Heresy Era World Eaters - Bezerkers painted

Had a little hobby time and painted up the Berzerkers! Khorne be... Er... I mean The Emperor be praised! After building and painting a bunch of smaller, solo models it was a bit of a chore to batch paint a mess of infantry. On the up side, it's nice to be able to fill in a bunch of squares on the painting chart in green!

In the Tempus Fugitives list the Berzerkers are purchased as a unit of 8, with the option to add a further 8 models to the unit for a total of 16. I was pleased to note that the Fantasy Chaos Marauders box set is also a unit of 16, so I had enough bare arms to kit out the entire unit (though there are occasional power armoured arms here and there). Coupled with the more mutated shoulder pad from GW and a mix of bare heads and torsos they really take on a wild, murderous air. Perfect!

I did allow for the unit to be broken up into two 8 man squads via the helmeted and non-helmeted heads. which helps distinguish them on the table top. The champion was given a cloak from the Marauders sprue and I also went with a double-handed grip on the chain-axe. The axe blades were given a bit of blood spatter, and the boots were given a bit of a going over with some mud wash. I think overall I'm going to keep the blood spatter to a minimum - I may go back and add a bit more on the 'Zerks, but the regular troops will only have about this much. My intent with the army is to do the 7th Regiment, which I see as more adherent to the more restrained ways of the War Hounds (though this unit shows the influence of Khorne is nevertheless gaining a foothold).

I had a rummage around in the "Heads" bin and used a mish-mash of heads from several different kits. There's a couple of somewhat scary and mutated heads as a bit of a nod to the warping influence of Chaos taking root in the unit. After looking over the pictures in their far-larger-than-life size, there are definitely some places that I need to go in and clean up. Isn't that always the way? I think there's a bit more weathering to do before I'm totally satisfied, and the recesses of the whites could stand a bit more depth. I'm also finding that not only is white tricky to paint, but it's also tricky to photograph!

The army is coming along at a decent clip overall - Next up on deck are the first squad of Terminators and Bale. Since they'll all have roughly the same paint scheme and are stylistically similar with their scalloped shoulder pads, it makes sense to do them all at the same time! 6 models will be a nice change from 16!

Heresy Era World Eaters - Storm Eagle and Berzerkers in progress

The Forge World order I'd made over a month ago finally showed up last week, and I immersed myself in a frenzy of clipping, washing, rinsing, and straightening resin over the course of several evenings. Eventually I managed to get a few things built and primered, though nothing's fully completed as yet. Nevertheless, thought some pics in process might be in order!

 

First up on the building queue was the Storm Eagle. I was always lukewarm on the Storm Raven kit, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't really good either. The Chapterhouse extension kit was a step in the right direction, but the FW Storm Eagle kit really knocked it out of the park. My only minor niggle was the puny tail fin, so I bodged together a version of the "T" shaped tail boom which I think helps tie it in with the aesthetic of the Thunderhawk and the Storm Raven (and the new SM flier as well). This kit was a right pain in the butt to assemble - many of the panels were extremely bent and required a serious amount of time with hot water to try and wrench the pieces into some semblance of straight. After that there was a significant amount of clamping/banding/holding to get everything together. I love how it looks now that it's built, but I'm in no rush to build another one, that's for sure!

Of course, the Storm Eagle needs a unit to ride around inside it, and in this case it's a whole mess of frothing lunatics! A 16-strong squad of Berzerkers, to be precise. These are made from a mix of fantasy Chaos Marauders, the metal World Eater shoulder pads from GW, and Forge World Mk.V marine armour and Chainaxes. The intent was to make them look far more wild and deranged than the standard tactical and assault marines while still tying in with the rest of the army, which I think worked out pretty well. Still a long way to go on these of course, at the moment I'm just blocking in the main colors. Lots of highlighting, weathering and whatnot still to go...