2000 Point Epic Ork Army!

 Waaaggghhhh!!!!!!!!!  I've put together a 2k point Epic Ork force to fight my Ultra Marines.  I started out with the intention of making it a full scale 4k point army, but having pushed doggedly through the last few stands over  the winter months, I found I could do no more Epic 40k, at least for a while.   Still, given my normal inability to stick to any one painting project for very long.  I'm pretty pleased what I did get done.

Here's my War Boss with his best Nob buddies and their ride. As might be gathered from his banners and standard, he is a member of the Evil Suns clan, and the theme extends throughout the army.

Waarrghh!  C'mon, Boys!  Let's get stuck in!

I think they look okay.

I wanted to start out with a well armored and mobile force that could compete with my Rhino-mounted and Land Raider-supported Ultra Marines so I took an Evil Sunz Clan and a Cult of Speed for my Company cards.  I built up the Evil Suns Clan with extra Ork Boyz and Battlewagons to give them more staying power.  For each Company card, I'm authorized one special or free card.  I naturally wanted to make use of at least one free card, so I took the Freebooterz mob.  They amount to just 4 infantry stands and a nob, so they don't amount to much, but I decided to make a bit of a spectacle of them, so I made special stands to represent them.  I gave them a Skull Hamma Battle Fortess, festooned with pirate flags, for them to ride around in.  I intend to use them as a special unit that can try to bypass enemy formations and seize objectives.

Again, keeping with the mobile armored theme, I rounded out the army with a collection of armored fighting vehicles that could keep up with the rest of the force, some of which can only be fielded as attachments to the Evil Suns mob.

Whipping of massive clouds of dust and smoke, the Kult of Speed races into action.

The banners mark out the Nobz on their bikes.

I love the Road Warrior vibe these guys have.

Bowel Burnas.   Exclusive to the Evil Sunz, they function much like a standard Burna unit, but are better armored.

Also exclusive to the Evil Sunz are these Spleen Rippas.  They are not all that amazing in combat, but I am wild about the custom hot rod look they have.  Really like these models.

These are Bone Crunchas.  Useful both for shooting up enemy vehicles and plowing through infantry formations.

Bone Breakas are identical to Bone Crunchas but trade 1 heavy gun for the double mounted lighter guns of the Crunchas.  Useful for taking out the Marines' Land Raiders.

Last are some of my favorites, My Freebooterz crew.  I put a variety of models in these bases ad painted them up as Pratey as I could, with a Freebooterz banner and a matching one on their Skullhamma Battle fortress.

The horde is ready for battle.  Future additions will be a lot more infantry heavy, which is likely to prove challenging for the Orks, as they to compete with the the entirely mechanized Marines.  But that's a problem for another day.  Time to get down to some fightin'!

4,000 Point Epic Ultramarines Army

An Ultramarines task force rides out to strike terror into the hearts of the Emperors's foes. 

At enfilade this year, I picked up a copy of the old Space Marine epic scale 40k game.  Opening the box brought back a flood of memories from college days, when I had this game and played it a few times.  I eventually traded it away to someone for I can't remember what, but I remember it fondly.  

The game came with some Orks, some Eldar and a ton of Space Marines, twice as many as either the Orks or Eldar, the idea being, I think, that you could have two armies of Marines fighting each other as they did during the Horus heresy.  But of course just the basics are never enough, so I had to buy the old Armies of the Impeium boxed supplement, which contained rules and armies cards for a wide range of Space Marine and Imperial guard forces.

As is often the case with mini games, selecting your army is a big part of the fun.  For me, anyway.  My army choices were shaped by a desire to be economical and use everything that came in my box, and expand that with what I could find for a reasonable price on ebay.  I was helped by the fact that the boxed set really did have a hell of a lot of Space Marine stuff in it, and that building a classic epic army, while not an inexpensive exercise, is fantastically less expensive than trying to assemble a 40k army in 28/32mm.  The method for building your army in Space Marine was kind of neat. You had to pick at least one of the big 'Company Cards' which represented a company sized formation.  For each company card, you were authorized to select up to five of the smaller support cards, which ususally represented a platoon-sized detachment which could be attached to that company as support forces, and one 'special' card, which represented a Commander or other powerful character or special unit.  I like this system because it keeps most armies focused on bigger formations, as you would probably see in reality.  My Space Marine boxed set came with 2 companies of Tactical Marines complete with Rhino APCs and one company of Land Raider tanks along with some extra Tactical Marines, so I had a pretty big force right out of the gate.  After waffling around for a long time over what else I wanted to buy, I bought a devastator section and an assault section on Ebay and added them to my extra marines to create a full battle Company.  

