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We are finishing off a narrative campaign with an apocalypse match. What is a good way to deploy models? We are doing 8000 points give or take, so we are curious if it would be better to have it AAAALL out first turn, or if it would work better to send in parts at a time?

It depends on the scenerio. If you're just doing a large scale battle then just treat the lists as a normal army and do what you would normally do with any given unit. If you're doing an invasion or city defense then the defender should be limited to what he keeps in reserves but the limit should be set by the players.

I'd say normal deployment.

Start with the Big Things (e.g. super heavies) only on turn 1, then regular vehicles/monsters, then gribblies.

Gives the Big Things some time to shine before getting swamped.

Or alternatively the other way around; infantry only deploying 6" or so from the middle, then roll on the support weapons from turn 2 onwards.

Apoc wise i'd also suggest diagonal deployment, especially in the latter scenario.

Hang a sheet across the board so that both sides can deploy at once.

Makes for a good moment when both sides get to see what the other has brought and saves you a bunch of time.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Hang a sheet across the board so that both sides can deploy at once.

Makes for a good moment when both sides get to see what the other has brought and saves you a bunch of time.

I'm totally going to use this.

I'm currently planning an Apoc game and we are using diagonal deployment. 3 objectives and 3v3 w a ton of terrain. the measured reserves twist from open war deck. Random events like orbital bombardment and tremors.

My local club does Apoc a tad different. The point of an Apoc game is less about win/lose and more about just having fun and blowing stuff up. As such, we basically just deploy stuff ourselves independent of the other team (Although the sheet idea sounds really cool). Once the table is set up and ready to go, we do turns simultaneously (alternating at this many points means whomever goes first is all but guaranteed a win). Both sides move together, cast psychic powers together, shoot together, and charge together. In the psychic/shooting phase, if something dies before it has a chance to act, you just note that it is killed, and once it has acted you can remove it. This speeds up the game and ensures everyone gets to use their models, instead of spending an hour setting up a bunch of stuff just to take it off the table before you get a chance to use it. Also, chargers meet in the middle and attacks happen simultaneously if two units charge each other.

My society has adopted the following format for apocalypse games:

- Each player brings a standard 2k points list. In addition each side has a pool of "toys", usually balanced by power level for super heavies etc.
- Both sides must deploy half their points at the start of the game, the other half must be held in reserve.
- The side that is going first deploys first
- No seizing the initiative. No first blood or line breaker but each warlord is worth 1 and the supreme warlord is worth 2vps.
- The side that is going first may not bring on their reserves until their turn 2. The side that goes second may bring on their reserves in their turn 1. Reserves may use any special deployment rules (e.g. deep strike equivalents), or move on from the friendly table edge if not.
- There are 6 objectives, each is worth 1pt at the end of each player turn (friendly and enemy) for the side that controls them and a fixed value at the end of the game.

The idea is to reduce the first turn advantage which can be pretty overwhelming in apocalypse. It seems to work well. The side that goes first has an advantage in terms of claiming board control and thus objectives throughout the game (as well as restricting deep striking), the side that goes second has a strong advantage in pushing onto the objectives and finishing with them at the end of the battle. Whether it is best to go first or second depends on how many turns are played and how much the objectives are worth at the end. The last game we did only got to turn 3 and the objectives were worth 1-6pts each (so 21pts up for grabs) which seemed to give an advantage to the side that went second, so maybe reduce the end game values a bit.

For extra fun we also gave each player a secret campaign objective they had to achieve. It didn't give victory points but if they achieved it it gave them a campaign bonus.

Hope that gives you some ideas.