Welcome to the second instalment of this mini-series about my latest additions to the ranks of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, in which we meet yet another friendly face from the 4th assault company. And while the Doomwall was already pretty heavily armoured, we’ll be cranking up the heavy metal factor a notch for this guy — that’s right, we’re talking about another Dreadnought/Helbrute for my World Eaters!

Everything started when I bought myself a Dreadnought sprue from the Black Reach boxed set a while ago. Since working on my earlier Dreadnoughts had also resulted in a rather sizeable collection of different Dreadnought weapons, I felt that building another customisable Dread would be the best way to make the most out of all those weapon options. And since I wanted to keep things easy and cheap, using the AOBR Dread as a base model seemed to be the sensible way to go here.

When the model arrived, I found myself messing around with a couple of bitz to find out which approach I was going to take for the Dread. Here’s a very early version of the model from that time:

But while some of the characteristics of the early WIP above did indeed carry through to the final version, I just couldn’t really seem to get a grip on figuring out what kind of model I wanted. Once more, the Call of Chaos event was a nice occasion to finally force myself into action and get my act together, so I pledged a Dreadnought/Helbrute as part of my vow. With that, I had set myself a firm deadline, and even for a lazy slacker like me, there’s nothing quite as conductive to creativity as a bit of well applied pressure ;)

One of the main problems was that the AOBR Dread comes in only seven pieces, and the entire body is basically made up of two pieces — an excellent piece of economical design, to be sure, but it makes converting the model slightly more difficult. There was also the fact that I couldn’t get too adventurous with the arms, seeing how I wanted to keep them detachable.

In the end, thinking about what kind of character I wanted this Dread to be really turned out to be the breakthrough. I already have a frenzied berserker Dread (Marax the Fallen), a noble ancient of the company (Khoron the Undying) and a tragic, malformed monster (Khorlen the Lost), so I wanted this newest Dreadnought to fill yet another character archetype: the stoic line soldier.

In the end, I decided that he is a former Breacher Sergeant, and from there on out, it was pretty easy to design the Dreadnought around that concept and include some visual touches that would underline that background idea: A chaos knight shield was attached to his left shoulder as a kind of stylised boarding shield, for one. I also souped up the (really boaring) standard power fist by adding some spiky bitz from the WFB chaos chariot, in order to make it look like a miniature version of the siege claws wielded by the Chaos Decimator. And I found out that one of the Skullcrusher helmets – minus the Khornate “bunny ears” – made for a pretty convincing Mk III helmet.

And, like I said, what really made this model happen was the pressure of having to get my act together for the Call of Chaos vow ;) Here’s the finished conversion again:

Painting the Dread was a relatively straightforward affair, but then it has to be said that I really like painting Dreads to begin with: There’s just something to their scale and angularity that makes them really enjoyable to paint. The one thing that was slightly more difficult on this model was that the torso and legs came in one big piece, so I had to paint it all in one go. Apart from that, however, it was smooth sailing all the way.

Before I show you the whole model, I’d like to share a small detail that I am quite happy with: I have wanted to feature a mostly destroyed Necron warrior on one of my bases for a long time — as a shout out to the iconic ending of the original Terminator movie, and now I finally went for it:

t’s certainly just a small thing, but there’s a nice irony about two dead guys who both inhabit machine bodies sharing one base like this, don’t you think?

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the finished Dread:

And the remains of that poor Necron again, leaking oily fluid onto the ground…

One thing I really wanted to do this time around was to use some decals on the Dreadnought’s armour, in order to give him a slightly more businesslike, soldierly feel. I chose one of the excellent legion symbols from the Forgeworld World Eaters decal sheet for the armour panel on the Dread’s right side. For the other panel, I wanted to include his legion number — but it was actually pretty difficult to find a numeral XII in white that would fit the fairly limited space! The solution was to use a decal from the Cadian shock troops and cut it down to size. It’s a small detail, to be sure, but one that I really think adds to the model as a whole:

In fact, I like the effect so much that I am seriously considering going back to my earlier Dreads and adding some decals to them as well..

And since I’ve kept the arms detachable, the model can now be used with all the different extra Dreadnought weapons I have built so far. Here’s an example of a more “shooty” loadout:

It seems pretty shocking to me in hindsight, but this is indeed my fourth Dreadnought! But like I said, there’s just something about these guys that appeals to me, rules be damned! ;)
In fact, I think I may have one more Dreadnought in me at a later date. The only thing to decide is whether I want it to be a Dread for my fallen Space Wolves (who are allies to my World Eaters) or a huge, warp-infused beast. Or both?

For now, however, the only thing left to do was to come up with a bit of background for this latest ancient of the 4th assault company and then call it a day. Enjoy:

Brother Damokk, “The Breacher”

Originally a member of the fabled Triarii, Brother Damokk quickly found his true calling as a Breacher Sergeant and member of the 4th assault company during the turbulent days after the purging of Nuceria. He excelled as a warrior in shipboard actions and when it came to breaching fortified positions, and his prowess was so great that, upon suffering fatal injuries during a boarding action, it was decided to grant him the honour of serving the 4th as a Dreadnought.

Damokk’s ironform still bears many cues of his former station, such as his stylised boarding shield or the visor of his primary visual interface unit, shaped like an Mk 3 helmet. And his favourite armament, a combination of Multimelta – complete with underslung chainblade –  and siege claw, serves as yet another reminder of his time in the World Eaters’ Breacher squads.

On the battlefield, Damokk implacably dismantles enemy fortifications with a surgical precision not often seen in a World Eater. In fact, Huntmaster Deracin has been known to jest that, if not for the numeral “XII” emblazoned on his ironform, Damokk would probably forget the fact that he is not an Iron Warrior…

I would love to hear any feedback you might have in the comments section! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Welcome to the third part of this mini-series, in which I walk you through the latest additions to my World Eaters army. Today I have another new model to show you — and this time it’s a pretty big addition. So, what is this about?

I already mentioned that I wanted to use the Call of Chaos event in order to force myself to finally finish some models that I had kept on the backburner. And one of those models was a Forgefiend for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. When I went through my cupboard of shame in order to determine which models to include in my vow, it was with a rather guilty feeling that I realised I bought, built and undercoated this model almost two years ago, then let it sit in its box unattended for a long time — what better way to finally revisit the poor dear than to make it a part of my vow for the event, right?

Just to remind you, here’s what the undercoated model looked like:

I realise that the fiend models get quite a bad rap from many hobbyists – they are not referred to as “Dinobots” for nothing – but I think the model is a rather good fit for a World Eaters army! As you can see, I didn’t even perform any heavy surgery on the model, seeing how it was already looking like a bigger juggernaut of Khorne straight out of the box, electing instead to only make some small additions here and there: A couple of decorative skulls were added to the Forgefiend’s shoulders, a suitable collar of Khorne was put around the beast’s neck, and a Stonehorn tail lend a bit more visual balance to the rather stubby hind section.

When it came to painting the model, I jumped in at the deep end, choosing to paint the body and hind legs first. This is what it looked like after most of this step had been finished:

And then everything just …stopped. It just wasn’t happening, for some reason. It was hair-pullingly frustrating, but I just couldn’t go on. So the model stayed that way while I painted first my custom Kharn the Betrayer, then the Doomwall and finally my new Dreadnought. In the end, with the model less than half-finished and less than a week left until the deadline for the Call of Chaos event, I was basically resigned to giving up on my vow.

But then the strangest thing happened: Looking at all the fantastic stuff completed by other participants, I felt the spark of motivation returning: Be it Chaeron’s unbelievable amount of completed models or Augustus b’Raass’ utterly stunning Khornate daemon engine, I just felt I had to give it my all to complete this vow, and so I returned to the painting table — cheers for the help, guys!

The task remained a problematic one, however: I really didn’t like painting the Forgefiend, and I swear it was hating me right back: In true daemon engine fashion, it kept fighting me every step of the way. But since this was so very fitting after all, I decided to actually incorporate the model’s struggle against being painted into the daemon engine’s name:

So here, then, is the daemon engine Gorespite — I like it when a model’s character becomes apparent even during its construction and painting:

Even though painting this model was such a hassle, I am really rather happy with the result: This was a veritable battle of attrition, and finally having managed to complete this piece gives me a feeling of achievement! There are also some areas that I am really rather proud of — especially the glowing areas in the Forgefiend’s torso and the eyes, for instance.

What made this even better was that the completion of this model also marked the completion of my entire Call of Chaos vow, consisting of:

• 1 custom Kharn the Betrayer
• 1 Chaos Lord in Terminator armour with Thunder Hammer and Lightning Claw (Brother Garron the Doomwall)
• 1 Chaos Dreadnought/Helbrute with Multimelta and Power Fist (Brother Damokk the Breacher)
• 1 Forgefiend with twin Hades Autocannons (Gorespite)

With this post, you’ve seen all these models. Here they are again, in a picture showing my entire Call of Chaos vow:

That’s a sweet additional 500 points or so for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt! Yay! :)

This was the first time I ever participated in an event like this, which makes me all the happier to actually have finished my vow! I can also safely say that events like these are a perfect way of putting a certain amount of constructive pressure on yourself for finally getting stuff finished — if not for the event, I might have let that Forgefiend sit in its box for another year or two, after all…

Speaking of which, not only did I whip up yet another photo montage to celebrate the occasion, but I also created a piece of background to accompany the model. Enjoy:

“Engine of Spite”

The freight elevator ground home with a deafening metallic clank, and the blast doors opened to near full darkness. The lumen strips on the high ceiling had been dimmed down so much that the corridor ahead was only barely visible to the human eye. This did not slow down the two figures now stepping from the elevator, however, since neither of them would have qualified as human any longer.

One of them was stooped and rake thin, clothed in the cowled robes of a Forge Adept. The other was massive in the way only those of the legion could be, but its huge frame was more impressive still, clad in a bulky suit of warplate and a harness from which four multijointed servo limbs emerged. The figures continued down the corridor in silence, the metallic pounding of their footsteps the only sound. This deep in the belly of the ship, not even the slow, regular heartbeat of the Great Forge was audible any longer.

“Has everything been prepared?”, the giant asked?
“Yes, lord. The bindings are in place. Every result so far has been within the expected parameters,” came the adept’s reply in a blurt of binary cant.
“How long until planetfall?”
“One hour, lord.”
“That will suffice. Leave me now.”
The adept’s remaining organic eye showed the apprehension he felt, but he knew better than to voice his concern. The spindly figure bowed stiffly and turned around, advancing back the way it had come.

Huntmaster Deracin turned to the blast door now. He drew himself up to his full height and pressed the activator rune. The door slid open, and Deracin entered the room beyond.

The room was vast, but even its dimensions did not offer an explanation for the kind of darkness that had gathered towards the far wall. Deracin could hear the sound now, wet and low, like a huge beast drawing breath.
Deracin stapped into the light and brought the haft of his two-handed war axe down onto the deck with a clank.
“Awaken, servant!”, he called.
The breathing turned louder and became something else. A snarl. A growl. Something more dangerous. Tendrils of warpfrost stretched towards Deracin on every surface.
He could see it now, wrapped in murky shadows, its bulky form a strange amalgamation of beast and machine, straining in vein against the rune inscribed chains. Its blunt snout turned towards him, lips peeled back from wet fangs. The daemon engine’s blue eyes were glowing like ice. Deracin grinned:“Oh, aye, you hate me with every fibre of your being, do you not, creature? With every beat of your furnace heart?”

The growling grew in volume, as if in affirmation of Deracin’s words. And the daemon engine’s straining against its bindings grew more fierce. A mind impulse was enough to move the arms emerging from Deracin’s servo-harness in front of him in protection, bringing into view a melta and the diamond teeth of a massive chainaxe. Deracin nodded as he noticed the creature flinch ever so slightly.

“Good, stand down. I made you, and I can unmake you just the same. And what’s more, this is not a time for anatgonism, creature: After all, I have come to offer you a gift…” Deracin paused, noticing how the growl had turned into a low purr. Then he continued:
“Not your freedom, of course, but something you will appreciate nonetheless.“ Deracin grinned. “I will give you somewhere to vent your anger.”

It was 45 minutes to planetfall.

Let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Oh my, Eternal Hunt has turned three! I think we can actually call this blog settled now, can’t we? ;)

Seriously, though: I am very happy to have managed three years of constant blogging about my various hobby projects, and I am also quite proud of the numbers: There have been 256 posts overall (62 of those in during my third year of blogging). What’s more, this blog has managed to attract about 360,000 views in total — and more than 175,000 of those views during my third year of blogging — just to put things into perspective: That’s only slightly less than the overall number of views on this blog in its first and second years together! All of this is really pretty amazing, given the fact that it’s just little ol’ me and my shoddily painted little plastic men here ;)

I am also really proud of having managed to attract 177 followers and receive visitors from as many as 138 counties! You guys rock, and I want to assure you that every single comment is really important for keeping me on track and for bolstering my (often fleeting) hobby motivation! So please keep reading and please keep participating! You guys are the only proof that I am not just talking to myself here, in my little bubble within the warp!

But I don’t just want to bombard you with numbers today, I would also like to promise you that I will keep updating this blog with my latest conversions, paintjobs and my thoughts about new model releases. There will be quite a bit of red and bronze, seeing how my World Eaters continue to be my most important hobby project:

But there will also be more shadowy figures from the underhive. And blinged-out guys in golden armour (hopefully). And grennskins n football gear, I suppose?!

For now, by way of celebration, allow me to share two things that may not have been intended as birthday gifts for this blog in the first place, but that nevertheless please me very much. And either of these would not have come into existence without my venturing out into the wilds of the internet in order to chronicle my hobby endeavours ;)

I. A portrait of an angry man

First up, I believe I may have mentioned some time ago that I managed to win a small competition run by fellow hobbyist Greyall. For those who don’t know Greyall, he is known for producing extraordinarily detailed and awesome line artwork depicting (Chaos) Space Marines, so it won’t be a big surprise to you that I’ve craved such a piece of artwork showing one of my characters for quite a while.

So imagine my joy when Greyall liked my conversion for Lord Captain Lorimar well enough to render him in his trademark style! Allow me to share the result with you. Just to remind you, here’s my converted (but yet unpainted, alas) model for Lorimar:

And here’s Greyall’s take on the character, showing the Master of the Hunt during a duel with a warp-spawned monstrosity in service to Slaanesh:

Lord Captain Lorimar by Greyall

What can I say? Finally having such an awesome piece of art depicting what may be the most important character from my favourite army project makes me so happy! A huge thank you to Greyall! And definitely make sure to head over to Greyall’s thread at The Bolter & Chainsword or to his DeviantArt page and check out his amazing work! Now the only thing left to do is to find someone to professionally colour this piece for me…

II. A hunter’s story

The second thing I would like to show you today is a bit of a cooperative project: Some time ago, Flint13 (also one of my hobbyists of the year 2014, in case you forgot) approached me with an idea for a fun hobby challenge: Flint wanted to build and paint a character from Khorne’s Eternal Hunt as a bit of a shout out to my army, and I was to compose an accompanying bit of fluff. Knowing that Flint usually doesn’t relish the prospect of doing 40k chaos, I was pretty honoured by this idea, and a short time later, she showed me this picture of the completed model:

Model converted and painted by Flint13

Certainly a worthy addition to Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, wouldn’t you say? But what about this guy’s background? Well, let me share the story I came up with. Enjoy!

Hunters

Flames were already billowing from the ramshackle habs as the Hunter strode into the settlement. He turned his horned helm this way and that, surveying the destruction and slaughter surrounding him. What remained of the poor wretches who had eked out a meagre living here in the freezing wastelands of a backwater world at the fringes of Imperial space spoke of violent, careless slaughter, but there was something more underneath it: A frantic need the Hunter understood but found distasteful.
He paced around the main square of the settlement, his warrior’s mind piecing together the events: the desperate but eventually futile struggle. The bloodletting. And what seemed to be the pursuit of a few settlers that had somehow managed to escape the slaughter. The Hunter examined the tracks leading through the outer parts of the settlement and into the wilderness beyond, already being covered up by the falling snow, here where the heat of the flames was not as intense.

The Hunter cocked his head, listening and sniffing. Again, his head turned this way and that, as he tried to find a trace of his prey. Suddenly, he paused. And if someone had been very close by, they might have noticed a telltale glint of bared teeth behind his helmet’s mouth slit: a feral, hungry thing of a smile. But nobody was there to see. All that remained in the settlement was death. His ancient warplate thrumming, the Hunter set off towards the east. Towards his prey.

***

The thrill of the hunt started to recede, and already Iriralar Nightclaw was feeling a flutter of disappointment. He had spent hours artfully stalking his prey, slowly separating each of the Mon’Keigh’ from the group, then taking them down one by one. If he had just wanted to kill them, it would have been a quick task, but Iriralar had wanted to wring every possible drop of pleasure from this particular hunt, and he had succeeded in that. Nevertheless, with the game so very nearly over, he couldn’t help feeling a nagging sense of regret.
He looked at the poor wretch scrambling away from him now on hands and knees, leaving crimson traces in the snow. Still so desperate to get away. Iriralar almost had to smile in recognition of his prey’s perseverance. Alas, all good things must come to an end.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Iriralar drew his blades, the curved steel only giving the faintest whisper as it slid from its twin sheaths. The Mon’Keigh stared at him in utter horror and despair, but still kept crawling away from him. Iriralar bared sharp, pearly white teeth in a predator’s smile:
“So then, shall we dance?”

When it was over – and it was over far too soon – Iriralar stepped back from what remained of his prey. It was not much, and even that would soon be lost under a blanket of snow. Iriralar slowly breathed in the sweet scent of a dying soul. He would have to return to his raiding party soon.
Going after a pack of Mon’Keigh cattle on his own was an indulgence, surely, but nobody would dare reprimand the Lord Archon’s own son for such behavior. Iriralar smiled to himself…
…and froze.

There was something close by. Iriralar could smell it. Surely, none of his prey could have eluded him? He focused and inhaled. Indeed, it was a Mon’Keigh. But there was something more: The creature’s animal stink was compounded by the acrid tang of a metabolism retuned, a body crudely reshaped into something else…and there was something underneath all of that, something even more sublime… Iriralar smiled to himself. Maybe this hunt was not over after all…

***

The hunt had been going on for hours now, and Iriralar’s earlier exhilaration at the prospect of worthy prey had begun to turn into a nagging sense of irritation. It felt like his quarry was leading him around in circles, but there seemed to be little point in it: He kept his distance, yet always stayed in sight. There was something decidedly off about this situation, and Iriralar craved some kind of resolution

He had at first thought the Mon’Keigh to belong to one of the primitive warrior orders that had pledged themselves to the carrion god. But not this one – just a few short glances at his ancient power armour were proof that the Astartes served one of the lords of the warp: the Blood God. Which made this game of cat and mouse all the more irritating and strange.
Suddenly, the towering form came to a halt, standing at the center of a clearing Iriralar was sure they had passed before.  With a hum of servo motors, the Mon’Keigh turned to face Iriralar.

The towering figure seemed like a heathen idol dreamt up by a madman: The bulky Astartes armour was jagged and baroque, with talismans and trophies dangling from its shoulder pads. Across the Mon’Keigh’s chest was a bandolier of skulls that clacked softly with every move. And though encrusted with hoarfrost, the arterial red and brass of the armour was clearly visible beneath.

Iriralar had learned the Mon’ Keigh language, not out of a fascination with their culture, but for a far more practical reason: He enjoyed being able to understand his prey’s last whimpered words.  He had thus become very familiar with the intricacies of the Mon’Keigh’s blunt and primitive emotions, and it was for this reason that he was able to hear a smile in the Astartes’ voice when he called out to Iriralar: “Time to end this, don’t you think?”
As if to accompany his words, he slowly drew his weapons: a huge axe and an ancient, baroque chainblade. He gunned the chainblade’s trigger, as if to check its function, and the axe’s head flared up in a blue white power field. Iriralar thought he could make out the glint of a smile underneath the warrior’s horned helmet, but before he could be sure, the massive Astartes threw himself at Iriralar with astonishing speed. Iriralar’s blades hissed from their sheats, and the dance was on.

Fast though he might have been, the Mon’Keigh was too slow for Iriralar: It was almost too easy to avoid his swings and sidestep his towering form. At the same time, however, his thick warplate deflected most of Iriralar’s probing slashes, so he would need to wait for an opening, for an exposed joint or a bared throat. But he was patient enough – his earlier irritation had been replaced with a feeling of rapture that made his blood run hot.

On and on, the dance went, the snow underneath slowly turning into a slippery trap. Iriralar noticed the first telltale signs of fatigue in his enemy, the strain of having to keep up with a much faster opponent. His lips peeled back from his white teeth in an amused smile: Time to end this.

The huge Mon’Keigh attacked. Too slow. Always too slow. Iriralar almost laughed out loud as he ghosted out of the way and saw his enemy stumble forward due to his momentum, opening up an opportunity to strike. This was it. Iriralar saw his stumbling enemy as though in slow motion as he jumped forward. He would end the Mon’Keigh beast. So close now. Just a hearbeat until the kill.
The moment his feet touched the ground, there was a sharp, metallic sound. Then pain, unbearable pain. Iriralar’s eyes snapped to the ground, seeing the ugly, serrated metal jaws that had lain hidden underneath the thick blanket of snow. That had closed with a whip crack when he had disturbed the trap, punching through his legs, tearing flesh and breaking bone. With a cry of anguish, Iriralar crumpled to the floor in a graceless slump.
He felt the rush of the combat stims that took the white hot edge off the pain, and he tried to get up, to get away. But the jagged metal teeth would not let go, pinning him to the ground. Over his own panting breath, Iriralar could hear a low chuckle, as the towering form of the Mon’Keigh approached him:

“It is an old trick, I will give you that. But one that does not produce any heat or scanner readings. All it requires is a bit of preparation.”

Iriralar frantically tried to reach his fallen blades, but it was impossible. He could not get away either. The strain made the blood pump from his legs at an alarming rate, and he could feel the spike of pain even through the haze induced by the combat drugs. The Mon’Keigh slowly circled him, seeming amused by the situation. He pointed to the scrimshawed bone trinkets adorning Iriralar’s armour:
“I see you enjoy taking trophies”, he growled, “In that, we are not so different, you and I.”
Irialar spat a gob of bloody phlegm at the Astartes and bared his teeth in a rictus grin: “Do you expect me to be afraid, filthy Mon’Keigh? There is nothing you could possibly do to me that would scare me.”

Once more, Iriralar could hear the smile in the Mon’Keigh’s words: “Ah, but that is where you are wrong. You see, a good hunter learns all there is to learn about his prey, is that not right? And I have had a very long time to learn…”

With that he pulled something from a pouch at his belt and held it out. A glint of metal was visible as the small object fell from his hand, dangling by a fine silver thread. A jewel, it seemed. Iriralar focused on the gem, in spite of the pain, in spite of the danger. It seemed important somehow. He focused and felt his blood run cold:
Dangling from the Astartes’ fist was a spirit stone.

“So, then. Shall we begin?”

***

When it was over, the Hunter stepped away from his prey. He had learned much, more than he had anticipated. It had been a successful hunt.

He opened a vox channel and said but a single word:

“Hokar”
“Acknowledged”, came the Huntmaster’s reply. His spireborn sneer of a voice managed to make a single word sound haughty, even over the temperamental vox. The arrogant high-rider bastard.
“Scouting complete. The Eldar pirates have moved on the main settlements. They do not suspect our presence and should be blind to anything but their current…entertainment.”
“Numbers?”
“Only a raiding party about a hundred strong. It seems they did not expect much resistance. In that, they were wrong.”
“And the Archon?”
“He is with them. He has led us a merry dance, but now the hunt is nearly at an end.”
“Maybe. Did you get visual confirmation?”
“Of course. What do you take me for?”
Hokar did not miss a beat: “What I take you for right now, hunter, is a soldier two hundred clicks off his mark, which I am certain you have a perfectly valid reason for. What, pray tell, have you been doing down there?”
“Tying up some loose ends. But fear not, I am on my way.” Again, anybody near enough to witness this exchange might have seen that telltale glint of teeth that gave away the Hunter’s smile as he terminated the vox link.
And maybe, just maybe, such a person would also have noticed  a small gem now dangling from the Hunter’s belt. A strange touch of beauty on the legionary’s jagged and pitted armour, the stone was now  imbued with a fire that rendered it even more beautiful. But nobody was there to witness this, so it went unnoticed.

