Last bits to an Epic challenge (30K, Epic Style Part V)

On one foot you limp; on two feet you sprint.

I finished two Epic models in time for the end of the painting challenge.

First was the "Curtgeld", which is the price of admission into the painting challenge. Every year, we must paint a figure related to a particular theme for Curt's, the organizer of the challenge, collection. This year, the theme was cooperation and teamwork, so we had to submit a collaborative piece or entry. I got together with Greg, fellow canadian, enthusiastic wargamer and hobbyist and the man responsible for my Epic projet.

When Greg and I discussed our ideas for our all-canadian Curtgeld, our first ideas was Napoleonics, but we figured many would obviously go down this route, what with Curt"s obsession with the era! So I proposed a somewhat crazy ideas, which I figured we might be the only one to do; both of us painting the same figure. And in the spirit of the recent Epic projects, by me and Greg, but also by Curt with this Adeptus Mecanicus project, we settled on a Epic Warlord Titan.

So Greg painted the metal works and half of the Titan (the purple parts), and then send it to Montreal for me to do my half (the blue and yellow parts), and I was also in charge of the basing and the little add-ons like the Marines on the base. It was, for me at least, the very first time I work on a model that someone else started! I have to admit, it was a bit more difficult than I anticipated, as I was afraid to accidentally touch some of Greg's painting, which would be a much bigger problem than when I can easily retouch my own work.

The Warlord-class Titan is a large and powerful type of Battle Titan, armed with much more firepower than its counterpart, the smaller Reaver-class Titan. The Warlord is the most common class of Battle Titan in use by the Titan Legions during the Heresy, and many Adeptus Mechanicus Forge Worlds field their own patterns of this class. Due to their immense size, Warlord Titans are not nearly as fast or agile as the Reaver-class Titans or the Warhound Scout Titans, but they more than make up for this failing with their sheer firepower and heavily armoured bulks. This thing is big, this think is massive, this thing will blow shit up!

This model is straight from the early Adeptus Titanicus boxset of the late 80s, one of the multi-part plastic models from the game. We kept it old school, even including the void shield wheels in the base. I included a few Space Marines on the base to give the model a sense of scale and size.

We think this massive war machine will fit in very nicely in Curt's Epic force, even more so since Greg has been painting Titans left and right during this challenge, and Curt will probably need some extra firepower next time he gets to face Greg's legions!

This got me 30 pts.

It was not in my plans to paint anything else than the Curtgeld this week-end; I'm really burned out by the challenge. But Curt did last week challenge me to a last second sprint to the end, and I felt I had to give it my best!

So I managed to paint another Epic piece, as my last stand in the 7th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge!

How I react when Curt challenges me with one week left to the challenge...

So here is a Legion Glaive Tank for my Emperor's Children force. The Glaive is a super-heavy tank pattern related to the Fellblade, but beyond the obvious surface similarities the two tanks are very different. The reason for this divergence lies with the Glaive's primary weapon system, the fearsome and arcane Volkite Carronade, a massive Volkite Weapon that is capable of destroying enemy vehicles in a single shot. Volkite Weapons produce a deflagrating attack, in which subsonic combustion caused by a beam of thermal energy is propagated through the target by thermodynamic heat transfer, so that hot burning material heats the next layer of cold material and ignites it. The Volkite Carronade used by the Glaive was able to make short work of all but the most heavily armoured enemy vehicles and structures.

In short, it's a massively dangerous metal beast! I followed of course the painting shceme of my Emperor's Children force, but gave the glaive white details on the turret instead of the gold I used on the Fellblades to make the model stand apart from my other super heavies. I'm not entirely happy with my work on the Volkite cannon, but it will do.

Those two entrys gave me 37 points. The Challenge is now over, I'll do a post detailing the experience, but I'm very happy with my hobby output for these first three months of the year. Even on the Blog front, this is my 14th post of the year, which equals what I did all last year!

