Playing Epic. Ultramarines vs. Squats

I managed to play an Epic Game. Horaay! I still have my tanks half painted, but my pal KeyanSark offered me the chance to play and, due to our respective schedules, last monday was our only common window of opportunity. So let it happen!

We played NetEpic, a version of the game I am not familiar with, but Keyan is. I used my Ultramarines and a couple of Titans and Keyan used his recently painted Squats.

The battlefield, with objective points all over

Keyan's army

Each turn you roll for the initiative. Each detachment receives an order (first shoot, advance or charge), which is represented by a token, kept secret until you activate the unit. Activation is alternate, so the game is quite fluid; seriously, an IGOUGO system would totally kill a game like this. This is all about adapting youself to the adversary as they move their troops.

Secret orders!

Small blue Rhinos advancing

The clash is imminent

Onwards! To battle!

End of movement phase. Now shooting!

But first, this pic. Just because it's cool.

Keyan's giant cannon shot over me with some pretty devastating effects...

Four infantry units and two Land Raiders just evaporated

The Colossus opened fire against my Rhinos

This pic is just for the dramatic effect

End of turn 1. Let's go for round 2!

Turn 2 would be quite decisive, as we were going to fight for the center of the board.

Remember Jurassic Park, the scene with the glass of water? I think something big is coming...

Oooops, this is gonna be fun...

I made the mistake of not disembarking the troops from the Rhinos. Have a bad feeling about them...

Now for the good stuff... Titans!

Leman Russes shot on my Reaver first, then Keyan's Reaver

You wouldn't expect this game to happen without tables and charts, right?

 My Reaver got an impact on the head and another one on the hip. Fortunately the tech support guys would manage later on to repair both locations and recover all the shields.

General overview of turn 2

The Colossus, the Gyrocopter and the Warlord all opened fire against my infantry...

No comments. Having a bad day

-All of you! Hold the position! Follow me! -Ehh, Brother Captain, it's just us...

Hmm. Bad day to be a Vindicator crew...

Rhinos and Vindicators are wiped out

Seriously, guys, at this distance... you only kill two out of six bikes??

My Warlord (left) shoots the building on the right across the battlefield. Four units killed and the building itself on the edge of collapsing. I love Epic

This town ain't big enough for both of us

Keyan's Reaver managed to destroy my right arm (well, the Reaver's right arm!), so no close combat weapon. I managed to repair the rest of the damage inflicted and recover most of my shields.

End of turn 2!

So Keyan was decimating my ranks! However, at the moment we kept the same number of objetives. Turn 3 would be the decisive one then!!

On my right flank, Squat bikes had surrounded my only Rhino left. All was lost. All? No! Then we heard a 'Vooooosh' 'Vroooom' 'Hshhhhh' Reinforcements had arrived!

Of course I made all those sounds. It's essential to the game.

A little bit crowded suddenly!

This game justifies itself just by pics like this.

 

Keyan just shot me with anything he had. My Titan finally fell down when the reactor core was damaged beyond any reparation (at the end of the turn I made the required roll and at least it didn't explode causing more mayhem!)

 

Dramatic cinematic effects needed

Well, it looks like the battle was pretty much decided. Anyway, this was so much fun!

 

 

We were just for the final combats...o

The Titans and the Thunderhawk melee

Ouuuuch!

The final combat went from this...

 

...to this

So three turns and this was how it looked like in the end!

Pretty different from the first pic!

Well, so this is it. Victory for the Squats! Quite an enjoyable game, I must say, even if Keyan totally overwhelmed me in the end. As you can see, my approach here was totally wrong, I played WH40K instead of Epic, and that lead my troops to the disaster. I guess I played it like an Ork, haha, charging and facing such an artillery oriented adversary. But hey, this was my first game of Epic since... 2000? 2001? And that was with another ruleset, so this actually was my first game.

My main lesson learned is that this is not WH40K; not only about gaming, but about painting and organizing my forces. I had two Codex Astartes Companies and that doesn't work for Epic. Well, if you think that the game was conceived for the Horus Heresy, i.e., not for Chapters, but Legions with such a different organization, that makes much more sense. So I have to repaint some of my infantry to adapt my army to the game. I'm still painting my tanks, so this game helps me to know how to paint them too! (Yes, I'm ashamed of having played with half-painted minis, my bad...)

I'm really excited about games this size, specially after so much time having not played the scale. I'll show you my Space Marines army when finished and then I'll put my hands on my other armies. Hopefully I'll manage to grab some more battles!!

Ambull!

Title says it all! I took part in the Space Riders Kickstarter campaign by most talented Diego Serrate. He really made an outstanding work on bringing RT creatures to life, seriously. All his sculpts instil charm and personality.

