Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

as long as it was like space marine, and not like epic 40000 which was an utter dog poo game, removing individual weps for a fire power stat, was the worst idea since throwing dice into the box lid to see if you hit (space fleet)

Nils wrote:I would absolutely buy it, doesn't really matter if they reboot it to the heresy era or not as long as it's Epic. without doubt my favorite GW game of all time.

100% agreed - I love Epic...and yes I would buy it again

I'd buy it in a heartbeat!

I love the older versions, especially SPACE MARINE and TITAN LEGIONS, less so the next version, but the last one was a return to "OK".

Epic scale is where the true... scale of combat in 40K really shows and shines.

Titans in 40K are, ultimately, out of place.

In Epic, they fit and are lots of fun...

Adeptus Titanicus was actually a pretty decent stand-alone game as it incorporated a campaign mode. My Deaths Heads verseus my pal's War Griffons...ah...1988...to be 12 again(no thanks!) Then Space Marine came out the next year and the Emperor's Children and Ultramarines joined the fray.

Yes, a "Space Marine" type game rather than "Epic 40,000" would interest me.

I'm really not sure you need all the other races. GW are more likely to do another boxed game if they don't have to expand it too much.

Space Marines vs Evil Spaces Marines with Super Space Marines (Primarchs) and Titans would work quite well. If I wanted other races, I'd just play 40K.

It's true the 30th millenium is more interesting in many ways: there was actually a sense of hope and shades of grey. The Heresy leads itself well into an epic sized game.

Don't like the idea of Megarachnids as psuedo-tyranids though, in my imagination they were not tyranid but... mega-arachnids.

filbert wrote:I feel like a broken record but I really do think GW could make some decent money if they revisited some of the old 'Specialist Games' and redid them in the manner of Space Hulk.

I'm talking stuff like Epic/Titan Legions, Man O War, BFG, Dark Future.

I for one would buy them.

I'm sure there are plenty of us out there who would love a return of the specialist range and especially a return of these games back into GW's main distribution channels. But the reality is, specalist games was closed down because it wasn't profitable for GW. Jervis attended Adepticon right at the time they shut the project down and he basically said exactly that. The bottom line was they were spending X amount of dollars a year on the staff and production materials for the specalist games and they were only getting Y back in profits (and Y was much less than X sadly).

Now, of course you can say...well, if only they put the games back into their main distribution channels more people would play them and sales would go up! And you're right, of course. But the problem is that there is only so much shelf space that stores can devote to GW products. Back in the day GW circumvented this by rotating their secondary games around. They would come out with one game (say Necromunda), support it for a while and then let it 'die' to make room for the next game. The positive of this was you got a bunch of new games over the years, but the negative was that people got miffed when they really liked one of the games and GW was no longer supporting it.

Obviously GW tried to do support through 'online only' in the form of fanatic and then specialist games...but its clear that having these games out of the public spotlight meant that relatively few people were actually interested in purchasing new stuff for these games which meant the money sunk into supporting them actually far outweighed what they were making.

When talking about a publicly traded company when you have something that costs more than it makes AND isn't clearly growing the company...then it has to go.


But that's why I put this idea out in the way I did. I think the popularity of the Horus Heresy novels would help to make this game really popular AND by keeping pretty much the entire game to a single box (or maybe one or two expansions) instead of spread out amongst blister packs/unit boxes means that GW could carry it in their stores without clearing a tremendous amount of space to do so. And if it became really, really, really popular (as I think it might given how great the novels are doing) then they could always expand the line into blisters/unit boxes from that starting point.

Battlecannon it phil wrote:as long as it was like space marine, and not like epic 40000 which was an utter dog poo game, removing individual weps for a fire power stat, was the worst idea since throwing dice into the box lid to see if you hit (space fleet)

The premise for this wishlist idea is that it would use the current Epic Armageddon rules as a base...which aren't as bland as the Epic 40K rules were, but they're still closer to that then the original Space Marine rules. IMHO, they're the best set of rules GW has ever produced, but to each their own!