The Hunter set out towards the west, where new prey waited.

Flint seemed to be happy enough with this little vignette — in fact, she even changed the model to incorporate an element of the story. Take a close look:

Model converted and painted by Flint13

So thanks to Flint13 for building and painting such a worthy new recruit for the 4th assault company! And for making me get off my arse and write a suitable piece of background!

And, of course, thanks to you all! I am always happy to hear any feedback you might have — just drop me a comment! And stick around for year four, alright? ;)

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Those of us familiar with the Realms of Chaos know that all blood serves Khorne in the end, so it is only fitting that, at the end of the huge maelstrom of bloodshed that is the WFB End Times, there should be the servants of the Blood God. So we get a release in red and brass, adding some substantial new material to the legions of Khorne in WFB and, with a little cutting and gluing, 40k. It should not surprise you that I consider this a pretty good month, and will only be too happy to walk you through this release. Yay!

This is only one way of looking at it, of course: Fans of Tzeentch and Slaanesh are rightly annoyed that Nurgle and Khorne seem to be getting all the love, once again. But with a plastic Greater Daemon forming a substantial part of this release, I think it is safe to say that followers of the other chaos gods are probably not all that far behind. Take heart in that conviction, brothers and sisters in chaos! ;)

Until then, however, let us focus on the hordes of He who hunts at the head of the pack: The release brings us one huge kit, one clamshell character and one multi-kit for rather monstrous infantry. So let’s take a look at each of the kits in turn and talk about their strengths, their shortcomings and, of course, their glorious conversion potential. Grab your axes and step this way, please!

Bloodthirster

To say that this has been a hotly anticipated model would probably be quite an understatement: People have been beggingfor plastic Greater Daemons for a very long time now — so long in fact that it seemed almost guaranteed that GW could never possibly do all the expectations enough justice. And some people even stepped up to fill the void, among them Creature Caster, offering some very impressive alternate Greater Daemons as part of their Kickstarter campaign.

I’ll be honest with you: I was very impressed with CC’s Warrior Demon when I first saw it, and I actually asked myself whether GW would be able to produce a new Bloodthirster to match. Sure, there was the amazing Forgeworld Bloodthirster, but the presence of that model only made the designers’ task yet more difficult. And when I saw the first few fuzzy photos of the new Bloodthirster appearing on the internet, my biggest fears seemed to become reality.

I was wrong, fortunately: Once the official pictures appeared, along with the release of the kit, I really fell in love with the new Bloodthirster. After taking forever to redesign the model – and I don’t even hate the old Bloodthirster, mind you. It’s just that it’s very much a product of its time – GW’s designers have really managed to deliver an amazing new version. And we get three different variants out of the kit, no less! Let’s take a look at each of them in turn:

The Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster, pictured above, does not merely have the most idiotic name of the bunch (seriously, guys: Whatever happened to adjectives?), it’s also my least favourite version by a few degrees. It’s still a pretty stunning model, make no mistake, but it has a couple of elements that don’t sit well with me:

The meteor hammer, for one, seems like a somewhat counter-intuitive weapon choice for a horned, winged daemon, because wielding it effectively might be quite a bit of a task with all those extra appendages in the way, but that in itself would’nt be too much of a problem. What I really don’t like though, is how the head of the hammer seems just about to smash down onto the daemon’s own head:

Sure, the model just serves as a kind of “freeze frame”, but that detail really stuck out to me. There’s also the fact that I think the pillar of flames that comes as an optional part is a pretty tacky and goofy way of elevating the model’s height:

While the bit itself has been beautifully sculpted, there’s something ever so slightly off with the whole concept. And it doesn’t really work all that well on the Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster specifically, because it makes the already slightly awkward pose created by the weapons even stranger, making the whole model seem as though it doesn’t know whether it’s landing or taking flight.

There are really cool things about this specific variant, though: The axe head is a work of art, even though it looks slightly wrong held at that particular angle — more as if the daemon were presenting it to its opponent instead of preparing for some actual chopping action. The HeroQuest and Oldhammer inspired head with its stylised headdress is a wonderful idea, though — what a fantastic shout out to the vintage models! And the armour worn by the Bloodthirster is also wonderfully detailed and very cool. All in all, even the weakest variant of the kit is a massive, threatening and highly dynamic daemon, and certainly a centre piece for any chaos army.

So let’s move on to the next model in line, the Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage:

This guy supposedly works as some kind of hero and character killer, and what better way to go about that task than to be wielding an enormous axe, right? The axe is very much the focal point of the model, and it is a truly awesome piece:

The design of the weapon manages to balance daemonic/organic and metallic elements perfectly, for once, giving us something that looks like an organic chain axe, without being too creepy crawly. I also love how the arms and axe give the model a very striking pose and silhouette — I still don’t like the flame pillar on this model, but it works much, much better with this weapon setup!

The partly bestial face may be my least favourite part about the model:

It’s not even bad, mind you: It just seems like the designers could not decide whether they wanted this guy to look like a daemon, a dog or a troll. Even so, the detailing is top notch, and the icon of Khorne dangling from the head’s chin as some kind of piercing is a very cool touch.

And finally, the third variant of the kit: The Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury:

This guy is described as the weakest kind of Bloodthirster in the background, but you know what: He is by far my favourite of the bunch! Maybe it’s the fact that he hews so closely to the original, iconic Bloodthirster design? He also happens to be a pretty good representation (at long last) of one of my favourite pieces of artwork by Mark Gibbons:

Artwork by Mark Gibbons

For me, the Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury is just a perfect representation of what I want a Bloodthirster to look like: I love the iconic combo of axe and whip, for one. And this particular axe head works better than the more ornate one used on the Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster, if you ask me: Due to its asymmetrical, more workmanlike design, it actually looks as though the Bloodthirster is preparing for an attack with it.

But the face really has to be my favourite part of the model: It’s just perfect, a brilliant mix of bestial, skeletal and human. The quintessential demonic face, if you ask me:

The fact that the ‘Eavy Metal paintjob on this guy is pretty much perfect helps, of course. This version of the Bloodthirster is really close to Tolkien’s seminal Balrog as well — and I’ve always imagined Bloodthirsters as the Warhammer version of Balrogs, anyway ;)

I also like the highly detailed whip, both for its iconic quality and for the depth it adds to the model (even if sorting out the whip arm is a bit of a pain, as I can say from painful experience). Maybe my one small gripe with the model is the chaos star used as a tip for the whip, though:

It looks really awesome, but it may just be a tad much. Plus it actually changes the whip into more of a flail, doesn’t it? Anyway, adding that chaos star may have been overdoing it a bit ;)

Oh, and the model also serves as proof that the Bloodthirster’s running legs work really well without that stupid flame pillar: In fact, the model seems to be more aggressive and have a greater sense of agency without it, if you ask me.

When all is said and done, I think you should just choose your favourite visual elements from across all three variants of the kit and then happily mix and match. If anything, I actually dislike the fact that GW chose to create different rules for the different Bloodthirsters: In my opinion, the different weapons, heads and pieces of armour should have been a visual choice, above all else. But that’s just me.

In any case, there are some strengths and weaknesses shared by all three versions of the Bloodthirster:

First up, the amount of detail on this guy has to be seen to be believed. Every part of the model is beautifully and lavishly detailed: Seriously, just take a look at that armour:

You even get several optional parts and variants to mix and match, which is amazing (on a related note, those breastplates would look great on a Chaos Knight, and they are just about the right size to replace a standard Imperial Knight breastplate too — just sayin’…).

What may be even cooler, though, is that the skin beneath the armour is fully detailed as well, allowing you to build your own Bloodthirster as armoured or naked as you like!

Another thing I have ended up liking quite a bit is the model’s size: Sure, the avatar of bloodshed and war could always have been bigger, but at least it seems like the designers put quite a bit of thought into this particular choice. As a consequence, the model works really well from a scale perspective when compared with some other models: The Nemesis Dreadknight, for instance, was created to go toe to toe with Greater Daemons. The new Bloodthirster finally looks like it would make a worthy opponent for the machine! The Bloodthirster also looks perfect when placed next to a bog standard plastic Daemon Prince (or the more impressive FW Daemon Prince of Khorne). And while the model is noticeably smaller than an Imperial Knight, it still looks like it could give one of these quite a headache, thanks to the bulk added by the wings.

As for things that I didn’t like, I have already touched upon that (optional, thankfully) flame pillar, but there’s more: The wings take some getting used to. For quite a while there, I just kept referring to them as “mac & cheese wings” when talking about the model, due to the somewhat gooey looking texture. That was something that I grew used to over time, but one problem remains: Who ever thought the addition of chaos stars and icons of Khorne to the model’s wings would be a good idea?

Seriously, this is just overdoing it a bit for the sake of coolness, isn’t it? The best way to deal with this particular detail would be to just paint it to look as inconspicuously as possible, if you ask me, in order to make it look like these were brands of some kind.

All in all, however, I’ll have to call this model a triumph! I wasn’t sure whether GW would be able to produce a Bloodthirster that could live up to the fans’ expectations, but this kit just delivers. Small gripes aside, I would call this a landmark release, and if this model is serves as the standard for the new plastic Greater Daemons, then chaos players will have a lot to look forward to!

Oh, by the way, allow me to share one small anecdote: When talking to Jeff Vader about the model, Jeff complained that the Bloodthirster even had horns and spikes on his arse — and he was right, too:

Jeff pointed out that no Bloodthirster would ever be able to sit down because of this — and I was just about to agree with him that this seemed pretty stupid. But then the fridge brilliance kicked in: If there is one daemon in the warp whom his patron would never ever want to merely be sitting around, it would be this guy, right? So maybe those spikes are not such a bad design idea, after all…

Skarr Bloodwrath

We have grown accustomed to each (End Times) release providing us with at least one new clamshell character, and this time is no exception. Giving us something more interesting than just another towering, fully armoured chaos warrior, though, was a very good call! In fact, Skarr Bloodwrath reminds me of Haargroth the Blooded One, a converted champion of Khorne from the 6th edition WFB WoC army book (and subsequent Storm of Chaos campaign).

The model itself is looking excellent, with its twisted and mutated body perfectly straddling the line between a mighty warlord of chaos and a daemon of Khorne. Let’s just address the elephant in the room, though: Removing those stupid chain flails should be the first order of the day! Seriously, they just don’t work. Even the description of how Skarr uses them in GW’s own materials doesn’t work. Imagining these weapons in motion actually makes my head hurt. They also completely ruin the model’s silhouette and composition. It’s really hard to understand why someone would have considered this element a good idea. Off with them, I say!

Beyond this very obvious gripe, the weapons themselves are rather stunning:

The model’s armour is also very cool, with lots and lots of detail, and a pretty cool and rather original horned helmet to match. What’s more, we even get a bare headed option for Skarr:

Granted, the bare head does seem a bit …challenged, for lack of a better word, but maybe that’s just the unhealthy red skin tone? In any case, it’s great to have the additional option — maybe this would make a pretty sweet plastic Abaddon head, come to think of it?

There’s one more thing beyond the chain flails that I don’t like: If you take a closer look at the way Skarr’s legs interact with the base, you will see that his reverse-jointed daemon legs are posed on a bit of rock:

So far, so good, right? They even added some skulls to the base of the rock. Good job! My only problem with the whole arrangement stems from the fact that this seems to be the only rock of that size in the immediate vincinity. So Skarr seems to have carefully picked a suitable rock in order to perform his little charging forward pose, doesn’t he?

Seriously, though: This would be easy enough to solve with some additional rocks on the base, but it does look a bit strange on the stock model, if seen from the right angle.

A glance at the sprue reveals that…we actually get two sprues this time around. This might actually be a first!

Beyond that particular novelty, the model should be easy enough to convert. You can even leave the chains off from the start — what a relief! And it looks like you could possibly replace the legs with something less mutated (or more 40k).

All in all, a very cool and original Khornate warlord with some pretty minor shortcomings.

Skullreapers/Wrathmongers

Okay, these guys are an interesting case. And also a fairly divisive kit, as evidenced by the rather mixed reactions all over the blogosphere. Let’s take a look, shall we?

In many ways, these can be seen as a Khornate version of the brilliant Putrid Blightkings — and those guys are certainly a tough act to follow. What both kits have in common is that they provide us with massive warriors of chaos pledged to a particular god. The Blightkings’ approach seems to have been to work as a “best of collection” of everything that has ever been cool about a Nurglite model. And on the face of it, the Skullreapers/Wrathmongers seem to be going for a similar attempt.

So we get huge weapons, lots and lots of skulls, horned heads, helmets with bunny ears and yet more skulls, an unbelievable amount of Khorne runes and some mutations resembling Khornate daemons and/or daemonic hounds. And two ways of assembling the kit, no less. Sounds great, right?

Yes, well… Let’s just say that not everything works out quite that well. But all in good order. First up, let’s take a look at the Skullreaper variant of the kit:

Let’s point out the good things first: These guys are pretty massive, very threatening and do look pretty Khornate, too! So far so good! The bare arms are a nice shout out to the look of Kharn the Betrayer, and combined with their size, this should make them stand out from regular warriors of chaos. The amount of detail on the models is also rather stunning.

But it seems if the designers weren’t quite content with that alone and just kept adding stuff until they finally snapped and lost their minds. And that’s when those mutated weapons happened. I mean, just look at them:

The weapons are certainly one of the divisive elements of the kit: In addition to the extremely organic and mutated swords and axes shown in most of the offical photos, there’s also a slightly less OTT set of weapons included in the kit — but even those are extremely ostentatious and decorated to the point of ridiculousness. They are almost too ornate to be considered Khornate, but they might still work if used sparingly. But using two of these on each character in a unit? Definitely overkill!

There’s also the fact that the organic weapons remind me of nothing so much as the demon blade SoulEdge, from the Soul Calibur series of video games:

And that’s not where the parallels end, either. I mean, just take a look at the Skullreaper with the pincer claw in the picture below:

That guy is about one helmet and a bucket of blue paint away of looking exactly like Nightmare, from the same series:

Sorry, but this cannot have been a coincidence. Recent WFB model releases have occasionally been slightly videogamey in their aesthetics, but this is certainly a new milestone when it comes to that particular development!

All in all, it just seems…a bit much. As if some of those ideas should better have been left on the cutting room floor. Each of the visual elements could probably have worked on its own. But the bare arms, hooligan heads, mutations, organic or highly ostentatious weapons and super-spiky armour just seem like overkill if appearing on each of the five models. Where the Putrid Blightkings work as a collection of awesome, Nurglite elements while also looking fairly cohesive as a unit, the Skullreapers just seem a bit over the top. Like the designers were possessed by their 12-year-old younger selves. Which leaves us with a kit that provides some absolutely amazing conversion fodder, but will also produce some fairly …eclectic models if assembled as intended.

But wait, there’s also a second variant to build the kit: The Wrathmongers.

If you can get behind the idea of followers of Khorne swinging around huge hammers, these guys are actually slightly less silly than the Skullreapers. At the very least, they do seem a little more balanced and less cluttered.

There are some pretty brilliant touches, too: Those helmets may just be some of the very best Khornate helmets currently available! And I just love the idea of the champion’s torso being studded and quasi-metallic, like the body of a juggernaut!

Yet there’s also a bit off silliness here and there: Some of the hammer poses do seem a little too stylised for their own good (the unit champion is a prime example). And let’s not get into that three-armed Wrathmonger: He’s just silly, really. Although maybe I just dislike guys with three arms?

All in all, this kit is extremely interesting, because it combines some of the best Khornate bitz released in the last decade or so with some of the worst clichés I’ve ever seen on a wargaming model. The resulting models seem a tad…uneven, to say the least: They make you want to facepalm and pump your fist in excitement at the same time — which is a pretty rare feeling…

On its own, this kit is a bit of a mixed bag: Almost great, but with some dubios design decisions and questionable visual influences. If seen as a conversion kit, however, this becomes and almost compulsory purchase. Seriously, use this as a conversion kit and a toolbox to customise your warriors of chaos, chaos lords or 40k berzerkers, and this should become one of the best purchases you’ve ever made. Use the kit as intended, and you may just end up with a unit that you hate. I’ve never seen anything quite like it (with the possible exception of the warhsrine of chaos kit): The mind boggles…

Conversion ideas:

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that I have been thinking about possible conversions involving these new kits for quite a while now. In fact, I think that converters with a Khornate army of any kind will probably be the most happy with this release — and with good reason! So allow me to share a couple of ideas with you:

Bloodthirster:

This guy might be quite a bit more interesting for converters than seems obvious at first glance. The first thing that really warrants some exploration is the amount of customisation options, giving you the chance to build your very own, personalised Bloodthirster:

First up, you can happily mix and match between the three different kinds of Bloodthirster, combining different configurations of heads, armour plates, horns and weapons. And while the kit is constructed in a fairly straightforward way, there may be yet more options for possible customisation: What about using the lower part of the two-handed axe’s handle (or the hand holding the whip) as a base to convert a second hand axe, building a ‘Thirster equipped with twin axes (Skarbrand, anyone?). And while we are at it, it should definitely possible to use the Bloodthirster as a base for a Daemon Primarch Angron conversion. In any case, when it comes to customising the Bloodthirster, you should really head over to Noctus Cornix’ thread over at The Bolter & Chainsword: He is currently working on an amazing Bloodthirster conversion and is really putting the kit through its paces. Highly recommended!

But there’s more: Whatever configuration you choose, there will be a pretty tidy pile of leftover bitz to use on different conversions: What about using the two-handed axe on a World Eaters Contemptor (as Augustus b’Raass is currently planning to do)? Or using the head of the big axe as an alternate weapon for a Chaos Knight conversion? And speaking of Chaos Knights: Those Bloodthirster brestplates and the skull pauldron would definitely work as armour plates (and, in the latter case, an additional facemask) on an Imperial Knight!

It would also be really easy to cut apart that meteor hammer and use its head as a weapon on a Khornate Dreadnought/Helbrute, while the chain would look great on pretty  much any chaos vehicle (or bigger model).

Wrathmongers/Skullreapers:

While these may be a bit of an acquired taste if seen on their own, I will go out on a limb here and claim that these guys will become a highly popular conversion kit when it comes to spicing up Warriors of Chaos, Chaos Space Marines and Chaos lords of every stripe. Just off the top of my head, you could use the kit in order to…

• convert champions for your warriors of chaos or Chaos Space Marines — it goes without saying that the Skullreaper bitz will look excellent on World Eaters champions, Lords and Chosen.
• they are also big and intimidating enough to work perfectly as stand alone Chaos Lords in both WFB and 40k
• some of them would make a great base for custom Kharn the Betrayer conversions…
• …or for actual true scale World Eaters: They may seem slightly too small for that at first, but these guys are easily as tall as Terminators! And they will look great when combined with parts from the Dark Vengeance Chosen — trust me on this ;)
• the running, mutated legs could form the base for a very interesting plastic Skulltaker conversion for those of you who would like a slightly more massive, muscular Herald of Khorne. Skarr Bloodwrath would also work wonderfully for this!
• If I didn’t already have a squad of gladiatorial World Eaters, I’be be building one now — based on these guys!
• And finally, the models could be combined with the Skullcrusher kit to either make more ostentatious Skullcrushers or slightly less OTT Skullreapers: The two kits should work really well together, giving you the option to make massive, Khornate warriors that are as detailed or as simple in their design, armour and weapons as you want. And it goes without saying that just a few additional touches will transform the models in question into suitable 40k characters as well.

There’s nothing stopping you from using these for other chaos gods, either: While they may seem utterly Khornate at first, just leave off some of the icons and more Khornate bitz, and they could just as well work as huge, hulking champions of Slaanesh of Chaos Undivided. Oh, and even the INQ28 crowd may find something to like here: All those fleshy, organic weapons would work really well as daemon weapons for particularly radical Inquisitors (or downright heretics). The head that has been partly flayed would be great for a death cultist, a chrono-gladiator or a similarly unsavoury type. And the mutated, dog-like head might make a cool xenos mercenary.

All of this is really just the tip of the iceberg, and I should add, in the interest of full disclosure, that I already own two kits from this release (the Bloodthirster and Skullreapers/Wrathmongers), so you may look forward to reading some in-depth observations about both kits and my first conversion projects involving them on this blog in the very near future!

When all is said and done, how could I not call this a strong release? I am heavily biased, after all. Even so, I think the Bloodthirster alone is very exciting, while the other two kits may indeed be a bit of an acquired taste. For converters and kitbashers and for owners of chaos armies, however, this release contains an enormous pile of new toys and conversion options — it’s just a shame that some of the models, especially the Skullreapers, are a bit problematic in their standard configuration. I am also not actually sure whether the general development towards a more videogamey look for certain characters will really pay off in the long run: Will the World of Warcraft crowd really start liking Warhammer if the designs are just zany enough? Those seem like long odds. We shall see.

I, however, am pretty happy with this release and shall keep tormenting you with projects and conversions stemming from it for quite a while to come. But what’s your take on the new kits? Are you happy? Are you disgusted? Or would you like to share some additional conversion ideas that I might have missed? I’d be happy to hear from you in the comments!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

In my last post, I promised you an account of my first practical experiences with the new Bloodthirster and Skullreaper/Wrathmonger kits, and today’s post will deal with just this subject. So you may look forward to quite a bit of kitbashing. Huzzah! ;)

But all in good order: Before we do anything else, there’s something that I absolutely need to share with you guys. It would probably be far more modest and professional not to talk about it at all, but I am just too much of a blabbermouth — sorry! ;)

So yeah, here’s what happened over at Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s blog a while ago:

I was chuffed to bits, as you can probably imagine! Unbelievable! I just couldn’t stop grinning afterwards!

But enough about my ego: I promised you Khornate WIPs, and you shall have them. So allow me to show you what’s been happily bubbling away in the depths of my kitbashing laboratory for the last days and weeks. One last warning, though: Beware ye, who enter here: There be lots of unpainted grey plastic ahead!

I. Bloodthirster

I bought my own Bloodthirster on the day of the release, although I hadn’t even planned to: I just couldn’t resist when seeing the box at my FLGS, and seeing how there was still one of the kits available for purchase, I jumped right in. So far, building this model has been a lot of fun, since it continues the trend of well-planned huge kits begun with the Imperial Knight. But let’s take a look at some pictures, shall we?

This is my Bloodthirster after an hour or so. Now I did take it fairly slow, even though it may not look like it: Like I said, it’s a wonderfully engineered kit, and it went together extremely well, for the most part.

For those of of wondering about the size of the model, here he is, next to a standard Space Marine:

The Bloodthirster could always have been bigger, of course, but I am rather happy with the model’s size and bulk. There’s also a very handy scale conversion pic here, for those of you who want to know how the model measures up next to the other Bloodthirster models released so far.

One interesting thing is that nobody forces you to build your Bloodthirster all armoured up: Here’s what he looks like with all the armour plates removed:

In fact, Noctus Cornix’ Bloodthirster conversion (which I already recommended you check out in my last post) goes for a mostly unarmoured look, and it works like a charm!

The only armour you will positively need is that belly plate, since he’ll have a pretty big hole in his torso, otherwise.

