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This blog will be documenting my project that I am calling Mini Hammer, an all inclusive project that is bulding two small armies and the terrain to match them.

Introduction

I love 40k. I really do. Ever since since my first Space Wolves army in 1998 I have never been able to get enough. Converting and building in this range of models offers an outlet for creativity that is incredibly statisfying, and although I love to mostly build things, I enjoy playing the game as well. Unfortunately, many hobbyists in this realm don't really play the game the way that I enjoy (and really think it was intended to be played). Hyper competition in my neck of the woods has taken away any incentive to paint, build, or utilize any kind of the awesome fluff that is the 40k universe. While I understand that max/min competitive list building can be a very interesting challenge to some, playing my army against a half assembled, plasitic IG parking lot is not really fun for me. So instead of shun the models and the terrain that I love so much I've decided to just do everything myself, and create a 40k game that is still 40k but on a smaller level. And so Mini Hammer was born. I understand that this project will probably interest very few people, but hey if I find atleast one other person who enjoys this (and agrees with me), then my faith in 40k will be completely restored.

What is Mini Hammer?

Mini Hammer is a cross between regular 40k and a skirmish that uses smaller units to slightly alter the dynamics of a regular game. Important: there are MINIMUM rule changes in Mini Hammer. I don't want to spend entire games trying to figure out strange and unusual fan rules. The rules for 40k work just fine. That being said, I want Mini Hammer to have an arcade feel and a "just pick up and play" style.



Objective markers from terraformer at www.3t-studios.com

The Setup and the Rules

The game will have two pre-made small armies, one Cadian, another Chaos Renegades. Each army will have an HQ , a various number of 5 man troop squads, heavy weapons teams, special units, and probably an armour 30 vehicle each ( chaos is definetly getting a sentinel). The game will use the 6th edition rule book with the following core adjustments.

1.Units that fail a morale check will go to ground and will only flee on an 11 or 12.

2.Units firing over 24 inches suffer -1 BS

3. Units may always test to regroup

4. Units that go to ground/are pinned always strike last in cc.

For now those are the only rule changes that applies to everyone. Special rules for individual units will also be used, mostly to make each army play differently, but also to reign in some GW ideas that I don't like (this is my party and I'll cry if I want to godammit). For example:

Medipak: Once per turn a unit containing a model equipped with a medipak may make a Feel No Pain roll for a single failed armour save caused from a shooting attack that is S3 or lower.

Does it make sense? Another example:

The spread fire of a shotgun makes aiming much less important. A model equipped with a shotgun resloves overwatch at 5+.

Here are some pictures of units both WIP and finished. I will go into more detail on each army later.

The Story and the Setting


Once again another planet's population has succumbed to the will of the Warp, and once again the Imperial Guard has been called to enact their punishment. The intitial planetfall spearheaded by Adeptus Astartes Mentor Legion was unstoppable and within months several battle groups of Imperial Guard forces had launched from the beach head and were marching unchecked to their objectives, greeted as heroes to the populace that had been subjugated by the rebels. 6 months into the campaign rebel leadership hatches its diabolical plan, unleashing a strain of the life eater virus that consumes the flesh of millions, friend and foe alike. Lines of logistics are destroyed and survivors are cut off and fragmented. As the planet turns into a barren wasteland, Imperial Command chalks the conflict up as a loss, diverting reinforcements to more importants fronts. Meanwhile the company of Mentors Legion that remains turns its attention to its own mysterious goals, cutting contact to a minimum.

In the wasteland, pockets of Imperials carry on the fight for a beauracratic master that has forgotten them all together.

The board as of now s 4x5 ish. It will be modeled as a chaos wasteland that once resembled an Imperial city. Im going for a very scavenged feel, with lots of 5+ cover areas and some 4+ ruins. I want to use Fantasy terrain to really accentuate the medievl chaos feel, thoug I'm going to try my best to make it fit in with 40k (a lot of fantasy stuff is being used in this actually). Im using sections of 1.5 inch wood that I found as the base. Some 2x2 some 2x3.

Here are the first WIP shots of what is going to be a Renegade observation post. Follwed by some future terrain material.

Much of Mini Hammer is "dumbing down" units. The game revolves around squishy humans with S3 T3 5+ save and S3 weapons. Anything higher than that should be special. Small squishy units make cover much more important and will help to develop the game into the more conventional ( dare I say "realisitic") manner of modern gunfights (this is all of course specultion as I have yet to test this). That being said, Space Marines will completely negate this principle and so are out of the picture for now. Here is what I mean by "dumbing down".

