And i have to say, the game is very, very cool. They had a prerelease copy of the book at my store today and were running demo games. While everyone else was playing, i had the book to myself and wen through it cover to cover. I do not remember everything, but i got a lot of it stored away in my head, not i just need to drudge it back out....
Please forgive any spelling or grammar errors, i am tired as hell and hung over, too lazy to edit this all that thouroughly at the moment. Also, some of the finer details may not be 100% accurate as this is off memory, but the majority of what i write should be just about verbatum.
Bur here goes:
Rules:
First off, the basic game is unchanged. You use the exact same rules for Apoc as you do normal 40K. There are only a few, small changes to streamline the game. But in terms of combat, shooting, etc. nothing has changed. In my opinion, that is a good thing as it keeps things running smoothly and the way we are used to playing.
Set up is handled thusly: both sides agree to meet in advance with x amount of points on each side. All players should have there stuff ready to go ahead of time, with army lists etc. prepared. Also, WYSIWYG is mandatory in order to keep track of who has what.
Points only need to be roughly equal. For every full 250 points difference, the side with less points gets a stratagem. Also, each army gets a stratagm for each player on their side, so two on two with one side fielding 500 less points would result in two stratagems for the bigger army, and 4 for the smaller. A list of stratagems are in the back of the book, and there are a ton of them, ranging from orbital bombardment (very nasty) to strategic redployment (allowing a section of your ofrce to move anywhere on the board), base strucutres that give boosts to your troops, ways to keep units fighting, scoring, shoot or assault better for a turn (like one unit hitting on 2+), deffensive strutures
Once the board is set up (they recomend a 8" x 6" board for anything above 3K) you roll a scatter die in the middle of the table and draw a line from the arrow to a corner of the board, then from that board edge, draw a straight line to the furthest board edge. Therefore, you usually end up with a diagnol deployment zone, but one side can be bigger than the other by quite a bit, or it could end up being prefectly diveded in half. It makes for a funky but fun and different deployment zone every game.
From that line, you extend a 6 inch no mans zone in both directions, therefore giving you a 12" zone along the dividing line where no one can deploy without a special stratagem or rule.
After this, each player puts down three objectives, one in their deployment zone, one in no man's land, and one in the opponants zone. they follow the usual rules, 12" away from a board edge and another marker.
Another thing i like and that is pretty fun, is that once both players have determines sides by dicing, each team writes down a number from one to thirty as a wager for how many minutes they are willing to take for set up, and then places it face down on the table. Once both players have done so, they are turned face up and whoever wagered the lower number deploys second but only has x amount of minutes to do so, but also gets to go first. It makes for a good laugh and further encourages the social and fun aspect of the game. WHen you only have 5 minutes to deploy 10K points you dont always make the best tactical desicions, but you do get first turn. One of the stratagems you can buy is forcing your opponants to not speak to one another or comminicate in any way during their deployment which is very funny since they can not coordinate their game plan.
Once both sides have set up, the game begines and goes until a designated time, at which point the game is over once both players have had an equal amount of turns to play. Whoever has the most objectives wins, no VP's to tally up. Scoring units within 12" of the objective take it. There are stratgems which keep a unit scoring to the last man, tanks scoring even if immobilized, etc. They are very cool additions to the game and some of them are pretty off the wall like anti plant bombs (2nd ed anyone?) that clear a section of vegetation off the board, blind bombs that for a line that no one can draw LOS through, etc. They remind me a lot of some of the stuff from the old 2nd ed box with the strategy cards.
Also, the books gives rules for super heavies, gargantuan creatures and flyers as well as the stats for a ton of them in the book.
Gargantuan creatures are nasty, they can move 12" fire everything at different targets and are strength D in HtH. however, nothing stays locked in combat with them, anyone can just run away with no penalty. They roll three dice for difficult terrain and can reroll the results. They are insnae on the stat line too, like tough 8 with 10 wounds, etc. No mass points anymore, just wounds. They also ignore all pyschic attacks that do not directly cause damage.
Superheavy vehicles move 6" and fire everything at different targets it they wish. They can go through terrain and dont get immobilzed by it. Also, a new weapon class is in the book, "main weapon" which means that the weapon can ignore a stunned or weapon destroyed result on the dmage table on a 4+. The destruction table is horrendous! Once all structure points are gone, you roll on the dmage table, a glance gets -2 to the result, a pen has no modifier, and a D weapon gets +1. The table is, stunned, weapon destroyed, damage to engines (i cant rememner the exact term, but it cuts your movement in half, a second result is weapon destroyed), destroyed, explodes (2D6" 
, and appocolyptic explosion (6D6" str 9 AP2!) In our game, a Baneblade blew up like this and kill about 70 or so models, something insane. The brass scorpion gets +2 to that table, so it is pretty much a sure bet to blow up spectacularly. Also, there are three types of fields, power, void and holo. Power fields are Orky, and are armor 12 and go down to a glancing or pen hit. they cant come back. Void shields are imperial/chaos, and are the same as power fields but can come back online on a 5+ roll. Neither filed works within 12". The holo field is a 4+ invul for eldar super heavies.
