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I wish I could play all Apoc all the time. Frankly, Apoc takes longer. I am really into it, but my friends are not into that sort of time commitment.

If my friends were into it, I would definitely be also into it. I LOVE huge games!

The other side of the coin is that my friends are not into scratchbuilding to the point where they could put some apoc-sized monsters on the table. Neither will they foot the cash to obtain FW versions. So that's how it is, I suppose!

Platuan4th wrote:I've played 2 non-Apoc games since Apoc game out. Partly it's a time thing, mostly it's the fact that I love big team games. I had joined a league this past month or so and got bored of the regular games, so I just waited for the Apoc game I'm playing today(same Apoc game as Ozy, actually.)

That was a really fun game but I realized that in order to play Apoc I need something to keep me distracted during my (our) opponents insanely long turns. I think I won't be able to play APOC unless there is beer involved.

Apoc does allow some really cool things (like Platuan's Flank Marching phalanx of Dark Angel Dreadnoughts).

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Logic wrote:The games are extremely unbalanced. The side with the most "cool stuff" like vortex missiles and crazy strategems always wins. Bring some awesome super heavies and beat down the side that doesn't have as many.

As has already been stated, Apocalypse is fun for the "wow, cool giant template thing" perspective.

I just don't like it.

The last point is undebatable, but I suspect that you might like it if you played it differently, as intended.

Apoc is fun because you can bring cool, giant stuff and wierd, wacky stuff that never sees play in competitive 40k. You can bring out your Guard and Possessed and Spawn and Mandrakes and other stuff that's been sitting on the shelf that just isn't Tournament-worthy. You can focus on wierd, wacky stuff happening on the board, rather than trying to extract every last VP out of the opponent's army.

And the games don't need to be precisely balanced. You're playing against 6 Objectives, and in 5th Ed, only Troops are Scoring (unless somebody burns their Stratagem to have all non-Vehicles Scoring). That means that it just doesn't matter whether there are superheavies or not, or how much stuff dies. You just need to get Troops on Objectives.

I have yet to see a Vortex missile be taken, nor can I imagine it to be unbalanced. It's a 3" Blast in a humongous game. *How* can that possibly be broken? Similarly, most Stratagems aren't a big deal unless you build an army around them. And even then, you're looking at a minimum of 3 armies per side. Is Flank March or Tunnels annoying? Yes. Will it break the game? It shouldn't, if you're playing Apoc as Apoc, rather than RTT-style play.

Stuff happens. Deal with it.

HBMC, you may be right. However, I hazard to guess that 95% of Apoc games aren't as you describe. They're the unscripted, "biggest stuff wins" variety with 3K per side and strategem or datasheet cheese rather than massive narrative multiplayers with 30K on the table.

I'm sure carefully GM-moderated games, with designated, balanced army lists, objectives, fluff, etc. are a great experience. But I know very few people with the free time to organize and play that way regularly. And that's why you see Apoc drift to the small cheesefest style games.

I guess I just think it has too many unrealistic expectations to label it a successful expansion. Yeah, you can make it work, but couldn't you make multiplayers work without Apoc?

With Apocalypse you really need everyone to have some ridiculously over the top units.

I played a campaign weekend of apoc, but left my orks back at uni.

the 5 stompa army I used was great fun against the guys with a tank company, baneblades or titans
(managed to bag a reaver and a warhound with the claw stompa )

But against the guy who brought his normal gaming army it was pants for everyone.


Plus games with more than 3 players a sides just take ages, and suck

~bob

@gorgon: I don't think it needs to be so tightly scripted or GM-moderated. People bring armies, and simply throw down to balance the points. What's so hard about that?

As long as most people aren't trying to play Apoca-WAAC, it should be fine.

See that's the problem.. most apoc games are cheesefests but if you do take the time to set up a real fun, story driven game with your friends you will have a lot of fun If you just play random people at a store, then why not work with the owner to get an event set up where they can impose some rules to balance things.

