Hey folks

I am just putting out some feelers for if there are any thoughts for an Imperius Dominatus-based 'event' of some sort in the UK over the next year?

I have organised an Epic Space Marine Retro event for this March and have been stunned by the support and interest it has received. The hosting store, Firestorm Games, have had to put extra tickets up for sale and it was the most popular item on their social media for a while. So I think there is definitely an appetite for Epic, in whichever form.

The tournament scene (at least in the UK) is very well catered for with the Epic UK events so was thinking of something more along the lines of a narrative-type event, with perhaps teams for the different factions involved, and a loose branching set of games based upon the results in the previous rounds. If anyone used to attend the Tempus Fugitive or Great Crusade forum events, perhaps something along those lines.

The narrative-type game would have the advantage of being more approachable for new players (I think tournaments can feel quite hard-edged and intimidating to newbies in this regard) and make the event feel like something cohesive. People are still playing their individual games, which are scored and matter towards the overall event result, but there are no wooden spoons.

Was thinking perhaps a single day event of about three games of moderate size, if possible, in a central UK location.

For setting, what are people's thoughts? Given IE's rules currently available, the Heresy would be an obvious one (and might help to draw in 40k Heresy players), but the alternative would be a Great Crusade-era event - this would be Imperium vs. Aliens. I know there are only Ork rules available for download, so it's whether this would do or we could expand? We could always use 'Imperial'-type rules for human empires encountered by the Crusade and which do not want to join the Imperium willingly.

Anyway just a few thoughts! If there are no replies on here I will take it to the FB group but just wanted to get some opinion from the core TC team!

Good that your event went well As well as the regular tournaments Epic UK also run a yearly campaign day event in Bristol already usually in October.

Given Epic Armageddon is what the majority of UK players and regulars play it might be better running an event as that rather a more obscure new game version? Up to you but why not work with the existing game rather than unnecessarily split a small community of small-scale gamers and potentially interested recruits? Epic UK mostly run tournaments and have well balanced lists for that but can totally run more relaxed casual gaming days using the system and lists too.

There are a set of horus heresy lists for EpicA that can be used if it's wanted to theme in that direction. I've already been thinking of trying to organise an Epic Horus Heresy gaming day / more relaxed tournament here in Bristol later in the year using the EpicA HH lists and there are a number of local players with HH armies or armies that could be used for it. We could have two nearby cities organising Epic HH events using rival systems but it seems suboptimal?

Hi Glyn thanks for the info on that. The last thing I want to do is step on any toes and it feels a bit like I'm infringing on territory here. So, if this idea is going to cause problems for the existing Epic playing community then I would rather not bother and will let it lie.

One thing I am a bit surprised about is do people not play more than one system? I really like Armageddon, it's probably the most 'serious' wargame that GW have ever made in terms of how much agency players have over their tactics. But I really enjoy SM/NetEpic too - the order process, how characterful and fun factions like Orks and Chaos are etc. Again ID looks like it is bringing something different again, it feels like a more.modern wargame. I think it's great you can have a different wargame experience using the same set of miniatures.

Also would attendance at one type of event necessarily exclude attendance from another? I thought this might have been a fun way of getting some new people playing Epic and tie in nicely with the 30k resurgence. But if that is going to result in a fracturing of the community, or impinge on the hard efforts of others keeping that community active, then that is absolutely the last thing I want to do.

I like campaign/narrative events and have been to a couple of the EUK ones.

Re Glyn's point, It's not so much that people can't play more than one system – and if I could have got to your SM retro event I would have loved to (I play EA and have never had the chance to try SM). But a campaign weekend in ID does have have less appeal to me too! (Given a choice of trying EA, E40, NetEpic SM2, SM1, ID would be last because it's a bit of a blank to me.)

That said, it might just be ignorance:. ID is a ruleset I saw an announcement for on here, to facebook which i don't use. I dont think any bat reps have been posted here, have no idea how my collection fits it etc, so it's a bit of a cold start. Sorry, maybe more info on what ID is would help?

