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I have a question for The Grogs:

Hello, The Grogs. I stand in my gallery, I hold your sigil in my hand, it is a handful of dice with strange symbols on them, a T-shirt in excess of 2 decades old with the name of a defunct convention on it, and a couple of strangely shaped templates I'm not likely to ever need in the game but which suggest wonderful war simulating explosion possibilities.

I've recently gotten into 3d printing and made the realization that simply by hitting a single button on my computerbox I can command the space goo machine to "make it real little" on any file I've found. Not needing to scrounge through ebay to find ancient lumps of pewter has awoken in my mind the possibility of playing some form of Littlehammer game, and I'm looking at the new Adeptus Titanicus game and the old Epic Armageddon game.

Of course this means I'm going to be printing up some titans either way, but my question is this: does the inclusion of non-titan units in Epic Armageddon make up for the lesser level of detail the rules for titans and their movement and combat enjoy in the new AT Game?

I'm going to be very annoying and say do both

Like you say there are miniatures shared between both games. So nothing to stop you getting those titans, using them for AT (which would probably be the quicker game to get off the line with the smaller model count) and then build up Epic around that.

Mechanics wise they are very different games. I haven't played AT yet, just watched some BRs on Youtube, but it almost seems like some naval games where you have to maintain the individual status of the Titans and move to optimum firing positions while trying to stop your opponent from doing the same.
Epic (whichever iteration you play) is much more about mass battle and application of combined arms in the most effective manner possible. The titan play a part in that (and indeed can be instrumental as they are damned powerful units) but it's about the much larger sweep of battle and movement of forces ('epic' in every sense of the term!)

About your last sentence, I've found a failing of Armageddon to be how it adds too much abstraction to the titan rules, essentially just giving them a 'hit points' bar. Space Marine and its iterations were much more fun with your titan having it's weapons get blown off, legs immobilised and crews desperately trying to stop reactors exploding - it added a lot of character to the miniatures which, despite the mass of infantry and tanks on the tabletop, were often the linchpins of the battle.
One idea (I've only done limited playtesting of this, but it doesn't seem to slow down the game too much - especially as Armageddon is slower to play than Space Marine anyway) is to use the hit charts and damage tables from Space Marine.*

* You can also find these readily available if you look up the NetEpic Gold rules.

Yeah, I would definitely be using the Titan maniples I create as the basis for my Epic armies, the problem is if I were playing Epic I would 100% be building orks as my main force, and sadly gargants, eldar titans, and biotitans do not exist in the titanicus rules.

Do the old adeptus titanicus rules have any support for non-titan units? I'm sure you could abstract formations of baneblade tanks, stompas and other mini-superheavies for use in Titanicus but you'd need a basic framework for how their rules would work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The titans being much more boring is 100% the reason I'm hesitant about armageddon.

So in the past year I have actually bought a two armies from Vanguard Miniatures to play epic armageddon... Needless to say the rule system is great fun and a quality experience. I love the combined arms nature of the game.

Adeptus titanicus is great too, however I do not have as much experience with that game.

First off, I like the Sandman reference.

Second, if you like titans, the latest Adeptus Titanicus is the best thing ever. Accept no substitute. Titanicus is a game of nuclear warships on legs duking it out as cities blow apart around them and small stars blossom in the darkness as god-machines scream their last defiance to the uncaring void. Gameplay is about managing your resources and jockeying for position to leverage right weapons for right moments and living on the edge sitting on top of your thrumming plasma reactor heart, sweating all decisions on when to push for too much and pay for it in a mushroom cloud. AT at the moment does not support units beyond titans and knights, though many fan-made attempts at integrating super heavy tanks and infantry units exist. Spoiler alert, they do not usually offer much good because the game is very focused on doing titans well and even the knights are almost getting overtly abstract for its core gameplay activities.

Epic Armageddon on the other hand is about larger combined arms conflicts with battallion level forces wrestling over shifting fronts like modern warfare forces. Command and control is key, with different forces operating under different reliabilities and maneuver capabilities. Detachments can be highly mobile and sweeping movements happen, but isolated elements are very much at risk of getting crossfired to death or being swarmed by coordinated assaults by deep defences etc. Titans are a meaningful part in the game, but indeed much more like simple, durable firing platforms that eventually get killed by massed tank fire or missile silos. Armageddon is very elegant, some would say sterile, in the way it doesn't use too much different special rules to differentiate between units.

