Bloodcrushers of Khorne

More blood for the Blood God! 3 Bloodcrushers...

Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut

Normal guy

Chaos Icon

More blood and skulls to follow.
Cheers.

Soulgrinder of Khorne

Greetings,

a while ago I happened to get my hands on one of the nicest models GW offers imo, the Soulgrinder. I always had it on my mind to get one even as I don't play daemons, but I am planning on getting a Khorne themed army, just for style and giggles. And maybe we get a Chaos codex this year...
But be that as it may, here are the pics:

I diverged a bit from the usual red Khorne daemons colour as I really think the skin colours a quite nice on a 'grinder and the visible muscle bundles stick out better this way. The barbed wire was an idea I had when I saw the movie Silent hill. Since then I always wanted to do a daemon with barbed wire somewhere. And it's gory and bloody...
Hope you like it.
Cheers

A tale of fail: Tau vs. Daemons

Greetings,
initially Trotzki and me just had in mind to play one of our usual weekly games. We met after work, Trotzki had his daemons and I was up playing tau again, as my tyranids are not ready for more than "test-games". We decided to play cities of death again (imo the best addition to 40k so far). We set up a board with an abandoned fortification in the center consisting of our three bastions and aegis lines, surrounded by some buildings and containers and a street. The mission would be to secure the own building and attack the one the enemy had declared to be his own (I never can recall how the missions are called correctly). In hindsight we chose absolutely pointless stratagems. I fortified my home building and would get feel no pain additionally. Trotzki had the two stratagems where he would get a 5+ cover save in the open due to smoke grenades (amazing when you have a 5+ invul save as well...) and wrecking gear to tear down buildings.
I lost the first roll.off and had to set up first. I placed my broadsides and the kroot in the fortified building the railhead and the two deathrains and the stealth suits behind him next to the street. The ionhead and two fireknives on the other side. I wanted to create some kind of two-pronged assault on his building on the opposite site of the board. I kept both my warfishes and the command fireknife team in reserve.

On my first turn I just moved towards his objective and as no daemons were on the field yet, no shooting occured. Trotzki was lucky to get his designated first wave and so a greater daemon of tzeentch, 15 daemonettes, a tzeentch herald and a daemon prince dedicated to tzeentch as well materialized in real-space. But the warp was treacherous and the daemon prince mishapped to the other end of the board. Maybe a sign of things to come.
Things like the greater daemon of tzeentch "el poldo diablo" shooting on my fireknives.

Nothing spectacular, the bolt of tzeentch just roasted one shield drone leaving the suits unharmed. But who would have thought that this particular shield drone was the shas'ui's heirloom which he favoured more than his XV8 suit? Every evening he spent his free time with lovingly cleaning and optimizing it while his buddies went out to meet the girls or getting involved in a good old brawl in the local tavern. And now that. A warp-spawned monstrosity hurled a shiny bolt at him and in a desperate hover-jump his drone finally fulfilled its duty and saved him (and his squad-mate) from being turned to slimey goo. That was too much for one day. With a cry of desparation on his lips the shas'ui jumped for the burning remains of his once beloved drone, grabbed them under his battle suits arms and turned tail, running home!
That seemed to be the signal for a game of mutual abysmal dice rolling.
On Trotzki's second turn no reserves arrived, not a single unit. Oh lucky me. Don't blame me that I don't remember every normal detail of that game, I just want to share the highlights. On my turn the command team of three fire knives showed up and under the combined firepower of them, the ionhead and 6 firewarriors and the warfish el poldo diablo was sent back to the warp. Can you imagine what happened on Trotzki's turn with the command team? I guess you know what this is all about. Right, the shield drones were destroyed. And what do elite firewarriors do when that happens? Right again. They cut and run, turn tail, flee. To make long things short, the deathrains lost their single drone as well, failed their morale check and fled. But hey! I learned from the other two squads and I had moved them more to the center of the board. So when they fled 8" to my table edge they ended their run merely 1" from it! And as exceptions some kind of proof the rules, they passed their morale check to regroup. Hah!
Next remarkable thing was the soulgrinder. He didn't do much damage the round he appeared. And I was of good spirit as he materialized right infront of two BS4 twin-linked railguns and railhead lurking on his side.

