Epic Armageddon Chaos Dreadnoughts Painted, Juggernaut WiP and Reinforcements

My Epic A force has taken a bit of a back seat recently while I've been busy elsewhere but I have managed to nudge it along since my last Epic post.

Below you'll see the work in progress of my main formations. The proxie Berserkers on the left and the Juggernauts on the right. The two spare stands at the back are going to be turned into standard bearers and/or Champions, I want something that I can swap in and out to tweak points values when it comes to putting lists together so this will give me a little wriggle room.

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My recent birthday saw Nick and I exchange a few epic minis (although my force got much the bigger boost) - you can see the additions to my collection below.

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There's 4 old style Land Raiders which I can 'Chaosify' along with enough bodies (including some old style Orks) to build another formation of infantry, plus Rhinos & chaos lords. This little selection gives me plenty of bodies (when added to my existing collection) to build my initial 1000 point force. Also, crucially, it unlocks more elite slots etc. in the army lists by adding another formation into the mix when going onto bigger force sizes.

I have managed to get some painting on the Epic force finished: my Dreadnoughts! Here they are:

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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.

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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.

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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. :)

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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!

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!

Epic Armageddon Chaos Army - My Starting Point

It was after a bout of reminiscing about Epic (Space Marine and Titan Legions - yes, very old stuff) that Nick and I slipped into digging through our old collections.

I 'thought' I'd sold everything years ago, so might get away from actually diverting myself into another project but fate it seems deemed it fit for me to discover a handful of old GW chaos plastic minis for Epic in an old ziplock bag.

That was it then, the old bug had taken hold.

A quick surf about the web provided the rules for Epic:A and the army lists. After a skim through the army lists I settled on building towards a World Eaters force. But I'm going to work on the basis that I may divert into the Lost and the Damned list in the future.

My starting point is pictured below.

Not a great deal but it's a start. I should be able to put together a proxie Berserker formation and a Juggernaut formation, along with some supporting Dreadnoughts.

Other things I'll need to find are some models for demons to round out the collection to form a 1000pt force.

First steps though. Getting these plastics cleaned, based, primed and painted.