Introducing Hard Plastic Ratkin from Mantic!
25th Sep 2020
Rob Burman
Today we’re excited to finally unveil something that we’ve (not quite so secretly) been working on in the background for the past year: hard plastic Ratkin! That’s right, the furriest army in Kings of War is finally getting its own hard plastic infantry. We’ll go into a little more about the hard plastics in a moment, but first let’s get a closer look at these fantastic minis.
Phew! Pretty sweet, right? As mentioned in the video, the frame includes 10 hard plastic Ratkin and can be used to make warriors and spear warriors, along with a couple of plague pots. But why did we choose to release Ratkin and what does the future hold for the range?
WHO ARE THE RATKIN?
The Ratkin were created by an Abyssal Dwarf called Bharzak the Grim. This twisted individual wanted more sacrifices to feed the great fires of the Gift-Piers of Zarak. As a result, he went about creating a new race – a bizarre hybrid of rats, dwarfs, elf and goblin, known as the Gnorr or Ratkin. Subjected to a life of torment inside the terrible pits of the Abyssal Dwarfs, some plotted their escape. The revolution came in a flurry of blood, teeth and claws, with hundreds of Ratkin making their escape through the tunnels they had been secretly digging.
Now the rats are spreading throughout Pannithor. Each clan is led by a Brood Mother, hidden deep inside a cavernous maze of tunnels and warrens. For centuries they’ve been biding their time, waiting for the right time to strike… and it appears that time is now! You can learn more about Ratkin society in the upcoming Halpi’s Rift supplement, which details how a Ratkin nest is structured.
PLASTIC FANTASTC!
The Ratkin have been part of Kings of War since 2015, when the first Uncharted Empires was released, but there were no models for them. However, since they were introduced a few enterprising folk started making their own Ratkin armies using our excellent range of Veer-myn models for Deadzone/Warpath.
In fact, some sci-fi miniatures officially made their way into the Ratkin Kings of War list for Third Edition, as Nightmares, Tunnel Runners, the Tangle, Night Terror and Brood Mother. Heck, even characters like the Piper make a decent War Chief or Warlock. We even managed to put together a battle shot using these miniatures in Uncharted Empires, which you can see below.
Hard to tell they’re sci-fi models, isn’t it? All this got us thinking… the only thing really missing from the range were the core troops to make warriors and spear warriors, plus perhaps some upgrades to make shock troops and clawshots.
The element that really cemented the decision to release hard plastic Ratkin came during the Kings of War keynote at Clash of Kings 2019. We sneakily previewed the Ratkin Wretches for the Abyssal Dwarf Vanguard warband and they received the biggest round of applause that night.
With this absolutely 100% scientific testing in place, we got to work on the new hard plastics.
MORE TO COME IN 2021
The first Ratkin hard plastics will be available in the new War in the Holds two-player set. This pits the wicked Ratkin against the equally nasty goblins in a bitter fight to the death… or whomever runs off first. The set contains 40 of the hard plastic Ratkin, along with a Night Terror and exclusive resin Warlock.
Of course, this is just the start of our Ratkin journey and in 2021 the intention is that we’ll be bolstering the range to ensure you can make every single Ratkin unit entry in the army list (apart from mounted heroes). That’s right, all 25 unit options should have a model available by the end of next year.
Some will be weapon upgrades for the hard plastics, a few will be the existing Warpath plastics, while others will be entirely new models. Like this little charmer below.
If you’re picking up War in the Holds and simply can’t wait that long for new models, then remember that the Warpath range has already got you covered for a lot of models. In fact, we’ve created a new Ratkin category on the website, so it’s even easier to find what models will work in your collection.
We are super excited about the Ratkin. Along with the new goblins, we’re confident these are some of the best fantasy hard plastics around and shows how we’re continuing to push the quality of Mantic plastics.
