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Spoletta wrote:

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:
I'll raise a different problem, namely that Apocalypse looks kinda... boring.

I'll grant I don't have access to the cards but the datasheets themselves look incredibly bland and lacking in both rules and options.

Speaking as someone who likes to customise characters and such, it seems I've got absolutely nothing to work with.

In Apoc you don't customise characters and units, but detachments. It's a different scale.

I get that, but that's entirely my point.

I don't think scaling everything up makes the game more fun or interesting. Not for me at any rate.

I would get away from the command assets and detachments. Just build your army like you would in normal 40k and treat every unit like it is a detachment on it's own for apoc. Just use the data sheets and PL from apoc and the game system. From 40k - keep stratagems instead of command assets.

Why do "custom" characters even matter? It's not like there's any interesting customization, you're just fine tuning a bit of dice math. In Apocalypse you can still make a cool model or write fluff, you just don't get bogged down in worrying about which power weapon is 2% more effective against the current meta.

 Peregrine wrote:
Why do "custom" characters even matter? It's not like there's any interesting customization, you're just fine tuning a bit of dice math. In Apocalypse you can still make a cool model or write fluff, you just don't get bogged down in worrying about which power weapon is 2% more effective against the current meta.

A succinct way to phrase my own complaints with relics, etc in 8th. Hmm, should I take this plasma gun, or this strictly better plasma gun? Does it really make any narrative sense for billy bob the no-one marine to carry a unique, 10 millennia old sword into some minor excursion with the Tau? I know people will complain if they get taken out but all they do is bog down the game and break the rules in a variety of frustrating ways. If you want your bolter to have a silly name, give it a silly name yourself.

The three best things about Apoc so far for me have been alternating activations, no random shots/damage and always getting a save. I could leave the rest and, honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the "all my units shots are on big shot" thing - it makes it feel weirdly like kill team with too many models.

Activations makes the game feel more like a game, rather than a slog of waiting for your stuff to die so you can play for a bit; having really gotten into board games since stepping back from 40k a bit, the design decision of sticking with IGOUGO is utter rubbish. There just shouldn't be 5+ minutes (often more like 10+) between when you can actually play - it's ludicrous, terrible legacy design hamstringing the system.

Random shots are just awful; I don't think that needs a huge amount of justification - they're unfun for everyone involved, they slow things down and they make no thematic sense. If you removed it, it would make literally every type of player happier, but we're stuck with it because...?

As for saves, it's somewhat less of an issue than the others, but it feels great as a player to not have to worry about my elite armour not actually being elite - it's just always there. Being wounded easier by high strength weapons and then losing your save always felt like a bit of a double whammy and it's barely bandaged by half the world and its mother getting invulnerable saves so they can ignore those rules almost entirely. Just simplify the system, get rid of AP, especially if it's sticking with D6 and let people roll the saves on their sheets. Controversial, maybe, but also likely the only way to balance the system in a meaningful way without massive tables.

I've had a couple of games at 100PL now. It seems to be working nicely so far. I'm playing with 4 detachments so I'm drawing 5 cards a turn. With each effect, I care about appearing ~3 times in my deck and the one-offs being fairly rare I've got a good chance of drawing what I need. I also have a Farseer so I have 1 free tutor (to use MtG parlance) and then I have 2 or 3 more tutors in the deck, so if I need a crucial piece of a 2 card combo I can just get it.

My opponent has played a couple of different builds. Everything in 1 detachment didn't really work even though it was Knights. Too restrictive on movement and orders. The Guard army with (I think) 3 detachemnts worked well and the game was much closer.

The only house rule we're playing with is using a 6' x 4' table and playing with the short edges as our home edges. Maintains Apoc deployment depths, just with 2' less width, which is what the table would suggest anyway if you scale it down to 100PL, so barely a house rule even.

With regards to the Shoot Twice card, there are ways to play around it, which came up in our game. I had the Eldar card that lets you look at your opponent's hand so I knew he had it. He put his big detachment on Aimed Fire, whilst I had initiative. I had the ability to double the move of my DE detachment and used that combined with an Assault order to slam into his back lines using jetbikes, this tied up a good portion of his big guns. The double fire from the infantry squads still hurt, but not as much as it would have. I'm sure there is other counterplay to that.

