Greetings fellow taccom folks!

Please allow me to present you my work. It was great fun to create it and actually that was it's purpose; to write down whatever came up from my mind or from someone else. A big collection of ideas and "what if..."-s around Epic Armageddon.

I have no intention, other than sharing it with you. Really.
Think of it as posting a painted model or batrep or anything except home made rules...

Enjoy reading!


THE LINK TO DESTRUCTION!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9dL4 ... 2xLRHdzSUk

EDIT: FINALIZED VERSION OF EPIC ALIGHT, 2.34 version: Release Date: 2022.10.18

ANOTHER EDIT: I copy here the comparison summary to reflect the finalized version!

Epic Comparison!

The following summary will show the major differences between Epic Armageddon and Epic Alight rulesystem I created in the past 7 years.

CORE STRATEGY: Turn starting is fixed (no dice roll), activation roll is only about blast markers and movement speed (all orders, initiative retains can be issued even at failed activation!)
CORE STRATEGY ADDITIONS: Stealing initiative, hiding!, reaction!,
MOVEMENT SYSTEM: Transporting is simplified. Dangerous terrain does not kill units, but slows and places blast marker on them.
SHOOTING SYSTEM: Revamped the type of covers and shooting modifiers, all of them as a distinctive layer that can be added on one another. Barrage simplified. Macro, and Titankiller are just negative armour save modifiers. Reinforced armour can be a different number. Replaced the free blast marker on shoot with havoc (1 blast for every 6 shot). The ability to move units differently and having different shooting modifier within a single attack order.
SHOOTING SYSTEM ADDITION: Split fire. And the aforementioned hiding! (as a defence against shooting)
ASSAULT SYSTEM OVERHAULED: It definietly changed to be more player friendly, from any unit / matchup perspective!!!
REGROUP SYSTEM BIG CHANGE!: Dice roll eliminated. Logistic Points introduced.
WAR ENGINES: Removed their Achilles heel: critical. They can be suppressed (-1 to shoot), but can hold more Blast Markers.
AERIAL SYSTEM: Simplified a lot! They can be even merged into one formation or split during battle.
Basically it's more about blast markers that will eventually hold off aircraft for 1 or 2 turns. Which is also connected to Logistic Points, that are key to repair, refuel, rearm the planes. On the other side aircraft is super flexible terror that is only there to strike on enemy units, but unable to capture / contest objectives.
SPACECRAFT: They become big. Bigger strike, bigger punch, bigger scatter, and more turns of action, not just one! Selectable option for Counter Operation only, Planetfall only or Bombardment + Pin-Point strike only intervention. Or stay with good ol' full house intervention! New players may opt to play without spacecraft!
RALLY: Gained more opportunities for players to influence it. It distinctively represent morale, rather than physical supply (which is done through the newly introduced Logistic Points!)
CHARACTERS: They can earn experience points. New Players may opt to play without it!
CHAOS ARMIES: In Armageddon, they mainly have demon units to summon, and the wargear differentation according to lore. In Alight I just copied loyalists, deteroriated overall discipline and for those in return... they get intimidating powers! New players may opt to play without Chaos armies.

ARMY ORGANIZATION SYSTEM: Factions have core army lists, no sub-faction lists. Formation obtaining is almost totally flexible, a player can pick any type assuming working solutions!
ADDITION TO ARMY BUILD: Bonuses are provided to favour big formation armies with proper amount of commanding officers on the field. Also there are general perks / abilites for the entire army to pick. [more initiative retain, buffed up deployment, bonuses to exact orders, the ability to pass initiative!!! etc.]
DEPLOYMENT: Most restrictions of the original game is removed, and standard reserve (ground reinforcements) added to suffice any kind of strategy. The whole army can be set into half the map (garrison), or all of them can be held back in reserve!
To give advantage to original deployment, it allows formations to hide! After that, it is heavily player dependent how he / she set up the army!

SCENARIOS: Created a scenario for small battles (minigeddon), with it's own unique rules. [Rapid Strike]
Created a scenario for large battles on multiple table with probably more players (megageddon), with mostly the same rules. [Apocalyptic Battle]
Created a scenario for attacker / defender matchup as a standard [Siege], and as a large battle. [Apocalyptic Siege]
For tournaments of course, there is the good ol' standard battle scenario!
Added a highly intensive but optional to use, tie breaker! [Duel]

FACTIONS TO PLAY WITH: Imperial Guard, Traitor Guard, Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Ork, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necron, Tyranid, Tau Empire, Tau Seceder, Squat Republic, Chaos Squat, Daemon (non-tournament)

LORE: As you can see, Tau Seceder is non-canon and is my creation to have a "Chaos Tau" force. Same goes with several units and wargear here and there. I brought logic, new units and COHERENCY across all the armies back and forth! Some may like it, some may hate it, some may proxy the new stuff. Alight is a different branch in the 40k timeline since I started it before GW proceeded to next gen Ultras and Gulimán, which I simply lack the effort to follow up and integrate. It's fan made, all right goes to them.

