FAQ: Destroying buildings

Veteran Epic players will recall that in the old Titanicus game it was possible to destroy buildings by shooting at them and by war engines attacking them in close combat. We've taken out any rules to do with trashing buildings because it created the curious situation of intact buildings being viewed as little more than death traps for infantry (anything inside a building when it collapsed was automatically destroyed) instead of the defensive bastions they should be. It even reached the stage where players would destroy buildings in their own half of the table to turn them into rubble, then move their infantry into the rubble! Under the circumstances we decided it would be best to assume that buildings could not be turned into rubble during the course of the game — units should be attacking each other, not pieces of terrain.

Of course buildings aren't completely immune to being shot up either but in game terms it would take a lot of firepower to completely rubble a building. If players wish to write their own rules for demolishing buildings feel free to do so, but learn from our mistakes and don't make it too easy! I'd suggest basing it around the number of Blast markers accumulated on detachments occupying buildings and ensure that occupants of collapsing buildings have at least a 50/50 chance of surviving the collapse — historically troops in buildings are virtually impossible to shift without a direct infantry assault.