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After his very first game of Apocalypse against my grey knights, Kevin (Janthkin) was itching for some payback. At the same time, I wanted to give Tim (SabrX) a little payback of my own from our last Apoc battle, where his hybrid eldar/tau/witchhunters army beat my tyranids. So a gameplan was formed. Since both owned eldar armies, I challenged the 2 of them to a 2-vs-1 Apoc battle. And instead of bringing my grey knights again, this time I wanted to test out my new tyranid Apoc army and strategy.

For those of you not familiar with Apoc, basically it is Warhammer 40K but without any FOC restrictions. Basically you can take almost anything you want. For example, I could take 100 carnifexes and nothing else if I had that many models. Also, in Apoc, you can take what is called super-heavy tanks or gargantuan creatures as well as special formations for Apoc only. In this game, I used 1 - my Hierophant Bio-titan - and they used 2 Eldar Cobras. I also used 1 Apoc Formation while my opponents used 2.

Though you can take some really weird combinations (i.e. Daemons and grey knights, dark eldar and imperial guards, etc.), we decided to take themed armies (I didn't say fluffy). In other words, I took my Hive Fleet Pandora and my opponents took mechdar with a few kroot mercenaries.


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My list:

Tyranids 7000




Hierophant Bio-titan *

Deathleaper (in Reserves)
Doom of Ma'lantai - Mycetic Spore (in Reserves)
15x Hive Guards (15 squads of 1)
Venomthrope
2x10 Ymgarls (in Reserves)
15x Zoanthrope (15 squads of 1)

Endless Swarm **
3x20 Hormagants - Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs
3x20 Termagants - Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs (in Reserves)

4x3 Raveners (3 units in Reserves)

6x2 Biovores
2x Mawlocs (in Reserves)
4x Trygons (in Reserves)


* Hierophant Bio-titan - This guy is a gargantuan creature. He's big and nasty and tough as a b*tch to kill. BTW, we played him with a 2+/6++ save.

** Endless Swarm - Basically this formation lets my hormagants and termagants respawn endlessly when their unit gets wiped out.



Eldar 7000



Cobra II - Brightlance *
Cobra II - Eldar Missile Launcher *

Eldrad
Farseer - Jetbike, Runes of Witnessing, Spirit Stones, Singing Spear, Doom, Fortune
Farseer - Jetbike, Runes of Witnessing, Spirit Stones, Singing Spear, Doom, Fortune
8x Warlocks - 8x Jetbikes, 3x Destructors, 2x Enhance, 2x Embolden

Aspect Assault Wave **
Yriel
3x10 Fire Dragons w/Exarch
3x Wave Serpents - TL-Scatter Lasers, Spirit Stones, Star Engines
5x10 Dire Avengers w/Exarch - Bladestorm, 2x Shuriken Cats
3x Wave Serpent - TL-Bright Lance, Spirit Stones
2x Wave Serpents - TL-Missile Launcher, Spirit Stones, Star Engines

10 Storm Guardians - 2x Fusion Guns
2x3 Guardian Jetbikes - 1x Shuriken Cannon
6x Guardian Jetbikes - 2x Shuriken Cannons, Warlock on Jetbike w/Embolden
10x10 Kroot Mercenaries

The Sunstorm ***
5x Fire Prism - Spirit Stones, Holo-fields, Shuriken Cannon

Falcon - Spirit Stones, Holo-fields, Bright Lance



* Cobra - Eldar super-heavy tank with a nasty, nasty 10" blast Destroyer (Strength D) gun....the perfect Tyranid killing machine.

** Aspect Assault Wave - Essentially, this formation reduces the strength of any guns firing at the wave serpents in the formation to a maximum of S7 subject to a few restrictions. It also did something else, but that power never came into play.

*** The Sunstorm - All the prisms in this formation can combine fire for 1 7" Destroyer (Strength D) blast or for a S9 Apocalyptic Barrage.


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Deployment:


Map of the terrain.



There are 6 objectives - 2 in my deployment zone, 2 in theirs and 2 in the middle (also known as No Man's Land).

The way you deploy in Apoc is a diagonal line from one corner of the table to the other. Then you have to deploy at least 6" away from the line. We marked off the area where you cannot deploy with dice. This area is called No-Man's-Land.