The Leman Russ that this officer and driver crewed was destroyed several months ago. After bailing out, the crew salvaged its heavy stubber and now continue to fight alongside an infantry platoon as a heavy weapons team.

I'm liking the idea of MiniHammer. Look forward to seeing where all of this goes in the future.

Looks good, keep up the development. Could it be applied to eldar/dark eldar, or orks/ tyranids?

I love the toned down feel of the game, with Heavy Stubbers being the feared weapons. It also opens up a big opportunity for games to be fought in close confines. Would be great for Spacehulk Corridors!

Thank you all.

@Moltar. I saw you lived in Charleston, saw your name and assumed you were my friend Dave Molten......sooo is that Dave?


I have thought about how the other races will fit into this. I've really envisioned the whole project as sort of a cover shooter that better captures a more conventional feel, something that would be difficult to do with close combat oriented armies or armies with high toughness and save models. I have thought about how Tau and Eldar/Dark Eldar would fit in because they are S3 T3, however many of their weapons are vastly superior, particularly Tau with a S5 pulse rifle. There are ofcourse ways to balance it, but as of now I'm just concentrating on Human vs. Human. Once the two human armies are finished I plan on building "expansions" for Mini Hammer to incorporate some other races, maybe controlled by a 3rd player. For example I played around with the idea of Dark Eldar raiders entering play with a super tiny force with adjusted rules. (Basically a raider with 5 wyches and a venom with 3 warriors, all vehicles having the flyer rule and maybe some other tweaks)

If anyone has gotten this far in the blog, they may have noticed that this is the perfect way for the 40k junkie to buy a little bit of everything without having to worry about starting and buying entire legal armies. Less things to paint also results in more time spent on giving individual models love and attention.

Here is an update on the observation post complete with ramshackle bridge and stepping stones. The big empty area with be covered with resin to make a water effect. Also to prove my point about satiating your hobby ADD,some other pics.....

Love the idea, I may try to convince one of my friends to try this with 5th edition and CSM/orks.
Also Please continue to have awesome ideas!

Hey everybody I'm a DCM now!!

really a big fan of those snipers

really like this idea and the terrain is starting to look great. I can see it being done with other races such as dark eldar or tau but i think that while i would love to see tyranids as a playable army, I can't really see it working out as well. However I think it's an awesome idea and can't wait to see what else happens next

I've always liked the idea of small scale Skirmish-K. Interested to see where this goes.

Cool idea. I am going the same direction with my old Rogue Trader rulebook (that's 1st ed for you young 'uns) simply with squad cohesion removed and very small points value forces (think around 300- for example, that's barely a single Space marine squad, less if you use a high-points commander). Gives the game a more "Necromunda" feel, where single soldiers can move independently of a squad.

It also gives me the opportunity to field forces I like the aesthetic of but don't want to commit to build whole armies of, like Orks, Chaos or Imperial guard. Get a single squad of Black Reach Orks, the cool Warboss, and you've got a force for 20 bucks!

1.Once again thanks to all for the kind words. I'm glad to know that there are other people interested in something of the sort. I feel as if I brought this up around where I live most people would meet it with confusion (why would you build non-tournament playable 40k armies?).

@AegisGrimm. doing this is also a great opportunity to play around with the wallet raping whore named Forge World.

2.Question: I can't figure out how to insert pics without just attaching them at the bottom. I see the image button at the top but I can't figure out the next step. How do I insert pics so that I can have text in between them?

3. I got a vampire counts necromancer from Hoardobits in the mail today. After a little bit of "40kifying" he is set to become a minor sorceror that will lead the Renegades. He will be the only other Ld 9 model (the highest in the game) opposite of the Cadian platoon commander. Here are some ideas I've been generating, and remember that this is Mini Hammer, where toning down is a necessity for functionality.

Chaos psychic powers ideas. (Please feel free to throw your ideas my way!)

Curse. 24". target unit suffers -1 BS until the end of its following turn.

Fear. 24". target unit treats all enemy units as causing fear until the end of the turn.

Beam. 12" S8 AP 1.

Choke (like mother f***ing Darth Vader style). 6" or while engaged in close combat. Target model suffers a strength 4 wound

Explode.(make one of your own guys a human warp bomb). 12". place large blast over target friendly model. that dude explodes. Resolve all hits at S5 AP-.

