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And here are some tips if you are planning on doing the same. I will post a report and some pics in the future.

Emperor class titans are ridiculous. We had one and on the first turn he fired two vortex missles and wiped out a Primarch and his 4 bloodthirster bodyguard, two Tyranid Gargantuan creatures and a host of other little gribblies. And then he fired the rest of his Str D weapons! The way we were deployed, he was surrounded by super heavy tanks, so there was no chance of assaulting him, which you really must do to stop him. He just obliterated unit after unit. As funny as it sounds, I feel that he is undercosted at 4K points, but then, how often will you ever use him?

DO NOT PLAY LONG WAYS ON A TABLE!! The game was fought between a quarter of our points at the front line because everything was too far behind other units on either team to do anything. We had a 6 foot wide front and 8 feet of depth in each deployment zone, it made for a big traffic jam. If we would have played length wise, with a 16' front and only 6' of seperation, it would have been a lot bloodier and more enjoyable. Some players never got to participate because their units were too far back in the deployment zone.

Tau fliers are NASTY! Wow, those things, and the Vulture too, put a serious arse whooping on our enemies.

The Chaos asset that allows every commander to take a disruptor beacon is not a lot of fun, it basically means you can not outflank or deepstrike any units on their side of the board. Both sides tried and ended up with thousands of points of our units in a far corner of the board where they would not participate in the game. I would suggest only allowing one disrupter beacon per side just to make the game more fun.

The orbital defence laser is awesome, well worth the points.

The fortifications asset rocks, and is well worth it. 6 bunkers filled with a troops choice each make for a solid desence of your objective.

And, most importantly, unless you want to seriously annoy your opponant, do not take 4,000 points of pulsa rokkits. Read the rules for them. Wow, that was the most annoying thing ever. But in all fairness, without them the other team would not have stood a chance. We outgunned them on a ludicrous level. The pulsa rokkits kept about 2/3's of our army from firing for 3 turns. They basically glance everything within 4D6" of them D3 times, and cause troops to go to ground with no recourse of any kind and take 3D6 wounds. And, they have 2 structure points each and can explode apocalyptically when they go. They ignore anything other than a destroyed result on the damage table so they are a bitch to kill, and they basically can not miss. If you take 18 of them, like one of our opponants did, you can alpha strike and on a crowded table like ours was, each one will hit several units and keep them from doing anything. It is a very good tactic, but makes for a really unenjoyable time as a lot of guys entire armies did nothing the whole game but watch their units sit in one spot and slowly get whittled down until the were destroyed with no chance to fight back. Its no fun to not participate in the game.

And, a little trumpet blowing, Platuan4th's troops squad in my Stormlord won the game on the last turn by seizing the final objective! Way to go team! When the smoke settled the Stormlord had one structure point left and only two or three functional guns out of 10!

Here is a rough run down of the utter rediculousness we had on the table:

Emperator Titan (Scratch built, and very nice looking if still unpainted)
3 Warhounds
12 or 13 Baneblade Variants
10 or 12 Land Raiders
More tanks than I could count of every variety, litteraly almost no part of the table was uncovered with tanks when the game began.
About 100 terminators
Characters galore
two Superheavy Tau Flyers
Vulture
Oribtal Defence Laser
Perturbo with 4 bloodthirster bodyguards
2 Harridons
6 Barbed Hyrodules
2 Trygons
Countless Carnifexes
3 or 4 Hive Tyrants with wings or full tyrant guard
a half dozen Defilers
a few dozen walkers of all types
Kharn
Abadon
Hundreds of Ork boys and Guants
the list goes on, it was nuts.

But, Imperial Guardsmen and a squad of Dire AVengers won the game! Gotta love them troops!

As I said, I will post some pics when I have a few minutes, aside forom the hour and a half it took to work out the pulsa rokkits each turn, it was a really good time.

Some good tips there. It does sound quite frustrating to have your army stuck at the back of the board as you say. I can't wait to see the pics.

