Graeme's Skaven (part three - Revolutions)

Graeme's Skaven - OWAC 7 Introduction Post

Paint something different this year! That was my plan. I wanted to get out my comfort zone and paint something new. Not more Skaven. Definitely not!

I put a poll up in the OWAC Facebook group and Slann came out on top, with Norse coming a close second. I dutifully dusted off both my Slaan and Norse models and started counting out and organising them. I had enough models to do either. I had some interesting models looked out to give both armies a bit more character. I opted to go for Slann, because they're ancient, sentient, space frogs, with an Aztec theme!

Then, halfway through my prep, I hit some snags with my Slann...

...and at the same time came across my remaining Skaven models.

I got to thinking...

I wasn't happy how I left off on OWAC 6...
...and I still didn't have a full 3000 point Skaven army I could play with...
...and I had a bunch of already prepped Skaven, just squeaking out for some paint...
...and I was tantalisingly close to having enough painted models to be able to field that Skaven army I dreamed of...

...and, in the end, yet again, the lure of the Great Horned One was too great!

There's definitely some masochistic tendencies needed when choosing a Skaven force to paint for an OWAC. The Jes Goodwin sculpts which make up my force are packed full of detail, which makes them a real pleasure to look at, but sometimes a bit of a chore to paint. And you need lots of them for a decent horde army.

So, ehm, I might have gotten a bit carried away with my prep...

I mean, I had a few Clan Eshin Gutter Runners lying around from my first OWAC...

And it was obvious I had to add to the Clanrats I had left over...

And maybe I could either add to the main Clanrat unit, or create a new Stormvermin unit...

Bulking up the unit was spears was needed...

And adding to the Skavenslave unit was a no-brainer...

Then I added to the bunch of Black Skaven I had lying around...

Obviously I'd need some firepower from Clan Skryre...

And some muscle from Clan Moulder, with something exotic thrown in for good measure...

And, of course, we have to have some leaders and special troops...

To be honest, I stopped counting after a while. It's the largest number of models I've ever prepped for an OWAC. The only thing I need to do in the next five or six months is paint (sounds so simple, right?). I have a few of conversions and something special in the pipeline, but only if I have time.

Realistically, though, I'm going to aim low. To complete a legal, practical force which I'm likely to actually play with, I'm going to focus on finishing these:

• 20 Clanrats, armed with hand weapons, light armour and shields (120 points)
• 10 Clanrats, armed with spears, light armour and shields (65 points)
• 5 Skavenslaves, armed with spears and shields (17,5 points)
• 2 Jezzailachis teams (78 points)
• 2 Poisoned Wind Globadiers (52 points)
• 1 Plague Censer Bearer (41 points)
• 1 Warpfire-thrower team (81 points)
• 1 General (level 20 hero, around 100 points)

This little horde of 42 Skaven only brings me to about 550 points - well short of the target 1000 points.

Either I paint a LOT more Skaven from the core units, or some elites (Black Skaven or Gutter Runners), or I recruit the swarm, Rat Ogres, and the Manticore (or Harpies that I planned to use last OWAC) to bump up the points. We shall see!

Fingers crossed I can make it through at least the stuff I plan to do. I'm hoping for more, but I've seen real life get in the way far too often.

Good luck to all the other challengers! (Especially the other member of #teamSkaven this year - AdamH).

There are some great-looking plans already afoot. I suspect this will be a sensationally good OWAC!

AdamH’s Skaven - June Wildcard! – Big brutal bully bois (1100 Points)

Here we are once again, the final month and me trying to one-up my surprise drops from previous years.

Well my original plan was to do a large show piece model but I simply ran out of time, it is the only model that I didn’t get finished from my original planned list though so I don’t feel that bad about it. I did however manage to sneak in one surprise model not featured in my original list, and it is one of my all-time favourite Warhammer figures, the original Demon of the Horned rat; the Vermin Lord!