OVERALL THE SYSTEM: Players have lot more control over their armies during battle. The influence of luck has been decreased. Army building meta is more flexible. In my point of view it is 30% army build, 45% player preparedness with all the decision on the table, 25% plain luck...
or maybe I just wished to be there, who knows.

The only thing that really didn't change... the blasting upside-down Epic feeling from one activation to the next during a 3 hour long battle session!

Enjoy!

_________________
Epic Commander of the Prassium Invasion Troops 214th Regiment
***Action is our prayer. Victory is our offering.***

Hey, this is interesting, and includes a few of the suggestions we have bandied about in our group. So far we have stuck to the standard because of potentially wanting to play on the tournament scene.

I am surprised you haven't included anything about being able to suppress war engines (we had been thinking 2bms per weapon system.) as this simultaneously seems to make them overpowered and frustrations to play against, while also requiring the large ones to be so highly pointed to compensate they get included very rarely.

Also the massive advantage of extra activations - and the knock on effect this has on discouraging formation upgrades over taking more formations. Had thought about the dirtside solution - where the player with the most activations must activate 2 at a time until even - but in a way this is still an advantage... Never really found a better way though.

Looking forward to the debate! ;-)

Cool, I'm glad you like it Blip!

The issue regarding war engine partial suppression came up, however I haven't found a satisfying way to create the rule for it.
Up until now.
The idea to disable weapon systems probably become an inbalance factor beetween war engines. Since there are some which have few but big guns, whereas there are others with lots but small guns.
So far I have figured out an extra -1 to hit modifier (cumulative with other modifiers). That would affect each and every kind of war engine the same rate, and they could still fire their big guns.

The other factor is blast markers. The problem with fix 2 blast markers is that they do not scale well as they won't even come into play on 2 or 1 DC war engines, while higher DC war engines will too easily lose their firepower potential.
I think half of the starting DC is a moderate solution to this as it;
-scales well with each type of war engine
-they are triggered from 2+ DC which fits the intention to have some "middle ground" suppression effect beetween 0-x blast markers > full DC blast markers.
-it is already known part of the gameplay. (barrage)

To sum up the additional rule idea:
War Engine partial suppression is an addition to the original one. Each War Engine in a formation counts partially suppressed if the number of blast markers reach half of it’s starting damage capacity.
Partially suppressed War Engines shooting attack receives penalty in a form of -1 to hit modifier.
This effect is cumulative with other modifiers.

_________________
Epic Commander of the Prassium Invasion Troops 214th Regiment
***Action is our prayer. Victory is our offering.***

Allright folks!

Here we go. Dropbox link got updated.

-Added version number. (so it starts from now)
-Added War Engine partial suppression.

_________________
Epic Commander of the Prassium Invasion Troops 214th Regiment
***Action is our prayer. Victory is our offering.***

Fresh stuff added, link updated. Let's roll!

Version 1.1

-Landed aircraft relation to objectives nerfed.
-Aerial fight have been reversed to the current NetEA F.A.Q. path.
-Commander wording received a fancy listing and made to match new stuff.
-Fire Support effect after losing engagement rewritten to address the new ranges and also received a new option.
-Preventive order added.

_________________
Epic Commander of the Prassium Invasion Troops 214th Regiment
***Action is our prayer. Victory is our offering.***

Are you tweaking army lists?

_________________
http://thorvirshobbydumpster.blogspot.com/

Tau Empire, Mymeara Eldar, Tallarn Desert Raiders

One amend I'd suggest would be to Crossfire:
In addition, a formation caught in a crossfire attack receives two Blast markers for the first unit destroyed by the attack or for the first damage point lost if a war engine, rather than just one Blast marker for the destroyed unit as would usually be the case (see 1.9.4).
-
The rule as written benefits WEs even though they too should be disrupted by being crossfired.

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Hi!

Splash: Not yet. First I want to finalize and polish the complete house ruleset before tweaking army lists for them. It can be played with the current lists. Currently as it stands; only the slow firing, slow and steady, and pin point weapons must be rewritten to fit for Fathomless Destruction. Anything else is mainly pointwise balanced or inbalanced, but playable.

