Hello all!



This post is going to be about a project which formed part of my Word Bearers 2,500 point Legiones Astartes & Demons project - and is something of a centrepiece model in that force.

I’m talking about the Bloodthirster of Khorne!

Fluff wise, including this guy in my force was a bit of a no brainer. My concept for the WB army is up-front and close-combat oriented, which meant Khorne as the allied demon contingent… and a Bloodthirster is the ultimate Khorne demon. I am running it as the HQ choice in my Allied Detachment of Demons, alongside a Demon Prince, some Khorne Hounds, and some Bloodletters.

Its intended to be an in-your-face distracton threat, slamming into high value infantry targets or light vehicles.

Lore & Background

Bloodthirsters in the fluff are killing machines which embody what Khorne is about. They are the Greater Demon aligned with Khorne - as compared to the Great Unclean One, Lord of Change and Keeper of Secrets.

They are towering beasts with canine faces, brass armour and huge leathery wings. They typically wield a huge whip, and immense axes.

In the background they are organised into eight ‘hosts’ of varying priestige and power - this is reflected on the tabletop by different types of Bloodthirster, such as the Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage or Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury.

These guys are no joke on the battlefield and can trouble Primarchs - one of the iconic tales in the Heresy is Ka’Bandha vs Sanguinius at the gates of the Imperial Palace (spoiler - Ka’Bandha doesn’t come out on top in that one!). They typically lead Khorne hordes, and seek out the most powerful foes on the battlefield to demonstrate their martial prowess.

The Model

So it made sense for me to include one of these in my army. They’re cool, and iconic.

When I was originally coming up with the army concept, GW had a relatively old model for the Bloodthirster - frankly, it was showing its age. I wasn’t too keen to use it, so I started shopping around for alternatives - either from Forge World, or from third party retailers.

GW then dropped their new Bloodthirster model… and this thing was a beauty.

This could make three variants of Bloodthirster (really the difference was their weaponry). It looked pretty nice, but frankly I wasn’t that convinced… as I had found a better version!

This is Krull, from the Mierce Miniatures Banelords line of models. It was slightly more expensive than the GW Bloodthirster, and resin. I managed to snag it for a decent discount on their Black Friday sale… and started the build.

I also preferred Krull as it tied into my Demon Prince model - also from the Mierce Miniatures range, which is the model for Malacant.





The Build

This model is frankly enormous. I debated about magnetisation (of the wings for example), or painting it in sub assemblies. Eventually I just decided to bite the bullet and pin it all together and then paint it, utilising a Zenithal pre-shading and inking technique alongside working with metallics on the armour. This was simpler in some ways, but has made storage a bit of a pain!

The build took a couple of days. The casts were good, and the casting gates were generally in the right places - except for the wings which took a lot of work to align. I had to do some gap filling, but nothing you wouldn’t expect on a comparable FW model.

Once it was built, I mounted it on the base and then planned the paint scheme. Thankfully this was relatively simple as I would be doing essentially a similar job as I had done on the Demon Prince, which made things a bit easier.

Painting

I started by airbrushing pre-shading onto the miniature. I used four different colours (from the Army Painter range) - black all over, then dark grey at a 0 degree angle, light grey at a 45 degree angle, and then white at a 90 degree angle (i.e. straight down).

This produced a decent result - enough subtlety of the shadowing to make the inking stand out.

I then resolved to paint it from the bottom up… in retrospect this might not have been the best idea, but once I’d started it was too late to stop!

Once I had done the hooves and lower legs I based it - I utilised GW Astrogranite texture paint, which was inked with a heavy dose of Drakenhof Nightshade, and then drybrushed with some grey. I chucked a bit of base scatter on there as well.

The majority of the painting was done with inks - both GW and Army Painter shades. I did approximately 3 coats of ink where the shading had to be tinted, and it came out great. The wings, which are a lighter colour, were simply one coat of red ink - this gives you an idea of how the multiple layers of ink changed the colouring.

The metallics were done by thin layers of either Ironbreaker, or Dwarf Bronze followed by Auric Gold, and then heavy treble washes of Nuln Oil or Seraphim Sepia, depending on the metal type.

The end result took probably two weeks of painting on and off - it was quite exhausting!

Once it was done I then examined it in detail through photographs and angles to work out if I’d missed anything and did a bit of touching up - e.g. where ink had pooled oddly or not covered properly. This took another couple of nights. I then did the base rim, and worked some technical paints (Blood for the Blood God - appropriate!) onto the miniature to add a bit of interesting sheen and blood to it.



The end result is something I am very happy with, and can’t wait to use on the tabletop!

The only problem, to be frank, is transport… this thing is enormous, and transporting it is not easy! At the moment its sitting in a cardboard box wrapped in bubble wrap, and I hope to work out a more permanent solution (such as a KR case) soon - the problem is it is oddly shaped, to be frank.

It has, at the time of writing, not been used in a game yet (I have 30 Assault Marines to build and paint…) but I’m sure when it does it will reap a bloody tally for the Blood God (or die turn 1 to plasma fire).

Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!

Until next time…

A