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Hi guys I'm new around here. Haven't played Epic in 18 years, but I've found myself keen to get involved. As a new recruit, I figure I might indicate what has attracted me to this game with hope that it helps you form some opinion around effective assets to attract and maintain new players.
The sequence of events that got me motivated went something like this:
i) Local event. I noticed Epic listed as one of the 2015 Cancon events (I'm Australian- Cancon is an annual gaming event down here). Fond memories of the game but had no idea Epic was still going, and was thrilled to learn that a community had sprung up to maintain the game. Write-up at the event level was enticing and I wanted more info.
ii) Strong forum. Went looking for information, had a look around ebay, ended up here. Forums seemed active, people seemed articulate and polite, players seemed to be passionate and contributing resources.
iii) Great introductory articles and picture heavy battle-reps. Can't say how many times I've read Scutarii's introductory post, and I've used all of the info in that post to track down most everything I need. Can't rave enough about that kind of information for new players, particularly when it's friendly and well written- it really, really helps. Similar story with the battle reps you offer up around here. I've read through Xenocidal's (for example) well constructed Necron v Chaos rep many, many times, if only for confirmation that this game can look great and confers enough strategic depth to tickle the brain, so to speak.
iv) Well structured, easily accessible, up-to-date rule-set, all required assets available from a central site. Accessed with thanks to tips on this forum.
So that's it... pretty simple but, combined with fond memories of the game, enough to get me motivated to join in.
Things that I'm hoping to track down as I delve deeper into the game might include:
i) Strategy articles and army breakdowns. These usually pop up on select blogs after a good bit of looking around.
ii) An online client- Vassal or similar. It usually takes one 'champion' to maintain a Vassal online client for a game, but this is usually enough to build a solid community of online players. Where communities are small, players are older/ time-poor and games are hard to come by, increasingly online clients and/or play-by-mail is becoming a sad necessity.
iii) A podcast or dedicated youtube channel. If there is nothing going at the moment, would it be possible to approach Beasts of War, Miniwargaming or a similar well-known game-centric channel and ask them to cover the game? The exposure would be great and would certainly draw people once they worked out the creative freedoms currently involved under Epic...
Which brings me to a bit of flag waving...
I'm chuffed to have found this game. I feel like I've been looking for it for a long time. Guys you're sitting on a fantastic tool-set and I think most board-gamers would flip if they worked out the potential here- 6mm scale, proxies accepted, rules community maintained, new development welcomed. What this spells out to me is... i) 3d printing (or traditional sculpting) is welcomed and it'll be relatively cheap owing to scale, ii) Rules will be fast to update as required and never stagnate and iii) People with an interest in developing new lists can add to the game experience for everyone. It's really cool to my mind- a rare example of an empowered, creative community that can take the game where they want to.
Looking forward to getting involved, guys- I'm keen to launch into 3d printing / scratch-building a Necron army and look forward to posting updates here. Thanks for your work to bring the game to this point & power to you- your game and your community deserve a lot of interest!
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after your 18 year hiatus)!