Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Aeronautica Imperialis (with Epic 40K models)



I blogged about a mini-project I started a few weeks ago, inspired by Fawcett Avenue friend Ethics Gradient and his blog "Another Slippery Slope" (see our Links section).

I enjoy painting tiny airplanes because a) they're relatively inexpensive, b) they paint reaaaally fast, c) they look cool, and d) it's fun to game with them.

This project coincides with my recent sci-fi mania in that it involves Games Workshop "Epic 40K" scale aircraft. I decided to paint Orks and Imperial aircraft in a quasi-historical theme, the Korean War of the early '50s. Orks=MiGs, Imperials = F-86 Sabres and Corsairs. Here are the results...




These are Imperial Marauders that I converted to the Ork cause. I thought they looked alot like Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmoviks, which the North Koreans used, so I went against canon and painted them up Orky. First I added some greenstuff to the nose for extra armour, to the wings for some Orkish-looking reinforcement, and to the engines for the Ork-standard issue heat shielding.


Ork aircraft...

And a close-up of the "Honchos"


Here are the Imperial planes... the silver ones are smaller OOP Thunderbolts and the ones in the foreground, the larger current ones. The latter are kitted out as Corsairs for ground attack, in the "Navy blue" scheme with low-vis tactical numbers.


Since I had six old T-bolts I painted some with black and white stripes and some with yellow and black... both of these schemes were used on sabres in Korea.


A close-up of the "Corsair".

Lots of fun to paint. Looking forward to a game with them soon. Maybe a ground attack mission against some of Greg B.'s Epic Imperial Guard...?

5 comments:

Greg B said...

Looks awesome Dallas - just need some rules now...

Alan M said...

Those marauders look the bees knees. Lookimg forward to where this goes next.

Greg B said...

Hey Gradient - any tips on acquiring an Aeronautica Imperialis rule book that won't break the bank?

Dallas said...

>Lookimg forward to where this goes next.

Hi EG, as I'm going to be in the UK for Partizan in May, I'm hoping to pick up a set of the Aeronautica rules at Warhammer World, and maybe a FW Marauder, Fighta-Bommer or maybe even one of the huge Ork Bommers!

Alan M said...

Not seen the rules cheap anywhere unfortunately. The rules don't take up much of the book, it's mostly (admittedly excellent) artwork. Have fun at Partizan, should be good, Kelham Hall's a pretty stunning place (and not far from here).