hole.

Bear witness to the Spike Hole Monstrosity!

The creature is every bit as deadly as the Hell Pit Abomination only moreso.

Far bigger and bulkier than the  Clan Moulder creation, this gargantuan monstrosity is capable of swallowing a man whole without even slowing.

Worse; it has another great gaping maw at the other end! Never before has such a disgusting horror been seen! Never before are something so deadly slithered and crawled from the festering depths of Spikehole.

The real horror however is how the fiendish creatures are produced. It is a lengthy and esoteric process prone to frequent failure as well as lethally powerful success that begins, hard though it is to believe, with the purest of substances.

For the beast you see here was once a human woman, a beautiful young lady no more than twenty years of age, spirited screaming into the night from the town of Malko by cackling Night Runners. 

At the beginning of the process, the human's head - the woman in this case - is detached, still alive and screaming, and affixed through surgery to the shoulders of the giant rat like a malformed hump. Using foul sorcery and unclean science, the head is kept alive and conscious; unable to die or even to fall unconscious; unable to control the actions of the filthy pox-ridden rat that crawls amongst the carrion and through the damp tunnels searching for prey.

For weeks, this human head is left to "season," going very quickly insane as it screams hoarsely for release of any kind; lying amongst the other rats and watching as they feast on mouldering human corpses of the head's own family.

Eventually, after several months of this agonised mental torture, the head is removed; now a gibbering maniac consumed by loathing and hatred.

While the head has been seasoning, the body of the human has undergone gruelling transformation, its essence spliced with that of other Skaven monstrosities until it has bloated and mutated unrecognisably.

The insane head is grafted back into the interior of this new bloated, worm-like beast to provide a dark soul and motive power. The creature has no eyes; only a twisted sense of smell and the need for rancid flesh. It is ruled only by hatred and when fully complete, goaded into battle and controlled (after a fashion) by the warpstone gems built into its armour plating.

It is  truly a horror beyond imagining.

	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
Spikehole Horror	3d6	3	1	6	6	8	4	*	8

Points: 320 

SPECIAL RULES 

Impact Hits (D6)
Large Target
Terror
Regenerate
Stubborn
Hatred

+ from the Skaven Army Book:

Shambling Horror
Special Close Combat Attacks
Too Horrible to Die

Armour Save: 5+

This model is another toy from the McFarlane range: The Gemini. I've boosted the Toughness and Wounds a little and added an Armour Save and Hatred, then boosted the points to roughly match that.

Massacre on the Plains Near Spikehole

Tim (Skaven) vs Gill (Tomb Kings) 

In a time of war, sometimes the most unusual of allies can be found.

The unbridled power of the Undead Nation was surging north toward the Empire and already the foul verminous ratmen had been the most pivotal race to stay their advance: taking and holding the vampire staging post of Fortress Malefic and hurling back the zombie hordes on the plains near Spikehole, their own bastion.

But the Undying ones did not forgive and would never EVER forget. Already they had expelled the Skaven from Fortress Malefic and now they surged north once more, endless ranks of clattering, staring skeletons.

Once more they had come to the plains near Spikehole and once more the armies of the Skaven scuttled out of the depths to meet them, this time rallying round the greatest and most ostentatious Screaming Bell the Old World had ever seen, truly an alter to the Horned Rat!

Dozens of reeking Plague Monks charged forward, rabid and frenzied, Censer Bearers running beside them and crackling and bouncing at the flank ran a hypercharged Doomwheel, fresh from the forge and spitting lightning.

But in the foliage at the edge of the marshy plane, the Tomb Kings had hidden a Casket of Souls! As its lid rose the air was filled with the vengeful spirits of the long dead but a whispered phrase from the Skaven Grey Seer and the land clanked down shut, just as howling Gutter Runners leapt out of the bushes and hacked the casket master and his guards apart.

The two mighty armies crashed into one another but as the myriad screaming bells tolled the Skaven close by became frenzied. Bolstered further by the sorcery of the Grey Seer they hacked and hacked and bit and gouged as Frostclaw, the Skaven general, beheaded the Tomb King commander.

