Some questions about Epic

[Captain Conrad]

I've been looking at the epic range but cant quite understand how many of each type you get and how many in a stand with the space marine battle company, could anyone inform me?

 

Also what models are in the command set?

 

 

thanks in advance.

[Vaaish]

With the strip base you get 5 slots for models. The numbers sounds a bit odd based on the description, though. You used to have enough models to make 2x tactical detachments, 2x devastator detachments, and 2x assault detachments.

 

I'll have to check when I get home, but I believe there is one sprue with a variety of marine captains in power armor and terminator armor, a sprue of librarians with the same, one of chaplains and a bike with a libby and one with a chaplain.

[Angel_of_Caliban]

Hi, Epic is Awesome! I'll try to help answer questions like my good associate Vaaish

 

In the Space Marine Battle Company Box Set you get 2 full formations of Assault Marines (8 Stands Total) and your choice of 3 Devastator OR Tactical Formations plus some extra basic marines to make Character stands. This all assuming you plan on putting 2 Heavy Weapon marines and 3 basic marines on a Dev stand and 1 Heavy Weapon marine and 4 basic marine on each Tactical stand. They only give you 16 Heavy Weapon marines and 96? Basic and of course the 40 Assault.

 

The reason I have this odd random knowledge and numbers is I just help my friend put together his SM box after I talked him into Epic. If you plan on doing Air Assault Force I would recommend 2 Assault, 2 Devastator and 1 Tactical detachments. A found tactic and sound one is putting a Assault and Devastator formations in a Thunderhawk and doing Ground Assault. if you take your 4 formations like this it leaves your Tactical formation to Garrison.

 

As for the Space Marine Character Pack you get :

 

1 Spure of Jump Pack Leaders (1 Chaplin, 1 Liberian, 2 Commanders?)

1 Spure of Bike Leaders (1 Chaplin, 1 Liberian, 2 Commanders?)

1 Spure of Terminator Leaders (1 Chaplin, 1 Liberian, 2 Commanders?)

2 Spure of Power Armour Leaders (1 Chaplin, 1 Liberian, 2 Commanders?)

1 Spure of Facny Stuff (Supreme Commander, Standard Bearer, Techmarine? and few more?)

 

EDIT:On hindsight vaaish may be right that there spured by Character type instead of Amour type. But the numbers should be the same.

 

I would say 99% of SM players use only Chaplains in there Assault Formations and Liberians in there Devastators. With Tactical I would say its a mix bag with the Commander being more common. Terminators I would say mix bag again with a preference to Chaplain. I'm not sure on Bikes however I would most like use Commander or Chaplain there.

 

Building Formations your kinda force to pick with the Assault Formations unless you plan on buying an extra box just to have different Character options. But with the marines you might do what my friend did. Now I don't really like it but he wanted flexibility on a budget. He took all the extra basic marines and just put for on a stand with a character. His plan is to use them as replacements for either Tactical or Devastators formations, giving him the ability to run his 2 Dev's or 1 Tactical pure or with a mix bag of added characters.

 

If your starting from scratch I would recommend buying the following as a good core.

 

1 or 2 Boxes of SM

1 Character Pack

1 Hunters Pack

2 Thunderhawks

 

Then maybe

1 Terminator Pack

1 or 2 Warhound Titans

1 Speeder or Bike Pack

1 Whirlwind Pack

1 Thunderbolt Pack

 

Hope this help. You can download the rules free by the way on the GW website. 3000 points in the standard Tournament size army.

[Octavulg]

Just a point, here.

 

A Devastator formation will use 8 Heavy Weapons and 12 normal marines.

 

For Tacticals, there's less of a convention. I go with one heavy weapon every other base, which pretty much reproduces a tactical squad (a formation being three tactical squads). Another option is to do what some people do - use no heavy weapons in your tactical formations. Then you can make two Devastator formations and two Tactical formations, with a bunch of marines left over for character bases. A Tactical formation will thus use between 0 and 6 Heavy Weapons and 30 and 24 normal Marines.

 

Another alternative is to buy two battle companies and just make four tactical formations, two devastators and two assaults, thus giving you two battle companies. The trick is figuring out what do with the extra assault marines...

[Captain Conrad]

Right, okay, would you be able to give me a common list you use to show me a how the balance of units works?

 

Thanks for all the help.

[Octavulg]

The basic tournament list involves one or two Thunderhawks (with contents for same) and two Warhounds. Things vary a bit after that. Keep in mind, though, that there are a variety of alternate lists available for Marines (as well as other races). The basic Codex Astartes Space Marine list is generally accepted to be primarily focused around Air Assaulting (opinion differs over whether or not it should be).

