Blades of Khorne – Project Complete

Lots of Blood, Skulls and Spikes All Over the Place

At some point, after I started building a Word Bearers army for the Horus Heresy, I tried what I had painted for them so far in 40k. It was the depths of 8th edition, and the Forgeworld models worked fine and they were fairly fun on the table. After a few games, I decided that I wanted a detachment of Khorne Daemons to play alongside them. 

The most entertaining part of the situation is that by the time I actually built and painted some of those blood red daemons, 8th edition was over. Turns out 9th edition wasn’t as kind to both Heresy era Forgeworld models in 40k or running multiple detachments. Because, of course not. 

At least no one can claim that I am a meta chaser. 


A long time ago in a hobby room far, far away

In the far-off reaches of time and space a Khorne Daemon Start Collecting box was acquired at a reasonable price from the scary depths of an internet auction site. As is standard practice in my hobby room, the box of Khorne Daemons were placed in my Pile of Shame for penance that was to last an undetermined period of time. 

Eventually, the fancy struck me and I dug the Start Collecting box out, acquired some additional daemonic support and built the whole pile of them. I even took some time to paint some Bloodletters, before I dumped the whole lot of them unceremoniously into the Projects bin and let them simmer for a while again. 

A few disparate factors came together to finally get the red skinned devils painted up. I watched Nate paint an entire unit of Bloodletters with contrast paint within a single hobby night: he’s kinda famous in our circle for that kinda shit. Nate was also having a good time playing his Blades of Khorne army in Age of Sigmar 2nd ed, complete with crashing into our friends units and causing stupid numbers of mortal wounds. 

woof woof fuck you magic woof

I decided I wanted a Bloodthirster, too. I also decided that I was unlikely to get the daemons painted up if I bought and painted the big angry boy first. LIke I am fond of doing, I set myself up a little prize: When I got the Khorne Daemons in my collection painted, I could get a Bloodthirster. 

It worked. I got the Khorne army painted up. I just forgot to buy the Bloodthirster for years after.


Red Paint for the Paint God

It was pretty early on that I decided that I wanted my Khorne Daemons to be a shade darker than the standard Games Workshop color scheme (they’re Bri’ish so I guess it would be a colour scheme, right?… anyway). I have seen some varied color schemes, blacks, greens and even white, many of which were excellent. Ultimately I wanted to keep them red, dark and nasty.

In practice, this meant that all of my Bloodletters or similar characters would have Khorne red skin instead of Mephiston red. The juggernauts and flesh hounds were based with Gal Vorbak red. Both of them were washed with null oil. Pretty easy. Fairly effective. I wasn’t looking to reinvent the wheel. 

The blades and horns were painted black. The horns were highlighted Mechanicus Standard Gray and the blades were highlighted with a red, followed by an orange to give them a hellish look. Balthasar Gold was used for the metallic bits. 

Who the shit thought a Khorne cannon was a good idea
well, great, there is a daemon, riding on the back of another fuckin daemon…

When it came to the bases, I went for the same effect as I had used previously on the entire Word Bearers army. A mix of Armageddon dust and dunes was applied across the bases. Once dried I applied a watered down coat of Agrax Earthshade and a quick drybrush of Ushabti Bone. Dead grass tufts were added and the rims were painted Zandri Dust. 

an axe for when you absolutely have to cut a motherfucker in half, even if that fucker is a goddamned land raider. and he brought a pose…

I have already spoken about painting up the Bloodthirster, so I will not waste time on that here.


Pulled from the Depths of the Pile of Shame

While the Khorne Daemons seem to be from a long time ago, the Mortal half (maybe a third really) of my Blades of Khorne army date back even farther to the release of Age of Sigmar. Granted, along with my buddy Ryan, I was full of fury and confusion about the ending of the Old World’s, well, world. I mean, Shit, I was halfway through buying a new Warhammer Fantasy Battle army when they tore that rug right out from under me. 

Guess what percentage of my Shame is WFB minis? It’s significant. Because of this angst-ridden stage of grief, I was very late to the Age of Sigmar Game. They had gone through lengths making it an actual war game, and I didn’t start until there were actual Battletomes. At that point, I found the first ed box on clearance and got it, because I figured I needed the rules if I was going to make some kind of attempt. 

blood for the blood god, skulls for the skull throne. wait, what are you doing with my skull? i’m using that still…

We didn’t play until well into the second edition of the game. Four of us had spent the weekend gaming. We were at a restaurant, having been joined by my wife, and were ingesting food and drink while having a lively conversation about our 40k games. It was decided between Nate, Ryan, Cliff and Myself that we would finally attempt to get into Age of Sigmar. I really liked the Bonereapers, but they had been released just that weekend and I couldn’t find models, nor did I know how they played.

As a side note, I voted for Necromunda. We will take a look at that later.

So, I bought Flesh Eater Courts. I played them a few times, but didn’t love them or AOS for that matter. It’s fine, because I really wanted to play a classic Vampire Counts army. These guys were not that. There is a whole other tale of woe involving the Vampires which is bound for an article at some point as well.

