Jodrell Plays Games

I've long been a fan of Kotrin's alternative NetEpic army book for Necrons, which I have always used when playing with my Epic necrons. The "official" Necron rules for NetEpic are bundled together with another set of rules for "Space Slann", and are a bit of an afterthought.

A few years ago, after GW and Forgeworld had produced a number of new models, I wrote some rules for them that were compatible with Kotrin's rules. However, since then, Kotrin appears to have disappeared, and his website has been broken for several years.

After I'd finished getting the new NetEpic website up and running I decided to bite the bullet, and I have now finished a new version of the Necron Army Book, based on Kotrin's original version (which I had to convert from PDF to Word in order to edit: cue hours of reformatting and rejigging). The new version includes the rules I wrote for the new models and I'll keep it updated as GW/FW release new models for my favourite robot zombies!

You can download the new book by clicking on the following link:

• NetEpic Necron Army Book

I made this for the benefit of a friend who just acquired a job lot of plastic Warlords and has no idea what the weapons are. For copyright reasons, the NetEpic rulebooks don't include any images of the weapons; so new (or returning) Epic gamers often have a hard time identifying the weapons (and why they should use them on their titans). But it seems fair use to me to include low-res images in a simple document such as this:

Click to download (PDF)

Comments and feedback appreciated!

Some interesting things are going on in the NetEpic world. Despite the "Gold" editions of the core rules and army books being fully released, Pete Ramos (better know as Primarch), the co-ordinator for NetEpic for more than 17 years, has initiated a new round of updates and improvements.

I'm pleased to say that I have been helping out, and have been nominated to edit the Necron army list. Fortunately, we have Stephane's fantastic Necron army book to work on. This book actually won the vote to become the "Gold" version, but due to lack of playtesting wasn't chosen. But as of now this book is now the "official" army list for NetEpic 6.

If you love Epic gaming and want to help make NetEpic as good as it can be, head over to Tactical Command and lend a hand!

Today was a bit of a first for me: I played an Epic game against a complete stranger. PapaRomeoJuliet (real name Pete) contacted me via the Facebook page after we'd chatted on the Tactical Command forum. We agreed to play a 3,000 point game, which got amended to 2,500 points, when I realised I'd left a pair of Warhound Titans at home!

My army list:

• Paladin Household
• Castellan Knight Squadron
• Reaver Titan
• Robot Maniple
• 2 Robot Squadrons
• Ordinatus Golgotha

Pete's:

• 2 Battle Companies
• 2 Land Speeder Squadrons
• 2 Thunderhawk Gunships
• Predator Squadron

As before, the result was a convincing victory for the Mechanicus. I lost a handful of robots and a couple of knights, and did substantial damage in exchange. I think Pete himself admitted that he was a bit too cautious with his Thunderhawks, which contained Assault detachments, and should have committed them (and the Devastator detachments which teleported in) earlier.

This was the first game of Epic that I've ever played against someone outside my close-knit circle of gaming friends, and it was a most enjoyable experience. I'm looking forward to the rematch!

Pics from the game below.

A couple of years ago, my good friend Steg and I came up with a stripped down version of NetEpic, suitable for fast, casual play, training, or tournaments, based around small 1,000 point armies. A number of normal NetEpic game rules are suspended in order to make the gameplay quick and easy.

More recently, there's been quite a bit of interest at No Mans Land in starting up with Epic, so I decided to commit the rules of our game to paper, and am calling it NetEpic 1K.

• Click here to download the NetEpic 1K Rules (PDF, 86KB)

If you have any comments or suggestions, please post a comment! See also the discussion on Tactical Command.

Update: for absolute beginners or people getting back into Epic, Steg and I have produced a number of sample 1,000 point army lists (XLSX file). If you don't have the army lists handy, this spreadsheet includes the models that make up each unit.

The heroic Peter Ramos, co-ordinator for the NetEpic project (an open source work-alike of the hugely popular but now all-but-abandoned Epic, Games Workshop's 6mm SF gaming system) has posted to the NetEpic mailing list about NetEpic Gold, a professionally produced version of the NetEpic rules:

I have recently made arrangements with a couple of groups of people who
will make the layout for NetEpic Gold. These are pros in these endeavours
and I am actually paying them out of my own pocket to see this to
completion.

This is the whole deal. A full colored rulebook, templates, counters and
cards. Everything you'd expect from a commercial game you'd buy, but as [is]
our custom, available for free!

We have a tentative date of September for its release. Suffice to say
that this IS the year you all finally get NetEpic Gold in your hands.

I have assembled a crew to edit, modify and proofread the books as they
get to me.

Once a more or less finalized version gets made I will upload them to
the files section for members use and additional feedback.

NetEpic Gold is a goal of more than a decade's evolution. The times is
almost upon us to see it come to reality.

This is an amazing achievement: I can't think of any other community-driven, non-commercial rules system lasting as long, or being as successful as NetEpic has proven. It's a shame that Games Workshop's IP policy means that NetEpic Gold can't be released in print form (although of course I fully support and understand their policy). I am considering making a private donation to Peter to reimburse him for the expense he's gone to, who's with me?