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.

Poisoned Knives In The Dark

Yes, it's warpsword o'clock. The Skaven may use magical radiation rocks for everything from cooking their food to nuking the moon, but the classic is the Warpsword, and this Assassin from Clan Eshin has two of them just to make sure that whatever gets stabbed will definitely die, if not immediately then in 20 years from magic cancer of the pituitary gland or something.

An annoyingly fuzzy photo (I suspect I had shaky hands when I took it), but it does show you the nice icky green of the warp poisons and the like

What a friendly face

With the Assassin done the only character that's left to do is the Battle Standard Bearer, but that'll wait for the Stormvermin unit to cross my painting table. I plumped for having a crack at finishing the Rat Swarms next, which were a second-hand pick-up along with a lot of my Skaven, so they're partly painted and not assembled in the way I'd have liked them to be - but some paint and Agrax Earthshade and faffing around with the basing and they should be absolutely fine.

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 1
2025: 192

Clan Eshin's Workplace Apprentices

Today I finished the last of the Night/Gutter Runners, and got the Assassin up to the Agrax Earthshade point. I've also decided I'm probably going to do either the Rat Swarms or the Rat Ogres (and their Packmasters) next.

These are, I think, actually made with a mix of the plastic Clanrat and Gutter Runner kits - I don't know because I got most of them second hand and already built

The one second from right is mine from the original Mordheim boxed set though; I undercoated him back in the year 1999!

Now I have ten Gutter/Night Runners, a Warplock Engineer, three Poison Wind Globadiers, and a Warpfire Thrower team painted up - well on the way to 2,000 points I'd say!

Painting Points:
Today: 4
This Week: 12
2025: 191

Runners Of The Night

So this bunch of squeaking backstabbers can either bump up the Gutter Runners to 10, or turn the whole unit into a slightly cheaper Night Runner unit. I've managed to get them to the Agrax Earthshade point now, which is good - should be able to get them all done tomorrow:

You can also see the Hero-level Assassin in the background, who's now had a couple of block colours applied. I should be able to get him done tomorrow too, and then I'll have to find something else to paint from the Skaven. I do have a regiment of spear-rats sat next to me, but they're all bare plastic and I'm out of spray undercoat at the moment.

Clan Skryre Brings The Techno-Magic

Today has been crazy busy with appointments, family, and a Dungeons and Dragons game but I did manage to get the Warplock Engineer finished! I painted him up as an albino - the only one who'll be in the army.

That pistol is less prone to exploding than you'd think

Unfortunately a blurry picture but the halberd has some nice runes in the blade

The warp condenser (or whatever it is) on his back will make him fit in nicely with the Poison Wind Globadiers

"Death-doom to foe-things!"

 

The rust is incredibly simple - it's just a couple of irregular blotchy layers of Skrag Brown! I also went a little extra because he's a character model, and put a triangle design on the bottom of the robe. The Warpstone is just Caliban Green with a coat of Technical Tesseract Glow.

Next up is the Clan Eshin Assassin and the rest of the Night/Gutter Runners.

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 8
2025: 187

Slow And Steady Does It

Hardly any painting today - finished blocking out the colours on the Warlock Engineer and slathered him in Agrax Earthshade, and then popped the metals down on the rest of the Gutter Runners and the Assassin:

Tomorrow's going to be very busy so I may not get any painting done, but I hope to at least finish the Engineer.

Sneaky-Quiet In The Dark-Gloom

Clan Eshin is, after all, best known for its Assassins. Gutter Runners are sort of Assassin-adjacent, and the way this particular little group will be used is to pop out of a tunnel (hopefully) near the enemy's war machines, wizards, and other squishy targets... then kill 'em!

Gutter Runners led by a Black Skaven. All are armed with two hand weapons and are a Tunnel Team

I really like the way they've turned out, and the rust in particular looks great

I also started blocking out colours on the Warlock Engineer - just the bronze, steel, and robe at the moment - and am hoping to get him done tomorrow, along with another four Gutter Runners to (in theory) expand the unit to 10, although that would have to be in a bigger army as there's no room in the 2000 point list I currently have.

Painting Points:
Today: 5
This Week: 7
2025: 186

Running In The Gutters

Today I blocked out all the colours on the Gutter Runner Tunnel Team and then washed them all in Agrax Earthshade:

 

So that puts them in a good position for me to finish off tomorrow: a little highlighting and some details and they'll be done. That said, I do need more matt varnish, so if I can't find a spare pot I may have to hold off on completing them until I can get another pot. Fingers crossed!

(Oh, I also brush undercoated the Warlock Engineer, who can be seen just behind the Gutter Runners)

Quick And Easy

Sometimes you just need something you can bash out in a few minutes, and my Skaven collection provided: a tunnel team marker that I'd got second hand and which was essentially half done already, and a Gutter Runner I made and painted back in 2001 when Mordheim came out - it's one of the original minis from the Mordheim boxed set! 

Currently on my painting desk - an Assassin, a Warplock Engineer (in grey plastic), 10 Gutter/Night Runners, and a Tunnel Team Marker. The one with the blue cloak and white Skaven triangle is another Mordheim original

Skratch, from the original Mordheim set, painted 24 years ago when I was 14!

Pretty good for a 14 year old. At this point I'd been painting GW stuff for about five or six years and models for seven or so

And now they look like this:

Tunnel Team Marker, and a rebased Skratch

The tufts of turf on the soil help blend it into the base... sort of

Tomorrow, the Gutter Runners!

Painting Points:
Today: 2
This Week: 2
2025: 181