I’m a sucker for anything plague related and I have dabbled in rats before, so a warband of plague rats was a no brainer. Despite my gusto I was apprehensive of getting started. I usually use Warhammer Underworlds warbands as an excuse to play around with oil washes. This had produced great results for The Wurmspat and Grashrak’s Despoilers but so-so results for Skaeth’s Wild Hunt and The Crimson Court. In fact for The Crimson Court I only did an oil wash on the skin and bases, the rest was acrylic washes. 

So I was a little indecisive while I clipped the parts out of the sprue and tidied them up of flash and mould lines. Did I want to do oil washes? Did I want to stick to traditional acrylic washes? Did I want to do neither and use my speed painting techniques? As you can probably tell from the photos, I technically did neither. 

Before I could get to that though I needed to finish the assembly and get things primed. I left the rats separate from the bases for ease of painting, and then primed the bases and the Skritter (the little rat) with Colour Forge Standard Grey, the remainder I primed with Citadel Death Guard Green. As the mouldy green is one of the main colours of Clan Pestilens it seemed like an obvious choice. Unfortunately I didn’t quite get a smooth finish on the Death Guard Green, it’s very windy when I primed them so I held the rattle can a lot closer than I should have. Fortunately the paint didn’t clog up any details but it did leave some odd textures in a few places. Good job these are Nurgle models then. But lessons learnt. 

I started the basecoats off by painting any skin with Two Thin Coats Griffon Claw and all the tails with Vallejo Dwarf Skin. For Skritter, I painted their fur with a fifty-fifty mix of Two Thin Coats Dungeon Stone and Rhinox Hide, which made a nice desaturated brown. I finished the skin off by painting the noses with a small amount of Two Thin Coats Dwarven Skin. 

To break up all of the green a bit, I painted their skirts with a couple coats of Vallejo Yellow Ochre. For those with bandages I painted them with Ulthuan Grey, mostly on Rabidius but Rikkit has a couple as well. For the leather pouches I painted them with Vallejo Dark Fleshtone, a rich and reddish brown. The wood and ropes I painted with Vallejo Khaki, the former I followed up with a coat of Wyldwood contrast paint. I then picked out the teeth and bone spikes with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. Next I painted all the smoke with a couple thin coats of Dawnstone. For the metallics I painted the chains and blades with Scale75 Thrash Metal and the braziers and bells with Old Copper. 

As the bases are sculpted I needed to do their basecoats before I could move onto the washes. Fortunately I primed them with Colour Forge Standard Grey, which took care of the rocks and cobblestones. The dirt and earth areas I painted with Two Thin Coats Scorched Earth, tidying up any of the grey areas with Two Thin Coats Dungeon Stone. The sewer pipes I painted with Scale75 Thrash Metal. There is a vase or other earthenware pot and a, presumably, human bone on Rikkit’s base which I painted with Vallejo Terracotta and Army Painter Skeleton Bone respectively. Lastly for the basecoats I painted the water with Incubi Darkness, a deep almost black green that works nicely for some deep brackish water. To protect the paint from the following steps I gave everything an even coat of matt varnish and left that to fully cure for at least a day. 

I had purposely left the basecoats quite light and bright so I could darken the ever loving snot out of them with the washes. To start things off I mixed some Burnt Umber oil paint with a little bit of Ivory Black to create a dark brown colour, I then thinned this down to a wash consistency with some odourless thinner.  I applied this wash to the bases, trying if possible, to keep it off the water areas. I gave the wash around half an hour to somewhat dry before I came back with a sponge dampened with white spirits to clean any of the wash from the raised areas. The result was some very deep and dirty shadows on the brickwork and around the dirt. For the rats I had other ideas, if there was ever a time to do an all over Streaking Grime enamel wash, this was it. While I was applying the Streaking Grime I made sure to get into every nook and cranny, any area that I missed would stick out like a sore thumb. I did however leave the smoke coming from the braziers as I had other plans for them. Unlike the oil wash I waited until the Streaking Grime was dry to the touch before wiping it away with a white spirit dampened sponge. Like the oil wash this left deep and dirty shadows, which is exactly what I was looking for. I left the washes about a day to cure a little before sealing everything down with another coat of Matt Varnish. Once the latest layer of Matt Varnish had finished curing there were a few things I needed tidying up first where I had gotten wash where I shouldn’t. Namely the water on the bases with Incubi Darkness and the smoke with Dawnstone. I also needed to basecoat a couple of areas that I had intentionally left unpainted. For starters I went over all of them and picked out any boils with Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown, of which there were less that I thought there would be on Nurgle models. The boils were then given a wash of Guiiliman Flesh contrast paint to make them look inflamed. I also needed to basecoat the warp crystals on Skabbik and Skritter with Warpstone Glow. I mean it’s in the name right. The crystals were then washed with Warp Lightning contrast paint. 

