Greetings to the Epic players!
OK, here is another message from Andy C. Hopefully you will find it interesting.
Tuomas Pirinen, Games Designer, GW
Greetings all, I've just read Mr Looney's last post, which was very
gentlemanly of him. It made me realise we very seldom tell people why
things end up the way they are, so in relation to Epic40K army lists here
we go.
When we were working on the army lists for Epic40K we asked players what
they had liked and disliked about the company card system in Space Marine.
The answer we got was unequivocally that the cards let people pick forces
quickly and easily. On the down side people had no flexibility of choice in
their orgainsation (making it a jigsaw puzzle with very large pieces), and
it made supplying the right number of models in blisters and boxes a
nightmare (the amount of figures in a blister is dictated by factory
constraints, not games designers).
One gamer mentioned something which really struck a cord. It went something
like " in 40K I can have hours of fun in between battles honing my force
down to the last bolt pistol, with Space Marine I pick my force in ten
minutes and I can't personalise it, where's the fun in that?". Another
consideration we had to take onboard was that players should be able to
recreate 40K armies in Epic 40K.
All of this pointed us at army lists where you had tremendous flexibility
of choice (look at a few 40K armies and you'll see what I mean). On the
other hand we liked the picking-a-force-quickly side of things. This all
led on to exploring the hybrid system where you created your own
detachments and wrote them on cards so that you could pick your army from
them. I started off by examining the original army lists in White Dwarf for
Space Marine 1st ed. (which used a similar concept). Those army lists
included TO&E's for various races, but equating these with 40K armies
didn't work, TO&E's gave you the paper formations but they couldn't supply
a useful framework for battlefield forces. After a while I realised that
the defining factors for any detachment were simply what made up the main
force and the support elements for it, be they tanks, infantry or whatever.
This fitted in with the modern battlegroup/task force concept, or the WW2
German idea of Kampfgruppes. The lists in Epic40K can accomodate players
with an interest in scaling up their 40K forces to regiment/Chapter level,
magpie collectors who just pick bits and pieces that appeal to them, gamers
with armies from previous editions of the game (always important) and
cheese merchants who just want to fit in as many Land Raiders and
Deathstrikes as possible. Unfortunately it makes having a formal TO&E in
the game rather restricting, which is a shame because they're nice things
to have.
Still, we assumed that many players would impose their own overall TO&E on
their army to give it some form and restrict their choices. This is why Mr
Looney's soviet detachments were good to see, a simple transposition of
historical forces - you could equally use Colonial, Napoleonic, 1st or 2nd
world war TO&Es to the same effect.
I don't know if Jervis has mentioned this yet but we are intending to
publish Squat and Knight lists in the Journal in the near future. I confess
now that these lists have not been as thoroughly tested as I'd like, but if
we get feedback we can update them later. Perhaps if you plead with Jervis
he'll post them on the net early?...
Final thing is a crude experience system for Epic campaigns which I've
knocked together and I'd be very grateful if anyone running a campaign
would care to adopt it and tell me how it goes. The idea is to choose
detachments to a value of 6-8000 points maybe and use them consistently
through the campaign, the assumption being that all losses are restored
between games.
EPIC EXPERIENCE
Experience Levels
Detachments can be one of five levels of experience.
XP Level
0 Green
1-5 Experienced
6-10 Veteran
11-20 Crack
21+ Elite
Starting Experience
All detachments start with D3 experience except Space Marines which start
with D3+5.
BENEFITS
Green Removes D6-2 Blast markers in the rally phase
Experienced Standard rules apply
Veteran Detachment becomes Stubborn
Crack Removes D6 Blast markers in the rally phase
Elite +1 modifier in Assaults and Firefights.*
*War engines with over 21 experience gain one battle honour for each 5
extra experience points earned.
Gaining Experience
A detachment gains experience points for each battle it is involved in.
+1 For fighting in the battle.
+1 If the detachment claims a previously unclaimed objective.
+1 Each time the detachment rolls a 6 in an assault or firefight.
+1 Wreck or Destroy war engine detachment.
-3 If the detachment falls below half strength.
The worst a detachment can get is 0 experience points from a battle, unless
it gets wiped out.
Being Wiped Out
A detachment which is wiped out loses all of its experience from the
battle, and deducts 1 from its experience total due to the influx of
inexperienced troops needed to rebuild the detachment.
Alterations
If the detachment is changed it loses one experience point from its total
for every choice altered or added.
FLYER BENEFITS
Green Intercept -1
Experienced Standard rules apply
Veteran Intercept +1
Crack Gunnery +1
Elite Armour +1
Flyer Experience
+1 For fighting in the battle.
+1 Reduce opposing flyer detachment to half strength or below.
+1 Wreck or Destroy war engine detachment.
-3 Reduced to half strength.
All the best XXAndy C
"My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night. But ah my
friends and oh my foes, it gives a lovely light!"
Received on Wed Apr 23 1997 - 11:01:56 UTC
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