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You are missing the point.

This is not a comparison of the fex and it's uses vs the rus and it's uses. This is a comparison of the usefulness of the individual options on the platform.

The fex comes equiped with melee weapons, jaws, and a heavy venom cannon.

It can swap it's melee for 2 different non cannon guns.

24" A:2 5+ 8+
or
18" A:3 6+ 9+

Each option has reasons to consider it. Extra melee or longer range, less shots better to wound or shorter range more shots 1 worse to wound.

The cannon can be swapped for more gun or more melee or it's opposite in cannon form. The cannons get the longest range and the best to wound for their intended target of all the fex options.

The spine banks is a extra gun. It doesn't interfere with the other. Every option is a viable option because they all fulfill a distinct role or have enough different but good that they are a trade off worth considering.



Now the rus. Lets JUST look at the main guns.

Battle Cannon Heavy 72" 1 6+ 6+ -
Demolisher Cannon Heavy 24" 2 6+ 6+ Destroyer
Eradicator Nova Cannon Heavy 36" 2 5+ 9+ -
Executioner Plasma Cannon Heavy 36" 1 7+ 7+ Supercharge
Exterminator Autocannon Heavy 48" 2 6+ 8+ -
Punisher Gatling Cannon Heavy 24" 6 7+ 10+ -
Vanquisher Battle Cannon Heavy 72" 2 10+ 4+ -

ALL of these weapons occupy the exact same weapon slot.

They don't all have interesting choices. Why the hell would you ever take the Plasma cannon? It's half the range of the basic battle canon with a worse to wound and the same number of shots and you COULD make it as good as the BC IF you risk taking a wound.

See? That option shouldn't exist. It's competing for design space in a spot where it has nowhere to have a use. You could argue the same thing for some of the other options. One of those will be the best anti tank. One will be the best anti personal. You get a good middle ground option. You get the best long range option. Thats 4. What are the rest for?

 Lance845 wrote:
You are missing the point.

Snip ...
Why the hell would you ever take the Plasma cannon? It's half the range of the basic battle canon with a worse to wound and the same number of shots and you COULD make it as good as the BC IF you risk taking a wound.
Snip ...

The answer is, because the model is equipped with it.
One of the design goals for apoc is to allow players to take whatever they have and play with it. And if it happens to be a LR with Plasma, so be it.

And yes there are players who do not care about number crunching, but select models for look, background or whatever reason besides statistical optimisation.

Anyway 2 shots (grinding) on a 6+ or 2 shots on a 4+ over what ? 3 turns. 6 Shots. It only makes a difference when you roll a 6. That is in 1/12 of the cases. So it happens statistically half a time if the life expectancy of your tank is 3 turns or once if it survives 6 turns and always shoots twice.
Remember this is statistically which means it will not happen every game and in other games multiple times. You're probably one of the players who never roll a 6 when firing a Plasma Cannon in the 5 games of apoc they play and I'm the one who always rolls 6es when shooting a Plasma and 7es when shooting a battle cannon.

I would not rip off a weapon for a 1/12 chance to make a difference for 6 shots in a game.

brumbaer wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
You are missing the point.

Snip ...
Why the hell would you ever take the Plasma cannon? It's half the range of the basic battle canon with a worse to wound and the same number of shots and you COULD make it as good as the BC IF you risk taking a wound.
Snip ...

The answer is, because the model is equipped with it.
One of the design goals for apoc is to allow players to take whatever they have and play with it. And if it happens to be a LR with Plasma, so be it.

And yes there are players who do not care about number crunching, but select models for look, background or whatever reason besides statistical optimisation.

Anyway 2 shots (grinding) on a 6+ or 2 shots on a 4+ over what ? 3 turns. 6 Shots. It only makes a difference when you roll a 6. That is in 1/12 of the cases. So it happens statistically half a time if the life expectancy of your tank is 3 turns or once if it survives 6 turns and always shoots twice.
Remember this is statistically which means it will not happen every game and in other games multiple times. You're probably one of the players who never roll a 6 when firing a Plasma Cannon in the 5 games of apoc they play and I'm the one who always rolls 6es when shooting a Plasma and 7es when shooting a battle cannon.