Now who goes first? In Apoc, you have to bid for deployment time (you write it down on a piece of paper and then we both reveal our bidding times at the same time). The one who bids the lowest amount of time goes first. For shooty armies, they would normally want to bid low so that they can go first and shoot. However, if you do not finish deploying in the amount of time that you bidded, then those units not deployed yet goes into reserves.

Team eldar bids 7 minutes and I bid 30 mins because I wanted to go second. Thus they go first.

Eldar deployment:

Kroots and guardian jetbikes will be in reserves, with kroots outflanking. Actually, they do deploy 3 units of kroots.


Wave serpents and1 cobra to the right (my opponent's right).


Fire prisms and the other cobra to the left.

Tyranid deployment:





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Coming up next, my Pre-game Analysis....




Automatically Appended Next Post:
PRE-GAME ANALYSIS:

Eldar:
Eldar definitely has a very resilient army. They have wave serpents with energy fields that treat all guns as S7 max. Then there are the fire prisms with holofields and lots of scoring bodies.

Eldar is definitely a very fast army. They have fast moving wave serpents that can move 24", of which some can move 36" thanks to Star Engines. They've got tanks that can move even when stunned thanks to Spirit Stones. And then they've got eldar jetbikes and infiltrating, outflanking kroots.

Eldar definitely have good firepower. They have the bane of tyrnaid armies - 2 10" and 1 7" strength D blasts that cause Instant Death to all nids and ignore cover. They've got fire dragons, bright lances and fire prisms for my big nasty hierophant. And they've got blasts, bladestorm and the seer council for my legions of smaller nids.

Last but not least, Eldar has lots of scoring bodies for objectives and a lot of vehicles to contest my objectives.

Basically, Eldar has brought a very balanced list that's going to give my tyranids a run for their money.


Tyranids:
My opinion regarding tyranids in Apocalypse is that they are no longer currently viable. There are just too many Destroyer (Stength D) weapons out there that will insta-pop tyranids. Other than zoanthropes and the Doom, tyranids just have no defense against these weapons of mass destruction.

However, I'm going to change that with my "anti-Apoc-meta" tyranid army. Basically, this army was designed to withstand the multitude of Destroyer weaponry in the game they call Apocalypse. The key here is MSU zoanthropes - that is, many units of 1 zoanthropes - spread across the army for synapse and a minimal amount of monstrous creatures. Then I have the Endless Swarm of termagants and hormagants that can just be recycled once kill. Then I've got my shooters - many units of hive guards, biovores and my bio-titan - and reserve forces (i.e. ymgarls, trygons, etc.). Finally, I need trygons to make my list work. Why? Because they create the holes for the gants to come in from. This army is seriously lacking in mobility. A few trygon holes placed in key locations (i.e. by objectives) is all the mobility I really need.

Now I'm interested to see if my theory would work against a very good and dangerous eldar army.

15 single zoanthropes & 15 single Hive Guards...I still have nightmares.

More BLOS needed Jy2!

Im gonna go with an Eldar win, with the Hierophant doing some horrific damage before he gets bled out.

Are you playing Apoc annhil rules? No objs?

Janthkin wrote:15 single zoanthropes & 15 single Hive Guards...I still have nightmares.

I'm glad Apoc doesn't care about Kill Points unless we play a custom mission.

Ratius wrote:More BLOS needed Jy2!

Im gonna go with an Eldar win, with the Hierophant doing some horrific damage before he gets bled out.

Are you playing Apoc annhil rules? No objs?

Actually, don't really care about BLOS terrain. My army was designed to be able to function with minimal terrain, as I provide my own cover in the form of never-ending gants. Zoanthropes obviously could give a hoot about cover, and if my hive guards stop to shoot from behind BLOS, then their relatively short range will never hit the important eldar units in the backfield.

Standard Apoc is always 6 objectives and doesn't care about Kill Points....unless you decide to play custom missions. We just went with the standard mission.

Strength D weapons also don't care about cover.

SabrX wrote:Strength D weapons also don't care about cover.

Not only that, but those 10" Destroyer guns are barrage as well! That means no LOS needed and no hiding for my hive guards.

