As promised when I showed the flesh hound I decided to round out my Khornate warband – for now – with a small group of kill-crazy barbarian cannibals in the form of these three bloodreavers. They’ve been knocking around since the release of AoS First Edition and this project was the perfect opportunity to get them done.
Together the three of them make-up another contribution to Azazel’s Squaddie September challenge – which calls for participants to paint at least three members of a squad or unit.
What’s more I’ve started to gather a proper little band of cannibal savages. With the group now seven strong I’m finding myself tempted to dig around in the various boxes of miniatures I’ve acquired and see if I can find some more – I know they’re lurking somewhere! It shouldn’t be hard to get the squad up to ten members, or perhaps even extend it further still…
With the addition of these recruits the warband has now reached the 250 Power target originally set for it and as a result I’m willing to call it “complete” for now. It looks like a much bigger group than I initially expected, but that’s mostly down to having four more bloodreavers in the ranks than I’d planned for. A big thank you is owed to Alex of Leadballoony, who first set out the criteria to which I adhered in putting the group together. If anyone else is thinking of trying out AoS Skirmish, particularly as part of a group of friends, I strongly recommend you give his suggested method a look.
For me all this has really focused my enthusiasm for the blood god. For one thing there are plenty of daemons that I’d like to paint which would fit in just as neatly alongside the barbarian hordes of the Mortal Realms as they would next to the power-armoured killers of the 41st millennium. Plus, as mentioned above, I also have at least some of the Khornate half of the AoS First Edition starter set sitting around somewhere. Who knows – this could be the first step towards a warlike horde!
Convert or Die 
September 23rd, 2019 at 6:36 am
Very nice group of guys ,Give yourself a big pat on the back for a job well done mate !
September 24th, 2019 at 7:00 am
Thank you very much – in that case I shall! 😀
September 23rd, 2019 at 6:56 am
Nice work man. Inspires me to paint my MASS barbarian Reaver horde but NO I’m sticking to Nids. 🤘🏼
September 24th, 2019 at 7:12 am
Concentrate man, concentrate! Don’t get distracted on us now! 😀 Seriously, that barbarian horde is going to look awesome, I’m looking forward to seeing it (after the Nids 😉 ).
September 29th, 2019 at 11:01 am
Sigh… one day I’ll have that elusive thing called time
September 23rd, 2019 at 8:21 am
They’re looking really good.
I really like the big group shot at the end, shows how nicely they all look together as a warband.
September 24th, 2019 at 7:55 pm
Thank you 🙂 I’m an army (or warband/gang/team/whatever) painter at heart, as much as I enjoy painting a single figure for me they come to life when you see them as a group. And of course, as soon as I see them like that I start to think “why not add a few more…”
September 23rd, 2019 at 9:39 am
Great work on those guys.
Cheers,
Pete.
September 24th, 2019 at 7:52 pm
Thanks Pete 🙂
September 23rd, 2019 at 12:51 pm
Great stuff yet again mate along with some cracking photo’s. I particularly like your face painting on the middle chap of the three. Faces are key to me. Get them looking decent and the rest just follows. Well it’s not quite that easy as we both know but you get my drift I’m sure. 🙂
September 24th, 2019 at 8:00 pm
Thank you! Yep, I fully agree, faces make a model, they convey character and personality, and they help us to relate to them. Plus your eye is drawn to the face, so get that right and the viewer is distracted from any cut corners elsewhere (of which, if it’s one of my models, there will doubtless be a few!). “Faces and bases” was always the advice we gave to new painters looking to improve, put some extra time into those two and it makes a big difference overall.
September 24th, 2019 at 9:13 pm
Couldn’t agree more. 😊
September 23rd, 2019 at 11:36 pm
I still don’t really care for those Models, but you’ve certainly done a nice job with them. I particularly like the stubble on the third one. Always good to see that effect done well.
