ZeroTwentythree's Post-OWAC6 Skaven Wrap-up Post (1,406 pts)

Post-Challenge Wrap Up

The Great Horned Rat Race

Sorry, that was about the best I could do for me and an army photo this time around. I tried taking some zoomed-in shots, but I don't have my photo set up right now. So you'll have to look through the monthly challenge entries if you want to see any up close.

The Plan

From my Introduction post, I had planned on painting the following. 

• 30ish Clanrats with spears (30)
• 20ish Stormvermin with two handed weapons (0)
• 25ish Skavenslaves (13)
• 4 beastmasters (4)
• 1 Rat Ogre (I already have another one painted) (1)
• 15 Giant Rats (10)
• 1 Plague Censor (1)
• 5 Globadiers (2)
• 2 Jezzail teams (1)
• 1 Warpfire-thrower team (1)
• Some characters (2)
• Completely unplanned stuff that I probably haven't even thought of yet. (1 jabberwock, 1 terrain)

After each item above, I've indicated how many I actually painted and color coded the successes and failures. I had intended to paint more characters in my Leader month, but since I met the terms of my vague initial goal, I'll call it a success.

Although I finished the challenge, I am a bit disappointed I didn't meet my goals. But there was a lot of unexpected non-painting stuff going on in the background that made it difficult. Not just difficult to find time, but also difficult to get in the mood. In spite of the Skaven being my first Warhammer love, I just didn't have the enthusiasm of past Challenges.

Army Totals

30 Clanrats with Spears.................... 206 points

4 Packmaster w/lt. armor ................ 42 points

6 Wolf-Rats ..................................... 18 points

10 Giant Rats .................................. 20 points

1 Rat Ogre ...................................... 38 points

1Thrott The Unclean (lv. 20).......... 100 points

2 Poisoned Wind Globadiers .......... 50 points

1 Warpfire-Thrower Team .............. 81 points

1 Jezzail Team ................................ 39 points

1 Rat Swarm ................................... 250 points

1 Jabberwock .................................. 200 points

13 Skavenslaves ............................. 35 points

1 Grey Seet .................................... 327 points

OWAC6 Total .................................1,406 points

(74 figures) (110ish planned)

Looking Ahead

I'm going to take it easy for a while, no pressure painting. Or not painting. And I'm going to give some thought on whether or not I will join the assumed OWAC7. If I do, I think I've got two contenders.

Chaos. Chaotic chaos. A small core of warriors and then a bunch of mismatched beasts and allies. In fact, I would paint up some of the remaining Skaven the got left our of OWAC6 as part of this project!

Dogs of War. I have some pikemen, some birdmen, some cavalry, and a few other odds & ends to use for this project.

There are a couple of other "long shot" projects in the back of my head as well. One of them I have no figures for, so that is probably out. The other, well, I only have one figure for, but the rest I would sculpt as part of the challenge. Not completely out, but still not as likely as the two above.

ZeroTwentythree's June Skaven (327 pts)

June Skaven: Grey Seer (Leader Month)

This is the way the challenge ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

I had planned more -- much more. For the whole challenge, not just this month. But this year has been difficult, culminating with June as the peak. Or the valley. Whichever is the appropriate analogy.

My humble offering for my leader entry is Grey Seer whasshisname. I had a name but I lost it.

June Points:

327 pts         Grey Seer

327 pts         JUNE TOTAL

1405 pts       OWAC TOTAL

ZeroTwentythree's May Skaven (35 bigass pts)

May Skaven: Skavenslaves (Rank & File)

This month was back to rank & file troops. Boring ol' Skavenslaves. These are mostly somewhat newer figures by Colin Dixon. I think they capture the Skaven vibe almost as well as the original Jes Goodwin sculpts. (There are a few Jes Skaven in there too.) I'm still mystified as to why GW/Citadel never made plastic Skavenslaves. Given the vast numbers that should be fielded, collecting them in metal has always been... challenging. Honestly, as a Skaven player since their inception, I've always been frustrated by the half-assed nature of their availability. Let's not eve talk about the plastic monkey-rats. 😬

So this month has been extra challenging. But it's the Old World Army CHALLENGE, right? No the Old World Army Walk In The Park. We had to clear out our basement, which happens to be where my painting table is. The work that was done didn't go according to schedule, meaning I was left without no workspace for painting.

