Horus Heresy Adeptus Titanicus.

[Mr Mystery]

I'm back, and with a bit of mind-vomit regarding the potential for Adeptus Titanicus.

As I mentioned in the top post, I properly cut my wargaming teeth on EPIC. It's my game. The one I'll always return to. And to my mind, it's never been a specialist game, and didn't deserve to be lumped in with the likes of Necromunda and Mordheim et al. It wasn't restricted in scale the way those games were. It had no upper scale limit. For those unaware, it had very, very similar stat lines to Warhammer Age of Sigmar - fixed to hit, then save modifiers, with each roll being a single D6.

So even massive games (4,000 points was my preference) rarely got bogged down with mindless dice rolling. I just rolled the right number of dice. For each that Hit, you made a corresponding save, modified if applicable. It was quick. It was fun.

Combat was a wee bit different. If memory serves, you both rolled 2D6, and added your CAF (Close Assault Factor). If you rolled higher than your opponent, then the model or stand was DED - so even though it was done one at a time, it was roll, compare, next. Nice and simple.

It was simply a superb system (barring the erroneous Epic 40,000, which I didn't take to. Epic Armageddon was good though!).

The models themselves might have been cheap, but for me, that just meant I spent more on them. Why buy a unit of Basilisks, when I can get a Company of Basilisks?

It just never sat right in Specialist Games.

Now....done right? Adeptus Titanicus Horus Heresy could be a major, major hit - to the point it has the potential to outsell 40k, in time, even if the prices are similar (this is FW we're talking about ).

Why? We play these games for many reasons, but one of the most common is the visual spectacle of seeing two fully built, ideally painted armies. 40k has a certain appeal there - but it pales next to Epic's grand scale. I mean, Apocalypse is good fun and all, but it gets well expensive, requires multiple players to be rounded up (herding Cats springs to mind), and for each of said players to have broadly similar collections in terms of unit variety (nobody likes being 1,500 Dave in Apocalypse, the one player that can't field a saucy formation or Super Heavy. You just get flattened).

Epic? All that's built in, mate. Well, except for rounding up opponents. You're on your own there, but at least you just need the one rather than multiples!

It's a small scale model for a massive scale of war. When Titans can be blown away with just a handful of well placed shots, you know you're gonna have a laugh. See those infantry? They're your game winners, mate. Sure they won't kill much, but they'll be the one's to hold your objectives. They'll be the ones forming a perimeter around your big stuff to prevent the enemy squashing it in combat. Fliers? Spot for Epic, mate. They can actually behave like Fliers.

There's also the psychological oddities of collecting. I've never been one to baulk at prices. Never have, probably never will. But even I can see the bizarre difference between spending say, £30 on 5 Ironjawz Brutes (gorgeous kit, BTW, and ace models!) and spending say, £45 on a WARLORD TITAN (Warlord Titan price currently plucked out the ether for example only. This is not an indication as the actual price!) It's what I think of as 'biggest thing in the game' syndrome. Archaon is £100, but I'm alright with that. He is, after all, the biggest thing in the game. Two boxes of Gore Gruntas, at £48 a pop...nearly the same price, but a bit more 'maybe I'll just use standard Boarboyz, yeah?'

The future is near. The future is Epic. At least, it is if you ask me. And to be fair, you didn't. But you did just sit and read through this, so more fool you

Oh, and if as suspected this is out around the end of the year (certainly their aim, production allowing)....well I might just spend my November bonus on it.....

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

couldn't agree more. For Mass-battle games, Epic was ALWAYS the way for me. I always thought it was cool you could spend a fiver and get an entire army in a box too - you'd get a 100 infantry and maybe some tanks, and I loved the sprues. They could make the infantry look incredible these days too. Things like collecting an entire chapter, warband or craftworld were actually feasable too. Always found it a shame when Epic 40k killed it and reduced it as it was the the 3rd core game at one time. I'd still love to see a self-contained war in heaven boxed game oneday, but i doubt they'd ever do anything that badass.

