The Great Skaven Army Project Redux

2/13/2024

Part the Second - Essentia Rattōrum

All right, I'm going to save the army list itself for Part III, and start a bit "bigger picture" with the visual design and inspiration.

I. Foundational Influences

My essential conception of the Chaos Ratman can be summed up in a two page spread...

The moment I encountered this section of WFRP's bestiary is the moment a young Tristram fell in love with Warhammer's verminous denizens. And so those 3 pieces of artwork, especially the b&w reproduction of Blanche's Vengeance of the Lichemaster, which led me to the Spring 1986 issue of Citadel Journal, the first appearance of the Skaven.

I've mentioned before how remarkably "fully formed" the mythos surrounding the Skaven were from the inception, retaining these core elements to today while most of the armies around them went through very drastic lore revisions over the editions . Stuff was added. but not much. The description in 1986 you could pretty much still in whole use today as an introduction to a Skaven army book.

But, for right now, I'm more interested in the iconography and visual presentation (especially as this issue provided all the artwork in that WFRP entry).

First off, Skaven get a logo! How adorable is that?

I'm not certain who did the artwork here, it may have been Jes Goodwin himself: they do bear some resemblance to Goodwin's figure designs, especially the Grey Seer.

We also get a pretty comprehensive overview of Skaven visuals...

Not to mention the iconography of the Skaven, with army symbols and banner designs that again were retained for pretty much the life of WFB.

In fact, every banner design and icon presented here is still present in 8th ed's Uniforms & Heraldry of the Skaven, published 24 years later.

And finally we get a small selection of painted Skaven. The Plague Monk conversion by Charles Elliott here I particularly like (though I may need to pick up another Wyrde Banebreath model to swipe the banner hand from).

Many of these same models were also featured in Heroes For Wargames

Third edition's Warhammer Armies brought with it some more art dripping with Skaven flavour, including a number of banner & shield designs.

Warhammer Armies also provided some iconic additions to the lore, as well as some forgotten gems that I want to revive in the lore for my army. This for me, is going to be the essence of Tristramania; engaging with Warhammer in a way that is like character-building in an RPG, but from the 3rd person perspective of the general of an army.

To that end let me point your eye towards the 3ed army list's rules for Skaven heroes:

I just love those titles and the varying levels of Clan Eshin abilities. My grand army will have 25 Heroes, each corresponding to one of the choices here (even if most of them will have to stay home during individual battles).

Likewise, the grand army will have a total of 6 wizards; seers, warpweavers,
& warpsquealers, and we'll need to fit Pestilens in there
(in 3rd they mostly used warpscrolls).

Skaven in 3rd could also field Chaotic Hosts, something that carried on into 4th edition but had disappeared from the game by the time of modern hammer (another thing TOW could have brought back).

So, the grand army will have a host, for the Moulder faction, and instead of simply giant rats, we'll have Rat-spiders, Rat leeches and batwinged-rats (which did show up in official Skaven artwork circa Isle of Blood). And while the Chimerat is a classic and essential custom for every Skaven player deep into the lore, my mind is already churning with ideas generated by following that same line of thought to Jabberats, Raticores, etc.

Before we move on, I just want to take a minute to highlight Warhammer Armies' rules for Warpstone Charms

So any Hero can take a Warpstone Charm (quite a few are already modelled on Goodwin's sculpts), which provides a re-roll on a save once per game and gives them a +1 bonus to resist spells cast against them (Magic Resistance (1) in TOW terms).

I really like this approach. It's very "Skaven-flavoured" and it gives a decent small advantage for a fair point cost (even in TOW economy), basically allowing any Skaven Hero a chance to cheat fate and scurry away to fight again,
Oh, while we're talking about third edition, brief tangent. I think TOW missed a trick here by not bringing back magical musical instruments, I loved those. I'm going to have to model at least one for me unit - I'll be doing a lot of customization for unit command models, and I just think of the creative possibilities. Ridiculously big instruments ending in carvings or castings of rat/demon/skull heads, instruments requiring two models to operate, even some ridiculous anachronisms like guitars (something I'm going to keep in my mind when I start on my undead army, which is a small, tiny little project in comparison).

Also tangentially, while I appreciate Pete Taylor's Skaven army, the first fully painted Skaven army I ever saw, and I looked over those pages so many times they fell out (well, I mean, it was crap binding anyways, my first copy was just a stack of pages in a file folder by the end, but those pages fell out well ahead of the others), it is not really going to be an influence on this project. The bright saturated colours on lime green bases with largely mono-pose units is more of a prototypical form of the McVey style that characterizes Middlehammer.