Hmmm, 30 termagants coming up within six inches of a single hole, with a 10" blast right right next to them... lol that would be a massacre.

And then they come back...

Eldar 1
Note - in this report, I will refer to the collective team of my 2 opponents as he, him and his rather than they, them or theirs.


Jetseer council with dual farseers go after my right flank (left flank from his perspective).


Fire prisms and cobra move back.


Dire avenger wave serpents and cobra move back. Fire dragon serpents move forwards.


2 units of dire avengers in serpents and Eldrad (by himself) in falcon advance. Dire avengers disembark and get ready to bladestorm.


Fire prisms combine to fire a 5-blast S9 AP1 apocalyptic barrage onto my hive guards and zoanthropes. He kills a few, but it isn't anything I can't handle.


1 10" destroyer blast lands directly here, killing more hive guards and a couple of zoeys (zoanthropes).


Finally, he drops the other 10" destroyer blast on my left flank, killing more zoans, hive guards and even 2 raveners.

He doesn't bother to fire at my hierophant....yet.

Dire avengers shoot at my zoanthropes. His strategy is to take out my synapse.


My dead pool from his shooting. Not too bad so far. Then again, the majority of his army hasn't even shot yet.


Lastly, his Guided seer council assaults my Doomed hormagants....


....and wipe them out after No Retreat saves. They then consolidate away.


Tyranids 1

The unit of hormagants that my opponents had just wiped out comes back in.


I advance my left flank.


The rest of my nids move. The ones without shooting run.


My bio-titan fires 8 S10 shots at the right cobra. I only manage to cause 1 structure point of damage (they have 3 each).


Hierophant also fires another 8 S10 shots at the left cobra as well. And once again, I only manage to cause 1 structure point of damage to it as well.

Most of my shooting is out of range because eldar moved their vehicles back.

On my right flank, I concentrate my entire shooting onto his seer council. Unfortunately, 3+ turbo-boosting cover with re-rolls due to Fortune is a b*tch....I fail to kill even a single biker.


On the left flank, hive guards wreck 1 serpent and immobilize the other. I shake Eldrad's falcon.

Biovores then drop pie plates on top of their dire avengers. I wipe out 1 unit and kill all but 2 from the other unit.

Hormagants then charge both tanks but fail to kill them.


To the right, hormagants charge his seer council. I do slightly better in assault, killing 3 bikers. However, I lose 10 hormagants in the process.

So overall, not a great turn for me. I wasn't able to stop his big tanks from shooting nor was I able to cause any significant damage to his forces, besides killing 1 wave serpent and 1 unit of dire avengers.


Eldar 2

Overview of the top of Turn 2.


Eldar reserves start to come in.


2 units of kroots come in from my right flank.


And another 2 kroots come in from my left.


Serpents advance and fire dragons disembark. Will my bio-titan be able to survive 30 meltas and then some? 1 unit of dire avengers also disembark.


Onto shooting. Cobra drops a 10" blast onto my hive guards....


....and wipes out everything underneath, including a zoan and 3 raveners.


Dire avengers bladestorm my unit of hormagants down to just 1 gant left.


30 fire dragons, wave serpent bright lances and fire prisms do a massive 8 Wounds to my bio-titan!!! Basically, he focused almost everything but the kitchen sink into my titan, who now only has 2W left.


Kroots shoot down 1 zoey (zoanthrope) and assault the other one.


They wipe him (the zoey) out as well and consolidate to surround my lone ravener.


Finally, his seer council wipes out my hormagants. However, my hormies are able to take down 1 farseer along with them.

So far, the mighty eldar have taken out about half of my synapse (the zoans) and half of my hive guards (maybe more). They will also probably take down my bio-titan next turn. Do I have enough offense next turn to reciprocate the damage? If not, then I'm in big trouble.


Tyranids 2
Out of 8 attempts, my bio-titan is only able to regenerate 1W back.


20 termagants come in and get ready for some payback to his kroots.


2 trygons and 1 mawloc come in. Mawloc scatters and fails to damage any tanks. He also takes 1W to difficult terrain.

The Doom also comes in. I forgot my mycetic spore so the 5" blast marker is used to represent my spore.


1 more trygon comes in to the left.

If you've noticed, I deepstrike all my trygons near objectives so that when my gants come in, they will be within claiming/contesting range of the objectives.


