APU would kinda make a GM barge pointless. Its main ability is to hide behind terrain.

Personally I'd lose it altogether in favour of an orca-hulled GM aircraft, as mentioned in IA:3.

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

True, but we're wandering off-topic here.

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"For the Lion and the Emperor!"

Yes, please do stay on track.

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Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Honda, in your "sample builds" you've got the same upgrade applied twice to some formations, is this how the upgrades are supposed to work?

In the upgrades section of the army list in v5.1 is has this line: Each upgrade can only be taken once per formation.

Is you idea to remove that restriction?

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Manta Missile Destroyer

Rules

The Manta always counts as a skimmer vehicle, constantly ‘popped up, for all purposes.

The way this is written it means that the Manta can't actually disembark transported models.  I thought that "always popped up" was only really intended for line of sight/fire purposes.

You really should just add skimmer to the notes and "Always considered popped up for line of sight" if you want it to be able to do anything with loaded troops.

Flavour Text vs Stats

as it sports a pair of Heavy Railcannons as main armament, as well as Heavy Ion Phalanxes, scores of heavy Tracer Missiles and smaller defence weapons for close range.

The flavour text talks about "a pair" of Heavy Railcannons, but the Manta only has one, and it's not even twin-linked.  As well, "scores of heavy Tracer Missiles" are mentioned in the text, and the Manta has no Guided Missiles of any kind.

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

In the upgrades section of the army list in v5.1 is has this line: Each upgrade can only be taken once per formation.

Is you idea to remove that restriction?

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Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

One smaller nitting. Why the texts on the unit structure boxes is so verbose? For example
TAU AIR CASTE FORMATIONS – Up to one third of the points available to a Tau army may be spent on Tau Air Caste
Formations. They are independent formations. You may select the Hero or Custodian for your force, but not both.

Wouldn't following work as well?
TAU AIR CASTE – Up to one third of the points may be spent on Tau Air Caste.

There is no real need to say that these are independent in each box. I can do texts for the rest as well.

Just do it like the Steel Legion list:

Orbital Support  One Imperial Navy Lunar class cruiser   150 points
                   OR one Emperor class Battleship         300 points

Probably should put an "0-1" before the "Orbital Support" part too.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

No worries pedantics it is!    

I think it is safe to say that before we go to the final version, a once through of the text to simplify things will be in order.

Right now, I am focusing on getting the list to work. Once we're confident that the most important part of the list behaves as expected, then we can looking into trimming some of the "textual" fat from the steak.

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Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

The upgrade option for the Recon skimmer group lists tetras and pirrahna's but the upgrade is called Recon Skimmers. tetra's are an option to the pathfinders group too.

I just started to write my list for the next game I'm planning and all of a sudden I realise there are no 4 strong HH formations only AMHC. So either take 6+ or none at all....  

Question: Can I ask what the rationale was behind removing them in 5.1? Personally, I would rather have the support group than the cadre, as if I want to take 4 Ion cannon tanks I now can't....

cheers