Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've played only one game of the new apocalypse, and there's so much more that we didn't even explore (like the dangerous terrain stuff). I want to know how other dakka users have found the experience? I was so glad that they did away with the confusing 'structure points' system, and now it's all about Hull points, but does this make super heavies too vulnerable?

Let me know what you think.

The new rules are complete garbage IMO. Balance is even worse, and the random disasters are unbelievably stupid (seriously, who thought it would be a good idea to remove an entire section of table from the game and tell a player to pack up and go home?), and the game generally goes even farther in the direction of "line up your models, make some gun noises, and put everything away" instead of being a game with meaningful strategic decisions. Add in the ridiculous price tag on an expansion that was already justifiably criticized for being too expensive and inaccessible to new players and I'd rather play with the old rules and skip the whole thing.

I don't have to book yet, waiting for pay day, so can not comment on the contents as a whole but it would have been nice if they had included 2 warzone or a more complete compendium of data sheets especially considering the cost is the same as the BRB.

@Peregrine, I agree from what I have heard/read that the random natural disasters seam rather gimmicky and out of place in the game.
But after the Enter the Citadel day at GW HQ its become clear that these rules are something you can add to a game if you wish, much in the same way as mysterious forest in the BRB. if you don't like them don't use them or house rule them to better suit your gaming group.

Well, we have scheduled an Apo game by August 24. I'm eagerly waiting to play a full Space Marine company. I'll get the book on Friday.

I've not played it yet, but my initial impression is pretty favourable. Yeah, the disasters stuff seems a bit over the top by Apoc standards, but you're in no obligation to use them. I quite like the look of the missions and things like 'finest hour', as well as all the strategic objectives and formations stuff. To me it does feel like it's a different style of game, as opposed to just normal 40K with super heavies and more models.

It's never going to be a game to be played competatively (and is never intended as such I think) and I'd never try a pick up game with strangers, but I think it's quite easy to get a balanced set up with mates without having to house rule too much. I think it's pretty unfair to say that there are no strategic decisions involved in playing it - I could see there being quite a lot of potential for strategy and tactics.

On price, you're getting a fairly big, full colour hardback book. In terms of value for money, it's cheaper than the cost of 2 of the new hardback codexes, so I don't actually think it's that bad. There's nothing specifically overpriced about the Apoc book compared to anything else GW have done recently.

It will seem VERY overpriced though if GW don't release new formations via PDF's online. If you have to forkout more $$££ for a hardback Apocalypse reloaded part 2, then it'll be in truly ripoff territory.

I had a good flick through the campaign fluff, especially the Armageddon one but there's not much original material. It's good to compile it all there, and throw in some unique terrain features, but without original characters or scenarios it's not great.

But it is Apocalypse, and as a big game amongst friends it can be fun!

I like the new rules! I got the book for 45 Euro on a webstore, so I am quite pleased with the pricing.
In our old Apocalypse-games it was all about Orbital Bombardments and hoping you got the 5++ shield on the right spot.
Who-ever made the wrong decision would lose the game.
So that was very boring.

But now we have Natural Disasters, Finest Hour, Divine Intervention, free Formations, Strategic Resources, actual Missions!, breaks, Spearheads and High Commands.
All those things really make the game a lot more tactical and interesting.

I think it's a fair bet we're not going to see any free PDF's for formations online - I think those days are behind us. I suspect what we'll see is a series of apoc mission books much like the codex supplements, with some fluff, missions and formations for around £20 a pop.

Again, taken purely on it's own merit I think if you are interested in playing big apoc games, the rules are no worse value for money than anything else we've seen recently. Personally I really like them, but I've always liked the big battles.

Hmm... It is extremely expensive, and even the manager in my local GW store said he thought the price would probably stop a lot of people, considering the relative price and size of the rulebook. It does look very nice though, and I will get it at some point in the future.
On the other hand, superheavies are far too weak now. Am I right in thinking that Crew stunned means that the whole vehicle has to fire snap shots, rather than a single weapon?
Also, they removed the really cool (+powerful) Necron Monolith Phalanx, and replaced it with some weaker thing involving 8 (IIRC) Monoliths and a Tesseract Vault. Not cool, GW, I knew a lot of Necron players who only bought the third Monolith to get that formation. With these rules, I suspect they would have stuck with two.
Finally, WTF is up with the formation sizes? 8 Monoliths, 100+ Necron Warriors?! The largest minimum size (Necrons at least) in the old book was 5 10-man Immortal squads. But, on the other hand, it makes the Replacements asset so much better...
Apart from that though, I quite like it.

