My Skaven Army – Plague Monk Unit A

Well, with Skaven, you HAVE to have a unit of Plague Monks. I was going to have just one unit but… I’ve got enough figures now that I’m going to have 2 units atleast.

Plague monks are the members of Clan Pestilens. The 3ed defines Clan Pestilens as:

Clan Pestilens are the unholy disciples of disease, devoted to spreading the contagion of Chaos over the Earth. The Devouts of Clan Pestilens are also known as ‘Plague Monks’. By means of Disease cultured on the warpstone, they spread the great plagues that ravage the world.

Clan Pestilens had 2 troop type options. The Plague Monks, and the Plague Censer Bearers. Plague monks are described as initiates of infection who go into battle reciting from the Liber Bubonicus and chanting the Liturgus Infectus. of course, these are made up but basically translate as Bubonic Book (or Book of Bubonic). Mostly a reference to the Bubonic plague which was believed to have been transmitted by Rats in the 1600s (really it was fleas ON the rats but.. there you go, but kinda refers to something which the plague caused but.. this isn’t a medical blog), and the Liturgy of the Infection (Liturgy is well… mostly the religious form in which worship is conducted but can be non-religious. I can imagine the non-religious version came first but… some things are soo ingrained it’s hard to say). The Plague monks have no armour, but can have light armour (figure wise, they are robe wearing) with Hand weapons and can have a magic standard.

The Censor Bearers are just that. They go into battle with Warpstone incense burners which they swing giving off foul and toxic bubonic vapour. Any one who comes into contact with this vapour is infected and flesh exposed to it erupts in festering blisters. This appear to ALSO apply to Skaven as often Plague monks (and some Censor Bearers who don’t often have alot of skin exposed) have blisters and boils from infection. They have no armour and just the Censer for weapons. Can be upgraded to Light armour.

4ed, with it’s expanded sections on troops, go into more detail but basically the same, but an interesting point is while standards were expanded to pretty much every unit able to have one, for plague monks it points out there banners are particularly horrible to see, often comprising a half rotted carcass hanging from the banner pole summoning a chaotic vision of twisted horror rendered in pigments distilled from blood and warpstone. Neat.. I’m gonna have to make one of them because.. No plague monk standard released HAS THIS. 4Ed also adds there own version of a champion, being the Plague Priest which you can have for every regiment of Plague monks you have. It also introduces the character of Lord Skrolk, the Plague Lord of Clan Pestilens. Basically the second in command of the clan who carries the Liber Bubonicus itself. I guess when you are the boss, you don’t have to remember it. (by the way, Lord of Decay ‘Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch of Clan Pestilens’ is the clan leader).

There is a bit of weird cross over between Clan Skryre and Clan Pestilens as.. Skryre are the masters of perverse technology, so like most of the Skaven who pretty much worship the warpstone which created them, they mixed this with machines.. yet when you think about it, while that’s fine for the Warp fire throwers, the Poisoned Wind Globadiers are way more Pestilens based as they are basically just throwing balls of glass which have warpstone gas inside. though the more pure gas has a slightly different effect then infections but.. oh well. That’s for another time when I get to my Globadiers.

As I mostly play/plaid 4Ed, I go with that for the stat lines and points. So Plague Monk unit is the following:

Name	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	PV
Plague Monks	5	3	3	3	4	1	4	1	5	6

That isn’t too much different from a normal clan rat really. Like with most things, 20mm bases. There are no real limits on the unit size more then you can only have one plague priest per unit, and you can only have a unit of censer bearers up to half the size of the unit of Plague monks when the accompany them.. I think you can have censer bearers WITHOUT plague monks, but that’s something I’ll go into when I go into my censor bearers.

This is my first unit of plague Monks. 10 monks in a 5×5 arrangement with one having a standard. The figures are from Little Solder’s “Ratlings and Vermin” figures which I had on pre-order. They are a bit smaller then normal skaven plague monks but the robes really work well for plague monks. While some of them have spears, I just class that as hand weapons (made to look like Warpstone tips). I have given them Light armour (stat wise) and includes a standard and a musican, both of which course twice the price. So it’s 6pts + 2 for light armour, then the double for them specials, making it a 96 point unit.

One of them next to a shop painted Plague Monk (gotten in the late 90s at ‘Jade’, my local gaming store which was a bit iffy but killed itself in the end with ‘martial arts’ stuff.. Also had some bits but got SOO much worse and the shop closed) showing the size difference. Not enough to worry about. The Ratlings have great big teeth.

Oh the Banner is based on some 3ed banners design, mixed with bits from 4ed but for banners, it’s pretty much the same (basically either based on staff’s army or the studio army’s banners. I think alot of the Skaven art is based on Jes Goodwin’s art. He was a major player in Skaven at first anyway.

These were painted.. mm.. 2 years ago now? time flies.. they do have a bit of damage not shown in the images due to not using steel in the movement trays but better storage and stuff now. Oh and if this unit was in 3ed… only allowed 20 plague monks in total, it would be 4 1/2 pts each, + 1 point for light armour, + double points for Musician and standard making.. 66 pts for the unit… mm.. quite a difference.. not normally that much.

---

So, 96 points for the unit. The Standard and Musician is included in the regiments point cost so, that’s just 96 pts adding to the current total.

Running Total:

Characters: 0pts
War Machines: 0pts
Monsters: 0pts
Regiments: 131pts
Total Army Points painted up: 131pts