Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Building my Khorne Bezerker Army Part I

Hey there Chaos fanatics! How's it hanging? I'm doing just fine- a bit busy with work, Warhammer, and all that other fun stuff. As I had promised previously, I was going to begin to show off my latest hobby mission, the Khornate World Eaters army for 40K.


I discussed earlier as to why I wanted to try my hand with the followers of the blood god, and I'd like to elaborate. I wanted an army that functioned quite differently than my Plague Marines. The Death Guard are solid at firefights while also being tough in close combat. With World Eaters, I'd have to rely most extensively on close combat. They are also different from my Chaos Daemons- the Daemons are close combat, but they can deep strike in fairly close and go from there. As for my Dark Eldar, well... they have a ton of speed to get up the battlefield. Thus, Khorne Bezerkers represent a far different challenge: they must get to close combat, but they have no fancy tricks in getting there. In this new edition where transports are fragile and there's overwatch when charging, a Khorne Bezerker force is actually quite a challenge, one that I am looking forward to getting to grips with.






Then, there's the look, which is, again, quite different from what I'm used to. I loved the Plague Marines because of the startling imagery- rotting, bloated marines looking all kinds of nasty. When GW released the metal box (2003/4-ish? I forget) I didn't care for the look- I liked the metal from 3rd, but that was a heck of a way to build the army. I decided instead to use the plastic as a base and went wild from there. I'll save it for a different article, but suffice to say I did a ton of conversions, putty work, and more. For this Khorne army, I love the plastics. They have such a range of motion, cool helms, and great, heavy looking chain weapons. Thus, I didn't' have to convert nearly as heavily as I did with the Plague Marines.





However, being a Chaos fan and a long time converter, I simply can't NOT convert or kit bash ANY, now can I? Of course I did some work in this regard. As I assembled the Bezerkers I mixed and matched a ton of parts from other kits. I've been collecting all things Chaos for so long, that I have a ton of useful bits. I used parts from Khorne Bezerkers (natch), Chaos Space Marines, the ye olde mutation sprue (I still love that sprue), Old Fantasy Chaos Warriors, Possessed, Spawn, and more. I decided to give many of them axes (chainaxes* or not- doesn't matter- Khorne Marines should have huge damn axes!!). I used fantasy axes to accomplish this, sometimes using the whole arm (patchwork armor taken from fallen warriors and welded together), or I just cut off the hands and swapped. I also used a few fantasy helms, just to shake things up. I used Possessed bits to make some of the Bezerkers stand out (I am working on dedicated Possessed, which will obviously be much more mutated).





Putting it all together, I have been very pleased with the results thus far. The Bezerkers look solid- they have motion, big ass axes, a bit of variation... Yep, I'm very, very happy. They look vicious, as the followers of the blood god should. I feel that (thus far) I have captured the Khorne look, as distinctively as I captured the Nurgle look.


So, you have been looking at pictures of my first squad. The squad has a Champion and two plasma pistols. They also have a Rhino to bring them to the fight. In a future article, I'll discuss my approach to the vehicles (why do they have those doors? Haha- a long story for another time). I'll also delve into my painting techniques (it was tough to get that type of red- I was being very picky). I will post again with shots from my second squad, as well as others as I finish them.

Hope you've enjoyed- comments and criticisms are welcome. Until next time, my friends...

*Note: I think Khorne Bezerkers should have big blades and axes. This whole chainaxe is an upgrade  thing sucks- each individual model may purchase? That's like saying some Plague Marines get Plague Knives, but other don't have to- what the? Whoa- that sucks for converters/modelers- plus, there aren't that many chainaxes in the box. How about this, all my Bezerkers buy it, or none do? No half measures- would that satisfy WYSIWIG?

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