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On the fate of previous Epic?

Epic 40K I think did a lot of damage. Some of the new models were genuinely better. Some (Eldar) were not. The rules were just……bloody awful. Worked well for BFG, but not for Epic.

It was too radical a departure from what had come before, and I know it left a lot of my area completely cold.

Epic Armageddon was objectively a better game. But by then? The damage had been done. Armies had been sold off, interest had been lost.

It’s a shame, as I think if we just excise Epic 40K from the history, and had moved from Space Marine to Epic Armageddon? Possibly rose tinting to the point of blindness, but I reckon it might’ve survived. Certainly I think weapons having AT/AP profiles was an excellent decision.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the fate of previous Epic?

Epic 40K I think did a lot of damage. Some of the new models were genuinely better. Some (Eldar) were not. The rules were just……bloody awful. Worked well for BFG, but not for Epic.

Absolutely disagree about this. Having just played it last saturday, I am more sure than ever that it's the game that better actually gives you the feeling of being an actual army commander without getting bogged down in inane gak that doesn't and should really account for at the scale.

It's a game that very much knows what it wants to be and goes about beautifully to achieve it. And it actually gets around to make the armies feel like they should.

E:A, on the other hand, makes individual units much more unwieldy by stapling extra rules that are simply too much for the scale of conflict it wants to emulate, while at the same time making army building much drier due to specific army detachments being heavily codified instead of the versatile ones from E:40k, which made the lists from the core able to build basically anything from the factions instead of absolutely needing dozens of lists to instilll a bit of character to detachments.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the fate of previous Epic?

Epic 40K I think did a lot of damage. Some of the new models were genuinely better. Some (Eldar) were not. The rules were just……bloody awful. Worked well for BFG, but not for Epic.

It was too radical a departure from what had come before, and I know it left a lot of my area completely cold.

Epic Armageddon was objectively a better game. But by then? The damage had been done. Armies had been sold off, interest had been lost.

It’s a shame, as I think if we just excise Epic 40K from the history, and had moved from Space Marine to Epic Armageddon? Possibly rose tinting to the point of blindness, but I reckon it might’ve survived. Certainly I think weapons having AT/AP profiles was an excellent decision.

Sorry, but this is hot garbage. Epic 40,000 is the best version of rules Epic has ever had. It was one of the few times GW had came close to making a wargame and not a miniature game. The rules reflected war at that scale, that is to say they were abstract, because with 6mm infantry that is the only way to get a good result.

It was a radical departure from the versions before (the lack of Squats was also met with disappointment, in epic they had a full range, unlike 40K), because they had become an unworkable mess... a mess that a lot of those who played Epic liked. It tanked not due to how good or bad it was as a rule set, but because people at the time didn't want their Epic to change. Sales are not an indication of whether a commodity is good or bad, otherwise the likes of McDonald's would be regarded as the best food in the world.

Epic Armageddon was an attempt to fuse the previous editions, it took a lot of bits from them all and tried to get a compromise. It was a good idea, which if given the full focus may have been a financial success. The lack of a starter box, and only Marines, Guard, and Orks being in the main rule book really did it no favours. It felt like GW had produced half a product. The Swordwind expansion added Seige Masters Eldar, and Feral Orks if I recall correctly. Still no Chaos or Tyranids, so officially the game didn't have rules for a lot of people's armies.

Edit.
As for Epic Armageddon being Objectively better... just remember that the game designers Jervis Johnson and Andy Chambers have publically stated that Epic 40,000 was the best set of rules they ever came up with.

The problem epic 40K had was that GW dropped it like hot lead. IT came out with a lot of fanfare and then vanished almost as fast. Armageddon I recall got pushed into the FW/specialist line which at the time meant it got less marketing and was on a side site and such. Ergo slow death kind of like how BFG went the same pathway.


The main issue is that 6-20mm gaming is a superniche. In fantasy and futuristic its often totally outsold by 28-35mm scale games. It has more strength as historicals, but that in itself is a niche.

I think GW going into any restoration of epic has to accept that no matter what they do it will never equal the investment return of a 28-35mm game. If it does then that will only be after a lot of work growing it.

 Overread wrote:
The problem epic 40K had was that GW dropped it like hot lead. IT came out with a lot of fanfare and then vanished almost as fast. Armageddon I recall got pushed into the FW/specialist line which at the time meant it got less marketing and was on a side site and such. Ergo slow death kind of like how BFG went the same pathway.


