A guest article by Australia's: GR00V3R
Looking for a game?
From some of the comments posted about my series on Epic:Armageddon, it looks like many of you now have a taste for some 6mm-scale warfare, but sadly have come across The Great Obstacle that the more niche games like Epic can suffer, which is a general difficulty finding other players—Epic is an awesome game system, but it’s not so well known as Warhammer 40,000.
Option 1: Ask your friends!
If you’re looking to get into Epic:Armageddon, a great option is to ask your friends to get into it with you. Epic is blessed with a comparatively low entry cost, and a 1,000-point army is enough to start with. Remember when you started out in Warhammer 40,000 with a 500-point army? A 1,000-point army is the Epic equivalent—usually a couple of infantry formations and some supporting armor formations.
As you may have seen pointed out around various Epic forums, the Epic Space Marines Battle Company box costs less than a single Warhammer 40,000 Tactical squad, but contains an army worth more than 1,000 points on its own. Alternatively, one Epic Ork Warband box is enough to create an opposing 850-point army—add a blister pack of Gunwagons for 150 points, and there’s your 1,000-point army. You will find these items for sale in the Specialist Games area of the Games Workshop online store.
Option 2: Hunt down existing players
If you are looking for existing players, you have a few options:
• Ask around on the Epic forums under tacticalwargames.net/forums, which is probably the closest thing the international Epic community has to a home base. These forums probably also offer the greatest number of Epic players from around the world (try asking about a game in your area) and the most lively discussions about the future of the game. This community of gamers has even released very professional, high production value expansions to the game (such as Epic:Raiders, which provides background, rules and well balanced army lists for both Necrons and Dark Eldar) and offer a fantastic stand-in until Games Workshop releases the canon lists.
• Use the Epic Player Index at www.epic40k.co.uk/cgi/players.cgi. You can search the index by a range of criteria, but the index is currently small enough that a country search is often the easiest way to find players. Be sure to add your own name and contact details, of course, so that others can find you.
• Try the pre-eminent forums in your country. In Australia, this is wargamerau.com, which offers a dedicated Epic area that players often use to find each other. In France, I know that epic-fr.niceboard.com is a great place to start. A Google search is likely to help you find any Epic forums servicing your country or region.
• One of the more visually interesting ways to find Epic players around the world is frappr.com/epicomms. Frappr (which is pretty new, and currently in beta testing) provides a “pinned map” interface that shows you player locations around the world.
• Find your local wargaming clubs. A Google search is likely to return a list of clubs in your area, many of which will have their own websites and forums. Don’t be afraid to jump on and ask if any of the club members play Epic or are interested in getting into Epic with you--you may get a nice surprise, and maybe make a new friend. This is how I met my own local Epic players, and today we have formed the Sydney Epic Gaming Group.
Looking to dip your feet in the water?
The developer of the excellent Warhammer 40,000 module for VASSAL (great for creating battle report graphics!) is currently working on a module for Epic:Armageddon using the 40K assets.
It’s already pretty advanced (maybe even playable by the time you read this) and well worth keeping an eye on. At the very least, it provides a way of trying Epic to see if you like how it plays. You’ll find a discussion about it at http://www.vassal40k.com/forum/index.php?board=16.0
Want even more Epic in your diet?
I hope this post have given you the information you need (if not the kick-start) to find some worthy opponents. If you require more temptation, though, or if you’re looking for further reading, check out the excellent series of articles about Epic and other Specialist Games that appear in the fan-produced Firebase and Incoming! magazines.
Special thanks to LEXTER and Onyx for the use of their images.
~Bigred here, GR00V3R strikes again. If you like the epic coverage and want more lets hear it. As GR00V3R moves through the game, I'm sure he would love to hear what things you are interested in so he can start brewing up some articles for you guys.