My first choice was the Ambull, a dangerous creature native from the rock deserts of Luther McIntyre IX. They can be found on extreme temperatures planets, excavating tunnels for their lairs in the rock.

Free hugs

Looking for that desert ambientation, I chose the bown palette. I used a scorched brown all over (German camo brown by Vallejo) as a base. For the shades I mixed dark green and regal blue:

Looks like a giant mutant coprolite

For the fleshy parts I used beiges instead, so it all kept a colour coherence but you could still see the differences.

Quasimodo? No, doesn't ring a bell

Though I've seen it (the GW original version) painted with some other flashy colours, I rather went on this path, more earthy; it somehow felt right once I begun to paint it.

No, those are not scuba tubes

So this is it, a nice addition to my RT bestiary and a cool concept for scenarios in tunnels or labyrinths.

Humans have tried to tame Ambulls. Not all efforts have been successful

Well, this is the first of the batch. I'll try to have them all painted in the next weeks! :)

Ultraepic!

Going back to Epic again! After the Titans, I felt I needed some regular forces. I remembered I have Space Marines, Orks and Chaos armies, so it was time to do something about them.

First of all, in order to make some plans, I commited myself to see what I had. The Space Marines infantry could hold without any additional work. I have two full Battle Companies.

 

2nd Company Command

 

My original idea back in the day was assembling the whole Ultramarines Chapter, but I left it with a couple of Companies and never got back to it. Anyway, you can see I tried to replicate the Codex Astartes structure. So each Company has six Tactical Squads, two Assault Squads and two Devastator Squads.

 

If you take a close look, Squad numbers on the shoulder pads should be visible

Same goes for Third Company

 

Both Companies, with bikes, speeders and Dreads

 

Besides, I need to base (and eventually repaint) these:

 

Terminators (with Company Command Group)

Scouts and Librarians

 

Apart from this, I have some vehicles, but they all need to be repainted. I'll be bringing them soon too!

Walking on the DUST

Hi there! Just finished the Walkers during the weekend, so I got everything DUST painted so far!

First thing, I primed them and applied the basecoat:

You can guess which side each one fights for

 

These are quite easy models to paint, big surfaces and not that big amount of annoying details, I believe they keep a 1940's aesthetics of 'utility is more important than design' which is great.
After that, I highlighted them and painted both SSR and Hydra emblems and stuff...

They both are beauty in their uglyness

After metals and basing, this is how they looked like:

With only a few arrangements, I believe this would make a great Slaanesh walker

A legged Sdkfz. Makes me want more

So with these I have both forces complete (for the moment!). Both Strategic Scientific Reserve:

And Hydra:

I still need to include some cool characters, but for the moment this is more than enough to play a few skirmishes! I haven't played DUST Tactics for ages, so I'm all rusty about the rules. I clearly need to solve that...

Old School Workshop triennium

Hi fellow readers!

Today I just want to celebrate that exactly three years ago I started this blogging adventure. Three whole years... And here we are!

2015 has been quite exceptional for me. Last summer my firstborn Suberling was born and, as those among you who are parents already know... wow, it all changes!

But this is not about my personal life, but about minis, boardgames and any geek stuff I dare to do! As you already know, I'm not a numbers guy, but this is the only post along the year in which I include some statistics. 145186 visits by now, along 290 posts (98 of them since the last anniversary).
Top 5 countries remain exactly like last year: 38079 visits from USA, 28664 from Spain, 16631 from UK, 8004 from France and 7646 from Germany. Besides, 30 more people have come onboard this silly blog, we are 149 now...

OK, those are the cold numbers. But what they don't cover, what they don't talk about is the joy behind each brush stroke, the stupid smile on my face after each project finished, the feeling that all of you, lurkers and residents, make this possible. Your continous effort to cheer me up and your inconditional support to my silly ideas make me keep on the line. Sharing my shenanigans with all of you and learning from all your comments and your blogs make this experience totally exhilarating. So a huge THANKS to all of you. From the heart, thank you.

Now for Year Four! Let's discover together what it brings upon!!

Hail Hydra!

As promised, here you have the DUST Axis Infantry (with a twist!).

I must confess these were even more enjoyable than the SSR ones. I had to face the choice of going comic-style or movie-style. I chose the latter, and I think it was for the best.

 

Incredibly blurry pic

 

Dark green uniforms with red trims and black armour pieces. If only he guns were a little bit more pulp...

 

No, that guy is not from the gas station

 

 For the heavy armours I chose the grey pattern, as I thought they looked better. Strict black was too dark and made them lose detail visually speaking.

 

I love these. They are all I could expect

These are charming too, they look like some kind of Hydra A-Team

When I learn how take decent pics I'll make these look better

 

So this is the infantry! Now I still have both walkers from the core box (Allied and Axis SSR and Hydra) left.

