Hey Guys,

I don't have time to play much epic or paint. I play mostly Space Hulk  with my buddies (it's being re-released this Christmas 2009, hurray!). Every now and then I convince them to have a game of Epic Armageddon with our old dusty figures and titans, or a game of Adeptus Titanicus.

I've been wanting to paint up a newer army on newer bases but business and life have been getting in the way. For shame i know!

Still, I really, really love the rules and the way the game plays. Even as a "fringe" player I can see the beauty of these rules compared to other GW systems.

A common knock on GW is that they are an old, out of touch company. That they make GREAT minis but HORRIBLE rules. That they are running rules which are stuck in the 80's and early 90's and refuse to evlove - that they suck at games developement.

I've read the Starship Troopers rule book by Andy Chambers and cried. He was trying to make those rules into a better 40k. When his ideas weren't accepted he got fed up and left the company. He published those rules for Mongoose's Starship Troopers and won many awards for "best new system." Now he's doing great at Blizzard. Evidently Andy Chambers is very talented and felt too constrained at GW.

It is obvious to anyone reading the Starship Troopers rules that they are FAR superior and more modern next to the current 40k system. Oh, how amazing 40k could have been! (clenching fists and shaking them at sky) Seeing Any Chambers success away from Games Workshop shows that they, like any big corporation, are hard pressed to see talent and less able to be dynamic in the marketplace.

Which finally brings me to EPIC. These rules are simply great, they are modern, they play fast and yet... GW doesn't seem to see this and stifles a good thing in its company.

Still, lets ask ourselves, why is Epic in so much trouble if the rules (and I know you;ll agree with me) are so good? Shouldn't the game sell itself? Well yes it should, logically. Then what is lacking? Is lack of GW support the only thing to blame?

Flames of War is a very popular company level game in my city. It is in  every hobby shop and I think Epic plays much better as a rules system. What is the difference between Flames of War and Epic?

IT'S THE MINIATURES!

I think that 6mm is too small to HOOK people. Most of the range is way out of date (molds of space marines and eldar 20 years old!) and next to Flames of War, objectively, Epic doesn't hold it's own.

40K and Warhammer are pushed hard, yes, but their rules system suck. Yet the miniatures are some of the best out there.

Epic has great rules but compared to other games, the miniatures aren't very good.

Maybe Epic should be re-done as a 15mm game? You could get good detail on 15mm models and a battle line would look impressive. The Tanks would be more detailed and bigger! And if they could make a warhammer Giant, then they can make titans....

I was thinking on this when I read the Forge World post.

Maybe it's time we look at this thing objectively. Something is broken. Some part of this model doesn't work. Why throw good money after bad?

I say scrap the whole thing and do it over, taking the best elements of modern contemporary games. Make this baby 15mm, with beautiful miniatures and keep the rules the way they are.

Thoughts?

Epic isn't successful due to lack of advertising, lack of availability in stores and generally recieving no support from GW - not due to model scale.

IMO a lot of the Epic models are far superior to FOW models - especially the FOW infantry which seem too big for the vehicles. This argument 40k players have that you can't paint/convert/make an army look incredible at epic scale is just completely wrong - and is down to the fact that they are never exposed to Epic armies.

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Burn the Heretic! 15mm!... No more 6mm?!?

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Tom Webb
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Epic isn't successful due to lack of advertising, lack of availability in stores and generally recieving no support from GW - not due to model scale.

IMO a lot of the Epic models are far superior to FOW models - especially the FOW infantry which seem too big for the vehicles.

Andy Chambers I beleive has an American wife and Blizzard (who apparently have the software to print money) offered him a salary which used a number rarely seen outside of banking to multiply his GW one.

I think that 6mm is too small to HOOK people. Most of the range is way out of date (molds of space marines and eldar 20 years old!) and next to Flames of War, objectively, Epic doesn't hold it's own.

Maybe Epic should be re-done as a 15mm game? You could get good detail on 15mm models and a battle line would look impressive. The Tanks would be more detailed and bigger! And if they could make a warhammer Giant, then they can make titans....

I was thinking on this when I read the Forge World post.

Maybe it's time we look at this thing objectively. Something is broken. Some part of this model doesn't work. Why throw good money after bad?

I say scrap the whole thing and do it over, taking the best elements of modern contemporary games. Make this baby 15mm, with beautiful miniatures and keep the rules the way they are.

