Legions Imperialis & Epic hobby chat!

[Cactus]

Based on the photos of the tactical marines I was set on not getting the sprue. No matter how good a model looks on the table I will know about all the cruddy bits while painting and it will bug me. However I saw them in person today and with my four decade old ocular units I can hardly see anything is wrong at all.

 

I'm still holding off until more models (especially tanks) are released but I'm a lot more interested in the marines than I was before.

[Captain Idaho]

Excuse my awful photography but I've been working on an entire boxed set of Astartes all at once (it's boring but they're all almost done in days lol!) but here is a Kratos I treated myself to:

 

 

 

Proud of how this guy came out. As you can my lighting is awful and I tried various methods. But the dry brushed edge highlights are a nicer touch than my camera skills can withstand!

[SkimaskMohawk]

Got my next wave all primed and the solar aux basecoated; almost done with the airbrush for now, just some top down highlights of grey knights steel after the basecoats.

 

This is:

 

1 command squad 

9 tacs

2 assaults

2 plasma

2 missiles

6 terminators

8 contemptors 

2 Preds 

4 Kratos

1 thunder hawk

 

12 Russes 

5 malcadors

1 baneblade

2 thunderbolts 

 

Still got most of another infantry box to put together sans terminators as well lol.

 

@Captain Idaho the first picture looks really good honestly; so does the Kratos!

[DuskRaider]

10 hours ago, Black Cohort said:

 

This seems like a balanced take on the issue.

 

I find it interesting how many odd choices GW made with the release of LI.  They have been very clear that it is a HH not 40k setting, yet chose to make the base armour mark, Mk VI.  There are no Land Raiders at release, despite them being iconic to space marines.  As you mention the variety of units in the infantry boxes is both cool, but also annoying as getting enough specialists without tons of unwanted stuff will be challenging.  Some parts of the core box are sold separately, others are not; how are people supposed to get enough Russes for their SA or field terminator units?  Overall the quality of the models is great, but then there are specific models way below that standard.  Some of the extra choices make no sense, did we really need that many contemptor leg variations or would that space have been better used on other bits?  Why does the rhino suddenly have a multi-melta option, but no heavy flamer or bolter?  Why, in a shooting army that already has melee focused Ogryn are the SA veterans only option power axes?

I agree with a lot of this… I really like the minis, warts and all but… if this is supposed to historically take place during the Heresy, why are they wearing Mk. VI when historically the Astartes were more commonly wearing Mk. II or Mk. III with some Mk. IV here and there as it was fairly new at the time of Isstvan III? 
 

I know that it probably shouldn’t bother me all that much since they’re so small but that really is my biggest gripe right now, other than the other big one: the lack of viable option to purchase Specialist Units without all the extra stuff included. I don’t need a billion Command Squads, I have no want or need for Assault Marines. I don’t mind more basic Infantry, but I want Terminators damnit. I just dropped $40USD for individual squads on eBay this past weekend (totaling to 4 more bases) so I can at least field a couple full units with the other stuff I have. A far cry from the list I want. 
 

The lack of core essential units and armor available at launch despite being shown months ago and which should have been released already is annoying. We have a very limited selection at this point and it may be quite some time before we see more, which in order to actually use will most likely necessitate the purchase of an Expansion book. 
 

I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to either ignore the minimum amount of points to play or ignore the 30% ally restriction until they give us more, and I do worry that the longer they wait, the better the chance is that people pass on this. 

[Pacific81]

The issue of having to get multiple sprues to get the units you wanted has always been an issue with Epic unfortunately. It was hilarious back in the day trying to collect Eldar for example as some of the Aspect warriors only came a few on the sprue - full units of Aspect Warriors was one way to pick out the kids in the group with generous parents I can tell you :)

 

I would say these days we've had a few tech advances which make it not quite so bad. You can get 3D printed or proxy minis to bump up the specialist units. Also some epic community/social media groups will probably be full of trades of people swapping stuff, might be worth a try.

 

Also yes on it not feeling like a fully complete game for the time being. I can understand things like specialist Legion units not being available at launch, but the Land Raider, the Legion's MBT? Not very good. I'm just going to keep on painting for now and give a few small point value games a run, and then hopefully when the first expansion comes that will fill in the more notable absences in the army lists. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, I will probably generally play NetEpic or Epic Armageddon 30k until the new game is fully realised.

[Valkyrion]

Yeah, the wilful lack of datasheets for Speeders, Bikes, Land Raiders etc leaves a bit of a sour taste given the delay and subsequent previews of the missing models. 

A PDF of those units would have been nice, if only to aid in planning. You can intuit some things, like Outriders getting Jink because of the White Scars trait, but as it is playing as White Scars is 'forcing' you into a flyer heavy force. 

