Khaine's Forsaken

Of all the forms of worship practiced in the old world, none is more terrifying than the rituals of the witch elves. The glee with which they murder indescriminantly, and the orgies that follow are indeed the stuff of nightmares. And while these horrifying acts are performed for Khaine, their god of murder, he is not the only one to take interest in them. Indeed, Lord Slaanesh has spent years of his time watching these deplorable acts. When Khaine first noticed the incursions of Slaanesh he was pleased, and found that he greatly enjoyed the presence of the god of sensation. Over time Slaanesh was allowed certain rights with the dark elves. They were allowed to celebrate his existance, and he was allowed to bask in their cruelty. Khaine was happy to have the chaos god as a lesser partner, and grew complacient. He failed to notice the number of his followers that were beginning to put as much faith in Slaanesh as he.

Finally the day came several thousand years ago, that Slaanesh attempted to take the dark elves from their god of murder. After a night of unholy and godly union, Slaanesh offered Khaine a grail of wine that contained poison enough to kill him. Khaine drank deeply from his cup, and as he began to swallow, his incredible senses were able to detect the poison, and he vomited the drink on to the chaos god, forcing him to retreat to his home in the warp.

With hatefull vengeance, Khaine attempted to remove all signs of Slaanesh from his people, but was horrified to find that Slaanesh's ideals were as deeply imbedded into his people as his own. Of all his people, he was only able to completely gain control of his witch elves. These quickly became known as the brides of Khaine, as he required their complete loyalty.

Since that time the relationship of Khaine and Slaanesh has improved, and it is not uncommon to find the forces of the two working together, often against the high elves, or the forces of Khorne. However of his witch elves Khaine is still intensly jealous, and their dedication to him must be total. Sometimes however a witch elve's loyalty to her god will wane, the temptation of Slaanesh is great, and not all can overcome it.

Unable to strike at Slaanesh for this injustice, these women are left to feel Khaine's full wrath. These women find their bodies horrible mishapen, their beauty lost along with their ability to fulfill their passions. They finds themselves with the lower body of a horrible mishapen beast, some daemon steeds, others spiders, boars, and even steeds of Slaanesh.

The suffering of these monsters is absolute. The only thoughts their suffering permits are the immensity of their failure to Khaine. The only reprise these beasts they can find, other than death, is the joy of killing. This is the one thing even Khaine could not take from his beloved.

So often when a Slaanesh/Dark Elf war host approaches, it is preceded by the tormented screams of Khaine's frosaken. They are always among the first into battle, and usually among the first to die, taking as many possible with them as possible.

0-1 Khaine's Forsaken.............40 pts

Equipment:

2 hand weapons

Save:

none

Options:

The entire unit may be equipped with light armor for 2 pts. The unit may not carry a magic standard.

Special Rules:

Frenzy:

The Forsaken are subject to frenzy, and follow all of those rules. Note: When the forsaken frenzy, only their attack with the first sword is doubled, not their second attack which is due to hooves/claws/etc.. so that a frenzied forsaken one get four attacks, two for being frenzied, plus one for the hooves, and plus one for an additional hand weapon.

Immune to psychology:

The forsaken never take fear or panic tests, and cannot be broken. They can, however lose their frenzy like any other frenzied units.

Crazy:

The forsaken must charge any unit in it's charge range. If it cannot charge, then it must march towards an enemy unit. Note if several units are in range the forsaken neddn't charge the closest unit as they are kin to rushing into a hopeless battle to end their lives as quickly as possible.

Allies:

As the forsake are a result of the union of Slaanesh and Khaine they can be taken by either army but only under the condition that the armies entire 25% allotment of allies are filled by the other army, i.e. 2000 pts of dark elves must take 500 pt or as close as possible of chaos to take a unit of forsaken, and vice versa.

Heroes:

Champion and hero forsaken may be purchased for 125 and 270 points respectively, however lord level characters cannot be purchased as no forsaken has kived long enough to attain such a status. Note that for the effects of frenzy only one of the normal attacks is considered to be hooves and not doubled, so that a hero forsaken with two swords would get a total of 8 attacks.

NO:

the forsaken do not use poisoned blades, and they could care the less about cauldron of blood.

Modeling:

I'm pretty sure that no models exist to represent these creatures, except maybe if a female drider miniature exists from ral partha. However many different types can be modelled with some creativity. The best way being to simply apply the upper torso of witch elves to the bodies of various types of steeds. Some ideas are horses, spiders, centaurs, wolves, boars, large cats, and for a real challenge a witch elf torso could be glued to a skeletal steed, and epoxy could be used to blend the flesh to the skeleton. Perhaps some bits of flesh flapping to the side, and possible the remains of some organs within the horses ribs. Of course the motley collection of miniatures is just for show, all figures have identical stats.

Well if you can get anyone to let you play with these, I'm sure they'll be lots of fun, and they could make some great figs. Of course if you do play them, feel free to do anything needed to make them fair. THEY HAVE NOT BEEN PLAYTESTED, and I'm sure they couls use some adjustment.

by: Chris Hemmerich