Epic_Building_and_Using_Armies.pdf

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BUILDING AND

USING EPIC ARMIES

By Moko Cwiklinski

Moko discusses the best tactics for putting an army together.

BUILDING THE ARMY

“I will be proud to lead you wonderful miniatures,

anytime, anywhere.”

Grunts must be able to absorb hits and still remain

effective as a formation. They do this by having good

armour, sheer weight of numbers, or a combination of

both. Lastly, Grunts must be able to hold down a good

chunk of ground so they can interfere with enemy

movements, ie, get in the way. Grunts may not have the

firepower of support formations, or the speed and hitting

power of fast attack formations, but it is only the Grunts

that can go toe to toe with enemy forces and still maintain

their hold on a position.

There are three basic formation types in Epic: Grunts, Fast

Attack, and Support. Each has a distinct role to play on the

battlefield, and it is the interaction of these differing types

that creates the unique flavor of the game. Some of these

types contain subcategories of formations though overall

their battlefield role remains the same. Also some

formations are flexible enough to fit into two different

categories, and how you choose to use them will

determines the formation’s type.

Examples:

Imperial Guard: Infantry Company, Mech Company, Tank

Company.

Space Marines: Tactical Detachment, Terminator

Detachment.

Orks: Warband.

Grunts

These are the ‘Dog Soldiers’ who will do most of the

fighting on the battlefield, and their importance cannot be

ignored. Their basic job is to take ground, hold ground,

and to provide a good solid battle line. Grunts must be

able to threaten an enemy with firepower and/or assault,

either through sheer numbers, or by being good at one or

both.

Fast Attack

These are the ‘Daring Hussars’ of the 40K universe, and

like the cavalry of old, perform the role of shock troops.

Their basic job is to use their speed and hitting power to

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knock an enemy off balance, either by actually attacking

them, or by the mere threat of what they could do if they

attacked. As the name implies they are fast, having either

a base speed of 30cm, or a base speed of 25cm with the

Infiltrate ability.

Fast attack formations are often small, 5 to 8 units. Finally,

fast attack formations are dedicated attacking formations

that often excel at one form of combat action, either

through its abilities in combat, or because of its speed. It

is here that the weakness of fast attack formations lie –

they are really good at taking ground, but they have a hard

time standing and trying to hold on to it. Fast attack

formations perform their best when they are working

directly with Grunt formations, dancing around an open

enemy flank, or slipping into the enemy’s rear areas while

the Grunts hold those areas from which the enemy has

already been displaced.

Indirect Support Formations are formations that have a

long range, 60cm+, are often BP and/or MW, and

sometimes have the ability to fire indirectly. Their job is to

sit back and pound enemy formations from a range at

which their target simply cannot retaliate. These shots are

used to soften up an enemy formation before it is directly

attacked, or to break up an enemy formation before it

launches its own attack. In almost all cases, indirect

support formations are poor in assaults, and do not have

very good armour, which isn’t a problem since they are

best away from the front lines.

Examples:

Imperial Guard: Artillery (Battery and Company),

Thunderbolt Squadron, Marauder Squadron.

Space Marines: Whirlwind Detachment, Thunderhawk.

Orks: Fighta-Bommerz Sqwadron.

Examples:

Imperial Guard: Rough Riders Platoon, Storm Troopers

Platoon (in Valkyries).

Space Marines: Bike Detachment, Assault Detachment.

Orks: Kult of Speed, Blitz Brigade.

Close Support Formations are formations that work

closely with Grunt and fast attack formations. Close

support formations use their firepower to soften up

nearby enemy formations, or by adding their Firefight

ability directly into an assault involving other friendly

formations. While most close support formations are

small, their presence close to the front line puts an

opponent in the position of trying to decide whether to

shoot at the Grunts in front or the close support behind.

The result is often that the Grunts take the fire, as they are

the biggest threat, and this often allows the close support

to keep doing its job, turn after turn.

Support

This is by far the largest of the three categories, and covers

a host of formations, with one thing in common – they all

provide support to Grunt and fast attack formations while

those formations carry out their own missions. They do

this by providing long range fire support, close fire

support, or by disrupting enemy movements. The three

categories of support formation are: indirect support,

close support, and direct support.

