One of the events I signed up for at UTD 2026 was the Ratking Double Down Snuff Slam. At last year's fest, Ratking was the game that I think I saw played the most. Every time I walked by a group playing, it everyone was having a great time. So I made sure to try and get a spot at this years Ratking event.
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| Action shot of the Snuff Slam by @thatboardgamedork |
For the Snuff Slam, each player would have two rats to control. When I think of a two man team, my mind always goes to a big guy/little guy dynamic. My general idea for the theme of the duo was a couple of indentured or escaped lab rats. A couple weeks before the event, I came across this metal "Ape X" Reaper model at a local game store.
It immediately reminded me of a specific creature design from the Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars series. So I knew I had to make a giant augmented naked mole rat for my big rodent.
Starting with the ape as a base, I sculpted the body around it in stages from, roughly, bottom to top. Legs, then stomach, then arms, then breasts and arms, then feet and genitals. Working this way kept me from messing up one section while working with another. I tried making a texture roll from my own skin texture to add some realism, but the texture ended up being too fine for the green stuff to catch any of the detail.
The head I initially sculpted entirely from green stuff, but I wasn't happy with my level of detail. So I took the head parts from a Great Gnashtoof as an anchor for the head, sculpting the rest around that. The two front teeth were pretty tricky. I shaped them out of green stuff first, then drilled out a spot in the mouth for them and glued them in place once they had cured. I'm lucky I didn't lose them before during placement, they kept flying out of my tweezers!
Lastly, I drilled a hole for the tail, cut and bent a little piece of wire,roughly sculpted a tail around it, and glued it in the hole.
I liked the modular weapons included in the ape kit, but I did add some brass rod spikes to the bludgeon option.
For the the smaller fella, I chose to go with this unmodified Gardens of Hecate rat made for Sun Rot. Perhaps a lab rat with it's face melted off during experimentation?
I'm quite pleased with the basing that I got on both of these. A few toothpick, a LOT of mud texture, and a dusting of sand/baking soda mixture on top. I'm going to be reusing this for future projects.
My painting session on these was a bit frantic ( I was finishing them the night before we rolled out for the fest) so my painting notes aren't as robust as I wish they were. I think I ended up re-priming them three times with how frustrated I was. But for less than an afternoon of painting, I'm pleased with the result. I think for the skin I did a base coat of a burgundy, washed the whole thing with a darker red shade, and then sprayed over most of it with a very light pink? And then I believe I hit the crevices with a thinned dark red wash (Either Berserker Bloodshade or Army Painter dark red tone). If I had more time, I would have focused more on trying to get a better NNM effect from the green metal bits. The bases were done by wet blending contrast paints.
As far as the event went, it was a great time! Pulling from the only wrestling reference I'm really familiar with, I named them the 9th Day Genetics Program with Rat Daddy as my top talent and Dog Face as my blister. Dylan, my teammate, and I bumbled our way through the match and ended up being the last competitors in the ring before the ratking consumed all.
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Dylan's handicap-able rat triumphantly wielding a grenade launcher. |
Thank you to Robbin for running such a fun event!
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