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I've had the book for 4 days now and I am SOOOO much in love.

For me personally this is a book written by hobbyists to hobbyists and caters for the kind of games me and my friends have always liked the best!!! The layout and content is ideal and the larger games, larger tables and the quite strong strategic assets will introduce a whole nother lever of tactics (strategy even) to the game. The book has such wonderfully inspiring terrain and models in it and the text emphasises scratchbuilding and count as rules all the time.

A good gaming friend is an outrider and is been going to the local Gdubbs everysunday to play the entire day with GWfolks. That tells something. Even the marketing savvy GW folks are so sincerely enjoying it that they sacrifise their days off in the same place they work at.  Our group has challenged ourselves to produce something spectacular for next summer and all out war. One is doing an entire Space Marine Battle company and the other just spent the weekend starting to build 3, yes three!!!, Baneblades

It's the best GW release in many many years IMO. ...and it should pay dividends to GW's 4th quarter.

I think you meant to post this somewhere else, this is too positive for Dakka.

I got my shipping confirmation email today, I am sooooo excited. More excited than a 25 year old should be about a book for toy soldiers.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ladz, I concur.

Apocalypse seems to be designed for our club in Bris. One of our Members has a whole CHAPTER!!!
100 Termies
800 Various troops
100 Assault/scouts
Sh*t loads of assorted tanks/bikes/Land speeders.
I have to say though, He does not have 1 Titan(BWAAAHAHAHAHAH)
I have about half of what he has, but 2 Titans(Reaver+Warhounf)
I am hopefully getting my Backpaqck from the UK on friday(fingers crossed) Books, Templates Et all.
BUT!!!! As much as i like to save money, I think if I get too much in the way of more mini's, I will have NO Girlfriend.
(Using the excuse of Apocalypse, I just HAD to have my 10k point army painted and based for the release date!!!)
Bring on the Apocalypse!!!!!!

Does it play well without the baneblades and such? Then it just
becomes all my stuff vs. all your stuff whoever has less gets to play
with strategems.

Absolutely it plays well without the Super Heavy Vehicles. The Stratagems help when you are out-classed with Mini's.

However, I am going to field my 2 Titans at every oppourtunity.

I am playing a 20,000 point game this weekend. I have seen the other blog about table sizes, so I am thinking 4'x12'.

Seeing as the deployment rules are wierd, its lucky that my 50 Termies and 80 troops(Drop-pods) hit him where it hurts the most.......

This version of 40k is a Non-religion-specific God-send......

I am kinda looking forward to playing this in COD, using merely 2k points worth.

Sounds just as fun, and tons quicker.

Posted By Hellfury on 10/09/2007 11:47 PM
I am kinda looking forward to playing this in COD, using merely 2k points worth.

Sounds just as fun, and tons quicker.

  But slightly less, um, apocalyptic.

Well, it certainly lacks the grand scale, but it just depends on what you want out of the game.

Not that I dont plan on playing 3k+ battles, but this system seems just as well suited for smaller games as well.

Its a free form scenario driven type of game, one has to remember, so the skys the limit.

I'll be giving this a try with epic models. Since there will be more models on the field than what you guys field, our battles will be even more apocalyptic.

Oh, and Hellfury, has anyone taken up your offer to play against your lone character yet? I'll be trying that soon and hope the other guy doesn't get mad when he pulls out 3K points and I pull out a handful of models.

Something that people haven't mentioned much is the artwork; I really like it.  Even seeing some of the older pieces in a larger format is very nice.

Gotta keep painting...

yeah the book is very well done. Not sure why they did the extra tall size instead of the usual 8.5x11ish most books are. Maybe it's so the pics could be even bigger

I've only read about 1/3 of the book so far but I'm really impressed. I'm even thinking about using these rules for all games, within reason. I don't see why you can't play a 2000 pt game with the same setup ideas and all that stuff. Maybe pick 1 asset per side. Maybe just make it a house rule to only allow the superheavy stuff or big formations if you're at 3000+.

Posted By Hellfury on 10/10/2007 12:53 AM
Well, it certainly lacks the grand scale, but it just depends on what you want out of the game.

Not that I dont plan on playing 3k+ battles, but this system seems just as well suited for smaller games as well.

Its a free form scenario driven type of game, one has to remember, so the skys the limit.

I completely agree.  I appreciate the flexibility (all Jump Packs...sure) and strategems.

This just seems completely freeing to allow you to play whatever you want, with fun as the goal.

