#khorne daemons

[mrpints]

Juggernaut of Khorne 💪💪💪

[gasha40k]

I’ve been reading a lot of 40k fiction in between painting recently, and I’ve gotten a good bit of progress done on both. I’ll start with a little reading update.

Horus Rising

False Gods

Galaxy in Flames

Flight of the Eisenstein

Fulgrim

First Heretic

Know No Fear

Butcher’s Nails

Betrayer

Wrath of Khârn

Khârn: Eightfold Path

I finished Betrayer just a couple days ago, and holy shit. What an incredible book. I am a strong Khârn stan (Argel Tal, too) and I am more convinced than ever that I’m a World Eaters gamer.

I plan to read the three (or four) Unremembered Empire books before I loop back to A Thousand Sons to read the “main” Heresy storyline through to Slaves to Darkness, and eventually Siege of Terra. But for now, I’m making a little detour through all of the books that Khârn takes center stage for, so that I can satiate the hyperfixation and figure out what he’s up to in the 42nd Millennium. I also plan to finish most of the World Eaters books, as that was the whole reason that I started reading the Heresy in the first place.

Betrayer is by far my favorite Warhammer novel. Fulgrim was my top for a while—I may be a closeted Emperor’s Children enjoyer, don’t tell Blood Daddy—but man. Betrayer blew it out of the fucking water. What an incredible ending to an incredible trilogy. My biggest takeaways were as follows: nobody fucking likes Angron, and Khârn is my favorite guy ever. Enough gushing, though. Time for painting stuff.

The second Ultramarine I’ve ever painted, weirdly enough. My first Ultramarine was my first model, so my second being a keychain-corpse for a new army is weirdly sentimental

Since we’re on the topic of Khorne, I finished up the torso of my old school Daemon Prince. I’m exceptionally proud of this! I think the shading and blending is maybe some of my best, most advanced painting yet, and I pulled out just about every technique that I know for this thing. I even did a little drybrushing on the Necron skull. Here’s to hoping I can maintain this level of quality across the other pieces of this mini once I get some more primer.

Getting some good use out of my technicals, and finally utilizing my skull box

Still on Khorne, here’s some more progress on those Bloodletters from last post. They’re just about done, complete with horn blending and everything. I’m planning on doing flaming blades for them, but I’ll have to buy some more paints before I tackle that. I’ve got a handful more of primed and based Bloodletters, so they’ll probably be my backup easy paint for a while. The bases are simple and easy to make, but decently visually effective, which I think is good and fitting for such a massed unit.

Next up, I decided to give highlighting a go with one of my newer Thunderbearers, since I’m trying to boost my painting technique all around. This is definitely my best highlighting work yet, certainly leagues ahead of my first try from last year. I think he looks pretty clean!

I’m also experimenting with new photography backgrounds since I got kinda sick of having pasta or hamster cage cleaner or whatever the fuck in the background of my poorly lit update pictures. Think I may have stumbled upon a good method for backgrounds.

I love you, empty white void

Last but certainly not least, I finished up the first bike for my lone Outrider Squad. I’m really happy with him, as well. The hardest part of painting these dudes is definitely base painting. They just have a lot of ground to cover with your brush so they absolutely devour paint, but it’s cool cause I finally finished him up after like, actual months of sitting half-painted in my vehicles box. I’m a particular fan of the little white lens glare in the top left of his eye. I just think it’s neat.

This unit is gonna be mad satisfying to finish, and I can’t wait to get more work done. In the meantime, I’m chugging away at my first 5-man Berzerker squad, including their bases, which are gonna be pretty unique. They’re like, black mountainous rocks littered with skulls and blood-stained snow. Alongside that, I’ve also been stripping my Custodes, so I’ll have a bit of an update about that next time, too.

[zestyaardvarks]

PARTS 1-10 PART 11 PART 12 PART 13 PART 14 PART 15 PART 16

My Growing Warhammer Collection part 17: Things are getting Khorney. Here we have: Start Collecting Khorne Demons box, plus Khorne Dogs, Skulltaker, and Bloodthirster.

Bro I'm like a master at building these Bloodletters, you don't even know. Like I could build them all day bro. I built these back in November, built a couple other things, and since then I've been busy with moving from one town to another halfway across the state. It's been quite stressful but thankfully now the only thing left is to finish unpacking. These guys were fun to build, love the giant swords because of course they do, I love the dawgs, I love the Bloodcrusher beasts, I love the Bloodthirster and his giant axe options. Khorne is absolutely my #2 behind Tzeentch as far as Chaos goes (and Nurgle can get fucked by Slaanesh).

