That's been my biggest issue with Epic over the years as it went from literal to abstract. SM1 feels very literal, where I can see that the scale of marines pretty much matches the Rhino and Land Raider as it did in 40k. Sure the Battlewagon and Falcons seem too small, but they are close. When you get to SM2, its much worse when units like the Lord of Battles and Land Train are really much smaller as a mini that then seem to be presented in the art and rules and so on. And I am sure that had more to do with the costs of making and selling the models. That was my biggest beef with SM2 and one of the reasons I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to play SM2.

Then Epic 40k comes along and not only does it not care about the scale, but LOS and other things dont really matter either. Yes I will play the game, but I don't take it seriously as I did with SM1. SM1 was the closest I felt to actually believing what was going on on a tabletop battlefield, where I could accept what I saw or what was happening because I could see it. I felt I had to let that go as Epic evolved.

And of course this mostly has to do with speed of play. The less detail you are digesting, the faster you decisions are going to be. The flipside of that is that I find myself doing things with units in an abstract sense that would probably never happen in real life, and definitely not in the older systems.

If EpicA was the first game I ever played, I am not sure how I would feel about all the detail. But since I started out with AT/SM1... its hard to let go.

While i get what you're saying I also should counter it was immediately apparent the models and ranges were in different scales in the original AT release. I mean, here's a game with big walking robots with what's basically an 18 inch cannon off a WW2 Yamato class that can't shoot more than what amounts to a few hundred meters

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Yes, SM1 very much "worked" for me more that the others with E:A next. If for on other reason E: A intro'd Unit Activation ... But as I said, we added that back in SM1. Most of us had been gaming for years and played many systems and eras. Plus many of us studied military history, etc. And as I've said, I've was an Infantry Officer '79-'90, having served in 4 Infantry Bns [ 1 Air Assault, 3 Mech ], worldwide. So that certainly affected my perception of any rules system, etc., ...

And I do agree with you JZ about the Titans ranges. As I said before, we looked at Titan paradigm as something like Naval Vessels.

Warhounds = DDs
Reavers = CAs, CLs
Warlords = BCs, BB
I- Titans = the Yamato & Musashi ...

And when I see 40K scale Titans, I just can't stop thinking "How Ridiculous" ! The model is almost as tall as it can shot !!!!

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

lol good point

Which in turn, makes the newer systems look even sillier.

Yes, even sillier !

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Planet destroying spaceships the size of major metropolises and people fight hand to hand ... with chainsaws

Silly indeed

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Of course, one might be forgiven for thinking that some use of close combat can be found when you want to capture someone, or don't want to raze the whole planet

Although many things about 40K are silly, I think we just don't know enough about the WH40K universe to really justify (in a hard SciFi sense) a lot of the things that happen. Perhaps there really are good reasons people chop each other with chainsaws? Even with what we do know, a lot of the things that are at the heart of the universe are not very self-consistent (I'm not sure if many people have ever really thought through how psychic powers should work in-universe, for example). Alas, part of the dangers of fantasy worlds is that they often break with reality at some point! But playing around in a universe with some different rules is part of the fun of modelling fantasy with semi-realistic models

However, that's not to say that trying to inject some realism isn't valuable. I find it really cool to imagine what would happen if a military not unlike our own was to come up against horrors from the Warp, for example, and it comes packaged in an enjoyable game-format! Whilst some of the assumptions of the model we use might be odd, there's no reason all of them need to be. So I find it especially interesting when people with actual experience, as Legion 4 puts it, of '1:1 scale' operations can relate some of their knowledge. Maybe not all of it is going to work in a game, but no model ever represents all of reality anyway (whether that reality is fantasy or real). We just try to use a model that's 'good enough' for the purposes we need.

holy necro, batman!

But yeah I think you're hit on the operative point: 40k isn't Science Fiction; It's Science Fantasy and swinging swords and magical gauntlets and over the top weapons is a staple of the genera.

For instance let's take the Dune universe. Arguably the greatest bit of universe building ever performed in Sci Fi, at the level of depth as Tolkien with Middle Earth. Due to the type of story he wanted to tell (politics, religion, ecology, and destiny/predetermination) he had an internally consistent reason as to why set-piece battles and big shooty stuff wasn't seen very often due to the monopoly on interstellar travel by the Guild and the imperiousness to traditional high speed projectile weaponry via the abilities of the Holtzman generator. Add in the disastrous side effects (spontaneous fusion) of your classic sci-fi "ray guns" when they hit a shield makes the hand to hand nature of combat and skills for battle work in the setting. No one argues that isn't hard sci fi despite, on the surface of things, the situation not being dissimilar (in broad strokes).

