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

From: Scott Shupe <shupes_at_...>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:46:56 -0400

J. Michael Looney wrote:
>
> 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.

        Of course, E40k uses VPs also. I guess the
important difference though is that E40k VPs (ie morale)
take into account how much of a pounding your army has
suffered (to a certain extent, anyway, since how much
morale you lose each turn thanks to BMs is governed by
how well you roll that D6).

> 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.

        Plus all the other 'games' you had in the handful
of alternate scenarios published in WD. Players didn't
(in my experience) limit themselves to just the basic
"meeting engagement", and to ignore the existance of the
other scenarios in your argument is silly.

> 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.

        OK. But, you have the same 'baseball objectives'
(Take & Hold) in E40k. I understand your arguments, but
they also apply to E40k (to a lesser extent, but they still
apply).

> 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.

        I've seen this on occaision but not that often.
It doesn't tend to happen when highly-maneuverable forces
(ie eldar, or scads of thunderhawks) are not present.

> 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.

        My basic problem was that games (well, my games
anyway) almost always lasted 3 turns. Knowing this, you
would see last-effort mad dashes to break enemy units
(possibly ignoring more threatening but already broken
units) and grab objectives on the third turn. While the
game could (and sometimes did) go on to a 4th turn, that
rarely happened. This is almost equivilent to WH40k's 4
turn time limit, which I find stupid beyond belief
("Uh-oh, it's getting dark! We better stop fighting. HEY!
Leave that Avatar alone - you can play with him again
tomorrow!").

> 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.

        I've never played against Orks. However, as I
undertand their army structure in SM, the detachments
(mobs) in the army would always look different depending
on what support cards you took and how many of them.
But like I said I've never actually played against them
so I'll shut up about them now.

        You have a point about Chaos, but OTOH most of
the chaos army tended to be space marine stuff, where
one would expect to see standardized detachments.

        I for one *liked* the IG army structure - you
had to think about any support units you took for a
company since the chain of command rules forced you to
actually use them in support of that company. I just
wished that the army card system imposed some kind of
structure on some of the other armies (most noticably
the SMs, who would have all their company HQs running
around acting in a manner most un-HQ-like).

> 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.

        I've never seen army cards stop cheese. But the
system limited how durable 'specialist' detachments could
be - frex, no company card for eldar aspects, so they
always had a very fragile break point of 2. It also
limited your access to special cards, although that became
meangingless with the introduction of titan companies.

> 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

        What do you have planned for the 2nd lesson? =)

Scott
shupes_at_...
Received on Mon Sep 29 1997 - 15:46:56 UTC