A cheeky Skaven Warlord pops by

I did not just mess around with my 3D-printer this week, I also found time to build and paint. This Skaven Clawlord for instance. I got him as part of a small second hand Skaven lot. As I took his old coat of paint off, I discovered his head had been replaced with a plastic variant. No problem if you ask me, this face suits him well enough.

Now for something different: the front door to Maisontaal abbey.

3D-printed Skaven Verminlord Corruptor slinks onto the scene

After almost three months of nothing, three posts in three days. Admittedly this is not a professionally planned (or run) blog ;). But with more stuff on the paint station coming up, I did not want to walk into the 'let's save this one for later'-trap (it's where my King Tiger is parked). So without further ado (and bereft of pre-amble (so as not to fill the space with empty rambling)) here's the Verminlord Corruptor I finished yesterday. 

"Rats spreading the black death? Amateur stuff I say, wait 'till I'm done here." (oh dear, now this Verminlord sounds like Matt Berry in my internal monologue.)

Revisiting Gnawdoom, a classic Skaven Grey Seer

When it comes to Skaven on the second hand market, I have a hard time leaving them to others. Recently I lucked out and got my hands on a bunch of Skaven that contained a model I'd been hoping to get for quite some time: Gnawdoom the Skaven Grey Seer. This is the wizard that was sent to Maisontaal to recover the Black Ark in the Terror of the Lichmaster book.

Painting Gnawdoom the grey seer again after all these years was a joy.

I finally got around to painting again (and actually writing about it)

I can't believe I managed to fall of the edge of a globe! Luckily I dropped back onto the surface and painted some miniatures along the way. What is that you say? No edges on globes? Okay, in all honesty: work managed to eat up most of my time and I had to overcome a raging addiction to Satisfactory along the way too. But over the holidays I managed to get some hobby done. As I turned the space underneath my paint station into a GW store facsimile I'll be forced to paint even more in the foreseeable future if I want my legspace back. In other words: more updates will follow soon. But for now, and without further ado, lets pretend I never fell of the globe and show what I painted over the past few weeks. 

Painting skin with purple glazes is a lot of fun and produces nice results (I think). It also makes me hum  the tune of Purple Haze, but that's just me being annoying. 

A Skaven Plague Furnace rolls into view

 Aside from a rather over the top crazy 3D-printing project that's taking a lot of time, I've been refocusing on my Skaven horde. Just to be sure: I never fully take my eyes of them, they are a rather untrustworthy bunch after all. One of the clans in my collection that really needs a boost is Pesilens. My Plague Monks need reinforcements. I have good news for them: there are several extra units lined up (and glued together). This weekend I painted a Plague Furnace for them to die cluster around. 

They see me rollin', they hatin'...

Is it possible to overdo OSL? These (not so) sneaky Skaven would like to know

This weekend I had slightly too much fun throwing undirected energy at a whole bunch of projects. While working on about forty Plague Monks, a few warmachines, ten Wolf Rats, a bunch of space ships and some other random stuff I decided I really should finish something. Even if only to create some space on my paint station. I opted to go for these 3D-printed Poisoned Wind Globadiers/Battle Alchemists/Skryre Acolytes.

Is this the local rave? We're completely geared up to dance until the police break it up.

Skaven Plague Claw Catapult, Warpfire Thrower Team and some Packmasters join the horde

Two clans need expanding in my slightly overgrown Skaven collection: Eshin and Pestilens. On the Eshin side I have more assassins primed (but not ready). On the Pestilens side I mostly need a few more warmachines. With this Skaven Plague Claw Catapult I have started solving that last problem. And as I was splashing more paint on rats anyway, I also added another Warpfire Thrower Team and some Packmasters to the horde.

You have to wonder how disgusting something needs to be before a Skaven puts on a gas mask.

Take the kiswa maker hook and ride Squeek-Hulud like a leader of ratmen!

Yeah the 'conversion' that had to happen, has happened. Egged on by regular readers Toby and Lasgunpacker I looked around for a kiswa hook, settled for superglue (I'm short on Arrakis Fremen gear) and made one spare Skaven ride Squeek-Hulud like a leader of ratmen. Frightened squeels and regular spraying of the musk of fear have not been included with this picture. 

Polish comes from the cities, wisdom from the desert and Hell Pit Abominations come from the Hell Pit.

Buddy gets company: Master Moulder and two 3D-printed Hell Pit Abominations finished

Almost six years ago I finished my Skaven Hell Pit abomination Buddy Since that day he's seen quite a few battlefields. As he survived no battle so far, I thought it was past time to get him some friends and a proper handler. Without further ado: here's a group shot of Buddy (a GW original), two 3D-printed friend (yet to be named) and their handler, a Master Moulder (by GW).

Okay I've named the center one 'Buddy', perhaps I should name the one on the left 'Fluffy' and the one on the right 'Spot' (<- deft McDeath reference right there (also misplaced, but let's ignore that)).

Skaven Plague Monk speed painting (and releasing the lead)

So there I was, busily painting my new Orcs, when all of a sudden I realized my birthday's coming up in less than a month. Traditionally I buy myself some new Skaven to celebrate. But what to get? As that question is tough to answer, I took stock of what I had (both painted and unpainted). With a lot of unpainted Skaven on my paint station, I decided to check how fast I could stamp out a unit of Skaven Plague Monks. I did these over the course of this weekend (and I'm pretty chuffed about both the speed and the result).

After many years spent languishing in a cardboard and plastic prison, these Plague Monks are finally free to terrorize the Mortal Realms (and the Old World when the opportunity presents itself).