I also agree with everything Migs said.  It makes the hobby much more open and fun.

And GW loves it, because it'll sell models.

My FLGS called me to let me know that they had the Apocalypse back packs in and asked if I wanted one held. At first I was not going to get into the system, but over the time hearing and reading about the fun people have had playing it,  my mind changed  and  I snapped one up to go with the Baneblade I'm getting.

I just got my grubby hands on it yesterday and I am impressed! The blast markers are cool and I like the big gun dice. I really am liking the flexible nature of how this expansion plays. So many possibilities. I also am inspired by the sweet themed terrain that is in the book.

Capt K

This thread is beginning to read like an Evangelical meeting! Amen, brother!

Posted By stonefox on 10/10/2007 5:58 AM

Oh, and Hellfury, has anyone taken up your offer to play against your lone character yet? I'll be trying that soon and hope the other guy doesn't get mad when he pulls out 3K points and I pull out a handful of models.

I think you have me mistaken for someone else.
Though I am interested to hear the rest of this plot, to fill in the context for curiosities sake.

Mine arrives tomorrow!!!!!

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Not fair man. I ordered mine AGES ago, and am still waiting(Geek-Backpack).

20,000 point game this weekend, with or without it. Spewin'

Whoops......

Just got a call from the Girlfriend(ULTIMATE GAMERS ACCESORY!! lol)

My Backpack is at home waiting for me. If I spend too much time reading it, my GF won't be......

We just spent the past few hours going over the Apoc book. I like a lot of it, although I'm still wary of the fact that you start 12" away and can gartentee yourself the first turn with a little bit of creative bidding. I also have an issue where you can have a 10,000 Point Tyranid army and a 10,000 Point Grey Knight army, yet the Tyranids get no extra time to set up their 200-300 models? Seems a little unbalanced.

The 'design your own sheets' page was a major dissapointment. It's basically a 'counts as' thing. That's it!

Other than that, I like the book.

BYE

Theirs some imbalance in the set up sequence, but several things mitiagate that. The player setting up second could also look at his army, and bid 30 minutes. Then take his time setting up, knowing where his opponents units are at, and knowing his opponent has no infiltration. The set up zones are 12" apart, but they are deep zones, and you're playing for objectives, not kills. If your opponent has an assault based army and goes first, you can take your time setting up a firing line, and position units to out flank him if he brings fast units deep into your territory.

Theres a ton more room for tactics, and the strategies shake things up even more. Flank charge scared hell out of me until I saw ambush. There are great strategems, and strategems that counter them.  So much fun to be had.

And yes, GK set up easy, although we totally screwed it up the first time. 3 GK players showed for the game, and 3 others, so sides were easily picked. We bid 3 minutes vs the others guys 5. Then just threw our stuff on the board, left the rest in reserve. But 3 minutes really didn't give us much time to talk about fire lines, or co-ordination, and our set up wasn't the best. In the end it didn't matter. Chaos came in on our flank on turn 1, killed our artillery and it turned into a huge scrum in our deployment zone.)

I have been looking forward to this release for a long time as well.

I was just wondering, i saw the price for the book is 50 buck, is it a really big book?  How many pages is it?

I know it is worth getting for the rules and stuff, but being $50 it should be at least as big as the main rulebook IMO.

Also I was wondering about the artillery dice, do you need to buy them?  Are they special dice, or just fancy looking regular d6s?



Addressing the only starting 12" apart; that doesnt bother me because the way i usually set up is farther than 24" apart because i run shooty lists and prefer not to be in close combat.  Overall I'm just really looking forward to this book, it should be really cool.

My gaming group has been doing big games of 20,000+ points for many years now and this will be great to include in those games.  We will probly be using certain rules and excluding others depending on the story of the games we run in the future.

Quick answers!

1) The book is hardback, and close to the same width as the rulebook. It has several 4-page spreads. The actual height/length of the book is larger than the rulebook. I'd measure, but I don't have it with me ATM.

2) The big gun dice are about twice as large as regular dice, and have an AdMech symbol instead of the 1's. The scatter die is standard size.

Jim

The book's about the same size as IA4, just not as thick.

It's a very nice book.

BYE

I'm waiting for my Backpack set too. With some luck I'll get it tomorrow.

