40K poop

I first encountered Warhammer 40K in the early '90s, just as the "beakies" were replaced by the cylon-stormtroopers. The "oldhammer" miniatures are a bit wonky, but have a certain charm. The RTB-01 beaky sprues are also hard to beat in terms of cost and variety. And the Squats were still around. The game had a fun haphazardness to it. Later it became kinda rigid and... tonally... uh, monotone. I'm thinking about what BardicBroadcasts said in a recent Necromunda review video... about the 40K universe somehow becoming smaller. There's talk about advancing the big plot, but I think it's sort of fine where it is... it's the ranges which seem stuck.

Perhaps Space Crusade for the Amiga was my first encounter with 40K, rather than the miniatures. Looking at the boardgame, I prefer the variety it offers over e.g. Space Hulk. Space Crusade is much more of a "vertical slice"... meaning, the various factions are represented in a simple way. Your Space Marines could run into Orks, Gretchins, Soul-suckers (Gene Stealers), Chaos Marines, Chaos Dreadnoughts, Chaos Androids (now Necrons), Eldar pirates (now Dark Eldar?).

I started fiddling with a remake at some point. I think it would be interesting to use the vertical slice approach for the "good guys" (not really) as well, and a Rogue Trader strike team would fit the bill. My project below is from before GW's Blackstone Fortress which appears to have used a similar approach... and actually features a similar selection of figures.

I like my selection better, but some of my choices are not realistic, like Squats, Chaos Androids, Space Skaven, Femarines, Fimir, Imperial Beastman. I also prefer the old style Chaos Space marines with more distorted armour. Anyways, hold onto your hats, here comes a massive image:

Two sides with mixed characters.

What's this?

I don't get why people are opposed to Femarines. "Never pass up a good thing." Who said that? Jean Rasczak did, and then we got that scene with Dizzy. "Aaah... build me a shrine out of human bone and skin, and the pleasures can commence!" Who said that? Seriously... who just said that? Anyways. Lore reasons could easily be worked around. I suspect though, that if you supersoldiergened up a woman it'd look like a musclemonsterman anyways, except... it wouldn't because art and fantasy can do whatever it damn well pleases!

I had some idea that these femarines were made early on (as indicated by armour type), so they're a bit unorthodox (even quite heretical) when they reemerge.

Though... maybe a primari-Sister of Battle would fit better. This design more styled like my own StarSword AstroKnight stuff though. Some female Imperial Guard would be much appreciated, like, geez. And... sniper nuns?

Space Slann (aka Old Ones, afaik).

I noticed that the new "Combat Arena" servitor looks a bit like my Space Crusade project one, with elements not typical to servitors, like binary name collar, 2x pegleg, 2x shoulder stuff. Skitarii does have some of those features though so whatev.

40K Krorks were ancient Orks, quite large, and less Orky than even the Blood Axes (more orderly and militaristic I guess). Maybe the Krorks wore Eldar'ish armour though? Both races were made & controlled by the Old Ones and I heard something about Eldar armour... Eeeh, it just looks like a beefy Eldar when kept too close to Eldar design. Also, I think Orcs have a built in design-sense so it wasn't Eldar who was making Krork gear afaik. Oh, here's a quote.

"That is the largest ork I've ever seen," Savona murmured, staring up at a towering, twelve-metre-tall monstrosity that loomed in a nearby nook. "And his weaponry..." The frozen creature wore a crude exoskeleton far in advance of anything the orks now might conceive of. Indeed, from his initial examination, Fabius suspected that it might be in advance of his own battleplate.

So advanced but crude, somehow. I kinda like the "Gundam" Krork someone drew better than mine here.

Tau XV8 suit paint over.

I always had a soft spot for these fellas from... 4th ed?

There you go Imperium. No need to thank me but you can call me Robarne Tactica Rex Clousseau Sherlock from now on.

Warhammer 40000 theory: Necrontyr were Hobgoblins.

Spacehulk Terminator.

