I played Epic 40,000!

Today I decided to give a couple friends a demo of Epic 40,000. One guy showed up with his Tyranids and we built him a list. I originally wanted to do a small game to keep things moving, but we got carried away and we went up to 2500pts.

The other guy showed up just to watch, so I built a 2500pt Dark Angels army (complete with Imperator Titan, 'cause why not?), and we dove right in. We only got to play two turns before the Tyranid player had to leave, but it was still fun to give this game another go. I hadn't played Epic 40,000 since the late-90s/early-00s.

Epic 40,000 is appealing to my friends because all the armies that were in 40k at the time had official lists in the Armies Book that came with the game. Epic: Armageddon (while an awesome, awesome, game) only has four armies as official lists (Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Orks, and Eldar)—though the fans are doing a good job of amending that.

Anyway, it seems like everything went over well, and we'll probably give the game another (fuller) shot another time. Here are some pictures (don't mind the unpainted pieces of terrain; I'm working on it):

The table set-up: 122cm x 183cm

Imperator vs. Hierodule: Who will win? (A: The Imperator)

Shot from the ground complete with command squad surfing
on a Land Raider.

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Epic Eldar pt.2: Epic 40,000

Now we get to Epic 40,000. Epic 40,000 (E40k) has more flexible lists, but they suffer from their own eccentricities. Having to perfectly balance out your "Main Force" with your "Support" can lead to some translation issues between the systems; not to mention the 181kg gorilla in the room: that this edition of Epic is based off of Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition armies. Ah, the nostalgia.

Let's give this a shot, and see how we can move between the systems. My goals are to use every model in my Epic Armageddon (EA) army and to build up to 2000pts. 2000pts is the 4000pts of E40k. I base this off of the fuzzy recollections I have from the time, and the fact that I clearly remember E40k veteran's nights being 1750pts at my local Games Workshop. Those games were meant to be finished in 75'. My logic may not be sound, but it's mine, dammit!

Anyway, I'm going to build detachments (E40k terminology for formations) by mimicking the formations I built in the last post, and see where it takes me. Here's hoping we even get to 2000pts...

Detachment 1: Ciridan's Warhost (all cool players named their detachments in E40k!)
Type: Eldar Warhost (you'll see this type a lot... There wasn't a lot of different Eldar detachment types)
Commander: Warp Spider Exarch Ciridan (HQ) (counts as a squad in the main force if not chosen from the commander section, like a Farseer might)
Main Force:
+ Warp Spider Exarch (1 Unit) - 40
+ Warp Spider Squad (1 Unit) - 14
+ Warp Spider Squad (1 Unit) - 14
+ Warp Spider Squad (1 Unit) - 14
Detachment Support:
+ Warp Spider Squad (1 Unit) - 14
+ Warp Spider Squad (1 Unit) - 14
+ Warp Spider Squad (1 Unit) - 14
+ Warp Spider Squad (1 Unit) - 14
(one of the nice things about Eldar Warhosts is that they often duplicate units between Main and Support sections, therefore mitigating the fact that they don't have very many variations on detachment types)
Total Points: 138
Morale Value: 3 (total points ÷ 50 (rounding up) = your morale value. This is subtracted from your army's combined morale when the detachment is reduced to half strength or less. When your morale reached 0, you lose. This was a really cool mechanic that I'm totally going to rip-off for my game)
Half Strength: 4

Detachment 2: Haelin's Warhost
Type: Eldar Warhost
Commander: Howling Banshee Exarch Haelin (HQ)
Main Force:
+ Howling Banshee Exarch (1 Unit) - 36
+ Howling Banshee in Wave Serpent (1 Unit + Transport) - 39
+ Howling Banshee in Wave Serpent (1 Unit + Transport) - 39
+ Howling Banshee (1 Unit) - 10
Detachment Support:
+ Striking Scorpion in Wave Serpent (1 Unit + Transport) - 39
+ Striking Scorpion in Wave Serpent (1 Unit + Transport) - 39
+ Striking Scorpion (1 Unit) - 10
+ Striking Scorpion (1 Unit) - 10
Total Points: 222
Morale Value: 5
Half Strength: 6

