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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm pretty sure that some of the Epic 40k minis - Land Raiders and the like - were worth their weight in silver (not quite gold) they were so damned expensive.

Some of the Armageddon (4th edition) release metal Rhinos and Land Raiders weren't particularly cheap at the time, I don't think sold in particularly high volumes and so are ridiculously expensive now when you do see them.

The 1st and 2nd edition plastics sold in massive volumes, if you shop around and buy in bulk you can usually get for £0.50 - £1 per vehicle, especially if you don't mind paint stripping. For any other types of vehicle I usually go for proxies from Vanguard/Onslaught or now 3D prints as they tend to be cheaper than the GW Epic originals, especially as there are a couple of guys who seem to have a lot of the original miniatures and sell them for crazy money on eBay (if you are after individual classic minis, the FB groups are definitely your best bet).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm pretty sure that some of the Epic 40k minis - Land Raiders and the like - were worth their weight in silver (not quite gold) they were so damned expensive.

Yeah. Also arguably overly detailed.

Looking at the original ones, the only tank I’d say was visually boring would be the original Vindicator.



The rest of the range was, in my opinion, pretty much fine and dandy. Everything look visually distinct, and had some decent and interesting levels detail.

Epic 40K? And I think this piccie is squished, so apologies.



Just….waaaay too far in the other direction, way, way too far. Stormbolter was wildly out of scale. And let’s not even look at the E:40K Eldar range, on account I don’t want my eyes to vomit. Not again.

Edit; hopefully the first pic will work now.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm pretty sure that some of the Epic 40k minis - Land Raiders and the like - were worth their weight in silver (not quite gold) they were so damned expensive.

Yeah. Also arguably overly detailed.

Looking at the original ones, the only tank I’d say was visually boring would be the original Vindicator.

The rest of the range was, in my opinion, pretty much fine and dandy. Everything look visually distinct, and had some decent and interesting levels detail.

Epic 40K? And I think this piccie is squished, so apologies.

Just….waaaay too far in the other direction, way, way too far. Stormbolter was wildly out of scale. And let’s not even look at the E:40K Eldar range, on account I don’t want my eyes to vomit. Not again.

Them's fighting words, sir!

Like the rules or dislike the rules, complain about the prices or ... um ... complain about the prices, but the Epic 40K model range was gorgeous. Well, mostly gorgeous. All those variant tracks and hulls really cut down on the repetition. Though it does get annoying to paint all the detail on the Imperial tanks.

The stormbolters and so on were out of scale in the same 'heroic' way that pistols and chainswords are out of scale on GW's 28mm models. So that they're easily visible on the tabletop.

By contrast, some of the preceding 2nd ed Epic stuff had the detail level of a Duplo brick.

If you want to talk about things being waaaay out of scale, have you seen the 2nd ed Tyranid metals compared to the 3rd ed metals? Or the old metal Chaos Daemons? And the 3rd ed Tyranids got additional variant sculpts for lots of their classic models too (Exocrines with different frills, Zoanthropes in various poses and so on).

As for the Eldar range, the only really ugly aspect (as it were) was the Titans--the Phantom and Revenants. Even those don't look too bad on their own terms, e.g. as generic mechs for some other game, but it's true they don't look at all Eldary.

The rest of the 3rd ed Eldar occasionally had a penchant for unnecessary ribbing--like those weird vanes on the back of the War Walkers--along with hexagonal-plated armour variants. But the 3rd ed range was the one that replaced the old wedge-shaped Eldar tanks with the sleek sexy modern-style Falcons and Fire Prisms that were still a few months away from appearing in WH40K.

I like some of the 2nd ed Eldar range, especially the sailboat Wave Serpents, but I'm perplexed that anyone would find E40K's modern style vomitous.

Of course, Epic A improved on the Eldar range in several respects (the superheavy tanks are ).

