John, thank you again mate for coming back onto the Chronic
Command. It's been a long time in
awaiting but and I know a lot of people have been anticipating
this particular show that we're going to look at Epic Hive War
today. It's the last supplement and the
final supplement release for second edition Epic Space
Marine, and it's probably not one of the most common commonly
seen or played forces in Epic. So that's kind it's kind of the
Holy Grail if you can get a lot of those old plastic inventory
sprues and some of the metal models that were released during
the time in the in the later phase of Epic Space Marine
second edition during Titan legions.
Of course, when this was out, Lucky, lucky you.
But for all us who haven't, we can only look and ponder and
wander what they were really like.
But mate, you got to play them first hand with your partner Sam
there in the game of second edition.
But before we crack on with that, mate, tell us what's been
happening in the meantime since we last talked.
Sure. And that kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it's, it's been a while.
Yeah, Josh and I have absolutely been chatting nonetheless.
But no, in terms of US catching up with with the chronic
commander, it's definitely been far too long the number of times
we have scheduled this, this podcast and then the wives and
wherefores of the universe conspire against us.
So we've had like, we, I mean, we had that chat with AD the
other day, which was incredible. And yeah, so it's nice to
finally get here and do it. It has been a long time coming.
And it's just, it's like I've got a guy I work with my terrain
guy, Julian, who does all my terrain for, for the company
keeps saying, John, what are you doing?
The what are you doing? The Epic podcast, what are you
doing? I'm like, oh, no, it's this
weekend, It's this weekend. It gets cancelled.
But yeah, finally, finally it's happening.
This is where there's going to be tech issues and the recording
gets deleted and we have to do it all over again or something.
Actually, the universe doesn't want us to talk about here.
And it's but yeah, what have I been doing?
So it's been a weird year. So we're trying to sell the
house. We're trying to move.
I want to move cross country, which has kind of put a damper
on on as much gaming as I would like and as much hobbies I'd
like supposed to have the home set up as like a show home, not,
you know, John and Sam's hobby chaos madness, which is what
it's normally like. You know, normally this room is
just full of painting tables and the, you know, gaming table and
what not. So that's been a bit of a bit of
a pain really, but I've still been, you know, cracking on.
So managed to assemble the kind of entire tyranny collection.
So the bulk of my Tyranids were donated to me by my friend
Stubbs, an American guy who knows I love Epic.
And he gave me really, like you were saying, the Holy Grail of
the infantry. That's been the hardest part
with Tyranids is, you know, being the last army to come out
for second edition and then kind of being one of the later armies
in 3rd edition as well. It was very, very hard to get
hold of of, of epic Tyranids. So he, you know, gifted me a
bunch of stuff, which was awesome.
And then I was like buying up odds and sods all over the
place. And of course, anyone that's
tried to buy a Tiernan army online knows just how expensive
it is. So I was buying, you know, a lot
of like, you know, bulk or bits and pieces here.
I hate that a couple of my stands, like my cows, like house
warriors, my Tiernan warriors are metal recasts just because
it was the only way I could fill out those.
So there's, you know, there's there's one or two individuals
who are probably known to a lot of us in the community that
definitely provide metal infantry of dubious Providence.
And so yeah, I had to unfortunately go down the recast
a route, you know, I'd love not to have done.
There is also there's the chap, what's the guy that does a lot
of alternative sculpts. He's just lost his website and
got it back on. Oh, you're talking about one of
the guys in the UK there that made.
Yeah, yeah. And then there's American Guy as
well, and they've got a set of definitely not hearing it.
It's quite suitable. I, I just want to yeah, because
I had the bulk of it being original.
I wanted it to all match. But like that is an option as
well as you can't get hold of the plastics and you've got the,
you know, got the pocket change. Go and buy the, the, the
alternatives. So they are out there.
And so, yeah, basically got this point now where I've got
essentially I can fill two of pretty much every card from the
book other than Titans. I always struggle with Titans
for some reason. That's why loving Titan, you
know, Titans, the whole origin story of John.
But for some reason I never seem to have that many times in my
collection. But yeah, so I've built, built
and primed 2 of everything and for the Tyranids.
So I've been working on that. I was just about to start
painting when we decided to put the house on the market.
So I've not painted a single Tyranids yet.
But we we got it all built, we got it all painted, we got it
all based. Started playing with it.
In terms of other hobby, I've been really cracking on with my
orcs and goblins. So my 4th edition fantasy Orcs
and Goblins, I finished 1000 points.
Night Goblins fully painted now. So the squig hoppers and the
squig herders were the last units to go.
They're all done, which has been brilliant.
So now I need to go back and like finish the other half of
the units of orcs and then I'll be at 2000 points.
So that's really good. So I'm probably about, yeah,
1500 points of orcs and goblins now, which is awesome.
I have assembled, cleaned up and started painting a high off army
because this is like my 30th year, 30 years of Warhammer.
And then, you know, in celebration of 4th edition Age
of Sigma coming out, I decided I wanted to refight the 4th
edition Warhammer box from 30 years ago.
That was kind of part of my origin in the hobby.
So yeah, all the goblins are done now.
Actually, that's not true. I've still got to paint the the
wizard on wife and that's the one thing I was shaming on wife
and I've not done him. But otherwise, all the orcs and
goblins done done Grom done the rock lover.
And I've started working on the high elves now.
So I've done 10 spam and so far and I'd like to try and get that
done by the end of the year. But then I got distracted and
bought a bunch of troll slayers. And now I'm building troll
slayers because as ever, I have this bad habit of just jumping
from project to project. And in about two weeks ago I
was, you know, tidying boxes up because we had another house
viewing and I had a slim each Titan warlord that I assembled.
Again, I believe that was from stubs.
I'm pretty sure some of the parts were definitely from stubs
and I was just like, this can't keep rattling around in pieces
of this box. So I just randomly paid for
these warlords just because it was in front of me and almost
ready to go. So yeah, it's been a real kind
of like as ever, the the kind of the the chaotic approach I have
to hobby. Like I'm not very disciplined in
terms of getting any consistent thing done.
I just like to paint a unit here, Paint a unit here.
It's good that I'm now getting to the point where I can feel
the fully paid Orkin goblin army.
I would like to do more of the oh, that was the other thing as
well. I built and played a bunch of
second edition 40K. So it's building a bunch of
second edition orcs as well. So it really is just like it's,
it's chaos, man. Like I just.
Well, the 2nd edition. How how about you?
Sorry. The the 2nd edition project I
didn't know about so. Oh yeah, it was spare of a spur
of the moment thing like I so it was just before we moved to
Kent, so about seven years ago somebody was selling a really
good set of second edition orcs, 40K orcs.
And I love the metal sculpts. I love the, you know, the Kev
second edition army and technically Rogue Trader army I
suppose if you think about it. And so I added up what I wanted
from it and it was like more than if I just bought the whole
lot off the guy because he was all split down.
But this is what I want. I was like, I added up actually,
I might as well just buy the whole lot.
Sam then went ballistic because I bought this army literally as
we're about to be moving house, you know how it is.
And then this this incredible box of and it was really good.
It was like there was a lot in there was a lot in there.
And so, you know, I I sold off some of the Rogue Trader stuff,
not because I didn't love it, but just because I wanted that
kind of like a pure second edition vibe.
So I got a little bit of the money back.
But yeah, so I've had this box of, of second edition orcs
kicking around. I've I've built like a little
squad here, a little squad here. And I was like, I really like, I
really want to start playing second edition and 3rd slash 4th
edition, to be honest. Like I've been playing 8th and
9th and it just doesn't do it for me.
So I'm like, I'm just going back to the games I know and love.
So, yeah, we just, we started playing because Sam's been
cracking on with her no goal army.
And so, yeah, we did some, you know, noble noble Death Guard
versus Orcs in second edition. And, and like we played 500
points, I think 40K second edge drawings of that kind of 500 to
1000 points. Like I was chatting to some
friends yesterday and they're like, yeah, we still, you know,
put like massive armies down and play two turns and give up.
And I'm like, yeah, it turns out like playing army scale Second
edition was like the apocalypse of its day.
You don't play big games. You keep to that kind of like
1000 point level. And then it's quite nice.
It's quite contained much beyond that.
It starts to get it's, you know, it's that resolve in combat on a
one-on-one basis. It really starts to take time.
But yeah, I just, you know, as ever, I just, I wish I had, you
know, less work and more more time because I'd be cracking on
with them for sure. So I've built a bunch of Golfs,
built all the artillery because you can't have the artillery.
I'd already built a load of bikers and and you know,
vehicles for Gorka Morka, which again is kind of that was what I
saw. I sold all the road trade
vehicles because I had all the Gorka Morka ones.
And whilst maybe the metal ones are a bit nicer, it does suit
that second edition 5 doesn't it, having all those kind of the
plastic vehicles. And I think, you know, the war
buggy still looks incredible. I think that's yeah, maybe the
crew aged a little bit weirdly, but like the buggy still looks
amazing. So yeah, I've got a really good
mix. You know, I've got, I can
basically filled 1 squad from every clan give or take, you
know, big, big mob, 2020 Golfs, you know, loads of skull boys,
loads of knobs in there. You know, it's everything you'd
expect. Everyone always had like a unit
of death skull looters rather than death skulls.
Everyone had a unit of evil sons, bikers rather than evil
sons. So yeah, you know, the Goths are
very much the foot side of it. And then all the funky units get
to be the exciting different clans.
And the one thing I have got like I haven't built yet is an
absolute boatload of ball boys. I'm like, oh, I could probably
do a squad, like I could do 2 squads, one on side balls and
one on normal balls. So that's going to be fun when I
finally get around to that. And a big mob on foot as well.
So the the snake bites are always that weirdest.
Like it's the clan that I never use in Epic and it's the clan
that I've never really used in 40K, but I really want to get
into it now just because that's so cool.
Like it's you know, it's not like dislike the snake bites.
So it's just they're so weirdly different because of the ball
boy angle. It's like a whole extra step.
So yeah, yeah, I've been like, I'm definitely on my, you know,
nostalgia hammer. And I think it's just that
point. You just get to that point where
you're like, I'm not, you know, I'm playing the new Age of
Sigma. It's fine.
But I'm like, you know, it would be better if this was just 5th
edition Warhammer. And that's the problem.
This is great, but this is even better.
So yeah, you know, it's our age talking.
It's nostalgia, whatever, whatever.
Like, but it is just, you know, those, you know, those
experiences that you and I kind of grew up on, you know, your
second edition Epic, your 4th edition Warhammer, your second
edition 40K, they're not perfect.
They're bloody good fun. And I mean, that's just, that's
where I'm at now. You know, me and Sam, we just,
we like to play. I've got enough of a collection
now that I can, you know, I hate that I can feel a lot of
different things and a lot of different games don't have kids.
That's the that's the secret trick.
Like my tricks are, why have I got so much warhammers?
I never had kids. And yeah, I just, you know, and
it's that weird thing. And, you know, we saw it a bit
through COVID as well as I think of like we're all at the point
in our life where we've probably got enough disposable income to
finally get to live the dream. We always wanted his kids.
So this is like, you know, when I was a kid, I had a dark out
for me and that that was it. Now I'm an adult, I can have all
the other armies that I wanted as well.
Should I have the other armies? That's a different question, but
I can. And yeah, it's just it's that
ability to be like, you know, I always wanted to.