Ushabti were felled by ravening Rat Ogres, a horde of no less than sixty giant rats fell upon the Screaming Skull catapult, picking the bones it was made from clean and the Plague Monks smashed skeleton after skeleton to bits.

Inspired by the Screaming Bell, the Clanrats refused to break and as the battle went on it was only a matter of time before they could be victorious.

Finally only a handful of undead warriors fought on, surrounded and doomed.

The revenge of the undead had spluttered and died resulting in an overwhelming massacre.

It did not bode well for the Undead Nation as now the lands they'd already won lay undefended.

Now was not the time of the Tomb Kings. It was the time of the rat!

On the Painting Table: Skaven Doomwheel!

Ah, the mighty Skaven Doomwheel!

This has to be one of the coolest miniature models ever. It is kind of pure coolness - a brilliant quirky idea that has also been beautifully rendered.

I am very pleased with how the flag came out. It's dark red with a black wash and then dark red highlight and then Graveyard Earth | Bleached Bone for the lower part.

The metals are my usual black wash over metal hybrid.

This dude's kind of cute.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the Painting Table: Giant Rats!

I'll be honest. Rats scare the crap out of me.

But you can get so many free ones from the various Skaven sprues that everyone should have a large units of Giant Rats!

The official ones are in there somewhere but I added all the ones of the Plague Monk sprues and all the other sprues I could find to make up a grand total of sixty!

And annoyingly I got an extra ten or so with the Doomwheel the other day!

In combat they can fight in extra ranks so a horde should be able to put out up to 40 attacks per turn (plus the handlers!)!

And they're also fast!

Look out world! They're coming!

Spotlight On: A Different Kind of Screaming Bell

Heh.

Many years ago I bought a bunch of Warhammer miniatures of a kid in Ferndown.At the time I wasn't into Warhammer Fantasy and this act kind of catapulted me into it.

Part of that BIG purchase was the original Skaven Screaming Bell (this isn't my paint job by the way).

But it was a bit static for my tastes so I made a rather more dramatic conversion. 

But when the new Screaming Bell came out I felt the ante had been upped. I was  going to have to go a long way to outdo it (if that was even possible). I got the kit and made the Plague Furnace, then looked at the spare parts remaining and rubbed my hands together. 

The thing that inspired me the most here was a line from the army book: "It is from these unholy altars that the Grey Seers preach their plans of total domination in the name of the Great Horned Rat." I wanted it to be something that they use outside of battle for their dark rituals and I wanted it to be a huge centrepiece (while still sitting on the correct base size). 

Here's the Grey Seer's pulpit. 

The banner at the top on those big spears was a late addition and I had to really rein myself in. It was going to be much bigger but I realised it would then be too big to stand on my biggest shelf! 

The banner is made from kitchen towel ripped into little chunks and hung over a piece of thread, then hardened with super glue.

The bell on the new Screaming Bell was so cool that I had to use it and I could have used it to replace my original one. But I really wanted to go all out on bells. With two warpstone bells and a whole bunch of other supporting bells of different sizes, we can imagine the vast and cacophonous din that would break out across the battlefield, and also take place at their moonlit rituals.

I toyed with using the old bell ringer on the little platform in front of this bell for a while but in the ens felt this bowl of steaming warpstone worked better.

The extra bells are from Christmas decorations. They're painted Tin Bitz with Boltgun Metal stippling.

(I love how this picture came out - it really captures the sense of scale) 

As you can see, it all fits neatly (though perhaps a tad improbably) onto the normal base - the original carriage from the original Screaming Bell.

Now the Rat Ogre has this cool chain coming up from his hand so I decided it would be a shame not to use it. 

I got some thin chain from B&Q, prised open a link and joined it to the end then positioned everything so that it could look like he was ringing the upper bell. 

On second thought I added a secondary chain hanging down to the lower bell too. 

I'm reasonably pleased by how this came out. But not entirely.