[bdsmleatherman]

ran out of resin, just using blood now. the church doesn't like it but that's life

[redemptor713]

Adeptus Custodes and Sisters of Silence VS Khorne Daemons

[gasha40k]

I’ve been a bit of a Khorne guy for a while now, what with all the daemons, so I naturally couldn’t help myself when the new World Eaters codex dropped. I got to work, threw together a little 1000pts list, and spent way too much money on plastic.

Nearly all my Khorne models arrayed atop me fridge

I now very well may own more Khorne models than Imperium models. Above is displayed the Khorne Combat Patrol, as well as six Eightbound, a handful of Berzerkers, a gaggle of Jakhals, and a couple Masters of Executions. I do wish there were a lot more Berzerkers than there are, though. I’m trying my best to build these World Eaters as stock as possible, but I did have a few conversions that I wanted to finish before I got comfortable.

This model will become a relic of the past when his datasheet is replaced by a Sage of Slaughter or a Lord on foot

Firstly, I felt it would be inappropriate to have a Master of Executions who wasn’t sporting proper World Eaters colors. So, as per the codex’s recommendation, I did a little conversion by replacing this model’s weird bald head with a suitably Khornate helm. He’s purposely quite basic, and I tried to keep this guy as close to the codex’s example model as possible.

Wally hasn’t gone anywhere, but he did find a sick cloak

This Berzerker Champion is my take on a more “lore-friendly” revival of the classic Wally the World Eater model, whose real name is Kardon, according to the 4th Edition Core Rulebook. His name is Kardon the Eternal, and he’s an ancient World Eaters Veteran from before even Angron’s time. He’s a good stand-in for a Lord, Berzerker Champion, or a simple lowly Berzerker, which makes splitting the 10-man kit very easy. His body is from the new Heresy MKVI kit and his cape is from some sort of Thousand Sons kit that I can’t remember. The rest of him is Khorne Berzerker bits, including his helm, which was sourced from the classic Berzerkers. I’ve played this guy in one game so far, and he got a single kill: the Nightbringer. Good work so far, Wally!

The ravenously worshipful killers of the Unchained Path

The third and final converted model is a Chaos Lord that moonlights as a Master of Executions. This dude is by far my most inspired kitbash, and will probably be the most abnormal World Eaters model in my collection for a while. I also got a good solid bit of lore written for him, as I kinda plan to run him in a Crusade of the future.

The Deserter King, made of various bits I had lying around, including a Chosen torso and legs, various World Eaters bits, and a few Primaris bits like the cape and right arm

This is Lord Akselos, known widely as the Deserter King, but also as the Apostate Scion, the Betrayer of Valefar, and the Exile of the 8th. Before his fall to Chaos, Akselos was Ultramarines Sergeant of the Chapter’s 8th Company. He was trustworthy, loyal, and—to himself, at least—exemplary. Ultramarines Command seemed to agree for the most part, but evidently believed that he belonged as a rank and file line officer. As such, despite his steadily growing record and reliable mission performance, Akselos was never recommended for any kind of promotion, nor was he ever elevated to the status of Veteran. Perceiving this as a slight to him, Akselos grew frustrated, planting the seeds of disillusionment with the Chapter.

Eventually, someone in the Chapter’s upper echelons took a chance on Akselos, placing him in command of a small strike force, and sending them to subjugate a world known as Valefar. Akselos believed that his career in the Chapter hinged entirely upon his ability to prove himself a capable leader on Valefar, and that it would be his greatest challenge and most glorious triumph. The campaign, however, did not go as planned, and would culminate in an infamous event that would eventually come to be known as the “Slaughter of Valefar,” wherein the Ultramarines would order a retreat in the face of a World Eaters ambush, superseding Akselos’ own orders and abandoning him and his squad on the surface of Valefar.

Akselos’ right arm, a constant reminder of his past, and of the ties to his old life that he must sever

During the “Slaughter of Valefar,” Akselos would experience a Khornate awakening of incredible magnitude. It was not the World Eaters that destroyed Valefar, nor was it the raving horde of Orks rampaging across its continents— it was Akselos.

The Deserter King wears his defiled and dishonorable Chapter heraldry as an insult to any Ultramarine enemies, and a constant reminder of both his past, and his current goal.

