Forgeworld Warhounds

So my Forgeworld Warhound Titans arrived. Ofcourse these are Epic scale. I would not dare buy 2 40K scale ones given my lack of painting abilities. I talked about how to find these on the forgeworld website in another post since they do not show up unless you know what to do. While like all things Epic they are pretty pricey for the amount of product you get this is sort of canceled by the fact that 20 dollars worth of marines is like half an army. These Forgeworld Titans are also cheaper than the less interesting looking GW one since you get 2 in the pack.

They are Lucius Wolf Patterns with Plasma Blastguns and Vulcan Megabolters which is the standard warhound weapons in Epic Armageddon Lists. Titan Legion lists exist which have other options but these are still the weapons available for Allied Titans for NetEA Approved Tournament style games.

Components for 2 identical titans.

Here is the top front of the carapace. Detailing looks pretty good.

Back of the carapace. I like the ad mech logos on the sides.

Wolf Warhound Head.

Front of Leg with armor plating and some pistons.

More nice looking pistons on the back of the leg.

Plasma Blastgun with what looks like some sort of sighting array on the top.

Bottom of Plasma Blastgun. Looks like structural reinforcement.

The vulcan megabolter. This is probably the part of the kit that I would be least happy with. This looks very much like a stormbolter. There do not seems to be rotary barrels like you see at the 40K scale.

Other than that it seems to be a pretty good kit. Need to wash it up and take it outside for mold lines cleaning as I do not want the dust around my daughter.

Epic 40K: Attack of the Beakies

More on my current Epic fascination. Just a little system variety to try to keep things fresh after the disappointment of the Nid Codex. I am working on getting my infantry together. These are all old models who pretty much had nothing done to then other than clipping of the sprue and inserting into the 20 by 20 mm square bases. The current base standard is 40 by 10 but GW wants like 9 dollars for 16 bases while you can get like 32 bases plus all the marines to fill them for 20 dollars. I am working on rebasing the assault marines since they are just to compacted on the 20 by 20 s with some home built verisons. We will see how that goes.

Since Epic is a more abstract game I set up my units as such. Every other Tactical unit has a sergeant but none have any heavy weapon models. So Tacticals are either just 5 normal marines, or 4 normal marines and the helmetless sergeant. Every devastator unit has 1 heavy weapon model. Should make it pretty easy to identify who is who without using up all 20 of my heavy weapon models since I have a ton of normal marines to spread them out in. In my original space marine game different unit types were identified by different base colors so I have a ton of the same normal marine from that.

The interesting thing is other than the rhino not shown what is pictured above comes out to 2600 points so probably more infantry than I would use in most games since the standard games are 3-5K and you need war engines and aircraft and all the other things in a balanced list. This pile here only represents about 40% of my space marine infantry, but is what I am dedicating to this force made up of all beakies except for the officers.



Close up of Devastator Unit. All Beakies, all the time.

Epic Mark III Vindicator

Recently picked up a pack of Vindicators for my fledgling Space Marine Epic Armageddon force. Vindicators are not very popular in marine lists it seems so they were pretty cheap coming in at like 8 dollars in blister with shipping.

I only got 3 tanks so I cannot form them into a formation of 4 but can attach them to some other units like landraiders or devastators if I feel like or I might just model them up as part of the larger display force. In Epic these are MkIII vindicators but would be called MkI in 40K styling. The older styling fits in nicely with the Heresy era other components.

Each of the three comes with slightly different hulls through the placement of gear on the model.

Similarly they have different side options. Mixing sides and hulls would give you lots of options for slight variance if you had many of these compared to the cookie cutter nature of the current models.

All also have different blades and top accessories. I hate the scale of that stormbolter and will probably cut it off and remount it centered on top of the hatch.

Single Chaos Warrior Player in Blister?

