Whoever ends up taking the position(s) on the NetERC, I'd prefer to see mature, patient, good communicators selected aswell as someone who has an in depth knowledge of Epic and it's history.

I believe that Neal, Chroma and Hena have these abilities.

I would not want to see this turn into a popularity contest (full of personalities and egos) but I would prefer to see someone like Markconz is he was willing.

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Just out of interest, why did Epic UK split away?


And therein lies the whole issue of replacements They're likely to suffer the same fate as the current ERC.

They regarded the old ERC as:

1- Not producing balanced lists
2- Not producing lists in a timely manner


EUK do produce some pretty balanced lists quite quickly, at a cost of variety (Most of their lists are fairly "simple" so as to ease the development process, apparently).

The EUK solution was a pretty good solution for the tournaments they run.

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My 2 pence. What I want from the netERC is an Epic RULES Committee. Their purview being sections 1 - 4 of the old rule book. If they also happen to run list development that's great, but their main effort should be ensuring FAQ's are up to date and relevant.

And largely I think the committee as constituted has done a good job in this regard.

Yeah Dave, but people who don't play in your tournaments quite appreciate all the army lists and especially Supplements that come out of the NetEA project I think, and IMO that's a very important function of the NetERC (Ensuring that lists have active and capable Champions to run development).

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While we are doing this I'd put forward moscovian as a candidate.

Regardless of who joins the neterc IMO its pretty imperative that Neal still heads it as I think any group without him is going to struggle to exert any authority or respect which, despite the many fractures in the community, the current neterc still does over rules

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It's not like it's a job for life, presumably at some future point whoever takes over will want to leave too, however the amount of free time a person can commit to here / playtesting (I see encouraging playtesting as another role for the ERC ideally) should be one factor in a good choice. I agree that communication is important, but I disagree that Net-ERC people should not manage main lists - we're too few for that to be a good idea and it would be too limiting for them anyway.

Personally I would be happiest if Neal stayed heading the show (even if just nominally for a while, while he's busy, while in practice letting the 1-2 new members handle things for the immediate future) and would most like to see Moscovian and/or E&C on there as both have put a massive amount of effort into the community and have successfully managed community supplements through to publication. It's down to Neal and whoever is potentially interested rather than us though.

Many thanks for this thread, and the open and honest opinions expressed, and for it not devolving into flaming. Appreciated. I wanted to post to examine a few points, and generally to let you know that I am reading this and aware of the issues being raised.









In my opinion, the concept and idea behind the NetERC works well. The difficulty is that all three members appear to be hit with real life distractions at the same time. This is unfortunate, but possibly only to become more and more likely as time goes on. That said, I have no intention if retiring any member of the NetERC without giving them every opportunity to make their own decision. All three members of the NetERC have worked extremely hard for a long time with little reward beyond the appreciation of the players, and they have all earned my respect and gratitude. At the same time, we do need to be making more progress and achieving more focus.



Clearly, I would hope that this - another seperatist movement - doesnt happen. I can understand the appeal of it, but I do feel that it is counter-productive in the long run, especially given how my Australian/New Zealand neighbours have been hit with GWs latest shipping policy.



Largely, I agree. The game, the community and this site will not survive without some change. The difficulty is that there is little incentive to make that change. This, with other things, has been on my mind a lot recently, and can really be boiled down to two issues - the future of Epic and NetEA on this site, and the future of the site overall.

When the current structure was formed, I wanted to make it very clear what my position was. I am the co-ordinator. I am deliberately not a member of the NetERC and will never be. This leaves me hopefully more impartial as organiser.

Looking at the future of EA here, I believe that there are a number of tasks for myself and the ERC to perform to bring this all back on track:

- reform and rebuild the ERC
- ensure that all lists have a key, active AC
- set up the web area here to ensure that information is ordered and available
- set firm deadlines for updates

The idea would be to revisit the original EA/SG system of having a review (nominally at the same time each year) where lists are updated and resources and materials reviewed. If a list or AC missed a deadline, then the list would remain unchanged until the following review period.

For the future of this site, and these boards, I firmly believe that we will need expand and diversify. Simply put, Epic and a shrinking base is not longer enough to build an entire site around. EA will always remain at the core of this site, simply due to the size of the community here and the resources and experience available. Phase one of this was a revamp of the front page and organisation of the site, which is done. Phase two is to get the EA section of the site fleshed out to include the areas in the EA list above.