(An open letter to E40k players: I know there were technically no units in E40k that were called "Striking Scorpions" or "Howling Banshees" even though there were models made for them. They just counted as "Aspect Warriors" along with any other W40k Aspect Warrior that wasn't a Warp Spider, Swooping Hawk, or Dark Reaper. I'm nothing if not thematic)

Detachment 3: Duridain's Warhost
Type: Eldar Warhost
Psyker: Farseer Duridain (HQ) - 50
Main Force:
+ Guardian Squad (2 Units) - 16
+ Guardian Squad (2 Units) - 16
+ Scouts Squad (2 Units) - 20
Detachment Support:
+ Dreadnoughts (2 Units) - 56
+ Dreadnoughts (1 Unit) - 28
+ Support Platform Battery (3 Units) - 45
Total Points: 231
Morale Value: 5
Half Strength: 7

Detachment 4: Galadhran's Warhost
Type: Eldar Warhost
Psyker: Farseer Galadhran (HQ) - 50
Main Force:
+ Guardian Squad (2 Units) - 16
+ Guardian Squad (2 Units) - 16
+ Scouts Squad (2 Units) - 20
Detachment Support:
+ Dreadnoughts (2 Units) - 56
+ Dreadnoughts (1 Unit) - 28
+ Support Platform Battery (3 Units) - 45
Total Points: 231
Morale Value: 5
Half Strength: 7

Detachment 5: Wind Riders of Vihain
Type: Eldar Warhost
Commander: Guardian Jetbike Vihain (HQ)
Main Force:
+ Guardian Jetbike Squad (1 Unit, HQ) - 40
+ Guardian Jetbike Squad (1 Unit) - 15
+ Guardian Jetbike Squad (1 Unit) - 15
Detachment Support:
+ Vyper Jetbike Squadron (1 Unit) - 22
+ Vyper Jetbike Squadron (1 Unit) - 22
+ Vyper Jetbike Squadron (1 Unit) - 22
Total Points: 136
Morale Value: 3
Half Strength: 3

Detachment 6: Yael's Spear
Type: Eldar Warhost
Commander: Falcon Yael (HQ)
Main Force:
+ Falcon Grav-Tank (1 Unit, HQ) - 54
+ Falcon Grav-Tank (1 Unit) - 29
+ Falcon Grav-Tank (1 Unit) - 29
+ Falcon Grav-Tank (1 Unit) - 29
+ Falcon Grav-Tank (1 Unit) - 29
Detachment Support:
+ Night Spinner (1 Unit) - 41
+ Night Spinner (1 Unit) - 41
+ Night Spinner (1 Unit) - 41
+ Fire Prism (1 Unit) - 35
Total Points: 328
Morale Value: 7
Half Strength: 5


Detachment 7: Saine's Spear
Type: Eldar Warhost
Commander: Falcon Saine (HQ)
Main Force:
+ Falcon Grav-Tank (1 Unit, HQ) - 54
+ Falcon Grav-Tank (1 Unit) - 29
+ Falcon Grav-Tank (1 Unit) - 29
+ Falcon Grav-Tank (1 Unit) - 29
+ Falcon Grav-Tank (1 Unit) - 29
Detachment Support:
+ Night Spinner (1 Unit) - 41
+ Night Spinner (1 Unit) - 41
+ Night Spinner (1 Unit) - 41
+ Fire Prism (1 Unit) - 35
+ Fire Prism (1 Unit) - 35
Total Points: 363
Morale Value: 8
Half Strength: 5

Detachment 8: Khaine's Vengeance
Type: Eldar Titan
Commander: N/A
War Engines:
+ Phantom Titan - 380
Total Points: 380
Morale Value: 8
Half Strength: 4 (Damage Capacity (wounds))

Detachment 9: Khaine's Lightning
Type: Eldar Fleet
Commander: Night Wing Interceptor (HQ)
Main Force:
+ Night Wing Interceptor (1 Unit, HQ) - 65
+ Night Wing Interceptor (1 Unit) - 40
+ Night Wing Interceptor (1 Unit) - 40
Total Points: 145
Morale Value: 3
Half Strength: 2

Detachment 10: Avatar of the Bloody-Handed God
Type: Eldar Commander
Commander: Avatar - 40
Main Force:
N/A
Total Points: 40
Morale Value: 1
Half Strength: 1

