Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

We all know that GW is not producing anymore most of the factions of Warhammer 40K in epic scale, even though some of them in the past were produced.
To my knowledge the factions that were never produced are Dark Eldars, Sisters of battle and Necrons (unsure).

I know of the existence of many different producers, like Exodus wars and Dark Realm Miniatures, that actually sell very good 6mm models that can be easily converted into Necrons or some of the Tyranid units, but still most of the work is to be created starting from nothing if someone wants to play unavailable armies.

Anyhow, with a group of friends we'd still like to create these armies for the epic scale, and eventually we dream (if the first step is achieved) to diffuse them to a larger number of people.

What we ask then is:
Does anyone know if anything like this has already been tried? Has anyone already sculpted these armies?
And the most important question:
What aspects of copyright laws can be an issue for this idea? To what extent?

Thanks for the answers, and I hope I'm not asking anything blasphemous.

You are breaking laws (in most countries) by shrinking existing miniatures to 6mm scale.

GW was offered (for free) Necron and (if I remember correctly) Tyranid 3D models. GW turned it down saying they aren't interested. There is one person who tried to find out if they could buy licence for epic scale, got no.

Hena wrote:You are breaking laws (in most countries) by shrinking existing miniatures to 6mm scale.

GW was offered (for free) Necron and (if I remember correctly) Tyranid 3D models. GW turned it down saying they aren't interested. There is one person who tried to find out if they could buy licence for epic scale, got no.

I believe that was Ben (chaosmumblesandsomethingcantrememberepicfail=o[ ) They will never license the line out to be redone. It's a non-starter. If we are lucky Forgeworld my re-release some of their Epic figges but with the way the preheresy space marines are selling I wouldn't bet on it.

Too bad! It's a shame that no one remembers his name. However i've been looking on the Taccmd forum and I could find no project about this, even though there is plenty of informations for those who want to produce their own army starting from whatever proxy.
Since it would be illegal to produced even shrinkages of pre-existing models the idea could be that of making very good proxies that can fit the purpose with little or no modification.

What you think about that?

Easy answer is to not sell them as Necrons, SoB e.t.c. Sculpt your own miniatures that bare a remarkeble resemblence to the 40K variations but not enough that they break the I.P laws. Let people then proxy them for there own games. On (I think its Warseer) there are already a load of fan made lists for the different factions so you dont need to cover that base. Lets face it, the likes of DarkRealm probably got most of there ideas from GW....

It makes me sad and angry at the same time that GW are so IP retentive about a product they lost interest in years ago.

Surely, it makes sense to sub contract/ license to known people - Forge World were approved weren't they - to control quality etc and ensure no abuse of the IP eg using non GW fluff lines etc (so still no squats).

The hard work is being done for them , what is not to like.

Nah....although little Jimmy does not know what (and how good) epic is, he might want to stop spending on one of our overpriced, must have for the new codex, finecast models for 40k

WilyC

Dirinel wrote:Too bad! It's a shame that no one remembers his name. However i've been looking on the Taccmd forum and I could find no project about this, even though there is plenty of informations for those who want to produce their own army starting from whatever proxy.
Since it would be illegal to produced even shrinkages of pre-existing models the idea could be that of making very good proxies that can fit the purpose with little or no modification.

What you think about that?

Chaos and Evil check out this thread here on Warseer http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?308580-Epic-Target-Demographic I also believe that is his name on http://www.taccmd.tacticalwargames.net/

Good luck I wish you well on your journey. It would be nice if you could get those races made. =o]

Thank a lot man! We'll see what we can do out of this strict situation.

I know how I decided to approach that situation. I designed my own ruleset. Next problem is where to get the money to do models .

Well, actually you just need the material to make models, which is largely available for very cheap prices, especially for big amounts.
As always for "chain production" what you actually need is a starting miniature you sculpted by yourself (with breaking any copyright or trade mark). After that you just make a mold and make many copies of the same miniature. For 6mm is much easier than it sounds.