New army - trying something completely different

[amysrevenge]

So I'm starting a new army project in a completely different way from what I've ever done before.

It's Skaven - I traded for a random pile of Skaven models.

I'm familiar in a general sort of way with Skaven, I can identify most of the units by sight, and I know vaguely about the Skryre/Moulder/Eshin/Pestilens divide.  However, I don't have a Skaven battletome (of any vintage) and don't really know what Skaven things do in AoS (of any vintage) other than in the most general sort of way.

I am deliberately NOT looking at lists or rules. 

The only concession I am making to rules at this point is 1) base sizes and 2) unit sizes.  For bases - all the models I picked up were on (or came with) square bases, so I'm following the published base size guidelines.  For unit sizes, I have a single blister with two Plague Censer Bearers, I see unit size 5, so I'm setting them aside until I pick up 3 more.  I have 17 Night Runners, I see unit size 10, so I'm setting 7 aside.  That sort of thing.  Building legal units, but without further regard for rules.

So far, I'm pretty enthusiastic about the project.  Once I get everything I currently have painted, *then* I'll start looking at rules, and seeing what I want to add.

Like the subject says, this is a completely new way of going about hobbying up a new army for me.  I've always started projects, even second hand/reclamation projects, with a pile of plastic/metal/resin in one had, and a rulebook in the other hand.  Stuff that is not "good" in a list gets shoved aside, left to the end, forgotten.  This time, I'm painting all of it without ever knowing if it's good.  Are Doomflayers good?  No idea!  But I've already painted one.  What about Gutter Runners?  A unit of 5 little rats seems so weedy.  But they're MY painted weedy little buggers.

 

Has anyone else tried something like this - not necessarily following this blueprint, but doing a new project in a completely different way from what you normally would?

Edited February 1, 2022 by amysrevenge

[Fairbanks]

I try to collect every army, thus I tend to build my armies very formulaic: Box Sets when available to build the bulk, then 2-3 individual kits to round out a variety, keeping unit sizes to a minimum to keep the overall price down. Helps that I caught a lot of the armies as 8th left for AoS.

Something like what you are doing is one of two kinds of lists I’d never do. Metal/Resin models and collecting piecemeal are no-go’s.

The other kind of list? A Competitive One 🤣

[Fulcanelli]

In my experience, armies I built for the sole pleasure of assembing/converting/painting them are the ones that gave me higher satisfaction. 

I never look at the rules in order to buy models. Obviously I'm not into a competitive scene, but in the end the most important reward for me is fun
I would like to try Path to Glory now.

Good luck with your Skaven project!

[zilberfrid]

Never mind the rules, Doom Flayers and Doom Wheels look awesome!

As a basis, don't forget there's a Blood Bowl team with new sculpts and the Underworld models can be gotten from the webstore.

There's a lot of kitbashing potential in Skaven, and the guns of a box of Handgunners (ask a COS friend) could easily net you 10 jezails and a ratling gunner (as well as a powder monkey, which is important in any army). That same friend might have the Outrider guns for more ratling gunners and a Warpfire thrower.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

18 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

Has anyone else tried something like this - not necessarily following this blueprint, but doing a new project in a completely different way from what you normally would?

I'm currently very close to pulling the trigger on expanding my Cities of Sigmar army to be fully Ironweld Arsenal themed. Steam Tank Commander, three Steam Tanks, four Hellstorm Rocket Batteries, Cogsmith, a bunch of Gyrocopters... For people not familiar with Cities of Sigmar: That's a very bad list. None of those units are really all that good.

The reason I am thinking about doing it is that the original list that I wanted to play (shooting focussed Tempest's Eye, mostly Freeguild, some KO units, some magic...) just won't play well anymore. Handgunners are not really a good backbone unit anymore after buff stacking was removed. Same for Pistoliers and Outriders. If you want a Freeguild/human list right now, the way to go seems to be to use the "knightly" themed melee units: Greatwords, Demigryph knights, Freeguild General... But those were never the units I was most excited about. I always wanted to lean more into gunners, tanks and artillery and was only going to compromise on other Freeguild to make the list play well.

