Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I've decided to start a second army. I've been looking for something that has fewer dang models to unpack, push around, and repack. Something flashy, fast, and fun. After a month of bantering and thinking, asking and deciding, calculating and plotting, I've finally come to the conclusion that it's time to start a khorne army!

Though I'm not totally certain what the list will look like at 1500 points (bikes or raptors?), one thing I do know is that the list will start out with a solid core of 2 squads of berzerkers. One of the secret, cheaty reasons for wanting to go chaos is that I already have a handful of models lying around that I got gifted from a friend. They've been collecting dust in various drawers for the past 6 years, and so I now have the opportunity to try out my hand at modeling before I begin purchasing stuff.

Because this is going to be a low model count army, I really want this to showcase what I'm capable of. I want each one of these miniatures to ooze awesomeness and, as it's a khorne army, reckless hate and unstoppable malfeasance.

We start with one of my old miniatures, which is none of these things...



He may be a chaos marine, but he looks more like he's waiting in line for movie tickets with his chainsword, rather than being an immortal lord of relentless destruction.

The first thing that happens is that I've got to rip this guy apart. As the superglue is over a half decade old, this is relatively easy with much of the stuff (although I ripped off the topknot trying to get the helmet off). In the end, though, I wanted to "truescale" this up just a touch. I said a TOUCH. I'm not looking to make ludicrously oversized movie marines here, but as-is, these CSM models are no taller than my GUARD models. They need to look a little more badass than that.

To do this, I need to seperate the torso from the pelvis, which winds up being incredibly challenging. The domed top of the pelvis provides a startling amount of surface area. I try running the model under the hottest water I can bear. Nothing. I then throw it immediately in the freezer and let it sit for 10 minutes. Nothing. Then I mull over options for solvents. Acetone will do the trick in a snap, but it will also destroy the plastic. Instead, I reach for acetone's younger sister: ethanol. I break into the liquor cabinet and find my half empty bottle of creme de menthe that's been sitting in the cabinet for the past 3 years (if you've ever bought creme de menthe, you'll know what I'm talking about).

I lightly splashed it around, making the whole kitchen smell of spearmint. After yet more tugging and wrenching, the top finally came free from the bottom.

Once everything was disassembled, it was time to get it reassembled. Much of the model went back together without much bother, apart from just putting things into a cooler pose. The only serious work was in the legs. The top of the pelvis got a plasticard spacer with some greenstuff, while the legs were both removed from the pelvis. One of the legs was furthermore chopped up, removing the foot.



Gluing and greenstuffing the CSM into just a cooler pose actually did a LOT to increase his height and make him more badass looking. Given this, I didn't feel the need to do any other truscaling stuff.

But he still wasn't looking bloodthirsty enough. Also, regluing the legs to the pelvis put them badly out of joint with the rest of the model. I either need to fix this problem, or cover it over. I decided on the latter.

This would come in the form of a pelt. Not only would this help work on the trophy aspect of khorne (indeed, I'm wanting this model to NOT overlook the fact that khorne is also "skulls for the skull throne"), but it would let me double these as space wolves if ever I needed

With the bottom of the pelt on, the model looked unbalanced, so I extended the pelt to the top of the model. This saw me with a problem, though. Now, I had decided on a theme, but it wasn't very pervasive. I needed something to really carry it through. I decided that the best thing to go with an animal skin would be an animal skull. Not only would this look khorne-y, but it would also give me something interesting to do with the topknot gone.

With the skull put together (in only 2 greenstuff steps, I might add. It was just the mask and then the horns), This left me with only a nuisance shoulderpad. I didn't want the 8-point star that came with the model, I wanted something that looked more... violent. I decided on spikes. This was accomplished by anchoring a short piece of rod in the shoulderpad and then making teardrop shaped pieces of GS by carefully rolling them in my fingers and then attaching them to the mounting lug. I didn't know if this would look good at the time, thus the somewhat futzy method. I anticipate future spikes to be made by attaching GS to the piece of rod and then cutting it off after the GS cures.

I tried a few other things, but none of it took. It was time to call this conversion complete.