Shadowsun. It's unclear what a Tau foot looks like. Seems to vary between models and art. Here I did a big toe, then outer toe, and a smaller inner toe slightly lifted, plus a spur on heel.

It's 2021. Nagasha. I mean, it's not like an osteologist has ever gotten close enough to measure Nagash's hip bone, and then there's the dress...

I like to prioritize design so often I don't bother with facial gestures and fancy poses. However, when in comes to miniatures those two things very much reign supreme (along with proportions). An awkward pose can completely disqualify miniature. Ariel and Nagash are often considered awful, but I feel there's not much wrong with their design per se... I've seen worse in modern miniatures which can sometimes dillydally around with detail (perhaps an artifact of 3D sculpting) and not getting to a concise point.

Ariel and Nagash began dating in secret after realizing that they actually had quite a few things in common.

Getting a feel for 28mm heroic proportions with these Heroquest doodles (haphazard junk poses). I do feet a bit smaller and scale down Orc/Goblin faces a tiny bit... Goblins are mostly heads, the old metal ones I have at least. Maybe the same goes for Dwarfs. Human heads tend to be 5.5-6.5mm minus hair.

GW doesn't really do a lot of human civilian models (would be neat in Necromunda). The women they do are generally large warriors (sometimes alien). Well, there's the Escher Juves. The old Space Marines really do look massive next to a Juve.

My take on the Sisters of Battle Paragon suit. Goat (Landmate-ish) legs with the prosthesis (extension) being material/design coded to separate. Same with outer arms. Samus Aran style widening of upper arms under spaulders. BS weapon is held (glove-like) rather than being an arm part. Articulated the inner spaulder/shoulder a bit to make it seem less rigid. She needs to be able to swing that mace.

Chonkturion.

Femarines based on the old miniatures (see "RT601 Adventurers"), somewhat following miniature proportions. Leap/Drop pack. For this armour design I'm not sure if making the armours feminine and spindly like this is a good idea. It kind suggests stat differences (which is not the case with IG / Eldar), though I suppose it could be explained by a deliberate augmentation choice/process as SMs are no longer human but an absurd cultivated thing. It could very well be that they are made, say, lighter and quicker or get some new passive/active ability (but otherwise mostly have SM stats). I could also scale them up so they're slightly larger than the old "firstborn" SMs and better to scale with short "truescale" SMs (7+ feet, or some 36+mm). A Primarch needs to be Dimitrescu height (2.90m) at least but I suppose these would have the White Scars primarch.

Lore: The Mantis Warriors unwittingly did a little heresy once, so they were sent off to patrol some warp storm where they mostly kept to themselves. One day they got in big trouble. They faced a potentially enormous threat which absolutely had to be dealt with, but they were already nearly wiped out and isolated in some puzzling warp-border region. Battered and desperate, their last tech priests and apothecaries plummeted into Mantis Religiosa crazy genius mode and did a little heresy again, creating femarines on a feral Amazonian world... all so they could replenish their numbers and carry on doing the Emperor's good work of course. After having dealt with the threat and emerge, they are immediately found out by some hard-ass chapter. What will the pragmatic Roboute think? He's secretly sort of okay with it but other forces in the administratum now seek to destroy the Mantis Warriors (tampering with gene-seed stuff is probably a no-no). Plot twist: Last minute a scholar discovers that the Amazonians were actually lost descendants of a project started by the Emperor so now no one knows if it's okay or not as documentation is fragmentary. The crazed Mantis Warrior apothecaries perhaps saw something in the Amazonians' genes which they considered the Emperor's blessing (Mantis Warriors are very loyal in crazy mode). Large Amazonian predator women would of course be analogous to praying mantises so maybe their men are smaller than average and not suitable as stock. Interestingly, there's an Amazon in the RT601 Adventurer group and a Mad Punk proto-Escher.

Another approach to lore could be to make Chaos femarines instead, as Chaos has access to Fabius Bile, mutations, demonic modifications, possibly corrupted STCs for manufacturing, and there's the various abhuman worlds they've gobbled up. Obstacles like doctrine, administration, politics and the flow of time are much less of an issue.