So the thing I'm working on at the moment, why I'm doing these
Dwarfs now in these High elves, is I really want to work
through, you know, the grudge of Drong.
I want to work through the one that was in the White Dwarf, the
Orkin goblin versus Dark Elf one.
I'm really looking forward to that.
And it's just these, yeah, these linked, linked game campaigns,
four games, a little bit of terrain.
Actually, I think it was 3 for the dark.
Was it 3 or was it 4 turning up on the beach?
Yeah, you told me about that one.
Yeah, it's really good ones. Yeah, it's fun on the beach to
light the fire fight at the shaman's heart to get the shaman
to join your army. Yeah, No, it's four.
Yeah. Then there's the defence and
then there's the final fight in the village.
Yeah. So they're all like these, these
really, you know, four linked campaigns and each campaign
games and each one like affects the next one.
And yeah, like, you know, obviously they, they boxed them
up with with Grudge Drong and Idle of Gorg Love to do Idle
Gorg. I sold my Empire army and I'm
like, maybe when the Empire comes back for Old World, I can
do Idle of Gorg. But yeah, it's just, it's the,
you know, you've read, you've read them in the White Dwarf.
And like, you know, I've been reading through the the kind of
they did the battle report where they fought through the entirety
of the graduate drawing. And I'm like, yeah, I can, I can
do that soon. Like, so yeah, it's that kind of
thing of like all those things that you're like, man, that was
awesome when I was in my teens. Now I'm like, well, now I'm in
my 40s, I can do is. So you take 30 years to finish
that arc. It's no bother.
Yeah. Good retirement.
Yeah. Yeah, that's it.
Fine, yeah, but how about you, man?
What have you been working on? Well, not an awful lot for
myself and been doing a lot of commissions.
Of course three of the LED studios.
So now I'm working on A to zinch 40K chaos army for card effects
which I'm really enjoying that like painting all the old pink
and blue horror models that Kevin that's the one with.
The big fingers. Yep, those ones.
Proper metals, yeah, I love those.
Ones yeah and the flamers are from like 4th edition.
So they're the ones that are like mushrooms with bird beaks.
That's the ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're quite. They're pretty cool, yeah.
Mix up a bit of contrast medium with paints and inks and stuff
like that, using those to paint those quickly and effectively.
It's been good. It's been a good little
challenge, and I've been looking forward to that.
And then doing the Greater Demon, of course, for that as
well, and just painting some really cool old Jess Goodwin
1000 Sun models. He's got the whole squad of
those and some of the sorcerers that came out in second edition.
So it's been a lot of fun doing that so far.
And before that I did, I wrapped up the massive Chaos Dwarf army
that you may have seen on Instagram, those photos I did of
each of the units. So yeah, that's for Gordon, my
good friend Gordon in Scotland, and he's got them.
He got it there in two days time, mate.
I sent it out on a Monday here in Japan.
He got there on Wednesday, 2 days.
So, so, so relieved that he got it there safely and everything
was fine. Only a couple of scratches on
the bases, you know, I mean, that's the.
Fear, isn't it? You put stuff in the post and
you're like just have to pray to the gods that this comes out the
other side like and Gorks angels, you've been carried.
You've been doing some some bat reps.
I've seen some cool bat reps out of you.
Yeah, yeah, we've I've got, yeah, I'm, I'm editing another
one for one of fantasy next. But I did the 2nd edition Orcs
versus Squats. It was released a couple of days
ago, about 3 days ago now. I don't know if you've seen it,
but. I've not seen that one yet.
No, I watched your you did the goblin high elf attack on the
tower and you've been you've been working through the tears
of Isha, haven't you? I've been watching them as well.
So it's duck UPS high elves, that campaign pack.
So yeah, like I've not caught the 40K1 yet.
I didn't see no, you had the two two friends came over and played
40K, didn't they? Or yeah.
That's right, it was Nick and Paul playing 40 KC in edition.
Then after that we we played one Renaissance with the cows
dwarves against my dwarves. That was a really good, fun
game. I haven't finished editing that,
of course. That's the next.
Tell me about Warhammer Renaissance because I've joined
the group. But that's that's not quite
Warhammer right? That's Warhammer with some
edits. It's basically 4th edition
that's been edited and it's been it's like a revision of 4th
edition. Sure, an awful, but it's.
A fan. It's like a fan edit, isn't it?
It's a fan edit thing, yeah. So I just Nick interviewed
Boulder about it in second like 22 podcasts ago.
So listen to that mate with the interview with the oh check.
It out. Awesome essence and check it out
and yeah, I would honestly recommend anybody to have a look
at it. I mean, when I get to play it,
it's I'm effectively playing 4th edition fantasy, which is my
favorite edition, you know, with a bit of 5th edition mixed in
there with a bit of a smattering of other editions that have.
He's put little rules in here or there.
He's changed things enough that it's, it's its own thing.
But obviously it's it's DNA is in 4th edition.
The magic system obviously is all 4th edition magic, so both
both get both players get to cast magic in their own in each.
Frame OK, interesting yeah that was always that interesting
switch yeah 4th where everyone just gets to cast all the time
to fit where it's like you only cast in your own and it was
always that you know it was that we need to tone down magic
because if you can get a Level 3 spell off you're kind of on your
way to winning. It was an interesting change but
like there was something yeah but like the madness 4th edition
magic where just stuff is kicking off and it's really
interesting like I really I mean I'm I'm sure I don't think
they've ever confirmed this but like I'm pretty adamant that
like if you look at age of Sigma with the what they called
manifestation spells like endless spells.
That's what these call them like I am sure that is taking the the
4th edition thing with all the templates like, you know this
was black horror and being like oh we don't do a couple
templates anymore. Let's just turn it into a
miniature like you know because spells really went away from
like, you know lingering effects and templates to just do a thing
is you know 5 balls D6 and this was black horror D6 to like Oh
no now we're going to have it back and it's going to stay on
the table and it's going to you know.
It's not just going to be done, resolved and off we go.
And I'm not I just feel like that is such a throwback.
And that's, you know, that's why I really do still enjoy like GW
games where they do they do pay homage to the past in quite a
nice way. And you see things like that.
And I mean, you know, look at Legion imperialist.
It's like that is mostly second edition epic.
And when they when they redid apocalypse for like 3 editions
of 40K ago, maybe I was reading the book like, yeah, this is
this is just epic space marine that you've basically turned
into a 40K scale game. So it is nice when you see those
like, like concepts from the past get kind of passed through
the modern filter and then reintroduce into a game.
You know, that's really cute. I know where that's come from.
And I really like that you've reintroduced it because it was,
you know, one of the reasons I left, you know, the GW sphere
and went off the war machine for so long was that like, I missed
the the kind of the granularity of of Epic and 40K like, yeah,
yeah, I get to shoot the arm off of a Titan and now I can't find
that gun. Any like that.
That level of detail was really, really exciting fun.
And that kind of went away for a bit.
And so it's nice to see concepts like that coming back.
Just makes the games just feel like just a little bit cooler.
Right? Like, it's, it's that it's that
layer of personality and detail where it's not you're not just
moving, you know, tokens and randomly rolling dice.
It's like no, no, no, this is this is my Terminator and old
God, he's at his last cannon show off and you know, and now
he's got a name and now he's got a back story.
Like that's that's like apex wargaming to me, as opposed to
just a very like like, you know, it's really interesting.
You look at where wargaming in general is going and GW in
particular, you can see that they're trying to bring it into
this kind of pseudo esports mentality and you know, you
understand why it's you've got to reach out to the younger
crowd. You got to reach out to
different audiences. You know, us all gifts aren't
going to be around forever, and I get that, but it it does take
some of the personality out of the game.
And you know, like Ash from gorilla always talks about this
idea of like, you know, scenarios now, you know, go and
stand in a circle and press a button and there's not really an
exciting narrative. Like, yeah, you can spin it as
like, oh, they're activating a computer or they're downloading
follow wherever it is. You can do that, but it does
feel a little bit clean. And E sports he doesn't have
like, you know, are they fighting a battle or are they
just trying to because it's like going to go and doing a job or
something like that. It's this weird like.
Like it, it doesn't quite build the same stories as these, you
know, these. And I don't know, like, I don't
know what the difference is because let's face it, we didn't
even have scenarios. In fact, it was just line up and
run at each other and smack each other in the face.
But like, it was good enough for us, right?
It's like with classic dwarves, like, oh, back in my day, that
was all good. Like, we didn't need silly
complicated scenarios. So I don't know, like, people
probably tell them, tell me I'm wrong.
They usually do. But yeah, I don't know.
That was a weird tangent. Who knows?
John's going to go off on a weird tangent because we started
talking about painting. No, a bit like the the 5th
edition gave you a great asymmetrical lineup of battles
where they were not evenly lined up points wide group choices
were not, you know, to your to your beck and call.
It was like basically, this is what you got.
You got to deal with what the situation.
Is. And if you watch.
My and that's like, that's really fun because, you know,
pitch battles always great. It's an easy way to line up and
fight. But like there's only so many
times you can do those pitch battles before you're like, no,
OK, no, we know how pitch battles work.
So being able to be like right now, we remix it now we do do
something different. Now what happens when it is that
like that? Like you did it, didn't you?
The half dark elf like yeah, the the heroic last stand, the high
offs know that they're dead. They're dead.
Elves walk in, but if they can hold that line long enough that
comrades will benefit in the next battle.
So it's not about winning, it's about losing with the most
advantage to your fella. And like that's that's that's
war, isn't it? You know, war isn't an even line
up and fight game. It is a a game of finding
advantage and stuff. So yeah, you know, like I think
maybe that's that that arc of a game.
And when you start out, you are like pitch, battle, pitch
battle, pitch, battle. And you know, maybe now they're
kind of the modern equipment of that is tournament gamer,
tournament gamer or like PvP game, competitive game away, if
you want to call it. And then maybe there comes a
point where you're like, OK, and I think that was me.
You know, I did, I did War Machine tournaments, OK,
eventually leveled up from playing in them to running them.
But like that competitive like that was War Machine.
We did that for a decade and then you kind of go, OK, I've
done that. Now I've kind of got out of my
system. What else can I do with this?
Oh, I can play these narrative games.
I can play these stories where the point is you and I are here
to tell a story and the victory doesn't matter because there's
nothing at stake other than what's the fun story we can
tell? What cool grudges can we build?
What cool like memories are we going to make and characters are
we going to develop? And then how do we then carry
that through into future gaming? And like, you know, to be clear,
neither is wrong. I think that's the one thing
that people, the mistakes that people make on the Internet is
there's this assumption that if I like something, anybody who
likes something else is wrong. Well, that's not the case.
Is everyone's looking for their slice of the pie.
And certainly, you know, as you and I can probably attest to,
haven't been doing this for longer than perhaps we should
admit, like your interest will evolve over time and maybe it
will change And you know, maybe at some point you're in a hobby
space and then you're in a competitive space and then
you're in a narrative space. And that's good, That's normal.
That's to be expected. That's part of this adventure.
And just hope you've got like minded people.
Like the only bit that where struggles is when two people
come to the table with different expectations.
That's when you get that, that that kind of friction and it's a
real shame. And that's where, you know, I
guess rule 0 and Magic gathering the idea of like, let's have a
conversation. Let's explain what we both want
on. And then once you know that and
you know, it's really interesting.