/triggered

That said, I do see the irony of GW releasing a ruleset that was meant to make bigger battles faster and easier to play (E40K), while simultaneously increasing the detail level and price of the models. It reminds me of the contrast between Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Lord of the Rings SGB. The former needed big blocks of troops, tightly lined up in ranks, to act as glorified wound counters. The latter was a skirmish game needing only a handful of models. What did GW do? Make the WFB models complex multi-part poseable kits, and make the LotR models single-piece.

 Pacific wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm pretty sure that some of the Epic 40k minis - Land Raiders and the like - were worth their weight in silver (not quite gold) they were so damned expensive.

Some of the Armageddon (4th edition) release metal Rhinos and Land Raiders weren't particularly cheap at the time, I don't think sold in particularly high volumes and so are ridiculously expensive now when you do see them.

The 1st and 2nd edition plastics sold in massive volumes, if you shop around and buy in bulk you can usually get for £0.50 - £1 per vehicle, especially if you don't mind paint stripping. For any other types of vehicle I usually go for proxies from Vanguard/Onslaught or now 3D prints as they tend to be cheaper than the GW Epic originals, especially as there are a couple of guys who seem to have a lot of the original miniatures and sell them for crazy money on eBay (if you are after individual classic minis, the FB groups are definitely your best bet).

I was working at GW at the time. The SG releases were fething expensive, even at the redshirt discount prices (which was a lot smaller than the regular store one).

Seeing that classic vindicator warms my heart.

 Albertorius wrote:
I was working at GW at the time. The SG releases were fething expensive, even at the redshirt discount prices (which was a lot smaller than the regular store one).

When it came to Epic Armageddon, GW shot themselves in the foot several times. In fact, this edition of Epic was pretty much doomed from the start. Some things that hurt the release of Epic Armageddon were:

• Metal models. These were always sold at a premium by GW. Yes, updated sculpts of Land Raider and Rhino helped but the huge price increase really hurt. The price of the Thunderhawk Transport was nearly prohibitive. This got worse when you calculated the total price of entry for a competitive army.

• Inconsistent scale. This one always plagued Epic releases. GW models, aircraft in particular, were under-scaled. Even the titans were too small for the very game they were the stars of. One huge selling point for Forge World was that their resin models were better scaled (larger) for Epic. Go back and look at the old metal Thunderbolt and compare it to the resin one from Forge World.

• Recycling old plastic sculpts. When GW put together new plastic sprues for Space Marines, they used the old sub-standard sculpts of previous editions. There was literal TONS of these things floating around and eBay was flooded with auctions at this time. Other armies were in the same boat. GW was trying to sell the old models with a hefty price increase. Returning players didn't have any reason to buy the models. Why pay a premium to GW when eBay had the exact same stuff at pennies on the dollar? Had GW updated some of the sculpts, perhaps they would have sold more.

• Refusing to adapt to market demands. People wanted more than just a repackage of Epic 40,000, but aside from the new Imperial Titans, GW didn't bother. No Necron models. No Tau. Jervis state explicitly that the Dark Eldar were a raiding force and had no place in Epic. GW didn't change or adapt so people went to Forge World for their Eldar and Imperial Guard models. Forge World sold a lot of resin Tau. They did the same with BFG and people liked the Forge World models much more than the trash GW made. People were willing to pay for new stuff, but for some reason GW wasn't willing to sell.

There are other issues that hurt Epic Armageddon such as blast markers, but nothing as much as the models. Forge World is running things better with the "Boxed Games" and I think if they released Epic it would be worth buying into. On the other hand, Forge World are already having problems such as their unwillingness to release chaos and xenos kits for Adeptus Titanicus or to develop new units for various smaller factions in Aeronautica Imperialus.

Why do you think blast markers hurt E:A, Breotan?

 Dysartes wrote:
Why do you think blast markers hurt E:A, Breotan?

Because they were spiky maybe?

CadianSgtBob wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
In the context of Horus Heresy you are NOT a Tau player (or whatever), because in Horus Heresy TAU DO NOT EXIST FOR YOU TO PLAY.