Emperor's Children additions (30K, Epic Style Part IV)

More Emperor's Children for my Epic Horus Heresy project. I've been painting these in between Halflings. One of the things I enjoy about painting Epic is that it's a nice change of pace; sometimes I'm just really tired of working on 28mm figures and I just switch in the middle of a session to painting little tanks and it gives me renewed energy and motivation.

So this week we have three support detachment sporting the Purple & Gold of your favourite Legions of depraved sociopaths. 

First up, a detachment of 4 Predators. These are the Annihilator variants, equipped with turret-mounted Twin-linked "Stormbringer" Lascannons as opposed to the basic turret-mounted Autocannon on the Predator Destructor. I always had a soft spot for the Predators' look, as I find it looks good without being over the top.

Up next, we move one size up to a quatuor of Sicaran Battle Tanks, one of the most advanced armoured vehicles used by the Space Marine Legions during the Horus Heresy. These powerful vehicles were exclusive to the armouries of the Legiones Astartes and were just in the process of being introduced as a standard vehicle of the Legions when the Horus Heresy broke out. This allowed the Warmaster Horus to ensure that many examples of the new tank found their way only into the armouries of the "traitor" Legions that would side with him before the outbreak of his rebellion against the Emperor. Yes, Horus is the kind of leader you can count on!

Not very point effective for the duel though, as they are rather big for a measly 2 pts! But that drawback is more than offset by their badassery and their awesome look!  These guys are big and mean, and style wise fit perfectly with my philosophically agressive Emperor's Children.

And last for this week is a Legion Outrider Squad. I needed more speed for my Legion, and these guys look the part. These mechanized Space Marine reconnaissance squads are mounted on all-terrain Assault Bikes and are responsible for performing scouting missions and conducting guerrilla attacks behind enemy lines.  I quite like the models, although in hindsight I'm wondering if I should've put two bikes per bases. Of course, that would've required twice as many bikes and twice the cost! Anyways, the detachment still looks good to me, even if pictures are a bit hard to get right because they are so very small!

And a family picture, just to give some perspective on the size of each models.

Next up for this project; more infantry for my Emperor's Children, and probably another Super Heavy Tank.

And another 22 pts for the challenge.

Emperor's Children Armoured Division (30K, Epic style, Part III)

Children of the Emperor! Death to his foes! 

Well here it is, the first painted miniatures of my 30K Epic project; an Armoured Division (combined arms) of Emperor's Children. Of couse, I had to start with the forces of hope and change!

As mentionned in a previous post, the Emperor's Children, the IIIrd Legion, was always one of my favourite "traitor" legion. Mostly, I'll admit, because I find the purple & gold colour scheme looks really good on the battlefield, especially in the smaller scale. Their name, also, has always been a favourite of mine. Of course, I could also mention the Legion's "joie de vivre", so refreshing in this dark and grim world of the Emperor! Of course, the cheap propaganda of the Emperor has repeatedly referred to the Legion as made-up of hedonistic psychopaths! 

The Legion has a bit of a perfectionist complex and strives for perfection in all their endeavours and continuously works to perfect their military operations. Sustained not merely by the example of their peers but by a deep individual belief in their duty to their superiors and the Legion as a whole, they fought to the best of their abilities in all conditions, whether the battle was a massive attack or a simple patrol. Favouring a quick-strike and agressive approach to combat, I intend to give them more speed as the force grows.

I don't think I've ever worked that hard to get a colour right as I did with this purple. It's a good thing Rhino models are cheap because I tested at least five different recipes; every time I would paint a whole Rhino, to see how it looked finished with proper shading, metal work, etc. The purple was usually either too dark, too light or the shading and highlights were not visible enough. I wanted a purple which was bright but still a bit "evil" looking and not overly pink like the original EC colour scheme (I actually tried that at first but it was too much, even for a pink fan like me).
In the end, I went to my local GW stores and found my purple recipe! And I never use GW paints, other than  a few glaze and my trusted Leadbelcher. But finding the right colours and contrasts will make or break an Epic force. I then used the traditionnal white and gold secondary colours of the Emperor's Children to pick up details and add a touch of diversity to this field of Lilacs!

