Friday, August 30, 2013

EPIC Distractions!


I’ve been a little distracted lately by the 40K universe… I have been reading Hammer of the Emperor and the epic battles on Golgotha got me excited about all the “Epic scale” 40K stuff I've had ferreted away in the Hobby Dungeon…. Some I’ve had for ages, other stuff my friend John picked up of Kijiji a year ago – because it was too good of a deal to pass up – but not being a miniature painter he dropped it off with me and I’m to paint the Man o’ War minis that he got in the box for him at some point to use with Dread Fleet….

Most of the Space Marine and Imperial stuff I’ve had for years… the Ork stuff (and Squat and Chaos stuff that I haven’t even had a look at yet…) is all from John… I also have a pile of Eldar stuff which is an even mix of stuff I’ve had and stuff from John.

I was planning on using Future War Commander to play out Epic battles with these legions… I like the idea of using stands as “platoons”. But I don’t think the Space Marines in the 40K universe are organized in “platoons” per se. It seems from the fluff I can find that they are organized in companies of ten squads. So I guess these stands will represent to or three of those squads (and two or three APCs) and I’ll have about 4 of each per company.

All of the figures pictured in this post are from Games Workshop. They are © and ™ Games Workshop and painted by myslef and posted here entirely without their permission.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):


Space Marine infantry and Rhino APCs and command.

This is how I kind of imagined a company looking in my force. Though I seem to recall that you could only have 3 HQs per full 1000 points of army… Not that I ever cared that much for points… but ideally I’d like to keep the ratio of command to troop elements… I seem to think this is were the system kind of broke down for me. It’s been a few years since I’ve played but I seem to recall if you had a force of high point cost items You would end up having a higher ratio of command to troop elements. (M1 tanks, for example, in Cold War Commander were a few hundred points each and if you were fielding a unit armed with them you could feasibly have a HQ element of every two or three tank elements, whereas a force of mostly infantry would have an HQ element of every dozen troop elements… if you were “playing by the rules” for force building and using points and the force limits and stuff…)


Space Marine Terminators and a Land Raiders from the First Company (which is where you apparently find veterans and Terminators and Land Raiders). I need to finish up a few more Land Raiders for this company. 



Space Marine Vindicator.

I’ve done the Space marines in orange for a number of reasons. The very first Space Marines I ever painted I did in orange – these were those very first multi-part pose-able plastic Space Marines that were like $20 for a box of thirty…? Anyone remember those? Anyway, I think I called them the Emperor’s Jesters and even had a chapter badge that looked like a jesters head… I have no desire to call these Emperor’s Jesters… but I still like orange.

I also like the idea of a bright visible colour to kind of say; “We know you know where we are and we want you to know that we know that you know and that we don’t care… because we’re that bad ass and will mess you up anyway….”

I’m also a little confused about Marine armoured support – like tanks (Predators) and assault guns (Vindicators) and self-propelled missile carriers (Whirlwinds)– where do they fit into the organizations?! Most of the organization charts I’ve been able to track down on the interwebs show the chapter as being 10 mechanized companies with organic transport; armoured (Rhinos, Land Raiders) or otherwise (Bikes, Land Speeders). But there doesn’t seem to be any spot in the organization charts for armour? Perhaps I’ll have to track down on of the 40K codexes to figure it out…



Orcs – I did one stand to see what they’d look like. I’ve done them on bigger bases with more guys… to make them look more like the massive horde that they are. I have enough Orcs to make 60+ such elements…


Imperial Guard Ragnarok tanks

Of the Guard stuff I had, most of it is “support” – I had a few Basilisk self-propelled artillery, a couple Gorgon assault troop carriers, two Sentinels reconnaissance walkers, and these Ragnarok tanks pictured above. In the stuff I got from John there were a few Bombard self-propelled siege guns, a Death Strike Self-propelled missile launcher and a Capitol Imperialis moblie fortress, and a Leviathan Armoured Imperial Command Centre. Not much of a force… No “sharp end” units (infantry or tanks – or at least not enough tanks for a regiment…).

So I’ve been looking for some more Imperial forces on ebay… I did manage to pick up two Leman Russ Battle companies (22 tanks – at three per company that would make SEVEN companies – the Ragnarok tanks an eighth! Huzzah!), but I have yet to pick up any Guard inafantry. I’m pretty much about to give up – the few lots I’ve seen went for absurd amounts of money. I’ll probably end up getting some sort of stand in from Dark Realm Miniatures or Ground Zero Games. (The Dark Realm Pax Arcadian Infantry look promising).

