AdamH’s Skaven final month! - Rank and file month

Here we are at the end of another OWAC, or at least the painting part of it. This month was my Jezzails, as well as more Globadiers and a few random Stormvermin that I needed to finish in order to complete a unit.

I also decided that the base on my Doomwheel from a previous challenge was simply too large to be practical for gaming so I removed it from that base, put it on a new one and reclaimed some of the giant rats from the old base to make a small unit. I also repainted the driver in my new black and red Skyre scheme:

I’m not going to claim any points for painting these as all I really did was the bases but it took up hobby time so I thought I would at least include it as part of this month’s work.

Month six stats:

Models painted: 32

Total points: 746.5

Chance of the Jezzails hitting anything in-game: 0

I also had the opportunity to bring the army (and some bits from previous challenges) to Japan and play a couple of games of Warhammer Renaissance, it really is a pleasure to see painted models facing off against each other on the battlefield:

So that’s it for painting in this year’s OWAC. I have a few finishing touches, mainly varnishing and then adding grass and tufts to the bases which I will do over the next few weeks ready for the wrap-up post in July. I can’t wait to see the army all together and then with all the rest of my Skaven, I haven’t put it together myself yet so it should be interesting seeing what it looks like.

Until the wrap-up post though I hope you have enjoyed following my rats come together over the last six month, I always enjoy painting them and I probably have enough to do one more challenge but not next year. I already have something planned for that but I will save talking about it until the wrap-up post.

Graeme's Skaven - July - Wrap-up

Graeme's Skaven  (266.5 points)

Wow, six months have flown past!

It's been a proper challenge this year. It started with indecision about which army to go for, and included some dips in motivation, severely limited hobby time due to work, and the usual amount of procrastination. Starting to paint with magnifying lenses really helped my eyes, but slowed down my painting when I realised how much detail I had been missing...

While I'm glad to have finished, I really scraped through on the bare minimum of models, and let's not even start on points value...

My plans were much grander, and I just don't feel this year's effort is up to the standard I was aiming for, or really completed - there are loads of details I want to redo, and I still didn't get round to painting up their shields, due to a silly amount of work in the last month.

Still, it's another dent in the pile of shame. I'm a step closer to fielding a proper Skaven army. Progress is progress!

Anyway, here's the end result:

So the final tally is 42 figures, broken down into:

1 Warpweaver level 10 Wizard, armed with a spear - 82 points
15 Clanrats, armed with a hand weapon, spear and (still not done) shield - 97.5 points
15 Skavenslaves, armed with a hand weapon and spear - 45 points
5 Clanrats, armed with a hand weapon and light armour and (still not done) shield - 30 points

6 Giant Rats, armed with malice and evil intentions - 12 points

Which is a whopping 266.5 points in total! I'm lucky this was a special edition of OWAC, or I would have been resting gently and deeply in the field of bones!

Thoughts of OWAC VII are already floating around in my head. I've got to try to come up with a realistic and less grand plan if I'm going to take part next year. I came up with a list of options for armies and the popular vote in the OWAC group pointed to extemely Oldhammer-esque candidates of either Slann or Norse. Now I'm not ruling out another last-minute, ill-advised switch to Skaven again, but those are looking like the strongest contenders so far. Some test models are in the pipeline!

I've also got plans for the next 'special edition' OWAC, which involves a Rogue Trader theme. So the summer months should be busy, prepping as many figures as I can.

Massive congratulations to the challengers who managed to finish the challenge. I'm incredibly impressed with the number of challengers who go above and beyond, with not only well-painted armies, but also huge quantities of figures (and scenery)! I'm envious, but also inspired! Keep it up!

ZeroTwenythree's March Skaven (235 pts)

March Skaven: Clanrats & Clan Moulder (Rank & File)

For March's entry I finished the figures that should have been part of January & February entries but didn't get painted on time. 

First are the final five clanrats from January, including the champion, standard, and musician. The standard is one of the few "newer" figures in my plans. He scales pretty well with the older figures.

Next are some more packmasters, giant rats, rat ogre, and a bonus figure -- Throt the Unclean!

Another bonus, after finishing all of the above figures I thought I would make a small bit of themed terrain. Warpstone!

March Points:

31.5 pts         3 Packmaster with light armour

20 pts            10 Gian rats

38 pts            1 Rat ogre

45.5 pts         5 Clanrats with Spears, standard, and musician

100 pts           Throt The Unclean (lv. 20) w/heavy armor, halberd

235 pts         March TOTAL

423 pts       OWAC TOTAL (so far)

Graeme's Skaven - February - Rank and File #2 (27 points)

Graeme's Skaven - February - Rank and File #2 (27 points)

Like the month, it's going to be short and sweet...

Without further ado, here's my February contribution in all their glory:

February's rabble

February is always a tight squeeze, so the Giant Rats were called up to make things a little easier to hit the 10 figure target. I painted up two of them as albinos, just to break up the dark colours.

