Hello everybody,

I was interested to see what 'house rules' people used - especially for edition 2 epic.
I always felt the edition 2 rules were flawed for the following reasons; whoever won the initiatve had too great an advantage, some command units were too good, vehicles got blown up too easliy and certain units/figures were - as my brother puts it, "cheating".
Having played EA a bit, which I felt played really well, but lacked some of the 'cool' stuff from edition 2 I came up with a few of my own house rules for edition 2 to make it play better.

1. The original rules state - whoever wins the initiative chooses who will move first. That player then moves his entire army. This normally lead to a massive advantage for whoever won. It was too much fate decided on one dice roll!
So to make the initiative more fair I adopted the EA rule, which makes far more sense, so that now players take turns in moving one unit at a time, and the guy who won the initiative gets to choose who goes first.

2. Having played against the Orks a great deal I was forever frustrated by the enormous amount of Nobz, who pack s***loads of firepower, always being on charge and first fire orders. And likewise my brother hated the Eldar Exarchs to the very core because they were too good as command units. So a simple decision was made to give all command units orders, just like every other unit. They are no longer automatically on charge and first fire. We find it works very well.

3. Another frustration of the original edition 2 rules was when you chose something like a super heavy tank or the Deamon Engines of Khorne, they invariably got blown up before they did anything useful. And they normally guzzle lots of points when choosing your army - but you had to take them because they look cool and you spent hours lovingly painting them! In EA tanks have 2 saving throws, which is great becuse they actually last. So in trying to improve their longevity I gave all tanks and vehicles 1+ on saving throws. This means that stuff like super heavy tanks, which normally have a saving throw of 1+ now have a saving throw of 0 on a D6!! So in fact you have to have something with a saving throw modifier of at least -2 to even have a chance of destroying it.

4. Cheating units. Magnus the Red was hated by my brother probably more than the Exarchs. He would pop off a super heavy tank every turn with his 100cm range, -6 save modifier, to hit roll of 2+ and being a command unit. So with Magnus we 'toned him down' a little. Not only is he no longer a command unit but his range is reduced to 75cm, his modifier down to -4 and his to hit roll up to 3+. This still makes him pretty darn good, but at least if he hits a super heavy tank it now has a 50/50 chance of survival (taking into account the above rule) whereas before it was dead on a single roll of 2+. Brother happy. We also decide to cap all saving throw modifiers to -4 maximum which is plenty good enough. Other units like Deathstrike Missiles, Wierdboy Battle Towers, Eldar Wave Serpents (which could grind an entire Gargant Big Mob to a halt every turn) we dealt with/will deal with in a similar fashion.

There was also certain units with special abilities that made their attack in the end phase or order phase or something - we did away with all of these too (as far as possible) so that now everything attacks in either the first fire or advance fire segment - more simple.
We find the game plays better now - a bit more emphasis on tactics and less on luck!

Well, that's enough from me. I would be very intersted to hear opinions on those rules and also if any one has their own 'house rules' that they would care to divulge!

Cheers!

Take a look at NetEpic. One of the big changes made is to alternate activating units, just like in E:A. Also, super heavies are harder to kill.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

You are not the only one to want to keep playing a game based on 2nd ed, despite the emergence of E:A.
The short answer is NetEpic- driven by fans, for fans and still largely based on the much loved 2nd edition. You don't have to agree to every adjustment, but the new system is basically moving forward just as you and most other players do- by a process of thinking the system through and making sensible adjustments.  
Keep the faith!

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Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Hi leg2562 and welcome to TacComm. Always good to hear from a fellow Epic fan. Sorry for the belated reply but it's a busy time of year and somehow this thread slipped me by.

Most of the issues you have outlined above have been tackled in a not dissimilar manner as you have.

The movement is now turn based and I think just about everyone would agree it has been a vast improvement.

The Command units orders has been toned down a bit, maybe not as much as common orders as troop stands but certainly better while keeping the HQ's better than troopers.

Most Superheavy Tanks now have a Damage table that gives them a 50/50 chance of surviving a direct hit when they fail their armour save.
Do you know there is a new size class in NetEpic? Praetorians, bigger than a Superheavy but smaller than a Titan. Leviathans, Ordinatus, Capitol Imperialis, Hellbores, Squat Colossus, Cyclops to name a few now fall into this category. They are hard as nails and actually worth taking unlike before IMO. The Daemon Engines didn't get anything much if any changes(IIRC). Simply DWWFY (Do What Works For You) as you will sometimes hear on these threads. I too had been modifying the stats to the way our group thought they should be. So long as you all feel it works where's the harm.

