8) Rodents of Unusual Size: Hail, Cheesar!

My kid got me two fantastic rat ogre minis for Christmas. I don't know what company made them, but they're awesome, and my kid got them as part of an art trade with another artist. The sculpts are really wonderful, and I was very excited to paint both of them. Before we go any further, I would just like to mention that my kid absolutely loves rat ogres, and always has. A number of years ago, they played in a Mordheim campaign, and ran a little Skaven warband. The MVP not only for that gang, but definitely for the entire league, was the kid's rat ogre, “Toph”. Toph's savagery and luck on the dice are local legend in that gaming group. Of particular notoriety was her debut game in which she killed and devoured the lead witch hunter's favorite dog right in front of him. This enraged the witch hunters, and drew all of their ranged combat in the subsequent rounds. Toph weathered it for two turns, somehow, without taking any damage, and thus completely distracted her opponent's whole warband while her own gang grabbed all three of the game objective tokens and treasure, and escaped into the sewers without any enemy contact. It was a clean sweep for the Skaven, and I like to think that those poor surviving witch hunters and their mercenary henchmen probably have nightmares about it. But anyway, back to Kings of War.

Since the Rat Ogres are big monsters, each unit only contains three of them. I decided to make two units. This meant that I needed to build four more models to supplement the two that I had been gifted.

The Mega Army Deal box came with the parts to build up to six rat ogres, but I was feeling ambitious, and I wanted to do some custom conversions for these guys. As it turned out, the old Warmachine/Hordes Warpwolves were just the perfect scale to match up with the rat ogre parts from the Mega Army Deal. It took some chopping, repositioning, swapping, and gap-filling, but it was worth it, because I was able to build four very unique, very cool rat ogres, based on big, armored werewolf bodies and mantic rat ogre parts. I had to brush prime them, because we had subzero temperatures, but I was able to apply the paint thin enough that I didn't lose any detail. It was nice to paint some figures one at a time, for a change, rather than in an assembly line. For the sake of uniformity, I based the color schemes on the two warrior units. I therefore have three red ogres, and three blue ones. I am very pleased with the end results. Limiting my color pallet really helps tie my army together as a cohesive force. I was able to build the four rat ogres in one evening, and paint all six of them the next.

I stuck a couple of pi-rats on the bases with the ogres. These cutlass and pistol wielding sea rats are there to give direction and leadership to the ogres. I like that better than the traditional Skaven slavemaster with a whip. I'm very happy with how these rat ogre units turned out. They are characterful, and unique. I can't wait to get them on a gaming table.

Once the ogres were done, it was time to get back to batch painting. There was only one infantry unit left to paint, and they were special. They were the classic metal minis that I had traded for gaming books. Most of them were Harlequin/Black Tree figures from the “Nest Guard” series of Ver'Men. The sculpts feature halberds, tunics, greaves, and heavy armor in the style of lorica segmentata. Many of these minis also have helmets with horse hair crests. They are definitely better armed and better equipped than the standard plastic rat warriors I had already painted, so it only seemed appropriate to use them as Ratkin shock troops.

For this elite heavy infantry, I decided to paint the uniforms purple, like the Praetorian Guard as portrayed in the movie “Gladiator”. Thus, my shock troops would be the elite Ratorean Guard. Yes, it's a terrible pun. Yes, I'm proud of it. Every other color, from the furs, to the leathers, to the metal, to the pink noses and ears and tails, would be limited to the previous pallet, but the uniforms would be purple. The goal was that the unit would stand out and look special, while still looking like they belong to the same army.

Also, I never went to art school, or anything, but I did attend elementary school, and I very specifically remember that Red + Blue = Purple, so the colors should look good together, regardless.

There was really no prep work or assembly required with old school metal blister pack minis. Just prime and paint!

It was a simpler time, when miniatures were solid one piece castings, instead of multi part plastic kits...

Once I primed the minis, I realized that they didn't really have a whole lot of fabric on them. They were mostly fur and armor. Not only that, but the fact that they were a real mixed bag of minis from different companies made me wonder if they would look good together. By the time I was thirty figures in, any concerns I might have had were gone. Even though they didn't have a whole lot of purple cloth on them, they still looked cohesive. The metal armor, limited fur pallet, and universally pink ears, tails and noses all serve to tie the figures together. For extra measure, I painted the shafts of their halberds purple as well. Because I had a mix of figures from different sets, I wound up with two drummers and two standard bearers in the front rank. I really like this, since it is a special elite unit of heavy infantry, so they can proudly display two banners.

The unit leader is a vintage figure from Heartbreaker miniatures. He is huge and hulking, and his tail hangs out into the next zip code. For good measure, I put a plastic cloak on him, and stuck a weird animal skull on his head like a helmet. Both of those bits are from the Chaos Marauders sprue. I've decided that since he is leading the Ratoreans, he shall henceforth be known as Julius Cheesar. At the suggestion of my wife and kid, I painted his fur to match that of a legendary pet rat we once had. His name was “Easy Mac”, but we often called him “Biggie Cheese”. He was a fawn hooded fancy rat, and he was huge. I had to weigh him, once, so that he could be dosed for medication. He was 2 lbs 8 oz.

Hail, Cheesar.

For the banners, I decided to go with a rat skull for the first one. This banner pairs well with Cheesar, since he has the skull helmet. We'll just say it is his personal banner. For the regimental standard, I did a golden rat rampant. This was inspired by the banners of the Roman Legions; Simple animal silhouette on a solid background. My banners are just regular paper. I drew the designs with ballpoint pen, taped the paper down, and painted them with my fine brush. I used the same paints that I used on the miniatures. If you paint standards this way, make sure to tape the paper down nice and flat while you are working on them, and don't cut them out until they are completely dry. Otherwise, they may curl.

The rat shields turned out perfect. My kid helped me with them. We used a UV resin molding and casting kit from the craft store. It wasn't cheap, but considering that it yielded 25 shields, and still has a lot of resin left for future projects, I think it was definitely worth it. My kid made the mold from one of the original GW rat shields. The resin is in a medicine dropper style bottle, and it is very easy to control the exact amount of liquid dispensed into the mold. It cures very quickly when exposed to UV light from the little flashlight included in the kit. The detail is crisp, and the shields painted very well. I'm happy with them, but I think I will go back and highlight the rat heraldry with gold just to make it pop a little more.