I would not rip off a weapon for a 1/12 chance to make a difference for 6 shots in a game.

Well, sure. The big problem with the plasma and the BC is that they have only 1 shot (grinding advance doubles to 2) vs 2 shots (grinding advance doubles to 4) on all the long-range guns. All the other longrange guns offer roughly double the firepower, so rather than rip a gun off I would just tell your opponent you're doing a "counts-as" unless you really truly do not care.

To me, a weapon has a purpose if it allows the model to fulfil a different role, and if that weapon is not worse at that role than another weapon the model can also take. And if you go down the line..

Demolisher Cannon. This gun does the most damage against vehicles of all the guns, but operates in the 24" range band AND increases the cost of the tank, which means your tank effectively becomes less durable. Helpfully, there also exists an anti-tank sponson weapon with the same range band which pairs nicely to the gun, so I would say this gun has a role.

Punisher Cannon. Same deal, same range band, but for infantry. Offers the most anti-infantry damage. And hey, look, there's also a set of short-range anti infantry hull and sponson guns you can pair with it if you want to create "the most damaging glass cannon russ possible vs infantry" build. Cool, so that has a role.

Eradicator Nova Cannon. Best anti-infantry of the longrange low cost guns. Also has the exact range band of a heavy bolter, plasma cannon, and a heavy stubber, which means you can build a 36" range anti-infantry russ sliding it up and down the damage vs durability scale depending on how many extra PL you want to add to it.

Exterminator Autocannon. Slightly less efficient at damaging infantry, slightly better at damaging tanks, and look, it goes into the 48" range band! It's the perfect cheap, generalist, longrange russ paired with a hull lascannon and nothing else.

Vanquisher battle cannon. Same as an exterminator, but anti-tank instead of anti-infantry.

So you've got two spendy, high damage, close range builds, both viable, one midrange spendy anti-infantry build, and two cheap, longrange builds that either tilt towards antitank or antiinfantry.

5/7 guns have a purpose that makes sense objectively. The Carnifex has a lower percentage of weapons that make sense to use, 3/5, and even lower if you're looking at all the possible combinations of the 2 arm weapons.

I'm sorry, the Cannons do not make any sense - even the venom cannon, despite appearing to be an antitank option it does the EXACT same damage against tanks that the Deathspitters do because the deathspitters get 2 shots. The only thing it gains is range, and you cannot give the carnifex a second 36" range weapon. The only reason to consider it is if you know you're only going to be trying to shoot him at tanks and you think there's going to be tanks in that 24-36" range band when you're already within 24" of something else to use your second set of deathspitters. And that's the exact argument you could make for the Battlecannon vs the other anti-infantry cannons - you're OK with dealing less damage because you're pretty sure enemies will be between 36" and 72" range.

the_scotsman wrote:

.. Snip
Well, sure. The big problem with the plasma and the BC is that they have only 1 shot (grinding advance doubles to 2) vs 2 shots (grinding advance doubles to 4) on all the long-range guns. All the other longrange guns offer roughly double the firepower, so rather than rip a gun off I would just tell your opponent you're doing a "counts-as" unless you really truly do not care.

To me, a weapon has a purpose if it allows the model to fulfil a different role, and if that weapon is not worse at that role than another weapon the model can also take. And if you go down the line..
Snip...