So about a month and a half ago I ordered 2 blood bowl items from GW Direct. I got a vampire team booster to fill out that roster to 16 players and a single chaos warrior to finish my Nurgle team. The price is just outrageous but I did not feel like camping ebay for one or buying a larger set and selling the pieces. Previously when I ordered single players they were as bits and shipped in a little baggie. This guy they actually packaged into a lonesome looking blister.


Nothing really interesting but it just surprised me when I opened the box. This might be better in case a customer orders something like this to a store but never picks it up.

Epic to 40 K Size Comparison

For those people not familar with Epic scale miniatures they are tiny. Here is a 6 mm scale marine on a normal 28 mm scale Marines base. This is even a Black Reach marine who are a tiny bit smaller than normal multi part marines. While this comparison is interesting I am more interested in how different models compare in the same scale.


Here is a normal marine and dreadnought. You can see the marine is about half as tall and the significantly less wide fitting 2 marines just across the torso.


This is a Conqueror Battle robot and a marine in 6 mm. I do not have an 6 mm dreads and am thinking about using my 10 conquerors as them. The scale actually looks pretty good. They are about twice as tall as the marines just not as wide. I probably will not use very many dreads since they cause problems with many units transport options. Normal space marine formations all come with included Rhinos but adding a dread slows the whole group down. Might work with either a Drop pod or Thunderhawk strike force though.

So what do you think. Does this robot look Dreadnought enough to use?

Blood Bowl: Innsmouth Eagles

Newest edition to my Blood Bowl teams is a Frogman team made by Rolljordan but I got it through Impact! Miniatures. This is the 18 piece Team set. The design scheme is pretty prehistoric and brutal with bones added onto help with hitting people and pretty rough loincloth style uniforms.

First thing I noticed was that the metal was really soft. I had a lot of problems getting them to stick in the bases by bending the tabs so I glued some of them in. Of course soft metal can be good since you have a reduced chance of breaking the pieces.

Team starts with 4 blitzers. 2 Each in 2 different positions. They are slightly bigger than the lineman to help not their positions but coloring the base edges red might be helpful.

4 Catcher also in 2 groups of 2. They are pretty slim and have pretty obvious catcher movements.


8 Different Linefrogs. I sort of wonder why 8 different linefrogs while only 2 different blitzers and catchers who are the ones who really matter to the team. These 8 figures are really 3 sets of 2 with slight changes and then 2 other ones.

Here is the big guy, a big toad with prehensile tongue. Need to keep this family friendly so no jokes please. I got him on a 25 mm base but he is pretty forward heavy so I will need to add some weight to that base.


The Coach. He certainly looks like he means business in the stern way.

Team looks pretty nice. Not sure when I will get them in a game. I have a few more league games this season with my Chaos team and will probably hold them for next season to see if I can get them going a little better.

Epic: Terminator Formation

So my Epic Project is now started. First thing I did was rebase and remove mold lines from my 1 unit of terminators. I used the 4 bases I got in my character back. I plan on keeping the Tactical and Devastator squads on their 20 by 20 bases but these guys are just to tightly packed on those. I am going to have to make bases for my assault marines and bikes still.

I am going to start with just 1 unit of termis for now since that is what I have and still need to get Thunderhawks and Thunderbolts to round out the aerospace part of the army.

I decided to go with a Chaplain in this formation since it is a pretty standard upgrade to try to win those assaults. These guys are going next to basing for a mix of sand and rocks.

Playscape Phase 2

My Mom and her friend Ray came out again to help me with the play structure I am building. You really need 3 people for these parts so it is a great help. It was also very windy but we were able to lift the 2 roof sections on during brief moments of calm air. It started to get dark and stormy looking but we were able to also get the swing beam up before the weather really turned to rain last night.


Now I just need to finish it by adding all the fun things now that the frame is done.

Epic: Space Marine Character Pack

As the first part of my Epic project I ordered the space marine character pack to add to my 20 year old battle company. Being out of Epic for 20 years I had no idea what came in the pack so I asked GW what was actually in the pack and they did not have a real answer. I was wondering since they wanted 20 dollars for it and only showed like 13 models. I got a proper and correct answer from the nice folks on warseer in the Epic section. Since my internet searches did not yield many good images of what is in it I am posting its contents here now that it has arrived.


