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It only just occurred to me, but because of the Allies rules (70% must come from primary and up to 30% allies), does that mean the starter set won't actually assemble into a single army?

You get 400~500pts of Marines, 400~500pts of Solar Auxilia, and 400-500pts of Titans.... so the biggest single army that can be made is only about 700-ish points. Or am I missing something?

Yup. But like most starter sets, it’s a Vs affair at heart. But also means it’s, theoretically, easier to lean Marines or Auxilia, using the rest as Allies.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It only just occurred to me, but because of the Allies rules (70% must come from primary and up to 30% allies), does that mean the starter set won't actually assemble into a single army?

You get 400~500pts of Marines, 400~500pts of Solar Auxilia, and 400-500pts of Titans.... so the biggest single army that can be made is only about 700-ish points. Or am I missing something?

Not missing anything, that's correct.

Hmm, that's a bit annoying, I was hoping a starter set + my existing Marine aircraft would get me close to 2000pts in a single army, but it's probably going to be closer to 1000pts.

I have repeated this post periodically in the 150 pages or so of this thread, but another option is to take advantage of the scale and break up the board into different terrain area types. So you can have industrial or residential areas with roads connecting them, forests, rivers and hills etc. I know it's a subjective thing but it helps add some variety to the tabletop, gives you more tactical options as there are more terrain types to consider, and adds some narrative twist as well when you are trying to capture the trainyard, river crossing or airfield rather than blasted piece of rubble part D.

Not very good photos but hopefully this gives some idea (and apologies for people who have seen these before)

In this instance, the marines held the crossing and the Orks took a risk crossing the river, losing some of their number


Rather than just putting buildings on grass as in the old WD epic battle reports, I cut up a cheap 'city terrain' mat and had blocks of this placed over the grassland board, to show industrial or city areas


Some forested areas where the Orks claimed an objective. A tactical oversight from the marine player, vehicles can't enter forest so it meant they had no way of re-capturing it


An Ork clan was desperately trying to hide in amongst the railyard, the Warlord and other long range units were hammering them but by hiding they forced the marines to send in infantry.


Just a few ideas for anyone wondering what to do terrain-wise with the new game.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Hmm, that's a bit annoying, I was hoping a starter set + my existing Marine aircraft would get me close to 2000pts in a single army, but it's probably going to be closer to 1000pts.

Im going to get 2 starters.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It only just occurred to me, but because of the Allies rules (70% must come from primary and up to 30% allies), does that mean the starter set won't actually assemble into a single army?

You get 400~500pts of Marines, 400~500pts of Solar Auxilia, and 400-500pts of Titans.... so the biggest single army that can be made is only about 700-ish points. Or am I missing something?

There was a WarCom post saying that there's a way to field the contents of the starter box as a single force, but we don't have specific details yet.

We should have full reviews of the game this weekend so it'll be clear soon.

I'll probably house rule that Titan Maniples and Knight Banners can make the core of an army like any other faction. And then ally Astartes/Solar Auxilia as usual.

Also: if someone wants to go very air heavy, SA infantry formations can be really small and cheap in points, so it is possible to spam Air Support slots by fielding lots of minimum sized infantry detachments (and/or bastion detachments).

 Pacific wrote:
I have repeated this post periodically in the 150 pages or so of this thread, but another option is to take advantage of the scale and break up the board into different terrain area types. So you can have industrial or residential areas with roads connecting them, forests, rivers and hills etc. I know it's a subjective thing but it helps add some variety to the tabletop, gives you more tactical options as there are more terrain types to consider, and adds some narrative twist as well when you are trying to capture the trainyard, river crossing or airfield rather than blasted piece of rubble part D.

Not very good photos but hopefully this gives some idea (and apologies for people who have seen these before)

In this instance, the marines held the crossing and the Orks took a risk crossing the river, losing some of their number


Rather than just putting buildings on grass as in the old WD epic battle reports, I cut up a cheap 'city terrain' mat and had blocks of this placed over the grassland board, to show industrial or city areas


Some forested areas where the Orks claimed an objective. A tactical oversight from the marine player, vehicles can't enter forest so it meant they had no way of re-capturing it


An Ork clan was desperately trying to hide in amongst the railyard, the Warlord and other long range units were hammering them but by hiding they forced the marines to send in infantry.


