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Indeed. And am I going made, or did it too have a transport capacity?

Not sure if I think that because it’s true, or because the art showed it disgorging tanks out the back?

I think all Gargants had a transport capacity of some sort. Orks have a very "and the kitchen sink" to feature design.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I think all Gargants had a transport capacity of some sort. Orks have a very "and the kitchen sink" to feature design.

Sadly not.

Mega Gargants had a crew that could "get out" and hold objectives.

Mekboy/Slasha/Great couldn't transport troops.

The Imperator was the only "true" transport Titan due to its leg bastions (usually full of a titan defence company).
Some of the metal upgrades for Warlords etc featured space for troops or included a mob of Terminators for boarding, but nothing that could carry any meaningful troop formations.

Part two of the Ork half of Warlords is up on the Crown of Command BTW, for anyone following along.

 JonWebb wrote:
The Imperator was the only "true" transport Titan due to its leg bastions (usually full of a titan defence company).
Some of the metal upgrades for Warlords etc featured space for troops or included a mob of Terminators for boarding, but nothing that could carry any meaningful troop formations.

Corvus assault pods and head - I actually have a complete battle group of three titans outfitted this way somewhere (along with fire control and plasma weapons on the carapace, and the 30 bases of terminators needed to fill them).

Got that complete copy of Space Marine! Very excited by this.

And took the jump on Hive War.

Spent around £120ish across two eBay listings. One for a boxed set missing the rules, the other for the rules.

As mentioned before, I’m quite looking forward to this arriving, as it’s not something I ever owned before. And looking at the pics of my newly purchased book, turns out the NiddlyDiddly’s couldn’t score VPs for objectives.... Makes them rather a different proposition to carry to victory!

My friend also got his Resin Printer at the weekend, so I’m sorted for getting infantry done. Probably won’t use debigulaged GW designs due to entirely personal preferences - but open to close approximations!

If I can persuade my friend well enough, I fancy getting enough infantry done so each Company and Support Card has corresponding units available.

Tanks and stuff? Well.....I’m open to 3D prints, but it depends on how hard I find it to source 2nd hand models.

Awesome stuff! I love the Nids in Epic, with those giant bio-titans, having a sea of hormagaunts overwhelming defending units etc. Really I think they work really well in that larger scale.

Quick Appreciation Society nerd question: Does anyone know if the Epic Nids ever featured in a WD battle report? I have the WD Battle book which doesn't have anything in it, but am conscious that came along during the 2nd edition releases rather than after them.

There probably was one in White Dwarf issue 183?

It’s the issue where Hive War was released, so I suspect would’ve included a show off Battle Report.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
There probably was one in White Dwarf issue 183?

It’s the issue where Hive War was released, so I suspect would’ve included a show off Battle Report.

184, the month after.

This is a helpful list of articles.
https://www.hiveworldterra.co.uk/clanbertram_archive/GW/Epic_SM_TLart.htm

That was the first Epic battle report I ever read.

So many fancy new Tyranid things in there. I'm glad that at least one of those tank-beasts (the Exocrine) eventually made it into 40k*. Shame the Dactylis never did.




*I suppose the Trygon did as well, now that I think about it.

Dactylis yeeted spore pods, if memory serves?

Imagine it as a sort of transport, which could lob middle sized Gribblies into the enemy’s ranks, as well as regular nasty spores.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That was the first Epic battle report I ever read.

So many fancy new Tyranid things in there. I'm glad that at least one of those tank-beasts (the Exocrine) eventually made it into 40k*. Shame the Dactylis never did.




*I suppose the Trygon did as well, now that I think about it.

Never, unless you count the Forge World US one.



They occasionally pop-up on eBay still.

Armorcast, I believe. I mean, the Malefactor, Haruspex and Exocrine also came into 40k via that method, but I meant as an actual GW release.

Maybe it still will, given that the Exocrine (and Haruspex, for that matter) did make it to 40k over a decade later.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Imagine it as a sort of transport, which could lob middle sized Gribblies into the enemy’s ranks, as well as regular nasty spores.

