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The Epic History of Small-Scale Warhammer

There is a nice article over on the Warhammer Community on the history of Epic that leads into the future release of Legions Imperialis.

The miniatures might be small, but the upcoming Legions Imperialis is a huge deal. It’s the first Warhammer game of combined arms at epic scale released in two decades – and the first set at the time of the Horus Heresy for more than 30 years. And as you’ll see while we take a lot of (tiny) steps down memory lane, it’s drawing on a proud and petite pedigree.

It’s interesting to read this about the 1991 edition of Space Marine.

This edition is one of the major influences for the Legions Imperialis rules – but it’s important to note that they are not the same game.

Personally my favourite edition of Epic was the 1997 Epic 40000 set of rules. As it says in the article:

…this game was all-change for epic-scale. The miniatures stayed the same size, but the entire scope of the game changed around them. Armies were no longer confined to set companies or detachments, making force selection more flexible, but the trade-off meant that the complexities of different weapon types were much reduced to make the game faster.

I am looking forward to Legions Imperialis and I do wonder what models will be on the horizon for the new game.

Napoleon

This new biopic film about Napoleon looks excellent.

A look at the military commander’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine.

It’s the end of Aeronautica Imperialis as we know it…

An FAQ about the new Legion Imperialis has been published.

As you might expect there is a lot of commentary about Legion Imperialis, including some interesting stuff about the scale of the new game.

Has the scale changed since Epic 40,000?

Sort of. Your classic Epic games of yesteryear had a fairly inconsistent scale: tanks, infantry and Titans were only roughly proportionally in line with each other. Legions Imperialis, on the other hand, is far more consistent. Infantry is the same size in relation to vehicles as their larger Warhammer: The Horus Heresy – Age of Darkness equivalent miniatures would be. Generally speaking, the new models are much more detailed, and a little bigger.

It will be interesting to do some comparisons when the new models become available. It’s true that over the years models did change in size, but were pretty consistent across a single game, with models only really changing when there was a new release.

I think the sad news is the announcement of the retirement of Warhammer 40000 era Aeronautica Imperialis.

Support for Adeptus Titanicus and Aeronautica Imperialis (in the Horus Heresy setting only) will continue, so you can continue to play these games alongside this exciting new epic scale game.

So there will continue to be support the Horus Heresy era for Aeronautica Imperialis, but we will lose support for xenos and Astra Militarum aircraft.

This being a Horus Heresy-era game, xenos craft from the Aeronautica Imperialis range will be sitting this one out. Additionally, as the Astra Militarum of the 41st Millennium wasn’t an entity during the Horus Heresy, Vulture Gunships, Valkyrie Assault Carriers, and Vendetta Assault Carriers will not be part of the game. These will be leaving the range soon, so if you want a fleet of tiny Xenos and Astra Militarum aircraft to call your own, pick them up now.

Yes you don’t need support to play the game, we get that.

You will still be able to enjoy the game with your existing collections, but support for models specific to the Warhammer 40,000 setting will be ceasing soon, and the relevant miniatures will be coming off sale.

However without new releases to inspire and engage, less and less people will play the game.

So no more Aeronautica Imperialis, well no more Aeronautica Imperialis for the Warhammer 40000 setting.

I am also, as I blogged previously, a little disappointed that there won’t be any xenos races, or even 40k era Imperial forces.

Legions Imperialis is a new game which is set firmly in the era of the Horus Heresy, letting you recreate the biggest and bloodiest battles fought in the civil war that set the galaxy aflame. There are no plans to expand this game into Warhammer 40,000 at the moment.

I guess at the moment doesn’t mean never, but if it was going to happen, it’s years away.

Legions Imperialis: Return of the Epic

Yesterday saw the announcement of Warhammer: The Horus Heresy – Legions Imperialis or the return of Epic back into the fold.

Legions Imperialis is a new game of small (or epic) large scale warfare. This is not quite Epic as we remember it, as the scale is the same as (the new) Adeptus Titanicus and Aeronautica Imperialis. This does mean though that all those legacy epic armies are not going to be compatible. They’ve not completely forgotten the Epic games of old.

Warhammer has previously made several games in epic scale, and we’ll be taking a look down memory lane later this month, and this new game system is based on the best bits of previous incarnations of these epic scale games – while adding lots of cool new elements.