The real answer is to make a bunch of 6 mm units and play both games for different reasons with the same models, that's what I do

the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, I would definitely be using the Titan maniples I create as the basis for my Epic armies, the problem is if I were playing Epic I would 100% be building orks as my main force, and sadly gargants, eldar titans, and biotitans do not exist in the titanicus rules.

Do the old adeptus titanicus rules have any support for non-titan units? I'm sure you could abstract formations of baneblade tanks, stompas and other mini-superheavies for use in Titanicus but you'd need a basic framework for how their rules would work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The titans being much more boring is 100% the reason I'm hesitant about armageddon.

the rules that came with the AT88 box does not support anything outside of imperial titans, BUT it does mention the existence of eldar, ork and chaos. AT18 does not as faras i can remember. Both games are set in 30k background.
Eldar, orks and chaos arrived at later years, but before the 2nd edition of AT88, called Titan Legions(94)

Non titan units was added thru a companion game; Space Marine, that was released later in 88. It was a game of one SM army vs another SM army and could be played as a stand alone game or alongside AT88.

Untill they merged under the same rulebook with the brand release of Epic in 97, they was allways two seperate games but hevily linked to eachother.

If you need a framework for non titan units or non imperial titans, Epic is the only place. AT18 will NOT see that material for many years.

Yeah, reading through the rulesets for both I think it'd be easier to enjoy homebrewing in the units I want to have included in AT18 than it would be homebrewing in the titanic rules craziness I'd like to see into epic.

smaller stuff like Baneblade chassis tanks and Gorka/Morkanauts would be easy using basically the same structure as Knight lances, and larger stuff like Stompas and gargants would be slightly more laborious, but shouldn't be too tricky to figure out. They'd just have no void shields, more structure points, and lower armor value floors for Direct Hits allowing the lower strength weaponry to still take off structure points. The Machine Spirit mechanic would be replaced with the Mekboss trying to keep his rowdy crew from devolving into full on mutiny (the equivalent of an imperial titan suffering a reactor meltdown)


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End of the day I don't think the people I'd be playing this with would have much of an interest in eldar titans, probably just guard tanks and ork stuff.

Yeah, Armageddon is pretty tight and isn't really suited for the zany parts whereas Titanicus, while tight, is also chock full of craziness from the word go with raging machine spirits and explosions that can level whole table quarters in chain reactions.

Personally I'd start with taking existing units and tweaking them in small increments until they feel right, like super-heavy tank companies using knight rules without shields, less movement and bigger guns.

At one point our group discussed ork gargants as basically imperial titans that gain bonuses by living on the high end of reactor heat while being a bit harder to repair. Might start with more shields, might have a different Spirit table for accidents in the controls. Lots of little tweaks to be made without deviating much from the established Imperial baseline.

Different games for different experiences, really. AT is kind of Battletech: Horus Heresy Edition, with a big emphasis in the "right there" part of titan combat, whereas E:A puts you on the place of a combat general.

Personally I kind of prefer Epic (and specifically E:40k) precisely because it puts you front and center in the place of theater commander, and allows you to field real armies of troops while avoiding delving right into the nitty gritty of unit specifics, but AT is great for a more raw experience too.

So... why not both, really? Each one will strike your fancy at different times.

As to ork gargants, well, one of their signature weapons is the lifta droppa, and it's kind of hilarious.

Regarding E:40k, the Firepower magazine actually introduced a full on new edition of Adeptus Titanicus, too, with support for all races (of the time).

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, I would definitely be using the Titan maniples I create as the basis for my Epic armies, the problem is if I were playing Epic I would 100% be building orks as my main force, and sadly gargants, eldar titans, and biotitans do not exist in the titanicus rules.

Do the old adeptus titanicus rules have any support for non-titan units? I'm sure you could abstract formations of baneblade tanks, stompas and other mini-superheavies for use in Titanicus but you'd need a basic framework for how their rules would work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The titans being much more boring is 100% the reason I'm hesitant about armageddon.

the rules that came with the AT88 box does not support anything outside of imperial titans, BUT it does mention the existence of eldar, ork and chaos. AT18 does not as faras i can remember. Both games are set in 30k background.
Eldar, orks and chaos arrived at later years, but before the 2nd edition of AT88, called Titan Legions(94)

Non titan units was added thru a companion game; Space Marine, that was released later in 88. It was a game of one SM army vs another SM army and could be played as a stand alone game or alongside AT88.