Nah man, the Dactylis was the Tyranid's version of the Basilisk!

If you wanted a transport, you got the Malefactor:

MDG and JonWebb, you are legends both, many thanks

What kind of rates are the old Nid bits and pieces going for on the 'Bay? An alternative would be some of the Onslaught minis that were linked a few posts ago.

BTW if anyone is after ranges of minis for Epic check out this site, which was updated recently. Has the original stuff from different editions as well as proxy equivalents from other manufacturers that you can sub in
https://miniwars.co.uk/

 Pacific wrote:
MDG and JonWebb, you are legends both, many thanks

What kind of rates are the old Nid bits and pieces going for on the 'Bay? An alternative would be some of the Onslaught minis that were linked a few posts ago.

BTW if anyone is after ranges of minis for Epic check out this site, which was updated recently. Has the original stuff from different editions as well as proxy equivalents from other manufacturers that you can sub in
https://miniwars.co.uk/

Honestly, ridiculous prices :(

I’ve got pretty complete collections of all factions other than nids now. I got very lucky with a friend who gave some infantry ,but still missing most of the medium beasts and almost all the command stuff other than dominatrix and zero titans :(

3rd party is probably your safest bet for infantry these days, like you say, onslaught. For the bigger stuff, conversions from 40k parts or 3D printing is the best bet I guess.

If you want true gw minis for epic, then you need deep pockets :(

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Last year, I went on a mission to acquire every Rogue Trader era book. Managed it, with the original Chapter Approved being at once the most expensive, and least impressive of the bunch.

I picked up my copies of Realm Of Chaos about fifteen years ago, at a bring & buy, for a quid each.


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 stonehorse wrote:
Big fan of the simplicity of 3rd edition 40k with just the lists from the core rule book, same for 6th edition WFB with just Ravening Hordes.

Less about gimmicks, and big flashy new models and more about grunts, and players making good choices on the table and not list building.

Yes, I agree - or 2nd edition with the black booklet, if you want a more detailed game of smaller conflicts. The simplicity of 3rd edition also gave you much more opportunity for modelling - adding a chainsword to a Space Marine made no difference to his effectiveness then, so you could give tactical marines close combat weapons with no effect on the rules so it didn't matter. Adding the Codex with its rules for auspexes, purity seals, and all the other paraphernalia that used to be simply decorative made it actually matter and thus harder to do.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Got that complete copy of Space Marine! Very excited by this.

I missed this one. Dude. Space Marine.. the epic scale Space Marine box?!?!

That is so awesome. I got that for Christmas on release. Oh man, the memories.

 meatybtz wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Got that complete copy of Space Marine! Very excited by this.

I missed this one. Dude. Space Marine.. the epic scale Space Marine box?!?!

That is so awesome. I got that for Christmas on release. Oh man, the memories.

The very same. Completely complete to boot!

I've got an incomplete one with extras somewhere,

got to figure out what I have & what I dont

Very nice.

That is of course the downside to GW’s former counter and template heavy rules. The bits are easily lost or damaged.

If I had a scanner, I’d probs go and make PDF files for the various bits and pieces for Epic. Not only for my own use, but as a top up resource for other players.

Only issue is where a fair few are double sided, getting the PDFs to line up all proper is quite beyond my meagre skills.

Hive War box and tokens set turned up today. Very nice, excellent condition. Book should be here soonish.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Very nice.

That is of course the downside to GW’s former counter and template heavy rules. The bits are easily lost or damaged.

If I had a scanner, I’d probs go and make PDF files for the various bits and pieces for Epic. Not only for my own use, but as a top up resource for other players.

Only issue is where a fair few are double sided, getting the PDFs to line up all proper is quite beyond my meagre skills.

Hive War box and tokens set turned up today. Very nice, excellent condition. Book should be here soonish.

Between the epic Facebook groups and the Net Epic site you can basically get scans of anything you need to play all four editions of the game, heck, I originally nabbed all the books off scribd before picking up the full run of hard copies.

So, save yourself a job and join us and everything you need is already there

SamusDrake wrote:Quite fond of the 3rd edition rules for Craftworlds. The Ulthwe council and Black Guardians were very awesome indeed.

