Plunder for the Ironclad Fleet [Mar 16 2024 - A Machine for Pigs]

First models to test out my new airbrush booth. Cobbled together this DIY project over a weekend. Only had to purchase the filter and the switch (thankfully salvaged an old stove blower which would’ve been the key expense). Quick zenithal prime and basecoat using Vallejo Air paints. Hats off to Admiralty Miniatures. This bazooka team was a blast to paint and it came with tons of extra hats that will certainly be making appearances in my conversions.


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My Artisan’s Contest XXIX Entry. Had some fun with this one since I’ve been meaning to start sketching concepts for boats (to eventually start designing some for my 3D printer). Couldn’t let it go by without some accompanying background as well. May just have to convert some berserker models to match at some point.

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Great drawing and story. I love the fact that they are risky on long voyages.

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Well done on the sketch and concept. Had my vote!

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A little atypical here but a pile of Skaven slaves fell into my lap and I wanted to make use of the filthy little expendable rat-things as slaves for my Dawi-Zharr. What better place to throw them than in the mines or in the holds of slave galleys. Stay tuned for some background lore on their integration.

Skaven certainly present some fun opportunities for conversion and crossover of their haphazard primitive tech with the more infernal devices of the Chaos Dwarfs. One idea was incorporating gas mask heads to represent filtration of the pervasive ash and choking soot in the Dark Lands. In addition to the mining equipment I wanted to add some devices for catching or dealing with the various deadly creatures they might encounter.

I couldn’t resist the idea of a “standard bearer” carrying a nightlight for the scaredy-rats. Neither could I resist a warpstone jackhammer pogo stick riding slave.

The hand pump cart idea started off with just the lever rat but ended up turning into a sort of doom-flayer go-cart which I’m fine with. I leaned right into that skid with the lantern on flagpole and bar/windscreen. The rat in the mine cart was mostly because i ran out of legs and also since I find it suitably Skaven.

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Introduction to the chieftain of my offshoot band of rat-things that find themselves in servitude to the Reavers of Uzkulak. The color scheme and location of Clan Krizzor conveniently suited my needs and I went down a decent sized rabbit hole having fun with the unit while testing out painting methods to use on their Dawi-Zharr overlords. As the project expanded I decided to document some of their background and flesh out the motivations behind these enterprising rat-men ultimately doomed by their ambition. Lashikk was a quick conversion again using some 40k Admech/Skitarii bits that fell into my lap along with these old metal poison wind globadiers that I couldn’t bring myself to sell. I may use Lashikk as a Hobgoblin Khan proxy or even just as unit filler.

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Okay, last rat-slaves related post (for a while) to bring some of their lore full circle. I never claimed to have laser focus for the hobby… but sometimes the tangent tracks are productive and reinvigorating, especially if they get spun into something useful in post.

Here are some blurbs about how offshoots of Clan Krizzor were lured into slavery by destructive technology and promises of retribution against their fellow Skaven with the Dawi-Zharr subsuming the resources of a weak clan to destabilize more powerful enemies (ideally leading to the annihilation of both).



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Reaver! We must have a talk about this unsanctioned use of Skaven in service to Uzkula-Err, I mean good work, very inventive use of bits/conversions. And nice paint job too.

:slight_smile:

Uncooperative ratmen are easy to throw overboard :rat::ocean:

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Waste of good food - chop ‘em up and feed them to the other slaves.

;p

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Awesome models, great conversions and fantastic painting. As for using skaven, fear not. All must serve! All must bleed for Hashut.

Of course from a skaven viewpoint, as Bob Dylan would say ‘ you gotta serve somebody’ it may the Father of Darkness or it may be the Horned Rat, but you gotta serve somebody.

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Getting closer to wrapping up my old blog content. This daemonsmith was a fun bits bash that sparked a lot of ideas for my army.

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Tinkered away at this one for a while now. Got this ol’ metal model used and it needed serious help. Not to mention the base required extra work to make places for the crew to be magnetized and recessed within the rock and also to pin the monstrosity securely through the base. Ended up not using some of the bits since I kind of like it slightly stripped down, great pieces for future conversions too. Opted for this scheme to differentiate the purple daemonic soul magic from the lore of fire. Not much here in the conversion department but I’m happy to have this classic ready for the table.

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First wargaming related piece off of my Prusa 3D printer, and oh does it make me feel like a young daemonsmith again. Big hats off to Dancing Yak Miniatures for the awesome broken statue file download. Lots to learn I still have but the idea engine is whirring. Gave it a quick and dirty paint job just to test. Looking forward to figuring out the limits of this printer, as others have said terrain seems to be a good niche for the fidelity of FDM printers.

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Wow. That came out really well. Need to get my printer up and running. Nice work on the cannon too! I especially like the basing setup to include the crew.

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Thanks! @Jackswift That cannon base was a piece of work, especially faking the rock around the crew to look like the rest of the rocks while still having the nice cutouts.

Great work with the terrain, 3D printing looks very much to be the future of a lot of wargaming goodness but I’ve got to say the mix of Skaven and AdMech is genius and blew my mind, great job

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Thanks! I can’t take full credit for that mashup. Ever since the Necron vs Admech box set came out that priest has been cheap conversion fodder. I’ve seen a couple Skaven folks use it in different ways. Always been partial to Skryre tek

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Glorious as ever. Nice to see this great log up and running so quickly on new CDO!

Oh, and it’s great to see the DYM ruined statue being put to good use. Keep it up.

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Golden Hat XXXIII entry. The Runemaster’s staff was just begging to become a pyromancer’s hat and I had been tossing around concepts to incorporate Fyreslayers in conversions. When the flaming bull endless spell was released I had a bit more of an idea formulated but struggled with indecision for a while. The Golden Hat motivated me to make some choices and move forward. I didn’t have any faces that I liked so I went ahead and hacked one together with green stuff. Took a leap of faith with the flowing lava texture on his base too.


PSA: Highly recommend Warcolours paints especially those looking to experiment with wet blending. The consistency and working time is perfect for applications like fire, lava, wavy water, etc. I snagged the speciality fire set and had a blast working with them. I’ve also had some good luck mixing them with Vallejo paints to hit a middle ground of opacity and working time.

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