The broadsides hit but didn't penetrate and the railhead missed with a 1. Over the remaining course of the game I just managed to immobilize him and destroy his mawcannon. It's not too spectacular but it matched the feeling of the game.

Trotzki had bad luck with his last daemonettes which didn't show up until turn 5, where they mishapped and were sent back to warp. On turn 6 they appeared again, scattered, mishapped and were claimed by the warp.
In the end I didn't manage to get anything to Trotzki's building, the last surviving deathrain was annihilated by the daemon prince, who later smashed the railhead.

Trotzki had the damaged soulgrinder with one foot/claw in my building and nothing to claim his home base. So the only acceptable outcame was a draw.

I am definitely not complaining about this poor dice rolling as it was bad luck on both sides and wasn't one-sided, what would have caused a rather disappointing if not annoying game for one of us. So sometimes it was that ridiculous it even was starting to get funny again.

I want to end with a citation from the "Imperial Infantrymen's uplifting Primer" concerning cowardly battlesuits:

"There are several types of tau 'Battlesuits' (as they
are laughably known), all equally ineffective. Battlesuits
are given to warriors who are even more
cowardly than their compatriots, and who refuse to
enter combat without maximum protection.
Feckless cowards! The tau encased in the cumbersome,
brittle arnour are usually inexperienced and
untrained.
Battlesuits are such easy targets that they
might as well have a bull's eye painted on them.
But it should be put on the back because they will,
in all likelihood, run away at the first sighting of a
well-armed and determined Imperial Guardsman!"

Did you experience something similar or have you had games like this where all and everything seems to fail?

Daemon Prince of Slaanesh

Hi everyone,

with all the high expectations on the new Tyranids codex (which will be really great I´m sure) I like to just give a very short update on the last finished model of my Chaos Daemons army. I already possess a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch that was build from the original CSM Prince set. For the Slaanesh part of my army I decided to do a completely different approach to add the Prince. Because the original model lucks a little to bulky and not really fitting to the agile but nimble followers of the Prince of Pleasures, I used the Deceiver model as a base. I have seen this several times now and always like the arrogant look and the really nice posing of the model. With few additions (basically the Dark Pegasi wings and an Icon of Slaanesh from the Daemonettes pack) the model was finished quite quickly. So here is the pic :

Daemon Prince of Slaanesh

Prince Fen´ci

Daemons vs Imperial Guard - Battle Reports from the 9. SiG - TrotzkiHatesMe Round 3

After having received some serious pain in the last game, I was disturbed hearing that my next opponent was playing Space Wolves. I had seen several lists on the tourney that really gave me a headache (full of Thunder Wolves and Rune Priests). The last game was played with 5 objectives with long table edges as deployment zone, with my special objective being to keep one HQ and one troop choice alive. When he handed me his list I was kind of relieved that his list was quite “usual” with 3 Rhinos full of Grey Hunters (one with a Rune Priest inside) and a Drop pod loaded up with 4 Wolf Guard (combi melters). But most of his 1650 points were seated in his Land Raider Crusader that carried Ragnar Blackmane and a Killy Unit o´Doom of Wolf Guard (kitted out with everything) that really gave me a the shivers.

I won the roll to choose sides and allowed him to go first. He set up everything in one big wall of tanks and awaited my arrival. The Chaos Gods again decided to leave me with my second wave and I deepstruck them in serious distance to his units. My Soul Grinder deviated greatly taking him far into the open ready to be blown away by his melter drop pods. With almost shooting in this turn (with the exception to my flamers flaming his Rhinos destroying one Storm Bolter – whoot !) I awaited his counter strike. In his turn he drop podded the Wolf Guard next to my Soul Grinder and drove two of his Rhinos onto the objectives on his side of the table, while his Land Raider and the last Rhino speeded directly into my lines. He then started his shooting phase and went on a bad dice streak I haven´t seen like that for a long time. Of the 4 melters in the Wolf Guard unit only one hit the Soul Grinder, rolling snake eyes for penetration.


