239: A lair full of Skaven

Totalling up what I'd painted last year, I realised that my Skaven were starting to become a full army.  I also got a good basing session in the other day while hanging out at the http://beardbunker.blogspot.com so the army is actually looking somewhat presentable.  I also managed to get a photo of them all together.

What you can see in the picture above are 120 clanrats including two pretty large unit fillers, 20 Stormvermin, some weapon teams, a Doomwheel, Warp Lightning Cannon, and various characters representing my Warlord, BSB and a couple of Engineers.  Its stretching towards 2000 points amazingly enough.  Sorry the pic isn't the best, hopefully I'll manage a bit better picture sometime soon.

232: A slinking return

Hello again...

It’s been too long, no excuses, life and all that.  I’m sure you’ve all experienced it at one time or another.  Anyway, I haven’t exactly been dormant on the hobby front, just not got around to blogging about any of it.

What have I been doing?  Well I’ve been getting involved in a fantasy campaign with some of the guys over at the Beard Bunker which has been a lot of fun, and I’m getting well and truly into the more narrative side of the game.  To whit…

He’s just one of the models that I’ve been converting to fill out my force.  I built him to be an assassin what with the “cloak and dagger” and all, and the skull helm I had the idea of being a kind of death mask that he wore.  He is of course pointing to his next victim.  Problem is, now he’s built I have to admit he’s looking a lot more like a Grey Seer to me than an assassin.  I’ll just have to see where things take me.  Nothing to say he couldn’t be an assassin who gets a little too enamoured of his warpstone and ends up heading off down the path to becoming a Grey Seer.

Anyway, I hope to be a little more regular, and have some ideas for a few special articles for the Hochland Gazette, namely from the letters section, making wild claims about the infestation of the Darkwald forrest by what appear to be giant bi-pedal rat men.  There may even be references to Albrecht of Nuln and his heretical proclamations.

Toodles, Andrew

There's warpstone in them thar hills

Played another game of Warhammer the other day. My Skaven against Charlie's Empire, around about 1000pts and a very narrative style of gaming as its the style of gaming that Charlie and I prefer to play.  As we went for such a narrative game, I thought it would be unfair to not at least write it up as a bit of a story.  So below, is my pitiful attempt.  It is a little longer than it would be otherwise, but hopefully it won't be too painful to read, and might even be enjoyable, its certainly been a stretch to write it, who'd have thought writing fiction was so difficult ;)  I'll also point out that the point of

"Finished, finished, finished now it is. Yes, yes, very finished, see, lots of rats for power, lots of new mechs to make it go." 

"You say its finished, Rat-k, but you said the same last time and I lost a whole clan to this whirling contraption, and what did it do for me, nothing.  Yet you go by the name No-risk, I hardly think that's right now is it?" 

Skrakit wrinkled his snout at the stench that filled the cavern, the usual ozone tang of any skyre contraption, with the added mix of singed hair from Rat-k's engineering assistants that were too careless when installing the warpstone needed to power the newly repaired Doomwheel.  In fact, the whole assembly was physically shivering as little runnels of green warp-lightning ran along any metallic surface, regularly earthing themselves against the walls and floor of the cavern.   Skrakit leaned in to inspect the pilots seat and one of the emitters on the machine. 

"Not so close my Lord, no, not so close.  Very delicate mechs, not want Lord hurting himself, no no, not hurting self..." 

Rat-k scampered across the workshop, trying to pull his lord away, still fawning all the time;  Skrakit swatted him away, using the momentum of the blow to lean his body a little to the side.  The little trickle of green glow that had been working along the emitter mechanism reached the warpstone crystal at its tip and grounded itself into the wall behind Skrakit.  The accompanying shrill squeel and the pungent odor of singed fur and roasted meat told Skrakit the assassin that had been creeping up from amongst Rat-k's assistants had taken the full force of the discharge, just as he'd intended.   Turning, Skrakit prodded the smoking body with his toe, already lost in thought.  With one last venomous glance at the Warlock Engineer, he stalked from the cavern muttering something about them not even trying anymore.

After the few survivors from the hamlet of Bernwood stumbled out of the woods of the foothills, a small force of Hochlanders under the command of Oskar Brandt (also) accompanied by a Sorceress march through the foothills to retake the hamlet and the tower that it serves.  (PS:  before anyone asks, no, we weren't playing in a sauna).

Verminous Tide - more Clanrats

Its been a while since I posted anything for my Skaven, mostly because I haven't done too much for them.  I have played my first ever Warhammer game, a loss against the new Empire, but the glaring hole in my army was the lack of numbers.  So, I've painted up my second IoB set of clanrats as you can see here, and also purchased nearly 50 more clanrats to bolster the numbers.  They are all in bits at the moment though, so they'll be a while coming.

Doomwheel

I've been doing a lot of experimentation with glowing effects for my Necrons (see here, here and here), and as a little break, I took the time to put together and paint up my Doomwheel for the fledgling Skaven army I will eventually have to play Fantasy.

Guest appearance

Hey everyone, been a tad quiet on here of late, thanks to an extremely busy period at work, followed directly by work travel, and I've not really had much time to get on here.  However, I've not been taking it easy, there's a number of bits a pieces I want to talk about.

1. On my way back from my work trip, I'm stopping off in LA for a couple of days, so of course I'm going to have to see what the famed LA battle bunker is like.  I'll be calling in there either Wednesday or Thursday so if anyone who follows this is there on either of those days, watch out for the lost looking English guy and say hi.

GW's birthday days

I've seen a bit of bashing of GW for having started up its series of birthday events for stores (at least in the UK, I'm not sure about the international stores), but then again, what decision of theirs doesn't receive some bashing from one corner of the web or another.

My local was amongst the first group of stores to have their parties and I'll admit now I came away distinctly better off than when I went in.  Yes there was a lot of the usual kiddie pleasing nonsense, waaghs, cake, sillyness, but I'd still recommend you pop along to your local whenever they have theirs, for three main reasons.

Skaven, Skaven, Skaven

The chittering, the infernal chittering, it gnaws at me.....

This'll be quite the departure for me, I'm having a go at Fantasy.  I've been interested in giving it a go for a while now, and with the release of the 8th edition book I thought it was timely for me to have a go.  I've never felt the same draw to fantasy as I have to 40K, the background just doesn't seem to have the same draw, and there are few armies that I can feel a connection to.  Funnily enough, the skaven are one, something about them just appeals to me, for one they are the only fantasy army for which I have an army book, so, with the inclusion of skaven in the new starter box, it all seemed to be falling into place.