RATS FROM THE SKIES!

Happy New year, everyone. I'm kicking off with an unexpected project. You can tell it's unexpected because I don't have any narrative to with it. This is one of those cases where the concept presented itself from the miniatures. I'm sure I'll fit it into the AoS setting I'm developing - the Caliburn Reach - for the Narrative Campaign at school somehow, but for now it's just there.

Fpr Christmas this year the Good Lady She Who Must Be Obeyed bought be a shedload of Kharadron because even she likes the idea of steampunk dwarves. However, she took my eldest son into the local games shop and encouraged him to pick something for me - so I also got this:

This is another of those kits which can be built in multiple ways, but my eye was caught by the massive cannon which looked exactly like the kind of thing you could mount on a ship.

And so the idea of a stolen dwarf airship retrofitted as a Skaven Privateer was born.

The main modelling change was to rip open the endrins and replace them with chunks of warpstone. Carved from blue foam, they were randomly splattered with pva meaning that when they were sprayed, they would melt in interesting patterns. The interior of the endrin was built up with bits of sprue and the broken edges and retaining bars made from plasticard.

The rest of the build was more or less stock, but I replaced the crew with Skaven. One I put into a Kharadron suit because the idea simply struck me as really funny. I added a suited tail made from guitar string. As it turns out, he's one of my favourite looking models.

The main gunner had to have a new tail and arms sculpted from greenstuff, which my meagre skills could more or less cover.

The spotter/captain figure was lifted straight from the Plague Claw kit.

The ship was airbrushed with the base blue and then I launched myself into very serious weathering.

Overally this was a fabulously fun little build and a good stretch of the old creative muscles. I'm also left with an almost complete plague claw so I suppose this year will be the Year of the Plague Rat.

I may yet add some rigging to the structure with some Skaven runes; but as yet I don't have a name for this might vessel. If you have any ideas, please leave them in the comments. As per usual I'll nick the one I like the best.