Review: Liber Chaotica I (Khorne)

The Liber Chaotica books draw from the classic Realms of Chaos books (Slaves to Darkness and The Lost and the Damned), including a series of direct quotations and tangents that old timers such as myself will be quite familiar with ("the eyes the flies...." etc.).  All of them are presented from the point of view of a certain Richter Kless -- an individual from the Warhammer Fantasy world who journeys through the daemonic lands and risks insanity along the way.

The first volume in the Liber Chaotica series of books is Khorne.  This is probably one of the easier books to write, as it is possible to have an intuitive understanding of what Khorne is all about: blood, skulls ... and death in general.  The book starts out with an in-depth treatment of old tribes (Norse, Tong, Kurgan, Hung) which didn't do too much for me personally.  The warriors of Khorne and their armaments get more interesting, but it isn't until the daemons are reached that the treatment peaks for me.  Combined with hazy visions of the 40k berzerkers, this last part entices more than the preluding bits.

One aspect that I felt was somewhat missing from this book though was the more subtle aspects.  For instance, in Slaves to Darkness, it is noted that even the most valiant and noble-minded Empire warrior can unknowing serve Khorne.  For, what is a soldier, but an unwitting agent of Khorne? Blood is shed by them and some may learn to enjoy and revel in the bloodlust.  Thus, the insidious nature of Khorne was over-looked, at least for me personally.

The good parts were all the commented fields alongside the main body of the text -- annotations by the "editors" of Kless' deranged visions and worries about their own futures.  Combined with the nods to Slaves to Darkness (e.g. the artwork, the Liber Malific / Book of Hated Khorne references, the Tree of Souls), what was a weaker start for me climaxes to a strong finish.

Reminder: August Army List Challenge

The August 2011 Army List Challenge is still open for entries.  Can you design a force for a high gravity world to take on a similar force?  good luck!

Note to Self: Daemons against Tau

Tau vehicles can have flechette devices attached.  This means that daemons who want to charge them can get wounded by doing so.  

Right, now that I've noted that to myself, I'll hopefully stop having squads of screamers of Tzeentch all die in close combat with Tau vehicles (yes it happened: an entire squad of screamers were dead on arrival!).

Painted Quantum Cannon

In painting Quantum Gothic's quantum cannon, I wanted to opt for a more standard scheme than I've done with the previous pieces I've painted up from this company which are done in lots of rusted colours.  I therefore set about with a standard metallic dry brushing approach for the mainstay of the piece, but became a bit unhappy with the somewhat bland choice and approach vector I was taking.  I therefore decided to accent the piece with reds (for selected metal struts and regions) and blues (for the power coils).  Each of the accent colours has been washed down to darker tones, before lighting up to highlights with blazing orange and electric blue (respectively).  The overall feel of the scenery is one that feels like it has just come off the production line, but has not been painted up in to the correct colours of whatever army had to deploy it at short notice.  I think as a final touch, I will add some muddy colours around the base to finish off the idea of fresh-off-the-line and pressed-into-battle sooner that was ideal concept.

Dryad Trees

I certainly didn't have guardsmen conversions in mind when I purchased a box of Dryads from Warhammer Fantasy.  Instead, I wanted to do two things: grow my bits box with a variety of interesting odds and ends and create enough "trees" to give myself an authentic-looking mini-woodland modular scenery base.

To that end, here's the first of my woodland dryads, mounted on a regular warhammer 40,000 circular base.  The painting of the dryad has been kept deliberately low-key and simple: various washed of browns and blacks over a grey base coat with very few highlights.  The eye of the dryad has been picked out in codex grey mixed with skull white to make it stand out a little.  

The final touch was to glue in place a big wad of tree flock on the dryad's outstretched hands; giving the impression of passiveness, rather than a dryad that is ready for warfare.  Having said that, I think the model could do well for a bio-themed Death Guard generic lesser daemon as well(!)

August 2011 Army List Challenge

Welcome to the August Army List Challenge.  This month, its about facing off against another army on a high gravity world.  What does that mean in practical terms?  Well, your supreme lord commander has dictated that thou shalt not use any armour (as they'd simply get stuck in the mud).  But in addition, anything with a jump pack can only move as per regular infantry, and all terrain is treated as difficult terrain.  In short: the maximum that anyone can move per turn is dependant on a die roll.  (Unless you're a crafty eldar player (or similar) with anti-grav technology ... that'd be perfect for this situation).  Sounds like your supreme lord commander is going to deploy an all-infantry army...

Rules

(1) Design a 1500 points army list from any codex to take on this challenge.

(2) Post your army lists as a comment to this posting and why the army list is effective and is themed to the scenario.  Extra kudos to lists that avoid anti-grav technology and are 100% infantry based!

(3) Entries close at 01:00 GMT on August 14th.

(4) On that same day, I'll open a poll for Warpstone Flux readers to judge which army list they consider to be the "most effective army list that also best articulates the theme" (whatever readers interpret that to mean) out of all entrants.

(5) The winner will be tallied and announced on August 21st (and entered in to the hall of fame!).  

(6) One entry per person please. 

Remember that there are no prizes for these contests, beyond kudos, honour and entry in to the hall of fame.