GW Adeptus Titanicus news and rumours - Plastic Direwolf Kit!

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.

**Albertorius**

zedmeister wrote:
They had Chaos, Blood Angel and Black Templar ranges sculpted ready to go before the plug was pulled due to not Specialist Games not making as much money that they could if they instead invested in all effort into 40k.

I'm sure the fact that you could not buy them (or see them, actually) at the stores had nothing to do with the profitability of the game, no siree ^^.

**tneva82**

Well more to them not selling marine level. Game was profitable though. Nobody greenlights project they expect to be non-profitable and epic a sold 400% own expectations gw had forit

**Albertorius**

tneva82 wrote:
Well more to them not selling marine level. Game was profitable though. Nobody greenlights project they expect to be non-profitable and epic a sold 400% own expectations gw had forit

What I mean is, at least outside the UK, that the main problem is that the Specialist Games basically ceased to exist because they were neither promoted, nor played (or allowed to play, we had a Battle Bunker and the company didn't let us lend tables for Specialist Games), nor carried at the official GW stores, only through mail orders.

And even so, they still sold. One can only imagine what could have happened if they still had allowed us to promote them, or play them at stores, or order them for people.

**AllSeeingSkink**

tneva82 wrote:
Nobody greenlights project they expect to be non-profitable and epic a sold 400% own expectations gw had forit

You might greenlight projects that you don't expect to be profitable but buy you good will and don't cost you much.

Likewise you might axe profitable projects if the investment is greater than what you want for the return, or you want your company to head in a different direction.

I'd be surprised if WHFB wasn't profitable in and of itself, but it was consuming valuable shelf space with the large and unwieldy range and GW wanted to head in a different direction that they felt could make them more money, so it was killed.

**zedmeister**

Albertorius wrote:
zedmeister wrote:
They had Chaos, Blood Angel and Black Templar ranges sculpted ready to go before the plug was pulled due to not Specialist Games not making as much money that they could if they instead invested in all effort into 40k.

I'm sure the fact that you could not buy them (or see them, actually) at the stores had nothing to do with the profitability of the game, no siree ^^.

They did actually run an experiment in the early 2000's with BFG to see how well it'd sell. They marketed it and sold it through their stores. They came to the conclusion that they'd get more if they spent the effort selling 40k.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Well more to them not selling marine level. Game was profitable though. Nobody greenlights project they expect to be non-profitable and epic a sold 400% own expectations gw had forit

Another aspect they didn't bank on was competitors moving in to fill the market left by GW. Mordheim, BFG, Necromunda, Epic etc were replaced with varying games from other companies. I think GW realised that investing in those games kept a cashflow that wouldn't be used on 40k or AoS and that keeping people in the GW ecosystem has its benefits....

**Pacific**

zedmeister wrote:
Epic: A had a ton of new releases. The only largely re-used range were the Imperial Guard (Orks to a lesser extent) who were the 3rd edition pieces, glued together and recast (they even glued the tracks backwards on the Hydra). The Guard range was poor in terms of quality. Marines, Eldar and Orks had largely new miniatures with Baran Siegemasters and Feral Orks being a lot of new sculpts.

On the subject of quality, I had read that the SG range was mostly sculpted by trainee sculptors at the time - which meant that the quality was quite variable with some of the releases (Blood Bowl, Necromunda etc as well). Although I think for 6mm scale it was mostly fine, with just a few miniatures (such as the Phantom titan) not quite working and were not as good as the previous model they replaced.

**Overread**

zedmeister wrote:
Albertorius wrote:
zedmeister wrote:
They had Chaos, Blood Angel and Black Templar ranges sculpted ready to go before the plug was pulled due to not Specialist Games not making as much money that they could if they instead invested in all effort into 40k.

I'm sure the fact that you could not buy them (or see them, actually) at the stores had nothing to do with the profitability of the game, no siree ^^.

They did actually run an experiment in the early 2000's with BFG to see how well it'd sell. They marketed it and sold it through their stores. They came to the conclusion that they'd get more if they spent the effort selling 40k.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Well more to them not selling marine level. Game was profitable though. Nobody greenlights project they expect to be non-profitable and epic a sold 400% own expectations gw had forit

Another aspect they didn't bank on was competitors moving in to fill the market left by GW. Mordheim, BFG, Necromunda, Epic etc were replaced with varying games from other companies. I think GW realised that investing in those games kept a cashflow that wouldn't be used on 40k or AoS and that keeping people in the GW ecosystem has its benefits....

