The Biggest Small Project – Epic Blood Angels, 1991 Style

It’s back. And this time it’s slightly larger.

And AMAZINGLY expensive.

Yes, GW have relaunched Epic. And honestly, I’m so pleased. I mean, I have no intention whatsoever of buying it, but just like I have absolutely no intention of buying a Lamborghini I still like to coo at one when it goes past.

Of course, here at Skinflint Towers Epic never really went away – you may have seen some of our previous battle reports on the war-torn planet of Hazzard IV, the Redeemers Space Marine chapter, or the granny grating Imperial Guard, or the Squat Colossus built from an asthma inhaler…or the MONSTER that is Big Red… and you may remember we kicked 2023 off with a mega smackdown which featured all of the above. *SPOILER ALERT* – the Imperial side won, but the Squat contingent got absolutely battered while the Redeemers Veteran company hid in their Rhinos for a counterattack that never came..

We figured this would be likely to cause some political tensions (on our imaginary planet populated by imaginary races in an imaginary futue.. yes, we are ridiculous people) and this coincided by me acquiring some old 90’s White Dwarf PDFs from a Trove-style site (sadly defunct now :-/) and cooing at the luvverly luvverly teeny tiny Epic Blood Angels in issues 142 & 143… and getting a case of the “I wants”.

So to cool the tensions on Hazzard and to satisfy my inner child I set about stripping and repainting them, with the intent of re-creating the WD studio Blood Angels Army! And yes, I’m aware I had the same intent with the Epic Imperial Guard and Jim had the same with the Squats, but we are, as alluded to above, ridiculous people.

And so, to our ridiculous business we go.

I stripped the Warlord, Land Raiders and Rhinos in a Tupperware box using meths, THICK rubber gloves and an ancient toothbrush and once they were dry primed them white and pre-washed with thinned Vallejo Smokey Ink. Then, like their bigger cousins, they got thwo thin coats of Vallejo Hot Orange and a wash of Red Ink, before the metallic bits got based in black before drybrushing Vallejo Mithril Silver. Marine infantry got the same treatment, as did the Dreadnoughts and Robots I picked up off eBay.

So, pics so far then:

Assault detachment

Robot detachments

Dreadnoughts

No. 2 Battle Company (missing a stand, not sure where those lads have got too..)

Land Raider company

No. 9 Devastator Company

The full force so far

There’s a fair way to go yet, including quite a few scratchbuilt Rhinos, Vindicators and Thunderhawks but I have a fairly good idea how I’m going to do them – it’s going to be a real treat getting these lads on the tabletop!

Now, we have a slightly odd request to make to all of our friends out there in hobbyland…. we’ve been busy getting the rules for version 2.0 of Apocalypse: Earth together, and it’s looking pretty solid now. However, because we’ve both been playing the game so long we’re both a bit snow blind when it comes to writing them down and what we could really do with is a few folks who wouldn’t mind playing a few games with the rulebook as is and telling us what we’ve missed, which bits don’t make sense.. essentially helping us edit it. Obviously we’re not in a position to pay anyone but we’re happy to give everyone a mention and a good plug on the site wherever possible. So if you fancy having a crack, DM us and we’ll send you a PDF.. and you can tell us what bits we’ve stupidly missed out! All help will be appreciated, and as Future Force Warrior and Hyperian Wars are basically the same sets of ideas reskinned for sci-fi and fantasy respectively, it’s going to help all that along. The plan is that once launched, 20% of all proceeds will be going to the DEC Ukraine appeal, so hopefully we can make a difference there if only a small one.

As always, stay thrifty out there – Slavia Ukrainia – our thoughts stay with you