My favourite 40k army ever! The seer council was surely the coolest 40k unit ever, sold my army a long time ago but currently slow growing an Eldar army based around that list.

stonehorse wrote:Big fan of the simplicity of 3rd edition 40k with just the lists from the core rule book, same for 6th edition WFB with just Ravening Hordes.

Less about gimmicks, and big flashy new models and more about grunts, and players making good choices on the table and not list building.

My favourite period of GW, loved the minis, the balance of fun and being a proper wargame, and most of all the glorious artwork.

I was always more of a fantasy player so loving that there's a growing and very vibrant 6th ed scene now and I was getting some games in pre covid, and even some via Universal Battle during lockdown. Shame that I can't seem to find anything like this for 40k, are there any groups playing 3rd/4th ed 40k in the UK? I know 2nd ed has had some revival, but though I started during 2nd, I was too young to really get into the gaming side of it.

I love the simplicity of that 3rd ed 40k 6th ed fantasy period, and the sheer quantity of content, and how easy it was to make narratives and scenarios, also had a good amount of depth with the character building. The incredible artwork, the hand sculpted perry twins minis, juan diaz & gary morley etc, in glorious metal too. I just loved it all.

8th and 9th edition just haven't grabbed me, I don't like the combat system at all, the neutering of the psychic phase, the smaller table size matched with bigger models, or the meta/feel, and of course, the annoying scale creep of the models. Also the changing objectives and points scoring (doesn't really allow for you to build your own narrative around a scenario), the insanely complex list building rules or gimmicky game mechanics; feels like you're playing a tabletop version of a video game, not a wargame.

Valkyrie wrote:Been playing since 4th, I do miss how customisable your guys were back then. Not just standard weapon upgrades but also basic wargear such as Bionics (6+ FNP) or Purity Seals, etc. Means you can really make "your guys" without having to just go for the same Relics.

Yes! GW realised that the to protect their IP they would have to make a model to match every single possible unit, which meant character customisation pretty much went out the window. It's why now they only release rules alongside models, or they'll put rules in white dwarf alongside a model release pre codex (at least this is what a senior GW manager explained to me a few years ago).

Just Tony wrote:Getting the old 3rd Ed. 40K books and 6th Ed. WFB books over again has been a real treat. Just wish getting some of those era's models were easier or cheaper to get. .

Me too! I've been rebuying old codexes and wfb army books from that period, so many of the models hold up so well, the artwork is so much better than the current digital stuff. Just wish 3rd ed would take off like the old edition of WFB have (there are big 4th/5th ed, 6th ed & 8th ed scenes still going for WFB, even have tournaments going with good attendance pre covid).

 Valkyrie wrote:
Been playing since 4th, I do miss how customisable your guys were back then. Not just standard weapon upgrades but also basic wargear such as Bionics (6+ FNP) or Purity Seals, etc. Means you can really make "your guys" without having to just go for the same Relics.

I found that having rules and points costs for every single little thing made customisation harder - Before I could put some purity seals, an iron halo, etc, on a model to personalise it and I could do that freely. Now along comes a Codex with rules for all those things and now I have to be careful about doing that because now it matters in a game.

Got me thinking about early days equipment options.

That is a thread entirely unto itself, and not one I can presently be bothered to write.

But I am thinking of the old sources of invulnerable saves.

Relatively few models came with them by today’s standards. Off the top of my head, Eldar Farseers and Warlocks, Chaplains are the first I think of. But there will be others.

Everyone else had to go to the Wargear Cards. The number available depended on the ‘level’ of the character. The harder they were, the more they could take.

Fields came in four broad flavours. Refractor (5++), Conversion (4++), Displacer (3++) and Power Field (2++). And each had its own drawback.

Refractor meant you couldn’t Hide. Conversion Field caused a blind grenade effect, centred on the model making the save. This could blind friendly troops. Displacer Field scattered you randomly. Power Fields didn’t work in HTH.