Oh, and I know you all want to know about the size of that axe, so here’s another scale comparison for you:

Pretty big, huh? I added some measurements, for those of you who are planning a conversion involving the axe:

So, what’s in the kit beyond that? First and foremost, you’ll get the option to build either of the three advertised variants, of course. You also get to mix and match between them to a certain degree. I suppose it should even be possible to create new weapons setups (twin axes, for example) with a bit of cutting and gluing. Now when it comes to extra bitz, here’s a a quick overwiev of my observations so far:

• You get an additional set of arms (for the two handed axe) plus an additional left arm, depending on whether you go with the whip or that – very ridiculous – meteor hammer.
• There’s an alternate breastplate, loincloth and belly plate. You can mix and match between different setups with these.
• You get three complete heads (except for a tongue bit that is shared between two of the designs). The leftover heads are slightly larger than those in the plastic Daemon Prince kit, so they might even be usable on your DP conversions.
• There’s a bunch of chains and talismans of Khorne that you can use on the wings or be used on different models
• you get two axe heads for the one-handed axe.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the bitz:

I. The optional skull shoulder pad is interesting in that it would possibly work as a facemask on a daemon engine or *gasp* even an Imperial Knight conversion (it works fairly well on an Imperial Knight head — I checked ;) ).

II. If – like me – you think that flame pillar is a stupid way to elevate the model on the base, you’ll get it as a leftover bit that might make a cool objective marker or something similar…

III. Here’s the alternate armour set you get: Those belly plates work pretty well as bespoke pauldrons for Chaos Terminators. And the breastplate could be used for an Imperial Knight, with a tiny bit of bending.

IV. The chains and talismans for the wings — I think I’ll rather be using these on a couple of different models, as the Bloodthirster seems cluttered enough for my taste ;)

In closing, let me point out two more interesting bitz:

First up, the chaos icon used on the Bloodthirster’s whip:

I think this would make for an excellent squad standard or a back-banner. I also decided not to use it on my Bloodthirster, because I preferred a whip without a bulky object on its end, but the part is still very cool on its own. More on this in a minute!

There’s also the Rogue Trader-era styled bone crown:

As you can see, it comes as a separate bit, so you could also use it on your DPs, juggernauts or even on a Terminator lord (it almost looks like the top of a Terminator torso front anway…).

So, what about my own Bloodthirster, then?

The model is still in its building stage, and I have settled on the axe/whip combo now, because it’s just so brilliantly iconic that I couldn’t resist it. Here’s what the model currently looks like:

I’ve glued the model to the fantasy base for now, so I can have it upright. A couple of observations:

• As you can see, this guy is fairly massive, even without his wings. I really like that!
• After much deliberation, I chose the asymmetrical axe head: While the other axe is beautifully designed, it just looks slightly wrong to me, held at that particular angle — more like the ‘Thirster is presenting it to the audience. The asymmetrical version doesn’t have that problem, at least not to the same degree, and looks like he is actually preparing for a swing, so it was definitely the way to go for me.
• You wouldn’t believe how much messing around it took to sort out that whip arm — the instructions are slightly ambiguous, with pictures that aren’t all that helpful, so getting the whip into a position where it both cleared the floor and didn’t interfere with the head did take some doing. In all fairness, however, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem if you use something to elevate the model a bit on its base. As you can see, I also left off the chaos star, shaving down the whip so it tapers down into a pointy end instead — this seems more natural and plausible to me, plus I got to keep that burning chaos star for something else ;)

Most of the assembly work has been completed at this point: Only the wings remain, and they seem like a fairly straightforward affair. All in all, the model really went together very well for such a huge piece, with well-planned seams making the model look organic and natural — well, as natural as a daemonic killing machine the size of a house could ever realistically look, at least…

That’s not all though: At the same time, I have also been using some leftover bitz on some other projects:

Since I knew I wasn’t going to use the meteor hammer weapon, no matter what, I used the chain from it to add a final, gladiatorial dash to one of my Daemon Princes:

Some leftover icons of Khorne (and two runes from the vambrace of a leftover Bloodthirster arm) were used to add some extra oomph to his armour and make him look more Khornate. The main attraction is his weapon, though: Both hookswords are now joined by a length of daemonic chain, courtesy of the Bloodthirster’s meteor hammer:

I think this pushes the gladiatorial look even further, which I really like! And while we are at it, here’s a scale comparison picture with the WIP Bloodthirster and the Daemon Prince:

I also promised you that I would be using that flaming chaos star for a conversion, right? Well, I did:

As you can see, it makes for a teriffic Crozius Maul for my Word Bearers Dark Apostle, Belzas Azalon (I also touched up the right shoulder pad, while I was at it).

So in addition to the Bloodthirster itself, the kit has already provided me with a way to make two models considerably cooler — very nice! ;)

II: Skullreapers/Wrathmongers

I have also started experimenting with the Wrathmonger/Skullreaper kit.

First up, take a look at this scale comparison between a (slightly modified) Chosen model and a Wrathmonger:

While the Wrathmonger may be slightly taller, the scale is still pretty similar — so similar, in fact, that parts from the Chosen will fit the new models without much of a hitch. It’s also important to stress that the guy on the right doesn’t even qualify as an early WIP — I just tacked together some bitz, in order to show you the scale.

I also find it interesting that some of the – almost comically brutish – Skullreaper heads work much better when used on “regular” CSM models. Take a look:

Much better, don’t you think? I’ve merely shaved off those stupid “cheek horns”, but now the head makes for a very fitting World Eaters berzerker!

Oh, and one thing that really excites me is that you basically get twice as many torso pieces as you need: One set for the Skullreapers and one for the Wrathmongers. And each of those pieces has its own breastplate, which can be used as intended or cut apart to use on your other WoC/CSM models — all in all, this kit provides an enormous pile of leftover bitz for conversions, which makes it a pretty good purchase, if you are not totally disgusted by the look of these guys.

I also decided to follow my idea above, playing around with a combination of Skullreaper/Wrathmonger parts and Dark Vengeance Chosen. Let’s start with something boring: The same Wrathmonger pictured above, now with a tacked on Chosen arm:

Everything’s just tacked together for now, in order to show you how well those Chosen arms work with the models.

And here’s something more involved: A mix of Wrathmonger/Skullreaper and Chosen parts:

Once again, all the parts have only been tacked together with modeling putty for now, but there’s something suitably gladiatorial and feral about this guy that I like. I also think the model serves as proof that those leftover Wrathmonger chests can really be put to good use!

One important thing, though: Once again, the stock Wrathmongers/Skullreapers are a bit taller than the DV Chosen:

So the best approach would probably be to save the Wrathmongers/Skullreapers for unit champs, Chaos Lords etc. Or you could choose an approach similar to that of Wonkobaggins and use the Skullreapers as counts as chaos spawn and/or Red Butchers. Check out his first experiments with the kit here.

One last thing I did was to play around with the reverse-jointed set of legs for a while: I think it would make for an excellent start for building a plastic Herald of Khorne — or even a counts as Skulltaker! After a bit of messing around, here’s what I ended up with:

All in all, this has been a surprisingly easy conversion: Most of the model is simply a stock Skullreaper, with the arms and head replaced with Bloodletter (and Bloodcrusher) bits. The body already has the characteristic, pocked skin, so it looks like it belongs to a Bloodletter anyway. And the armour is jagged and organic enough to pass for daemonic, don’t you think? One thing I did was to graft on a Bloodletter neck, so I would have a more natural way of attaching the head.

I am still thinking about adding a cape like the one the original Skulltaker has: On the one hand, it seems like a fun challenge (and I do have an idea that might work), but on the other hand, I am really happy with the dynamic posing and striking silhouette the model has right now, and I fear an added cape would just overclutter the model…

And finally, in an act of nearly unprecedented heresy, at least for my own standards, I used some of the hip plates from the Skullreapers’ armour in order to make the armour of a true scaled Slaaneshi Marine I built at an earlier point look more, well, Slaaneshi:

So far for my first round of experiments with the Skullreaper/Wrathmonger kit. In any case, I’d like to point out that I am really going to take my time with these guys, so it will probably be a good long while before I complete all five models. Even so, I’ll be using some of the additional bitz from the kit for all kinds of projects, so you’ll be seeing a lot of stuff from this kit making an appearance in Khorne’s Eternal Hunt! ;)

III. Generosity

In a move of nearly unbelievable generosity, Commissar Molotov recently sent me a huge pile of stuff, including a lot of leftover Dark Vengeance Chosen and Chosen parts. It’s his generosity that has made my experiments above possible, for which I am very thankful. But that’s not even all: Mol provided an amazing bitz drop with lots and lots of fantastic contents. For instance, he sent me this wonderful Kharn conversion: Malthus Dire, a champion of Khorne:

Model converted by Commissar Molotov

Mol informed me that this conversion is actually about ten years old! Which goes to show that good, clean conversion work never goes out of style. It also goes without saying that I’ll make sure to paint him up to the best of my abilities, in Mol’s honour!

I have also used yet another Chosen from the batch he sent me for a different conversion: Taking inspiration from DexterKong’s brilliant World Eaters counts as Huron Blackheart, I have created my own version of the character for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. Now my version is certainly somewhat less impressive than Dexter’s, and it’s not a true scale model either, seeing how it needs to be scaled correctly to fit the rest of my army, but I am nevertheless very happy with it. Take a look:

As you can see, most of stock Huron’s characteristic elements are there — I even got a bit of a kick out of having the model in a pose similar to that of the stock model, albeit more dynamic. Oh, and let me just add that the axe was inspired by a similar (albeit much more elegant) weapon conversion done by Biohazard!

One thing I really like is how carefully shaving off the original head allowed me to keep some of the cabling from the stock head and make it look like they are feeding into the bionic side of the head:

The model’s pretty much finished at this point — although I am still considering whether or not to add some longer claws to the left fist…

So, as you can see, the great forges of the Blood God are running hot right now! I’d be happy to hear any feedback you might have about these models! Just drop me a comment and feel free to share suggestions or ideas of your own! And expect more Khornate madness soon ;)

Until then, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

“Your Emperor is no god. He is a lost soul, forever trapped within an oubliette of his own decaying flesh. If there is any justice in this world or the next, he must be howling for release somewhere in there. When one of us comes for his shriveled skull, on that last day, it will be a mercy.”

Lord Captain Lorimar of the World Eaters’ 4th assault company

Welcome to this week’s update and to the conclusion of what we may certainly call a long-time project. To make a long story short, today’s post will deal with the finished model for Lord Captain Lorimar, the supreme commander of my World Eaters force, Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. I have literaly spent years on perfecting a model for this character, and I am really happy to finally be able to present the finished piece to you! But all in good order…

I have written – at length – about how hard it was to create a model that was a fitting representation for Lorimar, but in the end, I came up with a suitable conversion. This one:

I am not going to regurgitate the whole story of the model’s inception here (just check out the post linked above to learn the whole story), so suffice it to say that the model was mainly the consequence of three main pieces of inspiration:

image appears courtesy of Games Workshop

This first piece shouldn’t surprise you: After all, the finished model on its base clearly resembles the art. This particular illustration came from Fantasy Flight Games’ Dark Heresy, and pretty much perfectly embodies what a Chaos Lord should look like, if you ask me.

At the same time, I also wanted Lorimar to look somewhat more noble and composed than the guy above. The inspiration for that aspect of his character came from this piece of art:

Still very much a Chaos Lord, but one who is somewhat more regal and brooding, a look I really tried to achieve on my own model as well.

And finally, there was also an inspiration in actual model form: Wade Pryce’s absolutely gorgeous Lord Lucid Furien Kain:

Model built and painted by Wade Pryce

Wade’s World Eaters army may just be the best World Eaters army in existence, and his Chaos Lord is possibly the greatest piece of all — what better role model to emulate, I ask you?

So my own model for Lord Captain Lorimar clearly tried to incorporate elements from all three sources and combine them into something I was tremendously happy with — however, the next complicated part was to actually work up the courage to paint the model!

All in all, it took me no less than three years, and it was a hobby event over at The Bolter and Chainsword that finally provided the incentive I needed: Fellow hobbyist and all around great guy Augustus b’Raass kicked off his very own event – Augustus’ Arena – and my Brother-Slaughterer Biohazard and I took this occasion to challenge each other to finally complete our respective Chaos Lords.

A short while later, Biohazard had already completed his gorgeous model for Lork Malek Deimos, master of the World Eaters’ 18th company:

model built and painted by Biohazard

Brilliant, don’t you think? There’s a reason Biohazard’s army is yet another one of my favourite World Eaters forces, after all (make sure to check out his army at your earliest possible convenience! Seriously!) ;) But this also meant there was no weaseling out of this challenge: I was bound by honour to finally paint Lorimar, come what may.

So I cleaned the model and prepared it for undercoating — and, as it happens, I also made a fairly substantial last minute change, because I found out that the model looked even more imposing with a different cape: the massive wolf pelt that comes with the Space Wolves Terminators:

I had really only tried the cape for the heck of it, but I really liked the outcome! So I removed the ill-fitting wolf head, made a few small changes to the cape to make sure it fit the model’s body and also found out by sheer coincidence that the whole piece worked much better when turned around by 180 degrees on its base. So here was the finished model, right before undercoating:

Oh, and don’t worry: The original cape will still be used on the eventual, inevitable mounted version of Lorimar — scout’s honour! ;)

By this time, the deadline I had set for myself was already fast approaching, so I broke out the paints and gave it my all. And after a couple of days, the model I hadn’t dared to paint for three years finally stood before me in full colour. So without further ado, I give you Lord Captain Baltus Lorimar, commander of the World Eaters’ 4th assault company and Master of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt:

It feels strange to finally have finished Lorimar: On the one hand, I could probably name a thousand things that I could have done better. But on the other hand, I am extremely happy with the model — and really proud of finally having finished this particular project. I also think that Lorimar is a very worthy commander for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, and a definite centre piece for my army. He remains intimidating, even when placed into the midst of his personal retinue, Lorimar’s Fist:

I think I have mentioned before how I wanted each of these models to be unique, and I think I have suceeded with that, wouldn’t you agree?

A very heartfelt thank you to Biohazard, without whom Lorimar would probably have remained unpainted for another couple of years. In fact, seeing how this project has basically been a collaboration between the two of us, I even whipped up a small image to commemorate the occasion:

But wait, there’s more! Because with today’s update, you actually get two models for the price of one, so to speak!

In addition to my 40k version of Lorimar, I have also been sitting on a 30k version of the same character for a good long while: Some of you may remember when I picked up some models from my fellow German hobbyist AgnostosTheos a while ago. The two of us had been engaging in a little project where AT was going to build 30k versions for some of my World Eaters. But then he sold off his army, unfortunately, and left me with no other choice than to pick up some of the pieces. Among those pieces was a converted Terminator model that I thought would be a rather nice fit for a 30k version of Lorimar:

Model built and painted by AgnostosTheos

As you can see, the model was already basically finished, save for the hands and weapons — so it was really easy to choose fitting weapons to make the character resemble his 40k incarnation. I also built a base for the model (and, again, made it subtly similiar to the 40k version). And here’s the result: Captain Baltus Lorimar circa M32:

Again, just to be perfectly clear: I can merely claim responsibility for the hands, weapons and base. The rest of the model was beautifully painted by AgnostosTheos! Oh, and I did add a chain decal to Lorimar’s right vambrace:

This is a sign of him having won his captaincy in the fighting pits by slaying his commanding officer — a rather important part of his backstory!

I am also rather happy with the arid ground on the model’s base, created by a generous helping of Agrellan Earth:

And here’s a comparison shot with both the Pre- and Post Heresy versions of the character:

I am really happy with those two guys, to be honest ;)

And finally, after having met so many of Lorimar’s subordinates and after having seen the man himself, all that remains is to take a closer look at his personal background:

Lord Captain Baltus Lorimar, commander of the World Eaters’ 4th assault company and Master of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt:

Baltus Lorimar has been the 4th assault company’s commander ever since the days of the Great Crusade. A divisive figure among the officers of his sundered legion due to his actions at the battle of Skalathrax, Lorimar has nevertheless managed to stay in command of one of the biggest World Eaters warbands, and one of the few still managing to maintain some kind of discipline and order.

Born on the blasted plains of Europa in the aftermath of the Unification Wars, Lorimar was indentured into the growing Legiones Astartes as part of the tithe the Terran clans had to pay to the Emperor who had defeated them. He became a legionary of the XII Legion, quickly rising to the position of a line officer during the Great Crusade. When the legion was reunited with its Primarch, Lorimar had been stripped of his command and incarcerated by Valna, Captain of the War Hounds’ 4th assault company, because he had refused an Imperial noble’s order to execute a squad of abhuman auxiliarii after a battle. Once the Primarch came across Lorimar during his inspection of the legion flagship, he freed him and offered him another chance to prove himself. This act made Lorimar fiercely loyal to Angron, and he would continue to follow the Primarch unquestioningly, even as his fellow legionaries grew more and more wary of the Red Angel. Lorimar later won his captaincy in the fighting pits, killing his former captain Valna and taking command of the 4th.

During the latter days of the Great Crusade, the 4th fought in the Eastern Fringe at the side of the Word Bearer’s Piercing Gaze Chapter. Lest the 4th evade the corrupting influence of the ruinous powers, First Chaplain Erebus of the XVIIth tasked the Chaplain of the Piercing Gaze Chapter, Belzas Azalon, with introducing warrior lodges and the covert worship of the Primordial Truth to the 4th assault company. Azalon brought Lorimar into contact with the Cult of Cron, a warrior cult the young captain eagerly adopted in order to provide his company with an identity and a code of martial honour.

Once the 4th was reunited with the rest of the legion, Lorimar was very pleased to see that a similar warrior culture had begun to form all across the legion, with the legionaries accepting their Primarch’s gladiatorial origins and cobbling together a mongrel culture from it.

Captain Lorimar at Istvaan

The Heresy itself went by in a red haze, with Lorimar, like many of his battle brothers, growing more and more into a frenzied madman. He and his company were on their way to madness and damnation until the Skalathrax campaign. During the Long Night of Skalathrax, Lorimar suddenly came to and realised, in a terrible moment of lucidity, that the actions of 8th Captain Khârn were about to shatter the legion and wipe out the company he had sacrificed everything for.

In a move nearly unprecedented for a World Eaters officer, Lorimar and the remains of his company withdrew from Skalathrax before the battle was over. While Lorimar’s actions saved a substantial part of the company and made sure it would continue to function as a fairly coherent fighting force, they also earned him the disdain, if not enmity, of many of his fellow officers, who still refer to him as “Lorimar the Craven”.

Ever since, the 4th has been just as threatened by the corrupting influence of chaos and the madness of the Butcher’s Nails as every other World Eaters warband. To combat the effects of this decline and in order to keep the madness at bay, Lorimar used the ancient warrior codes of his company to formulate an ethos strictly based on honour and martial pride: His company embarked upon an Eternal Hunt, endeavouring to kill the strongest warriors and run down the worthiest prey.

Even though the 4th has remained a fairly large and coherent force, the legionaries always have to fight against the encroaching madness, with infighting and rampant frenzy all too common within the company. So far, Lorimar has managed to quell these uprisings with an iron fist.

When not on the battlefield, the Lord Captain is given to bouts of dark brooding, filled with resentment at the ruination of his legion, with disgust at the depths to which many of his former brothers have sunk, and with burning hatred at Khârn, whom he considers the destroyer of the XII Legion.

Let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

As you will probably have gathered from the post’s title, today will deal with the IV Legion Astartes, the Iron Warriors. Confession time: The Iron Warriors are actually one of my favourite traitor legions, and if I didn’t love the World Eaters so much, I could easily see myself starting and Iron Warriors army instead. I just love that the legion has basically remained unchanged in their outlook over the last ten millennia: They were already fairly disillusioned and fatalistic before the heresy, with very little actual conviction in the Emperor’s bigger vision, merely bound to his orders by a grim fatalism and soldierly loyalty, above all else. Nowadays, their allegiance to the Ruinous Powers is very similar to that, so the only thing that has changed for them is their employer, in a way. There’s something pretty cool about that. Plus their colour scheme of silver and gold – with the iconic yellow and black hazard stripes as a point of contrast – just rocks!

But why talk about Iron Warriors all of a sudden? Well, I have recently joined the “E Tenebrae Lux IV” event over at The Bolter & Chainsword, both because I find events like this to be very conductive to my painting morale and us Chaos players really need to show it to those loyalist dogs! ;) The ETL provides me with the perfet incentive for finally painting my Chaos Knight conversion — at long last!

But the scope of the project means I will need a plan to streamline my work a bit, and one tool that could become very handy for that is GW’s recently released Leadbelcher spray paint: I think this could be really helpful when it comes to undercoating/basecoating the many metallic areas on my Knight. But I wanted a way to safely test the properties of the new paint without having to potentially ruin a 100+ Euros kit. Which is where the Iron Warriors come in:

Enter a converted Iron Warriors Warsmith I built quite a while ago. You may remember the model’s earliest incarnation:

Definitely some pretty bold ideas on display: The shoulder pads were made from Chaos Marauder drums, and I wanted them to have a Pre Heresy look (back when no actual Heresy era Terminator pauldrons were available). I still think it was a pretty clever concept, given the lack of suitable material when I built the model. The hammer was converted using a weapon from the Ogre Kingdoms’ Ironbreakers: I wanted the weapon to look like it had actually been built from the remains of a razed fortress — maybe it’s even a stone from the Imperial Palace, collected during the Siege of Terra?

And finally, that massive Dark Eldar Talos claw: That was just one of those “Why the heck not?” moments. But let’s face it, the claw is awesome, but it just seems too big…

Which is why I went back to the model about a year ago and made some changes. Here’s the Warsmith’s second incarnation:

As you can see, both the claw and hammer were replaced, with a lightning claw from the Warp Talons and a Dragon Ogre weapon, respectively. Both parts may lack the zaniness of the earlier version, but still make for a more balanced, plausible model, if you ask me.

This just seemed like the perfect model to test the new Leadbelcher spray while also getting a cool result out of the deal, so I made this guy a part of my ETL vow and prepared to start with him. After all, after having seen several revisions, you would expect this model to be ready for painting at this point, right?

Well, almost: The pauldrons that had seemed so clever to me before just didn’t cut it any more: They may have been a cool touch in a world before the actual heresy era armour variants were released, but they just seemed a little silly now. So I made one last change to the model and ended up with this final (I promise! ;) incarnation:

I used two armour plates from a BA Dreadnought kit as the new shoulder pads, and I really like the rounded look, both because it’s decidely non-standard, but also because it recalls the design of Heresy era Terminator armour without being too “on the nose” about it. Plus it would give me a brilliant occasion for painting hazard stripes and adding some decals to the model’s shoulder pads.

So after a couple of years and several revisions, the model was finally ready for painting. Quite a big production for a mere Termie lord, eh? ;)

I undercoated the model with Chaos Black spray, as usual. After everything was dry, the Leadbelcher spray went on top of the black. And I was seriously surprised by the product: It went on like a dream and produced a near perfect coverage — I didn’t even need to clean up the silver anywhere, since the whole model had a very nice, even coat of metallic paint. Very nice!

If there is one small disadvantage to the Leadbelcher spray, it is that it’s very bright. So unless you’re going for goody two shoes loyalist Marines, you may find it a bit too bright and clean for your taste. However, that is nothing a coat or two of washes won’t solve. For a very helpful in-depth look at how the colour performs, check out this excellent post by InsanePsychopath.

My very successful experiments with the new spray paint provided me with a lot of inspiration to quickly finish the model, and the model basically painted itself. Which is why it took me only a pretty short time to get it to this stage:

The silver areas were actually washed with GW Gryphonne Sepia and then with two generous passes of black wash, which provided exactly the kind of look I wanted. And as you can see, those smooth, curved shoulder pads were excellent areas for the classic hazard stripe treatment — but more on that in a minute.

While the final details on the model were drying, I spent some time on the base. Since the model was planned as a one-off project, I took the liberty of making the base as trench-warefare-ish as I could (taking quite a few cues from EdT’s fantastic tutorial here), instead of making it resemble the bases on my World Eaters. Anyway, here’s the finished base:

As you can see, the base comes complete with a broken Imperial Fists icon, courtesy of a bitz donation by fellow hobbyist Sagal.
I also used quite a bit of gloss varnish to make the mud look suitably wet and…well, muddy:

And finally, I am rather happy with that Imperial Fists helmet:

It’s just a very minor detail, of course, but it just came out rather well, if you ask me. All in all, going for the trench warfare look seemed very fitting for the Iron Warriors, and I am really very happy with the finished base!