I was listening to the Jugs podcast, so I was listening to
Louise, Rob and peachy talking and they were, you know, Louise
was talking about oh, no, sorry, no, it was actually it was her.
It was her channel, wasn't it? She was talking about going to
the age of Sigma worlds and you know, this whole thing about the
gamers or they're going to be a bit too hammer heady.
And then she was saying actually, you know, everyone was
there had a great time, everyone was in there really enjoying it.
I've been to the war machine worlds.
I judge painting and provided terrain and did some stuff at
the War machine worlds and it's that same thing where everyone
there was having a great time and that was because they all
went there knowing we're here to play competitive war machine.
So the games are going to be they're going to be hot.
You know, it's the quote UN quote best players in the world
competing at the highest quote UN quote level.
It's all toy soldiers. None of it's that serious, but
you know what I mean? But because they knew that
because they'd gone to worlds to play competitive war machine, it
means they could leave all that on the table so they could play,
you know, serious game. War Machine have a very, you
know, very, very tight competitive, competitive game
where the results really mattered.
But the minute that game's over, you leave that on the table and
then you just mates and that was what you know, that's so that
what I'm trying to illustrate that point is you can be
competitive and still be fun. I'm not saying competitive is
bad. What I'm saying is you have to
know, it's like everyone has to know the stakes.
And so if that's the stakes and you will agree that you can have
a great time if you and me get together to play through a
campaign pack and we know we're just there to tell that story.
We have a great time. If you're down the club with
your mates and you're like, can we just have a pick up game?
Can we not make this super comfy?
I don't want to fight, you know, like a super overtuned, super
hardcore list today. Can we do something a little bit
fluffy? Can we put some of those
restrictions in from the scenarios you were saying?
Like, who knew that, like conversation and consent are the
rules, like go from some weird places there.
But like, yeah, like having those conversations and making
sure that everyone's on the same page so that you can like,
because that's the hard part about this hobby.
You know, the great thing about painting is that any person
needs to enjoy the painting is you because it's you painting it
for you. The minute you get two people in
the room and there's an element of competition, even in the, you
know, the cashless, fluffiest, funniest game, there's still
that risk. And, you know, I, I joke about
it a lot. Like I, you know, at work, I'm,
I'm on record. Like Chris has literally gone on
podcast and quote me. Like I always sort of.
And it's, it's both a joke and a not joke, which is, you know, in
a war game, two people come to the table.
One of them has a good time, the other one loses.
And like, that's not true. That's a very like, that's a
classic John slightly tongue in cheek comment.
Like everything I say, I say with tongue firmly planted in
cheek. But there is an element of that.
And certainly with War Machine, which was so competitive that,
you know, more and more. And maybe that was partly why I
ended up running stuff rather than playing and stuff because I
got like, I just got tired of like, you know, win or lose, it
didn't matter. It's just the, the, the mindset
you had to be in to play that game wasn't necessarily always
fun, which again, might be why I've reverted back to playing
older games that are a little bit sillier and a little bit
like Woolly around the edges where you can play in the
margins a little bit more. But yeah, I, you know, I don't
know, I'm rambling again. I'm off on a John's
philosophical conversation, but it's just, you know what you
will make. Sure.
Everyone having a good time. I like a bit of variety.
I like a bit of competitive play.
I like a bit of narrative play. You know, I like, I like board
gaming, I like playing cooperative board games.
I enjoy those very, very much like head to head board games as
well. Yeah.
You know, the spice, spice of life in gaming is very
important. Absolutely every bit every bit
of you know, I like to go to a our games days and we are, you
know, people are playing to win, but of course, having a good
time. There's nothing massively at
stake. Maybe your ego if anything.
But yeah, we we always go there with the right, right mentality,
right attitude to play, play some games with our friends,
have a great time. And if you win, great.
If you lose, you know, it doesn't really matter.
You know, no one's going to get sore over that as long as you're
having a good time and you're you're playing in the right
spirit. So yeah, but I, yeah.
But at the same time, I like to just sit around playing Talisman
just doing something very random, you know, just there's
no control over anything. The.
Snakes and ladders of whatever. And that's, that's fun, too.
We're about to get get underway with her request again.
You know, cool. Yeah.
Which I absolutely I still think it's one of the greatest dungeon
crawling board games ever made, even though there's been 1000
predecessors and to all that and they try to replicate the the
magic and formula to your request.
But I think there's something so beautiful about the simplicity
of the game and the fun. Are you?
Playing the original or this new remake from?
The original mate. Yeah, I want my, I want my for
me. I don't want sure seamen or
whatever they are nowadays. Not to knock it.
I think it's a great, great. You know, when I went to
Australia, I looked up at the this is a Toy World store, which
really surprised me because I thought these things were going
like the dinosaurs. But there was one there in the
in the in the shopping mall, quite a large one too, and and
had a massive board game selection there and right at the
top there it was here requests and I thought that's that's
excellent because that's how I found that's how I discovered
miniature painting and and ball gaming.
I found it through here request. So you know, it's nice to see a
miniature centric board game out there because there's not that
many. There's a lot of sort of chip
and counter, you know, little Maple type games out there.
So it's nice to have sort of a, you know, a miniature based
board game that people can experience and play fantasy with
because yeah, there's there's pretty slim pickings in terms of
like big commercial games like that you.
Know commercially definitely like there's you know you can't
move for Kickstarter's of like here you go here's you know
lifetime's worth of PVC pre assemble figures but you kind of
they're always like you've already God be in the no to no
kind of thing and I think what's so yeah what's so interesting
about hero quest is it was and now it turns out from what you
said continues to be sold through toy shops it wasn't like
you had to go to a specialist Warhammer store or a specialist
local game store it was you know I used to see it in the Argos
catalogue. I used to see it when I went
down to the local like Rainbows was our local toy shop and
they'd have it on the shelves there.
And so it was. And again, this is this is the
strength of GW. Everyone likes to mock GW, but
the strength of GW is they are out there recruiting people like
us coming in and, you know, age 10/11. 12:13 This is the
onboarding for so much of like, you know, miniature gaming.
And then maybe eventually you get a bit long in tooth and you
discover other things. So like that ability and
obviously, you know, GW are not involved in Hero Quest anymore,
but it's that same thing of like, yeah, you know, some
little kid walks into a toy shop, has never heard of
Warhammer, but they see Hero Quest and they go, oh, that
looks cool. Maybe they've seen Conan the
Barbarian. Maybe they watch, you know,
whatever Saturday morning cartoons about fantasy exists
these days. Maybe they've read Lord of the
Rings, maybe they've seen the Lord of the Rings Hobbit,
whatever it may be. Hopefully they've not seen Game
of Thrones, but who knows in this modern age.
Like, and they're like, oh, that looks like what?
I know, that looks like The Hobbit.
That looks really cool. And then that's they're like,
oh, miniatures, like you say, oh, I can paint these.
Oh, that's the whole thing I didn't even know existed.
And then let's go on the Internet.
Let's look up, you know, miniatures and bam, there's
Games Workshop, there's, you know, whoever else.
Like it's such an important, like feed a product to, to
introduce the next generation. And I think, you know, it's,
it's really interesting, you know, looking at various
hobbies, looking very nerd hobbies and you look at, you
know, model railway building or ethics, Crimea planes or scale
electrics and all these things where like are they dying out?
And it's part of that, you know, they're all things I love.
You know, I've got all of those in the loft, you know, like
they're all things I love. But like, is it is it this thing
where if you don't have that easy onboarding and that ability
to bring a new audience in, you, you your company lasts as long
as your customer base and your customer base is not getting any
younger, you know, we're all feeling that.
So yeah, it's a really, it's a very interesting thing of is
that the strength of something like here request.
Where is that? You know, one box fairly well
priced, everything he needs in there.
And like you say, it's it's, it's and I think Talisman is the
same. You know, I, I do take the
Mickey out of Talisman and I call it the snakes and ladders
of wargaming or Warhammer. Like, And then funnily enough,
we were in a meeting at work the other day and I'm our head of
development. There's a big Polish board game
and he said exactly the same thing.
Like we've no, we've never spoken about it, But he was
like, oh, Talisman, it's just snakes and ladders.
And I was like, yes, it's not just me. 3rd Question of the
month for August 2024 is what miniature would you like to own?
Above all else? For me it's got to be the Great
Unclean One from the Citadel combat cards of the late 80s and
early 90s. A great looking miniature which
by all accounts weighs about as much as a small cannonball.
I'd love to own it, I'd love to paint it, but I imagine they're
very hard and very expensive to come by these days.
Anyway, tell us about the ultimate miniature you would
like to own by going to bedroombattlefields.com/voicemail.
And I need those in by Thursday the 29th of August.
That's bedroom battlefields.com/voicemail.
And now back to the show your. Time.
You just take your time. So yeah, we're back again after
a short break and I hope you enjoyed our hobby update.
Well, from from John, of course, and it's exciting to hear what
he's been up to and what he's been planning.
And and now I do remember actually, John, you're playing
second edition with Sam. I saw those Facebook pictures
and I saw your epic Slanesh Titan.
It was very cool. Tan effects mentioned as well as
well in our chat recently. So that's nice mate.
You're getting some hobby in. But today, of course, we're here
to talk about all about Epic Hive War, the supplement that
that was released in 1995, produced by Andy Chambers, the
lead designer. And and luckily, John, you've
actually been one of those luckily lucky, fortunate people
who actually play it, mate. So like just give us kind of a
because we wanted just to give kind of an overview of how they
play an Epic Space Marine because they play quite
differently than other factions. But if you look through the
components and look at what stuff you get in the box
already, you can see quite a lot of stuff that's not really
familiar with any of the other sets that came out, like the hex
based swarm cards and how you actually assemble your your
retinue your your list together. Mate.
Did you find that really enjoyable putting down, laying
down those? Templates, yeah.
I mean, it's it's it's quite fun because I mean, you know, one of
the reasons I think I've always enjoyed second edition Epic
anyway is the tactile nature of list building because there is a
physicality to it. You know, you place a company
card, you can place up to five support cards.
And this is a different variation on that same thing.
And it's sort of taken even further because you have that
like, you know, Hexaco hexagon honeycomb, like element to even
better where they have to Tesla together and there has to be,
you know, connections between the synapses and stuff.
So it's it's one of those really things where it's a really fun
thing to do because it's sort of like doing a puzzle.
So you're sort of like physically putting pieces out.
It's telling a story because it's telling the story of this
is the hive mind. The hive mind has to come from
the dominatrix. It has to flow out through his
synapse creatures. It has to reach everything
within the army to be under control.
So yes, it's that, you know, it's always it's always fun when
a game manages to hybridize gameplay or, you know, mechanic
and law, and I think this does it really nicely.
So immediately like, oh, that's really cool.
It's different to all the other forces and it's really cool
because it's telling you the story of the hive mind and the
synaptic link. So that's very clever.
So you know, well done, Andy. Well done, Jervis.
That's pretty impressive in terms of like how you build a
force. It definitely raises a couple of
interesting questions. So you know, we were just
chatting like I've played most of the armies now and what's
really interesting with the Tyranids is they don't quite
behave like anybody else, which is good.
It's always nice when armies feel different.
And what's what's a real challenge with the Tyranids is
they don't have massive formations.
So the biggest formation for the Tyranids is the Termagant
stands, which is 10 termagants. It's also probably the least
useful thing in the book. Like you, you take a bomb with
termagants to sit on a backfield objective and that's all they do
and expect nothing from them. They are not going to contribute
to your game. Termagant fans don't have me.