The main issue is that 6-20mm gaming is a superniche. In fantasy and futuristic its often totally outsold by 28-35mm scale games. It has more strength as historicals, but that in itself is a niche.

I think GW going into any restoration of epic has to accept that no matter what they do it will never equal the investment return of a 28-35mm game. If it does then that will only be after a lot of work growing it.

The same is true for GW's other good game, Warmaster. Support for that dropped as soon as the the range was complete. It got very little White Dwarf coverage.

Rick Priestley (who designed it) has gone on to use a slightly modified version of the rules for 3 very successful game systems, Hail Caesar, Pike & Shot, and Black Powder.

28mm and above dominate miniature gaming outside of historicals. The smaller the scale the smaller the niche. I was surprised to see GW do AT, I had honestly thought their forays into smaller then 28mm scale were over.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the fate of previous Epic?

Epic 40K I think did a lot of damage. Some of the new models were genuinely better. Some (Eldar) were not. The rules were just……bloody awful. Worked well for BFG, but not for Epic.

Absolutely disagree about this. Having just played it last saturday, I am more sure than ever that it's the game that better actually gives you the feeling of being an actual army commander without getting bogged down in inane gak that doesn't and should really account for at the scale.

It's a game that very much knows what it wants to be and goes about beautifully to achieve it. And it actually gets around to make the armies feel like they should.

E:A, on the other hand, makes individual units much more unwieldy by stapling extra rules that are simply too much for the scale of conflict it wants to emulate, while at the same time making army building much drier due to specific army detachments being heavily codified instead of the versatile ones from E:40k, which made the lists from the core able to build basically anything from the factions instead of absolutely needing dozens of lists to instilll a bit of character to detachments.

I agree with Mad Doc. E:40k was the worst version of the game. I started playing since original AT back in 1990 and it was hugely popular. Owner of the store I played at said it was his biggest seller. When E:40k came out it killed the game and I hate it. Many people left the game. Best version of the game is epic E:A . When it was released people started to play it but then GW stopped supporting it. After that people started to lose interest.

I remember - and still have the WD issue - from when Epic 40k burst out onto the scene.

Bright yellow Land Raiders! Cool plastic ruins. The most detailed 6mm plastic infantry I'd ever seen.

It died pretty much as quickly.

 gorgon wrote:


Let’s also remember that a pared-down Epic ruleset has already bombed once for GW, and it basically ended Epic as a core game for the company. I just think an Epic relaunch is a lot trickier than say the Necromunda relaunch.

Last epic game gw released outsold gw's own expectations by 400%. Lack of sales wasn't issue. We can be pretty damn sure it was profitable by good margin as gw wouldn't have green lighted project if their sale expectation was so low even such huge outselling wouldn't make profit.

Arguments about Epic 40k killing the game aside, I think probably the main reason we didn't see it come back over the 00s and 10s was because GW had a core game sales philosophy (this is on record - see comments on Space Hulk sales at the time). It probably helped also that 40k had steadily changed in scale, both in terms of model count (inc. Apocalypse) and the miniatures themselves (titans, superheavies etc) being introduced. It didn't matter if 6/8mm scale is so much better for representing that type of combat, as why sell a squadron of those tanks for £20 if people are shelling out £80 for a single vehicle?

If a new Epic does come I suspect the AT model will be followed; Heresy setting marine-only, 2 or 3 sprues max with the popular troop and vehicle options. Epic Armageddon-esque rules, nice boxset, 2-3 years of limites releases and 19 campaign books before it switches to direct order only and the ocassional overpriced FW mini. BFG re-releases, or Trolls in the Pantry.

tneva82 wrote:

 gorgon wrote:


Let’s also remember that a pared-down Epic ruleset has already bombed once for GW, and it basically ended Epic as a core game for the company. I just think an Epic relaunch is a lot trickier than say the Necromunda relaunch.

Last epic game gw released outsold gw's own expectations by 400%. Lack of sales wasn't issue. We can be pretty damn sure it was profitable by good margin as gw wouldn't have green lighted project if their sale expectation was so low even such huge outselling wouldn't make profit.

