Skaven Allegiences, Part 2: Clan Skryre

Last time, I discussed the Skaven Pestilens allegiance abilities in the 2017 General's Handbook, and laid out my plans for my own Pestilens force. I've done a little work on the models– The first Plagueclaw is assembled and ready to be primed. I added a cauldron of filth on one arm using one of the spare pieces and a simple press mold of the glop on the catapult arm. Up the opposite side, I attached some strips of card, scored with a wood grain pattern and pressed with rivets. The Catapult, wheels, and crew will all be painted in separate parts.

 

 

 

I also converted five Plague Censor Bearers. They are assembled from the Plague Monk kit, with the censor weapon arm and staves rearranged and pinned together to create a two-handed weapon. I'm hoping to work in a few of the "smoking" censors from the Plague Furnace chassis to bring a little more life and color to the models.

 

 

Now let's take a look at the Skaven Skryre Allegiance:

Scratch-Built Skaven Doom-Flayer

One of the Skaven weapon teams is the dreaded doom-flayer, a cross between a push lawnmower and a miniature doom wheel. I've overlooked this contraption until recently, mainly because the only official version available is in Finecast, and metal ones are going for outrageous rates on the secondary market. 

Without a model to field, I had largely ignored the rules for the machine. Looking over the stats for the doom-flayer team, I realized what a mistake it has been to neglect it for so long. The weapon team is only 55 points (the cheapest available) same as a rattling gun team, and can inflict a comparable amount of hits per attack. Furthermore, since it's a melee-oriented weapon, when the doom-flayer malfunctions (as Skaven weaponry is prone to do) it will be in combat, so it can still inflict a fair amount of damage on the enemy. Ranged weapon teams, on the other hand, are usually on their own when they misfire or run into friendly units before exploding spectacularly.

 

 

With this new-found interest in the doom-flayer, I decided to scratch build my own. After some searching, I found some items that I could use to make the chassis of the flayer: Round wooden discs, and a Steampunk medallion with a gear motif. One of the benefits of the current steampunk craze is that there are tons of accessories and gear parts to be found at craft stores!

 

The medallions were about $6.00 each, and I bought one with a half-off coupon. The discs were about $4.00 so I was able to get everything for under thirteen dollars. Those items, combined with spare parts, some plastic card, and modeling putty would make a suitable doom-flayer.

 

The gears were super glued to the large discs and then the excess wood on the disc was trimmed away. These parts formed the inside of the wheel halves.

 

Next I made the wheel's outer rings. This plastic wagon wheel was the prefect diameter, so I used it as the frame on which to build the ring. I cut some plastic strips and curled them to they would easily wrap around the edge of the wheel.

 

I wrapped two layers, gluing each layer together, but not to the wheel itself. Using a double layer gave the ring more stability and prevented it from flexing or losing its shape.

 

To make some gear sprockets around the inside of the ring, I used plastic card that's smooth on one side and ridged on the other. This was cut into thin strips, which were then glued around the inside of the ring.

 

The rings were then glued over top o the interior wheel section to create the recessed clockworks of the doom-flayer.

 

The black plastic rings were shaved down with a hobby knife to create a tapered edge.

 

Over this, I sculpted the metal plates with two-part brown stuff modeling putty. The basic shape was sculpted and smoothed first and then I pressed in lines with my sculpting tool to create the separations between the plates. I also added cuts, dents and some scratched Skaven runes.

 

The rivets were made by pressing the tip of a mechanical pencil with the lead removed. The putty was allowed to cure overnight.

 

The blades on the outside of the wheel were made from the excess parts I had left over from my Stormfiend conversions. These were drilled out so they could be pinned in place on a length of thick floral wire. I also added a Skaven shield icon as the blades' mount.

 

The gear medallion had a divot marking its center, so I drilled through this with my pin vise.

 

One of the small wooden discs was added in the center as a spacer between the two wheels, and the halves were glued together on the wire.

 

The blades were attached on the outside.

 

The small metal wheel is from the classic warp lightning cannon. I cut out a section so it fit around the central disc and super glued it in place.

 

To make the spikes on the wheel, I cut the spikes from some spare Warmachine Protectorate heavy warjack maces. Heating the parts under a heat lamp softened the PVC plastic and made cutting it much easier.

