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usually when i play apoc i use 2 fighta bombas but only have 1 model the way around this short coming is that after my first fighta bomba drops all his ordance i have it disengage and on the next turn i fly in the "other" one using the same model. The other day i was playing this way and a guy cried foul after i carpet bombed his IG flew the fighta bomba off and then flew a "new" one in and tried to bomb them again. He kept making claims that i was using the same model and i already dropped the bombs. I even declared that the model was disengaging from the battle and pointed out the "counts as" rule saying that now the fighta bomba counts as a second one, and that i paid double the points for it. My question is was what i did beardy? i felt as if i was following the RAW and as intended, i paid for two fightas in points. by general consensus i kept the second bomber but the guy kept shooting me looks all night and i don't wanna be the guy that people don't want to play

and on another note besides blatant cheating is there anyway to be beardy in Apoc?

Fighta bombas 'without number', though that is not strictly what you had, sounds right for Apoc to me.

I witnessed a Apoc game where a marine player had an entire Battle Company in reserve. He was dropping the whole thing in via drop pods (I'm not sure if this is legal because the player was combining the apocalypse battle formation with the drop pod assualt special rule from the space Marine codex. I assumed that the Marines had to be mounted in Rhino's but I may be missing something here). Anyway that's not the cheezy part. On turn 3 the entire Space Marine battle company attempted to deep strike but landed with-in 48" of an enemy (Chaos) disruptor beacon. The Chaos player rolled a 5 and promtly relocated the entire Battle Company to the opposite table corner. The Battle Company was so far away from any action that the Marine Player didn't have any impact on the game at all!

That sucks. Pack up and drag your entire Battle Company down to the store. Set-up the tables and discuss strategy with your team for about two hours. Wait another two hours for turn three to arrive only to have your entire force drop down in a useless sector of the battlefield. Spend the rest of the day moving your 100+ Marines models across the board each turn in a desperate attempt to get to grips with the enemy. I don't think the poor guy even rolled a single dice for shooting, close combat or made an armour save!

That was pretty cheezy. It was as if the Disruptor Beacon had said "Before playing the game roll 1d6. If you roll a 4+, select 1/3 of the enemy force. Those forces are removed from the game."

as long as you payed the points i dont see a problem with it but thats me. that guy was more then likely upset that he might lose because of it.

holden88 wrote:I
That was pretty cheezy. It was as if the Disruptor Beacon had said "Before playing the game roll 1d6. If you roll a 4+, select 1/3 of the enemy force. Those forces are removed from the game."

Wrong. Not cheesey whatsoever. The marine player totally did this to himself.

1. He chose to come in by deepstrike. He didn't have to do this, and could have avoided the area of the disruptor beacon.
2. He knew, or should have known, what the Disrupter beacon is. They are announced during set up. He knows the rules good enough to bring the battle company, but not good enough to know what a disruptor beacon is?
3. The beacon can be destroyed. Any glancing hit on armor 13 and it's gone. Drop ordanance or an apocalyptic barrage on it and it's pretty much toast. Hmm, doesn't the battle company give you an apocalyptic barrage? Maybe he should have hammered the beacon a bit first before dropping?
4. So basically, he gambled his entire game, knowingly, on the roll of a D6, and lost.

Bad example of cheese. Well, unless you mean the SM player. Does he own 11 drop pods? Or were they 'counts as' drink cups or pieces of paper. (Kudos to him if he does own them, he's in the minority of what I've seen show up for major tournaments, let alone a friendly game.).

As to the main question: No, if you are actually playing Apocalypse by the book, you really can't be too cheesey. The game is supposed to be friendly, and you're supposed to set it up with your opponents, decide on how you want to play the game, and have some fun.

What I'm seeing happen a lot isn't that. People decide to just show up at a store or basement for a game, with no discussion, and figure that anything goes. After seeing 5 monoliths deepstrike onto a tank company and pretty much ruin a game in turn 1, I'd agree that there are some things can seem 'too cheesey'.

We avoid this somewhat by using the 'Richard' system. We say the games are either:

No 'Richard': No sneaky tricks that might screw up the game. No cheesey combos like Flank attack on turn 1. No 'I took 100 orbital barrages and 1 Inquisitor'. Talk about the superheavies being taken, agree on points, state what we don't like. Work hard for a longer, more relaxing game.

Half 'Richard": Only some things are restricted. Deepstriking Monoliths, Flank March, Jammers, Putting all your army on 1/2 of the table, nothing on the other. Small sneakiness is fine.

Full 'Richard': Anything goes. Be a 'Richard'. End the game turn 1 if you can.