 

I know its no longer GW's MO to have rules for models that aren't yet released, but they should throw the hobby a bone once in a while as even small gestures help mitigate ill feeling amongst the player base, especially when their current release schedule is such a mess (it took over a month to receive a non-pre release order of some necromunda bits, for example).  Let those of us who already have Land Raiders use them!

[Noserenda]

Yeah it seems like they were desperate to hide rules to stop people going 3rd party, but then did a fairly limited release which is driving folks to 3rd parties...

 

Personally I'd rather have models than rules from SG

[Pacific81]

I think for anyone coming from the old versions and just picking up Legions, it feels a little bit like going from the Blood Bowl 2 video game to Blood Bowl 3 when it was first released; it looks shinier, but you only have a small fraction of the teams, its much more expensive, and for some reason the TD animation of an Elf crashes the game (waiting for that download patch/FAQ). As in that case, you realise there is no need to rush, the game is in there but will just take some time. 

 

Anyway! To just get a small break from human forces (I just realised I have four Epic projects on the go at the moment :D ) I finished off these Eldar Doomweavers. These are the classic Eldar minis and bought from a sealed pack! I was afraid to open it, in case my spirit was not found worthy and I died like the guys at the end of the Indiana Jones film after opening the Ark, but glad I did now. What is it with Eldar they always seem to bring out the best in the sculptors, regardless of scale? I've gone for the classic GW scheme, which is mostly black with bits of colour to denote the Craftworld.

 

[Wurrkop]

52 minutes ago, Pacific81 said:

waiting for that download patch/FAQ)

The first one is out, in case youve missed it ;)

[BolterZorro]

I don't know if someone already notice that before: but in the assembly instructions, the sicaran are set x4 and predators x6 in the pictures. That means 2 things: there is a upcomuing box of sicaran and there will be 4 in the box. Same for predators (6), malcadors (4) and Russ (8 !)

 

 

[Mendi Warrior]

I got my order delivered today, literally 1 hour ago.

 

I opened one starter box so far. I was a bit fearful after reading a few comments about missing bits, broken parts, ... No such problems here, so far at least. One single marine had lost its chainsaw bayonet, which happened to be at the bottom of the box. It is already glued back on the fig. We are talking about a less than 2mm piece of plastic. If I had not carefully looked into the box I would have missed it 

 

As for the excess plastic undercuts and bridges we have seen up close on pictures and in videos, I must admit they are much less annoying than I thought. I might give a try at getting rid of some excess but I am wondering if I won't risk damaging the figs doing so.

 

More unboxing on the menu.

 

I'm eyeing using magnets for some of the vehicles, like I did for knights and titans with my Titanicus stuff. This might prove tricky for some parts. I would have loved to see pieces 16 & 19 doubled for the Sicarans for instance.

[Black Cohort]

My stuff also arrived about an hour ago.  Most of the undercuts can be significantly mitigated with a bit of trimming, as of right now I think the most egregious mini is actually mini #9 as there is no way to deal with the merged legs.

[Valkyrion]

Is it more likely that Punishers and Arcus' will be released in plastic as a 4 kit like the standard and omega, or that FW release little resin packs of optional turrets?

 

I'm not a magnetiser, so I was going to glue the turrets down once I had my squadrons sorted.

[Mendi Warrior]

I unboxed all my goodies and started building a few things.

 

A few thoughts at the moment.

 

It should be fairly easy to use magnets for the Baneblade's sponson weapons, it seems quite straightforward. I haven't glued the upper part yet so I can still access the back of the sponsons, inside the hull, to add extra plasticard if needed. A bit more work seems necessary for the main weapon but nothing impossible.

 

For the Kratos, using magnets for the main weapon seems very straightforward. Much less so for the secondary weapons. I guess I'll have to make a choice between heavy bolter, Kratos lascannon or Kratos autocannon. I though about removing the pins but there is a recess so you'd need to shave the bottom of each weapon as well if you were to use a magnet to swap them sliding the guns in or out. If parts 11 & 14 had been doubled on the sprue, you could use magnets for the lascannons and heavy bolters, but as it is, I don't see an "easy" way (besides using 1mm diameter magnets and spending a lot of time precision drilling).

 

Rhinos are fairly easy to build. I always clean all the bits after unclipping them from the sprue. Actually, for the sides of the Rhinos, it is best to leave it for after guing the pieces together. Two of the attachment points are on parts that you don't want to shave too much. By cleaning them after they are glued, you can use the rest of the model as a guide and avoid cutting too much. This said beware of potential gaps when assembling the models that way. (I might add a picture later to illustrate this).

