The Hunt continues…

Hey everyone, KrautScientist here. It's been a while since I last posted here, although life has been rather stressful, and keeping my own blog afloat was all the blogging work I could handle for a while. Does that mean I didn't have any hobby time either, though? No, far from it! As a matter of fact, today I would like to show you some of the things I have been up to...




Some of you may remember the showcase of my army of World Eaters, Khorne's Eternal Hunt, I posted some time ago. And, indeed, all of my various other hobby endeavours notwithstanding, the legionaries of the World Eaters' 4th assault company are the one project that I always come back to.

So let's take a look at some of the additions to my army since my last post:

 

1. Raising Hell

First up, my converted Heldrake, called the "Hellrazor":


This bad boy already received a detailed writeup at an earlier date, so I won't bore you by putting you through it all again. Suffice to say that, to date, this model remains one of the most tiring projects of my whole hobby life. Mark my words, painting those wings certainly isn't a whole lot of fun...

 

2. Masters of the Hunt

Seeing how I am basically addicted to converting characters for my World Eaters, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I also built some more Chaos Lords since my last post. Here they are, in all their dark glory:


First up, Huntmaster Torus, Taker of Heads. The model is a relatively simple kitbash based (once more) on the ever popular plastic Chaos Lord in Terminator armour. In this case, I wanted to build a model wielding an enormous axe, which was converted by adding a the blade of a minotaur axe to the Terminator lord's staff.

Torus is the 4th assault company's headsman, and his task is twofold: He takes the heads of his fallen brothers to make sure their passage into Khorne's realm is paid for. And he goes after those that have drawn the company's ire: traitors, cowards and those beyond contempt.

Another small detail about the conversion: The horns framing the character's head were very much inspired by Lord Nemeroth from the Space Marine video game.


Then there's this guy: Huntmaster Stian Gul, Apostle of War. I wanted to convert a character filling the role of Dark Apostle (introduced as a generic HQ selection by the latest codex), and I figured the most important act of worship for a follower of the Blod God would be battle itself. So instead of a preacher, Stian Gul is the bearer of the 4th assault company's most treasured warhorn, its mournful sounds more inspirational to the legionaries than any sermon could ever be.

The model is a very simple conversion based on the plastic WFB Chaos Lord: All I did was to replace the model's original head and right hand with a head from the Skullcrusher kit and a warhorn from the Bloodcrushers, respectively.


And finally, possibly my most involved character conversion to date: Huntmaster Deracin, Keeper of the Forge. I absolutely wanted to convert my own Warpsmith, using nothing but plastic bitz, and Deracin was the result. The model was based on the same Chaos Lord as Stian Gul above, although I only used the legs this time around. The rest of the body came from the Skullcrushers and Chaos Knights, and then I finally lost my mind and added all kinds of bitz from around 20 different kits...



As befits his office, Deracin is equipped with a servo-harness that comes with a meltagun, a flamer and two vicious looking CC weapons. One was originally a sentinel chainsaw, the other is one of the Heldrake's "chicken feet" -- its quite uncanny how brilliant some of the bitz from the Heldrake kit are if you attach them to anything else than the Heldrake ;)

The servo arms were built from various Necron arms and legs, and the backpack itself came from the GK Interceptors.


I am really immensely happy with how Deracin turned out: He was a ton of work, but the model is recognisably both a World Eater and a Techmarine. And it was all made from glorious plastic ;)

He is also quite a beast, too: Here's a little scale comparison with a regular World Eater and a Chaos Lord in Terminator armour:

3. The rank and file...

...or what passes for the rank and file in an army full of millennia-old superhuman killers. Anyway, I also added some new squads (or at least the beginnings of squads) to my army.

First up, you may already have noticed the bare-chested World Eater appearing in the comparison image above:


This is actually the second model built and painted for a squad of World Eaters channelling the legion's gladiatorial traditions. Instead of building yet another squad of "regular" berzerkers, I thought it would be interesting to go for something a little more unique. In the finished squad, every member could be carrying an individual setup of gladiatorial weaponry. And the bare upper bodies (taken from Chaos Marauder) make them look suitably feral and gladiatorial.

Here are the two finished models from the squad so far:


Borrowing a brilliant idea from fellow hobbyist Szczur22, I also added some warpaint-like facial tattoo, resembling Angron's own facial markings:


Building somre more vicious looking gladiators for this squad should be a lot of fun indeed!

