So in the third installement I will touch on the overall idea of the rules as well as the the main phases in wargame. Movement, shooting and assault.
What the rules do
Each set of rules have a goal. Since I am interpretating the rules my idea of what the rules aim to do and the actual designer's idea might vary. As always a disclaimer of a highly subjective walkthrough.
In Legion Imperialis and Warpath Epic you place orders hidden and then alternate squad activation. So you could technically bluff your way out. It intends to build excitement to what you opponent will do. But these systems are often pretty obvious and can more be about not blundering instead. Still the effect of choosing a stationary action like overwatch means something and the option to move away can sometimes surprise. Legions is more detailed and gives more focus on unique qualities and often units are one-on-one as in assault. The details are plentiful in Legion Imperialis whereas Warpath is a more of Battle system without going into each base.
Epic Armageddon is a more classic battle system where you commit to a side and on the three or four turns it is played your possibilities to massive movements are somewhat limited. Epic Armageddon wanna use it's unique morale system to the fullest and usually succeed.
Armageddon and Dropzone split squads into "battlegroups" that makes the games scale well. Legion scale also with larger squads getting cheaper. In Warpath the scaling is basically non-existent.
Dropzone focus more on movement than any other game (though more in v1 and less in v2). It focus on transports and rock-, scissors- and paper-system for the units. The rest of the games have transports as a secondary part where it is either a assault system, initial boost of movement or a death trap. Or something that is hit n miss. Dropzone is more of a battle in a city where as the rest of the games wanna give the feeling of a massive battle.
Result:
Epic Warpath 1
Epic Armageddon 2
Dropzone commander 3
Dropzone commander 3
Legion Imperialis 4
I would say Epic Warpath succeeds more in what it is intended to do. The basic rules are working almost exactly as you think they would do once understanding the logic and the tactical and strategic orders add tactical finesse. Epic Armageddon isn't fooling around either and end up second place - it also does exactly what it intends to do. Dropzone commander V2 is a weak game according to me and I would say it goes to no 3 with all the open transports that fly around at the end of the games (if you even make it to turn 6). V1 would have been a clear winner. Legion Imperialis is the weakest and most awkward rule-set and makes choices that takes much more time whereas a simpler system could get the same result but much faster so last place.
It is worth noting Legions' rules are a hero-ruleset. By making some rules pretty detailed you will have memories of a awesome situation that really gets stuck in your head. To give a example: 5 enemy bases vs 3 of yours. In Warpath you roll die and remove 3 bases from the larger squad and one in the smaller one as a theoretical result. Pretty good but you will shrug and remember it as "lucky".
In Legions it means 1base vs 1base and you lost a base. The second 1v1 was a draw. The third poor base fought of 2 enemy bases and drew the last one! That is amazing and really noteworthy! And you will remember that base with that special thingy on the model. Things like that is the base for Games workshop games. I think we all have some memories of a special instance of heroic brilliance or horrendous epic failure. And it comes more often from games like 40k than simpler games like Grimdark Future. Still I am to old to bog down to much for a sporadic chance of epicness and not finishing the game.
Of these four games, only Epic Armageddon seems to really make sense to play to the natural conclusion and the rest of the games can be stopped turn 2-3 which I really hate. Not finishing games are Dropzone v2's and Legion Imperialis' special skill, it appears. Warpath is better off (objectives not being sticky works better in a game where you can claim each turn) but it still has some issues - but I can work around that with the mission rules. In Dropzone v1 it came often down to the last die and also it had several missions where the player that won the mission points tended to have the least kills of enemy - which was awesome. It is _not_ like that now.
Movement
Movement is about outmaneuver the opponent. To get where you want when you need. Most often this is relevant when keeping track of the objectives.
Summary of the movement of each game:
Legions: stand still for flexible or better shooting, move or double move.
Warpath: stand still for flexible or better shooting, move or double move.
Armageddon: stand still for flexible or better shooting, move normal shooting, double move and fire at about -30-50% effectiveness or triple move.
Dropzone: move. Use transports to get there faster. Can move after shooting.
It is very easy to group Warpath and Legions together here. Alternate activation in the movement phase, similar rules for moving into assault and terrain. The idea is to have the order system giving the excitement. But for Legions there are units that really get into the opponent side to attack really early on with lots of flexibility. In Warpath they are at least starting on the table to force a commitment. Both are fairly straight forward with moving forward and attacking from turn 1. Warpath have a nice mechanic for reserves and there are absolutely interesting parts where your normal units can in some missions enter turn 3 from any part of any board edge. But you are not sure you may use reserves at all so you can't really build your army around it.
Both Legions and Armageddon have mechanics that get your units into your opponent's face turn 1. In Legions this is not really a good system, I think. Armageddon is designed to end in 4 turns so it makes more sense although it still takes some time to get used to. But for Legions it just makes the game being over without finishing it.
Dropzone is the only game without double movement. Which is cool. The idea is to use transports instead and it works well. In V1 the movement was so important it was worth disregarding shooting twice to relocate your units to the other side of the table with the movement of transports this and next turn. V2... not so much. And we are basing this on V2.
Epic Armageddon is the only system that currently have tripple movement (Legions had it until they errata:ed it). Basically it all works as intended and gives the flexibility needed.
Result:
Epic Armageddon 1
Dropzone commander 2
Epic Warpath 3
Legion Imperialis 4
I like Epic Armageddon's system. You move an entire 40k army with each activation and you really feel that. I also like the fact it has different units inside. So my Tyranids have 12 bases of small infantry, a couple warriors, some carnifexes and a hive tyrant. It is massive. It is also fairly easy to handle, move, double move, tripple move and charge. Dropzone Commander comes in second place with the battlegroup system and the transport-ideas. Now this has been weakened in second ed but in first it was a very good system. Still with some issues in remembering which units had been activated. But it scales well in contrast to Warpath and Legion Imperialis.