I'm not arguing the point of weapons and rolls or of the "lesser performance" of the Plasma. I wholeheartedly agree.
I'm not talking about buying new models, I wouldn't built a LR with Plasma.
But I'm finding it - in lack of a better word - unnecessary "bad style" to use of a "count-as" throwing over board the WYSIWYG to get a low (to be true any) increase in probability (let's face it, if you have a single LR with Plasma, it will be a freak occurrence that having it count-as a Demolisher would have changed the outcome of the battle).
There are good weapons and bad weapons and you make use of what you've got. Of course you can change what you've got and restore WYSIWYG and get back to be "in style" by replacing the weapon on the model, but IMHO it's not worth it. Except if your fielding 5+ of them

brumbaer wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

.. Snip
Well, sure. The big problem with the plasma and the BC is that they have only 1 shot (grinding advance doubles to 2) vs 2 shots (grinding advance doubles to 4) on all the long-range guns. All the other longrange guns offer roughly double the firepower, so rather than rip a gun off I would just tell your opponent you're doing a "counts-as" unless you really truly do not care.

To me, a weapon has a purpose if it allows the model to fulfil a different role, and if that weapon is not worse at that role than another weapon the model can also take. And if you go down the line..
Snip...

I'm not arguing the point of weapons and rolls or of the "lesser performance" of the Plasma. I wholeheartedly agree.
I'm not talking about buying new models, I wouldn't built a LR with Plasma.
But I'm finding it - in lack of a better word - unnecessary "bad style" to use of a "count-as" throwing over board the WYSIWYG to get a low (to be true any) increase in probability (let's face it, if you have a single LR with Plasma, it will be a freak occurrence that having it count-as a Demolisher would have changed the outcome of the battle).
There are good weapons and bad weapons and you make use of what you've got. Of course you can change what you've got and restore WYSIWYG and get back to be "in style" by replacing the weapon on the model, but IMHO it's not worth it. Except if your fielding 5+ of them

Yep. If the extra 0.58 damage per shot vs Infantry and 0.24 you get vs Tanks with an Executioner versus an Exterminator Autocannon doesn't bug you, then it doesn't bug you.

I just personally don't know what things like an "Exterminator Autocannon" or "Eradicator Nova Cannon" are SUPPOSED to look like, so if someone told me their russ had one of those and instead they had build an "Executioner Plasma Cannon" I...would definitely be none the wiser, and I certainly would not care. Same with "Battle Cannon" vs "Vanquisher Battle Cannon." like, who knows. As you said, the odds of it making a difference...pretty freakin' small in an apoc game.

Looking at it from a game perspective, I don't really see why they couldn't have given the Battle Cannon and Executioner a role by just making them have 2 shots. The Plasma Cannon would be a slightly high risk/high reward option with the supercharge rule, and the Battle Cannon could be 5+/10+ 2 shots to be the mirror of the 10+/5+ vanquisher.

I must say though it is a refreshing situation to be in with a GW game where you have a weapon list with 7 options on it, and two of them are about 40% less efficient than the other 5, which are all relatively well balanced and have different roles. Could not tell you the last time I had that situation with a GW game.

So it's been a month with no word from GW about fixes or changes. Is Apoc going to be another dead in the water product from GW?

If it is I might try and organise a Baconfied Edition if it's already been abandoned.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
So it's been a month with no word from GW about fixes or changes. Is Apoc going to be another dead in the water product from GW?

If it is I might try and organise a Baconfied Edition if it's already been abandoned.

Would be...not the hardest thing in the world to smack most of the balance oddities into better order.

Played our first game the other week and enjoyed it

Mate had just picked up a painted Reaver Titan so was playing that and Khorne stuff (600ps)

I had 300pts of Knights and Sisters of Battle
Friend had 300pts of mostly Blood Angel infantry.

Good fun - biggest thing of note was how resiliant everything was even discouting outliers like on the first turn we put 6 large and 1 small blasts on one of his Knights and he made ALL of his 5+ saves!!!

We ignored the Reaver until last turn and won 7pts to 5pts.

The game does need command cards etc for Factions like the Titans that don't get them at the moment.

