In my opinion, Epic: Armageddon is perhaps GWs finest game. Having said that, I am wondering if there is any collective agreement on the follwing point. My friend and I have embarked on a massive game of Epic: Armageddon. We have 18,200 pts for each side, vanilla Imperial Guard versus vanillla Eldar. We are playing on a 15' x 12' battlefield. We extended out the depth of the deployment zone an additional 15cm. We entered into a discussion of whether to start evaluating for victory on Turn 4 (or even Turn 5 as we had essentially almost tripled the playing area) rather than Turn 3. The reason that we started discussing this is that although the large playing area allows for alot of manuever, the Eldar have a massive advantage in getting to the objectives due to their high speed advantage and the one fixed wraithgate objective and mobile Storm Serpant wraithgates which allow even their slow infantry formations to get into the thick of it quickly. The enkarged playing area greatly increases the distance the vast majority of the slow-moving Guard have to move. What are your opinions on this?

Thank you,

SgtBalicki

I'd agree that turn 5 would be about the earliest point to check victory conditions.

Also, any photos? That game sounds *awesome*!

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Indeed...how long did this game go on for in the end and did you find it playing smoothly? I think the biggest game we've ever managed was 10k a side...

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Agreed, turn 5 sounds reasonable. The IG player definitely needs extra time to reach objectives on the Eldar half of the table (floor?).

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

Honestly I wouldn't use the tournament scenario for such a game; a straight-up victory points check would likely be fairer.

Indeed, the 'tournament scenario is specified as being for between 2K and 5K, and you are using over three times the maximum. By all means use objectives as a means of determining the victor, because they are much more meaningfull than counting 'points destroyed' (which would be very lenghty in your case ), but not the same number of turns.

Other options would be to distinguish between formations engaged and those in reserve - (which could be defined as those who are not within range of normal weaponry rather than artillery) and use these uncommitted 'reserves' as another measure.

However, please, please post some photos!

Really at that size I would set some unique victory conditions, or even better a set of victory conditions to give a sliding scale of victory!

I agree about the victory conditions. Even if you want to use GT-style goals, they should probably be modified with more objective markers and tweaks to the goals.

But yes, I'd consider 4 to be a minimum number of turns at that starting distance.

We are finding that we can get in 1.5 turns in about a ten hour period. We are just starting Turn 5. The Imperial Guard barely managed to keep the game going by using artillery strikes to clear out a screen of Eldar warwalkers and then a Reaver titan making an end run through the gap to contest the Eldar control of an Imperial objective and thus deny him a goal. I don't have any goals yet, but am contesting an Eldar objective and have a unit of Warhound titans in his half of the table. He has achieved the Break Their Spirit goal through a series of planet striking Vampires (with Warp Spiders and other nastiness) and teleporting Swooping Hawks. He did have the Blitzkrieg goal, but I managed to clear that up. We are playing the game on a 15' x 12' mat on the floor and we stride amongst the armies as the God Emperor and Vaul themselves. lol Besides the numerous different ground forces both of us have on the table, he is fielding 4 Eldar battle titans (Warlock and three Phantoms) and 2 Revenants while I have 1 Warlord, 2 Reavers, and 6 Warhounds.

At this scale of points, Epic: Armageddon really shines in all its glory. There is plenty of manuevering. And Imperial Guard artillery (especially the Manticores) can't cover the entire battlefield with their fire. Roads do become important as corridors of rapid movement, which is especially important when your supreme commander is dead and you can get that automatic activation for a march action when starting on a road. I love this game. My friend has taken some pictures and I will ask him to forward them to me so that I can post them here.

Regards

Sounds incredible. Makes me wish I had a place we could leave a board set up and play a grand clash over the course of weeks.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Well I currently have a house that could possibly fit two board in the front room side by side if you are prepared to crawl under them! (And of course potentially a second row of board - now where to put those pesky sofa's that only my wife uses and she of course is not here!) Or thinking about it could have the boards long ways for a 6 foot width...

Sounds like a great game!

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

I'm envious

I'm the dreaded PHB Eldar, bane of the Imperial Guard commander Sgt Balicki. This is our third Epic sized Epic game.

1) 12,500 points each side on a 10' x 12' board
2) 16,800 points each, with both sides having a 5,000 point space marine "points booster force" (to make the game more epic) 10' x 12' board
3) This game - 18K+ pure IG vs Eldar. on a 12' x 15' board.

Some observations:
As for extending the standard win check from T3 to T4, I can see where the distance to the objectives can be used as a reason, but at this size game, the sheer amount of firepower that the IG can wield at such extreme range, changes the mechanics quite a bit. Sgt. Balicki is fielding 3 full Leman Russ Companies and 2.5 Basilisk companies. None of these, nor any titan were his BTS formation. His enormous mechanized infantry company was about 1,200 points strong and parked on overwatch on the his board edge objective. Talk about a hard nut to crack!

"We extended out the depth of the deployment zone an additional 15cm" - Actually we extended it to 45cm. Figured as we tripled the edges we'd better triple the deployment zones.

The game changes dramatically when Manticores cannot reach everything and Void Spinners require a couple turns movement before a decent target is in range.

The auto activated road march is a big deal now.

Airpower is HUGE as the AA umbrellas are literally just umbrellas, not table covering domes of BM distribution.

What would you do with 6k worth of Titans on the field? Talk about another game changer.

Garrisons are alone, very alone, for a couple turns.

50 activations is alot.

Warwalkers still suck.

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~Laserwolf

Yes, we know, the game was intended to be played in the 2000-5000 points range...