Skaven Cavalry

Back when I was just starting in miniature wargaming - mid eighties - we invented all sorts of troop types irrespective of what the "official" army lists said. WFB 3rd edition had formulas for computing how many points troops were worth, so there was no reason to let your creativity run wild. This all changed in later editions of Warhammer, of course.

My skaven army had skaven mounted on wolves. Very uncharacteristic troop types, but I always felt skaven should have cavalry. For some reason, I always imagined skaven riding wolves.

Below some old converted figures dating back more than 25 years, but which never got painted, so I quickly gave them a basic paint coat. The wolves and bodies are goblin cavalry form the old Battlemasters game. The goblin heads were removed an replaced by skaven heads from the old Warhammer Regiments box. The weapons also got replaced by skaven blades from the boxed set. One goblin spear was left as is, to attach a banner.

Cataloguing the collection (9)

I resumed my efforts of indexing my collection of miniatures. Next up in my figure drawers were the "Animals" and "Skaven".

Skaven warlord

Another figure I recently finished.

Since Skaven were my original WFB3rd army, back in the 80s, I still have a fond sport for the ratmen. This particular commander was a figure once sold by GW as part of a Lustria campaign setting, and marketed as "Skaven Plaguelord Nurglitch"

Oldhammer: Bretonnia vs Skaven

Two weeks ago I was lucky to get my hands on a very good set of the classic Mighty Fortress, sold by games Workshop in the 80s. I decided to get some of my old armies out, and make a little diorama where a Bretonnia fortress was under attack by a horde of Skaven. Almost all figures are Citadel from the 80s.

Some pictures could have been sharper, but blame the auto-focus on my camera  ;-)

A general overview of the table.

A unit of cavalry, no Citadel figures, but old Grenadier figures IIRC. In the foreground some old Ral Partha cavalry.

Bretonnian cavalry, plastic knights from the boxed WFB 5th edition set, and the 2nd and 3rd row knights from the MB game Battlemasters.

More knights. The figure in front is a conversion. Horse from WFB 5th edition basic set, and the body of the knight from the old Bretonnian Knight range from the 80s.

Line of knights - all old Citadel models.

Another overview of the castle.

Some old Citadel figures are manning the ramparts.

Action in one of the city squares. Except for the dog, all Citadel.

The herald alarms everyone within the city walls. Citadel, 5th edition WFB, IRC.

Two thieves trying to steal some gold from each other. Citadel figures from the 80s.

More action going on in the backalleys of the city. Citadel figures.

Reinforcements are coming! Old Citadel figures from the Fighter range,

Cart is from Wargames Foundry, 2 figures on the right are Citadel.

Clan Eshin ready to storm the walls.

Clan Moulder with their pack of giant rats.

More Clan Moulder with giant Rat Ogres.

Converted skaven unit. Bodies are from the Warhammer Regiments boxed set, heads and arms from various plastic toy animals, but also other Citadel miniatures.

Armoured Skaven.

Plague Monks on the left, some Jezails in the middle, and a large unit of plastic Warhammer Regiments skaven on the right. Insipiration for the banner came from an illustration in the WFB 3rd edition Warhammer Armies book.

The rat drawing in the middle provided a template for the banner in the image above.

Skaven Screaming Bell (4th edition, IIRC). In front a converted rocket battery. Original model was a Hobgoblin rocket battery, but the equipment was transferred to some skaven models.

Skaven horde as seen from the Bretonnian side.

Fortress as seen from the Skaven side.

Fortress as seen from the Skaven bell.

Monstrous host for the Skaven army. A jabberwock, Hippogrif, and Chimera.

Manning toe towers. A wizard is ready to cast some fireballs.

Another view of the Bretonnian Knights.

Someone is having some fun. Model from Metal Magic, I believe.

Another wizard recruited for the war effort.

And another one ...

The archers on the ramparts are from WFB 5th basic set.

An old Citadel cannon.

Skaven archers. Converted from Goblins from the Warhammer Regiments boxed set (and added pastic Skaven heads)

Flamethrower teams.

Monstrous host, with banner. The chaos script on the banners were real achievements from my old chaos warband.

Some more shots of city life.

A smuggler.

Two citizens wondering what to do.

Two citizens. I believe the figure on the left to be toe Royal Gamekeeper, and the figure on the right an illusionist wizard.