So all that remained was to combine model and base and finish the last remaining details, but that was quick work. So here’s the finished model, Warsmith Greimolt Sturm of the Iron Warriors:

The shield slung over the model’s shoulder was mostly placed there as an excuse for painting some more hazard stripes: Yellow areas like this are a pain to finish, but they do look pretty cool in the end, don’t they?

Speaking of which, I am quite happy with the model, although you might notice that the chevron pattern seems slightly different across the two pauldrons — that’s just me being too dense to realise that I should have inverted the pattern between the different pauldrons. Oh well…

I did add a little additional flourish to the shoulder pads, though, in the shape of two decals. One of them shows the legion badge:

I actually used on of the 90s decals for this, as I like them far better than their more modern counterpart.

The other shoulder pad received a Roman numeral “IV”, for obvious reasons ;)

So not only did I get the experimental data I needed on that Leadbelcher spray (which I believe will work beautifully on the metallic parts of my Chaos Knight), but I also ended up with a cool new Terminator Lord — and managed to finish a long term project, so what’s not to like?

“Lorimar, the man who killed Voss.”
“Voss died well. That is more than can be said for most of us. What was he to you, Iron Warrior?”
“You should rather ask what I was to him, World Eater. A brother. More of a brother than you, at least. What kind of man kills his own brethren like that?”
“The kind that survived Isstvaan. The kind that survived Terra. The kind that survived Skalathrax.”

Lord Captain Lorimar and Warsmith Sturm

So, all’s well that ends well? Yes, mostly. There’s just one thing, though: Painting this model was such a blast that I immediately felt the need to create yet another Iron Warrior, even though I don’t strictly have any use for IW models and don’t want to get sidetracked yet again — What I really hate about one-off projects is how they never seem to stay one-off. At least for me ;)

But I indulged myself anyway and tried to convert the coolest, most badass IW champ I could come up with:

As you can see, I gave him quite a bit of wargear, because that creates the workmanlike look I think is so cool about the Iron Warriors: A World Eater will stab you in the eye with a broken bone and tear you apart with his bare hands. An Iron Warrior could do that as well, but he is too well-armed and too crazy-prepared to ever let it come to that ;) Anyway, I really wanted the model to immediately be recognisable as an Iron Warrior, which I think I succeeded with.

Here’s the model already undercoated (this is what the silver will look like before any washes have been applied, btw):

I am actually really psyched to get this guy painted next — let’s just hope I can get a grip on myself afterwards, instead of jumping right into the next hobby project. Still, a highly converted Iron Warriors killteam seems like a pretty cool hobby endeavour. Must. Resist… ;)

In any case, it’s great when a project not only serves to test a product without the risk of ruining a pricy kit but also produces a cool result like this — I suppose this is the kind of happy incident that helps keeping me motivated ;)

So, what do you think about these latest models? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Back in January, I promised you some updated army pictures of my biggest and longest-running hobby project, my World Eaters army. And today, I intend to make good on that promise, so let’s have a little army showcase, shall we?

I’ve said many times that my World Eaters continue to be my favourite hobby project, and while I am indeed a huge hobby butterfly, I usually try to put whatever I learn on my various other projects to good use on my World Eaters, endeavouring to imbue the army with as much character as I can: On the one hand, the 4th assault company may be a typical World Eaters force in that it features lots and lots of red and brass, scores of aggressive guys wielding chainweapons and a huge number of bunny ears ;) But at the same time, pretty much every model of the army has been converted to fit my interpretation of the World Eaters and my aesthetic sensibilities.

What’s more, maybe the most important thing I have learned during those last few years in the hobby is that every model should matter. This may seem like a thoroughly outdated concept in these days of staggering, unbound Apocalypse battles with many thousand points on either side of the table, but it’s still my firm belief: Every model in this army is a grizzled veteran (often of ten millennia of fighting the Long War), and it should show in the models.

But I’m rambling, and you probably came here for the pictures, above all else, right? So here goes:

This is what the army looked like back in 2012:

And in 2013…

And finally, here’s a big part of the army, photographed in late 2014 for the “We Are Legion” event over at the Blog dé Kouzes:

But even this latest photo was missing some of the models, so it was time to troop them all out and take some new pictures — quite a task at this point, because the army has grown so big that it has become rather unwieldy for photo sessions ;)

But I persevered, and here are the results: The entirety of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt as of May 2015:

That’s quite a bit of red, eh? ;)

Seriously, though: It’s possibly not the biggest army out there (everything in the picture above adds up to about 4,000 points), or the best-painted one. But it’s easily one of my biggest hobby achievements so far, and the project I always keep returning to. And I do feel pretty proud when seeing them neatly arrayed like that — or at least, as neatly arrayed as is possible with a horde of bloodthirsty maniacs…

The lineup pitured above also includes some twelve or so Khorne berzerkers that were painted way back when, during the late 90s. The paintjobs are really showing their age by now, but I just couldn’t bring myself to exclude them from the picture (and the extra bodies also come in handy during games, of course).

On the other hand, when I look back at the development of the army over the last year or so, there have been some fairly recent additions that I am especially happy with, so let’s take a closer look at those:

First up, here are all the models added to the army since the last “official” army shocase back in 2014:

Not a huge mass of models, certainly, but some of my favourite pieces have been the work of the last one or two years:

There’s the Wargrinder, of course:

Still one of my favourite conversions, and a project I am particularly proud of. I remember I had never tackled a model of this size before, and working on this piece taught me that there’s really nothing to be afraid of — in fact, bigger models can be quite enjoyable to work on and provide and excellent change of pace!

Read more about the Wargrinder here, in case you’re interested.

Together with a – fairly recently completed – Forgefiend (that kept fighting me every part of the way, thus earning the name Gorespite for itself), the Wargrinder nicely rounds out my collection of bigger war machines and daemon engines. In-universe, these are the creations of this fine gentleman here, Huntmaster Deracin, Keeper of the Forge and Warpsmith to the 4th assault company (and yet another model I am really happy with):

And here he is once again, surrounded by his fiendish creations. A man and his daemons, so to speak:

And make no mistake: The great forge aboard the Aeternus Venator never sleeps, so there may yet be more daemons of steel and brass given shape by Deracin in the future…

Speaking of steel, there are also the Ancients of the company. Meet Brother Marax the Fallen, Damokk the Breacher, Khorlen the Lost and Khoron the Undying, Keeper of Trophies:

I rather love Dreadnoughts, so making each of these into a true character in their own right has been a fun challenge. They now form the Barbershop Helquartet of DOOM!, obviously (overpowered dataslate pending) ;)

Then there’s my updated version of everybody’s favourite madman, Khârn the Betrayer:

Now Khârn and my own Lord Captain Lorimar haven’t exactly been on speaking terms since Skalathrax, so it’s rather unlikely that they’ll be fighting alongside one another in battle. This was still a fun project, however, and I tried to stay true to the spirit of the – still excellent – vintage Khârn by Jes Goodwin. Speaking of which, I am still rather proud of my – pretty comprehensive – post on Khârn’s various incarnations over the years, so check that out as well!

While we are on the matter of legendary World Eaters, the project I am possibly most pleased with is the completion of Lord Captain Lorimar, Master of the Hunt and commander of the 4th assault company:

Getting this model finished really took a long time, and I am particularly pleased that finally putting the finishing touches on Lorimar happened as a friendly hobby challenge between Biohazard and me. Read all about it here.

So Lorimar is finally leading his warriors from the front, as it should be:

So what’s next for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt? Let’s take a look:

One thing I would like to do is to finally paint the remaining members of my Gladiatorii squad:

Building and painting these gladiatorial World Eaters has been great fun so far, and there are three more models that have already been built but have yet to see any paint before I can call this squad finished.

I also realised I should show more love to my Blood Wolves, because I really like the look of these guys:

I already have some more converted traitorous Space Wolves to make up an entire squad of Chaos Space Marines. And maybe I’ll add a Dreadnought, based on the brilliantly versatile SW Dread?

And finally, my next big project: I finally need to get this guy painted: Gilgamesh, the Warrior King, the Twice-Consecrated, Son of the Ember Queen:

But worry not, I’ve included the model in my first vow for the E Tenebrae Lux IV event at The Bolter & Chainsword, in order to finally force myself into action, so it won’t be long now…

As it happens, I’ve made one last addition to the model before painting: I stripped some cabling from the interior of an old PC and added them to the Knight’s cockpit, in order to make it look a bit more believable:

It’s a small thing, admittedly, but a detail I think will made a difference in the end.

And here’s a comparison picture with the Knight and a smaller, roughly Epic-scaled “Chibi-version” of the same model:

On a related note, I am rather relieved that the Chaos Knight conversion kit recently unveiled by Forgeworld isn’t quite as spectacular as I had expected. Granted, it might still be a WIP version, but at least I am still very happy with my own take on a Chaos Knight! So yeah, expect to see some colour on this model this summer — and wish me luck!

So, anything else about Khorne’s Eternal Hunt? Yes, well, one small thing, actually:

This is just a fairly minor detail, but I like how all the leftover champions and stragglers almost form their own – pretty cool – squad by now. Take a look:

For an extremely lazy painter like yours truly, that is quite a nice little extra benefit ;)

So yeah, so much for this year’s World Eaters showcase. Don’t worry, there’ll be more madmen in red and brass in the future. But for now, I am very pleased with this army’s development over the last few years!

It goes without saying that I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the project as well, so feel free to drop me a comment! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

When I recently showed you my Iron Warriors Warsmith, I already mentioned the temptation of building and painting a small Iron Warriors Killteam and, well, what can I say? I am a huge hobby butterfly, which is why I am already hard at work on the various models that will make up the team ;)

On the one hand, this is yet another instance of me getting sidetracked by another project. On the other hand, trying to build models that are Chaos Space Marines, yet fairly different in design from my World Eaters, is quite an educational and enjoyable experience. So allow me to share the results of my work with you today ;)

The idea behind this Killteam is to build the models to be immediately recognisable as Iron Warriors, so I thought about which visual archetypes I wanted to include. The Iron Warriors, to me, are characterised by their cold efficiency and bitterness: a reliance on superior strategy and wargear and the will to sacrifice as many lives as it will take to vanquish the foe. I wanted the models to exude a sense of cold and sinister brutality, a menace born of the disregard for human lives. I’ll let you be the judge as to whether or not I have succeeded.

Before we get to actually take a look at the model, let me mention two resources that made this project possible in the first place:

The first is the batch of Dark Vengeance Chosen models kindly given to me by Commissar Molotov: The Chosen had just the amount of bulk and presence I needed to make my Iron Warriors look like actual, bitter veterans of the Long War instead of just some more CSM flunkies. So many thanks again to Mol for his generosity!

The other thing that really helped were the Iron Warrior torso pieces (from the old IW conversion kit) I managed to pick up as part of an ebay auction some time ago: These are still excellent, and their bulk and uniformity provide an excellent visual backbone for the Killteam. They would also work exceptionally well for Iron Hands, come to think of it…

Anyway, enough talk! Time for the models! ;)

I. Testing the waters

There actually exists an Iron Warriors model beyond the recently completed Warsmith in my collection: An Iron Warriors test model I just painted for the heck of it what feels like ages ago. Here it is:

While certainly nothing special by today’s standard, I didn’t simply want to leave this guy behind, so I decided to give him a bit of a facelift. The clunky icon was replaced with a DV Chosen bolter. And while I didn’t completely repaint the model, I used it to test some new painting techniques of mine, especially on the hazard stripes.

So here’s the touched-up version:

Having this model as a test piece allowed me to figure out a way to include the legion number on one of the pauldrons (by using a cut out and inverted Cadian decal, incidentally).

Granted, he certainly isn’t contest winning material, even with the touchups and all, but it feels good to finally have found a new home for the model ;)

II. The Champion

You should still remember this guy from the last Iron Warriors related post. Here’s what he looked like when we last saw him:

I am still really happy with the conversion, so I was actually pretty psyched to get some more paint on this guy! And painting him turned out to be a rather enjoyable experience too, since the Leadbelcher basecoat worked extremely well! I washed it with GW Gryphonne Sepia once and with black twice, and all that remained afterwards was to block out the details and add some final touches. Granted, it was a bit more complicated in reality, but it certainly didn’t feel like it ;)

Anyway, here’s the finished model:

All in all, I think the model makes for an excellent IW squad leader, if I do say so myself. There’s something dark and brooding about him that seems really fitting! And although it seems a bit blasphemous that I had to cut up a Skullcrusher helmet to build the model, it’s probably the best possible helmet for an IW champion — many thanks to Oldschoolsoviet for giving me this idea!

III. The Apothecary

So, which Iron Warriors archetype to tackle next? Before I could stop myself, I was thinking “If I were to build an Iron Warriors Killteam, one of them would have to be an Apothecary, due to the IW’s well-documented history of scavengin geneseed…” The model was already halfway done before I realised what I was doing ;)

Anyway, here’s the finished Apothecary conversion:

On this model, the biggest challenge was to maintain the balance between having the character look like a Chaos Space Marine (and an Iron Warrior, at that), while also seeming businesslike enough to work as an Apothecary. In the end, the bit that really makes the conversion is a bare, augmented head from the Skitarii Ranger/Vanguard kit. It just fits so well, don’t you think?

By the way, the first version of the model was carrying a plasma pistol, rather than an axe, but I felt the axe added a subtle executioner look to the character, and that’s certainly an aspect of his role as an Apothecary, don’t you think?

IV. The Breacher

The next archetype was pretty easy to figure out, because you cannot have an Iron Warriors Killteam without a massive Breacher guy, can you? I wanted this next character to be more dynamic and aggressive than the prior models, so I chose the running Chosen legs and made his pose pretty dynamic. Take a look:

As you can see, some WFB chaos bitz proved to be a great help here, allowing me to arm the Breacher with a massive mace and boarding shield. I also added a holstered bolter, though — this guy is a crazy prepared Iron Warrior, after all.

My favourite detail, apart from the pose, is the helmet: I really enjoy the “expressionless”, utterly inhuman look of that particular helmet from the WFB Chaos chariot crew, and I added some tech-y gubbins to the helmet to make it look slightly more modern.

V. The Trencher

Seeing how my IW killteam is built around what I consider the big Iron Warrior archetypes, there were two ideas I wanted to use on this model: The first is the Marine’s CC weapon, which represents an Iron Warriors entrenching tool. The other was the use of a bionic limb, seeing how the Iron Warriors are known to replace mutated (or damaged) limbs with sophisticated augmetic parts. Here’s what I came up with, based on those two ideas:

The entrenching tool is a weapon from the WFB Skaven Stormvermin kit, and easily one of my favourite plastic weapons, simply because it’s so vicious-looking! I have wanted to use this particular part for quite a while, and this model turned out to be the perfect occasion.

As for the bionic limb, I settled on replacing the model’s right leg, mostly because I used Kranon’s legs, and the right leg is only partially formed anyway (because the model’s cape normally obscures it). Now I do realise that some may see my design choice as a bit of a divisive feature, because I went for a – fairly thin – Skitarii leg. However, this was a rather conscious choice, because I wanted to achieve a slightly peg-legged look: Seeing how the entire armour will be silver, a leg painted in silver wouldn’t stand out too much, which is why I went for the Skitarii part. Plus I was also inspired by a scene in Graham McNeill’s Storm of Iron, where a veteran Iron Warrior actually experiences difficulties due to his leg replacement — I wanted the leg to be both at once: a highly sophisticated replacement, but also a possible weakness, and I think the Skitarii leg does a great job embodying that particular duality.

VI. Anything else…?

So far for the finished conversions, but are there any more plans for this particular Killteam? Right now, I think there will be two more members: A heavy weapons specialist (I am leaning towards arming him with a rocket launcher) will be one of the additional members. I already have most of the bitz I’ll need for the conversion.

And there may also be one final model for the Killteam that will be rather different in size and nature from its peers. I’ll just leave you with a little teaser for now…

But that’s basically all for today, folks. Here are the finished models for the Killteam so far:

And the entire Killteam, including the unpainted models:

Like I said, this has been a very rewarding mini-project so far, and I think I have learned quite a few days that will ultimately also benefit my World Eaters.

So, what do you think? Any ideas for additional members of suggestions regarding the existing models? I’d be happy to hear any feedback you might have — just drop me a comment. In closing, I’ve also made a small “glamour shot” of the finished Iron Warriors, which should make an excellent finale for this post ;)

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

The original plan for this week was to present to you an in-depth look at the recent Cult Mechanicus release, but unfortunately some RL related issues are currently wreaking havoc on my hobby mojo, so that particular post will yet have to wait for a while — please bear with me ;)

But we cannot have a week without some fresh content, of course, so let me whip up a small consolation price: My latest set of Khornate kitbashes, never before shown on this blog. I hope you’ll find something to like about these, even if they are not AdMech. So, shall we…?

I. Chosen by Khorne

As you have seen in my recent Iron Warriors related post, I’ve been rather enthusiastically cutting up some of those Dark Vengeance Chosen models. Now they are beautiful models, make no mistake, but after an initial reluctance to cut them apart and convert them, they have turned out to be a remarkable source of kitbashing fun. Which is why I not only use them as a base for my Iron Warriors Killteam, but also for some World Eaters:

Let’s start with a model that was actually inspired by a piece of art from Fantasy Flight’s Tome of Blood: Ever since I saw this piece by Diegogisbertllorens, I wanted to convert a model resembling the berzerker in that illustration. So I cut up one of my leftover Chosen models and started to experiment. Here’s what I came up with:

As you can see, the model diverges from the art in some places, but the inspiration is still pretty obvious. And even the parts that do diverge from the source material have been a conscious choice. For one, several people have pointed out that one of the FW berzerker heads with a rebreather would have been a much closer match for the artwork, and I actually tried it on the model. But it did feel a bit much: He already has the spiky and warped Chosen armour, and he ended up looking a tad too monstrous, if that makes any sense. I also tried all the other rebreather heads I had in my collection (loyal and chaos Terminators, the rebreather head from the Raptors with shaved down horns,…), but none of them worked for me quite as well as the one I ultimately chose: A humble rebreather head from the very first version of the 90s multipart plastic Space Marines:

It’s heavily scarred (maybe not easy to make out in the picture), which is a plus. But it also has a special, almost – dare I say it – forlorn quality to it that I think serves as a nice counterpoint to the rest of the model. This is clearly not a berzerker running at his next victim, but rather a guy who slowly advances. Sure, there’ll be bloodshed and murder at the end, but I like the very slight ambiguity created by the head. As if he’s saying “I cannot help what I am, so let’s get this over with.” The smaller hatchet held in his right hand underlines the effect even further, lending the model a workmanlike quality, if you ask me: Only a truly fearsome fighter would step onto the battlefields of th 41st millennium wielding a relatively diminutive weapon like that… ;)

On a related note, this conversion actually led straight into the next small project, because the head transplant on the Chosen left me with half a chopped-off head, and since I am always careful not to throw away anything the might yet prove useful, I tried my best to repair that helmet for future use. The solution was to splice it together with the jaw of a WFB Cairn Wraith skull. Take a look:

I was just stupidly happy with this for some reason…

Working from there, the combination of my fellow World Eater Biohazard’s feedback, browsing through Wade Pryce’s excellent World Eaters again and the memory of a certain piece of Adrian Smith artwork from the 3.5 codex made me realise that there was just one way to go for this helmet:

And while I was super-happy with the helmet, the usual routine of dry-fitting it to a couple of possible bodies I had lying around didn’t really work out all that well: The head just looked too “special”, for lack of a better word, to be squandered on yet another Chaos Space Marine. But then, fate intervened, because I still had a spare Kranon the Relentless model. I had picked this up a while ago from a fellow forumite, but the problem was that the previous owner seems to have been very fond of the old superglue, and while the regular Chosen are easy enough to cut apart, even once assembled, the way Kranon is designed has really prevented me from working with the model so far — all that superglue really made it impossible to take the model apart. So it basically went to the bottom of the pile, with very little chance of ever seeing the light of day again.

But lo and behold, it turned out to be the perfect base for a conversion using the newly converted head. And so, a short while later, I had the following model. Let’s call him “Huntmaster Korann” or “Kornan” or whatever anagram of Kranon we can think of, for now:

Getting the pose and details on this model just so took a bit of doing — and I am very much indebted to the feedback of many fellow hobbyists over at The Bolter & Chainsword for providing feedback on this model. It nearly drew me up the wall at the time, but in the end all those suggestions really were for the best ;)

I also built yet another Huntmaster for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt: Barras Ergha, the 4th assault company’s Master of Signal:

Granted, Master of Signal may not be the most obvious battlefield role for a World Eaters, but seeing how I imagine the 4th to be a bit more disciplined and focused than your average force of bloodcrazed madmen, I thought it was fun to have them retain some of the command structure of a Pre-Heresy legion, including the various specialists. The fact that one of Flint13’s coolest Night Lords characters is also a Master of Signal may have had some influence on my decision as well…

At the same time, this guy is still a World Eater, so he needed to look like a true warrior. I think I’ve managed a pretty good balance.

Once more, this conversion was made possible by Commissar Molotov’s recent bitz drop, since the right arm, head and legs came from his little care package — the legs are even from one of the web-exclusive Space Marine Captains released a while ago!

Some of you may have noticed the helmet mag-locked to his belt. I added it because, even though I am a huge fan of bareheaded Marines, it seemed sensible for a comms-officer to have the option of donning a helmet that certainly has some additional sensors and communications functionality. Speaking of which, I lost my marbles a bit and obsessively added some comms-equipment and additional sensors to the helmet to make it look more plausible:

II. More Skullreaper Shenanigans

It goes without saying that I didn’t forget about all those wonderful Skullreaper/Wrathmonger bitz I still had lying around either. For instance, I finished the conversion of my plastic Herald of Khorne/Counts as Skulltaker. You may remember the model from a while ago:

I was still considering a cape for the model at this point, to bring it closer in line with the stock model for Skulltaker. After quite a bit of deliberation, however, I ultimately decided against it: A cape would have destroyed the dynamic, lithe look of the model, which is basically my favourite part of the conversion. It might have worked better on a more static, bulky model like the original Skulltaker. In the end, though, I rather wanted to end up with a model that I like than with a model that instantly reads as a Skulltaker counts as.

That said, the model’s back did seem a bit barren, so what to do? Funnily enough, trying to give this guy some wings was as easy as digging out some Vargheist leftovers from my bitzbox, because a pair of vestigial wings is included with the kit. Take a look:

Here’s the thing, though: While it did look alright, it just wasn’t what I was looking for for the character. I love how the model seems to be running towards its next prey, and the winged version somehow loses that feeling — plus the wings really messed up the model’s silhouette. So back into the bitzbox they went (just for a short while, though — we’ll be getting to that in a minute…).

But what about some kind of trophy pole? Sure, most standard trophy poles were straight out, because the model’s elongated skull would make a normal trophy pole impossible: Even if I had managed to find a position where both elements didn’t interfere with one another, the model would still have ended up wearing a trophy pole that prevents it from turning its head. Ouch!

I did have a trophy rack from the Dark Eldar Kabalite warriors, though — and I think it really works! Take a look:

It doesn’t interfere with the skull, plus I like the blade-like look it has. It even has some 40k bric-a-brac dangling from it, which is nice as well. I think we may finally consider this conversion finished!

But wait, there’s more: Ever since I first saw those Skullreapers, I wondered whether it would be possible to use them as a base for truescaled World Eaters, so that was definitely something I wanted to try! It was Martox’ true scale Khornate Marine that provided me with the inspiration I needed for my own conversion, and I chose a similar approach to come up with this model:

Just like Martox, I used a Chaos Terminator torso for the upper body, but I shaved mine down until it worked (and until the original Skullreaper breastplate fit over it). The axe was spliced together from a Chaos Terminator weapon and an axe from the Skullreaper kit. And the right pauldron came from a very sweet bitz package Augustus b’Raass sent me a while ago (cheers, mate!).

