RE: [Epic] house rules (was Re: General Enquiry)

From: Miller, Chris <CMiller_at_...>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 14:23:28 -0600

> > ----------> I would defintiely call you a "fluff violator" - YOU
> > should know better...
>
> No smiley?
> --------> I needed one? You couldn't tell? OK - 8 )
>
> You honestly think that it's wrong of me to
> include elements of Tzeentch and Nurgle in the same army? That
> doing so is cheesy? (your definition, not the standard power-
> gaming def) Then I don't think I've *ever* played a non-cheesy
> Chaos army, aside from when I was first starting out and didn't
> actually own any Nurgle or Slaanesh stuff.
>
> ---------> The same army isn't a problem. The mixed detachment thing
> would be a bigger deal. It would be more fun if we had some kind of
> carryover of the animosity thing from 40K or fantasy, but alas, there
> is none. I've tried limiting myself to say, 2 powers in an army, but
> there are too many cool units and we play with too many points. I
> really only have a problem when someone uses their Emperor's Children
> T-Hawk to tansport Khorne Bereserkers/World Eaters. Take 'em, sure,
> but if you're just going to ignore the fluff anyway...
>
> > > > > What's wrong with no daemons?
> > > >
> > > > ---------> They printed that army list at the front of the book
> as
> > > > "Imperials".
> > >
> > > This isn't a fluff-breaker. There are plenty of
> > > un-aligned Chaos Legions that won't neccessarily have
> > > daemons. Even aligned troops won't be summoning daemons
> > > for every single battle. Even without daemons, Chaos
> > > still has plenty of its own flavor - the beasties are not
> > > the defining trait of the army.
> > >
> > -------> OK, so if your chaos force is all marines and imperial
> > equipment with no daemons or engines, where does the flavor come in?
> > A different color paint job?
>
> Point the first: where is the difference in flavor between
> Ultras, DAs, BAs, and SWs? By the standard army lists, they're all
> exactly the same. So why play the puppies over the smurfs? Just
> because you liked the chapter colors? "Flavor" is in your head as
> well as in the army lists. The flavor of a chaos army, with or
> without daemons, is rooted in the knowledge that you're playing
> bad-ass traitors from a long-gone era. Daemons are cool, but not
> neccessary.
>
> ----------> There's really not a flavor difference between marine
> chapters (they are theoretically on the same side), but it seems like
> there ought to be one between marines and Chaos. An different paint
> job is a start, and may be enough for units on the same side, but if
> that's the only difference it seems a little dull. A ww2 Germans vs
> russians battle is using similar tech during a known time period is
> anything but dull, but a russians vs russians would be fairly plain.
> An ACW game uses similar forces, but usually has a small enough scale
> that leader differences can come into play in a way not reflected in
> Epic (In any version). Sure, even loyal marine chapters fight each
> other on occasion, but it's never done much for me in epic, and CSM's
> aren't that different.
>
> Point the second: the chaos list (minus daemons) is not the
> same as the imperial lists. Cultists do not even remotely equal the
> IG (no arty, no tank companies, no HW troops). Even if you focus just
> on the marine aspect, there's a number of differences: Vindicators,
> Thunderhawks, Land Speeders, Jump Packs, Juggers, Discs, Bezerkers,
> Noise Marine termies, loose vs relatively rigid army list structure,
> cooler unit names.
>
> --------> Yep, they did lose the IG stuff in a way, but if you have
> traitor IG units, I wouldn't have a problem with that - comes up in
> the fluff all the time : ) Some of it is different for marines, sure,
> but your marine force will not look too different from a loyalist
> unit.
>
> Point the third: getting back to the original point (daemons/
> not daemons), this is exactly what I mean about fluff interpretations.
> Your interpretation of the fluff is different from mine, for whatever
> reasons. Perhaps we're subscribing to different versions of it (old
> 40k? old Epic? current 40k?), or perhaps we've just read the same
> thing and formed different conclusions... This is why I largely listen
> to, and then disregard, arguments that are based on fluff and not
> rules.