Tau don't, but Eldar and Orks do exist.

Show me the Eldar and Ork rules for Horus Heresy then.

You can't, because they don't exist.

It doesn't matter if they are in the background of the setting, they are out of scope. They do not exist for you to play. You are not an Eldar or an Ork player in Horus Heresy/30k, only in 40k.

Plus, let's not forget that a big part of the success of the original 30k game was that it was fully compatible with 40k and you could play 30k marines vs. 40k Tau. If 30k had been marines-only I doubt it would have seen anywhere near as much success.

#doubt. I'm sure there are plenty of people that played that way, I just have never personally met anyone who does. I'm sure they exist, but every Horus Heresy game I have personally participated in or witnessed were strictly 30k rules. Its hard for me to justify the idea that 30k took off because of people playing against 40k armies and not because people were playing 30k vs 30k as intended.

GW has no creative vision.

Alan Bligh is rolling in his grave. Huge insult to all the people at GW and elsewhere who pour their passion and creativity into making the game and setting what it is. The profit motive/greed of senior leadership has nothing to do with the efforts of those actually doing the work. People really should learn not to miss the trees for the forest when discussing businesses.

That's funny, because in the world the rest of us live in 30k was just the 40k rules with some new units added, exactly as the Badab War books had been previously.

So your argument against my point is to prove my point? There would be no point to 30k if it had all the same factions as 40k. Again, it is not an attempt to reinvent the wheel and make a game that is almost exactly like 40k but with minor differences. The absence of a number of key factions/the presence of an entirely different roster of factions is, in fact, a major difference.

Your argument goes back to some of the stuff I mentioned about historical games - there are plenty of games out there that run on what is basically the same game engine but have different periods of focus and only include certain nations/factions but not others as a result. This is no different.

Your argument, essentially, is that Team Yankee and Flames of War are the same game and that its unfair that you can't play your Finnish WW2 army against your mates 1980s West Germans.

GTFO with your imperium or nothing bs. If people are calling for xenos why exacrly can't they be added? Ya there is none so get off your lame horse and realize 40k wouldn't be anywhere near as seccesfull today without xenos and the same will be true for any game released in the 40k setting.

Cope. Theres a number of 40k games released so far with zero xenos in it that have been extremely successful. Necromunda and Adeptus Titanicus being the big ones. Not everythign needs xenos, sorry you have assumed your favorite 40k faction into your personal identity and can't enjoy playing something if they aren't in it.

As I have said before most people in the hobby own several armies. Therefore they don´t identify themselves as "Imperium" or "Xenos" players.

Certainly my case, started as a Tau player when they were first released, now own a few thousand points of basically every faction in the game. The idea that someone is such a purist that they will only play x faction, even in what is essentially an entirely different game, is utterly alien to me. Like - how far does that idea of purity and assumed identity extend? Do you show up to a game of Bolt Action and insist that you should be allowed to play your Tau against your mates Germans? Or is it just when it comes to GW games - in which case do you demand to play Tau in Age of Sigmar? Because the two settings are linked by the warp, so like...

 Albertorius wrote:
Or by 40k you mean regular Warhammer 40.000 instead of Epic: 40.000? Because then yeah, I agree

Yes regular big warhammer. Epic - I can teleport in, air extract out, air assault in with my terminators. 40k - I turn up and die, feel vaguely tough while doing it. Also always fun routing a hundred odd Orks with 30 marines (though you have to use tactics...).


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 Mentlegen324 wrote:
Epic being set in the Horus Heresy seems a bit odd. I could understand it for Titanicus as the majority of Titans are Imperial or Chaos with only a few Xenos ones, but limiting Epic to that setting too would be a bigger thing that takes out a large portion of variety. Not to mention there were also rumours a while back of A Heresy BFG game.

Well it is appropriate and historical...

