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I played in my first apocalypse game on saturday, at the local GW store for the Lucky 13's thingy. Since I only had a few hours to burn, and couldn't stay the entire day, I figured it would be best if I just brought one super heavy (Revenant Titan with Pulsars), joined the size with the least points, and then hopefully I'd get blown away in the first couple of turns. Alas, I left after the second turn, voluntarily...

First of all, Strength "D" is insane. One pulsar destroyed a baneblade in one shot. The only reason the other baneblade sitting next to it didn't suffer the same fate was the smokescreen strategic asset covering it. Basically, in the first turn, I only had LOS, (weird eh) to the one baneblade. Seriously, one shot, baneblade go bye bye. Is this normal?

Second, on the second turn, the other baneblade sucked a pulsar shot, and it to was sent to the scrap heap. My other pulsar obliterated a large squad of berzerkers out of a Maelstrom of Gore formation. Basically, Strength D means anything it touches might as well just get off the table. I mean, I know thats what the rules said from reading it in the book, but its quite another thing to see in practice. I mean, there's hardly any dice rolling at all, which just feels kinda wrong in 40k, where I'm used to rolling buckets of dice. I literally rolled to hit, placed the template, removed what was underneath. Just didn't feel right.

Finally, since the Apocalypse rules don't require you to take anything remotely looking like a 40k army, you can take anything. Our forces squaring off consisted of Greater Demons and Baneblades vs Space Marine tanks and Baneblades. There were baneblades EVERYWHERE. New plastic kit equals EVERYONE using one. And most were grey plastic, fresh from the Forgeworld so to speak. The marine player had nothing painted, and his army was all Dreadnoughts, Baneblades and Dev Squads. There were five baneblades on our side of the table! The other side had an unpainted scratch built warhound titan, which, while AWESOME for its ingenuity and go get'em spirit, (The kid built it for a school project and got a rocking grade on it.) It just looked AWFUL on the tabletop. I guess it fit right in with the unpainted baneblades...

I could go on, but the rest is standard fare, people taking it to seriously, etc. Basically, this was my first Apocalypse game, and I guess for some reason, since it was Apocalypse, I expected something more (GW hyped the hell out of this, ya know?). In the end, it was just like any PICK-UP mega game I've ever played, just with more special zany rules and no infantry. At least prior to Apocalypse, to participate in a mega battle, people had to bring actual armies, and then a few superheavies.

I guess, just like a good Mega Battle, a good Apocalypse battle requires a good group of people, prior planning on forces and missions, etc.

Anybody else?

I've not played one. I saw one for about five minutes. They had three tables together with what looked like about 15000 points on either side (multiple warhounds). It looked like they just placed everything they had on each side of the table. it immediately put me off. But if they were having fun good for them.

Apocalypse games are best played when they are organized amongst your friends. Random APOC games are not fun at all. When you are organizing a game with your friends, you know what everyone is taking and possibly build a theme. When you play random games, you get things like cardboard Mantas, unpainted and half-built crap. I suggest playing a game with your closest gaming friends as they will be much more enjoyable.

Capt K

Uhm, yea, one StrD shot should only drop a baneblade if you rolled 2 5+ and one 4+ on the damage chart. Str D only auto-pens, and gives +1 on that roll. Not that it isn't possible (I have had my cannoness one shot a baneblade with her inferno pistol) but it is HIGHLY unlikely.

Apocalypse is really fun, if played with people you would be happy to hang out at a diner with for a few hours, rolling dice periodically for no apparent reason. If you don't like the people you are playing with, it will be miserable. The game also needs some preperation to go off well, as others have stated. We have done two "ZOMG MEGA APOCALYPSE!!!!!!111" battles at the store I play at, and honestly, after the 9th hour/3rd turn, I wanted to murder god, as well as some of the foul smelling denizens of the store. I have also played Apoc battles with just a few people, and had a really good time.

A good Apoc game has: People you like to socialize with, planning of sides, players and units (one guy bringing a 5k mega gargant doesn't always work without prior planning by the other people), and players who are dedicated to play the entire game, both in terms of focus and time commitment.

Wehrkind wrote:A good Apoc game has: People you like to socialize with, planning of sides, players and units (one guy bringing a 5k mega gargant doesn't always work without prior planning by the other people), and players who are dedicated to play the entire game, both in terms of focus and time commitment.

For the record I think the mega gargant is more points than that ...

Seconded on all those things needed for a good APOC outting, particularly the staying present for the entire game and focused so things keep moving.

Props to you on the revenant carnage, whitedragon. A dude has a rev in our group but it exists to be crippled and taken apart, killing very very little. Gunfex have eaten it more times than its killed anything that mattered.

- Salvage

Good call Salvage, I think I dropped the 2 that goes in front of the "5k".

Probably would have been fun, but it should have been at the center of the table as what was being fought over, not sitting in the back field. On the other hand, it was so big, having it in the center would have made communication from side to the other problematic.

I've played in 2 Apoc games. One was 9K points per side. The other was half that.
Fortunately, it was with friends.

At 9K points, I ended up as the only player of a Nids army I didn't build.
I don't normally PLAY Nids and I BARELY know them.

It was at that point that I hated Apoc.

Second game was better. Me & one friend against a third friend on the other side of the table.
It was a really fun game, barring the "D" weapon on the Chaos Titan.

From now on, if I'm playing someone and I see they HAVE a "D" weapon, I'm just going to congratulate them on their win & ask if they want to play again... without the "D" Weapon.

IMO, "D" weapons are stupid and have NO PLACE in friendly games.

I want to play Warhammer 40K, not "Model Scoop 40K."

I'm looking forward to a third game (sans "D" weapon).


Eric

All of the Apoc games with more than 4 people total turned into massive CF's and nearly turned me off the game. Then I played a few 2 on 2 and 2 on 1 games and they were a lot of fun.

So far, my Baneblade is still black from the undercoat, but the turret is nearly finished...

Ozymandias, King of Kings

MagickalMemories wrote:From now on, if I'm playing someone and I see they HAVE a "D" weapon, I'm just going to congratulate them on their win & ask if they want to play again... without the "D" Weapon.

IMO, "D" weapons are stupid and have NO PLACE in friendly games.

Out of curiosity, would it have made a difference if both sides had D-weapons? Or would it have just made for a faster game?

The purpose of D weapons is to speed large games up by blasting units off the table much quicker than usual.

Kilkrazy wrote:The purpose of D weapons is to speed large games up by blasting units off the table much quicker than usual.

Agreed. Aside from datasheets for cool & unique units / abilities, I find Str D weapons one of the coolest things going for APOC. Frankly, there SHOULD be weapons so big that they vaporize all these herohammer dudes scrambling around waving their glowing weapons and bristling with teeny tiny special abilities. Course, if Kharn's inv save says NO! to Mr. Titan, who can argue ...

- Salvage

Boss_Salvage wrote:Course, if Kharn's inv save says NO! to Mr. Titan, who can argue ...

Somehow, I can just picture Kharn hacking away at the toe of a Titan, like some little ankle-biter chihuahua....thanks for the visual!

I think that if you have proper planning of an event, Apoc games can be refreshing and help solidify your enjoyment of the game. I played in a game with over 75000 points, 24 players total. It was not ridiculous with the "This toilet paper roll is a warlord titan" rules, everyone needed to paint their armies.

I think people going apeshit with apoc are not reading the entire book, about painted models and the such. This detracts from the fun of the game, because I know I wasnt around for an armorcast titan, but a friend was so he fields it. I can live with that