How to fix LI

[Gillyfish]

I agree with everyone above that adding in at least Orks and Eldar to AT would be terrific. They key challenge would be ensuring balance as the game works fairly well and these factions might need to change some of the core functions (although the fan-made options do show how this could be done well).

 

GW would then have some sales figures to allow them to see how much appetite adding these races to the broader setting might be. They could re-do them a little for Aeronautica (they already have the models and the rules and I am sure many players would welcome their return).

 

LI is the issue as the rules were built on shaky foundations. 2nd edition was replaced for a reason; it got unwieldy (just like 40k 2nd edition did) with all the special rules for units and the fact that the game effectively allowed one side to have such a good first turn that the game was effectively over.

 

It is possible to write rules for the scale that work. Epic 40k, E:A and Dropzone all work as rulesets. Crucially, they all have a clear design philosophy too. The later Epic games played far more on suppression, movement and morale and were far stronger for it. Dropzone plays very much on the combined arms interaction and the need for aerial transportation to, from and between objectives, making AA and counter-battery fire far more important and giving infantry a very clear role.

 

LI as a ruleset needs a clearer design philosophy, as do some of the factions (or, perhaps, army lists). Taking a cue from the games mentioned above, perhaps the suppression concept needs to be reintroduced in some fashion and the formation choices need to be more meaningful. So perhaps if you are taking aerial transports, that should make for a very different game experience to ground transports, for example; the aerial formation might allow you to reach an objective quickly and potentially exit with it, but is ore visible and vulnerable to AA fire, whereas ground transports can make better use of cover, but can be suppressed, potentially hindering their movement and combat effectiveness.

 

The Legion rules could then be reflected with specific formations which grant benefits to units in that formation, perhaps more than army wide (which might restrict the (ab)use of infiltrate), but, equally, if you can drop artillery on an infiltrating unit which stops them removing an objective, that might make them more vulnerable to counter-attack.

 

The above are not necessarily things that have to be done, but illustrate options and ideas that could be played around with to give more meaningful choices in army selection to players.

[Matcap86]

I'm expecting the custodes to at least get a legions release.

 

Additionally releases for HH haven't exactly been a flood either. Might be the HH setting has taken a bit of a back seat compared to old world and necromunda. The amount of releases we got in the year after launch was honestly silly as well, might be they've blown their load in the initial release waves.

 

I'm not (yet) worried, but a sign of life would be nice at this point.

[Griefbringer]

Not sure if this counts as a sign of life, but Warhammer Community now has on show some Golden Demon winners (continental European if I interpret correctly), and one of the award categories is Epic scale models. You need to scroll down about 2/3 of the page to see the winners for this category:

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/jqmnddcy/golden-demon-2026-winners-revealed-at-spiel-essen/

 

For those not wanting to hunt for the pictures, the gold winner is a knight model, second place (silver) is a Reaver titan (with a few marines as base decoration) and the bronze medal went to a space marine commander (yes, a single small figure on a scenic base!).

[Black Cohort]

I am pretty sure I have said a variation of this before in this very thread, but to fix LI would basically require the entire current ruleset to be tossed in a dumpster and set on fire.

 

First things first, get rid of the idea that a base only represents the models you physically see on it.  That works great at 40k scale, it makes 0 sense at epic scale.  1 base = 1 squad/unit.  So a baneblade, or even a Leman Russ is probably 1 model = 1 unit, but for random front line guard and even marines?  one stand could be 5, 10 even 20 guys.

 

Next, get rid of all the minor variations of the same weapon, why does LI have multiple different versions of autocannons and heavy bolters?  Like the above, the game gets bogged down in detail that doesn't matter at the scale it should be representing.

 

The primary design goals need to be two relatively simple things, relatively quick gameplay and the feeling that I control an army, not just a couple squads and a handful of tanks.

[Gillyfish]

@Black Cohort I think we both agree on that. There are some concepts from the rules that might perhaps be preserved; orders, and alternative activation, for example. Overall though the game needs a clearer design philosophy than it currently has and streamlining (as you suggest) to support that philosophy.

[Griefbringer]

14 hours ago, Black Cohort said:

First things first, get rid of the idea that a base only represents the models you physically see on it.  That works great at 40k scale, it makes 0 sense at epic scale.  1 base = 1 squad/unit.  So a baneblade, or even a Leman Russ is probably 1 model = 1 unit, but for random front line guard and even marines?  one stand could be 5, 10 even 20 guys.

 

I am not opposed to this idea, but:

 

1.) Traditionally, in the previous versions of Epic (from SM 1st ed to E:A), a single infantry stand of five figures on table has actually represented five actual combatants, i.e. 1:1 ratio between models and combatants. This has the advantage of being intuitive and concrete to the player. 

 

2.) What about lighter vehicles/walkers, such as sentinels, dreadnoughts and land speeders? Would a single such model still represent a single vehicle, or a small squad of them?

 

3.) As regards rules design, what would be the actual effects of having a single base represent 10 or 20 combatants, instead of 5? I assume that if vehicles would remain at 1:1 representation level, then presumably the amount of vehicular firepower required to destroy a stand would increase depending on the number of combatants represented.

 

 

From a purely modelling perspective, I can definitely see beauty in the slightly abstracted approach where "a single base represents 10 combatants, regardless of the number of models stuck on it". I am familiar with historical games that take similar approaches, though for mysterious some of them pay great attention to the number of models you are supposed to stick on a base, even though it does not matter rules-wise. And it can help to give the game more "epic feeling" if properly implemented, but it won't necessarily give it more "epic look" - in the end, ten bases of infantry on table is ten bases of infantry on table, regardless of how many combatants each base represents in your head.

 

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Speaking of the feeling of the game, one issue with the army list design is that there are lot of organisational terms (tercio, squadron, battery, sub-cohort, demi-company, company) which get thrown around quite liberally, but with little attempt in giving them in-universe definitions. The structures for the formations and detachments seem to be driven more by the arbitrary numbers of models per sprue than actual in-universe organisations or an "epic feeling".  Admittedly, I appreciate ability to make good use of all the models on the sprues.

 

Even when an in-universe organisation is known, the army lists do not necessarily encourage that. For example, Solar Auxilia lasrifle tercio is known (from other sources) to be around 60 men at full-strenght. Or 12 bases of 5 men each - epic looking sight on table top! The Lasrifle tercio detachment entry allows 4-16 bases per detachment (from seriously understrenght to slightly overstrength), and two infantry sprues gives you total of 12 bases (if you use the 4 flamer bases). However, if you want to use such a unit as a basis for a Sub-cohort formation, you will notice that such an epic looking and fluffy detachment is not enough to fill the "core tax" requirement - yet the very same models split into two smaller (less fluffy, less epic looking, more min-maxy) detachments qualifies.