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I have a little over 3000 points in models, total, but only a handful of them are actually troops (my Deathwing can be, because of Belial, and obviously my tac squads)... Even then, I still have a few more HQs than I need (two DV sets + I won a Company Master at a tournament), and a couple Sisters (I watch eBay for steals -- I think I paid five bucks total for one battle sister, one Seraphim, and two Uriahs (the first one didn't have a backpack, and was NIB, so GW replaced him).

So, I keep throwing around the idea of playing a now-FOC game with almost no restrictions or minimum/maximum troop size, but at something like 2000 points. The only restrictions will be that Troops are the only thing that can claim objectives.

Have any of you tried something like this? I realize it's blasphemy to some, because it's not the way GW intended 40k to be played, but it might be a fun way to totally mix things up.

We've done it with my group before. I'm pretty sure they even say in the Apoc book that Apoc is just an excuse for you to use all the models in your collection and not really care about what is "legal" or not. Turns out 40k can be so much fun if you just ignore all of that and use everything you have.

Something I like to do as a half-way house between 40K and Apoc is play 3000 point games where 2000 points comes from one or two FoC's and the remaining 1000 points comes from Apoc units or formations.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Something I like to do as a half-way house between 40K and Apoc is play 3500 point games where 2000 points comes from one or two FoC's and the remaining 1000 points comes from Apoc units or formations.

Where do the final 500 points come from? Are they floating points? : D

It can easily be done - like anything else in the core rules, the FOC can be *completely* ignored if both you and your opponent are happy with it.

Unfortunately, the many-HQ barely-any-Troops route is common amongst those of us that get attracted to fun stuff to paint and/or heavy hitting beatsticks. Problem is, taking too many against a numerically superior opponent puts you straight on the backfoot, as those characters are typically very easy to kill off if they're not hidden in a unit. Be aware of this as you may find yourself losing these battles consistently if you can arrange them.

I realize it's blasphemy to some, because it's not the way GW intended 40k to be played

Screw those people, play the game how *you* like.

Edit: Also I love that idea of a half 40k half apoc game.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Something I like to do as a half-way house between 40K and Apoc is play 3500 point games where 2000 points comes from one or two FoC's and the remaining 1000 points comes from Apoc units or formations.

Where do the final 500 points come from? Are they floating points? : D

Brain fail - 3000 points

I'm fairly certain any half-decent Guard army under a no FoC restriction would probably be utterly broken...

Possibly, but that's a chance you've gotta be willing to take to field all 19 of your Dreads.

 Melissia wrote:
I'm fairly certain any half-decent Guard army under a no FoC restriction would probably be utterly broken...

I figured out you could fit 12 Meltavets in Vendettas all in 3000 points, and still have just under 230 points to work with

Matney X wrote:
Possibly, but that's a chance you've gotta be willing to take to field all 19 of your Dreads.

Which then all die in the first turn, because of unlimited vehicles who are no longer restricted by squadron rules.

24 basilisks.

Boom.

 Melissia wrote:

Matney X wrote:
Possibly, but that's a chance you've gotta be willing to take to field all 19 of your Dreads.

Which then all die in the first turn, because of unlimited vehicles who are no longer restricted by squadron rules.

You wouldn't play, gotcha.

Matney X wrote:
Possibly, but that's a chance you've gotta be willing to take to field all 19 of your Dreads.

You'll want to take some out to make room for some Lucius pattern Drop Pods in there. Then you can be rolling Apoc style.

One interesting thing that I've seen done in a few Apoc games is have a separate table to represent a battleship flying over the main battlefield. Only infantry, monsterous creatures (not gargantuan), and walkers (non-Super Heavy) were allowed on. Whoever controlled the ship, could make orbital strikes on the battlefield below.

 washout77 wrote:
We've done it with my group before. I'm pretty sure they even say in the Apoc book that Apoc is just an excuse for you to use all the models in your collection and not really care about what is "legal" or not. Turns out 40k can be so much fun if you just ignore all of that and use everything you have.

I should give this a go with the local guys at home.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wilytank wrote:
One interesting thing that I've seen done in a few Apoc games is have a separate table to represent a battleship flying over the main battlefield. Only infantry, monsterous creatures (not gargantuan), and walkers (non-Super Heavy) were allowed on. Whoever controlled the ship, could make orbital strikes on the battlefield below.

I like this idea. fighting a war on two fronts not bad.

 Melissia wrote:
I'm fairly certain any half-decent Guard army under a no FoC restriction would probably be utterly broken...