Kangodo wrote:now we have Natural Disasters, Finest Hour, Divine Intervention, free Formations, Strategic Resources, actual Missions!, breaks, Spearheads and High Commands.
All those things really make the game a lot more tactical and interesting.

I do agree that the games will now be more varied, however I am still not convinced with the natural disasters. I don't like how the formations are now free. To me this is going to unbalance the games, especially for those armies that have very few or no formation available (as of yet). At least when the formations were paid for the opposition would have the 'spare' points to spend to make up for the special rules the formation provide.

Dundas wrote:I think it's a fair bet we're not going to see any free PDF's for formations online - I think those days are behind us. I suspect what we'll see is a series of apoc mission books much like the codex supplements, with some fluff, missions and formations for around £20 a pop.

if GW do anything other than this is I will be shocked. But they will come in the format of the new Warzone supplements, AKA mini IA books.

-Shrike- wrote:On the other hand, superheavies are far too weak now. Am I right in thinking that Crew stunned means that the whole vehicle has to fire snap shots, rather than a single weapon?

As far as I was aware superheavies ignored everything except destroyed results, but maybe someone with the book can confirm that.

I actually really enjoyed my first game of Apoc at the weekend. As it was all new to us we left out a lot of the extra rules and just played the bare bones of the game. It was a lot of fun!

I think that you just have to focus on having fun and less about if the game is 'tactical' or 'competitive'. Theres still room for tactics and wanting to win, its just not the same kind of tactical play most people think of when they think of competitive 40k.

Since Super-Heavies aren't affected by penetrating hits (unless a 6 is rolled) other than to loose a Hull Point it brings the Super-Heavy vehicles more in line with gargantuan creatures which is really nice.

I like the new rules for what they are. They're not condusive to some grand amazing strategic game. What they are good for is a heck of a good time with you buddies with some ridiuclous stuff going on between everyone's models. The book is pretty good and while apocalypse will never be played more than regular 40k, its a fun distraction.

The smaller game I played a week ago seemed a lot better than the old rules. This week there's another game of 20k points on Saturday, so that'll be interesting and I'll probably have more to say then.

-Shrike- wrote:
Hmm... It is extremely expensive, and even the manager in my local GW store said he thought the price would probably stop a lot of people, considering the relative price and size of the rulebook. It does look very nice though, and I will get it at some point in the future.

Yeah, agreed. It's a lot higher quality than most GW books but still a lot of money. I've spent more on smaller textbooks but they're a racket anyway. TBH, I'd get one between your gaming group unless you're all desperate to have your own copy.

On the other hand, superheavies are far too weak now. Am I right in thinking that Crew stunned means that the whole vehicle has to fire snap shots, rather than a single weapon?

No, that was only in the Forge World update at the start of 6th. In these new rules they only stop shooting/moving at full efficiency when they're dead. In fact, they're quite a bit stronger than before. I'll need to do the maths as well but I don't think D weapons are much stronger than before either overall (bearing in mind how rough chain reactions could be in the old rules).

Also, they removed the really cool (+powerful) Necron Monolith Phalanx, and replaced it with some weaker thing involving 8 (IIRC) Monoliths and a Tesseract Vault. Not cool, GW, I knew a lot of Necron players who only bought the third Monolith to get that formation. With these rules, I suspect they would have stuck with two.

Agreed, but it was outdated. I wonder what FW will do with the Pylon version. Also, the Necron formations pretty much all suck with sole exception of the infinite phalanx (which to be honest makes Warriors playable rather than too good), whereas almost every other army has some real corkers. Then again, the Necron council will make all your coplayers hate you - the lightning and difficult terrain effect hurt them to. Still, Night Fight is a good Titan insurance policy.

Finally, WTF is up with the formation sizes? 8 Monoliths, 100+ Necron Warriors?! The largest minimum size (Necrons at least) in the old book was 5 10-man Immortal squads. But, on the other hand, it makes the Replacements asset so much better...
Apart from that though, I quite like it.

