Going Berserk

The forces of Chaos have always, by their very nature, been an eclectic bunch, their technology unrestrained by by the strict edicts of the Imperium and their bodies twisted and mutated by their daemonic patrons. Here Games Workshop has almost limitless potential to be creative, and us hobbyists can kitbash to our hearts’ content. Over the years however the degree to which this is reflected in the Chaos Marines’ range has waxed and waned. When I first fell to Chaos back in the mid-2000s there really wasn’t a whole lot to differentiate the followers of one god from those of another. If I painted my Marines green I was sworn to Nurgle, if you painted yours red you were a follower of Khorne. There were a few god-specific models kicking around as I recall, mostly still made of metal, but not many. What really drew me to the service of the Dark Gods was a combination of several factors; a mate gave me his old codex, I had no money to spend on new models and I owned a load of loyalist marines, a bunch of bits I’d scrounged up and an over-active imagination. The result was kitbashing carnage and a life sworn to the ghastly powers that dwell in the warp.

In recent years however things have improved a lot. The release of the Thousand Sons brought us a range of kits specific to Tzeentch’s chosen legion and, although I now think some of those could be improved a lot and expanding the range further would be well worthwhile, at the time it was a revelation. Then along came the Death Guard and really blew me away. With its huge range of unique kits all designed around the theme of a single god this remains, for me, the gold standard for a Chaos Legion. Needless-to-say I’ve been waiting with baited breath for GW’s designers to turn their attention to the World Eater’s and Emperor’s Children and, at last, the former has arrived.

After months of build up, Saturday morning saw the full reveal of Khorne’s legion and for me they were well worth the wait. We’d already seen some of the range of course, the Khorne Berserkers for example were shown off back in September.

These are really nice models, workmanlike and perhaps not the most surprising or creative but fitting the bill perfectly and demonstrating that a model doesn’t have to be fancy to be good. When I first saw them I thought “Yeah, these are fine, they do the job” but the longer I’ve looked at them the more I’ve come to love them. I always say that you can swap out specialists and leave characters on the shelf but if you don’t care for the core troops then the army isn’t for you.

Plus they certainly beat the hell out of the old kit, which has been kept going long, long after it should have been shuffled off to retirement.

Then in October we saw the appearance of Lord Invocatus, a special character who rides around on a thunderous juggernaut spreading carnage.

Now I think the juggernauts of Khorne look really cool and I’m always happy to see someone perched atop one of these mechanical bulls and laying waste to the followers of the corpse-emperor so you’d think I’d be a fan of Lord Invocatus but honestly he doesn’t do much for me, especially now that we’ve seen the very similar generic Lord of Khorne (below) which, for my money, is much nicer.

Like the Berserkers the Lord on Juggernaut just gets on with doing it’s job and looking cool. Lord Invocatus meanwhile feels like it’s trying too hard to stand out as something special whilst working with a limited range of options crammed into a small amount of sprue space. From what we’ve seen so far my assumption is that one kit can make either the Lord on Juggernaut or Lord Invocatus, in which case Lord Invocatus’ flaws become a bit more forgivable – there will always be limits to how much you can do with just one sprue after all. If Lord Invocatus proves to be an entirely separate kit I’m less impressed, a special character should have a lot more visual impact than this. Either way the head with the crest and yet another topknot just doesn’t work, and there’s nothing about him that feels particularly unique or cool. Go big or go home I would say – give him his own kit with an extra large, souped-up juggernaut, daemonic weapons chained to his arms and a few crazy mutations, or don’t bother. As it stands I can see the generic Lord on Juggernaut finding a home at the head of my army but Lord Invocatus just doesn’t look all that special to me.

However Lord Invocatus isn’t the only special character in this release. No discussion of the World Eaters is complete without mentioning the big man himself; the Primarch Angron.

Following in the footsteps of Magnus and Mortarion, Angron is the third daemon primarch to enter the setting and he looks outstanding. I do struggle a bit to paint these very large kits so perhaps I should restrain myself from rushing to buy him, and I sometimes feel GW are in a bad habit of making models that are bigger, and bigger still, but if there’s one time when being OTT is just fine it’s the daemon primarch of the World Eaters.

On Saturday Games Workshop revealed the rest of the range, the headline to the article even going so far as to promise “Hordes of New World Eaters Units”. What we saw was, for my money, some of the best things in the whole range – but “hordes” is stretching the truth a little.