My unit of hormagants that my opponents wiped out come in yet again from around the same area as last turn.

One unit of ymgarls also come in from the nearby piece of terrain.


Finally, my other unit of ymgarls also come in from the center terrain. Somehow I am able to fit all 10 in and still be 1" away form his units.


In my Shooting phase, my hive guards (or maybe zoans?) blow up 2 serpents. I also focus almost all my biovores onto his fire dragons and wipe out a lot. The biovore barrages also kill a lot of kroots there and break the unit.

Ymgarls fleet.

Bio-titan fires at the 2 cobras again. Once again, I take off another 1 structure point from each of the super-heavy tanks.


I don't fire at his kroots. Instead, both my termagants and hormagants furiously charge them, wiping out both squads.


Ymgarls multi-charge both his guardians and fire dragons and wipe them both out.


Hormagants multi-charge both units of kroots and wipe them both out.

My other unit of ymgarls assault his seer council. They would remain locked in combat for the rest of the game.


The bio-titan charges his fire dragons (who were the only unit that I could charge). 9 attacks and I whiff pretty badly, killing only 1 fire dragon!!!

On this turn, I believe I have killed 2 wave serpents, 1 fire dragons, 1 guardians and 4 kroots. In addition, I've weakened his other fire dragons substantially and locked up his seer council. I was actually expecting to do more damage, but I'll take whatever I can get at this point.

However, my main concern is that most of his vehicles are still alive and will be able to contest when the time comes.


Eldar 3
Unfortunately, this would be the last game turn as we are out of time.


Eldar jetbikes come in.

Eldar has an ingenous strategy. Their objective? Still to wipe out my synapse (zoanthropes). Then see if my gribblies can hold the objectives as they start tank shocking. Heck, they may not even have to. Instinctive Behaviour may move my gribblies off the objectives for them!


The other jetbikes block off my path to the objective.


Jetbikes go after my zoey here.


Finally the kroots come in. They won't be able to reach my zoan so they go after the biovores.


These kroots will go after the hormies on the objective.


The empty serpent moves flat-out in preparation for contesting an objective. It later moves 12" in the shooting phase to contest thanks to its star engines.


Prince Yriel disembarks and prepares to kill my trygon (who suffered 2W already).


Serpent and prisms form a wall to block off the objective, preventing me from contesting.


The rest of the eldar tanks surrround my trygon so that my gribblies won't be able to respawn from there to capture/contest his objective.


More wave serpents go to block off my paths.


He spares my bio-titan after reducing it to just 1W remaining. There's plenty of other threats he has to worry about.


Haha....just kidding. Would you let that beast survive in your game of Apoc?


This blast wipes out my mawloc and most of the ymgarls.


He kills some stuff here on my objective. Don't remember exactly what, but it probably involved my zoans, hive guards and probably some of my gaunts who were holding the objective.


Jetbikes shoot down some a zoey. They then do their assault move. Now my hormagants will have have to test for Instinctive Behaviour.


Jetbikes block off the objective completely with their assault move. He knows they won't survive my trygon's fury, but their goal is to prevent my gaunts from reaching the objective.


Yriel assaults my trygon and pays for it dearly with his life. However, he does bring my trygon down to just 1W remaining.


In the other assault of note, his seer council is down to just 1 farseer left.

So right now, all the objectives are contested but his. Not only that, but the eldar have positioned their contesting units in such a way as to block off my paths to the objectives. I think eldar currently has 1 or maybe 2 objectives claimed.

I don't have a whole lot of shooting left as the 'dar have wiped out probably at least 75% of my hive guards and my synapse. I think I'm going to have to assault my way to a win.


Tyranids 3
Last player turn.


Termagants pass their Instinctive Behaviour test and go grab themselves an objective.

Tyranid objectives: 1


Another unit of termagants (who came in from reserves) wipes out his 3 guardian jetbikes in assault and then consolidates towards the objective. I surprise my opponents by A) not shooting his jetbikes and B) not assaulting them with my trygon.

But after writing this report, I think I may have assaulted illegaly. I believe they came in from the trygon hole and thus could not assault. Anyways, I won't count this objective. (I'm surprised both Janthkin and I missed this, but then again, we were rushing this turn.)

