Distractions
Like most hobbyists I tend to have a lot of different projects on the go at once. Here is a list of my unfinished projects as of writing:
- Firedrakes 40K Army
- Khador Warmachine Army
- Epic Knight Army
- Inquisition retinue for In The Emperor’s Name
- Epic Tyranid Army
- Praesentia Army for Critical Mass (15mm SF)
- Blue Moon Shivan Sisterhood Army (also 15mm SF)
- Khurasan Mekanoid Army (ditto)
- Terrain projects for all of the above
In addition, I also have some repairs on my Warmonger to do: as predicted, the fragile resin Hydra turrets have been damaged, so I need to replace them with spares from the bits box.
So what have I been doing today? Starting something new of course! Some more titans:
I have another Reaver waiting to be assembled, and want to get another one to form a Battle Group. This will leave my Titan Legion army with 2 Warlord BGs and 2 Reaver BGs which, along with the aforementioned Warmonger and its Imperator counterpart is quite enough I think (although I do need more Warhounds…)
I’ve also been sorting out some mechanised firepower to support the Knights and Robots. I’ve just finished stripping, reassembling and basing these:
Ordinatus Golgotha
The Ordinatus Golgotha has a fearsome reputation as an anti-Ork unit: any Ork unit that’s even targeted by one of the six missiles has to take a morale check (which is 5+ for Orks) making it highly effective at breaking large Ork companies.
I am planning to scratch-build at least one other Ordinatus using miniatures from Brigade Model’s Neo-Soviet range.
Stormblade
Stormblades are Titan and Super-heavy hunters. They mount a Plasma Blastgun which is normally carried by titans, as well as a number of specialist and one-shot weapons. I have a couple more coming from eBay to form a Stormblade Company.
Deathstrike Missile Launchers
These are also basically tank-mounted titan weapons. You can pick any of the one-shot titan missiles to mount on each model.
Leman Russ Tank Company
The mainstay of any Imperial army!
This is the first time I’ve based vehicles and I am starting to think it’s a good idea!
Knights: Test Castellan
Here’s the first of nine Knights Castellan. These are heavy-support knights which mount a Quake Cannon (normally carried by Titans) and autocannons. They’re slow but heavily armoured.
The brass areas were painted using Vallejo brass rather than the Coat d’Arms that I’ve used on previous models (I seem to have picked several pots from a bad batch, so I’m waiting for them to be restocked). The Vallejo paint is much shinier so I toned it down with some Scab Red. The difference between the two colours is visible, but not so much as to ruin the consistency of the paint scheme between models.
Knights: Baron and First Squadron
I’ve now finished painting the Baron HQ unit for the Knight army, and the first squadron of Paladins. Here’s the Baron:
Epic Terrain: Kibri 6818 Gothic Cathedral (Basilica Imperialis)
I previously posted about Grimdarking the Kibri Goppingen Church, an N-gauge Model Railroad kit which has a mythical reputation among Epic gamers. If you saw my last post, you may have seen photos of the finished model in the middle of the battlefield.
Here are some photos of the cathedral itself. It was relatively simple to paint: I sprayed it black, then sprayed it with Army Painter Uniform Grey. The roof was washed with Gryphonne Sepia and Devlan Mud, then the whole thing was drybrushed with Coat d’Arms Mid Grey. Then I picked out details such as the shutters, doors and various spikey bits.
These photos were taken with a crap camera, I will update the post with decent pics later on. For now, I’m off to London for Salute!
6,000 NetEpic Game: Necrons vs Squats at No Man’s Land
If you follow me on Twitter then you may have seen me live tweet a game of NetEpic played at my local gaming store, No Man’s Land. It was 6,000 points of Necrons and Squats played over a city table: I was very pleased to be able to use a load of new terrain pieces including some GameCraft fortress walls and the finally finished Kibri cathedral.
Knights: Test Chevalier
Here’s the first of Thom’s chevaliers painted in the same colour scheme I tried out on the test knight. Looks pretty good I think.
I just have to paint all the rest now!
Knights: Robot Cohorts completed
This weekend I blitzed the robots and got them all painted. It was a pretty simple process once I’d decided on a paint scheme and set up a “factory line”.
First, I undercoated all the models with black. Then, I base coated them with a mix of Scab Red and Deneb Stone: mixing a bit of Deneb Stone (which is a “foundation” paint) in with the red increases its opacity gives it better coverage.