Carlos: Hmm interesting. I must admit that our team -it seems wrongly- already played crossfire the way you suggested. I thought the casualty translates into damage point in case of war engines to apply extra blast marker for the first one.
I'll add this to the house ruleset.

Thank you for pointing this out! [highfive]

_________________
Epic Commander of the Prassium Invasion Troops 214th Regiment
***Action is our prayer. Victory is our offering.***

You'd think so, but the rules clearly state "unit". I played like you did once because it felt "normal", but that's not what the rules say.

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I like variations on a theme, as long as it's fun and entertaining. I'd also like to see a stripped-down, bare-bones version of E:A, something that cuts the playtime in half if possible, and on a smaller board (aside from Minigeddon, which I do like, but it's just small battles with all of the normal gubbins--which isn't bad at all).

Keep up the good work.

_________________
http://thorvirshobbydumpster.blogspot.com/

Tau Empire, Mymeara Eldar, Tallarn Desert Raiders

Epic 40k is pretty slimmed down in some ways, I always found it a bit quicker as there's less micro-ing of attacks.

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

Yup, for Epic there are lot of opportunities, great scenarios, grand campaigns to choose from or creating one.
Basicly I like to stick to the rules and not turn-up anything, not even microschopic house ruling, unless there is an overall agreement to do so.

However writing a complete set of rules is a different story. All the parts you can read in Fathomless Destruction has came up at many different times. Discussions which always ended up as dream since there is no interest / effort to change the current rules. So I got tired of talking about "what if"-s as I already knew, there is no real point to arrive with it, other than dead end.

Also still like playing E:A as is. Our team held and participated some tournaments in the past. Events quite fun, which I aim to repeat in the future.
Yet the new rule ideas just bogged me so much that a year and a half before today, I started to write it out of my head and formating them coherent. <-- I hope it is not only my view of it.

Now here we go; version 1.2 !

-Modified the wording of command points to clearly represent their function background-wise.
-Modified the wording of preventive order to point out how it behaves with commander ability or tau coordinated fire.
-Restricted flight now affects bombers as intended (they fell out in earlier versions, since they cannot jink!)
-Added War Engine Crossfire(d)

_________________
Epic Commander of the Prassium Invasion Troops 214th Regiment
***Action is our prayer. Victory is our offering.***

One of the fastest ways to reduce to play time would be to hack out the aerospace rules in large part. Reworking a ground attack flight as being an even more abstracted concept probabbly would work. Something akin to say using a straight line with a ruler from one end of the board to the other, from your edge to the opponents at any angle and point. All formations under the line (or some range to the line) suffer X weapon attacks from the unit. Any AA in range to the line gets to shoot.

I'd do it as formation A comes into range of say a 15cm shot from air attack first so gets attacked. Roll hits/saves. Next formation B is in line to the attack run. However there's an AA bubble intersecting it before the fighter comes into that 15cm attack range first so it gets to shoot at before the attack is made. Roll to hit/save.... yada yada yada.

Flights become also single use (or X number limited use, unless shot down then simply dead) for the game to make the ability to to strafe the entire board and hit multiple formations less powerful. Removes jinking, maneuvering, and remembering if and where AA bubbles were entered (on engage/disengagement moves), reduces the book keeping and simply removes the whole disengagement and BM concepts entirely.

Sounds more complex than it is. Games like Battletech were doing exactly that 25 years ago and moved quick (that game had wayyy tooo much bookeeping so it was a requirement to make it quick and fast). Also keeps the air game less the focus of the game.

Basically the whole air wing becomes more like an offboard/table support weapon (I think FoW and/or Bolt Action do something akin as well)

It's not for everyone's liking but some thoughts.

_________________
He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

-I HAVE NO POINT
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That's a very good idea indeed, line-straffing. It is used in some other rulebooks and IIRC in Epic 3rd edition (I didn't have aircraft minis at the time so I can't remember).

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Epic Armageddon in Spanish (from Spain): http://www.box.net/shared/3u5vr8a370

Konig Armoured Regiment FanList: https://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd ... 41#p581941

Yeah cool idea and would make things easier for air rules, though personally never really had issues with airfights, but I can see how line-straffing would make a faster measuring and applying AA rules. I'll look after it in 3rd edition, FoW, bolt action and see how it would work exactly in E:A.

Thank you for your contribution, all ideas, opinions are welcome here!

_________________
Epic Commander of the Prassium Invasion Troops 214th Regiment
***Action is our prayer. Victory is our offering.***