Just a few ideas for anyone wondering what to do terrain-wise with the new game.

Historical wargaming has been doing this sort of thing for basically ever since it started, and it can lead to some amazing games, also nicely allows some high density areas you need infantry for as well as some open areas where armour can work


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 xttz wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It only just occurred to me, but because of the Allies rules (70% must come from primary and up to 30% allies), does that mean the starter set won't actually assemble into a single army?

You get 400~500pts of Marines, 400~500pts of Solar Auxilia, and 400-500pts of Titans.... so the biggest single army that can be made is only about 700-ish points. Or am I missing something?

There was a WarCom post saying that there's a way to field the contents of the starter box as a single force, but we don't have specific details yet.

We should have full reviews of the game this weekend so it'll be clear soon.

guessing some sort of special formation, likely that is outside the normal structure and for specific starter scenarios that have pre-written forces with the actual "structure" being for custom forces.

not uncommon in many games actually and makes a lot of sense, the framework being there to work to guide players for more pick up style games but how a specific scenario can have any forces its creator desires

 xttz wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It only just occurred to me, but because of the Allies rules (70% must come from primary and up to 30% allies), does that mean the starter set won't actually assemble into a single army?

You get 400~500pts of Marines, 400~500pts of Solar Auxilia, and 400-500pts of Titans.... so the biggest single army that can be made is only about 700-ish points. Or am I missing something?

There was a WarCom post saying that there's a way to field the contents of the starter box as a single force, but we don't have specific details yet.

We should have full reviews of the game this weekend so it'll be clear soon.

Possible part of the Lauch Box, or featured in the White Dwarf.

Wouldn't wonder, if they also put some rules for Titan Maniples and Knight Banners as stand-alone Armies, additional Scenaries ect. into the WD and after one Year they release a Compendium Book with all that Stuff.

In all other GW games, there were simply "starter rules / scenarios" that don't especially follow the rigid list building structure of the game. The point was more to introduce the player to different types of units than having an optimized army from the start. Looks like the Launch Box will be the same.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It only just occurred to me, but because of the Allies rules (70% must come from primary and up to 30% allies), does that mean the starter set won't actually assemble into a single army?

Not just from it for sure. It's like wondering why you can't combine in the rules orruks and stormcast eternals from the starter set of AoS : it's meant to give 2 sides to learn the game ('cause one army isn't enough to play ).

 Pacific wrote:
I have repeated this post periodically in the 150 pages or so of this thread, but another option is to take advantage of the scale and break up the board into different terrain area types. So you can have industrial or residential areas with roads connecting them, forests, rivers and hills etc. I know it's a subjective thing but it helps add some variety to the tabletop, gives you more tactical options as there are more terrain types to consider, and adds some narrative twist as well when you are trying to capture the trainyard, river crossing or airfield rather than blasted piece of rubble part D.

Reason why people don't especially choose that way is more a question of battlefield coherency and the direct abrupt difference it shows even at this scale when it's done basically and not carefully designed to work that way. On your pictures, the battlefield is not credible, there's no city built like this with a sudden change of theme with perfectly square tiles. Of course, it's done as a compromise between cheap game materials, storage and efficiency for carriage. In short : it's not great for having awesome visuals to advertise your game, it's only meant to be functionnal and cheap. Once you invest in something really coherent, it usually means more work, more space dedicated to it and less polyvalence because nature is more about mix and invasion than perfectly separated areas. That's why most tournaments use only one theme per table : it's more coherent, more visually striking and more efficient to deploy.

Sure, GW tiles are very focused on one theme only, that is urban areas. But that's the point, which is coherency with all the other terrain they sell. It would have been silly to sell tiles of grassy areas when your main range is city buildings. Because it never was coherent, even in a SF setting (I'd even say "even more so").

Well that probably took me about three years to finish that board setup and the armies, maybe not good enough for you but was fine for me and had dozens of people attend and enjoy the spectacle.