First of all we have Eightbound, possessed berserkers who have been driven into a killing rage after discovering they have one of the daftest backstories in the setting. Chaos Marines which have been possessed by daemons have been around since the very earliest days and I’ve been hoping we’d someday see models which really reflected the natures of both the marine and the daemon doing the possessing (Death Guard marines possessed by daemons of Nurgle for instance, or in this case Khorne Berserkers possessed by the rage-filled daemons of Khorne). This would be more than enough to satisfy World Eaters fans but no, some silly eegit who probably communicates only in memes, decided that they should be possessed by not one, not two, but eight daemons of Khorne! Because OTT is cool right? Because eight is the holy number of Khorne right? Because everything Khorne should have something to do with the number eight right? Because I don’t know very much about the background and I don’t have anything in the way of an imagination but somebody gave me the job of writing this bollocks and nobody cares about “fluff” anyway!

As someone who turns from mild-mannered and easy-going Wudugast to a rage-fueled monster that Angron himself would tell to calm down at the mere mention of the word “fluff” seeing this kind of rubbish published has, in the parlance of da yoof, “triggered” me so let’s move swiftly on. The models, at least, are really cool. I shudder to think about the price but I want them anyway. Each one can be built as either a possessed marine…

… or an exulted version which has beaten the daemon within into submission and gained even greater power as a result.

I really like the way each one can be tweaked to be more or less possessed so that you can dial up or down the level of mutation on display your own taste. Personally I like my marines to be twisted by the warp, but too much mutation is by no means a good thing so I’ll probably end up somewhere about halfway between these two examples. I also really like the way the armour is forming into a mouth that’s swallowing the marine’s head in a nice nod both to the battle against the daemon that’s occurring within and to the icon of the World Eaters (a fanged mouth biting down on a planet – they never were a very subtle legion…).

Lastly we have the cultists of Khorne, deranged mortals known as Jakhals.

These are ace, I’m a big fan of Chaos Cultists and this has been a good year for them. I will undoubtedly be looking to get my hands on some of these; to serve as cannon fodder for my World Eaters, as a berserker vanguard for my Lost and Damned cultist horde, as more recruits for my Necromunda chaos cult and to kitbash with my Necromundan Corpse-Grinders.

The preview also notes “If you think they look nasty now, wait until you see what they can do when they’re all juiced up on stimms” which makes me hopeful that there’s an alternative way of building of this kit still to be shown.

This appears to be the unit champion…

…however it’s this brute that has me particularly interested.

He’s bigger than the other cultists and referred to as the Dishonoured so could it be that we’re looking at a failed World Eater of some kind who’s been stripped of his armour? We can’t see the back of his head from this angle, if we could we’d be able to see if the Butcher’s Nails are there or not, so for now all we can do is guess. Either way he’s a damn cool model as he is, although once again I’m thinking about Necromunda and wondering if he might have a use as a Goliath champion with a bit of kitbashing.

Anyway, apart from Lord Invocatus and some very dodgy lore regarding the Eightbound, this all looks fantastic and I’m already cracking my knuckles and pacing, a low growl building in my chest as the Butchers Nails start to bite and command me to paint, paint, paint for the Blood God! However, I can’t help but ask “Where’s the rest of it?”. Your way of estimating exact number of kits may vary but there’s no denying, the Death Guard got a hell of a lot more than this. The World Eaters, like the Thousand Sons, lean very heavily on the wider Chaos range to bulk up the numbers with borrowed kits and daemonic allies. For a long time I’ve been feeling that Tzeentch’s legion was short changed in comparison to the followers of Nurgle, and now the World Eaters seem to have gone the same way. Based on this release the World Eaters will get six kits of their own (the Berserkers, Eightbound, Jakhals, Lord Invocatus, Lord on Juggernaut and Angron himself – plus the already released Kharn of course). The Death Guard got somewhere around twenty and are visually much more complete as a result. I recognise that GW do not have entirely unlimited resources, just as I don’t have unlimited money, time or energy to spend buying and painting models, but it’s hard not to feel that more could have been done here. This isn’t so much eating the world as taking a small bite. Where are the juggernaut cavalry to follow the mounted lord into battle? Where is the World Eater’s Lord on foot for those days he doesn’t feel like riding to war? Where are the daemon engines with which Khorne has had such a long association; the brass scorpions, blood slaughters, berserker dreadnaughts, blood reapers, doom blasters, death dealers and cauldrons of blood? Where are the Khornate beastmen, the Berserker Surgeons, the Ogryn Berserkers, Red Butcher Terminators, a new kit for the Mutilators or the Teeth of Khorne – the World Eater’s heavy weapons squads designed by Jes Goodwin all those years ago? These last are particularly missed I think as they’d bring something to the army other than just angry men who want to get into close combat and hit people in the face. Having a theme to an army is good, but – despite what the kids with the memes would have you believe – there’s no need to treat Khorne as being one dimensional.

