Legions Imperialis & Epic hobby chat!

[DuskRaider]

Yeah, I’m a bit concerned that the game is going to fade quietly into the void. We saw it happen to Aeronautica and Titanicus, though they were allegedly killed so Legions Imperialis could carry both lines along with its own. 
 

To be fair, we’ll see a little Titanicus support with the release of the Dark Mechanicum Stalkers, but it’s a far cry from an expansion. 
 

GW has a chance to right the ship and actually provide support, drum up interest and expand upon the game if they want to. I really hope they do, because this game does have potential. 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

The trick with GW pulling the plug is to buy all you need in advance. Therefore you won´t miss out when the game gets squatted. Apart from a few titans and support boxes I have now everything I need.

[Marshal Mittens]

On 12/2/2024 at 8:09 PM, DuskRaider said:

I won’t lie, I’m a bit perturbed to hear that stores are placing LI product on clearance. Hopefully it doesn’t mean much, but at least you’re able to get into the game. 

My local FLGS had everything but the Admech stuff at 75% off on black friday. They were also selling Skaventide for 75% off and the Solar Aux starter for 28mm 30k for 50% off. 

 

I know a few people who play, but not many. I think the cost is really too high for what you get. To make a 600pt Armored company of 3x6 Predators and 2x3 Kratos it's like $260 before taxes, and you need like 5 companies of that points level to play. It's one of GWs most expensive game lines to build an army for. 

Edited December 7 by Marshal Mittens

[DuskRaider]

Stalker and Serperos kits have been preordered. I went with 3 x Stalker and 2 x Serperos to start. Hopefully by the time they get here, my Dark Mechanicum will be fully painted and ready. 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

The main purpose of LI is to bind customers and not make them go to play 3rd party games like Dropzone Commander. In that regard LI is a success. 

[Crablezworth]

19 hours ago, Marshal Mittens said:

My local FLGS had everything but the Admech stuff at 75% off on black friday. They were also selling Skaventide for 75% off and the Solar Aux starter for 28mm 30k for 50% off. 

 

I know a few people who play, but not many. I think the cost is really too high for what you get. To make a 600pt Armored company of 3x6 Predators and 2x3 Kratos it's like $260 before taxes, and you need like 5 companies of that points level to play. It's one of GWs most expensive game lines to build an army for. 

 

Yeah after slogging through the mech box, I love the end result but can totally see why players might not only not see value but have it seem a bit daunting. Some of the decisions made for quality meant a lot more parts than would be ideal, and, this also buts right up against an environment where one can often print far fewer component small scale models that look just as good but are less of a headache to build. The value proposition too of all the boxes being roughly the same price has some boxes feeling like a pretty good value but like your example with armored company, 4 sicarans is sorta feel bad for the price, especially with some boxes of tanks coming with as many as 8 like the basilisk/medusa boxes. The fast attack box for marines sorta feels at least more substantial in terms of numbers of minis, but the whole thing is a tough sell to prospective players, and it's not helped by the fact that its sold as like a game that really needs 3k when in reality the army boxes are actually decent starting points and make okay armies in one go. It also doesn't help that a lot stores just don't have terrain for small scale.  

On 12/6/2024 at 7:18 AM, DuskRaider said:

Yeah, I’m a bit concerned that the game is going to fade quietly into the void. We saw it happen to Aeronautica and Titanicus, though they were allegedly killed so Legions Imperialis could carry both lines along with its own. 
 

To be fair, we’ll see a little Titanicus support with the release of the Dark Mechanicum Stalkers, but it’s a far cry from an expansion. 
 

GW has a chance to right the ship and actually provide support, drum up interest and expand upon the game if they want to. I really hope they do, because this game does have potential. 

 

It feels really weird that they never even tried to sell order tokens, especially with them being so necessary to the game, much more so than the unit cards. 

[Crablezworth]

3 hours ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

The main purpose of LI is to bind customers and not make them go to play 3rd party games like Dropzone Commander. In that regard LI is a success. 

 

Dropzone is interesting, its the only other small scale game I played before AT/LI. The models are great, amazing photography, but i still found it had some of the same issues as li, like tracking all the sub lists and which dropship belonged to what was a bit too daunting imo, it felt like a game that needed heads up display at times. I find the idea of tracking break points in li a similar thing, just sorta take up more bandwidth mentally and time wise than its worth. I think the one to keep an eye on is full spectrum dominance, I really like that all you need is like a 2x3 and its getting a rulebook and i think cards from modiphius. 

