Bolt Action ...and so it begins: Nick

Those of you that know me, will not be surprised that I still have no painted miniatures to show!

However I have managed to stick together this guy, the first of my Imperial Japanese Army - a Suicide Anti-tank squad, armed with a Lunge Mine.

As he forms a one-man squad, he will be ideal as a test piece and won't look out of place if he ends up painted slightly differently to the rest... it is also one of my favourite miniature options in the box.

I've chosen not to use the plastic Renedra bases included in the box, so that I get consistency with the other mdf bases I will be using for prone figures and support weapons in the future - I did consider using 2p coins as I often do for plastic miniatures (and I believe Carl has used on his US Army), but with such a small contact area between the figure and base I wasn't confident of a secure bond.

Hopefully I will be able to throw some paint at him this week, I'm planning on using the infamous Army Painter 'dip' with extra highlights after the 'anti-shine' stage... I will see how that works out before tackling the rest of the box.

I will also try to post the army list I'm working towards, as I've said before the plastic box set on its own is 500pts and I will show how easily this can be achieved for anyone else that might be interested?

Epic Armageddon Chaos Demon Proxies Painted

Over the last couple of weeks I have managed to get some painting done on my Epic force.

The Juggernauts have got the first washes laid down so I imagine they'll be finished over the next week or so. I did complete my Demon proxies (which I was using a test on colour scheme).

They're painted with multiple layers of GW washes.

Click to Enlarge

I mentioned previously that I was going a bit retro ('old skool' I think I said) with my thinking for my World Eaters Epic A force so not worrying about sticking strictly to the modern iteration of Khornate followers.

I'll go into more detail when covering my army list in another post but the overall concept for the force is that they are devoted to a lesser Chaos 'God' which is aligned with Khorne. The patron of my force is one of Khorne's huntsmen, his purpose is to sniff out new locations, battlefields and 'crops' (skulls for those of you who might not know GW chaos gods) for Khorne to reap.

Part of the role of the demonic followers (pictured above) is to herd and capture creatures to bring back to the warp for amusement in the halls of Khorne's captains and legions.

I've kept the colouration in keeping with Khornate models. My plan is to use black to represent volcanic rock (from Khorne's realm) on some of the ornamentation on the models. The 'leather' areas will be the skins of victims, similarly the nets and bags etc. used by the demons are made from the skins of previous prey. You can almost imagine tormented souls gibbering and cursing as new victims are captured and placed inside. (Grisly stuff).

This is an example of the story concept being led by the miniature selection which in turn feeds the concept behind the army, creating a virtuous circle.

For those of you that are younger than me and don't know anything about GWs older generation of books, here's a pic of what I'm using to inspire and drive my thought processes along.

Click to Enlarge

Next time around I'll provide the rough army list I am building towards and fill in a bit more on the backstory/concept of the force.

Epic Armageddon - Choosing an Army (part 1): Nick

So it looks like Carl is racing ahead with his first batch of Chaos for our Epic Armageddon project, that means I really need to sit down and decide on which army I want to do!

Now whilst I already have several ongoing or half finished armies, I really wanted to begin with a clean slate this time where I have nothing even started - both as a fair challenge, and to give me a full 1000pts of 'new-shiny' to put on the table rather being drawn into old habits which would undoubtedly mean MORE Orks!

Having collected so much stuff over the years means I could pretty much create any army I wanted to, without having to purchase anything else unless there is a particular 'gap' that I want to fill.

Looking at the current army lists on Epic UK, the most tempting/suitable at this stage of the project are Imperial Guard, Eldar, Chaos Space Marines, Lost and the Damned, Tyranids or even (yet another!) Ork army - either using units I don't currently have, or a dedicated 'Feral Orks' list.

However, wanting to get something on the table fairly quickly means choosing an army that doesn't really require much converting or kit bashing (well not in the initial 1000pts at least), so Lost and the Damned or Feral Orks will probably have to wait for another time.

Any comments or suggestions welcome, and next time I will try to explain my decision having finally made one!

1000 points of Epic Chaos primed and ready to paint!

I've had quite a busy time of things since my last post but I have managed to move the epic force on an important step. They're cleaned and primed and ready for the paint. :)

Click the pic to enlarge

I dug through my mini mountain and found a few suitable miniatures (in my opinion) for use as a Greater Demon and Lesser Demons. I also found a model for use as a Demon Prince to lead the force.

The Greater Demon (proxie bloodthirster) is a Reaper Bones lizard man, the three Lesser Demons (proxie Bloodletters) are old metal Games Workshop snotlings. The Demon Prince is a Reaper Bones Kobold.

As can be seen by the photo the berserkers are a mish-mash of old epic chaos minis and the juggernauts are supplemented by a few minotaurs from the old GW epic plastics range.

The reason I'm happy with the proxies is that I'm going a bit 'old skool' with my backstory for these guys. Modern GW 40k canon portrays chaos as being comprised of the four main powers Khorne, Nurgle, Tzenntch and Slaanesh - it doesn't make much mention of the myriad of other lesser chaos powers that permeate the warp. This used to be mentioned is quite some detail back in the days of the Realms of Chaos books and it's something I really liked about the old 40k background.

So, with that in mind, my force represents a lesser Chaotic 'god' affiliated with Khorne. A servant of Khorne but with his own agenda and desires. In game terms the force follows the rules for the World Eaters, but from a backstory perspective I'm going for something a little more unique.

I'll go into this in more detail in future posts but for now my Chaos force is taking shape and I have some painting to do!

Bolt Action - A New Army: Nick

Bolt Action was never really on the cards as a game I was likely to play with Carl, let alone a project like this... however some recent playtesting of 'Beyond the Gates of Antares' (Rick Priestley's latest Sci-fi game based on Bolt Action mechanics), led to some discussion and Carl starting to paint his US infantry.

I'm not an avid WWII gamer, but on the occasions when I do I always side with Mother Russia.  I already have more than enough Soviets that have needed painting for years, so I really didn't need anything new for the lead mountain!
Not a fan of blue on blue action though, something had to be done.  Then I remembered my soft spot for the Japanese army (probably the fault of some Airfix kits in my youth), and the excellent Japanese Infantry plastic box set by Warlord Games which I had already managed to resist buying when it was released last year!

A quick play with Army Builder revealed I could easily construct a full 500pts army from the contents of a single box of 30 miniatures, what's not to like about that?

Next thing was to order the 'Armies of Imperial Japan' supplement from Amazon (to go with the main rulebook that I've had for nearly a year now), and while I was there I picked up the United States one as well for completeness:-

Then a quick order from the friendly guys at Caliver Books and this is my starter army for our 'Pacific Theatre' Bolt Action project/challenge:-

I already have plans to expand this lot into a full 1000pts in the future, but we both have plenty to get on with before that and I won't need to buy anymore for a while.

Epic Armageddon - A Fresh Start: Nick

So Carl has already covered the whys and wherefores of the project, although I have been nagging him to play Epic for ages!

I already have the 'Epic Armageddon' rulebook & 'Swordwind' supplement:-

...so all we needed was a quick check for the latest updates on the Epic UK website.

Having been a fan and collector of Epic miniatures since it first appeared, I've a bit of an advantage over Carl and have amassed quite a substantial pile of miniatures to choose from:-

Red = Xenos/Chaos
Blue = Imperial
Green =Orks





...and yes that is TWO boxes for the Orks!!

Even though I own several tournament ready armies of 3000pts or more, I haven't played since 2005 and decided I wanted to start a new 1000pt force as well and so the project/challenge was born.

All I need to do now is decide which of the many armies I want to pursue, and get cracking!