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I was on the bolter and chainsword forums for the first time after I finished painting some of my Death Company models and I noticed an "apocalypse" section on there boards. So I quickly scanned a couple of topics but didn't notice any rules other then the fact that its of the epic size variety of 40k awesomeness. So could anyone tell me if these Apocalypse games are GW events or special rule driven games where you have to obtain a codex.

Special rule driven games. The rules are go big or go home.

Apocalypse is an expansion for 40k specially tailored for huge battles, often consisting of hundreds of models and superheavies like titans and Baneblades. You can get the books from GW, or some others from Forgeworld. The minimum recommended size for an Apocalypse game is 3000 points per player, but the sky's the limit. Some stores have held games with point values in the tens of thousands across enormous tables.

You can find out more from GW:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/armySubUnitCats.jsp?catId=cat440324a&rootCatGameStyle=

Massive WH40k games, 3000pts and up. Our group ran a game, 13000pts per side, IoM/Tau vs. Orks/Crons/Eldar/Dark Eldar. We dubbed it The New Guys vs. The Old Ones, and after 2 days we tied, great fun.

Apocalypse is an expansion to the normal 40k ruleset and essentially it allows you to create huge epic 40k battles with no restrictions on teams. In fact you can even include units from the Imperial Armor books (which are incredibly expensive btw) and other Apocalypse only units. Its really fun and the points size is usually anywhere from 3000 to some incredibly high number. Highest I've ever participated in was roughly 15,000 on each side. It was a lot of fun with a Titan, and a Shadowsword.

You can also use literally any 40k stuff you want. Like if you have IG, you can run them and your Marines, Eldar, whatever. If you want an army of just chapter masters, you can.

Those games can get pretty insane, personally I love apoc. You can get battles looking like the ones on the front of the BL novels sometimes too.

As mentioned, Apoc is an expansion. It's your chance to use super heavy tanks, titans, and flyers.

There are Datasheets you can use that grant certain bonuses and describe certain units. Examples can be found here. Further data sheets can be found in the Apocalypse books and many of the Imperial Armory books by forge world.

GW's Apoc Introduction.

GW's Apoc articles.

Forge World's IA books

Imperial Guard Super Heavy tanks

And so on. Poke around the Forge World site for more bad-ass models. Also, here is a free PDF Apoc scenario from Forge World. Looks fun!