Praetorian Ratling (Art Monday)

 Here is another BMQ era drawing that has never been seen by the public before now. We had the idea that the abhumans should look like the Imperial Guard regiments that they serve with. At the time of this drawing (at the closing days of Warhammer 40,000's second edition) the newest IG regiment were the Praetorian Guard. We were working on an Ornsworld PDF list and we wanted to also show Ratlings from other regiments. A Ratling Praetorian seemed like an awesome concept so I tinkered a bit in my sketchbook until I arrived at this finished piece. 

An obligatory Thunderbolt Fighter was added to the background as well as a few puffs of flak. I totally see Ratlings as being a scout role, no matter how red their uniforms are! 

Anyway I hope one day to see this guy realized in 3-D. The way the hobby is going with 3-D printing spreading throughout it, I can see some one whipping up files of guys like this in the not so distant future. I can hope, right? 

Ratlings Report (Part 1)

 Ratlings!

 My recent challenge to paint 500 pts in Imperial Guard led to my attention falling on these guys. They were the first IG miniatures that I ever owned, but they weren't necessarily purchased for use in the Imperial Army. Way back in in 1994 while in my 2nd year of art school, some of my roommates and I decided run a Chaos campaign as detailed in the back of Realm Of Chaos: The Lost And The Damned. We generated by rolled up and/or selecting our champions and warbands and, well, chaos truly ensued. There were just three of us playing this campaign. Ron chose Slaanesh, Scott chose Khorne and I selected Nurgle.  My champion to lead them was randomly generated and I rolled up a Ratling. 

"What? Me, a chaos champion?!"

We scoured the game and hobby stores in that part of New Jersey until I found a blister of Ratlings. I selected the one that appeared to be in charge and made him my champion. Something about his appearance reminded me of a classmate so I named him Howie N'wtaewn, a chaotic bastardization of my classmate's name. 

Adorable murderer.

In the course of the campaign my Ratlings received some crazy rewards and gifts. At one point the ratling unit were gifted with Grav Gun Techno arms which were better than their actual needle rifles. I recall an instance where they totally wrecked a rival Predator tank by grav attacking it's tracks, flipping it and ultimately exploding it. This was using the 1st Edtion Vehicle Manual, the ruleset with the clear targeting grid. 

Another gift, one that Howie received,  was the Nurgle gift of Immensity. A hilarious conundrum for a ratling. For a long time I pondered on how to convert up this model. In time,  I gave up on the notion, and as the editions rolled away in time, the prospect has felt more and more unnecessary. 

Queuing up.

Back to present, and here they are answering the call to rid the Imperium of foul xenos filth. After reglueing them to their bases it was necessary to fill the gaps in their slotta bases. I do this by first taping over the bottom of the base's slot.

Tape on the base bottom.

And then I will the gap with glue, and I repeat this step over and over until the it dries. If you don't do it enough you may still end up with a dip in flock or whatever basing material you employ. 

Gluing the gaps.

With the basing done, I took them out and primed them. The next morning I painted their skin areas with Gulliman Fleshwash, their guns with and their bases. 

Ready for battle? 

These models aren't even truly basecoated yet but I at least got to the classic three-color-minimun to justify putting them into action. Which later that day I did! And they performed pretty good actually. I look forward to finishing these chaps when I can.