One this was dry, I painted Coat d’arms Slate Grey onto the base, then I painted details in Boltgun Metal and Coat d’arms Brass. Then they were all given a coat of Devlan Mud – including the base. Once this was dry, I drybrushed the base Deneb Stone.
Here are some photos of the robots laid out on my city board: the bases are intended to match the boards. The robots have support from a few titans of the Legio Pantera.
Knights: Robot Test Model Completed
Having a very productive day today 
Here’s the model I used to test the colour scheme for the robots. Basically the same as the knights.
Knights: Test Model Completed
This morning I’ve been painting a test model to see what my planned colour scheme looks like.
The first step was to spray the model with a black primer spray. Once this had dried I drybrushed boltgun metal onto the areas where I wanted the metal to show through.
Knights: stripped and assembled
Here are all the Knights I’m going to be painting. The old models were all stripped, reassembled and debased. There were a few breakages among the plastic Paladins but most could be repaired pretty easily.
I’ve also stripped and rebased all the robots. The next step is to add texture to the bases, and then they can be undercoated!
Knights: Baron and Errants
I spent some time yesterday stripping the paint off of the Knight models, which had spent the previous week soaking in Dettol.
This afternoon I’ve been reassembling and basing the models. The first model I dealt with was the Baron, the Knight HQ unit.
I’ve never been very keen on this model. The banner pole it had made it look very tall and gangly. But I’m really pleased with the new incarnation:
I’ve ditched the banner pole, gave the torso a twist (I used a razor saw to cut the torso away from the hip, then pinned and reattached) and altered the stance of the legs. This makes the model much more dynamic. It also worked really well for some Errants.
Robots of the Legio Cybernetica
Rather than use Skitarii or Tech-Guard as the infantry support for my Epic Knights, I’m going to use the robots of the Legio Cybernetica. It’s not clear whether robots (or indeed, Knights) are still around in M41, but that’s not a big problem, as we know they both were during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy, so this army could very easily be a pre-Heresy or Heresy-era army.
Here’s a picture of the assembled maniples just before they went into Dettol to be stripped. In OpenEpic they represent about 2,000 points, which should be enough to provide the Knights with a screen of ground pounders.
You can see a mix of all the different robot types (Crusader, Castellan, Cataphract, Conqueror and Colossus) in both metal and plastic.
Announcing OpenEpic
Some years ago I posted on the NetEpic mailing list about making NetEpic “open source”. Primarch and other list members seems pretty keen on the idea, but I think the delays in getting NetEpic Gold released meant that it was sort of forgotten about.
I decided to scratch my own itch and do something about it! I wanted to find a way to make the NetEpic rules system available under a proper Creative Commons copyright regime, but which also enabled gamers to easily contribute back, to make the rules a living, breathing thing, always changing, and (hopefully) always improving.
I realised that a wiki was the perfect solution. Wikis should be familiar to most people, because Wikipedia is a wiki. A wiki is a web site that allows its users to edit its contents. There is a simple formatting system, and a set of tools which make it very easy for groups of people to collaborate.
After registering a domain and setting up the wiki software, I have now finished entering the NetEpic core rules into the wiki. Other than reformatting the text to use standard wiki layout (and fixing a few typos that annoyed me), nothing in the text has been changed.
So I now feel that I’m ready to go public with the site: OpenEpic.org. For the time being, although you can view the site anonymously, you have to be logged in to edit the pages, and account requests have to be manually vetted by me.
The next step is to import the army lists. This is a bit more difficult because the army lists contain lots of tables and diagrams, and MediaWiki (the software I’m using) isn’t well suited to those sorts of things. But there’s more work to do: fixing typos, updating with errata, and so on.
I make no claim to become some sort of benevolent dictator over this, I’m just an itch scratcher who has volunteered to do the sysadmin. I also have no idea whether anyone else will think of this as a good idea, which is why I’m writing this post: to see who else is interested.
Epic Knights, Part 1: old and new
My Firedrakes are now all assembled, pimped and ready to start painting. I just finished Nocturne, the final part of the awesome Tome of Fire series by Nick Kyme, so I’m totally stoked about painting my Firedrakes up and joining the ranks of the Fire-born.
