Another Swarm of Rats to Plague My Heroes

    10 Splintered Light Miniatures rats, billed as '28mm' on their site, but about 14mm to the eyes

Encouraged by how quickly the batch of rat slingers went, I started right away on this next batch. These 10 Splintered Light Miniatures were armed with melee weapons, mostly swords and spears. Some were armored, some not. They also included some cool "character" looking ones, like a rat assassin, rat shaman, and a couple of rat heroes. I have more rats left in my bag of unpainted SLM figures, but 10 was about as big of a batch as I wanted to attempt after being trampled by those Dark Ages cavalry awhile back!

    Two of my faves from this batch - a rat shaman or wizard and a cloaked and hooded 'assassin'

I put these rats on bases back when I started on the slingers. So, the first step was to prime them with white Gesso, and then paint a base coat in the fur color that I chose for each. The colors I picked were black, gray, brown, tan, and yellowish-white ("Maple Sugar" craft paint). Once dry, I did a drybrush highlight in an appropriate lighter shade of the base color. Both of these went very fast because I didn't need to worry about "splash over" on the other parts. Most miniatures painters work "inside out," so to speak. They begin with the bottom level (flesh on humans, fur on rats), and work their way outwards. Occasionally, I will change that around. An example would be a human in full chainmail and helm. Depending on the figure, I may actually do the chainmail before the flesh. Not always -- the whole goal is to make your work easier.

    Two rat heroes with fancy helmets and nice cloaks -- but not too nice! They're rats, remember...

From this point, I picked out the biggest surface area remaining on the figure. Typically, this was the chainmail on the armored rats or the tunic/jacket on the unarmored ones. I decided I had liked the dull or pale color scheme I had begun with the slingers, and continued it here. I like to leave base coats to dry overnight, so the acrylic paint has a chance to "shrink wrap" onto the miniature. The detail is more raised at that point and easier to dry brush. Once highlighting of the armor and tunics was done, I did a base coat on the next biggest surface area. Honestly, there was so much variety amongst these 10 figs, I was kind of winging it from step to step on what constituted the next part to paint. Things that all 10 miniatures had in common I typically did together, such as the salmon base coat for the noses, inside ears, and tails. The next morning, I would do the tiny pink highlight on the salmon. And so on, until these guys were done!

    My thinking is the armored rats will be the big & nasty ones (read: 'Orcs'), the unarmored 'goblins'

Honestly, these were a lot of fun to paint up. I may continue to work my way through my unpainted SLM figs -- we'll see. They paint up quicker than an equivalent batch of 28mm foot figures, for sure! There are less extraneous details. Fewer pouches hanging off belts, secondary weapons -- you name it. Even the shield patterns are simpler and typically one step, as opposed to the way I do 28mm ones. I used my micron pens for the patterns, except for the black shield (where the dark pen colors wouldn't show up). I was very tempted to do hem patterns for the more characterful figures, but had to keep reminding myself that these were rats. They don't make nice things for themselves. Rats don't put fancy embroidery on their clothes. In fact, their instinct is to steal things they need from others, at least in my world of anthropomorphic animals living in the "Great Forest."

    You have to love a rat standard bearer with a tabby cat's head on it...!

Probably my favorite figure of the batch is the rat shaman. I love the way his robe drapes about him, and I think the dull purple color works well for it. The metal-banded staff with the skull atop is perfect, as well. I wasn't sure about the short sword at his belt, but why not? My other one I really like is the "rat assassin" in the gray-green tunic. I seriously thought about doing his tunic in black to blend into the shadows, so to speak. However, I rationalized the gray-green would work better blending into a forest setting, where he would typically be operating. Plus, it is a lighter color and will show off the excellent sculpting better!

    I'm having a good time painting these Splintered Light figs again - such clean & detailed castings!

Since I plan on using rats as essentially my orcs and goblins in my Sellswords & Spellslingers solo campaign, I was hoping some of the rats would be bigger and beefier than others. They could be the "orcs" while the smaller ones could be the "goblins." Instead, I may have to use the armored ones as the bigger and meaner ones, and the unarmored as the weaker, goblin types. Hopefully, it will be obvious enough on the table when I am playing.

    Another look at the batch in front of my Bad Squiddo 'Enchanted Tree Stumps' atop Acheson stumps

So, what else is on my painting desk? Actually, these figs have been done for about three days. I just hadn't gotten around to taking photos of them. In the meantime, I kind of went crazy and have way too much on my desk now. First to be finished will be the three stands of clothes lines. They're in the flocking stage as of today. I also picked up some tiny mushroom charms at the craft store a week or so ago because they were priced half off. They were already painted and just needed darkened up and based and flocked. I also have a massive MDF Sci-Fi building from Dad's Armies that is primed and ready to go. I have another batch of Splinteredd Light Miniatures figs, too. And if that isn't enough, I have one of the larger pieces of scatter I bought at Cincycon from A Critical Hit underway. See what I mean? Too much at once!

MINIATURES Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Miniatures acquired in 2025: 100
  
• Miniatures painted in 2025: 49 

TERRAIN Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Terrain acquired in 2025: 10
  
• Terrain painted in 2025: 16

SCATTER Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Scatter acquired in 2025: 53
  
• Scatter painted in 2025: 30