Is it practical to collect a "small" Heresy-era force?

[Yodhrin]

I'm interested in dipping into the Heresy, but given the amount of time I'd have to invest(artscale Marines), it will take me a loooong time to crank out a "proper" size force; do people play Heresy games at more reasonable force sizes? The equivalent of a 1000-1500pt 40K game, say.

[Emperor's Furor]

Due to the cost I don't see many having massive armies, the best way to play it is to start having games around the points you indicated and make sure you make full use of the scenarios otherwise it'll just be marines punching each other or shooting each other int he face and that's not very fun.

[reckoning]

Was just wondering the same thing. Excellent question brother!

[depthcharge12]

Do a zone mortalis force

[DuskRaider]

Technically, the game starts at 2500 - 3000 points. I'd say if anything, look to eBay to build the foundation of your army (Troops), and then go from there. I've got about 5,000 points right now, I'm not rich, and I've been collecting my HH force for going on 2 years now. Take your time.

[Kais Klip]

My circle plays with 50-65 resin entity armies at about 2-2.5k. As a result we play fairly elite armies, not being able to make a 'horde' army at 1500k nor possessing the models to horde it out at 2.5k. Sometimes we gather up the vanilla plastic marines though to get larger games in terms of model count rather than points.

 

Still have to beat the fun of a strictly fluff game in which we dropped ten thousand points of legionaries against every single xeno mini we could get our hands on. Fury of the Legion, sweet sweet Fury of the Legion everywhere.

[Adra'Melek]

I don't play often but generally in the 1000-1500 range. You can't take much beyond the compulsory and a few others but good fun.  I've played 1000 pt games with 2x Tacticals, heavy support, centurion and contemptor and had a blast.

 

And that was against CSM, boy was I outnumbered (but competitive, won half the games)

[infyrana]

Even with small forces, most of the time it pays to have 15-20 man units.. so 2x 15man units is an expensive hobby with HQ, Apoths, and tanks to boot. I'd say no not really.

 

In addition ++editing++ you might end up spending on spare torsos, heads, command ugprades, weapons, melee special weapons, and that just all costs if you go the full FW route. Otherwise, 40k plastic marines, should be totally doable :)

[Honda]

Some things to consider as I've been thinking along the same lines:

 

1. Consider using standard marines as your base model.

2. Consider getting some of  the Mk 2-5 heads. Which ever type you like, though a mix will get you some visual variety.

3. Swap heads out.

 

Think about it. What does the eye gravitate towards first? The knees? ("Dude, nice Mk III knees")

 

No. It's the head. So focus your budget on getting helmets and then swapping those for the others. Will it look 100% legit? No, but it will look good enough. Make sure you paint them decently and you can build out those big blocks of infantry and then maybe save some pennies for something special.

 

I'm actually going to build out two big units with Assault on Black Reach models and some head swaps. Also, there are tutorials for converting Mk 7 helmets into passable Mk 4 helmets with some putty.

 

Get creative. There are ways to do this.

[infyrana]

What Honda said ...

 

Though I would slightly disagree and just add that I think knees do play a bit of a part in it.  Heads, shoulders knees and paint, knees and paint... so to speak :D  Head for sure and is indeed the first thing you'd likely see.  If you can find a few studded pads and those with hauttes/lips on like the MkII/III pads great (but with the packs of legion pads, you have that made for ya).  There are some decent posts about here saying how one can model heresy models with modern stuff - including the slicing and minor gs'ing the legs to get MkIV knees.

[Moonstalker]

If he's doing artscale truescale, it's more about the model count than the parts needed.  That many hours of sculpting per man will necessarily limit his upper army size.  I'm sure he has some monetary concerns (who doesn't?), but his force size is limited by the labor involved.  Not by whether he needs to raid GW or FW marines for parts.

 

Yodhrin, I think you can do an army that is reasonably approachable in truescale in the 1500 point range.  I'm not sure if you will find people in your area playing HH battles in that range, though.  If you're happy with playing your normal opponents, whether it's the guys at the local shop or your friends in the living room, fighting your 30k force vs their 40k ones, that works.  I think the question will become "Where is your dividing line between model count and combat effectiveness?"  There's more than a couple ways you can bring fewer models to make your truescaling effort more manageable.  Some of those ways will make your army weak.  Maybe one or two of them will outright cripple it.