Yup it was killed by the higer ups at GW because they kept thinking that it would cannibalize sales from 40k/WHFB. Then they went to the extreme end of Kirbism and anything not 40k/WHFB was pushed to specialist games. That was usually the death kneel for the system because they didn't promote feth all, you couldn't play the games in the store and the models where mail order only.

What they failed to realize is that those games kept a lot of people around who where burnt out on 40k/FB in the stores and in the GW loop. Once they banned playing those in the stores it all moved onto game clubs and peoples basements with good friends.

Honestly I don't see how todays 40k/Aos is the golden age of gaming. 40k is a horrible system that is going to be stuck in a 3 year edition cycle to drive quarterly profit margins. The big center piece model and the kits they want to push will have OP rules to drive sales then the 3 month nerf, rinse lather repeat. The splitting of the Imperium is a joke at best, the story is horrible and always dependent on the next warzone book they want to push. The 40k universe is a mish mash of other IP's mixed together to get something kinda unique and with the quality of GW's writers now a days the only deep thing about it is their ego's and managements bonus's. AoS seems like a good idea for a game world a bunch of magical realms but most of them are so forgettable and so impractical that they hold no interest to me.

GW will always be a model company that sells rules so you can push your models around the table and roll bucket loads of D6 dice. The heart and soul of GW died long long ago and FW's heart and soul passed the same day Mr Bligh did. Loosing him was such a kick in the nads. He was the vision behind the HH and did most of the leg work and planned most of it out. I would LOVE to of seen his Vision come to life fully in the black books but alas it was not ment to be sadly

Books 1-3 where fantastic books well written with a clear coherent vision. Books 4-5 where oh gak GW switched to 7th edition we have to update HH. Book 6 was oh gak Mr Bligh is sick and all we have where his notes and some idea's we have to make this work. Books 7-9 where we have to milk these HH players for all their worth while we make HH a main line GW game.

People keep saying give them a chance, lets see how HH 2.0 plays out, GW knows what they are doing etc etc etc. Those who have been around have seen this song and dance before and we honestly all know how it ends. I am just glad they finished off HH in 1.0 and didn't abandon it 3/4 of the way through like so many other failed GW side projects.

I have no interest in GW touching Epic again. They had 4 chances at it and kicked it to the curb to chase the 40k money. I LOVED SM 1and 2nd edition. They where fantastic games that I have fond memories of playing. The hidden deployment in 2nd was great. I loved seeing the GW staff members hold up big chunks of cardboard so we could set up our armies. Fun times fun times. I also miss the selection of vehicles in metal so they could sculpt up a vehicle give it rules in WD and boom you had models. Not a two year plus lead time for cutting metal molds for HIPS minis. They could react to much faster if they had a good idea for a model or rules. Now it all has to be run by middle management to see if it fit into projections and if the shop has time to cut the molds and shoot the plastic. I really really miss old GW. To each their own though. I am glad people who play today enjoy the models and the games. No point in hating on people for doing what they enjoy/love. Just because I don't like where the story line and models have gone with GW doesn't mean that I dislike the people enjoying and playing it. You do you all the power to you.

 clodax66 wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the fate of previous Epic?

Epic 40K I think did a lot of damage. Some of the new models were genuinely better. Some (Eldar) were not. The rules were just……bloody awful. Worked well for BFG, but not for Epic.

Absolutely disagree about this. Having just played it last saturday, I am more sure than ever that it's the game that better actually gives you the feeling of being an actual army commander without getting bogged down in inane gak that doesn't and should really account for at the scale.

It's a game that very much knows what it wants to be and goes about beautifully to achieve it. And it actually gets around to make the armies feel like they should.

E:A, on the other hand, makes individual units much more unwieldy by stapling extra rules that are simply too much for the scale of conflict it wants to emulate, while at the same time making army building much drier due to specific army detachments being heavily codified instead of the versatile ones from E:40k, which made the lists from the core able to build basically anything from the factions instead of absolutely needing dozens of lists to instilll a bit of character to detachments.

I agree with Mad Doc. E:40k was the worst version of the game. I started playing since original AT back in 1990 and it was hugely popular. Owner of the store I played at said it was his biggest seller. When E:40k came out it killed the game and I hate it. Many people left the game. Best version of the game is epic E:A . When it was released people started to play it but then GW stopped supporting it. After that people started to lose interest.

It was a different game than the ones before, that is for sure. Over here it did the contrary, though. Here in Spain it sold really well until they exiled it to Specialist Games and out of the stores with E:A while at the same time doubling prices. But the game people kept playing was E:40k for a long while.