But I guess thank you for the feedback..

Sarouan wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:


(if its properly playtested)

That if is doing some heavy lifting in this sentence

Let me tell you a secret : your loving older edition of Epic was the same.

Let me tell you a bigger secret - 4th edition was extensively playtested. I did some of it (ok the swordwind book was a bit off, but that had a far shorter testing period). There was a lot of playtests, evidence, debating things with Jervis, and a game that is remarkably balanced. The UK tourney scene has made incredibly few balance measures tot he original lists.

 Pacific wrote:
Well that probably took me about three years to finish that board setup and the armies, maybe not good enough for you but was fine for me and had dozens of people attend and enjoy the spectacle.

Oh I saw your work and it's very inspiring. But I don't like how you make it sound like it's easy and beat GW's official products everytime. It asks for lot of time, lot of work and lot of dedication, and it's not just a question of taking your urban tiles and grass tiles then simply put them together on the same table. The end result may obviously look fine...but when I compare your pictures and GW's pictures of the battle report of the White Dwarf, I'm sorry to say the White Dwarf is more coherent and visually striking. Besides, I think your work looks the most striking when you keep the same theme together. That's all there is to it.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

Let me tell you a bigger secret - 4th edition was extensively playtested. I did some of it (ok the swordwind book was a bit off, but that had a far shorter testing period). There was a lot of playtests, evidence, debating things with Jervis, and a game that is remarkably balanced. The UK tourney scene has made incredibly few balance measures tot he original lists.

And that's why I say it was the same : playtesting was always under pressure when the game was officially supported (mind you, the topic here is playtest before the game is officially launched ...sure, 4th got a lot of feedback and discussions with Jervis Johnson, but that was on the whole time it was supported by GW, not just before it was released.)

As for the "few balance measures to the original lists"...let's just say it varies depending on the country where the tournament scene is. I followed the french one for a while, and their point of view was significantly different from the UK one. Which is why we have different "fan community" versions of older editions of Epic, now. Balance is all a matter of perspective and it always changes depending of the people advocating for it. Of course, when they are the only ones talking about it, it always sounds the most perfectly balanced system...because they are the only ones involved and agreeing about it.

Sarouan wrote:

Reason why people don't especially choose that way is more a question of battlefield coherency and the direct abrupt difference it shows even at this scale when it's done basically and not carefully designed to work that way. On your pictures, the battlefield is not credible, there's no city built like this with a sudden change of theme with perfectly square tiles. Of course, it's done as a compromise between cheap game materials, storage and efficiency for carriage. In short : it's not great for having awesome visuals to advertise your game, it's only meant to be functionnal and cheap. Once you invest in something really coherent, it usually means more work, more space dedicated to it and less polyvalence because nature is more about mix and invasion than perfectly separated areas. That's why most tournaments use only one theme per table : it's more coherent, more visually striking and more efficient to deploy.

Sure, GW tiles are very focused on one theme only, that is urban areas. But that's the point, which is coherency with all the other terrain they sell. It would have been silly to sell tiles of grassy areas when your main range is city buildings. Because it never was coherent, even in a SF setting (I'd even say "even more so").

I am going to have to disagree with you here. This is a sci-if game. Especially in Warhammer 30K with SCT construction I feel it would not be unreasonable to have a new colony or an isolated fab center built literally exactly like this. We are not talking 1944 European countryside’s where things have organically grown, but Aline worlds that may have just had the Empire come in and say build city design X here. In this case the more aprupt transition seems reasonable.

In real like I visited China earlier this year and many of the areas I saw were also actually like this. One are they literally bulldozed the land, filled in part of a lake and build a factory and dormitories, school, and city services in a neat little area. You did not have to walk far to be in (what was left of) a natural looking area. In other areas there would be a massively built up city and just a few shacks around the edges. Those would be so small at this scale (and flimsy) that you would likely not see them.

While a board could look nicer with blended out urban areas, I feel this is pretty reasonable and good looking for the 30K era.

I would also reference battletech where the cities tend to put up out of areas when doing minis. On the printed flat maps they will often feather the fetus out into nearby terrain for no gaming impact, but those are just flap paper maps.