 

So, which legion?  What theme?  How many artscale marines are you willing to sculpt?  Are you up for doing artscale terminators?

[Yodhrin]

kitwulfen has the way of it.

 

My idea was to begin with a small force of Blood Angels in mid-Heresy(mostly MK5 armour, with a smattering of MK3/4 - I already have one MK3 and one MK4 as part of my 40K-era moulds, so with my method of making up 5-man moulds of "blanks" ie just the legs and torso with no detailing, then changing pose and adding details as necessary, I'd only need to do the MK5 set at first), with a cohort of Castellax. Terminators are possible, but not for a while given the amount of work involved. I already have an unassembled Relic Contemptor that was earmarked for my 40K Exorcists, but I could "reassign" that to this project if necessary.

 

Ideally I'd prefer not to go above 50 Marines, even starting with the blanks it still takes a good few hours to do each one, and I've got 40K Mechanicus + Iron Hands plus a Knight on the go right now. I have both the HH books, it's just that without experience it's hard to tell if, as you say, I'm building a lean but viable army or a total lemon.

[Grotsmasha]

If you're doing True/Art Scale, building base torso's and legs then casting will definitely be your best bet, just remember, selling them in the future will 'technically' be illegal unless you sculpt everything yourself.

 

Cheers,

Jono

[recon0321]

Wow this is a great topic I have wondered how to get my feet wet....i was gonna approach it with 2 troops a command squad with preator and a elite or two...now to pick a legion....ugh

[Moonstalker]

kitwulfen has the way of it.

 

My idea was to begin with a small force of Blood Angels in mid-Heresy(mostly MK5 armour, with a smattering of MK3/4 - I already have one MK3 and one MK4 as part of my 40K-era moulds, so with my method of making up 5-man moulds of "blanks" ie just the legs and torso with no detailing, then changing pose and adding details as necessary, I'd only need to do the MK5 set at first), with a cohort of Castellax. Terminators are possible, but not for a while given the amount of work involved. I already have an unassembled Relic Contemptor that was earmarked for my 40K Exorcists, but I could "reassign" that to this project if necessary.

 

Ideally I'd prefer not to go above 50 Marines, even starting with the blanks it still takes a good few hours to do each one, and I've got 40K Mechanicus + Iron Hands plus a Knight on the go right now. I have both the HH books, it's just that without experience it's hard to tell if, as you say, I'm building a lean but viable army or a total lemon.

 

Now, see, 50 marines, a Contemptor, and a few other gubbins at 1500 points sounds eminently reasonable to me.  And I'm not just saying that because my 1500 list is 46 marines, a Contemptor, and a few other gubbins (at least, I count 3 Predators as gubbins).  So I think you've got basically any option open to you at this point level if you're willing to make that many.  With Blood Angels, you might want to use some assault troops.  Don't have to, but might want to.  They're appropriate for 40k BA at least, but the Legions in 30k were so large that any kind of troop formation is suitable - don't feel stereotyped into the assault troop choice.  They're quite expensive per model, though, which normally turns me off from them.  I'm allergic to high point costs.  But they are the highest point-per-body troop choice you've got out of the standard three choices.

 

If you take a Praetor (they're usually a little bit spendy for 1500), you can choose a Rite of War - like Pride of the Legion.  If you're making terminator-sized marines, you could field them with terminator stats and terminator bases.  Pride of the Legion lets you take terminator squads and veteran squads as troops, either of which are higher points per man that tactical blobs and would let you get away with fewer troops.  Vehicles could also cut your work load.  Unless you insist on truescaling them alongside the marines.  Then that's just trouble.  But there is a nice selection of fun vehicles to fill your army out with.

 

Working the Castellax in could work, could also be trouble.  It's going to require you to take a Forge Lord, both to unlock them and to babysit them.  Each of those Castellax is a monster, but just that one squad can balloon up to 1/4 or 1/3 of your points with just a handful of upgrades on the Castellax and the Forge Lord.  May not leave you enough to cover all your other bases (scoring units, anti-tank, anti-air, etc) with the remaining points, or it might just leave you very thin and put the entire game on the shoulders of that big unit of Castellax.