Here’s the first few of the newly acquired tanks…


Imperial Guard Leman Russ tanks

When will I actually have enough of these to play a game…? Who know!?  If I keep reading that Black Library fluff it may end up being sooner rather than later!

I should switch gears here shortly as ToonCon is rapidly approaching and I’m to run an Ambush Z and a Force on Force game! And I’m painting a unit of 40m Austrian cavalry for John Bertolini’s Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe 1815-1878

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hopefully I'll get around to posting some game reports from the last week or so... and maybe get in anotehr game or so over the weekend! 

19 comments:

  1. Kaptain Kobold over at the Stronghold Rebuilt uses the Hordes of the Things rules to fight battles with his Epic armies. Take a look at some of his games and armies.

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    1. I have seen it and that is the very reason everything has been based on 40mm frontages! (I just forgot to mention that in the post!)

      Thanks!

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    2. Good plan. And thanks to Desert Scribe for saving me having to mention the HOTT route for Epic 40K :)

      Your figures look gorgeous.

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  2. Check out the Tac Com forums. Everything epic lives on right there. taccmd.tacticalwargames.net

    The tourney pack for 2013 can be found here and short cuts to the current NetEpic docs.
    http://www.net-armageddon.org/

    Cheers
    mattie

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  3. Great painting again, even in this scale!

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  4. Great post, i love everything epic too. I get distracted by it constantly, im trying to build forces for the crusades in 15mm, but epic scale vehicles keep jumping the queue....

    I have built a force for FWC, and pretty much ignored the chapter organisation fluff from GW. I would just go with whatever you think feels right.

    Steve

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  5. Wow - they look cool. Never thought about this scale for 40K, but you've certainly made a good case for it. Best, Dean

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  6. You should have a look at Steel Crown and their Exodus Wars (http://www.exoduswars.com/) for IG proxies.

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  7. The TO&E has gone right out the window of late. Far too many new units "were there all along" being churned out to sell toy soldiers at GW HQ these days. The old TO&E of a "Codex" chapter had 10 companies, 1st was Veterans as above, 2nd through 5th were "battle" companies of 6 Tactical squads, 2 Assault and 2 Devestator, 6th through 7th were homogenous "reserve" companies with two Tactical, one Assault and one Devestator company, and 10th was the Scout company rounding it out. All but the scouts had Rhinos and Dreadnoughts listed on the support elements, with Land Speeders and Bikes being available in weird organisations (6th and 7th have one each respectively, but are Tactical companies where the usual organisation would have Assault squads manning fast vehicles....) 10th company gets no support.

    The way to ignore this all is to say "non-Codex chapter" and just do whatever seems fun.

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    1. Thanks! "Non-Codex chapter" it is!

      What I still don't get is where do AFVs like Predators and Vindicators and the like fit into the 10-company chapter TO&E?

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    2. Yeah, unsurprisingly Granny W has never been too clear on how the SMs actually use armour, mostly because it doesn't fit with the infantry-centric image of battle that GW relies on, Titans notwithstanding. I think I remember something about that sort of extra non-APC stuff being brigaded under the Chapter Master normally, and doled out as the situation required.

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    3. I'd guess it'd be chucked under the new "Master of the Armoury" character and attached ad-hoc, or stuff like Assault Squads with jump packs, on bikes or manning Land Speeders would have their attached Rhino converted into a Predator or whatever. TBH I don't think they ever really thought it through properly. Apocalypse formations might be a source of information about larger scale units, although there are pictures of the entire Ultramarines Chapter around like the one in, IIRC, 3rd ed Codex Space Marines that theorethically have "everything" in it.

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    4. Thanks again!

      So I can basically (as I originally planned) just make stuff up on my own and no one's going to be able to tell me it's wrong! Huzzah!

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    5. Someone will always try. Speaking as an ex-redshirt, the problem with the GW fandom is that some of them care just that bit TOO much.

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    6. Alternatively, you can always buy this for a full chart (including new stuff that was always there): http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440270a&prodId=prod2160196a

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    7. Holy CROW!?

      "These kits comes supplied unpainted and require assembly - we recommend using Citadel Plastic Glue, Citadel Super Glue and Citadel Paints... and you're going to need lots!"

      Yeah, no kidding!? Who would ever BUY one of those!?

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