FedEx guy dropped it off a couple hours ago. Flipped through it first (will be giving it a thorough read through later) and it's pretty cool. HBMC is right, its about the same size as the IA books (i.e. larger in length/width than the rulebook) but not as thick. Its hardback so compared to a $25 codex its not a bad price. The backpack is awesome, like it a lot more than the shoulder-bag I got with the WHFB gamers edition. The Templates are huge, the flamer is almost as long as my elbow to the tips of my fingers, and I'm 6'1". The dice are kind of lame, but they came with everything so I don't really care.

Now I just need to finish my 5th company of Dark Angels...

Ozymandias, King of Kings

uh as far as i know codecies are 22 not 25 where are you paying 25 for a codex?

don't quibble over $3 dollars, yeesh.

From what I've seen the book is about right for the price, but I need a bit more time to review it before I make a final decision. So far the termite is my favorite conversion. I'm surprised to NOT see the Valk in the book. Did I missed it?

I like the backpack since I can take off the patches to make it look like an every day bag.

I was lucky to find a backpack set that hadn't been spoken for yesterday. I thought $95 for the bag, book, templates and dice was a steal.

Forgot to add the $5 BB coupon inside. 

I picked up my gamers edition today, and I took a little over an hour to flip through the book. There's clearly three parts to the book: how to play apocolypse, apocolypse hobby stuff, and Apocolypse datasheets.

The hobby stuff is pretty standard GW: nice, but nowhere near as interesting as the Cities of Death hobby section, IMO. The book has lots of color, and the three massive pullouts illustrating games were really cool. While not really battle reports, they did a great job of capturing the flavor of the game. I also like that one of the games was Ork on Eldar. Imperial/Chaos is good print, but a change is nice.

One interesting note: the advice on setting up and running a game, while at first they seemed like filler, are actually pretty good pointers. While a lot of it seemed pretty obvious, not everybody has planned this sort of stuff. In general, apocolypse is closer to a D&D campaign than a 40k game: you need a time, place, munchies, etc.

The apocolypse rules are well thought out, at least from an initial read through. The entire section is written cleanly and cleary (With a few odd exceptions to be mocked later), and there are plenty of times where JJ simply explains both how and why the rules work, turning areas that seem odd into more logical bits. There is solid guidance for things like table size, game time length, amount and dispersal of terrain, etc.

As an IG player, the dreaded 12" no mans land seemed horrible, but given a 6x8" table (pretty much the recommended size for 3-5k games), both players will have the depth to set up some interesting fire lanes. Flank March, of course, can change all that, but more on that later...

All games are objective based, with no value given to victory points. I like this, as nothing takes the joy out of a BFG quite like adding points for 20 minutes while trying to put stuff away. Each side lays three objectives, one in each deployment zone and the neutral zone, and however controls more at the end of the game, wins. The game has no set number of turns, rather players agree to a time to stop. It's elegant and convenient, and I think it'll make for some nice games.

The deployment/first turn bidding system is so incredibly cool, I wish it could be crammed into standard 40k. Knowing if you have first or second turn while deploying allows for better placement, and only getting the time you bid to deploy creates a certain urgency. All together, this fixes the worst part of big games: getting 2nd turn and watching your army get plastered.

The reserves system also works much better: rather than dice off for each unit, half come in on turn 2, half on turn 3. This allows you establish and use coherent reserve elements and protect them from shooting.

The superheavy rules have been cleaned up, the rules for Gargantuan creatures are insanse, and flyers are a lot more organic to the game, instead of the convoluted "flyer phase" of 40k.

The much ballhooed ally table is pretty silly, IMO. Imperial forces work together, "good guys" and "bad guys" all stick sort of together, while good guys and bad guys need a really, really good reason to be allies. JJ makes it clear that he doesn't see much reason to use the chart, but I guess it gives a way to quantify the fluff. some odd bits: Nids hate necrons, and Dark eldar are only grudgin allies to other DE, and space marines hate all xenos equally.

Destroyer weapons replace, IIRC, the titan killer ability from IA. They kill anything they touch, do tons of wounds to gargantuan creatures and mutliple SP's to super heavies. They don't even allow a cover save, but Invulnerables are allowed.

Primary weapons ignore weapon destroyed/crew stunned on a 4+. I like it as it prevents the first weapon destoryed from simply taking away a cool weapon.

Teh giant templates are neat, the barrage is cool but a bit fiddly from a first glance.

Finally, the most awaited (at least by me) aspect: the data sheets.

First off, some were clearly well thought out and playtested, such as any legendary unit and a few of the formations. Others proboby got a game or two, and were deemed good enough. In general the datasheets subscribe to the PP philosophy: who cares if it's broken, everything is broken!

