Armored rat ogres are a special unit in a Hell Pit army list, identical to normal rat ogres but with a 5+ armor save and additional hand weapons, which makes
them awesome. I knew right away that I wanted to make use of the wide variety of heavily armored figures that are made for WHFB and WH40k, but I also had a
clear vision of what I wanted them to look like, so many of the figures I discounted immediately because they were too small, too large, or too difficult to convert.
I decided that I wanted them to be barefoot with claws exposed, so that they would clearly be rats. Since their hands are generally replaced by weapons, I wanted
another physical feature to distinguish them besides the rat ogre heads. I had a large stock of vehicle armor bitz that I expected to make use of, but it quickly
became apparent that they were too large. I wanted a more form-fitting appearance to the armor, not the slapped-on-shields approach, so that the narrow waist and
broad shoulders of the rat ogre models would also be apparent. I began an arduous search for generic-looking armor pieces of the right sizes and shapes. GW makes lots
of them, but they're all scattered about sprues from dozens of different races from all of their games. Thank goodness for Battlewagon Bits!
I also soon realized that I was going to be doing some armor sculpting, but chainmail is easy enough so I wasn't scared off by the prospect.
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This may look like a lot of green stuff, but it's a pretty straightforward conversion, with an extra arm to represent the additional hand weapon.
Since this is the only armored rat ogre so far that actually uses
a rat ogre torso, I decided to at least put on a belly plate to at least make it armored.
The first thing to come to mind may be an ogre bull belly plate, but the orc warboss shoulder pad fit great
and has some real character. The left hand was just chopped off and replaced with an ogre ironfist.
The extra arm just got pinned and glued into the armpit and covered with putty.
The chainmail across the shoulders and head is just for looks, and the right shoulder pad is an experiment in sculpting.
I decided to add some rivets, which was a good decision, so I'm going to add a few more before finishing.
I had planned on keeping all the rat ogres mostly weaponless, or at least grafting the weapons to arm stumps or making them permanent fixtures to the
rat ogres in some way. But I had this arm to the Ogre Kingdoms tyrant model, and I loved the huge hammer head, so I let at least this one rat ogre
hold a real weapon in its hand. Maybe because it just killed a tyrant?
I also sculpted straps to hold each of the armor pieces on, including some that wrap around the torso. I had some trouble with these because of the
torso shape, and I let the green stuff cure too long so it wasn't tacking to the model like I wanted, so instead I sculpted some rings to hold the
straps to the figure's back. The same straps are used to wrap the weapon haft, with an extra layer or two to define the pommel. And for a finishing touch,
I carved the Skaven symbol into the ironfist.
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Here's another straightforward conversion using the slapped-on-armor method. The Mordheim pit fighter ogre body is a great model for the price -
much cheaper than the rat ogre torsos and legs, which total around $13 compared to $3! I sculpted straps for the armor pieces, extended the chainmail
to cover the tail join, put some chainmail on the head, and then attempted a custom piece of leg armor. Actually two - first I sculpted a simple piece
around the shin, then after it cured, came back and add the knee armor which flares up and down and has three ridges that run the circumference of the armor.
The knee armor was sculpted using a pointed spatula-type tool. I wrapped the green stuff about halfway around the leg from the front, and kept it fairly thick.
Then I took my tool and placed the edge one-third of the way down from the top, at a 45-degree angle, and pressed in while moving it from the center of the leg to one side.
I repeated this on the other side. As you push from the front center to the back, you wrap the green stuff around the leg completely, maybe even with a slight overlap
in the back. Then I repeated this two-thirds down from the top, again on both sides. That gave me 3 raised ridges and 2 sunken troughs, and if you angled your
tool right, the center ridge is V-shaped. The piece of armor is not completely round; it comes to a point at the front. Then take your tool and change the angle
to shape the top and bottom raised ridges. The goal is to create two V-shaped sunken troughs with a V-shaped raised ridge in the center. The raised ridges on the
top and bottom may be flared out or some other shape, but probably will not be V-shaped on both sides. I then smoothed the troughs out with a rounded burnishing
tool, although I could have left them V-shaped instead.
