Why can't people play with the toys they have?

The playing of such extreme armies is inherently self-limiting as they are *far* less effective than any combined arms forces they may face.  Why write that in "stone" when experience will write it anyway?

The Imperial Guard has Super-Heavy Tank *REGIMENTS*, so why is that many Baneblades on the field at once a bad thing?  I certainly wouldn't field such an army, but it's certainly a possibility in the flavour text.

Land Raiders used to be a Marine MBT, so they could be fielded en masse, it's just that most current Chapters don't have the number to do that and tend to use them as support tanks.  

I know you were just listing those as examples, but they're both plausible in the scope of the 40k Universe.  Technically, it's not "kosher" to see that many Marines out fighting all the time either, but people *want* to field Marine armies.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Yeah, I know.

I think the main benefit of this thread is this quote:Quick notes on the design philosophy.  Back in the early days, JJ's intent was to have tons of army lists in the manner of DBA and such.

Each faction or race would have a "core" list that was relatively flexible as its first release.  The "core" has a minor focus/flavor based on its background but would also be flexible enough to allow alternate force orgs and accommodate a variety of strategies.

So-called "variant" lists would build from that relatively balanced core.  They could be more focused and flavorful, adding new units and formations as well as accompanying restrictions, with the goal of achieving a defined feel.

We've largely stuck with this not because "back in the dark ages Jervis said... and ever shall it remain so"  but because it's worked very well as a design concept.  Even though we don't have a hundred workable lists, there are several very successful variant lists that have built off the more flexible core lists.  Organizing a fan group is about like herding cats and I think that those achievements are notable in such an environment.

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It would be nice to get lightspeed,
so far we can only reach slight speed.- Erik M
092b85658e746a91d343e53509d357744e56f641

Shouldn't that be the purview of the game system itself to discourage?

In 40k the only thing that matters 97% of the time is unit's killiness (measured largely in a linear fashion) divided by it's killability (likewise). If you have one "good" unit you generally want to have five and if you have five you'd rather not take anything else at all but that thing. Optimal army builds would thus consist of spamming those optimal units till you're blue in the face or (more likely) hit the FOC limits and must grudgingly take something else too. All Tyranid players I know would pee themselves in happiness if they could take winged Hive Tyrants to the points limit and nothing else.

From what I understand of Epic combined arms are much more (or at all, depending how cynical you are) important here. Only Warhounds, Ferals and aircraft, if even those, and perhaps one or two other units, could hope to make an army all by themselves. That's why we have 1/3 point limits after all.

Correct me please but I don't think I've seen a tourney list with 40 Whirlwinds or indeed 40 of anything. Closest thing is probably an all-Terminator list which is as far as I heard still not that hot, and borderline imaginable in-setting. Borderline.

Thus if it is advantageous (or even not heavily disadvantageous) to have a homogenous army then it's a bad thing that must be corrected post haste, and if it is not, the problem doesn't exist. The only times you see 40 whirlwinds (or land raiders, or a 100 land speeders or whatever) on the table is if some 20-years-in-the-hobby grognard finally went off the deep end, or perhaps was still drunk after winning "who has most Epic scale whirlwinds" contest the night before. For new players especially it is a non-issue. A good how-to-build-an-Epic-army article - which we have, an awesome one at that! - is 10 times as useful than a built in safeguard against buying 20 blisters of the first item in webstore and hoping to make a viable army out of them (hey, weirder things have happened - I've seen a lot of 50 shoebox thunderhawks for sale on ebay, I can't even begin to imagine...).

By all means carry on. But this looks like a solution in search of a problem to me.

edit: most of this put much better by Chroma while I was typing. Curses!

From the Eldar thread, but relevant here.

Ok, here's the deal.
How do you get perceived stability when the owner is not at the rudder?

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Neal

I would feel more comfortable if I saw more SM Tactical detachments in SM Tournament lists. I am torn on this.

On the one hand I would like to see tournament armies that vageuly correspond to the background. I am not sure that current lists do this.

On the other hand I dont want to see too presciptive army lits- if we all fielded identical SM armies then game would be dull, Variety is good,

So I think the solution is the current stucture wth initial "core" lists followed by subsequent "variant" lists emphasizing the specific character/background, by the choices taken away as much as the choices added.

As a seprate note I wonder whether the SM Tactical Company needs to be tweaked downwards in ponts cost to make them a viable alternative to the air=dropped Assault + Devastator army.

Cheers

James

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My TOEG- Blood Angels and Deathbolts
My Painting Blog- Evil Sunz, Goffs
My Epic trades list

I agree

I had opponent who thought, like I do that Leman Russ tanks are great. However he made the mistake in thinking that if 10 Leman Russ tanks were awesome, would nt it be even better to take 3 companies and thus field 30!!

Together with a Basilisk company he was lacking in variety and totalling out-activated. I was able to use the SM manuevrability to pick and choose the fights and gang up on his Leman Russ companies one by one.

Hopefully a balanced army should beat a one-trick pony army most of the time.

Cheers

James

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My TOEG- Blood Angels and Deathbolts
My Painting Blog- Evil Sunz, Goffs
My Epic trades list

I've done a quick check on the lists from players at this years tournaments that I have and 90% of the marine lists used have one or more tactical formations.