When live gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or Skavenade.  Warpstoneade? Whatever. I didn't achieve my May goal, and this is some really poor painting, but got some rats painted and I kept myself in the OWAC for another month. June is slated to be my leader month, but I will also try to finish the rest of the Skavenslaves. And maybe some touch-ups on these hastily painted figures from May.

Other artists call this "plein air." I'm not sure they had miniatures in mind, but I'll go with that.

May Points:

35pts          13 Skavenslaves plus mucisian.

35 pts         MAY TOTAL

1,078 pts       OWAC TOTAL (so far)

ZeroTwentythree's April Skaven (620 pts)

 April Skaven: Clan Skryre (Wild Card)

I thought I would get in the April Fool spirit and paint some crazy and/or dangerous things  for this month's entry. Thus, Clan Skryre month. As with many of my OWAC projects & entries, there's a bit of nostalgia behind it. (See below.)

At first I was going to paint 12 Clan Skryre models for my Wildcard month. Then I added "one" more model, a rat swarm. Because 13 is better than 12! But I got jealous after seeing big beasts in other people's armies...

I first started playing Warhammer not long after 3rd edition came out. After a bit of experimentation with various "armies" I eventually settled two, Skaven and Dwarfs. If I had to guess, I'd say Skaven were the army of choice 80-90% of the time. A unique army with a quite a few unusual options. However, I was always jealous of all the other armies that could select awesome mounts like dragons, griffins, wyverns.... hell, even horses. This was probably exacerbated by the fact that my second army was in a similar situation.

At some point I figured I would try summoning a monstrous host. I always loved Lewis Carroll's Alice books, and The Jabberwock poem in particular. I picked up three figures back then, two of the Citadel model and one from Ral Partha. Two ended up being painted in gaudy fluorescent Polly-S acrylic paints. Perfectly chaotic! A "brightly colored" mutation. Although the creature was borrowed, it always seemed like one of the most chaotic of the creatures of chaos to me.

So that was my choice for summoning. They were usually unimpressive on the battlefield and a waste of spell points. But I continued to use them on occasion just so I had an excuse to put the model on the table and surprise my opponents.

I still have one of the Citadel and one of the RP figures, but they have been repainted in more drab colors to serve another purpose outside the scope of the OWAC. But I recently picked up two newer Jabberwock figures, one from Reaper and this one, from Satyr Art Studio/Drew Williams (sold by someone else now, I think.) I can't help but think that Drew's figure is a tribute to the Tom Meier sculpt from Ral Partha, similar to the giant he did a few years ago. I had to bend the figure a bit to get it into a similar pose but a little more three dimensional

I prepped the figure before the month started, but then wrestled with the color scheme for weeks. At first I was going to try to emulate old color printings of the original B&W John Tenniel illustration from Carroll's book. Then I thought about ultra-technicolor-izing that into a vivid RGB color scheme. But I couldn't get entirely behind either option. I haven't been sleeping well, and one night in my sleep-deprived tossing & turning late at night, I had the idea to paint it red. I like the way it has a cliche meanacing "devil" look to it, but is still a Jabberwock and creature of chaos. "Brightly colored" doesn't have to mean fluorescent blues and oranges and yellows and greens.

The Jabberwock is a creature of Skryre because it is a summoned host.

But the clan has more direct yet equally chaotic and unreliable means and methods. I had to get a few different photos for clarity, but below are a poisoned wind globadier and the one non-Skryre figure I did this month, a plague censer bearer.

The plague censer belongs to Clan Pestilens, but as I am not doing any plague monks (I think the clan was underdeveloped in terms of rules and figures until later editions) I figured this fella fit well with the Wildcard entry.

Back in the day... as a kid, I had to request my FLGS (I didn't even have one of those for a long time, and just picked up whatever scraps of Skaven figures were available scattered model train and comic book shops within a reasonable distance.) I don't know how it was elsewhere, but the US catalog had one code, "Skaven." And whatever they sent was what you got. I was hoping for a whole great variety. I got a boatload of warpfire-throwers. Like six packs of fire-throwers, and six packs of everything else. Luckily "everything else" included 2 rat ogres and some globadiers, but almost no actual troops. For most of 3rd edition the only foot soldiers I had (clanrats, slaves, stormvermin, black skaven, plague monks, etc.) that were available were just plastic Fantasy Regiments clan rats painted with different color schemes. 