See, that's the problem with the mentality of making a list specifically for Apocalypse. They say it right there in the book - Apocalypse is meant to be a fast, loose and fun game mostly played around the idea of 'I want to field everything I own', not 'I want to minmax a 4000pt Vendetta airforce with no restrictions'. Large Forgeworld models are part of this mentality, because generally you never got to field them anyway without very specific opponent agreements even in larger games.

The competitive mentality is what ruins Apocalypse. For example, my FLGS runs a yearly 48 hour Apocalypse game. The first time they ran it, everyone turned up with 3000-5000pts of 'stuff', just intent to throw down and play for 48 hours. One guy turned up with half a dozen formations, multiple super heavies, and basically made a list to win Apocalypse. This resulted in the owner in the next games enforcing a laid back attitude and a massive restriction on datasheets.

 Dakkamite wrote:

I realize it's blasphemy to some, because it's not the way GW intended 40k to be played

Screw those people, play the game how *you* like.

Edit: Also I love that idea of a half 40k half apoc game.

You do realise GW did exactly what you are talking about in the WD batrep for the realeas of the Dark Angels

 -Loki- wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I'm fairly certain any half-decent Guard army under a no FoC restriction would probably be utterly broken...

See, that's the problem with the mentality of making a list specifically for Apocalypse. They say it right there in the book - Apocalypse is meant to be a fast, loose and fun game mostly played around the idea of 'I want to field everything I own', not 'I want to minmax a 4000pt Vendetta airforce with no restrictions'. Large Forgeworld models are part of this mentality, because generally you never got to field them anyway without very specific opponent agreements even in larger games.

The competitive mentality is what ruins Apocalypse. For example, my FLGS runs a yearly 48 hour Apocalypse game. The first time they ran it, everyone turned up with 3000-5000pts of 'stuff', just intent to throw down and play for 48 hours. One guy turned up with half a dozen formations, multiple super heavies, and basically made a list to win Apocalypse. This resulted in the owner in the next games enforcing a laid back attitude and a massive restriction on datasheets.

That's too bad. My friend plays to win apocalypse. Imperitor titan, 2 reavers, 2 warlords and all 4 fw greater daemons to use with 15000 points of combined traitor guard, CSM and Daemons. His army is 100% painted to a top quality. He includes forgeworld in every list he makes. To him apocalypse isn't meant for "fun" gamers. It's meant for fanatical gamers... who want to test the might of their armies against others.

 DeffDred wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I'm fairly certain any half-decent Guard army under a no FoC restriction would probably be utterly broken...

See, that's the problem with the mentality of making a list specifically for Apocalypse. They say it right there in the book - Apocalypse is meant to be a fast, loose and fun game mostly played around the idea of 'I want to field everything I own', not 'I want to minmax a 4000pt Vendetta airforce with no restrictions'. Large Forgeworld models are part of this mentality, because generally you never got to field them anyway without very specific opponent agreements even in larger games.

The competitive mentality is what ruins Apocalypse. For example, my FLGS runs a yearly 48 hour Apocalypse game. The first time they ran it, everyone turned up with 3000-5000pts of 'stuff', just intent to throw down and play for 48 hours. One guy turned up with half a dozen formations, multiple super heavies, and basically made a list to win Apocalypse. This resulted in the owner in the next games enforcing a laid back attitude and a massive restriction on datasheets.

That's too bad. My friend plays to win apocalypse. Imperitor titan, 2 reavers, 2 warlords and all 4 fw greater daemons to use with 15000 points of combined traitor guard, CSM and Daemons. His army is 100% painted to a top quality. He includes forgeworld in every list he makes. To him apocalypse isn't meant for "fun" gamers. It's meant for fanatical gamers... who want to test the might of their armies against others.

To be fair, it's absolutely okay to do this if that's what your opponent is expecting.

The problem is, the book itself descibes it as an even more casual experience than 40k proper. It's an excuse to dig out your whole army, including those Rogue Trader dudes you forgot about that have been collecting dust because they're terrible models, but still, you want to use them. The book then goes on to showcase a few different types of armies. There's a Mentors army that was a 1500pt 40k tournament army that was expanded to 3000pts for Apocalypse by just by adding a few random units, there's a Tau army designed for Apocalypse (though isn't particularly competitive) and a Tyranid army that follows the 'everything I have' mentality.

The book then goes on to showcase three battles which are definitely not played competitively, but using the Apocalypse framework to play huge themed battles. Each on of those has massive unbalancing assets designed specifically for the scenario with very unoptimised lists, which also tend to swing in points values in some cases by a few hundred points. Then goes on to show obviously not balanced datasheets for superheavies.

