The Skaven Rat Ogres Get Kitted Out As Stormfiends!
January 11, 2015 by brennon
More Skaven information has dropped showing off what the new unit for the Skaven is shaping up to me. You thought Boneripper had got an upgrade? Wait until you see what Moulder and Skryre have been working on with the Stormfiends...
I for one am glad that we're seeing these kind of Rat Ogres (above) leaving the tabletop in favour of units that look more in keeping with this style of Rat Ogre that we saw as part of the Screaming Bell and Plague Furnace...
These are much nicer looking sculpts (in my opinion anyway) and I think the new Stormfiends fit in well with that design. Each of the Stormfiends is armed with a range of weapons from big gatling guns to warpfire throwers and more. There's even some melee weapons there too. As well as that the pumped up rats are armoured up with huge plates of (once again) blue armour. I don't get the colour scheme choice myself but never mind.
It's neat to see the Skaven getting a whole bunch of new units to play around with as they've been rather forgotten over the past few months and years. Still hasn't stopped Games Workshop selling dog-faced Night Runners though!
Custom Rat Ogres By Painted Goblin
What do you think of the Stormfiends?
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I am sure someone will love em, personally they look like bad ogyrn clones – if this is the new style of models we can expect for 9th I am going 100% oldhammer
I agree. Some time this week I will be making my last buy from GW, in anticipation of more of this sort of thing coming down the pipe. In the interim I’ve still got a few boxes of the old wood elves/wild elves to put together to plug into my elf army, so it’s not like I’m looking for things to do!
They would have been awesome new rat ogres if GW hadnt tried so hard to make them look like Warjacks
Not sure how hard they tried because they failed. The legs aren’t ridiculously out of proportion and the head isn’t half way down the body but the weapons are as about as close as they got.
Nasty vermin, better call pest control.
‘Roider Mice from Mars….
Are they originally from Dublin?
via Hollywood…
WFB 9.0 was going to be my return to Fantasy and my army of choice was Skaven. Looking at all the latest releases however I am going to flag it and concentrate on my X-Wing and Warmahordes. You lost me again GW. Stop trying so hard…
Sweet, a new 40k faction, O wait.
Even after the success of the endtimes, which i have extremely enjoyed up till now, it seems more and more is pointing to this rumored new bastardized Warhammer Fantasy.
My goodness these are awful! Is Michael Bay making a Skaven movie?
Rats + warpstoneroids + armour = Skaven Dreadnaughts! They would make good alternatives for Hellbrutes. Niice.
I actually like the minis, but what’s with the rotor cannons? Is Warhammer going steampunk? As ever, the GW painters paint their armour silly colours for some reason. These minis would look a lot better of that armour was painted to look like metal.
rotor cannon on the chest piece takes the price
Yeah, that would have to go.
The Skaven have had Ratling cannons since 4th. They hilariously explode all the time and completely fit with the Skaven mentality. The question with the chest cannon is not why but where did the heart and lungs go? At least with a steampunk fantasy setting the crazy ranges of 40K might make sense. I’m all for it though they should not eliminate Fantasy all together, that would be a mistake.
I will say compared to the old Rat Ogre kit that was mono posed, this is miles ahead in quality. The paint job is well done but I’m not a fan of the paint scheme, two very separate things in my books. Oh and as mentioned above, the rotor cannons have got to go. They look over advanced for the game.
personally I think skaven should look as ridiculous as possible 😛
so these look good to me 🙂
… maybe these are looking more advanced tech wise in preperation for the large time shift ? 🙂
if the rumours are true then it makes sense to start releasing stuff that fits both time frames 🙂
I did wonder something similar. We might be getting a window into the 9th ed aesthetic.
indeed 🙂 I expect they’re going to go full on hybrid style, if the time jump is really hundreds of years 😉
I don’t get it. If the rumors are true and GW is indeed going for a reboot to a skirmish-level game and the merging of armies, why do they dish out all there huge, expensive and very race-specific models? Sure, many people are excited about the concept of the reboot, but do they actually buy the new releases?,
Plus, the majority of those is plastic, am I right? Plastic = biggest production costs. Why spend all the money? Will they be of any use after the End Times?,
Strange…
P.S. The New Rat Ogres look more Skryre than Moulder, IMHO.
These models may be the first of the new Skirmish game models which imo will be based around “Fantasy space marines” as these Stormfiends are clearly meant to invoke. Think about it, it’s not that crazy an idea! GW know Space Marines are their best sellers so why not just make a bunch of Fantasy versions! Evidence? The leaked pics above :p As for Warhammer 9th, it will exist as the main game I think, with updated rules which merge itno the skirmish game and 40K. But I think the rumours are fractional and what Fantasy is set to be… Read more »
yeah, those were my first thoughts exactly 😉
these are obviously meant to be compatible with the time shift in the next edition 🙂
… plus GW has obviously been taking notes about what sort of games are popular these days 😉
… the dwarves will be very interesting in the future too I imagine 🙂
… maybe thats where those rumoured squat sightings were from a few years back 😉
… because GW often designs and sculpts things 2 years before they even get released 😉
Skaven, Empire and Dwarfs always has precursor tech to steampunk.
