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 Irbis wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
The rumour is that AI Xenos sales are so low they decided to just go Imperials for the Epic relaunch

It's not a rumor, xeno planes never managed to sell out once ever. But then again, almost no xeno release ever does, most languishing on the shelves for months if not years and only going away after if goes OoP, go figure

If the only plastics Xenos had access to were the same as came in the starter boxes, it's not surprising they didn't shift the extra boxes. The rest of the range was Forge World.
Which leads to the prices. The Imperial ground defenses were 1/3 the price of the Xenos versions, because they were plastic, and came with twice as many pieces.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

 ikeulhu wrote:

 SgtEeveell wrote:
Don't the Titans date clear back to the Dark Ages of Technology? The tech certainly does, even if some of the actual units aren't quite that old.

The Age of Strife is when Mars started producing Titans. They likely used older technology possibly from the Dark Ages to do so, but that was when the Collegia Titanica officially started.

There's this one horrible Grey Knight book where they meet the STC ur-father of all titans, much more powerful than an Imperator, who is also a sentient AI and possessed by Daemons, that promptly never gets mentioned again because it's an incredibly dumb concept that goes against established background

Dark Adeptus by Ben Counter. I greatly enjoyed the book actually. It never gets mentioned again because it's a big galaxy, and like most black library novels the events discussed don't matter and have no significance to the wider setting.

I enjoyed it as well. The superduper STC is a bit wacky, sure, but the book is otherwise a very enjoyable take on a Dark Mech planet and Mechanicus personnel in general. Even the depicted Grey Knights manage to occasionally come across as professional soldiers with a conviction rather than pure bolter porn for its own sake.

I originally posted this to FB.

With all this new talk about scale and comparing new and old, I was feeling left out. So, I grabbed some of my stuff and took some pictures. I edited them to make the Knight look as close to the same as possible in every picture.

• The first row is a 40k Knight with a 40k Baneblade, an AT Knight with a FW Epic Baneblade, and an AI Knight with a GW metal Baneblade.
• The second row is a 40k Knight with a 40k Land Raider and an AT Knight with a GW metal Land Raider.
• The third row is an AT Knight with a FW Epic Russ and an AI Knight with a GW metal Russ.
• The last row is a a 40k Knight with a 40k Vindicator and an AT Knight with a GW metal Vindicator.

We'll have to see how the new models look, but this should give you some sense of how the old models compare to the AT scale stuff.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
The rumour is that AI Xenos sales are so low they decided to just go Imperials for the Epic relaunch

It's not a rumor, xeno planes never managed to sell out once ever. But then again, almost no xeno release ever does, most languishing on the shelves for months if not years and only going away after if goes OoP, go figure

If the only plastics Xenos had access to were the same as came in the starter boxes, it's not surprising they didn't shift the extra boxes. The rest of the range was Forge World.
Which leads to the prices. The Imperial ground defenses were 1/3 the price of the Xenos versions, because they were plastic, and came with twice as many pieces.

Exactly. GW set so many roadblocks in the way of any xenos faction ever being successful, it's no wonder people don't buy them.

I bought a small eldar fleet for AI shortly after they released the two plastic kits, I'd have loved to expand it with more (and more exciting) units, but all the other releases were forgeworld and were outrageously expensive. £34 for two tiny bits of resin? £37 for one single, slightly larger bit of resin?

I can't even imagine being a Necron player in AI... and Drukhari never even got a single plane!

Thanks a lot for posting that Breotan, very cool!

I think the interesting thing for me is that none of those minis actually look 'wrong' in terms of scale, and you could get away with using any of it.

The only time I have had a problem with scale (and this goes for any wargame, not just Epic) is when you have some things that are meant to be the same, but are in different scale, alongside each other. I had some printed Rhinos for example which were almost double the size of the tiny GW originals. Next to each other on the tabletop they looked out of place.

But, I think it's a sliding scale (also very subjective), and for factions like Orks or Chaos for example I think you have a lot more room for manoeuvre with scale ranges.

If I get into it I'll simply wait for someone to measure the new plastic models and I'll size my prints to that while aggressively expanding my Ignore list with anyone going full mental about the numerical scale of it.

 Hellebore wrote:
I'm unsurprised by it.

Anyone who thinks GW actually cares about non marine armies is dragging out the inevitable.

HH is showing them that they can in fact get away with just marine on marine games. So why would they care about putting any more effort into non marine armies.

^^^^ This guy gets it.

We may return to the Kirby-era style GW sooner than I would expect!

Well you have to hope that, even if surrounded by bean counters, there are still a core of designers and creatives within the company who want to create things other than large shoulder pads.

 Pacific wrote:
Well you have to hope that, even if surrounded by bean counters, there are still a core of designers and creatives within the company who want to create things other than large shoulder pads.

I think they are all hiding in the Age of Sigmar design studio - possibly even just in the Warcry department!