I want all the powers to be offensive. None of them should have any effect on cover saves (ie..no "this units gets an invul ect...")

Ok here is the sorceror as well as some more Cadians with some extra gear options (You can't live in a war zone without the right gear dammmit!)

No, I'm not Dave. But, funny enough I didn't notice you were also from Charleston. Like the minor sorceror and the extra gear on the cadians I always feel is a must.

Really cool idea, love the terrain and models.

This is an awesome idea! One question though, what is that Sorcerer mini?

Thank you everyone. Your interest will help me actually see this project thru to the end.

@Waaaaghlord. Thanks a bunch. The sorceror is a WHFB vampire counts bit off of the Mortis Engine sprue, cut down a bit and given the bottom of a grey knight force weapon.

Here he is painted:

Added a few more figures to each side. Here is what is painted so far for each army.

I do believe Chaos needs some more units to make it balanced.

These are just the models I have painted. Once it's all said and done there should be about 20 to 30 models per side. I'll post the planned lists here soon.

Two sides are coming together nicely so far. I feel like the IG have gotten a little bit more attention to make them unique. I know those cultists minis are cool, but a little conversion work with them may go a long way too.

Yeah I plan on getting some of the DV doubles converted by dakka user Meade eventually. I just can't use greenstuff for the life of me.

Here are some pics of all the Cadians (minus their vehicle) as well as a WIP of the new chaos sentinel. Once I get this sentinel done I will probably switch back to terrain for a bit.

Looks great, really love the idea and know what you mean about 40k these day's. Its not about the narrative any more. It's like playing league of legends or something. No story, just there to win. Those people who field a table of unpainted miniatures where by the end of the game you just want to go home. I could rant for half a page about the problems with this but... any ways looks really great and stoked to see the final product.

Big fan of everything you are doing here.

Bit by tiny bit, you are restoring my faith in the 40K universe.

I can see a nice version where there's a bunch of guardsmen (with a VIP, because guardsmen are not worth the evacuation) being overwhelmed by chaos cultist and you drop a squad of Stormies which come in to get them out of here.

Right. I really like the rest of the Cadians, they look very beleaguered, and fighting on to the bitter end. I second the idea that they're waiting for an evac, and are being attacked from all sides by chaos. The Sentinel however, I'm not so hot on. It doesn't look very chaotic for a start, which isn't lending itself to be seen as part of the same force as the Cultists. Now I know you said you're not conversion particularly greenstuff savvy, but you can use parts from chaos accessories to really show its allegiance. Take this one for example.

Thanks to everyone . Your comments encourage me to actually sit down and get work done on the project.

The evac idea sounds pretty cool. I have some models that I plan on making into some downed pilots and a planetary governor that will likely be used in special missions. Otherwise, what I'm trying to create in the game is a very desolate feel, where groups of Imperials and Rebels are operating out of patrol bases and coming into contact with each other in a vast no man's land, ambushing and hunting each other, where niether side is able to commit to any large scale engagement. Though if GW every does come out with plastic Stormtroopers, you can be sure that they will find their way into Mini Hammer.

After ghosty pointed out that the sentinel was rather ambiguos, I added some chains from a DE Raider and some other chaos metal star looking thingy. I think that it helped. I still have some hanging skull and chain pieces lying about but I'm not a big fan of slathering my models in Grimm Dark. Contrary to what GW may believe there is actually such thing as TOO MANY SKULLS. I will let y'all decide if it needs more.

Once again thank you all for the comments and criticism. I really enjoy reading it, and hope to give back something new and cool to those who are exhausted by the 40k army list of destruction du jour. Here are some updates of the Chaos side.

These dregs of chaos belong to the Cult of the Crimson Dawn. In the early stages of the revolution cult members such as this plundered the armories and vehicle depots of the planetary defence militia, taking for themselves crucial military equipment not readily available to the Imperial citizen. This sentinel has been stripped of its Imperial markings and repainted to the liking of the rebel forces. It has also been fitted with some rather grotesque adorments for use in the cult's many strange and barbaric rituals.

This might be a bit late but... I might use a terminator assault cannon instead of a dreadnought cannon. That is unless you already are using a terminator one... it just looks a little bit to big. At first I didn't like the lunging look but now that I think about it, it makes sense. It's like the machine spirit is lunging as best as it can towards the enemy.