Apocalypse has a wide open system. If people abuse it, talk to them. If they just don't get it, don't play with them.

The fighta-bomba thing I wouldn't mind at all. I mean you're kind of hamstringing yourself by making it disengage each turn, so that's a decent sacrifice to balance out the lack of two of the models. The alternative is a fighta-bomma and a snap-tek F-14 plane with an ork glued to the top to represent the other one. That's not so cool.

As for the battle company, you sure it's one roll for the whole company? I'm pretty sure the beacon rolls for UNITS, and thus would get a roll for each unit in the battle company separately.

Though the marine player kind of had it coming by doing drop pods [not a legal move btw with the battle company] instead of rhinos. He cut his own squads' movement to 6" a turn instead of being in more mobile transports.

Drop pods ARE valid with a battle company. The Formation is:
1 SM Captain
0-1 Chaplains
1 Command Squad
6 ten-man Tactical squads
2 ten-man assault squads
2 ten-man devestator squads

No mention of what transports the units may or may not take. Since Rhinos OR Drop Pods are a valid choice for all these units, you may deploy the Battle Company on DP's.

Also the disrupter beacon IS one roll per unit within 48", so the marine player did get hosed by a misinterperetation there.

No he didn't.
The SM company datasheet IS ONE unit.


All of the formations in either Apoc, IA:APoc or that WD issue or the downloads are all single units. The description for legendary units says so.

An Ancients Assault Force, SM Drop Co, Baneblade co, etc, are all ONE unit each, not a unit comprised of several units.

You can field a SM Co in pods that don't all scatter elsewhere from a DB, by fielding the 100-odd SM in pods as separate units. To gain the bonus strategems, you pretty much are forced to use (the SM Battle co force) them as the ONE unit, in order to get the benefits. The downside is the balance.

It's not one unit, otherwise they'd all take morale checks as one, could all only shoot at a single target, could never fit in a transport because they're too big, etc.

It's a battlegroup, so in terms of reserves they come in together. Aside from that normal unit rules apply and they are quite separate within the formation.

is it possible to be bearly in apoc? yes, flank march and carrful planning is beardy (so much so that we've banned flank march). if using a model twice in an apocalypse game beardy? no. they guy you were playing against was just probably pissed off that you killed most of his army.

Spellbound wrote:
It's a battlegroup, so in terms of reserves they come in together. Aside from that normal unit rules apply and they are quite separate within the formation.

In terms of reserves, they come in as you see fit, up to half on turn two, and the rest on turn three. I think you're mistakenly thinking of the rules for other legendary units such as the Emporer's Fist Tank company, or The Armoured Spearhead; Both of these formations have the "Strike Force" rule, which states certain limitations on how and where individual units of the formation may be deployed. Note that this rule still does not override the basic reserve rules of "up to half and then the rest".


To the OP I don't think what you did was particularly beardy or unbalanced, though I can see the point of not having the correct (number of) model(s) to field the list you wrote. IMO you should have the models for every unit you plan to field, and due to the very nature of Ork vehicles you can get another fightabomma with a little patience (and probably less than $5) at your local walmart or Target, or dollarstore. Add some Orky bits, some Grots/Orks, half a pint of superglue into a bucket, stir and let dry.

Apocalypse is a game of anything goes. the question is your groups definition of anything.

GW deliberately has made no attempt to 'police' balance in Apocalypse, but has stated on record time and again that it is only semi competetive and primarily a fun game. You atre free to do what you want, but such freedom can be abused. There are just too many ways to make a broken Apcalypse army. You either decide to do so or not to. There are no army lists primarily so that people could field themed armies, not so that people can minimax.

You want an Adesperate alliance between an Inquisitor Lord and a Farseer with whatever forces both muster, do so. The whole idea is to have a reason to bring anything to the tabletop, not an excuse. There is a difference.

Deepstriking a whole battle company sound a very reasonable thing to do. not doing your intel beforehand is a very stupid thing to do.

Finally people get the wrong idea of what is cheesy in apocalypse, by and large it is not the legendary units, but mases of underpriced high end normal units, and some unit combinations, especially those from multiple armies that have a powerful synergy. Warhound titans are not that scary.

Jammers, in any mega-mega game, is the cheesiest cheese that was ever made in Wisconson. I love it.

I don't see a problem with it, if anything is hindering yourself not having the models as you can't do the run simultanesouly (if i'm understanding the situation). Having to disengage and use them one a time should benefit your opponent - divide and conquer, withthe divide being premade.