I kinda miss that, especially given how ubiquitous invulnerable saves are nowadays. But it was more book keeping, so I can see why others might be glad to see the back of them

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Relatively few models came with them by today’s standards. Off the top of my head, Eldar Farseers and Warlocks, Chaplains are the first I think of. But there will be others.

Daemons were another. Imperial Assassins too. Possibly the Lictor had a dodge?

And Ragnar Blackmane I believe! You could dodge as long as the 2" took you outside of the area of effect (so wouldn't always work).

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


I kinda miss that, especially given how ubiquitous invulnerable saves are nowadays. But it was more book keeping, so I can see why others might be glad to see the back of them

I think it worked in the context that you had much smaller miniature counts and games generally, so didn't have a massive amount to remember.

In terms of miniature numbers, for 2nd ed at least, it was probablly closer to a skirmish game of something like Necromunda than a modern game of 40k.

I have played every edition since Rogue Trader and there are some things I miss about the older editions.

Personal power fields being one but also the 2nd Edition rule that allowed swords to parry was also great.

I can't fully remember the old psychic rules for 2nd Edition but I seem to remember you had to secretly bid using power cards in your hand against your opponent? I also really liked that and meant you weren't always able to get your best powers off when you wanted to as your hand was drawn at random so you might not have the power cards you needed.

My fondest memories of 40K though were 4th/5th Edition, especially City Fight.

And I have very fond memories of the original Necromunda but I think the newest version is actually better to play.

I never really got into Epic but I hope they bring it back.

I suspect one of us was using House Rules for the psychic phase, but I’m not sure who (could be both).

My memory is you had the Power Deck. To generate cards, you rolled 2D6, and dished them out between the players, starting with who’s turn it was.

Your hand dealt, Power cards were used to, well, power your, erm...powers. Each had a target between 1 and 3.

I think there was some bidding, as your opponent could play Nullify cards, reducing your power build - so if you had 5 Power cards in your hand, and really wanted to cast that PL3 attack, you’d probably Chuck all 5 against it.

There were also ‘one per deck’ special cards. Ultimate Force (your chosen power was cast, and your opponent can’t block it), Drain Power (probably the wrong name, but effectively ended the phase) and I think Daemonic Attack, which caused wounds and possibly killed the casting psyker - I can’t recall if it also nullified the power being used?

I don’t recall blind bidding - but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t The Rules.

I think you also got bonus cards for each -shelf - whether it was total up their Power Level, or a D6 for each psyker beyond the first?

StraightSilver wrote:
I have played every edition since Rogue Trader and there are some things I miss about the older editions.

Personal power fields being one but also the 2nd Edition rule that allowed swords to parry was also great.

I can't fully remember the old psychic rules for 2nd Edition but I seem to remember you had to secretly bid using power cards in your hand against your opponent? I also really liked that and meant you weren't always able to get your best powers off when you wanted to as your hand was drawn at random so you might not have the power cards you needed.

My fondest memories of 40K though were 4th/5th Edition, especially City Fight.

And I have very fond memories of the original Necromunda but I think the newest version is actually better to play.

I never really got into Epic but I hope they bring it back.

Cityfight was epic on a good table of terrain, 40k at it's absolute best imo. Incredibly fun and often close games, looked amazing and became totally immersive.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I suspect one of us was using House Rules for the psychic phase, but I’m not sure who (could be both).

I have the book here. It's been a while.

- Roll 1d6 per psyker (in total) and share the cards between the two players - no hording of cards by the psyker-heavy faction as in 6th and 7th.
- The cards were a mix of force, nullify, and special effect
- Players took turns to try and play powers, costing 1-3 force cards to use
- Nullify cards were just a flat 4+ to stop a power being cast or end an ongoing power. +1 or -1 if you had a higher or lower level (or no) psyker.

Special cards were daemonic attack (auto nullify, chance of killing psyker), destroy power (auto nullify, chance to remove power from hand), energy drain (end psychic phase, end all powers), psychic duel (dice off to remove powers), reflection (bounce powers), and ultimate force (auto cast, no nullify). A few of these could only be used by psykers.

Once up powers kept rolling until they were nullified.