Painting technique was fairly simple (and all painted by hand, no airbrush here) : base coat, then a good wash of Army Painter wash, careful drybrush of highlight colour, and then a second edge highlight to pick up the details. Final details were then picked up with Brazen/gold and light grey/white.

I'm very happy with the results. 

So for this first painted Division, we have :

Space Marines clad in Mark III armours. The rules for Epic 30K requires rather big infantry formations, but it does look good. In the middle of the formation you can see a stand of sergeants with their white crest.

Rhino Armoured Personnel Carrier to transport the lads into combat. These are the classic, old school plastic Rhinos which came in the Space Marines box set of the late eighties. They aged remarkably well.

Land Raiders, famous and reliable heavy tank and transport vehicle. Also the original plastic models of my youth. The model has also aged remarkably well. The nostalgia feeling was high while painting these! 

Then a talon of Deredeo Dreadnoughts, my favourite dreadnoughts. They look really cool and remind me of some of the Robotech mech of my youth. I must say I gave these guys a bit of extra love and I think it paid off, as I really like how they came out! 

And finally, the big boys! Legion Fellblades, Super Heavy main battle tanks equipped with compact Mechanicum Atomantic Arc-reactor technology, a reinforced metaplas alloy chassis which provides protection superior to that of nearly all other Imperial armoured vehicles, and a (very visible) advanced Accelerator Cannon as its primary armament. Not to be fucked with. 

These are massive models measuring 45mm(!) in length and I spent a substantial amount of time working on them. I love their looks, and the additions of the legion symbols on the side doors makes for a welcome addition for someone like me who's freehand deficient!

And finally, the mandatory picture of 6mm figures next to a canadian penny! always wanted to do that! For you see, this force is my first time painting 6mm, in fact it's my first time painting another scale than 28mm! (Crazy, I know!) Bit of a leaning curve especially the first batch of infantry (I swore a little at first) but I got the hang of it pretty quickly and I really enjoy painting the little scale. I might be hooked. The girlfriend thinks I'm officially crazy for painting such tiny soldiers!

Points wise, for the challenge we have :

40 infantry x 0.5 : 20 pts

8 vehicles : 16 pts

2 Super Heavy : 8 pts

6 "guns" (dreadnoughts) : 6 pts

So a total of 50 pts to add to my total, and my first foray into the 30K duel! Huzzah!

This was entered as my submission in the Armour Bonus Theme Round . If you like it please go vote for me!! Rewards includes bragging rights, hobby goodies and extra points for the challenge. 

30K, Epic style, Part II : Planning

Epic Battles in the Age of Heresy

So as we saw in the previous post, this project, like many others in this place, is moved by Nostalgia and a sense of unfinished business. But now, let's leave aside feelings and let's look at the concrete side of the project!

There's a lot of layers to this project: first I had to decide what rules to use from the many official and non-official Epic rules available. It's a bit complicated honestly, especially since Epic hasn't been supported by GW for a number of years. Fortunately, the community is very active on the web and on Facebook and the Epic Armageddon crowd has done a great job of creating a complete rule package for Epic 30K, including army lists for all the Heresy Legions. You even have FAQ,s, an "how to build a 30K force" etc. How this hobby was possible before the Internet I have no idea! So, for those interested you can find everything here 

Then there's the actual figures, which I got from Ebay and numerous Facebook groups. While the project is rooted in Nostalgia, the rules have evolved so much that my goal was never to use only Oldhammer Epic figures; I'd say about a third of the force is made-up of the old, original plastics figures from the Space marine boxset, and the rest made-up of newer GW stuff or "forumware" (private sculpts) I managed to acquire through various sources. I might also use some proxies from various Sci-Fi manufacturers who produce some great stuff similar in style to GW.

What is particular for this project in my case is that I haven't painted anything but 28mm since my few attempts at Epic some 25 years ago. No, not even a few 15mm or 40mm, just 25 years of good ol' 28mm. So a leaning curve is to be expected, especially since I've never painted modern vehicles either, in any scale. So do keep up with me if my first few attempts are shit! 