Drager wrote:
I've had a couple of games at 100PL now. It seems to be working nicely so far. I'm playing with 4 detachments so I'm drawing 5 cards a turn. With each effect, I care about appearing ~3 times in my deck and the one-offs being fairly rare I've got a good chance of drawing what I need. I also have a Farseer so I have 1 free tutor (to use MtG parlance) and then I have 2 or 3 more tutors in the deck, so if I need a crucial piece of a 2 card combo I can just get it.

My opponent has played a couple of different builds. Everything in 1 detachment didn't really work even though it was Knights. Too restrictive on movement and orders. The Guard army with (I think) 3 detachemnts worked well and the game was much closer.

The only house rule we're playing with is using a 6' x 4' table and playing with the short edges as our home edges. Maintains Apoc deployment depths, just with 2' less width, which is what the table would suggest anyway if you scale it down to 100PL, so barely a house rule even.

With regards to the Shoot Twice card, there are ways to play around it, which came up in our game. I had the Eldar card that lets you look at your opponent's hand so I knew he had it. He put his big detachment on Aimed Fire, whilst I had initiative. I had the ability to double the move of my DE detachment and used that combined with an Assault order to slam into his back lines using jetbikes, this tied up a good portion of his big guns. The double fire from the infantry squads still hurt, but not as much as it would have. I'm sure there is other counterplay to that.

"I'll just stick everything in one detachment lolol so broken" is definitely the "i have never played this game but think I am very smart" take of new-apoc. Even if your army is like, pure stationary totally castled up gunline, or all knights, it is super restrictive to be drawing 2 cards per turn and having to have everything within 12" of your warlord.

And let's say you get to go with your whole army before your opponent gets to act. Congratulations? You...got your blast markers down before he did? Have fun waiting until the end of the turn for anything to die anyway.

 Peregrine wrote:
Why do "custom" characters even matter? It's not like there's any interesting customization, you're just fine tuning a bit of dice math.

I disagree. Interesting customisation is certainly limited, but it does exist.

Further, I fail to see how removing customisation entirely could possibly be an improvement in this regard. You don't put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.

 Peregrine wrote:
In Apocalypse you can still make a cool model or write fluff

And have it be utterly irrelevant because it's impossible to represent in any way, shape or form. What fun.

the_scotsman wrote:


You would definitely need to have a gentleman's agreement with an opponent about which cards are reasonable to include in a deck if you were to play a 100PL game. You'll have like 2 cards per turn, and there are certain cards you could draw that would just shatter the balance of a 100PL game. not a ton, and most of them are definitely scalable and work up and down, but some are most certainly written with the idea that you'll have a solid 250-400PL and 5 or 6 detachments to work with rather than 1 or 2.

The one peregrine mentioned is a good example. a whole guard detachment shooting twice would be pretty gamebreaking at 100PL.

I don't think the "stuff everything into one detachment and activate it all at once" strategy is as gamebreaking as you might think though. having only a single card vs an opponent's 3-4 per turn and having to have you WHOLE ARMY within 12" of a single commander AND all taking the same action is a pretty major drawback.

Like "Hmm, do I want MY ARMY to get to move this turn? Gosh it'd be useful for this one unit to double move to claim an objective, am I cool with MY ARMY not shooting?"

Deckbuilding games usually have a ban list for competitive play. This one would be no different if you were to use it for competitive matched play.

I think the one rule that at minimum needs adoption to 40k is no models are removed until the end of turn. 40k has always had a serious issue with Player one having a massive advantage and Player 2 taking models off of the table before they even move.

Apoc is just a larger scale of play.
Skirmish games (Necromunda / Kill Team) each miniature is a "model".
In 40k your squads are your "model".
In Apoc, a detachment is your "model". Reminds me of a 40k version of "Fantasy Battle" where moving units around on stands as one thing.

All flavor and customization is is at each level of scale.

This reminds me a lot of normal Battletech vs AlphaStrike, a slight simplification of stats to have larger battles with faster play.

