Once Again to Space.....

Yes, the one on the left used to be a horrible pink. It was worth stripping and changing.

 I've posted the other two before, and you might remember the mecha in the middle from a post a while back when it looked like this: 

It's gone through a few changes, to be sure; different head, different backpack, new weapons, and now it looks like the machine the heroes get near the end of the series/third disc of the video game/etc: 

I was browsing around some different hobby sites for color ideas, and found a Gundam build I just had to emulate. The thing reminded me so much of the titular mecha from the  much-celebrated PS1 game Xenogears that I instantly wanted one (but didn't want to buy a bunch of Gundam kits). So, I changed the head a bit to resemble the old Jovian Chronicles sculpts, and added bits to resemble the Exia's GN-Sword and OO's GN-Rifle. The backpack comes from Mekton bits, Warmachine bits (thanks for continuing to sell bits, Privateer Press) and a Crimson Skies autogyro. 

While the metallic blues are a bit underwhelming, the golds really make this thing light up. The forms also lend a lot of forward thrust to the overall shape. 

I'm least satisfied with the build of the rifle, for some reason. The bayonet at the end doesn't feel exactly right to me, but the thing is at last done, so I'd rather not tear it down and rebuild it. 

As to what he's made to fight? Who knows. Maybe there's a giant mobile armor in the future. For now, he'll occupy a place of honor on the shelf.... when I can find one his outside frame will fit on. At the moment he hovers above my desk, being too big for the little cubbies in the printer's drawer hanging on my wall. 

Army for Sale: Skaven Horde....

Update!: Both this and my Undead Skaven army have been sold. 

 Alas, it's time for the last of my WHF armies to go; farewell, my skittering hordes of vile ratmen. We had a blast, and I do mean a lot of blasts. The skaven were an army made to go sideways, and you got a laugh out of it every damn time. 

A bunch of Black Tree Designs models (supplemented by 5 slaves from another range) these metal Clanrats were cheaper as a mob of 20 than a box of GW plastics. Ditto the Plague Monks, Stromvermin, and Gutter Runners below. They didn't come with banners, just poles, so I made some suitably ratty ones from actual cloth scraps from the lining of an old backpack. 

The frenzied plague monks were actually the best unit in the whole codex. Their speed combined with multiple attacks made them an absolute buzzsaw. Didn't wear a scrap of armor, either. 

Stormvermin looked tougher than they played, which was fine because I didn't want the enemy throwing his tougher units against, say, my weak clanrats

This sneaky distraction created as many problems as they'd solved for me, and more than once caused a chain-reaction panic run back to my edge of the board. 

The burly Master Moulder at the end was converted from a Reaper Orc. Some buck teeth and green stuff went a long way to making a buff taskmaster, and believe me, the skaven need keeping in line. I always liked clan Skryre, too. Their weird ramshackle inventions gave the army as a whole a lot of character. 

As warmachines went, the Screaming Bell was a pretty good one, although you had to have your clanrats push the damn thing everywhere, and when they went running.... well...

Perhaps my all-time favorite warmachine was the Doomwheel. This one was built out of the parts I could order from the very much missed GW bits site. They didn't have all the bits on order, so I had to convert up the rest; the back cogs came from some dwarf warmachine or other from another range. Yes, those are are crossbows on the hubs instead of huge blades, which proved to be a boon in the long run because it's easier to transport on its side. 

It was great when it worked, but when the warp lightning cannon misfired, ooooooh boy. Kiss anything nearby good-bye.

The two big Rat Ogres are, in fact, Reaper models converted up to be suitable ratty. At the time, like many others in this army, they were substantially cheaper than the equivalent GW models. Only the one in the middle of the upper 3 is a GW one, in fact. The other two are also from Black Tree. 

While the unreliable Warpfire Thrower always worked reliably for me, the Ratling Gun once scythed down two blocks of my infantry like so much wheat. I never laughed so hard during a wargame in all my life. 

Those three Jezzail teams on the bottom used cannons from another range, but I think together they all look suitable ramshackle enough to be a skaven unit. At the time, you couldn't do much better for missile troops than skaven jezzails. (sigh.)

Buy them together with my undead horde and you get a truly monstrous army LOL.

Ebay listing here. 

Another Army for Sale: Undead Skaven

Veteran readers will recall this blast from the past, this undead army of skaven. Heavily converted, these beasties slouched across the table to menace my adversaries a few times. Alas, due to being my currently underemployed, they have to go. Ebay listing here.

You'll recall Skreinlich Skremmler, the Skavenmaster, and his hulking cohort, Skranfred von Karstein, the Skittering Terror of Mordeheim. 

They're accompanied by Skaverias the Everliving and his cybernetic mount, Snert.

Backing them up, of course, is their ever faithful horde of decaying clanrats. It took forever to whittle down all those skaven heads to make them into rat skulls. 

Some became zombie-ish by way of spare skaven parts. The skeleton bits came from a reasonably-priced metal blister of 20 skellies from a local game store. 

Perhaps the most labor-intensive bit, I reposed nine skeleton horses from the Reaper Miniatures Dark Heaven range into giant mounts for the cavalry. I thought they turned out rather well. 

I also ordered nine giant rats directly from the old Rackham range and mounted some metal Black Tree ratmen on them. You could have skeleton knights and Black Knight Wights in the same army at the time, and I liked the idea of having a cavalry-heavy undead army. 

Loping along at their side, ravenous dire wolfrats from the Reaper range. 

Although bats are kind of flying rats, I stuck to the theme and based some Reaper rat swarms to take their place. 

As I said, this army's now on the block, so if you were thinking of some undead action, get it while it's hot!