Attempt at trying to get the city in one frame.

Skaven Banners and Elephants

Time for some more pictures from my 'old' wargaming collection. Since I previously showed some figures from my Skaven army (look for the tag 'Phil's collection'), I decided to add some more of the illustrious ratmen to this blog.


The first picture shows two hand-made Skaven banners. The designs of both follow illustrations found in GW published material from the 80s. The banners are mounted on bigger bases (for stability), adding a General figure. This is not how it's done in Warhammer, of course, but since 1993 or so I have used my own house rules for fantasy battles, hence some more freedom in basing requirements. The figure in the middle is a Skaven wizard - all figures by Games Workshop, dated late 80s, early 90s.


The second picture shows my Skaven 'Hannibal' horde. I put these together for a wargaming tournament at EuroGencon 1993, organised by Martin Hackett (and using his rules). The army lists allowed for a large variety of freedom, so I came up with the idea of elephants being used as war animals in the Skaven army. The howdahs are scratch-built (nothing too exceptional), and can hold 4 figures based on 20x20mm bases. All figures (including the giant rats) by Games Workshop, except two of the rat-swarms (Ral Partha), and the elephants (models by Schleich).

Update (2014): for more of my Skaven in action, see the blogpost "Oldhammer: Bretonnia vs Skaven".

Skaven Screaming Bell

The model below is the first Skaven Screaming Bell, issued by GW in 1993 or 1994. I always tought it funny that the Bell could move by itself, so I decided to use 2 Rat Ogres to pull the Bell. A Clan Moulder Packmaster and some giant rats makes up the full model.

I am not sure what the current GW logic is moving the Screaming Bell. Some weird magical explanation involving warpstone probably ...

Anyway, my Screaming Bell never really saw action on the gaming table. I completed it after I was done with Warhammer, and since then, I never again played the large-scale fantasy games we used to have. I am still looking for the optimal fantasy mass battle ruleset though!

Skaven Rocket Team

In 1993, I attended EuroGencon. Apart from the Magic The Gathering craze that was starting, I also participated in a fantasy wargaming tournament using rules designed by Martin Hackett.

Part of the fun was that the army lists did leave a lot of room for designing your own troops. Instead of saying 'catapult' or 'trebuchet', it would simply say, 'war machine'. So I came up with a rocket launcher for my skaven army. Starting from a Nippon Rocket Team, I made a very small conversion of 2 skaven models; giving one a rocket to hold, and another a torch to light the fuse.



I didn't do well in the tournament though ;-)

Skaven and the Escargotaurus

Way back, when Warhammer Fantasy Battles was still in its 3rd edition (1987-1991), I played Warhammer a lot. One of the nice features that was available in the Realm of Chaos books, was to give units chaos mutations. Skaven were one of the races that could receive chaos mutations, and it was encouraged to actually modify your miniatures such that they reflected physical the mutations.

The unit shown below is one of the units that featured in my skaven army. Besides some non-physical mutations, the unit received an alternate head mutation, and a changed forelimb. I tried to work that theme into the miniatures by replacing some heads, as well as some arms.

The skaven bodies are all from the Warhammer Regiments box, except one giant rat (giant rat 1) body (front right) and a skaven character (verminlord with halberd) (far left). The head mutations are (from left to right and back to front): unchanged skaven head on character model, goat's head from Chimera model, fly from a plastic toy, added horns to skaven head, genestealer (Spacehulk model), horse (plastic toy), pelican (plastic toy), lizard (plastic GW), deer (plastic toy), chaos hound, a very weird head mutation -- tail from the same chimera and finally a dragon head (also from chimera, he served well!) on chaos spawn.
The arms are the following: genestealer, no change, genestealer, space marine bionic arm, crab's claw (plastic toy), no change, no change, changed weapon, no change, skeleton arm, no change, and the chaos spawn doesn't have any arms.

A second model that was a conversion for my chaos forces was the model I dubbed the Escargotaurus. A cross-breed between a giant snail (from a plastic toy model) and a minotaurus was the focal model of my army. The minotaur body is from Advanced Heroquest, the wings (which were there to help the creature to keep itsbody straight) are from the same chimera model mentioned above.

I must say I had fun creating these models. I don't know whether such models would still be allowed under the current WFB rules, but they served me well on the battlefield many years ago!