Once this was done, it was time to work on a paint scheme. I agonized over several different options, colorizing my miniature to see some examples of what it could look like:



The problem that I'm going to have is that I'm a MUCH better modeler than a painter. As such, I'm going to want to pick something easy and that can still look good. I'm going to want a scheme that could possibly go somewhere, and work on my skills, but I've got to start with what I can realistically accomplish. I decide to go for the classic brown-red/gold khorne look.

This leads to a lot more fitful planning. On the one hand, after painting on the basecoat, the brown and gold looks REALLY classy. It goes well with the fur, and provides an altogether appealing aesthetic (like leather chairs with brass tacks). On the other hand, there are various red things calling for me. On the one hand, I've got a simple red highlight, while on the far end, I've got putting red patterns into the armor, like the khorne army in the 5th ed rulebook. After what felt like endless failed attempts, I finally settled on what I could do, rather than what I'd ideally wanted.

It may be slightly boring, but it's definitely traditional khorne.



For some reason, my camera didn't pick up the distinctions in shades of red very well in these pictures. I'll have to take more of them outside, or something.

Anyways, this is clearly a monster of khorne, ready to commit unspeakable destruction for really little reason at all.

More importantly, this guy definitely fits the bill of looking bigger, more impressive, and much, much more murderous than a guardsman.



So, after months of planning and weeks of trying to figure out how I was going to model this, and days of actual working with greenstuff and paint, I've finally got a start to my new army. I predict this will go pretty well.

So much so, in fact, that I've already purchased a box of khorne berzerkers (you get TWELVE in a box!), and will start splicing them in with the bitz of the remaining 7 regular CSM I have.

Until I have more to show, here's a poster:

Nicely done. I love the skull mask.

I really like the idea of a skull theme rather than the traditional bftbg theme.

Can't wait to see more.

That is an awesome job in the posing mate. Skull - also top quality.

I think the red paint looks a little flat at the moment,- considered washes?

I too was considering some subtle truescaling if i ever collected marines, you've done the test mini for me! Great work on it, the skull is great just not too sure about the fur poncho i think you should have left his cuirass sans hair. Another thing, though not a direct criticism of the paint scheme i must admit they look rather similar to the folerans.

darkkt wrote:I think the red paint looks a little flat at the moment,- considered washes?

It only looks flat because of my camera, which is seeming to have tremendous difficulty picking out minute differences in shades of red. If you look on the shoulderpad, the gradient goes from bright red on the top to teracotta (brown) on the bottom). Here's a better picture I took outside now that it's light out:

Perkustin wrote:just not too sure about the fur poncho i think you should have left his cuirass sans hair.

So, I have this giant matrix of skull and fur with 7 combinations for both (skull on helmet, left shoulderpad with fur on left and right shoulderpads, for example), that give me 49 unique combinations I'm definitely going to be running out of berzerkers before I run out of fur and skull combos.

Perkustin wrote:i must admit they look rather similar to the folerans.

Well, the armor of the two is 50% in common (the terracotta). I guess perhaps I was preemptively channeling khorne when I started my Folerans?

Looking good sir, nice and simple! I look forward to your deviation into the Chaos Gods realm!

:-) Looking great! Khorne? Planning a foot based or Mechanized list?

Hey Ailaros we al know you are a fan of Hairy heads any chance you could keep the beards on the guardsmen? I say this because no doubt i will be avidly following this blog and the inevitable (I hope) battle reports and am not a fan of bearded non wolves/scars/fists.

pchappel wrote:Khorne?

So, there are a few general reasons, like wanting something that doesn't involve so many models and won't take so long to assemble/paint/unpack/deploy/move/packup, etc.

It's also, in part, a pennance army. For being a competitive jerk with my guard, I'm making an army of competitive jerks. The point is to make something fast and fun and NOT to be about if I win or not. Khorne seemed too ironic to pass up.

pchappel wrote: Planning a foot based or Mechanized list?

Not 100% sure yet. I'm waffling between raptors and bikes.

Basically, I'm getting sick of chasing down skimmers on foot (well, and other assorted fast options). Whatever the main thrust is, it's going to be fast. The infantry are more to play mop-up.