So to start you get 4 bases, 4 bikes, and 19 infantry models. So 23 Models total.

Here we have Techmarine, Apothecary, Chapter Master, Servitor, Epistolary, and Chapter Banner Marine.

Captain with Cape, Metal version of old plastic captain (I use these as sergeants currently), Jump Pack Captain, Terminator Captain, and Company Banner Marine.

Power Armor Chaplain, Power Armor Chaplain, Terminator Chaplain, Jump Pack Chaplain

Jump Pack Librarian, 2 Power Armor Librarians, and Terminator Librarian.

Banner Bike Marine, Captain on Bike, Librarian on Bike, Chaplain on Bike.

So that is what you get. Check back later to see if I do anything with them.

Fun with GWs Free Shipping

On Monday, I talked about how GW with its low free shipping threshold combined with high product costs leads to even most single items shipping for free. So I was ordering a couple things for epic and they listed as having different lead times so I ordered them separately. They were all actually in stock and shipped out the same day from the same location. So look what showed up today. Three separate boxes each with 1 blister. My wife was very interested in why I was getting so many boxes. I am sure the mail person was not amused either but there you go. Afraid an item is back stocked. Order everything separately.

Forge World Epic Stuff

I am trying to get my old epic force into shape and I noticed that Warhound Scout Titans are pretty common in Space Marine lists so I was interested in getting some. Now the current GW ones are ugly. The versions from 20 years ago were better looking. Not sure what happened but it was certainly a step back. Forgeworld had some nice ones but they seemed to have disappeared from the online store epic area. I had heard rumors that if you call them they had like 50 in stock that they would sell. Ofcourse they do not respond to emails in a timely fashion and calling the UK for a 30 dollar order starts to add to the cost pretty quickly.

What to do? Well I searched their site for Warhound and found this link.

Warhound Titans 1

Interesting Description. The product code notes it as a Specialist games epic product and the price is exactly what the epic warhounds are so I ordered it even though they had no picture. It has shipped so we will see what I get when it shows up. They also had a Titans 2 which was listed at 88,888 pounds so a little out of my budget. This looks like a place holder in the system for an old product not currently available but interesting that it is included in the new site database.

As a test I searched for SG-EPC to see what other items were waiting for people to find that are priced at orderable values:

Gargantuan Squiggoth
Basilisk
Chimera
Chimera Heavy Bolter
Epic 40,000 Tau Broadside Battlesuits
Fire Caste Warriors
Hammerhead Railgun

People with an old catalog might be able to indentify all these pieces.

Weekend's Work

So this is what I was up to this weekend. I was building something but it had nothing to do with 28 mm miniatures. This project is supposed to take 2 people about 12 hours to do. I do not think I am going to make it in under that time limit. With spring cleaning on Saturday and this on Sunday, I was beat when I woke up this morning for work.

My Father-in-law, and my mom's friend came over on Sunday to help with the build. My mom was tasked with sorting the hardware components with my mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and loving wife were tasked with making lunch and dinner while keeping the 3 year old away from the power tools.

Here I am after about 7 hours of work on Sunday. I add more of the fencing on the deck this evening but will need help to get the roof on and the swing beam up later in the week.

GWs Free Shipping

So GW has been doing Free Shipping on orders over 15 dollars for a while. Given the cost of GW stuff pretty much every single item meets this threshild. I almost never buy anything from them directly except specialist games stuff since I can get a much better deal and support my local store by buying or order from them but they had a problem getting specialist game stuff for me. There are some online stores that still over a modest discount on specialist game stuff but you have to spend a reasonable amount to get the discount.


Currently I am working on getting my 20 year old epic space marines into a usable modern force so I am buying a couple of things over time. Here is where GWs 15 dollar or more order free shipping comes in. Each of the overpriced Epic Blisters is more than this so I ordered them each individually. They have different lead times ranging from 1 day to 3 weeks so I hope this will speed up arrival of at least 1 blister. I am sure GW will still make a nice profit on them even with individual shipping.