Disappointed by the scale increase, base size increase, battlefield size decrease. That combined with questionable movement speeds (aircraft vs infantry for example) and 2nd ed based rules means it isn't going to be a wargame like 4th ed, but more a game in the vein of GW's other stuff.

To be fair GW games can be played on tables of any size - GW has been pushing for smaller but that's mostly cause its just what randomly fits in their boxes rather than any intentional balanced aspect.

I think the size increase honestly works well, we get far more detail on the models, but it is an utter pain for old collections

You will be amazed though Overhead by how many people will do *exactly* what they are told with the rules - someone in an FB group was bemoaning that they were now going to have to cut a foot of length off their custom gaming board for the new game. I would guess they are re-basing everything onto circular bases too. It infuriates me

My main worry (and I will reserve judgement until I have rulebook in hand and played a few games) is that GW are targeting experienced wargamers with loads of time on their hands, rather than more casual hobbyists and players. From what we have seen the rules already look vastly more complex than SM 2nd edition, and I have always thought that part of the reason that older game did so well, and lasted so long, was that it captured the essence of mass, epic scale warfare without getting bogged down with too much granular detail. I know this probably isn't a popular opinion on here as lots of people do love that level of detail, but my concern is that it, like Necromunda, will be "a game for us, not for them" and the long term sales and popularity of the game will suffer as a result.

Oh true I've seen and heard all of the crazy "I must cut my table up" people and such. I also "tend" to notice it seems to be a little bit more of a USA thing than a UK thing, but that could just be selective bias (or just the sheer number of people in the USA).

I would agree that it seems to be more of an American gamer thing, anecdotally I haven't seen UK gamers react the same way to that sort of thing. When 9th ed 40k came out it was like a 1984 "we've always been at war with Eastasia" type moment, overnight a number of people I knew were posting tips to get clean cuts on their 6x4 mousepad mats, etc. The more sensible folks just laid down tape (more or less permanently it seems) on their playmats to demarcate the new table sizes. Totally silly.

Disappointed? Nah, rather the opposite. I am on the hype train. After waiting twenty years there is again the opportunity to play the game I fell in love during the 90s. And this time I won´t sell it.

Looking forward to paint my mini marines and also contemplating of doing a second Legion which would be too costly doing in HH 2.0.

 Overread wrote:
To be fair GW games can be played on tables of any size - GW has been pushing for smaller but that's mostly cause its just what randomly fits in their boxes rather than any intentional balanced aspect.

I think the size increase honestly works well, we get far more detail on the models, but it is an utter pain for old collections

They can - but its a wargaming thing rather than a gaming thing. Bigger tables affects manoeuvre and coverage. Just like bigger bases does.

I should add armies are also a lot bigger than 3rd/4th edition in terms of units in their recommended army sizes.

While obviously none of this matters, it does matter in one area, which is playtesting. Which leads to balance. Balance tends to be done in fixed formats. Play 40k on a 10x6 table and you will have a different experience with your guard artillery army to one on a small table.

 Pacific wrote:
My main worry (and I will reserve judgement until I have rulebook in hand and played a few games) is that GW are targeting experienced wargamers with loads of time on their hands, rather than more casual hobbyists and players. From what we have seen the rules already look vastly more complex than SM 2nd edition, and I have always thought that part of the reason that older game did so well, and lasted so long, was that it captured the essence of mass, epic scale warfare without getting bogged down with too much granular detail. I know this probably isn't a popular opinion on here as lots of people do love that level of detail, but my concern is that it, like Necromunda, will be "a game for us, not for them" and the long term sales and popularity of the game will suffer as a result.

Yes it is odd. On one hand they are going back to 2nd ed, but then adding 1st ed like levels of detail, with tanks having multiple lines of weapons, weapons getting multiple universal keywords (funny arguments on facebook between people who say I love keywords and those that prefer stats written on the card in front of them). I get going for a more GW game style of play to match the expectations of many of their players rather than the more wargame approach of 4th ed, and I know GW believe their players like chrome to feel it is a proper game (they are probably right), but this does feel oddly complicated, which is worrying as GW tend to use complication as a substitute for complexity in their less tactical game systems. 2nd ed was fun when I was a kid, but playing it again recently reminded me I quite like the manoeuvre of 4th ed rather than the somewhat linear grinding into each other of big armies in 2nd.

I definitely think each version has it's strengths. The mega-game we ran earlier in the year for about 20k pts was only possible with 2nd edition rules, because it was so quick to teach people to play as a participation game, and also we managed to get through about 4 turns in the course of an afternoon.

This game looks like it may be adding too much complication, but if they are using 2nd edition mechanics it won't have the tactical nuance of something like Armageddon. So actually the worst of both worlds.. and then they have removed Titan hit charts and damage tables, replacing it will a dull wounds counter, which was literally the one piece of 2nd edition that I don't think I ever heard anyone saying a bad word about in all of the years I played the game.

