EPIC WARPATH: The End Phase of an Epic-Scale Wargame

24th Jan 2024

Matt Gilbert

Hi everyone,

This is our ninth in a series of EPIC WARPATH blogs building up to the 14th February Kickstarter Campaign.

You can catch up on the previous blogs here:

You can bookmark the campaign page HERE, and don’t forget to hit the ‘notify me’ button:

DISCLAIMER: The game is still in development and models are still being worked on, so some details might be different in the final version.

Right – before we go any further, let’s look at Pinning!

Pinning

Units in Epic Warpath can receive a Pin marker for various reasons – losing in a combat, losing half or more Bases from a shooting attack, being hit by Pinning weapons, or maybe just being charged by something terrifying! Units can only ever have a single Pin marker on them.

Carrying a Pin marker is detrimental. While a Unit has a Pin marker, it suffers an additional -1 to-hit modifier both for Shooting and for Assault. In addition, if a Unit starts a Round with a Pin marker, it must be given an Advance Action Token. It’s a good idea to try and clear them as soon as you can!

The End is Nigh

So, your Units have moved, shot and some of them have probably had a scrap. Some might not even be around anymore!

All the Action and other tokens have been spent and there’s nothing left to activate, so it’s time for the End Phase.

During the End Phase, you follow a few steps in sequence as follows:

Trigger End Phase Special Rules

Any special rules with effects that take place in the End Phase are carried out, in any order the players wish, but the player with the Initiative choose to go first or second.

Roll for Pin Marker Removal

Every different army has its own single Nerve value. It’s army-wide, so any Nerve test a player makes for any of their units, uses the same Nerve value. Nerve tests might be called for at various times, but in the End Phase, players take a Nerve test for each of their Units with a Pin marker. If the test is passed, the Pin marker is removed.

Units within Command radius of a friendly Command Unit (and Command Units themselves) roll two dice for these tests and choose the highest.

Remove Other Markers/Tokens

At this point, players must remove any tokens/markers that show that a unit is under the effects of a rule that ‘lasts until the end of the Round’. Status markers like this will be square (like Pin markers).

Check Victory Conditions

Players then check the mission conditions to see if some has achieved victory. If not, the game continues (and Dynamic Objectives will change) and the next Round starts with the Command Phase.

And What Are Those Victory Conditions?

Scenario construction and aspects like deployment, and objectives, are all part of the next phase of testing. Scenarios are not 100% fixed like they are in other games such as Firefight – players will generate the scenario in Epic Warpath.

This means lots of exciting variables and combinations, and we need to get all those tested with the next versions of our army lists!

Unit Strength plays a part in claiming objectives, just like it does in other games like Firefight and Kings of War. It’s a great way making players think about what units to take, where to put them, and how to use them. Things like Infantry are better at taking and holding Objectives and so have a higher Unit Strength than say a Vehicle Unit. Units in buildings even double their Unit Strength.

Scenarios may have Static and/or Dynamic Objectives which will score differently depending on the scenario conditions (and their current state).

Sneak Previews

Here at Mantic we waste no opportunity to show off cool models, so for all those Asterian and Forge Father fans who have been waiting patiently so far…let’s start pulling back the curtain a little…

Up Next

In the final article in this development series, I’ll take a look at what a unit profile looks like, and talk about Orders and Command Points.

Don’t forget to sign up to the Epic Warpath Kickstarter page HERE to get notified when the project goes live!