As for the model’s size, here’s a scale comparison shot showing the WIP World Eater next to my (pretty big) true scaled model for Praetor Janus Auriga:

III. “Don’t call me Firefist!”

Those of you who have read Aaaron Dembski-Bowden’s (highly recommended) novel “Talon of Horus” may remember one Lheorvine “Firefist” Ukris, a World Eater who steals every scene he’s in.  There’s even a piece of artwork representing Lheor:

I liked the character so much that I definitely wanted to build him in miniature form, as some kind of cameo character for my World Eaters, so to speak. Granted, building Lheor seemed a bit derivative, seeing how both InsanePsychopath and Flint13 have come up with stunning interpretations of the character, but then those two models were what inspired me to go for it in the first place — I just couldn’t resist.

So here’s my interpretation of the character (still slightly WIP):

Some parts of the model try to faithfully recreate the depiction of the character in the novel and accompanying artwork, but I did take some liberties: For instance, I ditched the aquila breastplate, because…well, screw aquila breastplates, alright? ;)  Seriously, I just loved the “Great Crusade” look created by that particular torso, so I just rolled with it.

IV. Let loose the dogs of war

And last, but definitely not least: A conversion I am really proud of, and a project that came about very spontaneously: I was looking at some WFB Dragon Ogre bitz and one of the leftover heads from the plastic Bloodthirster a while ago, and before I knew what I was doing, I had made this:

The beginnings of a rather huge Flesh Hound of Khorne: I have always loved the Flesh Hound concept and design, and the creatures are certainly a fantastic fit for an army designed as a hunting party. I really hate the most recent models, though, since they seem so clunky and ill-proportioned.

Using the leftover Bloodthirster head was a spontaneous idea, when I realised it should fit the Dragon Ogre bodies rather well. In the end, it took very little shaving (and the addition of a plastic Daemon Prince neck) to create the basic construction.

With the basic construction worked out, I added the characteristic neck frills and collar of Khorne — both indispensable parts of the Flesh Hound archetype, of course:

As a matter of fact, those frills are the same vestigial Vargheist wings that didn’t make the cut on the Skulltaker model shown further up in this post — waste not want not, and all that… ;)

And here’s a comparison picture showing both the kitbashed Flesh Hound and a standard Space Marine:

As you can see, this guy is roughly the same size as a juggernaut (albeit a bit less bulky), so he could be used as a mount for a Marine. I think I’ll rather be using him as one of Lorimar’s hunting dogs, however. Oh, and those front legs will probably be gripping some kind of rocky outcrop, with a mangled Astartes corpse right below the creature’s head — at least that’s the plan for now

So yeah, so much for my recent Khornate kitbashing activities. When any of these will actually be painted is anyone’s guess of course — but I would still love to hear any feedback you might have! Just drop me a comment!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

While the ruinstorm of nerd rage is still going strong elsewhere on the internet, I am slowly coming to grips with the implications of the recent Age of Sigmar release — maybe my terribly wordy post on the matter did function as some kind of therapy, after all? ;)

Anyway, I picked up my own copy of the game yesterday. A first look at the sprues reveals that the amount of detail on the models is really off the charts. At the same time, formulating a plan for all of these models will take some time — I am basically committed to converting quite a few, if not all, of them at this point, but I will have to think carefully before the knife comes out.

In the meantime, let’s deal with something related: Everyone and their cousin have been messing around with the freebie Liberator that came with White Dwarf, and it has been a regular pasttime of mine for the last several days to google for awesome conversions involving the model. So I would like to share two things with you today: One, my favourite kitbashes and conversions involving the Liberator so far. There are many people happily cutting away at the little guy, yet some models manage to stand out regardless. Two, I would like to show you the conversion I have settled on myself, lest this post become totally dependant on other people’s excellent work.

But first, a showcase of my favourite Liberator conversions. It’s rather noticeable how most (if not all) of the conversions I’ve seen so far neatly fall into one of the following categories:

I. Marines

The obvious choice, really: These guys haven’t been nicknamed “Sigmarines” for nothing, right? It’s no surprise that Truescalers all around the globe are enthusiastically checking out the possible ways of using the Stormcast Eternals as material for building bigger Astartes — and there are already quite a few rather impressive examples for this approach!

Blood Angels (Terminator Librarian) by Jair Nunez (via Spikey Bits):

model converted by Jair Nunez

This model certainly goes for shock and awe tactics, transforming the Liberator into something that almost looks like a Primarch at first glance! There’s a lot to love about this model: The Liberators’ more form-fitting armour is a great fit for Blood Angels anyway, and Jair underlines this with a very effective use of BA bitz. I especially love the hammer, since doesn’t remotely look like the fairly clunky Liberator weapon even longer — even though its head has been kept 100% intact! I am not yet wholly sure how I feel about the slightly extended midsection, but such minor quibbles notwithstanding, this is certainly an excellent kitbash!

Space Marine by DogZombie:

model converted by DogZombie

While DogZombie hasn’t done much to change the basic makeup of the model, his kitbash still ends up quite convincing because there’s just something about the combination of that clearly Imperial sword, Sternguard face, power fist and servo-skull that instantly makes this guy read as a Space Marine. A fairly straightforward, yet very effective job!

Space Marine by Wilhelminiatures:

model converted by Wilhelminiatures

Easily the most iconic Liberator-based Astartes conversion I have seen so far! Wilhelm has gone for the good old bolter setup, and has really nailed the look, if you ask me: Those Mk. III arms just work so well, and the praetor head really makes the model look like a grizzled veteran. The conversion shows an admirable restraint and ends up quite lovely because of it — possibly my favourite “Sigmarine” Astartes so far!

Thunder Warrior from the Oldhammer Facebook Group (via Sepulchre of Heroes):

conversion from the Oldhammer Facebook group

Some hobbyists have even gone further back in time, using the Liberator for conversions from the Pre-Heresy or even Unification era: This Thunder Warrior is an excellent proof of concept, showing the Stormcast Eternals provide great material for such a conversion. If anything, this works even better than the standard Astartes conversions, seeing how Thunder armour doesn’t neccessarily conform to the design templates established by the later armour marks. As this model shows, if you have ever wanted your own Thunder Warrior army, you now have the perfect base models at your fingertips — as it happens, Mikko from Iron Sleet seems to be planning an entire army of these guys. A project I am really looking forward to!

As an aside, I was unable to find out who originally built and painted this, so if you recognise your model (or know the creator), please give me a holler, and I will of course give credit where credit is due!

II. The Legio Custodes

While we are already in the 30k time period after discussing that Thunder Warrior, let’s addresst the other very popular idea involving the Stormcast Eternals: using them as base models for Custodes conversions. There’s a clear resemblance here – arguably an even bigger resemblance than the one with the Astartes, and fortunately enough, some excellent Custodes conversions have already turned up as well:

Constantin Valdor by Ryan Stevenson:

model created by Ryan Stevenson

Who better to build first than the Legio Custodes’ Captain-General, Constantin Valdor? As you can see, the model is wonderfully chunky and impressive, while also seeming rather dynamic in spite of its bulk. I am still very happy with my own (Space Marine based) conversion for Valdor, but wow, that guy is just huge! I also really like the guardian spear! The only thing I am not quite sold on is the third party shield, but that’s just a matter of personal preference.

Custodian by Noctus Cornix:

Ever the inspirational kitbasher, Noctus Cornix has knocked it out of the park once more with his Custodian conversion: The model may be less dynamic than the Constantin Valdor conversion shown above, but there’s something strong, yet contemplative in this guy’s pose that I really love. And the way Noctus has used that left hand from the Chaos Lord on Manticore kit is just beautiful. A lovely model all around!

III. Automata

As part of my recent Age of Sigmar review, I wonderedd whether or not the Stormcast Eternals could be turned into gilded automata, serving the Adeptus Mechanicus or representing relics from ages long forgotten — and I didn’t really have to wait long before some hobbyists endeavoured to find out:

AdMech Automaton by Nuclearhawke:

model converted by Nuclearhawke

Nuclearhawke is currently working on an AdMech warband anyway (make sure to check out his Ammobunker thread linked above!), and so he has turned his Liberator into a wonderfully chunky, fairly gladiatorial combat servitor via an influx of Forgeworld AdMech bitz. I love how merely replacing a couple of key elements completely changes the look and feel of the model!

“Tick-Tock Man” by Leadballoony:

model converted by Leadballloony

Interestingly, while Alex from Leadballoony has gone for a structurally similar approach (electing to replace some key features, while leaving an equal part of the model unaltered), he has come up with a completely different mechanical creature: His “Tick-Tock Man” is a relict from a bygone age, stalking the depths of the underhive. The baroque armour possibly speaks of pre-Imperial times, while the hideous mechanical claws and weapons (from the Kataphron kit, I believe) hint at the machine’s true, much more sinister function.

IV. There’s no school like the old school…

Of course there are also hobbyists who are not trying their darnedest to turn their freebie Liberator into a 40k model, but are perfectly content to use him as a character for WFB or Age of Sigmar. In fact, some of the best conversions seem to have come about this way.

Warrior of Chaos by Xander:

model converted by Xander

Xander’s straightforward, yet effective kitbash shows how easy it can be to turn the Stormcast Eternals into servants of the Dark Gods — Aren’t chaos players lovable little rascals, always trying to corrupt everything that gets released into gristle for their dark lords’ wars? You’ve gotta love ’em ;) Erm, anyway, what occurs to me is that the rounded armour and detailing makes the Liberators a pretty good fit for Tzeentch or Slaanesh (or whatever may have taken Slaanesh’s job, that is…).

Warrior of Chaos by smile:

model converted by smile

Fellow German hobbyist smile was even more adventurous, using GS and some wonderfully oldskool OOP plastic bitz in order to make his warrior of chaos. I really love the no nonsense nature of this guy, and some of the detail (such as the belt buckle or the chain running across the chest) are really quite wonderful! Excellent job! In fact, smile started the thread linked above in order to entice people to post their own Liberator conversions — let’s hope people go for it, but so far, smile and me seem to be the only ones…

Undead Knight by Matthew Davies:

model converted by Matthew Davies

Another rather original idea, this one! Matthew’s skeleton knight ends up looking far more formidable and bulky than the undead you normally see, but I guess in a world where the toothless old men in pantaloons have been replaced with ironclad demi-gods, the undead will have to keep up as well, eh? Once again, the addition of some carefully considered bitz end up completely changing the model — very nice! Personally speaking, I would probably add some rust holes to the armour, but that’s just my two cents.

Franz Ascendant by Bishmeister (via Clan Khorvaak):

model created by Bishmeister

Okay, there’s really not much to say here except this model literally blew me away when I first saw it: The conversion is brilliant (recalling a fairly recent Golden Demon entry based on the plastic Nurgle Lord, if I am not mistaken), and the paintjob is just wonderfully lush and warm — and just check out that shield! Not only is this possibly my favourite Liberator conversion right now, but it’s also a perfect embodiment of the Empire now lost to us (sniff). But what a send-off! Brilliant!

Stormcast Eternal Liberator by Heaven’s Teeth:

model created by Heaven’s Teeth

One final model, and a wonderfully sublime one, at that: Heaven’s Teeth didn’t perform any outlandish conversion work, but merely made some subtle touches, creating a small vignette of a proud demigod at rest. Coupled with a great paintjob and a wonderfully natural looking base, the result makes for a rather stunning piece — very nice!

V. My own Liberator conversion

Worry not, I won’t wind up this post without adding my own conversion to the pile. In fact, I started converting the model the day after picking up the issue of White Dwarf it came with.

While the idea of turning the model into a Custodian was fairly tempting, there was also the fact that I already own a fully converted (if not fully painted) Custodes army, so I was able to resist the call. The same was true for the idea of building a truescale Marine: Brother Auriga fills that role rather admirably right now, and while I won’t rule out building more true scale Marines in the future, I wanted to do something different with the freebie Liberator.

In the end, I decided to turn the model into a rather impressive Inquisitor — not outlandishly creative, admittedly, but also not something I have seen done a lot (yet). So I started messing around with some bitz and soon had this very early WIP:

It quickly became clear that the model’s size and armour would make it a good candidate for a fairly warlike Malleus or Hereticus Inquisitor, which is why I decided for a GK stormbolter on the Inquisitor’s off-hand. Beyond that, I mainly attempted to make the armour look more imperial by adding a bit or two. One thing that ended up feeling wrong, however, was the hammer: While it seemed like a fitting weapon for a member of the Ordo Malleus, at least, both the weapon’s design and angle looked slightly wrong for the type of character I was trying to create.

Then I saw Logan’s version of the Liberator, which was fairly similar and convinced me my own Inquisitor needed a sword as well:

model converted by Logan

This turned out to be slightly tricky, however, because the sole, loyalist-looking sword I still had in the old bitzbox was the GK sword with an impaled Plaguebearer head on its tip. So quite a bit of cutting and glueing was in order to replace the blade with that of an Empire Wizard’s sword and to reverse the grip of the hand on the sword.

Beyond the weapon swap, I also started seriously working on the armour in an attempt to make it look more Inquisitorial:

As you can see, I also added Skitarii backpack in order to create some kind of nonstandard power source for the Inquisitor’s armour.

At this point, I was pretty happy with the model, but felt it needed a cape — both for the additional bulk and for the extra bit of ostentatiousness it provided — the Inquisitor just seems like that kind of guy to me ;)

Once again, I had to improvise a bit, because the model’s size made finding a cape at the appropriate scale slightly tricky. Fortunately, I still had a cape from the Deathwing Knights/Deathwing Terminators that worked very well, after a bit of cutting:

The model was almost done at this point. DexterKong suggested adding a techy bit or two to the legs, seeing how the model was looking very medieval below the beltline. I chose a fairly restrained solution though, since I didn’t want to overclutter the model, adding a tech-y connection port and some cabling to the model’s legs.

And with that, my “Stormcast Inquisitor” conversion was completed:

I think he really looks like a Lord Inquisitor, Grandmaster of an Ordo or what have you. Commissar Molotov pointed out the model reminded him of an alternate take on Forgeworld’s Hector Rex — which really made me happy, seeing how Rex had become one of the main inspirations for the conversion somewhere along the way!

One thing that is a bit of a problem, however, is the model’s size: The Inquisitor is indeed taller than a standard Terminator. Here’s a scale comparison image:

The image makes it clear that the Inquisitor would look plain ridiculous if placed next to a standard Marine. However, as you can see, there’s still a small difference in heigth and a more noticeable one in bulk between the Inquisitor and Brother Auriga, my true scale Marine. Which makes me thing that the model, while admittedly very tall, still ultimately works in the scale framework I have set for my INQ28 characters. I imagine the Inquisitor had undergone gene-therapy and heavy augmentation, in addition to wearing a suit of custom armour: His size and bulk evoke the picture of a human augmented to the very limits of the human frame, while still not quite on par with an Astartes.

The next big challenge will be to figure out a colour scheme for him: Golden armour would be the obvious – but maybe slightly boring – option. Cream-coloured armour with golden trim would be cool, but there may not be enough actual trim for this to work. Silver armour is out because I don’t want the model to be mistaken as a Grey Knight — a very real danger, given the fact that it uses GK weapons!

My current idea, after some input from DexterKong, is to actually attempt to paint the armour in a marble effect. I’ve already spent quite some time downloading suitable marble textures, and I think something along these lines could work really well:

I really want the Inquisitor to have a very luxurious feel, so the current idea is to combine the marble effect with golden armour trim and glossy red as an additional spot colour (on the model’s pauldrons and heraldic plate, for instance). Of course whether or not I’ll be able to pull if off painting-wise remains anyone’s guess… At the very least, Apologist’s recent tutorial for painting marble should really come in handy for this project…

Anyway, so much fun with a single freebie miniature — isn’t that just crazy? Just imagine what it’ll be like when I finally tuck into the rest of the Age of Sigmar box… ;)

One thing I can safely say is that messing around with the Liberator models is quite a lot of fun. Sure, they are started box models and lack some of the flexibility we have come to love. But the way they are designed makes it very easy to convert them into any number of character archetypes — I think this post provides ample proof of that!
Have you converted your own Liberator yet? Or are there any excellent conversions you’ve seen online that you would like to point out? I’m always happy to hear from you in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Oh boy, where to start…? It’s been a rather eventful couple of days, from a hobby perspective, and I have been through a veritable rollercoaster of emotions. So what happened?

Everything started when I finally decided to paint my converted Chaos Knight: This has been one of my biggest hobby projects so far, and so it has taken me a little over a year to work up the courage to paint him — well, that and I pledged him as part of my vow for the ETL IV event over at The Bolter & Chainsword, with the deadline later this week.

So, anyway, I was finally prepared to get this big boy painted, right? Just so you remember, this is what the finished conversion looked like (the entire project so far has been chronicled here and here, for your edification):

The situation was already less than optimal, though: All kinds of work related shenanigans had left me with precious little time for painting my vowed models — and also happened to kill much of my hobby drive, at least when it came to painting. So with under a week left to complete my vow, I still tried to make this happen. So I grabbed the model as well as a can of Chaos Black and Leadbelcher each and headed outside to undercoat the model.

The black undercoat worked like a charm. Then came the silver. Now some of you may remember that I even used a dedicated test model to make sure the Leadbelcher spray worked as intended (in fact, that test model then spawned an entire gaiden project of its own). So I was pretty sure everything would work out just fine. So after both the black and silver had gone on, the model ended up looking like this:

Seems nice enough, doesn’t it? Only when I picked up the model afterwards, I realised that, due to an unforeseen (and inexplicable) undercoating mishap, the whole model now sported a very gritty, almost sandpapery texture (you can just about make out the effect in some of the pictures). The only part of the model that escaped this problem was Baron Harrowthorne himself (undercoated five minutes prior, using exactly the same spray can, to add insult to injury):

As you can probably imagine, my first reaction was sheer panic: It seemed like I had just managed to ruin a 100+ Euros model, and one I have spent many hours converting, at that. But after thinking things through, I realised that I didn’t just want to give up quite so fast: If there was any way to save this model after all, I wanted to find it!

So I started experimenting: The first thing I did was to take a tootbrush to the entire model in an attempt to take of some of the worst grit — before that, handling the model would leave some silvery pigments on my hands every time! With some of the texture brushed of, the resulting look wasn’t all that bad, really: The silver had a pretty nice gunmetal look,  and while that certainly hadn’t been planned, I was confident that I would be able to work with it. So I started washing the entire model with Army Painter Dark Tone and hoped for the best.

However, it turned out that whatever had happened had also messed up the way the undercoat reacted to other paints: The most imminent consequence was that it took a lot of wash to actually darken the silver to a point I was happy with. And I was also pretty apprehensive about how well other colours would work on top of this rather funky undercoat.

Here’s what the model looked like with the black wash and some first red and bronze parts blocked in:

A closer look at the head reveals the sandpapery effect:

Fortunately enough, it turned out that it was easy enough to add other paints on top of the undercoat:

And, like I said, it took *a lot* of wash to suitably darken the undercoat: Compare the main body with the chaotic heat outlets (yet unwashed) in this picture:

But while I was still worried about whether or not I would manage to salvage the model, it did start to look a little better with the first details in red and bronze:

So I did the only thing I could and continued painting. One thing that put at least some of my worries to rest was that all the Knight’s armour plates wouldn’t have the same problem, so even if the skeleton retains some of the gritty texture, adding the armour plates on top will make it somewhat less noticeable.

I also felt that I might just as well try and make the effect work to my advantage — after all, the rather blunt gunmetal look worked pretty well in some places, making the metallic parts look like the heavily worn chassis of a machine that has been in service for a long time. The bad news was that other areas ended up looking more toylike because of the undercoat. This was especially noticeable on the arms, for instance:

So I spent a lot of time covering various parts of the model with different washes to add some depth to the metal and to create areas where grime and oil would have built up over the millennia. Jeff Tibbetts’ wonderful thread really became a lifesaver for me, because not only has Jeff gone for a fairly similar look for the metallics on his Knight, the Queen-Bee, but his thread is also chock-full of fantastic advice for weathering a model of this size. So I stole what I could from his thread and tried to simplify some of his especially cool recipes for use on my own Knight — and it started to work: The judicious use of washes and drybrushing slowly added more and more depth to the model and helped making the problems far less obvious:

I also needed a little quick fun to keep me going, so I actually finished the head a little early:

The engine compartment was also starting to look as oily and grimy as it should:

So after about a week of frantic painting, here’s what I have right now:

It’s actually slightly frustrating that all of the photos are looking so similar, when the model in front of me looks so much better than it did before — but the camera just eats up some of the more subtle touches. I guess it cannot be helped.

Anyway, I think the “skeleton” is actually nearing completion: All the red and bronze areas have been finished, and I’ve done a ton of weathering on just about every metallic surface: I’ve added some rather subtle verdigris to some of the bronze parts, but most of the time has clearly been spent working on the silver, using a combination of GW Typhus Corrosion, Vallejo’s Smoky Ink and various GW washes to create the aforementioned buildup of grime.

So here’s a couple of closeups for you:

The engine compartment, now with added verdigris:

The various weathering effects really work together rather nicely now (I tried not to go overboard with the verdigris effect, because I didn’t want the model to look to “colourful” because of it). Plus I’ve also taken quite some time to make the leg pistons look fairly realistic, as per JeffTibbetts’ wonderful tutorials:

And finally, what may be my favourite detail at the moment: I painted the small vials on the sword arm so they looked like liquid was sloshing around inside them – something I borrowed from JeffTibbetts yet again! It really make sense though that those vials would contain some liquid lubricating the chain of the big sword or something like that:

And a closeup:

Not GD level painting, certainly, but I am stupidly happy about having managed to pull this off. I may lack Jeff’s patience, attention to detail and dedication, but some of his ideas were fortunately easy enough to adapt to my own, rather slapdash painting style ;)

And before I wind up this post, let me show you the latest addition to the model: The Knight’s mostly completed pilot, Baron Harrowthorne:

So, like I said, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster: At first, I was convinced that I had ruined the model and was just about ready to just throw it away. But looking at it now, I think I may just have managed to turn this ship around. The problems created by the fuzzy undercoat are not nearly as noticeable now, and I am actually legitimately excited to continue painting this model! It may take longer than I had originally planned, but I think I’m getting there.

If you have any feedback and suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them. As for the eventual fate of my Chaos Knight, I’ll keep you posted ;)

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

EDIT: Jeff Tibbetts has thankfully reminded me that everything to do with his spectacular Knight project can also be found on his blog, which I would recommend you subscribe to ASAP. Thanks for reminding me, mate!

Having managed to bring my Chaos Knight back from the brink after the undercoating mishap, it was finally time to get to work on some of the detail I hoped would make the model into something truly special. So today I would like to show you some of the detail work on the model — some of these areas seemed like very daunting tasks beforehand, but have ended up really well, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, after lots and lots of weathering and trying to make the metallic areas actually look like metal, it was good tor return to something rather different. I already showed you some progress on both the pilot and the cockpit in my last post, and so I got in some more work on those two areas. So here’s the finished Baron Augustus Melchia Harrowthorne in his cockpit.

This guy is basically at the heart of this whole project, as thinking of a backstory for a traitorous Knight pilot was what provoked my building a Chaos Knight in the first place. Which is why it feels really good to finally see him in his place of honour like that! :)

I actually spent quite a bit of time coming up with just the right look for the Baron, as I tried to figure out just what kind of pilot I wanted (and how I wanted him to interact with his machine). There are many different kinds of Imperial Knight cockpits out there, and I am very willing to accept any kind of pilot interface as long as the artist in question really, really nails it. For instance, my understanding is that control of a Knight is heavily based on some kind of neural interfacing, where you actually control the machine with your thoughts, right? But I also love the idea of some kind of mechanic control, and when it’s well realised, I think it really adds something to the model. Take Jeromgb’s absolutely fantastic cockpit here: It’s very retro, almost WWI in a way, and the pilot is much more “hands on” than my own take on the matter, yet it’s perfectly executed and absolutely believable, and it really sells the concept of a pilot doing his darnedest to stay one step ahead of his opponent.

