Topic: The return of Epic 40K

[Guildmage Aech]

GW seem to be returning to tiny tiny marine battles. I played a lot pf Epic Amageddon but it seems Legions Imperialis is going to be a slightly different scale almost 1/3 increased on the older version.

And being Horus Heresy themed, its marines and marines... (ok, and some imperial guard).

Legions Imperialis | The Horus Heresy

[Sir_Godspeed]

Makes sense. It's a conflict where you don't have to purpose-produce lots of different variant miniatures, which, I assume, is why the original titan-based game was set during the HH as well(?), and why they can pull off the HH-spinoff to begin with.

[Guildmage Aech]

I’ve never been a huge fan of the heresy era as a gaming scenario as it takes the 40K issue of marines versus marines and turns it up even higher. And the seperatists don’t even have weird chaos stuff to make them different. Does simplify the model range though…

Initially I was a bit annoyed to find they have bumped up the scale, but in fairness the scale of old epic was pretty wonky with a lot of things being quite questionable, the old plastic rhinos. Hopefully they keep some of the rules that made epic great such as unit activation instead of the 40K style move and fire everything turns. And I doubt it will effect using older models that much.

My Crimson fists will have to find a suitable blue painted legion to pretend to be, luckily there are a couple to choose from!

[The GrimSqueaker]

This is a miss for me. Changed the scale so old armies are probably invalid and HH, nah. Not something I'm after.

[Wyddr]

Yeah, the Horus Heresy? Meh.
Reminds me of all the dudes who can't stop talking about WW2.

It's been 10,000 years, guys. Pick a different war.

[Guildmage Aech]

The Armageddon War was a cracking scenario for the reboot, it had all the huge warfare and the orks wackiness was the ideal foil to the uniform Steel Legion and then all the colours of any marine chapter you could choose…

Ultimately Epic originally first began as an offshoot of Adeptus Titanicus, and marine on marine battles, its not without pattern as its happened before. Fun fact, the tradition of painting unit markings on the roof of your rhino appeared at this time so friendly titans don’t step on you!

It would be logical for more army releases to follow, but GW is as GW does…

[Sir_Godspeed]

Yeah, the Horus Heresy? Meh.
Reminds me of all the dudes who can't stop talking about WW2.

It's been 10,000 years, guys. Pick a different war.

It's really been a runaway success for GW. I made a ranting/musing thread about it somewhere else, but it really does seem like there's significant mass-appeal with its narrative through-line, and its focus on interpersonal drama, enough to make it effect the newer editions of 40k to make a similar approach.

[Irisado]

This is a miss for me. Changed the scale so old armies are probably invalid and HH, nah. Not something I'm after.

I agree.  I have always loved Epic.  In fact, now that I actually have smart phone, I'll share some pictures of my Epic armies over the summer if I can figure out how to do it, but all my armies are second edition and fourth edition scale.  Consequently, they are not compatible with this new release.

One of the things that GW did get right with fourth edition was allowing a mixture of rectangular and square bases.  This meant that all those second edition armies were not invalidated.  It is thus a shame that they have decided to tinker with the scale now.  Going to back to the game's roots in some respects makes sense to some degree, but I am not excited by it.  I think that they have missed an opportunity by taking such a myopic approach to the time period and armies.

[Guildmage Aech]

It's really been a runaway success for GW. I made a ranting/musing thread about it somewhere else, but it really does seem like there's significant mass-appeal with its narrative through-line, and its focus on interpersonal drama, enough to make it effect the newer editions of 40k to make a similar approach.

From a business standpoint selling marines is what makes GW the, ahem, fat stacks yo, and you can sell the same models to both sides. In my recent internet trawling to find the surviving strongholds of the Epic community I did come across an interesting article about how GW build into the risk adverse games development they are currently in (I’ll post it in a separate thread as its an interesting stand topic actually).

That said my search for Epic players involved revisiting a few long dead forums before finding the facebook page for EpicUK who have been forging their own path for years and still organising a surprisingly active tournament circuit which is nice. But the Tactcomms forums is alive and still operating which is interesting, there are differing opinions on the scale differences so time will tell.
The really interesting question is if the likes of the NetEpic group publish cheeky xenos army lists for Legions Imperialis….

I agree.  I have always loved Epic.  In fact, now that I actually have smart phone, I'll share some pictures of my Epic armies over the summer if I can figure out how to do it, but all my armies are second edition and fourth edition scale.  Consequently, they are not compatible with this new release.

Pax Imperia Irisado.