First I needed to sort out the bases. I started by adding scratchy highlights around the rocks and cobblestones with Dawnstone, in hindsight this was a little too subtle for the look that I was going for but on the other hand it didn’t distract from the models themselves. Moving along I highlighted the bone on Rikkit’s base with Vallejo Pale Sand and the vase with a mix of Pale Sand and Terracotta. For the water I dotted Army Painter Matt White along the ripples. I then dabbed on some Nurgle’s Rot technical paint to create this sickly slimy effect for the water, perfect for some Skaven. I was more or less done with the bases at this point so I shaved a little off the pegs that attach the models to the base and slotted them into place. Shaving them down a little helps them slide in easier, so you don’t have to use too much force and risk snapping something, especially as either the peg or its recipient hole may have a couple layers of paint on it. Plus attaching the models to the base makes them easier to hold. 

With the bases done it was time to move onto the highlights. Now I don’t particularly enjoy edge highlighting, especially power armour, so I wanted to try changing the process. Rather than crisp subtle highlights I wanted over the top chunky bright highlights to really contrast the deep dirty shadows on these rats. I started with the skin, highlighting edges like the fingers and jaws with Pallid Wych Flesh. A few of the Skaven have swollen eyes visible, so to give them that bruised appearance I washed the area with Army Painter Purple Tone. For the green robe I gave them a scratchy edge highlight of Ionrach Skin, to give the impression of frayed cloth. I did a similar thing for the yellow robes with Vallejo Pale Sand. While I had it out I also used Pale Sand to highlight the teeth and bone spikes. I don’t currently have a good colour to highlight Khaki so I made some of my own by mixing it fifty-fifty with some Pale Sand, I then used this colour to highlight the ropes. I then used pure Khaki to highlight the wood details. I tried to add a wood grain effect to Rikkit’s staff but it didn’t turn out great to be honest. From there I used Kislev Flesh to highlight the leather pouches, tails and noses.  The bandages I highlighted with Army Painter Matt White. For the metallic details I gave them a quick edge highlight with Runefang Steel. The boils and pustules I highlighted with Yriel Yellow. I also used Yriel Yellow to edge highlight the warp crystals but didn’t look right, so I rebasecoated them with Warpstone Glow and a wash of Warp Lightning. I then mixed Warpstone Glow with Vallejo Pale Sand to make a minty or pastel green colour, and used this for the edge highlights. As you can see from the pictures it looks much nicer, matching the pale edge highlights on the rest of the model. I was on the home stretch with just a few specific details to finish off on Skritter. I highlighted their fur with Dawnstone and put a small dot of pure white in their eyes, the latter of which then got a coat of Blood Angels Red contrast paint. 

Last but by no means least I needed to sort out the smoke. I started by giving a coat of Army Painter Speedpaint Malignant Green and wet blending some Warp Lightning near the ends of it. This left the smoke rather darker than I was hoping so I fixed that by giving it a drybrush with a mix of Dawnstone and Matt White. 

Just for fun I cracked out the Greenstuff World Rust Liquid Pigments and added a few patches of Dark Rust. Once that was dry I added some Medium Rust inside the Dark Rust patch, and once that was dry I did the same thing with Light Rust. The effect turned out pretty good and it’s something I will have to play around with again. On the other hand I also dabbed some Dirty Down Moss onto the base of the pipe that Skabbik is standing on but the product didn’t really do what it’s supposed to, it just stayed dark green. Not sure why I’m having issues with the Moss when I have had no issues with the Dirty Down Rust product. It is what it is, and I’ll keep toying with it. 

At long last I painted the rims of the bases with matt black and I was done. I’m really happy with how these turned out, especially the highlights. And they weren’t too tedious to do either. I may have to take a similar approach for another project, although I’m not sure what just yet.