The whole Horus Heresy narrative was invented as an excuse so GW could produce Space Marine, a “6mm scaled” game for which they only had to produce models of a single faction

Having heard of how Legendary Epic was I'm intrigued for a re-release to give it a go. The Heresy setting implies the AT and AI are same scale to build up to a Epic game rumors were a bust. Shame as I've got a few AI aircraft I'd like to see go on tank/titan busting runs.

chaos0xomega wrote:
It doesn't matter if they are in the background of the setting, they are out of scope.

Background defines the scope of the game. They exist in the setting, asking for them to be playable armies is a reasonable request. As is not playing 30k if GW insists on it being marines-only.

PS: guess what the most common reason I've seen for people not playing 30k is: "Why do I want to play a boring marines-only game".

Its hard for me to justify the idea that 30k took off because of people playing against 40k armies and not because people were playing 30k vs 30k as intended.

Go read the original rulebooks then. It was common enough that GW even included suggestions on how to do it in the 30k books.

Alan Bligh is rolling in his grave. Huge insult to all the people at GW and elsewhere who pour their passion and creativity into making the game and setting what it is. The profit motive/greed of senior leadership has nothing to do with the efforts of those actually doing the work. People really should learn not to miss the trees for the forest when discussing businesses.

Primaris marines and their associated retcons were "senior leadership"? Ugly model designs with no ambition are "senior leadership"? Codices with 90% of the lore stripped out and all of the paintings replaced with copies of the GW website pictures is "senior leadership"?

So your argument against my point is to prove my point? There would be no point to 30k if it had all the same factions as 40k.

Then why did GW publish the Badab War books, which included a campaign with a specific set of armies in it? Was there no point to those books?

Again, it is not an attempt to reinvent the wheel and make a game that is almost exactly like 40k but with minor differences.

And yet 30k was so similar to 40k that GW didn't even bother to include rules for playing the game in the books, they just said "use your 40k rulebooks like any other 40k expansion".

Your argument, essentially, is that Team Yankee and Flames of War are the same game and that its unfair that you can't play your Finnish WW2 army against your mates 1980s West Germans.

No, because once again the missing factions are present in the background. It's like complaining that a WWII game has France and Italy but is missing Germay, Japan, UK, US, etc. You can complain all you like about "scope" but the reality is that game will not be popular with most people and there will be a lot of demands for the missing factions to be added.

Mendi Warrior wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Why do you think blast markers hurt E:A, Breotan?

Because they were spiky maybe?

The player base overall didn't like them. Frequent complaints were that the system was too abstract or deviated too far from earlier versions of the game. Jervis commented in an article some time ago lamenting this because he really liked the mechanic, and it does work well for BFG.

If people want epic rules for Tau, Eldar, Skitarii, Dark Eldar, the current Apocalypse rules are based on them, just scaled up to use 40k models.

 Breotan wrote:

Mendi Warrior wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Why do you think blast markers hurt E:A, Breotan?

Because they were spiky maybe?

The player base overall didn't like them. Frequent complaints were that the system was too abstract or deviated too far from earlier versions of the game. Jervis commented in an article some time ago lamenting this because he really liked the mechanic, and it does work well for BFG.

This sounds very much like you're conflating comments regarding Epic 40,000 with comments about Epic: Armageddon - BFG ended up being based mechanically on the chassis of the Epic 40,000 rules, while E:A wasn't released for four years after BFG came out.

I don't recall anyone complaining about blast markers as a suppression mechanic on the Epic: Armageddon forums on Fanatic/Specialist Games back then, but given we're talking nearly 20 years ago now, I might be forgetting that. Anecdotally, I also don't recall anyone I played E:A with having any problems with them.

I just feel like I need to interject here and note that a game is intreasting because of the tactics etc at play, not the colour and the shape of the models being pushed about

BrianDavion wrote:
I just feel like I need to interject here and note that a game is intreasting because of the tactics etc at play, not the colour and the shape of the models being pushed about

You are [partially] incorrect.

