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So here's the deal. I have always had a long-running love affair with Epic 40K. But since it has gone out of print, the collectors market has become full of out of sight prices unless you get lucky and jump on a good deal on Ebay. And, like most of us, I have "Army ADD", so collecting 4-5 armies of miniatures for Epic is just not going to be healthy for the pocketbook, especially with a baby on the way.

But.... then I stumbled on a great idea! For a long time now I had been seeing all the cool 40K sprites that were created for the online gaming program, Vassal. I suddenly thought, "What if I use those sprites to create 2-dimensional unit tokens to represent all the different formations in Epic? Being a long-time miniatures junkie, I wasn't sure that flat tokens would have the same "feel" as real models, but I figured that at such a small scale as Epic, they might just do the trick, so I tried my hand at it.

So what I did was scrounge up all the files I could possibly find for Vassal sprites, and with a little reworking with MSPaint and GiMP, I was able to come up with a sprite for literally every single normal unit that can be fielded by most of the armies available for Epic Armageddon, even the fan-made lists for armies like Chaos, Necrons and even Tau. With lots and lots (and lots) of cutting and pasting, I have a collection of files. And so any time I want to make any forces for my games, I simply print out everything I want on adhesive paper (100% scale printing coincidentally comes out at exact Epic scale), and then cut them out and stick them to Epic-scale bases made from the "Foamies" brand craft foam that you can buy for $1 per sheet at any craft store.

In this way, I can print a 1500-2000 point army on a single sheet of paper.

I figure I'll start with my first army, my Space Wolves. This is a selection of Space Wolf sprites I started with, found with a Google search:


And here's what some of my work has turned them into. I made it a goal to make sure every unit has exact WYSIWYG, even down to hand weapons like bolt or plasma pistols:

A Tactical Formation (with Captain in the center squad), with Rhinos for transport:


Terminators, with Land Raider Crusaders for Transport. The lower right stand has been upgrades to have a Librarian:


A Land Speeder Formation, with three tornados, a typhoon, and one on the front left with heavy bolter, and the lead one has a multi-melta:


What do you think?

I love it!

I figure it's not as great as using real miniatures, but I still plan on using normal miniatures for anything that is the scale of a Titan or a Knight for each race. A flat Rhino might not be bad, but i figure a Titan would not have the same impact as a flat token. You really need to see how they tower over buildings for them to be at their coolest.

Next up, Scouts and transport, including a stand of snipers. These are my least favorite as their lower detail means they just don't "pop". But I figure, what are you going to do when each scout is only about 15-20 pixels wide? :



A Comparison with actual miniatures, a Land raider and a Supreme Commander stand:

Cool stuff! I've been doing this for years with War of the Ring and WFB, but the top down sprites look way better than the c&p images of minis I used!

Very cool, thanks for sharing. I have a few similar 'armies' for DBA and HOTT I initially put together for playtesting and to hold me over until I could get figs painted and based.

I really like your epic stuff. I recently sold off all my Epic 40K figs as I am downsizing hobby stuff in prep for a move to a smaller place. I hope you'll consider sharing your files so folks can benefit from them. It would be cool to have full Epic armies that don't take up the shelf space that figures do.

Jake

Yeah, I'll have to find a good place to host files other than as pics on Dakka, so everyone can enjoy them..

Brilliant Idea. Tactical Command might be a good place for you to go and discuss this. They might also be able to host the files. Any plans to set up other armies. Incidentally if you want to replace them with miniatures Onslaught Games and Troublemaker Games offer excellent replacements

Hahaha... GREAT idea!
Looks quite good.

Epic is still my favourite game.
And it's just sad that it is slowly fading...
So a very good idea, this.

I have the luxury to have most Epic armies (because i am old ;-), but this is a perfect substitute for the armies i do not have (Tau, Dark Eldar).

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Yeah, I'll have to find a good place to host files other than as pics on Dakka, so everyone can enjoy them..

Just upload them to the gallery here as PNG and they wont get compressed to heck

I have thought about doing this for a long time, but have ultimately been too lazy. Kudos.

You mentioned other armies. Can we see some IG or Orks?

Just registered here to comment on this post.

A friend and I are doing the same thing so we can play Net Epic Gold. We are planning to make a campaign of it fighting the third war of Armageddon. So Imperials V Orks.

Im working on white scars space marines right now with Orks and IG to follow.

My counters are for the net epic game so are for 25mm bases. I know 20mm is the standard but i have loads of 25mm bases already cut. I have all the White scars companys done and enought for all the support detachments on 1 A3 sheet of paper.

The sprites are shamelessly ripped form Vassel.

Hello,

RESURECTION!

Do you have the sprites for the other armies too? I want to do the same thing but I struggle in cropping the sprites (I had make screenshots from vassal which I crop then ...

Greetings

Hello, very much like what you have made, did you have anything for a Tau army?

mr.john_doe wrote:
Hello,

RESURECTION!

Do you have the sprites for the other armies too? I want to do the same thing but I struggle in cropping the sprites (I had make screenshots from vassal which I crop then ...

Greetings

Aapon and Abetillo at Tactical Command have been working on creating some complete sets of cardboard proxies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've printed the Tyranid ones as below:



There's been no sign of any ork proxies yet, so I went ahead and made my own. I'm in the process of cutting them out, and will put the PDF up online somewhere once I'm done.



The catch is that these have been created for use with the NETEA lists, but I'll include clean versions of mine when I upload.