Huh? The War Council is min size 14, the phalanx min size is 50, the Acquisition Phalanx is min 26. Not really a huge amount of models and if you played pre 5e Necrons, you'll easily be able to take Infinite Phalanx. They don't seem any bigger than before (which admittedly isn't actually saying a lot). I'm pretty annoyed at how awful the Baleful Necropolis is though - it's one thing having a Vault that can be one shot that sets you back ~600 points. It's quite another having that vault be the key part of another 800 points worth of models. Compare it to how good the Doomsday Monolith was and it's a joke.

HopScotch wrote:
I do agree that the games will now be more varied, however I am still not convinced with the natural disasters. I don't like how the formations are now free. To me this is going to unbalance the games, especially for those armies that have very few or no formation available (as of yet). At least when the formations were paid for the opposition would have the 'spare' points to spend to make up for the special rules the formation provide.

The formations are free to encourage people to take them. Before, people rarely did unless they were either broken or going to field those models anyway. Why? They were rarely worth their points. Without these new formations being free, do you think anyone would take them? I can see the argument for the psychic choir ones, but what about 100+ Necron Warriors or a bunch of Space Marine captains? No, people would just field them all separately and not bother with the off chance of getting a slight upgrade for 50-200 points.

HopScotch wrote:
I do agree that the games will now be more varied, however I am still not convinced with the natural disasters. I don't like how the formations are now free. To me this is going to unbalance the games, especially for those armies that have very few or no formation available (as of yet). At least when the formations were paid for the opposition would have the 'spare' points to spend to make up for the special rules the formation provide.

Natural Disasters are purely optional and you can even pick the table you want.
Formations are quite balanced in my opinion. The downside of fielding 150+ Cron-Warriors is the part where you are fielding 150 Warriors.
Your opponent will use those 2k points to field enough Large Blast-models to clear those Warriors away.
Same goes for other formations, they are generally things that I would cut as soon as possible if I was reaching my point limit.

-Shrike- wrote:
On the other hand, superheavies are far too weak now. Am I right in thinking that Crew stunned means that the whole vehicle has to fire snap shots, rather than a single weapon?

If I remember it correctly, they ignore that entire result on the table.

Also, they removed the really cool (+powerful) Necron Monolith Phalanx, and replaced it with some weaker thing involving 8 (IIRC) Monoliths and a Tesseract Vault. Not cool, GW, I knew a lot of Necron players who only bought the third Monolith to get that formation. With these rules, I suspect they would have stuck with two.
Finally, WTF is up with the formation sizes? 8 Monoliths, 100+ Necron Warriors?! The largest minimum size (Necrons at least) in the old book was 5 10-man Immortal squads. But, on the other hand, it makes the Replacements asset so much better...
Apart from that though, I quite like it.

You can always houserule it to work from 2-8 Monoliths, but I do agree with you.. We shouldn't have to houserule it.
The Phalanx-formation needs 10 units of Warriors, so that's a minimum of 50 Warriors

I'm not too impressed with it. It feels like a collection of house-rules that need to be house ruled in order to work, D weapons are even more unbalanced now, formations being free upgrades with *wildly* varying power doesn't help.

Even more pre-planning of forces, deployment, and resources/stratagems/etc is necessary now.

Kangodo wrote:
The downside of fielding 150+ Cron-Warriors is the part where you are fielding 150 Warriors.

I once fielded a green tide. It's only use was to soak up a lot of fire power

D Weapons are incredibly powerful now. Why would you put any other gun on a Titan?

 kronk wrote:
D Weapons are incredibly powerful now. Why would you put any other gun on a Titan?

Indeed, I keep wondering what the point of the melta-cannons are

I agree that the book is a bit expensive. It's the same price as the core rule book and 100 pages less.

That being said, I love the new rule book. I thought it was a great read and love the fact that the formations don't cost anything.

I really like the Unnatural Disasters, they bring an element of danger that you can't control and some cinematic flavor to the game. Using the the Exterminatus Unnatural disaster reminds me of the last level of DOW2: Retribution.

I played a 20k game last weekend and had a blast. We ended up having the zombie apocalypse disaster and ended up with a massive blob of zombies in the center of the board.