A game is interesting BOTH because of the tactics etc at play AND the color and the shape of the models being pushed about.

As for the people complaining about the possibility of a new version of Epic that would only include Hersey-era units, I agree with those complaints.

Given a choice between a re-released Epic set in the 40k timeline or one set in the 30k timeline, I would very much prefer the former. I don't think that is a controversial opinion.

If GW decided to limit the game to only space marines, knights, and titans, then that would be a worse game in my opinion, all else being equal. I think that the fans of any/all of the previous versions of the game would be feel like GW would be ignoring/subtracting from the previously available content.

It has been 16 years (give or take) since the last new, official Epic models were released. Even at that time, most of the available models no longer matched their 40K counterparts. I would like to see new plastic models translated from the current 40k designs into Epic scale. If the game is set during the Heresy, then I won't get that.

I also think that if GW actually does decide on a 30K setting, then that will effectively prevent them from making a version set in 40k for a very long time. People keep acting like any marines that are made for Heresy can just as easily be used in the 40K setting, but that ignores the fact that all new SM models in 40k these days are Primaris. I know that 'first born' space marines are still present in the current rules/setting of 40K, but that probably won't last forever. If the only new Epic-scaled infantry GW makes in the near future are Heresy-era marines, then that really won't save GW any effort if they decide to move the setting of the game to 40K later on. GW would have to make Primaris Marines for the SM players, and twisted/spikier versions of the Heresy marines for CSM players.

And to address those people claiming that a new version of Epic would require too many SKUs, that's just flat out incorrect. The current version of Necromunda has had a crazy amount of SKUs released. At the scale of Epic, all of the infantry models for a given army would fit on the same number of sprues that contain a ten-man Necromunda gang. That's one box of two identical 'half-sized' sprues for each army. Because many armies re-use vehicle chassis for multiple units, most of an army's vehicles can fit within the same amount of sprue space as the infantry. Sure there are some outliers, but most armies would be sufficiently represented by 3-4 box sets, plus assorted FW gap fillers. The same as Necromunda.

As it is, I think the odds of GW choosing to limit the model line to 30K are about 50/50. They've had 4 years to introduce xenos titans into AT and they haven't done it yet (back in the day of the original game, tanks and infantry were introduced after a month, and xenos within 3 months). That's a point in favor of a 30K setting. However, half of the Aeronautica Imperialis models are xenos, so that's a point in favor of a 40K setting. If they decide on a 40k setting, then all of the AT and AI models are usable. If they decide on a 30K setting, then they've wasted half of the effort they put into AI (although some might argue that they've wasted 100% of the effort put into AI, given the number of times I've seen it played).

semajnollissor wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
I just feel like I need to interject here and note that a game is intreasting because of the tactics etc at play, not the colour and the shape of the models being pushed about

You are [partially] incorrect.

A game is interesting BOTH because of the tactics etc at play AND the color and the shape of the models being pushed about.

As for the people complaining about the possibility of a new version of Epic that would only include Hersey-era units, I agree with those complaints.

Given a choice between a re-released Epic set in the 40k timeline or one set in the 30k timeline, I would very much prefer the former. I don't think that is a controversial opinion.

If GW decided to limit the game to only space marines, knights, and titans, then that would be a worse game in my opinion, all else being equal. I think that the fans of any/all of the previous versions of the game would be feel like GW would be ignoring/subtracting from the previously available content.

It has been 16 years (give or take) since the last new, official Epic models were released. Even at that time, most of the available models no longer matched their 40K counterparts. I would like to see new plastic models translated from the current 40k designs into Epic scale. If the game is set during the Heresy, then I won't get that.