                                                        Ultramarines 3rd (Battle) Company.

I then added a bike squadron and a Land Raider Squadron for recon and maneuver, a whirlwind multiple rocket launcher detachment for fire support, and some Robots and Terminators to add strength to the Marine Infantry companies.  No Titans yet.  I plan on assembling them seperately, once I'm done painting my Orks.

The army Commander allows Space Marine units nearby to always pass morale checks...

...while the Chaplain makes a good attachment to a company as he greatly improves the close combat ability of nearby infantry.

One of the Army's 2 Tactical Companies, the 7th.  There are only 2 Tactical Companies in the Ultramarines according to Armies of the Imperium, the 6th and the 7th.  I have both.

                                        The fearsome Terminators close in on a key objective...

2 units of the Robot detaachment.  The Robots are fun because you have to write a simple program for them before the game which dictates how they will react to changing circumstances on the battlefield.  Most of their actions will be pre determined, so you basically lose control of them once the game begins and have to hope that you had the foresight to write a good program for them.

Landspeeders race toward an enemy flank...I've played 2 games of Space Marine with this army over the past few weeks and I've found that these Land Speeders are very well armed and nimble but fragile.  Only their ability to 'pop up' over terrain to snipe at enemy units, then duck back down again make them survivable.

The Whirlwind multiple rocket launchers.  They are very effective at laying down a blanket of fire support for the Marine infantry.

I really enjoyed painting this army, partly because the small size of the minis means that I can paint up platoons and companies very quickly, which keeps me from going all ADHD and getting distracted by squirrels and never finish, which is how it usually goes with my armies.  I'm working on the Orks now, and hope to have them finished by the New Year.
 

B is For Bugbear!

Grr! A pack of Bugbears make ready to guard their treasure against marauding adventurers...

As much as I like some of the D&D models that have come out over the last decade or so, I prefer, for the most part, to stick to the models I collected in my youth.  Now that I'm old, I have the funds to build that collection I could only wistfully dream of owning when I was a boy.  Besides, it is my considered opinion that like so many other things; Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Marvel and DC comics, etc... D&D has come to be unbearably stupid under its latter day proprieters.  Stupid, polluted, prostituted and abused.  My wife said she had a conversation with someone at her work in which the subject of D&D came up and she said  "Oh, my husband does that stuff!  He was playing D&D when he was a little kid in the 80s, when the game was brand new!"  "Wow!  Those must have been the days!"  her co-worker mused.  Yeah.  They really were.  Things were wide open and free.  The books seemed very adult, esoteric and weird, and were charged with a little of that delightfully grown-up sleazyness that characterized the old pulps.  Nothing was on your phone.  Everything was in a book or in your head.  The emphasis was on imagination and fun.  When I go to a game store and glance through the newest additions of the rules, it all seems rather empty to me.  Debased, sanitized and dull.  I really wonder who they make it for now.  Hasbro probably doesn't even know.  They probably don't know or care.  Corporate thinking kills creativity and discourages fun.  But enough grumbling about things I can't change.  On the rare occasions that I do still play D&D, I use me olde books from the 70s and 80s.  And I frequently take them down and browse through them for enjoyment.  TSR made their books so well back then that despite 40+ years of hard handling I still have all my old hardback books from that era, all completely intact.  They have never fallen apart.  And the game was better then too.  Why do anything else?  As old as I am, and with all the time that's past, a whisp of that old magic still clings to a lot of these classic bugbears.

                             Classic Dave Sutherland illustration from the original Monster Manual.