September 24th, 2019 at 8:14 pm
Cheers! I must confess I’m a bit of a sucker for the Bloodreavers but it’s all personal taste isn’t it? I just like the aesthetic of a savage barbarian horde and these really appeal to me on that front. I admit though that Khorne can end up a bit samey, the early days of AoS were packed with models that all looked similar and even as a chaos fan it was hard to keep track of which blood was which. It’s a shame because Khorne could be really interesting and complex if they pushed a little bit beyond the obvious.
One thing I do really like about the Bloodreavers though is that they show us the very lowest of the Khorne rank and file and we don’t really see that with the other gods yet. We do have the Kairics but those really are dull in my opinion. I feel like you have to really put in the hours to become a Blightking, it’s something you need to work up to before Nurgle gives you all those gifts – so where are the skinny guys with a bit of a cough who are yet to rise through the ranks? Likewise the Hellstriders are pretty cool, but where are the models for them before they earn the right to go around on a steed?
As for the stubble I’d like to claim it took hours of exacting effort with teeny-tiny brushes and dozens of very thin layers, but it was just a thinned down wash of Basilicanum Grey (Contrast) – it’s come out looking pretty sweet though hasn’t it 😀
September 24th, 2019 at 9:48 pm
Yeah, I agree with all those points, it really is just a matter of subjective taste. I would love to see equivalents for Slaanesh and Nurgle. Blightkings are a Chaos Warrior equivalent, not a Marauder equivalent. And speaking of which, what happens to a Hellstrider who progresses to the point where, if he were on foot, he’d be a Chaos Warrior? The Nurgle guys who get there become Pusgoyle Blightlords, and the Khorne ones become Mighty Skullcrushers, but there’s no equivalent for the other two.
There was a note in this month’s White Dwarf that the helmets on the Splintered Fang were designed based on the helmets from the Hellstriders, and were meant to evoke the first step on the path to becoming one of them. That’s even a step earlier than what we’re talking about, tho.
September 27th, 2019 at 9:19 pm
Yup, once again we’re in complete agreement. I know this sounds very structured for Chaos but I’d like to see every god get their own; marauders, warriors, chosen, beastmen, knights, lord/champion/sorcerer and daemon prince. I’d also like it if the lord kit came with a two identical bare heads so you could put the space on a marauder and make a version of him in his early days (silly I know!).
I’d also like to see warbands for each of the chaos gods in Warcry – seems like an obvious move at first but the more I think about it the more it strikes me that the lack of low-level mooks for some of the gods causes real problems here. It’s not ideal but at least in AoS/40k you can fill the gaps with daemons, but to me even the lowliest of daemons should be vastly superior to a warcry tribesman. At the very least I’d like them to bring in beastmen (you can never have enough beastmen after all).
September 27th, 2019 at 10:41 pm
I don’t think that feels too structured. Regardless of Chaos god, their followers kind of have to progress through all those ranks and roles*. And given that I have Models of my Wolf Lord in every stage of his career from Fenrisian Tribesman to Venerable Dreadnaught, I can hardly call wanting to be able to make a younger Marauder version of your Chaos Lord silly.
It would be cool to see that progression reflected in WarCry as well, with dedicated Warbands for each of the gods that were less numerous, but more individually powerful. And yes, beast-folk should absolutely be there. (Now I think of it, I may have to do a Counts-As Warband using Beastmen, probably as Untamed Beasts.) Looking at the Chaos Daemons codex, Lesser Daemons aren’t that far beyond Furies, and would probably translate to about the same as the “elite” options in the regular Warbands, like the Preytakers or something. Really, tho, yeah, they should be far, far nastier.
*With a few notable exceptions like Khorne Sorcerers.
September 30th, 2019 at 8:30 pm
Re the Wolf Lord – well done, that is impressive, I salute anyone who takes the time to do that. I’ve always had a plan (as yet unrealised) to do something similar with one of my characters, showing him as a space marine scout, then a tactical marine, then a space marine captain, the a renegade and finally as a fully fledged Chaos Lord.
Re Warcry; Interesting to note that the cover of the Tome of Champions features what appears to be a beastman’s face on it. They seem like such a natural fit, it seems daft not to include them at some point. Good shout on doing Untamed-Beastmen, that would work very neatly (ungors for plainsrunners, gors for preytakers, bestigors for the champions perhaps?). You got me wondering about how the Untamed Beasts would view beastmen as well – something touched by the divine and worthy of worship or just more predators to emulate and devour? Or a bit of both?