RT-era Dread. Primaris Storm Reaper femarine test. When matching the femarine design from earlier (based on the original mini) with a truescale marine I discovered that it needs to be a bit chunkier. The greaves (ankles) typically contain stabilizers and stuff for zero-g movement - I put those into a module which widens the ankle in the typical beakie manner.

If one aims for to mod an old SM to truescale, but on the shorter end of the spectrum, perhaps adding just a little to the legs and waist would work (leaving upper body untouched)? Going for taller truescale seems unnecessary with Primaris around now. My old 2-3e SMs are about... 33mm tall... hard to say with crouching pose. So, a few mm to legs and waist could bring it to 36.5mm (erect) which is around ~7'2" depending on scale (1/60 or below). Probably quite visible on the tabletop but no so much the old minis seem off, maybe not tall enough to blend with primaris (which might be 5-6mm taller?). Hard to modify character models & metal tho. Test .

I can understand the notion that the SMs being all big boys is a defining faction trait, but I'm for femarines because Space Marines are the default faction and what gets new blood into the hobby. SMs come in a bazillion colours already just so you can pick one that you like (actually mostly primary colours, and no brown at all from what I can see). The space nuns are more of a speciality faction and it existing does not preclude women existing elsewhere. So does this mean there should be male space nuns? Perhaps if the scale wasn't grossly imbalanced. It's not really reasonable to add gold to both sides, grin and claim that you're "only being fair". Besides, no one requested male space nuns - you're just being a disingenuous.

But whatever. I just like drawing stuff and I kind of enjoy the more wild grown and haphazard RT-era where it seemed anything could be added to the game. Diversity in IG ranks is more desperately needed though because it really sells the idea that everyone are given a rifle (there's only war, remember?). In the past GW commented that female minis sold poorly in blisters so they made fewer. It contributed to the unfortunate feedback loop which made it even harder for women to get into the hobby back then. I was active early-mid '90s going to roleplay&tabletop cons and such. 40K was exclusively YA boys which I thought was a real bummer. Vampire the Masquerade was more popular with the girls. The internet gives us a wider and clearer view of the hobbyspace now, and it seems to me things have changed a bit. Mixed boxes presently seems to be GWs approach to diversifying. Thinking about it, GW has sort of kept 40K alive all these years, maybe thus maintaining/producing an invested and conservative fanbase. Compare with TTRPGs which kinda died but were reborn, seemingly with more diversity and consideration. Some of the old playerbase split off into OSR. Also, TTRPGs are less lore focused, being fragmented into many games and subrealms.

Welcome - To Space Crusade. AAAAAAAAAAAaaa!

This is a detail pass over a photo of my minis. I prefer this type of Chaos SM with more stuff happening to the armour. I've extended the legs+belly of it (my low-end true scale). Same for the Imperial Fist, though it needed some fixes for the upper body too. Made the greaves narrower on both. The heavy weapon is held differently and can't be swapped this way. The left hand handle could go to a servo/cam arm to a heavy weapons backpack (obscured here).

The Space Ork is a 2e conversion. It's smaller than the dark green ones in the Space Crusade box. I like turning the heads on figures to match a weapon, but snipping the heads off requires some patching up with GS which can be time consuming.

I have fond memories of the Dreadnought (from the Amiga game, as I've never actually played the board game). It was also in 6mm scale SM/EPIC (Stompa box?). Here I kept the proportions but added/changed detailing. Quite happy with this kind of hooded head breaking up the wedge. Subtle curvatures to feet. Ribs on... conversion beamer(?). The cabling under the body should maybe be changed into nasty sawtooth.

The Chaos Androids were made by the Chaos Squats. I made mine larger than a Necron to differentiate. The weapon got a scythe look after Heroquest.

The Primaris Terminator is based on the Knight and SP105 RT era design. It needed to be different from the regular Termie, which here I just extended a bit just like the SM. Regular Primaris got a subtle redesign of legs and ribs.