Compared to IA, baneblades got a nearly 25% discount while the main gun got more durable and no has a 10" blast. The ability to take a cheap morale boost for IG make them nearly a no brainer. The cynic in me says that they want to sell baneblade kits, while the gamer says that the IA one was overcosted. Regardless, While the IA books seemed to go out of their way to preven the stuff from being overpowered, these datasheets are very much contemporary 40k: solid performers with a few nuggets of pure broken.

The hellhammer seems really only useful on tables with lots of terrain, but it'll clean up there. Yarrick's ride seems a bit expensive, but a 24" LD10 bubble with re-roll is worth a few points, as is Yarrick himself. It also gets a pintle mounted storm bolter, in case anybody though the Baneblade was 2 S4 shots away from greatness.

I'm not going to review all the formations, but a few stuck out with me as being winners:

1) Masters of the chapter. Aside from 5 pretty hard ICs and a command squad, for 200pts you get some very useful assests. Ambush lets you shoot at any unit, or entire formation using a flank march, with sniper fire, surgical raids hurt ICs and monats, precision strike can bring down a problem unit, and Orbital Barrage, while unreliable, hurts when it hits. IMO, outside of the smallest games, this formation is nearly mandatory for space Marines.

2) Thunderhawks, while expensive, are neat. They can also transport 30 marines (or say, 15 assault terminators) that can assault the turn they disembark. For only a little more than 3 landraiders, you can deliver your kickin' units exatly where you want them, and then blow up titans or bomb infantry for the rest of the game. It's cost is high, but with very little able to deal with an AV12 flyer, it's a fairly safe bet.

3) Space Marine Battle Company: with no need to buy rhinos, I'd recommend 6 tac squads with las/plas and powerfist, 2 furious charging assautl squads led by chaplains, and 2 Missile devs with tank hunter. all useful units, and the 200pts buys you another orbital barrage, the ability to bring in reserves on turns 1&2, and the ability to make all units, no matter how depleted, count as scoring for objective purposes. While not essential, these are nice abilities for such a low cost.

4) Dred Mob: 50pts buys Grot Riggers for everybody, and a KFF for the lead dread. Not bad at all, especially for unit that can line up on the line of scrimmage, so to speak.

5) Cloudstrike Squadron: You know what I hate? That falcons aren't durable enough. You know what else I hate? That pulse lasers aren't better against vehicles. Luckily, this formation solves both of those problems....

6) Aspect assault wave: It makes serpants a little more durable, and is cost appropriate. A good buy, and very flavorful.

7) Spirit host: Wraithguard aren't required, and they make all eldar within 12" fearless for 25pts. expect to see this endlessly to anchor footslogging eldar.

8) Wind rider host: While i'm not impressed by strategic redeployment (move the formation anywhere, can't move/shoot), flank march is a key to happiness. Lots of cheap scoring units in an enemies backfield is always hilarious, IMO.

9) Subterranean swarm: I'm not sure what a Trygon is (it looks like a mega ravenour) but a wad of assaulting ravenours that deepstrike, well, that's just good stuff. The price seems a little high, given the many other ways to getting them into combat (flank march, simply deploying close).

10) Mycetic Assault Swarm: While not cheap, at all, and the fexes lose a turn of shooting (unless you take careful planning), the ability to drop 5+ fexes in deepstrike, with a 5+ save.... is great. Is anybody else getting the feeling that GW got sick of Marines, and wants us all to hate Zilla for a while?

11) Armoured Interdiction Cadre: assuming every Tau player is bringing 3 Grav tanks to any game of apocolypse, 50pts for d3+1 markerlight hits a turn is just too good to pass up.

12) Ravager Titan hunters: not only did this have the best value set ($25 each if you buy 5!), this is actually a pretty sweet buy in game. These guys get alittle more durable, and have a neat toy for ignoring titan fields. A good buy, and a good candidate for "formation most likely to start game in reserve."

13) Brass Scorpion. AS anybody who read WD's battle report can attest, this thing is basically a fire ship. Shoot it if you feel like you have to, but just charge head long into the enemy lines, and hope it blows up.

14) Warp Rift: it's basically way to get lots of cheap, four wound monstrous creatures on the table without burning a character.

More to come later, including Polonius's early nominees for bad formations, and my hall of fame of missing formations....

Sorry, $22 not $25... Still, the book is a decent buy.

And Polonius, good write up, you capture a lot of my feelings on the book. Can't wait for part 2 (hint, hint).

Ozymandias, King of Kings