Back to the present. I wanted to paint a fire thrower for the challenge, and knew I had a few of the old six still lingering around. I could strip one team and give it a fresh look. But after searching for months, I couldn't find them! I ended up ordering a fire thrower  team on ebay, and as expected, about two months later I found the two teams (one of each sculpt) that I had been looking for. Not a horrible end result. I still have my originals, plus I got to paint a new team for OWACV.

There was only one jezzail team sculpted by Jes back in the day, but I used to use the hero with a rifle as my "champion" among my old jezzails. All of those old figures are long gone, but I managed to collect the hero along with a single jezzail team before the challenge started. I used a modern plastic figure in lieu of the jezzail (musket) brace holder so I had the required two figures. Unfortunately the actual jezzail team are among the figures I didn't get to finish in time this month.

Not a terribly clear image, but I also painted one of the two "gas mask" poisoned wind globadiers I had planned for this month.

Lastly was the sort of "bonus" figures of the month. I never used a swarm host in 3rd edition. No one has in any of the games I've played or watched. This is the single most expensive figure (points wise) in the Skaven army and I just don't get it. But I had some extra swarm figures from 6th edition (I think?) which look pretty nice but are meant for a 50x50 base. Since no one I knew ever used swarms in 3rd ed. it came as a surprise to me that they go on 50mm diameter bases. Or 50mm radius bases. As discovered by the OWACV Team Skaven, there is a conflict in the rules, but I had already based mine on 50mm diameter. I think I will probably make a 50mm radius base with some additional rats for this swarm to fit inro so I can play it either way. Well... not exactly, because actually playing a swarm seems like a complete waste of effort. But maybe just so I can have it in my collection. :)

April Points:

50 pts          2 Poisoned Wind Globadiers

81 pts          Warpfire-Thrower Team

39 pts          Jezzail

200 pts       Jabberwock

250 pts       Rat Swarm

620 pts         April TOTAL

1,043 pts       OWAC TOTAL (so far)

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)

ZeroTwentythree's February Skaven (59 pts)

February Skaven: Clanrats & Wolf-Rats (Rank & File)

After failing to paint all 30 clanrats in January, I switched up plans to finish the last 10 in February and then paint some "bonus figures." As February started winding down, I had just finished the first 5. 

So I went back to some of the figures that were to be in my February entry from the start. I had planned to paint Clan Moulder troops in February, figuring I would paint the easiest figures in the shortest month. I only got to some of them.

Back in my youth, in 3rd edition, we didn't really have good figures for wolf-rats, aka ROUSes. They're still sort of lacking, but some of the more recent metal giant rats aren't exactly large, but in the context of old 3rd ed. scale, I think they're decent enough. Not too far off from the metal giant wolves of the day. Plus, they're not exactly massive combat beasts anyway. So here we are. 6 wolf-rats.

I will be overwhelmed with work/travel for the rest of the month, but managed to squeek (heh heh) in one last figure. The wolf-rats needed a Clan Moulder packmaster.

Actual brand of mints I just discovered at a local grocer. Only slightly altered the flavor when I inserted it into the appropriate ad background. Kudos to the company marketing mints to the underserved Skaven demographic.

Mmmm... love those half points in 3rd ed. 

February Points:

10.5 pts         1 Packmaster with light armour

18 pts            6 Wolf-rats

30.5 pts        5 Clanrats with Spears

59 pts         TOTAL

189 pts       OWAC TOTAL (so far)

ZeroTwentythree's January Skaven (130 pts)

January Skaven: Clanrats (Rank & File)

As with previous projects, I wanted to start off this year's Skaven project with the backbone of the army. If a cowardly Skaven army can even be said to have a backbone. "The core troops upon which the army is built" is perhaps a better description? No, not the slaves. The clanrats!

I had ambitious plans for a full regiment of 30 clanrats, including standard bearer and musician, for the first month of the challenge. But life has been busy and I've spent a considerable amount of time away from home. About midway through the month I revised my goal to get 20 of the 30-strong regiment painted, and I managed to finish them just in time!

Here's the full batch of 20. All metal, and with quite a few duplicates as expected. I'm going for a dark & dirty look. Although they seem to have a lot of red-tones, I'm imaging them as not seeing that themselves, as I understand that rats are colorblind to red. So these Skaven may think they are mostly dressed in stealthy black gear, which is only half correct.

