We're going to need more skulls...: June 2017

Say hello to Obrovský, Champion of Khorne!

Obrovský has gained the favour of Khorne by leaving Bohemus to fight in arenas across the stars. He flies from planet to planet in his stolen Thunderhawk, spreading the worship of Khorne through blood and death.
He has now returned to the Bloodstorm with a cabal of warriors who seek to gain further glory by fighting in the greatest battles in the galaxy.

I've been working on this for a while now. I've always loved the Hydra model, and picked one up at Warhammer World last summer. Once I had a good look at the way the two crew were set up in the photos on the box, I realised I needed to make a diorama. It took a while for it to come together, but seeing the tanks on the Lord of Skulls model finally gave me the idea of having a poor victim being sacrificed in a gory vat of blood. The victim comes from the Thundertusk kit, and the vat is filled with resin. I had to hold the victim while the resin set, but luckily this is a quick set resin and I didn't have to hold it for long before it was solid enough to let go. I hope you enjoy looking at something that I have really enjoyed making!

A scout stood on a watchtower on the edge of the fortress, holding his overcoat close around himself as protection against the cold air of Bohemus. He looked down at the datascreen, and brushed the dust off. The radar had picked up some motion. Twenty-eight, no, twenty-nine blips were slowly winding their way down the valley. He gazed out across the valley, but could see nothing through the swirling dust.
“Damn this planet,” he muttered to himself. He listened. A slow beat was increasing in volume as the blips got closer. As they drew near, the beat turned to a thud, like leaden footsteps. The scout’s heart started to beat faster. He saw shapes emerging from the storm… a huge mammork was striding towards the fortress, its feet pounding the earth like a battle drum. Mammorks never came this close to civilisation of their volition. They kept to the great plains. What’s more, this mammork was accompanied by a small herd of lesser mammorks and.. what looked like… flesh hounds of Khorne… The scout froze for a moment. A gift from Khorne? An illusion? He checked the radar. No illusion – the radar was still registering their movement. He paused, then did what he hadn’t done in months, and sounded the alarm. A great horn pealed, piercing the air with a note that would awaken all in the fortress. ‘All’ was not many. Prostrednik had taken half the Bloodstorm and left the fortress in the hands of Nykl, who had a platoon of cultists, three squads of berzerkers and various daemon engines to protect the base. Gun emplacements would fire upon intruders should they be needed. The scout was still not sure who was approaching the gates or why, but he could take no chances. As the horn blared, troops emerged from towers and hangars, checking their ammo, readying their axes and forming into squads. The scout flinched as a sound indicated Demagogue Nykl hauling himself onto the watchtower.
“What have you seen?” Nykl spoke with the low, cracked voice of a hardened warlord.
“Look, my lord. I don’t get it. Mammorks with flesh hounds?” Nykl looked, one bionic eye whirring as it focused on the intruders.
“It’s a gift from the Blood God. Recruits for the Bloodstorm. Flesh hounds will appear when needed. Perhaps an enemy approaches. Open the gates.”
“Are you sure, my lord?”
“Do you doubt the will of Khorne?”
“No, my lord.” The scout pressed a button, and the great brass gates creaked as huge motors hummed and began to swing them open. As Nykl watched, he noticed a shape atop the great mammork. His confidence in his decision began to fade. His arms drooped to his side. No one could ride a mammork, much less command it to approach a fortress… and the flesh hounds… who could be riding this beast, but… a champion of Khorne? As the pack emerged from the dust, the champion began to look familiar, and began to stir in Nykl a sense of panic. It was Krev Grazl…

Krev Grazl let out a bellow, seemingly challenging the fortress. The mammork matched him and roared. The three smaller mammorks joined in. The entire cohort broke into a run, charging headlong at the gates. Nykl barked in panic,
“Close the gates! Close them now! It’s Krev Grazl!”
“My lord, they cannot close during an opening command! I can’t close them!”
“By the machines of the Bloodstorm, what have you done? He… he will kill us all!”