                                   
Andrew Chernak sculpted these menacing looking lads for the original AD&D miniatures line that Grenadier produced in the late 70s and early 80s.  He did a terriffic job in capturing the characteristics of the Bugbears in the MM's illustrations...

                                       

                                                 Whang!  Tough customers, them Bugbears...
                                        
                                                     Tough.  Cruel.  Cunning. Ruthless.

                                        

                           Egads!  The thieves have been discovered!  Now they must fight for their lives!

Old School Ral Partha D&D Dungeon Party #4

Yet another party of bold adventurers arrives to test thier wits and wills against the horrifying denizens of the Caves of Chaos!  One might have thought that they would have learned something from the grisly fates of the three parties that went before them but alas, nay.  "Let's find the biggest, most powerful monsters we can and attack 'em!  If we kill 'em, we'll get a ton of treasure and experience points!"  The caves of Chaos will likely hold their bones.

A fighter/magic user goes for his sword at the sword of unseen feet stealthily approaching...

This figure was obviously selected as the inspiration for the 'Fighter Mage with magic sword" character from Nova games old Lost Worlds fighting fantasy game books. a series of which I am a fan.  The details of the man's face and equipment match the character on the cover of the book exactly, and I painted him to match for Lost Worlds games.

A wizard converses with the skull of an old friend,  (Perhaps his father's court jester or Shaman?) on which path might now be the best to take. 

This figure was an early Tom Meier sculpt, I beleive, from the look of him I'd guess Tom completed him around the time he was working on the Condottieri series, as he has a wee something of a renaissance look about him.  Dr. Faust, I presume?  He was marketed as "Necromancer".

Back, ye undead!  Back in yer tombs where ye belong!  A cleric hurls his holy power at the dark denizens of the caverns...

A swashbuckling, albeit rather puzzled looking? female elf thief or fighter/thief, perhaps wondering how she got here.  I think this figure was actually part of the very antique Royal Armies of the Hyborian Age line, and from the rather nautical looking boots and sword  gather this mini may have been intended to represent Valeria.  In common with a lot of figures from that line, she has a bit of an awkward look to her...the Ral Partha sculptors were still very young and had not yet hit their stride but I still like her.

This party must be relying more on brains than brawn to get through the caverns as they have brought few fighters but plenty of thieves and spellcaasters.  This female halfling thief is not actually a Ral Partha product but a Grenadier one.  She was sculted by Julie Guthrie, who worked for both companies, though, and fits in nicely.

"Valeria" and Fred the Dwarf.  Grr!  saith Fred.  Goblins?  Let me at 'em!
 

The spellcasters convene to come up with a plan.  "This way!"  "No, that way!"  "Hmm...What say ye, Yorick?"

Ack!  Goblin attack!  Will our heroes survive?

G is for Goblin!

                                        

A swarm of savage Goblin warriors emerge from the nighted dungeon depths to assault a band of brave adventurers!

Rapacious and cruel, the evil little runts rush forward, hoping to bring the adventurers down in one furious charge!

The very first wargaming/role playing miniatures I ever owned were bought for me by my Chum Jay for my birthday when I was in the fourth grade.  He got me the Grenadier goblins blister from  the their AD&D figure line sculpted by Andrew Chernak.  The fellow on the left with the sword is the last remaining survivor of that pack, I beleive.  The others I have slowly collected down through the years, and at last they have become painted denizens of my Dwarven Forge dungeon.

An example of the yellow carded Chernak blisters which Jay and I used to eye greedily at the little hobby shop we frequented.

Dave Trampier's wonderful drawing from the original Monster MAnual.

The horde attacks!  The pack had 5 different scupts:  A halberdier, a swordsman, and mace, warhammer and flail armed figures.

                  The great, clumsy flail looks like a fore runner of the Warhammer Goblin Fanatic!

                                      Goblins rush the Dwarf Thief and the Fighter/Magic User!

                                                   A fierce skirmish in the darkened halls!

Seems like that thing would be awkward to use---especially in a close quarters dungeon type environment.  I like these guys, though.

Some simple conversions to some of the warhammer armed Goblins give a little more variety to the poses.

                                                                The halberdiers attack!

Beware!  Goblinses down there!