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Most war engines fall into this subcategory (don’t scream)

for four obvious reasons: 1) they are not that fast so they

cannot qualify as Fast Attack; 2) while they do have staying

power, and excellent combat abilities, they cannot hold

down anywhere near as much ground as Grunts; 3) they

perform best when they are working directly with a Grunt

or fast attack formation; 4) while some do have long-range

firepower, and could perform the above indirect support

duties, this is a total waste of their other excellent combat

abilities, and hence a waste of points. There are

exceptions, however. For example, a Shadowsword has no

business rolling up into the front lines when its Volcano

cannon reaches out to 90cm, and it has no other real

abilities outside that, so it is indirect support.

arms’ and was as true in Napoleon’s day as it is today and

in the 41st millennium. Think of it this way: if an army

contains all fast attack formations it will have no trouble

taking ground, or manoeuvring around the enemy.

However, it will have loads of trouble trying to hold on to

the ground it takes, and will have difficulty responding to

indirect support. A ‘combined arms’ force would have

little difficulty exploiting these weaknesses, and

protecting against the fast attack army’s strengths.

Basically your army should contain the following

proportions of formations: 35% to 50% of its points in

Grunt formations; 25% to 40% of its points in fast attack

formations; 25% to 40% of its points in support

formations. So, in a Grand Tournament game that is 945

to 1,350 points in Grunt formations, 675 to 1,080 points

in fast attack formations, and 675 to 1,080 points in

support formations.

Examples:

Imperial Guard: Demolisher Platoon.

Space Marines: Vindicator Detachment.

Orks: Big Gunz Mob.

Direct Support Formations are formations that provide

support to other formations by using a unique ability that

only they have. There is no need to further define this sub-

category because the ‘unique ability’ they have is often

self-explanatory. For example, a Hydra Battery provides

support in the form of anti-aircraft fire, and Scouts use

their extra large zones of control and unit coherency

distance to screen other formations or delay enemy

movements.

Now, it is important to understand that this is by

formation, not individual units, so a Space Marine Tactical

Detachment of 6 x Marines, 6 x Rhinos, 2 x Vindicators, is

a 450-point Grunt formation, NOT 300 points of Grunts

and 150 points of support. Keep in mind while you are

doing this that you must try not go below the minimums

set in the list above, so in a Grand Tournament game you

are going to want to spend a minimum of 945 points on

Grunt formations, otherwise you will lose the advantages

of combined arms. Having said that, they are not set in

stone. If the best you can get is 925 points in Grunts,

without getting another whole Grunt formation, then you

are probably doing fine. The idea is to get as close as you

can to each of them, while building an army you are going

to enjoy using.

PUTTING AN ARMY TOGETHER

We all want to perform well on the battlefield, and the first

step to accomplishing that goal is good army selection.

One of the keys to this is to have the right proportions of

each formation type in the army. This is called ‘combined

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HOW MANY ACTIVATIONS

The next important factor to consider is activations, or

“Just what is too many, or too few?”. There is no denying

that it is important, and to a new general it’s something he

will agonise over. An army with too many formations to

activate often has loads of small formations running all

over the place. Now, early in the battle he will definitely

have an activation advantage and will be able to

manoeuvre at will, but these are small formations, and

they can be rendered combat destroyed or reduced to one

unit very easily. What often happens is that by Turn 3 many

of these smaller formations have been destroyed and the

same player with the early advantage will be struggling to

keep it and may well now be outnumbered by his

opponent.

MOBILE WARFARE

While you often hear about modern warfare being fluid,

many do not actually know what is meant by fluid. A fluid

battle is one battle where the position of the front is

constantly changing. This constant change of position

occurs because modern forces can quickly change their

point of attack, and it is this that creates a fluid

environment.

In France, in 1940, the German Armoured Forces smashed

through the Ardennes, blew a hole in the French Front

Line near Sedan, turned north and headed for the channel

coast. The entire time that Guderian’s Panzers were

moving from south to north, German forces were being

funnelled through the gap and establishing a corridor

behind him. Initially two Infantry Divisions anchored the

corners of the breach, and two more arrived later to

expand it. Guderian himself detailed Kampfgruppes to

screen the right flank of his advance from the French

troops to his east, while he established a series of Recon

Gruppes way out on his left flank to pick up any French

activity before it got anywhere near his forces. At no time

was his front line ever out of contact with any elements

under his command. Convoluted, yes, thin and stretched

out, for sure, but it was never broken. In fact it was the

French who lost control of their front line, and it was their

inability to organise an effective counter-attack to re-

establish that front line that cost them the battle.

