After the tumultuous events of Broken Realms: Morathi, it’s fair to say that the leader of the Daughters of Khaine has a fair few foes knocking on her door. Last year, we caught up with regular contributor Tyler Mengel, who showed us his budding Daughters of Khaine collection. Today, he joins us once again, this time to show us how he turned his murderous aelves from a skirmish force into a full-on, 1,000-point army.
Tyler: As regular readers of my articles will know, I’m a big fan of the Daughters of Khaine. From the imagery to the models – and particularly the masterpiece that is Morathi herself – I love everything about these bloodthirsty aelves from the Realm of Shadows.
After getting a colour scheme down, I put together a small force using the Warhammer Age of Sigmar skirmish rules. This had various model types in it – a Witch Aelf, a Sister of Slaughter, a Blood Stalker, a Blood Sister, and a Medusae to lead them all. It was a great little project which let me test out my colour scheme.
When that was done, I felt the urge to expand my collection into a 1,000-point army. A Tale of Four Warlords project with a trio of fellow hobbyists gave me the perfect opportunity – and, crucially, a deadline to work to, as well as a 1,000-point goal.
I began expanding my army, starting with a Hag Queen to lead it. I knew I wanted a little bit of everything in my force – a sampler of almost every unit available to the Daughters of Khaine. This would let me keep it varied and fun throughout, and avoid the risk of getting tired of painting the same model.
I generally switched back and forth between the more typical aelven units and Morathi’s chosen Scáthborn. We had seven months to complete our forces, so I spread mine out over the full time period, generally allotting one unit per month – with the exception of a very busy December, which saw three units completed!
In the end, I painted up a Hag Queen, Bloodwrack Medusa, Witch Aelves, Sisters of Slaughter, Khinerai Heartrenders, Melusai Blood Stalkers, Melusai Blood Sisters, an Avatar of Khaine, and the Quicksilver Swords endless spell.
When I was choosing my colours, I liked both the traditional purple that’s long been associated with the aelves’ darker kindred as well as the red of Khaine – but I wanted to do something unique for my army. I settled on a compromise between the two: Screamer Pink. This is my army colour, and I tried to find a way to work it into everything. If there was any cloth, it was painted Screamer Pink. On the Avatar of Khaine, I worked it into the heart he’s holding. I also used the pinkish-white hair as a common theme.
This army has a lot of bare flesh, so it’s a challenge working out where to use the colours. I more or less followed my original painting tutorial for the army, Witch Aelves Made Easy, with a few changes like brighter golds and the new hair.
The second main colour of my army is the green of the Scáthborn. I’m a big fan of Incubi Darkness, and often find a way of working it into my armies – sometimes unintentionally. This colour ties into the crystal weapons used by the more elite units of the army as well.
Using these common colours, along with Shattered Dominion Round Bases and Blood for the Blood God Technical paint, I made my army a cohesive force, even with models that are different, like the Avatar.
I really wanted him to have a molten metal look, inspired by a piece of art from the End Times series of books. To achieve this effect, I tried to get a glowing effect in the crevices of the unarmoured areas of the model, such as his abs, arms, and face. He makes a great centrepiece of the army, since he’s the tallest (and killiest) model.
I’ve always been a fan of building towards 1,000-point armies, since it’s manageable, achievable, and gives you a force you can start gaming with right away.
You can also springboard off these fairly easily into a full 2,000-point matched play army. I have a plan on how to bump this army up in size – let’s just say it involves the Morathi model sitting in my hobby pile…
Thanks, Tyler. That sounds like a future article to us (ahem, no pressure). If you’re interested in beginning or further developing a Daughters of Khaine collection, grab yourself a Start Collecting! Daughters of Khaine set – all of the units included in the box feature in Tyler’s army, so you can’t go wrong.