Too beardy? nope. If your opponent is too beardy for your liking, don't play them again. Or be beardy back next time. Even if they are, who cares if you still enjoy yourself. You'll feel betetr if you beat a beardy opponent while not being so yourself anyway. It's more of an achievment. Also it's a game, cheesy but it's the takin gpart that counts. if your opponenet has to be beardy to win, then they're the one loosing out. I honestly feel sorry for people who feel they have to win all the time. Yes a win now and again is good, but if you constantly play to win, you either won't be too impressed with the result or be dissapointed with the outcome. If you lay for fun you have fun, if you win more the better! Next time take a whole squadron of fighter bombers and use them one at a time imperial style! And to the space marine player, sh~t happens, deal with it and learn from the mistakes. But have fun doing it. We used to play our home made game 'Rhino rampage' with nothing but rhinos. You'd never guess how much fun you can get from one rhino when you're in the right frame of mind

Yeah, using one fighta bomma for two is fine by me!

But the guy with the disruptor beacon needs a good talking to on how to play like a gentleman. The battlegroup is NOT one unit, so the disruptor beacon should roll for each one that comes in. The datasheets which form a single unit (like the green horde or the Tyranid brain-bug swarm of zoanthropes & tyrant) specifically say that they form a single unit.

So, it is possible to misinterpret or abuse the rules in apocalypse, but beardy? I don't really think so. In my experience, there is so much crazy stuff going on that no matter how big and nasty your datasheet/force is, the opponent can bring something just as big and nasty. Either that, or the sheer quantity of normal stuff becomes powerful just through the massive increase in size.

Hope you have more fun in your next game!

I guess the Battle Company was confusing me because the page shows all those rhino's in the formation. Actually reading the entry reveals that the the Rhino's are not mandatory.

The Apoc rulebook does state that "units bought together to form a battle formation are deployed simultaneously when the formation is deployed." I believe this means that you cannot deploy some of them on turn two and the rest on turn three. Since they all have to be deployed simulaneously (ie: on the same turn) You need to wait until turn three to drop the entire formation (when you deploy all remaining forces is reserve). There is no ruling that states they have to be deployed together however. They can be spread all over the board if desired.

Yes, it is possible to be cheesy. There is a difference between mashing up whatever models you've got into a crazy force and specifically tailoring a force for Apoc. We actually had an Apoc Tourney a while ago and one team had 2 warhounds and a baneblade coupled with the super-seer council battle group and wraithlords. There was also the Armored Company + all Death Company + 2 Landraider army that was pretty silly. So, kind of like what has already been stated. The player can make the game cheesy. If you've played someone already you should know what type of person they are. It should be pretty easy to find someone who you can have a fun game of Apoc with, but GW is leaving the cheesiness up to the individual and personally I love it.

I do NOT think using the fighta bomba like you did was cheesy.

APOC is meant to be fun, not a game of who can come up with a better combo. If you're not having a gentlemanly game, just play 40k at 3000 points and drop the strategems. The strategems (and formations and units) aren't meant to be balanced. They're meant to be fun and fluffy and a chance to field lots of stuff you don't normally.

There's a reason GW has said the Baneblade isn't 40k legal, just APOC legal.

Fielding the Fighta-Bomba with one model as two is fine. I think it was a case of sour grapes. Maybe the Chaos player made a mistake. Doesn't matter, he needs to ask himself, did he half fun gimping his opponent? I'm sure he feels like he's a bigger man for winning, but he's not. This is why you're supposed to set some ground rules and have a cooperative game (perferably with a narrative!) and not just throw down with whatever you have.

Just because you can Flank March a platoon of LeMan Russes and bring them on turn 1 with Careful Planning, doesn't mean that you should. Hey, great, I spent two hours getting everything gathered up, going to the FLGS, unpacking, setting up, and now I'm blasted apart because the other guy wants to win more than he wants to have a sporting good time. No thanks.

I swear that about every two months, this topic comes up.

In APOC, the gloves are off. That's good and bad. You can be horribly beardy and cheesy, but also just have crazy fun.

Cheesy in apoc is a question of mindset IMO.

"Great, I get a chance to field all the models I have!"


vs.

"Great, now I get a chance to field my unbeatable wet dream of 20 Holo-Falcons, 10 Eldrads and Prisms to make up the points!"

See the difference?

yeah the whole company comes on at once - that's the beauty of using the formations. But each is a separate unit and would be affected by the beacon separately.

Apocolypse is supposed to be about FUN even more than the usual game. You should let people take just about anything they want (I despise rules-lawyering in any game).

If I redeployed my opponent's entire collection to the other side of the board, how boring would that be for both of us? I would roll it per (normal) unit.

I would also allow someone to pay double the points for a fighta and allow it to have double the payload without hesitation. I would of course prefer if it was modelled to reflect this double-dipping.