Chaos Squats could probably be reintroduced using a single box of a few multipose models with extra heads and weapons, some sort of engineer squad to support demon engines and vehicles.

People seem to dislike the old plastic Tyranid Warriors, but I think they have character, perhaps more-so than the somewhat generic-cool tyranids of today (I find that, especially with a uniform colour scheme, Tyranid armies are not that interesting to look at). I especially like the hollow ribcage on the old model. It gives it a dimensionality unusual for plastic. I changed the teeth, arms and legs. The upright Soulsucker in Space Crusade can kind of be converted from a Genestealer.

Space Marine formed my view of the 40K universe and its inhabitants, as it was the first game I bought and collected for (mainly Chaos Khorne and Orks). Because the miniatures are so small, they're almost like old game sprites, leaving a lot up to interpretation. Some models use the old RT designs, though this was changed later in EPIC. The 6mm scale meant that metal minis for e.g. Fiends of Slaanesh, Bloodletters and other monsters had to be a bit larger. It was a bit weird coming into 40K seeing how small some of the demons, mounts and vehicles were there. Maybe there could be "greater" versions of everything for 28mm heroic (though perhaps not as large as depicted here). Doable with plastics now, though expensive. Speaking of price, Space Marine was very affordable back when I collected (2e), but by the late '90s the price hikes were already extreme, with half the content in boxes and blisters. I think it contributed to EPIC doing poorly. The EPIC infantry boxes are pretty rare and we see people now putting like 2-3 models per stand to dilute.

The game kind of need masses of stands to be "EPIC". For a new version I'd simplify the faction count. Imperium with IG masses, then limited amounts of SM and Sisters coming in as IG elite support, because it makes sense that those are rare. I also think it would be narrative to have tons of IG desperately dying early on. SM and Sister stands are technically almost as vulnerable at this scale, but perhaps they could get a fluff/exotic/elite/miracle save and special rules/effects. I guess it's one of the problems with the scale is that SMs are just tiny infantry, unlike in 28mm heroic.

So, IG, Orks, Chaos, and Squats (it could be set pre-nom-nom). I'd probably skip the exotic factions like Tau and Eldar or include a small selection as IG shady "allies", as I find them a bit too twiggy for epic scale, and maybe Eldar has too many troop types which wouldn't differentiate much visually or in the rules (scorpions/banshees?). Squats by contrast build big chunky things and they are more of an interesting selling point too. The Chaos daemon engines were cool (much better than current 40K scale models I think). Orks have tons of fun big wonky things. Note that in SM/EPIC, you don't play a subfaction of Chaos or Orks, but often a mix (which offers some variation in play and paint). It suggests that at this scale, armies have to join up, so that's another reason why I would avoid designing for full coverage of e.g. a Sisters army. It gets sort of monotonous on the table and turns into a painting chore. Possibly Chaos factions could start infighting under certain conditions (proximity).

One thing which I think EPIC did wrong is the lack of casualties on the table (e.g. simple embossed bases with generic corpses or wrecks, or cardboard markers). While these would be mostly narrative, I think just removing figures makes the game feel ethereal and barren, without a real sense of history.

Presentation-wise I kind of like the old square bases the most. Round eliminate corners, but produce negative corners in groups. When the minis are so small, the focus should be on the figures, so the base should be subtle. For grass I use sanded cork debris, dyed, as it's very flat and won't cover up the model. 8mm scale sounds interesting, but I also like the detail simplicity of 6mm. I expected GW to relaunch SM/EPIC in 8mm scale, but, well.

Bad Moon Gargant. I like the idea of integrating figures to show scale but EPIC rarely did this. For Orks which have a random look, a system of component recombination would be useful. I prefer the older rounded look for Orks but GW abandoned that long ago.