His Land Raider opened fire on my Chariot of Slaanesh dealing him only two wounds with hurricane bolters and assault cannon fire, while the two storm bolters on the Rhinos failed to even deal one wound to the flamers. In my turn everything I had in reserves arrived giving me a lot of confidence to take the upper hand in this game. I was able to destroy one of the Rhinos (housing the Rune Priest and 9 Grey Hunters) through shooting and my flamers started to chase one of his Rhinos across the map for 3 turns blowing of its storm bolter. In my assault phase the Fiends of Slaanesh nearly obliterated the Grey Hunters that left the Rhino with only one wound taken in return.


The Soul Grinder annihilated the 4 Wolf Guard next to the drop pod. So this was a real bad turn for him and this trend continued for the rest of the game. Ragnar Blackmane died in a two round combat against the Lord of Change without dealing a single wound and the big bad Wolf Guard unit inside the Land Raider proved to be two killy for its own good.
They destroyed the whole units of Fiends and stranded in the open ready to be blast away by all the shooty goodness I had. When the dust settled only two Wolf Guard had survived. His Land Raider was unable to destroy my Soul Grinder until it was to late and he was catched in assault, destroying the mighty tank. At the end all he had left was a single squad of 2 Grey Hunters, hiding behind the wreck of their Rhino. Had the game taken one more round I would have tabled him, not through good gaming, but due to his real bad luck. So I left the game with 16 tourney points and waited for the final scores.

Concluding Remarks

I left the game taking place 14 out of 27 with two wins and one loss. My goal was to win at least one game and I´m quite happy with the outcome. The Daemons proved to by better than I thought and was surprised how well they kept their ground against the armies in game 1 and 3 (I never want to talk about game 2 again…). Even though I only got my first wave in one of the games and my deepstriking results were quite unfortunate, I never had the feeling of this "completly random" - feeling thats often criticized about Daemons. There wasn´t a real "Model of the Tourney" but the Soul Grinder really suprised me in a positive way by taking an incredible amount of punsihment in all games (in contrast to many of our normal games, where he just was destroyed in the first turn after deep striking).
As real positive suprise my Daemons also won me the "Best Painted" award at the end of the day, making the whole tourney a really pleasing experience that I like to repeat in the future.

Daemons vs Imperial Guard - Battle Reports from the 9. SiG - TrotzkiHatesMe Round 2

With the first game being a very narrow win, I was in a good mood for my second game. The second game was holding table quarters and my special objective was killing the enemy’s most expensive elite unit. My opponent played space marines and has he handed me his list, I was starting to feel a sort of panic. 10 Terminators with a Null Zone Librarian (most expensive elite unit … ouch), a Land Raider Crusader (full of Assault Terminators and a Thunderfire Cannon. The list was completed by two Rhinos with Space Marines and a small five man squad of scouts.

Game started quite bad with me loosing the role to go first. My opponent handed me the first turn and to add insult to injury my second wave decided to come first, leaving me with no shooting to destroy his Thunderfire Cannon of Doom. It all went downhill from there with me learning that a +5 invulnerable save that’s rerolled due to Null Zone doesn’t allow much room for soaking a turn of firepower from any unit. The Thunderfire Cannon destroyed one unit of Demonettes and the Horrors in its first two turns of shooting with me not even denting it.


After 4 turns all I had left, were 15 Demonettes hiding behind a building on the far side of the battle field, hoping to at least keep me one quarter. Of course the game went on until round 7 allowing my opponent to also wipe my last unit and thus giving him a solid massacre with 20 tourney points for him and a uncomforting 0 for me. All my kills in this game counted up to a whooping 4 scouts and a immobilised Rhino. Well at least I learned why Fatecrusher lists are so abundant in tourney environments…

Daemons vs Imperial Guard - Battle Reports from the 9. SiG - TrotzkiHatesMe Round 1

This being the first game on my first tourney I was really nervous about the army my Daemons will meet. When the games were called I was partly relieved partly terrified to hear that I´m going to have to take on the Imperial Guard. I´ve played Guard before so I knew some of their tricks but I also knew, that they have a lot of evil tricks upon their sleeve that can hurt Daemons badly (I´m looking at you, Officer of the Fleet). Big blocks of chimeras also really scare me, because they really take a lot of firepower to get to their juicy inside and that´s exactly what my Daemons can´t dish out.