Tyranid objectives: 1


The hormagants, however, wipe out his 7-man jetbike unit to take this objective.

Tyranid objectives: 2


Finally, my hormagants and raveners assault his contesting serpent. I immobilize it, but because it went flat-out, it is wrecked.

Tyranid objectives: 3


And for some insurance, the Deathleaper, who came in this turn, may be contesting his objective, but I didn't measure because there was really no need. That is the only objective that they have "claimed".



Victory to Hive Fleet Pandora!!!

I'm really liking the report so far. It think Tyranids are still pretty sick in APOC. Scythed Heiredules are still nasty, and they have a few nasty formations. I love APOC games as the strategies involved in the game are a little more dynamic than a standard game at times. I like your strategy for the Trygon tunnels. Good stuff.

Awesome report so far, I like the strategy with the Trygons, it is a cool way to use an otherwise 'novelty' item rule.

I can't wait to see more.... I think the nids MIGHT actually pull this off.

Battle report completed.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

CaptKaruthors wrote:I'm really liking the report so far. It think Tyranids are still pretty sick in APOC. Scythed Heiredules are still nasty, and they have a few nasty formations. I love APOC games as the strategies involved in the game are a little more dynamic than a standard game at times. I like your strategy for the Trygon tunnels. Good stuff.

The hierodules die too easily. Just the normal missile launchers will kill them. It all really depends on the size of the game. As the game gets larger (i.e. 5K of more), they become more of a liability IMO. Usually, my hierodule won't even make it pass 1 turn of enemy fire!

But I agree that nids have some nice formations. My favorite hands down is the Endless Swarm. It's just such a good formation.

The vastness of the typical Apoc map (we basically used 2 6'x4' tables here) and the fact that most people usually don't finish the game means that the trygon hole IMO is a necessity for an otherwise slow army. It works particularly well with the Endless Swarm.

calypso2ts wrote:Awesome report so far, I like the strategy with the Trygons, it is a cool way to use an otherwise 'novelty' item rule.

Yeah. In this case, the trygon holes are actually more important than the trygons themselves as far as my strategy goes.

Such pretty pictures, so little time....

Thanks again for the game, Jim. From my lofty perspective, with 2 whole games of Apoc under my belt, the time-limitation makes it hard to reach a satisfying conclusion. Of course, it doesn't help when your opponent has 30 solo Hive Guard & Zoanthropes to resolve shooting for... That was an ingenious strategy.

jy2 wrote:But after writing this report, I think I may have assaulted illegaly. I believe they came in from the trygon hole and thus could not assault. Anyways, I won't count this objective. (I'm surprised both Janthkin and I missed this, but then again, we were rushing this turn.)

D'oh! I was remembering the old FW Apoc Trygon rules (where you COULD assault from the hole), as that was the last time I, personally, used a Trygon. But the fixed nature of Apoc reserve rules definitely helps the Trygon out, and pairing it with Endless Swarm is very potent indeed.

I'm curious how APOC would play out if we tried an alternating-activation turn order, instead of UGOIGO. Something like "I'll move/shoot/assualt 2k points of my 6k army, and then you do the same."

Out of curiosity, what made you decide to play the hierophant with a 6++?

Other wise great bat-rep i wish the bio-titan had a chance to do more though

Defiler37 wrote:Out of curiosity, what made you decide to play the hierophant with a 6++?

The old version of Warp Field (from the Codex that was in use when the Hierophant's rules were written) gave the model a 2+/6++ (as opposed to the current 3++ on the Zoanthropes). We felt that a 3++ on a T9 W10 Hierophant was a little too good.

It's funny how the same squad of gaunts died and came back, tying up the Jetseer council.

I didn't expect jy2 to field 15 x Hive Guards and 15 x Zoanthropes. MSU to the max!

Overall, the Eldar didn't have enough fire power to deal with endless swarm of gaunts and numerous units. Even with 100 Kroots, it was an uphill battle. Even though Eldar and 3 StrD huge blasts, the Tyranids had a lot of AP4 large blasts.

Even though Janthkin and I lost, I'm content with the outcome that both Cobras survived and the Hierophant did not. Moral victory for the Eldar!

