Epicstravaganza Three: New Topic Without the Question Mark

[The Other Dave]

10th is good with me. Can I put in an advance preference for the IG?

Can do! It helps that I can probably actually field more than 1 IG army simultaneously, heh.

[The Other Dave]

OK, the room is got, for August 10th!*

I'll start posting thoughts about armies and such so we can start deciding who gets what as time goes on. Anyone else interested in coming?

*With the caveat that if the kita-ku community meeting group wants the room, they get to bump us, which is BS but there you go. I'll check again in a month or so and double-check that we haven't got bumped. I've never gotten bumped yet, so I think chances are low.

[Konrad]

Room for one more? I'll be stuck here this summer. I plan to spend as much of it rolling dice as possible. I'll need an army, unless I can kit-bash a fleet of Gargants by August. (most unlikely)

[The Other Dave]

Room for one more? I'll be stuck here this summer. I plan to spend as much of it rolling dice as possible. I'll need an army, unless I can kit-bash a fleet of Gargants by August. (most unlikely)

Room for two more, as a matter of fact, and I have armies a-plenty. You may have to negotiate with Badruck about who gets the regular Warhorde and who gets the Gargant Bigmob.

Edit: Actually, that makes 8 people including me, so I'll say we're full so I can actually play a game in the afternoon. If anybody else is interested, we can put you on a waiting list for cancels.

[The Other Dave]

So, armies! I've updated the OP with definitive army claims, and will continue to do so as people chime in. I know Badruck and Konrad want Orks, so you can decide for yourselves who gets the Warhorde and who gets the Gargants.

As I've done before, here's a quick write-up of my armies, including a quick description of what I've put into this year's lists.

Blood Angels
Marines in Epic are a little bit finesse-y, in what (I think) is a very flavorful way. Stand-for-stand, they have the best troops in the game – Marines have good long-ranged shooting, good hand-to-hand and firefight values, and excellent armor, topped off by extremely good morale rules making them very difficult to suppress or break. They’re very mobile, and if used carefully can engage the enemy on their terms, when and where they want to. On the other hand, they have extremely small formations, and while their morale rules make this less of a weakness than formations of the same size would be in any other army, they will still evaporate to focused fire and will have trouble assaulting large enemy formations unless they are carefully softened up and suppressed beforehand.

What you get: In garrison you have a formation of land speeders, the kind with a heavy bolter and an assault cannon. They’re fast as heck and pretty shooty, but really they’re mostly about threatening objectives and harassment tactics, as they will not do well in a straight-up fight. In regular deployment you have the death company, a small-even-for-Marines formation of close-combat specialists, a squadron each of land raiders and whirlwinds, both very solid tanks in their roles, a tactical detachment in rhinos with the Chapter Master, and a warhound titan on loan from a friendly neighborhood titan legion for some mobile anti-armor punch, an area where Marines can struggle. In reserves you have a nice big assault formation in a thunderhawk and a formation of teleporting terminators, which is widely agreed to be the best single formation in the game. Add in a couple of thunderbolt fighters for air support and defense and you’re done.

Eldar Swordwind
Like in 40K, Epic Eldar are an army that needs to be used a bit carefully. They’re fast, shooty, and very fragile, and their infantry are generally single-purpose: dominating at close quarters, pants at range. Their fragility is mitigated somewhat by their ability to “shoot and scoot” and use hit-and-run tactics, which (like all Eldar special rules in all games ever) can be extremely annoying when used well. Unlike last year’s list, I went all-out this year with making full use of wraithgates and the webway, which adds another layer of trickiness, but gives you some tricks up your sleeve if you want to use ‘em. The bulk of your army (all the infantry) begins in reserves and deploys via wraithgate, either through a terrain piece you get or through your wraithgate-equipped superheavy.

What you get: In garrison you have a ranger troupe, which exists pretty much to be a garrison and hold a forward position – they have good mid-ranged anti-infantry fire, but their main role will be to sit in cover and hold tight. In regular deployment is a troupe of 5 falcons, a troupe of 2 superheavies (a scorpion with twin pulsar and a storm serpent with your mobile wraithgate), and your two revenants. All of these are fast, mobile and shooty, with weaker armor than most other armies’ tanks, superheavies and titans respectively, but all can do that annoying jump back and forth over terrain thing. In reserves, deploying through the webway, are a big old aspect warrior warhost, which is (as you might expect) a force to be reckoned with in an assault, two guardian warhosts, which are rather less awesome but much cheaper, and a jetbike troupe for some speedy objective threatening. You’ll have to be careful with the infantry, as once they come out of the webway they’re pretty much stuck where you put them, and even the aspect warriors will have trouble successfully assaulting an unsuppressed enemy. You also have an Avatar, which is a free unit you can summon to the table for a single turn once per game - some assault support, basically. You do get a squadron of phoenix bombers, which are very nice indeed and should help out a lot with the whole suppression thing.