Liked this on one of the FB pages.. I know there are gamers like this that exist, and I salute them!

I have no trouble playing any edition, honestly.

The fact I prefer one doesn't mean I wouldn't play anyone else.

 Pacific wrote:
This game looks like it may be adding too much complication, but if they are using 2nd edition mechanics it won't have the tactical nuance of something like Armageddon. So actually the worst of both worlds.. and then they have removed Titan hit charts and damage tables, replacing it will a dull wounds counter, which was literally the one piece of 2nd edition that I don't think I ever heard anyone saying a bad word about in all of the years I played the game.

One of the rules writers hated getting their Warlord shot in the reactor all the time?

The one big crack I'm starting to notice is, like with 10th ed 40k, this not paying points for different weapon loadouts seems like a terrible idea.

That was something that was in the other versions of Epic though (well 4th was a bit different).

shh, don't let facts get in the way of the points granularity crusade some members of the community have been on since 40k 10th dropp

Weapon options for titans and the like didn't have separate costs in Epic 40k, but everything else had fixed loadouts.

Lets see. I believe weapon points would have made sense for Titans, if nothing else.

Btw the internal points cost spread of Titans looks a bit interesting. 385p for a Direwolf w essentially one anti shield system and one longer ranged big weapon vs 600p for a Warlord with 3 powerful systems, not to mention a lot more Void Shields looks strange. Hopefully the Warlord gets limited in ay construction somehow, as a Warlord can be taken in a 2000p game (<30%) with that low cost.

We dont power game, but some do.

Dredging up memories, I seem to recall that most tanks and models had zero weapon options, I think the most was an option for a demolisher cannon on the leman russ tanks. Even then it might have been "1 per unit of X" rather than spare turrets.

So I can well see that even with slightly larger tank kits we might have limited to no weapon variations for many kits. So it will make sense that there might not be granular weapon prices because a different weapon unit will be a different named model.



Titans I can see benefitting from point costs for weapons because they do come with a good variety of weapons and they are going to change the performance of a titan.

 westiebestie wrote:
Lets see. I believe weapon points would have made sense for Titans, if nothing else.

Btw the internal points cost spread of Titans looks a bit interesting. 385p for a Direwolf w essentially one anti shield system and one longer ranged big weapon vs 600p for a Warlord with 3 powerful systems, not to mention a lot more Void Shields looks strange. Hopefully the Warlord gets limited in ay construction somehow, as a Warlord can be taken in a 2000p game (<30%) with that low cost.

We dont power game, but some do.

That's the thing, even without internal cost differences for weapons loadout, the point costs from unit to unit do matter, and they seem a bit weird between the dire wolf and the warlord.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:
shh, don't let facts get in the way of the points granularity crusade some members of the community have been on since 40k 10th dropp

To add granularity without accounting/costing for it doesn't help.

2nd edition/Titan Legions just had a set points cost per Titan. This meant that you heard stories of people gaming it and giving 4 quake canons on a Warlord and flattening all buildings on turn 1, but I have to be honest I didn't ever see that in practice.

Interestingly, for the community-produced version of 2nd edition (NetEpic) they did introduce points values for Titans and weapons combinations - which I think says a lot.

I seem to remember the favoured weapon load out being 2 barrage missile launchers, a deathstrike centreline cannon, 2 carapace multilasers, the funny boots, the biggest plasma cannon thingy that could fire once every 2 turns and another weapons I can't remember.

Regardless you can either balance things against each other, or cost them and try and balance them against all the other pointed options and units. Weapon balance is normally considered a bit easier, but both have min maxing.

One of titanicus's problems is that they didn't leave much room to cost weapons properly, not to mention not all weapons were/are perfectly conceived. It gets ever more apparent when you get down to knight weapons, because they're using integers of 5, it becomes ever more difficult to really nail a point cost that seems right at that level. The thing people try and use to argue its not a big deal in LI is "well with 30% you'll likely only see a titan or two" which will only exacerbate the likely issues of only ever seeing the most effective loadouts precisely because players are only fielding 1 ot 2 titans, instead of like 5-7 in AT where you might see different loadouts from titan to titan. Even with individual unit costs you can see that with titans like the warhound, the most common loadout is plasma blastgun/vulcan megabolter because its just the best performing overall combination. Why people are convinced that won't happen with the warlord or other titans when one doesn't even have to pay individual weapons costs is beyond me.

 Crablezworth wrote:
The thing people try and use to argue its not a big deal in LI is "well with 30% you'll likely only see a titan or two" which will only exacerbate the likely issues of only ever seeing the most effective loadouts precisely because players are only fielding 1 ot 2 titans, instead of like 5-7 in AT where you might see different loadouts from titan to titan.

I'd be surprised if Legions doesn't have Legios and Houses as their own factions. If not in the core book then surely in a later supplement.