Overall I’m really happy with what we’ve got and I’m sure some of it will be finding its way into my Chaos collection in time. Part of me hopes that this is just the first wave and, like the Sisters of Battle and other recent releases, we’ll see a second wave with a whole heap of new kits in a year or so’s time. Part of me however fears that they may end up like the Thousand Sons and left on the sidelines.

Anyway, I’m off to eat some raw meat and sharpen my chainaxe. If you have thoughts other than the hammering of an angry god stabbing painfully through the raw flesh of your mind and want to punch the keyboard furiously until it spells out a message then the comment’s box is the place to do it.

Our Rage Won’t Die – Part 2

Following on from making my first true-scale Khorne berserker I was itching to kitbash something else for the Blood God’s legions. Enter this angry man, rallying his squad mates and ready to dedicate some bloodshed to the Skull Throne’s glory.

I’m spite of my initial decision to make the armour more warped and “chaosy” than the first I think the more minimalist, plain amour works well here. As ever I’m open to suggestions though.

Our Rage Won’t Die – Part 1

Few kits currently available in the chaos range can conjure such disgust and disappointment from fans  as the Khorne Berserkers. First released over a century ago, the fact that the Berserkers remain on sale today makes a mockery of the company’s proud boast to make the finest toy soldiers in the world. Only the most perversely deranged of the pantheon’s followers find even the slightest glimmer of pleasure in these lumpen, ill-proportioned horrors, and even they wholeheartedly agree that even unconverted Blood Warriors from Age of Sigmar make infinitely superior Berserkers. Indeed some suspicious souls would go so far as to suggest that GW has held back on releasing new Berserkers in order to boost sales of the AoS range (do remember however that although a suspicious mind is a healthy mind to question the wisdom of They-Who-Art-In-Nottingham is to invite the scrutiny of the Inquisition…).

Now on a more sensible note it’s safe to say that, in the wake of the Thousand Sons and the Death Guard, a full release for the World Eaters is probably not too far away. A reasonable man would crack on with painting the dozen or so projects already demanding his attention and wait for Angron’s legion to get their moment in the sun. Patience however is anathema to the followers of Khorne who prefer to rush in (chainswords revving) where the (Emperor’s) angels fear to tread, and I’ll confess I’m no different. With modern space marines reaching the proportions they’ve always deserved I’m not about to let Khorne’s followers miss out for a second!

The Death Guard may have new models to enjoy but at least the warriors of Khorne can still look them in the eye!

Although my old berserker conversions are looking a little on the short side now…

As a first shot I’m pretty happy with this chap, although there are a few things I’d change next time round. For one thing the smooth, clean lines of the loyalist armour doesn’t exactly match up with the jagged styling’s of the Blood Warrior, although hopefully that will become less obvious after he’s painted. The model also has a sense of the weight concentrating in the upper part of the body so next time I might try using the slightly more heavily armoured legs from the Hellblasters rather than the slimmer Intercessors. I’m planning on making a few more soon though so any feedback at this stage is especially welcome.

All That’s Left Is Blood – Part 10

So whilst my ears have been filled with the braying of sonic weaponry over the past month the roaring of chain-axes has never been far from my thoughts. Now it’s time to add a couple more battle brothers to my latest squad of Khorne berserkers. And whilst the rest of the warband spill blood for the Skull Throne someone still has to carry the banner…

Warhammer World – Part 6

It’s the final post in this showcase of the displays at Warhammer World and this time we’re looking at the big one. Twenty-two feet from end to end, twelve feet wide and twenty feet tall (that’s almost seven meters long, three and a half wide and six meters tall for those who’re sensible enough to use metric) – it’s the battle for Angelus Prime.

To give you a sense of how big this thing actually is there is a man in this picture – another visitor. I didn’t want him appearing in the shot so I waited until he was hidden by the building. That’s right – the human was hidden behind the miniature, usually it’s the other way round!