Imperial Guard Steel Legion
In retrospect, the armored company list I brought last year was not too newbie-friendly, what with its small numbers and such, so I built a more traditional steel legion force this year. The steel legion has a nice balance of static defensive units and mobile aggressive ones, beefy infantry formations that are the definition of “sheer force of numbers,” excellent artillery and plenty of superheavy tanks. Not too much to say about them, really!

What you get: In garrison you have two mobile scouting formations (a vulture squadron and a storm trooper platoon in valkyries) that are mobile and shooty but small and fragile, and a big infantry company to sit on an objective and never give it up. They have no reserves, and in regular deployment is another infantry company, this one in chimeras, a battery of nine basilisks, a company of three baneblades and one shadowsword for war-engine hunting, then a couple thunderbolts for air support. The artillery in particular is very powerful, but vulnerable to air strikes or teleporters, both of which are out in force this year.

Iron Warriors
Chaos Marines have the same statline as regular marines, minus their morale rules, making them “merely” excellent elite troops. To balance out their ordinary resistance to suppression, they get bigger formations than loyalists, but on the whole they’re fairly similar. I gave them one ace in the hole, a formation deploying via planetfall, which brings in some special rules and a need to make a battle plan (you choose their dropzone and the timing of the drop before anyone even deploys), which might feel a bit tricky to a new player.

What you get: In garrison you get two formations of chosen with dreadnoughts in support – chosen have the same statline as regular marines in Epic, but get the ability to garrison. In regular deployment are two big formations of iron warriors in rhinos, two small formations of land raiders, and a chaos reaver titan. In reserves is the planetfall formation and the cruiser that brings them, with a couple units of obliterators attached for some extra punch plus your only anti-air capabilities. Really, this army is based around a solid core of chaos space marine infantry, with some tough armor in support. Nothing too tricky, aside from the advanced planning the planetfall calls for.

Necrons
Necrons are a kind of a weird army, and change the way the game has to be played in a few ways. Almost the entire army deploys after the game starts, giving you an ability to engage only the parts of the enemy force you want to that is unmatched by any other army. But once you phase in, all your forces are extremely slow – the “triple move” march order is unavailable to necrons. Your units are very durable, have powerful (if short-ranged) shooting, and are quite good in an assault. Just slow. On the other hand, unlike the Eldar, you can use your portals to redeploy your infantry, hopping into one on one side of the board and out of another on the other side in the same turn.

What you get: No garrisons, and your only regular deployment unit is your titan-sized war engine, the aeonic orb – essentially a sun trapped in a trapezoid of living metal, and it’s a bear. Everything else deploys later. You get two formations of monoliths that teleport in and have your portals to deploy infantry through, and a formation of obelisks, which are basically doomsday arks – more lightly-armored than monoliths, with a single powerful ranged attack. Deploying through portals (either the monolith or a special terrain piece you get) are three big infantry phalanxes, with warriors and immortals and lords, oh my! You also get a pylon for your anti-air support – it has long range and hits like a ton of bricks, but is pretty easy to suppress if you’re not careful.

Ork Warhorde
This is the footslogging horde of boyz familiar to players of 40K. Orks are great in an assault, partly because of sheer force of numbers and partly because of a great close combat score, but not so great at shooting, not least because the only order they’re guaranteed to respond well to is one that decreases their accuracy. They’re better than any other army at shrugging off the effects of suppression, and are really quite mobile. They also don’t follow orders very well, unless those orders are “move as fast as you can towards the enemy, shooting wildly and inaccurately as you do so,” which as you might expect can cause trouble.

What you get: In garrison are a stormboyz korps and a big warhorde of boyz on foot, one for jumping around and threatening objectives and the other for sitting tight on one of your own. No reserves, and in regular deployment is a kult of speed and two big blitz brigades, made up of buggies and gunwagons respectively, all three of which are very fast but lightly-armored formations. Also you get two warbands mounted up in battlewagons and gunwagons, and a gargant for some slow-moving but well-armored punch. Add some fighta-bommas for air support and you’re golden.

Ork Gargant Bigmob
This is a kind of specialized and probably fairly tricky force. You have a core of slow, tough, shooty units, supported by a few small mobs of boyz on foot deploying via drop rok. The drop rok is the main tricky bit of the force, as like the Iron Warriors planetfall formation, you need to choose the drop zone and timing of it before deployment begins. Plus the formations it transports aren’t really all that great – its main purpose is to allow you to threaten the enemy backfield, which your gargants will frankly have trouble reaching.