By the same token, if you look at Forgeworld’s Titan Princeps models, they all seem to have some physical controls as well as neural interfaces — and I think it really makes sense for a setting as eclectic and retro-futuristic as 40k to fall back on a mix of both ways. What’s more, given the fact that the Knight Households are such a very ancient remnant of pre-Imperial times, with each machine a millennia-old artifact, I think it’s totally conceivable that there are as many types of interface as there are Knight worlds.

As for my own model, I wanted Harrowthorne to have some kind of physical control, but I also wanted him to look very dignified and noble, which is why I heavily based him on the Princeps from FW’s Warhound Titan. As for the actual points of interface on my model, Harrowthorne is rather extensively augmented, as you can see: In addition to that, there’s some cabling on the back of his head, and his throne has several parts that look like ports for a possible interface, so I imagine him to be plugged into those. All in all, I really think he looks like quite the character, and I am very happy with him:

Fun fact: Harrowthorne’s paintjob was actually heavily inspired by the Dark Jedi Jerec, villain of the first Jedi Knight videogame…

Here’s another picture of the Knight’s interior: You can see both the cockpit and the engine compartment in their basically finished forms. Since all of this was basically scratchbuilt and kitbashed, it remains among my favourite parts of the model — and it’s pretty cool that the solution I came up with ended up fairly similar to the “official” Knight interiors produced by Forgeworld (even moreso because I actually came up with mine before Forgeworld’s version was even available!):

The above picture also shows how I have gone for a little “special effect” with the flames emerging from the additional baroque outlets on the Knight’s back: My idea was that these would function as some kind of extra vent, allowing the machine to vent excessive warp power or what have you (don’t overthink this bit, I only wanted it to look cool ;) ). Anyway, my original plan was to paint the flames in a slightly more supernatural blue, but I was afraid the effect would end up looking too unnatural and toylike. So I went with a slightly more naturalistic approach — and I was fortunate enough to find an absolutely excellent tutorial for painting flames over at Tale of Painters, which allowed me to finish the whole area in very short order, even though I’d never attempted painting natural looking flames before! The tutorial also provided a sweet tip for using a glaze made from Mephiston Red and Lahmian Medium to create an effect resembling glowing coals around the flames — just what I needed, as it makes the area surrounding the flames look interesting without diverting too much attention towards it.

Still inspired by the success of my first-time flame painting, I then tackled the one area I was really rather afraid of: The monitors and displays inside the cockpit. Since the cockpit had already been permanently assembled at this point, I had set myself up for a rather fiddly task. But while the challenge turned out to be just as fiddly as I had expected, I am really rather happy with the result:

I’m certainly not great with freehanding, but I am still pretty happy with the suggested data streams on those tiny monitors. I also used the aforementioned Mephiston Red glaze to give some of the buttons a glowing look:

And, once again, here’s the Baron inside the now finished cockpit:

Fellow hobbyist The Hydra pointed out that it would have been really funny to have one of the monitors display a game of Pong! Dang, what a missed opportunity! ;)

But seriously, I am really, really happy with the finished cockpit!

So the Knight’s skeleton is bascially finished at this point: I tidied up the last few rough spots and added some leftover Heldrake armour plates on the arms. Here’s what I ended up with:

On a related note, let me take a moment to address Forgeworld’s “official” Chaos Knight kit: It was actually interesting to see this being released recently, after it had already made a sneaky appearance in the new Warhammer: World displays… ;)

But to be perfectly honest, I am almost a little underwhelmed by the model. Sure, it clearly reads as a Chaos Knight. But doesn’t the design seem like they phoned it in a bit, at least compared with Forgeworld’s regular output? It seems very generically chaotic to me, especially with the warped armour and teeth around the head. And some touches are pretty close to my own version, as it happens: Just take a look at the chaos star on the back of the cannon, the spikes on the chainsword and the reactor section…

I think when all is said and done, this should work as a pretty serviceable basic template for a Chaos Knight, although it might need some additional conversion and kitbashing to really bring it to the next level. However, if I need to further convert the model anyway, I might as well make it an all plastic conversion in the first place and circumvent the issue of potentiall having to deal with ill-fitting resin parts, right? Or one could go for the Kytan Daemon Engine of Khorne, which seems like the more interesting project, at least for a follower of Khorne like yours truly… ;)

It’s a nice enough kit, surely, but I am actually rather relieved that it’s not that much more awesome than my own conversion — at least that’s how I feel about it. This means I can happily finish my own model without feeling like I missed out on an even cooler version. And one advantage of the release is that we know have semi-official Chaos Knight rules! Yay!

All the more incentive to keep plugging away on my own Chaos Knight. And I have already made pretty good headway regarding the armour plates. Let me show you a final sneak peek or two of what is to come:

The Knight with its leg armour in varying stages of completion:

And here’s a first look at the PIP belly plate:

Oh, and there’s one thing you guys can help me with: I want to add a decal to the Knight that represents the Machine’s honorary membership in the Legio Audax (The “Ember Wolves”), the Titan Legion that fought alongside the World Eaters during the Heresy. So I was looking at a suitably wolf-y decal in order to represent that affiliation: At first I wanted to use one of the War Hounds decals, but those definitely show a dog, not a wolf. So which of the following do you think would work best for the intended effect (As for placement, I’m thinking one of the kneecaps)?

As it happens, some hobbyists have suggested some very cool – and slightly less common – SW decals to represent the Legio: The flame wolf (playing on the whole “Ember Wolves” thing):

Or these very cool, slightly more feral looking symbols that I hadn’t even seen before:

Are these even available as decals? And if so, if anyone has some of these left, (especially the more hirsute looking wolf heads dead centre and in the bottom row), feel free to send them my way! ;)

So yeah, I think you could really say I am having a blast with this big boy right now, even though painting the model is turning out to be a ton of work. So stay tuned, there should be more shortly ;)

If you have any feedback or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you, of course. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Hey everyone, another Knight-related update today. The original plan was to post a review of the recent Stormcast Eternals release today, but I spent yesterday in Frankfurt, visiting a pretty cool exhibition about the intertwined histories of film and videogames at the Deutsches Filmmuseum — the museum also had some pretty cool stuff apart from that particular exhibition. Such as this:

Aaanyway, this left me with very little time for expansive writeups on the old blog, so you will have to content yourselves with some more incremental progress on my Chaos Knight — I realise that this style of updates may not be all that spectacular, but bear with me here: For one, this is easily the biggest and most complex single project of my hobby life so far, so I may be forgiven for taking it slowly (and also for documenting my progress rather meticulously). This also allows me to showcase some details that I am especially proud of, as it happens — so I hope you’re not yet bored of the model yet ;)

When we last saw the Chaos Knight, I was hard at work on its daemon-faced breastplate. And indeed, here’s the model with a more complete version of that breastplate already mounted in place:

I wasn’t sure at first about whether or not to paint the eyes, but in the end I think the effect works rather nicely without being to cartoony. The teeth will need some additional highlighting, though.

I quickly added the lower jaw as well:

Once again, the area will need some more work — in fact, most of the armoured areas that are looking pretty much finished in the pictures are anything but: I’ll still need to add decals, further detail, some grime and maybe a little weathering. Anyway, this is what the Knight looked like at this point:

And lest we forget, a quick look at the Baron in his cockpit ;)

While the top carapace has only been undercoated, I think the picture shows rather nicely how the design of the cockpit and pilot works rather nicely, even when only glimpsed through the open top hatch (in any case, I’ll be leaving the carapace detachable, though).

This was also the point where I had to start working on the more complicated parts of the Knight’s armour: The pauldrons were especially daunting to me, mostly because I had planned adding a World Eaters decal to one of them. Let’s take a closer look at how that went in a minute. Before that, here’s a look at the Knight with its mostly finished faceplate in place:

And, once again, the entire model so far:

I think by now we can really see this guy coming together, wouldn’t you agree? One armour plate at a time…

As for the pauldrons, I am really happy that they are mostly finished now. Here’s the left one, complete with a big icon of Khorne and some additional totems and trophies:

Paintig this part was a bit fiddly because all the small trinkets had already been glued in place beforehand, but it wasn’t that much of a problem. I really like the look and feel of the design — it seems chaotic without being overly warped or mutated. The chains are also a callback to the World Eaters gladiatorial tendencies. And the pauldron actually mirrors the design of the shin armour on the same side.

The true star of the show is the right pauldron, though — complete with a World Eaters icon and numbers for the legion and company the Knight has been attached to:

I had been planning to use a Forgeworld decal (kindly provided by Mr. poom, no less) for a long time, although the process turned out to be just the nightmare I had anticipated: Making a decal conform to a curved surface can be tiring enough at the best of times, but I found out that it was even more of a hassle here, in spite of copious amounts of decal softener. Which makes me all the more happy to have pulled it off like this — save for a few tiny irregularities, it ended up looking fairly convincing, don’t you think? I also added some weathering on top in order to represent places where the paint had been slightly damaged and nicked.

Once again, the right pauldron shares similarities with the corresponding shin armour — especially since both use the same spikes (which, in turn, are a callback to the studded parts of Heresy-era Astartes armour).

So here’s the entire model:

Next stop: the carapace. And boy what a job that will be! Wish me luck! ;)

Anyway, so much for the progress on my Chaos Knight. If you have any feedback or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you!

Before I tune out for today, allow me to share something very cool with you: Fellow hobbyist Bloodygoodtime sent me a wonderful little sketch of Lord Captain Lorimar. Take a look:

illustration by Bloodygoodtime

I almost laughed myself off my chair when I first saw it, because it’s just perfect: badass and adorable at the same time, and it really captures the very essence of the character for me — in fact, it makes me wonder whether the Eternal Hunt wouldn’t make for an excellent Saturday morning cartoon… Anyway, a huge thank you, mate! You rock!

And, of course, to everyone else: Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

So, what about that Chaos Knight I’ve been working on for quite a while now? While recent events have slowed down work on the model a bit, I do have a fresh update for you that should give you a pretty good idea as to what the finished model is going to look like, so strap yourselves in!

When we last encountered the Knight, the entire top carapace was still only undercoated black, so this was the next area I needed to tackle. Thankfully, I had purchased a Citadel L Base Brush from my FLGS, which made it far easier to produce an even coat of red on this huge area. Here’s what the Knight looked like with the carapace painted red and the first details picked out:

While I realise that not everyone will like the armour plates painted entirely in red, this was very much my plan from the beginning — and, like I said, if it had been my call, the fabled “Red Period” at GW would never have ended ;)

I’ll still need to add some further detail work, but I’ve already finished the top hatch. Here’s a closer look:

And while I was at it, I also had some fun with the interior:

Hey there, Baron Harrowthorne! ;)

Speaking of which, seeing FW’s recently released Knight Scion has made me pretty happy, seeing how I seem to have come pretty close to the “official” version of a Knight pilot with my own, kitbashed version — at least when it comes to the position and the controls for the Knight:

Oh, and another detail: Those of you paying close attention may have spotted a suspicious model in that picture of the Knight above. This little guy here:

This is a small “Gaiden Project” dubbed the “Chibi-Knight” — a roughly Epic-scaled version of my Chaos Knight, inspired by fellow German hobbyist Paule’s excellent thread about kitbashing Epic Titans. Coming up with a model to match the bigger version fairly closely has been a lot of fun, and I think I’ve done a reasonably good job of it, wouldn’t you agree? Anyway, expect to see more of this little guy at some point ;)

And that’s where I stopped working on the Knight for a while when, well…real life happened. But this past week, I’ve felt the need to do something creative and fun, so I’ve come up with this:

As you will probably have guessed, this will be the base for my Chaos Knight. As it happens, I’ve been going back and forth regarding what to put on the base: On the one hand, it’s really easy to make bases of this size look tacky by overcluttering them. But the Knight deserved a suitable base. And yet. And still…

In the end, I realised that there are few things more emblematic of the crumbling Imperium of Man than a toppled and destroyed Astartes statue — plus the piece from the Honoured Imperium kit was a pretty nice fit scale-wise! So I went with that, and I am pretty pleased with the general direction, if I do say so myself.

So here’s the – still unfinished (!) – Knight, provisionally placed on top of it:

And a closer look at the way the model and base interact:

While the base is suitably impressive for a model of this size, I think it does a pretty good job of not drawing a way too much attention from the true star of the show. If anything, it may actually be a tad too monochromatic, as pointed out by my buddy Biohazard. Yet I don’t want to screw up both the painting I have so far and the fact that it matches the bases of my World Eaters — any ideas?

Oh, and there’s one last thing I did: I finished the banner dangling between the Knight’s legs, using some decals to create a suitable design. The front received a World Eaters legion badge in red:

As simple as this design looks, it was a veritable nightmare to get right! I started with a decal from the FW World Eaters decal sheet, but it needed lots of decal softener and several coats of varnish to finally conform to the banner’s surface. And even then, what had been a rich, ox-blood red on the decal sheet turned into a prety off-putting shade of pink against the dark background, so I ended up painting over the decal several times, coloring in the legion badge, so to speak, with my brush.

Fortunately enough, the rear was far less of a hassle — in fact, designing some of the battle honours won by the Knight during its long years of service was actually quite a bit of fun! Take a look:

So, here’s the Knight as it stands right now:

When all is said and done, I am very happy with the way this guy is turning out, even though there’s still quite a bit of detail work left to do. Roughly speaking, I’d place the entire model at about two thirds done right now, although most of the stuff left to do is fairly minor detail work. But the Knight is shaping up to be quite the centre piece, wouldn’t you agree?

As always, let me know what you think! And, of course, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

“Pray to your false Emperor with all your heart. Perhaps he might yet protect you, after all.”
Baron Augustus Melchiah Harrowthorne

So, a rather early update this week, but I just cannot sit on this any longer. So here goes:
More than a year later, here we are: Today’s post will finally showcase one of my most ambitious hobby projects to date, and certainly the biggest model I have ever painted — my very own converted Chaos Knight that will accompany the warriors of the World Eaters’ 4th assault company into battle. Regular readers of this blog will already be rather familiar with the model’s various stages of completion, but since I want this to be a fairly comprehensive showcase post, those of you who haven’t seen the Knight take shape yet will find all the various posts on the subject linked below:

PRELUDE

– THE BUILDING –

PART I
PART II
PART III

– THE PAINTING –

PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV

Oh, and you might also be interested in this companion post over at Dark Future Gaming, where I discuss some of the excellent conversions that have inspired my own take on the Chaos Knight.

But let’s get to the actual showcase, right? So when we last saw the Knight, there was still some work left to do. One very important thing that I definitely wanted to incorporate was an effect suggested by dantay_xv a while ago:

The other idea I had, but again might not work would be bloody hand prints on the lower limbs and small totems or skulls at the feet of the knight like offerings or devotions.

As the 4th company go to war, they walk by Harrowthornes Knight & touch a bloody hand to its armour in the hope of receiving Khorne’s blessing for a good hunt etc before going to battle.

I really loved this idea, so I had to make it work somehow. And I basically left this effect for last during painting (because I was really rather anxious about messing up, to be honest). Anyway, my approach was to make a press mold of a hand bit from a WFB trophy. I used GS for this. Then the mold was filled with latex milk, in order to create a suitably floppy and flexible copy of the hand that could then be used as a “stamp”, so to speak:

The stamp was then coated with Tamiya Clear Red, the colour I used to create the actual handprints. However, I quickly learned a couple of things: One, in spite of the flexibility of the stamp, actually creating some believable handprints on the shin armour’s curved surface turned out to be quite a bit of an ordeal. Two, there was actually even less room than I had anticipated. Three, while I had planned to add many, many handprints, I realised that the limited space resulted in a very real danger of all the handprints just mushing together into a solid wall of glossy red. So In the end, it was rather about suggesting the intended effect without going overboard — and I actually ended up painting most of the handprints by brush. Oh well…

Here’s the armour after the application of the handprints:

I am pretty pleased with the effect as it stands. It’s a rather subtle effect, to be sure, and one that does not come across all that well in photographs, but if you have the model in front of you and turn it, it’s really a rather cool effect when you suddenly glimpse the silhouette of handprints, created by the Clear Red’s glossy finish (the effect can be seen pretty well in the pictures above).

All that was left to do at this point was a lot of minor cleanup work. I had drawn up a list of many small parts that needed some more attention during the earlier stages of painting the Knight, and now I carefully went down this list and cleaned up every part of the model in turn. While this did take a while, I really didn’t want my attention to detail to wane so close to the finishing line, so I stayed focused. I may not be able to hold a candle to, say, JeffTibbett’s kind of perfectionism, but I can be obsessed when I need to ;)

So, without any further ado, here’s the finished model. I give you Gilgamesh, the Warrior King, the Twice-Consecrated, Son of the Ember Queen, the 4th assault company’s very own Knight Titan:

It probably won’t surprise you that I am just immensely happy with this model right now: It has been quite a journey, but in the end I ended up accomplishing pretty much all that I had set out to do with this model, and all without cutting any corners, which is no small feat for me ;) Oh, and the fact that the start to painting the model was rather bumpy and almost made me abandon the piece in frustration makes this success all the sweeter now!

Oh, and I do realise that painting all of the armour red may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it really creates the kind of look I wanted: The colour scheme and many bitz leave absolutely no doubt as to the machine’s allegiance, wouldn’t you agree?

So let’s take a closer look at some of the detail, because that’s really the fun part with a model of this size: To add stuff that may not be immediately noticeable but that hints at the machine’s backstory and long years of service. Again, some of you will already be familiar with most of these details, but please bear with me here — I am just really proud of the model right now ;)

So, we have seen the red and brass, and so it’s no surprise that the Knight proudly displays the heraldry of the XII Legion Astartes, be it on the heraldic plate…

…or on its right shoulder pad:

In the latter case, the legion badge is supplemented by the Legion and company number, respectively. The other shoulder pad, meanwhile, shows a massive brazen icon of the Blood God, chained into place in the gladiatorial style of the legion and decorated in many smaller totems and icons:

The World Eaters legion badge is also on display on the banner between the Knight’s legs:

Also take note of the bloody handprints on the warmachine’s shin armour, left there as an oath of moment by the legionaries of the 4th. And there’s also a symbol of the Legio Audax (“Ember Wolves”) on the right kneepad, symbolising the machine’s honorary membership in the mighty Titan Legio. After going back and forth on the design several times, in the end I decided to combine an AdMech cog symbol (as a symbol of a Titan Legio) and a SW paw print for the actual Ember Wolves look — I just liked the way the paw print mirrored the (bloody) handprints used by the World Eaters as a sign of accomplishment in the official fluff.

Meanwhile, the rear side of the banner displays a collection of the many battle honours won by the Knight during its long years of service among the World Eaters:

Like I said, I had quite a bit of fun with this small detail, and it’s also a callback to some of the really old Adeptus Titanicus and Rogue Trader artwork: Even then, Titans were covered in battle honours, hung with kill banners and what have you.

The Knight is stalking through the rubble of a vast battlefield, crushing the remains of a toppled Space Marine monument underfoot — a fitting metaphor for the failing Imperium of Man:

But what of the pilot? A look into the opened cockpit reveals Baron Harrowthorne himself, strapped into his Throne Mechanicum:

As I’ve said in an earlier post, this was probably the most complicated part of the whole conversion, but also the part I am most proud of now: Opening the hatch really shows you this perfect little vignette of the Baron in his fully realised cockpit — there’s even a design for the interior part of the hatch, of course:

Oh, and while this doesn’t have anything to do with the Baron, the Astartes helmet tropy to the left was actually painted in the colours of my INQ28 DIY Space Marine Chapter, the Golden Legion — I thought this was a pretty cool shout out ;)

Anyway, getting the pilot’s position to really match the hatch above took some doing, but the finished piece makes me feel it’s been well worth it:

And as it happens, I have left the entire top carapace detachable, so let us take a closer look, shall we?

The carapace can be taken of with a bit of fiddling and will also reliably snap back into place, so it seemed like a no brainer not to glue it in. So we can get a better look at the cockpit. Like so:

And here’s a view from the top, showing both the cockpit and engine compartment:

And a side view, showing the construction below it all:

In this picture you can also make out the piece of sprue I have used to keep the joint at the waist flexible.

And here’s a look at the monitor banks showing vital battlefield information to the Baron:
All of this has been kitbashed from different vehicle bitz and some plasticard, but I think I’ve managed to combine it into a rather cohesive whole. What’s more, the design even resembles Forgeworld’s “official” Knight interiors released for the Cerastus Knight variants — no small feat when you consider that those versions weren’t even available yet when I started converting my own Knight.

In addition to the to the carapace, the shoulder pads and arms have also been left detachable, so the entire Knight can be disassembled fairly thoroughly. Take a look:

Since all of the parts lock into place fairly reliably without glue, there was really no point to attaching them permanently. Plus the weapons can be properly aligned and turned towards the enemy during games. Oh, and I am also free to maybe build an alternate pair of weapon arms for the Knight one of these days…

Before I started working on the Knight, the biggest conversion I had ever tackled was my Wargrinder, a custom Dreadknight conversion. And while I am still very proud of this model, it does look almost puny when placed next to its bigger brother. Take a look:

Quite a difference, eh? Speaking of which, the picture also shows that the red used on my Knight noticeably differs from the red used on the rest of my World Eaters. While I would have loved the colours to be the same, I ultimately had to make this decision because my World Eaters colour scheme relies on the – now OOP – GW Blood Red, and my reserves of this colour would never have sufficed to paint a model of this size to a standard I was happy with. In the end, I chose to make the Knight the best it could possibly be — at the price of a bit of visual coherency. But when all is said and done, I think it’s a difference I can easily live with: The model still looks like it belongs with the rest of the army, and a Knight Titan is really different enough from an Astartes vehicle or daemon engine to warrant a bit of visual divergence.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of scale comparisons, here’s a picture showing a power armoured World Eater, a Terminator, a Dreadnought, the Wargrinder and the Chaos Knight, just to put the scale in perspective:

All in all, this has been an absolutely fantastic project for me, because it has really taught me so much, both about big models, but also about giving a model the time it deserves in order to really make it shine. What’s more, this Chaos Knight really turned into a bit of a community project somewhere along the way, as the feedback I received here and on forums like Dakka, The B&C or The Ammobunker really provided immensely helpful advice and helped me to stay focused whenever there was a danger of slacking off ;)

If I have to name on source of inspirations above all others, it would have to be JeffTibbett’s brilliant Freeblade, the “Queen Bee”, though: Jeff’s work really taught me a new way of looking at a Knight and how to do justice to one of this ancient, hallowed warmachines. So thanks a lot to all those who provided valuable feedback and cheers to you, Jeff!

So, anything else? Well, speaking of the amount of history behind Knights, we cannot possibly wind up this post without taking a look at the history of this particular machine and its pilot, can we? So here’s what I’ve come up with for the two:

Baron Augustus Melchiah Harrowthorne

Knight Baron Harrowthorne was the leader of the honourable Covenant of Paladins, an alliance of knight households formed to defend a forgeworld in the eastern fringe. While several of the other powerful houses were forever planning and plotting to engineer their own rise to power, Harrowthorne’s honour and purity cemented his position as the Covenant’s leader, and his ancestral fortress, the Harrowspyke, remained the seat of government of his knight world.

When the world came under heavy attack from an Ork invasion, an expeditionary fleet made up of elements of the XIIth and XVIIth Legion Astartes arrived in the nick of time, supporting the Covenant of Paladins and routing the xenos attack force. With the world saved, Baron Harrowthorne felt honour-bound to not only pledge allegiance to the Imperium of Man, but also to join the expeditionary fleet himself as a representative of the Covenant, in order to pay back the debt of honour he owed the Legiones Astartes.