The board captures the forces of Khorne, led by the bloodthirster An’ggrath, battling the Ultramarines who’re attempting to defend Ultramar. If you were wondering where all the Chaos miniatures were in the 40k displays – here they are. Followers of the other gods need not apply.

There are over five and a half thousand models on this board, putting any sensible person’s collection to shame. These stretch from swarms of bloodletters and cultists to tanks, knights, even titans. The fortress city itself meanwhile is constructed from over 1,200 scenery kits and took nine months to build. In many ways this is the ultimate aspirational army. We all dream of what it would look like to have at our command the thousands of infantry, hundreds of tanks, ranks of Titans and so on that our heroes in Black Library fiction posses but, with the exception of epic players, most of us never will. If only time and money were no object eh?

As if the scene wasn’t dramatic enough it also features a soundtrack of dramatic music, overlaid by the clatter of bolter fire and the distant crunch of explosions. Lights fade slowly from the deep blue of the loyalists to the bloody red of Khorne, adding another layer to the atmosphere. It’s a cliché to say that they make the viewer feel that they are right at the heart of the battle but – minus the discomfort, blinding terror and high risk of imminent death – that’s pretty much what they do.The whole diorama contains a real sense of action, captured through elements like this chaos titan being felled by an off-course drop pod, the bloodletters crawling over each another to climb the walls (above) or the chaos Reaver titan firing its rack of missiles (below).The Warlord Titan. For those still struggling with just how big this thing is those are Knights around its knees. The term ‘miniature’ may no longer be appropriate here.Yesterday the mechanicum were fairly certain they had a gun. But no, it turns out this is a gun! I understand we shouldn’t expect it to tire any time soon…Even a full scale planetary invasion wasn’t enough to distract these two from their World of Warcraft addiction.One of the most famous things about this board is that, in amongst the five thousand five hundred plus other models lurks one lone Vindicare assassin. If you can find it you can win one of your own and I was certainly planning to give it a good go, until I actually got there and realised what a painful, eyeball straining challenge that would be. However I was lucky enough to be standing next to the man who did. What impressed me most – apart from the bushiness of his beard, something for which he deserves extra credit – and the sharpness of his eyes (seriously, don’t even try unless your day job is as an eagle) was the logic with which it was placed. I understand the model moves around (not by itself – that would be slightly creepy) but even so I don’t want to give away too many spoilers so that others can enjoy the challenge of the hunt themselves. However the finder did explain that he focussed his attention (and presumably eyeballs that are the envy of the Hubble telescope) where he did because that location would afford the assassin a clear shot without being detected himself. In his hiding place he could crouch out of sight, allowing the ranks of the World Eaters to pass him by before shooting whomever his intended victim is. To me that represents an attention to detail that makes the piece even more impressive – they didn’t just stick him down the back of the radiator and think “no one will look there!”, they followed through the narrative of the piece and allowed a person to find it not by luck or simply sharp vision, but by joining them in the logical process and by investing their imagination in the story.

So there we have it – my day out to Warhammer World spread over a full week of posts. Once again I hope this has been as interesting and inspiring for you as it was for me. Check back tomorrow and, all being well, I’ll actually have a miniature of my own to show – my Dreadtober contribution roaring in at the very end of cheat week! Until then, as ever, I’m interested in your thoughts – so make them known in the comments box below.

All That’s Left Is Blood – Part 9

Behold! Another berserker ready to reap skulls to lay before the Blood God’s throne!

All That’s Left Is Blood – Part 7

I believe I promised another squad of Khorne berserkers…

Hate Eternal

“I was the first to stand upon the walls of the Imperial Palace. I was the last to be borne away from Terra, my body broken by the slaying of one million of the Emperor’s lackeys through the breach at Lions Gate. None shall ever surpass my count”

Kharn the Betrayer in Laurie Goulding’s The Weakness of Others.

Of all the old character models for the champions of chaos, Kharn is probably the one which still holds up best to a modern observer. Whilst some of his colleagues have started to show their age Kharn remains an undisputed classic, still as awesome today as he was when he was first released 10,000 years ago. It’s one of those models I’ve always wanted to paint but never got around to so when I spotted one going for a song on ebay I knew the time had come.

Obviously he’d been through a bit of a battering; his head and backpack had both broken off, one arm was missing and his daft-looking tassels have been removed (seriously why does he appear to have bunches? Who thought the Khornate-cheerleader look was a good idea?). Anyone who knows the background of the character however knows that Kharn has been close to death before, and come back from it stronger and angrier than ever before.

