Dusting off the old Epic figures…

Back in the 90’s, I got into GW Epic Space Marine game. At the time, I was still playing a lot of WWII micro armor and thought I would like to dabble in 6mm Sci Fi. Well, GW expanded their old Titan Legions game, so that was my chance. Ironically, this was the first GW game I ever go into, which would become a gateway drug the many of their later offerings, but that is a story for another time…. Back then, the draw was the established background and the neat looking minis, so I took the plunge along with a buddy of mine. As time went on, the group of gamers grew larger and larger and we enjoyed the game fully.

In time, GW replaced the original game with Epic Armageddon, so the gaming kept going. Unfortunately, GW eventually pulled the plug on that game and that was that. I packed up my minis and awaited a re-release that never came. Some of my friends sold off their stuff or did the same as me. Over the years, those of us that were still around talked about dusting off the old rules and trying a game, but that never went anywhere (we tend to gravitate to supported games that can bring in new players).

Last year, GW released a new game called Warhammer 40k Apocalypse. I’m not really into 40k (even though I have two painted armies from the 90s), so did not pay much attention. However, while gaming in the local hobby shop, I saw a couple of guys playing 40k with an insane number of figures and noticed they were using the Apocalypse rules. I chatted with them a bit and looked at their rules and mentioned Epic, which they indicated they tried with the rules and liked the scale, but they did not have many models. That started the ticking in my head and I walked around the shop to pick up the rules to try out. That is until I saw the $100 price and got sticker shock! So, there would be no purchase for me!

My curiosity was still triggered, so I went on line and checked out what people were doing with the rules. I did not find much, but just enough to keep me intrigued. Then it happened, my FLGS had their annual black Friday sale and sitting on the table was the Apocalypse game at 50% off! Still not cheap, but cheap enough! A buddy and I both picked up copies and talked about the possibilities.

Slowly but surely, I started pulling out my old figures to see what I had (Oh my, I have a lead problem!). Still talking, a couple of other buddies brought up Epic and I mentioned that I had the new rules to try out. Then the final trigger, another buddy painted up an old Space Marine set and wanted to try them out. The match had finally been struck and we locked in a game.

Finally, we through the rules and showed up with some simple terrain to our FLGS and we set up a game with a third friend. To keep it simple, we decided to do some marine civil wars. Mostly to keep the types of troop types low and figure out the rules. Well, that was the plan anyway… In practice, both sides took a sample of all different types of models, so that part of the plan did not quite go as planned!

I selected the first scenario, as I wanted to keep the game simple. As I was the only one of the three to have the rules, I opted to be game master. Both sides put together 300 point forces and we started the game. I decided to play the rules as written and use the ranges as printed. This aligns with the scale of the troops better in my opinion. So, everything was out of the box, except our miniatures were smaller!

We played for about two hours. The game went back an forth and proved to be quite interactive, due to the initiative system. There was a bit of stop and start, as I had to check the rules regularly, as my memory is not what it used to be. However, it was easy, as the rules are brief an quite intuitive, once you get a few phases behind you. We also had to share one set of printed stat cards, which do to the number choices made in building each army, slowed us down a bit. We called the game after three turns, as it was getting close to store closing time. Both sides had taken a reasonable amount of casualties and moved around the table, so it turned out that that was enough for us to get a feel.

We all agreed, the feel was good! One of the guys even ought their own copy of the game for the next encounter! The game flowed and you definitely could see how different units performed (I’ll write up a review later). Looks like the long wait is over and all those old Epic models will finally got some play again!

• Mantueffel