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chaos0xomega wrote:


At Epic scale I'm not noticing what small arms the infantry dudes are equipped with and quite frankly it really shouldn't matter.

But you actually have to be, because some have lasrifles, some have flamers, some have axes, that not actually like, up to you. Those are distinct bases of models, you need some way to tell them apart.

Yeah, I definitely can't remember every rule in HH through one read through. The real problem is that for many of us HH, LI, etc. are not "regular" games that you will be playing consistently long term. They are the game you play with your mate once every few months, maybe you get lucky and have a league where you play it consistently over the course of a few weeks, but many of us will not have that experience with it where we are playing it consistently enough to dedicate the mental resources to rote memorization of 56+ USRs, etc. Even the handful of rules which might apply to the units and faction we are playing will be cumbersome to learn and memorize without the ability to put in consistent time with the game to develop that muscle memory.


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 Crablezworth wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:


At Epic scale I'm not noticing what small arms the infantry dudes are equipped with and quite frankly it really shouldn't matter.

But you actually have to be, because some have lasrifles, some have flamers, some have axes, that not actually like, up to you. Those are distinct bases of models, you need some way to tell them apart.

No, you really don't. This is an irrelevant level of detail for a game this scale. If I wanted that, I'd play 40k. If thats the experience LI has to offer me, I will be going in a different direction and finidng a more sensible set of rules where I can ignore that level of silliness.

 Crablezworth wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:


At Epic scale I'm not noticing what small arms the infantry dudes are equipped with and quite frankly it really shouldn't matter.

But you actually have to be, because some have lasrifles, some have flamers, some have axes, that not actually like, up to you. Those are distinct bases of models, you need some way to tell them apart.

for 15mm scale games, and planned for this as well, I use colour on the rear part of the base edge to distinguish units and special equipment, commanders etc if its not easily clear when looking at the rear of the models.

for Flames of War this was further modified to duplicate on the front of the base edge (e.g. flamer thrower units have a bright orange patch)

makes it quite clear at a glance.

though from the marines we have seen so far we appear to have

- tactical marines
- support marines (plasma guns)
- heavy support marines (rocket launchers)
- assault marines (manic party dudes)
- command marines (flag waving nutters)
- terminator marines (who ate all the pies?)

of which only really the support ones could do with identification from the back, paint scheme dependent maybe something on the front also

I suspect telling models apart for infantry will be quite simple, and even for vehicles its probably not that had to add "Titan Recognition Markings" somewhere in the paint scheme to identify units and equipment

Comparing 15mm and ~8mm is... yeah.

You realize that the LI minis are half the size of their Flames of War counterparts, right? Like, its a silly comparison to make, and what works for 15mm minis doesn't necessarily work for these.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Comparing 15mm and ~8mm is... yeah.

You realize that the LI minis are half the size of their Flames of War counterparts, right? Like, it's a silly comparison to make, and what works for 15mm minis doesn't necessarily work for these.

Did you read the suggestion? Marking colours on base edges to tell things apart easily works at literally any scale where models are based.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Comparing 15mm and ~8mm is... yeah.

You realize that the LI minis are half the size of their Flames of War counterparts, right? Like, its a silly comparison to make, and what works for 15mm minis doesn't necessarily work for these.

yes, which is why I specifically noted the markings are on the base edge, which is not too dissimilar in size, for the infantry it has got sweet gorks feet to do with the actual models (though a plasma glow may help from the front). this is about a colour patch maybe 4mm wide the full height of the base rim, probably front and back to distinguish units and then similar adjacent to distinguish any 'special' models

for vehicles the sort of markings I mean worked perfectly fine for the 1st edition of Space Marine, where the vehicles were smaller.

so perhaps not so silly after all, and something I have been doing with success for several years, down to 6mm scale Napoleonic infantry units

also especially for marines in 8mm scale solid colours on shoulder pads, or differently coloured helmets will stand out easily, more so than they did for the older 6mm models where its perfectly viable

for my FoW stuff the actual infantry is in period appropriate colours, or close to them, so there are few differences between say a German Grenadier team and a German Pioneer team when you step back a bit, however the fact one has a bright yellow patch front and back on the base stands out very clearly

leopard wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:


At Epic scale I'm not noticing what small arms the infantry dudes are equipped with and quite frankly it really shouldn't matter.