I think boring will only happen if Apoc is run at less than it's "optimal" detachment quantity.

Currently for our group 40k has become so plain and boring that we only play once or twice every two months.

The main complaints are how long and drawn out everything is. Turns, special abilities, dice rolling.

40k is so bad right now that we play anything and everything besides it. Apoc will most likely be a testing ground for "Some" of the rules to be ported over to 40k 9th edition.

For us, 40k is dead while Apoc allows us to have some fun while the Tourny players fall all over themselves about Mathhammer.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:


You would definitely need to have a gentleman's agreement with an opponent about which cards are reasonable to include in a deck if you were to play a 100PL game. You'll have like 2 cards per turn, and there are certain cards you could draw that would just shatter the balance of a 100PL game. not a ton, and most of them are definitely scalable and work up and down, but some are most certainly written with the idea that you'll have a solid 250-400PL and 5 or 6 detachments to work with rather than 1 or 2.

The one peregrine mentioned is a good example. a whole guard detachment shooting twice would be pretty gamebreaking at 100PL.

I don't think the "stuff everything into one detachment and activate it all at once" strategy is as gamebreaking as you might think though. having only a single card vs an opponent's 3-4 per turn and having to have you WHOLE ARMY within 12" of a single commander AND all taking the same action is a pretty major drawback.

Like "Hmm, do I want MY ARMY to get to move this turn? Gosh it'd be useful for this one unit to double move to claim an objective, am I cool with MY ARMY not shooting?"

Deckbuilding games usually have a ban list for competitive play. This one would be no different if you were to use it for competitive matched play.

Yeah, a gentlemens' agreement is the first thing I'd expect with any game to begin with anyway, as no play is always better than gakky play. Banlists, either soft or hard, are a useful thing as are other house rules depending on the players' wishes. To use more MtG analogies, I'm going to ask my EDH opponent about the preferred power level before selecting the deck from a bunch that varies between sillier creature synergies and turn three "I win" combos.

I haven't yet read through the box, but what's been discussed so far hasn't appeared to be too unbalancing or something that couldn't indeed be fixed by either removing a card or two or softly nerfing their use with a common agreement on not using them on a detachment that contains almost all the guns in the army.

The thing is there are cards that impact whole detachments negatively too. Its fine.

 SickSix wrote:
I think the one rule that at minimum needs adoption to 40k is no models are removed until the end of turn. 40k has always had a serious issue with Player one having a massive advantage and Player 2 taking models off of the table before they even move.

Funny thing is I’d suggested this sort of thing a few months back in proposed rules, but had dismissed it as “too gamey”. It’s somewhat unsettling to see it be the core way to play Apocalypse.

 Stormonu wrote:

 SickSix wrote:
I think the one rule that at minimum needs adoption to 40k is no models are removed until the end of turn. 40k has always had a serious issue with Player one having a massive advantage and Player 2 taking models off of the table before they even move.

Funny thing is I’d suggested this sort of thing a few months back in proposed rules, but had dismissed it as “too gamey”. It’s somewhat unsettling to see it be the core way to play Apocalypse.

I never thought it was too gamey. I thought the book keeping would be a nightmare. Apoc both provides you with the chits you need and you never actually remove models. Just units. So the book keeping is way down. 40k runs on a model to unit interaction. Apoc is pure unit to unit. It makes this possible.

 Smirrors wrote:
Lolz at the sad cases wishing for 8th to die out. Why dont you just make new rules with your friends and be happy with your own personal games. There is absolutely no reason for 8th to change drastically to the levels of apoc, they are just different games that can co-exist.

On one hand, sure. There are some aspects of Apoc like the streamlining of unit action I'd never want to see in 40k - I like the depth of rules and customization in 40k.

But some of these mechanics I just massively prefer. Like, that terrain system man....I love that. Cover being easy and non-subjective to claim, and declarative (embarking and disembarking from terrain like a transport making it super clear who's where) and also with clear advantages and drawbacks. Awesome. I also like that it serves to break up the binary nature of close combat from always either locked in and untargetable or totally flapping in the breeze, that's also great.


