Ka'bandha
"Recognize me then, Sanguinius of Baal. I am Ka'bandha, Bloodthirster and general of Khorne, blessed is his hate. And we are brothers."
- – Ka'bandha, mere hours before Sanguinius makes Ka'bandha his bitch. If you also interpret it in a certain way, he's essentially saying: notice me Sanguinius onii-san.
"I-it's not like I care whether you live or die, lowly worms!"
- – Ka'bandha, during Devastation of Baal
Ka'Bandha, also known as Ka'Bananas and Ka'BanjoKazooie is a bloodthirster of Khorne. Several sources of fluff call him the most powerful servant of Khorne ever to manifest in the mortal realm. However, one of those sources of fluff was Matt Ward's 5th edition Grey Knights codex, so it conflicts with some other sources of fluff. Said other sources cite An'ggrath or Angron as the strongest servants of Khorne. While not explicitly stated, it is also heavily implied Doombreed is the strongest. Who to believe is up to you. Like An'ggrath, Ka'bandha is actually incredibly bad at winning fights with named characters and has gotten his ass kicked time and time again, so we're giving the edge to Angron as Khorne's strongest (though he's gotten his ass kicked more than a few times too). Incidentally, Khabandha, is also the name of a demon in Hindu mythology.
Due to the fact that Ka'bandha has developed a certain respect for Sanguinius and the Blood Angels, to the point he'll "aid" them if someone else dares to steal the honor of killing his ancient nemesis, /tg/ views Ka'bandha as a low-key tsundere.
Ka'bandha during the Horus Heresy[edit]
Battle for Signus Prime[edit]
Ka'bandha is (in)famous for picking on the Blood Angels. After being summoned to the mortal realm along with a Keeper of Secrets by sacrificing a Word Bearer Astropath on Signus Prime, a major battle got underway. He promptly got into a mid-air fight with Sanguinius. After breaking Sanguinius's legs, he moved on to the Blood Angels, killing five hundred legionaries at once and activating the device known as the Ragefire at the height of the battle. This caused the dormant red thirst in the legion to awaken, messing up the Blood Angels' lives for at least the next ten thousand years.
Once Sanguinius had recovered from the minor inconvenience of putting his legs back together, he went back and challenged Ka'bandha to round 2, in which he managed to send him back to the warp. Sanguinius also threw his sword through the chest of lowly Keeper of Secrets who was sulking about in the background.
Battle of Terra[edit]
Ka'bandha returned during the Battle for Terra. He attacked Sanguinius when his back was turned (which Khorne probably didn't approve of), starting angel vs daemon: round 3. This time things were going fine until Sanguinius decided enough was enough, so he beat the shit out of Ka'banha and broke his back across his knee. He then threw the bloodthirster into the advancing army of heretics and took his well-earned rest by retreating behind the walls of the eternity gate.
Ka'bandha in 40k[edit]
944.M41, Kalagazaar[edit]
The Grey Knights and Blood Angels team up to attack the daemon world Ka'bandha was on, in order to prevent his imminent predicted return to the mortal realm. Much fighting later, Ka'bandha is defeated using the sharpened femur of Brother-Captain Solor, a dead Grey Knight who killed Ka'banha once, a long time ago, and so his bones have some kind of special power against the daemon. Kalagazaar is subjected to Exterminatus. The surviving Blood Angels all have their memories wiped after the battle because that's what Grey Knights do.
999.M41, Baal system[edit]
Ka'bandha returns once more, along with a massive army of Daemons of Khorne, intent on wiping out those pesky kids once and for all. While the war between these Daemons and the Blood Angels is still quite an important ongoing conflict, Ka'bandha himself was defeated in single combat by the Sanguinor, by being choke-slammed from space and exploding in a crater of gore on impact. He does have a habit of getting the shit beaten out of him by winged entities in golden armour.