I would buy it, but it will never be re-released or redone any time in the nearby future. As you've said it wasn't profitable in the past and it won't be now especially when 28mm Space Marines are such a huge portion of GW's income. Not only that but it doesn't support a sole pillar in the hobby, collecting and buying more models. Plus, a new Crons/Grey Knights codex with new models will make 10 times the amount of money this could, especially because new gamers want to do something every one of their friends already has. On that same note 40k and Fantasy are so popular because you can always buy more to tweak your lists or get that different weapon arrangement. With games like BFG and Epic you just got to a certain point where you said, k I'm done and just played the game, which isn't very profitable for GW. I love the idea of the Heresy era game (the most interesting time IMHO) but I'd rather stick with 28mm and make a pre heresy army.

While I think it's a good idea to revitalise the Epic line, I wouldn't buy it. I don't need 40K in a different scale, let alone more miniatures, however much room they may or may not take up.

The first miniatures I ever bought were a box of Epic Space Marines.

Then I opened the box and found out that instead of being like the ones in Space Crusade, they were tiny and without detail.

I don't like 6mm miniatures, and I don't like the Horus Heresy.

I would love it to come out but pessimism rules the heart when it comes to what ifs and GW.

40K has moved from skirmish level to being GW's 28mm massed battle game, why would they push a single boxed system over countless updates to their core system.

Apoc is Epic embiggened.

Hordini wrote:You could always get one of those magnifying glasses, chromedog.

Play in 6mm with a magnifying hood?

What? And look like a geek?

I can't resolve the detail (as minimal as it is on 6mm) as my eyes can't focus on it (at distances of less than 3', so it's kind of a useless scale for me. 6mm blobs in one colour - I may as well just use pre-paints.).

I don't even play 15mm anymore. I played it for several years, back in the 80s, but found a larger scale that works better for me since.

If we're talking about a 'boxed game + expansions' release format - this sounds like more of a FFG area than GW.

Come to think of it, if GW finally grew a pair big enough to ditch specialist games (rather than treating them like the embarrasing uncle at a party that you don't want to be there but can't find a legitimate excuse to throw out), FFG would be the perfect retirement home for them!

Come on GW, you know you want to

Nope.

The thing I like about the hobby is the minis themselves, so a game with smaller, less detailed minis wouldn't interest me. If I played more, then yeah, Epic HH would be cool.

Yak, I agree totally and can even appreciate GW's reasons for doing so (although I don't necessarily agree with them). The way I view it would be for GW to take a leaf out of the Space Hulk reboot and re-release the games but crucially without the support - ie. just as a splash release. It doesn't necessarily need to be a one off like Space Hulk (I personally think they could have profited more from that by not making it limited edition) but the point being that the games are released as one-off 'game in a box' sets without the need for a supporting miniature range and rule updates/expansions - one of the downsides to these earlier Specialist Games was the rules elephantitis that they suffered from and the continual need to buy expansion packs; this time round they could make the sets standalone.

Also, as mentioned above, I think this is one of those cases where GW could be smart and license the games to a 3rd party a la HeroQuest/Space Crusade. FFG spring to mind as they already have a good working relationship with GW.

Of course therein lies the problem. FFG have already released HH as a board game they will not be keen on GW releasing a wargame on such similar grounds. As cool as it would be I would also imagine that the licensing agreement between the two companies would prevent GW doing this anyway.

Epic Badab War anyone?

notprop wrote:Of course therein lies the problem. FFG have already released HH as a board game they will not be keen on GW releasing a wargame on such similar grounds. As cool as it would be I would also imagine that the licensing agreement between the two companies would prevent GW doing this anyway.

But this would be a miniatures game and not a board game, and therefore would be as much in GWs remit as Epic Armageddon is now.

I'd buy it in a heartbeat. If you started with Marines and moved onto Imperial Army, then that's 4 armies already. You could add in Eldar and Orks later and not break the 30K timeline. I beleive that most of Epic's problems arose when they went beyond the Horus Heresy and started adding in the new races, so I wouldn't necessarily want them to go down that route either.
All the concepts are done, and would just need sharpening up using CAD. I have no doubt that GW could make the best 6mm plastics around.