So so that's quite interesting where you're like, you know,
you, you know, you know, the way you win epic is by breaking
enemy formations, scoring objectives, scoring points.
And with Tyranids, you're going to be giving up a lot of victory
points because it's very, very easy to break of the majority of
it of the Tyranid formations, because they're normally three
to five miniatures and killing two to three models is quite
easy to do. And so very quickly you find
you're getting out of control, tons of points lost.
The other thing that's really interesting with the tyrannies
is they score no points from scoring objectives.
So the classic way to win Epic is grab as many objectives as
you can and break a company or two and you've probably got over
the VP limit to win. And tyrannies don't have that
because they cannot score from objectives.
So straight away you're like, so I don't get my five points from
each objective I'm on. And I break quite easily or not
break, but like I, yeah, like I, my formation breaks, I give up
my VPS. So the Epic, the game, the tier,
the game will very much be a kind of a flat line, and then it
suddenly ramps up at the end in terms of VP scoring because you
cannot score any victory points from objectives.
So you don't get that like those freebie points.
The other thing that's really interesting then and where they
become very interesting to play, depending on who you play
against, is how they do score points.
So they score points as normal for breaking an enemy formation,
and then they score the same points again if they wipe that
formation out. So that's really, really cool
against other armies that don't have massive companies that have
got lots of little companies. So I think like maybe Elder is a
good example where you'll get to like, yeah, you know, chip where
support. And I think definitely like, you
know, hunting support cards is a good starting point because
support cards are obviously a lot easier to break than company
cards. However, anyone playing Tyranids
against Tyranids worth their soul probably know that.
And most armies have pretty chunky company cards.
And the example I would give those, the worst of all, it's
the one I happen to have played against now is the Orcs.
So Sam and I've played a couple of games, she always plays orcs.
And the great thing about orcs is not only do they have massive
companies by default, everything they had is a support card just
goes into that company. So don't expect to score any
victory points against orcs for the first two or three turns of
the game and just hope you can get there by the end because you
have to a breaker formation, which is really, really hard
when you know every every support card you add to an
Auckland adds to its break value.
So it's getting harder and harder to break them and then B
to wipe them out to score that second amount of victory points
is really, really hard, especially when I don't know
you're fighting against the code of speed and there's like 3
buggies left. And so they just turn 180 and
disappear off over the horizon at 90 miles an hour and go and
hide in the corner of the table and you've got nothing that can
hunt down those last two or three models.
So you're not getting that second amount of victory points
and like mathematically, you know, we were adding up and it
was like we played 2000 points. The only way the Tyranids can
win a 2000 point game is by breaking like and wiping out
those companies because you can't score objectives.
So that's a really interesting dynamic.
And like I say you, you will really see it.
You'll be flat line, flat line, flat line, and then it will
suddenly ramp up in points as you finally break, you know,
break and hunt down those last few bits of formation.
So that's a really interesting thing you've got to think about
and you've got to think about how can I chase down those last
little bits? How have I got something fast if
I got something long ranged, if I got something, you know,
that's good at, you know, maybe barraging an area, whatever it
may be. Because otherwise what's going
to happen is exactly that your opponent's going to, you know,
have a formation break, give up half their VPS and then the rest
of it's not going to be wiped out and they're going to clear
off and hide if they've got any sense.
No water. But definitely like
strategically thinking. So I think that makes it really
interesting. So then when it comes to like
building, building an army, there's this kind of, you know,
White Wolf article back in the day, Pretty sure AD wrote it.
You talk about the idea of the kind of the tactical devastate
and the assault formation, and I think that is a really good
starting point for any epic army.
And the terrorists do break down quite nicely into that.
And so you've got to think about like, what am I trying to do and
where do these pieces fit into it?
And so naturally, I think tyrannies are quite a salty
force, you know, don't have many long range guns.
Every single Tyranid is rocking massive claws and wants to eat
your face off. So like assault is kind of one
of the major strengths. They all have a ridiculously
high close assault factor. So you are going to win the
majority of close combats you get to.
So that's your first starting point.
Let's go. OK, I want to build good close
combat, get in your face swarms. And So what you think about is
then, right, what what does that and what can support that?
And what I would say like there's a very, very clear
divide, which is tier did infantry on the whole, if you're
not called con FX or hive Tyrant is beyond squishy.
It will just die in volume. So you're not going to be able
to just run across the table. So you go, OK, how do I get
across the table? And the answer to that is tier
did quote UN quote tanks. So all the, you know, all the,
the slug creatures, you know, the, so you've got the, the X
cream, the Dactylus, the Malefactor, and the Harris bags.
They are essentially tanks. They're just gigantic slug
tanks. And some of them have the
ability to transport troops. And I think that's the really
key bit there where you're thinking about this idea of, you
know, combined arms. And if you spread your Tyranids
out, you're going to lose because they'll just be picked
off here and there and then not going to be able to, you know,
hit in any, I think it's called defeat in detail.
Is the, is the cost literally a game called that?
Like the idea of if you, if you do not apply a concentrated
force in specific locations with a specific mission, you're going
to inevitably die because you're just frittering away your troops
here and there, achieving nothing.
So like Tyranids are an army that will die to defeat in
detail, definitely. And so you, you basically want
to break your army down. And I think orcs behave in a
very similar way. I think another common mistake I
see with people playing orcs is they they go, I can do all these
cool things. I'll have, you know, three of
them and three of them and three of them and they'll drive off
and do their own thing. When actually orcs want to be
like one or two big clumps of orcs that just push into the
enemy and say, deal with that. And there's too many orcs and
not enough guns to deal with it. And so I think tears are very
similar. So I always kind of break it
down. So I have like a very much an A
salty bit, which is, you know, gene stealers hormigans because
they're cheap Tyranid warriors to lead them and you stick them
in vehicles. And if you look at the you know,
you look at the close sole factor of some of those in
vehicles vehicles. It's such a weird thing to say.
The slug is a vehicle. But yes, a malefactor carries 2
infantry close sole factor 5. The what's the other one that
can carry troops? Hang on, it's the manufacturer
and the maybe it's just a malefactor actually.
Do the big Titans carry them as well?
So. We'll, we'll come on to
Harridan's because Harridan's do, and that's a little bit
different. Yeah.
Maybe it's just, maybe it's just the malefactor.
Yeah. Yeah, Carries.
Yeah. Because then you use.
Yeah, you use the other ones as support.
That's right. Yes, Yes.
Yes, yes, yes. There we go.
It's been a, it's been a little while.
Bear with me. So you know a, the malefactor
can carry infantry and B, it's got a whack and great closest
soul factor. The other interesting thing, if
you look at the majority of the very, very low range, so 25
centimeters, part of the biggest range on a lot of the basic
weapons like 50 if you're lucky. So you're inevitably going to be
charging up the table and kind of pushing in.
So you basically build a big BLOB of the assault.
And that's that's a bunch of of assault Tyranids in malefactors.
And then I was supporting them with the other short range tank,
which is the Harris backs. So 25 centimeters on this after
jets, 25 centimeters on this Frank spies, but again, a close
sub factor of seven. Really cool.
And that's your assault wing and you basically want as much as
you can fit into that in a BLOB pointed towards something scary.
And you just push them up the table.
And it's and again, it's one of those a bit like with the orcs,
you are going to take casualties.
So you have to just grit your teeth and push through the, you
know, the inevitable, you know, fuselate of death that's coming
your way. Once you get to the other side,
whatever is left is going to butcher whatever it hits unless
you really get unlucky. So it's it's one of those things
like it's not, it's not a gamblers army, but like it's one
of those armies where so if you play elder, like every elder
death, you feel you do not want to lose your troops.
Tyranids, you're going to have to enjoy watching your troops
get obliterated because it's going to happen.
And the weird thing is like the tanks are so survivable by
comparison. So a lot of the time what ends
up happening is it's the tanks that get there and like maybe
one or two standards of tyranny warriors and the rest of the
inventories just been blasted off the table.
You've also got to get good at that that, you know, it's one of
the hardest things with second edition.
When do I get out of my vehicle? Because we all know like staying
in a vehicle is a death sentence and also you can't I was very
it's not it's very hard to charge out of vehicles.
It's not impossible, but it's quite difficult to do.
So like being able to like figure out, you know, two moves
ahead, how far do I need to move?
When do I get out? What does that give me?
And also knowing that all your guns are 25 centimeters, if you
get out too soon and everyone just pulls back, it just gives
them another turn of shooting against you.
So that's quite interesting. So that's your kind of your
assault wing. The other thing I think is
really important is to talk about sign ups and you know how
you allocate orders. And I think the secret weapon
here is absolutely Tyranid warriors.
So you get, you know, your certain number of hive cars each
turn and some of those hive cars can be used to give orders.
Some of them do other clever things, some of them do both.
You have to make a choice, etcetera, etcetera.
And anything you don't give specific orders to just behaves
on its instinctive behavior. Now the good news is those
instinctive behaviors tend to be fairly sensible.
Shoot, you guys tend to want to hang back and shoot fight.
You guys want to get up and rip your girls out, but you do lose
that element of control and they might go after the wrong thing.
So to shoot, you guys have to shoot the closest target, things
like that. And normally you go, OK, well,
I've got, you know, the the dominatrix and the Hive Tyrant
are out there kind of giving out those orders.
You have to be near a synapse creature to be able to do that.
The turn of warriors are the like the Brucie bonus because
they're not Synapse, but they are independent.
So they do what they want to do. And then they have a special
rule that basically lets them give those orders to anything
nearby. And so they really are the
secret weapon because you've only got a finite number of Hive
cards. You don't want to have to give
orders to everything. And what I really found myself
doing time and again was ensuring that I had 200 warriors
with my like my brood or my mob, and they were there to ensure
that everyone behaved so I didn't have to waste hive cards
unnecessarily because I'd much rather be doing, you know, the
psychic soul or barrage or whatever it may be.
So and make sure you've got tiraded war.
And again, that's, that's a really good reflection of the
the law, isn't it? You know, you know, the synapse
is there for very specific things.
And then the tiraded warriors are the kind of the wider net
there, your boots on the ground, the kind of commanding officers
for the troops in the frontline rather than the like the heroes.
So I think that's really interesting.
So you've got your, you've got your soul block and now what
else do you do? And again, there's there's,
there's kind of those natural clumps.
So the second one for me is very much the devastated company,
which is the guys with the guns. And there again, you've got a
couple of tyranny warriors and they're there to give out the
abilities. Death Spit is not a terrible
girl, to be fair. Two shots, 50 centimeter range
hits on a 5 -, 1. It's not going to like cut
through Titans, but it's not the worst gun ever.
So as well as babysitting the, the artillery, they're also
providing a bit. And then you basically have kind
of two choices. You've got the the X cranes who
are really, really good against tanks and Titans.
And then you've got the Dactylus, which is more like
artillery area of effect, good against infantry.
And you're probably going to want to mix, but it might
depend, you know, maybe you're going up against guards, so you
know they're going to have a boatload of tanks.
You want to go more exocrine. Maybe you know, you're going up
against orcs, which you can have a lot of infantry.
Maybe therefore you want Dactylus for, you know, bigger
barrages or a little bit 5050. And so their job really is to,
you know, stay back, although they can't be too far back
because the ranges are spectacular.
