ITS ALL IN THE COMPETITION

In all the years I have played Epic (and that is a considerable number when you consider I began when Adeptus Titanicus was first launched!), I have never played in a single Epic  Tournament. So what I hear you say? The point is competitive gaming has its place and is certainly a great deal of fun (Playing in six UK 40K Grand Tournaments testifies to that), but it only makes up a very tiny percentage of all the gaming I do. With that in mind it is surprising that a great deal of the Epic players I have spoken to since working on Epic Armageddon have got unnecessarily concerned about the Tournament Army Lists in the rulebook.

Its what I call points fixation and its all White Dwarf’s fault! Over the years most gamers, myself included to a degree have become fixated about balanced games; in other words both players selecting an army to an agreed points total. If you are playing competitively, or in a specific event such as a tournament then fine and dandy. If your just playing with friends then army lists and points values should have no bearing on the game unless you both choose to impose them yourselves. Hold that thought and we will move on…

No such thing as illegal.

Imagine the scenario, myself and Dave are going to have a game of Epic Armageddon, I have decided to field Imperial Guard and Dave Orks. Dave selects a rag-tag assortment of troops and tanks with a few Gargants thrown in for good measure. I have taken a few Imperial Guard companies and supporting formations, to which I add a small Salamander Space Marine formation with Thunderhawk transport to seize a few objectives.

So what happens next? Am I arrested for fielding Imperial Guard and Space Marines together when clearly according to the Tournament Army Lists they are separate armies? Is Dave hauled off in chains because he decides to take three Gargants when clearly by the tournament rules he should only have had a maximum of two?

The answer of course is no. We are not playing in a tournament, and such nonsense as that has no place in my games. What actually happens is Dave says “cool” and I say “ouch!” when I spot the three Gargants and relish the challenge. So does that mean anything goes then and we should just throw out the army lists all together?

To a degree yes, but that would just be plain silly. The Tournament Army Lists serve two very important purposes. Firstly they provide a tested and as much as it can be, balanced baseline whereby a competitive tournament style event can be organised with a degree of confidence that all players have an equal chance of winning. Secondly, they provide a great guide to putting together a characterful army and should be followed as no more than that. If you want to increase your Hellhound Support formation from three to four then as long as your opponent is happy then why no do so. The same goes for any aspect of the army lists as long as you’re using a bit of common sense. Naturally of course some player will completely abuse that flexibility, but at the end of the day these are probably not going to be the kinds of players you voluntarily game with, so who cares. At the end of the day as long as both players are happy with each other armies then there is no problem.

The ‘Counts As’ rule.

Again, this rule for different variants of models than those strictly listed in the tournament lists is purely for competitive gaming. If you are playing a campaign or just for fun then there is no need to count it as something else if you have a set of rules for the unit both players are happy using.

Let me give a couple of examples from my own armies playing against a friend.

Imperial Guard Artillery Company – According to the tournament list, this should consist of nine artillery pieces of either Basilisk or Manticore. Whilst designing the lists we originally had nine artillery pieces plus a command vehicle in the company. This was dropped to simplify the list prior to the book being finished, however my Steel Legion Company already had one painted up and in the formation. I have not removed the Salamander, but kept it in the Artillery Company as a tenth unit purely for a bit of character. If I was playing in a tournament I would simply leave out the Salamander and voila, a legal tournament formation.

Navy Flyers – An Imperial Thunderbolt squadron consists of two Thunderbolts according to the tournament lists. I preferred the idea of having both Thunderbolt and Lightning Strike Squadrons as separate formations (Lightnings not featuring in tournament games). I simply created a new squadron of three Lightnings using the rules in the 'Hard to Find Models' section. Again, if I was competing in a Tournament I would invoke the ‘Counts As’ rule to declare the Lightnings to represent Thunderbolts and drop the formation down to two models. Simple.

Horses for courses

At the end of the day, collecting and gaming with an Epic army should be fun and you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment. In over twenty years of the hobby the thing I most hate is the player who complains that a particular rule/game/unit is rubbish because it doesn’t ‘let’ them do a certain thing. If you don’t like something, change it! Nobody will come round to your house and beat you up, honest.

Final thoughts.

Over the years playing Epic I have discovered the following things.

·         Unbalanced points games can be fun!

·         Discussing and agreeing on alternative rules/army lists with your friends or regular opponents enhances the game.

·         Players who are ‘Rules Lawyers’ and hung up about ‘must knowing the precise rule for every given situation’ get to play very few games.

·         Players who treat games as games and not life or death tend to live longer (Ed: He has no medical evidence for this whatsoever so to be fair it is largely unsubstantiated. Sounds like they should though.)

·         Tournament style games make up less than 10% of most gaming, so why get stressed about it.

·         If a particular rule bothers both you and your opponent, change it to something you both like.

Tournaments are great fun as part of the hobby, but don’t get trapped into thinking all gaming should be in that format. Play a few unbalanced games, sometimes its great to be the underdog. One of the final test games Dave and I played was an Air-Raid, with over half the Imperial Force being Thunderbolt and Marauder Squadrons and the bulk of the Orks ground units with a lot of Flakwagons. In the main the game was to test the new Flyer and Flak rules, but as an unbalanced set up it also ended up being a lot of fun. Unusual scenarios like this can be a lot of fun and over the coming months I will be featuring a series of more ‘fringe’ scenarios that will build into a ‘Conflict Armageddon’ campaign. Until then, happy gaming.

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