The book actually tells you to hash out the game beforehand with opponents well before even making army lists, which is where you'd know if you're going for something competitive, attempting a scenario driven game or just throwing down your collections for a bit of fun.

The thing is, with that many massively powerful superheavies which, simply by looking at the datasheets are far more powerful than their points limits suggest, opponents would want to discuss it beforehand. Eating a points handicap (by giving the opponent more points if they're lacking that kind of firepower) is something 'in the spirit' of Apocalypse. The problem with taking such a competitive viewpoint is when you turn up to an Apocalypse game without discussing it first with an army like that and you're facing four guys who have just thrown their normal 40k collections, you're not exactly getting a good test of generalship or your army when Imperators and Warlords blow 3/4 of those players collections off the table on turn 1.

So yeah, I can see a place for games of Apocalypse like that. It's just not what they describe Apocalypse as in the book, and something that should be discussed before even organising the game. It's the same situation with 40k as a tournament game. GW saying 'we're not making a tournament game at all' and people screaming back 'I can't hear you over the sound of us playing a 40k tournament - why isn't your game a good tournament game again?'.

 -Loki- wrote:
The thing is, with that many massively powerful superheavies which, simply by looking at the datasheets are far more powerful than their points limits suggest, opponents would want to discuss it beforehand. Eating a points handicap (by giving the opponent more points if they're lacking that kind of firepower) is something 'in the spirit' of Apocalypse. The problem with taking such a competitive viewpoint is when you turn up to an Apocalypse game without discussing it first with an army like that and you're facing four guys who have just thrown their normal 40k collections, you're not exactly getting a good test of generalship or your army when Imperators and Warlords blow 3/4 of those players collections off the table on turn 1.

Where he games people don't just "throw their normal armies together". They go out and buy 12 Eldar Lynx's and several scorpions and a revenent titan.

Then they call their friends who bring swarms of flyers and such. As has been discussed on these treads before Fun can be competative.

When these guys play Apocalypse they have home made Tower of Tzeentch that are entire tables by themselves. That's Apocalypse.

A bunch of armies grouped together is just a mega-battle.

 -Loki- wrote:
It's an excuse to dig out your whole army, including those Rogue Trader dudes you forgot about that have been collecting dust because they're terrible models, but still, you want to use them.

So what do you do when "your whole army" consists of 1500 points of standard 40k and 5000 points of Apocalypse-only stuff?

 Peregrine wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
It's an excuse to dig out your whole army, including those Rogue Trader dudes you forgot about that have been collecting dust because they're terrible models, but still, you want to use them.

So what do you do when "your whole army" consists of 1500 points of standard 40k and 5000 points of Apocalypse-only stuff?

Then it's your whole collection. Was that a trick question?

 DeffDred wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
The thing is, with that many massively powerful superheavies which, simply by looking at the datasheets are far more powerful than their points limits suggest, opponents would want to discuss it beforehand. Eating a points handicap (by giving the opponent more points if they're lacking that kind of firepower) is something 'in the spirit' of Apocalypse. The problem with taking such a competitive viewpoint is when you turn up to an Apocalypse game without discussing it first with an army like that and you're facing four guys who have just thrown their normal 40k collections, you're not exactly getting a good test of generalship or your army when Imperators and Warlords blow 3/4 of those players collections off the table on turn 1.

Where he games people don't just "throw their normal armies together". They go out and buy 12 Eldar Lynx's and several scorpions and a revenent titan.

Then they call their friends who bring swarms of flyers and such. As has been discussed on these treads before Fun can be competative.

When these guys play Apocalypse they have home made Tower of Tzeentch that are entire tables by themselves. That's Apocalypse.

See, that's when a community has formed itself around an expansion and pretty much made it their own. That doesn't mean that's what the expansion was originally designed for. It's great that they've taken it so much to heart - it would just be pretty terrible for a new person to walk into that environment after actually reading the Apocalypse book and brining their army to take part.

 DeffDred wrote:
A bunch of armies grouped together is just a mega-battle.

And Apocalypse is an expansion about mega battles. Whether you've got two guys per side with mismatched 3000pt armies playing the Apocalypse scenario or someone with a titan legion and supporting traitor guard totalling 15000pts by itself playing the Apocalypse scenario, you're still playing Apocalypse.

Defining people as 'not playing Apocalypse' because they haven't scratchbuilt an Imperator and a couple of Warlords is pretty insulting.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
It's an excuse to dig out your whole army, including those Rogue Trader dudes you forgot about that have been collecting dust because they're terrible models, but still, you want to use them.

So what do you do when "your whole army" consists of 1500 points of standard 40k and 5000 points of Apocalypse-only stuff?

Then it's your whole collection. Was that a trick question?