Hobby Time Displaced

This is a picture of my father in law and I unloading a outdoor playset for my daughter from a rented truck. 5 Boxes loaded with wooden parts to be assembled. Once I opened the boxes to check the parts they fill up my cars half of the garage. After 2 weeks of doing nothing on it due to a funeral and Easter, I had to get started so my hobby time is getting really compressed. I am trying to be better about time management to get more stuff done around the house to allow for more hobby time when I do get a chance.

Warhammer 40K Battle Missions

Picked up Battle Missions today for some light reading over Easter weekend. Looks interesting enough where everything is a few tweaks to a standard mission. The thing I noticed was that they give you a nice picture of the deployment including what counts as the players edge for movement on of reserves and fall back. I also noticed that the scale on the pictures is very bad and almost random. What is list as 12 inches on some maps looks the same as 6 inches on others. Now Guys, you have a standard board of 4 by 6 could you not have made all the maps to scale. You went through all the trouble to make them why not do it right so players get a real indication of what the distances are.

I wrote some new missions in the past. You can check them out here.

Blood League Season 3 Game 4

Finally got my next blood bowl league game in. I only have time for about 1 hobby game every 2 weeks and I had that 40K Apoc game that took up a whole Sunday so this was delayed a bit from the schedule. I picked up a 3-0 win but I cannot really say that I know how to play my Chaos team an better. I essentially got lucky when in Turn 2 my Dark Elf opponent failed a 2+ dodge roll on a player with dodge skill. This left him poorly positioned to defend again my pounding which gave me the multiple man advantage through the rest of the game. My armor breaking dice where on fire and tore through his AV8 like nothing. After having almost no luck with casualities this season I got them all in this game. He ended up with 2 permanently injured players which pretty much makes his already battered team not worth much. He has 2 positionals that should be cut and another 2 that are questionable for long term development.

I have now got my team value back to where I started since I lost 150K last game when my minotaur was killed. Ofcourse other teams are now 200-300K more valuable than mine so I will get inducements through the rest of the season probably.

Is it us?

Why are people so bad with the rules for 40K? It seems like a day does not go by where some blog publishes a post with an incorrect rule in it. Sometimes these mistakes are just little parts of battle report recaps or tactica but sometimes they are the whole basis for the post. Anytime I see this I try to leave a comment so that these things do not keep propagating through the player base. Sometimes people come back and tell me that I am wrong. Often when they do this they are correct or the rule is one of the great gray areas that haunt the system where they are just vague or make no sense.

Do you still encounter players who claim that if you charge into an ongoing combat the opponents models cannot attack the new chargers? I remember that happening to me during a small tournament not long after 5th edition so I discussed it with my opponent about it even though I was the one doing the charging. I swear that this is something that people saw in rumors and propagated since the actually rule is not crystal clear. Of course if you applied the logic that gets to that point to the rule properly you would end up with charging unit not being able to attack in close combat since they were also not engaged at the beginning of the assault.

You look at the Adepticon FAQ which is longer than the basic rulebook. It does include all the codices but still GW should being doing a better job of writing clear rules. You look at a site like warseer and see 15,000 topics and 220,000 thousand posts in the rules area. Sure many of these repeat every few months but come can we not read the rules or are they just overly complicated and not clear.

Can you look at the rules for the hive guard Impaler cannon and say for certain whether those rules are limiting covers saves the target can get or just trying to say how to treat cover for direct fire weapons that do not require LOS.

I look at the competition Blood Bowl rulebook which is like 40 pages with a 1 page FAQ. It is pretty clear because people have put in over 2 years of unpaid fulltime work into getting it into a clear, concise, and compact. The biggest problem with that rule set is that both the Block actions and Blitz actions have a Block in them and if their was an addition name for hitting people things could be clearer since many skills do not work for both block parts of blitz or block actions.