Turn structure that reduces downtime is awesome. Damage that discourages alpha strike is great. Close combat just being a thing you can reliably do without your opponent getting loads of free gak and second chances and turns of mandatory free punches is something I've wanted for editions. Morale being an unavoidable fact of the game that very few units and factions have a way to flat out ignore and screw the people who'll whine on about how their Marty stus should NEVER run because they're so brave you guys....love that. character status not being better protection than a literal armored tank transport or being a giant demon.

That's core mechanics though. I would never want mandatory block movement, all or nothing unit death and super simplified unit profiles.

the_scotsman wrote:
I like the depth of rules and customization in 40k.

40k doesn't have depth, it has word count and a bloated mess of options that don't matter. Apocalypse has 95% of the strategic depth with much less rules bloat.

In my experience, you have two main types who frequent this board. The larger is the "everything is awful" crowd. The next largest is the "everything is perfect" crowd. Then you have the minority who tend fall somewhere in the middle, and I feel like this is probably closer to the truth than either of the extremes.

Disclaimer: this is based on what I've read on here, and the most likely "reality" is that almost everyone has things they like and dislike about the systems GW puts out. But when you see the same users flocking to one side or another every time something is discussed... well, you start to assign "roles".

Reading through this thread, I'm surprised I haven't seen any references to Epic or Warmaster. Warmaster because the units are relatively homogeneous and yet each faction plays with a unique play style and flavor. Epic because of the alt. activation, blast markers, and large scale. Having played both, I always feel like the games really do come down to strategy and tactics rather than min/maxing or power gaming. Apoc looks like it might be in that category. I'm excited about it.

If you'll forgive me for talking out of my ass, being that I have yet to play a game of Apoc, I'd like to add my 2c to some of the issues raised:

- "Slap Fest" - as I see it now, if slap fests occur, then it's probably a symptom of bad tactics, namely target selection. It looks like the trick will be how to maneuver your units in to positions where they can take out high priority targets while staying in command radius. Characters only have a -1 to hit now if they're not closest?? Looks like "sniping officers" is going to be a thing... But it looks like bad matchups will still be a thing unless they put a cap on the availability of certain units.

- Alternating activation. Welcome to contemporary wargaming... I go you go can be pulled off successfully, Advanced Squad Leader and Infinity pull it off in spades, mainly because the enemy is on constant "overwatch" during your movement phase, but I don't think 40k could pull that off without a major overhaul and/or making the game much more complex. So the next best thing is AA I guess. AT-43 did this beautifully by using the data-cards as the activation sequence, where you'd put the cards in the order you wanted them to activate them in, while alternating with your opponent, so not only do you have the unit's stats handy at all times, they also serve a purpose in the game - it was super fun. I wish they'd just copy the AT-43 rules for 40k... haha

That being said, I think the order tokens and deferred damage resolution of Apoc has MASSIVE potential. As others have said, I think using the Apoc turn order in regular 40k is very viable with some tweaks..

- Yes I'd like to see something like this for normal 40k in terms of simplification of stat sheets/options, turn order and damage resolution. Which brings me to my next point...

- Small scale Apoc? Personally I can do without all the uber-customization of 40k. Some of the characters in Apoc do look incredibly bland, but other than that I don't mind the units being less distinguished - it places the focus of the game on strategy/tactics, where it should be. I haven't looked at the data sheets for every army, but I'm guessing there's at least enough variety between units to give each army a different feel. I'm also giving a lot of leeway because this is version 1.0, and because data sheets are digital, easily updated, and free. (good job GW..) My point is that I don't mind just replacing 40k with scaled down Apoc, as others have said. R.I.P. 40k...

So with all that, I'm wondering how many people are trying Apoc at around the 100PL range, using UNIT LEVEL orders rather than Detachment level orders - so basically each unit gets an order instead of a whole detachment getting an order. Yes deck size need to be cut down also, maybe a deck of 15 rather than 30?
We'd also need some proper scenarios.
Min/max number of units at different PLs would be great. So you could take x number of units of a given type per 100PL - this works extremely well in Warmaster, so for example I could take 2 units of Dark Reapers at 100PL, 4 at 200PL, 6 at 300PL, etc., and would also be REQUIRED to take 2 units of Guardians per 100PL, or something like that.

