3mm epicer than epic

[Jon Williams]

Hello there, my first attempt at starting a thread , so here goes.

After 15+ years away from the hobby I recently bought an ECW starter pack from Bacchus 6 mm I promised myself I’d finish the project and start gaming before looking for other periods but alas due to finding and watching a few epic battle reports on you tube iwas drawn back to find memories of the game and collecting the models and painting them up, I noticed quite a few models were not as I remembered and some of the figures used were clearly better than the old GW offerings more active poses finally I found where they came from , vanguard and wow was I blown away looking at their range and the urge grew to purchase but I fought it thinking no finish your project start gaming then look, but then I saw their 3mm offerings and couldn’t believe the detail on the vehicles and the space marine proxy’s. I gave in and purchased the affray mechanised company, affray assault maniple with jump packs and novan elites siege infantry or proxy terminator’s.

Now time, budget and space are things I have in limited supply on reading some threads here I’ve been given great advice and help from others and have to admit their painting skills are amazing and reading their threads has really opened my eyes to the possibilities of this scale.

My hope is to fight the Horus heresy as a straight up civil war no chaos god’s or demons and to battle another civil war within the greater conflict.

The 1st Legion Dark Angels, and their fallen .

[Jon Williams]

[Jon Williams]

[Jon Williams]

[Jon Williams]

[Jon Williams]

[Jon Williams]

Here are some of the vehicles in various stages and experiments in painting, as I said earlier time is in short supply, working full time and a single dad of 2 so it might take me a while to get things moving but so far more by luck than skills I’m finding my efforts acceptable to me the pictures like my paintings aren’t that great I think they look better in person lol.

I hope to post a few more pictures as things progress slowly, and any advice, tips or thoughts on subjects regarding 3mm  wargaming in general will be gratefully received, also advise on terrain ideas , I’ve seen Thaddeus s terrain and he’s given tips and ideas so that’s it from me for now.

 

[Jon Williams]

[Jon Williams]

[Jon Williams]

First attempt at Deathwing terminator’s in 3mm, tried to pick out the housing of the pintel mounted bolters to add a bit of colour to the proxy landraiders, my hands not steady enough to try painting on the crozius or other symbols that could possibly be added just need to get the tracks painted in then base them

[Deleted User]

Are you basing the tanks or using them unbased?

[Jon Williams]

Hi there I’m planning on basing all the vehicles, but I need to source slightly larger bases for the proxy landraiders, the Trojan/ Rhino APC fits well on the 25mm ×15mm bases I’m using for the infantry

[Deleted User]

The big ones are more than an inch long?

[Thaddeus Blanchette]

The accents those Deathwing vehicles quite nicely! Just a little bit of bright can really make 3mm figures pop!

We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

[Jon Williams]

They’re slightly less than an inch long but the sponsoons over hang each side and you’d barely see the base I’m going to try slightly larger bases and see how things look

[Jon Williams]

Thanks Thaddeus I’m quite happy with the overall colour it’s looking like old bone to me I just wish I had yours and Matt’s skills in being able to paint markings on loved the symbol on your not eldar grav tank and the tactical arrow s on Matt’s Trojan/rhinos

[Jon Williams]

Thaddeus one question re your experience with historical 3mm gaming I’ve been thinking of sending off for some ACW are the command easy to cut off from the strip so I could place them in the middle of the regiment I was planning on using the ACW rules I had for 2mm gaming back in the day

[Jon Williams]

[Jon Williams]

This picture shows the proxy landraider on the 25mm by 15mm base, any thoughts size up ?

[ian pillay]

Yep, I have some 3mm OS ACW, very nice little castings. Easy to snip the bases apart but be careful as the flags are very brittle as as some of the little legs.

Tally-Ho! Check out my blog at…..
http://steelcitywargaming.wordpress.com/

[Jon Williams]

Hi there and thanks for that advice that was my biggest concern, but I must hold off the urge to purchase ACW at least until my ECW 6mm is finished and hopefully get my reinforced battle company ready  otherwise I’ll end up like before back in the day swamped by half finished projects and nothing to game with

[Thaddeus Blanchette]

Echoing Ian here: yes, they are clipable. You need a very strong and thin snipper, however, and you need to cover the strip with your free hand so bits don’t go flying.

The Zouaves in the ACW line used to be very fragile and I scragged about a third of them, snipping about. Other than that, no trouble.

Also, for historicals, I do away entirely with O8’s standard bearers and do my own larger than life paper flags. I find it looks better. They are easily glued around rifle ends.

We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

[Jon Williams]

I had fun snipping off the terminator’s luckily none of them hit the deck, thanks for the tips and hopefully if I can get a bit of time I can crack on and finish what I’m doing now and then I can send off for a pack or two

[Deleted User]

Landraider basing doesn’t look that bad. Is there a particular reason you went with 25mm x15mm? I ask because square bases are easier to find.

[Thaddeus Blanchette]

Vanguard uses a traditional alloy, so they are pretty easy to clip. O8’s stuff is hard and brittle. It has zero give.

We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

[Thaddeus Blanchette]

If you’d like some photos before you send,,let me know and I can show you what I have done.

We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

[Deleted User]

Yeah, for o8 minis it’s best to clip it inside a plastic bag. Even with your hand over the mini sometimes it ricochette. Plus it can get pretty painful with the force and sharpness of the metal.

