Battle Fleet Gothic

 When I was in high school, Games Workshop released Battlefleet Gothic. A friend and I went in on the box together. He kept the rules while I took the Imperial and Chaos ships. He ended up buying an Eldar fleet which resulted in all our games being one sided affairs and we soon abandoned the game and moved on. The two fleets I had, were cannibalized for conversions and ultimately went missing during one of my many moves between home and University. It has only been in the last few years of searching Ebay that I learned to appreciate how stupid I was for squandering those models. Oh well, if that's the stupidest thing of done, I guess I'm in good shape. However, nostalgia for the game persisted and after locating a digital copy of both the rules and Armada expansion I decided to "acquire" a few fleets. I found the Litko made the necessary templates and counters while the order dice used in BFG are nearly identical to Adeptus Titanicus.

Ships were obviously the hardest part since GW hasn't supported the game in years and Ebay is charging a fortune. Luckily, others have stepped in to fill the void. Many of the ships I purchased were from Vanguard Miniatures in the UK. They make great looking Imperial proxies complete with side mounted batteries and launch bays. I decided to make a Space Marine chapter fleet and Imperial Navy fleet. The chapter would be the Executioners who were on the side of the secessionists in the Badab War. During the conflict they specialized in attacks on Imperial shipping and used a modified cruiser named the Night Hag as their flag ship. The Imperials would represent Battlefleet Solar. 

For the more iconic ships like the Battlebarge and Retribution Battleship, I went with Shapeways. I'll rank those models as fair. They won't win any awards, but they're fine as game pieces. Here are some photos of the fleets. I still have two ships to go for the Executioners including the Night Hag!

Yet another gaming option once gaming resumes.

Shapeways Battlebarge

Vanguard Miniatures gothic ships

Vanguard Helian Dreadnought

Good proxy for a Mars Battlecruiser

Shapeways Retribution Battle Ship

Some "Epic" Nostalgia

Cool! All there and unpunched!

 A couple of amazing Ebay scores have arrived in recent weeks as I prepare for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (it's already started - check it out! Byron has struck already with a platoon of 15mm Sherman Tanks...), and these have induced some "Epic" nostalgia on my part.  Remember this game???

Lovely nerd flashbacks checking out the box

Remember when GW thought about their games this way?

My big aim in the Painting Challenge this year is to finish 30k stuff - of course I hope a lot of that will be in 28mm, but I have been scouring Ebay in recent months picking up a bit here and a bit there to try and put together a 30k game in Epic - the "format", so to speak, that got the whole thing started.

Epic goodies! Original Space Marine rules, data cards, and most importantly, Space Marines!

This box is a big part of that - has all the old buildings, the old rulers, the old rules and old figures - a truly wonderful find.

Oh yeah! Now THAT is a battle!

Another nostalgia score was a box of old plastic Warlord titans.  GW has continually abused the Warlord Titan with new designs - each one progressively worse, in my (wholly subjective, totally superfluous) opinion.  The ominous, turtle-shell style of these old plastics simply cannot be beat, in my view. It will be great fun to paint up six of these suckers - three loyalists, and three traitors.

Side note - OK the new look warlord in "28mm scale" from Forge World is in fact a lovely design, but since it is not available in Epic sized, I'll disregard that for now :)  

Woohoo! Old time plastic goodness!

One theme in this year's Challenge is "nostalgia" - I usually ignore the theme submissions (they derail my momentum) but a maniple of these old Warlord Titans might just do the trick...

Might even use the void shield wheels, just for fun...

I'm looking forward to getting a few of these bits under the paint brush very soon.  Epic has changed a great deal over the years since this version of the game was released - I'm debating whether to base them in a fashion consistent with my newer approach to the game, or to go whole-hog with the nostalgia and use the old little square bases...we'll see what happens!

So watch for this - and hopefully more - to come in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  As before, I will be posting progress here on our blog do, and I hope participants Byron and Kevin do the same.

All the best, and have a great Christmas!

From The Mists Of History...

NIB goodness - a Capitol Imperialis from the Epic 40k game!

Grabbed this one off of Ebay a couple of weeks ago - a NIB Capitol Imperialis!  It arrived safe and sound, and is ready to be assembled and painted.  I haven't painted anything for Epic 40k for well over a year (and even then most of that work was related to a huge re-basing project).  I look forward to doing (to quote Dallas) the "unthinkable", opening this sucker up and getting it based and painted for a game of Epic 40k!  Stay tuned to the blog for details...