Painting the backlog: Necron Barbie, Diehard Orc and Dwarf, Dwarf Thunderers, Skaven Stormfiends and Skaven Doom-Flayer

 Recently I had a bit of a painting fugue, grabbing models from my Window Sill of Shame and just finishing the bastards. The result is a lot of joy (I finally added paint to the bastards) and a conundrum: how do I blog about painting the bastards. I decided to just throw them together in what will undoubtably be a completely disjointed blog post. Enjoy dear readers ;). Lets fire this one off with the Necron Barbie.

We can do anything, right Flayed One?

Finished my first Stormcast unit and it belongs to...drumroll...the Sigmar's Children Stormhost

Stormcast are the face of Age of Sigmar and I've had a lot of trouble with them from their release. Not the  regularly encountered 'they are the faceless face that killed my hobby' sort of trouble but the 'how do I paint these properly kind. I found this three year old post documenting my search. Short version of my troubles: painting them gold does not work for me, black makes them fit in a bit too well with my Undead and Skaven and Stegadon Blue made them look too much like science fiction warriors. In the end it took a bit of cynical Scifi theft to get my own Stormhost and pick my colors. I proudly present a unit of liberators from: Sigmar's Children.

I had a lot of fun experimenting with paint techniques on these guys, one of them was using blue to paint shadows (in stead of adding a wash). 

Bloodbath at Orruk's Drift test scenario #3 Linden Way

With another lockdown lifted, I got a chance to test scenario number three from my reimagining of the classic Blood Bath at Orc's Drift campaign. This time the villagers of Linden Way had to escape while a small visiting army tried to hold the little town against yet another invading horde. As with the previous scenario's I first had to reinvent the table layout as wargaming tables have shrunk (while quite ironically the models keep on growing  #scalecreep). Here's the Linden Way table for the Blood Bath at Orruk's Drift campaign.

Linden Way reimagined for a smaller table. I made an improvised lake by cutting a plastic tab divider to shape and covering the edges with moss.  

Painting warhammer miniatures with oil paints (Warpgnaw Verminlord)

I love discovering new aspects of painting, building scenery and gaming. In order to stir things up I decided to try painting with oil paint instead of acrylic paint. Trying new things keeps the hobby fresh and hey, you learn new things too! Because painting with oils felt like a big step I used a damaged second hand Warpgnaw Verminlord to try it on. As usual, I'll start with the end result (and add more finished pictures at the end).

I declare my experiment with oils successful.

Skaven warplock jezzails, Throt the Unclean, Grey Seer and friends finished

Currently there's no great plan when it comes to my painting. I've been picking up random models on my paint station and applying some pigment to them as whim takes me. This results in quite an nice random mix of finished models. Like the clanrats (actually Skaven slaves), warplock jezzails, Throt the Unclean and Grey Seer I finished over the pas few weekends (not to mention Nagash, but that's for a different post). 

Ah the bad old days when clanrats where available in dirt cheap plastic and Skaven Slaves where only available as (expensive) cast metal. 

Bloodbath at Orruk's Drift test scenario #2 Ashak Rise

This week I had time to test out scenario number two for my re-imagining of the classic Bloodbath at Orc's Drift campaign. The original scenario featured a small band of greedy dwarf deserters trying to save their gold from a chance encounter with an invading orc warband. This new version sees a small Order/Death army defending the same old shack from an invading Chaos/Destruction host. Slightly bigger scale, same principle. 

The game opened with a unit of skeletons and a lone Tomb Banshee standing close to the bridge on the road leading past Ahsak's Rise mining cottage.

A third Screaming Bell rolls onto the scene

Christmas 2020 is upon us and I have a little lot of time reserved to get down to some serious painting. Before the new models pile up I had to get this one photographed and put on the blog. I actually completed this Screaming Bell a few weeks ago, but as I wanted to actually be able to take some time off during the holidays, didn't have the time to photograph it. Anyway, here's my third Screaming Bell in all its glory.

As an aside this marks the second model I've based on an laser cut MDF base. I should do a post about those somewhere in the future.

Bloodbath at Orruk's Drift test scenario #1 Kachas Pass

As far as I'm concerned the best wargames are narrative games. This year I planned to slap Oldhammer and Age of Sigmar together and reimagine a classic. Unfortunately grandfather Nurgle's 2020 tour made it irresponsible to host a day of group gaming. On the plus side it gave me time to actually polish my scenario. To take it up one notch (and because we can safely have limited contact again) I actually tested the first scenario. Now there's a first. Here's some ramblings about applying old school wargaming to new rulesets. 

With a roar the invading Skaven horde stormed the stockade manned by two units of Dark Elves and their commander. 

Classic Screaming Bell painted up and ready to go

"The Screaming Bell is one of the most fearsome creations of the insane Warlock Engineers." With those words GW introduced a large, chariot-like model for the Skaven. To my surprise that was in 1993. I thought the model was older. I remember having the budget back then to get either a Screaming Bell, a Doom Wheel or a Verminlord. As my standard opponent was fielding a Great Unclean One at the time, I picked the Verminlord (and I restored the model a while back). With a recent lucky find on a second hand website I've been able to finally add a classic Screaming Bell to my collection.

Come to think of it, this bell is quite on time for Christmas this year.

Battle for the Comet

This Sunday Goblin Grot Spider Riders, Skaven and the Oger Ogor Mawtribes fought against Dark Elves, Fyreslayers, Dwarves and Bretonnians (*cough* Flesheater Courts *cough*). Seers foretold three precious comets would land in the (wisely) abandoned village of Schweifsternheim. Whoever could claim the precious rocks would gain untold power and riches. Reason enough for a good scrap.

 

With a deranged roar the packed Ghouls stormed a horde of Skaven Clanrats.