Around the time the 6mm Chaos plastics were made in the very early '90s, GW were seemingly cementing the design language for the four factions, so I think the original random figures were actually made to represent those. My sprue here has 20 CSM just like the original, but with added variation. 3*4 factions, and some undivided, clean and more mutated types. Could be painted any faction of course... colour distinction mostly overrides detail at this scale. These are not really designed/angled to make sense as mono-pose plastic, it's just concepts. For a 6mm scale, I think a trudging walk pose works better than standing or engaging, though these type of models can't be multipart and perhaps perhaps the mold halves can't have a complex fine detail seam either.

I'd make IG 5.75-6mm to top of head, Orks would vary, and SMs would be 7+mm (1 foot per mm scale I guess). The 2e box SMs were too short (though at the time SMs were simply super soldiers with no height given other than a suggestion that their skeleton grew in size). 3e IG plastics felt kinda big in comparison to the 2e SMs. 6mm perhaps seems a bit smaller than it is because the figures sink into the flock. Spacing the figures up 0.5mm or so might fix the flock problem (easier wood glue application too). For flock I sand down cork and lightly dye the debris in various grassy tones (cork also has some natural warm shades which show through). Pic. Regular, cold or darker greens work poorly as grass I find, though I often mix in some small bits of tree (foam) flock as bushes and that's a darker tone. Very thin slices of cork (this is 6mm) can make nice rock ledges to pad out empty base space but it looks odd on every base. I prefer not to distract from the figure but the temptation of overdetailing is hard to resist. I usually paint the base rims in Snakebite Leather but some grass green might further reduce contrast... but green non-grass (flat plastic) might bother me.

Cultists should probably be way more common than Chaos Space Marines. 15 stands of CSM is a bit much on the army cards. SMs in general might only show up as a few stands with landraider support, or in drop pods or thunderhawks. I think I'd give Rhinos back to IG, or buff them for SM.

Daemon Engines of Khorne, with some changes. The Brass Scorpion and Blood Reaper tips/tilts over easily (if metal) so I gave them some sort of training wheels- I mean death-murder-sawblades to grind infantry into the mud. These might work as a 4-6 part plastics. I'm guessing an A5 sprue could probably cover most of the small Daemon Engines (not Lord of Battles).

I wanted to change the designs to better reflect stats like gun strength & carry capacity. The Death Dealer is actually a transport/siege tower, not obvious seeing the orig model. With the centaur at front the troops would have to go out the sides but iirc there are no wall siege rule like that. I didn't like the gatlin belly so I put it on an arm. That gatlin cannon has the same stats as the larger Brass Scorpion one... not bad for a transport. The CAF is good too. I made sure the Cannon of Khorne can elevate (the orig model actually is at a bit of an angle). The turrets might be for driver/gunners and I had to raise them up to not clip into the cannon. For Tower of Skulls I wanted to better show the skull pile theme. The Cauldon of Blood could perhaps have a Bloodletter skull with the horns wrapping around the cauldron... I'm trying to tone down or detail the giant skulls to avoid some of the cartoony-ness.

The brick Thunderhawk (very small model afaik) can take 6 troop stands, but no vehicles. I wanted to do something with the castle-cathedral-brick theme because a simpler shape means it can just about fit a Rhino at the size I drew it. There are many Thunderhawk sizes/designs...

Some clarifications on the Thunderbrick. Drawing sideviews is kind of bad because you're less aware of the geometry. When doing multiple orthos you may discover and solve geometrical issues but aesthetic ones might remain, little extra bad triangles, poor edge turns and shape imbalance, which is probably the case here.

Also, a low profile Rhino-103 (must be on first fire?) and a Whirlwind variant with smaller flip-down turret (maybe singleshot) so it can fit into the cargobay. As for the Slaanesh DEs, my redesigns kind of match the size of the original Hellstrider and Subjugator, but I struggled with getting the right chunkiness. It's easy to fall into the trap of going too thin/fine/complex with the detail (making them look like part of some other scale/style).

Gyrocopter with tankbuster style cannon. Lancer & Paladin knights. Crusader robot... kind of looks a little Slaanesh. I suspect the claw hands are the "power swords" in the stats (RT compendium), so maybe no actual swords on model.