Warpath is a clear third place. Simple activations and it works better with the order system than Legions. And have more fun reserve rules. But it doesn't scale well. I really think they need a double-squad system. Legions have so much happening in each movement (overwatch, weapons that can shoot and so on) that it bogs the game down. And I am not happy with the flying system.
Shooting
As the base of attacking in a future sci-fi system, a sensible shooting phase is really important. Moat games follow the typical formula with some variation.
Legions: Roll to hit, roll for save. Add damage.
Armageddon: Roll to hit. Roll for save. Add damage.
Warpath: Roll to hit. Roll to damage. Maybe armour save. Add damage.
Dropzone: Roll to hit. Roll to damage. Check if roll means double damage. Maybe armour save. Add damage.
In Legions you can shoot off turn with both overwatch and during own movement. It adds a lot to the time it takes for the movement phase. And with the order First Fire you can shoot before any other normal firing units as well. The ideas are pretty interesting in theory. In practice I find the extra stuff about shooting takes to much time. There are just so many times you could do it. Movement, reaction, first fire before close combat and normal fire after.
Warpath are the most straight up system I've seen for a while. It kind of reminds me of the excellent albeit a bit easy Grimdark Future Onepage rules. There is nothing strange about it in it's basic premise. It works as a template of how we are thinking a game system should be. That is good in some ways as it is very logical but in other ways it has no special things going for it. Thus the tactical and strategic system is there as a away to spice the game up. But there will be a loss of epic-situations. You have more ideas in the line of sight system with the height system. So you have options without slowing the game down.
Armageddon has a wonderful morale system that is very important all through the game. Each time a group is fired upon it gets a blastmarker with additional blastmarkers for each destroyed unit. Each blastmarker stops one unit eligble to fire from shooting this turn. It works _really well_. To boost they also make a difference on the Anti-tank ability to hit (AT) and anti-personal (AP). It also works really well and I am bit curious to why it haven't been used more.
Dropzone add the fact that strong weapons can double damage weaker units. It adds a calculation in the game that can take some time getting used to. Dropzone have more target options as you can target terrain as a main strategy in many cases. As well as shorter ranges.
Result:
Epic Armageddon 1
Epic Warpath 2
Dropzone commander 3
Legion Imperialis 4
Armageddon wins here. It is just so cool having a effective and good morale system that changes so much in a game. They are doing something special's. Warpath system comes next as sometimes it is smart to make the base basic. Dropzone's double damage system is both a cool thing and somewhat awkward, especially in version 2. But you can target scenery in a very unique way that really makes it exciting. Legion Imperialis just have to many options that bogs the game down. Lots of lots of weapon rules where classic GW style 20% of them could be removed without any large difference. And you can shoot what feels like all the time. It is time consuming.
Assault
For any scifi game there need to be assaults. Because you know. Tanks in the open are weak against infantry's skills of "faster than bullets charging them with knifes and axes". It is one of the most illogical things of any sci-fi wargame.
And lots of fun.
Dropzone commander only have what could be considered assault in buildings between infantry. It becomes a bloody mess with little tactical considering except when to activate. It do become a mini-game with infantry in Dropzone as they are the ones finding the objectuves in buildings and once inserted the opponent must decide to try to dig them out with flamers, other infantry or just wack the building until it goes down or everything inside is dead. So no real assault phase I would say but still a vital part of the game.
Epic armageddon get the blastmarker system working as well in assault and units have value to fight close to the enemy or if they are in base to base. Generally a assault is the 28mm 40k part of the game. But it a bit messy and awkward before you really get the hang of it. You can charge multiple units and off side units can aid.
Warpath takes a easier path. Charge units, activate when one player can and want to and after simultaneous strikes the looser takes what is equal to a morale test or extra models dies. Unless infantry you separate the squads. Pretty simple as you can only charge a single units. I only dislike the assault is steered. I think you can have it completely open. Let people move as thy wish and if any moves into contact with a enemy squad the enemy squad get to do a 2" move any way they like unless already base to base. And then the opponent remove casualties from the enemy when the times comes. Thus there is little point tying a squad up unless you aim to charge at full. Now you can minimize opponent attacks with some creative measurement.
Legion Imperialis takes the fight down to individual level. Like Lord of the rings strategy battle game. It works really well for scenario driven Lord of the rings. For a massive game like Legion Imperialis - not so much. It takes time, is award, illogical units are sometimes better and it is easy to see a different system getting the same result but going much much faster. I see the heroic part in this but it is just to cumbersome.
Result:
Epic Warpath 1
Dropzone commander 2
Epic Armageddon 4
Warpath wins for me here. Just the fact you can only charge a single squad and only infantry getting locked means there are so many rules you can just ignore. And since Warpath doesn't make a difference of shooting and assault in the combat phase the order you have the assault together with shooting makes it pretty tactical. So Number 1.
I like Dropzone's take on it. The infantry minigame to build up the assault is very interesting and exciting though the assault in itself is not so interesting.
I did put Legions on no 3. Because the potential for heroics. And my love for Lord of the rings. But it is a close call to no 4.
Armageddon get a 4 as it is a bit cumbersome. You have a firefight value and CC value. Which units that are in the combat is sometimes a bit awkward and you have extra support from other squads from other battlegroups and so on. It do feel a little old.
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