Oh Rats! Rat adventurers and adversaries.

 More of the Oh Rats! section of the Reaper Bones II Kickstarter.  This is the same place I got the Gnome in Gimpsuit... and its equally odd.. Ok it's odd in its own... (slightly) less creepy way than Gimp Gnome...

Anyway!

The set of Adventure Rats!

 I suspect these are intended as adversaries for the Mouslings and I'll get round to digging those guys up eventually!

Here we have some henchrats... indispensable really and loaded down with backpacks, sacks, and various supplies for the trip.  The proverbial red shirts of the group.

These were painted while working on a pile of salvage Skaven but should be the end of things Ratty... until the Veermyn roll in from the Warpath Kickstarter.... Rats... IN... Spaaaaacccccceeeee....

The bases are worked up with gray pumice and give a nice weight, and stability, to the models.  

 The infamous Packrat!

Everyone needs a dungeon (or sewer... as the case may be...) capable beast of burden.  This one does all that and can fight to protect the loot to boot!

In truth this guy looks more like a mutant mouse than a mutant rat but that's not entirely unlikely.... right?

 Packrat has a full load of loot, including a huge ivory tusk, and a good big stick to keep pilferers at bay.

Lots of earth tones here and lots of washes.  I added a few points of actual color, like the pot and the lamp, to break up the oppression and draw the eye.

 A Red Shadow!  Fearsome Rat Assassin!

Looks like he has been hangin' with the Skaven a bit too long and has absorbed some of their symbols... as well as the glowing warp poison on his corrupted blade.

I seem to have returned to subsurface symbols on the robes of these and on several more projects that are currently on the table.  These symbols are painted on the base red of the robes and then washed with Secret Weapon Drying Blood, retouched with yellow in the vertices and ends, and rewashed with Drying Blood.

 I can't decide if this is a Rat Shaman manifesting a weasel totem or... a Weasel Shaman... or something completely different!

Ok... ok... NOT Gimp Suit different but still....


Worked up with the same subsurface symbols as the Red Shadow.

Weasel Necromancer....?

Next week is going to be hectic so I think I'll do another update before the weekend gets here I've got a Raging Heroes bit drying its pumice and a major WiP for the Mantic Abyssal Dwarf Army.

Cheers!

Rats old and new, undead musician discovery, and a basing a Kings of War Dwarf Host

 Since I really am a bit OCD about painting stuff that is out of the box before opening something new... I thought I'd better tune up these old Skaven Models, acquired in a partially painted state some time ago, while I was doing the Bones Ratmen.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of the Skaven was actually some sort of Undead Goblinoid Musician!  Worse still... it was originally painted goblin green as though the previous owner was conscripting the unlucky guy into a regular goblin unit!

 If anyone recognizes that fellow post a comment or send me a PM.  I haven't got round to researching him but I'm dead curious.

There was also an incomplete Skaven Warlord, or hero of some sort, that I touched up quite a lot.  I left the banner peg in place because I'm certain, at some point, a back banner will show up that is suitable for him.

 The bases are relatively neutral and void of fiddly bits because I'll want to make a coherent theme for them and haven't yet settled on one... although with a few weeds and bits of junk these might work out fine there is a small Skaven ally force around here somewhere and I'll want to combine them up with these fellows and rationalize the basing.

 The new rat!

This is from the Reaper Bones I Kickstarter.

Looks like it might actually be a ginormous Were-Rat.. 

I based it for use as a Rat Ogre.  This guy is actually a bit larger than the legacy Rat Ogres and will make a great 'Hero' for the unit. 

The Reaper Ratmen have very long snouts and, except for the tail, look rather more like wolves to me than rats.  I'm working on some Ratmen assassins and the wolfish look is very pronounced on them.

 Basing was Grey Pumice which gave a good heft to the figure and stabilized it.  The miniature is made of the light, soft plastic like, bones material and took some convincing to stand in all but the most ideal circumstances. 

 Size comparison with the Skaven and the Reaper model.  Its a good size for a Rat Ogre and much more dynamically posed than its legacy companions.









After a series of Kings of War games it became clear that King of War was written more for movement trays than for miniatures.  There are no pesky formation changes and its even recommended to mount you miniatures, in a visually appealing density, directly onto the movement tray.

With that in mind, and under the direction of Bevie to "Create a Dwarf Host for Bevie! STAT!", I decided that the best approach was to make an army of 17 movement trays painted up in a dwarf theme so she'll have a fun looking army of movement trays to keep her entertained while I get to work on the actual dwarfs!

These are made by Customeeple and are avilable through the Mantic Website.  Once the braziers (really good for holding a die showing the morale status and to provide a kind of handle to move the tray more easily) and any of the curbing is added the trays hold slightly fewer than a full unit number of models while still looking great which allows us to swipe a few minis here and there to generate an additional unit.






The prototype base is the one with the blue, orange, red, and gold.  After looking at this it seems a bit busy so the production bases will be this blue, mauve, and gold (not yet painted).  I think its less busy and the orange was kind of jarring for something on the floor. I will likely match the prototype to the new scheme but I'll wait till the end to see how the new one turns out.

Back to the bench!

Skaven, Warcasters, Stormblades, and Vash the Stampede?

 The finished, retouched, Skaven Globadiers.

