Brace yourself for Slaaneshchild's naughty leader month

 

So last but not least as one says, I keep my leader month for the end as I wanted to have the time to think about my leaderS.

I was sure to have 2 daemon princes. One "middlehammer" and one contemporary. But I needed something special for my mortals/dark elves. 

Something big with slaves, worshipers, prestige.

But before I started anything, as I was organizing the "Warhammer 5th edition day in Paris, I had to paint for terrain for it. I wanted to build a deep "dark wood".

I've bought Frostgrave's trees, one tree of despair from Reaper miniatures and some resin scenery and I tried to make a nice little wood.

On this picture you have all the trees I made, for this OWAC, not only this month

Then I made my daemon Prince. I started with Zal'Guldugh, The Master of Flesh. He will be leading the fiends of Slaanesh. I already have 6, and I made 6 more fiends for this month. A full herd !

Since the beginning,  I wanted to make him the army standard bearer. I love the idea of a daemon prince bearing in combat the personal banner of its god.

I love the contrast between the image of gruesome torture on the banner and the expression of calm of the other girl at his feet.

I also painted 6 fiends to build up his herd

Then I made another daemon prince, he is made with the modern miniature of Syll'Esske, which I don't really like, so I added wings to him. They are from an old Ral Partha Dragon.

Some succubus, some servant... et voilà !

Then I thought about the leader I needed for my mortals/dark elves. I love the idea of the palanquin. It is alway a fantastic miniature to play and paint. I recently noticed the palanquin of the Emperor Dragon from LotR, a forge world model. So I ordered it, and I used an Artel Miniature for my leader. It is a slave master (count as dark eldar) with a head of the daemonette and a shield of a Slaanesh choosen.

I also changed the heads of the warrior bearing the palanquin to make them more Slaaneshi. I wanted to put some slaves and servants on it but it was a bit to small and I think with this kind of miniature it is good to choose the focus. To me the focus should stay on my lord, Daevna, the majestic one.

The banner is made by the godlike hands of Roberth Beresus.

But what king of lord of Slaanesh would she be without a horde of servants and warriors ready to die for her ?

So I decided to make dark elves witch elves. I had another regiment to paint and one week left... so I decided to make them part of this army.

And then...

Finaly....

The entire month !!!!! Behold the horde :)

Next month, I will do the banners, I am going to draw them and paint them... will see if I can manage that !! 

Graeme's Skaven - April - Rank and File #3

Graeme's Skaven - April - Rank and File #3 (52.5 points)

This month should have been a walk in the park - I'd almost finished painting my March contribution, but just couldn't get things over the finish line. I expected it would take a few nights of adding the finishing touches and then I could get the April post done early and make a start on some of the May contribution, or pick up some leaders or more exotic troops.

The reality was slightly different.

The end result for April:

5 Clanrats

5 Skavenslaves

Naturally I had forgotten about a short break in the beginning of the month - I went with my wife and a group of friends to Islay (my fourth pilgrimage to the island) for some whisky-tasting and sightseeing. The preparations and trip effectively took up the first 10 days of the month. Well worthwhile! I tasted some great whisky and brought back a nice memento or two.

Just a little souvenir...

After returning I half-heartedly picked up my paintbrush and faffed for a week. I think I painted, re-painted, and then refined the same pieces of tunics and armour on three figures for about a week. I got stuck in a weird rut, where I just didn't like what I painted.

Then one of our two cats, which we've had from kittens, suddenly developed a blood-clot. My wife adopted them when a friend found them abandoned in some woods in Germany, about nine years ago. Within two hours of me spotting something was wrong, I found myself sitting at the vet's, watching her being put down. This was on my wife's birthday. The day before my birthday. This resulted in cancelled celebrations and a week or so of little motivation to do much, let alone paint.

Baloo

I finally forced myself to sit down and get some painting done in the last few days of the month, in a desperate attempt to avoid the field of bones.

Yet again, it's not my best work, and I don't feel the Slaves are really done, but they'll do. I'm pretty happy with how some of fabric and details, especially on the Clanrats, turned out. I was finally enjoying painting them in the last couple of days and it was a welcome distraction from the suddenly much quieter apartment.

So, the final tally for April:

5 Skavenslaves, armed with a hand weapon, spear and (soon to be painted) shield - 17.5 points

5 Clanrats, armed with a hand weapon, spear and (soon to be painted) shield - 37.5 points

Resulting in my highest monthly total yet: 55 points! That's an army total soaring into the dizzying heights of three-figures!!!

Anyway, the end is in sight! Lots of unpainted Skaven still await me, as well as loads of little details to finish off, as well as shields and bases still to complete, so that should keep me busy enough. I really hope I find my zone again in May and I can put in a strong finish.

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 Skaven - January - Rank and File #1

Graeme's Skaven - January - Rank and File #1 (45 points)

I expected getting back into the OWAC saddle was going to be a challenge, and I wasn't disappointed.

Breaking last year's record of 2 painted miniatures wasn't going to be difficult, but getting the minimum 10 done before the end of the month came down to the wire, again.

Scraping in by the skin of my rodent teeth, I present my motley crew for January:

January's mob

I've mixed feelings about these. I had to rush in the end to get them done in time, so the bases still need flocking, the Clanrats are missing their shields, and there are a few things that I'm going to tidy up later. So, on the scale of things, not my best effort.

On the other hand, I had to start facing the realities of getting older by using a magnifier while painting, to take some of the strain off my eyes. It's definitely helped there, but also let me see all the flaws and sloppy errors I make while painting, in glorious detail. I think I'm painting more neatly now, and can pay more attention to details (because I can finally see them!), but this has the downside of costing more time. I'll have to adapt a little, to up the tempo...

The bug-eyed monster

Anyway, I'm happy with what I did paint, and I suspect I'll be satisfied once I finish off those niggling details that are missing. I've been getting into the swing of things the last week, so I'm planning on painting smaller batches, to help speed things up.

Some more detailed photos of the meagre January offering:

Skavenslaves with spears - front

Skavenslaves with spears - rear

Clanrats with swords - front

Clanrats with swords - rear

One of the things I forgot to prep, due to my last-minute switch of army, was some suitable shields. And the weather over in The Netherlands hasn't been conducive to undercoating anything - the temperature hasn't gotten up to 10°C in more than 2 months. Fingers crossed things get warmer soon.

Luckily, this edition of OWAC doesn't have a minimum points requirement per month, otherwise I'd be in a spot of trouble...

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

5 Clanrats, armed with a hand weapon and light armour (with shields still to be done) - 30 points

So, a whopping 45 points of Skaven rank-and-file to add to my army!

On to February! More of the same, I suspect. Although I might have to do a small batch of Giant Rats to meet the figure count in the shortest month...

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 - February's Rank and File – Stinky slaves suck (65 Points)

Slaves, has there ever been a unit that inspires less desire to paint? Knowing that they are (I think) the lowest point models in 5^th edition, plus they suck in game and are generally boring to paint. Well despite all that you kind of need them in a Skaven army so here we are:

And some of the more ‘interesting’ models, which are still pretty boring:

All I can say is thank goodness for our Overlord removing the point requirement for monthly submissions. Next month will be more interesting I promise.

My submission for February is as follows:

UNIT	EXTRAS	#	TOTAL
REGIMENTS
Slaves (2.5)	Musician (2.5)	25	65
TOTAL			65

 Sorry you had to read this boring post, still at least they are not elves right?

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!