Anyways, I don't regret buying the Apoc box, although I do think it was overpriced. They should have just sold the rules, counters and generic Apoc cards. Looking forward to trying it out at 1500-2k pts equivalent...

@Jamshaman No need to reduce the deck. At 150ish PL (actually 148 vs 149 and roughly equivalent to 2500 points) we had 4-5 detachments in each army. 30 cards was fine. A reduced deck would mean you would draw through all the cards faster and start using them a second time when they get reshuffled. Better to have the bigger deck and maybe not get through all the cards.

I have not done unit level orders instead of detachment. The cards would conflict with that. But also there just might not be enough order markers in the box to do it. Also keeping things like auras (there are not many of them but some do exist like Venomthropes spore cloud) going would become near impossible on a unit by unit activation.

Thank you Lance, good point about the cards.

I counted 20 of each order token, which is cutting it close for 100PL I guess.

Yeah I didn't think about the auras, unless maybe the auras themselves allowed for multiple units to get one order, which might make auras OP... Hmmmm

 Lance845 wrote:
@Jamshaman No need to reduce the deck. At 150ish PL (actually 148 vs 149 and roughly equivalent to 2500 points) we had 4-5 detachments in each army. 30 cards was fine. A reduced deck would mean you would draw through all the cards faster and start using them a second time when they get reshuffled. Better to have the bigger deck and maybe not get through all the cards.

IMO there are two problems with the full deck:

1) Building a meaningful 30 card deck with a single army gets challenging. The 30 card deck for a whole team works out well if you have some generic assets and then a few faction-specific ones for each player, but with a 30 card deck for a single faction you're probably resorting to stuff like putting in Cadian cards in your Catachan army and only being able to use the alternate re-roll a single die effect.

2) RNG gets more significant. Your most important cards are drawn less frequently, and having a bunch of weak filler cards only makes it worse. Some games you'll get great draws, some games you'll get nothing. And the game should involve tactics between armies, not who gets better RNG with the CCG mechanic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jamshaman wrote:
- "Slap Fest" - as I see it now, if slap fests occur, then it's probably a symptom of bad tactics, namely target selection.

Have you looked at the unit stats? Basic troops have few attacks and poor odds of success with each attack, and then the enemy unit gets a save to negate it. This is not the worst thing in a normal Apocalypse game where you can concentrate fire from many units and reliably get some wounds, but in a 2000 point 40k substitute it's going to be easy to have situations where there are too few units to reliably do any damage. Tactical squad vs. tactical squad is going to have a lot of turns where both players roll some dice and nothing happens. At least in normal 40k they're going to be taking some losses and the game is going to feel a lot more like things are progressing.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Smirrors wrote:
Lolz at the sad cases wishing for 8th to die out. Why dont you just make new rules with your friends and be happy with your own personal games. There is absolutely no reason for 8th to change drastically to the levels of apoc, they are just different games that can co-exist.

Lolz at the GW apologists insisting that everything about the game is perfect. Why don't you just play 8th with your friends and be happy with your own personal games? There is absolutely no reason to post on the forums about how much you love 8th.

I dont see any GW apologists in this thread, care to point them out?

What about my post hurts your feelings?

EDIT: Apoc wasn't made to be competitive, its made to sell more models. It fits a casual play model well enough from initial observations. Sure some rules can flow through to 8th edition. Why can't both systems co-exist as they are now. My initial comment was aimed at 8th edition haters.

What about ditching the cards? Has anyone attempted playing that way? Seems like that would make unit-by-unit activation more viable for smaller games.

 Smirrors wrote:
EDIT: Apoc wasn't made to be competitive, its made to sell more models.

Well yes, just like all of GW's rules. But Apocalypse is a better foundation for a competitive game than 8th.

Why can't both systems co-exist as they are now.