And speaking of Middlehammer, the next puzzle piece in my personal definitive expression of Skaven is the first Skaven army book, which intersects with the (ahem) tail end of the Goodwin era.

Here we get the final distillation to the lore to form the core conception, with vital additions including a timeline integrating them into The Old World's history, the story of the Fellblade and how Clan Eshin engineered the defeat of Nagash, and the first appearance of the Pied Piper by way of Robert Chambers legend of the Skaven's origins The Doom of Kavzar. Not to mention the first official rules for the iconic Screaming Bell, the first appearances of the Doomwheel, Verminlord, Skavenbblight, and (IIRC) , and Skaven's first special characters (Deathmaster Snikch, Ikit Claw, Lord Skrolk, Queek Head-Taker, Thanquol & Boneripper, and Throt the Unclean).

And the interior art of the Skaven army book, by John Blanche, Wayne England, and especially Mark Gibbons was a source of constant fascination for young Tristram.

Not only do we get some fresh Skaven iconography, we also get a full page of Banner templates, many once again hearkening back to the original Citadel Journal article.

And this of course all leads to the culminating foundational influence: Andy Chamber's legendary Skaven army, first appearing in White Dwarf #137. I've covered Andy's army and that issue extensively on this blog before (HERE, HERE, & HERE).

Thus, like many before me, I am going to make an attempt to capture the overall aesthetic impression of Andy Chamber's army. That of a dark horde, the host of brown fur broken up by war paint and elaborate old school banners (which were provided to Andy by other members of the Heavy Metal team at the time based on the illustrations of the original Citadel Journal article), and basing is obviously going to play a big role. In this case the main addition I may want to add to this aesthetic is equally excessive shield designs.

II. Inspirations

I am certainly not the first Skaven fan to tread these waters and so here is a brief run-through of the painted Skaven armies and warbands that most impact and inspire me, sometimes overall, sometimes regarding one very specific choice or approach.

Nico

Nico's Skaven army, like Andy Chambers, is one I've discussed multiple times here on the blog and was appropriately the focus of my second Tour of the Underhives post.

I think it is fair to say that in my estimation, Nico is the ideal, the most effective overall Chambers tribute, and visually the most impressive. He sets the standard that I will strive to meet.

Stonecoldlead

Just drop dead gorgeous paintjobs. Stonecoldlead's Skaven warband, done as a commission, are pretty much the peak of painted examples of those figures. Obviously trying to hold myself to that standard for an entire army (especially one of this size), however, I do plan to take one of each Goodwin sculpt and paint it to the best of my ability, while using speedpainting techniques that are a variation of Andy Chamber's approach (by way of Nico) on the rest of the horde. If I can get even close to Stonecoldlead's Skaven that will be a lifetime accomplishment for me.

(SCL's Skaven are also what convinced me that the formerly-Grenadier Ratscum figures could be painted up to blend well with Goodwin Skaven)

Sebastian Suski

Sebastian Suski of gameoftravel.com, has a very clean and dynamic style.

The omnipresent Warpstone glow gives his army a unique character, while he makes excellent use of Bases&More's resin Vermin movement trays. I'll cover his army in more detail in a future Tour of the Underhive post.

CULT OF THE
FOUR-ARMED EMPEROR

Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor's Andy Chambers-inspired army was featured in Tour of the Underhives V. I especially love his Plague Monks...

SKAVEN HAVEN

Skaven Haven set out on the same journey I am undertaken, and I carefully watched his progress along the way. He has since completed this massive project, and a supplemental Tour of the Underhive is past due to update his army's first appearance in Part III.

(I need to ask him where he got the tank treads)

The conversion above features a C28 Creeping Demon Lord, a figure I wasn't even aware of prior, but if you paid attention last post you saw that I, after a few months of searching, was able to acquire one because it is definitely perfect for a verminous mutation of some kind. Mine is going in with an undead Skaven Pestilens retinue for the Plague Furnace as a Plague Lord on Pox Rat (Unit Filler/Command Stand in TOW).

As an aside I am aware of the fact that by the technicality of The Old World's subsystems regarding heavy chariots, that can be read as neither the Plague Furnace nor Screaming Bell allowed to join units. I think, as indicated not just by common sense, but also that no attention was called to this drastic deviation from lore and all prior interpretations for Warhammer Fantasy (not counting Warmaster) and moreover completely contradicts the description accompanying the rules, that this is a case where the spirit of the rules is more important than the technical wording. In other words, I plan to ignore it until the inevitable FAQ rules patch.