I enjoyed the Strategic Resources a lot. Being able to bring back a unit each turn (of less than 15 HP) mitigates the fact D weapons are quite brutal. It also adds a bit of tactic.

Capturing Objectives rewards victory points that you can use for that. And as the game goes on you get more and more. You really need to focus on objectives to 'win'.

Something I didn't like was the fact that imperials get a huge boatload of Strategic Assets. And space marine sub-chapters can use the generic Space Marines' too. In contrast my Eldar had a pitiful handful of assets.

Too many are also only useable at the start of the game, leaving you with less options if you get extra assets during the game (say from a High Command).

D weapons ignore too much. I wouldn't advise playing with too many D weapons. Having too many super-heavies with multi-shot D weapons makes the game a bit one-sided.

The flipside is that if D-Weapons didn't ignore Invul saves then armies like Sisters, Daemons and all Terminators would get a very high advantage over other armies. Plus Gargantuan Creatures would be able to still mitigate the effects very easily.

And most importantly of all: Lynchguard would be able to redirect the weapon's effects.

I didn't like the change at first myself but I've warmed up to it since then. It makes sense, I just wish there was a flip side (say, all D-Weapons were 5" blast or smaller to mitigate their destructive effects).

HopScotch wrote:
I once fielded a green tide. It's only use was to soak up a lot of fire power

And the Warriors even need to be within 1" of eachother :O
At least they can glance vehicles! And they better should do that, since it's over 600 points per 50.
Let's not forget the pain that a Blood Talon'd Dreadnought can do to that unit.

I'm just wondering what Royal Court-member would be great for this unit.

Kangodo wrote:

HopScotch wrote:
I once fielded a green tide. It's only use was to soak up a lot of fire power

And the Warriors even need to be within 1" of eachother :O
At least they can glance vehicles! And they better should do that, since it's over 600 points per 50.
Let's not forget the pain that a Blood Talon'd Dreadnought can do to that unit.

I'm just wondering what Royal Court-member would be great for this unit.

That Dreadnought would need to survive an overwatch that could potentionally glance it off the table, and can only kill as long as there are models within 2" of him. Once he goes to roll more attacks and that space is wider than 2" the Necrons are no longer considered engaged and can't be attack (wounds dealt when a model is in range still pour into the rest of the unit though), then they step forward 3" on I2 and do nothing to the walker (though a Necron Lord may kill it if it's in the unit waiting). Then if they don't break (or the win somehow) the dead models test to stand up, and with that formation they have a good chance of doing that, an even better one if there is a Res Orb. If the unit is still engaged then it continues the next turn.

And the Infinite Phalanx is 10 seperate units of Necrons (running you anywhere from 100-200 Necron Warriors on the table in 10 seperate units) with no vehicles. So at -most- assuming the unit the Dreadnought charges is a unit of 20 Warriors, he could kill 20 Warriors (plus any models attached to the unit).

Then you take 2
One dies because of the overwatch and the other one makes the charge.

Even though he cannot wound them, the Warriors' Initiative makes sure they will always be close enough to have them locked in combat.
A single Lord can easily be taken out with Snipers or Barrage-weapons.

The Phalanx is 10 units, which means 50 to 200 Warriors! The formation also tells us that they count as ONE unit.
So when you get one walker in close combat, you can neutralize almost 2k points of Warriors
Who cares that they keep getting up? You will have them locked in close combat for the rest of the year.

Kangodo wrote:
Then you take 2
One dies because of the overwatch and the other one makes the charge.

Even though he cannot wound them, the Warriors' Initiative makes sure they will always be close enough to have them locked in combat.
A single Lord can easily be taken out with Snipers or Barrage-weapons.

The Phalanx is 10 units, which means 50 to 200 Warriors! The formation also tells us that they count as ONE unit.
So when you get one walker in close combat, you can neutralize almost 2k points of Warriors
Who cares that they keep getting up? You will have them locked in close combat for the rest of the year.

My mistake, my brain was trying to tell me that Warriors come in batches of 10+.

The thing is a battle formation's only restriction is all members are deployed within 36" of a single point. There is nothing that says they are a single unit. Otherwise a Space Marine Company formation would have 3 Dreadnoughts inside of a massed unit that can buy Dedicated transports...that it wouldn't be able to fit in.

