Specifically, I'm looking for a concise set of attributes that you would use to identify a vehicle from each faction, plus Undivided. What would you look for to identify the power a vehicle is associated with if you laid eyes on it for the first time? Other useful information would be what animal infleuences you'd expect to see in Daemon Engines, and what style of locomotion you feel best represents each faction.

I'll go first:

Khorne: The biggest things here are CC ability and sheer speed. I expect a Khorne vehicle to get to grips as quickly as possible (berserker charge), and start swinging as soon as it gets there. Transports would have Land Raider style assault ramps to disembark directly into combat. Ranged weapons would be primarily limited to close support. Predatory animals, or ecpecially agressive ones, would be primary infleuences. Scorpions, bulls, preying mantis (Mantii?), or Hyenas could lend design elements.

Nurgle: Rotting hulks, spilling effuent or oil. Perhaps it's impossible to tell which. They should be slow, but deceptively difficult to destroy. Flies, slugs, maggots, anything associated with filth and disease would be fair game for Daemon Engines.

Slaanesh: Slender, graceful designs as a rule. Fragile looking, but packing a significant punch and elegant speed in spite of it. A mix of influences, but never imitating any animal too closely. their beauty should lay in their very unearthliness.

Tzeentch: Generally have sorcerous or warp based ranged weapons. Poor in CC. Often fly or float, through sorcery or other means. Aside from the Silver Towers, Avian and Aquatic infleuences abound. They should either make no concessions to aerodynamics, remaking reality as they see fit, or be sleek and cut through the air or cross the ground without leaving a trace, changing the flow of the universe without anyone noticing their passing.

Undivided: Plain, businesslike designs. They serve their masters with no flair or elan, but are no less effective for it. Generally mechanical infleuences instead of living ones.

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Rusty bunch:

Low/old tech (no hover jets but they use rotary fans as example)
Old design styles without finesse or sleekness,more blocky and functional
Older materials with wood or basic steel forms.
Slug/worm/maggot/snail influence for hybrid creature/vehicles - slow, fleshy, bulbous, slimy with some shell or chitinous structure but for protection rather than weapons (chitinous weapons being more the aggo mob)

i think there is, and should be, an overlap between the factions

i also feel that most vehicles and daemon engines should be fairly unaffiliated, modelwise
the best way to identify what subfaction a model belongs to, should be the list it's in (and the person playing said list telling you) followe by the manner in which it's painted, followed then by the modelling itself

most chaos vehicles are like this. a chaos rhino is the same as every other chaos rhino except in superficial detail and paintscheme, it doesnt have a different means of locomotion than the next one, just because one is smelly and one is angry. the angry one might have skulls instead of pustules, but thats not a core design decision

the same should be true of daemon engines. the only one who should have particularly overt modelling differences, is the smelly fellows, and as i said in the other thread, it seems like thats best to largely leave open to the individual modeller

if i have a daemon engine, its affiliation should be to whichever faction i decide to paint it, or else i'll only be interested in the ones that fit the specific faction i am interested in at any given time. widen the target audience, make them fairly generalised

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To me thats what undecided is for, that is where the generic vehicles lay and gangs can use them and paint/modify them as appropriate for their colour etc.

Some vehicles should be gang specific though (in stats, rules and models) otherwise what is the point of having different gangs?

i'm fine with a nurgle plague hulk looking different to a defiler, i just dont think that many attributes of most factions should be represented by modelled adjustments
i have wished, since i saw them, that the blight drones where undivided, as i love the design, but not the rusted aspects
a brass scorpion looks fine undivided, as does a blood slaughterer honestly, except for visibly rotting figures, most every chaos faction vehicle should be Chaos primarily (ie: undivided) and subtle elements could indicate a prefered faction, but not require it
at epic scale, there isnt really a defining aspect. it doesnt need to have things like "if it has claws it must be angry" or "only magic guys float" as those things are not true. likewise, not every smelly vehicle needs to have fly eyes, not every angry vehicle needs to be festooned with skulls and chalices of overflowing blood

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Chaos Aesthetics:

Two main schools of design predominate the Soulforge: the Classicals, who build machines and bind demons and the New Wave, who sculpt ideas that demons inhabit.

Anything with traitor in the name, from traitor Leman Russes to traitor Reavers tends to fall into the classical camp, While other baroque mechanical creations such as the Dreadclaw, Defiler and the Deathwheel define it.
Compared to their imperial counterparts, the angles are sharper, block areas are smaller, and the emphasis switches from the natural curves of the skull and eagles to harsh lines, arrows and spikes. Where curves are present they are part of a regular circle, a segment or arc. Construction is still clearly mechanical with spinning blades, rivets, bolted joints, heavy pistons and many repeated parts. There is at least one plane of symmetry and frequently more.

