Packrat Stunty Teams

[Mo]

Today I was out shopping for Skaven coaching staff, and picked up a pack of WH Clan Moulder Giant Rats and Handler. The giant rats are great:
* 2 are fairly small (call them Ratlings, about Snotling sized, 1 with a little hydraulic spikes thing running to its tail and one front paw),
* 3 larger ones (call them Giant Rats: 2 with spike mutations, 1 of those with 6 legs),
* 1 much larger centaur-like one with 4 legs and two arms, almost the height of a Skaven, and about the body mass of a Skaven, but with a smaller head and limbs (call it a Musotaur -- ‘mus’ is the ancient Greek word for mouse or rat). This last type would be pretty easy to convert from the plastic rats on the WHQuest/Swarms sprue.

These seem like a great basis for a stunty team. The Skryre Slaves roster on FUMBBLE isn’t quite right. Searching the forums there, there were some discussions from long ago on different stunty Skaven teams that inspired my list below. Unless I’m miss-reading things over there though, especially after the discussion on Ithilkir’s Deadlings, it seems like they take great pains to make Stunty Leeg teams bad. And so, I think I’d rather start this discussion here, because I’d like a team that’s a good solid match with the Goblins, Flings, and Deadlings. The prices were based on comparisons with Goblins and the Ratlings with Vault Snotlings. Comparing with Halflings, the Musotaurs could go up to 50k

And so, here is my first drafts for two teams
(The Packmasters are based on Gutter Runner stats to keep the ST down to 2 in keeping with stunties; though Line Rat stats could work just as well (at 80k to cover the extra value of Leader. Even though its a stunty team, there’s only 1 RO since there is also the option for Packmasters.)

RATPACK TEAM
20k 0-12 Ratlings 8 1 3 5 - Wild Animal, No Hands, Dodge, Jump Up, Right Stuff, Stunty, Titchy (Ag, Ph)
40k 0-12 Giant Rats 8 2 3 6 - Wild Animal, No Hands, Dodge, Jump Up, Stunty (Ag, Ph)
40k 0-4 Musotaurs 7 2 3 6 - Block, Stunty (Gen, Ph)
90k 0-4 Skaven Packmasters 9 2 4 7 - Leader, (Gen, Ph)
130k 0-1 Rat Ogre 6 5 2 8 - Wild Animal, Big Guy, MB, Frenzy, Prehensile Tail (St, Ph)
Apocathary: 50k Rerolls: 60k
SPECIAL: Ratlings are ball sized rats. And being rats, of course they are aerodynamically shaped like the ball too. Other players on its team may attempt to pick one up, carry it, hand it off, and pass it, just like it was a ball; the Throw Team Mate skill is not required. All of the usual agility rolls and modifiers apply to these actions. . A player may hand-off a ratling into an empty adjacent square with no throwing roll required, a landing roll is still needed. The actual ball may still be handed-off/passed by another player. Each ratling may only handed-off once, and/or passed once each turn. A player’s move ends after handing-off/passing a ratling. If a ratling fails its landing roll, this counts as a turn-over.

MUSOTAUR TEAM
40k 0-16 Musotaurs 7 2 3 6 - Block, Stunty (Gen, Ph)
90k 0-2 Skaven Packmasters 9 2 4 7 - Leader, (Gen, Ph)
130k 0-1 Rat Ogre 6 5 2 8 - Wild Animal, Big Guy, MB, Frenzy, Prehensile Tail (St, Ph)

Cheers,
Maureen

[Mo]

Having just finished trimming up this pack of figs, the ratling with the little spike attachments hooked into a back-pack cannister, should probably qualify for stab. Looking at the vault teams, its not immediately clear if Stab is worth 10k or 20k.

30/40k 0-2 Ratling Assasins 8 1 3 5 - Wild Animal, No Hands, Dodge, Jump Up, Stab, Right Stuff, Stunty, Titchy (Ag, Ph)

[Ithilkir]

too... many... skills... brain... over... load...

*pop*

[Mo]

Fair enough. Since the little rat with the weapon thingies has one of the blades strapped to its front leg, it could easily lose the Dodge and Jump Up skills:

20k 0-2 Ratling Assasins 8 1 3 5 - Wild Animal, No Hands, Stab, Right Stuff, Stunty, Titchy (Ag, Ph)

[Mo]

Here’s a pic of my first ratling conversions. On the right is the metal rat-centaur from the rat pack blister, and the plastic rat and bat from the WHQuest/Swarms sprue. On the left are my first 4 conversions working from the plastic figs. For the ones with the bat torsos, I used the hind legs from the bat for the forearms.

The original metal rat-centaur fig was the inspiration for doing up the Stunty Ratling team. Now that I’ve started doing the conversions, I’m willing to drop the idea of using the plain rats and just go with these 4-legged and 2-legged mutants with arms.

At the very least there should be 2 positions on the team (4-leggeds and 2-leggeds). There could be up to 4 positions if there’s a difference between the rat and bat mutants. 4 types isn’t necessary, but could add more flavour.

Also to simplify the concept, drop the idea of packleaders and just go with the mutant rats

RATLING TEAM
40k 0-16 Rat Centaurs 7 2 3 6 - Block, Stunty (Gen, Ph)
60k 0-16 Ratlings 9 2 3 6 - Dodge, Stunty (Ag, Ph)
130k 0-2 Rat Ogres 6 5 2 8 - Wild Animal, Big Guy, MB, Frenzy, Prehensile Tail (St, Ph)