[Mr Mystery]

I suspect the price will be a good bit higher this time around - but seeing how much development has happened in producing their models, I'm good with that

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

It will be, but the kits will likely be a lot better too. I expect each model will have some variant poses so it isn't like the old sprues where each unit only had a single pose model. They only need 5 different poses and you can mix and match to get the variety on bases. They'll probably be more detailed too, esp if they go for 8mm. I wonder if they will do all the infantry in one sprue like they used to, or if they will make multiple sprues for the infantry (perhaps basic troops on one sprue and specialised stuff on another?)

[Erik Setzer]

I'm not sure I'll be okay with the price, because it'll likely follow the current model of charging twice as much as they should and then package into boxes with deep "discounts" from the retail price still making nice profits but getting rubes to cheer them on for being so "kind." If they just started at the reasonable level, I'd be fine with it.

Epic scale is what they tried to turn 40K into, which has made 40K even more expensive than WFB was at its worst (given that both shared the terrible pricing scheme). I like Apoc matches plenty, absolutely love 'em, but I'd rather my standard 40K matches not include companies and multiple super-heavies. Put that where it belongs and should have always stayed, in good ol' Epic. 40K is your small level battles, Epic is your large scale battles, everything's nice and tidy. The return of Epic should get 40K back to where it was... though that'd also probably take 40K going through a revamp on par with the 3rd edition revamp. While I'm never keen on my books being obsolete, I'd be okay with my 40K rules collection needing to be replaced if it meant the game moved away from the default starting blocks of armies being on a company level, as they've shifted to in recent books. Seems the only way to correct that is taking a flamethrower to all the codices and supplements. Which would hurt, sure, but it'd improve 40K a lot, and lot them approach things from a proper perspective of Epic for big games, 40K for smaller games.

Granted, this is all coming from a gaming perspective, and, well... Oof.

[eldargal]

I never really liked Epic that much, didn't like how blobby the infantry looked but with modern design and production they might be able to get them looking nice even at 6mm scale. I have to admit I'd love to see how a modern aesthetic Dark Eldar army would look, just imagine some of the larger vehicles and monsters they could field... I don't have much interest in Horus Heresy Adeptus Titanicus anymore because after four years of pretty much nothing but ****ing HH from FW I'm completely over it, I'd be happy never to see another HH Marine release in my life.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I never really liked Epic that much, didn't like how blobby the infantry looked but with modern design and production they might be able to get them looking nice even at 6mm scale. I have to admit I'd love to see how a modern aesthetic Dark Eldar army would look, just imagine some of the larger vehicles and monsters they could field... I don't have much interest in Horus Heresy Adeptus Titanicus anymore because after four years of pretty much nothing but ****ing HH from FW I'm completely over it, I'd be happy never to see another HH Marine release in my life.

I hear you, but I think it was impressive they could do models that small at the time - but they really do not hold up to modern standards. If they are going 8mm then that should help the detail even more.

Imagine this though, you could collect an entire eldar craftworld and build the gaming table to be the actual craftworld!

[eldargal]

Yup at the time they were great, I quite liked playing the game I just never had as much enthusiasm for it as the larger scales and as the figures got older that enthusiasm decreased exponentially.

That is something I would do, yes.

[Erik Setzer]

Horus Heresy is the era the original Adeptus Titanicus and Space Marine were set in. Had some nice art and stories. Still, it makes it harder to include all the 40K races, so it'd have to get out of the HH fast (like 2nd edition Space Marine/Titan Legions did).

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Yup at the time they were great, I quite liked playing the game I just never had as much enthusiasm for it as the larger scales and as the figures got older that enthusiasm decreased exponentially.

That is something I would do, yes.

Yeah, after painting the 500th monopose infantry figure it's hard to not to lose enthusiasm (and also have nightmares about endless amounts of said monopose figure that you are forced to paint, eh or maybe that was just me..) agreed on the HH setting too, I still think they should explore the war in heaven setting for epic. IF you are going to make different games, it would be more interesting to have them in different time periods I think.