But you actually have to be, because some have lasrifles, some have flamers, some have axes, that not actually like, up to you. Those are distinct bases of models, you need some way to tell them apart.

for 15mm scale games, and planned for this as well, I use colour on the rear part of the base edge to distinguish units and special equipment, commanders etc if its not easily clear when looking at the rear of the models.

for Flames of War this was further modified to duplicate on the front of the base edge (e.g. flamer thrower units have a bright orange patch)

makes it quite clear at a glance.

though from the marines we have seen so far we appear to have

- tactical marines
- support marines (plasma guns)
- heavy support marines (rocket launchers)
- assault marines (manic party dudes)
- command marines (flag waving nutters)
- terminator marines (who ate all the pies?)

of which only really the support ones could do with identification from the back, paint scheme dependent maybe something on the front also

I suspect telling models apart for infantry will be quite simple, and even for vehicles its probably not that had to add "Titan Recognition Markings" somewhere in the paint scheme to identify units and equipment

That’s about how many different marine squads we had in 2nd edition, and I never had trouble distinguishing those units at 6mm scale. This is fine.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, I definitely can't remember every rule in HH through one read through. The real problem is that for many of us HH, LI, etc. are not "regular" games that you will be playing consistently long term. They are the game you play with your mate once every few months, maybe you get lucky and have a league where you play it consistently over the course of a few weeks, but many of us will not have that experience with it where we are playing it consistently enough to dedicate the mental resources to rote memorization of 56+ USRs, etc. Even the handful of rules which might apply to the units and faction we are playing will be cumbersome to learn and memorize without the ability to put in consistent time with the game to develop that muscle memory.


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 Crablezworth wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:


At Epic scale I'm not noticing what small arms the infantry dudes are equipped with and quite frankly it really shouldn't matter.

But you actually have to be, because some have lasrifles, some have flamers, some have axes, that not actually like, up to you. Those are distinct bases of models, you need some way to tell them apart.

No, you really don't. This is an irrelevant level of detail for a game this scale. If I wanted that, I'd play 40k. If thats the experience LI has to offer me, I will be going in a different direction and finidng a more sensible set of rules where I can ignore that level of silliness.

If one chooses not to play on account not liking a REQUIREMENT OF THE RULES, that does't change that it's a requirement of the rules. I have yet to see a wargame where being able to distinguish unit type isn't a baseline requirement.

 Pariah Press wrote:
That’s about how many different marine squads we had in 2nd edition, and I never had trouble distinguishing those units at 6mm scale. This is fine.

I'll have problems if there can be units of the same type with different weapons (for example, support marines can have plasma/flamers/meltas, and each separate base can have different ones, or if a captain or squad leader can have power swords/power fists/chainswords/bolt pistol/plasma pistol).

Which is what they seem to have done with vehicles, apparently down to coax guns and pintle mounts. That I would have a problem with.

Having different unit types is another thing altogether that all Epic rulesets have.

Having different infantry archetypes is one thing, but can the different units then choose between different weapon load outs? That’s when it gets confusing.

 Crablezworth wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, I definitely can't remember every rule in HH through one read through. The real problem is that for many of us HH, LI, etc. are not "regular" games that you will be playing consistently long term. They are the game you play with your mate once every few months, maybe you get lucky and have a league where you play it consistently over the course of a few weeks, but many of us will not have that experience with it where we are playing it consistently enough to dedicate the mental resources to rote memorization of 56+ USRs, etc. Even the handful of rules which might apply to the units and faction we are playing will be cumbersome to learn and memorize without the ability to put in consistent time with the game to develop that muscle memory.


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 Crablezworth wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:


At Epic scale I'm not noticing what small arms the infantry dudes are equipped with and quite frankly it really shouldn't matter.

But you actually have to be, because some have lasrifles, some have flamers, some have axes, that not actually like, up to you. Those are distinct bases of models, you need some way to tell them apart.

No, you really don't. This is an irrelevant level of detail for a game this scale. If I wanted that, I'd play 40k. If thats the experience LI has to offer me, I will be going in a different direction and finidng a more sensible set of rules where I can ignore that level of silliness.

If one chooses not to play on account not liking a REQUIREMENT OF THE RULES, that does't change that it's a requirement of the rules.

Huh? I never said it wasn't a requirement of the rules? The point is that if it is a requirement of the rules that I have to concern myself with whether I put 1 guy with a bolt pistol on a base vs 1 guy with a bolter vs 1 guy with a heavy bolter, I'm not really interested in playing that game.

I have yet to see a wargame where being able to distinguish unit type isn't a baseline requirement.