Krev Grazl ducked his head as the great beast hurtled through the gates. The assembled troops, blissfully unaware of who had stormed the fortress, fired their weapons. Bolt pistol shots tore through the air, but the beasts moved too fast. Flesh hounds leaped and pounced on cultists, tearing heads from bodies with their razor-sharp teeth. Cultists retaliated with auto pistols, swords, axes and various stabbing implements. The claws of flesh hounds raked at metal body parts as the cultists struggled to fight against the very daemons whom they had long fought beside. Meanwhile, mammorks smashed aside berzerkers with their tusks, goring ancient warriors with ease. The Berzerkers put up more of a fight than the cultists, goring the limbs of mammorks with the chainaxes as their squads were trampled underfoot. Krev Grazl, atop the mightiest mammork any boheman had ever seen, was dealing death like never before. All here, save the newest recruits, had seen him in battle, and seen how he could cut armies to shreds in minutes with his powerful daemon weapon and lightning claw. Now, riding this huge beast, a beast equipped with brutish tusks and a great bone-tipped tail, he was unstoppable. The beast rampaged across the fortress and crashed into a helbrute. The helbrute, unaccustomed to fighting such a beast, was taken by surprise, and lifted clean off its feet by the tusks of the mammork. The mammork slammed it into a wall. The helbrute roared in agony and warp energy crackled along its armour. The daemon inside would return to the Warp if Krev Grazl defeated it. The mammork pulled back, before slamming into the helbrute once more. The helbrute clawed at the mammork with its power fists, but Krev Grazl blocked the blows with swings of his terrifying daemon weapon. The axe roared as it cleaved the claws off one of the power fists. The helbrute roared again and shuddered with fierce energy. As the mammork slammed it into the wall again and again, the daemon within began to lose its grip on reality. A tremendous blast of red and blue flames erupted from the armour as the daemon was sucked back into the warp. As the empty armour sunk to the floor, Krev Grazl turned the mammork around and gazed as he saw his herd of beasts tearing the Bloodstorm asunder. Many lay dead on either side, but the shock of facing the daemons they had thought of as allies had shocked the Bloodstorm. Krev Grazl commanded the mammork to advance, bringing it round in an arc to meet the watchtower atop which Nykl stood. Krev Grazl leaped from the back of the beast and onto the wall. His superhuman speed and strength quickly took him along the battlements and up the ladder to the top of the watchtower. He sprung from the ladder. The scout fired his autopistol. It did nothing to Krev Grazl’s power armour as he span. He swung his axe as he rotated, and sliced the scout’s head clean off. It tumbled over the wall and into the melee below. Krev Grazl completed his spin with his axe aimed squarely at the face of the Demagogue, who stared at him in horror. He had no weapons, and even if he had, no amount of Khornate fury would help him overcome a champion of Khorne and former Lord of the Bloodstorm. It was now that Krev Grazl spoke, his facial horns twitching as his daemonic mouth formed the words.
“Call off your troops, or they will all die.”
Nykl’s bionic eye focused on the champion’s face. “I have no choice, do I?”
“You can choose to sacrifice yourself, or accept me as rightful Lord of the Bloodstorm.” Anger seethed from Krev Grazl as he asserted command over this biomechanical human.
“Bloodstorm, cease!” The remaining troops fell back to the inner walls. As they did so, the beasts of Krev Grazl stopped their attack and began to circle the arena, growling and licking the blood from their lips. The mammorks gathered in a herd in the centre of the arena. Krev Grazl lowered his axe and pulled Nykl close to his face.
“This fortress, this army, these footsoldiers of Khorne… are now mine. I am returned! I am revenant!”
The fortress fell silent.

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So, after a year of work, behold, Krev Grazl, Lord of the Bloodstorm, The Revenant, Great Mammork Rider.