Now of course, the most important question : which Legions (Chapters) to paint? Obviously I need two, at least, a traitor chapter and a loyalist. Let's have a look at the original ones, starting with the Imperials, shall we?

These images were on the side of the Space marine boxset and were actually the only colour images available at the time, the booklet being B&W. Since then other Legions were added to the fluff but for this project I want to use 2 of the "original" 12 Legions. I looked at those images when I was 11 a lot more than it makes sense, really! But I disgress : since the Imperials are for the brother I intend to pick one of his favourite. Gabriel had three favourites : Dark Angels, Ultramarines, and Blood Angels. However I'm the one who does the painting so I settled on a Legion I'm going to enjoy painting! And this is the good, old and reliable XIIIth Legion, the boys in blue, the Ultramarines. I don't fancy painting that much red to be honest (so Blood Angels out) nor black (Dark Angels). Also, to me the Ultramarines are just the perfect Imperials; goody two shoes to the extreme, the "Emperor's finest", and as a bonus my 30K dueling partner Greg just despises them so why not throw some in his face for 3 straight months!

Now, let's have a look at the forces of change, under benevolent Warmaster Horus

Here what's interesting is three Legions (as per the "official" fluff) changed colours since these days; the Death Guards are now white and green, the Sons of Horus are now green and the World Eaters white and blue. Growing up, my favourites were the Death Guards, the Sons of Horus and the Emperor's Children. However Greg has already done the Sons of Horus to death, and I don't feel like dealing with conflictual sources and colours ;-), so the choice becomes an easy one : long live the IIIrd Legion, the Emperor's Children! I've always been a fan of purple and pink (love painting both colours) and these guys are just twisted and evil, which makes them a perfect counterbalance to the Ultramarines! Also, my favourite Legion (or Chapter for that matter) name.

So yeah, I think Purple vs Blue will look pretty good on the battlefield. If I really enjoy painting Epic, I might add smaller contingents of allied Legions later on.

As I usually do, the project is not based on an actual "Order of Battle". I just intend to build enough toys on both sides to be able to mix and match as I see fit. I did made a few tests using the army lists, to have a general idea of what I can get for a set amount of pts, and to create proper, usable formations in terms of quantities.

The first batch is below, ready to be painted. More will be added, but I'll try to finish this first! Yes, I know that's a lot of super heavies; really I just got them all in one score so I figured I'd paint them all! You can see the original Land Raiders and Rhinos in the front, and in the middle the still very Old School plastic Dreadnoughts.

Wish me luck!

30K, Epic style, Part I : Nostalgia

Brothers against Brothers

The first wargame *battle* I played was the original Space Marine. Me and my brother got the boxset I believe for Christmas. We already had Warhammer but other than a few skirmishes (we were poor and building armies took forever when you could afford two blisters a month!) never played a big game. This bothered my father and he went to the Valet d'Coeur (in those days the only gaming store of Montreal, and what a store it was) and asked the guys for something "we could play straight out of the box". What we got was Space Marine, a massive box with LOTS of figures and tanks, and buildings, and even better you could easily assemble the infantry and play even if nothing was painted. Le Valet d'Coeur even provided a "in house" French translation at no charge! Those two weeks of Christmas break were freakin' awesome!

A Wargame in a box!

We played a lot of games in our basement; me and Gabriel always completed each other very well. He's but a year younger than me, so we used to like the same stuff (we still mostly do), but we never argued over the factions. He loved the Joes, I was a Cobra guy, I liked the Decepticons, he was into the Autobots, etc. (yes, he was something of a goodie two shoes). And so, naturally, after reading the rulebook, Gabriel picked the side of the Emperor and I gladly accepted the role of the "traitors". In those days we knew very little about the fluff, and nothing about the Chaos taint of the traitor. I just saw Horus as a classic power hungry warrior who rebelled against his (weak) leader and mentor. You know, "make the Imperium great again". And the traitors had way cooler names and colours! So we had a lot of fun trash talking each others; I never played the loyalist trash, and he never played the rebel scum. While we painted very little of it, a few tanks, a couple of infantry stands, we played a lot! Sadly we lost most of our Epic stuff maybe two years later, after a small fire in our basement (caused by the other brother, the much younger one) and never played again.