No, not a trick question. You were talking about how bad it is to have an army of Apocalypse stuff with minimal standard 40k units, so I was wondering how you would apply that to my collection where I have a 1000-1500 point standard 40k army with a few extra heavy support units and a bunch of superheavies (with a plan to expand the superheavy collection without bothering to add more normal-40k units). Granted, mine are the weak superheavies, but it's not too hard to imagine someone who just owns a 1500 point army and builds nothing but titans after that.

I don't think I could ever bring my whole collection to an Apocalypse game...

I only play at home, and I don't think my 6' x 4' table is big enough to fit all those models... And if it is, there's gonna be melee getting stuck in on turn 1. Maybe even during deployment.

However, I could see the enjoyment of making a list without the need to worry about points limits or force organization charts or even the gosh-darned Allies matrix.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I did have a question about Apocalypse that I've had since I first read through the book.

When it said that virtually the only thing that had to be adhered to when it came to tallying up a list was the unit size... does that mean that, hypothetically, I could give all 9 Tactical Marines in a squad, heavy and special weapons?

Edit: No, that would be silly... Very silly.

 DeffDred wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
The thing is, with that many massively powerful superheavies which, simply by looking at the datasheets are far more powerful than their points limits suggest, opponents would want to discuss it beforehand. Eating a points handicap (by giving the opponent more points if they're lacking that kind of firepower) is something 'in the spirit' of Apocalypse. The problem with taking such a competitive viewpoint is when you turn up to an Apocalypse game without discussing it first with an army like that and you're facing four guys who have just thrown their normal 40k collections, you're not exactly getting a good test of generalship or your army when Imperators and Warlords blow 3/4 of those players collections off the table on turn 1.

Where he games people don't just "throw their normal armies together". They go out and buy 12 Eldar Lynx's and several scorpions and a revenent titan.

Then they call their friends who bring swarms of flyers and such. As has been discussed on these treads before Fun can be competative.

When these guys play Apocalypse they have home made Tower of Tzeentch that are entire tables by themselves. That's Apocalypse.

A bunch of armies grouped together is just a mega-battle.

Geez, the elitism just jumps right off the screen. Would be nice if we could all count Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and co. as gaming buddies, until then, us plebians will make do with "WH40K Megabattles"

Apocalypse is what you make of it.

We once did a battle where my opponent took every single HQ model he had (WYSIWYG equipment) and I took massive oodles of infantry models and just kept charging squads at him.

Was it Apocalypse proper? Likely not. But fun, yes.

When we play apocalypse, we use that rule that only non-vehicle troops can score. It makes people put at least a few token troops in their army.

However, Apocalypse below 5k per side is rather boring.

 kronk wrote:
When we play apocalypse, we use that rule that only non-vehicle troops can score. It makes people put at least a few token troops in their army.

However, Apocalypse below 5k per side is rather boring.

Some guys at my FLGS were gonna put together a massive, 10 person game, everybody brings 2k points worth of stuff, no FOC. Did you mean 5k per player or just 5k per side/team?

 Peregrine wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
It's an excuse to dig out your whole army, including those Rogue Trader dudes you forgot about that have been collecting dust because they're terrible models, but still, you want to use them.

So what do you do when "your whole army" consists of 1500 points of standard 40k and 5000 points of Apocalypse-only stuff?

Then it's your whole collection. Was that a trick question?

No, not a trick question. You were talking about how bad it is to have an army of Apocalypse stuff with minimal standard 40k units, so I was wondering how you would apply that to my collection where I have a 1000-1500 point standard 40k army with a few extra heavy support units and a bunch of superheavies (with a plan to expand the superheavy collection without bothering to add more normal-40k units). Granted, mine are the weak superheavies, but it's not too hard to imagine someone who just owns a 1500 point army and builds nothing but titans after that.

That's not playing to win Apocalypse. That's a 1500pt army with a bunch of random super heavies, and perfectly fits what Apocalypse is for (and again, the suggestion to discuss this beforehand will let opponents know what they're in for). Making an apocalypse army to 'win apocalypse' is like above - an Imperator, a pair of Walords, some Warhounds, and a full supporting Guard army which I'm assuming, given the competitive nature they were talking about, that ignores the FoC to get maximum effectiveness. Or, without superheavies, using the lack of a FoC to bring a dozen or two Vendettas backed up by Manticores, with a few squads of Paladins for grabbing the objectives.

Just including a few superheavies on top of your regular army is definitely within the idea they try to get across in the Apocalypse book.

I once made an apoc formation which was 10 darnath lysanders, armed as normal. For being in a formation such as they were, they all got FNP.