Apart from simply rebuilding and rebasing him the main thing he needed was a new arm and a plasma pistol. I chose to avoid anything too chaotic and mutated as this has never been Kharn’s aesthetic, sticking instead to blunt simplicity. Here he is reassembled and ready for undercoating.

When it came to painting him I had no choice but to use the red and brass colours of the post-heresy World Eaters. Indeed, much though I love my usual dirty white scheme it was a refreshing change to tackle something a bit more vibrant. I also couldn’t resist adding a blood-splattered helm to the base painted in the colours of the loyalist World Eaters. Of course it makes no narrative sense at all – a 41st Millennium Kharn stepping over the head of a brother he killed ten thousand years ago, but who cares – it looks cool, it adds to his story, and his tragedy, and anything can be explained in the Warp! Perhaps this model captures something of Kharn’s troubled sleep, for surely when the Nails’ do not bite deep he still dreams of Isstvan.

When I started this project (and I’ll admit it’s progressed at a particularly glacial rate) I never imagined that I’d be finishing it mere days after GW previewed a new version of the character – this time based on the pose of Forge World’s Heresy-era Kharn. As it stands I’m slightly uncertain of my feelings about the new model but that may be simply because I’m such a fan of its predecessor. With luck though this is just the first in a reimagining of the Chaos space marine characters, many of which are in serious need of a reworking (Abaddon, mate, what happened to you? Surely the company which can give us two librarians in terminator armour in the space of a few months could spring to a resculpt of its most fearsome villain?).

At the moment the internet is rife with rumours of war, much of it suggesting that Games Workshop plans to advance the 40k timeline towards the inevitable doom of man. Personally I dread such a suggestion but I cling to the hope that such an ‘End Times’ style event would sweep away much of the character of 40k (not to mention to iconic Space Marines) and GW seem to be shaking off the era of pigheadedness that might have seen them slaughter the golden goose. However even if all this apocalyptic doom-mongering proves true and I soon find myself turning into an old crusty ranting about the good old days before the Space Wolves became fleet-based renegades and Cadia was still a place, at least we might get some new Chaos models out of it, and that should be enough to keep me happy. In the meantime I’m not done spilling blood in Khorne’s name – not even close in fact…

All That’s Left Is Blood – Part 6

The Bloodcleave: a band of ferocious killers, dedicated to the service of the Blood God and drawn to Kell’s ranks as he began to sack the fortress worlds of the southern Kadatheron sector. To Kell himself they have little loyalty however, and their disgust at the presence of the servants of other gods amongst his ranks has earned them the enmity of many of their erstwhile allies. Nonetheless they know that Kell’s wars serve Khorne, though the Chaos Lord may not admit it himself, and in doing so draws His gaze upon those who stand at his side. Thus they feign loyalty until the day comes to spill the blood of Kell himself, offering up his skull in a final orgy of sacrifice.

—

The second eight Berserkers are unleashed! Khorne be praised! Like the Bloodbeasts I wanted an icon of wrath to round out the squad and the weird head of the Khorgorath gave me the inspiration I was looking for.

Of course, I’m sure you all realise what this means. With eight models painted and the squad complete it can only be group-shot o’clock.

As usual comments and feedback are very welcome and scions of the Blood God should fear not – more Khornate killers are on their way soon!

All That’s Left Is Blood – Part 4

Fear not gentle readers! I have neither died, fallen into the Warp or been reduced to a gibbering Spawn – although I will admit to having lost momentum a little with my horde of Berserkers over the last week or so, mostly because real life has been gobbling up the time that I might otherwise have been painting. In an effort to get back on track I decided to finish off the last member of my first squad of Khorne Berserkers. You may recall that I had recently decided to split my growing horde of blood-mad warriors into two separate squads of eight men each.  Squad Kadrax – the second squad -– are already well underway but before I go any further with them there’s one last model needed to round out the first squad.

Like all frustrated Warhammer fans I know that no squad is complete without a banner and to my mind there are few things as evocative of the impractically pseudo-medieval quality of 40k than warriors rallying to a flag or an icon of the gods. With that in mind I rounded out the squad with an Icon of Wrath to remind my berserkers that they battle in Khorne’s name and for His glory.

And there we have it – the Blood Beasts are complete at last and, if all goes according to plan, a second squad is soon to follow. Until then here’s a couple of group shots to keep you going.