The New Wave follow the principle that nothing can look truly malignant unless it s alive. Bio-mimicry is the key principle here. Angles can be acute or obtuse, but never 90 degrees and never formed between two straight lines. If there is a plane of symmetry at all, there will be only one running along where the creature would have a spine. Armored plates are segmented and overlapping, hinting at flexibility inconsistent with continuous chassis construction. Lines and plates are curved following a parabola or ellipse, not a regular arc. Where riveted joints exist, the line is haphazard, curved or the rivets themselves resemble growths. Anything mounted upon an axle, eg a circular saw, wheels or obvious rotor should be avoided. Pivoted joints are consistent with bio-mimetic design but emphasis should be laced upon irregular outgrowths of armor at the joint and not the central bolt. Pistons, where used, should echo muscles and be designed for tension. Generally speaking, this means they should be much more slender and again, offset and slightly curved.
Where the interior of he machine s visible, emphasis s given to intestinal cables and hoses, not regular clockwork, straight pipes or pseudo-circuitry. In this manner, New Wave engines tend to evoke invertebrates as the armored exterior and flexible interior match the needs of a chaotic battlefield well. Designs derived from vertebrates are also possible, utilizing reptilian scaly armor, bone plates or partially skeletal construction. Representing muscular areas with shaped hard plates should be avoided, although a body covered in cables following the major muscle lines could be interesting.
Even ardent New Wave designers acknowledge a hybrid is more threatening then a perfect copy, and hints at mechanical/cyborg hybridization can be seen in the new Brass Scorpion and Blight drone, while the Soulgrinder is the epitome of this third way.

All of the factions of Chaos have their own design quirks and motifs, but the Classical / New Wave split doubles the number of design philosophies again. The author will return to the key differences between the main factions a little later.

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I like the idea that modelling makes the miniature rather than the stats.

Only a hanful of stats ( if that) to represent an epic level force is something that i would support.

I feel that epic has become the 6mm 40k. As a list designer, i cannot really help but to join the crowd if i am going to get any buy- in which is a shame.

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An interesting point

What should come first? the stats or the miniature?

Obviously for EpicA there is a historical reference of miniatures and designs/artwork that the rules need to represent but this can be detrimental to the game/armylist as over weaponed vehicles could be too many points for people to play or don't fit a role needed within a list and possibly double up on areas when it isnt required.

I would have thought that when designing a game/army list/individual entry that the stats would come first and then the model would be commissioned with the stats and the background as a guide.

The stats of an individual vehicle can be tested and tweaked and changed before any model is produced, once the model is produced the list designer is limited in their design discretion as they must make the model logical (or make the model unrepresentative of the rules eg WFB orc boarboys from a few years ago, the model was armed with spears but the rules didnt allow for spears to be bought for them)

For me stats should come 1st and then the model should represent those stats

Mango

At present we have stats to represent just about every 40k element

As an example of what i mean, imagine a chaos dread or walker. Imagine that was the name and it had stats. Now imagine you modelled a dreadnought or a blood slaughterer to be used for that unit type. Just one example where epic could simplify and represent the scale more and the modelling would determine the figure rather than the stats.

Then all lists have to do is make available or minimise the options of where to take it. Overall a simpler system, less room needed for lists, and a ruleset that represents what 6mm is and promotes modelling and creative ideas.

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Frogbear: Sounds like Epic 40,000 to me rather than Epic: A

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Well epic:a as it stands now to me sounds looks and feels like 40k6mm.

If it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck.......

I find it funny because while the community snubs 40k as being a game for 12 year olds, they do an aweful lot to replicate it rather than represent it. In effect, epic.a as it stands now, is 40k for tight arses.

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The reason Epic:A exists is because Epic 40k failed, and the reason Epic 40k failed is because people reacted badly against the generic catagories of units and weapons.

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People react badly to the generic because they simply do not understand.

I stress this alot: limiting oneself to a single gaming system breeds silo thinking. It is not until you start to play and appreciate the scale through other games that you realise (or I do), that the game could be done differently.

So rather than develop umpteen stats and vehicles (hell we have about 20 different Rhinos?), simplify the stats (make things generic) and allow the rules to shine for you. I daresay, balancing the list through a special rule rather than trying to balance 20 different units is going to be easier.

The community snubs special rules when in fact, they maybe should snub the uncontrolled stats out there and support special rules to represent a force. It is a far stretch andf I know that such views will not change the state of the game, however when it comes to modelling or stats, I would rather the modelling take over and the stats/rules remain static. I much prefer someones idea of a troop type (as we have seen with items such as cthulhu cultists) rather than models being coralled into a stereotype (as the above poster started to delve into).

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But the model has to represent the stats so the model manufacturer has to create a model that people will buy because it can be used to represent those stats, no point producing a 100 battle cannon monstrosity and hoping people buy it to use as a scout vehicle because its a cool model



There is certainly a fine balance between too many options (orks with gutbusters, gibletgrinders and 500 other versions of a battle wagon from 2nd ed(?)) and too few options but a person or company that wants to produce a model has a set range of options to deliver that model to the consumer.

As i mentioned before, sometimes a model can be generic (undecided) and people can convert/paint as they will but to promote diversity between army lists some vehicles would need to be list specific as no other list has that vehicle or anything that remotely resembles it (floating castles as an example).

if you were to remove army list specific entries then why have so many army lists the rusty ones could just be green undecided, the angry ones could just be red undecided.

I agree, i think same type units across multiple army lists need to be streamlined, i suggested as much in the nid cult forum with cultists and generic transports.

Armies need to be different from each other for the army to have a reason to exist but there are many units that are common to multiple armies and should be aligned to assist in simplification. this will also assist n playtesting and getting the list approved because a significant proportion of the list would already have been tested and approved and the points just have to be confirmed in the context of the new list.

Why start a list from scratch when you can use the work many people have done before and get a kick start

but i think we have gone OT I have at least