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Hello,

I am going to get back into Epic, but the original rules ( from what people say ) seem to be very different from the current version on sale. Is this correct.

What I loved about the original rules is it seem more focused on the titans, the crew, orders, and even had a cool continuing titan army campaign system. Is all this flavor gone by the 4th edition?

Steam Bucky.

1st and 2nd edition had lots of 'special rules' for particular types of units/characters/vehicles/races, according to Wiki Jervis Johnson didn’t 'like' this so called 'complexity' and simplified the rules dramatically for 3rd Edition (Epic 40000), the only problem was the rest of the world didn’t agree with Jervis and the game 'flopped' and was dropped by GW. In 2008 GW released the 4th Edition of Epic (Epic Armageddon) but again missed the boat by just rehashing the 3rd edition rules, again failing to realize that what people liked about Epic was the so called complexity (better described as individual character) of the units/characters/vehicles/races.

IMHO the new rules suck, stick with the old rules (or free internet versions thereof such as Net Epic 5.1) and enjoy colorful/character full armies.

Hmmm...

Adeptus Titanicus (Ist Ed) was all about Titans (only Imperial and Chaos at that). Great fun and easy on the pocket - ah the days of 6 warlords in a box. It was expanded by Codex Titanicus that added basic infantry and other races and a couple of new twists.

next up, Ist ed Space Marine can be compared almost directly to Epic Armageddon, indeed many of the concepts are still there (individual fire types etc). Great game, just took hours to play.

2nd edition Space Marine (read Net Epic) was the next incarnation that ended with Titan Legions. Good game but just to many special rules for each unit -this is the one JJ supposedly hates- and it became to unweildy to play (at least IMO).

Epic 40000 gets bad press but it is not that bad. It just it is a designers game that lacks atmosphere. Nice ideas to keep the game flowing, but it really was just number crunching.

The latest set E:A is a throwback to 1st ed Space Marine and is a playable and enjoyable set of rules. Pity GW does not give it the support it deserves

The 1st ed rules were made for titans if I remember correctly. My most painful memory is that Defence Laser had -2 save mod and then Terminators had 2+ save .

2nd ed was the most played one for me earlier. I loved it back then.

Current edition (Epic: Armageddon) is much better as a wargame though. The alternating actions is huge bonus on the thinking requirement and BM mechanism is really good way to deal with morale. Overall I think this is best edition of epic so far. It is streamline so that not all units have special rules on them so it's easier to remember who does what and there is fewer conflicts of specials. I do recommend getting the rules from GW website and going over them and trying them out.

NetEpic is AFAIK a modified 2nd edition which should have fixed problems in it. However it sill has lots of special rules which may or may not be a good thing.

You may have seen this anyway, but wikipedia explains it all very well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_%28game%29

Epic was my fave GW game back in the day. I almost ALWAYS lost at W40K against my best friend, MOSTLY won at WFB against him, but Epic was about a 50/50 chance.

Hydroblender wrote:1st and 2nd edition had lots of 'special rules' for particular types of units/characters/vehicles/races, according to Wiki Jervis Johnson didn’t 'like' this so called 'complexity' and simplified the rules dramatically for 3rd Edition (Epic 40000), the only problem was the rest of the world didn’t agree with Jervis and the game 'flopped' and was dropped by GW. In 2008 GW released the 4th Edition of Epic (Epic Armageddon) but again missed the boat by just rehashing the 3rd edition rules, again failing to realize that what people liked about Epic was the so called complexity (better described as individual character) of the units/characters/vehicles/races.

IMHO the new rules suck, stick with the old rules (or free internet versions thereof such as Net Epic 5.1) and enjoy colorful/character full armies.

You don't seem to have all your facts quite right...

3rd Edition 'Epic 40,000' was Andy Chamber's brainchild. Jervis wrote Adeptus Titanicus (1st Ed) and Space Marine (the infantry supplement) as well as the second edition with all the detachment cards.

3rd Edition was basically 2d Battlefleet Gothic. I completely agree it totalled the game.

4th Edition (the current living rulebooks) is well supported with community built lists readily available for free online. These were hosted on the GW Site for a long time (in the Specialist Game forums) but were taken down due to authoring issues as the people who wrote them weren't actually company employees. They're still freely available off site however.

4th Edition actually has more in common with 1st than it does even with 2nd. CAF has been replaced by an Assault and Firefight ability... meaning you can launch assaults without needing to engage in BTB. The Orders system is still there but it isn't blind, as is alternate unit activation (hurrah!). NetEpic is a fine game, but I like this current incarnation a great deal. Army Compositions are fluid but with enough restriction that you can't just take a force of nothing but spam, and the gameplay is very tidy.

All in all I'd call 4th Edition Epic a worthy successor to Titanicus/Space Marine. I'm even building a Legio Invictus force complete with Knights and Tech Guard right now.

I do miss the Titan Jump Packs and Chameleoline though, as well as the Campaign system. Nothing stopping me from making up or just using the old rules.