I remember thinking the Capitol Imperialis looking lame when I first saw it back then, but now I can see the charm/use of units which aren't just another cool-tank (more civilian vehicles would make nice terrain features/objectives too). I kind of like the pockmarked armour slab look on the original (seems functional), but the Imperium likely couldn't resist making the thing look like a cathedral for the glory of the Emperor.

If the Capitol Imperialis can carry 2 IG companies, that's 2x (Rhino: 2 HQ, 3*10 troops) = 64*5 = 320 men and 2 Rhinos. I wonder if that would fit inside. My quick sloppy estimate is ~1000m3 internal cargobay, so 3 per man, but this would have to include halls, floors, elevators. A man needs less than 1.

Then we have the Mole. It seems like one could actually pack 50 men inside the Mole model as it's scaled. Probably quite claustrophobic, in a thematic way. Imagine the atmosphere in one of those rumbling deep underground, only a faint red light lighting up the sooty tense faces of soldiers around you. Hot machinery barely holding together. The sound is deafening and the vibrations are making muscles and bones go numb. The soldiers are strapped into their seats at all sorts of angles during the trip. Someone is stuck near a too hot pipe and is getting burns. The Mole suddenly screeches to a halt. What's wrong? Is this a slow death? Are they blocking the other Moles in the tunnel? Will they be rammed? Sgt. Jerron breaks down and pukes on people below. Marsel and Nester are freaking out fighting for the one emergency oxygen mask dangling from a strap but neither can seem reach it. It's just doing pirouettes at their fingertips. For a moment the strained breathing and wretched guttural sounds of 50 men is almost louder than the idling engine, until it screeches and roars back up. New directives had come in from the surface for a course change. The Mole makes half a rotation whilst turning, then rumbles on, now with Jerron at the bottom thankfully. Heat gauge needle sits at 50 degrees. Someone taps it and it jumps to 55. The journey continues. Eventually the Mole angles upwards, though it's hard to tell with balance and senses impaired. A barely audible siren blares. The Mole makes a final adjustment to near vertical orientation. Prepare to disembark! It has broken the surface. Will the hatch open? The hydraulics strain. A thin frame of blindingly blue sky, and cold air rushes in. And smoke, and dust. The hatch clangs down on rubble of a ruined building, sounding eerily like a doom bell. It's followed by the clattering of belts, gestures, pushing and shouting. The engine revs down, but the loud clamor of battle offers no respite. Four soldiers are left still slumped in their seats. Quite typical for Mole ride, had the now unconscious Sgt. Jerron mused with flustered joviality, just an hour ago. The rest rush dazed into the flanks of the enemy. Perhaps a better fate than panicked choking in the darkness 50 feet below. Perhaps.

Moles carries a Platoon (10 stands * 5 men). The Hellbore carries company (3 platoons). The smaller old Termite models don't seem like 2 stands (10 soldiers) would fit inside so maybe they could be used as bombs. Pretty scary to hear them approach, unable to counter. The Termite is unarmed in 2e but my old photocopy of what might be 1e lists Las-Cannon(FxF2), Heavy Bolter(Tt). Fixed Forward arc (nose mount?) & Turret I guess. Given that no one can shoot at you underground, coming up anywhere inside enemy lines could be quite powerful. Normal move is 15cm, 5cm faster than foot soldiers, which seems a bit fast just thinking about the physics of it all. If I were to make the rules for the Mole/Termite I would offset the power of being able to unload nasty stuff anywhere without getting shot first, by having it be slow. In the game a ground vehicle can guide the tunneler, increasing accuracy.

I made a Rhino specifically for IG based on the smaller old model with the rail. Doors would have to be of the sliding variety or they'd bump the rail. Also would have to clear tracks (which could either go under or around door). Having longer tracks go around the door would just lead to loss of internal space and increased weight I suspect. I don't think Chimeras were around as transports though the general hull type existed.