From a game play perspective, I really like more varied terrain like this as well. Makes for deeper game play. And to be honest, this is more what I assoiacte with my memories of seeing epic.

Also lets not forget wargames already make gross assumptions and simplifications of terrain when we play regular games.

Buildings are often vastly undersized in 28-32mm gaming. Most are little more than a garden shed or a tiny single room in size; and yet we fight around them and design them as if they are churches, factories, blocks of housing and fortresses. With tanks that would likely need to be tardis inside to actually fit crew and have room for the machinery to actually work.


So wargames already accept lots of compromises in reality and real depictions when we play. The idea of a stark shift from town to rural landscape is honestly not too far fetched in this context. Yes you can make a much more detailed board and elaborate the transition much more so; but you don't "have" too to carry that same feeling of a city suddenly under siege; or a besiged city charging out to retake the outlands and such.

I missed it yesterday but they showed some of the transfers over on twitter:
https://twitter.com/warhammer/status/1724438334808666316

The transfers themselves aren't anything special but why only these four? But there should be more in the individual boxes as they also showed SW and EC in the painting video
Also there will be transfers for 8 Auxilia regiments.

What, no shoulder pad transfer for individual models???

#disappointed

(joke)

vadersson wrote:
I am going to have to disagree with you here. This is a sci-if game. Especially in Warhammer 30K with SCT construction I feel it would not be unreasonable to have a new colony or an isolated fab center built literally exactly like this. We are not talking 1944 European countryside’s where things have organically grown, but Aline worlds that may have just had the Empire come in and say build city design X here. In this case the more aprupt transition seems reasonable.

If they're not high building, sure. You build on height when you lack space, not when you're in the wilderness with all the terrain you want to build new buildings.

Thing is, GW official building terrain tend to be about height. Because that's how they hide line of sight for titans, since it was made for Titanicus first.

I have seen a lot of tables in the wilderness with few buildings here and there to show a remote colony that worked well, indeed. And a lot of Forgeworld tables that were mind boggling. If the coherence is there, it looks really good. I don't have the same feeling when it's mixed like putting urban square tiles on a grassy mat.

From a game play perspective, I really like more varied terrain like this as well. Makes for deeper game play. And to be honest, this is more what I assoiacte with my memories of seeing epic.

Of course it's really good. Here, though, we're criticizing GW for releasing tiles and terrain for a specific theme for a game that's just about to be released !

Variety is nice when you have played a lot of games with the same setting. Not from the start, you have to begin with something. What Pacific made is about 3 years of work, he said it himself. How can you expect a beginner from scratch to have the same variety at launch ? That's impossible and unreasonnable !

Overread wrote:Also lets not forget wargames already make gross assumptions and simplifications of terrain when we play regular games.

Absolutely. Still, there's a difference between a battlefield where you put terrain at random (for different reasons, mostly symetric battlefield for "balance issues" and the terrain you have at your disposal) and a battlefield with a strong theme that tells a story. They definitely don't have the same feeling.

 Matrindur wrote:

The transfers themselves aren't anything special but why only these four?

If it's anything like they did for Adeptus Titanicus, I wouldn't be surprised if they just sell the rest later.

leopard wrote:
What, no shoulder pad transfer for individual models???

I've just been down to my local GW to have a look at the sprues, and someone was having a meltdown because the missile launchers are separate to the bodies...

beast_gts wrote:

leopard wrote:
What, no shoulder pad transfer for individual models???

I've just been down to my local GW to have a look at the sprues, and someone was having a meltdown because the missile launchers are separate to the bodies...

I personally am glad as they will look a lot better for it, I also hope they can be glued to the body while the body is still on the frame (ala the HH Mk6 where the two halves of the shoulder pad can be assembled with one half on the frame for painting.

as for terrain, if the club or group you play in has ever done any 15mm scale stuff (Flames or War or ancients) you should have a range of trees, forests, hills, rivers etc that can be thrown down, drop a few AT buildings about to "scale" it and maybe some felt strip cut into a suitable roadway style and you will be able to have a reasonable table quite quickly.

also if at a club and everyone agrees to say bring a square foot or two of terrain of some sort you will quickly have a decent collection

beast_gts wrote:

leopard wrote:
What, no shoulder pad transfer for individual models???