The more Khornate side of Lord Akselos, made of a kitbashed Eightbound arm and a Juggernaut Lord shoulder pad

Akselos is an aspiring Sage of Slaughter, a proto-priest of Khornate violence and nihilism. As such, he believes that by destroying the Ultramarines 8th Company and “seeing Macragge burn,” he will complete the last step on what his followers have come to call the Unchained Path: severing all of his remaining worldly ties and reaching the Sage’s ascended state of hyper-nihilist slaughter.

His warband, known collectively as the Unchained Path, is a loose conglomerate of Jakhals and Astartes that view Akselos as a prophet of Khorne, and who wish to follow him on their own Unchained Paths. Akselos, on the other hand, is an incredibly detached leader if even that; utterly self-involved, he rarely interfaces with his men beyond simply pointing them in the general direction of things to kill. The general day-to-day commanding is left in the capable hands of the opportunistic Baska the Hound, Akselos’ right-hand-man and the secondary Lord of the warband. He’ll have a model at some point, too.

In conclusion, I am happy to welcome the World Eaters to my shelves! I really, really like them, and I think they’ll remain my proper secondary army for the foreseeable future. It’s fun playing an army that can actually kill shit. I have a few more cool units that I wanna make, most of which involve the Heresy, but beyond that, I just gotta get fuckin’ painting. But before that, I think I’m gonna post an overall collection update soon, as well as some musings on 10th, and what it’ll mean for both the Crusade and the Thunderbearers.

[gasha40k]

Been a while, but I’m back! In a recent heatwave that hit my city, a bunch of my paints dried up. Included among those were a bunch of my main colors, like Leadbelcher and Retributor Armor, but most importantly, my Agrax Earthshade. I live and die by the wash. They’re a hugely integral part of my painting process, so combined with the fact that nearly all my brushes had either frayed, hardened, or snapped in half, painting was kind of off the table.

For a while, life events had me in a spot where I couldn’t readily replace any of my shit, nor was I in a spot to buy any new kits or bits. And having just started a “bigger” project—segment painting my classic Daemon Prince—I was pretty discouraged from hobby work. But things are coming around and I’ll soon be in a much more stable place that’ll allow me to get my gay ass back in the mines.

Needless to say I am hopelessly addicted to the gradient

So, uh, as a way to sort of ease myself back into painting using two paints that I still had (Abaddon Black and Mephiston Red), I decided to learn blending. I’m still not great at it and I’m not sure I entirely understand the process, but I think that whatever I’m doing is… functional, if not consistent. That being said, it’s super fun. The results are really nice and add a lot to an otherwise very simple model.

Many of my Bloodletters are still primed, so I visited by LGS, picked up some more paints and two brushes, and whipped up a few more of these boys as a way to practice blending. I’m very proud of them! The little horns on the first Bloodletter are a subtle detail and I think that the gradients on the second one’s horns are fantastic looking. I definitely need to keep practicing and figuring out my technique, because at the moment, I can’t tell if I’m wet blending or glazing.

I think I’m doing some insane combination of both. I can’t properly wet blend because I kinda don’t understand it, but here’s my process so far:

Place two colors on palette, both watered down to a normal standard (milky consistency)

Use brush to place both colors next to each other on the model, touching, mixing them together very slightly

Clean brush and mix the borders between the colors, adding more of whichever paint I need to balance the gradient

This is far from efficient and very difficult to control on larger surfaces, but it makes a pretty nice effect when it’s successful! If anyone has tips on how to do this better, I’m totally open to hearing them.

This is maybe the best example I have of my newfound blending skills. This is the torso of my Daemon Prince. I decided to learn blending when I got him in the mail, as the official paint job for this model uses blending as a way to imply the transition between melded flesh and armor. I really wanted to emulate this, and I think I got pretty fuckin’ close. Very proud, and this catastrophic painting dub has definitely reinvigorated my motivation for this model.

I even finished his pants. He is now bepantsed. Dismembered, but bepantsed. Soon he will be whole, and he will be spooky, and he will kill shit. His torso and pants are the only pieces I have primed right now and I’m a little too broke for primer, so I’m just gonna really pimp out his armor before I move on.

I’m going to try logging all of my games this edition using the Tabletop Battles app

I had a lot of strong anti-armor. On the board was a Firestrike and a macro plas Redemptor, and off the board I had a squad of Eradicators in reserves, which are absolutely disgusting in this edition. Much like last edition, funnily enough. I knocked out an opposing Land Raider in the first BR, which gave me a significant advantage as the game went on, and I think it’s what eventually lead me to the win.