[Jon Williams]

Hi Thomaston, as to the base sizes I got them from Mr Average, but decided to use the whole width and not put the paper unit id on the side like he did, his measurements were 1 inch by 5/8th of an inch so roughly what I have 25mm by 15 mm they remind me of the last basing system used for epic, in quite happy with the look of the 2 units based so far.

I think I might look for a square base for the larger vehicles tho and perhaps base a few figures on it .I just love the variety in poses for the figures in such a small scale

[Jon Williams]

Thanks Thaddeus, I had read somewhere that someone was going to buy a Dremel to cut the ozmy strips up that was a bit of a put off for me  but as I say advice from people who know in this scale is priceless.

I have seen your work on your site very impressed I will admit but by all means is love to see a pic or two of your 3mm ACW

 

[Deleted User]

I’ve bought powertool to defeat O8 minis. DON’T DO IT.

If you think bits flying around from clipping a strip is bad, power tool makes it worst. My success rate was about 50%. Most of the times the minis broke at the ankle because the force you need to hold it.

[Jon Williams]

Oh no 😳 I’d never have tried a Dremel or similar myself I’d probably cut chunks out of my hands.

My one quibble with the ozmy range is why oh why have the command stands like that, but as long as it is possible with care and thin snips to cut them off with possibly a casualty here and there I’m happy to have a go.

The real advantage of this scale tho is the ability to try new periods and collect a reasonable force for a small amount which suits my finances, and also only a small scale playing area which fits me for space and easy storage again for space, initially I’ll probably go with a cloth and some scatter terrain to start with, but would love to make some modular interchangeable terrain some time. I had some success when I was gaming in 2mm years ago made a 4  by 3 board covering at 6 inches to the mile the whole area plus a fair bit more of 1st Manassas / Bull run, also made one for Antitam , I bought the houses and bridges from irregular miniatures and a few woods but ended up making the woods myself from green nylon panscubs, cut them up glued them to cardboard sprayed black then drybushed with greens starting with a dark and working down to a yellowish green then cut down a few match sticks place them around the edges of the wooded area in the filler mix before it dried then place the woods on top so you could take them off if troops were moving through the woods and others I just stuck straight onto the terrain saved me a hell of a lot and they looked better than the metal ones from irregular .

[Jon Williams]

Re MDF bases, I have found a number of sellers of MDF laser cut bases on eBay and a wide variety of sizes available in rectangular, square , and circular I had 300 25mm by 15mm bases for £13 that’s including vat and postage pack sizes are obviously dependant on the size of the bases, I also sourced from eBay 60mm by 30 mm which is the base size for my ECW I can have 48 bases for £4 + free postage while if I buy a pack of 40 bases from Bacchus miniatures I’m paying£7 but then add VAT and postage so I know where I’ll be going to get my bases in future

[Jon Williams]

thomaston I’ve just seen your 3mm skirmish games in the lid of a nut tin WOW the terrain alone is amazing I’d never have thought it was 3 mm have you done a tutorial anywhere ?

[Deleted User]

I don’t think I did any tutorials but it was pretty straight forward. A layer of insulation foam for elevation with tissue papermache to smooth out the slopes. Larger sand for the river bed and your choice of ground cover for everything else. Early on I used resin buildings, I think they’re out of production now. These days I prefer wooden monopoly houses.

I don’t do big battles so it will be different for you. Large bases wouldn’t sit well on terrains I made. Also very fiddly using scatter trees on a larger playing area.

[Thaddeus Blanchette]

I’ve been saying Thomaston should do a book!

I think I was thenone who mentioned the Dremel, on my blog, before the first O8 figs showed up. I tried it and it didn’t work. The friction causes the metal to get too hot, very fast.

If one had a Dremel with a cutting wheel and used a small hobby vice to hold the strip, it might be worth it to cut a groove in the bottom of the base to aid snipping. But I have found that getting a good, strong, slim clippers is enough.

We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

[Jon Williams]

I agree with you Thaddeus Thomaston should definitely be writing a book on making that gorgeous terrain, it looks better than many larger scale diarama pieces I’ve seen.

Would love to know how he made the stone walls and that tumble down wooden section that would fit ACW very well.

As for dremels or any power tool I’ll walk away from that we don’t get on at all lol.

[Jon Williams]

Truly marvelous terrain there, and whilst probably a bit difficult to do a large board with, those wall sections and broken down wooden section were amazing and I’d love to learn how to achieve those

[Deleted User]

There’s two versions of walls the early ones were made by making a rough wall from putty and making little balls with more putty to build it into what it is. The wood baracade are also putty rolled into random length but in hind sight breaking up match sticks is much easier. and also give better texture.
An easier way to make the walls would be cover a wall small gravel. Not sure how that will come out though. It might work better because of the weight. You could also build it gravel by gravel using a card base and PVA or hot glue. This method would be seriously authentic.

Recently I’ve been using FIMO and just sculpting details into the wall.  Works better for more uniform stone size and larger pieces.

 

No books, I can’t even type ‘the’ correctly most of the times.

[Jon Williams]

Thanks Thomaston, I’ll definitely give them a try out you have a great talent there and thanks for sharing . Look forward to seeing more of your ideas

[Orcishnature]

Which rules are you planning to use?

[Author]

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