The Epic Armageddon release had relitively few new models, mostly marine tanks and they where a clear size up from the old rhino based vehicles of the generation before and even new rhinos outsized most imperial guard vehicles.

Then plenty of players, myself included, flew the classic metal thunderhawk, an absurdly undersized model next to the infantry and much smaller than the forgeworld version I now wish I hadn’t been too cheap to buy back in the day. Same story with GW metal and forgeworld super heavy tanks for the Imperial guard. Your armies are probably still useable. Probably.

I can’t really comment on the effect of primaris space marines towering over older marines in 40K since I haven’t played 40K since long before they appeared..

[Irisado]

If they allow scale mixing, as fourth edition did, then that is a positive step.  I am not convinced that they will.  GW rarely takes a flexible stance on these matters, but we shall see.  The trouble is if I were to bring out my Eldar, Chaos, or Ork armies back from those wonderful second edition days, I would probably just rather play a game of second edition or use the Net Epic rules.

[Guildmage Aech]

A post on gameplay,it seems a but switch from the smooth but abstract Epic Armageddon towards a more bogged down individual unit by unit play. Feels a bit contrary to the concept of huge battles with lots of stuff.

Having models pair off for one v one melee fights works great in Necromunda but was awful in 2nd edition 40K where you had more models. And the variance in a 2D6 roll, increased with outnumbering... are elite units going to be worth fielding over a hoard of cheap attritional units? Remains to be seen.

The size article was interesting too. Probably get away with substituting old infanty and rhinos but the scale gets more noticable as size increases. I knew super heavies and titans where underscale as it was but not by that much!

http://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/07/31/legions-imperialis-core-concepts-this-is-how-the-new-game-plays/

Edit: And another thing!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/08/02/legions-imperialis-a-closer-look-at-the-legiones-astartes/?fbclid=IwAR3903M8WdOXBW9-VYLd5xnXTD_Y7EM_lSkzQ2xcg1Edt45gGdNXa6GiqNs

So we get a snapshot of how units are working. Simple and streamlined it is not. On top of clunkly melee rules, we see terminators with what, 5 keywords? Far from rules for mass battles its potentially seems to be a slow affair that lags with needless stoppages. Will each rhino be picking a target for its pintle mount stormbolter too?

Specific legion rules seem nice but freely mixing and matching legions risks armies becoming an explosion in a paint factory...


Chess rules written by GW: "The horsey unit is defined as a pawn unit with the special keywords Horsey, Jump, Not-Pawn, White Move First, and Special Move (1)"

Concerned face...

[Irisado]

It is essentially an amalgamation of first edition Space Marine army list/formation building with second edition core rules.  I'm in the enviable position of owning so much from second edition Epic that I would simply choose to play that instead of this 'new' game.  Many people will not have such a luxury, while others will not know anything about Space Marine, so will not see the parallels.

I agree that the rules are from streamlined, however, they are still far superior to the 40K rules.  I recognise that this does not exactly set the bar very high at all, but it is at least something.  I was not expecting so many echoes of second edition Space Marine though.

On elite units, I regularly played against Space Marines and used a lot of elite close combat infantry in my Chaos army back in second edition.  Outnumbering with hordes was rarely a successful strategy.  Orks and Imperial Guard both died horribly against elite close combat troops, providing those elites were not reduced too much in number before reaching close combat.  I would thus not be overly concerned about that.

[Guildmage Aech]

Well GW seem to have derailed their own hype train like some sort of 8mm disaster effort. They are still running out articles to support it but its hard to stay keen without any product actually on the way!

On the upside, I've been digging out my old Epic Armageddon Space Marines from their resting place, purchased my own epic eldar back from a friend who had them for the last ten years and been running headlong into the murky underworld of black market miniatures producing that which GW will not.

In a fit of probably misplaced enthusiasm I now own an awesome space marine landing craft (in many whitemetal pieces) and am awaiting another friend 3D printing some wave serpents, at least those STL files where free!

So might well gear up to play Epic Armageddon as there are a bunch of local players to play it with!

[Irisado]

Let's not expand on the 'unofficial' figures part .

In terms of everything else though, I really hope that you can get back into Epic.  I certainly would not be relying on GW's 'new' version to stimulate much interest.  I remember how they botched all the marketing for Epic 40,000 and Epic Armageddon.  It appears as though history could be about to repeat itself, although I do hope not.

If I recall correctly, there used to be quite a few people in your neck of the woods who were interested in Epic and there used to be at least one tournament there.  If it's still going that may be your way back in.  Based on your final sentence, perhaps they are the same people?