The Dark Green Shadowsword, Baneblade, Russes, and Vanquisher are mine, along with the Sisters Rhino, the 2 Inquisitors by the Imperator, the 3 Lascannon Sentinels, the Black and Grey camo Armorcast Baneblade, and anything Eldar(Check out Karandras manning the Stormlord's Passenger Compartment gun).

All the sand colored tanks, the 2 white Baneblades and the red and black Guard vehicles are Reecius'.

I still say there would have been alot more action had the other team not taken the Chaos Conclave. All those Chaos Marines and Orcs that just sat around bored would have gotten deep into the action if those 8 droppods and full Blood Angel Lucifer Formation had landed safely not to mention all the flank marching tanks that ended up in the wrong corner of the board. Plus with the pulsar rokkits keeping all the tanks stunned that mass of terminators in landraiders barely made it a crossed no-mans land by the end of the game. Cassius and about 10 TH/SS terminators had to clear the way for the Stormlord clearing the objective off.

My marines are the black and orange ones with stripes, you can see my Master of the Forge manning a bunker along with his dreadnought friends just behind it ready to counter assault the incoming waves and a couple of my HQs riding in Reecius' landraiders.

Thanks Platuan! Karanadras also splattered a Harridon! That was sweet, like little Mac in Mike Tyson's punch out!



Game sbeggining, the tank parking lot and the Emperor titan.











And the crazy part is, a lot of the super units were held in reserve! This does not even show everything we had.

Yeah I agree Heimdall, if it were not for those termies that actually made it across no man's land, the game would have been a tie. It was fun, but I think it woul dhave been more fun had we deployed the long ways. That way everyone would have been able to fight and the stupid pulsa rokkits would have affected both armies, not just stunned us the enitre flipping game.

Heimdall wrote:I still say there would have been alot more action had the other team not taken the Chaos Conclave.

QFT. We banned it back when I was living in Baton Rouge because it's one of those things(like Jammers) that just bogs down and destroys the fun of the game. Apocalypse is full enough already of people not getting to use everything(and sometimes anything!), why add to that?

It just seemed like a poor tactical choice for them to take it, they had a massive amount of assault power sitting 6 feet away from the front lines, they probably could have killed everything that came in on their side but instead they just sent more firepower into range to destroy pulsar rokkits and the deep striking carnifexes.

What people don't seem to realise is that Strategic Assets are:

1. Not at all balanced.
2. Do not scale well, especially the 'whole board' style assets.

The bigger the game, the more valuable something like Disruption Beacon. Games like this one - and I mean no offence by this Reecius - remind me of the first Apoc game I played where we hated it. It was grab your biggest stuff, make your best list, use whatever and go! There was no theme or story behind it - it was just throwing our best models at one another - and it wasn't fun.

Since then every Apoc game we've played (about 5 or 6) has had a very strong story and theme built around it. Sides are mixed where it makes sense (no armies of Chaos/Eldar/Marines/Necrons vs Guard/Tyranids/Tau/Orks), and lists are built to look like an actual fighting force that fits the fluff, rather than just throwing our biggest guns into every game (otherwise every Apoc game we played would have every Super-Heavy we own in it all the time).

We've even taken forces that were there just for the plot, like my massive Inquisitorial Lord Retinue who's existed only to take on a Daemon Prince in HTH (and lose horribly) or a 'Summoning Circle' consisting of 5 very powerful Chaos Lords that the opposing player paid points for, but was unable to use until a specific objective was met (in this case, summoning the aforementioned Daemon Prince that killed my Inquisitor!).

But furballs where you throw every tank you own can have its merits, but if I'm going to the effort of making a 15,000 point list, I want to be fighting for something more than 'bragging' rights, and I don't want to ever just be throwing my wallet down on the table.

You know there's this other game GW makes called Epic . . .

Its funny that you say that HBMC, because I am organizing a campaign right now that begins next week with just the ideas you put down as guidelines. It will end with an Apoc game wherein all armies are themeed and there will be limits on what can be taken.

I did not organize this game, and it was a complete cheese fest on both sides. It was fun, but there were certain elements to it that certainly detracted from the enjoyment of the game.

