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So, I'm starting a Skaven army, and one of my friends is starting a high elf army. 2 IoB box sets would suit both our purposes, except for one thing, I only want a total of 40 clanrats with shields. So I'm faced with three choices.

1) Find a way to remove the shields from 40 of them (To make them skavenslaves)

2) Just paint 40 as skavenslaves and ignore the shields for WYSIWYG purposes. (Most of the people I play with won't have a problem with this, but one or two might, and I won't be able to play with strangers as much)

3) Rejig my army list to give one unit of skavenslaves shields.

4) Pay more for my army, and force my friend to pay a bit more for the models he wants.

Is number 1 possible without making the models look terrible? I'm willing to spend a lot of time on it, but I'm not super skilled modeler. For number two, I'll have to argue with one guy in my gaming group, who I know will insist on WYSIWYG. The others will side with me and outvote him, but I don't want to create any bad blood or force him to leave (He owns lots of good terrain). For number three, I could do this with minor adjustments, but I don't see the point in having skavenslaves with shields. I'm not going to do number four, money is too tight for both me and my mate.

2) Frankly you shouldn't be worrying about forcing a player to leave over a unit of slaves who only aren't wysiwyg because of some shields, that strikes me as ridiculous unless the guy has some kind of intense OCD-esque disorder. Economising is important in this hobby (particular for you guys in Aus!) and anyone who doesn't appreciate that needs to suck it up and learn quick.

What you could do to minimise any tabletop confusion is make sure that they look different from other units of clanrats. For example, if you use any coloured cloth on your clanrats (green, red, whatever) make sure your slaves don't, keep them in browns and greys.


On the other hand if you just want the 40 clanrat models, see what you can find on ebay., there's usually some IoB stuff knocking around for a decent price.

Yeah, painting to make the difference obvious might be a good idea. I was planning on dark red cloth and bronze metal for my army. If I toned that down to grey rags and dirty metal, it should be pretty clear.

The guy does have pretty poor social skills, but he has virtually no friends, and we've known him since we were 5, so it's hard to push him away.

Thanks for the advice, painting is probably the best option.

The clanrats/slaves in that kit come with the weapon arm and sheild no attached. So if you leave the sheild off it just looks like the rats are making a fist near their belt. They still work without them.

Excuse the blurry picture, just did a quick google to show what I meant: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=255jqjr&s=5

Oh, really? I know that the clanrat kit comes with separate shields, but I looked up pics of the Island of Blood sprues, and it looked like the shields were already attached to the models.

I've got them infront of me, and yes, the shields are attached, I think he must just be getting confused with the clanrat kit. I show mine by having a unit filler with slavedrivers made from stuff out of the Rat ogre/Giant rat kit, never had a problem with it.

Armouredturtle wrote:
... I looked up pics of the Island of Blood sprues, and it looked like the shields were already attached to the models.

You're right. I think there was a bit of confusion with the standard clanrat regiment kit, there.

I have a big 'ol bag of IoB clanrats meself (ebay prices were pretty tempting) and the same problem of how to convert some to slaves. I haven't tried - I don't think it'd be too easy 'cos the shields are attached to the upper leg, chest, and in some cases the chin too. I'd say there'd be a lot of resculpting involved if you cut them off. Still, I was thinking of chopping up a bunch for mutations anyway...

But I digress. The easier methods I see would be to follow #2 and Sock's advice, though I can understand not wanting to cause too much conflict. (Easy to tell someone to suck it up when you live on the other side of the world, maybe.) That, or see if someone - anyone - is willing to trade a couple of regiment boxes for those 40 IoB rats. Which might not be that easy, but...

i also have the IoB skaven luckily i wanted mine with shields. i would go with the second option though.

surly if you tell him before the game that they don't have shields and the unit looks suitably different he cant have that much of a problem.

also what i did with mine is seperate the models out some of the models are more heavily armored then others. use these for your clanrats and the rest as slaves

Yeah, I'm thinking I might mix up the models with my other unit of skavenslaves. So each unit will have some with shields and some without. As long as the paint scheme makes it obvious, it should be fine. Thanks everyone!

I own a ton of clanrats and slaves (280+) and they all have shields. Most are island of blood but I do have some non island of blood ones but they still have shields.

If the guy is so insistant on WYSIWYG then just be like "your guys need to have -insert item- modeled on them too" haha I'm just kidding but for realz....just paint them up a bit different or just say "this unit is slaves without shields".

It really shouldn't be a big deal. Especially since clanrats/slaves from island of blood is the cheapest and best way to stock up a Skaven army....speaking from experience lol

 winnertakesall wrote:
I've got them infront of me, and yes, the shields are attached, I think he must just be getting confused with the clanrat kit. I show mine by having a unit filler with slavedrivers made from stuff out of the Rat ogre/Giant rat kit, never had a problem with it.

My bad sorry it was the Clanrat kit, I made both that kit and the IoB one at the same time. Sorry about that.

Just get hold of a single box of normal non IoB models, and make the front rank "correct", then forget about it.

They are nice models though, have two IoB boxes here (and two battalions but less said about the number of unpainted rodents the better really)

leopard wrote:
Just get hold of a single box of normal non IoB models, and make the front rank "correct", then forget about it.

This is what I wanted to say just make sure the front row shows what the models actually are and there won't be any confusion,