The Horned Rat Ascendant!

The End Times continue apace as the Warhammer world awaits the return of Grey Seer Thanquol, with the fourth installment of the saga released this weekend. Preceding the release of the book was a brand new plastic Verminlord kit, which I pre-ordered and got delivered earlier this week.

So, in line with my aim to get the Verminlord painted as part of my Skaven contingent for this year, I began putting the kit together on Tuesday night. 

As I've mentioned previously, the kit can be used to build one of five variants of Verminlord - the Warpseer (Seers), Deceiver (Eshin), Corrupter (Pestilens), Warbringer and Skreech Verminking, a new special character whose story will unfold in the upcoming End Times book. Clans Moulder and Skryre didn't get a Verminlord variant because they have new toys of their very own coming!

The main body is the same for each variant so I settled with putting that together on Tuesday night, while I mulled over which head and weapon variants to use. Given that games are often few and far between for me, the question was largely one of aesthetics - which one looked the best. I knew I wanted a doom glaive, as the archetypal weapon of choice for Verminlords everywhere. 

Ultimately, I ended up following the Warbringer build exactly. I really liked the Warpseer arm holding the Scry-orb as seen on the box picture (and it's a pretty tasty item as well!) but wasn't keen on the Warpseer head, and the Scry-orb with the Warbringer head didn't seem right. So in came the punch dagger and my Verminlord is complete! 

Just for reference, here's a comparison shot with the Treeman - as you can see, the Verminlord towers over him!

And just to top things off, I found this in with the Verminlord box - a cool little Horned Rat pin badge!