But 75 centimeters and is it 50? No, yeah, 75 centimeters for
both. It's not too bad.
It's a fairly good range weapon. And I definitely think like
Exocreans are your or your secret weapon so that, you know,
two shots hit on fives -3 armor. That is a very, very good gun.
And so you want to be, you know, picking off Titan Shields.
You want to be attacking Titans, you want to be taking out super
heavy tanks, you want to be shooting tank companies with
them. That's what they're there to do.
And so that's kind of for me, the kind of the two main groups
that I'm doing, I'm doing an artillery group.
I mean, you know, in a bigger game, maybe you'd split that
even further. You'd have an artillery group
for anti infantry and artillery group for anti tank.
So you can cover for a bit more of the battlefield.
But that's your those to me are the basic building blocks.
And then with what's left, you have a couple of different
choices. So I've already said like term
against a bit crap. They've got, you know, 10
centimeter move like a 25 centimeter gun once you're hit
on fives, no AP, their instincts is to hunt.
We're doing OK, fine. But like basically what their
job is there to do is to hold objectives.
So we've already established terrorists don't get points for
holding objectives. However, they still lose points
when your opponent holds objectives.
So even though you're not scoring off those objectives,
you still need to be constant of the fact that if you leave them
undefended, if you don't bother going after them, your
opponent's just going to get a free win because a call speed is
going to drive around your flank, drive over an objective,
scoop it up five points, go to the next one, scoop up five
points. So things like turbo grids for
me are really about like either you want like if you're for
whatever reason you feel like doing a foot swarm, good luck to
you. You'd use Tyranids as the like
screen at the front to just catch bullets and die.
Or if you've been sensible and poor your your soul swarms in
tanks. Their job is to just hold those
objective points, dig in, stop the opponent stealing them as
best as possible. But just don't expect anything
out of your turbo grids because you'll be disappointed to get
one shot off in the game. It'll be a miracle.
The good news is they're cheap. So you need to think about, you
know, turbulence on the back line holding the board.
And then what you've got is things like con FX is Hive
tyrants and the Dominatrix. And they're really interesting
because they, they can kind of do describe the kind of fixes
for a minute. But the Hive tyrant and the
dominatrix can do a little bit of both.
They can be a little bit salty, they can be a little bit shooty,
but they're very salty, very shooty.
But you've got a like, they're like the scalpel that you've got
to pick their very specific targets for the other really
interesting thing. So the dominatrix, you have to
take a dominatrix for each swarm that you build and you get one
for every 2000 points. So in a 4000 point game, you're
out two. In a 3000 point game, I think
it's one per 2000 pass. They're also I think you're out
two in a 3000 point game. Could be wrong there.
Maybe it's only when you get to 4000.
They're super powerful. They got really kick ass stats,
incredible guns, incredible psychic powers.
But if they die, bad things happen and obviously everyone
and their dog is going to be pointing every gun they've got
at them. And what's really interesting is
because they're super heavy, they can only be shielded by
other super heavy things and Titans.
Now you probably don't want to Titan babysitting your
dominatrixes because that's quite a lot of points.
The only other thing in the book that can shield them then is the
Trigon. And that's an interesting thing
because the Trigon is a very, very like kick ass.
Again, like close soul factor 8, there's a massive closer soul
factor. It's an absolute kick ass, super
heavy combat vehicle. Do you want two or three of
them? Because they're not cheap sat
around bodyguarding a dominatrix.
That's the only choice you've got really if you want to defend
the queen. So that's interesting.
Like, I don't, I don't run them currently.
I think if you're going up against a very shooty army, so
against a guard or an elder, you may be forced to because you
just need somebody to catch bullets for the queen and
nothing else is big enough to block her.
The dominatrix does have a shield, so she can put up a
psychic shield which protects her, which is great.
So again, if you're going into elder or you're going into God,
maybe you want to think about that.
But the trouble is the other choices that are like an energy
attack, which is a really, really powerful attack.
And so that's a very interesting debate.
Like, you know, do you want to keep her slightly back so she
can behave kind of like the the X creams where she's sort of
like a shooting piece, But actually then are you losing
some of the benefit of doing so? But if you are going to send her
into battle, how is she going to be protected?
Now she's got wounds. Like that's that's again, a very
interesting thing. The bigger Tyranids have wounds
so they can take multiple hits before they die.
And quite a lot of them can regenerate as well.
So like there's nothing funnier than kind of effects of dying
and regenerating and getting up and hitting you and dying and
regenerating. So like she's tough, she's
tanky. She is, you know, she is the
queen. She's in this big like, you
know, is, is the the dominatrix the the weird elephant Tyranid
and then the queen is the bit on his back.
I think that's how it works. So like, which is the
dominatrix, which is the queen? Interesting question.
But she's, you know, she's built big.
She can take some damage, but she's so integral to your army
that you can't just squander them like losing a dominatrix.
It's not game over. But you've just made like very
difficult for yourself. So you have to think about that.
I think you take as many as you physically can because they're
so good, but you have to understand you can't just like
walk in front of an Imperator Titan and be like, it'll be fine
because it ain't going to be fine.
Hive Tyrants are like the lesser version of that.
They have a similar behavior. The good news is they're a
little bit smaller. They are night size, so there's
not a huge amount that can shield them either.
Like card FXS is about the best bodyguard for them.
But again, they've got regeneration, they've got
multiple wounds, they've got a really good gun, and they've got
some pretty cool psychic abilities.
So I tend to use those more as like a swarm commander, you
know, So I tend not to put them in my assault swarm.
I tend to put them in my rain swarm.
The assault swarm like, you know, sweeps up a flank, goes
after things. The the rainstorm kind of moves
roughly into the kind of first, third or just to the middle of
the board. And that's where I think the
Hive Tyrant will shine. You know, it does a lot.
But again, and that's where I think the Tyranid warriors help
because then it's not so problematic if if she dies
because yeah, that's another Synapse creature gone.
But it doesn't matter because you've got the Tyranid warriors,
you know, picking up the heavy lifting.
The other reason it's good to have, you know, Synapse creature
about is so you can use those Hive Mind cards.
So it is, you know, I think a 2000 points, I'm running one
Dominatrix and one Hive Tyrant and each one's kind of, you
know, sort of looking after a brood, but the dominatrix kind
of swings between the two. As you get into bigger games, I
think maybe have more because they are they are very flexible.
They do have that bit of punch and they're just so hard to take
down. You know, before you can get
into regeneration, they've got, you know, impenetrable Shields,
etcetera, etcetera, multiple wounds.
So that's really a really interesting debate.
And then I guess then you get into the what I would call the
like the interference squads. And these are the ones where
this is how you buy your time. So I've already said like
running across the table into a wall of guns is not a fun time.
The least amount of that you can do the better.
And there's kind of two ways to disrupt.
Well, three ways. So number one is terrain, hide
behind terrain #2 is go fast. So the faster you get there, the
fewer bullets you take. And then #3 is try and disrupt
it. And so you've got a couple of
different options. So one of them is the is the
Dactylus is that you're throwing that AO E is trying to, you
know, spread out enemy and disrupt enemy #2 then it's the
kind of disruption swarms. And there's a couple of
different ways you can do it. One is, well, they're both in
the air, I suppose both in the air or lictors, maybe as lictors
as three. But it's either, you know, a
Herodian or two with some gargoyles or it's a card
effects, a couple of card effects mobs, maybe some gene
stealers, maybe some hormones. My sex exploring onto the
battlefield. And the idea with both of those
is they basically, you know, turn 1, the herald is going to
advance move. I think turn 2 the, you know,
maybe it's turn 1, the the pods come out of the sky and they're
probably going to die because they're basically going into the
enemy army alone and undefended. But the point is that buying
time for your assault swarm to get in and cause mischief.
And they're also blocking the enemy up from advancing.
So, you know, we've already said if you lose your objectives,
you've lost the game, giving your opponent free reign to go
is is only, you know, is speeding that up.
So by stopping them or forcing them to hang back or forcing
them to split their attention, you're buying time for your
assault squad to get in and do its job.
And so, yeah, the Harridan flies up it it, you know, drops all
its gargoyles and it, you know, hopefully flies over a unit and
and does the bombing run. It will probably get shot down
doing the bombing run, unfortunately.
That's why it's that classic thing of, you know, don't send
one to do a job, send two. So send two Harridan's with two
brews of gargoyles twice the chance of being successful, then
yes, it's twice the points, but you know, better, something
makes it the nothing or you drop those carnifexes down.
And the greatest about the carnifexes is A, they heal
themselves, they regenerate. So they've got a 5050 chance of
just not dying. And B, when they're, you know,
isolated from the synapse, when they're not in contact with the,
with the hive mind, they just go crazy.
And that's great because what you do is you drop, you know, a
pod or two pods of of of carnifexes down and then you
just leave them to it. And those three to six can
effects is will just be running around slicing up everything
they touch, You know, close fault seven.
That's a huge swing. Yes, they've got a bit of
shooting as well. They ain't going to be doing it
because they're going to be too busy charging and shopping.
But you just let I mean, I I've literally, you know, both games
against Sam, like one can effect survives, but one's all it
takes. And then there's just this one
dude on a rampage just barreling through whatever he can and
again, he's going to die. He's not going to like last
forever, but by by taking that attention away and by forcing
units to to fall back to engage with it.
Or, you know, maybe as well, there's some some clever tricks
with, you know, hive tyrants and the psychic scream that breaks
enemies, putting units in combat.
The auto brake, like there's some clever tricks you can do if
you if you like chain brake tests.
All it takes is that, you know, that one kind of effects it in
the right place at the right time, causing mischief to really
put a spanner in your opponent's works.
And I think that's, you know, that's the trick.
So, you know, you've got your, you know, your main assault
brood or assault broods in bigger games.
They're the ones that are going to do the damage and everyone
else is buying the time for that to happen.
Be that through disruption, be that through, you know, heavy
firepower. And I think that's the way you
play Tyranids. I'm really hoping that we do get
to chat with that in the future because it would be fascinating
to get his read on it. But certainly, you know, having
played a few games, haven't gone through the book, haven't
examined all the different pieces, that's how it's broken
down to me. And that's what I found works.
Now, what I would say is Orcs are one of the hardest games
because you just don't score victory points.
And so it's really, really hard to get over that victory
threshold. And I think, you know, like I
think I did end up winning both games, but it was like if, you
know, if Sam had just got a different way or if a specific
unit hadn't broken, I would have had so few points on the board
because you just don't score points of Hawks because they
don't break. And the only way to score
victory points is breaking and then wiping out.
And, you know, we know orcs don't break because they get
massive, like massive clans. And even when they do break,
there's always a handful of stands scattered about.
And because you don't have that ability to just reach out and
touch people with long range, it's really, really hard to
chase them down. Sam always likes to take
Gargons. She thinks Gargons are great
fun. Again, you've got you've got to
kill a Gargon. To get double its points, you
can't break a Gargon, so there's no way to get half its points.
Like it's the Orkami is very, very tough for the tourists to
take on because they're almost like intrinsically designed to
not let you score victory points.
So that's something you've really got to think about.
And like I definitely think the Tyranids are a scalpel faction
where you have to very specifically go in and chop
pieces your opponents army out to score the points and then
move on to the net. If you try and do the whole army
in one go, you are going to be defeat in detail.