Yeah there was certainly a GW phase where they were following the money and that was very much 40K and very much Marines. Thing is I think it was also born of a system that only looked at the numbers and not the context or customer feedback or anything. So it was a blinkered approach that, short term worked, but long term was bleeding them games and customers and creating a very active pool to allow their competitors to rise up and and thrive. Esp as certain technologies of casting (and now printing) and means to bring models to the market have evolved over the years.

**lord_blackfang**

Epic Armageddon also coincided with the rise of eBay as a massive player and old Epic stuff was plentiful and cheap then. My best snag was 70+ battlewagons for around 10€ shipped. I bet GW sales lagged far behind the game's actual popularity.

**zedmeister**

Pacific wrote:
zedmeister wrote:
Epic: A had a ton of new releases. The only largely re-used range were the Imperial Guard (Orks to a lesser extent) who were the 3rd edition pieces, glued together and recast (they even glued the tracks backwards on the Hydra). The Guard range was poor in terms of quality. Marines, Eldar and Orks had largely new miniatures with Baran Siegemasters and Feral Orks being a lot of new sculpts.

On the subject of quality, I had read that the SG range was mostly sculpted by trainee sculptors at the time - which meant that the quality was quite variable with some of the releases (Blood Bowl, Necromunda etc as well). Although I think for 6mm scale it was mostly fine, with just a few miniatures (such as the Phantom titan) not quite working and were not as good as the previous model they replaced.

It was a mixture if I remember. Trainee sculpts, lunchtime sculpts and Mark Bedford wants to sculpt this...

**lord_blackfang**

A lot of the Necromunda resculpts were considerably worse than the 90s originals for sure.

We should be thankful they didn't try to do Escher.

**FabricatorGeneralMike**

lord_blackfang wrote:
Epic Armageddon also coincided with the rise of eBay as a massive player and old Epic stuff was plentiful and cheap then. My best snag was 70+ battlewagons for around 10€ shipped. I bet GW sales lagged far behind the game's actual popularity.

This was also the time of Lord of the rings coming out soon. It was also the beginning of the Kirbyism era of churn and burn, world domination, one birthday and one Christmas then ship little Tommy off to a game club and get little Timmy 7.8 mom's credit card into 40k.

The other game systems made profit but not enough profit for gw to pay healthy dividends to shareholders. That was GW's mission statement at the time pay out as big of a dividend as possible as the largest single shareholder of GW stock was Mr. Kirby. Whodathunkedit eh?

So what did GW do? Nuke the SG division and all those same customers will gladly spend that money on 40k and fantasy right?

I really wish epic didn't die, I'd love to get back into epic but no way at the going 2nd hand market rate.

I think GW will dump AT eventually, sooner rather than later. Milk the whales for as long as possible then bring out another new shiney that the whales will swallow hook line and sinker.

**tneva82**

lord_blackfang wrote:
Epic Armageddon also coincided with the rise of eBay as a massive player and old Epic stuff was plentiful and cheap then. My best snag was 70+ battlewagons for around 10€ shipped. I bet GW sales lagged far behind the game's actual popularity.

Well if 400% over　gw's own expectations(themselves enough to be profitable) is lagging imagine what non-lagging is

**Togusa**

Arbitrator wrote:
The 4chan """leak""" is contradicted by the BaC one, so we'll know soon enough if it's rubbish.

Considering Titanicus hasn't even had Corrupted Titans yet, which they can easily milk for quite a few release cycles, I doubt it'd be ending anytime soon even if they planned to wind down.

Some person goes on 4chan of all places and claims all this stuff, and I'm amazed at how many people have been eating it up.

**gorgon**

I stand corrected on my previous statement. Which might have been colored by the fact that all my Epic Tyranid models were pre-E:A. I remember seeing previews of a updated Harridan model based on the 40K sized FW kit, but I don't think it ever made it to market...? Seems like it was a case of mileage varying depending on your army.

