Hello,
I'm old to wargames but new to Epic. I was thinking of putting together a couple 1000 point armies to test drive the rules and see if I want to play this game. I was going to paint 1,000 points of Space Marines because its cheap and easy, and 1,000 points of Feral Orks with the intent to expand them later on if I like playing. I'm trying to come up with lists that will allow me to get enough variety for some interesting game but not too many rules to absorb all at once. I was thinking of the following:

Feral Orks:
Bad Moon Warband (200)
Deathskull Warband (200)
Goff Warband (200)
3 Squiggoths (150)
1 Orkeosaurus (150)
6 Snakebite Boarboys (125)

Blood Angels Space Marines:
6 Tactical Units (300)
Captain (50)
4 Assault Units (175)
4 Devastator Units (250)
Warhound Titan (250)
5 Rhinos (free)

This would give me two, 1025 point lists, each with a model that is beyond the scope of regular 40k. Will these be practical armies to play in quick one-off games while I practice the rules and try to get a few more people hooked? Would they be reasonably fairly balanced against each other?

Thanks in advance!

1,000 points is pretty small (the standard game size played is 3,000 points) but could be good for learning and there's actually been a modified version of the epic rules written to make such small sized games work better - see Minigeddon. It has a smaller table table size, one less objective and other tweaks.

Are you especially set on Feral Orks? They're the slowest army in the game and it can limit their tactics and playstyles a bit. Normal Orks are a lot more flexible and could showcase the game better. The Ferals don't really have anything much they could do about the Warhound for one thing.

Hopefully others will comment in more detail on the lists.

I'd go for it. On the Feral side I'd take a Wildboy formation for the Orkeosaurus and change the Sqiggoths to a Junka Mob. This will increase you armies overall speed and give you a few more tactical options.

And don't worry about Glyn's comment on the Ferals there are different ways to play them, even if they are generally along the same theme as March, March and Charge.

Thanks for the responses!
I do want to play feral orks, yes. For collecting reasons, any ork list I play will wind up using proxied models, but feral orks I will proxy fewer of them. At any rate, I feel they are closer to the intent of older editions of 40k orks, and that's more the look and feel I am going for. I am obsessed with orkeosaurus, squiggoths, and madboys, boarboys, and squig catapults, so feral orks is the way to go. The alternate 1k point list I was thinking of was:

Bad Moon Big Warband (350)
Squiggoth (50)
Orkeosaurus (150)
Steam Gargant (200)
Evil Sunz Junka Trukk Mob (150)
6 Snakebite Boarboys (125)

This seems like more fun to paint but I was worried it might be too many new stats to keep track of while learning the game. I'm using old 1st edition battlewagons as junka trukks. I'm not sure what to do with my old 1 piece metal squiggoths. They look way too tiny next to my newer 3-piece squiggy. Maybe I'll wrangle 6 old squiggoths and use them as a Snakebite Junka mob someday. What do you all think?

With the cost of new Squiggoths I just mix and match as I go along. I do like my Orkeosaurus though.

one other thing worth bearing in mind is that many of the space marine items are suffering from extreme mould degradation, if you can track stuff down on ebay (or taccomms) it might be worth going that route to avoid disappointment with your new shiny models.....

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I thought about this before myself too. I'm using a mix of both the old and new ones and using my old ones two-to-a-base, counting them both as a single Squiggoth in the game.

So, I have a bunch of old plastic ork characters, apparently from the EPic 40k boxed set. I have 4 weirdboys, not sure what to do about basing them. Do I want to put one on the same base as my warboss? Base them all up with regular boys and just scatter them more or less evenly throughout my warbands? Or should I save all 4 to put in my planned Madboy formation?

Are the old plastic madboys and wildboys affordable or are they one those things people charge exorbitantly for? I don't really like the new metal ones on Specialist Games, they just look like regular boys to me.

I'm not too worried about the marines, they will be just be a demo army, basically. If I ever do expand them to 3k points, it will just be as an excuse to collect some titans.

Thanks for all the responses so far!

where are you based? there might be a few local people who can lend you stuff for a test drive....

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

I am near Boston Massachusetts, United States. I get the impression this board is mostly people who are not in my area!

Actually, there's a fairly healthy set of players near that area.

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yeah the north east guys are a pretty active bunch, shoot Dave a PM, he's always looking for new blood

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Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Save the Weirdboyz for the moment - they're the main AA unit in the Feral Ork army. It's better to leave out aircraft for your first few games but you'll definitely want them later.


With the way AA units work you will rarely want to add more than one to any formation and to have them spread out throughout your army to cover areas of your trips from aircraft attack. An excellent option in the Feral Ork lost is attach the Weirdboy character to the Orkeosaurus rather than anything else in the formation. A regular unit can be suppressed and unable to fire by a single blast marker, but with their damage capacity of 6 it takes 6 blast makers before an Orkeosaurus is suppressed and that's a HUGE advantage. Federal Orks don't get any aircraft of their own but they have arguably the best AA in the game to compensate.

You might be able to acquire Madboyz and Wildboyz secondhand, I managed to a few years ago. Stick a thread up in the Trade section of the forum asking for some. Plus try searching on eBay too and saving a favourite search so that eBay emails you if something matching the search text comes in. Also there are 6mm fantasy orc models that could be suitable, so long as you're okay using non GW models. The detail isn't quite as fine as on GW models, but they do a good variety of sets and poses and cost only a fraction of the GW models with 60 Orcs costing $10 for example. Personally I'm using a mix of these and the older plastic GW ones. They also do nice goblin models too and grots are often in short supply amongst ork players as they're one of the most useful units in the army. http://www.microworldgames.com/collections/6mm-fantasy

Thanks for the tips, the optional wildboyz sound interesting.

I have next to zero interest in collecting and painting any sort of aircraft model for any game ever, so the fact the Feral Orks don't use any is another plus in my book!

As I read the rules, it seems like adding a weirdboy to an orkeosaurus would not require using an actual weirdboy model... he's just sort of riding the creature, like a transported unit, and isn't depicted in any way, right?

Its good to know that I should not clump up my wierdboys, for planning my stands. I was thinking of painting all my formations sans weirdboys anyway, and then adding spare bases or boys or nobs or madboys or whatever, that have a weirdboy, to be added in according to the list I am playing that day.

Yeah I've seen people playing Epic in a local store before so I'm optimistic that I might be able to track down some other players. I've also considered using cardboard chits as infantry units while I'm painting. I've never do that in a 15mm or 28mm scale game, but for this it just seems more acceptable to me.

How about vehicle proxies? I prefer the older gargants to the current steam gargant, and I hate the junka trukk models. I assume this is not an issue, since there are no other gargant-like-units in the list for my opponent to confuse my "steam gargants" for. Likewise, any and all wheeled vehicle models in the list are junka trukks by default. I do like the old battlewagon and orky tank models so I was going to use some of those painted as Goffs, Evil Suns and Bad Moons, along with Imperial rhinos painted in Blood Axe colors. Eventually I intend to paint a junka and infantry warband for each of the 6 clans. I really am leaning towards using the older, smaller squiggoths as Snakebite junkas.