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Can't beat the price of the Mordheim pit fighter ogre body, this time with an Ogre Kingdoms tyrant arm leftover from armored rat ogre #1.
I thought I was pretty cool when I swapped the hand for a battering ram head. This one took a lot of sculpting, as I wasn't happy with the join of
the left arm, and wanted to continue the chainmail effect farther down the leg. I really liked the look of the small armor plates riveted over the top of
the chainmail on the tyrant arm, so I repeated that on my sculpting to cover the join. I wasn't sure how much I wanted to do, but after I saw how good it
looked, I went back once or twice and added more. I tried to make it look like there was overlapping layers of chainmail too, which is easier than trying
to sculpt new chainmail that is continuous with the old chainmail. I think this one looks good overall, with three large spikes in different places that
add character and a cohesive appearance. Because of the sculpting over the arm join, and the left shoulder pad, it's also much bulkier than the other rat ogres,
which helps to set it apart from the other conversions based off the same body.
As a finishing touch, I filed off the emblem on the left breast and put on a bit that looks like armor.
I had planned on keeping all the rat ogres mostly weaponless, or at least grafting the weapons to arm stumps or making them permanent fixtures to the
rat ogres in some way. But since I had already deviated from that with armored rat ogre #1 with great success, I tried it again. I don't like this one as
much, mostly because my attempts to sculpt wrappings on the haft that matched the existing sculpt aren't up to my standards. I should have completely scrapped
the weapon haft for something different.
The knee armor was sculpted using a pointed spatula-type tool. I wrapped the green stuff about halfway around the leg from the front, and kept it fairly thick.
Then I took my tool and placed the edge one-third of the way down from the top, at a 45-degree angle, and pressed in while moving it from the center of the leg to one side.
I repeated this on the other side. As you push from the front center to the back, you wrap the green stuff around the leg completely, maybe even with a slight overlap
in the back. Then I repeated this two-thirds down from the top, again on both sides. That gave me 3 raised ridges and 2 sunken troughs, and if you angled your
tool right, the center ridge is V-shaped. The piece of armor is not completely round; it comes to a point at the front. Then take your tool and change the angle
to shape the top and bottom raised ridges. The goal is to create two V-shaped sunken troughs with a V-shaped raised ridge in the center. The raised ridges on the
top and bottom may be flared out or some other shape, but probably will not be V-shaped on both sides. Learning from my first attempt (see armored rat ogre #2),
I left the troughs more V-shaped instead of rounding them out. This version of the leg armor came out much better in part because I wasn't trying to shape the armor
piece over the top of another thick piece as in #2.
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One more with the Mordheim pit fighter ogre body and plastic rat ogre arms, plus my best effort yet at the leg armor.
The knee armor was sculpted using a pointed spatula-type tool. I wrapped the green stuff about halfway around the leg from the front, and kept it fairly thick.
Then I took my tool and placed the edge one-third of the way down from the top, at a 45-degree angle, and pressed in while moving it from the center of the leg to one side.
I repeated this on the other side. As you push from the front center to the back, you wrap the green stuff around the leg completely, maybe even with a slight overlap
in the back. Then I repeated this two-thirds down from the top, again on both sides. That gave me 3 raised ridges and 2 sunken troughs, and if you angled your
tool right, the center ridge is V-shaped. The piece of armor is not completely round; it comes to a point at the front. Then take your tool and change the angle
to shape the top and bottom raised ridges. The goal is to create two V-shaped sunken troughs with a V-shaped raised ridge in the center. The raised ridges on the
top and bottom may be flared out or some other shape, but probably will not be V-shaped on both sides. Learning from my first two attempts (see armored rat ogres #2 and #3),
I rounded out the troughs just enough, and I put the one armor piece just above the other, rather than trying to layer them as in #2.