Yes this is it. Space Marine (1st edition Epic) grew out of the original Adeptus Titanicus. I love the bit of 'lore' that the Horus Heresy background just came out of the need to have Marines fighting Marines (as that was the only unit designed and manufactured on the sprue) - I can't remember if it was William King or Alan Merrett that wrote that story in the 1st ed rulebook?

I only came into Space Marine from 2nd edition, where they had settled the rules and expansions into a more refined format (I guess similar to what happened between 40k 1st and 2nd edition)

Well, regardless, I've a lot of printing and painting before I ever have enough titans to even consider AT. Those warlords are some HEFTY LADS. Nearly knight sized all told!

the_scotsman wrote:
Well, regardless, I've a lot of printing and painting before I ever have enough titans to even consider AT. Those warlords are some HEFTY LADS. Nearly knight sized all told!

Not quite that big, but pretty hefty anyway.



(random pic from Google, not mine)

the_scotsman wrote:
Well, regardless, I've a lot of printing and painting before I ever have enough titans to even consider AT. Those warlords are some HEFTY LADS. Nearly knight sized all told!

Not all AT matches must be mid or large point scale, thats why we have demi maniples; 3 titans instead of 5.
3 warhounds or 2 warhounds + 1 reaver for small scale battles. if moving just 3 models around could be boring, add 1-3 units of knights aswell.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Well, regardless, I've a lot of printing and painting before I ever have enough titans to even consider AT. Those warlords are some HEFTY LADS. Nearly knight sized all told!

Not all AT matches must be mid or large point scale, thats why we have demi maniples; 3 titans instead of 5.
3 warhounds or 2 warhounds + 1 reaver for small scale battles. if moving just 3 models around could be boring, add 1-3 units of knights aswell.

Yep. I have files to print Knights of both types, some very nice looking warhounds, a not quite as nice looking Reaver (I'll probably just do 1 for each side) and a very nice Warlord.

Ultimately, my plan is to have many knights painted in a variety of banner colors for each side to freely swap between, 3 warhounds, 2 warlords, and 1 reaver for each side with magnetized weaponry.

the_scotsman wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Well, regardless, I've a lot of printing and painting before I ever have enough titans to even consider AT. Those warlords are some HEFTY LADS. Nearly knight sized all told!

Not all AT matches must be mid or large point scale, thats why we have demi maniples; 3 titans instead of 5.
3 warhounds or 2 warhounds + 1 reaver for small scale battles. if moving just 3 models around could be boring, add 1-3 units of knights aswell.

Yep. I have files to print Knights of both types, some very nice looking warhounds, a not quite as nice looking Reaver (I'll probably just do 1 for each side) and a very nice Warlord.

Ultimately, my plan is to have many knights painted in a variety of banner colors for each side to freely swap between, 3 warhounds, 2 warlords, and 1 reaver for each side with magnetized weaponry.

Just remember when you do the knights, that if you want to do a household force, all knights in a lance in the household must use the same primary weapons.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Well, regardless, I've a lot of printing and painting before I ever have enough titans to even consider AT. Those warlords are some HEFTY LADS. Nearly knight sized all told!

Not all AT matches must be mid or large point scale, thats why we have demi maniples; 3 titans instead of 5.
3 warhounds or 2 warhounds + 1 reaver for small scale battles. if moving just 3 models around could be boring, add 1-3 units of knights aswell.

Yep. I have files to print Knights of both types, some very nice looking warhounds, a not quite as nice looking Reaver (I'll probably just do 1 for each side) and a very nice Warlord.

Ultimately, my plan is to have many knights painted in a variety of banner colors for each side to freely swap between, 3 warhounds, 2 warlords, and 1 reaver for each side with magnetized weaponry.

Just remember when you do the knights, that if you want to do a household force, all knights in a lance in the household must use the same primary weapons.

is this a restriction with the regular banners that the titan forces can use? Regardless I'm unlikely to try to make a pure knight force I'm just curious because it didn't seem like it upon reading through the rules.

GW needs to Release "Epic - The Horus Heresy" ans everyone is happy...

RazorEdge wrote:
GW needs to Release "Epic - The Horus Heresy" ans everyone is happy...

I'd be even happier with Epic: There's Non-Imperium Armies In This One Guys.