Ack! My buddy and I have a Nids / Eldar Apoc game "planned" for waay to long and you guys beat us to it! Nice to see two armies go at it especially at such a large scale!

I thought the Bio-titan had a 3++ ?

Also,

"Finally, my hormagants and raveners assault his contesting serpent. I immobilize it, but because it went flat-out, it is wrecked."

You may have immobilized and then wrecked it anyway in assault - but a fast skimmer is only wrecked (and then subsequently passengers destroyed) in it's own movement phase.

It's whatever and it's Apocalypse so FUN is the name of the game - but now, I must prepare my Eldar against another hive fleet (@vvwjetta1997) to avenge this loss!

Janthkin wrote:Such pretty pictures, so little time....

Thanks again for the game, Jim. From my lofty perspective, with 2 whole games of Apoc under my belt, the time-limitation makes it hard to reach a satisfying conclusion. Of course, it doesn't help when your opponent has 30 solo Hive Guard & Zoanthropes to resolve shooting for... That was an ingenious strategy.

I was hoping that we'd get to at least turn 4 in the amount of time we had, but unfortunately with me being just a little bit late and the sheer number of units we had on the table, we didn't make it.

But you guys did a really good job of taking most of my hive guards and zoans. That was also one of the reasons for the trygon holes and also why I put my objectives near the edges - so when my troops come in, they can try to grab the objectives right away without the need for synapse.

I'm curious how APOC would play out if we tried an alternating-activation turn order, instead of UGOIGO. Something like "I'll move/shoot/assualt 2k points of my 6k army, and then you do the same."

I'm not sure how well that would've gone. That may have complicated the game a lot more because you would have to keep track of which units were activated and so forth. The best solution may have been for me to find a "partner" or "helper". Then my turn could've went twice as fast (well, maybe not 2x, but definitely faster than just me playing 7K of nids).

Defiler37 wrote:Out of curiosity, what made you decide to play the hierophant with a 6++?

Other wise great bat-rep i wish the bio-titan had a chance to do more though

What Janthkin said. 3++ on the bio-titan definitely is really powerful without a corresponding price hike, so we decided to keep it at 6++.

He did take out 4 structure points of super-heavies (out of a total of 6). Pointswise, that's 800pts of damage.

Moreover, he absorbed a lot of firepower that would have otherwise decimated the rest of my army. Now if only I did not fluff all those regen saves....

SabrX wrote:It's funny how the same squad of gaunts died and came back, tying up the Jetseer council.

I didn't expect jy2 to field 15 x Hive Guards and 15 x Zoanthropes. MSU to the max!

Overall, the Eldar didn't have enough fire power to deal with endless swarm of gaunts and numerous units. Even with 100 Kroots, it was an uphill battle. Even though Eldar and 3 StrD huge blasts, the Tyranids had a lot of AP4 large blasts.

Even though Janthkin and I lost, I'm content with the outcome that both Cobras survived and the Hierophant did not. Moral victory for the Eldar!

Yeah, it was a mistake on Kevin's part to assault me so close to the board edges. Those are some of the subtleties of Apoc that you learn with experience. And since this was only Kevin's 2nd game of Apoc....

Then again, the temptation was just too great. Imagine how many zoanthropes and hive guards he could have tied up/wiped out next turn if only he didn't wipe out my hormies on your assault phase!

It's all a part of my strategy to make tyranids competitive in Apoc. MSU zoans and minimal TMC's IMO is the way to go. Our Apoc gaming group now just has too many Destroyer weaponry. We've got 3-4 reavers, 2-3 warhounds and a bunch of baneblade and variants. We even have 1 person building a warlord titan! How can nids compete against that!?!

Your eldar had a solid gameplan - to wipe out my synapse. With us only being able to get through 3 turns, you just didn't have enough time to do so. Wiping out those zoans and a simple tankshock is all you need really to deal with the hordes. Also, wipe out my synapse and I probably wouldn't be able to control who my biovores shot at.

Many, I really should've destroyed those Cobras. That was 16 S10 shots I put into each one of them! I was expecting to take out both with my titan. That just proves how durable eldar tanks are.

DX3 wrote:Ack! My buddy and I have a Nids / Eldar Apoc game "planned" for waay to long and you guys beat us to it! Nice to see two armies go at it especially at such a large scale!