There is clearly no account for taste, that's for sure, but I feel it was more a case of expectations (wanting more of the same there was begore) instead of quality issues.

Epic 40k was an amazing system, as said above you made you feel like a commander of huge army, ordering sweeping advances and desperate retreats. I loved it.

Epic 40K killed off Epic entirely in my area whereas before it was a big seller. While 2nd edition and Titan Legions had lots of problems and troublesome rules interactions, E40K threw too much out. While later it was revamped for use with BFG where it fit better, the original E40K sucked all the flavor out of many armies, particularly the non-SM ones as there seemed to be a double standard when it came to granularity. SM got slightly more detail and Land Raiders were overpowered with their 4+ AT shots, while other factions seemed to get a phoned in effort. It was also the time the Eldar had that awkward shift from their old 2nd edition catapults to the ridiculous 12" catapults in 40K, and E40K replicated that. Fragile infantry vulnerable to close combat assaults that yielded more points to the enemy if destroyed and with cripplingly short range, and for what? Slightly higher short range firepower that was ultimately insufficient to be worth all those downsides.

The old 2nd ed. and Titan Legions players liked all the detail and nuts and bolts. Streamlining and resolving those illogical rule interactions was what was needed, not completely tossing the system. Sure E40K as a system could be played and I have seen some argue that it worked as a system, but it wasn't what players wanted and it wasn't fun. People wanted their flavorful factions, not a faction that was playable but was as bland as bread and water.

What do we know?

Official statements:
-They experimented with rescaling FW Stuff like Infantry and Tanks into 8mm
-Models are slightly bigger for better distinction of the different Power Armour Marks
-Contradictory staements about the status of working on Epic in the last Years

Rumors:
-Set in the Horus Heresy
-Incooperating Models from AT and AI
-Already at the playtesting phase

Iracundus wrote:
Epic 40K killed off Epic entirely in my area whereas before it was a big seller. While 2nd edition and Titan Legions had lots of problems and troublesome rules interactions, E40K threw too much out. While later it was revamped for use with BFG where it fit better, the original E40K sucked all the flavor out of many armies, particularly the non-SM ones as there seemed to be a double standard when it came to granularity. SM got slightly more detail and Land Raiders were overpowered with their 4+ AT shots, while other factions seemed to get a phoned in effort. It was also the time the Eldar had that awkward shift from their old 2nd edition catapults to the ridiculous 12" catapults in 40K, and E40K replicated that. Fragile infantry vulnerable to close combat assaults that yielded more points to the enemy if destroyed and with cripplingly short range, and for what? Slightly higher short range firepower that was ultimately insufficient to be worth all those downsides.

The old 2nd ed. and Titan Legions players liked all the detail and nuts and bolts. Streamlining and resolving those illogical rule interactions was what was needed, not completely tossing the system. Sure E40K as a system could be played and I have seen some argue that it worked as a system, but it wasn't what players wanted and it wasn't fun. People wanted their flavorful factions, not a faction that was playable but was as bland as bread and water.

Pretty debatable, as seen. I guess it really depends on what baggage you had and what you considered "fun", because I can assure you, for me E:40k is fun, and I felt the armies acted like they should and were very flavorful, even though you streamlined a LR to a FP litsing instead of 4 different weapons each.

That said, the extra units added to orks and Guard in the epic magazine did help too, and added differentiation between LR tanks, much needed trukks to oros and the like.

Still, when I play Epic I play the armies, not the individual units, and for that E:40k provides the best experience by far. There is an effort being done in the E:40k Resurrected group to fix the issues of the game and the army lists, if anyone's interested, plus adding the more modern units.

 Overread wrote:

The main issue is that 6-20mm gaming is a superniche. In fantasy and futuristic its often totally outsold by 28-35mm scale games. It has more strength as historicals, but that in itself is a niche.

This isnt accurate, 15mm was the dominant scale of wargaming for many years and it wasnt really until the late 90s/early 2000s that 28s took the crown with the rise of GW gaming. Having done a lot of market research on this over the last several years and pulling survey data from many sources, etc the audience on 15mm is almost as large as 28mm (keeping in mind that many people who play GW games also do play other games despite perception they don't). 6mm is the third most popular scale by a somewhat more distant margin. Describing these scales as "superniche" isn't really justifiable, though you are correct in saying that support for fantasy/scifi in these scales is lower (though the recent re-emergenxe of Battletech has breathed a lot of new life into 6mm scifi).