I've just been down to my local GW to have a look at the sprues, and someone was having a meltdown because the missile launchers are separate to the bodies...

why were they mad at that? Just being an idiot?

How to play article:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/11/15/how-to-play-a-game-of-legions-imperialis/

Not that much info but at least some more images and paint schemes.

VAYASEN wrote:

beast_gts wrote:

leopard wrote:
What, no shoulder pad transfer for individual models???

I've just been down to my local GW to have a look at the sprues, and someone was having a meltdown because the missile launchers are separate to the bodies...

why were they mad at that? Just being an idiot?

Yeah - I think they were expecting all the infantry to be single piece. Someone else was having a sulk about the Charonite Ogryns being multi-part so I think there was a just a bit of a negative attitude going round.

Anyway, the sprues look good in person and the store-munchkin hadn't had their product brief yet so no new info yet.

I can see some being a bit worried about the missiles being separate parts - that's getting pretty fiddly and very easy to mess the plastic model up with just a touch too much glue.

Pacific wrote: *snip*
Rather than just putting buildings on grass as in the old WD epic battle reports, I cut up a cheap 'city terrain' mat and had blocks of this placed over the grassland board, to show industrial or city areas


.

I always preferred the type of set up you have here, and intend to do the same with my own with the tiles. I love the old WD battle reps where city blocks are just plonked in the middle of grass, or the roads lead to no where. It gives an weird, other worldly feel to the game and feels very much like old school 40k to me. Its a weird liminal aesthetic, that reminds me of old 90s PC games that have strange boundaries.

Matrindur wrote:I missed it yesterday but they showed some of the transfers over on twitter:
https://twitter.com/warhammer/status/1724438334808666316

The transfers themselves aren't anything special but why only these four? But there should be more in the individual boxes as they also showed SW and EC in the painting video
Also there will be transfers for 8 Auxilia regiments.

Got to flog €25 sheets later on I guess. I'd have liked to have seen a bigger sheet with a mix of smaller designs, would have liked a few emperors children ones. Considered buying a single 28mm scale one and just using the few I need.

Have millions of the ork ones from across the years, they used to be a lot less stingy with them.

beast_gts wrote:

leopard wrote:
What, no shoulder pad transfer for individual models???

I've just been down to my local GW to have a look at the sprues, and someone was having a meltdown because the missile launchers are separate to the bodies...

Ah good! I can use them to convert some new blood axes or death skulls! Nothing on earth is as bad as having to glue 6mm scale 1k sons backpacks on, these will be easy!

pity they have "all orders in secret, then all flipped" and not "all orders in secret and flipped one at a time as they activate"

so all you know is "that unit hasn't yet activated" not what it will do (and flipped counters show which units have and have not gone)

leopard wrote:
pity they have "all orders in secret, then all flipped" and not "all orders in secret and flipped one at a time as they activate"

so all you know is "that unit hasn't yet activated" not what it will do (and flipped counters show which units have and have not gone)

If I recall, thats how 2nd Edition Epic worked and I loved it.

I think you remove the token once they take an action unless its an action that has a lasting effect?

leopard wrote:
pity they have "all orders in secret, then all flipped" and not "all orders in secret and flipped one at a time as they activate"

so all you know is "that unit hasn't yet activated" not what it will do (and flipped counters show which units have and have not gone)

My guess is that as the game can scale up to larger and larger armies, the more models you add the more difficult it would be to remember what you've secretly set all your models too once you're a few activations in and the game state has changed. Much easier to flip them all at once than have to constantly keep trying to sneaky-flip your activation coins to remind yourself what you set each unit too. So I feel like its a practical element for a physical game in that it just helps larger games not get bogged down with confusion or players constantly miss-remembering what units were set too and making bad choices based on that.

Hidden orders likely would work fine in skirmisher games and games that don't scale up to larger and larger battles.

Yes - if you are making me use counters, at least have them do double duty as unit activation reference.