Dedicated warbands for each of the gods would be excellent. I’m really glad they didn’t do that to start with but at some stage, as they expand the range, it would be very cool to see – especially as it would allow them to do something a little different with each of the gods and show us things we don’t usually get to see or which are a bit too unusual for the main line (I always say what would an elf-maiden who turned to worshipping Nurgle look like? What if she started worshipping Khorne?).
Looking through Monsters and Mercenaries I notice that there’s not a sign of Slaanesh anywhere, which is unfortunate but rather proves our point about a lack of good Slaaneshi mortals (come on GW, get cracking!). Mind you I did get a bit irate when I saw the scenario in which you get to attack a member of the Varanguard (and his retinue) in an attempt to attack Archaon’s attention which is surely the equivalent of some Cawdor gangers deciding to impress the Emperor by trying to rough up a Chapter Master. Don’t worry, in my head I’ve changed it to a Chaos Knight (the ones on horses, not the big robots) and I’m happy again!
October 1st, 2019 at 12:34 am
A bunch of Cawdor attacking one of the Custodes is probably a better comparison, on at least a couple of levels. IIRC, the Varanguard is capable of soloing most Warbands pretty handily, and with a Retinue, even a Warband that’s just completed a Quest would have a lot of trouble.
September 24th, 2019 at 8:14 pm
Another great looking trio, and while they do look Khornate, they also look generic enough to be used in other settings as more generalised fantasy-barbarian mooks. Will the Blood God’s horde of killers continue to grow once the Horned Rat’s hunger is sated, I wonder?
September 29th, 2019 at 12:56 pm
That’s one of the things I really like about them, there’s plenty of Khorne there if you’re looking but it’s subtle, they obviously aren’t too far down the road of worshipping the Blood God yet.
For now I’m trying to concentrate on getting a few projects finished (Skaven, Blackstone Fortress, those Orks) rather than maintaining my usual scattershot approach but once they’re out of the way I’ve got heaps of other projects lining up for attention. I reckon more Khorne is a given but I’ll wait and see what takes my fancy once those are done (at least, I’m telling myself I will, I do tend to get distr… what was I saying?).
September 30th, 2019 at 7:16 pm
Yeah, they’d have a nice flexibility to them, and the more neutral and naturalistic colour scheme works for that as well. Much more than the red-pants brigade! (though I’ll probably end up painting mine as the red-pants brigade, so, erm…)
The other three(!) projects do sound like a more sensible focus of your time. I do look forward to seeing the rats finally conclude.
Which reminds, me, there’s another post to go comment on…
September 27th, 2019 at 10:23 am
Really cool additions mate, and a great looking group! The skin tone is really lovely across the band, (especially the 1 o’clock shadow on some of them), and that blue/bone combo is a perfect ‘cool’ contrast to the warm flesh tones. Bravo!
September 30th, 2019 at 8:04 pm
Cheers mate! I must confess I didn’t do that much pre-planning with the colour-scheme for this group so it’s something of a relief to look at them now they’ve reached this stage and see that it’s all still working out 🙂
September 29th, 2019 at 3:14 pm
Mate they look really great! I have to agree with Alex you’ve done an excellent job on the skin tones. Your painting is getting better and better!
October 1st, 2019 at 8:56 am
Thanks man – I like to keep pushing my painting as much as I can. Even though I’ve been painting for a long time now (roughly 15 years I reckon?) I’ve noticed a big improvement over the last couple of years and I put a lot of that down to having a dedicated space to work in. Before that I was always packing things away and unpacking them and when you ran out of time to paint on a given evening it was very tempted to cut corners just to get a particular model finished and out of the way.
October 1st, 2019 at 9:38 am
Yes I agree. A dedicated work space is a must. Looking at mine though I think I need a tidy up 🙂
October 1st, 2019 at 11:19 am
Can’t comment, mine looks like a bomb went off!