There are some really nice new miniatures, and the advances in design and manufacturing shows in the preview photographs.

I think the downside maybe that, is these models contain lots of parts. I quite liked how in the olden days the models were complete on the sprue. The kits from Adeptus Titanicus and Aeronautica Imperialis do contain a lot of parts. Yes it makes the models more detailed, but it also makes it a bit of a modelling challenge.

I like how they describe the boxed set contains 223 miniatures.

There are a whopping 223 miniatures in the box, split between Space Marines, Solar Auxilia, and Titans. That’s 106 Space Marine infantry and walkers, five Space Marine tanks, 104 Solar Auxilia infantry and walkers, six Solar Auxilia tanks, and two Warhound Titans with brand-new plastic weapon options.

Well, 210 of those are infantry models. You get eleven tanks in total. True that the 210 figure incudes walkers and dreadnoughts.

Personally I would like to have seen more tanks. I do like the Malcador tanks, something we never saw in Epic.

All the models look really nice.

I do wonder what new models for this game we will see released. Will we see a Capitol Imperialis for example, that would be great.

They did say in the preview page:

All of the scenery that was released with Adeptus Titanicus is also returning for use in Legions Imperialis, with more to follow.

So we will probably see some new scenery sets, wonder what they will be?

I am pleased to see this release and I do think it will be one I will pre-order. I am apprehensive about how much it will cost to build an army, but that is just something I will have to accept. Back in the day (we’ll the 1990s) I managed to get a bunch of Epic stuff in a series of sales at Games Workshop at really low prices. That I doubt we will see again.

Of course this is Warhammer: The Horus Heresy, so we’re not going to see any Xenos armies I would have thought. I would like to have seen new Ork models in this scale, a Great Gargant would have been nice. Ah well one can dream.

No I did not order Leviathan

So today was pre-order today for the new edition of Warhammer. The boxed set Leviathan was on sale.

If you’re looking to plunge headfirst into the new edition of Warhammer 40,000, look no further than this glorious boxed set. Warhammer 40,000: Leviathan comes complete with two powerful armies of spectacular new miniatures, pitting a force of mighty Space Marines against an unending xenos swarm of Tyranids against the backdrop of the Fourth Tyrannic War. The set also includes an exclusive rulebook, which delves into the game’s grimdark, futuristic setting and provides a full set of rules for playing thrilling games with your Citadel miniatures.

I did notice that my FLGS stock with 20% off, sold out within five minutes, and initially there was a one hour queue for the main Games Workshop site.

Now over twelve hours later, Leviathan is still available to order on the main Workshop site. Games Workshop have obviously learnt their lessons from previous releases. So if you want a copy you can still get one.

Despite the FOMO (fear of missing out) I decided that I would not order a copy. I think it would just be a large pile of plastic that would never get painted. I know I have been painting some Space Marine vehicles recently, and I did quite like the Tyranid miniatures, I knew I would probably never get around to painting them. I might get the rules later on, but I didn’t respond to the hype and I don’t feel bad at not pre-ordering a box.

So did you pre-order Leviathan?

Chaos on the ebb

The original Warhammer world was “destroyed” in 2015. The Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles changed forever when Games Workshop (though they said Archaon was responsible) destroyed the world.

Of course we know now that the Old World in Warhammer is coming back.

Reading the most recent Old World Development Diary entry, The Main Factions Revealed we found out what the core factions will be in the game.

I quite like the fact that Chaos is almost non-existent in this era.

The battles of Warhammer: the Old World take place in the decades immediately before the Siege of Praag.

This means that Chaos is not as strong as it was in previous incarnations of Warhammer.

Chaos Daemons have existed in the past and will again, but there is an ebb and flow to the power of Chaos – in our period Chaos is at its lowest ebb in a long time.

You can still play Chaos if you want, but I like the fact that the focus is on the core factions.

Mk IIA Light Tank

This Mk IIA Light Tank was on display at the Bovington Tank Museum.

The Mark IIA Light Tank was a British light tank that was produced in the early 1930s. It was a development of the Mark I Light Tank, and it featured a number of improvements, including a more powerful engine, a larger turret, and a better suspension system. The Mark IIA was used by the British Army in the Middle East and India, and it saw some action during the Second World War.

