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.

Like many people after I bought the IoB my interest in starting Skaven doom rocketed (get it like sky rocketed but skaveny). So looking to make an expensive army cheaper I thought about using my goblins from BfSP to represent my slaves with spears and shields, because I'm cheap and it's supported by the fluff. My idea was to just scrape off all the goblin clan symbols and paint on skaven ones paint them all dirty and grimy and call them slaves.

My question for you guys is does this seem like an exceptable proxy or is it just lame?

Sounds good to me - maybe the Gnobblars would be just as good? Not sure which are cheaper

If the have some conversions, (the scraped off goblin symbol and the skaven symbol is a good touch.

I would also add a few rats with whips or prods or something similar to put in the rear rank, kind of pushing them along.

There's a local fella here that uses a variety of miniatures for his slaves, including plenty of humans mixed with zombie sprues to give the emaciated slave look. If you paint/model it right, it'll look great.

Thanks for the replies they all had some great ideas that I will try.

I think it's a good idea, if you use a pawleader or a musician I might suggest having them be skaven, just to give the impression that the skaven are forecing them along, or even mixing in a few of the slavey-er looking skaven from the box to make them look more ragtag.

I would also suggest not even going as far as scratching off the goblin symbols but just painting over them, giving more of the impression that they've been captured and forced into hard labour.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think it's a good idea, if you use a pawleader or a musician I might suggest having them be skaven, just to give the impression that the skaven are forecing them along, or even mixing in a few of the slavey-er looking skaven from the box to make them look more ragtag.

I would also suggest not even going as far as scratching off the goblin symbols but just painting over them, giving more of the impression that they've been captured and forced into hard labour.

By all means, use goblins or whatever you wish as slaves. It wouldn't be against the rules or the fluff, after all, and non-skaven minis in a skaven army certainly wouldn't be mistaken for anything else...

My slaves have been heavily reinforced by the old 4th edition box set goblins. I have seen units of mixed elves, dwarves, and humans used as slaves. The general key is to pretty much drown them in Devlan Mud to make them look grungy.

I think Gnoblars would make the best and the value is great too, but yeah use whatever you got. If you want to keep if fluffy stay away from those that would rather die then be slaves like elves and possibly dwarves.

Depending on area of your skaven army (if you have a theme in mind) you could simply use slaves from the surrounding areas.

Ie: southlands skaven - skink slaves.
Mountain skaven - gnoblar/goblin slaves.
Chaos wastes - marauder slaves. (low stats due to lack of food )

All in all, slaves are just that.
They dont have to be skaven, and it would actually look better if they werent.

Heh I could use my scrawny compared to warhammer scale historical models. It helps that a few of them are shirtless

A local here uses a wide variety of models from humans, gnoblars, night goblins, to dwarfs with Techlis in the place of "honor" at the head of one of his slave units.

That was my plan too, back when I was thinking of running skaven, since I play OnG and have plenty of extra BFSP goblins laying around. Taking packmasters and keeping them in the rear rank to make it look like they're pushing them along. Ended up not playing skaven, but if I did, that would have been a really fun route.

So yes, very good idea!

Anything on 20mm bases is fine.
If you only intend to use them for slaves (and not in there own armies) paint on lash marks and festering sores along with the odd stump hand or leg.

I'm gonna be using a mixture of clanrat slave models, humans combined with zombie parts for the raggedy look, dwarf miners and ogres (each ogre counts as 4 slaves), plague monks, (clan skryre force, and these two clans don't really get on well!) as well as slavers interspersed among the ranks with whips!

I'm going to try and arm them all with very basic looking tools, shovels, picks, farm equipment etc, so they look like they have been dragged from thier menial chores and thrown straight into combat!

As plenty have already said, those would work fine. I'm buying up a couple boxes of Night Goblins and Empire troops to serve as my slaves. I'll have a few Clanrats tossed in to make it seem like the slavers pushing the slaves on.