Last year Greg, a fellow Canadian from the blog Fawcett Avenue Conscripts  started an Epic 30K project. I spent the whole tournament drooling over his stuff and by the end of the three months the itch had become a full blown scratch and in between flashes of 1991 Nostalgia I knew I had to start a project of my own (I find one of the great thing about the Challenge is the inspirations it gives you to start new project, although both my wallet and the girlfriend would strongly disagree with this statement). So I contacted Greg, and he gave me some very good pointers and I started collecting what I needed to get the ball rolling. My plan was always to start the project with this year's Challenge, and here we are...I also have a ulterior motive for this project; my brother Gabriel now lives in Japan but he' supposed to come back to Canada late next year. I intend to surprise him with a complete, painted, Epic game. Imperials vs Traitors, brothers vs brothers, just like the good ol' days.

Next post, we look at rules, figures and of course the most important question : which Legions to paint! Stay tuned!

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, Part VII - The Reckoning

A horse never runs so fast as when he has other horses to catch up and outpace

Yes, the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is back for it's 7th year (I know, time flies). Better and bigger than ever, with 100 participants!

And this time, I'm ready! No house move, no health issues, nothing to stop me from reaching my goal of having my best challenge to date. My target is 550pts, which is basically my record, but I really hope I can break that glass ceiling! And I'm paint starved, really, having spent most of the last few months working on the house and such.

I've always been a bit lazy in the Challenge preparation, doing some but never enough and preferring to keep painting like a dumbass while the Challenge start date loomed large. But this year I've really step up my prep game.

In the coming three months, on the Fantasy and Sc-Fi side of things, I've identified three main projects I want to work on.

1 - Finish my second 28mm Sci-fi outfit; it's a small project, around 13 figures so I can play some skirmish Sci-Fi games. I'd like to start with this and get it out of the way fast. I just finished gluing them and they are in the priming room. I'll show the complete force at the same time, and I'm not telling!

2 - The Halfling bonanza. In a fit of crazyness, I funded two Halfling projets this year! The Westfalia Halfmen army and Stonehaven's Halfling Adventurers Miniatures . I received Stonehaven offering first and most of them are reading for painting. I, ahem, bought the whole freakin' range, so that's a lot of little guys! Not sure I'll paint them all in the Challenge but I'd like to have enough of them to play some skirmish games. Should I have enough time (I doubt it very much) I'll start the Westfalia ones.

The first twenty odd StoneHaven Halflings; clean, glue sand, prime, repeat

3 - The 30K Epic project (and accompanying duel). Last year Greg from Fawcett  Avenue Conscripts used the challenge to start an Epic 30K project (and it was epic), and influenced me big time. I've been wanting to do Epic for quite a while and finally took the plunge and amass enough figures to keep me painting for a few months (I think). This should be my main project for the next three months. To keep things even more interesting, I entered into a 30K side Duel with four of the maniacs from the Challenge asylum;

Rules: Most points of painted miniatures in any scale 

Prize: A painted single 28mm 30k or small formation of 6mm 30k figures from the defeated participants

All the vehicles are primed, glued, based and ready to be painted.

Do I have a chance to win? No, I don't think so! But it's going to be a lot of fun nonetheless. Greg is a 30K freak as are the other guys, and it should be fun to see what they all come up with.

4 - There's a 4...kinda. I'm leaving room to add a few Oldhammer pieces to break things up. Probably some Chaos Knights and Nurgle Champions who've been sitting on my painting table for way too long.

And of course, I intend to participate in at least a few of the Bonus theme rounds...

January 8th - Armour

January 22nd - East

February 5th - Terrain: 'Home'

February 19th - West

March 5th - Character(s) and/or Scene from a Movie, TV program, Book or piece of Music

In the coming weeks I'll discuss my 30K and my "LeafGrave" projects in more depth. And then we are off to the races!