The niche scales are really the "in between" scales (i.e. 10mm, 20mm, etc) and the true superniche scales are at the extremes (2mm/3mm and 40mm/54mm).

FabricatorGeneralMike

I am running out of thumbs to give you thumbs up over.

Honestly I don't see how todays 40k/Aos is the golden age of gaming.

It isn't, it is a flaming dumpster fire, it is just easily accessible for the masses. for me when it comes to 40K it's golden age when it became the grim dark universe was 1998-2012 (3rd-5th ed). the lore was solidified, the universe was built, and most armies had loads of lore based rules. there were rules tweaks made between editions but effectively it was the same game for 14 years.

It is also the same time that all the specialist games were going in full swing in tandem with the main game. some players still prefer the silly hero hammer more skirmish style system of 2nd like that version a bit better, that was before i took an interest as battletech had all of my attention when it came to wargaming.

The heart and soul of GW died long long ago, and FW's heart and soul passed the same day Mr Bligh did. Losing him was such a kick in the nads. He was the vision behind the HH and did most of the leg work and planned most of it out.

When you lose almost all the original team that created the universe and the games related to it. then replace it with a company where the sales team/executives finally won the long running fight with the game design and lore development teams. that is exactly what you get. a model company that happens to have a game attached to its models.

The difference for people like Alan, Rick, Andy and the rest is that they LOVED the universe they created and played in. and the game design reflected that. this was especially true with the old FW team. IA books were more than just rulebooks for armies. they were adventures in the 41st millennium.

When it comes to the HH. there will never be a 2.0 in my world. i own all the old books and have plenty of minis i never need to buy anything from GW ever again. i feel the same way about 40K playing 5th ed with my friends is way more enjoyable than what GW is currently doing.

I also understand that i come from a different place that probably 75% of the current crop of 40K gamers who only have the time/resources or interest in following one system. i have been playing since 3rd and also regularly play over a dozen different game systems on a very regular basis. If i am not at the game store for 12+ hours every weekend getting games in i am either very sick or dead (i have missed around 3 weekends since 2006 and one of them was for my wedding).

GWs business model is a dying breed, and they know it that is why they are investing so heavy into expanding the IP outside of just the miniatures game.

As with any new technology creative destruction will happen. remember when VCRs were something rich people had because they cost hundreds of dollars as new tech. now, they are almost not used and if you need one, they cost almost nothing. other more advanced forms of digital media have replaced them.

Even in its current state the potential for 3d printing's ability for design expression and cost savings is so extreme that eventually it will replace the markets core source of miniatures.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Imma need a more reliable source than "Valrak said"

How is Valrak´s track record on rumours? Reliable or not?

"Even in its current state the potential for inkjet printing's ability for design expression and cost savings is so extreme that eventually it will replace the markets core source of cards."

My mate with his new colour desktop inkjet printer in the early 00s saying that Magic the Gathering was now a dead game and would be gone by the end of the decade.

 Strg Alt wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Imma need a more reliable source than "Valrak said"

How is Valrak´s track record on rumours? Reliable or not?

Patchy. It seems like he has some good sources that have been right in the past, but I don't know if what he heard came from one of them.

 gorgon wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:
I'm not buying it. 3D printers probably can't keep up with mimicking GW's 28mm+ kits for a long time, but they could replicate 6-15mm without any real issue.

What's more, I'm unsure that GW is prepared to support Nu-Epic (as a Specialist Game) to the level to satisfy much of the fanbase. People will want their IG and Eldar and Orks and Tyranids. They'll want their Gargants and Stompas and Warlocks and Revenants. They'll also want their Manticores and Basilisks and Hydras and Wyverns and Haruspex and Exocrines and on and on. Epic done right would involve a huge number of SKUs, even if they start combining things on sprues.

Would old and new Epic players be satisfied with 'mirror-matchy' games featuring Imperial units? Considering 'xenos when?' pops up in every AT conversation, I'm pretty skeptical. Would they be happy with a pared-down, Titans-planes-tanks game? Again, I'm skeptical.

