Terminus Omega 15mm 40K Manifesto

Inspired by a post over on Homebrew Gamer, I thought I'd set down some of my thoughts on creating 15mm WH40K armies. My sculpting skills have nothing on his, mind you, so I'll be creating my 40K armies by converting other miniature lines rather than simply making my own.

Orks:
GZG's "Alien Mercenaries" Line already forms the core of my (currently small) 40K Ork force. I'm hoping to expand this with some suitably "looted" human vehicles from various lines that produce trucks and post-apocalyptic vehicles. I'll also be converting some 15mm goblins to act as Grots, but mostly as banner bearers and non-combatants rather than fighting Grots.

Tau:
I'm also creating a reasonable approximation of Tau by using GZG New Israeli bodies with Critical Mass Games' Ygs Merc heads. Just by sprinkling a couple of these converted mini's amongst unconverted New Israeli's I'm hoping to give them a much more Tau feel. I'm also looking into various 15mm grav vehicle lines that I can use to represent Tau vehicles as well as certain power-suit lines for Tau Battlesuits.

I've got my first batch of Tau-headed infantry on the painting desk as we speak. Should have pictures up by tomorrow at the latest.

Imperial Guard:

For Imperial Guard Rebel Mini's Earth Force troopers make damn good Cadians, but they suffer from a distinct lack of officer figures.

Khurasan's Neo-Soviet line make for pretty damn good Old School Rogue-Trader style Imperial Guard. The Infantry squad's come with a pistol armed leader who can easily be armed with a chainsword. The RPG-esque guys work as Grenade Launcher troops and three packs of infantry squads will also net you a heavy weapons squad of three missile launchers.

Then there's the heavy weapon pack that will provide snipers, mortar teams and lascannon/autocannon teams and a High Command pack that will give you an officer, a commissar, a medic and a guy standing at attention who is just begging to be converted into a platoon standard bearer.

For rogue Trader games, I'll be ditching the weapons teams, using one of the RPG guys as the squad grenade launcher and treating the missile tube firer as a lascannon armed guardsman.


As for Imperial Guard vehicles? There are dozens of very nice wheeled APC's out there in 15mm scale that look very similar to the Chimaera. I might not even bother doing any conversion work on these models at all. Various drop-ships and gun-ships out there can stand in easily enough for Valkyries and the like. Moreover, 15mm WWII lines produce plenty of vehicle mounted artillery and anti-aircraft guns that make fine proxies for other Imperial Guard vehicles.

15mm Space Orks

Mini's by GZG. Painting by me.  Photo by Amber Renarde.

My first batch of 15mm "Space Orks" are ready for games of 40K and Rogue Trader. I'm really happy with how they turned out. Only another 26 to go. The mini's are "Alien Mercenaries" from Ground Zero Games. Strictly speaking they're not designed to be 40K Orks as such, just generic "Thug" aliens. But they do the job pretty damn well.

In an early post I suggested I might pick up another 36 of da ladz for gaming, but really 36 Orks are enough for a game of 1st ed WH40K Rogue Trader. I'll hold off on buying in any more in favour of picking up an Imperial Guard Platoon's worth of Rebel Miniature's Neo-Sovs.

Bad Landing Update:

I've also been busily working away on expanding Bad Landing. I have a couple of infra-structure type buildings nearing the final stages of painting. I've also finished some 25mm Sand-bag emplacements designed for gun-teams lying down which don't look too bad for 15mm. Finally, I've made a batch of three "corrugated iron" barracks-style buildings to house poorer workers from sheet syrene. The buildings are just a shell at the moment, awaiting windows, vents, fuse boxes and the likes which I'll be ordering from GZG as soon as Jon clears his back-log.

Oh, and I have a chem-pit that'll be finished just as soon as I can find a pair of wire cutters that will actually cut car door wire mesh without going blunt on me. Expect some Work In Progress shots soon.

Hmm. Speaking of buildings. I might just hold off on buying those Neo-Sovs for a little bit longer and order Jon's Colony Shack set instead. No point buying too many toy soldiers 'til I have something for them to fight over.