I would like to point out that now we have started playing Necromunda. I have played more games in the Underhive than on the Age of Sigmar battlefields. I am honestly ok with that. 

do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior Khorne?

Through several months of work, and I mean work, as in I put in part-job hours, I ended up with a literal fuck-ton of Heresy Era Ultramarines painted up through the first few stages of Project Ultramar. I didn’t take a break away from the blue as I would usually do, and I was feeling burnt out. I took a bit of a pause, but when I finally felt like putting paint on minis again, the idea of painting blue again was still repulsive. 

I went looking for an easy project: a quick win would be great. First I painted some Black Legion models and got myself up to 1k of painted Chaos Marines. Still unwilling to leap back into the Ultras, I dug around a bit and found the Khorne Mortals. They were literally under my coffee table waiting to be worked on for, let’s just say, a very long time. With about thirty models total to build and paint, it seemed like the perfect project. So, here we are.


Tedious Mortality

A night was spent clipping and cleaning, followed by an extended session of welding with plastic glue. When I set out to paint the mortal contingent of my Blades of Khorne army, the goal was to get these models done fast. The Blades of Khorne were to be a tertiary army at best: one of my buddies already had an army painted, and I would not care to step on his toes. I was setting upon this painting project solely with the purpose of getting more models painted, with extra credit for finishing a project. The bonus would be that I could play them if I wanted to, and I am sure I would a few times. Mostly, I would use these guys to entertain me while I painted my intended Age of Sigmar army. 

To make sure these models come together as fast as possible, I started out with a Mephiston Red primer, followed by a quick and thin coat of Mephiston Red from the pot to make sure any touch ups would be easy to deal with. 

hey guys, this this is heavy, do I really have to carry it around everywhere we go? That guy over there isn’t carrying shit, hey, guys…

Most of the Khorne Mortal Gorechosen models were done the exact same way. 

I used good ol’ Leadbelcher for blades, and Brassy Brass for, you guessed it, all the brass. I like that color for two reasons, mostly because I like saying the name over and over, plus I also like how it flows when applied to a miniature. The bone and some spikey bits were painted Zandri Dust. The skin and fur were painted with Rakarth Flesh. I washed the skin with Guilliman Flesh contrast watered down to different degrees for a quick bit of difference in the flesh tones, but, I wish I had invested in more variety. The rest of those colors were washed with a liberal amount of Agrax Earthshade.

I tidied up the reds and metallics a little by layering the original color over a bit to brighten back up. I did the same with Rakarth Flesh on the flesh of all things: Crazy, right? Lastly I used the rather wonderful Black Legion contrast on all the black bits of the models. 

at first, I thought this model was bland and boring, but once I started getting the
details blocked in, I found it to be rather wonderfully rendered and a joy to paint!

When it came time to paint the Korgorarth (which totally reminds me of Korgoth of Barbaria), which I broke the very first time I picked it up, I wanted it to have a nice color link to the Khorne Daemon half of the army. He, or it I suppose, was started with Khorne Red, which I then washed with Druchii Violet, watered down towards the top of the model but direct from the pot towards the bottom, followed by another layer of it on the legs to give a gradual shift from lighter to darker. I continued to break off the tassel on the left side of his face every time I touched it as I painted the fucker. I must have re-super glued that piece of shit fiddly little piece back on a hundred and seventy-five times or so. Anyway, I was pretty happy with how that beasty little bastard came out. 

The bases were done to match the Khorne Daemons just like I wrote about above. Exciting, I know.


More Blood Will Flow

So, what’s next for the Skull Throne? First off, I have a Skull Alter sitting in a box that I picked up the other day. Second, the launch box for Age of Sigmar came with five Blood Warriors, but, in the third edition of the game, the unit minimum is ten. I have to figure out how to get five more, preferably without ordering a box of ten from eBay, and then still having five largely unusable miniatures again. There is definitely another Bloodthirster or two in my future; they are too badass of a model not to paint at least one more.

Registered for the Registered God, Copyright for the Copyright Throne, er, I mean, Copyright Games Workship

Beyond that, I need to play the army a few times and get a feel of which aspect I like better, mortal or immortal. Likely I will end up with a few more Gorechosen units, to balance the army a little better. Additionally, I like the Claws of Karanak warband for the Warcry skirmish game, and since they have rules to go alongside the Gorechosen side of the Blades of Khorne army, I feel like that is bound to happen at some point. Maybe I will play the army a few times and absolutely love it. The outcome with the greatest chance is definitely to end up in a box and be forgotten after I get a few games in with them. Stay tuned if you want to see which comes true.

Or don’t: you do you!

Oh, Shit! in all that craziness of getting them painted up, I forgot to apply Blood for the Blood god to the blades of the mortals. D’oh! Guess that will be part of a future update as well…

[This post was originally published at Otherverse Games & Hobbies]



Tyson

Obsessive and neurotic collector of little plastic men, novels about the same little plastic men and paints to make the little plastic men pretty. Married to Kera, who puts up with him and pretends that she doesn’t hear him speaking to the little plastic men in between making pew pew noises in the hobby room. Requires adult supervision. A menace to himself but rarely to others. More beard than man

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