Tactical Command
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Need 3rd edition rules help
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3950		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  dlevine [ Sun Jan 16, 2005 6:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Need 3rd edition rules help
About 4 or 5 years ago a friend and I bought the Epic 40,000  (AKA 3rd Edition) rules and some miniatures. But real life intervened before we could try playing the game. Now that I have some time again I find that there are some sections of the rules that confuse me and the designers have moved on to a new version and are no longer supporting 3rd Edition.  But the clean, abstract nature of the 3rd Ed. Rules was what attracted me to the game in the first place.

While I'm willing to give EA a try, I really want to play the older rules. I would like some of  you who have played the game to tell me how you handled the following rules questions. I think that how people actually played is more important than an "official" ruling.

First is the question of blast markers and their effect on firepower and super heavy weapons. The rules say that each BM subtracts 1 from firepower and when FP goes to zero each additional BM shuts down 1 SHW. Do you only count the firepower of units that can shoot at the moment i.e. are in range of some target that they have LOS to?

The rules seem to imply this by the order in which they are written (not always a reliable guide, especially with GW rules).  It doesn?t seem to make much sense that an enemy unit moving into range of your short ranged firepower would turn a SHW on - but GW has  (IMHO) sometimes written some very strange rules. How are people actually playing this?

The next point is movement through enemy troops in the assault phase. The issue doesn't come up in the movement phase because of the snap-file rule and the assault rules just refer to the movement rules. This implies that your charging unit can move right over enemy units that have been engaged. But I think that this may be just an oversight. It seams to run counter to the way GW games generally work.

Once again, I would like to know how other people are handling this question?
Author:  iblisdrax [ Sun Jan 16, 2005 11:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Need 3rd edition rules help
When we played Epic40k (all switched to Epic:A now) we always played that one BM shut down one SHW, reguardless of whether it could fire or not.  Same for normal BM suppression, we read the rules that way, ie, you could suppress units even tho they couldnt fire anyway.
    As far as the assaults go, yeah, we played that if a front unit was fully engaged in an assault, you could assault past it and engage a unit further back.  Didnt happen very often , tho.  
    A bit of advice:  Dont look at the Epic:A rules if you are bound and determined to play Epic40k, because the Epic:A rules do address some glaring deficiencies in the Epic40k ruleset, and clarifies the very two questions that you posed above.  


:)

my 2cents,

iblisdrax
Author:  dlevine [ Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Need 3rd edition rules help
>     A bit of advice:  Dont look at the >Epic:A rules if you are bound and >determined to play Epic40k...

I have read the EA rules. Yes. they fix some problems. But they also add back a feature ("It's not a bug, it's a feature") of most GW rules that I really hate, rolling dice once to see if you hit and again to see if the hit was effective.

To my way of thinking the E40k system was bad enough with one die roll per effective firepower. You could just cross-index again against armor and roll one die. If you do it right the results will be about the same.

If a game needs to give players a lot of dice to roll so that they can feel that they are doing something, maybe it isn't giving them enough real decisions to make.
Author:  iblisdrax [ Tue Jan 18, 2005 12:52 am ]
Post subject:  Need 3rd edition rules help
It is true that they added armor as another dice roll, but remember, not all units have armor.  And some weapons negate those rolls also.  So it is a fair trade off, in my opinion.  Just the move from the e40k style -"I move all my units, then you move all your units" to the alternating action style of epic A is worth it.  About the only thing I miss from E40k is the Fate cards, they were cool.

:)

my 2cents,

iblisdrax
Author:  Jimbo [ Tue Jan 18, 2005 1:03 am ]
Post subject:  Need 3rd edition rules help
Quote (dlevine @ 16 2005 Jan.,17:34)
First is the question of blast markers and their effect on firepower and super heavy weapons. The rules say that each BM subtracts 1 from firepower and when FP goes to zero each additional BM shuts down 1 SHW. Do you only count the firepower of units that can shoot at the moment i.e. are in range of some target that they have LOS to?

The rule we use to use was that it was effective FP, in other words you could not use reduce FP on units which could not in fact fire or were out of range or LOS.

So what we did was add up the FP as if we were firing normally and then reduce the FP for each blast marker, rounding down.
The next point is movement through enemy troops in the assault phase. The issue doesn't come up in the movement phase because of the snap-file rule and the assault rules just refer to the movement rules. This implies that your charging unit can move right over enemy units that have been engaged. But I think that this may be just an oversight. It seams to run counter to the way GW games generally work.

A charging unit can move right over an engaged enemy unit. Once all enemy units are engaged (that are in assault distance range) then you can start putting a second assaulting unit against enemy units.

What you can't do is leave enemy units unengaged and assault past them.
the issue doesn't come up in the movement phase because of the snap-file rule
Personally I thought the snap-fire rule was a pile of pants! We use to have a simple abstract rule that you could not move within 5cm of an enemy unit during the movement phase rather than someone shouting out "SNAP-FIRE" like a demented idiot!
Author:  iblisdrax [ Tue Jan 18, 2005 1:49 am ]
Post subject:  Need 3rd edition rules help
Yeah, one mm you are okay but one mm closer (and we had a guy who would measure!!) and you are instantaneously dead?  That rule did lead to alot of strife.

my 2cents,

iblisdrax
Author:  Markconz [ Wed Jan 19, 2005 5:27 am ]
Post subject:  Need 3rd edition rules help
Our group in New Zealand also came up with the snap-fire rule amendment that Jimbo has already mentioned (convergent evolution on opposite sides of the world!). However, we let any unit in a formation with blast markers count as suppressed, whether it was in fire range or not, I believe this is the intention of the rules - though it has ben a while since I played 3rd.
Author:  jprp [ Fri Jul 13, 2012 6:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Need 3rd edition rules help
you only count stuff that can fire in the first place, niether the fp or sup heavy count for anything if they cant shoot at the target in the first place.
You cant go "over" enemy troops at all in an assult (or other movement unless flyer/skimmer is moving) you can go past them through gaps if they are engaged otherwise you have to go round the sides and/or back using more movement.
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