My unit of plague monks was gifted to me by a buddy of mine who worked for Games Workshop for years back when they could order metal models for around 5-10 cents an ounce. I remember telling him how much I hated the current plastic plague monks as they are atrocious and follow the older design aesthetic that makes Skaven look more like dogs than rats. So a few years later he gave me a bag full of metal Skaven plague monks and plague censer bearers for my birthday (he was clearing out models he knew he would never get to).
Likes
- I really love the old models. Despite the lack of poses they look ten times better than the newer plastic plague monks. I mixed in a few of the old metal plague censer bearers as well for good measure.
- The green robes worked out very well and very quickly.
Dislikes
- I really hate old models. They have so many void areas that they are irritating to work with.
- I wish I had gone lighter on the blue. It darkened up considerably with the wash and it looks weird next to the green.
- The skin didn't work as intended. It has a pale pallor but no definition.
- The metals. I cut corners here for speed and didn't do any highlights.
Changes & Additions
- Repaint the blue with a 50/50 basecoat of my base blue and menoth base. Work up from there.
- Paint the skin more like I painted by grey seer. It's more time consuming but it looks better.
- Paint highlights on the metals and give them a rusty look.
Moving on this week I'm working on a few tidbits before tackling my two remaining units. As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I finished up 10 giant rats in addition to my plague monks. This week I will paint the packmasters, the command of the clanrats unit that is already finished, my remaining weapon team, and the gutter runners. Upon finishing those models that leaves me with a unit of Slaves, a unit of clanrats, a warlock engineer, and my battle standard bearer left to paint.
I'm hoping to finish everything off in the next 30 days to leave me time to base everything, but we'll see how the timing works out. I'm pleased to say that, at least, I'm way ahead of where I was last year. At this same point I had a Doomwheel, a unit of slaves, and about 25% of a clanrats unit. Once I finish up the bits and pieces this week I will try and take some pictures of everything else I have already.
Also, next time I'll take a look at the Adepticon Fantasy tournament scenarios and rules and assess how I feel my army will play in each of those and which armies I fear most.