We all know the saying; blood for the blood god, skulls for the throne, cheese for the horned rat.

I 3D printed a little bit of scenery for his base just to give him a little bit of elevation so he can stand above the mere mortal vermin he commands. Painting wise there isn’t much special here, other than the lighter skin from the rest of the rats, mainly to stand out a bit. He has much more bling though in the form of some gold sparkly bits and warpstone bands, necklace and glaive.

Next up we have a chunky unit of Rat Ogres, following a similar scheme to the Vermin Lord these boys certainly stand out amongst all of the sea of brown of the army:

I also painted up Skweel but am using him just as a regular packmaster in this list, however the model is nice so I thought I would show him off separately:

Here we have everything together:

My submission for June is as follows:

UNIT	EXTRAS	#	TOTAL
CHARACTERS
Vermin Lord (600)		1	600
UNITS
Rat Ogres (40)		8	320
Packmaster (10)		8	80
TOTAL			1000

But Adam I hear you say, the Vermin Lord is cool and all but isn’t really a one-up on any of your previous submissions, is that it? Rude but I get what you are saying, unfortunately I didn’t get the time to paint anything else but I do have one other new Skaven related submission for your approval, please be aware that it is still a WiP though:

Clearly my tattoo artist is a much better "painter" than I am.

I wonder if our overlord will give me any points for that?

Overlord note : I kinda have to, hey? I shall it consider it terrain on flesh, definitely Wild Card. +100 pts.

AdamH’s wheely big final month – (414 Points)

“The terrible deafening thunder that you hear is not of nature no-no, as promised let me introduce you to the crazy warpsnitck and his mobile lightning shooting chariot!

Very impressive yes-yes? It costs many warp tokens but the mess it makes of the stuntys is well worth it.

I guess you are thinking this is the last you will see of my chittering horde, well maybe, but then again maybe not. There are still plenty more of us hiding in the shadows.”

Anyway, sorry for the title pun, hopefully you can just roll with me on this one.

Technically I officially finished the challenge last month since I completed five months and passed the 1,000 point barrier however I seriously have loads more Skaven to paint so decided to push myself as much as possible this last month and finish a couple of units that either weren’t at the minimum viable number or I just wanted to bulk up.

First up we have another group of Stormvermin, same colour scheme as before of course:

Next I turned my attention to my Clanrat unit, specifically I had a couple of the original Rat Ogre figures which I really like but always thought they were a little small for their stat line. They are only just a little bigger than a standard clanrat. So I painted them in such a way that they could fit in with the clanrat unit, taking the place of four standard rats but were still mounted on 40mm bases should I want to run them as Rat Ogres.

I also painted a bunch more actual Clan Rats to bulk out the unit:

Finally we have the real star of the month and maybe this army so far, I’m going to let the pictures do the talking and talk after:

A few things that might be hard to spot in the pictures, the globes on the wheel spokes all have some fancy crystal effect that I painted, was really happy with, and then mounted backwards so it is close to the wheel and you can’t actually see! I painted a nice looking OSL on the inside of the wheel coming from the generator, that is almost entirely covered up by the wheels again! Finally I painted all of the insides of the wheels, and the rats running them and guess what, you can’t see any of it! Hurrah for wasted effort…

Anyway, to summarise, this month’s entry is:

Stormvermin x12, Halberds, Shields [150]

Clanrats x19 (kind of) [114]

DOOMWHEEL!!!! [150]

Total – 414 points

Minus the wrap-up post this is the end of my rat horde for this challenge. Even though this is my second OWAC Skaven have always been my favourite army and I feel more pride in completing this one than any army I have ever tackled. This is the first time since I was probably 12 or so (which was a long time ago FYI) that I have had a full painted Skaven army and I can’t wait to see them all together. I have deliberately not got everything out together yet because I wanted to wait until everything was completed. So when I write my wrap-up post and take those pictures will be the first time for me to see the completed army as well! I am genuinely excited 😊