Achilles wrote:
3rd Edition 'Epic 40,000' was Andy Chamber's brainchild. Jervis wrote Adeptus Titanicus (1st Ed) and Space Marine (the infantry supplement) as well as the second edition with all the detachment cards.

3rd Edition was basically 2d Battlefleet Gothic. I completely agree it totalled the game.

A little OT but it's funny how a system can be complete @ss on one scale but with a little retooling can work well on another scale

robertsjf wrote:
A little OT but it's funny how a system can be complete @ss on one scale but with a little retooling can work well on another scale

It's a matter of scale. That system worked great for allowing people to manage mile-long starships firing at each other across tens of thousands of miles of empty space. In a game where you can SEE the infantry... that level of abstraction just isn't necessary.

4th Ed handles Infantry and Tanks in enough detail that they still all 'feel' different. In 3rd Ed all you had was a Leman Russ adding another 2 Firepower to a formation. How does that represent a main-line battle tank?

Happy to stand corrected, still my personal bent is obviously towards NetEpic. That said i'll take another look at 4th Edition.

Achilles wrote:In 3rd Ed all you had was a Leman Russ adding another 2 Firepower to a formation. How does that represent a main-line battle tank?

Piss poorly. That being said, i'm an old 2nd Ed man myself. I do enjoy the Adeptus Titanicus ruleset but as it wasn't what I cut my teeth on so I'm not as nostolgic about it as I am 2nd ed. I also like 4th, but I think it's funny thet Jervis wouldn't budge on the whole "Blast Marker" thing, which is an excellent bit of game mechanic IMO...

robertsjf wrote:I think it's funny thet Jervis wouldn't budge on the whole "Blast Marker" thing, which is an excellent bit of game mechanic IMO...

What do you mean? Blast Markers are still used for Morale and suppression purposes in 4th Edition Epic (probably the only thing that ported really well from 3rd). I enjoy it immensely as it puts stress on your turn planning (units become less reliable and effective) and makes that Supreme Commander re-roll so very worrying to commit.

I'm just confused by your statement; how wouldn't Jervis 'Budge'?

Achilles wrote:I'm just confused by your statement; how wouldn't Jervis 'Budge'?

By retaining the blast marker mechanism, that's how he wouldn't budge. Epic:A seems to be almost a complete "Sorry we f'ed up your game" type revision with the vast bulk of the Epic 40k rulset being scrapped with the exception of blast markers.

As a former Epic player, I loved the second edition! It was well-balanced, well-thought out, and not a brain buster. When I saw the bucket that Epic 40,000 was, I almost melted down my 1,000s of points of marines, orks, and eldar! I considered playing the Net Epic game, but by that time I had no where to play, no group with which to play, and a 3.4 GPA to tend. I still have the rules printed...

The 2nd edition was truly the heyday of Epic.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:As a former Epic player, I loved the second edition! It was well-balanced, well-thought out, and not a brain buster. When I saw the bucket that Epic 40,000 was, I almost melted down my 1,000s of points of marines, orks, and eldar! I considered playing the Net Epic game, but by that time I had no where to play, no group with which to play, and a 3.4 GPA to tend. I still have the rules printed...

The 2nd edition was truly the heyday of Epic.

This says everything I would say.

That said 4th edition looks pretty good and I keep meaning to dig out the old models and give it a shot.

Jack

I don't know about 4th ed. What is the concept behind "orders dice"? and Epic 40,000 left a very bad taste in my mouth, trying to combine Epic's large-scale strategic moves with the modularity of 40K.

Do you mean Epic:Armageddon? no orders dice in that.

Then what are those orders dice on the GW site for?

No idea.

You can use them to indicate if something is on overwatch, or has been broken I suppose. I think Gothic uses them. Guess they had loads of them made and don't have a replacement product, so left them available.

Epic: Armageddon is awesome btw.

You actually need to declare your order before you roll for initiative. I use the dice to 'commit' before I roll.

There's seven orders you can issue though...


I normally trust my opponents memory. For aesthetic reasons, though, I do quite like the idea of issuing the order via a counter

But you never issue 'Hold'... It happens if you fail the initiative test. Aren't there only 6 active orders?

The order dice were originally for BFG. It's a clever way of cutting down on counters by 6. simply display the side of the order you're issuing and voila!

Hmm... I might be way off here, but I thought that Epic 40k actually came before BFG, and that the order dice, blast makers, gunnery tables, etc were pased down from Epic to BFG and not the other way around.

I have the E:A book, and I would love to get into the game more. I played a demo game a couple of years ago, and it seemed pretty good.

Ruckdog wrote:Hmm... I might be way off here, but I thought that Epic 40k actually came before BFG, and that the order dice, blast makers, gunnery tables, etc were pased down from Epic to BFG and not the other way around.

That's right, they had used the order dice in Epic 40k first. And I had successfully blocked any memories of Epic 40k. Thanks for making me remember. I'll be sending you my psychiatrist bill.