Legions Imperialis Legions Imperialis

[Marshal Rohr]

5 minutes ago, Redcomet said:

 
With this logic GW would be better off axing all Xenos factions from 40k too. Only making marines and marine based games because they sell more is a circular logic that many companies have fallen into, and have either ended them entirely or left us customers with subpar cookie cutter product.

AT sold by all accounts, and yet no Xenos. 

AT was finished several years before 2018, and we know SG was already working on HH2.0 at that point. Epic was probably meant to come out earlier, like HH 2.0 was meant to come out earlier. We first saw the box art leak a year before the 2022 release which means everything in the box was done a painted by the end of 2020. I would bet cold hard cash all of the epic stuff has been done for years and that’s why Xenos never showed up in AT, because Epic was meant to come out closer to the new AT and the Xenos Aeronautica were assets they had already developed for the eventual xenos expansion

[sitnam]

 

1 hour ago, Captain Idaho said:

Marines sell. We know that. I'm playing Xenos in 40K but I'm aware of it Marines being the BIG THING.

I mean Marines exist in 40k too, and given that half of this box ISNT marines they could of made it Primaris vs Orks and it would likely sell just as well. Marines selling doesn’t mean this has to be a 30k game. LI will still have non-Marine factions that GW will have to support through Marine sales

[Redcomet]

3 minutes ago, sitnam said:

 

I mean Marines exist in 40k too, and given that half of this box ISNT marines they could of made it Primaris vs Orks and it would likely sell just as well. Marines selling doesn’t mean this has to be a 30k game. LI will still have non-Marine factions that GW will have to support through Marine sales

This. Making it HH is a statement that xenos will never happen in this game. Good for those few who see the HH as the Golden Standard of everything that is good. Sucks for the rest of us.

 

But it is what it is. And saves me some money.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Redcomet

[Captain Idaho]

When Epic was first released, it came as Adeptus Titanicus. Then they expanded into Space Marine. After the success of the game, it was expanded into a wider 40K range.

 

So far we're seeing that mirror with Adeptus Titanicus then Legions Imperialis, except it's already gone further with Solar Auxilia alongside the Space Marines.

 

We can very well go down the same old path again.

 

I get how people feel as I would really be cool for my gaming group to have a Tyranid swarm, Ork Horde etc. It'll be a shame not to have you along for the ride at this stage, but hopefully we can pick you up further down the line.

[apologist]

50 minutes ago, Captain Idaho said:

We need to bare in mind, we're building a community from the ground up right now, borrowing the core from old fans and some AI and AT players to prop it up. We need to build on this and so does Games Workshop.

 

The bottom line is, Xenos sales just aren't enough to guarantee a game's survival. I do acknowledge that if such factions got additional support they'd do better, but this is a new game. To establish it as a long term game is a question of the numbers and reducing risk. It's an obvious risk to throw massive resources into the game and times are turbulent after all.

 

Marines sell. We know that. I'm playing Xenos in 40K but I'm aware of it Marines being the BIG THING.

 

As time goes by, if we have a decent and thriving game you never know what comes down the line. But we need to get there first.

 

Yes, I think this all makes a lot of sense. To be clear, from a personal point of view, I'm happy to have Epic back at all – and while I think it'd be lovely to have the 'full experience', so to speak, I recognise that there are commercial pressures that work against the inclusion of Xenos in the short to medium term, and I'm sanguine about that. 

 

As noted earlier, I'm pretty sure that GW are intentionally staking out individual territories for their 40k and HH settings across their games and scales, and we'll see a far less permeable line between the 40k and HH settings in general going forward.

 

 

 

38 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Thats why if we want Xenos, we need to be buying armies of Imperials at launch and expanding them with new releases. We won’t ever know what metrics GW uses to develop product, but the fact they went out of their way to add resin Aeronautica models after release means they saw enough sales they wanted to try and squeeze some more out with limited resin print runs. That’s with Covid smothering Aeronautica in its crib. 

 

Again, this makes a lot of sense. I suspect GW are quite aware that they could sell Xenos in Epic at least as successfully – and it's other considerations that have moved against that.

 

Imagine a parallel world where the box replaces the Solar Auxilia with Orks – great; but we've immediately got Eldar, Tyranid, Necrons, Votann etc. clamouring for their releases. We've also critically got a huge second-hand and third party market for all of those. Either of those considerations – production pressure and 'IP-bleed' – are huge turn-offs for GW. Both of them together probably stifled any plan.

 

The narrow civil war setting makes more commercial sense in that light. 

 

+++

Anyway, I don't want to circle the drain on what might have been. Long-term perhaps we'll see Xenos (and I for one will be busily drafting counts-as or homebrew rules to let me xenos-loving friends join in the fun), but for now I'm going to get excited about the release of the game as-is. I think my initial reaction was a little reserved, but I'm really warming to what's included.

 

There are a couple of key quotes from the WarCom articles so far that have me beaming, or I think are worth making note of:

 

Warhammer has previously made several games in epic scale, and we’ll be taking a look down memory lane later this month, and this new game system is based on the best bits of previous incarnations of these epic scale games – while adding lots of cool new elements.