[DuskRaider]

I’m actually a bit shocked that I was able to obtain the Construct preorders so easily this time around. I remember when GW released the Spartan wave that everything was gone before I even had a chance to get to the website. I’m wondering if this is an indication that they’re stocking up for releases more or a significant drop in player interest in the game. I’m hoping it’s a correction of stock availability. 
 

Edit: actually, there’s something else I’ve been thinking about as well, and that’s the lack of coverage for the game as well. By that I mean on outlets like YouTube. If you type “Legions Imperialis” into the search bar, there isn’t much that pops up from recent times. Of course there’s the basic review of the newest expansion, but any battle reports or whatnot are completely absent. I know Tabletop Standard has posted over on Patreon, but you’d think with a new game that there would be more content relevant to it. 

Edited December 8 by DuskRaider

[Crablezworth]

7 hours ago, DuskRaider said:

I’m actually a bit shocked that I was able to obtain the Construct preorders so easily this time around. I remember when GW released the Spartan wave that everything was gone before I even had a chance to get to the website. I’m wondering if this is an indication that they’re stocking up for releases more or a significant drop in player interest in the game. I’m hoping it’s a correction of stock availability. 
 

Edit: actually, there’s something else I’ve been thinking about as well, and that’s the lack of coverage for the game as well. By that I mean on outlets like YouTube. If you type “Legions Imperialis” into the search bar, there isn’t much that pops up from recent times. Of course there’s the basic review of the newest expansion, but any battle reports or whatnot are completely absent. I know Tabletop Standard has posted over on Patreon, but you’d think with a new game that there would be more content relevant to it. 

 

It's pretty taxing to document an alternating activation game imo. That and contextualizing the progressive scoring is really sorta not interesting. Tabletop standard's most recent battle report was great though with end game scoring. 

[Pacific81]

I have heard a few people talk about how that game worked so well, need to watch as we are looking for a format for our narrative event next year.

 

Just been picking at some Eldar Guardians to finish off a company, all Vanguard Miniatures. The Grav Tanks are going to be mounted on paper clips as per the one on the left to give the appearance of floating.

[Sherrypie]

  

A small 2k game of EpicAU, Night Lords vs Mechanicum. The astartes attempted a speedy overrun of the harbour, but bounced hard from the wall of robots and got blasted with rocket artillery until they slunk back into the burning waves.

 

 

More in the spoilers!

 

Spoiler

 

[Pacific81]

Beautiful shots as always Sherrypie! It looks like an incredible game.

 

Not surprised the Lords ended up sneaking away (this is how they always go!) I don't think I have seen that army before, is it yours and do you have any more shots?

[Sherrypie]

43 minutes ago, Pacific81 said:

Beautiful shots as always Sherrypie! It looks like an incredible game.

 

Not surprised the Lords ended up sneaking away (this is how they always go!) I don't think I have seen that army before, is it yours and do you have any more shots?

 

Thanks! The Lords are my friend's recently painted force, not mine. This was their first outing and they got absolutely wrecked for it. My first action threw a Golgotha missile on top of their HQ's head and decapitated the marines' supreme command rerolls right out of the gate :D

[Lord Marshal]

On 12/7/2024 at 10:27 PM, DuskRaider said:

I’m actually a bit shocked that I was able to obtain the Construct preorders so easily this time around. I remember when GW released the Spartan wave that everything was gone before I even had a chance to get to the website. I’m wondering if this is an indication that they’re stocking up for releases more or a significant drop in player interest in the game. I’m hoping it’s a correction of stock availability. 
 

Edit: actually, there’s something else I’ve been thinking about as well, and that’s the lack of coverage for the game as well. By that I mean on outlets like YouTube. If you type “Legions Imperialis” into the search bar, there isn’t much that pops up from recent times. Of course there’s the basic review of the newest expansion, but any battle reports or whatnot are completely absent. I know Tabletop Standard has posted over on Patreon, but you’d think with a new game that there would be more content relevant to it. 

 

I think it's just down to them not being Marines.

 

I've never had any issues with getting hold of Solar Auxilia boxes outside of the Starter Set (which all the Marine players were also buying). The only exception has been a brief blip on Day 1 where Baneblades sold out somewhat quickly (but were promptly restocked), but I attribute that more to scalpers wanting to grab anything that wasn't out-of-stock than indicative of anything longterm. All in all Marine stuff still appears to be selling very well - I saw none of the Tallarn Marine kits in Black Friday sales unlike SA - but the other factions are simply nowhere near them in numbers.