I am very willing and happy to hear comments from you guys (and beyond) as to strategies and requirements, and if a firm hand is required then I am willing to be that firm hand.

Many thanks for your passion for the game, and dedication to this site. I honestly couldnt do it without you.

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Hena has already made his own decision to step down.

Yes, I am aware of this and will be pushing to get his position filled as the first priority.

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Agreed. With regards to Chroma, how long do you think we should wait before making moves to fill his position, at least temporarily? 6 months absence? A year?

CS - I think you must have missed it but Hena announced a couple of weeks ago that he was resigning from the ERC, which is one of the reasons why this has come about.

Secondly, even if has been, I don't think we should necessarily/fatalistically assume the forum/player base will shrink for EA, I believe we could have had a lot more posters and players here now had we got organised and produced the army book years ago as was widely wanted, so that new players and curious W40k people could have one simple (annually updated) thing to download and look at rather than the sprawling threads and forum sections (which are organised well for playtesting but unnecessarily complex and off-putting as the only introduction for newcomers/casual players). It would also have been a massive morale/motivation boost to us too - the ongoing situation has been really dispiriting for posters and playtesters here; all that effort that's gone into developing the lists that isn't reaching the audience it could because of the, frankly terrible, basic organisational admin, which need actually only have taken a hundredth of the time and effort the list development has. I realise we're a volunteer organisation and people have other priorities, but things can and should be delegated to people who do have time and other volunteer organisations have managed so much better and quicker e.g. Epic-UK or the Blood Bowl rules committee. If someone had told me a couple of years ago it would take anywhere near this long and given me a list of the armies to include I'd have happily typed a document including the entire lot up over at most a few days of working solidly at it. I know others would have done so too and did offer e.g. Marconz. Instead years have drifted past and many people have drifted away.

Getting at least one replacement ERC member, to take over Henas post - and most importantly getting the army book published and heavily advertised - should be our absolute top priority and these could form a catalyst a new motivator to better thngs. There are a lot of little things waiting on the army book that we could do to help publicise epic and recruit and maintain new potentially interested players. Groover's series of articles on Bell of Lost Souls from a year or two ago were a great example that could be done again. Something it would be good for all of us to do is for us to start writing up battle reports again and cross-posting them to other forums like Warseer or Dakka or whereever, including clear links to the army book with each list. We could get Groover to do a Bell of Lost Souls post with a link to the army book, mentioning that things had been a bit quiet but a re-vamped ERC had formed and things were moving on again. I truly believe EpicA is GW’s best wargame and that the lists we have here are overall excellent and we can do a lot better than we have been at communicating/publicising this and recruiting new people. Things have been petering out and progressing painfully, glacially, slowly, but if we start making over positive steps then things can easily re-energise and move back in the other direction.


I’m not against diversity, but there are already plenty of other forums catering to the GW games and wargaming in general. We already have a lot of sections of the forum that see so little use it could be worth moving them or closing them entirely to simply the currently lengthy list of sub-forums – you have to scroll down past 30 sub-forums to even get to the epic specific forums, whereas IMO they’d be better being at the top.

Wandering sort of off-topic now sorry but if you’re changing the structure can I suggest creating new a new army sub-forum for Dark Eldar (they’re a main army and share no units with Craftworld Eldar so it makes no sense for them to have to share their sub-forum) plus probably ones for Inquisition Lists and Squats/Demiurg too? It would help organise current and past playtesting threads for these armies better.

Chroma has been effectively absent for about 18 months now, with a short-ish return of 2-3 months in the middle.

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IMO Chroma is finding out how difficult first hand having a newborn is.

Perhaps CS would be best to confirm / deny my next point, but the months leading to the end of the school year tend to show participation wane, with it picking up considerably around September, peaking around January 1st. In other words, I see nothing unusual about the the waning traffic right now.

As for me, I will reconsider a position on the NetERC on a temporary basis just to get things moving. I declined to even throw my hat in the running the last time because I can't seem to meet the commitments I have already made regarding supplements, models, and my own local Epic goings-on. Work is just terribly busy right now and to be honest I can name (and have named to Neal) two people who I think have the knowledge base, time, and wherewithal to get the job done.

With the exception of the Army List compendium and replacing Hena (and maybe Chroma), what else is outstanding from the NetERC?

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