Total Army Points: 2214
Total Morale: 48 (higher than 2214 ÷ 50 (rounding up) because we rounded up in all those detachments)

Woah! Looks like we blew 2000pts away! We'll have to get rid of something so that we aren't accused of cheating (who's "we?"). If I needed to take this to a 2000pt tournament tomorrow, I'd drop Khaine's Lightning, take out one Falcon (probably a proxied Firestorm tank (see comments below)) from Yael's Spear, drop a Dreadnought from Galadhran's Warhost, and drop a Support Platform from Duridain's Warhost. This would bring it to 1997pts (hey! The year E40k came out!), and bring the morale to 44.

So let's take a look and see how this fares: Detachments being big or small had little effect (that is to say: you could have your detachments be big or small and offer your opponent no tactical advantage or hindrance). Bigger detachments took longer to reduce to half strength, but when you did, it was worth a lot of morale (and there's fewer of them). Smaller detachments were easier to "break" but were worth less morale. I'd say that this army has smaller to mid-sized detachments which might not be that great for Eldar because of their special rule called Dying Race. It stated that not only do Eldar detachments suffer Morale loss as normal, but they lose an additional d3 morale if their detachments are wiped out! By Isha, that's terrible.

You'll also notice that I included too many Falcon Grav-Tanks than I had in my EA list and included no Firestorm tanks. This is because there were no such things as Firestorm tanks in E40k. I figure I'll just use them as Falcons and if anyone complains I'll drive a Wailing Doom spear through their black heart. You'll also notice that units designated "HQ" are an extra 25pts more than other units of their type. In E40k if you didn't choose a unit from the "Commander" section of the detachment data-sheet, you had to designate a unit from your Main force as a commander, and stick an extra 25pts on it.

Another inconsistency is the Wave Serpents. Now, Aspect Warriors can only be purchased in 1 squad increments, and that squad can have a Wave Serpent upgrade, but you cannot share upgrades. I forget how stuff like this worked back then, but Wave Serpents have Transport (2) meaning they can transport  two units. I reckon there shouldn't be a problem in starting the game with the other squads filling-in the remaining spots. After all, they can jump into other people's transports later on in the game by sacrificing 5cm of movement from both the transport and the unit hitching a lift.

Notice also how some of the names are different. Those of you that were around for this will know what they are, but Scouts are Rangers, Dreadnoughts are Wraithlords, and Support Platforms are Heavy Weapons Platforms.

Whew! I'm bushed. It's 1:30am where I am right now as I type these words. Still, it's been fun taking this trip down memory lane. As I explained two posts ago, Epic 40,000 was my first intro into the small-scale miniatures gaming universe, and I haven't looked back. I used to bemoan E40k for its simplicity once I found EA but now I've come to appreciate what it tried to do with small-scale miniatures gaming. And as you've all seen, it's not that hard to take your collections from EA and throw them into the whirling maelstrom of firepower values, and morale tracking that was Epic 40,000.

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Epic Eldar pt.1: Epic Armageddon

Following on yesterday's diatribe I'm going to both demonstrate how flexible it is to go between Epic 40,000 and Epic Armageddon in terms of army construction. Now, normally I would do such a thing using an army as flexible as Space Marines are, but instead I'm going to try my hand at the Eldar.

The Eldar have always been my favorite Warhammer 40,000 race, mostly 'cause I'm obsessed with elves, but also because they're sleek, aloof, and tied historically and mortally to Slaanesh (my favorite Chaos god). I've always wanted to do an Eldar army for Epic, but I've always painted my Epic armies "on the quick," and so haven't had time to dedicate to an army as time-consuming to paint as Eldar. Compared to Space Marines, which consist of a base coat, dry brush, wash, and details, the Eldar are a bit more varied in paint scheme.

So here we go! Let's start with an army list, and let's start with the version of Epic with the strictest army construction: Epic Armageddon (EA)...

In Epic Armageddon there are no generic armies. That is to say, that there's no "Eldar," "Imperial Guard," or "Chaos Space Marine" lists. Instead, there's "Biel-Tan Craftworld Eldar," and "Armageddon Steel Legion Imperial Guard," or "Black Legion Chaos Space Marines." I have some gripes with this, but Jervis Johnson stated in the FAQ at the end of the rulebook that he did this intentionally so as to keep the door open to new lists. I can respect that. So, I'm going to make a "Biel-Tan" Eldar list from the "Epic Swordwind" book even though I'll be painting my models red and black (and no, they won't be Saim-Hann. It's not my fault that GW already took all the good color schemes for Eldar and gave them names).

