Classic Khorne Berzerkers

[YorkNecromancer]

http://pre05.deviantart.net/cd2b/th/pre/i/2015/219/1/f/2015_08_08_01_30_58_by_yorknecromancer-d94ox1g.jpg
http://orig09.deviantart.net/1b4e/f/2015/219/4/f/2015_08_08_01_31_28_by_yorknecromancer-d94ox11.jpg

Purchased these off the eBay on a whim, and painted them up today; they're mounted on the new 32mm bases.

Some of the painting comes from Jes Goodwin's design notes (in his book 'The Gothic and Eldritch'): the old World Eaters have that distinctive 'grill' mouth so they can breathe in blood spatter as they kill. Hence, bloody grilles. Other notes I quite liked are that apparently, World Eaters like mk V armour best of all because it's prone to overheating (thus making them angrier). Also, because they're always in horrible melees, so they're not interested in finer, more sophisticated armour like the Mk 4, or heavy armour like the Mk 3. They just need cheap and cheerful armour that's easier to replace.

Goodwin's notes kind of imply Mk V is kind of the AK 47 of marine armour marks, which is an idea I really like.

No real idea what I'm going to use them for. I just I really like these old models.

[spiralingcadaver]

Cool stuff, and I'd never heard that bit of fluff. Other than the static pose, I like these guys way better than the current version.

[Wolfshade]

looking good :)

[YorkNecromancer]

Cool stuff, and I'd never heard that bit of fluff.

Yeah, there's some really nice little bits in the book about which armour marks the four 'classic' Chaos Marine chapters favour. They've never been printed anywhere else as far as I know:


Plague Marines like Mk 2 and 3 armour because it only has a single eyeslit, and thus makes them feel 'closer' to Plaguebearers.
The Thousand Sons were all in Mk 4 because of their late entry into the Heresy, and so their entire Legion had basically done away with earlier marks of armour. It has lots of occult stuff layered over the top, so tends to be the most baroque armour of any chapter. They have almost no earlier suits, and because of the Rubric, no later ones either.
The Emperor's Children are pretty much the only ones who tend to have later marks of armour, because they raid more incessantly than any other Chaos marines and so steal it from Loyalist chapters; unlike the other chapters, they're not interested in wars, and function much closer to things like Dark Eldar and other pirates. Their armour isn't slapdash, so much as massively personalised - every marine's expressing himself in as florid a way as possible, so kind of like the Thousand Sons in terms of embellishments, but with personal expression as the goal, rather than for functional magical purposes.
And yeah, as mentioned, the World Eaters love Mk 5 for purely practical purposes; it's cheap, functional, and easy to replace, and that's all that matters. They're not interested in anything except functional armour that honours their god and keeps them safe. It doesn't say, but I assume that their shiny Mk 4 suits basically 'turned into' Mk V or Mk v-equivalent armour just through attrition over the span of The Long War.


So yeah, every one of the four has a preferred mark of armour, and it's different to the others. None of the other CSM chapters get a mention, though, as the book predates their first appearances in 3rd ed.

[Denzark]

Nice work Yorkie, awesome figs.