Re: [Epic] Things on tap, feedback wanted and some random rants

From: J. Michael Looney <mlooney_at_...>
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 20:18:21 -0500

Scott Shupe wrote:

> J. Michael Looney wrote:
> >
> > <rant>
> > The more I re-read the rules and army lists for SM-1 the madder I get.
> > Compared to them SM-2 is, well, lets just say, -bad-.. I have about
> > the same feelings about SM-2 vs SM-1 and some of the Net Epic folk do
> > about E40K vs SM-2.
> > For the record just in case any body doesn't know about how I feel about
> > this:
> >
> > The Army Card system plus the whole victory point system in Epic Space
> > Marine 2nd Ed suck rocks.
>
> Care to explain why they "suck rocks" for
> those of us who aren't intimately familiar with SM1?

Lets do this backwards:
The victory point system, and why I think it sucks rocks.

BTW, I have problems with ALL games that use victory points. I will make
exceptions to game where one side is going to lose the battle regardless,
where a "win" for the side that loses the battle is that they did not lose as
badly as they should have.

I have real problems with game that claim to be a war game that don't play
like a war game. In Epic 2nd Ed you have, in the basic rules, exactly one
game you can play: A meeting engagement with a chunk of capture the flag
tossed in for good measure. A set of war game rule should not restrict you to
only one type of battle. The fact that an Epic 2nd ed game, as played by
many, seldom went over turn 2, or maybe 3 is an indication that something is
wrong. In a micro armor game, if it is set up so that a point on the ground
must be held, it must be held for some period of time (i.e. hold the hill top
until turn 6). It makes zero military sense to just "grab" a chunk of
terrain. This is not baseball, where all you have to do is touch the bases in
passing. You need to grab and hold a spot of turf for a while for it to
matter. In every game of SM-1 and E40K I played the winner of the game was
the side that obviously won the battle, _OR_ managed to do his mission (i.e.
get x number of units across the board by turn y). This is not the case in
most of the games of Epic 2nd ed. And I will admit that I have been the
"winner" in games that if they went one more turn, I would have been wiped
out. If you place 8 objectives (Page 15, Space Marine 2nd Ed rules) and you
are playing a game of less than 3,000 points you can win with out even hurting
the other forces. This, in a war game, is ludicrous. For the record I won
more games of SM-2 than I lost, so this is not just sour grapes.

Army Cards:
My problem with this is that I like to design "Kampgrups". I like to try
experiment with TO&E variations. I consider TO&E design to be one of, if not
the chief, places for real military genius to show. With the "army card"
system you really can't do that. For some armies, forcing a player to design
a force that is lock step always the same makes a slight amount of sense, but
for others it is REALLY silly. Orks and Chaos, for example. While expecting
GW to do with Epic what was done with say Command Decision or Spearhead (where
the organization of most, if not all of the major units of WW2 were given in
game terms as part of the support for the rules) is, well, silly, I don't
feel that the army card system worked . While I have heard that the "Army
Card" system stopped 'Cheese", it didn't. If you don't think 2nd Ed had some
real cheese options, that were "card legal" , well, never mind.

What do I like in army design? In order
1) Historical forces (yeah, I know, 40,000 has not happened yet, bit tricky
there) WITH NO POINT COST (Ok, I have the 1st NZ brigade at Crete, you have
Germans dropping in. My objective, hold out as long a possible. If I last
longer than the kiwis did in real life, I win, other wise you do. You want to
talk about an ugly battle. Hmm... I may do that as an E41K game or
campaign. Stay tuned.
2) Semi-Historical (My 1941 English Armour Battalion + 2 lorried infantry
Battalion holds a fortified spot in the desert. Your German DAK panzer
battalion with 6 battalions of Italian infantry in support tries to remove
me.) FTR that combo never happened in "real life" but it could have. (may do
that one as E41K also)
3) Army lists, with clearly defined limits. The best I have seen for WW2 and
Modern games is the ones that Table Top Games (a UK company) used to put out.
I suspect that the GW rulez d00d spent some time looking at those.
4) Units arbitrary assigned for no reason by the game designer, but with point
cost tacked on to make it look "fair"

The bottom line is that if you are going to be forced to take a "set" force
there should not be points attached to them, but if there are points, I want
to have a granularity of 1 platoon (or moral equal) in my force design
options. You have that in E40K and you had that in SM-1 (assuming you were
using the WD army lists) or you had "Historical" forces, which were not always
equal forces.

Here endeth the first lesson
Received on Sat Sep 27 1997 - 01:18:21 UTC