To add some variety, I made some minor conversions, such as the two figures on the left. One is a simple sculpted hood, the other is just repositioning the spear arm so the weapon looks "shouldered" rather than held forward.

It's not visible, but the clanrat in the center was broken, missing it's shield hand. Nothing a little bit of sloppy putty-work couldn't fix.

These are the remaining 10 figures that didn't get painted in January. As you can see, I am using brown primer, as this has worked well for me with Skaven in ages past. I depend on the brown primer and a couple of black/brown washes to tone down a lot of the color, tie all of the figures together, and keep them looking like verminous troublemakers who crawl through tunnels and sewers.

While most of the figures are 2nd/3rd edition, I do have a few "newer" figures hidden in the mix, such as this standard bearer.

These "remainders" will still get painted at some point in the challenge. I had other plans for February, but maybe I will switch that up so I can complete the regiment before moving on.

January Points:

130 pts        20 Clanrats with Spears

130 pts         TOTAL

ZeroTwentyhthree's OWAC6 Introduction Post

Hey.

 

It's me, ZeroTwentythree,

 

 

How's it goin'?

 

I'm doing an Old World Army Challenge again

Yeah.

It's going to be sweet.

SWEET!

OK. Sweet-ish.

Maybe a little filthy and diseased.  Warped, even.

 

 

A bit different the previous elves, elves, elves (in space) and undead (not saying they were undead elves, but also there's no knowing those skeletons, wraiths, etc. were NOT previously elves when alive.)

 

For OWAC6 I'll definitely be painting chaos RATMEN.

 

 

Definitely not ratELVES.

 

 

Not that we know for sure the rats were mutated from men. According to the game lore, they appeared in the area that would become the Empire well before the human settlers even arrived. Not sure who else would have been living there in those ancient times. But definitely ratMEN.

Not ratELVES

 

Whatever.

 

 

 

Skaven 2023

This is going to be another nostalgia-fueled project for me to a factor exceeding even my Eldar project in 2021.  Skaven were my first Warhammer Fantasy Battles love, my first army. From 3rd through 8th editions of the game my army evolved until I sadly sold off most of it when times got tough and gaming hit a low.

I still have a small number of metal figures from my old army, including a number of unpainted figures. A few small purchases recently rounded that off to give me enough for a Challenge! The basis is that I will mostly be sticking with the objectively best Skaven fixtures ever sculpted, the Jes Goodwin originals. There will be a few figures breaking that "rule" ("more like guidelines, actually...")

In very general terms, I plan on painting:

• 30ish Clanrats witgh spears
• 20ish Stormvermin with two handed weapons
• 25ish Skavenslaves
• 4 beastmasters
• 1 Rat Ogre (I already have another one painted)
• 15 Giant Rats
• 1 Plague Censor
• 5 Globadiers
• 2 Jezzail teams
• 1 Warpfire-thrower team
• Some characters
• Completely unplanned stuff that I probably haven't even thought of yet. 

Solidly over 100 figures! I'd like to paint the regiments completely each month, so the first four items above will be my rank & file months, the characters will be the command month, and all the weird/crazy weapons in the remaining month. 

At one point I had this all organized & out on my desk, but failed to take a photo. Not everything in here will be part of the challenge. Maybe. Probably. There's also another bin of Completely Not OWAC6 figures that I definitely won't dip into.

Overlord Offering

Our Benevolent Overlord mentioned a fondness for creepy things, and specifically The Thing. Not only did I just watch both the original and prequel films, I also bought some Thing-inspired figures for a sci-fi project I've been working on (5 Parsecs). In that case, I was painting them with color shifting paints to represent dimension-shifting-teleport-accident-mutants, and repeated that at first, but felt that a fully flesh and gore version would be even better. So my Offering this year includes two versions - Incorporeal Warp Thing, and Gory Flesh Creep.

Graeme's Skaven Spearhead Force for April (210.5 points)

After the disease and pestilence had taken it's toll, it was time for the Skaven to throw their elite troops into the fray - to smash through the defender's line and make a gap for the following hordes to pour through....

I got off to a good start in April, getting a couple of Rat Ogres and a handler done quite quickly.

Rat Ogres and handler - 86.5 points
Two Rat Ogres, to help punch through the enemy lines, with a handler to keep them in check. I varied the colour of the Rat Ogre fur again this month - there's not many other options when there are just two poses from this generation to choose from.

Then I turned to a bit of cunning Skaven technology.

