Hi all,

I was wondering if people are already playing GW's latest release.

Can someone give me a quick overview how it plays? Is it similar to Epic (Armageddon), very different. Pros/Cons?

Also, do you think this game is going to be popular or will it be forgotten a year from now?

I am thinking about getting the starter set but not entirely sure, because I don't know if the rules are any good and also not too fond of the Horus Heresy setting. I want Orks

cheers,

It's very different and heavily based on 2nd edition / Net Epic so I'll be skipping it and keeping playing Epic Amageddon myself. It'll definitely get 3 years or so of releases for definite as they design and plan further models that far out and will have them made already. Whether it keeps expanding beyond that or further support ends is unknown and dependent on sales.

There are lots of reviews out there, youtube reviews and battle reports and multiple facebook groups so lots of infor and reports out there for it.

The scale has gone up a third and the vehicles look great but some of infantry have ugly undercuts that look bad from certain angles (some don't care others dislike it).

Aha! He comes back to the old forums conveniently just as a new Epic edition appears… coincidence? I think not!

I’m also curious about what Epic players think of Legiones Imperialis. I have seen that some of the infantry sprue design was a bit too ambitious and has significant undercut issues, but it’ll be interesting to see if GW experiments more as time goes on (I could see 2 part infantry for fancy Marine units).

I am disappointed at the Heresy-only setting thus far (though it definitely harks back to the original 1E material!), but I’m mostly interested for the potential of more mainstream Epic-scale gaming amongst non-Epicalists. Looks like I’ll have to seek farther afield for a better idea of what the rules are like, but GW has been doing some decent work in this area lately.

I think it will always be niche compared with big40K (especially since big40K has the competitive niche), but I think it could have a decent market with Heresy fans to stick around.

I've yet to play a game, Glen has already covered about the game being heavily based on 2nd edition/Titan Legions, but a few things that stick out for me (and withholding a true judgement until I have played 3 or 4 games)
- They have heavily modernised the missions/objective system. This is a good step for me, as I found that always the thing that got most tiresome in SM2 - even with some of the expansion material, really you had to house rule extra missions and campaigns, so having things available like that from launch is great.
- They have added a lot of granular rules and crunch. You could fit an entire army summary of SM2 unit rules on 2 sides of A4, for this game I have seen weapon loadouts for one tank (as its no longer single profile) that fill an entire side of A4! I can kind of see why they have added some granular detail, as this game is effectively 'blue on blue' and might get boring with lots of identical unit profiles, but suspect they may have overtipped the balance - I'm not sure if applying 28mm-scale granularity is appropriate with a game which has traditionally needed to be more abstract, for the sake of our eyesight
Also, I have played enough games over they years to look at some of the special rules (which again take many pages) and think there could have been a cleaner, more efficient way to do it. I always thought one of SM2's strengths (and I think partly why it was so popular) was because it was so quick to learn and play. I think I used to take 10 minutes to get people rolling dice when demoing, perhaps a little longer for Armaggedon - this game looks like it won't have that benefit and will be tougher for cross-system gamer demoing to take place.
- The standard 'way to play' has been set at 3000pts which may be, considering that the points values are lower and the game may take longer to play, is too high. I can understand them wanting to sell as much stuff as possible for a 'standard' game, but there is such a thing as greed and that could potentially un-horse the popularity of the game if too many people insist on that points value and its not playable in an evening (which I think should always be a guiding principle for tabletop wargaming design). I would have thought WHFB 8th edition would have taught GW a lesson there, but perhaps not - it will be interesting to see what format tournament organisers run with, and if they drop that value to try and squeeze three games in a day.

Finally, I know a lot of Epic players are upset Armaggedon wasn't used as the template for this new game. I can understand that as I think it's possibly the best 'wargame' that GW have ever designed. But, I can understand from a commerical perspective why you would want to replicate what was the most successful version of the past in this new game.

But anyway, will play some games, and then sure some more strengths and weaknesses will become apparent.

I am curious about the round infantry bases, do the rules make a fuzz about bases in any way? I just ordered me a bunch of Epic bases from Vanguard... Would be shame to waste them if I ever get my hands on the Legions Imperialis starter set, of course it's no longer in stock anywhere...

LImp infantry base size is 25mm rounds which matches your Vanguard bases. No waste

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I actually rebased a whole heap of 6mm truescale heresy era minis I had painted in Alpha legion colours. They were on 40 x 12 mm strip bases, now I have a heap rebased on some of the(250 of) 25mm round 5 hole bases I got from Vanguard minis.

Need to flock the bases, and add 2mm grass tufts, but I will endeavour to add some pictures when I can.

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I hasten to add that my epic bases were the rectangle (40x12mm?) ones, not round ones. I realise lots of people have used the round ones for Epic for a long time... it's just that the rectangles fit in narrover trenches etc, the round ones might require daft looking ones. But it's a minor thing really

Anyone heard if the Starter box will make another apperance any time soon? I am kinda anxious to get my hands on one, and the last box available locally was sold just before xmas apparantly.