Starting off, I know I want to make a 4000pt army. I'd never want to play EA at less than 3000pts just because 3000 lets you comfortably fit a medium Titan or two small ones. 4000pts is great because it's 3000, but more!

First let's choose a commander: Avatar. BAM! He's free, so that's an easy choice. Let's also take a Wraithgate because at 50pts it's great to have one of your objectives spew out Guardians and not have them suffer the enemy's firepower whilst they're hoofin' it up the battlefield to get within firefight range.

Speaking of Guardians, let's take two formations of them because two is better than one, and Guardians should come in numbers. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to arm them exactly the same because I pretty much have those figures handy and redundancy's not a bad thing with something as basic as Guardian Formations. They'll each be made up of a Farseer, commanding four Guardian stands, supported by three Heavy Weapon Platforms (the macro-weapon D-Cannons are cool too but they're more points and worse in firefights, which is where we want those Guardians to be... I'm sure we'll find some macro-weapons somewhere), and three Wraithlords. Wraithguard would be sweet to take, but I only have two stands and I don't want to buy another Eldar Warhost box because I'd only use the Wraithguard out of it. For now, at least, we'll let the Wraithguard stay on the Craftworld. I opted for 3 Heavy Weapon Platforms instead of two because they come three to a blister pack. I'm sure I'll regret this later on and wish I only took two Platforms and left an extra Guardian squad in each formation, but the beauty of free Heavy Weapons Platforms is that I can swap them out and in as I see fit before a game (I also own tons of Guardian stands for this purpose).

Onto the cool stuff, the Aspect Warriors. I have quite a few stands of each of the plastic Aspect Warriors so let's take two formations (having tons of Craftworld Hosts is never a bad thing as they allow you to take three support Troupes each!), one will have jump packs and the other will have Wave Serpents. The jump pack one will consist of a Warp Spider Exarch with seven more Warp Spider stands. This way, all the stands will have similar movement types and won't slow each other down when they swoop across the board. I was thinking of taking half the formation as Swooping Hawks but their movement is a little different, and I didn't want one half of the formation moving one way and the other half moving another way. It'll just get awkward during the all-important parts of the battle where maneuvering is key.

The other Aspect Warrior formation I want is full of Striking Scorpions and Howling Banshees (with an Exarch) 'cause these are my favorite Aspect Warriors and they're pretty good in close combat. In order to get them up the field and have my army keep its speed, I'm going to stick them in four Wave Serpents (secret: Forge World's Wave Serpents are cheaper than Citadel's... Shh!). Easy!

Now for the fun stuff: Troupes and Titans! So that I'm not caught without air support I'm going to take some Nightwing Interceptors (I like the look of the Citadel ones better than the Forge World ones, but with the FW ones I could also use them in Aeronautica Imperialis). For mecha power I'm going to take a Phantom Titan, for no other reason than it's cool and I love the model!

Bah! Enough exclamation marks!

For troupes, I want to get use out of some of the extra models I have kicking around so let's go with a Ranger Troupe and a Windrider Troupe (with three Vypers for out-of-firefight firepower) right off the bat. Falcons are great all-round vehicles so let's take two troupes of them with maxed-out Firestorms. I might be overly paranoid about enemy aircraft, but the beauty of Firestorms is that they're alright against tanks and infantry and they're free. Plus, Falcons are bought in packs of three. Fire Prisms are one of the best Eldar formations, because they can attack anything in the game (infantry, vehicles, and air) and they're no slouches at any of it. Their AA is the worst of the three, but 5+ isn't that bad a score in EA and their "Lance" weapon ability means that Land Raiders don't get to re-roll their saves. Unfortunately they're relatively expensive at 250pts a formation so let's just take one. Besides I want to take two troupes of Night Spinners because I love Blast Points (BP) and Disrupt is great for working on those Space Marine formations or breaking any other formation in the game.

