As part of my ongoing effort to use my games table more I finally managed to pin down my friend Rich for a game of NetEpic - it's only taken about 4 years since our last one.
Back in the 90's, Epic was my favourite game of all the GW systems. At the time it was one of the main systems they supported with releases every couple of months. It was a good time. Of course, eventually they canned the line but Epic left me with a lingering love of mass battles and 6mm games. I always think it is a brilliant scale for large scale warfare, allowing hundereds of infantry and dozens of tanks on a normal table - all at a reasonable cost.
Back to Epic. NetEpic is a fan based spin off of my beloved 2nd Edition Epic. I've only played it once before and enjoyed it and always wanted to play more.
My army is Imperial Guard. In epic, you choose your troops using company cards as the main formation, each one of which allows you to take 5 support cards. So I chose a mechanised infantry company, a Leman Russ company and an artillery company. I added a detachment of heavy infantry to screen the artillery company, a thunderbolt squadron, a hellhound squadron, two sentinel squadrons and a shadowsword super heavy tank.
Rich ran a Landraider company, a grey hunter company, a thunderhawk, some attack bikes and a squadron of Thunderbolts as well.
Here is a picture of the board layout:
I would be deploying to the right of this picture, Rich to the left. We each put down three objectives and off we went. Deployment was alternated unit by unit. This was my left flank, where I planned for the main punch to come. The idea was for the Russ company with air support to move forward and push through whilst the artillery company cleared the way.
I deployed my mech company in the centre to push on the town and my two sentinel squadrons on the right as a delaying force.
In the first turn, things went slowly. As we gradually wrestled with the rules, it took a while to achieve anything. From a game perspective, my thunderbolts proved themselves by flying forward and strafing a few landraiders out of exisistence, something the artillery had failed to do.
In the centre we both sent mechanised forces forward and occupied buildings. The exchange of fire was fairly non commital, and the left flank was also fairly quiet.
In turn 2, things certainly heated up. The Russ company took loses from advancing Land Raiders, but more worrying Rich's Thunderhawk dropped a detachment of grey hunters in the middle of my artillery company:
In the centre there was more jostling for space and exchanges of fire, with both sides taking losses, though I had the worse of it. Over on the right there was more moving around, with the sentinels being engaged by the attack bikes, but holding their own.
The fight amongst the artillery company was short, brutual and one sided, with all three bombards falling. However, my screening platoon of heavy infantry did their intended job, about facing and destroying the attacking marines.
As a final note, I was realising how effective Thunderbolts could be so I managed to take out all three of Richs:
Turn 3 was all we managed to complete for this game, and we didn't quite finish this either. By the end of the turn, my Russ company was really suffering and not making ground, the situation in the middle was not much changed and the right my Sentinels were all but wiped out.
The left flank, where my Russ company is noticable by its absent. The ray of hope was was that Rich's infantry was running away from the hellhound squadron and its flamers:
The centre, I held two buildings and Rich only one, but his was the objective and in the top right you can see a landraider detachment advacing to cause issues:
Thr right flank. The only ray of hope here was my thunderbolts shooting accross the table and about to engage the Landraiders. Sadly, we had to pack up before they got to fine:
And that is how it was left. Rich held more objectives then me so was the nominal winner. Had the game continued, I suspect Rich had more heavy units than me and would have used them to push forward. However, he thought my superior numbers would overwhelm him, especially because he thought my Thunderbolts would wizz about taking out a detachment per turn, which they had done so far in the game to be fair.
Overall a great game. I need to get some anti air painted up to free my Thunderbolts up for ground attack - they were my stars. Also, my screening force for the artillery company worked well. Sure, they took losses but witout the them the marines would have rampaged through the artillery company with ease - wiping it out.
Both Rich and I are hoping to get a game a month in, and not just in Epic. We are both 6mm fans, and there is talk of Napoleonics, modern and WW2, so who knows!
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