Big Rat, Strong Rat

Today I spent a chunk of time working on the Rat Ogres and Packmasters, and got them all done! I was quite surprised that I managed to do it frankly, but they ended up looking really nice. I did need to change the base on one of the Rat Ogres, but the end result is really good (I think, anyway):

Grargh! The gun on the middle one doesn't have any rules (I think it's an 8th Edition thing) but it does look cool which is important

After taking this photo I realised I hadn't painted the stitching on the wrist of the middle one's top left hand, but that's been fixed now. The sculpted fur is quite crude but it paints up alright I think

Back view - I like the carved rune on the back of the Island of Blood one on the left,  and you can really see the difference between the multi-part plastic one in the middle and the two Island of Blood monopose ones

Warpstone ick! Tesseract Glow is a wonderful paint for that purpose

The packmasters! I have used mustard yellow to signify Clan Moulder in much the way I've decided to use a dark red to signify Clan Skryre

These are all multipart ones from the multipart Rat Ogre kit rather than the Island of Blood

Although none of these can be champions or anything in the rules, in my head the middle one is the boss rat for the whole Rat Ogre pack

A better view of the thing-catcher and rust on the metals

With the Rat Ogres done, I'm now in a position where I'm not sure what to paint next - I haven't got anything that's already undercoated other than a bunch of Stormvermin, so I might do those, or I might undercoat the Jezzail teams and do some more Clan Skryre nonsense. I probably won't be doing anything tomorrow as my partner P and I are going to go and see Skunk Anansie!

Painting Points:
Today: 6
This Week: 17
2025: 209

A Carpet Of Rats

After not doing any painting at all yesterday, today I finished off the rat swarms. The hardest part was getting the static grass onto the bases - applying the paint in between all those tiny bodies and legs was quite difficult, and there's a couple of rats with some green where there shouldn't be...

The furry tide! Clan Moulder's hand can be seen in the "commander" rats in clothes and carrying blades...

Other than that they were quite good fun to finish off. An interesting contrast to the snotling swarms I painted a year or so ago.

Having done that, I turned my attention to the Rat Ogres and Packmasters that I have. One of the Rat Ogres has been painted already, as have the Packmasters, so today was mostly about blocking in the cloth on the Packmasters (I don't want them wearing blue!) and undercoating the two Rat Ogres that were just bare plastic. I also took the painted Rat Ogre off its base as I want to reposition it, but unfortunately whatever it was previously based with just isn't coming off so I may need to dig out a new base for it - if I have a 40mm square going spare, that is.

Painting Points:
Today: 10
This Week: 11
2025: 203

Rats! Thousands Of 'Em!

Any self-respecting Skaven army should have a nice big swarm of rats, and that's what I have:

I really like swarms in general - I have a soft spot for things like snotlings, jungle swarms, scarab swarms, ripper swarms and so on. They're usually really good as a flank guard because they never break, take a long time to kill, and can be flung into things like Chosen Knights of Khorne as redirectors or even just tarpits. This is why I almost always take five bases if I can, and this army's no exception.

As they're second hand, they haven't been built the way I would have done (they're very same-y, with one large rat on the front right, and a funny rat-with-knife-and-cloak in the middle rear) but they are mostly complete. I drybrushed some of them grey and some of them black, repainted all the cloaks from blue to undyed cloth colours, and then hit them all with Agrax Earthshade. The next step will be to highlight the cloaks and then paint all the tails, paws, and bony protrusions (and poxes). I should be able to get all that done tomorrow.