Its the first go at the Agrellan Earth on bases and I have some learning to do... more thicker paint! It's a hard habit to acquire!

 One poor guy is missing his air tank... I have some steam power backpacks from max mini someplace that I'll swap in.... once I locate them that is!  They are not in their assigned location!  

The glowing green poison daggers are inspired by the Mordheim Video Game art... love the ratties!

They were looking just a bit too green so they got gaseous blue lenses and warp tokens just to pop a bit.

 For salvage these came out ok... perfectly usable on the table top.  There is a small pile of left over rats like these coming through the table as well as some Reaper Ratmen that are very Skaven-esque.

 Now there is a reason why this Cygnar Warcaster is painted in heretical colors instead of the traditional blue and cream... but we'll get to that a bit later!

I think this is Captain Victoria Haley and I'll keep the moniker as I press her into service as an agent of the Inquisition.  She'll lead the personal retinue of the Inquisitor that is responsible for confirming compliance of a recently rediscovered/ recontacted Inquisition element that had been isolated by a warp storm for a very long time.

 Red and White are good Inquisition colors, although my most recent foray into that realm has a grey and red scheme... no worries though Captain Haley's small team represents a visiting inspection and not part of the regular unit.

 Accompanying Captain Haley are these Stormblade infantry storm knights.  Her personal, hand picked, retinue.

 The real reason for the color scheme!  I saw this Warcaster, who I think is Coleman Stryker, I don't actually play War Machine so its all a bit awkward.

Anyway!

I saw this guy and thought... WoW... Privateer Press made a Vash the Stampede Miniature!?!

I gotta play that game!

Turns out I was way wrong... but still... Meet Inquisitor Inspector General Vash the Stampede.

These are a bit on the steampunk side of the Grimdark but I think they'll do.


Off to paint more, and make up more story line....

Cheers

Raging Heroes, Carnevale, Rackham, and GW works in progress.

 A lot of stuff in progress... very little finished! 

A lot of legacy stuff that I discovered loose and was too OCD to skip.

The closest thing to finished in this batch is this Rackham mini.  I really love this line of, sadly, extinct miniatures. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be ... a gorgon... or a vampire... I painted it to use either way in a truly willful display of indecision!













This model was partially painted with the skin a dark metallic gloss green and enamel blue boots.  I kept the original color scheme and adjusted shades and textures to suit my taste... primarily lighten the oppressive skin, making it ... not... metallic, and not gloss... same with the boots.... still blue but a different shade and texture.  the rest was an experiment in a quick, translucent nightgown.  Based to fit in with an old undead army of mine and added to the troop tray.

 Next up are some legacy Skaven Poison Wind Globadiers.  These were also acquired from a friend and were painted in very bright, almost glow in the dark, colors in gloss enamels.  We've been playing a bit of Mordheim on the computer and the Globadiers are the Bevie! favorites!.







All I did here was paint in some ropes, repaint all the base colors to get rid of the gloss finish drop a wash or two on them and weather up the air tanks a bit.  They are still a WiP but are close to finished.  I did leave the clobes exactly as originally painted though... the original painter did a really good job with them!

Onward into legacy mini land!  Krell, a model I've never really liked... and likely farmed his banner-pole out for a conversion some years ago, returns in all his chaotic, skeletal, glory!  He's not yet based and a replacement banner-pole is being kit bashed together.  Always fun to have an undead chaos warrior around.

 A more recent model that is nearing completion is the Kickstarter Exclusive Strigoi from the Carenvale Kickstarter.  It's a great pose of the Strigoi climbing the walls or vaulting a fence.

 These models are very old school, inspite of being relased within the past year or two.  I kinda like the rough hewn look of the Strigoi and the scultor did a good job of capturing the horrific aspects of Vampirism.  The Strigoi are not at all the glamorous vampires of the modern tradition but cleave more closely to the older and more monstrous tales.

 Early days on the only male character model for Raging Heroes TGG1 Kickstarter.  Aleksandr Kurganova, patriarch of the Kurganova clan and commander of the KST.

I got this model in metal and its huge, heavy and beautiful!  So far its just the cloak and the basic armor being worked but he'll wind up rapidly as the cloak is the majority of the mini.

 Some WiP views of Arushka.  She's from Raging Heroes and is a KST Yaga.  I refer to her variously as "The Wind Witch", "The Angel of Victory", "The Mad Winds of Despair", or "Aleksandr's Fury""


 She'll be an elemental specialists with Air, or Wind magic and is a bit touched.  All magic is perilous to health and spirit but riding the winds is, of the elemental magics, the most perilous to the mind.. Arushka pays the price!

The model is in resin and is a bit flexible so I may need to stiffen the join at the base a bit... or maybe not!  The flex seems to act as a shock asorber so I may just let it ride.
















Last up today is the lower half of Baba Yaga.  She's the Crone, Earthmother, and Wolf Lord of the KST.  Model in metal for strength in the pose. 

There is also a whole pile of rats adventurers and villains from the Reaper Bones I Kickstarter and a handful of legacy skaven also being processed.  I also got a Tabletop World Townhouse and a  Mantic Abyssal Dwarf Iron Caster on Dread Abyssal primed up and in the queue.

Now if only I could find some packages od 20mm and 25mm square bases,,, hmmm...

Cheers!