Warhammer 40K with A&A Minis: Ice Station Zoolander!

[gloriousbattle]

Commissar Arizan already had troubles enough. The commander had been killed in a pacification campaign in the farming districts, and he was now in acting command of the 12387th Regiment of the Imperial Guard, as well as de facto ruler of the world of Zoolander under His Undying Majesty. An ork invasion he didn't need.

Zoolander wasn't much as Imperial planets go. A medieval world long into an ice age with its few human inhabitants clustered in farming communities at the equator. The population was little over a million.

But Zoolander had one of the few planetary core-tap stations in the Jotun subsector, built by the Adeptus Mechanicus four hundred years previous. It provided fuel to several worlds, and was key to the subsector's prosperity and industrial output. Added to that, the nasty iceball of a world was a strategic necessity. Zoolander fell between two major warp storms, and it's loss would cut half the sector off from the Imperium, perhaps losing it altogether.

Thus the Commissar was not pleased with his communique from Subsector command containing phrases like "ork migration blackening the stars", "several worlds already lost" and, most unfortunately of all "hold at all costs, for the Emperor!"

The old man had settled into as much of a retirement on this barren world as an Imperial Commissar ever had a right to expect. Still, the gods had a strange sense of humor, and he would indeed hold at all costs, for the Emperor.

But fate took an even stranger and more dire turn when, mere hours before the first ork drop pods landed, he was visited by Inquisitor Thraan Thaken, accompanied by five ultramarines, one of them in a dreadnought suit.

The Inquisitor was using even more unfortunate phrases, like "daemon-vampires" and "Chaos forces the orks on like a lash", and "the core-tap station must be imploded if it cannot be held, our lives are of no consequence."

The old priest-soldier's face cracked into the closest thing it had known to a smile in over a hundred years, as the brash, young Inquisitor spoke that last. His life had never been of any consequence, and he had always known it. If he lost it now, the old Commissar was confident that he would lose it well.

http://tinyurl.com/29475lc

This is some of my stuff (I said I'd post it!), it is all 15mm scale 40K, with various other models and toys added in.

The core-tap station is plastic, black embroidery boards with a little dusting of silver, bordered by jenga block knock offs painted grey. The reactors, the computer brain, and the various other stuff are just really things I cobbled together with a little paint from a cheap toy/party supply store called Yankee Trader.

The vampires are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vampire-succubors based and with a little extra paint.

The orks are a combination of the old MJ Figures (now sadly out of production) and the Hordes of the Future Shia Khan, which you can get from Alternative Armies.

The village is made of wood, and is a child's toy called "My Little Village" from a company called Playwrite. It is cheap, and looks okay, though a little small for 15mm.

The Ork Tinboyz are the D&D Minis Hammerer. Note here: they have a tendency to fall over, and epoxying a penny under the base helps lower their center of gravity.

The Ork Juggernaught/Wartrak/whatever is a 25mm scale Dwarven Steam Behemoth from Mageknight, with the clicky base cut off and a d6 epoxied under the front to balance it. It looks quite nice as a really huge vehicle in this scale, and I also use this and the Hammerer as steam tech in Victorian Science Fiction gaming.

The Inquisitor is a Laserburn figure, the space marines and their dreadnought are actually painted Risk 2210 AD minis (I think they make a nice look for maybe pre-Horus Heresy space marine armor) and the Imperial Guardsmen are Axis and Allies Minis, a combination of Soviets and Romanians.

The Ogryns who so courageously and stupidly serve the Imperium are from Risk Lord of the Rings.

Lastly, the Land Raiders are Indiana Jones Titanium line, from Galoob. They are unmodified.
 
 

[Daeothar]

So; you play with 40K rules, with 15mm minis? Nice; gives those ranges a small measure (heh ) of realism at that scale for a change.

Your setup looks cool and very atmospheric; seems like a fun game was had there.

One question though; do you use the regular 40K templates for explosions and flamers? How does this work out with smaller bases? Seems like more bases would fit onder one (even with minis spread out to the max). Then again; line of sight and cover would work different as well. So; is there much difference in those respects compared to 28mm minis?

Might be fun to see somebody bringing a Deathstrike to that table...

[gloriousbattle]

So; you play with 40K rules, with 15mm minis? Nice; gives those ranges a small measure (heh ) of realism at that scale for a change.

Your setup looks cool and very atmospheric; seems like a fun game was had there.

One question though; do you use the regular 40K templates for explosions and flamers? How does this work out with smaller bases? Seems like more bases would fit onder one (even with minis spread out to the max). Then again; line of sight and cover would work different as well. So; is there much difference in those respects compared to 28mm minis?

Might be fun to see somebody bringing a Deathstrike to that table...

Thanks!

I used to try a conversion of inches to centimeters, but you are right in that keeping the measurements the same makes the game more realistic.  As long as you keep the minis about an inch apart head to head, base size doesn't matter.