Hello all,

I have recently introduced Epic to my game club.   I'm having a good deal of fun, because I think the EA rules makes for some great games. Being the most heavily involved "Sci-fi" guy at the club, also because I'm a gamer, I am free to tweak to rules to my own desires. No one at the club will mind...I hope

Besides changing some stats because it gave me inner peace I was contemplating a major stats tweak to the rules.  The idea came to me when I realized that in during an Epic Encage action certain units are universally good against all units.

For example Eldar Scorpions kick in close combat regardless if they are facing Ork infantry or IG Leman Russ Tanks. That didn't seem right to me.  Equipped with Chainswords, pistols, and perhaps a few grenades (I'm not familiar with Scorpion's equipment) they should struggle to damage the tanks. The same can be said of certain Firefight values.

My idea was to divide both the Fire Fight and Close Combat values into a a AP and AT rating.  Certain units like Fire Dragons would be good at killing both with their fusion guns.  Some units, such as Rough Riders, may be good against infantry but weak against armor.

Any comments on this idea?

Thanks

If you do this you have to recalculate the points cost of ALL formations.

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For the sake of speed, the E:A rules have been made deliberately more abstract than what you're considering.

While I understand your reasoning, I think it would take a decent amount of work and a LOT of playtesting for little benefit, and ultimately it would not improve the game.

Sorry. Just my 2 cents.

Only if I cared about points values.  Most games we host are scenario driven as opposed to the standard you bring 2500 point game.  

Considering there are only three armies in the local area and that I consider this kind of work fun.  It doesn't bother me to play with stats.

I appreciate the thoughts.

Bear in mind too that CC and FF values take into account the possibility of the prescence of special weapons like meltaguns or grenade launchers, grenades themselves, and improvised attacks like rifles through hatches etc...
For marines, guard, orks, i'd say that the sheer range of possibilities (armanents) is covered very well by the FF and CC values, perhaps yr example of eldar  is the only one i can think of where troops may specialise to such a degree.
also bear in mind that vehicles DO (real life tm; think wwii) have a rather hard time against infantry in close quarters; there's more of them, they can take advantage of terrain, lay ambushes etc.
Let us know how it goes :-)

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Besides, Scorpions are just as good at hitting everything, but Leeman Russes have much better saves than Ork infantry. Scorpions shine against the latter, but 8 Scorpions would only destroy two Russes in base-to-base contact.

There is also the risk that different values would clutter the hit allocation phase, which might slow down assaults a bit.

However, if you manage to implement it, and you think it is more appropriate, just do it.

/Fredmans

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An intruiging idea that on the face of it seems to have merit. One might expect formations to use different tactics depending upon the enemy and the local circumstances. Your initial comments and subsequent replies lead me to suspect that you are looking at the game more from a small action and tactical perspective.

As others have suggested, "Epic" in all its forms was intended as a grand scale game that abstracted a lot of this kind of detail into the game mechanics to leave the players free to act like generals. Indeed, the game tends to come alive more when you play 'larger' battles and are forced to think in more strategic terms:- where to place formations to create a breakthrough; what to keep in reserve; the best use of combined arms; how to support a major thrust etc.

What you seem to be proposing is adding more detail to individual 'actions' between formations of troops, so aimed more at the tactial level. Like the others I feel this would involve a lot of work to create a new perspective on the game as a whole, that is unlikely to have a big impact on the overall results. A lot of work for very little return.

However, if you still feel the need to pursue this, for simplicity I would suggest trying to create some form of table to include combat modifiers for particular situations that all units can use rather than attempting to provide individual stats for each unit. I would also suggest looking at the armour saves rather than the CC and FF assault factors. So in your  example you might be trying to obtain the following perspective; the Scorpions in FF against tanks are both less likely to score a hit which is also more likely to save; while if the Scorpions close to CC they are more likely to score a hit which the tank is less likely to save.

So you might apply
a -1 modifier to all armour saves against CC hits,
a -1 to hit modifier for 'mounted' units vs armour
etc

As Legion4 is fond of saying "Do What Works For You"

Good Luck And Have Fun (GLAHF)

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If you like the idea, go for it.  

As far as the "fluff" justification, the point MoK made about special weapons being abstracted into the unit stats is a good one.  While some units, like the Striking Scorpion example, would be pretty specialized most would have a few bits of specialty gear scattered around that would justify their values against all kinds of targets.

From a practical perspective, I think the allocation will end up being pretty complex.  You'll have to determine which attacks each unit can take, track the kinds of hits and allocate them.  Sure, you do that in ranged fire, but you generally have fewer shots and the shots don't change depending on the relationship between the firing unit and the target like CC/FF does.  It would be too fiddly for my tastes...

but it's not my game.

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Neal

It'd make assaults far more complicated, without really adding any new depth. I don't see the point really. It'll be slower, but not better.

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It would add more detail ... but would make turns longer ... As always ... DWWFY !  

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Hello all,

I appreacite the answers and it gives me sometihgn to think about.  I do believe in do what works for you.  

I am aware that close combat and firefight values take into account various unseen special weapons, skills, demo charges, plasma guns, melta guns, grenades, or just ripping doors of hinges that may come into play.

And is very likely that I looked at a very specialized army such as the the Eldar and felt the quirk was wide spread.  

I will see what I do.

Ginger,

You're right that I hope to play epic at a "lower" level where formations represent Platoons as oppsed to company size formartions.  Mostly this is to play epic while oour forces get painted.  But I'm also intreted in IF the game can be played at that level at all.

Thanks again  

Thanks again