The competition between 10mm games part two: The story and the Terrain

The continuation of my comparison between Epic Armageddon, Dropzone Commander, Legion Imperialis and Epic Warpath.  

The story

Each game here have a pretty descent own story. But the short version here is:

Dropzone Commander is played out fairly close to our time. Humans have expanded for a while in the stars when a massive hostile alien race attacked. Now humans need to reclaim their worlds but their enemies are not only dubious. They are intelligent, skilled and impose massive threats on multiple levels. With only five factions currently (where a sixth is on its way) the game offer the possibility to follow the story quite nicely and there are quite a few twists and turns with each release of a book. It isn't fully fleshed out yet and it shows there are no massive crews writing loads and loads of books. It is fairly easy and fast to read up on.

The first rulebook was written by a single person. 

Epic Armageddon is set in the well known 40k universe. Not much to say really. Humans are attacked from all directions from alien-, inner- and outer threats. It shows a galaxy at war where every day is a fight for survival and catastrophe and desperation is behind every action. There are many epic tales and evil deeds as well as heroics recognized by no one. You want more stories? There are more. Different sources say 400 books. And then we haven't talked about the codex'. It is the largest made up sci-fi universe when it comes to written material. Massive. 

Story wise it is hard to compete with the massive 40k universe.

In Epic Warpath humanity is driven by corporations on a massive scale. It is hard not to make connection as a smaller copy of 40k with Enforcers (Marines) GCPR (Imperial Guardsmen), Aesterian (Eldar), Forge Fathers (Squats), Nameless (Daemons/Tyranids), Plague (Nurgle/Chaos cult), Marauders (Space Orks), Vermin (Skaven). But that is also because 40k is so bloody large and old. Warpath's humans are more of a instrument to large companies and financially driven motives than whatever they have as a drive in 40k. Corruption and personal profit stands in front of human expansion and let's not forget aliens driven by their own agenda. Some clear cut and some... not so clear. The story is kind of spread out and even different wiki pages are hard to get sorted but the main rulebook offer a good starting point. But as Epic Armageddon there are other games in the same universe if you wish to expand on the lore. 

I have found the rulebook to be a really nice read and a good introduction without being to complex in the story. 

Legion Imperialis is in the 30k setting and need little to no explanation. It handles the Horus Heresy at it's core and it is hard to find a more epic part of the 40k lore. The setting makes sure you can use most Space Marines as both evil and good guys. Or before and after the betrayal. The Horus Heresy is mostly a human conflict and I am missing some cool stuff like dead races or the classics like Eldar and Orks. 

Games Workshop typically do some really nice books. The story is generally well known while the details continues to surprise. 

Result:

Epic Armageddon 1

Legion Imperialis 2

Dropzone commander 3

Epic Warpath 4

If we going to rank this I feel it is hard to do anything than to set Epic Armageddon as no 1. The story is so fleshed out that you could do anything in the game. Exactly anything. And you can immense yourself in backstory where you will find more and more cool stuff. Besides the better novels that are a blast to read, I also like the stupid "unknown and not explained" massive parts of the story that would hold 10 books in another universe with ease. The universe is so big a small notation might be that Orcs invaded and the ghosts came alive to fight them back. That's it. That's everything you get and the thought of that is so massive that it hard to understand that it doesn't even qualifies as part of the main saga. And that makes the universe very inspiring in it's size. 

The Horus Heresy is a long tale of epicness and the most heroic era in the entire 40k universe. The lack of alien races is what makes Legion Imperialis number 2. 

Third I would go with Dropzone commander. There is lack of amount of story and we still don't know everything yet. But it is interesting to follow it and pretty easy as well. For me on second language it can feel advantageous and is easy to follow. A aspect I like is that it is developing and we see the twists as they are released. And since we don't know much about them they are quite interesting. 

No 4 will be Epic warpath. The main concern for me is that while the story is original work it do feels like a copy of 40k. It is really not true but I need to remind me this isn't 40k. It is starting to grow to the point that it would be suitable to read on a webpage for free. Or have everything on the paying parts of their app. That would actually be a very nicely done thing. Have all the written material (besides books you have to buy) in one place is a real possibility this day and age. 40k have moved way past it and have lots of contradictions in the story from codex to codex so it is basically impossible. Still Epic warpath struggles with the 40k-copy of things like Space Dwarfs (and it might be a evil version somewhere as well) and the connections to the Imperial Guard and Space Marines are hard to ignore. I do think that people who knows a bit more about Warpath would say this is no 3 and Dropzone no 4 though.

The Terrain

In general all four games can utilize 8-12mm terrain.So the cheap 10mm Dropzone paper terrain would work really well. Dropzone is played over a city with a heavy emphasize on getting infantry to the right place. The rest are more played on a more flat surface and models can be larger than some larger terrain pieces. Of course there are buildings and forests but it feels flat. Dropzone is the one game that is most easy to get good looking and when you compare the terrain in the books it really shows. 

Result:

Dropzone commander 1
Epic Warpath 2

Legion Imperialis 3

Epic Armageddon 4

The Epic games and Legions looks good when you go model eye-view. But you don't do that all the time. It is also the fact that Dropzone have had what can be considered mini-games inside buildings so it really shows how important the terrain is. The game is created with the ides of utilizing the terrain. So 1 to Dropzone. 

The rest are pretty close. Warpath use terrain in a more sensible way with height-system. A hill increase height but it might not mean you see over a forest. Both Legions as well as Epic Armageddon tend to feel more flat and so the terrain doesn't feel useful sometimes. I would say Warpath as no 2. I do like the idea of the height system. And the building rules makes sense. 

Between Legion Imperialis and Epic armageddon I feel Legion Imperialis have the better idea of having infantry easy entry of buildings and have terrain to be a more important part of the game than Epic Armageddon. Epic armageddon had some units that could land anywhere and just attack, thus ignoring terrain altogether. Legion Imperialis utilize the terrain more. But both have lots of units that just ignore the terrain in the game. So Legions 3 and Epic Armageddon 4. 

Mantics have released some nice buildings but they build on the flat surface. The low table are seen in Epic Armageddon and Legion Imperialis as well. In Dropzone you fight over a city. 

So please stay in tune for part three which I hope to have released next Monday.