 

These spikes, and a few others I had laying around were pinned onto the doom-flayer.

 

I used a section of a plastic 40K Ork wheel to make the fender, and then wrapped a strip of plastic around the central wooden disc.

 

The Skaven pushing the doom-flayer is one of the crew from the classic warp lightning cannon. He's got a handle in his hands already. I added a length of wire along the fender and drilled a hole in the Skaven's handle so it fit over the wire. Once I had everything spaced correctly, I glued the flayer in place and added sand to the base. I decided to keep the crew separate for painting. It would make it easier to get at all the details, and one of them was already done.

 

 

To match the design of the actual doom-flayer model, I attached a pair of spear blades to the front of the wheel. A piece of plastic tube was fit over the spear shaft, and each one was pinned in place.

 

The second crewman was taken from the rattling cannon weapon team. I bent his legs so he could sit on the other rat's shoulders and pinned him in place. I further tweaked the model by modifying his right hand to work a second crank and replacing his tail with a plastic Skaven tail.

 

The final touch was to add the connection between the crewman's pedal crank and the machine itself. This was accomplished with some plastic Warp Lightning pieces, plastic card and a little bit cut from a Space Marine jump pack.

 

With the construction finished, it was time to start painting! Here is the finished result:

 

The doom-flayer has already seen action in one of my campaign games, and it performed exceptionally! I rolled maximum impact hits when charging and scored a ton of attacks in the following melee, which directly helped turn the tide of battle. But the Skaven are notorious for their unmaintained, malfunctioning equipment, so I'm certain that's all the luck I can expect and the machine will explode in every battle from here on out!

'Til next time!

Doom Wheel

Now that a huge chunk of work is out of the way, I've got some time to work on a couple personal projects. My Vampire Counts and Skaven painting queues are both pretty full, but since I'm in the middle of a campaign with my Skaven, they're the ones that get the attention for now.

Speaking of the campaign, we've been on hiatus for a couple of months. between people getting sick, and conflicting work schedules none of us had any time to meet and play games. But we're back up and running, so I'll have an update soon.

First up on the list of new Skaven is my second Doom Wheel. This was converted with unused parts from the plastic Warp Lightning Cannon/ Plague Claw Catapult kit.

 

 

Next I'll be tackling the Hell Pit Abomination. After that I have the Plague Claw Catapult and a ton of new Plague Monks to attend to.

 

'Til next time!

Fast as Lightning!

Saturday, I played a game with my Skaven for the first time in years. I had forgotten how much fun they are! It's quite a change from my non-shooting, unbreakable Vampire Counts, to use an army that is full of shooting, and will panic and run at the first opportunity. It was a very close game, but in the end, Steve's Empire pulled out the victory. 

Towards the end of the game, one Warp Lightning Cannon misfred and exploded, which caused the other cannon next to it to run off the table. This got me thinking about alternatives to the cannons and the plastic Doom Wheel that's been sitting in my Island of Blood box for the past year.

My Skaven have always been a "fast and dirty" army– painted with lots of washes and drybrushing. I decided to challenge myself to complete the new Doom Wheel kit in an afternoon. Could I do it? Here's a photo-journal of how everything went down on Sunday:

1:00 PM– I set up my workstation:

1. The Doom Wheel sprues

2. Warp Lightning Cannon, for painting reference

3. Instructions

4. Chariot base

5. Styrene card

6. Super glue

7. Hobby tools

8. Paper towels

9. P3 bag, with paints 

10. Watch, to keep track of the time

11. Fruit salad

12. Coffee

GO! 

1:35 PM– Main chassis and the two halves of the driver are cleaned. It took about a half an hour to clean the mold lines on just that one part! Already beginning to think I might not get this finished...

2:00 PM– Driver complete! There are two head options; went with the gas masked head to cut down on the amount of fur and flesh I'd have to paint later. Can hear the ice cream man outside. Have no time for ice cream (or personal pronouns).

2:35 PM– Assembling the lightning generator on the front. Not a fan of the flat, symmetrical cables on the warp stone mounts, so I'm trying to come up with a better solution. Right now, I'm considering using the spikes from the Ork Battle Wagon Track sprue.

