Evil Knievels

It took a while to get these finished, but it's like riding a bike*.

*(difficult, frequently-abandoned, and costing me more front teeth than I'd like to admit)


These Bikers have been waiting in the queue for a couple of years now, which is bad form even by my standards. Not least because the original vision for my Black Legion was a fast-moving, hard-hitting strike force, and the bikes were a big part of that.

I'm guess this comes to my overall reluctance to paint vehicles, even if these are basically cavalry. I will also add that my many defeats using Kraken's bike-themed Mantis Warriors didn't exactly have me racing for the paintbrushes.

However, nothing motivates me like an upcoming battle, and I set my mind to have these ready for the fight against Monkey's Space Wolves - which I managed, and they didn't do too badly.

Hateful Volleys has really helped these guys out, so they can unleash full bolter fire at long range - although I also generously handed out melta guns, so they can race up and blast things away point-blank.

What's particularly nice about Black Legion bikers is their trait turns rapid-fire weapons into assault weapons if they advance, so you can turbo-boost (20 inches!) and still get shots off (so that's a 44" threat range). And the Let the Galaxy Burn stratagem means they're not dependent on staying near a Chaos Lord for rerolls, so they have free reign. Add in Veterans of the Long War and Endless Cacophony and you've got yourself a party!

It may be too soon to tell, but I have a good feeling about Bikers in 9th - fast-moving and not easy to shift (unless you're Bjorn the Fell-Handed), they could be very handy for jumping on objectives.

In terms of building them, each bike got a little bit of decoration (mostly taken from the Chaos Terminator Lord kit - lots of spiky extras in there). One of the meltas is from the Raptor kit, and the other from the original CSM kit (something I miss about that kit is they included the gun handles, so he could be posed cradling his weapon in the saddle). Both arms are magentised, so I could swap out for plasma guns, but I do like a bit of melta.

The Champion has the option for either a combi-melta or power sword. The former is much more useful, but the latter looks much cooler. I also added a couple of chainswords to the other two riders - the squad can swap bolt pistols for chainswords, and it seems silly not to.

What took a while with these bikers is that I restarted halfway through. They were originally on the thin 'lozenge' bases (that's how long I've had them), but when GW changed to the new oval bases - despite trying to convince myself otherwise - they looked so much better I had to switch them.

And since the bikes were ripped off their bases anyway, I changed their black undercoat for a leadbelcher one. This made it much easier to get to all the mechanical gubbins underneath, and I also tried filling in the black panels with Black Templar contrast paint, rather than the acrylic black. This was a great discover - quicker to lay on, and thin enough that it left an ersatz 'edge highlight' where the leadbelcher shows through.

As with the Rhinos, I didn't want to use gold trim on the bikes, as I think that makes them seem more utilitarian and allows the riders to stand out (I've seem too many bikers where vehicle and rider match so closely, you can't see where they begin and end).

The riders were painted separately, and I'm practised at painting Black Legionnaires now, even if not having them on a base resulted in a few unexpected thumbprints.

Bikes

• Leadbelcher primer, Nuln Oil wash, Leadbelcher drybrush
• Panels: Black Templar contrast
• Wheels: Charcoal Grey base, Nuln Oil wash

Bikers

• Gold armour: Retributor Armour base, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Black armour: Chaos Black base, Mechanicus Standard Grey layer,
• Pipes, straps & gun barrels: Ironbreaker base, Nuln Oil wash
• Bullets: Runelord Brass + Xv88 base, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Eyes: Mephiston Red base, Carroburg Crimson wash
• Skin: Rakarth Flesh base, Reikland Flesh wash, Pallid Wych Flesh layer
• Topknot: Khone Red base, Nuln Oil wash, Evil Sunz Scarlet layer

And with one bike left over, I got creative!

This guy is a kitbash of Biker, Thousand Sons Exalted Sorcerer and the original Chaos Space Marine sets. I also used goblin spears to lengthen the front forks of his bike, to make it extra-fancy.

This poor chap got relegated to the Legends index as soon as I finished building him (mind you, now that everything's gone up in points, he's not a bad price again). But he's mostly there for the Rule of Cool (and the vague suggestion of a raised middle finger).

So that's the unit finally done. And I'm now so happy with them, I want to buy another box (but probably shouldn't).