In the mean time, I think I will concentrate on painting some titans and terrain, I got the Adeptus Titanicus box and a bunch of 3d printed terrain pieces and the GW industrial box, Manufacturom thingy. So plenty to keep me occupied

My stuff will be rebased over my cold, dead body. It ain't happening (although I am using some of the round bases for the new Legions bits I am building).

I have been reading through the rulebook and I have to say the format does it absolutely no favours and I fear actually might limit the widespread appeal/take-up of the game. Simply put it is possibly one of the most dull, dry rulebooks I have ever read. I absolutely *love* epic (I think any of us here still playing a non officially-supported game this many years later fall into that category) and I am struggling to keep my eyes open, and having to read in small batches. Descriptive to the point of tedium, I have read more exciting text at the bottom of my car insurance T&Cs (similarly, it feels like it has been written to stand up to scrutiny in a court of law) and where is the colour and artwork? It is just grey, all of the way through, and the handful of photo-shopped images cannot subsitute for colourful, expressive artwork. What is even more maddening is that they have all of that incredible artwork from the TCG/Collected Visions and Neil Roberts and have not used any of it.

This isn't a trend that GW is generally following (look at the new 40k and Sigmar books and how well they are presented) so them producing a book with the artistic and aesthetic appeal of the back of a pack of dish washer tablets makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

I saw a video with a 1500 point game and the people involved were saying the same thing. 3000 points will be massive. Especially given the restriction on Titans and Knights

So after playing some games, my thoughts on Legions so far. I'll call it The Good, The Bad and The Ugly/Pretty

I do wonder if this game will still be played by many in five years time, if the game has enough legs to support it when the new releases dry up for it. Or will most go back to previous versions to play? It will be interesting to find out.

The Good
- Firstly, and most importantly, the game is definitely fun. Had an absolute blast! Once we got going (more on that later).
- I liked how dynamic/fast moving it is. The increased movement (over previous versions) and reduced ranges means there is a lot more of units rushing around the table and blowing each other up, a lot less slow 10cm trudging move and not doing anything. And it is a *lot* more destructive. Don't get too attached to any unit, as it will generally die when it is shot.
- Alternating activation keeps both players involved, having to think of what order to fire your units or move to engage.
- The missions and objectives system, as this was one area perhaps lacking a bit from previous versions. I liked that most of them are based around capturing your objectives rather than just 'kill stuff' and it really encouraged you to dive in.

The Bad
- The Rulebook. In terms of barrier to entry, if this book was a pair of chastity pants they would be made of wrought iron, covered in spikes and double-padlocked. I *love* Epic and reading this book was an absolute chore. Like the Age of Darkness book, just the complete lack of colour, of artwork, even the po-faced background bits are boring. And the rules themselves are a needlessly wordy; I think someone pointed out before it is to stop 'TFG' reading them upside down and coming to some daft idea of how to play it, but the net result is that they read like the T&Cs from my car insurance.
- The Crunch. Barrier to entry part II. It's not quite as bad as I first feared, so as to make the game unplayable, but I've been wargaming for 30 years, played a ton of the previous versions of Epic, and was playing against people of a similar experience level and we still struggled. Once we got going it was OK (we had to use a third-party app of the Armylist builder to help rules reference) but it took some getting there. I would not want to be coming to this game as a relative newbie or casual player from something like Age of Sigmar, Warcry or One Page Rules systems. There is just so much additional bumf in the rules, references from one rule to another, that could have been handled much more efficiently without altering the feel of the game. So in that respect, I do not think it is well written and could have done with a more forceful editor.
- Table size & miniature count. I assume this might change as the roster gets filled out (we are essentially playing an unfinished beta version of the game at present) but even at 1500pts the game board feels very crowded. This has removed tactical agency as you effectively just swarm things forward to die.
- Multiple weapon loadouts and WYSIWYG - I don't think this is a good idea at this scale. It's quite funny that GW have obviously aimed the game at a certain age demographic, without accounting for fading eyesight. We have just used a 'this unit is armed with this' approach and gone through the list at the start of the game, which I think worked better, even though I know this won't be acceptable to some players.

The Ugly/Pretty
In summary I will say there is a great game there, underneath. It's a bit of a gourmet meal, you have to crack through some shellfish to get at the succulent parts within and if you spend the effort you can enjoy it. But I think a lot of gamers, and especially the more casual, will not be willing or able to make that effort - and so I think because of this (combined with short stock levels and marketing/coverage - not a single mention in the new WD for example) is only ever going to be a fringe system. Which is a shame, as all of us over a certain age (and remembering Epic Space Marine as the game that got us into the hobby) know that it could have been more and held widespread appeal.
Anyway - the miniatures look beautiful (actually, they look like the tiny drawings in the old 1st edition book of dozens of tiny beakies fighting each other, which is jsut awesome). I'm looking forward to the first, much needed, expansion to be released so we can get to play the game in its full form.