Squats Epic 40K Update

Just a brief update to the Hungry Ghosts revue of the Squats models for Epic Warhammer 40K. Though Hungry Ghosts is on the mission to paint all of the Squats miniatures for Warhammer 40K, he has no foreseeable prospect of assembling and painting an Epic 40K army.

So the Hungry Ghosts Epic Collection is destined to be kept in nice blister packs for posterity.

The Epic 40K models are interesting from a packaging point of view. As the range of miniatures expanded in through the first half of the 1990s, Epic miniatures were produced with a special package insert, despite the fact that the rules for the game remained a sprawling mess. 

Rules were fractured into the Epic Space Marine set, which covered Space Marines, Orks, and Eldar forces, released in 1990, with some cardstock building terrain to fight for.

After that, White Dwarf was a source of regular rules updates to include other major factions – Chaos, Squats, Imperial Guard. Many of these updates were gathered into the Adeptus Titanicus book.

The Epic Titan Legions set came in 1994, with new rules updates. It also brought forth the mighty Imperator Titan and the Mega-Gargants of the Orks, as well as a gaggle of plastic Imperial Knight Titan Paladins (nice bits for Squat conversions). And continued to include not very impressive cardstock buildings.

Entire armies were available for Chaos, Alaitoc Craftworld Eldar,

http://solegends.com/citcat1993/c93582-01.htm

Imperial Guard of Barbarius Prime (with some Ultramarines allies) and Squigbreff's Ork Horde

http://solegends.com/citcat1993/c93583-01.htm

But the Epic Titan Legions rules were not enough. Thus rules supplements appeared for the various faction – Armies of the Imperium, Chaos and Eldar Renegades, and Ork and Squats Warlords (deliberate pairings of ancient enemies), and Tyranid Hive War.

But that is all prelude. Here we have our new additions:

The Overlord Airship in its blister pack.

 The mid 1990s brought full color inserts for the Epic range, displaying the Overlord in glorious assembled and painted form.

So too with the Goliath Mega-Cannon.

– as with the remainder of the Epic 40K models.

 Where's Our Land Train? Yes, We Know Trains Generally Remain Land-Bound.

Meanwhile, both the 40K and WFB miniatures were shafted with most boring packaging, red for new releases and blue for older miniatures, with no inserts. Yawn.

An unwelcome trend toward less and less differentiation for the sake of cheaper printing costs. Echoed by the awful "we're just standing here" plastic troops of the time.

This was a let-down even from the earlier packaging, shown here with the Mole. The Mole came with a small Thudd Gun, making the claim that this was an “Imperial” armament an even more Grudge Worthy action.

 The Imperial Lies did not cease with the new packaging.

Most images are from the 1996 Epic 40K Catalog, which also taunted the Eldar enthusiast with Exodites and new versions of Grav-Tanks and Flyers that would be scrapped when Epic morphed again to become Epic 40000 in 1997.

Thus, our Epic 40K products from the 1990s foreshadowed the packaging for the transformation from metal miniatures to Finecast miniatures of today. Truly an advancement in packaging, as for the rest...