They have both been used as supreme commander holders that defend blitz's and assault formations dropping from spaceships.

You should try 40k then

Compared with what gets fielded there, E:A lists are the pinnacle of fluffiness.


(Can fluffiness have a pinnacle? That would seem to require to be at least a bit pointy in places...)

If I can add my two cents here, I don't like the idea of hard caps in the list nor do I really see this as necessary to balance the game because you are still dealing with the individual units, just in predetermined groups so the game balance will still be decided as it is now and the only gain is creating simpler list construction by forcing semi cookie cutter lists. Unless you are proposing that these groups have all new stats to simplify the number of items to balance I don't see this as effective.

Second, unit caps are not equal to stability. It just doesn't follow. Stability is a list that is adequately balanced and for the most part doesn't remove or add units relying mainly on small stat tweaks as necessary. This is something I see epic as already having as compared to 40k. What you are asking won't generate stability or draw in new players. It will just upset old players and confuse everyone.

Perhaps  if you want to help draw in new players, a set of starter lists could be constructed instead showing the approximate cost of the army and providing a good core for later expansion into the bigger toys.

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-Vaaish

Regarding generic list's and them giving credibility to EpicA.
Over the last 4 to 6 years whether we've ran intro games at the old Sheffield wargaming center,GW's shop's on the Moor and Meadowhall in Sheffield or At Warhammer world or just having 40K players come over asking to join in with games or to be shown the ropes.
One of the first question asked by almost all is "is there a Blood Angels/Ulthwe/Catachan/Iron Warriors/* list so I can do an army to match my 40K one".
I've never met any player new or old ask for a generic list for any race in fact most have been quite disappointed to find out there favourite 40K list is not official in Epic A.The list's now being looked into as being generic could easily be introduced/produced as variant list's.The Eldar one could be given a name of a lesser known world,so could the I.G. one.
* insert any of the 40K available list here

So in summary, the original lists (Orks, IG, Marines) are just about as generic as they come, while the Swordwind and later "official" ones (Siegemasters, Feral Orks, Biel Tan Eldar, Speed Freaks, and Chaos lists) are all really variants. These lists have largely been developed against a tournament background for armies between 3000 - 5000 points to give a reasonably balanced battle: the argument being that if they are balanced in the tournament scenario, then the forces should work elsewhere.

Ok so I would be the first to suggest that tournament lists are never likely to be totally fluffy for the simple reason that competititve players tend to want to get the best troops for the battle. Indeed it is a tribute to the list designers that there are so many variations in tournament games.

However, I guess this does not really answer what Eric wants, which could possibly be like some other wargame lists:-
Eg Black templars
0-1 Whirlwind(4)
2-x Tacticals(7) with Rhinos
etc
giving a number of formations their compositions and strengths relevant to the particular variant in a much more prescriptive manner.

What I think people have been saying is that this is all very well, but needs to be done in some context. What might be of interest to Eric M would be to publish the theoretical OrBats of the various organisations from which a person could then choose to play some part. But even doing this is likely to be "unbalanced" in most circumstances - so I guess the question is really :-

 "What are the criteria for creating an army list, and how far must 'fluffiness' be compromised for balance and playability?"

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

To some, like myself, background/fluff is very important. It's the reason I don't sod off and play Exodus Wars or something similar.

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-Malakai

"You'll never understand how much watching other people's pain gets me off, hearing their screams and knowing that I have the power of a god." -Velvet Acid Christ

Thanks vytzka,I needed that one!  

Neal, I'm not actually advocating more restricted lists. I am advocating TO&E's that's more reasonable.

And how I mean that can be done is to have the foundation formations being fewer and more grunts inclined.

For SM, only Assault, Devestator and Tactical detachments. The rest is support detachments.
Somehow the same for IG. Probably ... not sure really, but lots of grunts! Lots!
Eldar is easy. Guardian... Doh! We've been over this already.

The problem is that everyone now is free to make his own list, and there's no real and actual telling that a list isn't allowed. We are TOLD to make our own lists for crizzies sake. And HAVE to make our own lists too! (Or did the Tyranids get eaten by Tau, that not really exist at all?)

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It would be nice to get lightspeed,
so far we can only reach slight speed.- Erik M
092b85658e746a91d343e53509d357744e56f641

Thank you Ginger, that was definitely part of my thinking. (All you said above.)

For tournament use we need simple lists and hard eye towards balance.
Other lists are basically moot, for the larger community.
For explicit home use, home grown is fine. You know what you're against and your opponent too.

For tournaments (friendly meeting engagements also) we need basic list with core, support and upgrades. And FEW core.

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It would be nice to get lightspeed,
so far we can only reach slight speed.- Erik M
092b85658e746a91d343e53509d357744e56f641

Jeez, someone call the UN!

A few things really stand out for me here:

Firstly, this is the trouble of GW dropping the ball with epic. We now have the internet and this huge mess of official, unofficial, through to borderline unreal! What would a beginner think reading through some of these sites?!!

At least when there was one set of official rules and supplements then like it or lump it, we all knew where we were.

On the current debate though, I like the idea of having core, mandatory units for each army. You always want some basic troops- otherwise you risk getting a whole army of "novelty" troops, in other words forces that are all icing and no cake! Some players will always push things too far, whereas I think most of us like a balanced, fair game.

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Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.