Perkustin wrote:Hey Ailaros we al know you are a fan of Hairy heads any chance you could keep the beards on the guardsmen? I say this because no doubt i will be avidly following this blog and the inevitable (I hope) battle reports and am not a fan of bearded non wolves/scars/fists.

Well, the furry loincloths have to stay. Power armor legs are surprisingly unkind, with regards to how they look once you're done converting them. The only way I can get the dynamic poses is to wind up making a pretty ugly pelvic region. Either I have to get much better with working with plastic, or I'm going to need to keep the fur on the bottom to cover everything up.

The fur on the torso this time was a one-off. I'm anticipating keeping with the theme in general, though, including the occasional fur on the shoulderpads, etc.

I think it goes well with the khorne theme, actually.

Sorry i meant face fuzz, i am fine with the pelts. I.e. please no beards/stashes on any of the bare headed blokes you may include please

Ah, heh. Don't worry about that. I think that space marines who aren't wearing helmets look kind of silly in general (with a few notable exceptions, of course).

In this case, I'm going to try and create the scariest models I can think of with a khorne theme, which means much more skull helmets and much fewer guys that look like regular guys in red armor.

Although, one of my possible incarnation of a biker list includes 2 biker khorne lords. One would be Blingus the Utterly Indescribable, as the most over the top khorne lord I could imagine. The other would be his sidekick, Thorgfeld, the Reasonably Maladjusted. He'd still get the ultra khorne armor, but I'd just use a regular, frowney face guard head, like the guardsmen in the picture above.

As it is, though, I think I'm just sticking with a single lord, so no go.

I really like your Khorne Berserker. Very good idea and nicely done.

So I put in a little bit of work over surprisingly little free time last week to keep growing my Khorne army.

Like last time, I started by ripping apart one of the chaos marines I have at my disposal. Also, I broke out the berzerker sprue. My intention was to splice the two together, but no matter how much I tried, one of my two ideas just didn't work right with the regular CSM parts. As such, my first guy would be a test of what I can do using (nearly) only berzerker parts. The other was also worked on a bit. I think he will become my skull champion once I can get my hands on a power fist.

In the mean time, there was another berzerker to do. Like my first one, I wanted this one to have a dynamic pose, lurching on balls-out crazy. The khorne kit itself would actually help me with this. Most of the berzerkers are put on the sprue in such a way where one of the legs is already split in two. This saved me a great deal of time (though the other leg still needed a great deal of separating and regluing).

This guy would be in a leg-up running pose, like my imperial guard priests. Power armor is pretty bulky, though, so I wouldn't be able to pull this effect off QUITE as well. Once the legs were figured, it was up to putting down the rest, which was surprisingly straightforward (the arms went on nearly without modification, for example).

This left the head. I decided that it would be time to take out one of those obnoxious skull face mask guys. I was intending on heavily GSing over him. Once I got it on, though, I realised I don't have to give them the crappy red paint scheme that GW gives them. I can model the skull mask as an actual skull...

Once all my pieces were set in GS, I assembled it all together, and got it on the base.



While GSing up the mask wouldn't hurt, I'd like to see how good I can make it look without it, as a baseline.

Anyways, once this was done, it was a matter of putting on the fur. The loincloth went on the same as last time, but this time, instead of putting fur on the chest, I experimented with a shoulderpad.

Without messing with the head, this phase went surprisingly quickly. As such, I took the opportunity to bulk up the backpack a bit (the berzerker ones are SO scrawny. I'll have to be doing this a lot), and adding on one of the EXTRA gigantic swords that berzerkers get in case their FIRST gigantic sword gets broken.



It's at this point that I discover something that I'm doing with this army. It's not enough for them to be Khorne berzerkers, they have to be Khorne BARBARIANS. These guys are already pointing to chaos vikings of the far future.

With the conversion done, it was a matter of applying the usual paint scheme. With only 3 colors (more or less), these guys paint up a LOT faster than my guardsmen, even with the futzy gold paint.