Harrowthorne fought alongside the XIIth legion during the latter Great Crusade and was still attached to the World Eaters when the Horus Heresy broke out. The events at Isstvan made him realise that the Warmaster’s forces were now considered heretics and traitors by the rest of the Imperium. To distance himself from them would have been the most prudent course of action, and possibly the only way of preventing his own knight world from being purged by the loyalists. But Harrowthorne still felt indebted to the legion that had saved him.

Harrowthorne came up with the only compromise that would keep both his knight world and his own honour intact: He stepped down from his position as head of his household and leader of the Covenant of Paladins. He would remain with the the Astartes of the XIIth legion, to whom he still felt indebted. He also sent word to his sons to fight him and bring him to justice, should he ever return to his homeworld, for he was to be considered a traitor.

As prudent and honourable as this course of action had been, it did not work out: Word was sent by astropath that Harrowthorne’s whole household had been wiped out by the rivaling nobles. The Harrowspyke had been razed to the ground, and Harrowthorne’s two sons had been shot dead in sight of the smouldering ruins, without even a chance to prove their honour in a knightly duel.

Harrowthorne was beside himself with grief and self-hatred, when Lord Captain Lorimar of the 4th assault company approached him: Lorimar proposed to accompany the Knight Baron to his homeworld, where he would have his revenge. His debt of honour, Lorimar argued, went both ways, and the World Eaters would not forget Harrowthorne’s brave service at their side.

The Covenant of Paladins may have been a formidable force, but it was all but powerless against the wrath of an entire assault company of World Eaters: The 4th fell onto the world like a pack of wolves falls upon its prey. With Harrowthorne leading the assault, all the noble houses that had engineered his downfall were wiped out. The leader of the conspiracy was shot in the head with a mere service pistol on the plains surrounding his smouldering keep, denied the courtly respect that he himself had denied Harrowthorne’s sons.

Afterwards, Harrowthorne felt nothing but a great emptiness. But Lorimar approached the Knight Baron and offered him a chance at revenge even beyond his own homeworld: Once again, the Baron and the World Eaters would be united by a common goal: Terra must burn!

Gilgamesh, the Warrior King, the Twice-Consecrated, Son of the Ember Queen

Harrowthorne’s ancient Knight Titan has become a sight to be feared on battlefields across the galaxy. Its baroque form towers over the ranks of World Eaters marching to war alongside it, and seems like an avatar of the Blood God given form, clad in monstrous, barbed plate of arterial red and darkened brass. No traces of House Harrowthorne’s original heraldry remain on Gilgamesh’s body, as the Knight has been repainted and re-consecrated to mirror the post-heresy heraldry of the XII Legion Astartes – proof of the Baron’s honorary membership in the legion.

Trophies and totems cover the machine’s form, and battle honours from its ten millennia of service alongside the World Eaters are still displayed proudly on banners and armour plates: the details of bloody campaigns on Jubal, Badlanding, Armatura and countless other worlds. The badge of the Legio Audax, commemorating the day when Gilgamesh was named “Son of the Ember Queen” by the Legio’s Princeps Ultima. And, of course, the bloody handprints adorning the Knight’s shin armour, placed there before every battle by the legionaries of the 4th, both as an oath of moment and a good luck charm.

Gilgamesh’s metallic form houses a particularly vicious and spiteful machine spirit, driven to anguish over the fall of House Harrowthorne just like its master. In communion, man and machine now turn their cold fury towards the enemies of the 4th assault company, and few can stand before the wrath of the Warrior King and live to tell the tale…

So, when all is said and done, I hope you like this detailed view at my Chaos Knight. I’ll be honest: I cannot take my eyes off the model right now, as I really consider it one of my biggest hobby achievements so far. Getting to the point where I actually have the skillset necessary to tackle a model like this and end up with a result I am happy with has been quite a journey indeed!

So anyway, I’d love to hear any feedback you might have on Gilgamesh and the Baron — and, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

It has been a while since I last posted a review focusing on a new GW release, and I intend to change that today. Considering current RL circumstances, I hope you’ll bear with me when I choose something fairly close to my heart to get back into the swing of things. So let’s talk about the new Khorne Bloodbound kits today:

Followers of the blood god really can’t complain: With every WFB or AoS chaos release, we have received a substantial addition to our toy box. I am quite aware that many non-Khornate chaos fans are rolling their eyes by now, seeing how Khorne seems to be getting all the love. And indeed, Khorne seems to be GW’s preferred fallback position whenever a new chaos release rolls around. For Age of Sigmar, this means that the Bloodbound have not only been elevated to a proper sub-faction, but they have also been the focus of the first wave of new chaos kits released for the revamped system. And while the Stormcast Eternals seem like GW’s attempt at radically re-envisioning the Empire by way of the Space Marines, the new Khorne kits hew far closer to the “traditional” chaos look. So, what do we get? Let’s take a look at each of the new kits in turn and also consider some of the possible conversion options. So sharpen your axe and step this way, please ;)

Skarbrand

Well, this was certainly a pleasant surprise, seeing how Skarbrand has been on hobbyists’ short list to finally receive a proper model for quite a while now. So here he is — can the model live up to all the expectations?

It’s quite obvious that the Skarbrand kit allows GW to get some more mileage out of those Bloodthirster designs they must have done prior to the release of the new plastic kit, as there is an overall similarity in design between Skarbrand and the stock Bloodthirsters (both share the spiky butt cheeks, for one ;) ). On the other hand, the new model deviates from the prior kit in several ways: There’s the very different pose, of course, making Skarbrand look like he’s taking a moment to bellow in rage at the enemy. In fact, the pose is really rather excellent and one of my favourite parts about the model: While it does maintain some forward momentum, it really adds some presence to the character. And it also works rather beautifully with the twin axes wielded by Skarbrand.

The other very noticeable thing about the model, and one of the aspects that define the character, is the pair of tattered, torn wings. And I think GW’s designers have done a rather nice job on this particular part of the model:

Keeping most of the bones intact and limiting the damage to the wing membranes was a pretty good move, if you ask me: The design avoids the lopsided look you see on many Skarbrand conversions. Andwhile the wings still have a vestigial, damaged look to them, they do add some presence to the model. I also like the idea of having spiked chains between the bones: Is that some kind of additional torture, one has to wonder, or Skarbrand’s own attempt at making his damaged wings more presentable…?

The model also has some rather heavy scarring on the right side of the face. Let’s not get into the metaphysics of this too much (do daemons have bones in the first place? Aren’t they just warp energies given form…?), and rather focus on the actual design: While I like the broken horns, the flayed face may just be a bit much. Then again, I love how the ‘Eavy Metal team chose to paint the right eye as white and – possibly – blind:

And there’s the beard, of course. I’ll be honest with you: I am not a fan. But it should be easy enough to just leave it off or use it as a braid of hair on virtually any big model, so I’ll let it slide.

The twin axes are very nice and daemonic in design — the organic aspect really fits for a Greater Daemon, and I also like how they are far shorter and more hatchet-like than the axes the stock Bloodthirster gets. And while they are pretty ornate, they still seem workmanlike enough to work, from a visual standpoint. They also rather beautifully complement Skarbrand’s pose, as mentioned above.

And one more thing that differentiates Skarbrand from the stock Bloodthirster: a (mostly) custom set of armour plates, giving us yet another set of options for our Bloodthirsters’ wardrobes ;)

The armour looks great, too — I’ll even forgive that one skull playfully wedged into the eye socket of a skull ornament, there ;) Anyway, the slightly more ornate look seems fitting for a daemon that used to be one of Khorne’s most exalted champions.

Seen on its own, the model is really cool and makes for a fitting centre piece for every Khornate army — the fact that it doubles as both an AoS and a 40k release is a nice bonus, of course.

Things really get interesting, however, when taking a closer look at the Skarbrand sprue: In additon to the actual parts needed to build Skarbrand, you also get a fair bit of stock Bloodthirster parts in the box:

For the record, you get the alternate pair of legs, two alternate heads and most of the weapons of the stock ‘Thirster. The undamaged wings, alternate armour pieces, third head and two-handed axe seem to be unaccounted for, though.

In any case, this should allow you to build either Skarbrand or your own, custom Bloodthirster, with additional parts from the stock kit multiplying the options even further, right? Well, yes and no: While you can make some changes to Skarbrand and use some of Skarbrand’s parts on your stock Bloodthirster, the kits are unfortunately not 100% compatible. Fellow hobbyist Khorga informs me that the running legs, for instance, are not really compatible with Skarbrand’s custom armour, while the amour plates from the stock kit, in turn, don’t fit together too well with Skarbrand’s standing legs. At the same time, depending on which pair of arms you use, the shape of the wing sockets on the model’s back will change accordingly, so not every set of arms will work with both sets of wings. While this shouldn’t present accomplished converters with any unsolvable problems, it would still have been nice to have all the parts compatible with one another — or even to have a kit that will make Skarbrand and all of the three stock ‘Thirster variants? Granted, that may have been to much wishlisting. But with today’s kits being so meticulously planned, it seems like having all the parts fit together wouldn’t have been that much more complicated for the designers.

Another piece of criticism frequently leveled at Skarbrand (as well as the stock Bloodthirsters, for that matter) is the models’ size: Quite a few hobbyists feel that these beasts should be quite a bit bigger. I am honestly not as bothered by the size issue, though: I think GW’s designers have managed to imbue both Skarbrand and his brethren with a sense of presence and brutality that makes them look as though they could go toe to toe with an Imperial Knight and still come out on top. If there is one size issue that bothers me, it’s that Skarbrand used to be the most powerful of Khorne’s Bloodthirsters, yet he’s about half the size of this guy…? Talk about a pint-sized powerhouse, right there! ;)

But that’s not really a major concern, and in spite of such minor quibbles, what we have here is a rather stunning model, and possibly the star of this release. Would I have enjoyed a huge multi-optional kit for Skarbrand and each of the ‘Thirster variants? You bet! But this is what we get, and it’s still pretty great, if you ask me.

Exalted Deathbringer

Whoa, that’s a pretty big guy, isn’t he? One of the new Khornate characters is quite interesting in how the model seems to blur the line between mortal and immortal servant of Khorne: He’s not quite a daemon yet, but also no longer purely mortal either. At the same time, the overall look of the model did remind me of a souped-up version of the priest from the warshrine kit.

Anyway, I like the model well enough, mostly for the excellent detail work adorning both the armour and the bare skin of the piece. I also really like that bestial face!

If I have one gripe, the weapons seem a tad too gimmicky for my taste: That axe is just a bit too cumbersome, maybe, and definitely an acquired taste, for one. And it really wouldn’t make any sense to have skull trophies dangling from there, would it…?

Beyond that, the only thing that really doesn’t sit well with me is that topknot — in fact, the quickest way to make the model look much cooler would be to either significantly shorten the topknot…

…or lose it altogether:

In fact, without a topknot, the model looks like an even more grimdark version of Darkness from the seminal fantasy flick Legend. I wonder if that was intentional…?

A look at the sprue reveals that the model is versatile enough to allow for at least some customisation:

Want to make your Deathbringer look less daemonic and more human? Just drop the stock head and swap in something more marauder-y. Need the claw or the axe for a different model? The world’s your oyster! And by the same token, it should also be possible to swap in an alternate set of weapons for use on the Deathbringer. The fairly open pose of the model should make converting it very easy.

All in all, I rather like this guy. He may not be super-original, but he does explore GW’s usual chaos look from a slightly new angle by blending mortal and daemonic characteristics. Plus the model’s versatility is really nice. Probably my favourite of the new Khornate plastic characters!

Slaughterpriest

Hmm, now this is an interesting case… Let’s not get into the fact that this guy doesn’t really all that much like a priest to begin with —
because you might argue that Khorne is not a deity to be worshipped at a temple or church, but rather through the act of war itself. What instantly struck me about the model is that it does look fairly different from what we are used to — in fact, it doesn’t even really look like a GW model, does it? My immediate reaction was that it seemed like a piece from a different manufacturer (Rackham comes to mind, or the designs you would see in Dark Age.

Sure, it does have enough Khorne symbols and skulls on it to convince us that it does indeed belong. But there are parts of it that really recall several other manufacturers: a certain lankiness when it comes to the model’s proportions, the design of the face…

In fact, I really rather like the face, to be honest. And the fact that the model doesn’t immediately read as standard GW fare doesn’t have to be a problem in and of itself, of course! I just cannot shake the feeling that this guy doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the family…

Beyond that, it’s certainly a cool looking model! Once again, the detailing is amazing all around:

There’s a dubious design decision or two, though: Why have those horns emerge from the model’s spine? Why have them at all, if you don’t want them on the head? Wouldn’t that be really impractical (and rather uncomfortable as well)?

Anyway, a closer look at the sprue shows that the model might be slightly less flexible when it comes to conversions, but much of that has to do with the specific pose and the two-handed weapon, of course:

All in all, I have to admit that I haven’t yet made up my mind regarding this guy: He does stick out a bit, yet there’s also something interesting about the model’s different style that I find rather intriguing. Hmm…

Skullgrinder

Ah, here we are, back in far safer territory. As a matter of fact, it’s actually rather surprising that it took GW as long as this to make the connection between Khorne and some blacksmith, forge god archetypes. But here we are at last: The Blood God’s very own sinister blacksmith. Huzzah! :)

Where the Slaughterpriest almost seemed like a non-GW model, the Skullgrinder looks oddly familiar. But then, it has so many hallmarks of GW’s Khornate design: the bunny eared helmet (with a lovely, somewhat perplexed, expression, if you asked me). The heavy armour. The dangling skulls and icons.

And of course, the weapon on a chain, something that seems to be becoming a defining characteristic of many Khornate models for AoS:

I certainly hope he’s not using that thing for any actual smithing, though — not only should it make for a rather uneven performance, but it also seems like it would wreak havoc on any matters of occupational safety… ;)

Yet once again, there’s something bothering me, although I cannot quite put my finger on it. Maybe the model just seems like a slightly formulaic treatment of the subject matter — like they mostly wanted to tick off a box here. “Murderous Blacksmith archetype? Yep, got that one. Moving on.”

Once again, the rather complicated pose means that you’ll have to plan ahead a bit when converting the Skullgrinder. At the same time, some of the bitz (the weapon and head, in particular) are interesting enough, so I think we should expect to see them on other models before long.

This guy is a Khornate model alright, but he also seems like the least interesting out of the three. Is it just me? Or would it indeed have been possible to do more with the blacksmith archetype — speaking of which: While not call this guy Warsmith or Wrathsmith or something that doesn’t involve the word “skull” for once? Oh well… ;)

Bloodreavers

Now these are the Marauders we have wanted for at least a couple of years, wouldn’t you agree? I think it’s consensus that the vintage plastic Marauder kit has adged pretty badly by now (although some of the bitz are still rather useful, make no mistake!), while the more recent kits like the Marauder Horsemen hinted at much more pleasing chaotic barbarians. And now we get the Bloodreavers, and I really have to say I like them a lot!

These guys are bullish and warlike and just seem very fittingly brutal and tribal for the job! They also look dangerous enough to hld their own against the more heavily armoured followers of chaos, visually.

Bloodreavers were one of the unit types that came in the Age of Sigmar boxed set, so it’s interesting to see inhowfar these multipart models move beyond the snapfit pieces from that box. And I think the Bloodreavers do a rather good job in this respect, staying true to the overall design while adding some interesting new touches, such as the two-handed weapons and the bigger amount of bare heads:

In fact, some of those heads are especially nice and flavourful (and would work brilliantly on World Eaters, if you ask me). At the same time, I also like the very stripped-down, brutal looking helmets.

At their best, these guys are just as menacing as you would want your mad, bloodthirsty barbarians to be. And without any of the Barbie doll anatomy (especially where the shoulders are concerned) that plagued the old Marauder kit. Some of the models are just brilliant:

The kit is not without its awkward parts, though. Some of the poses do seem a bit static and unnatural. Like the guy in the bottom left here:

Or that strange, double-sided dagger wielded by the champion. Whoever thought that looked cool?

All in all, however, I really like these guys! They manage to move beyond the starter box Bloodreavers, presenting some interesting new options and some pretty wicked sculpts. And you get twenty of them in the kit, so what’s not to like?

Blood Warriors

Here’s the other unit type featured in the AoS starter box, also rendered as a multipart plastic kit. And while I don’t want to get ahead of myself, I would argue that these models don’t fare quite as well as the Bloodreavers. Let’s take a closer look:

Okay, first things first: Like the models that came with the AoS starter books, the multipart Blood Warriors make for some heavily armoured, quite sinister and very Khornate infantry — so far so good! The detail work is, once again, excellent, with every armour beautifully detailed and adorned with suitably Khornate elements. The amount of different heads is truly staggering, with a pretty big collection of Khornate helmets, as well as some bare variants:

I especially like the bitz used to make up both the unit champion and standard bearer: The champ is such a characterful model, don’t you think?

I would never have expected to ever get fed up with axes — but I would have appreciated a sword or two in the kit, if only for some visual variety. Sure, all of the models have the option of equipping the new gorefists or a pair of axes, but a sword or two would have been nice. Speaking of which, the special weapons option here seems to be the, strangely Klingon-like, “Goreglaive” — which tries a bit too hard to be awesome for my taste…

That is a particularly lovely helmet, though!

The models generally try to approximate the design outline set down by the snapfit models from the starter kit, with the different helmet designs and optional bare arms the only visual elements to distinguish them. They do seem slightly less …sophisticated, for lack of a better word, than the starter box models, though. Granted, a pre-posed model will have a pretty good chance of looking more dramatic and impressive than a model built from a multipart kit, but it’s fairly noticeable here. There are also some strangely awkward elements about the kit: The aforementioned “Klingon axe”, some of the bare arms or the strange way the chains on the icon bearer’s standard interact with gravity…

In spite of these concerns, the kit remains very versatile and interesting — especially from a kitbasher’s perspective. This seems like the new, comprehensive toolkit for building heavily armoured Khorne dudes, and it should also provide you with many, many bitz to accessorise your World Eaters, Khorne berzerkers, Khornate Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Knights, regular WoC or what have you.

And still, while the kit is pretty cool, it somehow seems less interesting to me than the Bloodreavers — and it certainly brings fewer new elements to the table when compared with the Blood Warriors contained in the starter box. Still, I suppose this will turn into a more or less compulsory purchase for each Khorne player at some point.

Conversion ideas

So much for the different kits — but what about the conversion potential? I think it’s pretty obvious that these new kits will mostly come in handy for chaos players, particularly for those running any kind of Khornate army and/or warband. So what are my first ideas after taking a closer look at the new kits?

Skarbrand

• The most othe obvious conversion use for the kit would be to make a more interesting, customised Bloodthirster — while keeping in mind the aforementioned difficulties when combining Skarbrand and stock Bloodthirster bitz. Even so, with a sharp knife, some GS and a slightly adventurous spirit, the two available Bloodthirster kits should provide converters with quite a few options to make a really unique greater daemon of Khorne.
• Speaking of which: I think Skarbrand would also make a very nice base model for a conversion of Angron in his incarnation as a Daemon Primarch: The pose is really fitting for the character, and I think the more ornate armour should also work like a charm. In fact, I really don’t understand why we haven’t yet seen any Angron conversions based on the new Bloodthirster kits — maybe it’s time to change that…?!
• Whichever option you choose, the kit will also provide some nice additional bitz for your Daemon Prince or Chaos Lord. Since you get quite a few of the stock Bloodthirster bitz as part of the deal, there’s nothing stopping you from, say, making your Daemon Prince look more Khornate. And some of the weapons might look good on a daemon engine or even on a Chaos Knight — in fact, most of the ideas I’ve outlined in my review of the stock Bloodthirster kit also apply to Skarbrand!

Exalted Deathbringer

• I think the model would make for a rather nice alternate Herald of Khorne — especially in a 40k daemon army, where the danger of confusing the model for something else wouldn’t be as big. But the rather daemonic look of this guy, in addition to his bulk, would really make him look the part!
• Or he could become a mutant overlord — either for your LatD force with a Khornate twist or for an INQ28 chaos warband. Speaking of the latter options, he would also make for a great chaotic high priest with a few touchups.
• Or, basically the most straightforward option: Make the model a bit less daemonic and use it as a World Eaters arena champion — not unlike my own conversion for Vorl Dustwalker.

Slaughterpriest

• I somehow get the feeling that this guy might end up as one of the chief suspects when it comes to converting a kit from the new release. I don’t even have all that many ideas about him yet, seeing how I yet need to make up my mind about him, but I think there will be quite a few conversions of the Slaughterpriest in the future, mark my words. Here, let me share my very first idea from just a second ago: What about thinking of that hideous spine painted in metal? That would give him a distinct “Mean Machine” vibe. Now just slap on a monstrous power claw, and you are already half way towards a very sinister looking pitslave champion. Just a though…

Bloodreavers

These guys should be very versatile conversion fodder. Just off the top of my head…

• …they could be used as some very beefy and intimidating chaos cultists, obviously. Just slap on some autopistols, and you’re golden ;)
• these would be brilliant as pitslaves! Just shave off the Khorne icons and add some heavy duty power tools and augmetics to them — done. They have the bulk. They have the scars. The rest shouldn’t be much work.
• And while we are leaning towards the more loyalist (or at least, slightly less chaotic) side of things: Don’t you think these guys would make for some pretty convincing gland war veterans? I mean they certainly look like they have been beefed up via unsavory means. I mean, they could possibly be used to build any kind of barbarian IG troopers hailing from a feudal world, but I think they would be excellent as gland war veterans à la Inquisitor’s Sergeant Stone.
• With a bit of conversion work, especially where the legs are concerned, these could be used to build some excellent, bare-chested, gladiatorial World Eaters — in fact, had these guys been available at the time, they would probably have been the perfect base models for my own Gladiatorii.
• And finally, the bitz from the kit would work wonderfully on both Pre and post-Heresy World Eaters: I think the faces really have the kind of personality you want on your blood-crazed madmen. Some of the brutal looking helmets might also be pretty cool on World Eaters officers. And a bare arm here and there would also make for a cool eyecatcher. If I ever get a box of these (and I will, eventually), expect to see the leftover bitz used in this way ;)

Blood Warriors

As I’ve said before, I think these guys will become one of the new go-to kits when it comes to building Khornate models.

• They could be used as Khornate Chaos Space Marines and/or World Eaters with a bit of work (or barely any conversion work, depending on how adventurous you’re feeling). Face it, slaughter-brothers and -sisters: This is the closest we will ever come to a new plastic Khorne berzerker kit ;)
• And basically all of the bitz will certainly be in high demand for (Khornate) chaos armies all over the place: Expect to see all the extra heads and weapons on AoS Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights, 40k Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Lords or Khorne Berzerkers.

So, what about this release on the whole? I have to say that I basically have two reactions to this release:

As a World Eaters fan (and a hobbyist still hopelessly in love with the Khornate design, even after all these years), I consider this a rock-solid release that provides lots and lots of new toys and several very interesting new toolkits. I now have more options than ever, and it won’t surprise you to hear that my hands are already itching when I look at some of those delicious bitz.

As a hobbyist in general, I cannot help but be a bit less impressed. Sure, all of this is high-quality work, but it also hardly treads any new ground. Which is why I can perfectly understand why some people are growing fed up with the seeming deluge of Khornate kits.

So, what to make of it all?

It seems very obvious that the Bloodbound are GW’s attempt at creating a faction that “plays it safe”, relatively speaking: These models could be used just as well in vintage WFB, and the design of the new kits is close enough to the older Khornate kits released over the last couple of years — and maye this was really a conscious decision, taken not so much from laziness, but rather from the attempt at providing something people are familiar with? Think about it: Yes the Stormcast Eternals are very similar to Space Marines in some respect, but they are also a fairly radical change of direction for GW’s fantasy setting. Maybe they did want to be the other faction included in the starter (and expanded upon in the following release) to be closer to something fans of vintage WFB could relate to?

In any case, if you are a fan of Khorne, you’re in luck: You have so many new toys now, and most of them are pretty cool. Some are even rather awesome! If, however, you find Khorne uninteresting and boring, these kits will do little to change your mind.

