My Skaven Army – The Rat Golem

Issue #195 (March 1996) of White Dwarf is a pretty late White Dwarf for me but at the time, Games Workshop was doing what is probably it’s second major wave of ‘board/boxed’ games. The first teamed up with MB to give us Heroquest, Space Crusade and (without MB) Space Hulk. This second wave gave us Warhammer Quest and Necromunda.

And it is Warhammer Quest that is the main focus here, in a way. While don’t know if you would call it a flop, Warhammer Quest didn’t appear to last as long as HeroQuest and while it had a couple of expansions, and they even released new Heroes for it (something Heroquest couldn’t really do at the time) there was atleast one major expansion (Chaos Dwarfs) that was cancelled when it was all pretty much ready to go with miniatures and everything.

Now there is also a rumour that more expansions were in the works and some of them were ‘burnt off’ to use a show biz term (when a studio/channel has paid good money for a TV pilot, but they decide for some reason it isn’t good enough, they often aired them as part of a summer ‘tv movie’ series. Sometimes this lead them to being picked up but mostly it was a way to try to get some of the money back that it cost to make them without investing enough to make it go to series). One of these sets was Skaven. And in that White Dwarf, we had a 3 quest Skaven Campaign: “Domain of the Horned Rat”.

This campaign featured the Heroes attacking a group of Skaven under the city of Middenheim in the heart of the Empire. It featured 3 major Skaven characters you thought against to stop their plan, Quirrik, a Clan Skrye Warlock, his Rat Golem, and Skreek Deathstrike, assassin and spy for the Council of Thirteen.

The Issue also came with card board insert which featured new rooms and cards for this campaign and it is believed would have been expanded a bit for that new expansion had Warhammer Quest continue but didn’t. There is a prototype figure of a Skaven Engineer which some believe was a prototype for Quirrik, but I don’t think so. While it may have been made for this expansion if it happened, I don’t think it would have been for Quirrik as it doesn’t appear to match what is said about the character.

Lets drag this out a bit more and give some information. Basically, Quirrik was a bit of a rogue Warlock, as Skaven doing alot of infighting, and was able to trick his overload, Grey Seer Meerlat, and take over the clan. He had been working on many plans, including his Rat Golem. This was a prototype of a new type of Skaven creature. He took a Rat Ogre and mechanically modified it alone with chunks of Warpstone. However, while it was resistance to magic and able to heal itself, it was even more stupid then the average rat ogre, which was saying something, and keep needing repairs, even if it didn’t need food. Quirrik carried on working on his Golem prototype in order to make a new force so he could even take a place on the Council of Thirteen.

Along with the information on the Rat Golem, Andy Jones had hacked about 2 prototypes from various pieces from the citadel range. One was a bit dull and was mostly Boneripper with some bits form a couple of chaos figures. It looks pretty much just organic. The other is given two photos and show the top half of a rat ogre connected to a wheeled machine of very make shift appearance. This one was far more of interest to me and I wanted one.

I don’t play (or more have never played and don’t have) Warhammer Quest but as the rules take Warhammer Fantasy Battle as a strong base, more so then Advanced Heroquest, It’s pretty easy to convert to WFB 4ed and I’ll put it up in my Resources page.

So, then comes my figure. And this is a complete mixture of pieces. The head is a 5ed maybe 6ed Rat Ogre, the upper body is a 3D print of a rat ogre like (not a direct scan) figure, I have bits of 40K stuff to make the back vents and the ring on top of the machine part. the bulk body of that is a Zoids part, with a front lighting prong from a Doomwheel under it, along with 4 generic wagon wheel (3d printed at 2 different sizes) as well as an old 3D printer nozzle head. There is also a cocktail stick for the wheel axis, 2 Warpstone bits from some skaven 5/6ed sprue. Then I add a chain and a and a spiked strip from some spare bits. I also added two chunks of Warpstone made from putty. The base is a 40mm square base with card to make it look like a dungeon floor.

Okay, bits could probably be a bit better (and really I would have loved to get some bits painted before putting it all together but it was very much slapping bits together to see what looks good to me. This creature should be powerful, but in pain and far from a natural state. Are the rules for it in 4ed any good? can’t say.. It should be pretty easy to port to 3ed if you want.

Now… I have in places been pretty against the 6ed and later idea that Skaven are more tech then the Dwarfs and create tons of Cyborgs. But then, you might ask, isn’t this one? well.. It’s a prototype of a mad warlock and I think this kinda borders as far as you should go. Most of the Skaven tech should be limited and more an mixture of what they have ‘stolen’ and reverse engineered more then created on their own I think. They are scavengers not creators. When you look at the major Skaven Machines, you have the Warpfire throwers, which are just pretty simple flame cannons like Dwarfs use, but powered by warp stone. Jezails are kinda the same kinda rifle that the empire uses, but a bit less advanced really. The Screaming Bell… isn’t a machine really. It’s just a cart with a large bell on it really. Warp stone also plays a part with it. And then there is the Doom Wheel. which isn’t that advanced. Rat powered for movement which also charges a basic warp stone powered core with some static. It’s again, a weaker version of what others have in that it’s far more likely to go wrong.

Oh, and the original campaign was created to Gavin Thorpe ‘and friends’. So I decided to try to contact Gavin Thorpe for any information on if this was meant to be a Warhammer Quest Expansion or anything he could remember. So far, No reply but that isn’t a surprise. He could be busy or something. Will update if I do hear anything, though I doubt it.

And another bit before I go. The WD article also gives some basic guides for skaven, mostly those in this quest like the Rat Golem, to be used in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. They also make a comment about future Skaven Warhammer Quest stuff but I can’t personally say if this happened with this version of Warhammer Quest or not.