You're going to lose because you're just not going to have
that ability to get there. Like, I don't think it's
mathematically possible. I could be wrong.
I need to run the numbers. But like, I don't think you can
mathematically win by only breaking formations.
You have to wipe them out because you, like normally you
break formations and score scenario objectives.
There are no objectives for the tourists to score.
So I think mathematically you basically have to break and wipe
out about 2/3 of the opponent's army to be able to win a game.
And that's quite a big ask, especially when those A, don't
break for ages and B, have so many models wiping.
That's really hard. So I think it'd be interesting,
like, you know, we've got to play games against other forces.
How do they feel going into Elder?
Maybe it's very different because Elder are much smaller
formations. They're easier to break, but
they are very shooting army. So maybe they'd have a power
Imperial Guard, again, massive formations.
Maybe it's going to take you a while to shoot through them.
The good news is, you know, if you can get there, like I think
my sex explorers are a really good use against Imperial Guard
because you're defeating the advantage of Imperial Guard,
which is they've got all the time in the world to fire every
massive gun they've got at you as you run across the table.
So like, that's quite interesting.
But yeah, like, like definitely you're on an uphill struggle
against orcs. I think, you know, we just need
to get more games in and see how the different factions behave.
But that, you know, going back to that article in White Dwarf,
thinking about, you know, what's my assault, what's my devastate,
what's my tactical. And I think you really focus on
devastating assault with the Tyranids.
I don't think there's really such a thing as tactical in the
Tyranids because they're a bit of an all or nothing army.
You have to commit and do it on mass.
And it's quite interesting. There was some some later on
because the 3rd edition where they were talking about the
different swarms and I think those are still applicable and
the same, you know, the same miniatures are like obviously
points are different. The way you build swarms is
slightly different, but the the concept of, you know, my sets,
explorer, soul, flank attack, big mob like that still stands
true as well. So like, you know, I do you
know, if you've got your old white dwarfs, sit and read them
if you they are available as PDFs on the Internet if you know
where to look like find a list of what was ever written for
both 2nd and 3rd edition epic read up on those tactics.
They are you know, they've stood the test of time.
They do still absolutely work. And I think, you know, the
Tyranids being such a, you know, such a razor focused army, they
are about killing you in the face with assault.
You know, you've only got to look at the closest old factor
column and you see those numbers are all very high.
And then you look at the range column and go, those numbers are
all very low to see that they're an assault army.
And, you know, never play against the strength of an army.
Like, I'm not saying it's impossible to do a shooting
Tyranid army, but I think it will be very, very hard to use
because yes, you know, the Exocrine is an incredible
shooting platform. Two shots, OK, his and five.
That's not incredible. It's not the end of the world -3
like it's such a powerful tank and powerful anti tank and anti
vehicle gun, but it's very expensive.
You are not going to get many of them.
They are not going to be holding territory.
So that's just not going to be winning games, if that makes
sense. Like, so I just think a Tyranid
gun line, it probably sucks. Like maybe I'll try it one day
for fun, but I just cannot envision a world in which taking
a Tyranid gun line really works. So I think the one thing I've
not spoken about is the is the Titans.
I haven't used the Titans yet. That's kind of why I think same
idea, you know, tactical devastate or assault.
You do the same thing with that. Do you want at all tentacles all
the time? A salty guy who just scuttles
across the table at high speed, gets into something and rips it
apart? Do you want a gun platform that
hangs back with the longer range guns?
That really is all there is to it with the Titans.
I think the only interesting thing with the Titans is they've
also got wounds and regenerate. So unlike your typical Titan,
you can't like shoot the guns off.
I mean, you can't shoot the guns off it, but like it's not that
same thing. If you know, chip the Shields
down, chip the guns off, go for the, you know, the, the, the
generator blow the generator time explodes.
That doesn't happen with a Tyranids Titan.
It's a, it's a lot harder to hit because if you look at their,
their grid, they're very, very thin and it's very, very easy to
scatter shots and miss using, you know, you've rolled the, the
hip, you know, the up, down, left, right dice.
It's very, very easy to target a tear in Titan and miss because
it's, it's like, it's like a weird, like l-shaped, you know,
tetronomo or like diagonal tetromino.
So it's very, very easy to miss. And B, even if you do hit, yeah,
it's going to take some wounds, but it might regenerate those
wounds. So I think there are really
interesting again and it's, you know, again, it's that that's
the like that classic pairing of of narrative and mechanic where
you know, these things, just when you think they're dead,
they get up for another go. They heal their wounds that you
know, they're empowered by the by the hive mind to like just
just don't stop, don't think, you know, you're not even a
you're not even a sentient living creature anymore.
You're just a weapon made of me. And they really do reflect that.
It's going to be fun getting into it.
I guess the only reason I'm not really into it at the moment is
because they're like £95 a throw now and I so, you know, the idea
of spending £300 on three times is pretty depressing.
But yeah, like they're fascinating.
They're such a fascinating, you know, from the way you build
them, the way they play, the way the Hive, my cars work, the way
Synapse works. It's kind of a shame almost that
they are so hard to get hold of. And also, you know, it's fun
enough both in second edition 40K, sorry, second edition
Spaceman, and in 3rd edition, they were kind of one of the
last forces to come out. So I just feel like they never
really got that time to shine and people have struggled to get
them because they've been so rare to get hold of the
plastics. And I think, you know, the other
thing that's really sad is, you know, not to get into money
necessarily, but it's really sad when you look at.
So the you know, the the 2nd edition box was five of each
frame. So you could do each of the
different company cards because you've got like 11 stand of each
two of the turbo goods. So you buy a box, you get one of
each company or sorry, well, not one of each swarm.
And then two of the two of the turbo goods makes 1 swarm.
And then when they went into 4th a third edition, it was 2
frames, identical frames, but like, you know, not even half as
much, like 2/5 as much. And so there just isn't that
fair. You know, you can buy, you can
still buy orcs for days, you can still buy space Marines for days
because everybody had them in huge volume.
The Tyranids were always quite hard to come by and the amount
you got diminished. And I think that's why they're
so expensive is why like finding plastic frames of Tyranids, it's
really, really hard. Which is why I ended up buying
those, those knock off mails because it was just, it was just
the only way I could get those. And you need those tier dead
warriors. It just meant people didn't get
that opportunity. So, you know, by by the proxies,
by the alternative versions, 3D printing STLS are available if
you know where to look. And it'll be really interesting
to hear. Like, you know, it'd be great if
there were other Tiernan players out there who were like, John,
what the hell are you talking about?
You're clearly not a Tiernan player at all.
This is the secret. I completely missed something.
But certainly, you know, my, you know, I have a very simple
approach to gaming. And I think no matter who it is,
it's that find the thing they do and do it well.
And tyrannies do assault incredibly well.
Like I said, you are going to, you're going to be giving up
victory points left, right and center.
You're going to be not scoring objectives, giving up victory
points left, right and center. 3/4 of your assault brood is
going to just be a steaming pile of bio goo on the table.
And in the remaining five or six stands, get to the battle line
and then the battle's over because they just eat the face
of everything they touch. So as long as you're you know,
as long as you know that as long as you have that plan, you
commit to that plan and you stick to it even in the face of
massive casualties. And you are going to be 15
points away from losing the game from turn 1 onwards.
You're going to have no points on the board from turn 1
onwards. And then there's going to come
that pivot at like end of turn two, start turn 3IN turn 4,
where all of a sudden like whoop, your victory points spike
as you wipe those formations out and you suddenly get that huge
glut. I think that's the other thing
to to kind of think about as well as how do you pick off
those last few stands. So if someone does play like an
elder and run off and hide in the corners, how do you get
those last few points out of them?
And that's a really interesting debate because you know, you
don't have that range. Like do you keep something in a
my sex explorer to drop for like mop up?
That's an option. Do you have a Harrod in and some
gargles just desperate to hunt down those last few bits?
Maybe that's an option. Sometimes you've just got to
give up the dominatrix's shield and just drop the, the, the
psychic lash because it's just such a powerful weapon.
And it's got like, it's a, it's a like a long thin template.
It's like a wall of energy. And you can just like get it
into some funny little places and like winkle out some
interesting standards and some interesting places.
So that's, yeah, that's the other thing to think about is
how do you close out the game with the Tyranids?
Because you, you're going to be on the back foot for three turns
and then it's going to pivot in the in the final stages.
And like, you know, I guess it's like every Alien film, isn't it?
It's like they start off getting their asses kicked and then by
the end you're down to the last 2-3 survivors desperately
holding out as this. You know, the swarm aliens is
the peak example. Like the marines go in all gung
ho and throughout the duration of the film they get picked off
and picked off and picked off. And by the end it's you know
what four people, 3-3 people and Android get off that planet
alive, alive. Like it's, it's, it's a good
reflection of that as well. You know, plays like aliens.
It's really cool. But you've got to think, how do
I get those last few pieces off? And am I comfortable knowing I
am going to be taking a kicking for three turns to this game?
I'm going to lose a lot of infantry.
But the good news is, you know, it's all in the all in the
surface of the hive mind. What then happens afterwards is
all the Ripper swarms turn up, eat all the biomass, crawl off
into the swamp, dissolve that will get siphoned back up into
the mothership. And then everyone just gets
really made a new so like Tyranids never die, right?
They just get to turn into soup and turn into more Tyranids.
So it's all good. Like knowing that, you know,
Tyranids don't have names and personalities, so you shouldn't
feel sad when you know, 50 Hall Wigans just disappear under a,
you know, an artillery barrage because they're going to come
back next week as like the same home again with a shiny coat of
paint. Like, I don't know, like.
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description below. So I was actually just checking
just during the break that the is it the hairpin that can carry
5 infantry stands? The bio Titan.
Right. Yep.
Right. Yeah, it's got some interesting
looking weapons and stuff. They've got some again
interesting looking templates for them as well.
That weird, like stretched out mushroom cloud, one that kind of
reached through gaps and things like.
That's interesting for, yeah, for like reaching into the
backfield of units or like, yeah, like sniping stuff out.
Like, it's weird, isn't it? Yeah, it's called a pyro acid
spray template, and it looks like it looks like fireworks.
That's what it looks like. The graphics on this card looks
quite cool. I've got an energy pulse
template. This one you're talking about
before. Yeah, that's the dominatrix is a
little shield wall. Yeah, a lot shield wall, a
little wall of of energy, Yeah. And the Bioshock template, as
well as another interesting template.
But yeah, it does come with a whole host of counters.
You've got instinct counters, spore mind markers, spore
markers, and of course the hive mind cards.
Mate with your experience playing the hive hive mind
cards, how many? Because you get a certain set
amount. Based on yeah, it depends on the
like, it depends on the like remaining size of your brood.
So as stuff dies, that actually gets chipped away as well.
I had very, very bad results with them interestingly.
So like there's a couple of like like orbital bombardment or
there's like a little assassin bug that goes off and I found
that just bounced off everything.
So like it's interesting because they give you a little bit of
like unexpected like attack vectors.
So yeah, you can kind of reach out and touch people from from
spaces they weren't expecting you to.
But I find like the maths on them isn't that great.
So I would say like treat them as a like a a bonus, not this is
what's going to win me the game, which is interesting because I
thought they were going to be like the real like, you know,
the secret weapon in the force. Obviously.
Then the other main thing you do with them is, you know, you use
them to give orders to formations so that they don't do
the instinctive behavior. So that's quite useful, you
know, if someone's trying to bait out, you know, Oh, I'm, you
know, this unit's going to behave instinctively.