Actually got to use my Firestrike for once, which don’t feel like a horrible use of 80pts anymore

I also got the chance to play Combat Patrol with a friend of mine who hadn’t played 40k since before I started this blog, I think. I played my Khorne Daemons patrol against his Sisters of Battle. It was a super steady game until I got my Bloodcrushers in the fray, and then it was kind of a stompfest. As an observation, the Sisters patrol is an excellent counter to the Daemons patrol, because while the Sisters patrol isn’t particularly strong in melee, the fact that most of their units have Invulnerable Saves completely negates the excessive amounts of AP that Khorne weapons have.

This Rhino ended up exploding and killing way too many Bloodletters

I won almost entirely because my opponent was super rusty and didn’t know his unit rules or the mechanics of 10th. Key blunders like misusing his high value melee units and underutilizing his ranged attacks left him super undefended, but considering everything, he played a really solid game.

I really like Combat Patrol. I think it’s a great way to pick up and play, and we were able to set up a game super quickly. Cutting down on listbuilding complexity really allows new players to build and game, and I think it’s a great way to play more casual games. I played a lot of 500pts games back closer to the beginning of 9th Edition, and I can pretty confidently say that Combat Patrol is a lot more balanced than that. Combat Patrol went on well into BR3, whereas the 500pts games of old were usually decided the second your most expensive unit died. This one felt like an actual 40k game. There was a decent amount of objective play, which was noticeably lacking in older 500pts games because it was much easier and much more efficient to just wipe the other army off the board.

In conclusion, it feels good to be painting and gaming again. I’ve also been doing a lot of Horus Heresy reading since the beginning of the year, and I just started Betrayer. Maybe I’ll post about that soon.

[gasha40k]

Not much has happened since the last post, both regarding building and painting, but I’ve done a little bit of painting in my free time. Alas, I am the most indecisive man yet born, and as such, I haven’t made any significant progress on any one single army as much as I’ve just… painted shit that I want to paint in the moment.

Here’s my first little group of red boys. Bloodletters are super fun to paint, consisting of maybe four or five paints, and being able to do a couple coats of base paint then slap Carroburg Crimson on the model and call it a day has been a great break from the relatively more complex painting projects that Astartes are.

I’m also particularly proud of the bases I made for them. Astrogranite Technical, an industrial amount of Blood for the Blood God, and a bit of drybrushing makes for cool little Khorne-realm adjacent environments for these dudes. It’s also a relatively easily replicable process, so it’s good for a horde army.

The one thing I’m not a huge fan of is their blades. I’d love to have bright, glowing, fiery Hellblades like in Total War: Warhammer 3, but the standard steel looks grimy enough that it works, and it was done using paints I had already on hand. I’ll probably experiment a bit with various fire effects in the future, likely giving fancy Hellblades to HQs and more expensive models like Bloodcrushers while keeping stock Bloodletters basic like this.

Moving on, marines! I’ve decided on a different color palette and heraldry, although these are such minor differences that they don’t matter a whole lot in the long run. I’ve swapped from Mechanicus Standard Gray to Skavenblight Dinge, and the gold kneepads now go on the left. I gotta figure out how to get my models less shiny, dude.

Here’s a closeup of a little auspex-esque doodad that I thought I did a good job on. Tiny little details, but they add a lot of character to the model. The base is also particularly high effort, especially in comparison to the flat brownish orange planes that my Astartes stood on prior. I’m excited to see my dudes all painted up, but that won’t be for a long while.

Especially not if I keep buying new shit. Welcome the first Thunderbearers Aggressors, Squad Terastrael. Aggressors are a fun unit and the kit is awesome, not to mention how grotesquely meta they are now (which definitely didn’t encourage this purchase, trust me).

Sergeant Terastrael comes with a trusty censer and a personal servoskull for better murder capabilities. His model is simple but distinct, especially in comparison to the other two.

The brother on the left is pretty standard save for his massive aquila icon and some excessive purity seals, which has come to be a common practice in my Chapter. The brother on the right differentiates himself with a sort of ceremonial or official side cape, which is a visual motif that I plan on standardizing in my army, since side and shoulder capes are raw as fuck. Similarly to Eradicator Squad Kellam, the army’s only other Gravis unit, they all come equipped with MKIII helmets for that proper Centurion adjacent look.

And last but not least, I finished painting a Shadowkeeper. Finalizing the color scheme was pretty fun, and the light highlights on this model were also quite fun. I still haven’t decided on bases for these dudes so I’m yet to really dig into finishing the models, but besides the fucking trim, they’re nice to paint.

The World Eaters are going on preorder, so I’m sure I’ll have some more Khornate shit to talk about before long. I will be buying that Angron model, so that’ll be a fun experience.