The Mark IIA was a two-man tank, with the driver sitting in the front and the commander/gunner sitting in the turret. The tank was armed with a single .303 Vickers machine gun, which was mounted in the turret. The Mark IIA had a maximum speed of 25 mph, and it had a range of 100 miles.

The Mark IIA was a relatively successful tank, and it was well-liked by its crews. However, it was soon outclassed by newer tanks, such as the Matilda II and the Crusader. As a result, the Mark IIA was withdrawn from front-line service in 1941.

Despite its relatively short service life, the Mark IIA played an important role in the development of British tank design. It was the first British tank to be equipped with a radio, and it also featured a number of other innovations that were later adopted by other British tanks. The Mark IIA is a significant example of British tank development in the interwar period, and it played a small but important role in the Second World War.

Here is a photograph of the same tank, taken ten years earlier, painted in a brown camouflage pattern.

More photographs of the Mark IIA Light Tank.

What is to become of Forge World?

I was a little saddened and disappointed by some recent news about Forge World.

I was reading the latest news, Warhammer 40,000 and Forge World: Legends and Last Chance to Buy, on the Warhammer Community about the retirement of certain models.

There’s slightly bittersweet news for Warhammer 40,000 fans today, as some long-serving miniatures will be retiring from the range – both classic Space Marines, and a selection of Forge World kits.

I do accept the retirement of Forge World resin models, those where models have been replaced by plastic kits, or those where the models are no longer in the codex or the rules. That I get.

What makes me a little saddened and disappointed was this comment in the article:

There will still be Forge World units for Warhammer 40,000, but the focus for them will be on the really big stuff – like Titans, and other kits that we can’t reasonably produce at that scale (yet!). When we add new units in future, they will almost always be in plastic – and there are a lot of plastic kits on the way over the next few years!

I like the idea of new plastic kits, but where I think they are missing the trick is to use Forge World not only to produce those big kits (that they won’t do in plastic) but to produce two types of kits that would enhance and expand the Warhammer 40000 game.

The first of these is new units, those that add real variety to the armies you can field. A past example of that was the Grot Mega Tank. Another example was the Grot Tanks. These were not in the main Ork Codex, but certainly added something different to an Ork army. I liked how there were not just four models in the pack, but the way the models were designed, you could build them in a variety of ways.

I guess the reasoning here is not just about the range of models, but the need to provide rules for these types of models as well.

The second kind of model I think they should produce are variant units. I have in my own collection for example the Ork Halftrakk which is a variant Trukk. I think there could be a range of variant models that would enable for some armies a more varied and cosmopolitain look. This would be critical for some armies, such as Orks, but also Genestealers, Chaos, Tyranids, and others.

Reflecting on Orks, I would like to see a much wider range of buggies for example different kinds of Snazzwagons. I like what Forge World did in the past with the Battlewagon (now the Bonebreaka).

I did like the Imperial variants that Forge World produced as well. I much prefer my Forge World Razorback compared to the plastic kit at the time.

I guess though that Forge World will still be making new resin models for The Horus Heresy. Though this will mean Imperial (and Traitor) units only and not Xenos stuff like Orks!

So what do you think?

Vindicator Siege Tank available to pre-order

Next week you will be able to pre-order the Vindicator Siege Tank plastic kit for The Horus Heresy.

Lay waste to enemy fortifications and pulverise whole squads of Astartes with salvos of shells spat from the hull-mounted demolisher cannon of the Vindicator Siege Tank.

I do like this model, but of course I already have its larger brother the Typhon heavy siege tank, so not sure I need another siege tank for my Imperial Fists.

But I like the model….

I prefer it over the previous Vindicator model.

Horus Heresy options

Classic tanks from the Forge World range return to the Horus Heresy at the Games Workshop webstore, upgraded with new plastic sponson sprues that make it easier than ever to add weapon variety to your armoured companies.

The various resin models, such as the Mastodon Heavy Assault Transport, will now come with the sponsons sprue that is available now with the plastic releases that we have seen.

There is an implication here that future Horus Heresy releases may now be resin models. Especially as the only preview we have seen over recent months has been the Vindicator.

Though that may also mean that the Legion models we have seen, will now be supplemented with plastic releases for other Horus Heresy forces, such as the Solar Auxilia.