The Skavenslaves turned out well, and I'm really happy with them. However, I've been fiddling with my lighting and camera setup and still don't feel the photos are coming out quite right, so the experimentation will continue until I hit the sweet spot and can display them in all their glory.

Skavenslaves

5 Skavenslaves, armed with a hand weapon and spear - 15 points

6 Giant Rats, armed with malice and evil intentions - 12 points

So, the dizzying total of 27 points of Skaven rank-and-file is added to my army this month!

That brings the grand total for the challenge so far to 72 points!!!

The plan for March? Uhm, more Clan Rats and Skavenslaves... It's not creative and it's not exciting, but it's slowly bulking up my army, thank you very much.

I promise to try to prep some more exciting and colourful stuff for later in the challenge, but for now I'm just going to keep grinding out more cannon fodder.

Graeme's OWAC VI Introduction post

OWAC VI: Embracing Chaos...

OWAC V was a complete washout for me. I had grand plans of a glorious Elven force, which never got off the ground. Getting married at the end of January soaked up more time than I expected and I fell at the first hurdle. The trip directly to the field of bones was unexpected and disappointing...
This seriously dented my painting mojo and I lost my motivation. Coupling this with a new job in the middle of the year, I ended up painting a grand total of two minis in 2022.

OWAC has been the main driving force in getting me to the painting desk over the last few years, so I decided that I would re-focus my energies on the prepping for OWAC VI. I was determined to avoid my previous mistakes and go into this challenge as well-prepared as I could. So, I spent months cleaning, de-flashing, basing, and base-coating an impressive amount of Wood Elves. I focussed on mostly compulsory troops, with some special troop types, big monsters, and characters to add some flair.

Some of the compulsory archers

Some additional troops

Great, right?

But doubts and uncertainty had crept in...

I wasn't really feeling the inspiration for painting these graceful fighters.

Being spoiled for choice on what I could paint wasn't helping the decision either.

However, the pile of unpainted Skaven from my first OWAC started calling to me, eager to be unleashed on the battlefield to fight for the Horned Rat...

One of the two minis I managed to paint in 2022 was a Rat Ogre for Oldmanpaints #OctOgre challenge. I really enjoyed the process and end result... an albino Rat Ogre: (https://oldmanpaints.wordpress.com/2022/09/30/octogre-painting-competition/)

Painted mini #1 for 2022

This special OWAC VI edition meant that I wouldn't have to submit a minimum number of points of miniatures each month, just a minimum of 10 models... perfect for troops with a low points cost... Skaven, for example...

Then I saw ZeroTwentythree's introduction post (http://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2022/12/zerotwentyhthrees-owac6-introduction.html) and the call of Chaos grew too strong to resist!

My originals plans found their way into the bin...

I'm back #teamskaven!!!

The new plan is simple - paint as many Skaven Clanrats and Slaves as I can. I want to work through as many of these compulsory troops as possible, with the aim of being able to field a legal 3rd edition army, based on Warhammer Armies, by the end of OWAC VI. For this, I want to finish 50 Clanrats and 20 Skavenslaves. If I get bored of painting these, or my sanity falters, I've got plenty of other models which I can turn to for some variation.

Some of the leftovers from OWAC III:

And some of the remaining pile, that still need some prepping:

Yes, you may have spotted the flaw in the plan - I've switched from a well-prepped force, to a furry horde at the last minute... I can't promise this is going to work, but I aim to embrace the Chaos and enjoy trying!

And finally, as an offering to our glorious Overlord: a Bob Olley Chaos Harpy!

These can be Chaotic hosts for a Skaven army and I've never painted one before. I decided to go for a rather more colourful interpretation than usually seen - a colour scheme which hopefully pleases the mighty Overlord.

Painted mini #2 for 2022

Good luck to the rest of the challengers in this special edition of OWAC!

There are some great-looking projects again, with a lot of variety. It's going to be a blast seeing them take shape!

AdamH’s Skaven - March Rank and File – Random rabble of relentless rats (210 Points)

This month has been a tough one for me for a number of non-challenge reasons, and to top it all off I am writing this while suffering from the dreaded plague of the 19.

I had intended to get the rest of the packmasters for this unit completed as well however I ran out of time. I will try and do them next month in addition to what I had originally planned.

For those of you wondering about the dogs, they are actually an old 3rd edition Skaven beast option but since I play 5th edition I use each one as two giant rats.

Once again here is a close-up of some of the more ‘interesting’ models, due to the vast majority of the unit being pretty samey:

A little bit of OSL on old Thrott's warpstone eye:

I’m going to stop promising that I will show off more interesting models though because I don’t want to be thought of as a liar.

My submission for March is as follows:

UNIT	EXTRAS	#	TOTAL
REGIMENTS
Giant Rats (2.5)		60	150
Packmaster (10)		6	60
TOTAL			210

 

AdamH’s OWAC V Intro Post – It’s time to get furry!

