Finally Finished my Khorne Bezerker Army...

One of the ways I manage to keep myself engaged with hobby games after well over half my lifetime is the variety of models that I get to paint. I rarely stick with one army or faction, preferring to flit between one system, or army, and another. That way, I get a different challenge each time I paint; I get to paint different models, different scales, and different colours. It keeps me interested, but it also means that I rarely have a so-called ‘full-sized’ army.

This is something of an abstract concept, so for those of you who don’t know: Each game has a ‘standard’ size, usually measured in points or the system’s equivalent. With Warhammer 40K, that’s usually 1500 points. With Warhammer, it’s 2000, though that has changed with the advent of Age of Sigmar, not sure what the standard size is here. With Lord of the Rings, it’s something like 700 points, and with Batman Miniatures Game I think it’s 300.

The Red Fury, in its full glory.

So it’s no surprise to anybody who knows my approach to hobby gaming that even though I’m well into my 17^th year of doing it, I’ve only managed to create a full-sized army 3 times.

This is the third: The Red Fury.

An army of Khorne Bezerkers, why not? I came up with the idea for the army around halfway through 2011, when I wanted to build up a force to take to every Games Workshop in the country and play a game with it. I intended to build it up a lot more quickly than I did, and it really was my first army where I’d planned it out from the start; I knew where I was going with it, what models I wanted, and what strategies I wanted the army to achieve. Here’s the army list:

	Components	Points	Total Points	Total Army
HQ	Chaos Lord	65	130	1496
	Aura of Dark Glory	15
	Axe of Blind Fury	35
	Veterans of the Long War	5
	Mark of Khorne	10
Troops	Khorne Bezerkers (8)	162	284
	Chainaxe (4)	12
	Gift of Mutation	10
	Veterans of the Long War	8
	Icon of Wrath	15
	Power Weapon	15
	Plasma Pistol	15
	Chaos Rhino	35
	Havoc Launcher	12
	Khorne Bezerkers (8)	162	284
	Chainaxe (4)	12
	Gift of Mutation	10
	Veterans of the Long War	8
	Icon of Wrath	15
	Power Weapon	15
	Plasma Pistol	15
	Chaos Rhino	35
	Havoc Launcher	12
	Khorne Bezerkers (8)	162	284
	Chainaxe (4)	12
	Gift of Mutation	10
	Veterans of the Long War	8
	Icon of Wrath	15
	Power Weapon	15
	Plasma Pistol	15
	Chaos Rhino	35
	Havoc Launcher	12
Heavy Support	Chaos Defiler	195	200
	Havoc Launcher	5
	Chaos Vindicator	120	157
	Siege Shield	10
	Havoc Launcher	12
	Daemonic Possession	15
	Chaos Vindicator	120	157
	Siege Shield	10
	Havoc Launcher	12
	Daemonic Possession	15

 

The heavy vehicles pound the enemy from a distance...

So the concept was simple: Pound the opponent from a distance with three 5-inch blast templates per turn, and destroy whatever was left in close combat afterwards. The Rhinos add to the firepower with their Havoc Launchers, and the Daemonic Possession on the tanks protected them from being stun-locked out of combat.

Unfortunately, I designed the army while 5^th Edition 40K was still in full swing, and while upgrades to the Bezerkers sorted out the discrepancy in points, I still completed it four years and two editions after the fact. It’s got no way of dealing with Fliers, for example, and since most armies these days have at least some form of flier it can cause problems. With the introduction of Hull Points in 6^th edition, tanks became much easier to destroy. And of course the idea of relying on blast templates and close combat weapons is something of a departure from the fact that the most damage I ever do to anything in 40K is with small-arms fire.

While the Bezerkers wait to eviscerate anything that gets too close.

Nonetheless, the Defilers and Vindicators do their jobs well as destruction machines and are absolute magnets for bullets. Oddly for an army that relies on close combat, I play a defensive game and allow the opponent to take the fight to me. I enjoy hiding my Bezerkers in ruins, out of line of sight. This forces my opponents to approach me if they want to win, because if they don’t, I can use the tanks to blast them from a distance.

This isn’t a strong army, by any stretch of the imagination. A hardcore tournament player would take me to pieces in moments. But it does what it does well enough, and hopefully proves a beyond-beginner level of challenge for most people. If Chaos are getting a new codex for 7^th edition, I’ll be interested to see what changes it will bring and how it will affect the dynamic of an army like this. Until then, I’ll try and get some games in, and see what happens when an unstoppable force whoops an immovable object’s ass.

Lead by this beast of a warrior (Games Day 2009 model)

You may also notice a difference in the painting of some of the models; this is again due to the changing editions of the paints. The Bezerkers started off being painted Mechrite Red, but by the time I got around to painting the last squad, two of the Rhinos and the two Vindicators, that colour had been replaced by Mephiston Red which is a little brighter. I was a bit miffed about that, but I wanted to see this army through to the end so I tried not to worry about it too much.