We are not talking about distinguishing unit types though, we're talking about distinguishing *models* on a given base within a given unit (or detachment, in LI parlance) and the effect that has on rules and gameplay, and thats a dumb overly granular level of detail for a game like this. The combat ability and the rules of a squad in a game that features multiple models on a single base should be based on the collective capability of the whole base, rather than the individual ability of each model on the base. Every tactical base should have the same stats and profile, regardless of if you put the guy with the tiny flamer or the tiny missile launcher on the base. Every devastator base should have the same stats and profile, regardless of if you gave them lascannons or heavy flamers, etc. If they want you to select a weapon for a unit, then that should be an upgrade that effects every base in the unit (similar to how FOW does it) or which adds a separate base with a special weapon profile (again, similar to FOW). Having you take a unit where every base in a given unit/detachment has a potentially different weapon profile based on whether you put the little guy with the tiny pistol or tiny whatever it is on it is purely asinine, no game in this scale does that. Hell, it doesn't even look like LI quite does that, as hte only leaks and previews I've seen seem to indicate that as far as infantry go all bases in a given detachment are the same, with the singular exception (so far) of the Auxilia Lasrifle Tercio which is a bit of a point of concern as a single unit can be composed of dudes with lasrifles, dudes with flamers, dudes with pistols and axes, or ogryns, but at least these are whole bases with consistent armament rather than needing to pick out the one guy with the snowflake weapon. The fact that the vehicles seem to allow you to mix and match weapons from model to model within a unit however is still a big concern.

My point the entire time always was the bases have dudes who are all armed the same way, but a base with 5 guys with flamers isn't 5 guys with lasrifles, and having to tell 2 different units apart based on what they're armed with seems pretty core given the weapon in their hand is the only different between units. This seems to be how it is for both faction, marines, all 5 same weapon, but that wysiwyg matters because its the only difference often.




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chaos0xomega wrote:
The fact that the vehicles seem to allow you to mix and match weapons from model to model within a unit however is still a big concern.

Agreed, the first house rule I'm envisioning is making it so vehicles in the same unit/squadron must have the same loadout, for sheer sanity. The malcador alone as an example is pretty nuts, 4 hull options, 3 turret options, 3 sponson options. The weird one too is, the hull, one of the options is a demolisher cannon, so it seems auto take anyway. The extra bizarre thing is, the only weapon upgrade I've seen in the leaks is on thunderbolt, where for 3pts you can upgrade the quad autocannon to avenger bolt cannon. I guess in that case same idea, you'd have upgrade the whole squadron if that's the plan, but it's weird that its the only place so far where there are points involved with that decision/upgrade outside of adding more units to a squad.

chaos0xomega wrote:
The real problem is that for many of us HH, LI, etc. are not "regular" games that you will be playing consistently long term. They are the game you play with your mate once every few months, maybe you get lucky and have a league where you play it consistently over the course of a few weeks, but many of us will not have that experience with it where we are playing it consistently enough to dedicate the mental resources to rote memorization of 56+ USRs, etc.

How many people are investing the time and money to make full armies for a game they rarely play? It works ok for Kill Team or 30k where you use your existing 40k models with a different set of rules but for a game that needs an entire new army of models that can't be used in any other game? That doesn't sound appealing unless you're getting regular games with that army.

And if it's a game you play regularly having ~50 USRs isn't a big deal. A lot of them are obvious ones you'll learn quickly, some won't be relevant because they aren't in your army, and the rest can be handled by a concise reference sheet.

Considering most of the other minis gamers I know have invested into games other than 40k, and most of those games almost never get played locally despite them doing so, I'd say quite a few?

I don't think anyone invests into a game not expecting to play it. Most people drop the cash and put the time in expecting they will play because everyone else is too, and then... they dont play nearly as often as they think they will.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


How many people are investing the time and money to make full armies for a game they rarely play?

A significant yet silent lot, actually. Some people just love more to build and paint a collection rather than play (or simply don't have time to play more than once per month, because they have lives outside of the Hobby ?).

The great thing with smaller scale miniatures like 6/8mm is that it takes less space on the shelves yet still give a "massive army" feeling. So they're actually great for exposition.

This is the case of my whole collection of Aeronautica Imperialis, even though I've played...what, one or two games in total over these years ? I enjoyed building these small planes, to the point it justified their purchase by itself.