 

With regards to Battle Reports, honestly I don't think that's unique to LI. Anything that isn't 40k tends to be a wasteland when it comes to them. Even Age of Sigmar it's rare you'll see a BatRep push above 10,000 views unless it's one of the massive channels (PlayOnTabletop, Tabletop Tactics, etc). 28mm Horus Heresy is in a similar position despite being more popular than ever. What I've noticed is that most of the medium-large channels will only cover a game during the initial hype of a new edition launch, then go back exclusively to 40k until the next thing rolls around. It's just those channels also tend to have the most professional setups and the algorithm isn't friendly to anything else. 

 

Guerrilla Miniature Games has done a few recent LI BatReps, as have All Miniatures Great and Small (who historically have been more of a- uhh, historical <15mm channel) and Bear Foot Miniatures. PlayOnTabletop also just did another Titandeath video.

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Lord Marshal

[DuskRaider]

Yeah, true. I just think I’ve been relatively spoiled by the amount of Titanicus Battle Reps comparatively compared to LI. 
 

I just figured Mechanicum would be more popular than they seem to be, particularly with never seen before Dark Mech units and whatnot. It’s just weird, it seemed like AT was much more popular at this point in its release than LI is and that’s a bit disheartening considering this should have a larger audience. 

[Lord Marshal]

I don't think LI's been helped by what can only be described as the most committed brigading I've ever seen for a GW game. There's a very, very, loud group of people who are seemingly desperate for it to fail for various reasons: wishing it had been 40k, feeling it's encroaching on NetEpic, hoping it will validate a "GW will be killed by 3D printers any day now!" narrative, some 28mm diehards who feel like it's taking 'their' release slots.

 

The whole atmosphere around the game is thick with negativity that's probably putting off a lot of potential buyers, and I'm not referring to people who have (justified) issues with the rules and lack of FAQs, but from those who never had any interest in it to begin with and being rare to see it discussed in the wild (outside of LI-specific spaces) without people jumping in and being snarky about it being dead, or saying it shouldn't have existed in the first place. In a way I'm reminded of the first few years of Age of Sigmar's existence, only that game at least had a lot of understandable anger from Fantasy players at having their decades-old game replaced. 

 

With that being said, I vaguely remember the first year of Titanicus being extremely rough as well and going through something similar. Obviously it's anecdotal, but I recall things been even more doom-and-gloom until the Starter Set (not the Grand Master one) released, which is when it felt like the mood turned more positive. That at least gives me some cause to hope, and I feel like LI is more popular than Titanicus was at this point in it's lifecycle. It has it's praises sung highly these days, but the first year or so was extremely rocky - even before Covid. 

 

Edited 11 hours ago by Lord Marshal

[Pacific81]

Can I ask where you are getting that impression from @Lord Marshal? I think there is an element of 'forums being forums', and them sometimes being balanced towards the negative because people don't bother to post the 'I think it looks alright' opinion. Also, for some places (Dakka is normally pretty funny in this regard) you could have the reincarnated soul of HG Wells return to combine with Rick Priestley, arriving on a flying carpet to make the ultimate supergame, and the responses would still be "meh - average at best".

YouTube also - bear in mind the shocked face cover photo + "why 40k sucks" is what drives the clicks for a lot of people that are doing that stuff as their main income. Then you watch the video and find they're not really saying that at all.

 

I spend a lot of time in Epic FB groups and I think there has been massive positivity towards the miniature range that has been released (rightfully so, we're basically now playing with physical versions of the Kev Adams artwork from 1st edition of lots of little beakies shooting each other) with I would say an apathy, rather than general dislike, of the game itself. There is some aversion to the prices, but hey people are spending £100+ on re-releases of 25 year-old WHFB minis, so by comparison Legions is much more reasonable.

 

I think the game probably sits in the awkward place of not being as much fun as either Blood Bowl or Necromunda (with those games also more accessible) but with too much granularity of rules: it is not a pick up and play game, it requires a lot of time and effort to learn and understand, and it is then competing again 28mm Heresy and Titanicus in that space, while those games already have strong existing communities.

Longstanding Epic groups I know of have looked at it and then returned to Armageddon or NetEpic. My local group is playing ocassionally but has started to wander to other stuff, and even the event we are trying to run next year (a charity event at one of the UK's largest gaming venues) is struggling to sell tickets.

My thoughts on this are that it is due to the accessibility issues mentioned - I think it will find it's niche, and especially the miniatures will keep people perhaps just collecting and using for other versions of the game, perhaps rather than playing Legions itself. But I think that's Ok - and it was never, ever going to become a GW 'main game' again with single unit profiles that cover an entire page, and almost no marketing by GW itself.