A few UK tournament gamers mostly.

To be completely blunt, the "for UK Tournament players only" vibe that comes from some of the EpicUK crew seems more "clique" than anything here... but I *HIGHLY* doubt that is the intent!

We're all trying to keep the game we love alive gents (and ladies), so why fight amongst ourselves?

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Interesting point Frogbear. I don't know much about the bloodbowl development route.

I suppose it may be a bit late for a completely living rule book now in Epic. If the basis of Epic rules in each country are the original official core rules that is at least a level of similarity. Personally I think this is a good thing. As someone who does a lot of travelling and may emigrate in the future I'm at least hopeful that changes in rules systems would be manageable between countries and restricted to race specific rules. It also allows people like Rug to go to tounaments and the like in Belgium, with minimal fuss.

I didn't think there was a consensus on large changes being needed to the core rules? I know there is talk of possibly including the type 'Heavy Infantry', that is the biggest one I know of. I thought most other differences were in terms of unit costs in certain armies, and some characteristics/special rules?

Could you clarify the difference between the Epic system of army champions and the Bloodbowl rules committee system? Are their sufficient race-specific rules in Bloodbowl to warrant individual team champions/committees in the same way as army champs in Epic?

From what I can see in BB. Galak is the nealhunt of the epic world. He and his committee (no idea who they are) discuss and generate a change document. This is then tested in a play by email bb league. After a set period of time a changed LRB is put online for others to test with. Comments are taken, then the LRB is officially posted on the GW site.

The core of the BB rules haven't changed in donkeys years. What has changed massively is league play (no epic comparison), some skills (special rules) and team make-ups (army lists).

In BB all teams get access to all skills (not true for epic) so the BB development (other than league play) could be viewed as matching the development of army lists by epic players.

I also think that the continued active participation of Jervis in the background, and a truly massive audience for BB keep them moving forward. Epic really is a small system in terms of players when compared to BB.

BB's development style is impossible for epic to emulate, because BB has so few race specific rules that army champions aren't needed. They're more concerned with changing the core rules than the team lists, whereas Epic development has worked on the principle that the core rules are pretty much done, but the lists need work.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

still, better international (and inter group) cooperation would be a fine thing.

What communites of Epic Players are there out there?

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My shifting projects

Notable organised communities that make rules are:

- Tactical Command Community
- The French Community
- EpicUK Tournament Community


Those run roughly from largest to smallest.

Some members of the French & EpicUK groups also participate with the Tactical Command development projects.

- Tactical Command has a very 'opensource' / 'everyone can contribute' ethos, with 'Champions' appointed to organise each list.

- The French run their rules development along democratic lines, with open debates and regular scheduled votes by the community.

- EpicUK run their rules development privately.

I've heard whispers of other organised communities elsewhere in Europe, but no concrete proof of their existence.

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We must find these "organised communities" and exterminate. There is no religion but ours!  

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All of the above have their good points and the points that could be improved upon.

The BB community appears to have a blend of The French and UK elements.

I understand what people are saying in regards to the differences between the BB and Epic rules development. My querey would be - do the champions in Epic have the final say as to their list? If so, I think this is a flaw. In my view, all champions should be autonomous to the point where they present a finished product to a board of decision makers who make the final judgment. Whether this is for an official list or not, it takes the emotional aspect away from the judgment of the rules.

I have to go shopping now, so if people are interested, I will continue the discussion when I come back....

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Taccoms list development absolutely depends on the army champion whose abilities vary greatly - the most successfully developed/amended lists all have strong+experienced ACs who can use their own experiences to cut through the shouting/debate/theoryhammer/playtesting.

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NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
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AFAIK the ACs present their recommendations to the NetERC -(Neal, Chroma, CS and Hena IIRC) who assess their ideas and yes/no to them or edit them.
Having said that a determined AC seems to be willing to force his recommendations through - like the Siege changes which are untested and do nothing to stop the popcorn problems with Siegemasters, from what Chroma has said the NetERC thought this too but TRC pushed them through.

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NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
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Not exclusively - a variety of people who have got fed up of the shouting that drowns out their views for so long that the shouting/hyperbole becomes fact. Check out a few of the list development forums if you want to see examples

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www.epic-uk.co.uk
NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

I do not know the people or history to these things so I will not comment on specifics.

What I was saying before however, final decisions need to be made at 'arms length'. Those that develop the list and get it to a finished stage with the history of the development shown, should not be in the final decision. They are too close to the work at hand and are biased.

The NetERC should vote as a group with majority voting for any lists presented to them and they themselves should not be part of any of the developments apart from the playtesting. That would be my view on where EPIC needs to go if it grows.

As it stands, new players are confused, and it would appear that each gaming group needs it's own engaging 'leader'/s to get people playing. Too much ground work needs to be done to get people to play the game from the start when the game could in fact sell itself if it was easy to find on these lists, and the rules (both official and 2008 handbook) were displayed on an easy to navigate webpage. As it stands, the 2008 handbook - even though not official - is hard to find. It is not like it is a group product, it is used worldwide.

I am going to do this for my group, but I should not have to.

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