Now, from my perspective, I get to make a choice between playing a good Cities list that I don't really care that much for, compromising on an OK list where the models I like don't really help the game plan or just embracing the bad list with the models I actually want. Since I have other armies where I can actually field a mechanically strong list if I want to, I think I'll just embrace the jank for Cities this time around. Maybe I'm lucky and Steam Tanks and Rocket Batteries become good in the next Cities book, or maybe they don't. But I'll still have a cool looking army either way. Plus, I think having both a strong and a casual list avaliable might actually be nice so that I can adjust the power level of my army to match whoever I am playing with.

I think it helps that the Rocket Batteries are not super expensive models and that I have a fun modeling idea for them. I plan to put them all on a big diorama base, with each rocket being in a different state of readiness: One empty, one reloading, one fully stocked and one firing. It would give me the opportunity to model the crew in the process of performing various tasks, too. And since artillery does not need to move a lot, a big shared diorama base would actually be gameplay usable, too!

[zilberfrid]

9 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I'm currently very close to pulling the trigger on expanding my Cities of Sigmar army to be fully Ironweld Arsenal themed. Steam Tank Commander, three Steam Tanks, four Hellstorm Rocket Batteries, Cogsmith, a bunch of Gyrocopters... For people not familiar with Cities of Sigmar: That's a very bad list. None of those units are really all that good.

The reason I am thinking about doing it is that the original list that I wanted to play (shooting focussed Tempest's Eye, mostly Freeguild, some KO units, some magic...) just won't play well anymore. Handgunners are not really a good backbone unit anymore after buff stacking was removed. Same for Pistoliers and Outriders. If you want a Freeguild/human list right now, the way to go seems to be to use the "knightly" themed melee units: Greatwords, Demigryph knights, Freeguild General... But those were never the units I was most excited about. I always wanted to lean more into gunners, tanks and artillery and was only going to compromise on other Freeguild to make the list play well.

Now, from my perspective, I get to make a choice between playing a good Cities list that I don't really care that much for, compromising on an OK list where the models I like don't really help the game plan or just embracing the bad list with the models I actually want. Since I have other armies where I can actually field a mechanically strong list if I want to, I think I'll just embrace the jank for Cities this time around. Maybe I'm lucky and Steam Tanks and Rocket Batteries become good in the next Cities book, or maybe they don't. But I'll still have a cool looking army either way. Plus, I think having both a strong and a casual list avaliable might actually be nice so that I can adjust the power level of my army to match whoever I am playing with.

I think it helps that the Rocket Batteries are not super expensive models and that I have a fun modeling idea for them. I plan to put them all on a big diorama base, with each rocket being in a different state of readiness: One empty, one reloading, one fully stocked and one firing. It would give me the opportunity to model the crew in the process of performing various tasks, too. And since artillery does not need to move a lot, a big shared diorama base would actually be gameplay usable, too!

With a tiny bit of kitbashing and a few models, Rockets and Helblasters are also made from the same box, just make a carriage and add some bodies you have around.

[Fulcanelli]

31 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I'm currently very close to pulling the trigger on expanding my Cities of Sigmar army to be fully Ironweld Arsenal themed. Steam Tank Commander, three Steam Tanks, four Hellstorm Rocket Batteries, Cogsmith, a bunch of Gyrocopters... For people not familiar with Cities of Sigmar: That's a very bad list. None of those units are really all that good.

 

13 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

With a tiny bit of kitbashing and a few models, Rockets and Helblasters are also made from the same box, just make a carriage and add some bodies you have around.

Wow, I did a similar project two years ago, 2k points of Greywater Fastness: light mecha-conversion and a lot of artillery. 

And I pulled both Rockets and Helblaster from one box, you possibly just have to find two more wheels!