For the most part, I love Apoc, it is really fun, but there needs to be limits or things like the Emperor titan or 4,000 points of pulsa rokkits just make for a far less enjoyable game.

And yes Uriels, thanks for that. In all this time, I never have heard of Epic, nor had I made the connection that Apoc is Epic in 40K scale. Where would I be without such brilliant suggestions?!

Sorry to be so sarcastic but obviously the point of a 20 man (Well, 19 men and one woman!) game is not to play Epic.

Wow guys... On the one hand, I'm sorry I wasn't there to add my Dark Angels to the imperial side but on the other hand, not sure I could have made it through a 20 person game (at least, not without copious amounts of alcohol).

Looks like it was a blast though!

HBMC, I like your ideas and I wish I had the time and energy to play games like that. You should post the scenarios and stuff your group makes to cut out half the work for us lazy gamers.

Yeah, the monthly Apoc games in Baton Rouge are run like H.B.M.C.'s games: scenarios, fluff, and themes.

There's Restrictions, too: Aside from just points (generally 2500), you're limited in the amount of Super-heavies you can bring(1 of each within your Super-heavy allowance[generally 1250 points] unless you bring an official model[GW/FW/armorcast], in which case you may bring multiples of that type up to your allowance), no choosing Flank March or Jammers(a couple other I can't remember ATM), no Chaos formation that makes characters Disruptor Beacons.

There's more, but I can't remember them.

Reecius wrote:And here are some tips if you are planning on doing the same.

Emperor class titans are ridiculous.

DO NOT PLAY LONG WAYS ON A TABLE!!
a 16' front and only 6' of seperation, it would have been a lot bloodier and more enjoyable.

The Chaos asset that allows every commander to take a disruptor beacon is not a lot of fun,

The orbital defence laser is awesome, well worth the points.

The fortifications asset rocks, and is well worth it.

And, most importantly, unless you want to seriously annoy your opponant, do not take 4,000 points of pulsa rokkits.

Yeah, I think the biggest problem was that you played narrow instead of wide. While 16' wide x 6' deep would have been ideal, even 12' wide x 8' deep would have been a much better game. We usually end up playing on a board roughly 12' wide x 6' deep, with far less points, so everybody gets to do something.

Massed Disruptor beacons are pretty annoying - we usually don't have enough players to take too many of these. But massed Artillery in response isn't a bad idea - that's what Basilisk Batteries are for!

I'm surprised the Imperials didn't take a few thousand points of Inquisitional Orbital Bombardments to counter the Pulsas... 3500 pts of Lance Strikes is 50 S10 AP1 pie plates. Sure, they spread out over a 6' x 8' area, but that's still enough to drop more than 1 pie plate per square foot of enemy DZ.

the scratch built titan, looks like a warlord, not an imperator.
just pointing out.
and there is no way i could play ina game that big, it stops being worth it with that many people cheesing and running around like that

Platuan4th wrote:it's one of those things(like Jammers) that just bogs down and destroys the fun of the game.

Yeah, Jammers is horrible, because it kills the smack talk that is integral to the game.

Also, the maximum Deployment time is too high. Deployment should be bid with the lower number winning, but the higher number simply gains 1 extra minute total.

Also, the maximum Deployment time is too high. Deployment should be bid with the lower number winning, but the higher number simply gains 1 extra minute total.

That would have been funny, they bid 30 mins and managed to run out of time. We barely made our 5 mins but they wouldn't have been close to 6 mins.
Part of the fun was hanging out with friends I know my turn tended to end very quickly (half my points got disrupted into the boring corner) so I spent quite a bit of time just chatting and hanging out which can be some fun too. I think we had planned on taking Inquisitional Orbital Bombardments but didn't because they have to be tied to terrain and the scenario said we were trying to take a mining world with almost no terrain. There were definitely some lessons learned and I'm sure things will go better next time.

Yeah, I think the biggest problem was that you played narrow instead of wide. While 16' wide x 6' deep would have been ideal, even 12' wide x 8' deep would have been a much better game. We usually end up playing on a board roughly 12' wide x 6' deep, with far less points, so everybody gets to do something.