You can play great multiplayer games with a ton of people. The trick is to focus on the guy across from you and that's it. Maybe you can hit a few models from his neighbor here and there, but don't run all over the place looking for the perfect spot to drop your terminators in and don't try to drop your basilisk templates as far as they can go. Don't make your psychic hood work for the whole 20 foot long table, give it a radius of maybe 48". Impose a rule where people must have a codex legal army but are allowed 1 superheavy or 1 special formation or something like that.

Just try and keep things fair and fun. Apocalypse isn't a "Hey fella, wanna play?" kinda thing, you gotta plan ahead

JohnHwangDD wrote:

I have yet to see a Vortex missile be taken, nor can I imagine it to be unbalanced. It's a 3" Blast in a humongous game. *How* can that possibly be broken?

Stuff happens. Deal with it.

Above quote was paraphrased for relevant points.

I believe that the Vortex Missile is the 10 inch blast. And unless you or a friend have a Warlord Titan, Reaver Titan, or custom super heavy then you wont see one. You're thinking of the Vortex Grenade And not to put too fine a point on it, but if you’ve never seen these in action then I think it speaks volumes to your inexperience.

Honestly I'm not attacking Apoc. It's great for what it is. If you can have fun with it then cool. All I'm saying is that for me it's long, dull, and horribly unbalanced. I’m lucky enough to live in an area with many GW and independent stores. Most Apoc games I’ve seen involve one side getting annihilated and that player/team is not too happy.

As for the last part, I'm sure you mean well. And I mean no disrespect but don’t patronize me or tell me to deal with it.

~Logic

I can understand the Warlord and Reaver, and if someone actually goes through the trouble to buy or WYSIWYG a large Titan with a Vortex Missile, more power to them. Those things are non-Scoring massive points sinks anyways.

But what "custom super heavy" are you talking about? Random made-up Datasheets? Yeah, that's a good idea... :S

If someone's pulling that kind of stuff, then my Imperial Guard might as well have an unlimited number of Vortex Grenades that they can fire from any and all of their Missile Launchers for FREE! :S

The point is that Apoc lets you field stuff. But Apoc doesn't mean - oooh... my Baneblades cost 5 pts each. Apoc means you can finally field Baneblades in the first place.

I still play regular 40k, but have gotten into Apocalypse. Organised amongst friendly opponents whose overarching goal is fun, it's a blast. If you're playing "find the most busted data sheet and wipe them in turn two" apocalypse, it's far less enjoyable.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I can understand the Warlord and Reaver, and if someone actually goes through the trouble to buy or WYSIWYG a large Titan with a Vortex Missile, more power to them. Those things are non-Scoring massive points sinks anyways.

But what "custom super heavy" are you talking about? Random made-up Datasheets? Yeah, that's a good idea... :S

If someone's pulling that kind of stuff, then my Imperial Guard might as well have an unlimited number of Vortex Grenades that they can fire from any and all of their Missile Launchers for FREE! :S

The point is that Apoc lets you field stuff. But Apoc doesn't mean - oooh... my Baneblades cost 5 pts each. Apoc means you can finally field Baneblades in the first place.

5 point custom super heavy are a horrible idea but custom crap could make a game awesome. If you did something like a side killteam game where commandos were trying the control the launch facility of the vortex missile and winner got to fire it a neat really story full element would be added to the game that would be impossible to point correctly. Or if someone modeled up a custom missile launcher truck I would try to point it correctly and add it to the game and it would be a random made up data sheet. I wouldn't want to play with someone who decides that their vortex missiles are only worth 5 point or whatever either.

As with most larger scale things, you need a games master really, someone who isn't playing to say yay or nay to player creations and their points values.

Actually, all you need to do is have everything that isn't developed by GW "opponent permission only", meaning *unanimous* opponent approval. It's just that simple.