What you get: No garrisons, and in regular deployment you get two great gargants and one OK one. Gargants are basically massive sacks of damage points, protected by massive banks of shields – very hard indeed to kill, even with titan-killer weapons. On the other hand, they’re very slow, have only mid-range weaponry, and suffer the same trouble as regular Orks vis a vis preferring to charge headlong at the enemy firing wildly, so they’re not that great at shooting. They’re awesome in assaults, but their speed makes them easy to avoid. Your small numbers means you’ll probably have to either defend your own objectives or try to capture the enemy’s – not both. In reserves you get two loota warbands in a drop rok, which is not as scary as a formation of assault marines in a thunderhawk or a chaos warband in dreadclaw assault pods, but will still be an irritant at the very least, and again give you the ability which you would otherwise lack to threaten objectives in the opponent’s backfield. Your big weakness is a lack of air support or defense. On the one hand, fliers are simply not a threat to gargants, but on the other that means they can focus on the much-more vulnerable loota warbands, who will not stand up to much aerial bombardment.

Titan Legions
This force suffers from similar weaknesses to the Gargant Bigmob, especially in terms of numbers. Titans are shootier and (on the whole) more mobile than gargants, and have fewer damage points, but are still complete monsters – I played a game against Primarch a bit ago where he used them, and I literally had to sacrifice half my army to take down a single warlord. If the game were about lining up and shooting, Titans would be an extremely strong army, but it’s not.

What you get: In garrison you have a tiny formation of sentinels for threatening objectives (if they’re lucky enough to survive so long), which will evaporate the instant someone fires on them. Really, their only hope of survival is the fact that titans take so much firepower to take down that not shooting at a titan is a bit of a wasted opportunity. In regular deployment you get two warlords, massive stompy death machines, two warhounds for speed (you’ll have to be careful with them – they don’t have very many damage points and only a couple of void shields, and will fall to any significant amount of fire) and a formation of forge knights for numbers. Fourteen models altogether, woo! You have a squadron of marauder bombers for those enemies that hide in the back, but in the end you’re going to be relying on your own massive firepower and banks of void shields to win the day.

Tyranids
Tyranids in Epic very much follow the “tide of teeth and claws” pattern out of the ever-shifting pool of “what Tyranids are” in 40K. You get lots of dudes that swarm over the enemy and then eat them. Very little shooting, lots of emphasis on assault, lots of ways to mitigate or outright ignore the effects of morale – just as an example, your army does not care at all if gaunts die, and gaunts make up the bulk of your infantry formations. You have some big unwieldy hammers of units and some sneaky tricks too.

What you get: In garrison, you get a swarm of genestealers, so they can start in a forward position and either make an objective very hard to take or actually be in a position to assault something – like genestealers in 40K, they’re extremely scary in hand-to-hand, but it can be hard to get them there. You also have a nest swarm consisting mainly of biovores and their larger cousins, dactylises, so you can start pinning down enemy formations with spore mine fire right away. In regular deployment is the dominatrix, the massive warbeast that forms the main synapse node of your army and which your opponent really really doesn’t want to let into hand-to-hand – on the other hand, since ‘Nids have no shielding, she’s very vulnerable indeed to titan-killer weaponry, so you’ll have to take care to get her there. You have a couple of big gaunt swarms supported by various weird beasties that would be carnifex variants in a modern list, a smaller swarm consisting only of those big beasties, and a swarm of gargoyles with their harridan mommy, which is even called a “harassment swarm” so you’re sure of what to do with it. In the reserves you have a swarm of lictors, whose infiltration abilities are simulated by teleportation – they’ll just pop out and chew the crap out of something. Like lictors the last time I played 40K, though, they’re then pretty much stuck out in the smoking ruins of whatever they killed and will be very vulnerable to follow-up fire, but man oh man do they pack a heck of an alpha strike. A big weakness of the army is lack of air support or defense – you’re not completely defenseless, but most of your anti-air consists of gargoyles flinging themselves into the air intakes of enemy aircraft, which is a bit limited in terms of range.

[job]

I'd like to use the steel legion if possible, please.

[The Other Dave]

I'd like to use the steel legion if possible, please.

I've got you down for it.

(I've put people's army choices in the list of participants in the OP, and I'll update it as folks speak up.)

[me_in_japan]

Eldar for me this time around, please, unless someone else has a strong opinion on the matter

[The Underdweller]

I call Tyranids!

[The Other Dave]

Done, and done!