Hobby | Some Cheesy Bois

I play Age of Sigmar, which I'm sure is obvious to many of you who read this blog. What that means is that, usually, I will purchase, paint, and play with models made by Games Workshop, the creators of the game. Mostly. But the Skaven Giant Rats are ugly and expensive, and come with equally ugly Rat Ogres and Packmasters. Luckily, giant rats are a staple of fantasy and there are lots of versions available on the market. I got some Reaper Miniatures and Archon Studios rats on display here. 

The specific miniatures are the Reaper Miniatures Dire Rats, which come in a box of 8 for $5.99 (as of 2023) and some bits from Archon Studios stretch goals. I don't have a link to those, as I'm not sure if they will be sold separately, but it's a good way of looking at how to use extra bits you find in kits to make miniatures. I know a popular technique to get extra rats is to take the decorative rats from the Plague Monk kit and plop them onto bases.

I've got a side by side here. The Archon versions were all in the same pose, but again, they're just bits so I can't blame them. The plastic is pretty smooth though with no fur detail, so painting won't result in any texture coming through. I was using Contrast paints for both, and that resulted in some splotchy results. I don't care too much though, since this is a fodder unit that you won't be spending a lot of time looking at. They came with no bases, obviously, so I just glued them on. They would stand fine on their own, if that appeals to you at all. 

The Reaper version are made with their new Bones Black style, which seems to be a type of resin. I actually really like the material, it's easy to work with, holds detail very well, and doesn't require priming, which meant I could just get to painting. They didn't come with bases, they have a built in stone base that works for D&D, but if you want to wargame it's simple enough to super glue them to a base. They came with 4 different sculpts which provided some nice variety. 

And this also gets me another bingo tile, add a unit to the army and completely paint it before using it on the battlefield. 

-The Space Dinosaur