Heavy Resin: Epicast 'Eldar' Vehicles

Many of you will be aware that in the early to mid-1990s, a number of companies produced licensed upscaled versions of the 6mm Epic vehicles and war machines in 28mm. I've already blogged about some of the Eldar vehicles, including Knight Titans and Tempest Super Heavy grav tanks.

A few weeks ago I posted a scenic picture of my Eldar Void Pirates. In the background was a sleek black Eldar vehicle:

The vehicle in question is one of three vehicles designed and produced by Epicast, for use alongside Eldar armies. These vehicles, unlike others in Epicast's range, were not upscaled Epic designs produced under licence, but were created to their own design. Here's a brief overview of the three Eldar vehicles produced.

Heavy Resin: That's Not a Knight Titan, This is a Knight Titan!

Cast your minds back to the early 1990s. Giant walkers shaped like beetles, men on stilts or even horses bestrode the battlefield. Human and aliens formed 'Houses' with these walkers, called them 'Knights' and they fought intense battles. Correction, this was the case only if you played 6mm games. Here's a memory refresher:

Horse thing alongside a Beetle thing

Then, along came the talented Mike Biasi in the good old USA, and said to GW...can I make some of those Beetle things in 28mm scale? And lo and behold, a licence was granted and giant walkers did indeed bestride the battlefield, but this time in God's Own Scale.

 

Actually the Armorcast version, but it's the same thing, right?

Heavy Resin: The 'Tempest' Mystery

Earlier this month I splashed out on something unusual. This ebay auction from The Wargaming Trader listed a model I didn't recognise, but something clearly repurposed in the style of an Eldar Tempest. Given that the price wasn't too bad, I decided to take a punt and buy it - after all, it would fit nicely along with the rest of the Heavy Resin collection!

Just what is this mystery model?

Heavy Resin: Eldar Tempest Super Heavies from the 1980s and 1990s!

Let's imagine we're back in the late 1980s & early 1990s. For most people, the largest thing they'll ever see in a game of Rogue Trader is probably a metal Land Speeder or plastic Space Marine Rhino or perhaps a Land Raider tank. Some ambitious folks might build a Baneblade using Tony Cotterell's templates in White Dwarf 132, but that's probably your lot.

Enter then, Mike Biasi from the USA. After upscaling an Epic Titan to 28mm, Mike secured a licence from Games Workshop to produce a range of 40k vehicles based on the Epic designs under the trading name Mike Biasi Studios. Soon, other companies were in on the act, with Epicast, Armorcast and Forgeworld USA holding licences for various vehicles until Games Workshop set up its own in-house, large scale resin casting unit (Forgeworld).

The Eldar Tempest is unusual in that not only was it one of the largest non-titan kits produced, but that Mike Biasi's original sculpt was reworked and put into production no less than three times (Mike Biasi Studios, Forgeworld USA, Armorcast), over a period spanning at least 6 years!

Eldar Tempest

I was never going to paint it all...heavy resin

My very first collecting bug was with the Eldar. For many years I spent a lot of time (probably too much) tracking down every single Eldar model I could get my hands on. The ambition was to collect, build and paint one of every single Eldar model Citadel had ever produced.

Now that's not really the ambition of a sane person, although to all intents and purposes in early 2013 I had achieved part one of that goal and collected Citadel's entire set of Eldar releases, models produced under licence, rarities and a good number of unreleased figures.

At that point I sat back and looked at everything and came to a rather shocking revelation.

I was never going to paint it all!!