Albertorius wrote:
What I mean is, at least outside the UK, that the main problem is that the Specialist Games basically ceased to exist because they were neither promoted, nor played (or allowed to play, we had a Battle Bunker and the company didn't let us lend tables for Specialist Games), nor carried at the official GW stores, only through mail orders.

And even so, they still sold. One can only imagine what could have happened if they still had allowed us to promote them, or play them at stores, or order them for people.

Regarding this statement...it's hard to know for sure. I fully agree that E:A was largely hidden from the eyes of prospective new 40K players.

But some products have more mass appeal than others. I think Epic 40K was their attempt at taking Epic to new audiences, but it seemed to fail at doing that even as it turned off veteran Epic players. And then IIRC (obviously I may not have though) E:A was developed with a lot of feedback from Epic veterans. It may be that much of the target audience for E:A was at that point highly engaged vets who would be able to find it even in the dark corners of the GW/FW sites. It may have been something that wouldn't scale up if marketed to more customers.

And yes...some of the SG sculpts from that era will made you shudder.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Togusa wrote:
Some person goes on 4chan of all places and claims all this stuff, and I'm amazed at how many people have been eating it up.

Yeah. I think there are definitely SG players waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under them. They aren't ready to believe in GW's continuing support for these games. Some of that is due to GW's past behavior, but some of it is also due to Debbie Downers spreading their negativity. If you want fictional 'scoops' to get traction, starting with "GW is killing off...." is a pretty good place to start.

**Jack Flask**

As interesting as it is to hear about the history of Epic (I mean that sincerely, I had just started getting into 40k around that time so I missed out, and it's the SG I most want GW to revive...),

but on the Titanicus front, can the game really be considered "complete" given the 8 or so new titan variants/classes that have either been described or name dropped in various recent lore?

Spoiler:

I know they don't have the nostalgic appeal of the classics but I doubt GW allowed their literary creation without at least considering future Titanicus releases.

And that's before mentioning any of the other things people have already brought up like Emperor Titans and Chaos variants or even the Knight Dominus (and I hope the Armiger).

**Gregor Samsa**

Epic 40k is fantastic! It and warmaster are the best rule sets ever published by GW!

Regarding AT, considering that LOTR is the only specialist game that GW has not at some point completely abandoned, I think its safe to say AT's future looks pretty grim. Especially so because through my lens anyway, battletech is becoming increasingly popular and accomplishes everything AT does at a fraction of the price.

The AT rules rock. The models i can appreciate, but are not my cup of tea. But I would choose a game of battletech over AT any day.

**gorgon**

Jack Flask wrote:
As interesting as it is to hear about the history of Epic (I mean that sincerely, I had just started getting into 40k around that time so I missed out, and it's the SG I most want GW to revive...),

but on the Titanicus front, can the game really be considered "complete" given the 8 or so new titan variants/classes that have either been described or name dropped in various recent lore?

Spoiler:

Rapier Scout Titan
Punisher Titan
Executor Titan
Siege Titan
Apocalypse Titan
Mirage Titan
Komodo Titan
Carnivore Titan

In case anyone wanted a list.

I know they don't have the nostalgic appeal of the classics but I doubt GW allowed their literary creation without at least considering future Titanicus releases.

And that's before mentioning any of the other things people have already brought up like Emperor Titans and Chaos variants or even the Knight Dominus (and I hope the Armiger).

Much earlier in this thread we have public comments from the studio that mentioned six(?) additional Titan chassis beyond the original three. Another set specifically mentioned four 'tweener chassis, two of which we've received. I don't know that some fluff mentions mean all those chassis/variants will happen, but the studio has publicly mentioned more chassis that we haven't seen yet. That's why I said that if the game is done by the end of next year, we're probably in for a great 2022.

**zedmeister**

gorgon wrote:
I stand corrected on my previous statement. Which might have been colored by the fact that all my Epic Tyranid models were pre-E:A. I remember seeing previews of a updated Harridan model based on the 40K sized FW kit, but I don't think it ever made it to market...? Seems like it was a case of mileage varying depending on your army.