My opponents list consisted of 3 Leman russ,a basilisk, a Thunderer (basically a Imperial Guard Vindicator sourced from FW´s Imperial Armour), a Command Squad in a Chimera (kitted out with Master of Ordnance, bodyguards and Officer of the Fleet [here we go - 5+ for reserves]) and loads of footslogging infantry.

We played Capture and Control (One objective in each deployment zone) with Dawn of War setup. My special objective for this mission was to get one troop choice into one of the terrain features in his deployment zone – quite a good one for Daemons because that´s exactly where I´m going. Terrain featured a big AV14 bunker on one side and several ruined buildings on the other with some craters and trenches in between. I won the roll to go first and let him go first. He chose the side with the bunker and deployed everything he had during his turn. In my turn I got lucky and my first wave struck all over the place. I won´t go into turn by turn details but the game was very close with a lot of loses (my Demon Prince and the Lord of Change soaked many, many shots but where both sent back to the warp) for me in first turns against the overwhelming firepower of the Imperial Guard. I slowly munched through his right flank and the Officer of the Fleet proved to be more of bonus then a hindrance. Most of my unit deepstruck in later turns directly into his right flank where the bunker shielded me from much of his firepower, while my horrors held my own objective against a hell lot of fire. I was able to contest his objective with my Soul Grinder, who proved to be the absolute Monster of the Match by killing the Leman Russ squadron and absorbing 2 turns of incredible amounts of firepower without a scratch.


So I won with 1 objective to 0 but hadn´t it been for the additional victory points I collected for holding one terrain feature in his deployment zone, I would have lost by about 200 victory points in the secondary. With the 300 points for the special objective I luckily left the game with around +100 victory points (draw) and 14 tourney points for the one objective I was in the lead.

Ready for the tournament ...

Hi guys,

with just one week up to the local tourney I finally finished the last of the models needed for the games. I still had to paint four Fiends of Slaanesh and build and paint my Herald on Chariot (not that much, but you really learn how much time it takes to proper paint a model, when you have a fixed date it has to be finished on), when I decieded to register.
The four Fiends of Slaanesh where quick to paint, because they already where assembled (not really fun). I used the same paint scheme, I used for all of the daemons.

So here is the pic :

Fiends of Slaanesh

Test games have really proven the worth of this fine unit, that is fast, hits hard and should not be ignored by your enemies units. In some games they died without doing much, but even when they just act as bullet magnet they have their worth. In some way they seem to be comparable with the Flamers of Tzeentch, with the big distinction that flamers do their damage when they deepstrike, with not much after that (they can but I just can´t remember when the last time was they really survived the next enemy turn without being bashed or shot). Fiends do no damage the turn they arrive but really whip units in the turns afterwards, with more resilence (you can deepstrike a lot more freely due to the large charge range) and more hitting power in later turns.

For the Herald I had to first reassemle the model. Parts used are mainly from the High Elf Chariot and the Daemonette Box, with the heads of the two draft animals originating from the Chaos Spawn Box (Great kit, useless models - hooray !). Painting was done part by part with an assembly of the finished chariot, rider and oxen at the end.

Here is he / she / it:

Herald of Slaanesh on Chariot

In all test games the chariot mostly showed its worth as a sort of Search & Destroy missile, that deepstruck, charged and .... well sometimes really messed up a unit and sometimes died an horrible death in - Slaanesh pleasing - agony. I still think it is a very useful unit (killed Njal in SW proxy test game) but its true worth is its ability to take a out small squads like marine combat squads or guardsmen units. Tough targets really break his neck quickly - even with 5 wounds and +4 armour save. Still the main thing that really make the Chariot of Slaaensh outstanding is its low cost, that allows you to field a quick mini-monstrous creature with Hit & Run for around 100 points.

My first tournament ...

Hi folks,

as Managarm wrote in his last post we are taking part in a local tournament in the beginning of november. My first thought was playing my Eldar, but after taking a look at the participation list I decided to give my Chaos Daemons a try. I know they may be the harder army for competitive play, but there is only one additional Daemon player while there are a lot of Eldar and Marine player.