An army with too few activations usually has a couple of

big lumbering formations, loaded down with every unit

available, and a couple of small formations, if any,

bouncing around the flanks. These big formations are

tough to stop, but they couldn’t outmanoeuvre a crippled

sloth, and are magnets for Blast markers! When you

consider that a Blast marker is placed for every firing

action (two if it’s a crossfire), one Blast marker is placed

for each kill, each Blast marker pins a firing unit, and that

even one Blast marker is a -1 to Initiative rolls, you quickly

realise that these formations are collecting tons of Blast

markers and spending most of the game trying to get rid

of them! Get the activation advantage back or you’ll be

lucky if they are still able to shoot and move by the end of

Turn 3!

In Epic, as in real warfare, you must maintain control over

a continuous front. Now this isn’t a single line of stands

stretching from one edge of the table to the other. Nor

does this line have to be straight, in fact a convoluted line

is normal for what we are discussing. Nor does this line

have to be a connected line, through zones of control,

In general you want to have roughly three formations to

activate per 1,000 points in the army, rounding down at

the low end, and up at the top. So in a Grand Tournament

game that is six to ten activations.

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5cm of a unit in its formation, the actual frontage is

smaller, and this returns an actual frontage of 8-9 cm

within the formation. As each formation doesn’t have to

stay within 5cm of another formation, and therefore has

two ‘open flanks’, a formation can add a full 10cm to its

frontage (5cms for each open flank). So the formula to

determine the maximum frontage that a formation can

hold is:

(Units x 9)+5 = Frontage in centimetres

With this simple formula you can now quickly determine

what the frontage of a formation is relative to the number

of units placed in the front line of the formation. Note: If

you are using scouts, whose zone of control is 10cm, then

the formula is:

(Units x 14)+10 = Frontage in centimetres

stretching from one table edge to another, though it can

be. Formations maintain control over the continuous

front using their zones of control, and using the threat of

what they can do to an enemy.

FORMATION DEPLOYMENTS

Another important factor in Epic is the deployment of the

various formations. Because all losses are suffered from

the front of a formation to the back of the formation, it’s

no surprise that the more depth a formation has when it

is deployed the longer it will be able to maintain control

over its frontage. Although a single line can exert control

over a really wide frontage, it only takes the loss of two

units to put a good hole in it, but despite this a single line

deployment can still be useful in some circumstances.

Also a formation deployed not only in width but also in

depth is better able to concentrate its firepower. These

deployments are referred to by using different numbers

separated by a slash, with each number representing how

many units are in each line of the deployment. Thus a 3/2

would be three units in the first line and two units in the

second line; 4/4/3 would be four units in the first line,

four units in the second line, and three units in the third

line; 5/0 would be five units in the first line and no units

in the second line, or in other words a single line of five

units (the slash and 0 are still used even in a single line

deployment for clarity). With the frontage information

above and this deployment information a player can

choose the type of deployment he wants to use with a

formation and then quickly determine how much frontage

it can exert control over.

Which type of formation to use depends a lot on what

forces an opponent has in a particular area of the

battlefield. If the enemy has fast, mobile troops then you

want to use zones of control to contain them. If the enemy

has slow footsloggers, the threat of what troops can do

will often suffice. In any case, by maintaining control over

a continuous front you protect the objectives the enemy is

trying to get at, while at the same time limiting his ability

to manoeuvre around your forces (ie, he has less table

area because your forces are in the way). If both sides do

this then the Epic battle becomes a battle of thrust and

counter-thrust, with each trying to establish a

breakthrough, or bend the enemy forces back until they

break. This is how modern warfare works and, because

Epic reflects modern warfare well, it is how it works in

Epic too. If a player doesn’t try to maintain a front against

a player that does his loss is almost assured because his

objectives are there for the taking, while his opponents

are well protected, and objectives are how this game is

won or lost.

FORMATION INTERACTION

“I don’t want good Generals, I want lucky dice.”

FRONTAGES

“It is with these Order dice that miniatures are truly led”

If there is one thing I just love about Epic, over Epic 40K

and earlier editions, it is the interaction that occurs

between differing formation types. In Epic 40K an all Land

Raider army was a potent force, while in Epic it would get

cut to pieces! Sure Land Raiders are good tank killers, but

they are average in a shoot out with infantry, and down

right mediocre in an assault. So, if they are not working

Each unit in Epic has a frontage of 3-4cm, and when you

combine this with each unit’s 5cm zone of control they

have a frontage of 13-14cm. Since a unit must stay within

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