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Crablezworth wrote:The shrike one is slowed. 3 free strategic assets for 125pts... the apoc book values each asset at aprox 250pts, so that's 625pts worth of free assets just for helping GW's bottom line. Formations are the worst part of apoc.

I too believe it is slowed but not the way you do. Let's break it down shall we?

Jammers - The MOST unfun of all Apocalypse Assets. Apocalypse is all about joking around telling stories not shutting up and deploying models. My group has outlawed this from the moment we saw the apoc preview copy at our local store.

Surgical Raids - A single S5 hit on every single model unit on the board, (IE not in vehicles or in reserve). Watch out single oblits, you may have to make an armor save. You should be shaking in your boots now guardsmen your chimera has a 1/6 chance to be penned! Handy? Sure. Game breaking? Hardly.

Ambush - Decent, unless your opponent has termis or any vehicle he's out flanking/deepstriking with. Sniper shots are not the be all end all they were before.

If anything I think the best of the new ones is the split Marine/Eldar sheet. It allows you to place an objective anywhere on the field and penalizes your opponent for taking pot-shots at them. I think it'd be funny to place this in a semi-defended area in your opponents back field and use the chaos it sows to divide a few shots away from your front lines.

Foda_Bett wrote:Jammers - The MOST unfun of all Apocalypse Assets. Apocalypse is all about joking around telling stories not shutting up and deploying models. My group has outlawed this from the moment we saw the apoc preview copy at our local store.

Hmm... interesting. You're not the first person I've heard say that. There was actually a guy in our group who immediately declared that we would never use that one as soon as he had read it, which I felt was a bit strange. I get what you're saying about 'telling stories', but given that the origins of that Asset lies way back in White Dwarf 187 (skip down a bit to the Battle Report), and they didn't seem to have had any problem telling then I have to wonder if this is one of those Assets that everyone assumes will be game breaking and awful (like Flank March), and therefore bans out of hand without really trying it.

I especially like the idea of Jammers if, say, you did have two different armies allied with one another (we'll use the now ubiquitous Necron/Blood Angel example that Kan hates so much). Jammers makes sense for these two forces, and could lead to an interesting story where two armies fight along side one another without actually being on the same side, and thus, have no communication with one another.

I can see where the problems with Jammers might occur, but to ban it completely where it might make sense in some situations seems a bit hasty to me.

Necrons/Blood Angels.

*raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage!*

But I think the Shrike's Wing gets a points break on their assets since there's no real "heavy" punch to it. It's a very...well, I guess the best term for it is Alpha Strike army.

Look on the bright side, it's not nearly as bad or unbalancing as the Dreadnought formation from IA Apoc Vol I that gives the Marine player Flank March for free. No, it's not the formation that has Flank March, the formation gives the entire Marine army Flank March. For 50 points!!!

Whoops! Warwick strikes again.

Pft. It's obvious that the Dreadnoughts have everyone hop on their backs and carry them into battle.

Hence: flank march!

Some assets are game breaking because they become huge force mutlipliers like flank march or lords of twilight for dark eldar. Flank march would be fine if it was more along the lines of select a unit, that unit can enter from any board edge. Jammers can be cool but it's also not always practical, especially with larger apoc games with like 6+ people involved. Our group has banned flank march, it just totally destroys the flow of the game.

Our group has banned flank march, it just totally destroys the flow of the game

I don't find that to be the case at all, infact I really like flank march even though I am never the one using it! I tend to find it opens up the board quite a bit, and allows the models in the back of a large game table to get into the action when they otherwise might have nothing to do.

Besides, most flank marchers can be deterred by a disruptor beacon or lining up a bunch of vehicles and infantry along the table edges...

Alpharius wrote:Damn being blocked at work!

Damn this age of Instant Gratification that means I have to wait a few more hours until I'm home!

haha me too! They must have 800 firewalls on banking computers!

cygnnus wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

kronk wrote:I thought one of the apoc books had a couple of sisters datasheets in it. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

There were two, both of which were relatively useless though. One allowed Exorcists to put out more fire if they all fired at the same target. Which was useless, because anything they needed that much fire against to defeat they'd still likely not do anything against with the increased rate of fire (they'd still not likely do much more than scratch a baneblade, for instance, and then they couldn't fire the next turn). The other one had something to do with heavy flamers, which was kinda useless because it's not like the Sisters have any lack of anti-infantry at apocalypse levels... no, they lack anti-tank.

IIRC, that last point's incorrect... The "other" datasheet gives Sisters, who are not in their deployment zone, the Relentless USR. It's actually quite useful since being able to move and fire Multimeltas is pretty nifty...

Valete,

JohnS

You are thinking of Holy War which is a Strategic Asset that gives them Relentless and Rage in the no-man's land and enemy deployment zone. The two formations are spot on as is the assessment of them. I use Choir of Wrath for the other beneift it gives as I actually have 5 Exorcists. The formation gives 2 free upgrades to every Exorcist that would cost 100 points on 5 models but only costs 75 for the price of the formation. Admittedly they usualy dont' come up that often but when the Exorcist loses its 1 gun that fires a random number of shots , it is basically an expensive ram or tank shock.

