About this publication

The purpose of this publication is to provide an enhanced version of the original Epic 40,000 game rules and army lists.

This means that we intend to:

  • Make the rules easier to understand and use.

  • Fix some gaps and problems in the rules.

  • Update and extend the army lists.

  • Add some new special abilities.

  • Offer some optional rules and other extras.

However, we have a principle that we intend to keep at the forefront at all times: That is, to respect and retain the distinct nature of the Epic 40,000 game system — we want to present the Epic 40,000 system of gameplay at its best, not create a derivative with substantial differences in gameplay.

See below for more detail on these goals.

Improving the rules content

Our intent is for Epic Remastered rules content to be clearer and more user-friendly than in Epic 40,000, while we keep the gameplay almost entirely the same.

I say 'almost' because the original Epic 40,000 publications present some rules in ways that are confusing, contradictory, ambiguous, or even a bit 'broken' — and to fix this we must sometimes challenge common misinterpretations or, in rare cases, actually change the gameplay slightly.

So, we rewrite the rules to make them easier to understand and use — clearer, better structured, more consistent, less ambiguous, and much easier to navigate and use on a mobile device too.

Where we do create actual gameplay differences, we go out of our way to include footnotes to highlight and explain these. If you disagree at any point…​ well, of course no-one’s stopping you from playing it your way instead! (We’re also open to suggestions if you have a better way or you think we’ve overlooked something.)

Intellectual property rights

We must respect the intellectual property rights of Games Workshop plc. A thorough rewrite should also mean that we don’t infringe upon copyrights, as we’ve created a new artistic expression. (And of course we intend no challenge to the status of trademarks.)

Improving the army lists

We mean to fix inconsistencies and gaps that exist in the original lists, and to extend the lists.

We don’t want to extend the army lists just the sake of it, but rather to:

  • Add some variety and character that was lacking in the original.

  • Add some forces that Games Workshop didn’t invent until much later, but which now have a well-established place in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Many enthusiasts enjoy these newer forces and wish to use them with Epic Remastered.

Compatibility of old Epic 40,000 army lists with Epic Remastered

If you really want to for some reason, there’s nothing to stop you from using the original Epic 40,000 army lists with the Epic Remastered rules. There are some minor differences in terminology, and where Epic 40,000 defines some army-specific rules in its army lists, we’ve rationalised and redefined these in the Special abilities section instead — but that’s about all that you’ll need to adjust to.

Adding to the special abilities

Our philosophy for existing special abilities is much the same as with the rules of play — we’re just rationalising things. However, we’re also adding some new abilities that help us to extend the army lists and gameplay in interesting ways.

Source materials

To be clear, when we refer to Epic 40,000 we usually mean the entire set of publications — not only the books and other materials that were in the original Epic 40,000 boxed set that Games Workshop released in 1997, but also various updates that they published later, mainly in the Firepower magazine series and the Epic 40,000 Magazine series.