State of the Maelstrom – Blood for Khorne!

At the Maelstrom, we’ve been busy working on the building in terms of adding final touches to the studio. We have decided along the way that the new studio is a living, breathing entity, and that it is coming up with new work for us on a weekly basis, just to keep us hopping and distracted from our hobby projects. We’ve also been working with Dropzone Commander and Warhammer 40,000, along with learning the new system of Dropfleet Commander. This combination has kept us from digging in and making much hobby progress. However, this week I finally managed to break the gridlock, and push one of the half-finished projects off my desk!

If you follow our 40k battle reports, you know that I’ve been playing Khorne Demons for a while now. While the list has been fun, I was looking to do something to vary up the play style. The Murderhorde is fairly well established, and makes a good backbone to the army. This left me to look in the auxiliaries, where I finally decided to add a trio of Soulgrinders.

These beasts make a nice approach to ranged warfare that is very different to that of the Skullcannons I usually run. I have only tried the Soulgrinders once as at a friendly local game day, so I haven’t had much time to tinker with them. Still, in that game they ate a horde of melta fire and continued their advance, tearing huge holes in the Flesh Tearers army I was facing. They withstood their initial trial by fire, and since then I have finally had a chance to finish painting and constructing them.

The Grinder's rusted claw.

If it isn't bloody, it isn't Khorney!

I still feel like I want to do something else with the red, which is a problem I only noticed now. The rest of my models don’t really have enough red on them for it to be terribly noticeable. I want to add something, but I just don’t know what it is. If you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments below!

You’ll also notice a new mat that the Grinders are sitting on. We picked up a pair of these for matched tables in mega-battles and Apocalypse games, and also to use as the backdrop for our coming games of Dropfleet Commander. If you want to check them out yourself, visit gamemat.eu. They seem to be of excellent quality; they are as rugged in construction as the arctic mat we bought from Frontline Gaming, and have great detail in their printing. My only small criticisms are a lack of a tag on the bag for easy identification in the mat pile, and a minor printing defect in one of the mats. Neither of these problems are enough for me to reconsider the purchase; I am looking to pick up some of their ready-to-play terrain early next year!

The new mats - we hope to pick up more 

battlescapes in 2017 to continue adding variety!