 

I'm a little wary of marketing copy here, but the articles since have made so many mentions of mechanics or concepts that jump out as familiar (and good!) that I'm really relaxing into the idea that this has the potential to be as engaging and high-quality as Adeptus Titanicus.

 

The game deploys in August, with a huge Core Set containing a massive collection of exquisite epic scale miniatures, alongside a rulebook, dice, tokens templates, and measuring sticks.

No terrain mentioned here; which I found interesting. The emphasis they've made on the included models being just enough to start off with makes me think there's a game with great scalability – and that gives me hope that they've crunched the numbers on giving the boxes of tanks and infantry a good perceived value against cost.

 

Also worth noting the lack of terrain in case you want to stock up beforehand.

 

+++

[Marshal Rohr]

40K Marines are as inappropriate for Epic as Eldar. Legions on the other hand, were designed to be deployed in large engagements. Every game of Epic with 40K space marines is an apocalyptic event. Every game of Epic with 30K space marines is a Tuesday. 

[Redcomet]

6 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

40K Marines are as inappropriate for Epic as Eldar. Legions on the other hand, were designed to be deployed in large engagements. Every game of Epic with 40K space marines is an apocalyptic event. Every game of Epic with 30K space marines is a Tuesday. 

No. Just no. There are plenty of huge battles in 40k that would fit Epic scale. And funnily enough it wasn’t a problem all those years ago when Epic was a thing. 
 

I would argue that it would be even more of an amazing game to finally be able to deploy 4-5 companies of space marines in a game, or a Leman Russ tank regiment, than to just play what it regular boring Tuesday stuff in HH

Edited July 10, 2023 by Redcomet

[Colman]

Am I right in thinking that Solar Auxilia are elite mortal humans, more like Scions than Guard and with a correspondingly smaller base count? I  presume militia or guard would have to put hilariously large (and expensive, it's bad enough in 40k!) forces on the board?

[Marshal Rohr]

You’d be incorrect. You can never make more than ten companies of one chapter, and fifty tanks, a hundred or so Land Raiders and rhinos as far as the eye can see. And if you want to add in Allies, well those chapters are all the same units. Setting a mass battles game in an era where you can take a destroyer company, a terminator company, a hundred battle tanks, and a mix of line and assault companies will let each player build their armies exactly how they think they should be instead of the hard restrictions of 40K chapters. 

[ZeroWolf]

8 minutes ago, Redcomet said:

 
With this logic GW would be better off axing all Xenos factions from 40k too. Only making marines and marine based games because they sell more is a circular logic that many companies have fallen into, and have either ended them entirely or left us customers with subpar cookie cutter product.

AT sold by all accounts, and yet no Xenos. 

But they did expand AT into IL.

 

As for the xenos thing, GW might not have felt that the risk of allocating more resource into the project to add xenos was worth the reward (more money they put into it, the bigger amount they'd expect back). At the moment, IL success could mean 1 of 2 things.

1) they branch the rules under 40k (I doubt they'll spend more money in fleshing out great crusade factions off the bat, 40k factions are more recognisable.

2) As someone else said they bring in BFG under the HH umbrella, adding to HH campaign potential.

 

While either could happen, it'll be years before we see which one.

 

(Though, that is unless the rumours around BFG are true and we see thar next year)

[Marshal Rohr]

If they do Battlefleet in the Heresy setting it will be the only game system they have with a true multi-scale campaign system that hasn’t existed since the early 00’s. You start with BFG/Zone Mortalis move to Aeronautica/Planetstrike games and begin a good mix of Legions Imperialis/Titanicus/Age of Darkness. They mentioned Cityfight rules alongside Zone Mortalis in the AoD rulesbook so that’ll come back in at some point. 

[Orange Knight]

22 minutes ago, Redcomet said:

No. Just no. There are plenty of huge battles in 40k that would fit Epic scale. And funnily enough it wasn’t a problem all those years ago when Epic was a thing. 

 

This is absolutely correct. The Devastation of Baal and the Dark Imperium series, just as two recent examples, have battles that would be apocalyptic by the standards of the Horus Heresy. 

 

Massive Titan Legion maniples, Legion sized Marine forces, etc

[Fire Golem]

I’d be much more optimistic about eventually getting Xenos in Epic if they weren’t also getting rid of the Xenos stuff for Aeronautica at the same time. Obviously they could come back eventually, but them dropping that feels much more like they’re trying to separate it completely, and I’m worried that they had poor sales of AI and that’s kinda the death knell for tiny aliens. I hope I’m wrong, even if it’s years away. I love the Heresy, but I would really like to see Eldar titans to the same standard as the AT ones. 

[Marshal Rohr]

1 minute ago, Orange Knight said:

 

This is absolutely correct. The Devastation of Baal and the Dark Imperium series, just as two recent examples, have battles that would be apocalyptic by the standards of the Horus Heresy. 

 

Massive Titan Legion maniples, Legion sized Marine forces, etc

That actually supports my point. The Devastation of Baal was a major event that happened over a short timespan with those forces, whereas a Great Crusade focused epic release would see battles of that size happen daily. 