Here's what this all looks like:
+WRAITHGATE [50]
+AVATAR [0]
+ASPECT WARRIOR WARHOST [325]
  8 Warp Spider, Exarch
+ASPECT WARRIOR WARHOST [525]
  4 Striking Scorpion, 4 Howling Banshee, 4 Wave Serpent, Exarch
+GUARDIAN WARHOST [325]
   Farseer, 4 Guardians, 3 Heavy Weapon Platform, Wraithlords
+GUARDIAN WARHOST [325]
   Farseer, 4 Guardians, 3 Heavy Weapon Platform, Wraithlords
+RANGER TROUPE [100]
   4 Ranger
+FALCON TROUPE [250]
   3 Falcon, 2 Fire Storm
+FALCON TROUPE [250]
   3 Falcon, 2 Fire Storm
+WINDRIDER TROUPE [200]
   3 Jetbike, 3 Vyper
+NIGHT SPINNER TROUPE [175]
   3 Night Spinners
+NIGHT SPINNER TROUPE [175] 
   3 Night Spinners
+FIRE PRISM TROUPE [250]
   3 Fire Prisms
+NIGHTWINGS [300] 
   3 Nightwing Interceptors
+PHANTOM TITAN [750] 
[This is copied from Epic ArmyForge, so any formatting errors aren't my fault!]


NOTE: Because Blogger has copy+pasting issues when you're copying text with something with a colored background, I'm going to make a new post for part 2 of this article. Otherwise the rest of the article will be typed like this, with an off-color background to the text. Irritating, I know...


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And the result is:

Cross-Post from TTGN Talk.

*sigh*


It is with a heavy heart, and claw-like painting hand, that I admit defeat in this challenge. The answer as to why is simple: I got cocky. I leapt out the gate and got the infantry finished, then sat on my laurels for awhile and worked on some Junkers for Urban War. The completion of these Junkers caused me to sit harder on my laurels, until a mad rush to get the vehicles finished, which yielded no completion on that front.


I'm still going to finish these guys (and post the results here), but as for this contest: I'm out.

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P.S. I'll post pictures soon. My models are just in two different places based on their completeness.

TTGN's Old Project Challenge Update

So, all the way back in November I decided I'd join this over at the Tabletop Gaming News forums. It sounded easy enough: Finish a project you had laying around, and take three months doing it, starting in December and finishing at the end of February. Easy enough for someone who isn't a lazy git.

Well, lazy's probably not the best adjective for this git; I did start rather quickly out the gate. The only problem with starting quickly out the gate is that you must have dillagence to keep on track. Perhaps I'm just a dilligenceless git.

I began with this:

And now, I just have the Infantry painted, the vehicles base coated, and the titan untouched.

And that's where I got stuck. See, I finished my infantry very quickly and even managed to get into some of the rhinos before I decided to take a break. After all, I still had about two months and was on a painting spree; I could afford some R&R. 

That's where the Urban War Junkers came in; and the test figure for my VOR: the Maelstrom Union army; and the test figure for my Warhammer 40,000 Dark Eldar; and the test figure for my Warmachine Retribution army, etc. At least I got a painted Urban War force out of the delay.

Now it's Friday and I have four days left in the challenge. Normally this would be no problem, as I'd be able to hermit myself in my house and paint until my hand formed a permanent claw from the strain, but my girlfriend is in town. 

Now I know what you're saying, and you're wrong. She's very supportive of my hobby, and I always roll my eyes at the endless list of domestic excuses people roll out when it comes to their lack of effort on their hobby. Some of them are understandable, but wives/husbands/boyfriends/girlfriends should let you have some time to yourself for your personal growth, and children sleep; so there should be plenty of time to get some work done (besides, kids make great base-coaters!).

The problem lies in that I'll want to spend most of my time with her when I'm not at work, and she comes all the way over from Victoria to see me (a 6-hour trek by public transit) for a weekend. I think that's a worthy excuse to not get some painting done. We'll see, though. She's a TA at her university and needs to get some marking/homework done, so I may be able to sit across the room at my painting table and still be company for her. 