 

Epic UK is the main tournament and Epic organization in the UK. They keep lists of tournament results - including many of the lists that are used. Click on the name of a tournament participant to see his list.

 

NetEA is the other major epic organization. They produce a variety of lists as well (generally, I prefer their lists, since they seem to be a little more willing to change than EpicUK).

 

The top three Codex lists at the last few Epic tourneys are as follows:

Richard Laking - Open War 13

Codex Marines

Tactical + Sup Cmdr + Hunter

Land speeders

Devastartors + Hunter

Terminators + Chaplain

Thunderhawk

Terminators + Chaplain

Scouts

Scouts

 

Titan/Air Third

Warhound

Warhound

Thunderbolts

 

David Thomas - Full Scale Assault 2010

Codex Marines

Tactical Formation + Supreme Comm. + Hunter (BTS)

Tactical Formation + Hunter

Tactical Formation

Thunderhawk

Thunderhawk

Terminator Formation + Librarian

Scout Formation

Land Speeder Formation

 

Titan/Air Third

Warhound

Warhound

Thunderbolt Formation

 

Ben Skinner at another tournament whose name I missed

Tactical + Sup Cmdr + Hunter

Tactical

Terminators + Chaplain

Assault + Chaplain

Assault + Chaplain

Assault

Devastator + Librarian

Thunderhawk

 

Titan/Air Third

Thunderbolts

Warhound

Warhound

 

We can notice a few things from this. First, that while there is some variation in tournament lists, there are also some serious points of commonality. Second, that a lot of the most popular Space Marine toys aren't the ones that would be most common in the game (if this bothers you, there are a variety of NetEA lists which try to address this in a variety of ways).

 

Looking at the above, a decent starter list might be:

Terminators + Chaplain - 400

Tactical + Supreme Commander + Hunter + Razorback - 500

Tactical - 300

Thunderhawk - 200 (or a Land Speeder Detachment with Tornado for 225)

Devastator + Librarian - 300

Assault - 175

Thunderhawk - 200

Land Speeders with Tornado - 225

Thunderbolts - 150

Warhound - 275

Warhound - 275

=3000

 

This list would require a Battle Company box, a pack of Terminators, a pack of Hunters, a pack of Rhinos, a pack of Razorbacks, two Thunderhawks, the Command pack (though you could also just paint normal marines in specialist colors), a pack of Land Speeders, a pack of Thunderbolts, and two Warhounds.

 

OR (if you're somewhat less concerned about being fluffy)

 

Tactical + Supreme Commander + Hunter +Razorback - 475

Assault - 175

Devastator with Librarian - 300

Thunderhawk - 200

Assault - 175

Devastator - 250

Thunderhawk - 200

Terminator +Chaplain - 400

Thunderbolts - 150

Warhound - 275

Warhound - 275

=3000

 

This list would require a Battle Company box, a pack of Terminators, a pack of Rhinos, a pack of Razorbacks, two Thunderhawks, the Command pack (though you could also just paint normal marines in specialist colors), a pack of Thunderbolts, and two Warhounds.

 

I`m not sure it`s the greatest list in the world, but it should be OK.

 

Depending on where you live, there are a variety of online stores which might be a good idea to purchase from. Discounts are helpful with Epic.

 

EDITED SO THE POINT COSTS ACTUALLY WORK.

[Captain Conrad]

Ok thanks for all the help, i think i've got a idea now.

[Octavulg]

Actually, I misremembered the prices on assault marines. It's 175, not 150. Oops.

[Vaaish]

Two things Octavulg:

 

The speeder formation would work better with a typhoon since it gives it much greater range to put a BM on a target to prep it for assault from a thunderhawk.

 

You can also buy a pack of two epic scale warhounds from forgeworld again which gives you the nicer Lucius pattern versions to match the warlord.

[Angel_of_Caliban]

. You can also buy a pack of two epic scale warhounds from forgeworld again which gives you the nicer Lucius pattern versions to match the warlord.

Indeed Plus the price difference is ridiculous. $25.00 for 1 GW Warhound or $35.00 for 2 FW Warhounds. Right there swings my vote but to make it a better than FW ones look awesome and the GW look like poop.

 

The lists and info that Octavulg looks sound. Notice our buy list is very similar if not the same. B)

[Octavulg]

The speeder formation would work better with a typhoon since it gives it much greater range to put a BM on a target to prep it for assault from a thunderhawk.

 

I meant Typhoon. I just couldn't remember which was which.

 

Please don't take my Space Marine license away. :P

 

* * *

 

Both AoC and Vaaish are completely right. B)

 

And the lists I originally posted had bad, bad math errors. They've been corrected/revised. No particularly big changes.