Upcoming Skaven Releases

I've been meaning to write about the upcoming Skaven releases for a little while now, but I never got around to it. My only fully-painted army is the ratmen, so a new army book is of great interest to me. The new book will be released in the first week of November along with a few box sets and blisters. I have mixed feelings about the figures.

I don't particularly like the look of the Clanrats boxed set. A lot of people like them better than the old ones, but to me they just don't look quite right. Some of the weapons and shield look okay, but with the new attachment scheme (ball-and-socket joints rather than flat surfaces) they may not be compatible with the old kit. I probably won't be picking any of them up, instead I'll probably try to find some of the older ones before they all disappear.

I like the Stormvermin a little bit more, although they follow the same basic sculpting lines. You can get twenty of them for the price of about half a unit of the old metal figures, which goes a long way toward easing someone into the new look.

The new Doomwheel is a very good-looking kit, and is causing a lot of ruckus on various blogs for both Skaven armies and conversions into various Orc and Chaos armies.

There are also photos floating around of a new Screaming Bell/Plague Thing kit which looks okay, but I think it signifies a move by GW to push the Skaven closer to a Chaos army than a zany, warpstone-crazed mad scientist society. I seem to be in the minority, but I could really do without the Chaos stuff in the Warhammer universe. None of it really grabs me or appeals to me at all. I hope that the new book doesn't push them too far in that direction, and even if it does I am confident that I can proxy normal-looking models to avoid all that. And it could be that I am being all doom-and-gloom for no reason and everything will turn out fine. The second hobby of most gamers is to complain and whine about their favorite toys.

None of my pictures here are anything new, having been taken from places around the web. They've all been in circulation for at least a week or two now.