I wonder if these models are the “first” models designed for the new Warhammer skimish game (whatever that might be) ? Small numbers of heavily armed or whacky models with the current models as support …
The leaked new Stormfiends are FANTASTIC. But they’re not Warhammer, they’re a step too far. The tech level may well be fully moved into steampunk…
That back one looks like it should be called Captain Radium, Scourge of the Inner Space Lanes!
Or something like that. They will be a cool addition to my space skaven chaos marine army. Not so sure about adding them to my fantasy skaven though.
Does one of them have a ratling gun poking through its chest? Where does it keep its lungs then?
http://nl.tinypic.com/view.php?pic=ic0mmq&s=8#.VLJ6YSuG9Z4
I actually like these quite a bit. I think that they are really pretty Skaveny. Sure they are ridiculous and over the top but Skaven are that way. I sure hope they have a misfire table that you can roll on!
They look like cartoons. Would make good antagonists for Mickey Mouse. End times for GW, if this is the best they can produce these days.
Im finding myself liking John Blanches art more and more … well, perhaps not the way he doesnt have any sense of perspective and such, but the brooding fantasy he injected into warhammer fantasy is unsurpassed.
I’m a massive fan of John Blanche. The lack of perspective in his work is quite deliberate, since I t draws heavily on medieval and early renaissance artistic styles and subject matter.
Not so much the lack of perspective as his lacking sense of it in general, same goes for anatomy etc. Hes quite the obvious concept first artist. But doesnt matter thats just my opinion, however they need to go back and do some Blanchitzu on warhammer fantasy. Flicked through my old warhammer seige hardback and 4th ed books, lovely stuff … its sad how they managed to hanna barberise this unique fantasy setting. It looks too good, too clean .. from the recent releases only some of the nurgle stuff has managed to stay true.
Totally agree @hatamoto . Some of the best stuff being done with GW minis these days is by members of the Inq28 community. The John Blanche aesthetic is still alive and well there.
Actually stumbled across an inq28 site while trying to find a better rule set for 40k back in the days. Seems to have the depth the current rules lack, what you imagine a model is capable of he can do in the inquisitor system. Might give a narrative mini campaign a spin sometime
Blanche and Miller, I remember seeing loads of work by the pair of them in that 80’s-90’s era for GW products.
Tony Ackland, Ian Miller, and John Blanche in that order are the artists who defined the Warhammer setting for me.
I would add Mark Gibbons to your list but its pretty much there
Skaven are getting short stick when it comes to End of Times releases and these are worst once so far. These are far too cartoony even for WHF releases.
Pesonally. I like these models, though like others I am not a fan of the oddly clean and bright colour scheme. Maybe that was done to make it easy to photograph them? As pointed out by @critical, It is important to remember that the Skaven have always been ahead of the Old World curve when it came to technology (as noted upthread, Ratling guns and Warpcannons – basically a steam/warppunk deathray – have been around for while, and Warpfire throwers and Jezzails have an even older pedigree), and the Skaven are descrbed in their own army book as being the… Read more »
The mini’s I like in theory, though I’d need to see them ‘bare’ as it were. What kills them is that godawful paint job – seriously, GW seem to be doing an incredible job of making their new releases look even worse than the models actually are with the paint styles the team are putting out.
I picture these are dirty, mud-splattered abominations with sickly colouring and seeping wounds, and they’re a lot better for it.
Found this and made me smile so I thought I would share
https://twitter.com/WayneKemp13/status/554290632651726849
According to the current White Dwarf, the blue colour is Thanquol’s personal colour scheme – differentiating his troops from those belonging to the Great Clans or the Warlord Clans.
I wonder if like the special Nagash warpstone symbols the undead End Times kits had, this blue armour is more evidence of laying down the ‘faction style’ for Skaven in 9th ed. So it’s not just the tech level on these models that’s showing them to be for the next edition, but the paint scheme and symbols too.
Yeah I think the weapons have gone a bit too far for my taste. I see skaven tech as more musket/cannon and warpstone rather than these 40k-esque weapons. Still put them next to the other skaven tech stuff and they might not look too out of place
Oh good gods. I didn’t see the Stormfiends on the link. Those are diabolically bad.
As others have said, the gatling guns are perfectly in line with Skaven tech, although I will side with others in saying that the chest gun might be a tad OTT. GW paint jobs, I’m pretty sure are meant to not “scare” hobbyists who aren’t great at painting; the blue of the current paint jobs isn’t my cup of tea as it is bringing up the comparisons of Space Marines. I’ll be really interesting to see what whole kit looks like. A bit of a shame it isn’t a dual kit that would allow you to make normal Rat Ogres,… Read more »
Just so long as one rememebers that Ratling guns are more a hand cranked gatling gun than a Maxim, still less a modern Minigun, then they really aren’t out of place at all, especially considering that they have been in the Skaven arsenal for several editions now. That said, I am still not sure how the chest mounted one would work, or where all the ammo is kept.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun
Do you think that is a form of firearm on it’s pauldron ? I don’t think it’s detailed right and could be just some steam/warp/punkery is all. Still not impressed with the minis but as others have said maybe a more dirty paint job will make them look better.