I'll fill you in on Monday regarding my progress and we'll know for sure by Wednesday's post whether I've succeeded in this challenge or not. Regardless of the outcome I've done a heck of a lot of work on this army and even managed to squeeze another project in there. I'll continue to work on the army after the challenge is done, and hopefully take no longer than another week on it. After that, I think I'm going to work on my Craftworld Eldar for Warhammer 40,000 or possibly my Warmachine Retribution of Scyrah.

In the future I'll also have some big project logs regarding the process of building armies from scratch. I think the candidates will be Dark Eldar for Warhammer 40,000; Orcs & Goblins for Warhammer; and my American Infantry Company for Flames of War. Though, of course, these won't be all at once, or even one after the other. These are just the ones I have planned. The project logs will chronicle my army creating process from start to finish, and even showcase some games goin' on. So far on this blog I think I've only tackled projects that I've had laying around.

Have a good weekend!

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Epic Dilemma

A bit of a spoiler for the forthcoming Top 10 Tabletop Miniature Games series I'll do after its Roleplay cousin wraps up, but my favorite wargame of all time is the Epic series by Games Workshop. Ever since I was 11 and Epic 40,000 was released I was hooked. Afterwards when I did some research into the previous editions of Epic (Adeptus Titanicus and Space Marine 1st edition, then Space Marine 2nd edition and Titan Legions), and experienced the pinnacle in 6mm gaming with Epic Armageddon (the most recent Epic edition) I came to realize how simplistic Epic 40,000 was. But none the less it occupies a special place in my heart.

Now, Epic Armageddon may be a solid, and ingenious gaming system, in my eyes it is incomplete. Why Games Workshop decided that the first supplement, Swordwind, should contain yet another Imperial Guard and Ork army list and not decide to do updated Chaos Space Marine, and Tyranid lists is beyond me, but alas Specialist Games imploded shortly after the release of Swordwind, thereby leaving out two armies that have models. 

Recently when I got the bug to start playing Epic again, I looked at Epic Armageddon, and realized that the Tyranid player in my group, and the Chaos player would be high and dry when it came to army selection. This began a search for a different system that could satisfy our 6mm gaming needs. Epic 40,000 was (as described previously) too simplistic, and one gamer even refused to play it. This left us with NetEpic.

NetEpic, I haven't played. However, from what I understand it is the old Space Marine/Titan Legions rules updated after ~7-8 years of playtesting by fans. The selling point is the full-color rulebooks they offer as free .pdf downloads. I passed the word around and now we're going to give it a shot. 

I've spent the last couple of days reading the rules and building army lists for my Blood Angels and I think after a few paint sessions I should be ready to go. We have access to fantastic Epic-scale Forge World terrain and everyone has a painted force. I'll let you know how it goes closer to our playing. I think it's still some time off, but I'm excited to give this new/old ruleset a shot.

In other news: In case I didn't mention it before I'm doing the posts for the Roleplaying List once a week (on Wednesdays), and when it's over and I start doing the Wargaming one, I'll do it twice a week (Mondays and Fridays) mostly because there will be 10 games on the list instead of 5.

Sorry if this post seems disjointed, or all over the place. I'm in between projects right now, and I'm quite tired. After I scribe this, it's time to clean the house, then prepare for Vampire: the Requiem tonight.

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EPIC!

So I have no attention span, as a careful read of this blog will attest. In the midst of an Eldar painting frenzy, I'm managing (I think) to fit in some work on my Epic Blood Angels army. This will be the fifth paint of these models and man oh man are they gettin' thick. I'm pretty sure these figures can withstand a nuclear blast.

Blood Angels
Dark Angels
Crimson Fists
Dark Angels
Blood Angels

Yup... Thick all right. Considering how the 1st Dark Angel paintjob, and the Crimson Fists paintjob were done with the Citadel colored sprays back in the '90s/early '00s.

I'm doing this because two of my friends want to throw down some Epic, and as the resident Epic master of my gaming group I'm more than happy to oblidge a game. I have over 6000 points of Space Marines (way over... I even want to say almost 10,000 points because of my love of Titans), and 'bout 3000 of Chaos Marines. Once I get back from Germany I hope to have a 3000+ point army of Eldar, and a 3000 point army of Orks.

So that's what I've been up to this week. Not much else. I'm only a painting session or two away from finishing my Banshees, 2nd squad of Dire Avengers and a squad of Rangers. We'll see when I can fit that time in.



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