Ratskin renegades #3 (finished) 🐁

Looks like I've managed to get the second part of the rat-pack done! 🐁
Which is quite an achievement for me - usually after painting ~10 similar models I am getting bored enough and switch the project for something else. But not this time! Eeeek! Eeeek! Eeeek!

As you can see I was trying to keep the most similar possible color scheme to the previously painted rat-men. Which frankly wasn't that hard task, since my choice of paints is pretty limited. This time the group also contains 2 chief models, another shaman and the rat ogre, so tried to give them some special touch ups to make them pop a bit among all that vermin fur around. Old and well tested trick to do so was arming da boss with "power blade" - it's quite easy to paint actually. For example earlier such weapons were given to Mishima's demon hunter, mounted wight lord, master necromancer and chaos champion.

Just like before I painted another rat swarm base from Highland Miniatures range. I can clearly imagine shamans summoning rabid giant rats to aid them in combat. Also I found idle rat ogre model on the very bottom of Games Workshop bucket. I got it pretty long time ago but until now had no idea how to use it properly - the other one was painted as Blood Bowl player, but it I remember correctly - it's been used only once in the game. Hopefully it's rat-brother will see some more action as chief's personal bodyguard.

So here they are - emerging from the Ashlands vault. Picture of whole family will appear when I can get proper display base for all models (hopefully soon):

Below: ratskin shaman trying to break in the vault guarded by Cybertronic's Eradicator Deathdroid:

And here: Algeroth's mercurian maculator defending the last supply of Vallejo airbrush flow improver against vermintide:

Eeek! Eeek! 🐭

Rat pack

One of entries for Oldhammer Weekend 2026 painting contest was Beastmen Moon Clan - which was actually painted for OHW 2025 but sadly - life issues have sabotaged my participation.
Anyway after I came back and was putting minis back into the display case I realised, current painted Ratskin Regegades fit EXACTLY base made for the beastmen: 11 small bases + 1 large!

Coincidence? I don't think so... Surely not if Ratskin Shaman is around...

Temporarly the boys took Beastmen's base - the look pretty cool but in the end the gang will be twice that large, so sooner or later I'll gonna think about preparing scenic base large enough for all Sump-vermin in my possession. So far so good, ey? 

Oldhammer Weekend 2026 summary

Just like 4 lears ago I 've just came back from Oldhammer Weelend Poland. This time I was double motivated to move mu ass to the capital city by the fact, I didn't manage to go last year, and I had the Slaanesh Chaos Army painted especially for that event. Oldhammer Weekend Poland is always special thing. This time it was even more special for me, 'cause in the middle of Saturday Warhammer Fantasy campaign I got sick, puked twice (luckly for everyone around there was toilet nearby) and had to drop the last Saturday game and big battle on Sunday. Apparently Papa Nurgle didn't like me painting Slaanesh stuff... 🙄

But despite that, the even was pretty cool thing - for everyone who likes middlehammer era games that is. Just like every year there was painting contest - I brought 3 entries and the Bloodthirster / Daemon Prince brought me bronze statue in large model category. In 2022 Carnifex brought me the same prize, so I guess painting large models is my "thing". Not sure I was hoping for anything more, but other entries were just supercool, so the judges had tough job to pick only 3 in each category.

The think I was waiting for the most was the Warhammer Fantasy Battle campaign. Thie time teams were made of 2 armies of 1500 points (good vs evil) and my Warriors of Slaanesh were matched with Lizardmen force. It was pretty cool experience to stand at the same side with Lustria's reptiles. We got our arses kicked by Chaos Dwarves + Empire team, won (by total accident methinks) Dark Elves + High Elves and that was it for my Warhammer gaming.

During the games I had some thoughts about Warhammer: no matted how much I like the fluff, artworks, models, painting models etc, gaming itseld is just fucking stupid. I mean 5th edition. I know it's the matter of convention, but that "herohammer" attitude makes painting most of army just necessary evil - if a single model mounted on large creature is able to wipe out almost every unit single-handedly. The army I fielded was painted for the display case and that's it, so I didn't expect much of them on "real" 5th edition field of battle, but still - 6 edition ot The Old World are much more player and fun-friendly. 

