You Dirty Rat
August 24, 2025
Hi, The Other Dave,
Well, this story started approximately three weeks ago, and it’s a little bit different from my norm. It has been Really busy. My wife works in a school and in the UK it’s our summer holiday, it lasts about six weeks, so short breaks, kids, and grandkids have taken a lot of time, and not a lot of shop time.
At the beginning of this holiday, my son suggested a Warhammer World Day on the 29th August. We go at least once a year, and each of us takes a sci-fi army and fantasy army to play. Tradition dictates at least one new army. This year will see my grandsons Tyrranids (aliens like those from Starship trooper) and my Skaven (Ratmen).
We need to go back a bit further, at the beginning of this year I wanted a new Fantasy army, Skaven were the eventual choice, and a narrative campaign was started to allow all of us to build and paint new armies. We use whatever we want, 3D printed, plastic models regardless of manufacturer, conversions whatever works, the rule of cool is a thing. However, I knew my Skaven army was going to be rather large, and I decided that at least half was going to be using Games Workshop miniatures. I digress the campaign failed, it was not robust or exciting enough, and it meant I probably had only painted 25 miniatures. No where near enough.
The canny among you will see a photo not containing 25 models that’s because some our GW and some are going to be used as monsters instead. I’ve added another photo, I really like these two models.
When we booked in Warhammer World Day, it meant I had approximately four & abit weeks. I built a list, and it was approximately 100 miniatures. That is a challenge to say the least.
I considered it and decided to ‘chicken out’ of said challenge and use an existing army. Life is busy, hectic, chaotic, but it just didn’t sit well with me. My son came up with an alternative solution for his own army. He bought second-hand miniatures already painted. This was genius, and obviously obvious (I’m a bit slow, I'm not afraid to admit that). A week later I was the proud owner 60 miniatures that I had not painted
Again, the canny will have noticed they do not ‘fit’ into together with the different paint styles, but that is a different story for later and another time.
So, now I was in a position where it made the challenge achievable; I accepted and went for it. I started with characters; I had one nearly finished, and an old metal mini I was on planning on selling. A bit of touch up and they were done. The 3rd character was a Grey Seer painted from scratch.
A character on a monster thingy was next, speed was the driver, and it does show, but I’m happy, it was another figure completed.
I have a habit of painting grimy stuff, and originally, I started with some brightly coloured figures. I just found them gaudy, and this was really apparent when next to the Stormvermin I had recently bought. End-result they are now a lot darker.
Snipers and more Clanrats were next, again speed was king, and again it shows, but they are done.
Finally, I built a Doomwheel (Completely wrong), and a Cannon thing. I Spent a little more time on these, and I’m happy with them. They are not perfect, but the four-foot rule applies.
What next? I have 60 miniatures; I recently bought that mostly don’t fit with the existing army. The Stormvermin won’t need a lot of work, maybe just a rebase. The monks, probably some washes, and highlights. The Clanrats, all 40 of them will need something a bit more major. Currently the paint scheme is made up primarily of three colours and it looks great, I will add some more blocks of colour on appendages, weapons, and shields this will help tone down the blue. However, this will probably occur after Warhammer World Day, if on the 29th you are also there and you recognise any of the miniatures come and say Hello it would be a welcome addition to the day. Thank you for getting this far, I hope you enjoyed it, questions and comments always welcome.
BTW, today I was in the Shop, and I picked up a new release item from EMP, so my next blog is going to be a sneaky look at this, I am completely bias, I am looking forward to this, but don’t tell John.
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