The only question was how to paint the extra sword. I went through lots of schemes, and settled on the one I was the least unhappy with. In any case, the end result is once again clearly a Khorne berzerker.



While waiting to figure out how the skull champion is going to end up (he's already like 2/3ds complete), I'll start working on another regular berzerker as well. Time to break out my first chain axe.

And you'll have to pardon my sense of humor, but here is your poster.

Well Im hooked, so to pass on how godly good your green skills are Ill just comment on your general presentation and layout of your blog.

In short I like it.

I lol'd twice at your posters. I really like the reposing, however I think that you should reposition the feet of the next conversion you do as it looks a little awkward from the pictures(then again as you said your camera's a bit funky). Regardless, I have always been a fan of hairy corn(Khorne?) so you have my attention.

Heh. Very nice. Chaos Vikings in the future, but not like those wimpy SW vikings, no.

I think a lot of inspiration and ideas can be gotten from Conan and similar works. You might want to pick up a marauder or chaos warrior box, they have tons of bits that would probably be applicable. I know if I ever went chaos, that's the route I would take.

I much prefer the finish and pose of the first one, it's got a stronger basis on general movement than the second, plus the GS helm and fur completes it more for me too.

How long is each one taking on average?

That second poster is great! :-) love the marines, the first one's pose is spot on, lots of action, I think it may be a time consuming project for you! but i'll subscribe and definitely be watching to see what else you come up with!

this will be very interesting to follow...

i really like the furlook on the khorne marines.
tho one thing that bug me a bit is that the skullhelmets so far look a bit flat and not bonelike...or is that just me?

this will be very interesting, have fun with this new army of yours!

vik

Nice job mate! I really like it!

Thanks!

Earthbeard wrote:I much prefer the finish and pose of the first one, it's got a stronger basis on general movement than the second, plus the GS helm and fur completes it more for me too.

Yeah, I'm actually thinking of swinging more back towards the first one with the third one.

Viktor von Domm wrote:tho one thing that bug me a bit is that the skullhelmets so far look a bit flat and not bonelike...or is that just me?

I'm a MUCH worse painter than I am a converter. The bone is being done with skull white and then a couple drybrush coats of white and that is all.

The one thing I have going for me on this one is that actual bones bleach over time, creating a flat look.

Earthbeard wrote:How long is each one taking on average?

Well, the fur comes in 2 GS steps. If you want to count all the GSing I have to do to keep the re-placed joints as a step, it takes me 4. Assuming that I have the time, I could get one of these done in a weekend without too much fuss.

pretre wrote:You might want to pick up a marauder or chaos warrior box, they have tons of bits that would probably be applicable.

I actually have seen a couple of bitz and am impressed. The problem is that I don't have the cash to fork over for another box of dudes JUST for the bitz, though. There might be a trip to the war store in the future...

Dicebucket isn't bad:
http://www.dicebucket.com/servlet/the-1791/Chaos-Marauders-on-sprue/Detail
$22.75

But fair enough, I try not to spend when possible myself, so trade is my main game.

Very nice man. I especially like taking them as optional space wolves- more bang for you buck!

Man... Just looking at these makes me wan to go back to building my chaos army... I've done suprisingly well without greenstuff, given that I'm going for a mutations theme.

Like you, I recieved some models from a friend on cheaps, and now have partly painted and glued models form all walks of chaos... So I decided on a mixed color sheme, sorta like a bunch of rogues uniting under a single banner. Then again, I'm not much of a painter AND i'm a perfections...

But, I finally got some greenstuff, so I can do work! Any tips for a greenstuff newbie?

Your army looks great! Mind posting a new thread on the army list? I definitely like raptors over bikers, but I want to see what you come up with. Termies could be interesting, especially with lightning claws... and all champions... that gives us 6 LC attacks EACH on the charge... gives me shivers.

THis is AWESOME!!

I've enjoyed reading your battle reports since I picked up 40k a few years ago.

I'm happy you've decided to go Chaos! I play Khorne Marines myself, and look forward to seeing your tactics in your battle reports.

Oh, and I would *love* to see some Khorne terminators!