Guardswomen in six flavours. Back in the metal days the IG had more variation with the various origin planets. I kind of like the old space helmet ones, but I guess the current Cadians are ok and quite iconic, especially in art. Perhaps the thick armour bits on the models make their silhouette a tad too heavy/chunky. I expect IG to be a bit more rag-tag (esp. conscripts) when it comes to uniforms and body types but I guess variety is hard to do with plastics as the first sculpts need to represent the most generic gear, bodies and poses possible. You can't put (what will seem like) character models in troop boxes. First party alternative helmet/head types along with novel colour schemes could do a lot as those stand out first. But, even if the Imperium standardizes IG, it'll still make sense to have winter, desert and other local uniforms (which don't necessarily have to be from a specific planet). Since these figures are clothed/armoured and helmeted without exaggerated proportions, their slighter frame could add some organic variation to the ranks without standing out. Some could pass as generic adolecents with some tweaks. One could probably convey a more ragtag, but still coherent IG army by painting them all in roughly the same colour scheme, as if their gear got quickly repurposed/re-marked. I think IG in general should be a bit shorter as most Imperials likely aren't fed well. It would be interesting to see some citizen models as well. They could be objective markers or cheap militia troops.

Plastic kind of killed of figure diversity for IG and also Orks (clans). I remember GW's article about moving to plastic mentioning that this could happen, so metals would be used to compliment. Plastics then were apparently "1000 times" more expensive to put into production due to the manual pantomime (downscale) labour and tool/mould cost. Somehow they were still able to sell 36 IG for 10 quid though (30 today). I suspect much of the process is automated by robots and computer programs now... there's probably a plugin for finding the angle with minimal overhangs, then removing those. Flow simulation might be automated too, and maybe even detection and compensation for shrink deformation. I asked a manufacturer some decade ago what their sprues cost, and it was 12K, so in this case tooling might be 50K if things haven't changed (you need to sell thousands of boxes to recoup). Bandai is somehow able to put out high quality/precision boxed gunpla kits in the 1-5K yen range so I suspect GW has other costs, or, more likely, moved to whaling as a business model. A far cry from making the hobby accessibly like they huffed about in that old article. That said, in the gunpla hobby we mostly build box towers out of our unbuilt kits so maybe GW is doing the eco friendly thing with their prices, reducing hoarding ;)

Warhound redesign, with studs on top instead of spikes. The Contemptor got a Sarcophagus.

Beastmen in SM-EPIC are armed with clubs and swords. No guns, though the illustration shows a Beastman with plasma pistol and autogun, which is strange because it's a cutout of an illustration where there's also a Beastman with a mace. There's also some Ogryn in the background so they could've used that illustration for the page as the Ogryn rules are adjacent. The Beastmen figures have an ax and a shield.

A Gundam such as the RX-78-2 would probably do well on the 40K battlefield due to its comparably extreme agility (which includes flying and space combat). Its weapons are also very powerful, capable of one-shotting (or one-slicing) battleships by the dozens, judging by the performance of Char's Zaku at the Battle of Loum anyways. GMs and Zakus are also produced quickly and in great numbers. 40K often shows up on lists about "the most powerful/biggest", but I think that is to misunderstand the theme. Titans and ships aren't big because they're powerful. They're bloated, unwieldy relics, festooned with superstitious structures, driven by immutable ignorance and powered by simple barbarity. They're a slice of the obscene, blusterous Imperium itself. 40K is a whole universe hopelessly trapped in degeneracy, not peak performance. Its stories are told from the point of view of its inhabitants... tales of glory, awe and righteousness from within delusion. The enormity of an ancient cathedral, vacuous save a single book, merely represents horrendous squandered effort, not enlightenment as such can only be obtained in the Boundless Tesseract Libraries of Tzeentch. Well, that's my take on it anyways. Ka-kaaw. His Wingsss Unnffffold.


I wonder if this would be... handy? Wet-Pal(TM).

Unrelated numbering system I made for keeping track of which anime episode I'm at without erasing. Can be written using shorthand with clear glyph separation and no counting, unlike other tally systems.


Art by Arne of Androidarts.com