Skorne

Now how do you make the Skorne? Well take one part real world pain fetishes, add hellraiser cenobites, a book on mythical creatures, a dose of Indian and Asian influences with a hearty infusion of Greek/Roman names and hey presto, you have yourself the Skorne!

The Skorne are a faction within the Hordes tabletop game. They are an empire of strange humanoid beings who's entire society is based on slavery and torture. Oh you think I jest about that cenobites reference? Think again, the things these 'people' do would make your bowels twist in knots and that is them not even trying. Of course they do it for a perfectly adequate reason; because they see pain as power and that power gives them strength. Oh it looks like they and the Dark Eldar would get on fabulously.

The reason Skorne are so bent on pain and personal power is because they know exactly what happens with them after death. Their souls get trapped in the Void, to eternally suffer and eventually go insane. Because of that, pain in the living world is seen by them as something utterly insignificant. Through personal glory they can achieve honor of getting bound to personal soulstone and get spared from that shit.

They're the only faction that has seen the need to weaponize the screams of tortured baby elephants.

They combine a powerful infantry force with some great heavy armour units with a variety of monstrous creatures they have bend to their will through an intense program of torture-training. Seriously they have to getting off on all this they are doing.

Currently the empire has marched westwards and is engaged in a campaign to claim all the other iron kingdoms as their own. Fortunately they are experiencing a lot more problems then they first thought possible and it might just come back to bite them in the ass if one of the other armies decides to invade their homeland instead.

History

LIFE IS PAIN! And so is death.

The Skorne's Culture is fundamentally different from that of western Immoren, for they were unaffected by the forces that shaped western Immoren. As disciples of their philosophy revolving around honor, sacrifice, and morality, they, as a race, believe that the complete domination of western Immoren is the only outcome of their race's destiny. Since they settled their asses down in the shitty ass desert where they currently reside, they went all Feudal Japan on themselves and spent millennia murdering each other for piles of sand. Once the exiled king of Cygnar showed up in the Bloodstone (The Skorne's homeland) they got their shit together and formed an extremely organized military nation.

Judging by how fucked up Skorne afterlife is, some of the hints in lore, and their precise knowledge of the nature of the Cataclysm (and ability to recreate the same shit again), they appear to be a branch of eastern elves that survived said Cataclysm in their own grimdark way.

Crunch

On the tabletop, skorne bring the fucking hammer. They are the faction of getting in your opponent's face until they no longer have a face to be in. On the whole Skorne have good melee options, even if some of ther hardest hitting models (Immortals, Aradus Soldier, Bronzeback Titan) do actually have trouble getting to the opponent. Luckly Skorne warlocks and Beast Handlers have a plethora of ways to pump the models up speed juice. The Skorne don't generally have models that are the best at what they do, but what they bring instead is a unit or beast that can do whatever they need done. No other faction has as balanced an array as they do. Support wise, the Skorne army gives you a lot of stright foward ways to break people's faces

In ranged the Skorne don't have a large array of options, but what they do have fucks shit up. Venator Reivers and Slingers are pretty good when run by themselves but if you throw a Venator Dakar in the unit they can start bringing serious pain. The Dakar actually brings Skorne gunlines into the game as a viable option. Unfortunately Skorne warlocks don't buff ranged, although Xerses1 has a neat trick which allows nearby infantry to not block LOS.

As far as beasts go, the Skorne's kick ass. Angry elephant men, cyclops with future sight and some fukkin dinosaurs; it's just a bucket of awesome. From a gameplay standpoint their warbeasts a capable of bringing the hurt in melee with a few exceptions (Basilisk Drake, Agonizer, Cyclops Shaman). They have a couple of great ranged options in the form of the Titan Cannoneer, great anti-heavy beast/jack and heavy infantry; the Cyclops Raider, hunts down solos; and the Aradus Sentinel, which blasts through infantry blobs. Their beasts have a generally low speed but many of their Animi focus on enhancing mobility. Their most comparable faction is Khador and their brutal warjacks, the Aradus and Titans are a lot like them; you'll basically always hit them but POW 10s are basically worth less. They are the only other faction with comparable melee beast/jack output to Khador, which is quite a feat.