Cover Gallery - White Dwarf #117 Back Cover

White Dwarf #117 Back Cover 

This amazing diorama was definitely one of the hooks that drew me into a love of the WH40K universe.  The use of 28mm figures on the top and 6mm figures one the bottom gave the impression you were seeing a blow-up of the same scene (even though no Space Wolves are in the lower photo).  Throw in that one of the figures in the upper illustration is the first primarch to be made as a mini, Leman Russ, and this diorama scores 5 out of 5 on the coolness scale.  Feel free to stare into the wonder for as long as you need to, my 13 year old self is still gazing and imaging all the things I could do if I owned all these models ;-)
 

Epic Proportions Seventh Unit Completed

Ultramarines 4th Company Support, 2nd Land Speeder Squadron,  "The Iron Fingertips"

One of my happiest achievements with these tiny speeders was the Roman numeral transfers from one to five to denote each speeder's place in the squadron.

Progress on the Epic Proportions project seems to have slowed down for all participants, and there are rumblings from Dr TV that he may restart/reboot the challenge.  However since I have a massive amount of Epic miniatures left to paint, I have been slowly churning out at least one unit a month as a breather in between other painting projects.  These Land Speeders were a ton of fun to paint and I found myself getting sucked into the tiny details on the models wanting to bring the most out of the classic characterful sculpts.  Plus they are my only Land Speeder squadron in two huge Epic Space Marine armies so I wanted to take my time to make sure I really liked the finished models.  Follow along after the jump to see them from all angles in their tiny resplendent glory ...

Finished ... For Real This Time

 The Iron Gauntlet Advances... In A Rearward Direction?

 

I wanted to show off all the squadron markings plus the newly completed command tank but it does look like he ordered an advance and doesn't know the rest of the company decided otherwise.

Epic Proportions Fifth Unit Completed

Ultramarines 4th Land Raider Company "The Iron Gauntlet"

The beauty of massed formations of vehicles I think is one of the strongest hooks for my love of Epic.

To be fair, this unit is 95% completed but since we were leaving on vacation and the month is coming to a close, I'm rushing this post to publishing.  I don't want to miss Dr The Viking's end of month round up for the Epic Proportions challenge since I spent so much time the last three weeks painting all these tiny tanks.  The nine Land Raiders of the the three squadrons that make up the company are fully completed but unfortunately the command Land Raider still needs some highlights and detail work.  There are many more pictures and painting details after the jump...

Look the crafty command tank is intentionally blurring itself to hide the lack of highlights, stealth mode activated :-)

Epic Proportions Army Pitch Update

Mustering for War

This is why I love Epic, outside of a giant game of Armageddon you could never field this many marines and tanks in a game of WH40K.

This blog had 240 hits the other day and considering my daily pageviews are normally measured in the low teens I must assume this has something to do with Dr The Viking posting his project updates on Facebook.  Which leads people to his blog, then to the Epic Proportions page which will lead them ... here.  It's like how the stormtroopers finding the Jawas leads them to murdering Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, but with 100% less charred step-family bodies posed dramatically outside their farm house.

Epic Proportions Army Pitch

Assembling The Legions...

Not bad for having ridden unused in some boxes through twenty-five years and several moves through a few states...

I am dropping some quick WIP pictures of my Epic sorting and repair work in anticipation of Dr The Viking posting an update on the Epic Army Challenge for month's end.  For the last two weeks I have been sorting tiny miniatures and studying NetEpicGold army cards in order to figure out the best disposition of my forces.  In an ideal world I would be pooling all my space marine epic miniatures into one giant Legion.  However since I'm jumping headfirst into a long discontinued game and planning to play with fan generated rules I have to be pragmatic about how many opponents I am initially going to be able to find.  Especially since we haven't left our house in six weeks and who knows when I'll be back to playing games in person.  For now, I am very fortunate to have a gaming apprentice in my son so I am shaping up this prospective army to be two separate army groups from two different chapters.