Anyway, as I told you, bonus! I just came over the same process I followed with the SSR. I also painted the German guys from the Bolt Action Normandy Starter Pack, including their special leader mini.

 

Mass production painting is my friend

 

So, when I put these along my other Germans, this is what I get...

 

Some nice numbers for a decent skirmish

 

I have just primed both walkers, so I hope they will be ready for next week :) More stuff coming soon!

Archive pics: DUSTed Iron Man

Today's post is mainly a self-justification for last week's DUST minis:D

If I was to work with the SSR/Hydra fluff in mind it was due to the likeness to do so with these minis; after all, they have all you need for the ambientation: strange weapons, cool looks on the sculpts and all the awesomeness any Weird World War needs. But, as I told you, the idea also came to me as this wasn't the first time I was moving towards this target... ;)

About three years ago, before I started the blog, I had played the game with Keyan Sark and had signed on a few combined projects. One of them was precisely this one, making Marvel characters fit into the game. One of them was Howard Stark, who was developing an early version of the later Iron Man armour (OK, not canon, but hey, the idea was too irresistible, so who cares!). So Keyan asked me to sculpt that prototype for him...

We used a Sgt. Rhino body as a starting point. I removed the jump pack and the hand rockets, replaced the head and added a few silly sculpts here and there...

 

 

Fat Iron Man!

The base for the head in fact was a GW Space Marine one, with the details and shapes removed. It proved good enough for my purposes, giving me an idea of proportion and stuff.

 

Space Marine Mk.0

 

This was my work. From now on, what you are about to see is Keyan's work. He painted the mini in classic Iron Man colours, red and yellow.

 

Now it is recognizable

You think my son invented a single thing? Ha!

You can bite my shiny metal ass

 

As you can see, his paintjob is terrific, I love what he did here. If I'm to tell the truth I would have picked a more war-torn approach myself. Olive green or grey maybe, to set it into the war context and making this clearly a prototype, different from later Iron Man versions. But Keyan's brushwork is by all means faithful to the character and looks gorgeous!

If you are wondering how to use this in the game, here you have the character sheet:

 

 

Please visit Keyan's blogpost to look for the roots of this lovely crazyness. You'll find there the useful link to that card (and others!) His blog never disappoints!

I wasn't able to finish the Hydra guys this weekend, but they are on their way. Soon... Soon...

DUST... with a twist

You should have seen this coming. Yet another totally different project, unrelated to anything you had previously seen here. Yup, that's me. Now that the DUST has settled (what an awful pun), it gets my interest :D

I'm not getting into the crowdfunding and the war associated to it. I'm just interested in the minis and the game, let's leave it here. I got to know the game back in the day from the hands of mighty Keyan Sark. We played a couple of games a few years ago and I totally bit the hook.  Unfortunately I didn't get any stuff of my own until last year, when I got a juicy offer for the DUST Tactics starter pack and a few more boxes. More unfortunately, I haven't been able to paint them until now!!

Anyway, I disgress. For those of you not knowing of the game, it's just Weird WWII. Strange weapons, cool Alien tech, gorilla wariors, that kind of stuff. How could I resist? Buuuut, once I got my minis on the workbench, I suddenly came with one of my weird, stupid ideas. What if I totally disregard DUST background and I take all this to... another fandom level? Hmmm...

I hope it doesn't sound too scary :D

Given an experiment I carried out with Keyan Sark (We made an Iron Man for DUST. I realize I haven't talked about it on the blog... Hmmm, must solve that!) and the (fanmade?) rules for superheroes and pulp characters, I came with the idea of converting the regular troops into superheroes' universe soldiers.

So, with that idea in mind, I painted the Allies as members of the SSR, the Strategic Scientific Reserve, from the Marvel Universe:

So you can see what I am aiming for! Let's go see the infantry from the Starter Pack:

 

"Death Dealers" and "Hell Boys". Names are damn badass

These are Rangers too, but in heavy armour

 

I also got these two extra units:

 

Recon Rangers

British Red Devils. The only not-SSR unit

 

I stil have to paint the walker, but for the moment the infantry is done. Minis are great and super easy to paint, so this is a killer combination!

BONUS!

As I was painting these, I just decided to use the same colours for a side project... Ahem. My friend Rodrigo gave me away his Bolt Action Normandy Starter Pack. Wow!!

I finally got some paint on them...

 

The new minis with the cool boss (supposed to be Dick Winters, I believe!)

 

So with two starter packs, this is what I got in the end!

 

I could take Normandy on my own

 Well, line painting is essential for projects like these, of course, but anyway it's quite challenging!

I'm currently painting the Germans from the DUST pack (you can imagine they are going to be proper Hydra, hehehe...) as well as the Germans from Bolt Action (proper decent Germans). Hope I can show them in a few days! Expect some more masses of infantry!