RATMEN – Skaven Fantasy Army – Rules Agnostic

So I’m embarking on another Agnostic Fantasy Army project – this time its Rat Men!

I have a modest ratman army here that is showing its age and I’m chomping at the bit to do somthing with it.

So these are some examples of the infantry and as always I’m going to throw my self into the basing as the best way to reframe the minis and really make them pop.

I have found some bases here by an ebayer called: custom-bases

I reached out to him as he does supply the bases painted if you want. So I wanted something a little different. I wanted a green glowy slime colour to lean into the whole green plasma kind of thing Skaven often have going on.

And the chap didnt dissapoint.

Check out the Vlog above to learn a bit more about my hopes for this particular project!

I am now embarking on one of my favourite parts of a project like this. Getting all my stuff out onto a tabletop and seeing just what I have and what I’m going to do with it.

So that is all the stuff I have for the Ratmen Army 🙂

I like to lay out all the models, and bases, and any additional materials I’m likely to use during the project.

Then I come to organizing it into an army. This is where I share the Number 1 Rule of Agnostic Armies – you no longer shape your army to the rules, you shape the rules to your army!

Yup these armies are there for my enjoyment 100% of the time – so when I’m not playing with them I want them to be on display so I can look at them, not just hidden away in some bag!

So I pick a format for units based on what I have and what I think will be cool!

This is the point where you discover you don’t have quite enough bases.

So I have popped a message to the wonderful chap at https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/custom-bases to see if he can do a couple more bases for me to the same colour scheme.

So what does the roster look like for this army, well currently its looking a bit like this:

• 1 – Command Squad (Boss, 2 Heroes, 2 Banner Men)
• 5  – Sniper Teams
• 1 – 6 Man Unit of Slingers
• 1 – Big Ass Rat Gun
• 3 – 6 Man Units of Swords Men + Plus Leader Rat
• 2 – 9 Man Units of Pike Men + Leader Rat
• 2 – Plague Furnaces
• 3 – Doomwheels

And I’m pretty pleased with that and I think it will give my other armies a good run for their money both in the looks department and on the battlefield!

I have fallen in love with Games Workshops Tesseract Glow Technical paint.

It’s just so cool 🙂

When you are working with second hand armies a lot of the time colours wont match. And this army had both a bit of mis match and it was a bit dull in the Warp Glow stakes in places.

You can see what I mean here…

So out comes my trusty bottle of Tesseract Glow and a liberal application on the warpy bits!

Everyone knows I have a passion for the Shroom lol and this was an ideal opportunity to add some additional colour to the basing scheme to really make it pop and bring it to life.

I opted for some resin Shrooms from Spellcrow. And you really do get a tone of them.

It was also an opportunity to play with Flour paints from Greenstuff World

I have been rather fortunate to find one of the best ‘Base Smiths’ around. Chris from Resin Bases is a truly talented individual and crafts some beautiful bases you can buy either plain or painted!

I had to order a few extra from him to complete the Army but he very kindly surprised me by throwing in a large circular base…

This of course totally distracted me as I had no plans for this base or models to go on it. So I did what any of us would do… SIEGE TOWER!!!!!!!

I had a 3D-printed one really doing nothing so it was time to Rat Man this bad boy up.

So I rummaged through my bits drawers and what follows are the photos of how that went!

Big thanks to Chris for the extra base that sparked this little diversion I think its an awesome addition to the army and was a lot of fun to chuck together.

I just love Doom Wheels – I think they are an absolutely beautiful model, and I can imagine them tearing at your ranks ready to slice and dice.

So I really really wanted to give them a sense of movement and velocity so I thought I’d have them bouncing a little and almost performing a wheely to give a sense of movement.

And the secret was a little bit of metal rod drilled into both the base and the models.

With everything now on its base it’s time for the final step adding the little bits of extra narrative to the bases. So I gathered up all my little decorative bits…

…and started with the big things before working through the rest of the army.

You really can go mad here and just chuck stuff at the bases and to get you through the task I highly recommend some of your favorite metal music in the background!

For me my album of choice was this… yup added BASS! Give it a listen!

I’m over the moon with this project. The basing work has really breathed new life into this little army, and it looks like it would be so much fun to play!

And I think the photos squeak for themselves 😉