>
> ----------> Again, I would never tell someone else "Your army is
> wrong" unless I saw big army list errors, but things that are way out
> of wack with the game background do make me wonder. A lot of people
> seem to think vortexes are a problem under the current rules, but if
> you play looking at fluff, they usually won't be. If you ignore it,
> you might field 10 vortexes in a 2000 point battle and wonder why
> people are giving you dirty looks.
> And I will use the same argument to defend including certain
> things, too. People on the WH40K & Fantasy lists often whine about how
> tough bloodthirsters are and want them banned from tournaments, etc.
> My answer is TOO BAD - they're at the center of much of the whole
> Chaos "thing" and they can go when the marines give up power armor and
> bolters.
>
> Hmmmm. Actually, that was getting back to MY original point.
> As for your thing about having no daemons in a chaos army, I would
> suggest reading the 40k Chaos Codex (if you haven't already). It puts
> much less emphasis on the 4 aligned chapters than ROC did, and makes
> the all-chaos marine army very plausible. Especially if you're
> playing
> an all Night Lord army, for instance.
>
> -------> I picked that up the week it came out. They do add a lot of
> unaligned chapters, which is kind of going back to where the hardbacks
> were ages ago, and that's great, especially in WH40K, but for Epic I
> would expect some daemon engines, or daemons, or beastmen, or daemon
> princes or something. Why limit yourself? Many people like a
> particular army in part because of the units unique to that army, and
> rightly so - otherwise we could just make a generic army list and say
> the race you choose is just "color". So pick a few things that tell
> even a color blind person you have a force aligned with Chaos...
>
>
> > I guess my beef would be that
> > with all of the options available to Chaos, to restrict oneself to
> > duplicating another armies equipment seems awfully boring.
>
> But there's nothing wrong with it. And the Chaos player is
> still playing a bunch of evil bastards from beyond realspace, which
> has a certain appeal in its own right.
>
> -------> Well the loyalist player is also playing a bunch of evil
> bastards, most likely.
        (You probably liked to play evil alignments in D&D , too)
> : )
> I have no problem with appyling this to yourself (like I
> said, I limit my army selection to coincide with my version of
> the background), I just don't like the idea of telling someone
> else is *wrong* because they don't have the same interpretation.
>
> --------> Well, crap, half of human history has been driven by exactly
> what you just described...
> (Again, I wouldn't tell 'em they were wrong - I'd just keep a very
> close eye on them...)
>
> What about the flip side of the no-daemon case? I've
> occaisionally thought of fielding an ALL daemon army, with nothing
> but daemons and daemon engines (including WEs, but probably not
> the standard Imp titans). Would that seem wrong to you?
>
> --------> Heck no - Chaos is supposed to have daemons and sticky
> things running amuck.
>
> > > > (thought this one might draw you out...)
> > >
> > > It's not like it's tough to draw me out or anything...
> > >
> > -------> Nah, but the only people I seem to really lock horns with
> on
> > long involved threads are you or Mr Looney, and it hadn't happened
> for a
> > while.
>
> Phhhh. All you had to do is post something like, "What's
> with those dang useless Plague Towers in SM/TL anyway?" =)
>
> -----------> Ok, how about this:
> Given the sizeable number of marines taking up space in my house, and
> the recent acquisiton of Fulgrim to complete the set, I'm building all
> 4 SM/TL chapters (already had World Eaters & DG, just doing the other
> 2).
> And if that wasn't enough, I'm using Normal Marines ENTIRELY to make
> them....(I'd used normals before as a mix-in to extend the CSM's to a
> full 15 stands worth, but now I'm not even pretending)
>
> Face the Wrath of he EMPEROR'S CHILDREN !!!
>
> Chris Miller
>
> (And I've actually added a plague tower, some questors, and some
> hell-knights to my forces. More to come.)
>
Received on Fri Mar 27 1998 - 20:23:28 UTC