A month of rats and charts

September has been a weird month for my mental health. But while I am definitely not on top yet, I somehow managed to squeeze out a few things here and there. I think main motivator number one was the looming threat of the new goblins from Knightmare Games, coming to kickstarter in october.

While I was going through my box of fantasy stuff I duly noticed that yikes a lot of things were unpainted. So I figured, hey, Skaven. You've always enjoyed those and haven't painted some in years. So I gathered a few of my ebay finds into a rough warband and decided to try painting one a day. As always happens with skaven they multiply, and my initial 5 minis became a few more.

And there are still plenty to paint in the pile, among others a very old globadier, deathmaster snitch and the reanimated boneripper, as all ways the lot are gonna get scenic bases at some point when I'll be doing batches. But we're probably talking cavern floors with extra rats and maybe a warpstone, a skull or chains here and there. Also brace yourselves because close-ups are incoming.

While clearly not from the same era as his friends, I have had this home-made rat ogre warmount lying around for a while, and luckily I felt up for the task today. Considering the last rat ogre I painted was back when Island of Blood released for Warhammer Fantasy, I can pretty firmly say that this is the prettiest rat-ogre I've ever made. Somewhere a 10-year-old me is ecstatic. 

Another mild conversion I've made is the Warplock team, its using the older support with the newer rifle-rat.

I have decided to keep them seperate as they feel much lighter and more like a skirmish team, compared to my second pair. The old Warplock was hefty, so it felt appropriate to pair it with the bigger rifle support too.

And of course sorry, but not sorry, to any purists out there. I have always disliked the rectangular cavalry bases where these two fellas wouldn't fit anyway. And the new ones are way to big for a small pair of rats, so I snipped off the tabs and made a new franken-base in a more fitting size.

The other biggie for this month has be me discovering Lucidchart, and while it probably sounds like the nerdiest thing to say, am a very visual learner and am very interested in how to relay and portray information visually, as opposed to simple text. So I had a lot of fun messing about and showing armies or factions in it, like these Skavens for Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes. Starting from a base profile and then showing the sort of upgrade or equipment paths you can take, and what they contain.

And as the week went on, I got into some fairly fancy ones, like this display of the Possessed Dwarf faction from the ASoBH supplement Axe and Brimstone, where like above arrows show upgrade paths you can give your units as they become more advanced. As well as having numerous other icons like the two coins signifying this is the starting profile you hire (as opposed to being an upgrade of another one), the pentagram to signify this is a unit you must summon, the crown to signify personalities (of which you are allowed a limited amount) and of course the crowd on the Elite Hellchain Fanatic to signify its rarity of 3. If these fellas look enticing, there is an official miniature line available over on Alternative Armies.

And because I am a man of many vices I also made a series of charts for Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten, to give a better idea of what kind of models they can hire, what weaponry they have available and if they have any unique special skills. This time the chart is broken into three bits. With the first part showing units within their hire-able tiers, as well as their types and quick mentions of special rules they may have. Second part shows off what weapons and fancy things the cult in question can buy, with a quick character type chart to the left. And the third bottom part shows what unique territories and skills the cult can acquire that are unique to or carry unique bonuses for them.