Rats old and new, undead musician discovery, and a basing a Kings of War Dwarf Host

 Since I really am a bit OCD about painting stuff that is out of the box before opening something new... I thought I'd better tune up these old Skaven Models, acquired in a partially painted state some time ago, while I was doing the Bones Ratmen.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of the Skaven was actually some sort of Undead Goblinoid Musician!  Worse still... it was originally painted goblin green as though the previous owner was conscripting the unlucky guy into a regular goblin unit!
 If anyone recognizes that fellow post a comment or send me a PM.  I haven't got round to researching him but I'm dead curious.

There was also an incomplete Skaven Warlord, or hero of some sort, that I touched up quite a lot.  I left the banner peg in place because I'm certain, at some point, a back banner will show up that is suitable for him.


 The bases are relatively neutral and void of fiddly bits because I'll want to make a coherent theme for them and haven't yet settled on one... although with a few weeds and bits of junk these might work out fine there is a small Skaven ally force around here somewhere and I'll want to combine them up with these fellows and rationalize the basing.
 The new rat!

This is from the Reaper Bones I Kickstarter.

Looks like it might actually be a ginormous Were-Rat.. 

I based it for use as a Rat Ogre.  This guy is actually a bit larger than the legacy Rat Ogres and will make a great 'Hero' for the unit. 

The Reaper Ratmen have very long snouts and, except for the tail, look rather more like wolves to me than rats.  I'm working on some Ratmen assassins and the wolfish look is very pronounced on them.
 Basing was Grey Pumice which gave a good heft to the figure and stabilized it.  The miniature is made of the light, soft plastic like, bones material and took some convincing to stand in all but the most ideal circumstances. 













 Size comparison with the Skaven and the Reaper model.  Its a good size for a Rat Ogre and much more dynamically posed than its legacy companions.









After a series of Kings of War games it became clear that King of War was written more for movement trays than for miniatures.  There are no pesky formation changes and its even recommended to mount you miniatures, in a visually appealing density, directly onto the movement tray.


With that in mind, and under the direction of Bevie to "Create a Dwarf Host for Bevie! STAT!", I decided that the best approach was to make an army of 17 movement trays painted up in a dwarf theme so she'll have a fun looking army of movement trays to keep her entertained while I get to work on the actual dwarfs!

These are made by Customeeple and are avilable through the Mantic Website.  Once the braziers (really good for holding a die showing the morale status and to provide a kind of handle to move the tray more easily) and any of the curbing is added the trays hold slightly fewer than a full unit number of models while still looking great which allows us to swipe a few minis here and there to generate an additional unit.






The prototype base is the one with the blue, orange, red, and gold.  After looking at this it seems a bit busy so the production bases will be this blue, mauve, and gold (not yet painted).  I think its less busy and the orange was kind of jarring for something on the floor. I will likely match the prototype to the new scheme but I'll wait till the end to see how the new one turns out.

Back to the bench!