I thought the Bio-titan had a 3++ ?

Also,

"Finally, my hormagants and raveners assault his contesting serpent. I immobilize it, but because it went flat-out, it is wrecked."

You may have immobilized and then wrecked it anyway in assault - but a fast skimmer is only wrecked (and then subsequently passengers destroyed) in it's own movement phase.

It's whatever and it's Apocalypse so FUN is the name of the game - but now, I must prepare my Eldar against another hive fleet (@vvwjetta1997) to avenge this loss!

If you can, take pictures and post a battle report. It'll be fun!

You really should discuss with your opponent how to play the hierophant's Warp Field. We played it as the old 6++ WF because we felt 3++ was too strong. I believe INAT (or maybe it was the Adepticon Gladiator rules) also ruled his WF as 6++. Anyways, give it a 3++ and that thing just won't die.

If a fast skimmer moves flat-out, it is wrecked when immobilized on both the player and opponent's turn. The only difference is that if it is wrecked on your turn, your guys inside (if any) are dead. If it is wrecked on the opponents turn due to getting immobilized while going flat-out, then your guys inside can still disembark.

jy2 wrote:

I'm curious how APOC would play out if we tried an alternating-activation turn order, instead of UGOIGO. Something like "I'll move/shoot/assualt 2k points of my 6k army, and then you do the same."

I'm not sure how well that would've gone. That may have complicated the game a lot more because you would have to keep track of which units were activated and so forth. The best solution may have been for me to find a "partner" or "helper". Then my turn could've went twice as fast (well, maybe not 2x, but definitely faster than just me playing 7K of nids).

Oh, not for speed of play so much; it's the "alpha strike" problem that occurs with this much firepower on the board. If you can only shoot a portion of your army at a time, you won't be able to wipe out so much of your opponent.

As you note, I'm new to Apoc, and still wrapping my head around the game theory. On large enough boards, with sufficient numbers of players, you can't really bring 10k worth of firepower to bear on a single chunk of your enemy anyway, I suppose.

So. Many. Eldar. Serpents. Brings a tear to me eye

Oh, not for speed of play so much; it's the "alpha strike" problem that occurs with this much firepower on the board. If you can only shoot a portion of your army at a time, you won't be able to wipe out so much of your opponent.

As you note, I'm new to Apoc, and still wrapping my head around the game theory. On large enough boards, with sufficient numbers of players, you can't really bring 10k worth of firepower to bear on a single chunk of your enemy anyway, I suppose.

Yeah, I always tell people that APOC is a completely different beast strategically than a typical game of 40k. Between strategic assets, formations, and how reserves work...the bigger picture strategy is usually more important than the smaller tactics that you see in a basic game. With the control you have of your forces, it's much easier which zones to reinforce, and which ones to abandon at the right moments. Did you guys use strategic assets? Which ones did you choose?

One thing I spotted was the Wave Serpent going flat out and Prince Yriel getting out. Units cannot disembark from vehicles which have or will go flat out

Nice report other than that.

mercer wrote:One thing I spotted was the Wave Serpent going flat out and Prince Yriel getting out. Units cannot disembark from vehicles which have or will go flat out

Nice report other than that.

While you are correct, I can assure you Yriel wasn't in one of the serpents that went flat out that round (his serpent mosey'd over to surround a Trygon & prevent fresh 'gants from swarming our single objective).

Janthkin wrote: Oh, not for speed of play so much; it's the "alpha strike" problem that occurs with this much firepower on the board. If you can only shoot a portion of your army at a time, you won't be able to wipe out so much of your opponent.

As you note, I'm new to Apoc, and still wrapping my head around the game theory. On large enough boards, with sufficient numbers of players, you can't really bring 10k worth of firepower to bear on a single chunk of your enemy anyway, I suppose.

Yeah, the board is usually just too big. If you attempt to pack in all your units for an "alpha strike", you're putting them too close together for retalitorial enemy (Destroyer) blasts. Not that you have to be concerned about that against nids....but I did have 12 biovores to deal with clumped-up infantry.

