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First off, I LOVE apocalypse. I feel like I was THE target audience when GW first came out with that game. My friends and I played constantly, and in fact played more Apoc than regular games of 40K.


I was flipping through the most recent apoc book and I just had the fleeting thought that GW may be done with it. I know that the current book isn't that old and is still valid, but I was wondering if they were ever going to revisit it and come out with new apocalypse only formations and rules.


My initial thought is that they've probably made that impossible. Formations in regular 40K just give you all of the same benefits as an apoc formation. The rules for superheavies and gargantuan creatures are now regular 40K. The downside here is that this typically means no one wants to play a 10,000 point game with a scenario, objectives and all that when they can just take their wraithknight in an 1800 point game.


So what are your thoughts? Obviously I can still grab an Apoc game if the muse takes me, but are we as a community missing out if Apoc becomes a thing of the past, making way for apoc rules in regular 40K?

GW never really was all that committed to the Apoc concept, to be honest. Outside of the initial roll out with all the amazing bundle boxes, the later releases were much more muted.

Apoc came out in 4th edition, and while Apocolypse Reloaded came out in 5th edition, they were pretty vague about adapting the rules into 5th edition, in a book that should have done exactly that.

Yeah. I actually liked the Apocalypse Warzone books, although I didn't buy all of them (which, apparently, is where we ALL went wrong...), I was kind of hoping that that would lead to more of a continued focus on their part to keep putting the stuff together. I remember after Apoc launched in 6th edition that there was a rumor that they were going to release Apocalypse models with the books, like plastic steel legion with a new Armageddon book. I was very sad to see those not pan out, even if I never really believed them to begin with!

But it's almost like GW was more focused on selling the books than gobs of models, and when they didn't sell gobs of models they decided to try and make 40K the way to sell gobs of models. I would say (with no actual research or knowledge) that sales of models and bundles was markedly higher during the initial release for apoc, and then they stopped the bundle boxes and promotions and the sales just fell off. Now they think that because of that no one wants to play it. But that is all just conjecture. The real reason could very well be different.

They did/have been doing Apoc. It's cleverly called the 7th Edition Rulebook.

They also have Apocalypse Warzones too, like Codex: Eldar.

Yeah, to some degree, 7th edition, and especially the newer codices, are making Apoc obsolete.

Well it's not really ever gone obsolete, if anything 40k has morphed into apoc to become much more like it. i.e. 40k has shrunk apoc has sort of grown but lost the name.

For example some of the standard min formations that are available in modern codexes now are over 1k points bracket. i.e. the wraithost formation or the demi company.

Realistically they are for 2.5k- 3k games but you will find them in 1850 pts (rarely) or power gamer builds.

I have about 12k eldar and I feel the codex is able to make them shine, things like the crimson hunter formation and the falcon formation and the wraithost formation: if you just took those three you'd be in the 2.5k mark off the bat. And so on

For that matter, many of the formations in the Warhammer World exclusive book, Blood Oath only fit in apocalypse sized games;

The Emperor's Anvil has a minimum prerequisite of a pack of Imperial Knights and a Reaver Titan, for god's sake, whilst the Spear of Sicarius is a battle company in pods.

Essentially there isn't a 'magic point' anymore where a normal game becomes and apocalypse game.

locarno24 wrote:
Essentially there isn't a 'magic point' anymore where a normal game becomes and apocalypse game.

Which for me is the problem. I am in the same boat as I absolutely loved apocalypse in 5th edition when I started playing. Seeing hundreds of models and dozens of tanks and titans on the board at once, taking literal handfuls of troops off the board at once (I play nids, so I need big hands), having an entire weekend of gaming with friends at the FLGS, it was awesome! It was nice when apoc was separate because it changed the way the game is played IMO. You have the stratagems and SH and GC and everyone at the table knows that this is just for fun. All the TFG and WAC gamers went home because "where's the fun in playing an imbalanced game like that?" Yeah it was imbalanced. But it didn't matter. It was fun and everyone at the table just wanted to see stuff blow up.

Now that fliers and SH and GC are all part of normal games, it doesn't really seem special anymore. And it is a lot hard to convince someone to come play a huge game when they can use their titan or formations in a normal game. What's the point of bringing out the apoc book and setting up a scenario when I can just plop my titan down in a 2k point game and blast you away in an hour or two? (gets off )

Apoc and regular 40k have morphed into the same thing. All the big Apoc nasties can now be taken in normal games. So to get your Apoc fix just play a big game of 40k. If you want to ignore the FoC like Apoc used to just play an unbound army.

Now that fliers and SH and GC are all part of normal games, it doesn't really seem special anymore. And it is a lot hard to convince someone to come play a huge game when they can use their titan or formations in a normal game.

I'm sure everyone who plays a Titan or formations is the person who would love to have a bigger game with more big things, or an army to march alongside their big things. This doesn't seem like much of an excuse really.

 jasper76 wrote:
Yeah, to some degree, 7th edition, and especially the newer codices, are making Apoc obsolete.

Indeed, apoc is eventually a thing of the past. In our games we still use the strategems and formations from the apoc book and mix them up with the formations from the codices and supplementary material for 40k regular games. Not sure if GW will push it further. Atm they seem to be fully committed to AoS.

Unbound is Apocalypse, just a different name to loose the "large game-association". Doubly so with Formations and former CtA-allies.

No. It's gone. unless you and your mates have the books and aren't slaves to GW?

Apocalypse was awesome, but the new d weapon chart made a mockery of the rules and stats of all super-heavy units.

 jasper76 wrote:
Yeah, to some degree, 7th edition, and especially the newer codices, are making Apoc obsolete.

Especially since a lot of the formations from Apocalypse have made their way into the standard codices.