Is that deja vu I hear you say? No? Well I’m going to tell you anyway. Yes this is my second time doing Skaven for an OWAC. Anyone who remembers my first Skaven challenge army will remember that it was rather plain, mostly Clanrats, Slaves and Stormvermin. It made for a good core to my army but it is time I started looking into the various clans, so this time around I will be focusing mostly on…

Clan Moulder!

Obviously, I still need to add more core units to the force because as it grows in points I need more fodder (Slaves) and more weapon team production (Clan Rats), plus I want to bump the number of Stormvermin available to me just in case I want to put the bell in with them.

Oh, yea I’m also adding a Screaming Bell :)

But the main addition here is a large unit of Giant Rats, with the original 3^rd edition chaos hounds mixed in for fun and a decent sized unit of Rat Ogres. Honestly, I would have liked to include a few more but they are shockingly hard to pick up for a reasonable price nowadays.

For this year’s challenge I am targeting the following list:

UNIT	EXTRAS	#	TOTAL
CHARACTERS
Warlock Champion (118)		1	118
Battle Standard (77)		1	77
Grey Seer (340)	Screaming Bell (200)	1	540
REGIMENTS
Slaves (2.5)		25	62.5
Stormvermin (9.5)	Halberds (2) Shields (1)	13	123.5
Clanrats (6)	Standard (6) Musician (6)	42	264
Rat Ogres (40)		8	320
Giant Rats (2.5)		60	150
Packmaster (10)		18	180
TOTAL			1835

Here are a few other pictures of the solid mass of metal that is currently stressing the weight limit of my shelf:

Next we have this year’s overlord offering. For those of you not part of the challenge there is normally a “squad challenge” during the down time between OWACs where challengers paint a small unit of something just for fun. This year I decided to get back into the swing of things by painting up some more ratties, specifically Censor Bearers:

At the same time I decided to paint an extra one for our gracious overlord, hopefully they please and serve him well:

Finally, those of you that followed my original Skaven entry back in OWAC III may remember me saying that I wasn’t able to finish the bases due to not being able to varnish them at the time. Well I decided to go back and varnish and finish the bases so I want to take this opportunity to show you an example of one of the stars of my previous challenge with the updated base, which will also give you a taste of what’s to come this year from me:

So there we go, many ratties coming from me this coming year. Numbers wise this is going to be my biggest challenge so far, however as so many of them are simple sculpts I am hopeful of my chances.

Thanks for stopping by and please make sure you check out the rest of the challengers this year, I’m sure we are going to have another belter!

Graeme's OWAC3 Skaven wrap-up

My first OWAC is done! My lead pile is dented (if you look really closely)! My purveyors of pestilence may have got a little carried away though... sorry 'bout that!

Thanks to Iannick for organizing a great challenge and congratulations to all the challengers who overcame some serious adversity to deliver some truly impressive armies! This has been a weird year so far and it's been great to be part of a little community that share the same passion and have provided support, encouragement and the threat of shaming to keep everyone going. Special mention goes to the other members of #teamskaven, Adam and Brendan - together we managed to delivery the vermin triple whammy in the year of the rat. No mean feat.

Okay, on to the final muster...

- Gnawdoom (level 15 wizard), with hand weapon: 144 points

- Clan Chieftain (Level 5 Hero ), with spear and light armour: 31 points

- 1 Clan Chieftain (level 5 hero), with hand weapon, shield and light armour: 31 points

- 1 Clan Skyre Poisoned Wind Globadier, with hand weapon: 25 points

- Warpfire-thrower team: 81 points - Jezzailachis Team: 39 points

- 3 Plague Censer Bearers: 120 points

- 3 Clan Moulder Beastmasters, with hand weapon, and light armour: 31.5 points

- 16 Giant Rats: 32 points

- 8 Black Skaven, with halberds, and light armour: 60 points

- Clan Chieftain (Level 5 Hero ), with halberd, and light armour: 32 points

- 14 Plague Monks, with hand weapons, and light armour: 82.5 points (including extra 5.5 points for the standard-bearer)

- 10 Clan Eshin Gutter Runners, with hand weapons, light armour, and slings: 140 points

- 2 Clan Moulder Beastmasters, with hand weapon, and light armour: 21 points

- 5 Clan Moulder Rat Ogres, with hand weapon: 190 points

And of course the Offering to the Overlord (25 points) isn't shown, as it's already found its way to Iannick.

So here's what my 1060 points of Skaven look like:

I had been planning to paint more in the last couple of months of the challenge, but I lost my focus. I've got about 40 models in progress on my painting desk and a bunch of scenery sitting not far away. I made a start on some banners too. All these mini-projects vying for my attention meant that none got finished... Still, it leaves me something to do in the months before the next OWAC... :-)

Right, I'm off to feast my eyes on the other submitted armies. See you next time!