Not every member of Khorne’s favourite Legion is a superhuman Berzerker clad in crimson and brass power armour from an earlier era – many are just enthusiastic go-getters with a penchant for chainblades and combat stimms. These gore-drenched groupies are the Jakhals, some of the strongest and toughest mortals to serve in the forces of Chaos. They’d need to be, considering the frothing psychopaths they rub shoulders with.
Jakhal packs are fanatically loyal to their masters, and seek to emulate the World Eaters in everything they do. They’re quick to fight among themselves if there’s no more appropriate target for their bloodlust – eager to impress their lords with displays of brutality and skill – but in the field, they hunt together like starving beasts.
Each Jakhal’s combat prowess is further boosted by tanks of sloshing chemicals, sutured to their backs by the Legion’s Berzerker-surgeons.* This cocktail of questionable chems elevates their natural ferocity to inhuman levels, helped along by the addition of a very special ingredient: eight drops of blood, taken from the World Eaters themselves.
It takes a hardy soul to survive an infusion of this alchemical nightmare, and brutal initiation rites weed out the weaker cultists before they so much as see a chainaxe. These trials might earn a Jakhal a measure of esteem – or the closest thing a World Eater could feel for a mortal, anyway – but they’re still just a disposable asset to their transhuman betters.
In tactical terms, Jakhal packs are excellent candidates for front-line assaults. They’re more plentiful and expendable than fully-fledged Berzerkers, but still pack a punch that your opponent can’t afford to ignore… and even when they’re destroyed, their deaths feed your army’s supply of Blood Tithe points.
The Dishonoured are the biggest of the Jakhals – unnaturally swollen brutes who dwarf their fellow fighters. They’re grafted with cybernetic chainblades or heft huge skullsmasher maces, bodies studded with ports for even more combat stimms.
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* The World Eaters equivalent of Apothecaries – someone’s got to hammer those Butcher’s Nails in…