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

23 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

With a tiny bit of kitbashing and a few models, Rockets and Helblasters are also made from the same box, just make a carriage and add some bodies you have around.

 

5 minutes ago, Fulcanelli said:

Wow, I did a similar project two years ago, 2k points of Greywater Fastness: light mecha-conversion and a lot of artillery. 

And I pulled both Rockets and Helblaster from one box, you possibly just have to find two more wheels!

Thanks, you two. I will definitely see if I can manage to find a way to build a few Helblasters, as well. Although man, those things seems sub par even by artillery standards... I think I might just mount the guns on other models instead in the future. I'm sure there will be a time I'm going to look at a unit and think that it needs more GUN.

[Gitzdee]

I tend to buy everything once with the exception of a few battleline units. I am more on the collector side of things but i like the look of a blob of battleline meatshields.

[Lightbox]

I often start army projects these days with just doing fun conversion projects along a theme (like my recent ice and fire gunpowder Aelves) and then attempting to just slap them in a list together and hope for the best.

 

It definitely makes for armies that I enjoy and get more enthusiastic for. I think your rule of cool idea with your skaven will be great fun

[Skreech Verminking]

On 2/2/2022 at 10:05 AM, zilberfrid said:

Never mind the rules, Doom Flayers and Doom Wheels look awesome!

As a basis, don't forget there's a Blood Bowl team with new sculpts and the Underworld models can be gotten from the webstore.

There's a lot of kitbashing potential in Skaven, and the guns of a box of Handgunners (ask a COS friend) could easily net you 10 jezails and a ratling gunner (as well as a powder monkey, which is important in any army). That same friend might have the Outrider guns for more ratling gunners and a Warpfire thrower.

Doomwheels are awesome.

as for conversion work, I’ve been using the irodndrake guns as the mainstay for most of my weapon teams, with a few more bits like that of the repaeter handguns of the handgunners, you can easily build some great looking rattling gun weapon teams.

considering that we are playing skaven and if you’re not afraid of using more sci fi kind of bits, I would even go so far and have a look at the 40k stuff.

Chaos space marines, marines and so on have a ton of turrets,and even the machine guns can be used to build some kind of drafty turret for the skaven.

I’ve also been using bits from the blighted dark eldars, and even some of the fish-things,after all there isn’t a single gun that doesn’t have some kind of turret, and usually you’ll fond hundreds of those in some bits boxes in your local store.

here are some pics of my weapon teams including some jezzails, hope you

 like it:

 

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Doomwheels are awesome.

as for conversion work, I’ve been using the irodndrake guns as the mainstay for most of my weapon teams, with a few more bits like that of the repaeter handguns of the handgunners, you can easily build some great looking rattling gun weapon teams.

considering that we are playing skaven and if you’re not afraid of using more sci fi kind of bits, I would even go so far and have a look at the 40k stuff.

Chaos space marines, marines and so on have a ton of turrets,and even the machine guns can be used to build some kind of drafty turret for the skaven.

I’ve also been using bits from the blighted dark eldars, and even some of the fish-things,after all there isn’t a single gun that doesn’t have some kind of turret, and usually you’ll fond hundreds of those in some bits boxes in your local store.

here are some pics of my weapon teams including some jezzails, hope you

 like it:

 

Love it!

The Skitarii Rangers are also nice parts kits for Skaven, their rifles look more magitech/steampunk than sci fi.

[amysrevenge]

Here's what I have so far, gang.  Can you imagine, not even knowing the proper unit names?  It's wild but I'm loving it.

5 of whichever "Runners" night or gutter it is that come in 5s

10 Stormvermin

Doomflayer

4 Rat Swarms

Throt the Unclean (some sort of hero these days?)

2 Warp something thrower gun things

Edited February 17, 2022 by amysrevenge

[amysrevenge]

I have a lead on getting an old metal warp lightning cannon this weekend, and possibly some other reclaimed junk.  Can't wait!