The harridan did indeed make it to market and was on Forgeworld site for a few years. Here’s a sad tale: FW originally intended to release resin 6mm equivalents for their 40k line. Until they had an accident involving a bunch of 6mm tyranid masters. Whilst trying new techniques, they managed to destroy their new hierophant and hierodule masters. This put a hold to all future FW Epic releases. They even had a bunch of updated resin 6mm marines ready to go until the incident.

**lord_blackfang**

I personally think the game was complete when the original three were all out! Everything else is a welcome extra, but an extra.

Personally I don't think AT would work particularly well as the foundation of a new Epic, or even with Xenos titans, as the rules are veeery tied into how Imperial Titans function. I'd rather not see basically multiple different rulesets running concurrently on the table to cover different unit types and only really interacting with each other when resolving attacks. Epic would work better as a new ruleset entirely, less detailed to allow a wider scope.

**Crablezworth**

lord_blackfang wrote:
I personally think the game was complete when the original three were all out! Everything else is a welcome extra, but an extra.

Personally I don't think AT would work particularly well as the foundation of a new Epic, or even with Xenos titans, as the rules are veeery tied into how Imperial Titans function. I'd rather not see basically multiple rulesets running on the table only really interacting with each other when resolving attacks. Epic would work better as a new ruleset entirely, less detailed to allow a wider scope.

Agreed, it's also obvious after a few games that it's biggest limitation is alternating activation, like it's a game that screams more may not be better from the start. When explaining to friends that it doesn't scale up like 30k and megabattles are difficult because of the nature of activation, I constantly get a "What would you know" vibe from the very people who have never played it but also think it's like 90% epic when it's really not. "It will be great when they add tanks and infantry" is a common thing you hear, well, there are infantry, titan hunter infantry, and they already exist to show you how out of whack activations can become, for example, if I were to take 2 units of titan hunter infantry in a battlegroup, I'm adding literally 4 extra activations per turn that will never go away. You end up with a tail end effect, at least in the combat phase, where alternating activation loses its purpose because one side has a bunch of activations left to do, one after the other. I get people want AT to be epic, but it isn't.

Maybe all that will change next year, we'll see.

**Zenithfleet**

gorgon wrote:
I stand corrected on my previous statement. Which might have been colored by the fact that all my Epic Tyranid models were pre-E:A. I remember seeing previews of a updated Harridan model based on the 40K sized FW kit, but I don't think it ever made it to market...? Seems like it was a case of mileage varying depending on your army.

Edit: Ninja'd more accurately by zedmeister! Oh well, I'll leave my reply up anyway to cover the GW side of things.

Yes, as other posters have said, Epic Armageddon focused on 'one warzone at a time'. Partly to keep the scope of the project manageable, but also I believe because Jervis Johnson thought it might make the game more appealing. Unfortunately Specialist Games never got around to a setting featuring Tyranids, or much Chaos, so little or nothing from those two ranges was rereleased in the E:A years. Those two armies were worth $$$ on the secondhand market during the Fanatic and Specialist Games years even while old Marine, Ork and (to a lesser extent) Guard armies were dirt cheap.

(Epic history stuff in spoiler tags as it's a bit off topic)

Spoiler:

**SamusDrake**

Jack Flask wrote:
As interesting as it is to hear about the history of Epic (I mean that sincerely, I had just started getting into 40k around that time so I missed out, and it's the SG I most want GW to revive...),

but on the Titanicus front, can the game really be considered "complete" given the 8 or so new titan variants/classes that have either been described or name dropped in various recent lore?

Spoiler:

Rapier Scout Titan
Punisher Titan
Executor Titan
Siege Titan
Apocalypse Titan
Mirage Titan
Komodo Titan
Carnivore Titan

In case anyone wanted a list.

I know they don't have the nostalgic appeal of the classics but I doubt GW allowed their literary creation without at least considering future Titanicus releases.

And that's before mentioning any of the other things people have already brought up like Emperor Titans and Chaos variants or even the Knight Dominus (and I hope the Armiger).

Its complete in the sense of just the rule book and the inital three titans and two knights(Questoris & Cerastus), and only Titan armies with Knight support.

But certainly not complete on the Knight House front which is in dire need of an overhaul of its terminals. The Dominus seems the only way to restore long range firepower to lances, but I'd lay money on it that they screw that up as well. For now they just charge titans and hope for the best.