A painting tip which really helped me: do the helmets separately, and glue them on last. There are a lot of finnicky bits in Chaos, and painting them can be a chore if you don't leave some room for your brush.

Gryphonne Sepia, too, can really bring out the shadows on the red armor without diminishing the gold trim.. Mix it 50/50 with 'Ard Coat or another gloss medium, and see if you like the results. The gloss diminishes after a month or so, leaving you with a nice semi-gloss which looks good on marines (imho).

I wish I could paint but I am more of physical in your face, knife in your face type of guy.

Asgeirr Darkwolf wrote:Very nice man. I especially like taking them as optional space wolves- more bang for you buck!

The red is sort of starting to destroy that, though. Perhaps had I gone with gold (I also did a DISASTROUS mock up of space wolves blue which shall never be shown).

Asgeirr Darkwolf wrote:But, I finally got some greenstuff, so I can do work! Any tips for a greenstuff newbie?

Start small, and start with uneven surfaces. The reason that I'm doing fur pelts isn't just because they look awesome, they are also really easy to do. Large, smooth, vaguely flat surfaces (like cloaks) are MUCH more difficult to do than things like facial hair (where I got my start).

Also, if you want to do freestanding stuff, you need to make an anchor for the GS. You can see examples of this on my commissars here.

Arkion wrote:I'm happy you've decided to go Chaos! I play Khorne Marines myself, and look forward to seeing your tactics in your battle reports.

I'll probably do battle reports with these guys, but it's highly unlikely that I'll do them in the same fashion as my others. I've found that doing the battle reports I do is a real drain. Not only is there the roughly 12 hours per week in time and effort, but keeping track of wins and losses puts undue pressure on me to succeed, and placing so much emphasis on tactics makes games where the end result is determined by luck a much more bitter pill to swallow ("well, my tactics were sound, and I'd show you, except I can't roll higher than a 2...").

I've done two battle report series and, while they build cred and a lot of people enjoy them, they definitely contribute a lot to 40k burnout...

Arkion wrote:A painting tip which really helped me: do the helmets separately, and glue them on last. There are a lot of finnicky bits in Chaos, and painting them can be a chore if you don't leave some room for your brush.

Unfortunately, this is a no-go. The helmets are going to mostly have a bunch of conversion work on them. Conversion work I need to do on-model.

Plus, I haven't found painting much of a bother so far.

Arkion wrote:Gryphonne Sepia, too, can really bring out the shadows on the red armor without diminishing the gold trim.. Mix it 50/50 with 'Ard Coat or another gloss medium, and see if you like the results. The gloss diminishes after a month or so, leaving you with a nice semi-gloss which looks good on marines (imho).

I've never used washes, and I'm very reluctant to start them now. It's not only the glossy thing, it's also the fact that I stand to lose a perfectly good paint job by doing washes wrong. I do like some things I've seen washed, but I've also seen a lot of things that just look goopy and bad.

Asgeirr Darkwolf wrote: Mind posting a new thread on the army list? I definitely like raptors over bikers, but I want to see what you come up with. Termies could be interesting, especially with lightning claws... and all champions... that gives us 6 LC attacks EACH on the charge... gives me shivers.

Arkion wrote:Oh, and I would *love* to see some Khorne terminators!

Well, I actually made a list thread awhile ago, and ran some ideas through the ringer.

Basically, the idea was to have a core of berzerkers, and then have a large support element of either terminators, raptors, or bikers.

I was really tempted to go with the bikers for awhile. 2x MoK biker squads, 2x berzerkers in a rhino, and then either a third small biker squad, or a vindicator, or something.

The problem is that, after much thought, bikes are SO BAD. I like the fast, especially the turboboost. And then I read the rules which say that they have to drive in a practically straight line and can't turboboost through difficult terrain. This SERIOUSLY strips away what makes bikes good, because their only other real benefit is the ability to single tap plasma a little further away. Otherwise, they're just a low model count option that does little damage, has cruddy survivability, and loses models by driving through terrain.