I built the platform (from balsa wood) so that the rat ogre could be gripping onto the back of it, as he does to the official model.

He must go so deaf between those massive bells!

 

 

And there you have it. I'd like to say it's how you can get 2 models for the price of one, but after getting the original Screaming Bell, all the balsa wood, the extra parts, the chain and the big bells, then spending countless hours building and painting the thing, you MAY think it's not worth it. 

But I love it so who cares!

Now all I have to do is paint another 26-odd Clanrats to push it along!

On the Painting Table: Skaven Doom Flayer!

(Chuckles) 

I have wanted one of these since I first saw it and boy is it cool. 

I found it at Simple Miniature Games in Christchurch in their half price box (though only reaslised the side propellers were missing when I got to build it. It's still cool though.

And I can't wait to see it in action!

 

I painted the wheel with Tin Bitz | Dwarf Bronze and a chainmail drybrucsh on the blade ends. It's a little bit rough and ready I guess so maybe I'll give it a tweak at some point but for now it's playable-withable.

The Dead Fall, The Dead Rise & Chaos Blossoms

Tim (Spider Goblins) vs Gill (Tomb Kings) 

And in the south west as Nagash's dread magics had brought down meteors from the baleful green moon, a storm of magic swept the plains before Barak Varr. There the Chittering Horde descended on the Tomb Kings, wiping them out once more as the final battle between these forces drew closer. Every fight had been won by the goblins and this was no different.

Even as unholy sites were imbued with the power of Arcane Fulcrums, the wizards of both forces took command of the eldritch might, throwing devastating spells in all directions. 

It mattered nought. The Chittering Horde won as they ever had, crushing bone and banishing magic. 

The dead could no more stand against them than they could breathe again.

Tim (Skaven) vs Tomb Kings (Mike) 


And in the midst of the Border Princes, as Tomb Kings closed their skeletal claw around Spike Hole, the Skaven fought hard and bitterly. Again the power of the Arcane Fulcrums cascaded from the ground but again, the defending force were pressed to maintain control of it. The Tomb Kings tried to hurl the ratmen back from the field of blood but their power was not great enough.

Biding their power and not allowing their greed to risk losing control, the Skaven slew each enemy wizard, gaining the fulcrums and hurling the Tomb Kings back in turn.

Mike (Tomb Kings) vs Tim (Spider Goblins) 

But again in the south, scant miles from the gates of Barak Varr, the Chittering Horde finally outstretched itself. Drawing might from a new tome of ancient knowledge (the new Tomb Kings army book), the undead legion suddenly recovered the might that they had once used to slay every last dwarf in the Dwarfen City of the sea.

The Spider King and his unnumbered  crawling lackeys were more powerful than any living foe but this close to their fortress, the legions of death could not be defeated. It did not matter how great their strategy and how powerful their magic, the skeleton warriors showed no mortal weakness and an immortal strength.

In time, they drove off the goblins and their spider mounts, signalling their first defeat in this lengthening war and blunting at last their seemingly unstoppable surge to capture Barak Varr.

Chaos Daemons (Tim) vs Wood Elves (Gill) - Massacre

And so evil battled evil, waxing and waning as the fates decried and in the north, the spiteful Elves of Linwe  skipped into battle with those most unholy of enemies, the Daemons of the Pernicious Gate.

But pure evil cannot be destroyed and undiluted malice lay at the heart of the daemons, where once, millennia before the Elves had known goodness. Bloodwood Drakes soared into the air to destroy the things before them but flames cast high brought the first one low before it had even the chance to roar.

 As the other Drake neared the Daemon lines, fire ripped the Wood Elf lord from its shoulders and the throng of unholiness brought the beast down, surrounded on all sides by the devilishly clever creatures of chaos.

The bloodletters hurled themselves into the onrushing ranks of Dryads and Treemen as Seekers of Slaanesh ran ranpant behid then Elven lines. And soon only daemonic flesh stood amidst the blood and corpses. Only daemonic voices screamed of victory.