I also wanted to come up with a good idea for a squad of Chaos Spawn, yet I didn't fancy the usual, "creepy crawly" approach. So I thought about what would happen to legionaries of the 4th assault company who were ultimately consumed by their rage and the corrupting influence of chaos, changing and devolving (or is that evolving) into the perfect hunters. Thus the "Forsaken" were born:


While I wanted these guys to resemble regular spawn in size, they also needed to look more like twisted and mutated Astartes instead of simply mounds of quivering flesh. So I used WFB Crypt Horrors and some Minotaur arms to build models that looked like twisted caricatures of the gladiators above:








Each of them was given brutal looking weapons as a callback to their gladiatorial origins. If you take a closer look, I added Butcher's Nails implants and a Triumph Rope scar to all of the models, making it perfectly clear that these were once honoured brothers of the 12th Astartes legion.
And, as a clear sign of their now feral nature, I also tried to make them suitably angry and bestial:






I guess I was reasonably successful...

Here's a picture of the Gladiators and Forsaken together. I think it rather nicely highlights the fact that these are far more closely related than they would like to acknowledge...



And finally, I had been itching to build some traitorous Space Wolves for quite some time, so I came up with the idea of one Joras Turnpelt and the remains of his great company. They fought against the legionaries of Khorne's Eternal Hunt, yet during the battle, Joras flew into a berserker rage, turning on friends and enemies alike, and slaying even his own wolf lord. Utterly demoralised by this, Joras and his brothers were all but ready to be killed by the World Eaters, yet Lord Captain Lorimar, the Master of the Hunt, was intrigued by the dark power Joras had found within himself, and let them live.

Ever since, Joras and his wolf brothers have lived as outcasts, turnpelts, as it were, hunted by their loyalist brethren, with no other choice than to fight alongside the 4th assault company.

Here's Joras Turnpelt himself:


And the first test models for a squad of his Blood Wolves:


The finished squad will be used as "regular" Chaos Space Marines (or as CSM with the Mark of Khorne). I think that's a more interesting approach than simply building a squad of World Eaters wielding Bolters...

So yeah, so far for the new additions to my army. Of course I also gathered everything together, taking some nice, new army pictures. Take a look:


And a couple of closeups:

The Hellrazor among the other models of the army:


The models in Terminator armour. These three gentlemen can already make up a small Termicide unit, if push comes to shove:



And there’s an equally large collection of Chaos Lords in power armour, of course. Among them my converted Dark Apostle:





Then there’s a small collection of champions and models I painted just for fun (among them the beginnings of my dedicated gladiator squad). While several of those concepts may be spun off into an own squad, all of these “stragglers” together can almost make up another berzerker squad:


And finally, there’s the beginnings of Joras Turnpelt’s small detachment of traitorous Space Wolves:

 

4. In closing...

So, is this all? Well, I have one final piece to show you:

I recently discovered a fantastic conversion of a Dreadknight (to be used as a Decimator) over on Chris' blog, A Host of Word Bearers. I can't recall the last time that a conversion idea had me so completely thrilled, and I immediately picked up a Dreadknight kit to build something similar. I did make some changes to Chris' formula, however, so I hope my version of the model isn't just a cheap knockoff of his fantastic idea. Anyway, meet the "Wargrinder", everyone:





Even though it may not look like it, this is actually a fairly easy conversion: It uses the basic structure of the Dreadknight kit, adding some chaosy bitz like some Maulerfiend armour plates, arms from the Heldrake and a leftover weapon from the Forgefiend as well as some additional bitz and bobs. The head actually came from an old G.I.Joe action figure, by the way, and I have been getting quite a bit of flak for it on the forums: Many people think it's simply too robotic and not angry and daemonic enough.



While I'll happily admit that the head is a clear case of love it or hate it, it was chosen for a reason, though: In contrast to the frenzied berzerkers fighting alongside it, I wanted the Wargrinder to look like an uncaring killing machine -- not a daemon given metallic form, but rather a corrupted and redesigned ancient warmachine of the Legio Cybernetica that has been fighting alongside the World Eaters ever since the days of the Heresy. And I think the head fits that look rather better than any frenzied daemon or skull face would.


Anyway, I am really happy with the way the model turned out. I'll still have to add a suitably impressive base, though...




So, as you can see, work on my main 40k army continues! There's always more work to be done, of course, and it goes without saying that there's an even bigger pile of unpainted stuff where this came from. But that is a story for another time. For now, thanks for looking! And of course, I would love to hear your thoughts and any C&C you might have, so drop me a line in the comments!

You are also very welcome to check out my blog at www.eternalhunt.wordpress.com, if you'd like to find out more about my various hobby projects!