Painting Epic Armies - Vol 1

Hello Fellow wargammers and model builders

This is my first post here on this site, and I want to share with you a project I have been working on for the past year or so. I have been rebuilding and painting my Epic armies. Now you will noticed that I am building my armies per the Second Edition (also know as Space Marie) army lists. Before we get into what edition is actually better I have to admit that the reason I am using these old lists goes beyond rules, and it has more of a human factor to it.

Let me give you a short story of why. I was first introduced to wargamming back in 1992, and the current edition of Epic at that time was 2nd edition. Over the next few years I played Epic intensely and some of the best friends I have made in my life I met over the wargamming table. With time I stopped playing as life and other duties took all my time. Now almost 20 years later sitting down and painting these models bring a sense of nostalgia that is hard to imagine.

And even if I don’t play anymore since I haven’t found any Second Edition players where I now live I enjoy painting my armies. So I am inviting you to take this journey with me and enjoy this for what it is, a great hobby.

With that said, lets get down to it. The first Volume of this series will be my Space Marine army. I decided to paint them as Dark Angels and while I kept the color palette very basic I added a few details for the sake of variety.

Here is the 4th Dark Angel Battle Company. Their company color is a dark red. So I painted them Dark Angel Green with highlights of Dark Angel Green plus a little Tan. The shoulder pads and the hatches on the Rhinos where painted deep red and highlighted by adding a little orange to the red.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...tleCompany.jpg

Here is a close up of the Company HQ and its Rhino.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...BattleCoHQ.jpg

The Assault Detachment and their Rhinos. The insignia on the Rhino are Decals from GW.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...eCoAssault.jpg

Here is the Devastator detachment.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...evastators.jpg

Note the heavy weapons of the Devastators. I scratch built Las-cannons and Heavy bolters to add variety.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...atordetail.jpg

Next up is the 2nd company, or better know as the Ravenwing.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...avenwingCo.jpg

For the attach bikes I used standard Space Marine bikes and scratch built the side cars (Attack bike models did not exist back then).

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ttackBikes.jpg

Here they are painted. The swords are GW decals

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ttackBikes.jpg

The Dreadnoughts are the new model. I got a few old style dreadnoughts but I want to convert them and add different weapons so these will be done later. The robots are a cool addition, they have always been some of my favorite units.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ghtsrobots.jpg

Here are some more details on the dreads.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...eadsdetail.jpg

Here is a detachment from the elite 1st Company, or the Deathwing.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...erminators.jpg

Some detail on the Terminators. I got some more Im planning to convert into close assault Terminators.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...torsdetail.jpg

Here are some of the characters I have painted so far, the Techmarine and the Apothecary.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...Techmarine.jpg

The Land Raider company with the old MK1 Land raider. Ill be adding some new style models later on.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ndRaiderCo.jpg

Here is some of the heavy support. A Whirlwind battery and a Vindicator squadron. These are both the old MK1 style, and I do prefer this pattern of Whirlwind to the newer ones.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...s/15-Tanks.jpg

The Vindicators had their cannons removed and replaced with one made of brass. They look a lot better like this.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...atordetail.jpg

The Space Marine light artillery support consisted of Mole mortars, Rapiers and Tarantulas. Here are two batteries of Mole Mortars. Now Mole mortars never made sense to me. If you are familiar with how the Mole mortars were supposed to work maybe you agree with me. For some reason I could never imagine a round that would travel underground!!! This is why mine are pointed like a regular mortar. I also added ammunition boxes to the bases for extra detail.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...olemortars.jpg

Finally the Rapier laser destroyer.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...8-Rappiers.jpg

So far that is what I have completed. This amounts to around 3000 points of second edition Space Marines. I have lots more that I will be adding over time. Thank you for reading this article. If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. And as always any suggestions or comments are welcome.

Until next time.

dave

These look really great. Years ago I had a huge spacemarine collection (still have a fair amount hiddne away somewhere...), but never got around to painting any of it. Anyone who can paint hundreds of 6mm models has my admiration, to paint to the standards seen here is awesome. Keep up the great work Dave!

Thanks for the nice comments. I will be posting my current project which is an Ork Army pretty soon, and maybe go into more detail as far as the painting and the construction ( I have a lot of scratch built models so far on that one) ;)

dave

I agree 100% about the mole mortars and always have them facing the enemy as a normal mortar would ;]