Kairos Fateweaver

Recently, I have finished painting my Kairos Fateweaver. This paintjob took a while - I was working on this model in many sessions over the course of 6 months (maybe even a bit more than that). I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to achieve and wanted to work slowly and methodically, to get the desired effect. You can see the final result on the pictures below: 

In case that you are wondering about the symbols on his book - that is an actual word written in the runes of the Dark Tongue of Chaos (it translates to "Knowledge"). I have many old rulebooks lying around and I use them often for references. Hordes of Chaos and Beasts of Chaos army books from WHFB 6th edition have a cool section describing the Dark Tongue and Chaos Runes. This was a great opportunity to use those runes on a model. I am very happy about the end result and the model looks absolutely great on the battlefield (especially if you pair it with a Lord of Change). 

My Khorne Army - it is done!

And here it is - my Khorne army is now fully painted! This was my main hobby project for 2023 and I am very happy that I completed it. If you follow this blog, you were able to see how the the army slowly took shape, since I made several posts about it over the course of the year. My plan is to use this army primarily as Blades of Khorne army for Age of Sigmar, but I also want to play it as Daemons of Chaos army for Warhammer 40K and older editions of WHFB (and The Old World probably, since Daemons will get a PDF on release date). 

Back in March, I wrote an article about dealing with my pile of shame (you can find the article here). In that article, I stated that the approach that worked for me was painting models in smaller sessions few times per week. For the past 18 months, this approach worked really well - and I want to keep it that way. Actually, it worked so well that I managed to paint quite a few models besides my Khorne daemons:

• Bastian Carthalos
• Knight-Vexillor with Banner of Apotheosis
• Lord-Imperatant
• a unit of Plaguebearers
• Chaos Knight Rampager
• Chaos Kinght Huntsman (almost done)
• Kairos Fateweaver (almost done)
• new Daemon Prince model (almost done)

As you can see, it's a mix of heroes, units and large models, which required a lot of work and different approaches. Some of these models were not featured on the blog - so I will fix that mistake and take some nice photos in the next couple of weeks. The models which are not fully complete are around 90% done - but I had to stop working on them in order to finish painting Khorne Daemons; I plan to finish Kairos and Daemon Prince by the end of January. 

And now, here are some group photos:  

I hope to be able to play my first game before the end of the January - I can't wait to see my models on the table. I'm a bit worried about AoS rotation that is likely to happen this summer (because I really like the new Blades of Khorne battletome and after seeing what was done to WH40K in 10th edition I don't know what to expect from the rotation). Anyway, time will tell - but I will try to get as many games as possible.

 

So, what would be the next steps for this army? I have half-painted set of Khorne Judgements and Skull Altar that I want to paint next. After that, I would like to add some more Bloodletters to my army - probably one or two units, but that's probably all I am going to add this year. However, I want to have a horde of Bloodletters at some point in the future! I think it would be fun and it would look great on the table - after all, that's how I'm imagining the proper Khorne army would look like. Another Bloodthirster and few more Bloodcrushers would also be nice - but not right now. I have already set my hobby goal for 2024 - but I that's something I'm going to cover in the next post. Until then, stay tuned and... Blood for the Blood God! 

My Khorne Army - painting update #5

When I started collecting Age of Sigmar back in 2017, my main armies were Sylvaneth and Khorne. Sylvaneth are still one of my favourite armies, but, due to several reasons, I sold my Khorne army at some point. One of the main reasons for selling those miniatures was that I messed up the paintjob for the daemonic units. Mortal units were beautifully painted for me by Warbrush studio, but I wanted to paint the Daemons. However, I simply was not able to make the models look the way I wanted. I simply looked at Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers and felt frustrated. On one hand, I committed several painting mistakes while trying to paint those models: not doing enough research on the paint scheme, spending too much time on infantry and not using test models. There were also a few painting accidents, like varnish frosting on freshly painted Bloodcrushers (which resulted in having to repaint some of some of the work), or having to strip down the primer from unit of Bloodletters because of the loss of details and granulation. All of these things combined with my inability to meet my own expectations killed the most of my enthusiasm. I started painting other things and didn't want to even look at these models because they always reminded me of my failure. The only exception to this was Skarbrand. My painting skills were definitely not at the current level back then, but I was proud of how I painted Skarbrand and I still think that it was a pretty good paintjob.

