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I finially managed to finish my first Tau detachments:

I had to use some proxies and custom miniatures because of the ridiculous high prices. If anyone is interested to play 3rd edition Epic 40,000 with a Tau army, then please have a look at my custom army lists: http://www.tocoking.be/homerules

Nice army there, looking very good.

Why 3rd Ed may I ask? Isn't it widely regarded to be far and away the worst edition of the Epic rules?

 filbert wrote:
Nice army there, looking very good.

Why 3rd Ed may I ask? Isn't it widely regarded to be far and away the worst edition of the Epic rules?

Thank you.

Did you ever play 3rd?

 toco wrote:

 filbert wrote:
Nice army there, looking very good.

Why 3rd Ed may I ask? Isn't it widely regarded to be far and away the worst edition of the Epic rules?

Thank you.

Did you ever play 3rd?

I haven't but mainly because it's release coincided with a period of my life when I was out of gaming entirely so I missed it. I gather it wasn't around or supported by GW much beyond 6 months after it's release so it never came up on my radar.

 toco wrote:

Did you ever play 3rd?

Ouch.

Nice paintup and a nice-looking army. Are those Onslaught minis?

Third is a viable ruleset, lots of people just didn't like it because it was drastically different from the previous editions, namely the simplicity of unit profiles and interactions. I prefer Armageddon, but that's a personal preference. Epic is an awesome medium for 40k gaming, no matter the edition.

I wasn't being snarky or facetious; I'm genuinely curious. As I said, it is probably the edition of Epic that one hears the least about and the least positive response about given that it wasn't really supported for very long and that some hyperbole I have read go as far as to declare 3rd Ed the 'death of Epic'. Like many people, I left GW and gaming at a time when there was a very healthy and burgeoning 2nd Ed scene with Epic being a 'core game' and returned to find it dying a slow death as a Specialist Game and being left to wither on the vine.

I bought the rulebook off Ebay yesterday after reading this thread so I can give it a go. Final Liberation was based off 3rd ed rules I believe and I thought that was a cracking game so it is worth a go to find out for myself. Only thing that concerns me is that really only Space Marines, Imperial and Orks and usable. From what I gather GW never finished rules for the other armies and races?

I love 3rd edition Epic 40k. The armies book, which came in the box, like this-
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WARHAMMER-EPIC-40000-ARMIES-BOOK-BY-CHAMBERS-THORPE-1997-/151531865805?pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&hash=item234800c6cd
has complete army lists for Guard, Marines, Orks, Eldar, Chaos and Tyranids. And Toco has done an awesome job of others.
I still try to get a game evey now and then!

3rd edition felt a lot like playing a spreadsheet after playing previous versions. Needing to lookup the firepower chart (or whatever it was called) to see what the results of shooting were (instead of just rolling a dice for every shooting model). Aside from the problematic nature of detachments, the game seemed fairly solid though for the small time that i played it.

Nice looking tau.

Great Army Final Liberation was Titan Legions period Epic.

(I prefer 3rd edition because it's fast, general and feels more like a game than a wargame.)


Here's what's next:

While I only play Epic Armageddon, I appericate someone who shows off their epic!!

Great stuff. Nice use of Onslaught minis. I have a bunch of tau comming from them myself. What is the guy in the right corner? Im guessing Riptide. Is it onslaught or another brand?

Do you have any other epic armies to show? Or conversions you did for them?

I currently have 7 epic armies painting, another 8 in the pipleline

str00dles1 wrote:
While I only play Epic Armageddon, I appericate someone who shows off their epic!!

Great stuff. Nice use of Onslaught minis. I have a bunch of tau comming from them myself. What is the guy in the right corner? Im guessing Riptide. Is it onslaught or another brand?

Do you have any other epic armies to show? Or conversions you did for them?

I currently have 7 epic armies painting, another 8 in the pipleline

Sure, all my Epic work is here: http://boardgamegeek.com/blogcategory/1364.
The Tau Riptide in the right corner is a minor conversion from a plastic "EM4 Mechwarrior STEEL WARRIORS BOX SET" miniature. More about them here: http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/29291/epic-40k-tau-riptide#comments.

Cool have you looked at Tactical Command? Epic 40k was my 1st GW game and I still have a soft spot for it.

 Llamahead wrote:
Cool have you looked at Tactical Command? Epic 40k was my 1st GW game and I still have a soft spot for it.

Yes, their forum is a great resource for 6mm Epic.

 filbert wrote:
Nice army there, looking very good.

Why 3rd Ed may I ask? Isn't it widely regarded to be far and away the worst edition of the Epic rules?

3rd was excellent, sorta surprised to hear what you said. It's probably the most "epic" of Epic 40k editions, with the focus squarely on enormous, planetary-invasion scale battles. The other editions always felt like regular 40k with slightly larger armies (but otherwise the same game).

2nd edition Space Marine/Titan Legions was the edition where I saw the largest formations (look at some of the battle reports in White Dwarf - Imperial Guard infantry companies with 30 stands! squadrons of titans!), but yes, Epic 40,000 is the ruleset that will handle those large formations the most easily.A lot of the fiddly detail was removed because as the general in command, it's none of your concern whether the third tank on the right has plasma cannon sponsons or heavy bolters.

Quite right, I like to think of 3rd Edition as a strategic warfare game. Note, although you aren't picking the specific weapon to attack with, you still do make a lot of tactical decisions, such as whether to charge your jump pack infantry deep into the enemy formation in melee or to flank them around the side to catch and ambush the enemy when they fall back.

Great army! I love Epic 40,00. I still play it.

Yeah there was nothing wrong with Epic40k. It was the change that upset a lot of people but was still tactical in it's own way (I only started with Epic 3rd so I may be biased). The rules are more akin to BFG than previous Epic versions but the small size of the rulebook made it easy to pick up without being daunting. There was a nice scenario book too

Epic 3rd edition was the death of epic and the worst rule set by far. It was one of the worst mistakes gw made.

Nice little army though

 Whirlwind wrote:
Yeah there was nothing wrong with Epic40k. It was the change that upset a lot of people but was still tactical in it's own way (I only started with Epic 3rd so I may be biased). The rules are more akin to BFG than previous Epic versions but the small size of the rulebook made it easy to pick up without being daunting. There was a nice scenario book too

+1

It's easier to start with 3rd ed than with 2nd or Armgeddon. The fact that it's easier to learn is interesting to get non GW-players/non-tabletop-players into the hobby.

Those are lovely looking Tau.

Epic 40,000 was a masterpiece of a rule system. It sadly failed as it was too radical a departure from the previous versions so upset a lot of the fan base.

The game designers have commented numerous times that it was their best rule set that they have ever made.

It and Warmaster were games that were sadly aimed at an audience that wanted anGW miniatures game and not a wargame, hence they both failed.

OMG totally necro'd.

But I will also admit that while I threw up at the first site of Epic 40k myself, I will admit now that it was a really interesting game. I am not big on abstract, but I found myself able to justify everything that happened in a battle.

But, I am about simplicity today, and when I am able to play Epic, I usually bust out 2nd edition.

But I have a big collection of 3rd edition, and it along with all of my epic stuff, will be placed in my tomb with me.

Please no! There's not enough of that stuff around, and it's expensive enough already on eBay . Bury something that there is lots of and no one will miss