If a specialist game could come out with units for factions that aren't just the imperium that'd be greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat.

the_scotsman wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Well, regardless, I've a lot of printing and painting before I ever have enough titans to even consider AT. Those warlords are some HEFTY LADS. Nearly knight sized all told!

Not all AT matches must be mid or large point scale, thats why we have demi maniples; 3 titans instead of 5.
3 warhounds or 2 warhounds + 1 reaver for small scale battles. if moving just 3 models around could be boring, add 1-3 units of knights aswell.

Yep. I have files to print Knights of both types, some very nice looking warhounds, a not quite as nice looking Reaver (I'll probably just do 1 for each side) and a very nice Warlord.

Ultimately, my plan is to have many knights painted in a variety of banner colors for each side to freely swap between, 3 warhounds, 2 warlords, and 1 reaver for each side with magnetized weaponry.

Just remember when you do the knights, that if you want to do a household force, all knights in a lance in the household must use the same primary weapons.

is this a restriction with the regular banners that the titan forces can use? Regardless I'm unlikely to try to make a pure knight force I'm just curious because it didn't seem like it upon reading through the rules.

No, just the household lances, stand alone knight lances can use whatever wep combo they want to.
full rules for using a household force in AT18 is in Doom of Molech expansion if you need that "rules platform" for your epic scale games.

As for a re release of epic, it will come but it will take years.
We have the titans and we have the planes. At this point i would not be supprised if we in some years gets a re re release of Space Marine allso, and at that point we just need "one book to rule them all"

I hope we will get sooner than later Optios for more Infantry (with Models) and Tanks....

RazorEdge wrote:
I hope we will get sooner than later Optios for more Infantry (with Models) and Tanks....

They cant. too many games to run, too mutch to develop plus we have corona delays going for atleast 22. (what was the rumor? 2-3 years to develop battlefleet gothic at the mininum, pre covid......)
So just keep to E:A, and print thouse minis. We will all be so mutch more happier when the news one day will come.

To correct FrozenDwarf a bit, knight household armies are made of Lances, which do not have to be equipped in unison, but which are made up of Banners, which do.

Basically, a Banner is a unit of knights, a Lance is a trio of Banners. A Banner in a lance must not contain dissimilar models, unless it is the Seneschal's one and even there doing that incurs penalties. Reinforcement Banners in both titan battlegroups and household armies can contain whatever they want, but gain no other benefits associated with the Lance system.

dident even remember that the word; banner, existed.

 Sherrypie wrote:
To correct FrozenDwarf a bit, knight household armies are made of Lances, which do not have to be equipped in unison, but which are made up of Banners, which do.

Basically, a Banner is a unit of knights, a Lance is a trio of Banners. A Banner in a lance must not contain dissimilar models, unless it is the Seneschal's one and even there doing that incurs penalties. Reinforcement Banners in both titan battlegroups and household armies can contain whatever they want, but gain no other benefits associated with the Lance system.

Heh, it's basically the Battletech structure, only instead of Lance > Company > Battalion it appears to be Banner > Lance > Household ^^

RazorEdge wrote:
GW needs to Release "Epic - The Horus Heresy" ans everyone is happy...

As FrozenDwarf has said, I think with the sheer amount of lines available it would take a massive development effort. GW already has its hands full with 40k and AoS. Remember, when you went into a GW in the early 90s there were 3 games systems on the wall, each with similar wall space: 40k, WHFB and Epic. I think you would be looking at minimum + 40-50 SKUs for even a basic game, which would take up GW's development schedule for years.

Fortunately though there are some really great, professional and well balanced games systems already available (and for free!)
- Epic Heresy AU. http://epicau.com/mw/index.php/Main_Page This uses Epic: Armageddon as a 'base' and is essentially additional 30k rules for use in that game based on FW units. These map quite nicely to Epic Armageddon too, if you want to use the rules for a 'Great Crusade' era and have marine legions fighting orks, eldar, even squats etc
- Imperium Dominatus https://imperiusdominatus.org/ This is brand new (a few months old). The guys who made 'NetEpic Gold' have adapted the 30k FW books/units into their game. It's basically the 2nd edition Space Marine ruleset with some knobs on. Uses the old 'unit cards' from Space Marine, which is kind of cool. I'm giving this one a go as it has a lot of popularity on social media at the moment, and hopefully (post covid) there will be events, tournaments and things like that organised for it.