Coming to my list : I basically want to try my Slaanesh-Tzeentch list, with the addition of a Slaanesh Herold on Chariot and 4 fiends. Hopefully this, together with the few bolts on my Tzeentch stuff, gives my enough power to beat fast moving armies (which are really the bane on Daemon armies).
So here is my list :

1 Lord of Change (HQ)
Soul Devourer; Daemonic Gaze; Bolt of Tzeentch; Daemonic Flight

1 Chariot of Tzeentch (HQ)
Daemonic Gaze; Master of Sorcery; We Are Legion; Bolt of Tzeentch;
Jetbike; Furious Charge

1 Chariot of Slaanesh (HQ)
Rending Claws; Aura of Acquiescence; Unholy Might; Soporific Musk;
Cavalry; Furious Charge

3 Flamers of Tzeentch (Elites)
Breath of Chaos; Warpfire

4 Fiends of Slaanesh (Elites)
Soporific Musk; Rending Claws; Unholy Might

13 Daemonettes of Slaanesh (Troops)
Aura of Acquiescence; Rending Claws; Chaos Icon

13 Daemonettes of Slaanesh (Troops)
Aura of Acquiescence; Rending Claws; Chaos Icon

7 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (Troops)
Warpfire; Bolt of Tzeentch; Chaos Icon
1 The Changeling

1 Soul Grinder of Chaos (Heavy Support)
Front Armour: 13; Side Armour: 13; Rear Armour: 11; Harvester; Mawcannon -
Phlegm, Vomit

1 Daemon Prince of Chaos (Heavy Support)
Daemonic Flight; Iron Hide; Unholy Might; Mark of Tzeentch

Models in Army: 46

I know that this loadout is really not able to take a lot of incoming firepower and lacks resilance. In the next weeks some playtesting has to take place to see what still needs to be tweaked to at least dampen this problem.

Hopfully there are some fellow Daemon players that have some comments suggestions on my list - I´d be thankful for any advice.

Chariot of Slaanesh

While painting daemonettes I started a little sideproject and tried to build a Chariot of Slaanesh. Just from there stats and abilities these little buggers seem like true powerhouses. For this little fellow here I used bits from a High Elves Chariot, Chaos Spawns and the Daemonette box. I will do some more updates when the model is painted.

Front

Side

The Masque of Slaanesh

What would a host of daemonettes be without their proper leader. Here you can see my try on the Masque of Slaanesh. I´m still not sure if I will ever use her in games but the model is really nice and as a hell lot of detail for being very small and fimble. In game I think the model is mostly hurt by being no Independent Character wich allows all fire being direct at her. Even with her really nice Invulnaerable save her low toughness and wounds won´t make her last for long. Playtesting will show if she is worthy of leading the dance of my daemonettes.

The Masque of Slaanesh

Cursed Eternal Dancer

Daemonettes of Slaanesh

Somewhere on my shelf my poor Eldar lament my deep fall into the evil works of chaos .... but who cares about these whiny space elves - no just kidding. But I really don´t think they would welcome my effort to buy shiny new models of there dead enemy Slaanesh, the Dark Prince, She Who Thirsts and all the other names he/she/it is called. To add some number to my mainly shooty Tzeentch force I did some majot investment in 30 fancy space bitches on crack of wich I already painted 20. I´m sorry for the blurry pictures but my cameras macro is a little overstrained with pictures of more than one model.

Daemonettes of Slaanesh
The Parade of Excess

To add some speed and really hard hitting power to my list I decided to treat myself with my first cavalary unit - the Fiends of Slaanesh. I glued them together just yesterday and there is still alot of work to be done on them. I´m a little disappointed with lack of poseson the model that gives the unit a very similar look. With the green stuff dried I now can start to to some corrections on joints and hopefully the model will not just fall apart when I start to scrap it with my carpet cutter.

Expect to see a pic of the first painted one after I finished the last 10 demonettes.

Family Photo

With the first batch of demons painted I think its time for a little family photo ...

The finished Soul Grinder

Hi folks,

just want to post some pics of the finished soul grinder. Hard to take nice photos of such a big model - it looks a lot darker in reality ... anyway - have a look :

Front

Back

Size Comparison

Soulgrinder WIP

Hi folks,

so here is the first little upgrade on my unfinished Tzeentch-Soulgrinder. Starting with the boring part : the legs. Not much of special interest here. I mainly used Boltgun Metal with Brazen Brass for the legs, while the body is drybrushed with Boltgun Metal and Codex Grey. What still needs to be done is some further darkening down the boltgun metal (still a little to shiny) and I still have no idea for the leg armor plates on the last pairs. First idea was some Tzeentch-Symbol... but due to the ultimate lack of any freehand painting skill I´m still stuck with black plates. As I said otherwise there is not much special here...

