Ladies and Gentlemen- I Give You... The Bloodthirster!

Hey there my fiendish fanatics! Welcome back to a special edition of Chaos Corner. Old Man Chaos has a confession- I was supposed to be working on my Harlequin vehicles, but, alas, the Khorne Daemonkin book came out. And, as you all know, my dear readers, Chaos is my true 40K love. How could I resist the lure of the book? Or the new Bloodthirster? What can I say? I am weak. So, without further ado, I give you... the Bloodthirster of Khorne!!

First off, the model is huge. Absolutely huge. It makes the old Bloodthirster look like a minor daemon. The new guy is just terrifying- muscular, vicious, pure aggression. The model is simply fantastic- those huge wings, gigantic weapons, the baroque armor plates... this thing is a pure monster, simple as that.

What's great about the model is the various options. The weapons are all cool looking (except the flail- its OK, but not my cup of tea). The three faces are also very different and very nasty looking. But, no matter what choices you make, this thing is an evil looking daemon. I chose the Great Axe of Khorne. In friendly games, I can just say he's a Bloodthirster of fill-in-the-blank. I just love the huge axe- its bigger than a Terminator! I also decided not to do chest armor, because I just see him as this all powerful daemon of war that needs no armor to kill his foes.

In terms of painting, I used several techniques in GWs own video. The flesh is done with the following steps- Khorne Red, Nuln Oil, then, careful drybrushes of Khorne Red, Wazdakka Red, and Evil Sunz Scarlet (very careful, you want the various reds to show slight variations in skin tone). Finally, I used Wild Rider Red as an edge highlight. I DID NOT use the Bloodletter Glaze- I like glazes for several things, but I thought it would produce the wrong red.

The armor and axe I did Balthazar Gold, with a wash of Earthshade. I then drybrused Griffon Gold- in some places heavily, and lightly in other places. Finally, I did Ironbreaker around the edges, skulls, etc. I didn't think it would work (I was planning on using Brass Scorpion- but the video convinced me otherwise). The armor is very cool looking, and different from any armor on my World Eaters, but close enough to be the same Khornate force.

The wings were a bit of fun. I did Bugman's Glow, followed by a wash of Crimson. Then, I drybrushed Bugman. With that done, I drybrushed with Cadian Fleshtone on the raised areas on the outside of the wings, and on the deepest areas on the inside, making for a nice visual effect. Finally, on the Chaos markings on the back of the wings, I highlighted with Kislev Flesh, to make them stand apart from the wings. Finally, I did the wing veins with Incubi Darkness.

The horns I did black with some grey edge highlighting, followed by 'Ardcoat. What can I say? My Khorne Daemons have always been influenced by Darkness in Legend. So the horns are a shinny black against the deep red of his body. Like I said, all my Bloodletters are done the same way.

The hair I did with Stormraven Fur, and the skulls are built up from Zandri Dust to various bone hues (Ubshanti, etc.). There are a lot of skulls on the model, but not enough to really detract from the creature itself. I say that because I find the Khorne Daemon Bloodthrone to be waaaaaayy too overwrought (seriously, one of the worst models GW has ever made). The Bloodthirster is not that at all, thankfully.

 As for the fire- again, I mostly copied the video- Yellow Glaze, followed by Orange Wash, Yellow Wash, Crimson wash, and finally a bit of Yuriel yellow paint.  I did not do Nuln Oil, as I felt the Crimson turned dark enough on the fire.

Finally, I tried some of the Martian Ironearth for his base. I really didn't like it that much, so I did the rest of the base my usual urban wasteland grey. However, I kept the Ironearth around the fiery skulls- the land burning upon his taking off/landing.

Of course, the Bloodthirster has some company. I already had 2 Daemon Princes of Khorne. One of them is from GW, the other is from another place that I can't seem to remember the name of. The last, and most recent, is a Daemon Prince I bought from my local "used" for 25 bucks. Now, normally I wouldn't do that, but buying him used saved me 10 bucks, and I really liked his pose. Plus, there was absolutely NOTHING wrong with the model, so why not? After all I just bought the Codex, cards, and Bloodthirster- surely a $10 break is justified.

I painted him with the same techniques that I used with the Bloodthirster (at the same time too)- so they do have a rather consistent look to them. The Daemon Prince is clearly the Bloodthirster's subordinate, both waging war in the name of Khorne.

I must say that putting the 3 Daemon Princes with the Bloodthirster is a great visual- plus I would hate to face that on the battlefield! That's a lot of Daemon coming at you!

Speaking of, I did play my first battle with the Daemonkin book last week (sadly, my Bloodthirster was not ready so I did not use him, as I never use a model that I haven't finished painting).  I won the battle, score 2 to 1, as I managed to kill my opponent who had the relic. It dropped, but the game ended at that point. The book was a lot of fun, very fluffy but not overpowering. A lot of my guys died to Grey Knight Terminators, but each death created more Blood Tithe tokens (which I made myself by the way, using square fantasy bases). The more he killed, the more I was able to summon bloodletters, a daemon prince, and a pack of flesh hounds. True to form, the hounds pursued the unit with the relic, tying them down till the Maulerfiend arrived and finished them off. It was a great game.

At any rate, I should get back to painting my Harlequins. But... the lure of Chaos... is... too strong. Want to do... more... for my Khorne Daemonkin...

Until next time!