What you will need to play
Things that you’ll need to play the game — and a few that are nice to have.
If you’re an avid tabletop wargame enthusiast then you’ll have most of this already.
Otherwise… you might have to borrow, buy or make some of these things. And, welcome to the addictive world of wargames! Play for fun, don’t sweat the losses and may all your games be jolly and entertaining!
The big stuff
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An opponent!
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Two armies of 'Epic scale' miniatures to represent the Warhammer 40,000 factions that you and your opponent wish to play. 'Epic scale' is nominally 6 mm or 1:285 scale, but varies somewhat in practice.
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A suitable wargames table to serve as your battlefield.
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Miniature terrain to make your battlefield visually appealing and tactically interesting.
Equipment and accessories
Pencil and paper
You don’t always need these, but they can be useful to make notes and reminders during the course of a game. You might also use a pencil and paper-based method to design and record the details of your army between games.
[TODO: Add something about paper rosters/detachment cards and digital alternatives]
Measuring device
You’ll need to measure distances a lot in the game. A pair of trusty retractable measuring tapes are ideal. You’ll want ones that have centimetres (cm) marked on them.
Dice
Ordinary six-sided dice. Wargamers can never have too many, but 20 or 30 is more than enough to get by.
Special dice (or markers)
You will need visual markers for certain effects in the game — particularly when you give orders to the forces under your command.
Order Dice — as in Games Workshop’s old Epic 40,000 and Battlefleet Gothic games — are ideal if you can get hold of enough of them. More likely, you’ll need to create some custom markers or find suitable substitutes. (Note that some of the dice from the 2016 Adeptus Titanicus game would make ideal substitutes as they are very reminiscent of the original Epic 40,000 order dice.)
[TODO: Perhaps someone will be kind enough to design and contribute files that we can provide for people to download, and to use for the graphics in these rules. The design must avoid copyright infringement, but ideally would be mutually recognisable with GW Order dice. I'm thinking (1) 2D raster designs for markers that people can print out at home; (2) 2D vector designs that people can use to get custom dice made; (3) File to 3D print custom dice.]
Other markers and templates
- Damage trackers
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You can manage with pencil and paper, but it’s nice to have some markers that you can use to track damage (and shields) on some of the larger engines of war in the game. You might consider:
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Dice of different number of faces, colour and/or size to your handfuls of ordinary dice.
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'Damage tracker' or 'wound' dials — available from many manufacturers, in a range of styles.
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- Blast markers
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[TODO]
- Objective markers
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[TODO]
- Barrage templates
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[TODO]
- Airfields
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The original Epic 40,000 boxed game included nice printed airfields, to help players to keep track of the readiness of their Flyer units. These are 'nice to have' — the main thing is to have a convenient way to keep track of which Flyer units are in which state of readiness: Repair; Rearm; Ready.