With Frostgrave 2nd edition on the way, I decided to paint a magical ratman duo.
The immediately obvious choice for a skaven wizard is one of the Grey Seers, albino ratmen immediately marked for greatness, bred for its skills in magic, like a liger. Some particularly nice Grey Seer models have been sculpted over the years, and I am definitely looking forward to painting some of them, but I decided to go with pair of Warlock Engineers types instead.
The occasionally technopathic, always magitek using Warlock Engineers are technical builders of enchanted items, using more scientifically sophisticated techniques than used to make, say Excalibur I imagine. A bit like the manufacture of Stormbreaker, if Iron Man had been involved maybe.
At some point I realised that using a pair of Warlock Engineers to represent “Enchanters” in Frostgrave would be a good way to shoehorn a few other fun-to-paint miniatures into the project. “What would a Clan Skryre Warlock Engineer enchant?” you might ask, to which I would respond “Totally rad stuff that I will show you later!”.
The little guy – “Dr. Weil” – is the warlock engineer from the “Island of Blood” WHFB starter released ten years ago (and rereleased briefly in late 2016 in the “Spire of Dawn” set). “Korrat, Knight Katastros of Clan Skryre” on the right is the currently available “Arch-Warlock” miniature that was originally released as “Ikit Claw” in the early 2010s.
I particularly like how the two models echo each others poses and armament, like one could be a younger version of the other. I find the combination very appealing in a wizard and apprentice.
Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2020, Age of Sigmar, Clan Skryre, Fantasy, Frostgrave, Paw Clan, Skaven, Warhammer |
sho3box 
I might not be into the rats but that’s good work!
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Thanks jherazob!
I liked skaven the first time I laid eyes on them. It’s only now that I am finally scratching some of that itch, decades later 🙂
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These are lovely mate – the green/purple/bronze/black scheme is just perfect & I love the idea of a more technical slant to the magic user. All very cool indeed 👍
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I’m glad that you like them Alex, and thanks for the feedback.
Green and purple is a comic book and cartoon villain palette (common in Decepticons), and I do like painting vibrant acid green shades. bronze feels right for the steampunk elements too. Almost all of my fantasy projects feature purple for a few reasons that I won’t bother going into here other than the original point was to learn to paint purple. I’m getting there, but I still don’t have a magic bullet recipe. Purple is tricky.
As I said above, I am keen to paint Grey Seers too, but I thought that these two warlocks are a nice variation on the wizard theme without going completely off piste. I am regularly mildly ribbed by gaming buddies for ending up with fantasy miniatures that are essentially actually sci-fi – and there is truth in it – but it tends to happen organically: I don’t seek cyborgs and ubermen gunslingers out for my fantasy games, but I certainly am drawn to them 🙂
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I do like it when those lines get skilfully blurred…
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Nice work on those Skaven, I guess Frostgrave is the new Mordheim!
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As a fantasy skirmish miniatures games set in mystically ruined city, Frostgrave has a lot in common with Mordheim straight away. The emphasis of each game differs a bit, but the fact that I am prepping my skaven to simultaneously fit in Frostgrave and Mordheim says a lot really.
My skaven are also prepped to fit into, and have already passed the halfway point of a Warcry campaign. There was a lot of predictable online negativity about Warcry when it was released, people complaining about it not being the Mordheim reboot that they wanted, but if you see past that, Warcry is certainly a contender for “New Mordheim”.
Thanks for the feedback davekay!
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no problem, thanks for the summary that was really helpful!
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This is a great duo cheetor – like you, I love how the model evoke one another, whilst still portraying the master and apprentice. That warpstone glow that Korrat is sporting around his right eye is lovely.
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The matching poses on the two models was a happy coincidence from my point of view, but I presume that the visual link comes from the designer of the Arch Warlock/Ikit model intending the model to be the ultimate version of the character trope. It is one of the better elements of the two models as a duo though: it looks right.
Thanks for the feedback Axiom!
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Excellent work, it’s a good pick of matching models and the colour scheme works really well. You almost managed to lure me into tvtropes too!
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As much as I want my skaven to look filthy and pestilential, I fell that they should look technologically advanced and culturally sophisticated too. It is a tricky balancing act. I think that when I paint some of the skaven on the bottom rung of the societal ladder, that they will be far less sartorially elegant.
I do like a bit of TV Tropes, despite all of the attendant risks 😀
Thanks for the feedback Mikko!
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Nice colors. Definitely not a GW gamer but really like what you do with their stuff. Frost grave is up my alley!
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