Hmm, if done "Battle of Five Armies" style, as in: Large boxed set release with a very limited release of extra blisters and whatnots, sure, I'd buy it. I've gotten into the whole "game in the box" thing a bit over the last few months and not having to buy extra stuff to keep on playing is nice every once in a while.

Upon reflection, I think it's probably better if GW just lets their lost games die in peace. Nothing can ever recapture their glory days. The GW hobby has irrevocably moved on from the days of Blood Bowl and Necromunda, and I don't think those days can come back any more.

Let the dead remain dead.

yakface wrote:The premise for this wishlist idea is that it would use the current Epic Armageddon rules as a base...which aren't as bland as the Epic 40K rules were, but they're still closer to that then the original Space Marine rules. IMHO, they're the best set of rules GW has ever produced, but to each their own!

I concur with the above statement in regards to infantry and vehicles. As far as super heavies and titans, Epic:A still feels a bit blandacular. Change that particular aspect and I'll buy.

It strange that GW hasn't found a way to make some money gamewise off the popularity of the HH books which are now the bread and butter of the BL. I guess Forgeworld is somewhat with releasing models for the older marks of power armour.

Anyways, Yakface just give in and get 18 meq armies one for each legion then another one each for The Sons of Horus, The Black Legion, The Custodes and those pseudo marines from the first book. C'mon you know deep down you want too!

yakface wrote:

Agamemnon2 wrote:I'd otherwise think this would be a good idea, but Marine vs. Marine is still a dreadfully boring premise for a game, Heresy or no Heresy.

Y'know, nobody is more bored with Marines than me (dare I say), but after reading the Hersey novels I can't help thinking that I really wouldn't mind a game where everyone was a Marine because all the Legions they've covered have been given such interesting differences. It would surely be a challenge to come up with distinct rules for every Legion to capture that spirit, but if they could I do really think it would be fun to play Marine vs. Marine as you'd actually be fighting distinct Legion vs. distinct Legion. And throw in the Primarchs leading the army on each side to boot and I dunno, it actually sounds pretty freaking awesome to me (and this coming from someone with an anti-MEQ slogan in his sig).

That would be difficult to do in the Epic scale however. We are in fact talking about marines vs. marines here (or more preceisely legion vs. legion). Their tactics aren't that different at a company level. Frankly you could do this NOW. with test lists focused on Heresy era. just start it as a test list (remove the demons from the BL list and you have your baseline right there...). Its not like GW supports EPIC now.

Also its really embarrasing when a primarch gets wasted by a mere IG formation...

I think it's certainly a solid idea, although as I've been saying for ages, I think a HH 40K supplement makes even more sense in driving their core business.

The scope is small but the potential is large. You figure it's a hardback with borrowed fluff and book text, a bunch of "historical" scenarios and SC rules, some SC blisters, and a SM upgrade kit. Then they just sit back and watch people build their Luna Wolves armies. Minimal shelf space required and even more freakin' SMs get sold.

I think it's pretty clear however that they're content to waste the obvious synergies between their HH books and some game supplement or system. You'd think they were GE and not GW. Companies that size should be MUCH more nimble in creating and exploiting their opportunities.

Feth yes I would buy an Epic:HH boxed game!

It could be a couple of companies of marines, some tanks, a company of imperial army, and a titan each, with some plastic terrain, and still fit nicely in a box.

If it did well, you come out with the expansion book of imperial army and other legions, and if that does well, you come out with "Epic: Crusade" and come out with figures and models for orks, eldar, dark eldar, etc. The best part is that 90% of the modeling is already done, either with the original epic models, or the newer (and better) Epic40k models. (also some in ForgeWorld)

And BrookM is right about doing it like the Battle of Five Armies, pack as much as possible into one box, make that box useful in multiples, and then expand on that a bit as needed. (metal primarch blisters for example)

As with all things 30k though, I think it will never happen.

yakface wrote:

Karon wrote:I don't like this "renaming the current races" into any such thing like Tyranids into "mega arachnids".

I would buy it regardless, of course.

What precisely bothers you about that (I'm curious)?

You could always hope/dream that if the line did really well they could introduce brand new 30K-centric xenos races, but honestly those people out there playing their Tau, Tyranids and Necrons in the general 40K game would probably love to be able to play their armies in Epic 30K Horus Heresy more than people would be interested in 'new' xenos races realized only in 6mm form...