Recently did a 9v9 Apocalypse game.
People were fairly happy with how quickly rounds were going once people got used to the new rules.
Haven't hared any complaints other than some armies lose a bit of flavor.
Gallery of the game.
https://imgur.com/gallery/D0cdvNv

 BaconCatBug wrote:
So it's been a month with no word from GW about fixes or changes. Is Apoc going to be another dead in the water product from GW?

If it is I might try and organise a Baconfied Edition if it's already been abandoned.

I feel like Kill Team went a pretty decent length of time without a faq as well didn't it? Necromunda went months and multiple book releases without one. So hopefully we just see this faq dropped alongside other faqs for the new marine codex and stuff.

Yeah. Right now i suspect with all the releases of new units we are waiting to get faq/updates to include the new datasheets as well.

brumbaer wrote:

The answer is, because the model is equipped with it.
One of the design goals for apoc is to allow players to take whatever they have and play with it. And if it happens to be a LR with Plasma, so be it.

At this scale I would be happy with Leman Russ and generic stats, say - 36 inches 2xAP6+/1xAT5+, 76 inches 1xAP6+/2xAT6+, or whatever a averaged sort of performance for a Leman Russ is. Any model of russ, these are the stats, who cares if there is a small difference between autocannons and a battlecannon for example.

 Lance845 wrote:
Yeah. Right now i suspect with all the releases of new units we are waiting to get faq/updates to include the new datasheets as well.

Possible, though at this point I believe we're only missing the new Primarhino and cowboy dreadnought. I'm more inclined to believe it's just the sheer quantity of units out there. For every obvious mistake ala kastelan/ironstrider attacks, there's probably 2-3 "functional mistakes" like IG Veterans' attacks stat that still work by RAW they're just different from the intended value.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Yeah. Right now i suspect with all the releases of new units we are waiting to get faq/updates to include the new datasheets as well.

Possible, though at this point I believe we're only missing the new Primarhino and cowboy dreadnought. I'm more inclined to believe it's just the sheer quantity of units out there. For every obvious mistake ala kastelan/ironstrider attacks, there's probably 2-3 "functional mistakes" like IG Veterans' attacks stat that still work by RAW they're just different from the intended value.

There's also another infiltrating marine squad coming.

I hope they don't nerf Gman apoc's rules too. Be super bummed.

stratigo wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Yeah. Right now i suspect with all the releases of new units we are waiting to get faq/updates to include the new datasheets as well.

Possible, though at this point I believe we're only missing the new Primarhino and cowboy dreadnought. I'm more inclined to believe it's just the sheer quantity of units out there. For every obvious mistake ala kastelan/ironstrider attacks, there's probably 2-3 "functional mistakes" like IG Veterans' attacks stat that still work by RAW they're just different from the intended value.

There's also another infiltrating marine squad coming.

I hope they don't nerf Gman apoc's rules too. Be super bummed.

Nah, Mort and magnus have the same rule.

Played Apoc today.

Astra Militarum vs. Imperial Knights 146 vs 143 points.

Crusader, Valiant, Warden, Galant + 4 Armigers in 2 Detachements.
2 Demolisher, 1 Leman Russ, 1 Vanquisher, 1 Punisher, 1 Hydra, Basilisk, Griffon, + 2 Infantry Squads, 4 Scion Squads, 2 Ogryns, 1 Command + Standard, 1 Scion Command + Standard, 1 Wryrdvane, 1 Primaris Psyker, 1 Thunderbolt in 5 Detachments.

We rolled for the Mission and got Meatgrinder. Simplified you fight to the end and score points at the end of each round. 1 point for more controlling objectives and 1 point for killing more units.
When you look at the list the Militarum should always score the objectives, because the Knights have no Bataillon with Troops and the Knights should always score the units, because there are so many bad save & low wounds Militarum units. It happened as expected except in one round when both sides killed the same number of units (2 Armigers and a Knight just lost their last wounds after 3 rounds of fire).

It was the first game for both of us and we finished the game in 3 hours.