Massed Disruptor beacons are pretty annoying - we usually don't have enough players to take too many of these. But massed Artillery in response isn't a bad idea - that's what Basilisk Batteries are for!

I'm surprised the Imperials didn't take a few thousand points of Inquisitional Orbital Bombardments to counter the Pulsas... 3500 pts of Lance Strikes is 50 S10 AP1 pie plates. Sure, they spread out over a 6' x 8' area, but that's still enough to drop more than 1 pie plate per square foot of enemy DZ.

Yeah, I don't know why they chose to play long ways, a lot fo people did nothing or nearly nothing and it kind of stunk for them. But like Heimdall said it was a learning experience and next time we will alter things. None of us (at least no one I spoke to) had played a game this big before, not even close, so it was pretty new.

Artillery was of limited use, we had one chance to shoot the Pulsas before they fired and with 3 structure points each (I forogt they were all updated) 18 of them and an invul save on all of them due to an asset, and only damaging them on a pen roll of 5 or higher, it is unlikely we would have done anything. As it was, with stupidly massive firepower, it took three turns of dedicated attack to blow them up, they are just seriously the most annoying thing in the game. Plus we had about 10,000 points of incredibly nasty stuff right in front of us that needed shooting. The most ridiculous thing is the guy who brought them, bought 6 stompas for the game and used none of them! If he had brought the stompas it would have been more fun for eveyone I think, but hey, we had no rules in place as to who could bring what.

The lance strikes would have done almost nothing even if they did hit. It would not have stopped the incoming barrage of annoyance.

But oh well, it was still a fun way to spen dthe day, and it went pretty fast all things considered. We were done in 10 hours which isn't bad considering the size of the game.

Yeah he who stood, you are correct, the builder wanted it to look like a bigger Warlord, he didn't like the way the Imperator looked. The pictures honestly don't do it justice, it was a great scratchbuild. Once it was finished and painted, it would be pretty awesome.

Like most people, it seems, I am still confused why it was played with that table orientation.

Yeah, you and all of us. I think the organizer said it was so that the titans would be able to fire, they were afraid with minimum ranges that the big guns would not get to shoot, but I am not certain.

Long ways would have made for a much more enjoyable game, I think.

Heimdall wrote:

Also, the maximum Deployment time is too high. Deployment should be bid with the lower number winning, but the higher number simply gains 1 extra minute total.

That would have been funny, they bid 30 mins and managed to run out of time. We barely made our 5 mins but they wouldn't have been close to 6 mins.

Part of the fun was hanging out with friends I know my turn tended to end very quickly (half my points got disrupted into the boring corner) so I spent quite a bit of time just chatting and hanging out which can be some fun too.

I think we had planned on taking Inquisitional Orbital Bombardments but didn't because they have to be tied to terrain and the scenario said we were trying to take a mining world with almost no terrain.

There were definitely some lessons learned and I'm sure things will go better next time.

With the talk time and all, 30 minutes is high - when we've bid this much, there's been a lot of idle time doing nothing but waiting. And we had Jammers, so the wait totally sucked.

Hanging out is a given with any Apoc game.

Almost no terrain? Ew.

I think it takes a few games to really get into the swing of things, when you start figuring out what kinds scenarios you should play, and you have a Ref to help plan things in advance. That's where Apoc really starts to be fun.
____

Reecius wrote:it was a learning experience and next time we will alter things. None of us (at least no one I spoke to) had played a game this big before, not even close, so it was pretty new.

Artillery was of limited use, we had one chance to shoot the Pulsas before they fired

they are just seriously the most annoying thing in the game.

the guy who brought them, bought 6 stompas for the game and used none of them! If he had brought the stompas it would have been more fun for eveyone I think, but hey, we had no rules in place as to who could bring what.

The lance strikes would have done almost nothing even if they did hit. It would not have stopped the incoming barrage of annoyance.

But oh well, it was still a fun way to spen dthe day, and it went pretty fast all things considered. We were done in 10 hours which isn't bad considering the size of the game.