The only types of formations that look like the take a bunch of models and make it a singular group are the HQ and Psychic Squad ones. I may need to go back and look again but I'm pretty sure they aren't a single unit, or else the formation would be "50-200 Necron Warriors" instead of "10 Units". By having it state units it's saying that you have separate entities instead of one large mass. At least that's how I'm reading it.

D Weapons are incredibly powerful now. Why would you put any other gun on a Titan?

There are other good Titan options. Plasma Blastguns are superior to TLDs against infantry if you aren't facing Assault Terminator hordes on Warhounds. Apoc missile launchers have a substantial range advantage on Reavers. That said, the hellstorm ones are totally duff and vulcan megabolters are incredibly situtational.

The only types of formations that look like the take a bunch of models and make it a singular group are the HQ and Psychic Squad ones. I may need to go back and look again but I'm pretty sure they aren't a single unit, or else the formation would be "50-200 Necron Warriors" instead of "10 Units". By having it state units it's saying that you have separate entities instead of one large mass. At least that's how I'm reading it.

It literally states it is one unit. As in, it has a rule called infinite phalanx that says "All of the Necron Warrior units form a single combined unit known as an Infinite Phalanx". I need to go read Szeras' rule now to see if it says Necron Warrior unit or unit of Necron Warriors - it it's the latter, 150 buffed Warriors could be fun. Not to mention how incredibly powerful Night Fight is in Apocalypse, so Solar Pulses are a must.

Eyjio wrote:
There are other good Titan options. Plasma Blastguns are superior to TLDs against infantry if you aren't facing Assault Terminator hordes on Warhounds. Apoc missile launchers have a substantial range advantage on Reavers. That said, the hellstorm ones are totally duff and vulcan megabolters are incredibly situtational.

But a slight margin of superiority against infantry (and you don't want to bring infantry hordes in Apocalypse for time reasons) does not make up for being completely useless against vehicles. D-weapons are always the better choice.

Not to mention how incredibly powerful Night Fight is in Apocalypse, so Solar Pulses are a must.

No, solar pulses are a complete waste of points. As soon as you attempt to use one the other players will say "no, and if you don't like it get out of our game" and probably never invite you back.

Eyjio wrote:
It literally states it is one unit. As in, it has a rule called infinite phalanx that says "All of the Necron Warrior units form a single combined unit known as an Infinite Phalanx". I need to go read Szeras' rule now to see if it says Necron Warrior unit or unit of Necron Warriors - it it's the latter, 150 buffed Warriors could be fun. Not to mention how incredibly powerful Night Fight is in Apocalypse, so Solar Pulses are a must.

My mistake on that one. I didn't have the book open in front of me and was thinking of the battle formation rules.

Well, while characterful that seems kind of silly. Granted, good luck getting a Blood Claw armed dread into combat with them, but something like that could keep them there all day. At least the Green Tide can buy upgrades (Power Klaws namely).

Guess they thought folks who built the Oldcron Phalanx army would want an excuse to field their massed collections of Warriors?

 Peregrine wrote:

But a slight margin of superiority against infantry (and you don't want to bring infantry hordes in Apocalypse for time reasons) does not make up for being completely useless against vehicles. D-weapons are always the better choice.

You keep saying this as if it's true. As far as I was aware, S10 AP2 is pretty good vs tanks. Not D level, sure, but then it's not designed to be. I mean, come on, we've been through this - D weapons do not kill hordes well enough. Do I need to repeat the thing about hiding from a gun a foot in the air or why hordes are a smart choice yet again? Are you going to try and tell me Apoc games last 2 turns at most again too?

No, solar pulses are a complete waste of points. As soon as you attempt to use one the other players will say "no, and if you don't like it get out of our game" and probably never invite you back.

You must play some real fun guys. I dunno about you, but I tend to play people I like and enjoy myself with them rather than throwing a fit over nothing. If you think people will ban something which neuters Titans or complain it's unfair in Apocalypse, you're living in a cloud. Hell, old Apoc had night fight the first turns anyway, why would people complain that's coming back? That's not even mentioning the Stormlord's passive ability. No, people will be completely fine with it. Well, maybe except you but you think Titans and mass D blasts are the way to win yet would ban limiters on that so I'm not sure you really count.