Thoughts?

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The thing with epics is that G/W make no money from it lets facts.

They make money from WH40K and WHFB because they change the rules about 18months and make new minis with different stats.

what, and throw my hard earned collection away because someone wants to play at 15mm? Not going to happen.

You have decided to post this to a board where the majority (I would think) have long established armies and the thought of having to replace them is just out of the question.

I know that if our newly established group had to do that, Epic would be a dead game to us from that point on.

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Anyone know what scale FW 1:5 of its GW models is? Somewhere between 1:380 and 1:240?

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

It'll never happen anyway, but I wouldn't want it to! I'd love great new models, but at 6mm scale - look at the epic Grey Knights and the Tau range, you most definitely can do beautifully detailed at 6mm.

If it wasn't for the tragic moulding accident that wiped out FWs epic tyranid sculpts they'd have been released and included in IA4, likely the epic marines too (GW's most popular army and without the fragile force halberds they'd have been not so likely to break). If they'd both come out there'd have been two ranges of fabulous epic models and I bet Epic would be a hell of a lot more popular and played today. Sad how things turn out

Your comments about Andy Chambers remind me of my friend's laments about the loss of Tuomus Pirienen (sp) who did great things with Mordheim and Warhammer too, but then left for I believe a much better paying company.

It's the fact that Epic is a Specialist Game that kills it - that the models are on show or purchasable at GWs and that Independants cannot stock them. Best option we have is word of mouth, converting local players and posting cool epic model and army photos, battle reports and articles about the web.

I think that you do have a point. The fact is that, while we all love 6mm, the majority of wargamers simply dont want to play 6mm. This is why Flames of War is more popular than Micro Armour, 40K is more popular than Epic, and Warhammer Fantasy is more popular than...... exactly! No big 6mm Fantasy game exists.

But, Epic at any other scale is just not Epic, and if we increase Epic to 10mm or 15mm then we are competing with Dirtside II and so on.

Personally, I would not want to change the scale, and I doubt that anyone else here would either, but that doesnt mean that it is a bad company decision.

As to Starship Troopers, I agree that it was very different from 40K, but I dont agree that it was a better game system (IMO). The firing procedure is too restrictive for me and the system just doesnt hit my personal targets.... Of course, I dont much like 40K either but in this case I think that 40K is a more solid core rules set with extra rules that I dont agree with (grenades, etc).

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It's 1:342, that is according to my calculation of measuring the epic scale model length of an eldar Vampire bomber versus its real world length description in Aeronautica Imperialis. That would make the new 40K scale Reaver 65mm tall in forgeworld epic scale for those playing at home

If I could be bothered I'd measure some other models versus the imperial armour descriptions the average the results...  but i can't.

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Hmm, thats means from the all knowing wikipedia
1:350 0.871 mm A Japanese size for ship models. These are typically full-hull models that are substantially more detailed than 1:700 waterline models.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Maybe Epic should be re-done as a 15mm game?

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It does have to be said that that much of the sg epic range is pretty poor old stuff. On the other hand, a huge amount of it is new and really good IMHO. Especially the Eldar range and Space Marine tanks.

Infantry is the weakest link. This is probably true in any 6mm game compared to larger scales. Some of the new SG metals are much better than the old plastics. Forgeworld have done even better.

Sounds to me you're focussing on a game with really great infantry figures. Tanks are fine but without amazing infantry it's a problem for you.

40K figs ARE amazing. I think you want to play that, but with epic rules. It wouldn't be the first time folk have stated they would like this.

The problem though is one of scale and table sizes.

On a 6'x4' table WWII/sci fi wargaming at 28mm just doesn't work well. (Skirmish games - without weapons range restrictions, on tables covered in terrain is fine.)

Even at 6mm it doesn't work well if you have a linear range scale.  For this reason Epic's scale is non linear. 15cm (bolter range) is a few hundred yards . 90 cm is several miles. At 6mm this just about works. Try doing it 28mm it just looks daft.

Citadel miniature's core skill has always been 28mm figs, not 6mm. Their business model involves selling huge numbers of these, and this requires massed combat games to do it. But this just doesn't gel well with sci-fi in terms of making satisfactory rule sets.

Sorry, 6mm is the best scale for sci-fi/WWII non skirmish games. There are plenty of choices out there, Epic being one of them.

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