Augmented rat ogres are a 0-1 special choice in a Hell Pit army list (with a 1-5 pack unit size) and have a 4+ armor save. One augmented rat ogre per unit may be armed with a warpfire thrower. These guys are the best, and I've had so much fun with them. GW has no shortage of bitz for these guys, as you'll see. I've done about 10 without using any bit more than once! These will be fielded in the Skryre army as normal rat ogres, so they will get based on the scenic bases for Skryre instead of Moulder. Several also have multiple limbs, etc. and could be fielded as Mutant rat ogres instead. And if one can have a warpfire thrower, why not all of them? At least for modeling, anyway.

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This guy is great. I bought a Krieger "Krash" Thrax model for Inquisitor and used all the bitz in different conversions. This guy gets the left arm. Just needed a little sculpting: a mount for the warpfire thrower, some hair at the neck, and the tubes connecting the mechanical arm to the body. This guy may yet get a warpfire tank and warpgoggles. I was getting tired of using the Vermin Lord tail on all my conversions; I know that rat tails all look generally the same, but as a converter it gets boring. I have no idea what bit this tail started as, I think maybe a Tyranid bit, but it's a rat's tail now!

This guy gets the right arm of Krash, but what I like even better is the legs of Inquisitor model Quovandius, and the tail is none other than the whip of the extremely out-of-print Blood Slaughterer, Daemonic Robot of Khorne! Right now this model is being test-fit to the scenic bases for Clan Skryre, which are going to be the Mystic bases by Micro Art Studio. The only sculpting on this guy is for gap filling, although there is plenty of that, and I did have to cut the plastic rat ogre torso off to fit onto the Quovandius legs.

I didn't put anything in the space between the arm tubes and the back, just sculpted it right in. I've seen a conversion by an unknown gamer on the GW website (using Ghazghkull's arm instead of Krash's) which also has tubes sticking out the back of the arm. I thought it looked so unprofessional to have the tubes just hanging there, not connected to anything. And by making them look squidgy and rubbery, my sculpted tubes could allow that arm to feasibly move.

This guy ended up with the rest of Krash, and I think he looks fantastic. It's Krash's legs and torso, and part of his head. I had to chop the head off and use the neck, which fits into the torso, then file it down to add the rat ogre head. There is a long way to go yet on this guy, but you can see the arms are going to be complex. The claw arm has claws replacing just the fingers, while the thumb of the plastic rat ogre arm is intact. I thought that would be cool. The guitar wire controls will go into the forearm. Also, I had to chop up the feet in order to maintain my barefoot rat ogre vision, so there's a couple of metal rat ogre toes in there. Lots of green stuff to come.

The only thing that is slightly off are the shoulders. The torso is just slightly too wide at the shoulders, and with the arms attached, looks even beefier. So I strapped the large backpack on, to make it look like the muscle was there for a reason (other than to shred and rend), and I like the result.

This is just the basic Clan Skryre rat ogre from Mordheim. Nothing special, but a cool model. I love the spindly look of the model, and it's a really pieced-together sort of mechanical body compared to the other augmented rat ogres. I acquired this one already primed black. If I can figure out how to do it, I really want to add a spindly tail to the model.

This guy was a LOT of work. Having done him once, I have some ideas on how to improve, and someday maybe a GD entry will be borne of it. The Necron bits fit nicely into the spinal column of the plastic rat ogre torsos, but I decided to go with the mechanical tail also, which was difficult and maybe not the best choice. The left claw arm actually has a small piece of plastic rat ogre shoulder at the top to make it look proportionate. Between every vertebrae on the spinal column is a pair of spinal nerves coming out to join the torso, which are made of clear guitar string.

This is my favorite of the plastic rat ogre heads and arms, and overall one of my favorite augmented rat ogres, perhaps because it's all on a normal size scale rather than the oversized mechanical components or the spindly Mordheim models. I took the augmented head one step further, fusing it with the mechanical spine. In the next incarnation, if there is one, I would hollow out the top of the head and make a jar containing the transplanted brain.

This guy may be the most complex, but he was actually the first one I started. His legs are repositioned so he can fit on a 25mm square base, in case I want to use him as a warpfire thrower or ratling gun attached to a clanrat unit instead of a rat ogre. He comes with an attached gunner which can count as a packmaster or not. I love the left claw arm, which is a classic Ork bit. Can't beat $1.50 for a power claw! I just sculpted an shoulder armor pad over the join and added rivets from plastic rod. The hard part was the metal chain, which didn't have any good attachment points on the gun, and required a sculpted attachment to the shoulder.

This is not the only augmented rat ogre with an optic sensor replacing an eye. My vision for all the Skryre models was to have some sort of warpgoggles or optic piece replacing one or both eyes. I found that all the bitz I ordered for these conversions didn't quite fit right on any models; most were too large, as you can see here.

The gunner is the operator of the warp lightning cannon model, which fit great onto the conversion. All I had to do was add a short bit to attach his lever hand to the gun, so you'll see that his lever is angled.

This is another great one based off the Inquisitor Quovandius model. I beefed up the gun to a warpfire thrower, then gave him a second! Only required a tail and some sculpted rags coming off the shoulders to hide the joins. This is the only augmented rat ogre model to have a warpfire thrower (or any other weapon) that is not grafted, tied, or bolted to its body. As much as I could, I tried to keep all the rat ogres from holding weapons (although a couple of armored rat ogres also hold weapons). This particular warpfire thrower is extremely long, which makes me think of the long jezzails, but is atypical for the warpfire throwers which are usually short (and short range) weapons.

I also haven't used much guitar wire on the rat ogre conversions, especially compared to the jezzail conversions which came before. This one has a wire between the gun and backpack, which is necessary since the backpack is the warpfire tank, but I just don't think the wires look as good when they are long like this. The other models have wires and tubes actually going into the body of the rat ogre, which I don't really understand. But I may add some straps or rings to this model to keep the wire in an appropriate place on the model.

I really liked the spindly look of the Mordheim rat ogre (see augmented rat ogre #4), and I had a bunch of the models, so I decided to try other spindly combinations. This one uses steam tank pistons for legs, which are kind of neat because they give it a very asymmetric look, being even more heavy on top and bottom and thin in the middle than the original sculpt. Because of the piston legs, which are different lengths, I took advantage of the Mystic bases by Micro Art Studio which have varying heights. I perched him very forward on the base so that I can give him a large warpfire tank backpack or some other accessory on his rear to make the thinness of his waist even more exaggerated. I also swapped out the warpfire thrower for a different warpfire thrower, and his claw hand for a different claw hand, just for variation. But I did use the feet from the original Skryre rat ogre model.

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This little conversion has beauty in symmetry. The arms are just asymmetric enough to suggest mutation rather than blatant augmentation. I really like the way they look, and I took the time to sculpt some scars and stitch marks around the shoulder so it should paint up really well. This makes use of the more recent one-piece rat ogre torsos (which preceded the current plastic models), which are cool but I find more difficult to convert with. I don't have a problem with the upper and lower torso being joined, which is easier, especially when it comes to the tail. But there are fewer opportunities to mix parts up, especially because they all have the right arm attached. Whenever you saw, you lose a little length, so even if you find a compatible bit to replace it, your arm will look just a little off. I debated whether this is officially classified as a mutant or an augmented rat ogre because it lacks the size and warpfire thrower common to the latter, but I finally decided the claw makes him augmented.

Description to come.

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What's next:
I'm finishing up these and working on a couple more augmented rat ogres, even though I've already exceeded the maximum number of augmented rat ogres you can field in the Hell Pit army list (a measly five!).