And those with 3D printers. Gotta print something

 Flinty wrote:
And those with 3D printers. Gotta print something

Tell me about it...My shelves are swarming with 3D printed models that never saw the light of a game, but I keep printing more. There's something really exciting when you make a miniature out of a pool of resin, cure it clean and then carefully glueing its parts together before painting it. Such a sense of accomplishment.

In the end, it's the same than building and collecting models of cars or alike. You can always take them out of their shelves and play with them, sure, but it's what lead to them being on shelves when finished that also mattered.

 Crablezworth wrote:
My point the entire time always was the bases have dudes who are all armed the same way, but a base with 5 guys with flamers isn't 5 guys with lasrifles, and having to tell 2 different units apart based on what they're armed with seems pretty core given the weapon in their hand is the only different between units. This seems to be how it is for both faction, marines, all 5 same weapon, but that wysiwyg matters because its the only difference often.

If you mean to say with that is being able to differentiate between tacticals, assaults and devastators, I'm right there with you. If you mean having to differentiate between devs armes with MLs, Lascannons or plasma cannons... I don't want to need to do that.


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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
How many people are investing the time and money to make full armies for a game they rarely play? It works ok for Kill Team or 30k where you use your existing 40k models with a different set of rules but for a game that needs an entire new army of models that can't be used in any other game? That doesn't sound appealing unless you're getting regular games with that army.

I mean, a lot? I am lucky if I'm able to play once a month, at anything. And I still enjoy building and painting full armies, and thinking about how to use them, even though much of the time they just regale my shelves.

IME, many people from my generation tend to have the same amounts of free time to play wargames.


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 Flinty wrote:
And those with 3D printers. Gotta print something

Also, this. Having a way to print full armies makes you less trigger happy I guess ^^

 Albertorius wrote:
I mean, a lot? I am lucky if I'm able to play once a month, at anything. And I still enjoy building and painting full armies, and thinking about how to use them, even though much of the time they just regale my shelves.

IME, many people from my generation tend to have the same amounts of free time to play wargames.

Shrug. You may be right, but it must be nice to have the time and money to build entire armies for games you rarely play. I can't imagine spending $500-1000 or more on a game I'm not going to be able to play reliably.


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 Flinty wrote:
And those with 3D printers. Gotta print something

While true this isn't relevant to the question of whether LI will succeed.

Going by several social media surveys, less than have of those who own a GW army play the game
Which fits very well into GWs marketing and rules writing

And rules quality is less important if this is a game you play once a year on a weekend, because there it is not about gaming but meeting the people

Also playing once a week is less of a problem because you focus on one game, know the rules and can work around most problems.

So those in between struggle, but they are also a niche within a niche

 kodos wrote:

And rules quality is less important if this is a game you play once a year on a weekend, because there it is not about gaming but meeting the people

"Gaming" is all about meeting people too. You can't play alone except for games that are specifically designed to be played that way.

Young people craving for competition above everything just are young. When they'll grow up and have families, they'll naturally see what is important to spend their precious free time on and become like us, old miniature wargamers with way more miniatures than we'll ever need in the span of one lifetime.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

I can't imagine spending $500-1000 or more on a game I'm not going to be able to play reliably.

It's not just a game. It's a hobby. Plenty of people spend that amount (often way more !) for their hobbies. Even though they don't necessarily play with what they do with it in the end (I guess riding your tuned motorbike on a weekend can be counted as "playing with it" ?).

It's all a matter of perception, in the end.

Sarouan wrote:
"Gaming" is all about meeting people too. You can't play alone except for games that are specifically designed to be played that way.

there is a difference between meeting certain people once a year and it actually does not matter what is done during that meeting

or meeting the same people once a month and wasting 4 hours on trying to get a game done

there is a reason why for example Black Powder is used for larger historical events with several people per side that are once or twice a year, while as soon as games are done more often, other rule sets (like Lasalle or General d'Armee) aer preferred.

and this has nothing to do with competition, but rather above a certain age you are not going to waste your time with bad games
hence why LI is in a strange place, setting, size and price point are targeting the same people that want a playable system and don't care what is official, so models might be bought (and an LI army will be ~600-800€) but other rules used to play with them

 kodos wrote:

and this has nothing to do with competition, but rather above a certain age you are not going to waste your time with bad games

There's no bad games, only bad people to play with. That's why a game is a social activity, and why competition mindset always ruins the fun.

Above a certain age, you see that truth and you don't really care about the rules.

