Epic Plans

Now then,

I thought I'd share my thoughts on the Games Workshop game "EPIC".  Im no fan of GW, but in the past I was. I really started gaming around 1989 - 90 when still at boarding school in Somerset. The first game I collected a playable, painted force for was Space Marine (epic). So when still at school, instead of doing homework, I painted 6mm Blood Angels, and my older Brother collected Orks.

Many battles were fought on the dining room table, or the living room floor, when my parents were out, as my dad was in the army, we had loads of green army towels, which when placed together, with socks etc underneath served as our battlefield, complete with hills!  Im still not sure if we actually played the game properly, but we had fun non the less.

A few years later, Space marine II (EPIC) was released. I obviously bought the game immediately. It was great, much less fiddly and complicated than the first edition. Many more games were played, and by this time id moved out and got my first flat, so a proper gaming table was the order of the day. Not long after supplements started to appear, then Titan Legions, which ill be honest, i didn't like, as the  big Imperator Titan and the Mega Gargant just looked...well... crap...

Years passed. I joined the Army in 1996. Unknown to me, as I was far too busy with my first tour of N Ireland and a new wife, a new edition of Epic was released. I had sort of lost touch with the hobby, and completely missed the 3rd edition.  The 3rd edition (Epic 40,000) was heavily criticized by the GW fans for being too simple, unrealistic and bland.













The Epic 40,000 game was only supported by GW for about 6 months, then it was pretty much dropped. A shame really.

In 2004 ish Epic Armageddon was released. The game shares many of the streamlined mechanics of Epic 40k, but has some of the detail from Spacemarine 2. It is a good game, but not really that successful either, probably because GW decided to change all the models, and make them mail order only and they are obviously so way overpriced that only a few could afford them. Combined with poor marketing and hardly any exposure in white dwarf....

So, even after all these years there is still a large community of epic players, but, as people like different things its very fragmented, and there are fan made rules as well such as netepic, and even netepic Armageddon.  There is also another ruleset being developed called Netepic evolution! Not to mention the rumours of a new game from GW itself.....

So all in all a confusing game to get into, not helped by the fact that none of the games are currently supported by GW. My plan is to playtest netepic, Epic Armageddon and epic 40000. Having read all 3 rulesets, I actually like Epic 40000 the most, because of its simplicity and the way that armies are put together.

So, plenty of epic-ness on the blog in the future, but fear not the historical stuff hasnt been forgotten, my bolt action Germans are nearly finished as well as the 15mm Persian army. I also have grand plans for my 6mm WOTR armies and of course the 6mm Napoleonics.

Cheers for reading
Steve

New Figure!

Now then,

For the last 2 years I have been a member of the 2nd Bn the Yorkshire Regiment. Faced with cutting one of the regular Bns, the powers that be decided to merge the 2nd with the 1st and 3rd last year, creating 2 "new" Bns the 1st and 2nd.

The "old" 2nd Bn was effectively the Green Howards 19th foot, and although i was never a Green Howard (I'm 1 PWO 14th /15th foot) I feel their pain, as they have been effectively disbanded, and their long history and traditions are now gone. Although Alma day, their regimental day commemorating the battle of the Alma in the Crimea will be celebrated by Alma company every year.

So when the bn was merged all the members of the Sgts mess were presented with a statue. Here's mine. Click on the images for a bigger view.

A pretty cool model, I'm almost tempted to paint it!! This guy will join a few other regimental trinkets ive been presented over the years, and together they will take pride of place in my figure cabinet in my gaming room.



Steve

NETEPIC GOLD

Now then,

With my addiction to all things epic, and being a hopeless rulebook collector, I have downloaded the Netepic rulebook. Some of you may be asking what netepic is, netepic is a fan made version of the old spacemarine game that was released back in the early nineties. When we were younger we used to play it alot and some of the most fun i've had wargaming was when we played big games, with titans and massed armored companies etc.

So having downloaded it, i then sent the PDF file to a publishing company and had it professionally bound into a softback book. I used Doxdirect, LINK

Im really impressed with the quality of the book, however if i were to do it again, i would get it spiral bound, so that the book lays flat on the gaming table.

Netepic can be downloaded from here - Net Epic
For more information and an active forum discussing all things epic have a look at the tactical command forums, Tactical Command

Cheers,
Steve