Contrast with 40k: People fight with oversized hulk smash fists and giant chainsaws because....reasons. It's simply cool and fun. Yeah there's some discussion here and there about void shields and the whatnot and a bit of lip service to infrastructures being more valuable than expending millions of lives to capture but it's obvious it's about the rule of cool, and one of the reasons we all love it.

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Cough *starwars* cough


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Joseph Campbell​ would agree with you

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" So I find it especially interesting when people with actual experience, as Legion 4 puts it, of '1:1 scale' operations can relate some of their knowledge. "

Well as I have said many times before. We see 40K as Sci-Fantasy ... Not hard Sci-fi. We like Sci-fi Not Sci-fantasy. So I add my input if for no other reason than to give my opinion. And maybe another POV for some hard core GW Epic 40K Fan[boys ] to think about ...

But I do appreciate at least someone maybe even "respecting" my input. And not getting "torches and pitch forks to attack the heretic monster". For having a different opinion than them ... viewtopic.php?f=43&t=31259&start=420

And yes, in my past the in military. There is a lot of "Alpha males" posturing, and chest thumping like silver backs, etc. So jerking some one's chain is just not really to be taken personally. It's just the culture/environment, etc. I am used to/comfortable. Sorry if that offends someone ... it's not to be taken as an attack ...

So if I make fun of some painting their models in fire engine red, orange, etc. It should be taken in the light of just "fun'n ya", etc. IF you can't take some good natured ball bust'n about grown men playing with toys. Maybe we all should take a look at the entire paradigm.

Just play the @%*&# game and enjoy it. Regardless of what the ^%#@)! I think, Again, DWWFU ... NM ... Bottom line it's about playing with toys for #@%&)! sake ! Roll the dice !!!!!

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

I was just meaning SW has to be the main influence on why sci-fantasy has been so all pervasive in the last 40 (!) years. Why swords made of light in a universe full of laser guns? Cos druid dudes deflecting laser bullets is cool. And 40k comes from that place.

But back to Campbell - I'm not the hero's journey has much resonance in the grim dark (unlike dune and sw and almost all other scifi and fantasy). Heroes in 40k are all paper tigers. All powerful and all impotent in the downward spiral of fate. But we've discussed that post-punk dystopian vision in 40k before, so bit going to do it again. Suffice to say, i think thats its strength in providing a wargame setting - everyone is an anti-hero.

Of course this might all be about to change in 8th... (or not ;-) )




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I blame Tapatalk's bad date placements ;( Now I have become Necromancer! I got carried away watching people discussing this stuff elsewhere I felt I had to let out my inner mathematician! I suppose at least it stimulated discussion during E40K's anniversary year!

I would actually say that Dune is not 100% hard SciFi, Jimmy, at least in the sense I meant: I suppose there are more learnèd opinions out there, but I would say 'hard SciFi' attempts to be as realistic as possible given what we know of the universe (in addition to other SciFi things). Of course, there is a spectrum in that definition, and Dune is a lot 'harder' than your average fantasy book! And quality doesn't have to depend on 'hardness' either, of course.

Blip, I think the pervasive nature of sci-fantasy is something deeper than that (even classics like Buck Rogers are pretty Space Opera-ish, despite the lack of laser swords): the future always seems to be a popular direction for fantastic imaginings, and modern times have allowed fantasy writers to explore different genres to those traditional ones. The roots of realism in SciFi I suppose come from the selective realism in Victorian Gothic horror (and Victorian literature often had some elements of reality central to the story—some kind of hidden gnosis or innovation. Very zeitgeist-y ).

But I think 'true' SciFi (no matter how 'hard' in realism terms) has always been the thinking human's purview: the average person generally doesn't like such cerebral reading these days, it seems. And if you're going to make a far-future universe, you already have to make a bucket-load of assumptions if you imagine such ridiculous things as 'stable interplanetary governments'! David Brin is an interesting case, being an actual employed futurist and physicist in addition to being a harder SciFi writer—his Uplift books have plenty of physics but also plenty of phantasy in FTL travel, and he talks about it.

Continuing the long discussion of literary theory already contained herein I'm glad I'm not the only one who is concerned with the theory that makes the 40K setting work! The moment you have a goodie that doesn't commit atrocities or die horribly (like Tau, resurgent Robute Guilliman... ), they don't fit very well into the dystopia. In a way, that's 40K's foundational principle which, as has been discussed many times, I'm sure, makes for a good game about people killing each other!

(swirls around the magic of Undeath once again...)