However, I am temporarily putting that project on hold. I’m going to use the Army Painter camo green primer as the base coat, and as you may know, Army Painter have just announced a range of acrylic paints that match their primer sprays. Army Green is included but won’t be out until the end of March, so I’ve decided to wait until I can get some before I start painting. That way I can correct mistakes without having to mix my own paint.
So in the meantime I’m making progress with one of my other 2012 objectives: getting my Epic knight army repainted. I’ve just taken an inventory of my old army, and thankfully it’s survived a decade of neglect quite well:
Epic Knight Inventory
What you see there is ten plastic Paladins (plus another three on sprues), three Errants, three Crusaders, six Castellans, one Baron, and three of the old Adeptus Titanicus era metal knights: one Paladin and two Wardens.
These are all going to take a bath in Dettol to strip the paint off. I don’t think I’ll be going with the old green and white quartered scheme this time: I’m currently thinking along the lines of a more AdMech combo of red and bronze.
As well as these models, I also have some of the amazing chevaliers by Thom from Epic-FR. The quality on these resin miniatures is absolutely awesome: I’ve never seen such impressive detail and design on “amateur” miniatures before.
My Hobby Plans For 2012
2012 is almost upon us! The last twelve months have been a period of diversification for me in hobby terms: I delved more deeply into 15mm SF stuff, finished my first 40k army in 15 years, and discovered In The Emperor’s Name.
I thought that it might be fun to post my plans for 2012, so I can look back next year and see how I did.
Work-in-Progress: Epic Imperial City
I’ve made some progress on my modular Imperial city. I still need to add more colour and detail, but here’s what I’ve got so far:
With the building modules removed, you can see the road layout:
There are pieces of plasticard in the slots to elevate the building modules. This gives the effect of a slightly elevated pavement. The buildings represent three generations of Epic: the original foam buildings from the Adeptus Titanicus boxed set, the ruined buildings sprues from Epic 40,000 and the later Forgeworld Epic buildings:
You can also see a building from Gateshead Gaming, and the previously mentioned Kibri church, which is the centerpiece:
I’ve also created some ruined buildings, which could be used to replace buildings destroyed during the game:
The roads are arranged so that another board can be slotted in on either of two sides (assuming S6 starts selling the road system again, or I’m able to find suitable replacements). The other two sides will have a reinforced defensive wall from GameCraft Miniatures.
Grimdarking the Kibri Goppingen Church
The Kibri 6818 Goppingen Church, an N-gauge Model Railroad kit, is something of a mythical object among Epic gamers. It’s now out of production, so it’s rather hard to get hold of, but it makes for a perfect showcase terrain piece.
But if you want to use it to play Epic, it’s a little plain. It needs grimdarking, with the judicial application of spikey bits:
Having just bought a bunch of Cityfight boxes to build some 40K terrain, I’ve quite quite a few leftover pieces, which I’ve used to add some character to the building.
I’ve finally started to make some progress on my modular city system. I’ve glued down the roads and junctions in an arrangement that will let me expand to another board if/when Scott starts S6 Engineering back up again (or I find someone who can make some custom pieces for me). I’m planning on using the Fortress Walls system from GameCraft Miniatures to add a defensible city wall along two edges. More details to follow.
“Over-the-top” Warlord Titan Finished
Here’s the finished titan that I posted back in May, Interfector Tertio:
Interfector Tertio
I replaced the normal Warlord head with a Deathstrike Cannon, which (in 2nd Edition Space Marine and NetEpic) halves the Titan’s movement to 8cm. I mounted a Edenite Reaper Turrent from Exodus Wars at the front of the carapace to give it a face: this counts as an additional weapon (a Vulcan Mega-Bolter), at the expense of weakened armour. The arm weapons are from a Mark II Warlord.
More pictures below.
The Plans of Mice and Men…
Barely 24 hours after my last post, I got an email from Scott at S6 Engineering telling me that he’s shutting the business down. Apart from being sorry for Scott who has probably been forced to do this against his wishes, I am personally very disappointed, as I had just placed an order for the last few pieces that I needed to complete my first city board, and had already started planning the second.
Now I’m forced to consider my options. Should I redesign the board so the city doesn’t cover it entirely? Should I not glue the road sections down so I can create smaller urban areas a la carte? Should I use them to create a 15mm town instead?
