From StuartL - Wait, those aren't squirrels!?! - 500 Points

Hello all, 

    The challenge is nearing its end and I am finally done painting. 

    This entry wasn't one I was planning to do originally, it just kind of came together at random. Way back in the days of yore I had a Skaven army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle, but I could never get round to painting it. Back then I wasn't into batch painting and for those of you who don't know Skaven (Fantasy rat-men), their armies were vast hordes of infantry. When GW decided to pull the plug on WFB, I sold off most of my models, only hanging onto a small handful of them, which I painted up for the challenge in 2019. 

    Just before this challenge began, Games Workshop advertised a special Christmas offer that contained a huge pile of Skaven models in one big box. Now, I was tempted, but I figured that there would be no way I could be bothered to paint up that many models, especially as I had a million other projects on the go anyway. It was then that I stumbled upon an article discussing Andy Chambers' (One of the main writers at GW back in the good old days) Skaven army and how he had painted it. Reading through it, it all seemed very simple and straightforward. Heck, I could probably knock out models at a grand old pace if I just copied it ... and before you know it, I am walking out of my FLGS with the Skaven box in hand. 

    The method for painting all of the models below was the same. Each model was primed in dark brown and then given heavy dry-brushes of various colours. Once the model was painted, everything was washed with a sepia colour. This serves to unify all of the colours and give them a dirty, unwashed look. Individually, each model isn't very good, but as a horde they look great IMHO. As I didn't have time to assemble all of the minis, I repainted some of the models from the post I linked to above.

Above are 8 converted Plague Censor Bearers. These Skaven worship disease and love to poison their victims by whirling large smoke filled censors around them. They also work as pretty effective flails too. There are some official models from GW, but they are ludicrously expensive, so I converted this unit out of some Plague Monks.

And this is a unit of 16 Plague Monks.  I used a marker pen to write the 'text' onto the scrolls, banner and book.

This model is the army's warlord and is from the Warhammer 8th edition starter box Island of Blood. 

And a side view showing off his banner pole.

These chonky fellows are 5 rat ogres and their handler armed with a magical prod to get them moving in the right direction. 

Most Skaven have terrible lives, but the worst of the bunch are the Skaven slaves like the 15 fellows above. These are ratmen from conquered clans that end up getting used as cannon fodder in battle.

The unit above is a mob of 23 clan-rats armed with spears, ideal for prodding the enemy from a safe distance. The banner is a hand-painted attempt at a rat skull.

This unit of 26 clan-rats are armed with a variety of hand weapons including cleavers, daggers and nunchucks. 

On the right is a Skaven Warplock Engineer, one of the mad scientists that create all of the weird and wacky war-gear the army uses, like the poison wind mortar to the left.

And here is the army in its entirety (so far). I painted these in odd batches off and on whenever I got some space on my hobby desk. They were surprisingly fast to paint up. No 'Contrast' paints were used, no slap-chop or any other modern technique. I probably wouldn't use this style for most armies, but for sewer dwelling rat people, it does the trick.

For the scoreboard:

5x 40mm infantry (Rat Ogres) @7 points each = 35 Points.

93x 28mm infantry @5 points each = 465 Points

Total = 500 Points

Despite the title of the post, this lot do constitute one Squirrel. The plague monks and a couple of other minis have skulls on them, plus the hand painted banner has a skull on each side.

My Side Duels.

Squirrels +1 - 41

Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Dwarves, Fire Giants, WW2 Polish, Daemons, Viridians, Vasa, Junkers, Turnips, Necrons, Tau, Genestealers, WW2 Japanese, Teutonics, Lizardmen, Gnolls, Arabs, Space Marines, Kung Fu Chinese, Wolf's Dragoons, Merfolk, Fishmen, Fish, Mummies, Greek Myth, Peasants, Desert Terrain, Guild, WW2 Africans, WW2 French, WW2 Germans, WW2 Russians, DKoK, Sengoku Fantasy, Fantasy Zombies, Undead Pirates, Blood Bowl Orcs, AWI British, Modern Zombies, Skaven

Skullz +28 - 387

Turnips - 115 Points

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Stuart, this carpet bombing of Skaven looks fabulous. I especially like your Plague Rat conversions, and the Warlord is awesome (love the banner pole). I too have a box of Skaven in storage, all metals from yesteryear, that I cringe at every time I come across it. So, soo many ratmen... BUT I really like this painting method that you've repurposed from Andy Chambers. I may use a variation of it for my 10mm efforts, so thank you!

Now, next year will we see a Doomwheel and Screaming Bell from you?

- Curt