A Skaven Thread, WIP & Past Modelling

Nice! I like the gas masks a lot.

Thank you Naitsabes, strutsagget and mottdon.

No more work on the regiment as yet, but I thought I should now to Mottdon's request and put up more content.

Skaven Doom Wheel
Part ‘kit-bash’ / part scratch build[/b]

I loved the idea of a doom wheel, but I wanted to build my own version, and so I began the enjoyable odyssey that making such a mechanical model involves.

I wanted a machine with steam powered locomotion, not scuttling rats like the official model, using (of course) warpstone to heat the steam. I liked the idea that the turning wheel itself would then generate the power that sparked other warpstone shards to generate lightning. I also wanted a kind of ‘steam-punk’ look.

I needed some bits for the big wheel, so I started with three plastic Pringles' tops. Having hoarded a ridiculous amount of ‘rubbish’ (mostly plastic) in many a bits-box, I found a circular thing which fitted neatly inside the lids, which had kind of gear wheel teeth all around it - once part of a VHS video tape. As the Pringle lids are waxy and averse to glue of any almost kind, I had to sew the new component in. I used masking tape (the paper kind) around the edge of the lids, so that there would be a paper surface to glue wood bits onto and not a waxy plastic ‘unstickable’ surface.



Now I hunted in bits boxes for anything like wheels, gears and any sort of appropriate looking component parts. I cut four sections out of one of the lids, taped up the four rungs thus created, and glued lollipop sticks on. I also began making a boiler type affair out of old lids from water bottles (milliputting the holes) and a funnel out of a GW cannon barrel. I used some wheels to make the main driving wheels that would carry a chain to make the doom wheel trundle round.



I fashioned a rear-platform for the operator to stand on, with the boiler and some control levers. For 45p I bought a thin strip of wood to cut to make the wheel rim, and I got extravagant and bought brass pins from the same modellers shop - that way they could be glued and pinned to the rim (the latter more for appearance’s sake). (And yes, the pins left over are now being used for the gas mask lenses in my current project!) I made some kind of inner workings by cutting bits of plastic tube and stick, this being the machinery that turns motion into a generating spark for the warpstone to crackle its lightning.

Wood stain seemed fine for lolly sticks and bits of wood, so I didn’t have to paint these sections. It also works well enough on the brass pin heads.



One warpstone shard was mounted on a rod extending out from between the two wheel sections, with a tube going to it to carry whatever it is skaven send down such tubes to light their warpstone (i.e. haven’t worked out the fluff for this part yet - just like the look of it).

Then I began the mounting for the blades that will stick out in front of the wheel, a frame which will attach to the axle and have two more pieces of warpstone at the sides. (Old skaven sprues provided this - a kind of claw and stone thing that was really to go on the top of standards).

I undercoated the workings and added inner (wood-stained) spokes. Wood-stained cardboard had to do for the outer rim of the non-gear-riddled wheel, as I could not be bothered carving wood to the same effect. Nor have I the skill. (I’d already cut myself once with a scalpel on this project - there’s a limit to how far I am prepared to suffer for my toy soldiers’ hobby!)



Here it is almost completed – I intended to ‘tune it up’ later.

This is a side view showing the flank with the drive chain. There is a wheel on the engine housing behind the boiler, and from this a chain runs to the gear wheel on the axis of the big doom-wheel wheel. (I’m writing a bit like a skaven too, and it is not even deliberate.)



My Warpstone shards were not to everyone’s liking, nor my general approach to painting, but I’d been doing ‘cartoon’-style for so long I didn’t want to stop now. Besides it would fit in with my army better if it was painted like them.

From the front you can see it’s an unforgiving war machine. This should account for the impact hits. As for the S2 attacks, as this is not from giant rat driven but steam powered, bit instead when the lightning is not flaring out there is still a relatively weak warp-static dancing and flickering around between the three shards (thus in the forward arc) – shocks strong enough to deliver these weak-ish attacks.



Here is the other flank. Like I said before, steam (heated by warpstone dust) generates motive power via a boiler and an engine, but then internal gears inside the large wheel generate enough energy to spark the three shards of warpstone to life. The driver stands (as expected) on the steerage deck.



This rear(ish) view shows the two controls. A wheel allows the engineer to alter the steam power, and thus the speed. Well, it’s supposed to, but it’s all a bit random in truth (as per the rules). He can at least frantically try to reduce it by spinning it when it is going a bit too fast, and then when it is going too slow, he can spin wildly in the other direction. The lever at the side jolts the rear wheel and thus changes the engine’s direction.

(When I took the above photos I noticed I had forgotten to paint some bits, like the wheels on the end of the arms. But here they are painted.)



Finally, here are a couple of shots of it in battle from an old bat rep of skaven vs. ogres …

Well, Pimp My Ride! That's quite the creativity output there my friend! You're like the mad scientist of kit-bashing! Well done, good sir! Well done!

Hmm, I actually really like your globadier!

Wow! So very detailed! Great work!

Being half Yorkshire, half Scottish, I am very careful with money. I want to get the most from of every kit. So I bought one Skaven war machine (which could be made into either a plague claw catapult or a warplightning cannon) and I kit-wangled both machines out of that one box, with the judicious use of lollipop sticks, spare wheels in my bits box and bits of chain, etc.

For the catapult, having used what should be its warpstone counterweight in the cannon, I had to use a little pebble I picked up from a coastal walk instead!



It was fun getting the chains to hold the pebble. I built this in a different orientation to the suggested model, for example can you see the addition of handy platforms on the sides? I don't like to put my models to too much trouble, and the engine is far more easily 'attended' with these platforms in place. Also I have added some sort of extra winching wheel mechanism. Hopefully that also helps save the big rats' arms?

The warplightning cannon got off to a false start, when I thought I could simply wood stain the balsa and lolly sticks (which had kinda worked on my doomwheel) ...



I did not like this at all, so I painted it to match the rest of my stuff a bit better ...






The official model looks quite a bit different. I have reversed the barrel (although don't ask me why as I now don't know) and added what I consider to be vital copper boiler type-things underneath. Vital, I tell you, otherwise there would be insufficient aqueous coolant for the warpsteam regulator. Or something.

Before I repainted it, I remembered I had scratch-built a warp lightning cannon a LONG time ago (25+ years possibly), so I dug that first one out of it's box ...




And yes, that is a toothpaste top, and yes, that does seem to be some sort of gas mask wearing Clanger crewing the machine.
I was a poor student who scrabbled together whatever I could. 



Just before I repainted it, I lined up my three warplightning cannons to see what they would look like side by side ..



Apparently scale creep has occurred in my personal life too!

I made two new ones (see above) since which means my Skaven player could field all three of his listed ones in his campaign army at the same time, if he wished.

I am fond of the original, little one, however, and so am I am toying with the idea of making house-rules for a smaller, weaker, less effective version, as a bazooka is to an 88 anti-tank gun.