I also think that if GW actually does decide on a 30K setting, then that will effectively prevent them from making a version set in 40k for a very long time. People keep acting like any marines that are made for Heresy can just as easily be used in the 40K setting, but that ignores the fact that all new SM models in 40k these days are Primaris. I know that 'first born' space marines are still present in the current rules/setting of 40K, but that probably won't last forever. If the only new Epic-scaled infantry GW makes in the near future are Heresy-era marines, then that really won't save GW any effort if they decide to move the setting of the game to 40K later on. GW would have to make Primaris Marines for the SM players, and twisted/spikier versions of the Heresy marines for CSM players.

And to address those people claiming that a new version of Epic would require too many SKUs, that's just flat out incorrect. The current version of Necromunda has had a crazy amount of SKUs released. At the scale of Epic, all of the infantry models for a given army would fit on the same number of sprues that contain a ten-man Necromunda gang. That's one box of two identical 'half-sized' sprues for each army. Because many armies re-use vehicle chassis for multiple units, most of an army's vehicles can fit within the same amount of sprue space as the infantry. Sure there are some outliers, but most armies would be sufficiently represented by 3-4 box sets, plus assorted FW gap fillers. The same as Necromunda.

As it is, I think the odds of GW choosing to limit the model line to 30K are about 50/50. They've had 4 years to introduce xenos titans into AT and they haven't done it yet (back in the day of the original game, tanks and infantry were introduced after a month, and xenos within 3 months). That's a point in favor of a 30K setting. However, half of the Aeronautica Imperialis models are xenos, so that's a point in favor of a 40K setting. If they decide on a 40k setting, then all of the AT and AI models are usable. If they decide on a 30K setting, then they've wasted half of the effort they put into AI (although some might argue that they've wasted 100% of the effort put into AI, given the number of times I've seen it played).

The bolded part is correct for infantry, but not so much for vehicles. Current GW seems to be horrified of undercuts, so their sprues usually have a lot of gak that could have been done away with. Take a look at the AI sprues and you'll see that they actually don't fit that much.... if they were to design all Epic stuff with the same philosophy, we'd get sprues of 3 Leman Russes and the like, and then they'd sell them as they currently sell the AT knights, or maybe three prues per box as armored company deals for however much they'd decide they cost (guessing about 60 euros or so).

 Albertorius wrote:
Current GW seems to be horrified of undercuts

Because you can't do undercuts in plastic without expensive and complicated multi-part molds (which GW doesn't use). Standard two-part molds can't do them, period. So you either make something like the AI sprues or you sacrifice detail and make a bunch of ugly vehicle-shaped blobs like the original Epic models.


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BrianDavion wrote:
I just feel like I need to interject here and note that a game is intreasting because of the tactics etc at play, not the colour and the shape of the models being pushed about

Partly. In a game like 40k, where the setting is a huge part of the appeal, having everyone's favorite faction and units is very important. And a huge part of the tactics being interesting is having a game where you have multiple unique factions, not a single faction painted in multiple colors.

Show me the Eldar and Ork rules for Horus Heresy then.

You can't, because they don't exist.

It doesn't matter if they are in the background of the setting, they are out of scope. They do not exist for you to play. You are not an Eldar or an Ork player in Horus Heresy/30k, only in 40k.

Well to be honest 30K is just *fixed 7th edition. all the old codexes from 3rd-7th are cross compatible for orks and eldar. you just have to leave out some named characters that would not be alive at the time. like Ghaz. the eldar however would all still be very much alive. I do not think any player wanting to expand 30K into xenos races that would have been around would have any problem allowing, eldar, dark eldar and orks into the setting. heck the rare necron could be a thing to.

GW has no creative vision.


Alan Bligh is rolling in his grave. Huge insult to all the people at GW and elsewhere who pour their passion and creativity into making the game and setting what it is. The profit motive/greed of senior leadership has nothing to do with the efforts of those actually doing the work. People really should learn not to miss the trees for the forest when discussing businesses.

I agree that CURRENT GW is not the GW that built 40K-look back to the 90's and early 2000's. Rick Priestly, Andy Chambers, etc... were really good at writing rules, and also really LOVED the universe they created as well. the fact of the matter is that the game DEVs were always fighting a battle against the marketing department and management. After they all moved on to other things The game design team lost the battle for the heart and soul of 40K .

