Many of us in the UK find it a bit baffling and unnecessary the Australians came up with a new heavily modified version of the rules. In the UK we're happy still using the original Epic Armageddon rules, they may not be perfect but they are very good and better to stick with what everyone is used to. It's a bit disappointing there is divergence in the rules but there isn't really communication between the UK and AU communities (if the AU community is still even active as I know their site has been down for ages) and I predict a 0% chance of a new combined ruleset ever being agreed. Not ideal but it is what it is.

There's a big upswing in interest in Epic locally here (20 player tournament this weekend just gone) and several new players at a local club getting into Epic through playing 30k Epic. We're using the AU lists but ignoring their rules and using the standard Epic Armageddon rules that we're familiar with and to make it easier switching between the two systems.

I'm working on a streamlined generic Net-EA 30k legion list that I plan to put up here and get tested. I have a document 75% or so written, I just to find time to finish it but have been going through a busy patch with work. So it is coming but give me a month or two at most and I'll get it up. We do have a load of local interest to help playtest it and I definitely want to see it done.

Well, the 2k EUK Steel Legion versus 30K IW went well. Guard lost, but that was largely poor decision-making (not going for BTS) and unlucky rally/activation rolls on my part. Didn't feel particularly imbalanced but we are both total novices.

We did use Fleshbane but other than that I don't recall any particularly egregious rules

The NetEA ruleset isn't going to change, beyond FAQs, so in that sense there is no opportunity to work from within. It's in the description on the front page of https://net-armageddon.org (my emphasis).

'It incorporates the official Epic Armageddon rules without modification, and builds on top of the rules by providing clarifications and updated army lists (many not included in the original publication).'

This means that, for players that are unhappy with parts of the Epic Armageddon rules, they have a choice of playing another game or edition, or doing their own variant of the EA rules. See https://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd ... =4&t=33200 for some of the issues that different players would change, or dislike.

My personal 'friction points' with EA are:

• War Engines don't degrade gracefully as they gain Blast markers and damage.
• Larger War Engines interact poorly with the overall dynamics of EA, particularly the need for high activation counts and the inability to split fire with weapon systems that don't complement each other.
• The activation system plus the tournament scenario's emphasis on last-minute objective grabs places strong restrictions on how army lists can be constructed.
• Several EA mechanics (Skimmers forcing firefight values, clipping firefights...) and army lists lead to rock-scissors-paper matchups on the game table.
• The Initiative test to activate a formation is fantastic as a concept to represent different degrees of organisation, but on the tabletop it can lead to frustrating game experiences where you're fighting against the dice rather than your opponent.
• This is a list-level issue rather than an overall EA issue, but there are a number of internal and external balance issues in the NetEA and EpicUK army lists, where specific factions or specific units in a faction are substantially better or worse than other choices.
• Messy Aircraft interactions with other Aircraft if there is AA cover on both sides.

If you're a small group and the friction points get too much, you're probably going to end up moving to another edition, like I (mostly) did. If you have a larger group with a consensus about what needs changing, you can do a variant of EA, like Epic AU, EA Ragnarok, Epic Alight, and a few others I can't remember the name of.

As a general note, collaboration between the EpicUK and EpicAU groups is incredibly unlikely.

The two groups play area terrain and Line of Fire very differently at events, and there have been a number of very loud and angry arguments over the years, regarding who is following the published rules and who is using house rules. After the last argument, there was a noticeably drop in Taccoms posts from the EpicAU community.


Please be careful with generalisations. There's a big chicken-and-egg effect in the UK due to the EpicUK events, with players being pushed towards EA because that's what's used at the events, which use EA because that's what people play, because that's what's used at the events, etc. etc. I have to play original EA if I want to go to an event, because it's the only option.

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The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Other than the various special rules they've bolted on, have the Epic AU guys really made any systematic changes?

Yes. I’d have to scour through the PDF again as I don’t think there was a change log anywhere, but from memory:

All War Engines have the same Critical, and suffer -1 to hit once they’re at half DC or less. Although that’s arguably an army list-level change.
Commander range for coordinated assaults increased to 10 cm.
You can only retain the initiative with a formation that contains a Commander.

I think there were also some changes to overlapping Zones of Control in assaults, and some Aircraft changes.

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

For their earlier years after releasing their 30k lists the AU players just used the standard EpicA rules (though playing terrain fairly differently to the rest of the world by using true line of sight) but more recently they put out a rewrite of the EpicA rules with dozens of changes all over the place.

Reading through them and chatting about them with other Epic playing friends on the drive up to a tournament we liked the odd change but not most of them and some were really poorly thought out. So locally we're just using the standard EpicA rules still plus the new AU special rules like Fleshbane and such, that still works fine.

New ASR/USRs though don't make it a new game. We've had additions almost from the start of EA *couch couch fickle masters cough cough lance cough fleet of foot*. The HH stuff is already EA with a setting wide large number of USRs basically and lots of toys being added. Independently, the EpicAU leaders in that scene wanted to diverge and build up a new fan based version of EA which would have been an actual change to the core mechanics (things like split-fire, counter-charge, removing clipping, redone aerospace rules, etc). In reality that's not going anywhere and frankly has been way overblown by some people as being a thing. Fatdex's work is a highly themed setting for EA; Nothing more, nothing less.

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Huh, I'd not even realised there were rules for Leader assaults. That's a really nice feature - a lot like Warnaster/HCs "follow me lads!" rule. Honestly, doesn't seem like there's too much to worry about - 30K integrates pretty well into EA, even if stuff like armourbane/Fleshbane is a little too granular


Edit: building a 30K Mechanicum list. The internal balancing is, uh...poor.