Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm new here, so first of all, hi! I'm currently playing this army as Astra Militarum, with Daemon allies. Sadly a lot of it is still unpainted, so this is definitely not all of it. Plus I'll always find new stuff to make and use, so it's in constant expansion.

Most of the models are either converted GW Skaven or Mantic Veer-Myn, with heavy conversion work particularly on the former, and a lot of scratchbuilt, third-party and converted vehicles. The Daemons are a FW Exalted Vermin Lord (No pictures yet, will fix that soon) and three rat swarms - Counting as a Great Unclean One and Nurgling Swarms, respectively. I could have made it out of the new Verminlords, but I think the Exalted one still fits the 40k look a lot better.

Fluffwise, they are Chaos mutants who grew in the underground of an Imperial hiveworld, and accomplished what the Fantasy version of Skaven never could - They united under a Warlord and took the surface, after centuries of planning and slowly stealing equipment and technology from the PDF while undermining its defenses. In the end, after a long, brutal war, they managed to take and secure the planet from both the PDF and the Guard regiment that was sent as a relief force - And, as a nice bonus, salvaged a whole lot of gear and vehicles, up to and including superheavies. Of course, as soon as that was done, as Skaven are wont to do, they once again fell into infighting and backstabbing, and some factions among them took to space on stolen or hired transport ships, or the occasional heretical Rogue Trader. The only reason the Imperium doesn't just Exterminatus the place and hunt down the ones who left is a mix of Daemonic protection, the usual Administratum bureaucracy and the constant need of forces in other, more important wars.

Also, the pictures are kinda crappy, I know! I'm planning on making a proper lightbox to improve later pics, but for now that's what I had. Anyway, onto the show!

More stuff incoming! Wouldn't all fit in one post. I'm very new here, so I hope this is a good way to post images.

Also, yes, my painting process is quite erratic, as you can tell! Lately I've been focusing on painting units one at a time, but along the process of creation I mostly painted things piecemeal, and this left me with a lot of unfinished squads. I am currently in the process of fixing this.

Aaaanyway, back to the main event:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I´ve still got a lot of stuff to paint and finish, among them a Hades Assault Drill, Shadowsword/Stormlord (Magnetized), an Avenger strike fighter, a Lightning Voss-Pattern, a Salamander scout and two Sentinels (unpainted, scratchbuilt), a Crassus Armored Transport, an Earthshaker carriage and a Marauder Bomber(All scratchbuilt, being assembled still).

Not to mention painting the aforementioned Daemons and converting some Ogryns/Bullgryns from Rat Ogres. Was also thinking of getting an Ikit Claw model to use as an allied Inquisitor, and converting some suitably ratty servo-skulls.

Anyway, all feedback is welcome! Thanks!

This is a pretty ambitious project, and I'm glad to see that the execution does the concept justice. Please do keep updating the log, it'll be interesting to see what else you can come up with.

Rearly nice. My favorite fantasy and 40k armys combined as one°

Love the whole grimdark feel here, really quite excellent! Also, which chaos power are they devoted to? Nurgle seems to be the most obvious choice, but remember no chaos army is complete without a bit of diversity - I'd love to see some sort of berserker-type unit or massive mob of conscripts kitted out for cc. Have you thought about a rat-like commissar, although you could always do him up as some sort of nurgle priest or whathaveyou, but you cant have guard without commissars!

Great covnersions

For the questions - They serve the Horned Rat, of course! Since he's not really a major power in 40k, they serve Chaos Undivided. I'm planning to convert a unit of Plague Priests to be played as plaguebearers or something, but since news came out of a Tzeentch Daemonkin codex coming soon, I'm waiting to see what they come out with in that and the inevitable Nurgle and Slaanesh ones to expand the Daemon/CSM part of the army. Meanwhile, I've still got a lot of stuff to paint.

As for the Commissar, I agree with you 100%! In fact, my slave master was originally made to be a Commissar, but I started playing him as a counts-as Priest for gameplay reasons. Still, I've got an actual Priest model waiting to be painted now, with fluff to match, so he can go back to his original BLAMming role! The Priest's actually gonna be kind of a censer-bearer; The fluff for it is that before combat, slaves are injected with a Warpstone-infused substance that reacts to the smoke coming from the Priest's censer, and drives them into a wild, fearless frenzy.

I've also got a Master of Ordnance, a grenade launcher Guardsman and some artillery crew waiting to be painted. If only I had more free time...

Some really cool conversion work in there. I particularly like this guy:

Excellent work!
I especially like the plague wind mortar popping out of the chimera!

Amazing work, and inspiring too. That vendetta is especially nice.

I love this idea, playing against infantry guard feels like they keep coming like dirty rats anyways, might as well embrace it!

Kidding aside, super cool job! I love the slaves/conscripts a ton, it fits really well. Im finding the rat heads on human body guys a bit distracting due to the drastic posture change but I don't see it being a huge issue as a whole.

Keep it going, I love seeing this type of stuff!

This is awesome and giving me some ideas,THANKS!

Wow.... this is amazing.... wish I had thought of it. Great job on those conversions man

amazing, such a unique and clever idea, now I just want to see more!

happy wargaming,

-Mikey

So I just spent the better part of two days finishing and painting my Avenger (along with some infantry between drying periods). At the moment it's drying off the sealing varnish, but expect pictures as soon as this afternoon! =)

Also, I'm planning on adding an inquisitor to the army, using the ikit Claw model- it's even got a count-as conversion beamer! But I'm currently stomped on how to convert servo-skulls, so I'd like some ideas. Anyone know a rat skull bit I could use?

BoxTheGreat wrote:
So I just spent the better part of two days finishing and painting my Avenger (along with some infantry between drying periods). At the moment it's drying off the sealing varnish, but expect pictures as soon as this afternoon! =)

Also, I'm planning on adding an inquisitor to the army, using the ikit Claw model- it's even got a count-as conversion beamer! But I'm currently stomped on how to convert servo-skulls, so I'd like some ideas. Anyone know a rat skull bit I could use?

There's a half-skull head (with skin still on one side) on the plague monk sprue. Maybe you could find a couple of those on a bits site.

As promised, here's the Avenger! Sorry for the delay!

I luffs all of dis.

I love this! I've always wondered how to get the beautiful skaven models into 40k!