A little lesson on skaven's models history... and why it needs rerange releases

[Garrac]

You see, if you don't already know it, the skaven were created on 1986 by Jes Goodwin and Rick Priestley. I don't know in what kind of drugs they were when they went on and said "COCAIMANIAC HORNED RATS" but that year a legend was created (quite literally because all the bases were already there. Council of Thirteen, the clans, Skavenblight...)

So, Jes Goodwin, with the limitation at the time, made the first miniatures of this crazy hybrid people rat-like, having in mind that they needed to appear more rat than human

With the years, and the success of the skavens (and Warhammer in general) came the first skaven codex in 1993. So Jes (let's remember, the co-creator of the race) continued making more rat monsters. I suppose his idea was to improve his ideas about rat people-and make them look dirtier, smellier, and rattier than ever. First part I'm interested here is in the formation. See the rats on the regiment? They look familiar... like a mischief running towards warpstone/cheese! Yes, I think Goodwin's idea with the models was to simulate the effect of a mischief of rats running to kill-kill you. It made the regiments cooler, and more terrifying. Or am I seeing too much?

(If you look clsely you'll be able to locate Skrolk, the actual model of the Plague Priest! Says a lot about Goodwin's mastership that this miniature is still being fabricated)

 

BUT on mid 90s GW changed hands, and I think they wanted to start making plastic kits. So, it came the turn of the skaven with the Mordheim box in 1999, and as plastic allowed for more versatility, they changed the looks of the skaven in terrain. And... it came the age of the monkey

Now, I don't think there was any malice here. This redesign was thought for allowing the skaven more freedom of movement in the arms and the poses. But nowadays it's not a well beloved age modelswise.

First step to change that was with the Lustria campaign, where they changed the plague monks, and instead of making drug experiments, the arms stayed on a same pose, so the sense of a mischief moving could be recapturated.

Aaaaand here comes in 2009 our saviour and lord Seb Perbet!

Now, he made an almost total rerange of the skaven models, bringing in new clanrats and stormvermins with improved plastic kits, and nicer models that had a better resemblance with Goodwin's original ideas. But this time all was improved: the poses, the arms, the rattier looks of the models, and, yes, the mischief feeling was back too! Nowadays I still think this is the best rerange release that GW has ever made.  (and don't forget the rest of the sculpters, Seb Perbet didn't do everything!)

 

... almost.

 

You see, the rerange wasn't complete. There were still some miniatures from the other ranges left. Skrolk and the globadiers weren't changed, yes, but most importantly, neither were the night runners.

 

You see my problem here? The runners were made back at the time to fit the aesthetics of a skaven 5-6th edition army. But now they just don't fit very well with the models that Perbet did. They just look very different, like some kind of monkey mutations made by a Master Moulder that ate too much warsptone, and not the cool silent assasins they are supposed to be. Heck, Perbet did redesign one Eshin miniature! And he's one of the coolest models avaible at our army, and for some reason GW didn't apply his idea to the rest of the Eshin catalogue.

 

So, that is why I want the runners to change. I want GW to release a multipart- plastic kit that ressembles more Goodwin and Perbet's ideas, maybe with some of their own. But most importantly, with no monkey hands

 

So that's it, basically. Sorry for the afteraternoon discourse