Anyway - here's what I brought. Army list is based or earlier Armies of Chaos box (the red period era):

Friday evening I've manage to see some Gorkamorka gaming. I was pretty cool thing to see orky-junk staggeing on the battlefield. Must say I really regret I never managed to give it a try - all those vehicles bring so much converting opportunities! The battles were raging till the late night, but I've managed to see just part of that mayhem. Some pics below:

What else? Ah yeah!

Friday night there was also Necromunda RPG which I definitely didn't want to miss! It was really cool experience to finally play some RPG as player - not as keeper of secrets. For the first time I saw "dungeon crawler" in action which was much better fun then I expected - ace work Rob! Some pics from the Vault:

And last but not least - some random photos of armies I've managed to take while I was there. Sadly I didn't see all armies - all participants put tons of work in preparing the forces and below you can see some examples: 

Big thanks to organizers for keeping the event alive! 

Hope to take a part in another edition of Oldhammer Weekend Poland in the future - with better heatlh condition 😷
Nurgle be praised!

Ratskin renegades #2

Preparations for Oldhammer Weekend 2026 continue!

At this stage I am going to participate in Friday night Necromunda roleplaying game, Saturday mini-campaign and Sunday mega-battle. Also I am covering all 3 categories in Oldhammer painting contest, so it's gonna be busy weekend for my little people. Recently bunch of Ratskin Renegades got paint slapped so driven by nostalgia for Necromunda I decided to follow the rodent-vibe and paint some more of them - hopefully to get whole gang painted soon. In fact all signs on toxic sky of Dead World say at this stage I am about half way done 🐭

This time 6 more bases were crossed off the list. The gang got proper shaman and also rat swarm. Cannot remember that unit was available in Ratskin army list but it definitely fits the gang. Giant rats models are brilliant sculpts from Highland Miniatures range, which I've gave a try before. Just like in case of skeletons - these are very fragile prints, in fact so fragile most of models which I have arrived with snapped off tails or paws. Looking at them I think I cannot make more then 2 complete swarms so rest will most probably end up as terrain features or something like that. So here here's the vermintide:

Below: brave warriors from Big Rat Clan are facing rad-zone trolls:

More spam after Oldhammer Weekend I guess...

Ratskin renegades #1

Now that's true blast (or rather: eeek!) from the past! 

A while back I decided to participate Oldhammer Weekend 2026 in for coming this October. The last time I was there it was fun - nice people, almost no powergamers (for the love of f#ck...🙄), nice colorful tables and armies - more-less like straight from oldie White Dwarf magazine. True candy store for each and every Middlehammer fan.

Oldhammer 2022 was cool event, but quickly I realised why I quit all that Warhammer (Herohammer) shit: 'cause it was shitty game. I mean the fluff was cool and models were really nice (my taste) but because all that overboosted characters, powergaming army list and other crap there was no fun. I came back mostly because of nostalgy and aesthetic factor - large armies look just fucking brilliant on battlefield. That's it.

And nothing changed by now but last year somehow I've managed to paint whole Chaos Warriors army of Slaanesh (once again - for display case only), and wanted to see them in action even once. In 2025 I even prepared entries for painting contest but life issues didn't allow me to participate, so this time I am going just not to "waste" that paint work.

There will be Warhammer Fantasy campaign but there also will be Necromunda based miniature/RPG session which I definitelly don't wanna miss. The plan is to play using total underdogs, and what can me more pathetic in Necomunda world then Ratskin brave? 😁

As for models looks like I got them in 2013 but somehow until now only 2 or 3 of them got paintjob. No idea why really - models are really cool but we dropped Necromunda gaming long time ago so my guess is the painting was aimed to models used on table: Bolt Action mostly. So I need a single brave for my RPG character, but since the whole gang is ~15 rats strong (eeek! eeek! eeek!) I decided get the all done. These are can be used also in other games but most important - should look really nice in display case. Models painted earlier were washed off so they all keep same painting standard and color palette. 

