Rattenkrieg auf Middenheim! WHFB Pictures

 

A few weeks back, we decided to dust off a couple of our old Warhammer Fantasy Battles armies and have a go. Conscript Greg brought his Empire panoply and I rolled out with my Skaven. Two thousand points was the engagement level, and I was pretty worried about making the time to get a list together since work has been so mental... however I needn't have worried overly, since in my podcast listening I'd found out about Battlescribe, a free list-building app... both Greg and I used it and it worked pretty well on our iPads.

Greg's guys looked awesome arrayed in a line of battle. I was initially heartened by my superiority in both bodies and magic-users. Greg brought a few scary things though - notably the three artillery pieces and a 15-man knight unit...

Even scarier than they look - and they look plenty scary

I brought some Jezzailists to wield their S6 -4 save weapons against said knights...

Level 4 Grey Seer on his Screaming Bell...

Hell Pit Abomination and a third big block of Clanrats.

Chittering hordes itching to get at the humans...

 

If I recall correctly, this is one of the main things that did me in - Helblaster cannon.



Rats had a simple plan - advance to contact and rip the humans apart. We had superiority in numbers and some big monsters on our side too. What could go wrong?

 



Well, this for one thing... that's the bounce on the Great Cannon shot at the Hellpit Abomination. Yes, he died quickly. No, he did nothing.

Knights ram into the clanrat block with Screaming Bell. I kept forgetting to activate the Bell but it didn't make a great deal of difference as it (and my Grey Seer) died horribly.

Nothing much better on the Plague Monk front - Empire troops took an extra dose of hand sanitizer before the battle and came out refreshed.

Can't remember exactly what this die roll represented but I'm pretty sure it was Not Good for the Skaven :-(

 



All along the line we were getting stuck in but it seemed to no avail. Empire detachments wrapped around and that was it. No coordination = no momentum.



 



Mortar played a part as well dropping templates on the clanrats from afar.

Anyway, this post is kind of an object lesson in posting when the battle is fresh in mind. This one happened some weeks ago and although I'm sure SOME things went my way in the game, all I can remember is abject defeat ;-)  Perhaps that's the Horned Rat's way of saying "must do better next time" :-) Always fun to play WHFB though and the game looked great!

Skaven Verminlord

A couple evenings last week were spent painting a Skaven Verminlord. I'd picked up the model in a dire state a few weeks ago locally - it was painted (poorly) and broken. I'd always wanted to add a Verminlord to my Skaven army, though, and couldn't resist picking this one up for a song.  So I broke it down, threw it in paint stripper and repainted it.

Doom Glaive blade painted with Boltgun Metal, washed with Devlan Mud and rusted with Dark Flesh

Photographing models is driving me increasingly bonkers. Flash - colours are washed out with distracting shadows. No flash - everything is blurry. I am hoping the solution is this - I've ordered one and will let you know how that works out...

In the meantime, I'm happy with the Verminlord as a two-evening job. I'm thinking of picking up some more old-school Skaven and painting this guy hasn't helped dissuade me... nor has this blog, about one very talented man's obsession with miniatures from the '80s...

It Came From Hell Pit

This is literally the first project I've finished in several months - a Hell Pit Abomination for my Warhamer Fantasy Skaven.  Unlike some previous Skaven projects (Plagueclaw Catapult, "Doomwheel") which were scratch-built models, this one was built straight from the box.
 

Pretty scary piece of kit, eh? The Grey Seer thinks it should serve sufficiently for the purpose...

1st Ratzer Division

The other 5 points in the painting challenge came from finishing a vehicle conversion... in this case for my Warhammer Skaven army.

I had wanted to do a crazy fantasy tank for awhile and when I jumped in with the Skaven, it was a natural.  In the army list, this will stand in for a Doomwheel, the official model for which I never much cared for.  Much better to have an insane Warpstone-fuelled tank!!

The model itself is a 1/35 Soviet T-18 tank from the interwar period.  The kit is by "Eastern Express" and I do not recommend it at all, except for its cheap price.  Parts fit was poor at best, and the kit tracks were single-link nightmares which I tried to stick together but soon gave up.  (I ended up scratch-making track from foam sheet, of all things).  The boiler is from the plastic Empire Steam Tank and many of the Skaven bits come from the official Doomwheel kit.  The hatch is removable so I'm on the lookout for a suitable Warplock Engineer to cut up for a commander...

Rat October

Some recent progress made on the Skaven horde.  Total now is 145 Clanrats, 36 Plague Monks, seven Jezzail teams, two Ratling guns, two Rat Ogres, and...



...one suitably grungy-looking Plague Lord to lead the army into battle!

Next up in the painting queue are some more characters - Moulders to herd the Rat Ogres and giant rats, a Warlock Engineer or two, a Grey Seer maybe...?  Then back to painting rank-and-file - Stormvermin - and maybe a Plague Furnace?  I just picked up a set of Skaven from the new Island of Blood box so it promises to be a Rat October indeed!  



Squeek-eek!

As threatened previously, work has begun on the chittering horde of Skaven for Warhammer Fantasy Battle.  Of course, finally seeing the new Skaven models from the eighth edition "Island of Blood" box "in the plastic" helped with motivation.  The first two units to be completed are a 30-strong unit of Clanrats and a 36-rat regiment of Plague Monks (25 shown).  The magic of Devlan Mud and a few choice highlights, plus a colour change on the Monks from purple robes to Knarloc Green - much more pestilential, I think!

Many, many more rats to come, obviously!