M42, Baal system[edit]
Set during the Devastation of Baal and the Indomitus Crusade, the Blood Angels and their successor chapters were defending against Hive Fleet Leviathan. The Blood Angels defense would not hold for long and as the final defense was broken something strange occurred. A Warp anomaly occurred and swept away the hive fleet. Every Imperial and Tyranid on the moon Baal Prime was dead and the skulls of the dead xenos were arranged so that they would create the symbol of Ka'Bandha on the moon. It would seem that Khorne had intervened and saved the remaining Blood Angels alongside the arrival of the Indomitus Crusade and Papa Smurf. It is also likely because he considers the Blood Angels and their descendants to be his prey and doesn't take kindly the idea of Space Bugs eating them all before he can annihilate them at full strength himself.
We can only imagine Ka'bandha looking away from the Blood Angels after this and claiming he didn't save them because he thought they were his worthiest rivals or anything, i-idiots (Bakas).
Actually, the story is even more interesting than that. The 'warp anomaly' was nothing less than the Great Rift opening, which made his return possible in the first place - Bloodthirsters like Ka'bandha aren't supposed to enter realspace more than once a millennium. Mephiston had a vision of his arrival, as the Blood Angels were preparing for Leviathan's arrival. He told Dante, who absolutely did not need this right now, and told Mephiston to gather all the Librarians in secret and fucking SUMMON the daemon so they could banish it quickly. This is a flying leap over the line that loyal Imperial psykers are never supposed to cross, but it was only the third regrettable thing that Dante had had to do since lunch. Long story short, That Guy botches the ritual and they couldn't banish him from the materium, only the ritual chamber, and he end up in orbit. Fortunately, this was all happening before the Rift actually reached Baal, so the warp energy needed to fully sustain a greater daemon isn't present, and there's an amusing passage about Ka'bandha raging at his wings for not working in the void of space like they usually do. He isn't able to get back at the Librarians, and he falls to Baal Prime, where he stays when the Rift finally hits and he's able to summon his daemonic horde.
Ka'bandha in Warhammer Fantasy[edit]
Ka'bandha only shows up for the ending of Warhammer Fantasy (as in he only shows up in the very last book of the setting), but Christ on bike did he use that limited time to make an impression. He is summoned by Archaon after Fateweaver fails in his task to destroy Averheim. Fateweaver is killed and his blood is used to summon Ka'bandha, who proceeds to go fucking ham on anyone and everything in the setting. He runs riot through the empire crushing pretty much everything in his path, and when it's conquered and Archaon slows down, Ka'banda takes his own Daemon host to Athel Loren and starts murdering elves, trees, humans and whatever the fuck he want. Later when the Incanates show up, Ka'bandha solos six of them and kills Caradryan and his fire turkey and keeps going even after eating a face full of the wind of Aqshy. Only Nagash puts up a decent fight. His absolute butchery comes to an end when Sigmar shows up and kills him. No reappearance in Age of Sigmar yet, but his new model is apparently getting rules for AOS and he may also reappear in The Old World if GW remember he should have been kicking ass before the End Times.
An interesting thing to note is that Ka'bandha's fantasy appearance and 40k appearance are completely different. In 40k he is clearly based on the Forge World Bloodthirster model, while in Fantasy he has a bull head, with his horns making up a Khornate symbol and is meant to resemble a variation of the standard GW Bloodthrister that you can make in the kit (which makes sense as the model dropped at the same time as the book he was introduced). Ka'bandha is also a lower rank of Bloodthirster in Fantasy than in 40k as he is part of the Third Host during the Endtimes and part of the First Host in 40k, though despite this his Fantasy incarnation has a better track record of wins, bodying five demigods, entering a stalemate with a sixth and requiring a literal god to kill him during the End Times, while he's 1/2 against a demigod in 40k (though this is all from the End Times, and the fluff written there is not very good, nor very well thought out). Realistically and unusually for a Daemon character, 40'bandha and Fantasy'bandha are two different characters.
Gallery[edit]
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