And that's why...

 kodos wrote:

hence why LI is in a strange place, setting, size and price point are targeting the same people that want a playable system and don't care what is official, so models might be bought (and an LI army will be ~600-800€) but other rules used to play with them

...this isn't really an issue, in the end. It's just a matter to find the right people to enjoy this together.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
The real problem is that for many of us HH, LI, etc. are not "regular" games that you will be playing consistently long term. They are the game you play with your mate once every few months, maybe you get lucky and have a league where you play it consistently over the course of a few weeks, but many of us will not have that experience with it where we are playing it consistently enough to dedicate the mental resources to rote memorization of 56+ USRs, etc.

How many people are investing the time and money to make full armies for a game they rarely play? It works ok for Kill Team or 30k where you use your existing 40k models with a different set of rules but for a game that needs an entire new army of models that can't be used in any other game? That doesn't sound appealing unless you're getting regular games with that army.

I'm lucky if I get one game a month, usually it's probably every 6-8 weeks. And quite often we will board game as it's often easier and takes less time.

I collect armies and paint them as I enjoy that part of the hobby, would love to play more but usually RL gak gets in the way.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
I mean, a lot? I am lucky if I'm able to play once a month, at anything. And I still enjoy building and painting full armies, and thinking about how to use them, even though much of the time they just regale my shelves.

IME, many people from my generation tend to have the same amounts of free time to play wargames.

Shrug. You may be right, but it must be nice to have the time and money to build entire armies for games you rarely play. I can't imagine spending $500-1000 or more on a game I'm not going to be able to play reliably.

These days, if I buy a game at launch, I'm lucky if I get half a dozen games in before a new edition comes out or it's discontinued

There's people who don't even play the games, just build the armies.

If it's a game that doesn't take an eternity to learn and an eternity to play a single game, then I'll play it more. If a game takes 4+ hours to play a single game, the first 5 games of which are just learning the rules, after you spent copious hours reading the rules... yeah nah, I'll barely play that game at all. The games I play a lot are the ones I can get a few games in after work and can teach someone else how to play in an hour or two.

When I was a kid, the money was an issue but I had all the time in the world to play games, these days I can buy the army without too much financial burden, but painting it up before the edition ends and getting more than 1 game every few months, that's the challenge now

Hell, Kill Team I bought the starter and only got about halfway through the reading rules before giving up on it How they managed to turn a game with a dozen models into such a chore to learn and play, GW certainly have a talent when it comes to that sort of thing.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Shrug. You may be right, but it must be nice to have the time and money to build entire armies for games you rarely play. I can't imagine spending $500-1000 or more on a game I'm not going to be able to play reliably.

Shrug. I have three printers at home and a hobby of printing and painting gak. Not really spending that amount of money on any game anymore (...well. Maybe Battletech, which funnily enough is a game where I don't actually need to. And a game where I don't need to buy the rules all over again every two years).

Sarouan wrote:

There's no bad games, only bad people to play with.

There's quite a few bad games. Many of them have been made by GW.
You can make a bad game fun with the right people, but it's still a bad game. Hopefully people have the sense to move to a better game, and have more fun.

GW makes games that a lot of people play,
and its accesseble. when i started the hobby i would love to play historical games, but there we no people to find that played those, so i ended up with fantasie games (gw) later i got into a lot of games from gw because there where players for those games. even now with acces to the net it is diffecult to find players for other games. i live in the netherlands and wanted to play infinity, closses player i could find lived in germany.

So you may want to play something else but you need to find players first else you end up with armys you will never use,

Epic Armagedon had squads with differend gun options to. predetor with all lascannons and one with autocannon and heavy bolters, differend lemanrusses in one squad.
so thats notting new.

this is mostly for 40k
the niche games from GW are on a same level of "finding players" as any other game out there, specially if you need to spend several hundreds for an army

simply from that point of view, it will be easier to find someone playing SW Legion or MCP than LI

 skeleton wrote:
GW makes games that a lot of people play,
and its accesseble....

GW games are only really accessible by virtue of the player base, the games themselves are awful for accessibility IMO. Overly complicated rules that are more often than not written poorly and probably spread across several different books or a few pages of rules buried in a giant tomb. OnePageRules makes good accessible games, Kings of War is way more accessible than Warhammer ever was. Aeronautica for all it's problems was at least a simple game to pick up which has led to me playing it more than most other games (because I can teach someone else to play it, finding an opponent isn't as challenging as other games) but that's an exception among GW games, and even that had its rules spread over too many books.