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Personally I don't think there's an issue with events using different editions. If it's at a venue like Firestorm it's going to be bringing in new players on top of the comparatively small number of people who attend tournaments.

My concern with ID would be that it's extremely detailed when you get down to the individual units. Last time I looked, there were more than 20 different Space Marine Dreadnought profiles, which I don't regard as new-player-friendly. But I'll have to have another look at list construction as there may be more limits on mixing units than I remember.

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The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

Thanks a lot for the replies guys, really appreciated. After having a look through the rules for ID and really just thinking what I was trying to achieve here, which is a sort of soft introduction to Epic in the most accessible manner possible, I wonder if maybe NetEpic might be the way to go at least initially. It will be a direct relation to the intro/demo event (being so similar to SM2/TL), the rules are static and easily downloadable for free, and it has a lot of latitude for people to play the kind of army they want with some very loose army lists.

I have to be honest, my initial reaction to GlynG's post was almost just to reverse away from the forum and not to bother at all. Ian I know how this contrasts to when you (and myself on a handful of occasions) tried to run Infinity events back in the day, and the community then was nothing but supportive, because they knew more events of any sort meant more people playing the game, more people in the same hobby and to enjoy some games together. There was certainly never any sort of borderline aggressive response as though there is some sort of 6mm-mafia dictating the terms of when and where people can play.

Anyway, my thoughts are a very soft sort of narrative event/day's play at Firestorm. Very cheap entry if not free entry, again just to get people and their miniatures involved and low points values. I think you often find people who, especially when they are new to a game, will attend something of this sort rather than a tounament (so I absolutely don't think it would be 'poaching' players from other events). But, I would advertise the Epic UK events and tournaments as a follow-up, and hopefully there might be some extra traffic heading that way. Hopefully there will be no-one sent to Firestorm with Baseball bats who would put them off

I didn't mean to discourage you from running an event sorry and I liked the idea of a narrative event - my main objection was that Imperium Dominous seems a poor choice as it's not very popular.

Ian ran some polls on the couple of main Epic facebook pages recently and around 70 people said they actively play Epic Armageddon and around 60 actively play 2nd ed/Net Epic. Only 5 people said they actively play Imperium Dominous, so a lot less.

The large majority of players I know choose to play only a single edition of Epic and if you're going to run events and get new people into playing then it makes sense to go for one of more popular versions i.e. Epic Armageddon or 2nd/Net Epic.

You can then network and build community between players and groups - hypothetically if you were to run an Epic Armageddon event several of our local players might consider travelling. SM2 / Net Epic has a smaller community and following but is still a decent option if that's what you prefer. Hypothetically if you were to run an Imperium Dominous event you'd find it harder to recruit players and if you did get some new players into it you'd increase the numbers of people interested in playing Epic but playing incompatible versions to others near them.

I do agree that a competitive tournament is not necesarily the best for some new players getting into a game. Myself and others of the Epic Armageddon locals here are planning or running some Epic intro games at a local gaming stores demo day in July and on trying to do more regular club night games and intros for others.

Best of luck with your event!

Thanks GlynG and for the supportive message. Absolutely understand your reasoning on the ID ruleset. That might be something that myself and pals try out, rather than something for an intro/narrative event that is meant to try and pull in new players to giving 6mm scale a go, and I guess you want to have as few barriers to that as possible.

Will see how the demo/participation game goes. It has 'sold out' (as much as that means anything with free tickets!) but hopefully at least with it being free there will be a low level of expectation. I will point people in the direction of Tac Command, Epic UK, the Middlehammer FB group and Vanguard for the miniatures and go from there!

Yes ID is a fan created and isn't as well known as the older ones. Pacific if you run an introduction game at a convention I bet you would get alot of interest. I would suggest some kind of senario for a themed battle. We never designed the game to be tournament only. Our goal was to make a game you could play large battles and have more detail and options than previous versions. Yes there are lots of dreadnoughts but they have models with different guns so why not? I just hope people enjoy playing ID.
Cheers