The head armor is actually layered plates on top, with tiny rivets, and hanging leather side pieces. Each plate was sculpted separately and left to cure before
starting on the next. The rivets were added last. I wanted something that looked like it might be worn by stormvermin, but more bulky like a rat ogre might be able
to carry. I thought about trying to sculpt armor on the sides of the head, or adding a chin strap, but decided on some hanging leather flaps instead.
This one gets the grafted weapons en masse, with a spike, a flail, and an elbow spike to boot. I left the original breast emblem intact on this one, but that may change
if I find another bit I like. The mismatched shoulder plates fit well, but I don't think that the asymmetry of the weapons would have been enough, and that symmetric
armor pieces would have looked better on this model.
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This is a really weird conversion. I was starting a new batch of armored rat ogre conversions using the chaos ogre command models, and I quickly identified one
model that just wasn't going to work well. It had a right arm that was sculpted together with the body, and a chaos emblem on the belly that was just too obvious
and too difficult to file off. Plus it wasn't narrow-waisted like most of the other rat ogres and conversions, and I didn't want to make it even fatter by
trying to sculpt over the belly. But most of all, it had a second head growing out of the left shoulder!
I had also been having difficulty trying to work in my Verminlord bitz into any conversions (other than the tail). So I decided
that this would be the one. It deviates from my vision greatly, having armored feet instead of bare, holding a weapon, being weaponless in the other hand, having
nothing grafted on, and having a very atypical head with huge horns. It looks more like a beastman than anything.
I tried using a different tool to sculpt the chainmail over the shoulder where I cut away the second head. It looks okay, but not great, and is distinguishable from
the other chainmail beneath. I also tried sculpting my first ever straps with buckles, which worked out really well. Since he had other buckles in the back for his
armor, this helps make the new different-looking chainmail look like it belongs. What really pulled this model off, even though it looks a little odd, is the large
rat ogre hand that hides the chaos symbol on the belly. Without that hand, this would be a chaos figure for sure.
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By this time, I had stocked up a huge pile of armor bitz to use specifically for these armored rat ogre conversions. After not liking the asymmetric armor pieces that
I used on #4, I decided to try a symmetric figure. Based off an excellent chaos ogre command model with the bare feet that I envisioned for my rat ogres, it uses
plastic rat ogre arms and symmetric armor bitz including elbow spikes. I also went for a very spiky appearance. This guy has two grafted weapons, which is what all
rat ogres should have, one sword and one cleaver. I was worried about the cleaver looking too much like an Ogre Kingdoms butcher (it's not though - it's from the chaos
ogre command models), but I think that a painted Skaven symbol on the cleaver blade might make the difference.
The best bit on this figure is the new orc warboss iron gob face mask, turned upside down and used as armor plating for the rat ogre head with horns. Not only are
the horns entirely appropriate on this model, but it fits the contour of the head and around the eyes almost perfectly. It needed only a slight amount of filing away at
the ears to get it to fit right, although I could have stuck it on with green stuff instead. The tail was a bit tricky, having to make a serious bend to realistically
look like it comes out from under the clothing.
There is still sculpting to do on this figure, since I want every piece of armor to have some kind of straps or rivets to show that it is attached somehow to something.
I'm also not sure what I'm going to do with the legs. I may try to sculpt some fur down the legs that makes it look more rat-like instead of an ogre wearing a fur coat.
But it's already near completion.
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I love this chaos ogre body. The shape of the breastplate, the straps across the back, the massive shoulder armor, it's just cool. I used a right arm
with chainmail to match the body, and gave him a punching weapon and a slicing weapon (plus a bludgeoning weapon - his tail!). I added some green stuff
rivets, straps, and gap filling to complete the look. The helmet took quite a bit of filling, and I added some nice touches to the straps. I love that
the rat snout pokes out past the big jaw.
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What's next:
I need more armored rat ogres, and now that I have a large collection of bitz to armor them with, it's just a matter of selecting the bodies to stick them on.
Thinking about Imperial Guard Ogryn bodies next.
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