I think I'd be more inclined to believe this if they'd already released xenos Titans for AT to start paying off the development and mold production costs. But they haven't. Some Imperial Titan kits and Imperial and xenos aircraft models don't add up to GW being halfway to Epic, or at least the kind of Epic that people have in mind.

GW doesn´t care what people want. GW acts upon what they think might be profitable. When AT was released people already longed to have infantry, tanks and artillery alongside their titans. Did GW change course? Nope.

The "tank and infantry" folks don't really want to play AT, they want Epic. There're artillery in AT, just not the kind Epic people really want or can field in an Epic game.

With how stingy the plastic production has been on AT, people who play the "titans and knights" game would prefer the budget went into said units, unfortunately they were all spent in uber huge warmaster titan with the rest of the smaller units being resin.

 stonehorse wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the fate of previous Epic?

Epic 40K I think did a lot of damage. Some of the new models were genuinely better. Some (Eldar) were not. The rules were just……bloody awful. Worked well for BFG, but not for Epic.

It was too radical a departure from what had come before, and I know it left a lot of my area completely cold.

Epic Armageddon was objectively a better game. But by then? The damage had been done. Armies had been sold off, interest had been lost.

It’s a shame, as I think if we just excise Epic 40K from the history, and had moved from Space Marine to Epic Armageddon? Possibly rose tinting to the point of blindness, but I reckon it might’ve survived. Certainly I think weapons having AT/AP profiles was an excellent decision.

Sorry, but this is hot garbage. Epic 40,000 is the best version of rules Epic has ever had. It was one of the few times GW had came close to making a wargame and not a miniature game. The rules reflected war at that scale, that is to say they were abstract, because with 6mm infantry that is the only way to get a good result.

It was a radical departure from the versions before (the lack of Squats was also met with disappointment, in epic they had a full range, unlike 40K), because they had become an unworkable mess... a mess that a lot of those who played Epic liked. It tanked not due to how good or bad it was as a rule set, but because people at the time didn't want their Epic to change. Sales are not an indication of whether a commodity is good or bad, otherwise the likes of McDonald's would be regarded as the best food in the world.

Epic Armageddon was an attempt to fuse the previous editions, it took a lot of bits from them all and tried to get a compromise. It was a good idea, which if given the full focus may have been a financial success. The lack of a starter box, and only Marines, Guard, and Orks being in the main rule book really did it no favours. It felt like GW had produced half a product. The Swordwind expansion added Seige Masters Eldar, and Feral Orks if I recall correctly. Still no Chaos or Tyranids, so officially the game didn't have rules for a lot of people's armies.

Edit.
As for Epic Armageddon being Objectively better... just remember that the game designers Jervis Johnson and Andy Chambers have publically stated that Epic 40,000 was the best set of rules they ever came up with.

I only had the fortune to play Space Marine (2nd epic) in the 90s. After a decade or so I got acquainted with the Epic: Armageddon rules and I liked them a lot as they added depth like blast markers & crossfire to the game. In what regard was Epic 40K an even better ruleset to Epic:A?

Depends what you want. Different taste, different better.

Did work out as better grand army feel. Aka bigger games look and feel better. EpicA btw starts to work less well as point sizes go up.

If 40k is platoon/semi company, epic A is multi company and epic 40k as battalion level so to speak.

Also army building was lot more flexible than EA.

It depends a lot do you prefer abstract big battle feel or more gritty details and in what level. In E40 weapons aren't nearly as detailed as EA for example. It matters less do you have missile launcher or lascannon for AT purposes for example.

 Strg Alt wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Imma need a more reliable source than "Valrak said"

How is Valrak´s track record on rumours? Reliable or not?

Literally a coin toss. Sometimes people send him legit rumours, sometimes a whole stream chatting about something that never happens. Basically Faeit with a youtube channel.

Epic Heresy is quite a safe future GW prediction to make right now, from a purely business POV there are so many benefits for them:

The 3D CAD designs being done from scratch for the new range of 28mm HH units can be designed for both scales at the same time

Just like AT and the original Space Marine, GW can sell the same models to both sides which halves design & production costs

People with existing Titanicus or Aeronautica collections can jump in with their existing models

GW know Titanicus outsold expectations so it's very likely that the demand is there

derpherp wrote:
My mate with his new colour desktop inkjet printer in the early 00s saying that Magic the Gathering was now a dead game and would be gone by the end of the decade.