Cityboard: The End Of The Beginning
Two years ago, I had the idea of creating a modular city gaming board, that was compatible with the Ziterdes boards that I’ve used for many years. I made a few forays into building this board, using large sheets of plasticard with holes for removable plates, upon which I’d mount buildings and other terrain.
Progress was slow: I wasn’t entirely happy with the design, and didn’t want to commit materials to something I wasn’t 100% sure of. So last year I was very happy to discover S6 Engineering and their small-scale (6, 10 and 15mm) road system. very quickly I junked my old design and began planning a new system, mounted on 18mm MDF boards.
I’ve just recently started laying out the city. Here are some photos of the initial design:
Modular city using S6 Engineering Road System
Modular city using S6 Engineering Road System
The road and junction sections will be glued to the board and will be permanent. The block sections will be removable; each one will have a different building or terrain piece mounted on it, so that while the basic layout won’t change, the city will be different for each game. This also means that we can replace destroyed buildings with ruins.
One thing I’m quite pleased about is an idea I had to put a small piece of plasticard under the block sections: this will raise them slightly above the roads, creating a raised pavement which is quite effective (and also makes the plates easier to remove):
Modular city using S6 Engineering Road System
The design has two “hard edges” where the roads end, and two “soft edges” with junctions that stick out over the edge of the board. I will be putting a defensible city wall along the hard edges: if another board is placed next to these edges, then they will be interesting terrain features, but if not, then the walls will prevent the city just stopping, which looks a bit weird. The soft edges will allow for another board to be linked in to the city on those edges, so we can have a sprawling metropolis over several board sections, which will be pretty awesome!
The current plan is to spray the road sections with Rust-oleum Aged Iron Textured Spray, as recommended by Robin of Gruntz fame. You can see the 15mm board he created using the S6 system in this video:
More to follow.
Over-the-top Warlord Titan
Every now and then — but particularly after I’ve had one of those clear-the-desk days — I get the urge to paint another titan. So this afternoon I pulled out my Big Box of Titan Bits and put one together. But I think I’ve gone a bit over-the-top with this one, what do you think?
Epic Necron Tomb Structure Finished
Every now and then you have one of those days when a load of stuff that seems to have been work-in-progress for months all gets finished in one day. Today has been one of those days for me!
First up is the large tomb structure that I’ve featured in the last two posts. It was initially sprayed black. I tried a number of different techniques to give it an aged stone appearance, including stippling and airbrushing, and I even got out my old airbrush to give that a try! In the end I used an old bath sponge to apply successively lighter shades of gray. Then I just needed to texture and flock the base and apply some decals from Games Workshop’s Necron Transfer Sheet.
Epic Necron Necropolis
Epic Necron Necropolis
At Cavalier last year I picked up some resin Egyptian obelisks. I necron-ified them by filling in the hieroglyphic writing on the sides, and then sanding them smooth. They got the same paint job as the Necropolis, and some decals as well:
Necron Obelisks
Necron Obelisks
Next up is an Exodus Wars Khazari Droid Controller painted up to look like a Necron Abattoir (I previewed this miniature in a post last year:
Epic Necron Abattoir
Epic Necron Abattoir
Epic Necron Abattoir
I met Tom Webb of Steel Crown at Salute earlier this month and he’s a very nice chap. Go buy his stuff!
Lastly there’s the board I used to take these photos with. This is one of six Ziterdes modular gaming table modules that I bought a few years ago and use for Epic games. They were originally painted using car body sprays, but I’ve never been very keen on the shiny finish that they picked up, so I made up a texture paint using brown craft paint, aquatic sand and PVA glue (similar to the “concoction” used by Beasts Of War), which gives a nice flat muddy finish, and is flexible as well. I then applied some of the same flock I use on my Epic necron model’s bases.
Ziterdes Modular Gaming Table
Epic Necron Tomb Structure – Update
Thought I’d have a go at doing a video:
Large-scale Epic Necron Structure
Moving on from summoning cores, I’m working on a large-scale Epic Necron structure, using a cheap vacuum formed “redoubt” from Amera Plastic Mouldings:
Large-scale Epic Necron Structure
The original piece is a 28mm scale defensive wall, so I cut out a square of plasticard and placed it on top of some balsa wood supports that I glued to the inside of the walls.
The roof is a bit featureless, so a while back I started making a huge great obelisk to sit on top, but I think it might be a little over-the-top:
Large-scale Epic Necron Structure
What do you think?