As usually in case of painting warband / squad / unit ratmen were painted in groups - 3 models at once. Somehow every time I try to paint more models at once the painting quality drops drastically. Here I am half-pleased: the first group got too bright flesh tone, I like much more the other trio - more like native Indian. Plus the varnish turned out kinda satin instead of matt, so when whole group is finished I might wash them off and paint again. So here's current progress:

The rat-pack:

Post-apo rodents trying to get into tasty bunker interior:

The boys about to face deadly Copplestone's Scavengers:

And here - Scarab Lord Chaosmorph is about to have some mouse-burgers:

The last one - sump riot squad supported by killa-kan (war-bot that is...) about to arrest some squeeking punks:

Hope to bring abother 6 rat-men next time! Eeeek! Eeeek!

Scarab Lord Chaosmorph (Ilyad Games)

Last weekend I've finally managed to cross off the list special piece among stuff being seasoned in the pile of shame: Scarab Lord Chaosmorph from Ilyad Games. The company is dead for a long time and models from that line are nowdays very hard to get but these are must-have for all Rackham fans. 

I've been thinking about those companies recently and cannot believe they fell down - Rackham especially. Back days, when it was fully operational. it had top sculptors, top painters, wide range of models plus game system on top (never managed to see the rules though). But even though it collapsed and it was long before STL files and printers rammed into the miniatures market 🙄

Not sure what Ilyad Games line was supposed to be - spin off of Rackham's sculptors maybe? Cannot tell. But it had solid line of supercoll classic fantasy sculpts: knights, demons, barbarians, fantasy creatures. There was also short line of Chaosmorphs - no idea what was that: demon / mutant / fantasy race. I really liked them and even managed to get he big guy you can see below.

It's official paintwork was stunning - kinda like Rackham's stuff so I didn't even try to copy that. Instead I chose color combo based on classic genestealers: that plus rusty oil drum and voila! - we got ourselves nasty mutated crab straight from rad zone. I regret I run out of Tamiya Clear Red - some fresh blood splatted on claws would surely look eyecathing. So here it is:

And some scale shots: here NBC suit squad is about to get to reactor guarded by the Thing:

And here - the Thing is about to get some plague zombie burgers:

Gorkamorka ork nob

I was actually starting preparing some models for the upcoming historical painting contest but because cutting parts off the frames and assembling winter US infantry is pretty boring, I decided to work on little something, which has been giving me sad look from the back rank of display case for quite a long time... 🥺

There's a story behind this one - just like behind everthing...
A solid while back, when we were still into Necromunda, I was trying to get and paint basic gang for Gorkamorka. The game was dead for a long time already but those days some models were still available on second hand market. I remeber I managed to get placcy ork trukk (with wrecker ball and metal ram) and ork nob - or whatever it's name was in Gorkamorka. Joy, oh joy!!!

Really couldn't wait to strip the paint and start working to give old models new shine 🤗

Sadly back days I used different stuff to wash models and as it turned out shortly - this time I used the wrong one. Plastic trukk got bended and kinda melted, leaving only metal parts stripped properly. The vehicle got ruined so it became reservoir of conversion bits for further projects. Like Dakka-Dakka bot... 🤖

Since there was no Gorkamorka gang anymore and I still had cool model, all I could do was painting it - which I did. I've never played any sort of greenskins so it got display plinth, got some painting and sadly - got forgotten shortly after. Until now. As veteran painter and gamer I am kinda ashamed such a cool sculpt didn't get proper painting so after it's been re-discovered last week decision was made to fix that. Heil Gork and Mork!

It's Gorkamorka range so it got desert themed base and rather bright paintwork contrary to the previous version. In fact it's the second model from GM ork line I painted so far - the previous was sacrificed on COFC mini exchange. Until now I haven't found any practical use for keeping greenskin model so Mister Nob became a souvenir (like Necromunda Cawdor juve), only this time - airplane, or rather: fighta-bommer, goes to the other corner of the planet.

Hope it arrives safe and sound and recipient likes this one.

Scale shot: Dakka-Dakka bot is still the largest orky model I painted so far 😜

And here's the previous, Necronunda styled paintwork (the one and only survived picture I found on the bloggy):

PS. For obvious reason the post has been prepared earlier, but it's been released after the parcel reached the destination. Orkz like surprizezzz 😁