Khorne’s Eternal Hunt: Trooping the Colour

Back in January, I promised you some updated army pictures of my biggest and longest-running hobby project, my World Eaters army. And today, I intend to make good on that promise, so let’s have a little army showcase, shall we?

I’ve said many times that my World Eaters continue to be my favourite hobby project, and while I am indeed a huge hobby butterfly, I usually try to put whatever I learn on my various other projects to good use on my World Eaters, endeavouring to imbue the army with as much character as I can: On the one hand, the 4th assault company may be a typical World Eaters force in that it features lots and lots of red and brass, scores of aggressive guys wielding chainweapons and a huge number of bunny ears 😉 But at the same time, pretty much every model of the army has been converted to fit my interpretation of the World Eaters and my aesthetic sensibilities.

What’s more, maybe the most important thing I have learned during those last few years in the hobby is that every model should matter. This may seem like a thoroughly outdated concept in these days of staggering, unbound Apocalypse battles with many thousand points on either side of the table, but it’s still my firm belief: Every model in this army is a grizzled veteran (often of ten millennia of fighting the Long War), and it should show in the models.

But I’m rambling, and you probably came here for the pictures, above all else, right? So here goes:

This is what the army looked like back in 2012:

And in 2013…

And finally, here’s a big part of the army, photographed in late 2014 for the “We Are Legion” event over at the Blog dé Kouzes:

But even this latest photo was missing some of the models, so it was time to troop them all out and take some new pictures — quite a task at this point, because the army has grown so big that it has become rather unwieldy for photo sessions 😉

But I persevered, and here are the results: The entirety of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt as of May 2015:

That’s quite a bit of red, eh? 😉

Seriously, though: It’s possibly not the biggest army out there (everything in the picture above adds up to about 4,000 points), or the best-painted one. But it’s easily one of my biggest hobby achievements so far, and the project I always keep returning to. And I do feel pretty proud when seeing them neatly arrayed like that — or at least, as neatly arrayed as is possible with a horde of bloodthirsty maniacs…

The lineup pitured above also includes some twelve or so Khorne berzerkers that were painted way back when, during the late 90s. The paintjobs are really showing their age by now, but I just couldn’t bring myself to exclude them from the picture (and the extra bodies also come in handy during games, of course).

On the other hand, when I look back at the development of the army over the last year or so, there have been some fairly recent additions that I am especially happy with, so let’s take a closer look at those:

First up, here are all the models added to the army since the last “official” army shocase back in 2014:

Not a huge mass of models, certainly, but some of my favourite pieces have been the work of the last one or two years:

There’s the Wargrinder, of course:

Still one of my favourite conversions, and a project I am particularly proud of. I remember I had never tackled a model of this size before, and working on this piece taught me that there’s really nothing to be afraid of — in fact, bigger models can be quite enjoyable to work on and provide and excellent change of pace!

Read more about the Wargrinder here, in case you’re interested.

Together with a – fairly recently completed – Forgefiend (that kept fighting me every part of the way, thus earning the name Gorespite for itself), the Wargrinder nicely rounds out my collection of bigger war machines and daemon engines. In-universe, these are the creations of this fine gentleman here, Huntmaster Deracin, Keeper of the Forge and Warpsmith to the 4th assault company (and yet another model I am really happy with):

And here he is once again, surrounded by his fiendish creations. A man and his daemons, so to speak:

And make no mistake: The great forge aboard the Aeternus Venator never sleeps, so there may yet be more daemons of steel and brass given shape by Deracin in the future…

Speaking of steel, there are also the Ancients of the company. Meet Brother Marax the Fallen, Damokk the Breacher, Khorlen the Lost and Khoron the Undying, Keeper of Trophies:

I rather love Dreadnoughts, so making each of these into a true character in their own right has been a fun challenge. They now form the Barbershop Helquartet of DOOM!, obviously (overpowered dataslate pending) 😉

Then there’s my updated version of everybody’s favourite madman, Khârn the Betrayer:

Now Khârn and my own Lord Captain Lorimar haven’t exactly been on speaking terms since Skalathrax, so it’s rather unlikely that they’ll be fighting alongside one another in battle. This was still a fun project, however, and I tried to stay true to the spirit of the – still excellent – vintage Khârn by Jes Goodwin. Speaking of which, I am still rather proud of my – pretty comprehensive – post on Khârn’s various incarnations over the years, so check that out as well!

While we are on the matter of legendary World Eaters, the project I am possibly most pleased with is the completion of Lord Captain Lorimar, Master of the Hunt and commander of the 4th assault company:

Getting this model finished really took a long time, and I am particularly pleased that finally putting the finishing touches on Lorimar happened as a friendly hobby challenge between Biohazard and me. Read all about it here.

So Lorimar is finally leading his warriors from the front, as it should be:

So what’s next for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt? Let’s take a look:

One thing I would like to do is to finally paint the remaining members of my Gladiatorii squad:

Building and painting these gladiatorial World Eaters has been great fun so far, and there are three more models that have already been built but have yet to see any paint before I can call this squad finished.

I also realised I should show more love to my Blood Wolves, because I really like the look of these guys:

I already have some more converted traitorous Space Wolves to make up an entire squad of Chaos Space Marines. And maybe I’ll add a Dreadnought, based on the brilliantly versatile SW Dread?

And finally, my next big project: I finally need to get this guy painted: Gilgamesh, the Warrior King, the Twice-Consecrated, Son of the Ember Queen:

But worry not, I’ve included the model in my first vow for the E Tenebrae Lux IV event at The Bolter & Chainsword, in order to finally force myself into action, so it won’t be long now…

As it happens, I’ve made one last addition to the model before painting: I stripped some cabling from the interior of an old PC and added them to the Knight’s cockpit, in order to make it look a bit more believable:

It’s a small thing, admittedly, but a detail I think will made a difference in the end.

And here’s a comparison picture with the Knight and a smaller, roughly Epic-scaled “Chibi-version” of the same model:

On a related note, I am rather relieved that the Chaos Knight conversion kit recently unveiled by Forgeworld isn’t quite as spectacular as I had expected. Granted, it might still be a WIP version, but at least I am still very happy with my own take on a Chaos Knight! So yeah, expect to see some colour on this model this summer — and wish me luck!

So, anything else about Khorne’s Eternal Hunt? Yes, well, one small thing, actually:

This is just a fairly minor detail, but I like how all the leftover champions and stragglers almost form their own – pretty cool – squad by now. Take a look:

For an extremely lazy painter like yours truly, that is quite a nice little extra benefit 😉

 

So yeah, so much for this year’s World Eaters showcase. Don’t worry, there’ll be more madmen in red and brass in the future. But for now, I am very pleased with this army’s development over the last few years!

It goes without saying that I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the project as well, so feel free to drop me a comment! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!