I would rather give Magnus a 1+ to hit along with a 1+ save against everything for the Avatar. The amount of times I have had Magnus miss every turn in a game has only been outstripped by how many Avatars I have had killed on the first shot.

Other units like Deathstrike Missiles, Wierdboy Battle Towers, Eldar Wave Serpents (which could grind an entire Gargant Big Mob to a halt every turn) we dealt with/will deal with in a similar fashion.

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My head is full of War...

[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]

Hi there. Can't believe I've only just come across this website...

A friend and I too continued playing the old Epic Space Marine rules, tweaking them where we could. But there were so many problems at the core of that rule set that I eventually decided to try something else. Didn't really wanna play Epic 40K as we had too many models we could no longer use. Had a look at NetEpic, and while there are many good ideas in it and it cleaned up a lot of errors I found that it added even more rules than before and fried my brain a bit. I wanted something fast, easy and punchy that could be played fast like Epic 40K but still retain the feel of the old Epic Space Marine. So a couple of years ago I bit the bullet and decided to try and write my own rules. I've been influenced (ie stolen bits he he) by NetEpic and Epic40K, but here are some of the other things I'm trying:

The main changes I've made are to the shooting rules. I never understood why some weapons of the same kind would have different ranges or modifiers depending on which models they were mounted on. And I never really liked how the shooting stats of pretty much all the basic foot troops was exactly the same (hitting on 5+ with no modifier).
So what I've done is standardize all weapons so they always have the same stats, and the troops shooting them all have different to hit rolls which have in general been copied from 40k. eg Marines hit on 3s and Orks hit on 5s.
I've also removed the saving throw and saving throw modifier system and replaced it with an armour versus armour penetration system.
The armour ratings are these:
1 : Light infantry
2 : Heavy infantry
3 : Special command units, cavalry and light vehicles
4 : Normal vehicles
5 : Heavy vehicles (eg Land Raiders and Daemon Engines)
6 : Super Heavy (including Titans)
Then each weapon has an armour penetration rating of 1-8 depending on how powerful it is. The saving throw is then worked out by cross referencing these two statistics, and will always be 4+ if the AP is the same as the armour, and it goes up or down if the penetration of the weapon is stronger or weaker than the armour. I like this as it means a lot of weak weapons like lasguns have no chance of damaging things like Titans, which I really hated in the old rules. And basic foot troops would now be much more varied.

To make the game much faster I've also really simplified Titans, getting rid of all their hit location templates and giving them a damage capacity, like Epic 40K.

Like someone mentioned above I've changed psychic and special attacks so they are used at the same time as the model fires. That whole psychic phase was a load of pants lol.

I've stripped out a lot of fluff like a lot of special rules to make it go faster, but some cool things have been added to make the game a little more similar to 40K. These include move-or-fire heavy weapons for infantry, rapid-firing weapons (if the unit is on first fire), deep strikes and Daemon summoning (essentially deep strikes but need to be near a Champion or Greater Daemon), and the option to field Space Marine units without their transports, so you can use them for deep strikes or rapid deployment in thunderhawks or whatever. I like taking a devastator company without rhinos and sending them into battle in a land raider company. Eat it alien scum!

Reading above what someone said about initiative, I realise now I've never really thought about it, and it does seem like a huge advantage. I like the idea of alternating moving units, but haven't used it yet because if the player with the initiative has less units then the other player is always gonna have the later moves anyway and still possibly get an advantage I guess. I suppose there is always rolling for initiative on the first turn and then automatically alternating each turn to make it fair. It's something I'll have to lose more grey cells thinking over...

Anyway our rules wouldnt be for everybody, as a lot of detail has been stripped out, especially Titans (eg no boarding actions any more on the Imperator and Mega Gargants: you fight them in combat like all other Titans - if you're a raving nutter and wanna see all your troops die that is) but I'm really liking the feel of them so far. The main problem is working out points values for all the units, and I have a scary looking spreadsheet with crazy formulas that does that at the moment. It all seems to work a lot better than it probably should. The main problem is balancing Tyranids with their strange way of collecting victory points, but we're getting there.

At the moment I've only worked out rules for models and units me and my friend have, but I'm hoping to add all models eventually, old and new, as well as from other 6mm games. I'm currently eyeing up the Andrayada from DRM as a possible new force.

I've only pulled my finger out and done a report once and it can be read here, and the rules have come on a bit since then...

Welcome to TacComm stebloke,

It will be interesting to see how you have developed the game. I'm always on the lookout for new ideas. I liked the Battle Report, especially the map. I never realised I had missed those old Unit Icons so much.  

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My head is full of War...

[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]