>> My question is should I buy the old Epic (and if so do I get Space Marine
>> or do I only need Titan Legions) or should I get Epic40k.
>
> Well, what exactly are you looking for?
>
> If you do buy the old Epic, you just need to get
>Titan Legions, plus the expansion box for whatever army
>you wish to play - ie if you want a Chaos or Eldar army,
>you need Renegades; for space marines or imperial guard
>you need Armies of the Imperium, etc etc. The expansions
>tended to run around $30-$35, so you'll be paying that
>much more for the old game.
>
> Also, GW has repackaged all the plactic & metal
>figs in smaller (and more expensive) groupings than before.
>Unless you have a source to the old plastic infantry boxes,
>you might not want to get into the old edition. You'd
>need to buy a lot of the new boxes in order to field the
>proper detachments, which are of a fixed size.
Yep, and the vehicles come in packs of 4 while most detachments
are formed from groups of 3 or 5 units (you can't vary the number),
so you will end up with surpluse (wasted) units
>> Any other comments on the two systems would be apreciated but I understand
>> that you've probably already had this discussion (sp?) and don't wan't to
>> have repeat everything again.
>
> The basic rules of SM/TL were mucho simpler than
>the rules for E40k. However, many of the units in the
>older edition had their own set of special rules whereas
>in E40k all the units are fairly vanilla.
Just to throw in my $.02, I played SM/TL for about 3 years before
40k came out. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that e40k
is a better _game_. The rules are smoother and the whole system
is much more integrated, while SM/TL was a crazy patchwork of rules,
suppliments, errata, house rules, and general frustration ("okay,
I shot my shokk attakk gun at the phantom titan, now what the hell
do we do about the holofields?").
The flip side of that is that all the special rules and general
confusion also meant each army had a very individual feel, that
is lost to a degree in e40k. Only the orks had shokk attack guns
and dragsta fields, only the eldar had waveserpents. The inter-
action of these special units caused no end of rules questions
and debates (literally. They still continue). Despite Argo's
previous assertion, there is no way this game could ever have
possibly been flawless. It's like a house built on quicksand, you
can plaster over the walls and make it livable, but it is
fundamentally unsound and no superficial makeover will change
that. To get an idea of what I'm talking about, visit Allan
McCarley's home page and check out the errata for the old epic.
Keep in mind that this does not include 2 seperate official Q&As
that came out in WD 173 and 175.
In a way, SM/TL had a much more WH40k feel. Alot of the games
revolved around picking the right weapon to screw your opponent
(and winning initiative). It was basically "your hoeky
cheesy unit against my hoeky cheesy unit". It was balanced
because everybody had hoeky cheesy units, but it wasn't what
I called strategy, though it was still very fun (at least, I
liked it). If you like the special rules aspect of WH40k,
you'll prefer SM/TL.
For example, an eldar phantom titan can reduce a warlord titan to
a pile of slag with a single volley (2x pulsars, 2x laser wings),
while having these great holofields and high armor saves that will
turn aside almost any fire. Unfortunately, the holofields don't
work against barrage weapons, so when you fight eldar, always
bring your artillery. And so the game goes. The strategy revolves
more around having the right unit in the right situation.
Also, alot of the "variation" of units came down to picking
whether you want to fire 2 dice hitting on a 5+ at 50 cm, or one
die hitting on a 4+ at 75 cm. For example, I learned very
early with the orks that it makes no difference whether I put
gobsmashas, wartracks, bikes, shorchers, or bowelburnas in my
Kult of Speed. I had 5 vehicles that all did the same thing:
went fast and got shot (instead of the nobz :). Minor variations
in CAF and armor made absolutely no difference in the outcome of
the game. Whether or not I brought the Kult of speed made a
huge difference, but not the actual unit composition.
E40k is much more like a traditional napoleonics game. There is
less unit variation, but maneuver is much more important. Many
of the special rules were condensed into general unit types.
For example, Pulsa rokkits, wave serpents, and doomweavers are
all now lumped together as disrupt weapons, while before they were
each governed by a unique set of speical rules. However, if you
step back and ask "what is the net effect of using these weapons?"
then in truth, they performed very similar roles (except the wave
serpent was a transport): you fired them into massed troop
formations and troops in terrain to try to break them up and
hopefully kill some.
In my old group, we divided SM/TL games into three phases:
choosing your army, deploying your army, and everything
else. That is, selecting the army was more important
than what you actually did with on the board. But having the
right units was only usefull if you put it in the right spot,
because you can't afford to spend 1-2 turns of a 3 turn game
redeploying a unit. E40k is more slanted towards the table
top maneuver aspect. Choosing your army is still very important,
but not as critical.
They're both excellent games, but I would personally opt for e40k,
if for no other reason than because you will constantly be looking
for progressively scarcer support for SM/TL.
David
Received on Fri Jul 18 1997 - 17:03:13 UTC
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