Simply Red

Here come the World Eaters!

Those of a squeamish disposition may want to look away.

Say what you like about the Khorne Berserker kit (and many do, the fools), but I still really like their knock-kneed charm. You also get quite a lot of them in a box, so when I picked up a set cheaply, I was able to combine them with the remnants of my Black Legion Berserkers and get two whole squads.

I mean, I could have gotten two squads from the box anyway, but eight of each is Khorne's proper number.

Since this was going to be one of my chaos 'side-armies', I thought it would be fun to experiment in painting style. Basically, I wanted to drown the models in gore and see how that looked!

I wanted my base to be the old War Hounds heresy-era armour (since blood shows up a lot easier on white armour than red), so I started off by painting the model in a conventional way, ably assisted by some Contrast methods:

• Primed: Grey Seer
• Armour: Apothecary White contrast
• Armour trim: Balthazar Gold, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Metallic: Iron Hands Steel, Nuln Oil wash
• Pauldron: Caledor Sky
• Armour Joints: Skavenblight Dinge, Nuln Oil wash
• Grenades: Militarum Green contrast
• Belts: Snakebite Leather contrast
• Eye lens: Biel-Tan Green wash

After what was essentially basecoating, I added the decals and basing. No further layers or highlights required.

Then I drowned it in blood. With a medium drybrush, I stippled on Vajello Hull Red (very brown - meant to look like the oldest blood), then worked up to Khorne Red and Mephiston Red. I then splashed some Blood for the Blood God technical paint over the weapons, for the freshest look.

This was the before shot:

And this was the after:

For added gore, I strung some Bostik All-Purpose glue between the weapons, then coloured it in with more Blood for the Blood God. A right mess.

I thought this would be a quick and easy paint, but despite trying it on a test model first, it took far longer to complete than expected.

My first problem was attempting to paint the whole batch in one go (flashbacks to Warhammer Fantasy regiments there). 

The other issue was that the stippling has to be managed as well, so you can't just go at it with wild abandon. I wanted enough of the original paint job to be visible, but also for the armour to be effectively painted red with blood.

In some ways, I might have been happy to have left them with white armour, with just a delicate splash of blood on the weapons. But that wouldn't have been any different from my other armies, so it was nice to push myself to the extreme of one theme.

Should I ever add to this army (some terminators, a dreadnought - I think getting it around 1000pts mark would be nice), I'll have my method all worked out. And a whole army in this style would certainly be striking (and then striking again in the same phase).

Of course, I'd be needing some icons for the squad, for those all-important reroll charges (I shudder to think what might happen to a Berzerker squad caught in the open). I'd already used the Khorne icon from the old CSM box, but luckily I'd picked up some Bloodletters since then.

I did enjoy going to down on the white cloth of this banner. The hefty amounts of stippling also helps to 'normalise' the World Eaters sigil, which is probably the most cartoonish of the traitor legions. I also found another use for a Reiver helmet (I love these and hope I never run out of them).

Finally, something special for the unit champions. I used the Blood Warrior from Age of Sigmar and added some 40k pieces to them (which I believe is what everyone else is doing, rather than embracing the Berserker kit, the ingrates).

It does look good, though. When we finally say goodbye to this cherished kit, I hope its replacement (and its inevitable monopose glory) can do it justice.

So only two squads in the army so far, but thanks to my policy of matching up all my chaos bases, I have enough tertiary units to get these on the field right away!

Let's go meet that blood and skulls quota!