2 minutes ago, fire golem said:

I’d be much more optimistic about eventually getting Xenos in Epic if they weren’t also getting rid of the Xenos stuff for Aeronautica at the same time. Obviously they could come back eventually, but them dropping that feels much more like they’re trying to separate it completely, and I’m worried that they had poor sales of AI and that’s kinda the death knell for tiny aliens. I hope I’m wrong, even if it’s years away. I love the Heresy, but I would really like to see Eldar titans to the same standard as the AT ones. 

They got rid of Guard stuff that exists in 30K too. I don’t have the reason why obviously, but I imagine it’s due to the Flustercluck that is their production capacity right now. It’s not like those molds are being destroyed. 

[Orange Knight]

@Marshal Rohr

 

I don't know about that. The Indomitus Crusade offers plenty of opportunity for massive battles.

 

The most current period of 40k allows for Epic sized battles on a regular basis.

[sitnam]

21 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

You’d be incorrect. You can never make more than ten companies of one chapter, and fifty tanks, a hundred or so Land Raiders and rhinos as far as the eye can see. And if you want to add in Allies, well those chapters are all the same units. Setting a mass battles game in an era where you can take a destroyer company, a terminator company, a hundred battle tanks, and a mix of line and assault companies will let each player build their armies exactly how they think they should be instead of the hard restrictions of 40K chapters. 

Different chapters have different preferences, and you can still have varied forces in a 40k setting. Pure Primaris vs Firstborn vs Mixed forces for example. From the looks of this set, a dozen or so tanks would be perfectly viable to build a force around and a single company would still be a sizable force.

[Orange Knight]

I would definitely be more interested in this game if it was set in 40k.

 

Even the starter set of this new epic has a mixed force as a showcase. You can easily imagine armies composed of 40k Marines, 40k Imperial Elements and Titans.

 

In an epic scale, the faction could simply be "Imperium"

[ZeroWolf]

It's also about their ability to manage forces. There's no harm in starting small. I'd be surprised if the smaller specialist games studio got the same budget as the main 40k/AoS studi, thus managing that many ranges at start may have been unfeasible (and goes back to what GW were prepared to put in)

[Orange Knight]

3 minutes ago, ZeroWolf said:

It's also about their ability to manage forces. There's no harm in starting small. I'd be surprised if the smaller specialist games studio got the same budget as the main 40k/AoS studi, thus managing that many ranges at start may have been unfeasible (and goes back to what GW were prepared to put in)

 

I do agree this is an issue. I just have a fantasy about seeing Necron and Tyranid forces in epic scale. Giant constructs and bio titans. Visually it would be a lot more interesting to see Imperium Titans and Marines face off against the Xenos of 40k.

[Redcomet]

45 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

You’d be incorrect. You can never make more than ten companies of one chapter, and fifty tanks, a hundred or so Land Raiders and rhinos as far as the eye can see. And if you want to add in Allies, well those chapters are all the same units. Setting a mass battles game in an era where you can take a destroyer company, a terminator company, a hundred battle tanks, and a mix of line and assault companies will let each player build their armies exactly how they think they should be instead of the hard restrictions of 40K chapters. 

Hmmmm if only there was an imperial faction that you almost always fielded in concert with marines… a faction with hundreds of tanks, super heavies, Capitol Imperialis and such. But Only Marines exist apparently 

[Orange Knight]

I just remembered that the unnumbered sons are literally Legion sized forces, each in the livery of one of the 9 original loyalist Legions.

 

You could base an entire 40k version of Epic around them if you were pining for big Marine formations specifically. Of course, this is simply wistful thinking at this point.

[Lord Marshal]

8 minutes ago, Redcomet said:

Hmmmm if only there was an imperial faction that you almost always fielded in concert with marines… a faction with hundreds of tanks, super heavies, Capitol Imperialis and such. But Only Marines exist apparently 

 

Yeah but in practise a lot of people are probably only going to want full Marine armies.

 

A lot of people don't even like having Cultists and Tzaangors in CSM lists.

[Orange Knight]

1 minute ago, Lord Marshal said:

 

Yeah but in practise a lot of people are probably only going to want full Marine armies.

 

A lot of people don't even like having Cultists and Tzaangors in CSM lists.

 

Yeah, and the Un-numbered Sons would offer that.

 

It should be mentioned that the Unnumbered sons operated Legion sized marine formations for a period that lasted longer than the Horus Heresy.

[Redcomet]

4 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

 

Yeah but in practise a lot of people are probably only going to want full Marine armies.

 

A lot of people don't even like having Cultists and Tzaangors in CSM lists.

And nothing is would stop them.

 

GW has chosen not to allocate resources to make everyone else happy. And that is their choice. They don’t have unlimited time and such. 
 

But implying that Epic would be a bad fit for 40k is just hilariously wrong.

[Orion]

19 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

 

Yeah but in practise a lot of people are probably only going to want full Marine armies.

 

A lot of people don't even like having Cultists and Tzaangors in CSM lists.

They just need to retcon Primaris into 30k and it would be the perfect product.

Primaris vs Primaris! The Ultimate Showdown!