Because 8th edition is a raging dumpster fire of bad game design and it looks like a modified "small Apocalyplse" game can replace it. The real question is why anyone would want to play 8th edition anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormonu wrote:
What about ditching the cards? Has anyone attempted playing that way? Seems like that would make unit-by-unit activation more viable for smaller games.

I think it's the obvious thing to do. IMO the cards are a bad mechanic in general and should be removed, so if removing them gives better flexibility with the activation system then that's just a nice bonus.

 Stormonu wrote:
What about ditching the cards? Has anyone attempted playing that way? Seems like that would make unit-by-unit activation more viable for smaller games.

You could, but honestly I wouldn't. The detachments can be very small as their requirements are not large. You would still run into issues with keeping units in aura ranges. You would still probably need 2 boxes of apoc to have enough tokens (plan for the worst case scenario. The game comes with 20 of each order token (10 per player) if you have more than 10 units per side it's potentially not possible to issue all the orders you want (assuming the worst case where every unit on both sides wants to do all the same order). Unlikely, but possible.). You loose a tactical element in needing to keep units around their detachments warlord/commander. And the card element is just fun for me and my opponents thus far.

You would need to mash up more rules from 40k and apoc to make individual unit activation's work. I often suggested expanding heroic intervention to allow characters/protector units to activate with a unit. That would need to be the case. The order markers would need to be produced in larger quantities. The cards would either need to be ditched (which would be unfortunate because they are fun and also where a lot of elements of the core game come from. All psychic powers, a lot of wargear or army rules are now cards, and all subfaction flavors come from cards). So all new cards would need to be devised or you would need to adapt the rules from standard 40k to fit the new turn structure/weapon and unit profiles.

 Lance845 wrote:
You would still probably need 2 boxes of apoc to have enough tokens

Or just make some paper tokens. No reason to buy an entire box for that. And if you want fancy ones I'm sure the various laser-cut acrylic companies will have them soon.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
You would still probably need 2 boxes of apoc to have enough tokens

Or just make some paper tokens. No reason to buy an entire box for that. And if you want fancy ones I'm sure the various laser-cut acrylic companies will have them soon.

Which is fair and something to watch for. But it's not the only issue.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
@Jamshaman No need to reduce the deck. At 150ish PL (actually 148 vs 149 and roughly equivalent to 2500 points) we had 4-5 detachments in each army. 30 cards was fine. A reduced deck would mean you would draw through all the cards faster and start using them a second time when they get reshuffled. Better to have the bigger deck and maybe not get through all the cards.

IMO there are two problems with the full deck:

1) Building a meaningful 30 card deck with a single army gets challenging. The 30 card deck for a whole team works out well if you have some generic assets and then a few faction-specific ones for each player, but with a 30 card deck for a single faction you're probably resorting to stuff like putting in Cadian cards in your Catachan army and only being able to use the alternate re-roll a single die effect.

2) RNG gets more significant. Your most important cards are drawn less frequently, and having a bunch of weak filler cards only makes it worse. Some games you'll get great draws, some games you'll get nothing. And the game should involve tactics between armies, not who gets better RNG with the CCG mechanic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jamshaman wrote:
- "Slap Fest" - as I see it now, if slap fests occur, then it's probably a symptom of bad tactics, namely target selection.

Have you looked at the unit stats? Basic troops have few attacks and poor odds of success with each attack, and then the enemy unit gets a save to negate it. This is not the worst thing in a normal Apocalypse game where you can concentrate fire from many units and reliably get some wounds, but in a 2000 point 40k substitute it's going to be easy to have situations where there are too few units to reliably do any damage. Tactical squad vs. tactical squad is going to have a lot of turns where both players roll some dice and nothing happens. At least in normal 40k they're going to be taking some losses and the game is going to feel a lot more like things are progressing.

But the thing your complaining about squads not insta dieing turn 1 has been a massive point of complaints about 8th edition since day 1 it's lethality got dialled upto 11 to make the game faster.

Ice_can wrote:
But the thing your complaining about squads not insta dieing turn 1 has been a massive point of complaints about 8th edition since day 1 it's lethality got dialled upto 11 to make the game faster.

There's a middle ground between "everything instantly dies on turn 1" and "multi-turn slap fight where nothing happens".