 

More later!

[Pacific81]

They are lovely little kits. It's funny, because in some ways you can see how they have tried to make the game more accessible from a modelling perspective, by making (what are really, very tiny) miniatures easy to assemble; I know having the little tabs on the base has been criticised by some, but I will tell you after basing many of the tab minis over the years, and especially trying to paint the base and not accidentally get paint on the minis you have finished, it definitely does make it easier. And also, again the undercuts on some of the bolter minis has been criticised, but not having separate bolters on 8mm scale minis has probably saved a fair few finger tips from scalpel cuts. 

So they have done that on the one hand, and then said "OK lets give all of these different loadouts and choices and make it massively finicky for the tanks", which I don't think is a very accessible way of designing the game. I would magnetise the turret on the baneblade because I like rotating it around and making childish 'boom' noises as it shoots, but magnetising different weapon loadouts so you can swap them in and out? I don't think it's reasonable to expect this game, at this scale, to be WYSIWYG - a quick chat before the game with your opponent I think should be sufficient. 

 

Anyway! I will remove the soap box, here are some tester minis for some Night Lords I have finished off. My actual Legions marines box arrived today, so will probably get to start on the official minis with a similar scheme. 

 

[Valkyrion]

The second worst thing I've found so far (the cheap naff tokens being 1st) is the ruins kit. It looks good, but what a tedious, unintuitive build it was.

I sat there following the instructions, thinking I'll do this set by the book, and it must have taken me four hours to build the first half. 

I think I'll build the second half in a series of L shapes with the scatter terrain for decoration.

[nilsh]

I got most of my order yesterday (2 starter, 2 marine and 1 box of rhinos) and have started building some tanks and Dreadnoughts and so far they're great kits, but the small bits are somewhat hard to deal with, with my aging and crappy eyes but in impressed with the quality so far.

[LameBeard]

40 minutes ago, Pacific81 said:

… here are some tester minis for some Night Lords I have finished off. My actual Legions marines box arrived today, so will probably get to start on the official minis with a similar scheme. 

 

You painted the eye targeters! You are dead to me now.

 

Meanwhile today I made my little free rhino and got a look at the infantry. Despite those undercuts, just rotating the model 15 degrees or so made them all disappear and the detail fill me with delight again. I am going to be excited on Christmas Day (who said Christmas was for kids?)

[Captain Idaho]

A couple Contemptors I painted...

 

 

The infantry are still ongoing and not coming out as impressive as what I see here but I'll post them up soon enough too.

[Mendi Warrior]

I played a bit with the Charonite Ogryns. The first 4 on the left use one set of legs, the last 4 on the right use the other set of legs.

 

Top row shows the models simply swapping the arms. Bottom row shows the same models with the torsos at different angles (simply remove the guide on which the torso inserts and orient the torso differently) and also some repositioned arms (models at the extreme left and right in the picture). I cut the arms, the cables are a bit flexible when bending them gently so they could remain attached to the body after cutting the arm (I still broke them at some point ...). The one on the right is slightly away from the body so I inserted some paper towel with superglue to improve the bond and fill the gap. Green stuff would be better but that is a quick and dirty workaround 

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by Mendi Warrior

[DuskRaider]

I finally got my Starter Set AND my Astartes Starter half yesterday so I’ve got quite a bit of work ahead of me. So far I have the Sicarans together and I’m going to move on to the Predators and then it’s prime time for all of the tanks and Astartes on sprue. So dang many…

[TCC]

I dived into LI - my boxed game and terrain arrived on Friday and other boxes arrived earlier in the week.

managed to get a chunk of the mini’s build and primed and a few of them completed, terrain is built and primed.

im enjoying putting the models together they are nice kits.

 

 

[Interrogator Stobz]

Looking good! Plenty of excitement and investing into this game.

 

Maybe too much, my Antipodian pre-order hasn't even shipped yet. 

 

[Pacific81]

Are you guys in that neck of the woods having to wait for UK deliveries or is it just the wait for local stockists getting the goods to be sent over by GW? Hopefully won't have too wait too much longer and just live vicariously in the meantime!

 

I have caused un-necessary pain for my fingers and eyes by trying to convert the Assault Solars with little jetpacks. These are from Vanguard miniatures, it's partly for imagining them jumping out of Arvus transports, and also so I can use them in SM2/NetEpic (they have a longer move in that game, as they were based on the old Rogue Trader IG assault troops which had jump packs and John Woo-style duel pistols!)

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by Pacific81

[TCC]

I’m in the UK and element games was waiting on GW for stock (that’s what they sent me as an update for my order)

Edited December 11, 2023 by TCC