**AllSeeingSkink**

lord_blackfang wrote:
I personally think the game was complete when the original three were all out! Everything else is a welcome extra, but an extra.

Personally I don't think AT would work particularly well as the foundation of a new Epic, or even with Xenos titans, as the rules are veeery tied into how Imperial Titans function. I'd rather not see basically multiple different rulesets running concurrently on the table to cover different unit types and only really interacting with each other when resolving attacks. Epic would work better as a new ruleset entirely, less detailed to allow a wider scope.

I don't think people really see AT as a foundation ruleset for Epic, rather the existence of Titans and now aircraft in AI allows Epic to be created with a smaller investment from GW.

All they really need is an few infantry sprues and a few tank sprues, add in the titans and aircraft and you have viable armies for Epic.

**Malika2**

Are we now actually discussing Titanicus rumours or just wishlisting Epic here?

**Prometheum5**

Malika2 wrote:
Are we now actually discussing Titanicus rumours or just wishlisting Epic here?

That's been ~75% of this thread since day 1.

**Nurglitch**

There's always Troublemaker/Onslaught for not-Epic minis

**Smaug**

tneva82 wrote:
No i'm not. I got into epic with epic a. I was playing it during playtesting already. One of my questions is in faq in rulebook. Epic 40k rhinoswere old rhino style in plastlc. Epic armageddon ones werb currnt mars pattern in metal.

Revenant titans in Epic 40k were lot less sleek than epic a ones. No supa-stompa existed in epic 40k. And landa was epic a invention.

Did epic a use lots of old models? Yes. But it also got brand new models. Attached old one and ones that arrived with swordwind supplement.

Neither of those Revenants where released during Epic 40K. This one and here from SoL where from that time. The first ones are from 1995, Epic 40K was released in 1997, Epic Armageddon was 2003 with the Swordwind expansion in 2004.
Here’s the Necro proxy I mean the Phantom from the Epic 40K period. Sorry Eldar fans I know people try to forget about them.

**Nurglitch**

The Gargants were excellent though, and the Lucius Pattern Warlord is fantastic.

**Arbitrator**

Whilst I'm the first person to explain why 3D printing will in no way harm GW's bottom line when it comes to their games, I do feel like Epic/Warmaster/Bot5A are the one place they might actually be wary of it.

Once you start getting down below 15mm, it wouldn't be long at all before 3D printer files that imitate them almost perfectly start popping up - and that's assuming there aren't dozens of WarSlaughter 41st Galaxy 6mm type things out there already for it that I don't know about.

I don't think it's out of the question we might see things like Army or Legion Super-Heavies in Titanicus, but only as support pieces rather than 'expanding' the game into something akin to Epic, although I'm sure Community articles would try and play on the nostalgia in marketing to hype people up and leave them out in the cold.

**Crablezworth**

Arbitrator wrote:
Whilst I'm the first person to explain why 3D printing will in no way harm GW's bottom line when it comes to their games, I do feel like Epic/Warmaster/Bot5A are the one place they might actually be wary of it.

Once you start getting down below 15mm, it wouldn't be long at all before 3D printer files that imitate them almost perfectly start popping up - and that's assuming there aren't dozens of WarSlaughter 41st Galaxy 6mm type things out there already for it that I don't know about.

I don't think it's out of the question we might see things like Army or Legion Super-Heavies in Titanicus, but only as support pieces rather than 'expanding' the game into something akin to Epic, although I'm sure Community articles would try and play on the nostalgia in marketing to hype people up and leave them out in the cold.

They basically already exist, using a 6mm super heavy as a missile battery or macro cannon battery. They can't move but are incredibly resilient to titan shooting just not stomping, so they work pretty well to proxy a super heavy.

The tank on the right is basically counting as a macro cannon battery in our last game:

Spoiler:

As for 3d printing, well, the third party stuff has the advantage of speed. We'll likely see stl's and physical models for the new warmaster options before the kit even releases. Battle bling already has some amazing options for the warmasters arms and carapace. I don't think that will prevent anyone who wants an iconoclast from getting one mind u, but a lot of people who just want the sprue might ultimately do both, get the sprue and whatever stl's or physical arm models that pop up.