I know that they're going to shoot the closest target.
So I'm just going to put some little sacrificial crap in front
of it. You can use those cards to
counteract that and say, no, actually.
So I think it's that, you know, every turn you, you sort of, you
have to do that analysis of like, right, what has to happen
this turn. Those things either have to be
in sign ups, stood next to Tyranny warriors or yeah.
So like in sign ups, I can give them an A behavior from the hive
of my card or stood next to Tyranny warriors who are
behaving accordingly. And then you kind of work down
and maybe you go the other way, go right.
What what kind of doesn't matter.
So terminates probably don't matter.
Probably don't give them a hive mind card because like I say,
just expect, I'm sorry to be the guy that's like slagging
turboards, but just expect nothing from terminates and
you'll still be disappointed. So don't waste hive mind cards
on them like that. There is probably going to be
like one specific instance was like, oh, I fight, you know, if
I play the hive mind card, they can capture that objective and
win me the game short, whatever. But like 9 times out of 10 there
at the bottom end of the scale. And so, yeah, you just, you work
that and go right. I know that this turn, you know,
my, my, my malefactors have to do this or my X screens have to
shoot this unit, you know, so I've got to make sure they're
either yeah, chilling out with the the tyranny warriors or have
a hive mind card their inside apps range.
So you can allocate that. And then you work through that.
And then you look at like, right.
Once I've allocated that out, what have I got left?
Have I got, you know, you know, can I throw away a psychic
attack on a, on a, you know, Brandon Spaceman commander, just
in case? Or can I, you know, drop an
orbital barrage? And I think it's, you know, it's
that it's that really interesting thing with Epic
where those barrage templates are never as big as you think
they are. And it's quite hard to actually
get that many units under under a barrage template.
So I think that's a big part of it, you know, anyone with half
brains going to spread their troops out a bit.
So we've, you know, even if you're, you know, facing down
the the teeth of a full, you know, goth mob and there's it
was it's some 23 stands in a goth mob before you even you
know, it put a single reinforcement card in it.
That's a lot of troops. Even then, unless the orc player
is like for some reason decided to put them in parade formation
where they're all like lockstep rank and flank like a Warhammer
unit, you're only going to get a stand or two of walks out of it.
And I in the sea of Goths, like who cares?
Like so yeah, like I think first and foremost treat them as the,
you know, as the order cards. But if you play like I play
where you use Tyranny warriors as your secret weapon, like I
often found I didn't have anything to do with them, which
is really interesting. Now, obviously, if your opponent
savvy and it's starting to chip away at Tyranny warriors, all of
a sudden, you know, you are out sign ups.
Maybe they've killed a hive tyrant.
Maybe you've lost all your Tyranny warriors.
You're going to have to rely on them a lot more and you're going
to have to worry about where that synapse placement is.
But it's, it's difficult because you know, you're never going to
have enough synapse creatures because you know, the
dominatrixes are limited and very expensive and the hive
tyrants are pretty expensive. So, you know, it's like, I guess
it's like everything, isn't it? Don't let it trap you.
Like don't think it's this all powerful super ability that's
just going to pull you out of the fire time and again.
And you know, you can almost overcompensate with it.
Like I, I, you know, I'd much rather get another, you know,
mob of three Exocreans or another, you know, mob of five
tyrant warriors than a hive tyrant a lot of the time.
Not because a hive tyrant is an incredible, I mean it is it's a
really powerful piece, but it's not it's not an all powerful
super weapon is just going to win games for yourself.
Like, you know, I think that's always been the thing with Epic.
You can you can really get lost in the weeds with all the cool
super weapons, but nine games out of 10, it's the basic
infantry capturing terrain and having that durability that's
going to win out the games. And if you, you know, I've
played quite a few games with my Knights and it's really hard to
play Knights because they're so expensive and you get so few
models that every single casualty, you feel it because
it's, you know, it's it's it's not hard to take 5-10 nights off
the board in a turn that's 50% my army gone.
So I think it's the same. Yeah.
You know, like, treat them as the like the little bit of
seasoning on top, but but your strength lies in your mass
swarm. Like orcs.
It's a sea of bodies where the the swarm just ignores every
casualty because they don't matter.
Something is going to get there. Something's going to push in and
eat your face. And yeah, if you start, we are
worrying too much about, oh, you know, I've got a dominatrix and
three hive tyrants and a harridan.
You've suddenly got nothing else in your army and you're in a
really bad sort of tactical spot.
Like looks look cool. Look at you with your your big
monsters. But I don't care about your big
monsters because they're not scoring objectives.
And I can just focus fire and just, you know, pick it off the
board, pick it off the board, pick it off the board.
You know, and it's, you know, it's so funny.
Like all of these, all of these sort of strategies, all of these
tactical thoughts, they're true across every army.
And it's just sort of it's, you know, what's the, you know, what
is the, the focus of the army then is the other part.
But like, you know, you win, you win battles by by focus fire
and, you know, removing a threat.
So you don't stop shooting a threat until it's literally
stopped kicking and then you move on to the next threat.
Because every time a threat is removed, that's like that much
force, like force focus or force appliance not coming back at
you. And you know, the more of that
you do, the further ahead up the curve you go.
Whereas if you just put a little bit of fire here and a little
bit of fire here, a little bit of fire here, you're not
meaningfully removing any of those threats.
So, yeah, you know, unfortunately the secrets of
Tyranids is the infantry and it's the most expensive part of
the purchase because they are like, you know, rock and horse
poop. But you know, the good news is
it's, you know, the exocrene, certainly the exocrene that
tends to be one of the cheapest units.
And I I tend to run six of them in my 2000 points without
blinking because they're just. They're just very, very powerful
artillery with a good range and that you know, they are your
anti tank, your anti tank, anti Titan like them in the
dominatrix will will bully a gargon off the table.
They'll bully a tying off the table, which is it's always not
like you know, I was worried like, you know my worry.
You know, nine times out of 10 when I play against or so I just
ignore gargons because you just can't kill them like they just
they just the amount of firepower it takes to kill a
gargon isn't ever worth the cost of killing it, if that makes
sense. You don't have that luxury with
Tyranids because in the game. So I was like, oh, I've got to
get rid of the Gargon. One Earth is going to do it.
And yeah, you know, the dominatrix, the X Koreans, they
can, they can sort of bully a Gargon a little bit, you know,
with the right application of firepower.
And you know, some, some you've got to be, you've got to be very
specific about where you shoot. Like, I always shoot Gargans in
the in the ammo pods because that's how you blow a Gargon up.
You set it on fire and you set it on fire by blowing its ammo
up. So it's that weird thing, you
know, with Titan, you're always trying to shoot it in the in the
reactor because that's what causes it to go critical.
With Gargons, you're always shooting them in the ammo
because you're trying to make them catch fire.
And the more on fire they are, the less likely they are to
survive and the faster they're going to blow up.
And you know, yeah, I mean, it would be interesting,
interesting to see how many carnifexes does it take to kill
a car, get in close combat? Like is there a is there like
this this mass you know most sectors swarm where like like 30
carnifexes? Boom.
Out of the sky and like 28 of them splatter on the hull of it
and then the other two kill it. Like that's quite an interesting
mental image of like, yeah, what is the right number of
carnifexes to kill? But I, I think, you know, you're
going to and that's why I think you've got to be careful.
Like, you know, there's always that risk way you go, oh,
tyrannies are a close combat. They're a fighting army.
If if you only go close combat, as a result, you've lost some of
that flexibility, some of those tactical choices, because all
you can do is run in and charge. And that's great right up until
you meet the thing that's like, oh, you charged me.
That's cute. So yeah, maybe that's why the
idea of like, you know, one swarm doing X and one swarm
doing Y is better. But as I said, with the
Harridins, it's always better to have two of a thing than one.
So I guess, you know, it'd be interesting when we get into
like four 4006 thousand point games.
I think what I would just end up doing is essentially like
cloning all my formations and taking two of them, not one
knowing one of them's not going to get the job done, but the
second one's going to get there. And I think it's interesting,
you know, we didn't go through the book like we normally do.
We spoke about that before the show and I agree, like I think
it's it's yeah, it has value, but like it's a bit dry.
But one of the reasons that I think Tyranny's are an
interesting race is because they are quite a small roster.
They're quite a shallow roster. They don't have that kind of,
how's the word? Like every Tyrant, it does one
job and does it really well. And like, you know, you look at
the four different tank bugs, each of them has a very specific
role. So you've got, you know, long
range anti tank, long range anti infantry, close range support
and then close range troop transport.
None of those copies what the other one does.
So there's none of that kind of there's a very specific you can
tell I'm getting old. My brain has given up words.
Redundancy. That's the word there.
There isn't that redundancy in a Tyranid list where you go, Oh
well, I have this and this and they both kind of do the same
thing. I mean, maybe zonathropes are
the redundancy for anti tank maybe.
Whereas with a lot of the, you know, a lot of the, the older
factions because they've been around so much longer and the
books are so much wider. And obviously the Imperium is
the biggest example of this because they're kind of
technically 3 army lists and 1:00 because they're space
Marines, Imperial Guard and Titans.
But you just take an Imperial army and you can you can choose
as much, as little from each of those streams as you want.
So they have a huge amount of redundancy.
Like, you know, the idea of like artillery is beyond redundant in
Imperial Guard because they have redundant, they have, you know,
artillery for days. It's like, oh, did you want that
artillery or that one? We'll have both because it's
great. Whereas the terrorists, it's
like you have one job. It's been, you know, and again,
mechanics echoing law and background, like the Tyranids
genetically modify and breed a specific creature, do a specific
task. It goes off and does that.
And if it works, they go, cool, let's do more of that.
If it doesn't work, they go, all right, we've learned the lesson.
Reabsorb his DNA. Now we make him something
completely different because he didn't do the job he thought,
which is cute. You know, it's a very cute
again, that that that's like whenever I play a game and there
was a mechanic that reflects the background, I'm like, whoever
designed this is smart because it's not it's it's that it's not
a dry, you know, doll experience of just rolling dice.
It's like, no, this is like the story that I read in White Dwarf
or in the Black Library or whatever it may be.
This is literally what the terrorists do.
Played out in minutes on the table is so clever.
Like, I just think, you know, there's a reason Andy still
keeps getting gigs. Like I just saw an article that
like, Oh, Andy and Jervis are teaming up to write a game and
I'm like, didn't they both retire already?
Like, but you know, it's it's there's a reason people do keep
going back to the kind of, you know, the night is good.
There's a reason, you know, all of those guys, Gav Thorpe, Jake
Thornton, you know, Thomas Peer and keeps cropping up like
people want them to write for them.
Partly it's nostalgia, but partly it's because they knew
what they were about. You know, they, they, they
learned the lessons of the of the past and then they built on
them and they defined how contemporary war gaming behaves.
And so I think that's really key.
But yeah, so you know, you don't have a deep roster with the
Tyrannosis because you're the, you know, you are the freshest
race. And I think I feel this way a
little bit about the squats as well.
I don't think the squats have the deepest roster.