It amuses me that you guys didn't do a couple small games to get a feel for Apoc before jumping straight to 40k pts.

When I bring Guard, I bring plenty of pie - Artillery is always fun.

Other Apoc players may beg to differe as to what is the most annoying thing in Apoc. My personal peeve is Jammers. Others hate Tunnels. Or Minefields. It really depends on the opponent.

6 Stompas would have been awesome, no doubt. But you'll fix that for next time.

10 hours is great for such a big game.

If there were no disruptor beacons and no pulsars I think the long way could have worked. Think about how many Carnifexs, Tygons, and Barbed whatevers got disrupted to the far side of the board and how many tanks/terminators got sent back to our side, not to mention how long the terminator loaded landraiders stayed parked. There was potential to get the whole board into play this way it just got stopped. Long ways would have been a very different game with pulsars hitting both teams due to scatter and them getting to our lines, the organizer was the pulsar nut so maybe that was a factor in the battle direction. I believe one pulsar did die during the alpha strike, but one out of 19 didn't really help much.

We have played tons of small Apoc games, mostly in the 4-6k range this was just our first super massive game. and 10 hours is from show up time and includes a break for dinner. Once everything started dieing and weapons were destroyed the turns started going pretty quick.

Oh, OK. In the previous messages, it sounded like you just decided to "kitchen sink" the thing.

No, we have played lots of APoc, just none this big. The last game was 12K a side, and only one disrupter beacon each, it was a great game!

First off, thanks for sharing this really fun experience you guys had.

And however you all decide to have your fun, that is awesome. I am a supporter of fun.

That said, I think a bunch of people are talking about the balance of this asset or the balance of this unit type, but I think some of them are not taking one of the most often overlooked rule of apocalypse. Overlook this one rule and the wheels fall off of apoc games.

for an 80,000 point game (I'm going to assume 40,000 versus 40,000) which should actually be called a 40,000 point game. You should play on a table that is 12' wide by 30' feet long. If you actually played 80,000 a side, you would need a gymnasium.

The entire point of apoc size scaling is so that you have some room to move. With an appropriate table size, units in the back could use strategic redeployment. Units could actually deepstrike without mishapping 90% of the time.

If your enemies table edges were a total of 42' in length, then you'd need 11 disruption beacons to cover the entire deployment edge, and thats with none overlapping. A little light long range shooting into the disruptor beacon models could open a hole for a an entire army to walk right through. When you drop 40,000 points of army on a table 6' x 12' two or three disruptor beacons would obviously shut down the game.

Saying 'we don't use this asset' is totally fine. Everyones apoc game should be filled with house rules. It's certainly a living game that way. But a 40,000 point game should have been a 'floor war' in a 2 or 3 car garage or at a local gymnasium. If it isn't, then there is still fun to be had... but wacky stuff is going to come up. It's my experience that all assets work just fine at all levels, pending you understand the powerful ones and are aware of how to counter them.

Some assets simply cannot be countered if the table isn't big enough (flank march is uber if the table is so small that you are literally forced to deploy within 12" of all table edges.)

Thanks again for posting pics and your thoughts on the game. Apoc rules and its cool to see so many models arrayed.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Almost no terrain? Ew.

QFT.

Platuan4th wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Almost no terrain? Ew.

QFT.

What? You have never heard of war of the parking lots?

Normally I'm the first to say "There's no terrain - how was this fun?", but I'd say in this case there was so much crap on the table, bunching it up any further would have made it less fun.

Yeah no joke!

There was some cover, the organizer of the game made the objectives give night fighting to anything within 3" of them or shooting through them, so that was...interesting.

It allowed my Stormlord with Platuan's troops to win because we parked on the objective and then nothing could shoot at us because we were obscured, which was funny for us.


As has been said, it was a learning experience. The campaign I have going right now culminates in an APOC game which will be a lot less chaotic. I will post pics and the campaign rules and events as soon as the last guys finish round one.

And thanks for the tips and input fellas, its appreciated. We have a good club here, really good actually, but no matter how long you have been playing the game you can always learn new things to make it even more enjoyable.