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!