The wait is finally over! This weekend marks preorders for the second third new kill team box of the edition, giving us new Imperial Weirdoes and uh, Khorne Weirdoes as well. Blood and Zeal sees Sanctifers – holy warriors of the ecclesiarchy – face off against Goremongers – brutish zealots of the World Eaters who desperately want to become Bloodletters.
Before we dive in, we’d like to thank Games Workshop for sending us a preview copy of the Blood and Zeal box for review purposes.
The Video Version
If you’d like to watch a video about the contents, we’d recommend this one from Can You Roll a Crit? Then come back here for more written goodness and insight into the assembly.
The Contents
There are two teams in here, the Goremongers and the Sanctifers, plus a terrain piece. The terrain piece is the standard Celestine/winged Sister of Battle terrain piece that came with the Battle Sanctum terrain piece back in the day. It’s fairly easy to assemble and pretty enough, but it’s mostly decorative scatter on the battlefields of the 41st millennium. Good for modeling a town square or a broken-down cathedral in Kill Team, though.
Unboxing Blood and Zeal
The Book
- Blood and Zeal dossier – contains rules for the two new gangs, Blood and Zeal missions, and delicious, delicious lore.
The Models
- Goremongers: Robot-legged Khorne Jakhals that REALLY want to be Bloodletters.
- Sanctifiers: You don’t have to come to church if the church comes to you (with hand flamers and eviscerators).
Killzone Upgrade: Shrine
Play Aids
- Tokens for the Sanctifiers and Goremongers teams.
- Data cards for each team.
- Blood and Zeal mission cards.
Models
The Goremongers
TheChirurgeon: Goremongers come in squads of eight models and they have surprisingly few options for a Kill Team. There are essentially four models with options, and because I was building my guys for 40k I mostly ignored them. Note that I have no idea what the rules for these guys will be in 40k, I just know that I am not going to be giving anyone guns for a unit that’s largely going to be fighting in melee. So I kept the double lacerators for the Stalker and the big axe for the Skulltaker and just put standard chainglaives on everyone else.
Assembly
Despite my initial concerns about the Goremongers being a bit spindly, they went together very easily. Each model more or less comes together in four pieces – front and back torso, with the legs joining together in two pieces under that, and you basically glue their butts together along the crack, which is funny but also the best way to handle that. The most annoying part on these are the blood tubes which run from the backpacks to nozzles on the back of their legs, but those have a bit of give so you can nudge them into position. They aren’t nearly as annoying to assemble as Jakhals were, is my point.
I was initially worried about putting these guys together given how small their legs are but I was happy to find out that they’re all pretty solid – every model has at least one rock clutched firmly in their toe talons, giving them a much more solid point of contact with the base. While they definitely have some springiness fully assembled, even the guys running on one leg feel solid enough I’m not super worried about them.
This guy has a single foot up on that pillar piece, with the other just hanging in the air. It’s a dynamic pose, but a bit crazy for a model. That said, he wasn’t as bad as he looks. I’d recommend for most of these models assembling the model either completely or except for the arms before gluing it to the base or whatever post it’s Parkouring off of.
Painting the Models
These paint up really fast. I started by laying down skin tones, using a wide range of colors for the set. Then I shaded those using various washes – Druchii violet for the darker tones, Reikland Fleshshade for the lighter tones – and went to work on the rest of the model.
I need these to match my World Eaters, so their pants and leather shirts are based with Khorne Red, then highlighted with Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet. The metal bits are Leadbelcher washed with Nuln Oil, the brass is Castellax Bronze washed with Agrax and highlighted with Sycorax Bronze. The bone is Rakarth Flesh washed with Agrax and highlighted with Rakarth Flesh again and Reaper Polished Bone.
The most complicated part of these models painting-wise is the tanks. I opted for a glass vial/open look to them, though you are free to ignore that and just paint them metal. If you want to replicate my look, I used the same method I wrote up in our How to Paint Everything: Vials, Gemstones, and Lenses article – I started with a background of 50/50 Gal Vorbak Red and Black Legion Contrast mix, then the liquid is Khorne Red highlighted up to Evil Sunz, with a few lines of white, and coated in ‘Aardcoat for that glossy finish.
Finally, there were the bases. I wanted to do some blood river bases for these, so I based them with Astrogranite Debris texture paint, but did so in small islands, leaving clear channels between the sections where I wanted the blood. Once that dried, I drybrushed it with Celestra Gray and then painted in the space in-between with Gal Vorbak Red.
After that I covered it with a healthy goop of Blood for the Blood God Technical paint, filling in the lowest spots and giving it that glossy, bloody finish. The final result is pretty great, and it works well with the little platforms and posts the models all seem to be standing on.
Overall impressions & gallery
I still have three more of these to go, but I’m pretty confident I’ll finish painting them this week. They’re pretty quick to paint up and quite a bit of fun.
