Last year, I painted up a Dwarf Blood Bowl Team in about a month. This year I painted a Slann team. That took me a bit longer: around three months. One thing that delayed things was that before it was finished, I started work on a Skaven team. At first, it seemed like the Skaven would be finished pretty quickly. It took less than two weeks before I had a playable team of twelve models painted and ready to go. I just needed to add a few reserves and a handful of Star Players and sideline staff and I’d be all done.
Then I slowed down. One thing that held up progress with the Skaven was starting another team of Chaos Chosen in May. But I also just found that I wasn’t as motivated to paint things as frequently as I had been, and I went from spending nearly every other evening painting to only doing any once or twice a week, to only every two or three weeks. Once I had a playable Chaos team I turned my focus back to the Skaven, but progress remained slow as the months passed.
However, I never completely abandoned the project, and at last it is entirely finished! So here they are, my fully painted Skaven team, Furry Fury!
The team mostly consists of the 3rd-edition models, sculpted by Gary Morley. While I don’t dislike the current plastic team, I do think that these older models have a bit more character to them. I have at least one of each of the fourteen sculpts that were released for the team. I have supplemented these models with various others, some from GW, some from elsewhere.
As ever, the core of the team are the Linemen (or Linerats).
For some reason, two of the three sculpts were lacking the prominent rodent incisors that are usually found on Skaven models. I decided to correct this omission and added the missing teeth with putty.
Slightly tougher and better-armoured than the average Skaven are the Blitzers. Some editions of the rules have referred to these players as Stormvermin, who are a separate caste of black-furred Skaven within the Warhammer background. I have therefore painted them with black fur rather than the usual brown.
Skaven Gutter Runners are the fastest players in the game. There are two different sculpts for these players and Ideally I’d have liked to have had two of each. However, the original boxed set of these models contained two of one and one of the other, so one is considerably rarer than the other. Consequently when I was gathering this team together, I was only able to get hold of one of the rarer sculpt.
A Skaven team can take up to two Throwers, but there’s only the one model so they are both the same.
Last but not least, the Rat Ogre. When this team was released, ‘big guys’ were only available as Star Players and consequently, although there is a Rat Ogre model to go with this team, it was designed to represent the Star Player ‘Headsplitter’. I decided to keep that model to represent Headsplitter and use a different model for the team’s regular Rat Ogre. This model is an early-90s Warhammer Rat Ogre designed by Michael Perry. I’ve converted it into a Blood Bowl player by adding a shoulder pad which I got from Meiko Miniatures. The strap that holds the shoulder pad in place I sculpted myself. I’m particularly pleased with the buckle, which at the time was one of the most challenging things I’d tried to sculpt.
That’s all the regular players. As usual, I also have miniatures to represent a variety of sideline staff. The head coach is the Grey Seer ‘Gnawdoom’, by Jes Goodwin. This was one of the first Skaven models ever released in 1986 and I believe is where Grey Seers having horns originates. It’s one of my all-time favourite Skaven miniatures and I’m really glad that I was able to find a use for him in this team.
The apothecary was sculpted by Pedro Ramos and produced by Goblin Guild Miniatures. Ramos is responsible for many of the best third-party Blood Bowl miniatures currently available, including my Dwarf and Slann teams.
The Cheerleaders are from Punga Miniatures. I’d already seen a few Skaven/ratpeople cheerleaders and not been terribly impressed. When I spotted these, I knew that I didn’t need to look any further. The referee is also from Punga.
Next up are the Star Players. I have quite a few for this team. Not only are there the five (not including Morg ‘N’ Thorg) from the CRP, but there are another three that appear in the 2016 edition. Two of those are revived from the first and second editions of the game.
Going from left to right, first is Kreek ‘The Verminator’ Rustgouger. He’s a new addition in BB2016. GW have since released one but back in the spring when I put the team together there was no official model for him. I got this one on eBay from L72 Miniatures, sculpted by Rykar Jove. Second is Hakflem Scuttlespike, from the 90s team. Glart Smashrip Jr. I converted from the current plastic Skaven Blitzer model, with a claw taken from a set of conversion bits from Meiko Miniatures. Skitter Stab-Stab was released in 2005 and was designed by Aly Morrison. Morrison designed several Blood Bowl models around this time and many of them are far from his best work. This is one of the better ones. Strangely, despite featuring more armour than most Skaven models, it is the only one to feature a gratuitously bare arse. Glart Smashrip Sr. is the current Forge World model by Gav Norman. There’s a very fat Skaven player called Glart Smashrip in the very first edition of Blood Bowl. The name was re-used for the CRP-era star player Glart Smashrip Jr. but that player has a higher MA than would seem appropriate for the lumbering, obese rat mentioned before. In the 2016 edition GW used a similar profile for the Glart Smashrip character as before, but with reduced movement and agility and the addition of the Grab and Stand Firm skills. Although Jr. does not appear in the 2016 rules, the background mentions other players using the name, some claiming to be descended from the original player. Moving on, Fezglitch is a Warhammer Plague Censer Bearer designed by Colin Dixon. This model was originally released by Marauder Miniatures before they were re-absorbed by GW/Citadel. Headsplitter is the original model that was released alongside the 3rd-edition team. Finally Rasta Tailspike is the old 2nd-edition model by Jes Goodwin.
Finally, I have a few extra mutant players. Skaven players can occasionally pick up mutations as they advance; these were released alongside the main team to represent some of the options. There’s a Blitzer with a claw, a Thrower with a big hand, a player who might be either a Blitzer or a Linerat with extra arms and a Linerat with very long legs.
And that’s it! I’m still not done with Blood Bowl, even if I am going much more slowly than I was. I still have that Chaos Chosen team to finish and some star players to add to my old Human, Orc and Elf teams. And I have many other teams waiting for me to start them (Nurgle are most likely to be next). But at least now the Skaven are completely finished.