But the good news then is you don't get stuck in that analysis
paralysis. You know, I want to do XI, want
to kill tanks, Cool. The choices, the exocrine and
the dominatrix and Lions short like I ain't going to be killing
tanks. Well, maybe you can't do it in
close combat, but like it, it does push you in those specific
directions and you kind of don't have to worry about bad choices
or redundant choices brackets except turbo grants don't have
me like because there's so little in the book that none of
it's that bad. And again, I, I, I, I believe
strongly that the turbo grants role is to stop the opponent
catching objectives and nothing else.
So they do have a role. It's it's to stand on objectives
that are worth nothing to them and try not to get shot.
But yeah, so, so I think that's, you know, that's really
interesting is you're not going to get into analysis paralysis.
You're not going to be thinking, oh, should it be this or should
it be this? And like, you know, 2000 points,
you can't take one of everything, but you can cover a
lot of ground. And and, you know, I was really
doubling up. So I was taking, you know, two
sets of home against two sets of term earth gene stealers, you
know, two sets of extra creams. So again, you've, you've got
that like, well, if one unit doesn't do the job, or if one
unit gets killed, I've got the backup unit to do it.
And, and again, by having that like that, that, that tight
focus, knowing what their job is, making sure they do that and
that alone, you're going to, you know, you're going to get over
that hump of, oh, I've scored, you know, like I don't, I
literally can't score objectives for, for scenario, for
objective, like capture the flag.
I can't break that unit. Like you'll get to that point
because you've, you've concentrated your force, you've,
you've identified its role and you know, it will carry out that
role because that's literally what it could do.
Like you're never going to be like, Oh, my termagants.
It's time for them to fire at this Titan because cool, they've
they've done nothing like and that's quite you know, I guess
that's quite helpful because you know, and and again, you know,
mechanics meet law. You are the hive mind.
You are the, you know, the gist out entity in space, looking
down on the battlefield through alien eyes, watching all this
play out. And you, you, you are laser
focused on the behavior. You know what your troop does
and you expect it to do it. You know what the troop does and
you expect it to do it. And then you just, you know,
just just nudge it a little bit left or a little bit right with
the hive mind cards and with the sign ups and stuff like that.
So it's a really cool army. Like we've already spoken about.
It feels like you're playing the xenomorph from aliens.
It feels like all those science fiction films like it it it does
that so well. It's it's it's a hard army to
use because it's it's quite fragile and it can't win through
conventional. So like, should this be your
first epic army? I mean, if you love Tyrann, it's
sure you should always, you should always play what you
love. So if you love the look of
tyrann, if you love the idea of being a good big, you know,
gripply alien, do it. But like it's a harder learning
curve than I think, you know, do we feel space rains are probably
the easiest space for in an orcs.
Like that's the classic matchup. I feel like they're the two
armies that I would teach people epic with because they were
good. You know, they were good head to
head. They both do what they do quite
well. Space means can be hard because
they're, you know, limit numbers, but like, you know,
they, they behave quote UN quote fairly normally.
And it's quite funny. You know, we've been through all
the books now we've done the full run and we always have that
thing about like, what is the vanilla version that you know,
that that company card, 5 support cards, one special card
that behaves like the book says they do.
And and ironically, like every single army has a spin on it.
I think Space Marines don't have a spin on it and Squats don't
have a spin on it. Everything else has a spin on
it. You know, even the Eldar where
you're like, well, they do that as well.
It's like, sure, but then they have to spin on it because they
have the free car. Yeah, you choose your Crawford
and there's a little bit different, you know, Tyranids
have a completely different setup.
Orcs have a completely different setup because of the the mob
rule. Imperial Guard have a completely
different setup because of Imperial Guard command and the
way the company structure works. Like the idea, like I think
Space Marines and Squats are the only two vanilla Epic armies,
right? Have I got that wrong?
Have I? No, no, I think you're
completely different. Like, yeah, powers.
Has kind of a similar. System where you take a.
Greater demon and then have but it's all results around the
greater demon, not the company, isn't it?
And they like. Only companies they have are the
Primark unlocked space marine companies.
So like they don't even like, again, they're very similar to
Tyranny saying if you've played Chaos, you'll be quite
comfortable with Tyranids in that thing of like, I've got
lots of really cool little units, but they're all really,
really fragile. Like one of the things I fight
with Chaos a lot is it's very, very easy to lose support
because you don't have those massive companies unless you
unlock the Space Marine, you know, allegiance through the
through the Primark. So yeah, it's really funny that
like, you know, of a game, what are we saying?
There's Tyranids, Squats, Orcs, pierogard, space marines, Titan
legions, chaos and elder. Like of that, two of them
actually use the basic rules and everything else has a slight
spin on it. The elder then the closest to
that. And then it just gets weirder
and weirder as you move out into the other factions.
And I think you know, that's that's cool.
It stops the game feeling boring formula like it makes each of
the the different species or different races feel exciting.
It makes more feel like their law.
But it is interesting that like what is the most vanilla game of
is it is the most vanilla game of Space Marine actually Horace
Heresy and his Space Marines versus Space Marines because
they're the only ones that are like normal.
And, you know, then you look into go, well, that's where the
game came from. That's where Space Marine
literally came from. It involved, you know, well, the
Horace Heresy involved out of it.
Let's get out of the right way round.
But like, that's an interesting thought.
Yeah, thought exercise, isn't it of like, you know, yeah, Epic is
horse error Sea Space Marine versus Space Marine, I think, I
think the original Epic Space Marine box said that when you
did. Have the elder on the orcs and
the Space Marines. They're all based on that same
formation as in how you how you actually create an army list
until the expansions came out and then they started changing
how they would set up. So I mean, because that would
have been. 2nd edition because obviously. 1st edition was.
Pure Space Marines in the box they added in the army list for
Duntry White dwarf and then the 1st edition army list.
I mean, that's we're not talking about first edition.
That's a whole other that's an insane system, like all the
shits and building your own like it's cool building your own
custom formations. But like that is has a deep well
to go into and it's not a well that I've like I've read all the
articles, I've read all the white dwarfs, but I've never
played first edition space Marine.
But yeah, like, yeah, you're probably right.
I think the trouble is, you know, we just we always have the
expansions, right. So we've only ever played like
true versions of those zombies rather than the out-of-the-box
versions. But even no yeah.
So yes, you're right that that second edition Spaceman box
would have been would have been the the standard version, the
the support and and five. But I think that the orcs that
the orcs have their Marlboro even in the core book.
I think they might have had their Marlboro even in the core
book. If I remember.
Maybe maybe they didn't. I was in my mind back.
Oh, we covered it so. It would be in one of the
podcasts. You need to go back, yeah.
Yeah, go yeah, go back and listen to episode whatever when
we were talking about the. Core box.
Look at how John it's been. It's been a fascinating listen
to. To, to hear you talking about
it, because like I said to my patrons, and I'm sure other
blissons will know, I've never played Epic, sorry, Epic
Tyranids. I don't know much about them.
I've only got APDF in front of me to just go through the source
material that anybody can access online if they, if they would
like to after listening to this and find out more about them.
But you've given some good suggestions on alternatives.
And I'm sorry that I couldn't think of or we couldn't remember
the name of that company that's in the UK, but it's not iron,
iron plasm, ironclasm. That's an American.
It's it's on the tip. Of my tongue I just can't say.
Yeah, Hang on. I'm.
Friendly Googling.
It's I haven't, I haven't heard them around or haven't seen them
around. Well, they, I mean, there,
there's just been an interesting incident where everyone lost
their website. I won't.
Yes, I heard about that, but like it was a an.
Interesting moment. I think a lot of hobby hobby
companies went through that same really bad experience.
They. Did because they were all using
the same provider. Yeah, yeah.
Oops, it's a bit of an oopsie. It was done.
It's a bit of an. Experience here we go so proxy
available so the onslaught miniatures so Onslaught
miniatures do the very they're an American company.
They're an American company yes yes, but there is a company in
the UK that used to import them who also does a lot of their own
miniatures and there and name is bear with me one moment caller
next website. I'm just using the mini walls
dot. Co.uk.
Yeah, no, that's cool mate. I know I have a website.
I'm sure. But yeah, they've.
They've they've released some really.
Nice looking designs in metal and in resin I believe.
I haven't actually got the models in front of me.
I think Chris, one of friends and patrons actually has some of
their models and he's got a lot of the orcs for them as
alternatives. And they look, they look great.
You know, they look really cool. They're they're still in the
Yeah, I picked up. What have I picked up for them?
I picked up their. Grots and I picked up their
knobs and their Imperial Guard infantry.
The they did. Sorry, not so.
They're adept in Mechanicus infantry as well.
Vanguard. That's the company.
I'm Vanguard. That's the one.
Which one? Yeah, So.
Yeah. So Vanguard is?
The is the British company, so yeah, I've got.
I've got quite a lot of that stuff and it's interesting
because some of their early stuff was sculpted by Ben.
I used to play Epic with Ben up in London when I lived in
London, but the guys bought the line out from under bed.
And I can't think of the gentleman that owns Vanguard's
name now. Apologies to him, but he's taken
on, He's doing a lot of cool stuff off the back of that.
And I've seen some other stuff, you know, people have, have
popped up here and there as well.
So yeah, check out like miniwalls.co.uk, have a look at
the proxies, have a look at the, the, you know, the alternative
options. It's, it's out there.
You know, you can still play Epic, which is great.
You know, they, it's getting slimmer and slimmer pickings.
The prices are going up and up and up.
You know, it's a difficult one, really.
It's, you know, yeah, it's a seller's market, but we are kind
of eating ourselves. And it does worry me a bit.
Like, it's the old God of just kind of cannibalizing themselves
a bit here, like. And it's that classic thing is
everyone wants, you know, they want to buy cheap and sell high.
And it's like, sure, but you realize that everybody wants
that, and you're only, you know, only hurt your own people.
But that's the problem isn't, you know, supply and demand.
There is no more supply and therefore demand is higher than
supply and therefore prices are what they are, which is where,
you know, 3D printing and and proxies and variants are really
the way forward. All right, yeah, but if you're
going to play Tiritz, have. Deep pockets they're.
Definitely the most expensive army must be.
Yeah. I think they must be made by
going by what people sent online.
About them. But yeah, but I hope people have
success in either, you know, acquiring some of the models and
actually playing them out. I'm sure there are online
resources where you can actually rint out all the cards and
tokens and everything else that you need is for laying this
faction in epic. So don't don't feel despair that
you might not be able to get the actual original set.
You can find online resources that can easily represent those
cards. And my son is called, you know,
so I'm going to have to head off, mate.
You're going to have to go, OK, no worries, dude.
I was going to say no epic gold. If you want it.
But yeah, cool all. Right, dude?
Well, it's. Been a pleasure as always, enjoy
your dinner and I'll see you once we work out what the next
epic conversation is going to be.
Yes now. Thank you so much again mate for
your time and experience. No worries dude coming.
On and talking, because people have really enjoyed the epic
series with you on it with me, mate.
So again, thanks again from the crowning command community.
And look, we'll come back at some point in the future and
talk about some of the expansions that came out through
White Dwarf magazines. We haven't covered those for
Chaos and Elder and Squats and and Imperial Guard.
I know some of those. And of course for the Space
Marine factions. So look mate, we'll come back at
some point in the future and I'll look forward to that.
But in the meantime, enjoy your bloody holiday, mate.
Get out there and do something. No, no worries, thank you very
much. Always a pleasure.
We'll catch you all. Soon.
Cheers. OK, mate.
Take care. See you mate.
All right. Have a good one, mate.
I'll catch you soon.