Building a better Master of Executions.

 

Eyes gritty with cyclic blown dust opened and stared at the blood covered hands held before them. Knuckles bleeding and raw, blood spatter up to the elbow, beyond them the ruined form of an opponent littered the floor. Almost unrecognisable in it's destruction, only the ports of the Black Carapace gave away it's Astartes heritage. 

As the adrenaline subsided, senses began to rush back. The smell of a large group of people, sweat, bile, blood from the corpse. The clanging of metal upon metal, and chanting roared through the air.

"Kail, Kail, Kail" 

The unarmoured World Eater stood tall in the pool of offal he had created. The fighting pits were used to displays of violence, but this had drawn a larger crowd then most as of late. They could all feel the immaterium pulsing closely nearby, straining at the veil to push through and revel in the carnage unfolding.

Kail turned and marches from the pit, snatching up his stormcoat at the entrance, his left eye began to tick as the Butchers Nails began to take hold again and pulse their migraine rhythm into his brain.

"The matter is settled ?" A growled voice asked from the corridor.

"The fool is dead, what do you think Skaldast? If there are any who would challenge for Master of Execution, they will meet the same fate" Kail snapped back, ignoring the squeak from his bronze plated teeth as he spoke.

"There are no more challenges to your rank, maybe one to the warband though. There is noise of a Black Legion upstart gathering forces to raid the Imperium. There is a call for all warbands to attend a meeting at the Veiled Locus" Skaldast said. Now that the thrill of violence had subsided, the Nails in his own head sympathetically pulsing along with Kail's.

"Black Legion" Kail practically spat the words, "As long as they bring slaughter, I don't care".

***** 

So the last time I visited Fraser we played a game of 10th Edition 40k in which I borrowed his World Eaters force.

Now ANGRON, Kharn and company are all cool World Eaters models, but there is one character in his collection which can be used across multiple armies* from the get go, and that is the Master of Executions.

He's a cool character who is a character hunter and has the ability to always fight first, regardless of people charging him.

However, personally I am rather underwhelmed by the official model. He's a bit too generic bad guy for my liking, and wanting to get back into the swing of things and build up my own Black Crusade force, I decided to kitbash my own character to join the Khornate warband.

The starting point for the build, with the parts laid out;

• Old Chaos Backpack.
• Old Berzerker Shoulder Plate.
• New Khorne Berzerker Head.
• New Khorne Berzerker Shoulder Plate.
• Chaos Raptor Bolt Pistol and Arm.
• New Khorne Berzerker Chainaxe.
• Skull details from new Khorne Berzerkers.
• Space Marine Judiciar Body.
• Various Spikes and Skulls.

Reasoning that the backpack would be easiest to begin with, I wanted to add this spiked armour panel taken from the Traitor Guard Killteam box:

The Circle shows one of the cables which has had to be cut away and scraped down to make room. I don't mind doing this, as I think that Chaos models look better without symmetry:

Once I had the front and back of the body glued together and cleaned up, I cut away the dangling details from the Judiciar's belt in order to make room for the skull/chain decoration:

Some test fitting later and it was glued in place, already looking less loyalist for it:

Happy with the other details, I glued on the Chainaxe arm, as this would dictate the flow of the model. I wanted him to be brandishing the axe in a challenge and looking past it to his target.

This meant cutting down the next joint but by bit to get the angle needed:

He's beginning to look like a champion of the Blood God.

I didn't photo it, but I added another skull to the rosary chain on the other side of his belt, as the space Marine symbol there was one which I missed on my first pass over the model:

With that done, it was just a matter of adding the Bolt Pistol arm in a complementary fashion and then the Shoulder Plates. I also took pains to carve out the pistol handle on his holster, as the model has his pistol on his hand!

Now onto the base, and a suitable base can make or break a figure.

The Judiciar has a very determined forward step to him, so leaning into that I built up a cork "rock" platform, ensuring that I got good contact between his feet and the cork to keep him stable. I always like to mount my characters a little higher then the rank and file to show off their status.

Builders sand was lastly glued onto the base and the base edge cleaned up to leave me with the following model:

His backpack has been left separate for painting.

Speaking of painting, I'm not entirely sure how to paint him yet. He's primed, but I'm not sure whether I want to go with the classic Red and Brass, the 30k Blue and White, Black Legion Black and Gold or some other colour scheme.

Leave a comment if you have any idea?

Until next time, have nice day...

*Yes I know technically Berzerkers can be used in a normal Chaos army, I am talking specifically about the character models.

ANGRON, Kharn and the Lord Invocatus are World Eaters only choices. 

The Master of Executions is a generic chaos character in comparison, much like a Chaos Lord or Sorcerer.