That does not mean however that we have to give in. No matter what the company is currently doing we can play 40K any way we like -old editions, 30K, epic etc....we do not need upper management for rules sets to use.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
Current GW seems to be horrified of undercuts

Because you can't do undercuts in plastic without expensive and complicated multi-part molds (which GW doesn't use). Standard two-part molds can't do them, period. So you either make something like the AI sprues or you sacrifice detail and make a bunch of ugly vehicle-shaped blobs like the original Epic models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
I just feel like I need to interject here and note that a game is intreasting because of the tactics etc at play, not the colour and the shape of the models being pushed about

Partly. In a game like 40k, where the setting is a huge part of the appeal, having everyone's favorite faction and units is very important. And a huge part of the tactics being interesting is having a game where you have multiple unique factions, not a single faction painted in multiple colors.

What I meant is more that they absolutely have to have all the undercuts in the world, and for that their minis now are made of a feth ton of parts, and occupy X times the plastic sprue realspace it did before.

If they didn't absolutely had to have all the undercuts, they could probably have sprues with twice or three times the models.

BrianDavion wrote:
I just feel like I need to interject here and note that a game is intreasting because of the tactics etc at play, not the colour and the shape of the models being pushed about

I think you're being reductive. If that's all you want, pass a piece of graph paper and a pencil back and forth between players. Or if that's too simple, step up to old Avalon Hill map and token games.

 Albertorius wrote:
What I meant is more that they absolutely have to have all the undercuts in the world, and for that their minis now are made of a feth ton of parts, and occupy X times the plastic sprue realspace it did before.

If they didn't absolutely had to have all the undercuts, they could probably have sprues with twice or three times the models.

I think it remains to be seen what level of detail GW will be comfortable with when it comes to Epic-scaled infantry and AVs.

The current AT models seem like as much of an appeal to people who like assembling Gundams as it is to people who want to play a tabletop wargame. And the level of detail on the planes in AI may be simply due to GW wanting to have one sprue per model type, because otherwise the game system would only have one box set per faction. Those factors could be driving the level of detail in those models. Add in the fact that, in those game systems, players do not need a high model count, so if it takes hours to assemble one model, that is okay.

Because Epic is a game with a much higher model count, and the models used need to be viable as game pieces more than they need to be perfect scale models, I expect that there will be a trade-off between the number of parts in a model and the number of models that are expected to be used in a game. The more models that you need to play the game, the fewer assembly steps each model will require.

As for how many of each model that could fit on a sprue, Epic-scaled AVs are generally smaller than most AI planes or AT knights. I think you could fit 5 Leman Russes on a single 'half-sized' sprue with all of the weapon options included to make the most common variants (or have a mix of Russes and Chimeras). Eldar and Tau can be handled in a similar fashion. Orcs could probably get a sprue with a bunch of random hulls for battle wagons and buggies with interchangeable tracks and wheels all on one sprue.

Realistically, I think each army would need:
- 1 infantry sprue
- 1 light vehicle sprue
- 1 armored vehicle sprue
- 1 war engine sprue

If that's approaching too many SKUs, then you could put AI branding on all of the planes and AT branding on all of the titan-like stuff. Because apparently GW is okay with having a bajillion different game systems. FW would pick up the rest of the slack.

GW has demonstrated in the recent past that they are perfectly comfortable producing loads of high-detail, low sales-volume products. I think that the amount of effort needed to produce a new version of Epic would only be a small fraction of their production capacity.

