10/12/2015

Playing Epic. Ultramarines vs. Squats

I managed to play an Epic Game. Horaay! I still have my tanks half painted, but my pal KeyanSark offered me the chance to play and, due to our respective schedules, last monday was our only common window of opportunity. So let it happen!

We played NetEpic, a version of the game I am not familiar with, but Keyan is. I used my Ultramarines and a couple of Titans and Keyan used his recently painted Squats.

The battlefield, with objective points all over
Keyan's army
Each turn you roll for the initiative. Each detachment receives an order (first shoot, advance or charge), which is represented by a token, kept secret until you activate the unit. Activation is alternate, so the game is quite fluid; seriously, an IGOUGO system would totally kill a game like this. This is all about adapting youself to the adversary as they move their troops.

Secret orders!
Small blue Rhinos advancing
The clash is imminent
Onwards! To battle!
End of movement phase. Now shooting!
But first, this pic. Just because it's cool.
Keyan's giant cannon shot over me with some pretty devastating effects...

Four infantry units and two Land Raiders just evaporated

The Colossus opened fire against my Rhinos

This pic is just for the dramatic effect

End of turn 1. Let's go for round 2!

Turn 2 would be quite decisive, as we were going to fight for the center of the board.

Remember Jurassic Park, the scene with the glass of water? I think something big is coming...
Oooops, this is gonna be fun...
I made the mistake of not disembarking the troops from the Rhinos. Have a bad feeling about them...
Now for the good stuff... Titans!

Leman Russes shot on my Reaver first, then Keyan's Reaver
You wouldn't expect this game to happen without tables and charts, right?
 My Reaver got an impact on the head and another one on the hip. Fortunately the tech support guys would manage later on to repair both locations and recover all the shields.

General overview of turn 2
The Colossus, the Gyrocopter and the Warlord all opened fire against my infantry...

No comments. Having a bad day
-All of you! Hold the position! Follow me! -Ehh, Brother Captain, it's just us...

Hmm. Bad day to be a Vindicator crew...
Rhinos and Vindicators are wiped out
Seriously, guys, at this distance... you only kill two out of six bikes??
My Warlord (left) shoots the building on the right across the battlefield. Four units killed and the building itself on the edge of collapsing. I love Epic

This town ain't big enough for both of us

Keyan's Reaver managed to destroy my right arm (well, the Reaver's right arm!), so no close combat weapon. I managed to repair the rest of the damage inflicted and recover most of my shields.

End of turn 2!
So Keyan was decimating my ranks! However, at the moment we kept the same number of objetives. Turn 3 would be the decisive one then!!

On my right flank, Squat bikes had surrounded my only Rhino left. All was lost. All? No! Then we heard a 'Vooooosh' 'Vroooom' 'Hshhhhh' Reinforcements had arrived!
Of course I made all those sounds. It's essential to the game.
A little bit crowded suddenly!


This game justifies itself just by pics like this.
 
Keyan just shot me with anything he had. My Titan finally fell down when the reactor core was damaged beyond any reparation (at the end of the turn I made the required roll and at least it didn't explode causing more mayhem!)
 
Dramatic cinematic effects needed


Well, it looks like the battle was pretty much decided. Anyway, this was so much fun!
 

 
We were just for the final combats...o
The Titans and the Thunderhawk melee
Ouuuuch!


The final combat went from this...
 
...to this

So three turns and this was how it looked like in the end!

Pretty different from the first pic!

Well, so this is it. Victory for the Squats! Quite an enjoyable game, I must say, even if Keyan totally overwhelmed me in the end. As you can see, my approach here was totally wrong, I played WH40K instead of Epic, and that lead my troops to the disaster. I guess I played it like an Ork, haha, charging and facing such an artillery oriented adversary. But hey, this was my first game of Epic since... 2000? 2001? And that was with another ruleset, so this actually was my first game.

My main lesson learned is that this is not WH40K; not only about gaming, but about painting and organizing my forces. I had two Codex Astartes Companies and that doesn't work for Epic. Well, if you think that the game was conceived for the Horus Heresy, i.e., not for Chapters, but Legions with such a different organization, that makes much more sense. So I have to repaint some of my infantry to adapt my army to the game. I'm still painting my tanks, so this game helps me to know how to paint them too! (Yes, I'm ashamed of having played with half-painted minis, my bad...)

I'm really excited about games this size, specially after so much time having not played the scale. I'll show you my Space Marines army when finished and then I'll put my hands on my other armies. Hopefully I'll manage to grab some more battles!!

26 comments:

  1. Top stuff mate! I have to say epic is still one of my favourite games systems!

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    1. Thanks! The game is cool, we really enjoyed the battle!

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  2. Very very cool :)

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    1. Thank you! Things look impressive at this scale!

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  3. Thanks for AAR, Suber... I loved the caption on the brother-captain and the noises :D (Yes, he did the noises, and we stomped when the Titans crossed the city)

    Now, Tyranids are above the planet to have some dinner with the stunties. Time for another game!

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  4. Nice concise battle report, great looking armies as well. I'm glad to see you're using netepic; it's nice to get an epic scale rule set all in one book. Looking forward to your next game and of course more painted figures

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    1. Yup, NetEpic works perfectly for our purposes, I enjoyed it all! More minis! More games! I'm in!

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  5. Very cool. Great board, great minis, great photos, and great writeup! I must try NetEpic.

    We have been playing Future War Commander which is a pretty decent set of rules, but haven't played that in a while either. Must paint up my new army and get to it!

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    1. Haven't tried that, does it work fine? NetEpic is designed for massive armoured units clashes while infantry is a mere diversion :D The pure essence of Warhammer :D :D

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    2. haha yeah, FWC is great for it. We have a lot of fun. It has army lists in the back which allow us to field all our Epic armies, as well as a lot of others.

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    3. Hmmm, interesting. Good to know, thnks!!

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  6. Battle looked brilliant.

    Missed Epic the first time round but will definately be picking up a box if GW re release it!

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    1. If there is a new release I'll for sure be interested in seeing what comes this time!

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  7. What a fantastic game! Now if only Specialist Games would release a new edition so we can start getting more Epic miniatures without breaking the bank too much!

    All the best!

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    1. Haha, right! I'm looking forward to seeing what may come up (not quite optimistic about prices though, hehe), but for sure they have my interest..

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  8. That looks like great fun! I missed out on Epic first time around - no one played it in my little town :-( I'm really hoping to address that if the rumours come to pass...

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    1. Ooooh, I must tell it's terribly fun! It really depicts the carnage WH40K is supposed to be. It's fun gaming this scale!

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  9. Nice report. It all looks fab. Love the mat as well very fitting

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    1. Thanks! The mat is my pal's. If I'm not mistaken I believe it's from some Infinity range, or designed for that purpose. But it worked fine for us! :)

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  10. wow!
    awesome battlereport!
    it is really cool to see something so big! :)

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    1. Thank you! This kind of game happens so scarcely that it's highly encouraging to paint more, haha :D

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  11. Looks like you had fun Suber. And that's all that matters. :)

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    1. That's right! Even if you are not a fan of the scale, I must say this was terribly fun! Now I only want to paint and play more!

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  12. Very nice! Old school Epic still rocks!

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