The Skaven War Machine

I had teased these models a while back on my Facebook page, and now they're finally finished– Conversions of the plastic Rat Ogres from the Warhammer starter set. I did a little work on all of them to make them unique and to match the style of my existing unit.

The places where the fur flattens out along the seam of the two body halves were built up with putty. Extra armor plates were made with styrene card and hex rod cut to form the nuts and bolts. I trimmed one of the tails, swapped the heads, and added a hook hand using part of a Chaos Marauder banner. Extra blades were added to one of the claws to further distinguish the two models.

 

 

My original Rat Ogres incorporated mechanical arms from Inquisitor model Krieger Thrax. I had one left over, minus the claws, so they were recreated with styrene card. The other Rat Ogre needed some Skryre-tech, so I used spare parts from Space Marine Dreadnoughts and Ork Killa Kans to give him a piston-driven arm. The blades are from an old Imperial Guard– er, Astra Militarum tank's dozer blade.

 

The fuel cells on his back are made from beads with a little putty work.

 

Here they are, painted up and ready for battle!

 

The whole unit, ranked up with Skweel Gnawtooth leading the pack:

 

 

Normally, packmasters are placed in the back rank to drive the Rat Ogres forward, but since Skweel is a unit champion, he needs to be in the front rank. His different base size won't allow him to fit in with the rank-and-file Rat Ogres, so he needs to be placed on the side of the unit. I made a little bump-out for him to stand on.

 

It's removable, and can be replaced with a standard edge piece for when he is inevitably killed.

 

Up next: The Hell Pit Abomination. This is one of the most complicated kits I've put together. You wouldn't think so from looking at it, but the front portion of his body is about 10 pieces, not counting the arms or heads!

 

 

I already did a little customization like removing the excessive spikes from his tail, but I want to take it further and make him a distinctively Skryre-themed model. I plan to replace the masonry he's resting on with some kind of warpstone contraption and use the spare arms to add more mechanical cleavers to him. We'll see what happens when I start tinkering...

'Til next time!