Sanctifiers
Assembly
HappyRaccoon: The Sanctifiers unlike the Inquisitorial Agents before them come with a fair number of bits, bobs, and head swaps that all come together fairly nicely. I spent some time working in Flaggelants from the Old World into extra preachers and missionaries without too many issues.
As for the actual Sanctifier models, the shawls and top pieces do a fair amount of seams that required a bit of sprue glue to fill. While the tall pieces are going to represent some issues for storage, though nothing as bad as vespid!
For whatever reason I decided to do a small modification to an inquisitor for this team, but kept the mace from the confessor. The bits involved were pretty straightforward, and there’s good detail on both ends of the mace. Overall the kit came together nicely, and honestly I’d recommend em!
SRM: There’s not one, but two Pope hats in here, already cementing this as kit of the year. Said hats are among like, 20 heads that are all fully interchangeable, which rocks. There’s recommendations for which head goes on which body, but you can go hog wild or swap them with other kits if you’d like. I think my favorite part of these heads is that they’re all freaks. If you go through your typical Stormcast or Astra Militarum kit, you’ve got your fair share of yelling weirdos but a good number of the faces look kinda like normal people. These, though? Little freaks, top to bottom, with poked out eyes, Inquisition brands on their foreheads, Prodigy haircuts, and jowls-a-plenty.
Each body has one, maybe two sets of arms really available to it, but being able to use any head on (almost) any body means that you’ve got a good amount of play with this kit. The only dudes you’re really locked into are the Cherub, Salvationist, and the Miraculist (AKA the Stigmata Martyr) who don’t have any options at all. The whole kit took me a little under two hours to put together, and the only points that gave me trouble were a few of the smaller bits, like the separate hands. The halo on the Miraculist also has a really badly placed connection point right between a few of its spikes, which is somewhat nerve-wracking to clean. Mold lines were minimal save for the weird connection tube on the flamer, and most of the seams are pretty well hidden. I do say most but not all though – the robes are largely connected by one long seam down the sides which can make for a pretty obvious connection if you don’t do something to smooth it over.
I was expecting to have more leftover when I was done building the kit, but aside from a couple handflamers and the extra heads, there really isn’t much left on the sprue. It’s an awful lot of detail on an awful lot of models on not a lot of sprue space, and said sprues are engineered well enough that most of their relevant bits are grouped together. It was a comfy kit to build with some beautiful results, even if it is somewhat restrictive in how it goes together.
Painting the Models
HappyRaccoon: I’m not the best at layer painting, and the rest of the more traditional techniques. However I am a big fan of contrast paints, into some layer painting to fast forward through some of the layering up of highs and lows. To start off I pretty much always go with a zenithal highlight, to give my contrast paints more values to work with. You can see the process in the gallery below, and honestly I still have a bunch of layering up I’m looking forward to doing!
SRM: Painting them is a slightly more nuanced prospect than building them. The basic rank and file robed weirdos are genuinely pretty simple – a few different panels of fabric you’ll want to differentiate, a weapon or two, some skin and an ornamental doodad are really all there is to it. There aren’t even extra doodads on the sprues, so you can’t dress up your Keiths Flint with reliquaries and purity seals. However, the Missionaries carry a cross-country backpacking tour worth of stuff on them, and have a load of overlapping belts and trinkets. While I focused my own painting attention chiefly on those two, if I were trying to get the whole crew painted for this article they would definitely represent the bulk of my painting time. The cherub also looks like a tiny Guy Fieri.
I went with a magenta, cream, and teal scheme on these, as I figured it would be good to zig instead of zag with their color choices.
Overall impressions & gallery
HappyRaccoon: The models are neat, and the vibes on point. I’m looking forward to spending more time just detailing the dorks, and bringing the Emperor’s justice to his enemies.
SRM: This is a pretty impeccable group of weirdos, and a painter’s dream. There’s tons of room for freehand on the cloaks, text on the scrollwork and books, and even some room for expression in how you build them. They’re also just the most Warhammer-ass Warhammer models we’ve seen in a hot minute, owing a ton to the models from Inquisitor and the old Daemonhunters range from 3rd and 4th edition.
Does It Necromunda?
Fowler: Dear reader, this may be one of the most “It Necro’s” boxes in the Kill Team line. The Sanctifiers scream Cawdor / Redemptionists, and have some fighters that immediately jump out as good options for Hive Preachers. The Goremongers could be used to alongside the Jakhals kit to make a less-jacked Corpse Grinder Cults gang. The Shrine statue isn’t inherently a Necromunda sort of terrain piece… but it feels extremely Warhammer, which is always welcome on a table.
Conclusion
Classic ministorum models get a refresh, robot-chicken-legged Bloodletter cosplayers one-up the Jakhals aesthetic, and an iconic terrain piece returns. The new edition of Kill Team continues to deliver fantastic boxed sets. What’s more iconic than chaos and the ecclesiarchy facing off in the shadow of a statue of Celestine? We like this box! If the models speak to you, it is definitely worth picking up.
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