What’s your take on the Khorne Bloodbound? Do you love ’em or hate ’em? Is there anything you would like to share, or a conversion idea I didn’t think of? I’d be happy to hear from you in the comments section!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

At the risk of boring you all to tears, today I would like to take one last look at what is probably my big hobby project of 2015: my customised Chaos Knight Titan. Don’t fret, though: There’s actually still something new left to say about the model, so you won’t merely have to look at the same pictures yet again ;)

In fact, with a project of this size, it’s probably not even a surprise that I ended up with some loose ends to tie up, even after finishing the model proper. So here’s a couple of small concerns left to address:

I. It’s getting hot in here…

The first thing I still wanted to do was to paint the alternate weapons option for the model. Even though I only purchased the original (2014) version of the Imperial Knight kit, that still provided me with two different long range weapons. And why I clearly favour one of them from a visual standpoint, I still  left the gun barrels exchangeable, so all I needed to do was to get some paint on the Thermal Cannon muzzle in order to make my Knight useable as either a Paladin or Errant. Take a look:

To be fair, though, it’s a fairly lazy version of this particular conversion, because it doesn’t extend to the tanks on the side of the weapons and is limited to the actual barrel of the gun:

While I did want to have the extra option, I far prefer the long-barrelled weapon, and it’s also very much a visual part of my Chaos Knight, so I went the easy route for once. I did some minor conversion work, however, in order to bring the look of the thermal cannon in line with the warlike, spiky look of the rest of the model — and that juggernaut armour plate makes for an instant Khornate look, wouldn’t you agree?

Nothing’s really magnetised (yet): The long-barrelled weapon is neatly kept in place by the model’s construction while the Thermal Cannon has to be helped along with a bit of modeling putty. I’ve already put the structure for magnetisation in place, however, so all that’s left to add are some actual magnets — I suppose I’ll be getting there at some point ;)

II. Stories of the Warrior King

It should come as no surprise that a monstrous warmachine like Gilgamesh has a lot of history behind it — ten millennia of service alongside Khorne’s Eternal Hunt will do that. What did come as a surprise, though, is that I didn’t even need to come up with all of the background material myself: While the model was still very much WIP, fellow hobbyist and blogger Inqmikaelovich sent me a rather excellent little story vignette kindly starring Gilgamesh in a support role. Allow me to share it with you:

Freeze frame.

A well trimmed grey beard fills the picture. It covers scars; errata in its patterns tell stories of hundreds of years of combat. It is about an inch and a half long and is the color of a cloudy sky.

Scroll up.

Between the beard and a similar mustache lies a mouth. It is smiling, a smile devoid of tension or stress. It is the smile of a man who has seen his fate, and, despite how dark a fate it is, finds peace in knowing it. With all uncertainty removed, his path is now clear.

Scroll up.

Above the mouth is a nose. It is perfect for the man’s face; neither too long nor too short, not too wide nor too thin. It is a noble nose, betraying a sense of humanity and sophistication.

Zoom out.

The full face is in the picture now. It is completed by well groomed hair and eyebrows, the same color as the beard. The man’s eyes are devoid of any emotion save peace of mind. They are a stormy blue, and seem too kind to belong with the war scarred beard.

Zoom out. Resume play at one thousandth speed.

The man is in a chair, hands gripping controls and the eyes fixed on an archaic HUD. An intimidating, impossibly loud roar fills the small chamber, and yet he does not flinch. There is now a sense of motion, as if he were falling forward, the tip of the beard lifting from his chest.

Zoom out. Pan 90 degrees left.

The function of the controls is now obvious; the last remaining suit of Knight Titan armour of House Tetsonar fills the frame. It is coated in black camouflage and Kill Markings, and is charging. An immense power sword, underslung on a massive mechanical fist, is swinging forward, and a deafening scream matches the roar as a massive plasma cannon powers to life.

Zoom out.

The roar’s source is now visible; an opposing Knight is counter-charging. The titanic duel fills the frame. It is painted red and brass, and dozens of bloody handprints adorn its adamantine greaves. Spiked chains are dangling from its form and its right arm that ends in an enormous cannon, its muzzle wrought in the shape of a snarling daemon. The other arm bears a chainblade of impossible proportions, hefting it above the machine’s head; it is the source of half the roar. The other half issues from the machine itself. In the distance, Imperial Aircraft are exiting a massive fortress, the last lifting off as the Knights are in mid-charge. The thousands of red and brass infantry at the giants’ feet turn, knowing their quarry gone, to the last Imperial Warrior standing – the Knight.

Pan 180 degrees right.

Our hero is bringing his blade around for a killing strike, one that will skewer his opponent, but it misses its mark. The enemy’s chainsword is swinging downward, ready to smash the hallowed Knight’s armour in. The last Valkyrie clears the walls of the fortress and begins to exit the atmosphere.

Resume at full speed.

As the Loyal Knight’s sword harmlessly scrapes yet another deep groove into the baroque armour of the Chaos Knight, the latter’s chainblade crashes down with irresistible force. The curved carapace of the Tetsonar Knight caves in, metal screeching on metal. A golden aura surrounds the god machine – a teleport is imminent. The archenemy titan rears its head and roars all the louder, angry at its prey being so cruelly snatched from its grasp.

A new scene, a massive hangar bay in orbit.

The last Valkyrie is docking a hangar over. Our hero appears, but all is not well – the giant crumples to the floor. Medical personnel and Tech Adepts swarm the titan, and the pilot is recovered. His smile still perseveres, but his eyes are closed. His beard is equal parts red and grey now, the crimson flecks telling one last tale. A tale of a stand, a tale of a fall.

A year has passed.

The Knight stands tall once more, its armoured form restored, new heraldic colours proud
and flawless: resplendent and rechristened, armed with new and far more fearsome weaponry, it’s original weapons joined by a fearsome shoulder mounted titankiller array, and a new name on it’s hallowed heraldic shield – Mercy’s Revenge. Before it stands an Inquisitor, an honoured servant of the God Emperor, with a servo-skull hovering above his shoulder. There is something familiar in the curve of its features, the geometry of its brow. The skull hovers silently, devoid of flesh and life, but ready to serve evermore. A younger man stands next to the Inquisitor, silent in contemplation.The Inquisitor’s voice is hardly a whisper.

“She is your ward now, my boy.”

Very cool, eh? It goes without saying that not only was I really flattered by this but I also wanted to reply in kind. So here’s another small story for you, depicting the same event, albeit from a different point of view. For some extra fun, I tried to stay fairly true to Inqmikaelovich’s piece and mimic the narrative structure rather closely. Check it out:

Freeze frame.

A face fills the picture, half-lit from below, its sharp features hawkish, yet noble. The face of a military man, of a warrior, born and bred. A proud face, yet the set of its features  speaks not of haughty arrogance, but of a pride well deserved. The scars of many battles can be glimpsed in the half-gloom, lending the owner of the face an aspect of martyrdom. Hints of juvenat treatments are visible, but subtly so. This rejuvenation has not been applied for vanity, but for preservation. The eyes are closed, as if in deep contemplation.

Resume at one tenth speed.

The man’s eyes open, and everything is changed. Like words gaining an entirely different meaning in a different context, the face, too, is re-contextualised, yet in the most sinister way: These are eyes that have seen too much and gone too far. There is old pain there, and old hatred. And a cold fury that is truly chilling to behold. The corners of the man’s mouth turn down into a frown that is somehow more intimidating than any grimace of rage could be.

Zoom out.

The man is seated in a throne, surrounded by controls and arcane auspex arrays. The interior of a gunmetal cockpit trimmed  in brass. The cockpit of a warmachine, a Knight Titan. The pilot’s pose is relaxed, but not without focus. His economy of motion betrays an amount of experience and unity with his machine that is uncanny.

Zoom out. Pan 90 degrees right.

The pilot’s suit of Knight armour is now visible, and it is truly terrible to behold:  armoured in arterial red and darkened bronze, its form bedecked in spikes and chains, a walking altar to the War God.

The machine is known by many names: the Crimson Noble. The Warrior King.  The Twice-Consecrated.
Gilgamesh.
It is feared across the galaxy, and rightly so.

Like any Knight, it flies its honours proudly, its many marks of distinction. Yet their meaning is lost to Imperial history, with those who would understand their significance either mortal enemies of the Imperium of Man or long in the ground. They tell a tale, however, these marks and seals. As do the dozens of bloody handprints adorning the Knight’s adamantine greaves, placed there as an oath of moment by the legionaries of the Hunt.

Zoom out.

The Knight’s quarry comes into view now: A black-armoured loyalist Knight, covered in battle honours and kill markings that, likewise, speak of an eternity of war and honour. None of this matters, though, save for the icons of subservience to the Throne of Lies. They cancel out all honour. They are the reason the machine and his pilot have to be brought down
Gilgamesh’s war horn blares with the sound of a bellowing Titan of legend as he stands ready to face his foe. The loyalist Knight pulls back for a blow with its massive chain fist. A killing blow, this…

Resume at full speed.

…but sloppy, way too sloppy. The underslung chainblade merely scrapes yet another inconsequential groove into Gilgamesh’s armour, nothing but a minor concern for the Sacristans maintaining the giant warmachine. Yet the blow has unbalanced the loyalist Knight, and there’s nothing it can do to stop the massive reaper chainsword descending on its carapace with terrible force, caving in the curved armour plates and creating a torrent of sparks as metal screeches on metal. But then, a golden glow surrounds the maimed loyalist machine: A teleport device, a priceless treasure hidden within the ancient carapace. A final trump card. An escape. Man and machine roar as one, enraged at their denied kill. As the golden flash of light dies, only blackened pieces of scrap metal remain, sheared off by an imperfect teleportation. The enemy, however, is gone.

Within the half-light of his cockpit, Baron Augustus Melchiah Harrowthorne reclines, the pulse of adrenaline slowly abating, just like the machine spirit’s wrath. The anger is still there, however, like smouldering embers, ready to be fanned into a blazing flame yet anew, when the time comes. There will be other battles. The Long War is not over.

And neither is the Hunt.

III. Bwood for the Bwood God!

Another pretty major loose end regarding my Chaos Knight is the fun little gaiden project born from the model: I am talking about the “Chibi-Knight”, of course ;)

This model was basically created on a whim, after I had discovered fellow hobbyist Paule’s very cool thread full of kitbashed Epic Titans. Now I don’t even have any fond memories of Epic 40k myself, as 40k proper always seemed more interesting to me. But here’s the thing: If GW ever were to release a Titan-based boxed game at the Epic scale or a redesigned Adeptus Titanicus, I guess I’d be first in line for picking it up. I love the concepts and designs behind Titans, but I cannot see myself ever putting together one of those massive resin models from Forgeworld. But a roughly Epic-scaled Titan game would be excellent for scratching that itch without having to saw through all that resin (as well as having to sell a kidney to be able to afford it all) ;)

Anyway, the Chibi-Knight turned out to be an unexpectedly enjoyable little hobby project, as I found myself digging through the old bitzbox in an attempt to match the model’s bigger cousin as closely as possible — within reason, of course.

I did have to make some compromises, as not every part of the model would have been easy enough to recreate at a smaller scale — and some elements simply wouldn’t have worked. But in the end, I used parts from about twenty different GW kits to make a model that I believe is a fairly close re-imagining of its bigger cousin. And it goes without saying that I also tried to mimic the bigger model’s paintjob as closely as possible on the Chibi-Knight.

So without further ado, let’s compare the two finished models, shall we?

So, let’s take a closer look at the Chibi-Knight all by itself (I’ve arranged the pictures just like those of the bigger version of Gilgamesh in the respective post, so if you want a real side by side comparison, feel free to check out those pictures as well):

All in all, I think it’s a fairly close fit. However, I did have to make some small allowances due to the differences in scale: The legs and feet are a bit different, for one, although they were still quite a bit of work: As you can see, I used a pair of Raptor legs as the base, but then I cut off the feet and tried to make something as close as possible to the original Knight’s feet. A cookie goes to whoever guesses what the toes originally started out as ;)

I also made some concessions when building the torso: The carapace doesn’t quite look like the original, but it’s still close enough to be recognisable, I believe — as I have learned from the great Ron Saikowski, the most important part of a conversion like this is to get enough parts right that the elements that aren’t quite perfect will still work in the context of the whole model. So let’s take a closer look at the parts that did up looking rather close to the bigger version of the model:

One thing I am really happy with is the smaller version of the daemonic breastplate — it was really fortunate that the warshrine of chaos kit basically contained two very similar daemonic faces at wildly different scales ;)
Oh, and I definitely had to replicate the heraldic plate with the World Eaters legion badge on it, of course, (even if working with those FW decals almost drove me up the wall yet again=.

I also tried to closely recreate the designs on the pauldrons: The right one still has a World Eaters legion badge (albeit of a slightly different design), as well as a hint of the legion and company markings underneath:

While the right was done using some bitz for a pretty close recreation of the bigger version:

There is another World Eaters symbol on the leg banner, thanks to one of the really tiny decals from FW’s World Eaters decal sheet:

And I even managed to squeeze in a smaller version of the battle honours on the rear side of the banner as well:

One element that is slightly different from the original model is the base: It still features fallen Space Marine statuary, but instead of a crumbled statue, I decided to use the one legitimate Epic 40k model actually in my possession (kindly provided, once again, by Drone21c) and paint it up as a heavily verdigrised statue:

I rather like this element, and it provides a hint as to the model’s actual scale. Plus when it came to building the bigger Knight’s base, this little statue was the most important influence that actually inspired me to use the Space Marine statue from the Honoured Imperium kit in the first place!

So yeah, that’s the little guy. I am really rather stupidly happy with the model, to tell you the truth, even if there’s not even a real use for it ;)

IV. A bit of advice…

So, after spending so much time with my Knight(s), I thought I’d wind up this post by giving out some advice to those of you who might be contemplating an Imperial Knight project of their own — you should definitely go for it, by the way: It’s a fantastic kit, and working with it has been lots and lots of fun. Here are some small pointers to set you on your way!

Don’t be afraid!
I know I was really apprehensive about the whole idea of tackling such a big model at the start, and maybe so are you. Don’t be! Like I said, it’s a terrific kit, and it’s also perfectly explained and goes together like a dream. The model also breaks up rather beautifully into several sub-assemblies which is excellent both for the building and painting phase. And building and painting a Knight is an excellent, self-contained hobby project that will really be worth your while. So if you are at all interested in the Knights and their look and backstory, go for it!

Do some research!
At the same time, this is not a kit to be slapped together hastily for the game next week: Before you even start, you might want to do some research online to see Knights that might inspire you and to figure out what things you do and don’t like. Hobbyists online have been doing fantastic jobs with their own Knights, and the inspiration ranges from complete, brilliant models to small but essential tips for creating certain effects, assembling some fiddly parts or what have you. I myself have a folder of about 1 Gigabyte of Knight-related pictures, and that material has helped me so much with my own model. In fact, I am still collecting pictures for my inspirations folder, even though my Knight is already finished ;)

You should really add a cockpit and pilot to your model!
One of the most important things about Knights is how individual they are. But that amount of individuality doesn’t stop at the machine itself: What better way to customise your model than to add your own Cockpit and pilot as well — in fact, coming up with a pilot to match your Knight is not only fun, but also really rewarding, while just gluing that torso shut seems like a huge missed opportunity. So take my word for it: Build a cockpit and pilot! It will take some doing, but there are many cool examples out there, and few things made me feel as accomplished about my own Knight than this part!

Take your time!
This should go for all hobby projects, but it’s especially important here: You can only really mess up by being too fast and getting sloppy. But this huge, beautiful model deserves your attention, so TAKE YOUR TIME! Seriously, this is key! :)

The devil is in the details!
Again, this also applies to hobby projects in general, but there are so many details you can add to make your Knight even cooler. Take a page out of JeffTibbetts’ crazy perfectionism! It’ll teach you a whole new way of looking at the model, and suddenly adding more and more detail won’t be a chore anymore, it’ll be fun! Small things really go a long way, especially on such a big model!

Careful with the glue!
Don’t glue everything together right away, because you’ll make your life much harder. Instead, think about which portions of the Knight should be kept apart for the moment — or, indeed, altogether: For istance: Keep the armour plates and “skeleton” separate while painting, because this will make your life much easier. If you’re planning on adding a cockpit, make sure to keep one side of the torso unglued, for easier access to the Knight’s interior. Oh, and the top carapace will snap into place without any glue (and can be taken off later that way), so think before you break out the glue.

Build a Chibi-version!
Seriously, though, this isn’t a must. But I had so much fun with my own Chibi-Knight that I can only recommend you build one yourself ;)

V. In closing…

I almost forgot mentioning a very nice observation that fellow hobbyist Freytag93 brought up over on Dakka:

Also, I like the statue on the base. To me, the face echos the face of the baron (probably cause of the shared scar), giving a contrast to his fallen honor.

While the effect is completely coincidental, I really love this! Isn’t it great when people discover something about your models that you didn’t even put there in the first place — at least not consciously?

So anyway, that’s all folks. I hope you enjoyed yet another look at this project! It goes without saying that I’d love to hear any feedback you might have!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

A rather late post this week, for which I apologise, but I do have something new to show you! Let’s keep talking about the World Eaters for now, although we’ll be moving back towards the 40k time frame for a bit — you didn’t really think I’d forget my favourite guys in red and brass, just because I painted my first Heresy Era model, did you? ;)

A while ago, I showed you a conversion intended to represent Lheorvine Ukris, my favourite character from Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s The Talon of Horus. The entire book is amazing, taking Abaddon into a very interesting direction and actually showing the former first Captain of the Sons of Horus and later Warmaster of Chaos as the capable and charismatic leader we have been told about so often in the fluff.

Anyway, Lheorvine Ukris is a World Eater (which explains my sympathy), but he is also one of the coolest characters in the book, believably combining a fair amount of comic relief with some deeper character traits, such as the inner conflict between his need for brotherhood and loyalty and the madness brought on by the Butcher’s Nails (an overarching theme also present in ADB’s World Eaters-centred novel Betrayer). There’s also a surprising and slightly tragic twist to his backstory — how is it that ABD’s Khornate characters are always so surprisingly compelling? The same was also true for Uzas in the Night Lords Omnibus, come to think of it…

So, anyway, here’s the conversion I made for Lheor:

The legs of a Dark Vengeance Chosen and a Forgeworld torso (both kindly provided by Commissar Molotov earlier this year) formed the base of the conversion. I wanted the model to look bulky and menacing, and the recipe seemed to do the trick. In addition to that, I used a head from the AoS Wrathmongers, some beastman arms and, of course, a CSM heavy bolter, as well as some bitz and bobs.

The model was inspired both by Lheor’s description in the story as well as this piece of artwork, included with the limited edition of the novel:

Some parts of the model are very close recreations of the art (the bare arms, the entire heavy bolter and some smaller details like the chain links dangling from the right pauldron), while with other areas, I aimed more for a general similarity in design and chose the bitz I liked best. The two areas where I actively departed from the artwork are the hands (my Lheor has the bare arms, but wears armoured gauntlets for a reason that will make sense to everyone who has read the book) and the breastplate (Lheorvine wears a loyalist’s winged skull motif both in the art and the book, yet I was too much in love with the archaic look of the Mk 3 breastplate Molotov sent me, plus the lightning emblem could also be seen as a callback to the plate’s loyalist origin).

When it came to painting the model, it was clear from the beginning that Lheorvine wouldn’t appear in my army as a canon character: By the time of the 41st millennium, he no longer wears the XII Legion colours, but has become a Black Legionnaire and member of the Ezhekarion. So I was free to treat the model as a “special guest star”, so to speak, which liberated me from having to adhere too closely to my usual recipe.

Which was really for the best, as my tried and true World Eaters recipe unfortunately relies one some OOP colours — which made Lheorvine the perfect guinea pig for experimenting with a new possible approach to painting World Eaters armour.

I am happy enough with the result, although there’s a certain looseness to the paintjob that wasn’t planned. That said, it suits the character rather nicely, I think. Anyway, without any further ado, here’s the model:

Lheorvine Ukris, “Firefist”
XII Legion warrior, born of Nuvir’s Landing. Leader of the Fifteen Fangs warband, and commander of the warship Jaws of the White Hound

“When Lheor’s boarding party arrived, they entered without ceremony or order. A pack of warriors among soldiers, walking without formation. Helms crested with stylised crowns wrought in the War God’s symbol regarded the chamber. Their brass-edged battle plate was the colour of blood on iron, showing the resealed cracks of endless repair and mismatched scavenging.
None of them made any pretense of sweeping the area with their bolters. Most didn’t even carry standard bolters; they held chainaxes in their hands, chained to their wrists, or carried massive rotor cannons slung over their shoulders (…)
Their leader carried a heavy bolter with the practiced grace of one born to the burden. This, he tossed in the gravity-less air to one of his underlings, and gestured for his men to remain by the southward entrance.
Before the war, he had been Centurion Lheorvine Ukris of the XII Legion’s 50th Heavy Support Company. I hadn’t known him then. Our association came in the years of dwelling within the Empire of the Eye.”

Aaron Dembski-Bowden, “The Talon of Horus”

So yeah, that’s my version of Lheorvine Ukris. You may have noticed that I swapped in a different right pauldron (kindly donated by Augustus b’Raass, by the way), as I really liked the even more archaic look. Oh, and I added a kill mark decal on the back of the heavy bolter,  since there is a throwaway line in Abaddon:Chosen of Chaos, mentioning how Lheor has taken to scratching kill marks on his armour in later years, so I thought this might be a nice shout out to that habit ;)

Oh, and before I forget, Lheor is really rather massive, by the way! Here’s a comparison picture with my recent 30k Legionary:

In closing, I would be remiss not to mention that I am not the only one who has built a model for Lheor: Both Flint13 and InsanePsychopath have created wonderful versions of the character — in fact, their models really sparked my own project, in a way. Anyway, I guess this goes to show that Aaron Dembski-Bowden has really managed to touch a nerve with this character, right?

So here’s to Lheor, one of the coolest World Eaters ever. Such a shame he had to become one of Abaddon’s lackeys (just kidding) ;)

It goes without saying that I would love to hear any feedback you might have! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

A short interlude today, before I return with a more sizeable new post soon: With the release of Imperial Knights: Renegade, Chaos Knights are now very much a thing, even for those who shun the rules by Forgeworld (that have already been available for some time now). Due to the strange ways of the webway, I am pretty certain that the new rules will find their way to each and every Chaos player in pretty short order, and there is much rejoicing about this turn of events.

What makes this even better though, at least for me, is that my very own Chaos Knight, Gilgamesh, has actually made it into GW’s daily blog as one of the examples for converted Renegade Knights. Yay!

Now I should probably be far more nonchalant and humble about this whole thing, but I simply cannot pull it off: Gilgamesh remains my biggest and most involved hobby project to date, and one that I am incredibly proud of, so to see him being featured on the GW site like this just makes me incredibly happy! Thanks so much to all the fellow hobbyists who brought this to my attention. And to the content managers at GW, obviously😉

But this post should have some kind of use beyond allowing me to talk about how great I think I am, right?😉
So, to all those of you who are now looking at the option of adding a Knight or two to their Chaos armies with renewed interest, on account of the new rules, maybe my collected posts about converting and painting my own Chaos Knight may prove helpful, so feel free to check them out here:

PRELUDE

– THE BUILDING –

PART I
PART II
PART III

– THE PAINTING –

PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
PART V

Also make sure to take a peek at this companion post over at Dark Future Gaming, where I discuss some of the excellent conversions that have inspired my own take on the Chaos Knight, because I am really standing on the shoulders of giants here!

The only cloud on the horizon here is how the ‘Eavy Metal Team seemingly didn’t convert and paint a dedicated posterboy Renegade Knight for the new game but rsther decided to paint over the heraldry of an already completed, pretty sweet loyalist model:

Seriously, guys: You have already painted a score of these beasts. Would one more really have killed you…?

But all in all, this has been an amazing surprise, both from a general hobby perspective, but also for my personal hobby life!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!