3:20 PM– Settled on clipping the lightning icons off of the sides of the Doom Wheel, and using them to create some lightning-blades. Much better!

3:45 PM– Rear wheel assembly is finished. Noticing a lack of "battle damage" on the metal parts. For a piece of Skaven equipment, the parts are very cleanly machined and assembled. Adding cuts and nicks wherever I can. Time for more coffee.

4:15 PM– Assembling the wheels. Decided to clip off the spikes ringing the interior of each wheel. This will make the rats inside the wheels much easier to paint, and I won't have to pick out 100 individual spikes with metal after painting the wood. What keeps the rats from jumping out of the wheel? Their loyalty to Clan Skryre, of course! Also, time to put more food in my face!

4:40 PM–  Wheels are assembled. The directions aren't very explicit about the fact that the inner ring and outer ring need to be aligned in a specific way so that they will attach to the body properly. Good thing I dry fit the parts first! Tried work out a conversion using some of the larger rats from the old metal Doom Wheel. Regrettably, they just won't fit inside the wheel.

5:05 PM– Wheel blades are attached. Clipping out the small lightning generators for the sides. At this point I have a pretty good idea of how I'll separate the parts for painting.

5:40 PM– Blades are attached to the front of the chassis. I've got a popsicle stick with some of the smaller parts glued to it for painting. Clipping the spikes off of the bellows operator. Not a fan of spikey rats, and he will paint up more quickly without them.

6:10 PM– Assembly is just about finished. Just cleaning the flag, and the wheels and other parts are already primed.

6:35 PM– Working on the base. Glued a thick strip of styrene card under the chariot base to keep it from curling when I glue the ballast on. There will be a couple rats running along side, as well.

7:00 PM– Assembly is finished, and the Doom Wheel is ready to paint! At least 75% of the assembly time was spent cleaning mold lines. Seemed like every part had its line running right along the center, rather than on the corners of the squared-off edges where they could have been largely ignored.

7:30 PM– Drybrushing on the wood is nearly complete. P3 Battlefield Brown, GW Snakeite Leather, and then GW Bleached Bone.

8:00 PM– The wood is finished. Working on the rats. Their fur is Battlefield Brown, overbrushed with GW Vermin Brown. For the fleshy areas (faces, hands and tails) I use a mix of GW Bestial Brown and Bleached Bone, with successively lighter highlights.

8:40 PM– Rats are finished. Adding more Snakebite to the sand so it matches the army's basing scheme.

9:00 PM– Basecoating the metal on the wheels with straight P3 Pig Iron. Brass parts are painted with P3 Molten Bronze.

9:40 PM– Metal parts all get a wash of GW Brown Ink, as does the wood. I mask some of the metal areas and spatter brown ink onto them to create a speckled, dirty effect.  (Apologies; my hand is obscuring the action, but that's what's happening, I promise!)

10:15 PM– Bascoating the metal on the chassis.

10:35 PM– Basecoating the brass. Cheese and Cracker Combos, my favorite!

11:15 PM– Metal is finished, and spattered. Here's a close-up of the detail.

12:00 AM– Alright, technically, it's not Sunday anymore. But for me it's not "tomorrow" until you go to bed and wake up, or the sun actually comes up. Working on the characters. Robes are layered with P3 Thamar Black and GW Shadow Grey. For the final highlights, I mix in a little P3 Frostbite.

12:20 AM– Drybrushing the warpstone. P3 Iosian Green, P3 Necrotite Green, P3 Cygnus Yellow. Blades have also been highlighted with GW Mithril Silver.

1:30 AM– Painting complete. Banner has been highlighted the same as the robes, and the pipes have been basecoated with Shadow Grey, and shaded with P3 Armor Wash. The rim of the base was painted with GW Catachan Green.

I finished the assembly at 2:00 AM, and then spent about an hour painting the runes on the flag. They are a simple layer of Bleached Bone, highlighted with white. This is easily the most complex Skaven kit I've assembled so far (I haven't tried the Screaming Bell, yet). The total time clocks in at 14 hours!

I used to pride myself on my ability to churn through models. It's nice to know that I've still got it. Maybe next week I'll tackle that Garden of Morr...

'Til next time!