Every time I hear about the death of GW's business model, I think about the average dad spilling IPA all over the bathroom floor as he's cleaning that last batch of Marine prints for little Timmy.

Except of course it's not as simple as click button. AT warlord cad took about as much time to get in 6mm as it would have been from scratch.

I would be pretty surprised at GW doing Epic right now, or even in the next few years. But that is only because I've never been a fan of the 10mm scale for minis. I can understand AT and AI as being popular because that's essentially planes and mechs. Adding whole reams of infantry for that? Nah.

Chopstick wrote:
The "tank and infantry" folks don't really want to play AT, they want Epic. There're artillery in AT, just not the kind Epic people really want or can field in an Epic game.

With how stingy the plastic production has been on AT, people who play the "titans and knights" game would prefer the budget went into said units, unfortunately they were all spent in uber huge warmaster titan with the rest of the smaller units being resin.

As I said earlier my Epic activity was during Space Marine which meant my force included multiple Blood Angel companies. Per company a player was allowed to include special cards which included the titan unit type. So you could have it all in one army list.

 Strg Alt wrote:


I only had the fortune to play Space Marine (2nd epic) in the 90s. After a decade or so I got acquainted with the Epic: Armageddon rules and I liked them a lot as they added depth like blast markers & crossfire to the game. In what regard was Epic 40K an even better ruleset to Epic:A?

It was heavily streamlined, which was both a good and a bad thing. On one hand there was a ton of excess detail in the model range; you had situations like 8+ different versions of the Ork battlewagon, each with bespoke rules that probably didn't need to exist. E40K consolidated these and you'd just have one battlewagon unit profile and could use any of the available models to represent it. Most infantry weapons were also re-classified as "Small arms" as there isn't much difference between lasguns, shuriken catapults, and boltguns at this scale.

However at the other end of the scale, a lot of the existing playerbase were folks who'd grown up with Titanicus and then Titan Legions, both of which put a fair bit of emphasis on the detail of managing titans. You can probably remember the Imperator titan datacard that went into more detail than even the current edition of Titanicus. This detail was drastically cut and titans (war engines) now basically worked in a similar way to 40k vehicles with a hitpoints/wounds value. Much of the previous flavour of these units was removed.

I do believe that if Epic 40k had come first as a brand new game it would have been more popular. However it was far too big of a change from what came before it to retain the established players.

 Arbitrator wrote:
I'm not buying it. 3D printers probably can't keep up with mimicking GW's 28mm+ kits for a long time, but they could replicate 6-15mm without any real issue.

 ekwatts wrote:
I agree that epic always felt like an ideal scale for representing 40k, which might seem weird, but seeing those waves of infantry and tanks... It's just great.

I can't wait, to be perfectly honest. Seeing GW pumping out plastic Epic-scale miniatures again will bring a huge grin to my face. People can bang on about the existing versions of Epic being kept alive online, and I've played them, but my experience with the recent Adeptus Titanicus and Aeronautica miniatures has convinced me that I just want GW to jump back in feet-first.

Those 3D printed armies are absolutely wonderful, but they'll only ever be stopgaps. I want the experience of clipping out Space Marine #87 from a sprue again, pushing him into his epic base and breaking him apart at the ankles.

Ahh, childhood.

I wish this attitude was less prevalent but sadly it's why GW will always dominate the market. People just want Citadel and Games Workshop slapped on the box or they'll never touch it.

Superbly ignorant response, there. Well done. Almost impressive, but also predictable.

I've played Epic since I started playing wargames. I had the original Space Marine and AT box sets. Finding other players can, understandably, sometimes be tough, and I have a modern Space Marine army made up of either 1980s/1990s originals from GW or proxies from Vanguard Miniatures, but I don't have a problem with playing long out of production games nor other companies' games (Battletech, Warmachine, Infinity, etc). But I also admit that the games I do tend to play the most are GW games. Mordheim is probably my number one.

What I don't really understand about your response is that we're very specifically talking about a GW game that GW may be rereleasing... It's a GW game. It's a GW game I enjoyed when it was supported, I found ways to continue enjoying it when they didn't, and I'm excited at the prospect of new miniatures and rules for this GW game system being released by GW. I don't really understand what you're complaining about. It's a GW game. It didn't stop being a GW game when they stopped supporting it. It just meant we all had to put more effort into sourcing miniatures or updating rulesets.

Your post just doesn't really make any sense in that respect.