Playing "sections" of your army at a time, while it may lead to a more efficient offense, will also lead to more mistakes, especially in larger games. People (like me) will be more likely to forget things, like whether they've moved/shot/assaulted with a unit yet. Unless you mark very clearly which units did what (and that adds another step to make the game go longer), the more steps you have in a game, the more likely you're going to miss things.

CaptKaruthors wrote:
Yeah, I always tell people that APOC is a completely different beast strategically than a typical game of 40k. Between strategic assets, formations, and how reserves work...the bigger picture strategy is usually more important than the smaller tactics that you see in a basic game. With the control you have of your forces, it's much easier which zones to reinforce, and which ones to abandon at the right moments. Did you guys use strategic assets? Which ones did you choose?

I'm sure my opponents are learning.

No, we didn't use assets this time around. We will probably use them in the future, though with some restrictions. Some of the assets (Flank March, Disruptor Beacon, Replacements to name a few) are just too much IMO. I think it's best to play assets on a "Consent" basis, that is, you declare the assets beforehand and your opponent has the right to reject it.

mercer wrote:One thing I spotted was the Wave Serpent going flat out and Prince Yriel getting out. Units cannot disembark from vehicles which have or will go flat out

Nice report other than that.

I don't quite remember which serpent he disembarked from, but I do know that all of us are aware of that rule.

We might have played it correctly or maybe we did make a mistake. Can't really recall at this point.

This game had both a lot of reserves and the mission was primarily objectives. The game also ended bottom of turn 3. jy2 went last, which gave him the better position to steal objectives at the last minute and dispose any units contesting. Aside from taking out synapse (which was difficult considering there were 15 Zoanathropes, blasted little buggers!) Eldar's real ace up the sleeve was fast moving skimmer moving flat out and contesting towards the end. It's the same trick I used last time I played apoc against jy2. In this game, Janthkin and I underestimated how long each turn would take. Had we known it would have ended bottom of 3, we would have positioned our Fire Prisms at better locations on turn 2. Holo-field Fire Prism are much more resilient than Wave Serpents, especially if Eldrad fortunes them.

Nevertheless, a win is a win. jy2's Nids had a lot of synergy. Everything works in sync, like they were controlled by the hive mind that is jy2.

Aside from the Kroots, purist list struggles against pure Nids while a mixture of allies from various codices tends to perform a lot better against pure Nids.

Aside from the Kroots, purist list struggles against pure Nids while a mixture of allies from various codices tends to perform a lot better against pure Nids.

I don't know about that. I think a pure eldar APOC list would work just fine, but it depends on what is in your/ or other people's collections. Some of the Eldar formations are nasty versus tyranids. The Shadow Sect of Karandras is nasty, the Shadow Walker War Walker Host is nasty, and so is the warp spider one. However, it requires loads of models that most people wouldn't have unless they bought them specifically for those formations. Like I said, APOC is a different game than basic 40k and adding specific formations in lists offers up a new way of looking at the army as a whole. Sometimes just fielding what you have isn't always enough. Taking an army to APOC levels in points is quite fun and challenging the more you get into it.

If I'd had a couple Vypers, for example, there's a neat Jetbike & Vyper formation that would have been nice.

jy2 wrote:
If a fast skimmer moves flat-out, it is wrecked when immobilized on both the player and opponent's turn. The only difference is that if it is wrecked on your turn, your guys inside (if any) are dead. If it is wrecked on the opponents turn due to getting immobilized while going flat-out, then your guys inside can still disembark.

Thank you for clarifying this for me.
Show me how much I know..

Janthkin wrote:If I'd had a couple Vypers, for example, there's a neat Jetbike & Vyper formation that would have been nice.

Yeah that formation is nice. I think that's the one that has an Autarch leading it, right? I think it can Flank March as well. I'm one of the few that believes that Flank March isn't over powering as there are many ways to counter it.

jy2 wrote:

mercer wrote:One thing I spotted was the Wave Serpent going flat out and Prince Yriel getting out. Units cannot disembark from vehicles which have or will go flat out

Nice report other than that.

I don't quite remember which serpent he disembarked from, but I do know that all of us are aware of that rule.

We might have played it correctly or maybe we did make a mistake. Can't really recall at this point.

Ok, cool. From what you said it appeared that way, though I am pretty sure you wouldn't make such a noob mistake