It just seems like the best possible compromise to me!

I think I may have misinterpreted, we would just use our 40k models and it would simply be a new ruleset? So GW would explain that a Zoanthrope would be the Mega Arachnids XXX, a Carnifex is XXX?

Agamemnon2 wrote:Upon reflection, I think it's probably better if GW just lets their lost games die in peace. Nothing can ever recapture their glory days. The GW hobby has irrevocably moved on from the days of Blood Bowl and Necromunda, and I don't think those days can come back any more.

Let the dead remain dead.

I think this is the saddest post I have read on a forum for some time :(

Really, you need to play Necromunda, Blood Bowl or Mordheim to understand why these games have persisted despite GW's attempts to brush them under the carpet. I think they would persist if the games and all resources were cut off altogether (I guess they still make a moderate income from some of the minis for zero upkeep, which is probably what stops them).

As 'bang for your buck' those games absolutely trounce both 40k and WFB as gaming systems, and its a massive shame (and deliberate policy on GW's part) that younger players coming into the hobby are not aware of them. When I was working as a staffer years ago I got a campaign running on a gaming night for Necromunda. When kids came in and saw a game in progress, an initial apprehension at the size of army (the small gang) was rapidly replaced with wonder - grenades being thrown from buildings, wounded gangers crawling into doorwars while his gangmates gave him covering fire - this was all the kind of cool stuff that you could never do in an army-scale force. Within a month there were a dozen kids each with their own gang, coming into the store almost every day, one of them even started writing a journal for it. I had never seen such enthusiasm come into the hobby, and it was a great thing to behold.

But now GW has scrapped playing of Specialist games, and its no wonder why this is the case; why spend $300 dollars on an army when you can have more fun with $30?

Sorry for derailing this thread, but I really hate the culture that has started to develop regarding your point Agamenmom2 (and I don't mean to single you out in this way, so I'm sorry if this comes across badly) of something being worthwhile or not on the basis of whether GW says that it is or not. 'All the attention goes to 40k and WFB, so they must be the only systems worth playing. The specialist games are dusty relics played by middle aged men with hair coming out of their ears, they just aren't cool.'

NOT capitalizing further somehow (30K expansion for 40K, Epic Scale game, etc.) on the popularity of the Horus Heresy series would be foolish!

But, this is GW we're talking about here, so while it would be foolish, it would not be surprising...

Pacific wrote:

Agamemnon2 wrote:Upon reflection, I think it's probably better if GW just lets their lost games die in peace. Nothing can ever recapture their glory days. The GW hobby has irrevocably moved on from the days of Blood Bowl and Necromunda, and I don't think those days can come back any more.

Let the dead remain dead.

I think this is the saddest post I have read on a forum for some time :(

That's his way of posting. My advice: don't read the other depressing, wrist slitting replies he makes.

The usual argument as to the lack of support for Specialist games is that the cost to play is too low... People build one team, play, don't spend more.

On the other hand, I've noticed that groups of people spend a lot on Necromunda and such, if they can. it's just not as equal. If you have ten people playing Necromunda, you get:

2 people who but a gang, but don't even paint it.
4 people who buy and paint their gang, maybe do an occasional conversion.
2 people who buy a couple gangs, and maybe build some scenery.
1 person who borrows a gang of someone else to play
1 person who has nearly every gang, builds gangs out of minis from other product lines and companies, builds scenario-specific critters and such, etc.

In the end, it evens out, and people can get tempted by being able to spend relatively little for a gang, whereas for the big games everyone has a roughly equal buy-in cost. (Yes, for big games you also get the guy who has five armies and ton of scenery, but he's not as much of the total buy-in.)

And it's worth remembering that GW could easily create plastic kits that pull double duty for both 40k and Necromunda.

Throw in some bare heads, and you could easily use a Death Korps of Krieg kit for a revamped Delaque look.

Cawdor? Cultists. Skavvies? Nurgle cultists. Redemptionists? Witch Hunter Zealots and Priests. Enforcers? Arbites.