If you can't convince all of your opponents that your Datasheet is "fair", you don't get to play it.

So:

- You want a 500-pt Apoc Baneblade, again, no problem because it's GW official printing.

- You want a 600+ pt IA Baneblade, sure, no problem - it's also GW official printing, just more points paid.

- You want your Datasheet with 5-pt Baneblades? Only if you get opponent permission. Good luck.

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's so hard about that?

You've heard of a little thing called 'socialism' right? Wonderful concept, brilliant system of government. Has one major flaw though - as soon as people are any way involved in it, it falls apart to greed and people wanting more than they can have. Expecting a game of Apoc to work without any form of moderation is the same thing - people will be greedy, want the win, and, to use the expressions, put their wallets on the table.

BYE

Apocalypse only works if you have friends that can sit down, agree to rules, and avoid powergaming.


I don't have such friends. I play mostly regular 40k with its rules and objectives and FORGE ORGANIZATION CHARTS PREVENTING ME FROM LOOKING DOWN FIFTEEN LEMAN RUSS BARRELS AND FIVE BANEBLADES IN A FIVE THOUSAND POINT GAME.

You've heard of a little thing called 'socialism' right? Wonderful concept, brilliant system of government. Has one major flaw though - as soon as people are any way involved in it, it falls apart to greed and people wanting more than they can have

:poly sci hat on:

Technically that is the failing of economic communism started in countries with high populations and rife with poverty and poor education (which are the only countries that have historically gone to communism because the only drive to change government comes when government is failing and everyone is poor). If a country with a functioning economic, agrarian, and industrial system attempted communism by slowly adapting itself over a generation first to governmental then economic socialism, then finally to governmental then economic communism the results would be far different then the totalitarian regimes of the soviet union and red china. The only problem here is that a stable and politically free country has no incentive to attempt the risky business of a social and governmental restart, so it's unlikely ever to happen.

What you just said has nothing to do with modern socialism which is actually a form of redistributed wealth governance currently handled through tax driven wealth redistribution programmes (we use a lot of them in the U.S., we've had socialist policies since the depression). Most modern western nations use a form of socialism in their governance, and the term is drifting pretty well away from the 1960s framing of socialism = communism.

Well that and really, capitalist democracy is just as likely to fall to corruption and selfishness. Just look at africa/latin america/indonesia. No social system will work if you're just overlaying it on top of a region ridden with strife and infighting.

:poly sci hat off:

Sit down? Agree? Friends? Avoid powergaming?

Haven't you been listening Shummy:

According to our resident Apoc-only player (and master of the well-constructed and logical argument), my main man JonnyboyDD, if someone brings an unbalanced force we should just "deal with it", cause as we know, "stuff happens".

On the other hand, if some people are being jerks, we can "simply throw down to balance the points" - a clear and easy solution.

So come on every body! Let's all throw down! YEAH!

And then after that we can talk about 5-points Baneblades and free Vortex missiles and tons of other stuff no one else mentioned before him, yet he still feels obliged to 'rebut'.

BYE

I edited with my poly sci hat. Probably should have just made that an entirely different post.

Apoc games are fun but I like normal games too. Apoc takes awile and I dont have much time to play Apoc games exept on break

I've done an Apocalypse game or two, but that's about it. It's mainly a time thing. I can usually get several normal games done in the time it takes to do an Apoc game. Since I've no super heavies that I'm dying to field, it really boils down to that more than anything else.

The main thing folks need to realize (and has been alluded to and flat out said a couple of times here already) is that Apoc games really aren't meant to be the 'Ok, everybody bring 15000 points on Saturday and we'll figure it out from there'. That sort of approach can work, but more often doesn't. With an Apoc game, you need to do some planning to ensure at least a bit of a balance between armies and some sort of story (if that's your thing). Let's face it, if you're going to the trouble of setting up a big game, the last thing you want to do is have it over in a single turn.