I also considered terminators because, let's face it, the damage they put out is OBSCENE. The problem, though, is that they're slow, and I'm already plenty sick of chasing down skimmers on foot with my guard army. Plus, they most duplicate what berzerkers are already good at.

Which is why I'm currently most seriously considering raptors. Great speed compared to terminators, along with the ability to take melta weapons without sacrificing their close combat power. That I can take twice as many of them as bikes makes them more viable, especially since they put out more damage, and don't have to worry about terrain.

I'm still more than open to advice (apart from the "you must bring two demon princes and oblits or you suckxorz!"), but my list currently looks like:

Lord - MoK, wings, LCs, meltabombs

7x raptors, MoK, 2x melta, fist
8x raptors, MoK, 2x melta, fist
8x raptors, MoK, 2x melta, fist

8x berzerkers, fist
8x berzerkers, fist
8x berzerkers, PW

for 1500 points.

I understand the 40k drain. It's why I rarely post these days.

Regarding your list, I like the Raptor option. It's unique and won't play at all like the Guard. I also like your unorthodox choice of commander.

I'm excited to see more of this.

I love the LC lord; You could do some cool stuff with him.

If you're looking to go up in points, I would add:
KHARN
More 'zerkers
Dreads for theme
Chaos chosen are a nice alternative, and sneaky too. I would try a squad by replacing a rapotrs squad; having 5 infiltrating/outflanking plasma or meltaguns is obscene.

Oh, and thanks for the tips!

So, after more work, and a fight against stomach flu, I've finally got my third guy done.

Once again, I found myself attempting to use ripped-apart CSM bitz, and once again not finding anything that was looking like it would go well with the style. As such, for my third guy, I used only bitz from the berzerker set.

With this third guy, I was looking to keep the crazy killy thing of the second guy, but get back more towards the roots of the first guy. More fur, animal skull helmet, general mayhem, etc.

After trying out a bunch of different things, I finally came to the basic pose:



Once I got here, I realised that I had accidentally created this:



What? WHAT!? Did you just sass me boy? Naw, you stay there, I cut my OWN switch.

Riding the high wave of confidence, I got about to starting the GS, starting, of course, with the fur. As has been the case with the last two, this has been useful to cover up some of the gross imperfections that arise when you heavily butcher a power armor kit in order to get it into a cool pose.

I'd also take a moment to share some of the "makings of" for the bottom part. What I learned through doing my commissars is that you can have free-standing GS, but it has to be anchored to something. That something can also be free-standing GS. As such, like with my commissar's coat leads, the way I start this is to put down a base.



As you can see, this is just a plain sheet of GS that's cut and bent the way I want it. Futzing with it as it cures allows me to get the basic shape the way I want it. I can then just put down the fur on top once the original GS has cured all the way. The end result is that I can get a basic shape the way I want, through the GS armature, with the detail I desire.

Once the fur was done, it was a matter of doing the helmet, bulking out the woefully scrawny berzerker backpacks (the only part of this kit that I don't like), and cleaning things up, especially in the joints. The skull mask took a lot of messing with, but I finally got something I liked:



As you may also note, this was my first attempt at making rivets. They were just as obnoxious as I anticipated.

With this done, though, it was just down to the painting. I'm still surprised by how quickly these guys paint up. I guess that's what you get when you have roughly 4-color models. My Folerans, with over 12 take substantially longer. The end result is that, even though I have to do a lot more GSing, I think these berzerkers will take me LESS time per model, once I can really get things going.



I could scarcely be happier about how this turned out. It REALLY gets across the space barbarian feel. Viking helmets + chainsaw axes = pure win.

Also, I've got to take another moment to throw up a scale picture here:



This picture doesn't even do it justice. In real life the belt on the berzerker comes up to the bottom of the guardsman's nose, and the top of the mohawk doesn't even come up to the bottom of the outside edge of the left shoulderpad.

All of this is with virtually no truescaling. All you have to do is unbend their legs out of their crappy hunched over poses, and space marines quickly restore to their proper height.

I've already got the plastic and part of the fur done for the next one so, assuming I can get out of bed for more than 15 minutes at a time in the near future, I'll be able to finish this one more quickly.

Until then...