I sold the army to a friend of mine and few years went by. In the meantime, I learned a lot and made a lot of progress with my painting. Somewhere during 2022 I decided to collect Khorne again - but only daemons this time, no mortals (they are fine, but they were simply not what I imagined or wanted to play). I love the aesthetic of those models and the fact that I can use them in AoS, WH40K and WHFB is great. I also enjoy the lore and the playstyle. So I decided to make things right this time. 

Right from the beginning, I aimed at a relatively small army - about 1500 points for AoS (since I usually play smaller games) but with the ability to expand to full 2000 points. The fact that I could use those models in other systems was pure bonus - I wanted to primarily build Blades of Khorne army. I also picked which exact models I wanted and managed to buy most of them below regular prices. However, then I learned that the friend I sold my original Khorne army to wants to reduce the number of his AoS armies and was looking for someone to buy his Blades of Khorne. We talked a bit about it and he let me buy my Skarbrand off him for a fair price. That was the model I really enjoyed painting and I was looking forward to getting him back. 

So, once I got Skarbrand, I decided to freshen up his paintjob a bit and modify his base. Here is how the model looked like originally:

This picture was taken 5 years ago, on the same day when I have finished painting the model. I think the paintjob is still good, but I wanted to make some details "pop" more, make the base more busy and do some minor corrections on the armour. Here is the model after most of the refresh is done: 

I am really happy that this model is now part of my army again - the model is absolutely fantastic and is exactly what I think of when I think of Khorne Daemons. The only details that I want to address in the future are the spikes at the end of the wings - they don't look good and need to be defined some more. 

Oh - I forgot to mention the most important thing: my Khorne army is finished! I have met my hobby goal for 2023 and I am very happy because of it. Before the end of the month, I will make a post about it and show the army in all its glory (and also make a recap of my painting in 2023). Stay tuned!

My Khorne Army - painting update #4

Recently, a friend of mine was selling his Blades of Khorne stuff, so I bough a few things from him: Herald (Bloodmaster), Judgements of Khorne, Skull Altar and the latest Battletome. Fun fact: this is the same friend that I bought my Khorne stuff couple years ago, so I basically bought back some of it :D 

Anyway, last Saturday I had a few hours to spare, so I decided to paint the Herald. I already have one Herald (made from slightly converted rider of the Blood Throne), but the new model is really nice and with all prayers that are available to Khorne priests in the new book, it definitely pays off to have two of them. I have managed to paint this guy in about two and a half hours and you can see the result on the pictures below. 

Besides Bloodmaster, I have also finished painting my Flesh Hounds. I made these pictures while the unit still wasn't fully complete, so the fifth Hound is not shown. 

And with that - there's only one unit left to paint - 10 more Bloodletters and I my main hobby goal for this year (to have a fully painted Khorne Daemons army for Age of Sigmar/WH40K) will be achieved! It won't be full 2000 point army - but since I'm mostly playing 1000 and 1500 point games, that's OK. With the current point values for Blades of Khorne, one more unit of Flesh Hounds and Bloodletters will get me to 2000 points, so I will probably add them in the near future. I'm not worried about building WH40K army at all, because I have more than enough Tzeentch daemons to add. 

My Khorne Army - painting update #3

As you probably know from my previous posts, I am working on a Khorne Daemons army that I can play both in Warhammer 40K and Age of Sigmar (as Blades of Khorne daemon-only army). The most recent addition is a unit of 3 Bloodcrushers. 

I've had a lot of fun working on these models. The black armour on Juggernauts was inspired by a similar paintjob that can be seen on the unit entry in old Khorne Daemonkin codex (for 7th edition of Warhammer 40K). I think that it makes a great contrast, so both rider and the mount can be easily distinguished. 

I am also working on a unit of Flesh Hounds and they are almost done - I can replicate the army colour scheme easily, so I am able to paint models fairly quickly. Over the course of the year I've painted a lot of models - and I am happy to say that the army is close to being completely painted!