I was just participating in a discussion on warseer titled :Random thoughts for a global campaign (in epic)

The idea being floated was: Epic battles, only it's a planetary campaign so you buy a huge huge huge force and that's all the units you have for the whole campaign. You have to deploy the units as part of various strike forces against other players.

That got me thinking.

Epic really doesn't have any large scale campaign rules. We've a point system for buying up units and detachments, but everything is just , set a point total, buy whatever you want, and field it. Wouldn't it be interested to instead have a set of rules for running a campaign against fellow players out there that could represent the various empires of the races.

So that got me thinking of StarFire, the old game by task force games.

Starfire let you build an empire, do research and development, field your own designs of space craft, and even conduct coarse versions of planetary conquest.

Would anyone be interested in getting involved in trying to convert Starfire to a system for managing epic campaigns?

Some things would obviously need changing, like creating a warp travel mechanic for imperial and other forces, whereas Eldar would likely use the jump point mechanic as a representation of the webway gate system.

Just throwing that out there for consideration

I do not have any clue about starfire

But I had similar thoughts about an Epic Campain
With Huge armies which are divided in "smaller" forces
Turn based like or similar to the TotalWar computer games

You have to spread your army over a big map
and count each casualty seperately
e.g. you lost 3 out of 18 devestator stands
so you cant field a devestator Co. anymore
only 2 Det.

It is a great possibility to use every Epic unit you have
without playing 150k games


Great Idea Ifurita

Okay, how to explain starfire.

Starfire is a space combat system first and foremost, however it differs from most such things by allowing the player to design their own ships.

However, it doesn't end there.

It's also an empire management game. You start out with a single planet and you design your various ships (with components based on your tech level), assign resources to r&D, get new technological advances as you get higher and higher tech levels, colonize other planets, engage in espionage, meet alien races, assign resources to all sorts of things to improve your society , etc etc.

Here's a sample set of guidelines for what the ship design system looks like http://www.spotlightongames.com/analysis/starfire.html

So for example an Escore (10 spaces) would look like this

SSAEIIIIII
(yeah I know... sucky design if anyone else plays, just using an example)

That would he Shield Shield Armor Armor Energy beam Ion Enginex6 It'd be a simple gunboat. Most weapons used on it would destroy the ship left to right, but the Energy beam (for example) would ignore Armor and Hull when doing damage.

Now, here's the thing, the way the game works is that from each system there are jump points that you enter or leave a system by. They take you to another system instantly more or less. So this mechanic would be perfect for the creation of a webway gate system. For Imperial and other races it'd need some sort of mechanic for warp travel.

The galaxy is typically laid out on hex paper, with lines being generated to take you between systems and the systems not being generated until someone discovers them.

If you've played anything by Task force games, you'll know that they tend to be very simulationist. Lots of detail.

Now, the thing that might make this work with epic. They also have rules I've heard in Ultra starfire that cover planetary assaults and the costs involved in purchasing ground forces.

I'm thinking of purchasing the new rules and seeing if it might provide a good rules set that could be altered to manage large scale epic empire wars.

We did try using the original Mighty Empires to play a campaign but people got jack of lopsided points battles really quickly and it all fell apart.

While not quite campaign rules, there was the Titan experience system in Titan Legions. We used them for a long time back in the day as part of a league. Armies stayed the same, but titans got better with experience, and reset if they got killed. Played it like a Bloodbowl season...it was quite cool.

Of course any campain system should include the Titan experience system

I have not thought about a campain system that covers entires galaxies
but a campain based on 1 planet

When you move your armies over the map you have to mark where your Titans are

I am not sure about that
defending with 2000 points vs 6000 or more could be funny

You could use completely different tactics
since fight for a higher goal

or the campain could be fought on city map
e.g battle for london
depending on which sector you fight you have to build up the terrain
e.g. hyde park = mostly woods and grassland

On each map should be objetives which are important to defend
and each Army should have an HQ

Hmmm many things to think about
But maybe the only way to face Warhead`s entire Imperial Army

@ Ifurita
Developing new units could be very difficult
since you know how much we discuss about a single unit statistic change

best regards

ule

Something akin to the old PC game Final Liberation (much simplified) would be fun..

i.e. map with X parts (kinda like risk) where you get reinforcementpoints, perhaps with the ability of digging in on a map part to be able to buy fixed defences etc.

It should imho be done in a way that there is 2 factions (which could be multiple players) and the rules should be geared in such a way that there will be an end. biggest problem with campaigns are that they get bogged down =)

Speaking about digging in.

I'd like to suggest that rules for "digging in" and having fortifications and assaulting same would be a good addition for netepic.

Currently, I don't think there really are any comprehensive rules for epic that cover battles that aren't equal forces on equal footing.

Sure, there's the in building saving throw modifiers that encourage infantry to occupy buidlings or ruins for cover, but those are civilian buildings that aren't really meant to withstand shelling and whatnot. They aren't hardened. But what about pill boxes? bunkers, trenches and heavily fortified emplacements. Never mind mine fields, barbed wire (or equiv.), and the like. Shouldn't there be some rules for military structures? I mean surely when an eldar strike force arrives and isn't immeditately in battle they'd set up some sort of power field defense pylons that project a wall of protection for their forces.

And we've seen imperial forces have emplacements.

And for tanks and troops in the field, historically tanks have troops dig them hulled down positions that protect their vulnerable flanks and present reduced target silhouettes. And troops dig fox holes and such as well. Shouldn't these have an effect for units in game?

I mean 40k did their planetstrike thing and now spearhead. Both of which start hitting these points.

Honestly, this brings up the question of a points imbalance. Right now, if you try and fight a battle with a 2:1 point value (2 points for them for every 1 point you have) you invariably get slaughtered. I'd love to see some rules for epic that turn this on its ear and make it an even battle where defenders are the low point value and attackers the high value, and still have a fair battle. As it is, you can't do this. So this precludes whole bunches of types of battles. For example, battles where one person plays defender and the other plays attacker, where historically a defender has always been considered to have the advantage, or as another example... a killing field sort of scenario, where one side is dug in and the other is assaulting those emplacements, trying to dig out a numerically inferior enemy, but one which tactically is able to match a greater sized force.

Something like

Epic:Oppugnator/Defensor (attacker/defender)

Those sort of rules were made in SM2 days and feature in the Space Marine Battles book. It would be interesting to put together a scenario book for NetEpic updating the old assault/engagement/defense rules done way back when. Some play testing to balance things out would be cool too. We tried the "Defender gets 50% + bunkers" scenario and it wasn't close to balanced.

Already familiar of that which you speak.

What's needed are rules that run the gamut of all the types of attacker/defender sort of scenarios.

Things like having a defender with superb and sophisticated defenses set up all the way to hasty battlefield stop gap measures that are assembled without a lot of resources.

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