This is not the angle you want to view one of these from if you're fighting against them...

Jezzail Team - 39 points
A Jezzail team, to keep the enemy archer's heads' down and provide some much-needed missile support.

Then I moved onto the Black Skaven and the challenge really began. I love these model for all the detail, but that very same detail took an enormous amount of time to paint. So many layers of leather, scraps of plate mail, chain-mail, ragged clothes, coils of rope, pouches and bags, earrings(?!).... There's a lot of depth to the modelling as well, with details tucked in almost unreachable places. It almost broke me - I came very close to taking a Mulligan this month, but just about scraped in. I had been planning to to 15 of these in April, but didn't even get close. I may not do any more for  while to let my eyes recover from the strain....
At least the final result seems worth the effort.

1st rank of the Black Skaven

2nd rank of the Black Skaven

Black Skaven - 60 points

Eight Black Skaven - one of the few shock elites available to Skaven forces. Well armed and armoured with halberds and light armour. A whopping 7.5 points each!
Maybe the command group will make an appearance next month...

Offering to the Overlord - 25 points

A word of thanks to Iannick for the time and effort he puts into running this challenge, especially during these strange, stressful, and for some, very busy times.
The challenge has definitely been a great distraction for me, and I'm sure others will agree and add their appreciation.
Once I chose the colour of the cloak I suspected this would be designated the offering model. Plus, since it was Iannick's birthday month, it seemed suitable timing. Iannick, it will be winging its way towards you this week. Hope the cloak meets your approval :-)

All of April's force:

2 Rat Ogres and their handler - 86.5 points
8 Black Skaven - 60 points
Jezzailachis Team - 39 points
Offering - 25 points

Total for April: 210.5 points

Total for the army: 871.5 points (846.5 points, not including the offering)

Next month the work on building up my rank-and-file troops continues. Probably not Black Skaven, though... maybe the command group.
I did make a start on some Giant Rats in April, but these are such low points cost in 3rd Edition, I'll need something expensive to compensate.
The banners I was experimenting with last month didn't materialize, so I really want to add at least one.

Good luck to the other challengers! The armies are really taking shape now and starting to look amazing.

Brendan's April Clan Moulder - (214pts)

Bring on the Heat!

For April I think I painted the smallest number of models for my group of clan Moulder, but they all pack some punch.  To start I figured I would sell some rat mutants to the local clan Skyre to get a warpfire thrower.  Nothing invokes fear on your enemy like a fire rat!

Warpfire thrower team: 70 points.  Dousing your friend's Dwarves and Norse on fire?  PRICELESS!

Continuing with my Moulder theme I added three more rat ogres to the list.  I got a little off "old world" with these guys as I had two of the newer rat ogres.  But this would also mean that I would have 6 different sculpts of rat ogres.  So I talked myself into it.  Fee free to berate me.  I can take it. However, I do like how they came out!

And here is how they all look with my rat ogres from a previous month.  No two alike!

3 rat ogres: 124 points.  I also added some handlers for them as well.

2 pack masters: 20 points.  And finally, my army shot after 4 full months of painting Clan Moulder!

Brendan's Clan Moulder- Month 3 (240 points)

Month Three and the Swarm Continues to Gather

March completed and in the bag.  I'm feeling pretty good so far with what I have accomplished! Being that I am working on a clan Moulder theme I went back to my sturdy troop choice of giant rats instead of clan rats.

24 more giant rats completed for a total of 60 points!  I got smarter with these giant rats and I staggered them on one side of the base or the other where I could.  This way they would rank up better and not always have to contend with a tail in the face.

Next I moved on to their handlers, the ever trusty pack-masters for 40 points.

I bent an arm one direction or a whip another to attempt to give the illusion of different models.  I also ran out of pack-masters so don't look too closely at that guy on the right...

Finally I was able to repaint my favorite Skaven model of all time.  He was one of the first models I got when I was 12 and I hard an internal struggle if I should strip him and repaint him from his original paint scheme.  Eventually I convinced myself that he deserved to be brought up to my much better painting ability and repainted my Greyseer.  For the competition I will count him as a Warplock champion.

Warplock Champion 140 points.

For March my grand total came out to 240 points. Here they all are together:

And last but not least, the horde assembled from the last  3 months.  It is getting more difficult to take them all out of the case to photograph them each month.  But I guess that is a good thing!