Now the more interesting upper part: Here you have the very detailed and organic part of the Grinder. Starting with thin layer of Mordian blue I painted the whole skinny partof the model. Next another thin layer of Space Wolves Grey + Mordian Blue was added. At last pure Space Wolves Grey was used as on the GW studio model. To give it a tzeentchy blue-purple look I now first washed the model with Asurmen Blue and after drying with Baal Red. As you can see this lead to some nice blending effects with wich I´m really pleased. I also started with the details on the model but this is still almost 99% work in progress.

You just have to love this model .... I really think this is one of the best GW has ever done ....

Something big is coming ...

A little update on my painted models. This week I finished my 3 Screamers of Tzeentch or as many people call them "Flying Meltabombs". I was a little disappointed with the lack of detail on the models so I tried some new techniques with blending colours into each other. It may not be perfect but I´m pleased with the outcome. Gamewise I´m still not really convinced of their usefulness. They may cost not much but killing 3 T4 models isn´t that much of a task. I really think they can bring down any slow moving tank with one warp powered bite, but getting them near the tank will prove complicated. In the only 5th Ed. testgame I had until now (vs. Eldar) they really had problems catching Serpents and even if they managed they where outmanouvered (cursed 6s to hit).

Screamers of Tzeentch
Warpborne Tankwreckers

With my Screamers finished I now feel free to start the "big guy" of any well organized chaos demon army. My sweet little soul grinder is ready to be started and after 2 hours of cleaning the parts up, I started to glue together the first bits. You really have to be impressed with the size of this thing.... poor little guardian... The upper body won´t be glued to the legs, because the modles parts fit really well (shiny new GW models) and it will be easy to take the body up and leave the legs as wrecked Soul Grinder. More pics while I´m painting ....

One bad day for a whiny little space elf ...

More Warpstuff...

Hi guys,

after some technical problem with my digicam I´m back to post the arrivals in my demon army now. As I told you my army is supposed to be mainly focused on Tzeentch-shooty-goodness. So I decieded to treat myself with the ultimate shooty chicken - the Greater Demon of Tzeentch. This unit comes with an really hefty price tag and it will explode to over 300 points when gifted with We Are Legion, Master of Sorcery and Breath of Chaos. The first testgames will show if these little upgrades are really necessary. With build in Demonic Gaze, Bolt of Tzeentch, Wings and an uber-invulnerable save this should be a flexible Jack-of-all-trades that can shoot the hell out of everything and then mop it up after charging. I know that most people favour the cheaper herolds but if not only for fluff reasons a greater demon should be part of any demonic army.

Lord of Change
Xitzu´Bitantzel

On the lower picture you can see my first tries with the new GW-washes. The chickens tabard was just painted with one thin layer of space wolves grey and then washed with Asurmen Blue. I think the soft shading is really impressing and I am looking forward to paint more models with them.

As a true follower of Tzeentch I also got myself some horrors. 2x5 with bolt is really a lot of firepower for such a small unit. I also equipped one unit with an icon because knowing exactly where you deep strike is really something when you are dealling with flamers (the Tzeentchy ones). 10 more and will be pleased with my troop selection.

The Pinkmob
Giggeling minions of Tzeentch

If it comes to suicide units the flamers really are one hell of a "deepstrike and flame away" unit. Aggressive deppstriking is the way to go with those and in the first games it worked quiet well. And 3 are inexpensive enough to don´t really care about the lose. On the picture below you can also see my model for the changeling (of course he is normally with his horrors) which I also used as a herold of Tzeentch in some games.

The Changeling and Flamers
Cohorts of Tzeentch

The last point is a little heretical act against my master Tzeentch... because I like the model and a little more headbashing competence for my army would be great. I aquired myself the Skulltaker of Khorne. He hasn´t seen any games until now, because he is missing his bloodletter company. Hopefully he can lend the poor minions of Tzeentch a hand when they are getting there tentacles bashed in melee.

Uzul the Skulltaker

Herold of Khorne