Flyers are amazing! They start in reserve, and comeon anywhere on the board. Each turn they can leave the board back into reserve, or move anywhere on the table as long as it was more than 36" from where they started. They always count as shooting at side armor (to represent the top armor of a vehicle) and ignore all terrrain for the purposes of shooting unless it is area terrain and the target is in it. That means they can hit anything on the board in range. Also, they can drop the four leaf clover template as a bomb atack, or the giant flamer template as a napalm style bomb, so long as they are equiped to do so (most of them are). They can always move if they get a crew stunned result, but all immobilized results destroy them (and the model is just gone, it doenst crash on the table or anything). All ground units need a 6 to hit them, they can only be glanced and range is reduced by 12". AA guns, ignore the 6 to hit and the range reduction, and hit on normal BS instead. If the flyer can carry troops, and those troops are jumptroops, they may jump out of the tranport during any portion of its movement phase and deeptrike onto the table, very cool! (although in reality it is not different from normal deepstriking jump pack troops, i jus tlike the visual)
Also, if a vehicle is VTOL capable it can choose to operate as a fast skimmer instead of a flyer. In this mode, it counts as a scoring unit (normal flyers do not) but now is treated just as if it were a skimmer for targeting and shooting and movement. In this mode, non jump troop units may hop out, and in some cases, transported vehicles may get out and drive off!
Reserves are handled SO much better. Half come on on turn two, half on turn three, of your choice. I wish normal 40K went this way. Certain stratagems allow you to place units in reserve intentinally and then have them come on on any board edge.
Layout and Approach
The game very strongly emphasizes fun, not competetive play. The rules are written in the same way you would talk to a buddy, full of jokes and tips. The tell you flat out to make up any house rules you want if it suits you, such as allowing only one of a named special character, etc.
Threre are literally no force org charts. you can put ANYTHING you want down, although they do include a chart in the back of the book for likely allies, stating that any alliances that would normally run counter to the fluff need to be justified with some sort of backstory, but really that is just to appease the fluff monkey's out there, the ruels allow anything. There are a ton of sample armies with some crazy stuff, like a bug army with 6 hive tyrants and hundred of little bugs. Another was a Sister army with marines and a squad of harlies.
There are a ton of pictures in the book too, and some really cool, off the wall armies in there, plus some crazy boards set up that have bridges conecting seperate sections, etc. Very cool visually. I would honestly say the book is worth it for the art and inspiring pictures alone. There are a ton of new, fun armies in thee to check out.
After the rules section (which is very brief) they go into ideas for game play and then into the background for each army. There is a some cool and entertaining fluff for EACH army in the book.
The data sheet section is extensive, some armies get the short end of the stick unfortunately, like nothing for deamonhunters or sisters, which is a bummer, and only one entry for some armies like dark eldar. They did say, however, that they would be constantly coming up with new ones for all armies avialable for free on line.
Datasheets
This was the fun part. A datasheet contains a detachment of troops that use special rules. It can be as simple as a superheavy, a named superheavy, or a collection of units that get a special bonus such as the Ork dread mob, etc. Most of us are familiar with these by now, so i will go over them fairly briefly to give a taste of what they do, or the more exciting ones.
Baneblade:
tough armor (cant go into too many stats, dont want to get anyone in trouble) but just like a demolisher with better rear armor, the main cannon is strength D, 10" blast, and if the whole is over terrain, the terrain is blown apart too! 3 structure points, 500 point cost, very bad ass machine. 100 points gives you the side sponsons ith lascannons and heavy bolters, or you can upgrade a point of armor on the sides. Far more powerful than the forgeworld vehicle.
Yarrick's baneblade gives rerollable ld 10 to all IG in 12" and makes Orks run away or something similar.
The Hellhammer fires the big boom stick, but at a shorter range and ignore cover saves.
The giant sentinal squad is cool and can redploy once per game anywhere on board.
Bassie companies can fire a ranging shot first and then all other bassies may choose to atuomatically hit that point wihout scattering.
tank comapny can ignore skaen results if withing 12" of command tank, and still count as scoring even if immobilized.
All imperial aircraft are in, and the hellstrike missles are now unlimited range! The valkyrie and vulture will be very very useful to IG now, i know ill be getting some to make air cav for my boys.
the Ogryn datasheet lets them scout move and they had a really funny name for one of the example squads: "the emperor's loyal lads" i dont know why i thought that was so funny, but hey, im pretty out of it right now.
The orc baneblade is flipping awesome! It is a fast (yes fast) vehicle, open topped with one point worse front armor, but it carries 30 orcs! The thing is a scratch builder/convertor's dream, and i imagine we will see some really cool conversions with this one. It lacks some guns the normal bainblade has, but still packs a wallop.