BrassScorpion wrote:

congrats! do you send them the pics or are they actively combing dakka's gallery?

I send them pictures. If you want a shot at being on What's New Today you definitely have to send them pictures with a little information about the models' converting, painting, etc.

Do you ever get a response? I've tried emailing them before and I include large descriptions but I link to my galleries, and I never even get a response.

Do you ever get a response?

No, they have never sent me anything in response.

BrassScorpion wrote:

Do you ever get a response?

No, they have never sent me anything in response.

My first entry did.

"Dear Sir,

The Space Marine you sent us looks like a two year old painted it with a hair brush. Kindly put down your miniatures and see an eye doctor.

Thank you.

P.S. Please stop asking us if we have any hot chicks working here with each of your entries.

Sincerely,

GW."

Dang. Those guys take painting, and stalking, seriously.

Still waiting for a stormhammer datasheet :(

MegaDave wrote:Besides, most flank marchers can be deterred by a disruptor beacon or lining up a bunch of vehicles and infantry along the table edges...

As a person that also finds disruptor beacon really annoying, I'm not sure it's the optimal solution.

My group has a simple fix: only units that can outflank can use flank march. That way you can set up some cool movements, but you can't totally upset the game by flanking three land raiders full of assault terminators (true story).

There are kinda two approaches to Apoc: carefully planned games that are essentially umpired or at least have a an agreement, and "out of the book" games. The former are clearly better, but a few alterations can make 3-5k apoc games fun out of the book.

Heh, polonius, it seems almost every superheavy I have seen outflanks... Pretty silly. Your solution seems a sound one.

Only there is only one man tactically savvy enough to sneak a land raider, Russ squadron, or Baneblade into the battlle.....

CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!

Our group cut Flank March down a bit by making it apply to only one unit or formation. It keeps a lid on things, but still allows units to be used in unconvetional ways (and funny explanations about one got a Stompa mob into the enemy's supply dump). The ruling also gives motivation to take more Formations, which are generally fun.

Polonius wrote:
My group has a simple fix: only units that can outflank can use flank march. That way you can set up some cool movements, but you can't totally upset the game by flanking three land raiders full of assault terminators (true story).

Units that already Outflank gain only marginally (pun intended) from Flank March, so that seems to take some of the "whoah, crazy antics" out of the asset and make it less appealing. Seems like Apocalypse is best when everything is turned up to 11.

MegaDave wrote:Besides, most flank marchers can be deterred by a disruptor beacon or lining up a bunch of vehicles and infantry along the table edges...

As a person that also finds disruptor beacon really annoying, I'm not sure it's the optimal solution.

Our group assigned a point costs on types of units: Troops/FA = 1 point, HQ/Elites = 2, HS = 3, Super heavies = 6. (elite might be 1 too, don't remember) We then said that taking outflank gives you 6-8 points to use depending on the size of the game. Basically it blunts the OMG STUFF effect, but still lets you bring some nice hammer units in from the flank, or a swarm of troops.
On the topic of Apoc improvements, I still think the best game we had was where all vehicles cost double. Having swarms of infantry and a reasonable number of vehicles really made a huge improvement from our other games, where >70% of models had an AV value. Everyone seems to have piles of extra vehicles compared to infantry, and many armies don't naturally scale up the anti tank enough to deal with that it seems.

Death By Monkeys wrote:Wow, this gives me hope that they'll come out with a Blood Angels/Necron battlesheet for Apocalypse.

For what it's worth, I lol'd quite hard at this. I hope this leads to a mismastched buddy action/comedy, the climax of which is when Dante must lower the Necron lord into a smelting pool, as the Necron Lord tells him "I now know why you cry.... but this is something I can never do."

Afterwards, Mephiston wisely intones that in Necrons can be taught the value of human life, maybe there is hope for us all.

CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED

No one listens to creed!

Ouze wrote:

Death By Monkeys wrote:Wow, this gives me hope that they'll come out with a Blood Angels/Necron battlesheet for Apocalypse.

For what it's worth, I lol'd quite hard at this. I hope this leads to a mismastched buddy action/comedy, the climax of which is when Dante must lower the Necron lord into a smelting pool, as the Necron Lord tells him "I now know why you cry.... but this is something I can never do."

Afterwards, Mephiston wisely intones that in Necrons can be taught the value of human life, maybe there is hope for us all.

Dear god, some NEEDS to put together a flash animation of that. Holy titty f'n Christ that must be made!

"Accept the Emperor's blessing, baby"

The CF/Eldar one is...interesting. You have to bunch three squads into an effective "please kill me"- formation and leave the allies in reserve. And they only enter play if Kantor alive. Considering the amount of firepower a typical Apocalypse game has, I would not be betting money on his survival.