I think that the biggest negative factor for GW is that Epic doesn't share the same scale as 40k. When it comes to Necromunda, Warcry, Warhammer Quest, etc - GW knows that some non-zero number of sales of those products are to people intending to use models in one of their other game systems. All of the effort that GW pours into terrain kits for the minor box games is to done with the full knowledge that the terrain will be compatible across the entire GW range. That fact does not apply to anything that GW makes at Epic-scale, meaning that 2 or 3 games that use that scale will always be a small, isolated subset of GWs range. That fact alone could keep Epic from being re-relesaed, more than any other reason.

semajnollissor wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
I just feel like I need to interject here and note that a game is intreasting because of the tactics etc at play, not the colour and the shape of the models being pushed about

You are [partially] incorrect.

A game is interesting BOTH because of the tactics etc at play AND the color and the shape of the models being pushed about.

I play a lot of Command & Colours games, it has wooden blocks for units. The colour and shape isn't interesting, yet I still play it... as do a great deal of people as it is a very popular wargame.

Also see Kreigspeil.

I think that the shape and colour of the models/pieces used is more important for those who are after the spectacle, or trying to recapture that Holywood epic battle scene from a film.

Where as those who don't put too much emphasis upon that aspect care more about the tactics.

Epic, being the small scale it is, is more suited to the later camp. Those who want the grand tactical planning of a large conflict over a big area.

I think the handicap for Epic Armageddon was that it wasn't treated like a main game (it was the only edition of Epic not to come with a box set release IIRC) - you get out what you put in from a marketing and sales perspective, and so the game performed accordingly. It not being cheap either meant one of Epic's historic big advantages over 40k (large volumes of infantry and tanks at a very cheap cost) was lost as well.

Quite a few people posting above about really wanting to give Epic a go - apologies for anyone that has got sick of me banging this drum! - but there is no need to wait, like Timmy at Christmas hoping a half-eaten chicken leg will get thrown at you, you can play right now!
Starting Epic guide thread: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/751316.page
Epic 30k & 40k show-it-off thread: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/791159.page

 Albertorius wrote:
What I meant is more that they absolutely have to have all the undercuts in the world, and for that their minis now are made of a feth ton of parts, and occupy X times the plastic sprue realspace it did before.

If they didn't absolutely had to have all the undercuts, they could probably have sprues with twice or three times the models.

And models with half the quality. No thanks.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
What I meant is more that they absolutely have to have all the undercuts in the world, and for that their minis now are made of a feth ton of parts, and occupy X times the plastic sprue realspace it did before.

If they didn't absolutely had to have all the undercuts, they could probably have sprues with twice or three times the models.

And models with half the quality. No thanks.

Pretty debatable, that, but hey, to each their own.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Alan Bligh is rolling in his grave. Huge insult to all the people at GW and elsewhere who pour their passion and creativity into making the game and setting what it is. The profit motive/greed of senior leadership has nothing to do with the efforts of those actually doing the work. People really should learn not to miss the trees for the forest when discussing businesses.

Alan Bligh, if he moves at all, is given greater angular velocity by the follies of that senior leadership, and the derivative and uninspired rubbish produced by his successors, than by any of our meager "insults". Not that I think Bligh deserves any kind of canonization or special treatment as some kind of grand visionary.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
And models with half the quality. No thanks.

Just how much "quality" do you want for a wargame in this miniscule of a scale? I've never looked at an Epic vehicle and gone "You know what this needs? More rivet detail and individually rendered stowage!" but maybe I'm the weirdo for thinking the old pre-E40k plastic space marine Rhinos were perfectly adequate.

 Albertorius wrote:
Pretty debatable, that, but hey, to each their own.

If you like low-detail lumps of plastic that come in fewer pieces I guess you have the right to poor taste.


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 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Just how much "quality" do you want for a wargame in this miniscule of a scale? I've never looked at an Epic vehicle and gone "You know what this needs? More rivet detail and individually rendered stowage!" but maybe I'm the weirdo for thinking the old pre-E40k plastic space marine Rhinos were perfectly adequate.

Look at the old FW Epic stuff. That's the standard GW needs to exceed for Epic 2.0, but with fewer casting flaws. The new Aeronautica Imperialis kits have shown that it can be done and anything less is unacceptable.