Long rumoured, but finally revealed Epic will return in the Horus Heresy setting as a new game and boxed set.

Legions Imperialis was announced on the latest preview stream and you can find the details on  Warhammer Community Obviously I’m super-excited about this as I’ve never kept it a secret that the return of ‘Epic scale’ gaming was at the very top of my hobby wish list, and the setting being in the Horus Heresy (for me) is the icing on the cake. When Aeronautica Imperialis matched the aircraft scale with that of the Titans, I always felt the designers were laying the groundwork for a potential return to a combined arms game like Epic in the future should they desire. It definitely kept the door open for extending the use of the Titanicus and Aeronautica miniatures. Legion Imperialis’ announcement takes me right back to the beginning of my hobby, and that is just fine.

Everything old is new again

I am not expecting to get much usage from my legacy epic collection in Legions, however scale differences aside it does provide me with some opportunities to get back into the swing of painting epic scale again. What I am particularly keen to experiment with is some of the newer legion palettes I have adopted for the Horus Heresy the past years and see how well they translate to the smaller scale. That’s not to say I will ultimately create those legions in err ‘Legion’ (?), but I have an idea forming for a potential ‘series’ when the game comes out that could be a lot of fun!

epic scale ultramarines

To base or not to base

There’s going to be a big online debate. There’s always a big online debate. Do you base tanks, or not? I never based them in the original game, but loved basing them in last edition, so will probably stick with that. Until I have the miniatures in hand I’ll not make any final decisions, but obviously the infantry basing format has changed again to a lowered profile round base from the strip or square bases of epics predecessors. Aesthetically I think is the right move, but as with anything hobby, the choice comes down to the individual. I will probably experiment with a few different base profiles for tanks before I make a decision.

God Engine scale

I totally appreciate 28mm ‘Apocalypse’ sized games using full-sized Forgeworld Titans and squadrons of super-heavies. However visually (and practically) epic scale is the best way to really scale up battles on the tabletop and I will die on that hill. There is no better impression of the truly gargantuan scale of an Imperial war engine than seeing it dwarf the tiniest of infantry in a game of epic where you can zoom out and view the battle from above. I just don’t get that same feeling in Apocalypse games and still feel I’m at ground level with the troops.

Winning realm of battle boards in epic scale

In fairness, that wasn’t quite as impactful in the legacy versions of Epic as the war engines were scaled to the original plastic Warlord from Adeptus Titanicus. When vehicles and infantry were introduced in the later boxed game, the scale became more abstract for practical reasons resulting in the Titans ending up completely under-scaled for the size they were supposed to represent compared to the rest of the miniature range. The re-launch of Titanicus fixed this issue by bringing the newer plastic kits (and those in Aeronautica) into a common scale. The miniatures for Legions Imperialis appear to have been built to match, so everything should now be more representative of the units true scale in the game.

For fun here are some of the original studio war engines from the second edition of the game. Plastic and metal variants of the Warlord, metal Reaver and classic metal Warhound.

studio painted epic original plastic warlord titan
studio painted epic warlord titan in metal
studio painted epic reaver titan

Yes, having a ‘dial’ integrated in the base back in the first edition to track number of remaining void shields was cool. Although the terminals the current Titanicus game uses to track everything is also cool, especially the heavy based card ones with the little holes to slot the markers into. I just love gaming aids, this was something the original game had in quantity, lots of card tokens, order dice and status markers. I know not everyone likes table clutter, but for me this was always a big part of ‘epic’ gaming. The tactical overview like you are stood looking at a map table. So good.

That’s quite enough nostalgia I think for now. Suffice to say with epic returning most likely later this year, my hobby plans have been kicked into overdrive in preparation. Epic is back and it’s ‘bigger’ than ever. I totally intended that pun.

*Feature image copyright Games Workshop.