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I can't see were the description of the Caestus fit the "skimmer APC" role.
I agree it's gone completely goony but the design started as a skimmer dropship. Mechanically, it's still a skimmer dropship. In play it's going to be used as a skimmer dropship. The ship-to-ship aspect of the Caestus background isn't really applicable to a ground combat game (so, neither 40K nor Epic). There's no reason to incorporate the BFG-scale aspect of it. We can't cut it out, but we can turn a blind eye and ignore the goony-ness without overwriting the GW concept.
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I'm sure it's useful, but actually it completely remove the dilemma between planet falling and using traditional transport. That's the design issue IMO.
No, it won't. The design philosophy of Epic is that new stuff is introduced in dedicated lists in which the new element can be incorporated in a way that's stylistically consistent. It won't be retrograded back into the codex list. The same dilemma will exist and the new list can have different restrictions introduced so it faces a different set of strategic choices.
40K is a different matter, of course, but "everything in one all-inclusive list" design decisions in 40K army structure don't obligate us to mirror them in Epic. How the 40K army structure works is only a loose consideration when determining style for Epic.
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Exactly, it can be used for Assault, that's precisely the idea. Not as a *transport option* that allow planetfall as well. The planet falling transport is already in, it's the Thunderhawk. Seeing marines re-embarking in their assault barge to skim a little farther and re assaulting doesn't feel like marines to me; I like the fact that they either fall from orbit in all-in assault or use APCs (rhinos, etc) to act more conventionally.
I think that's fine for conventional chapters. Most of the time, that's how they should act. I don't think that should preclude a specialist operation that makes use of something outside the standard. Black Templars deploying new recruits as Neophytes and Space Wolves' Blood Claws are similar in that respect.
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Giving them a skimmer APC would make a marine formation work like aspect warriors in wave serpents, it's certainly be useful but I would think of it as poor design at best. An artillery company and a formation of SHT would be useful too, would that be good design ?
Maybe. Just adding those things is not the determining factor. It depends on the overall list concept and whether what the list gains has sufficient tradeoffs that it changes the flavor and style in a way that adds real variety to the game experience.
Right now the "Apocrypha of Skaros" SM fan list is in development. It incorporates more servitor weaponry and field artillery but it has other drawbacks, like increased cost for air support. Overall, it feels more like an entrenched SM force of ground-pounders rather than the strike force flavor of the codex list. I think that's a fine design concept.