The stompa in the new WHite Dwarf is the real stompa and seeing more pics, i like it now [Jeff Hall has since confirmed that the Stompas pictured are conversions]. the yellow paint job in the dwarf just sort of sucks. The stompa will be released too, along with codex orks, it is not a pipe ream. Also, the thing is so cool! it has just plain crazy guns that not only wreck shop, but are oh so orky. The "psycho dakka blasta" is a gun the fires once per game, but it is str 7 Ap3. It is a giant gattling shoota that is heavy 2d6. you fire it at a squad, then pick the next nearest squad and keep hopping squad to squad untill you roll doubles! the thing put out 43 shots in a game we played! after that it is out of ammo, but the stompa has a ton of other guns too, all that kick ass. There are two versions of it, the second being the big mek version (the stomp with no horns in the white dwarf) that is the same basic vehicle but has a lifta dropps instead! yes! if you remember that gun from 2nd ed, it is a blast. you use it to pick up enemy tanks and then smash their own units with it, just a very fun unit.
the gargantuan squigoth is in, crazy amount of wounds and toughness and carries a ton of big guns and 20 orcs, treated as open topped for assault and embarking.
*there are pictures of the new Orc bikesin the book too, and they look awseome! Like little choppers, and every third or so bike has a unique body. it looks like you can build lots of different bikes with modular parts, so each one is fairly unique. The Ork warboss on bike is mean looking, with a sleeker bike and a big power claw. Compared ot the old bikes, they are about 100 times an imporvement. The new truk is just fantastic too, it looks like a big half trak but orkified, and a gorgeous model. the buggies are vastly improved too. i would say that they are some of the coolest looking models i have seen in a while, and are very Orky [Jeff Hall has also confirmed that both the Bikes and Trukks pictured in the book are also conversions].
The Kult of speed can redploy anywhere on board
the dread mob gets a kustom forcefield to any kan or dread within 12" of the command dread
The bugs get deepstriking carnies!! 5 of them can deepstrike nd they get a 5+ cover save the turn they deepstrike.
endles sqrm is 120+ gaunts of any flavor that get wihtout number plus if the enemy rolls a certain amount of 6's to hit, they ran out of ammo and cant shoot for a turn.
they also have the giant barbed hirodule and the giant spider looking bug (cant remember name, too lazyt o check forgworld right now) and he is tough 9 10 wounds with two heavy 8 str 10 ap 3 guns!! ouchers.
they also had a datasheet for 9+ ravenors that all got to deepstrike off of the lead ravenor without deviating if i remember correctly.
Tau had the battlesuit datasheet (9 suits and 3 stealths) that let them deepstrike witout deviating if withing LOS of the stealth suits.
the amorred interdiciton force got three free markerlight hits per tunr, and consisted of i believe two hammerheads and a skyray.
they also had a three krootox datasheet, cant remeber what they did though.
dark eldar got the three ravager shot that lets them ignore fields.
Eldar got a three falcon formation that lets them all charge up for a tunr and their pulse lasers counts a lance weapons, or the damned things can take off into flight and reappear anywhere onthe board from reseves! damn falcons!
the aspect warrior assault (somethng like that) data sheet was three squads of wave serpaent that if they stayed in formation, they could use their field to make all incoming shots strength 7 max, or they could fire off the field and tank shock units with it and cause a pin check.
they have a windrider host that consists of a lot of bikes and vypers and can redploy anywhere on board.
the revenant titan is a beast, it is only armor 12 with holo fields, but it fires 4 str D pie plates a turn! In our game it used a stratagem to come on the chaos board edge right behind a chaos warhound titan and walked inside of the warhounds void shileds, then lit it up. THen it charged it in HTH, destroying it. very cool moment in the game. also, the revenant can move 24" if i remember correctly, it is very fast.
Necrons got the pylon, which is a uber powerful one shot weapon or a multi shot weapon like the monolith.
three monoliths form a tirangle and give +1 to WBB rolls to any unit in thta triangle, and stop all pyshich attacks form entering within. Lash of submission what?
Chaos suprisngly only got two datasheets if i remember correctly, one of which is the tie of spawn, turning 10 guys into 10 spawn.
the other was the three vindicator formation where they can combine there shots to make a str D 10" pieplate that rmoves terrain.
They also got hte line breaker data sheet i believe, which is the same for space marines: three landraiders in formation that ignore skaken or stunned.
Marines got the masters of the chapter, each guy has a really cool ability. One is the oribital bombardment, one is strategic redployment, ambush (lets you hit any unit that comes on from reserve with a bunch of hits, cant remember the spcifics) and infiltrate, i believe.
the battle company stratagem gives you three extra stratagems, although my memory is failing me as to what they were at themoment, ill post it later if i can remember.
the thunderhawk is awesome 3 structure points, can carry 20 marines, 6 bomb or missle racks, either a big template cannon or a str D laser for its main gun and multiple las cannons and heavy bolters.
the whirlwind unit has unlimited range to aything in 36" of the spotter land speeder.
Lastly, the Warlord titan is in, and it is insane! 2500 points, 9 struture points and 6 void shilds, and just insane weapons! armor 14, the thing is insane, and is in the works from forgeworld. i cant wait to see the model.
There were a few more i cant rememer off hand.
I am sure i am forgetting stuff, but i will psot more as it comes to me. On the whole, I have to sy the game is just plain fun. I really like it personally, and think it will be nothing but a good thing for the community.
" - Mad4Minis
& 
at Guardian Games or Ordo Fanaticus Club Night