The rules are simple and the game has a good flow.
The command assets have some impact, but were not overwhelming. In your first games the number of cards may be overwhelming. Especially for Militarum players as they get tons of cards and if you are not familiar with them have to read them all and decide which to discard and which to keep and when to use. I assume after some games this will not be longer the case.

Some profiles feel weird. I.e. a Leman Russ and a Basilisk have the same resilience - a Sv of 6 and 2 wounds.
The Knights seemed to be too cheap in comparison to a Leman Russ, but the game didn't support this. A single game is not significant so.
Ordinary Infantry dies in droves when you put your mind to it. Interesting enough a single Command asset (of the appropriate type) allows Knights to re-roll wound or attack rolls, Astra Militarum has different CA which allow re-rolls either for attacks or wounds.
Still both kinds of CAs are available in large numbers, but neither Knights, nor Militarum have an easy way to re-roll saves or morale checks.

The order of activations is very often of no importance. That may change with gaming experience or not.
There are not many important decisions to make. This also may change with gaming experience or not.
(Too) Often there is just no reason to manoeuvre, you just stay and shoot. This may change with gaming experience, mission, opponent or not.
All in all from 3 hours gaming time, I assume 2.5 hours were dice rolling, I had hoped for less. Read as more decision who affect the game, less dice rolling.

So while I find it much better than ordinary 40k, I will need some more games to find out whether I like it well enough to play it regularly.

How is Apoc going for people these days?
Is it still alive and kicking?

I havent had a chance to run a game yet

Sadly Apocalypse seems to be dead on the vine. GW have refused to fix the errors in the datasheets or provide any form of matched play rules.

It's actually pretty upsetting.

Very sad to hear. It even had better rules than regular 40k too

How well is apocalypse doing?

Still really enjoying it myself. Gw does need to do a errata for some things and release datacards for new units though. But meh. Basic game is still way better than 40k.

Wonder if this shoots in the foot the theory that GW released Apocs ruleset as a test bed for future 40k rules?

If they have dropped support for it this quickly perhaps they think its flunked and will keep with current/tweaked rules in the future.

Hmmm.

That would be a shame because they’re really solid rules.

I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t gotten at least a little more ongoing marketing/community support. Card packs seem like an easy way to monetize the game moving forward. I get the barrier to entry problem though, you’re mostly selling the game to people who already have a lot of models which isn’t exactly a high growth market unlike kill team—I would not be surprised if kill team was accounting for majority of their growth.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
That would be a shame because they’re really solid rules.

Agreed.

It does need a FAQ, and as new units come out.

However GW might consider it done and dusted.

Tempted to pick up the rules. I've given up on 40k, but play OPR Grim Future. The rules for Apocalypse seem very appealing, I am aware that the datasheets have a few issues, as do some of the care combos. However the core rules seem very solid, and offer actual tactics and strategies to be adopted, other than Han weight of dice, modifications, and re-rolls.

If GW drop support for it, that will be a shame.

 stonehorse wrote:
Tempted to pick up the rules. I've given up on 40k, but play OPR Grim Future. The rules for Apocalypse seem very appealing, I am aware that the datasheets have a few issues, as do some of the care combos. However the core rules seem very solid, and offer actual tactics and strategies to be adopted, other than Han weight of dice, modifications, and re-rolls.

If GW drop support for it, that will be a shame.

And it even seems to work well with 40k scale or Epic/Adeptus Titanticus scale models and likely all in between !

I must get off my butt and try these rules!

They really work, and honestly, I wouldn’t mind trying to downsize them to apply to regular 40k.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
They really work, and honestly, I wouldn’t mind trying to downsize them to apply to regular 40k.

I've mostly played at 100 PL which is about the size of a 2000pt game of 40k and it works perfectly fine. Usually 2-3 detachments per side. Have even done it with 50/50 PL vs 100 2v1 and it totally worked. Each player commanded 1 detachment on the allied side.