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Hi All,

With an upcoming Apocalypse game, I decided to whip up a set of fairly-comprehensive house rules for our gaming group. I would appreciate comments and criticism from all your folks. Many of these things were copied from right here on Dakka. I've chosen what seems a balanced set, with an eye towards smooth play. At the same time, I tried not to change too many things that really alter basic mechanics, thus taking more time to remember and adjust to. Some specific things addressed include fixing Flank March, streamlining multiple blasts, and force selection. I'm particularly unsure about the time limits.

I've given credit where I could, but missed a few attributions. If you text you wrote (or know the author of), I would appreciate it if you would tell me who should be credited.

Here's the list so far:


Apocalypse House Rules


[Items bracketed by ?question marks? are particularly debatable. Everyone's input appreciated.]


The Battlefield

Size 4 Models and Terrain- Titans, Gargantuan creatures and any other model both players feel is appropriate are classed as Size 4. This enables them to draw line of sight over Size 3 terrain and fire at enemies beyond, so long as the model has actual line of sight past/over the Size 3 model. Players may also designate absolutely gigantic buildings and other appropriate terrain features as being Size 4 as well. Skimmers and jetbikes ending their turn over a piece of Size 4 terrain count as being Size 4 for drawing line of sight to and from them.
[Rule thanks to Yakface of DakkaDakka, with minor edits.]


Deployment

?Deployment?- 50% of each player's units must start on the table.
[This would both help keep Flank March in check, and keep setup/first-turn bidding competitive.]


Game Time

?Time Limits on Turns?- Turns will be limited to 45 minutes per side? [plus 10 per player?] per turn at 4K per player and lower. [Add 20 minutes per 1500 above that?]. Models not yet moved/fired in this time will stand where they are at the end of that period. Close combats will be still be resolved.

?Timeouts?- Rules discussions/debates/furiously childish arguments will not count towards the player's time limit. A timer will be needed.


Strategic Assets

Jammers- The Jammers stratagem is not allowed unless previously agreed by all participants. It just makes the game less fun!

?Flank March?- This overly powerful asset needs to be blunted. It is extremely potent in the game, making it a predictable choice, and making opposing choices equally predictable (Disruptor Beacon and/or Ambush). In the interest of balance and to allow more fun choices of assets to be made, some alteration is in order. It is probably best blunted both by changes in it's own text, and in other assets with which it can be combined abusively. There are several good ways to do this. Choosing one of the following seems best:

Flank March may be used on one turn only. It also can't be combined with the Careful Planning asset in order to Flank March units in from reserve on the first turn. However, units entering from reserve on the second turn may use Flank March, regardless of whether their side chose Careful Planning.
[From someone on Dakka]

OR

Flank March gives you 6 'points' to distribute, and units with points can flank march in. Troops & Fast Attack are 1 point, Elites & HQ are 2 points, Heavy are 3 points. Superheavies cannot flank march. Still not unpowerful - you send in 6 squads of terminators or 180 orks and that's a world of hurt. But mostly lets a player get some über-killers into the backfield and tear some stuff up - 3 HQs, in most cases. Doesn't ruin the game like FM does as is.
[Also from someone on Dakka.]

?Disruptor Beacon?- If Flank March gets its effect reduced, its foil Disruptor Beacon should also be reduced in effect.
Disruptor Beacons have a 36” radius of effect. Their rules are otherwise unchanged.


Movement Rules

Strategic Reserves- Units brought on from Strategic Reserves during the Movement Phase may be brought on either before or after other models are moved. However, all Strategic Reserves must be moved on at once. Once you start moving on Strategic Reserves, you cannot stop until all units to be brought in from Reserves have done so. Players may then continue moving other units that started on the table. For the sake of simplicity, it is probably best to move all on-table units first, then Strategic Reserves.

?Between-Board Movement on T-Shaped Boards?- Anything that can cover the gap distance between boards (i.e. get to the other board over an empty area) in a single move is allowed to do so. Also, games with T-shaped boards should probably include tunnels or similar linking features, to give infantry some balance with faster vehicles.


Shooting Rules

Unlimited Range- Weapons and abilities with a range of “unlimited” have a range of 72”, unless they can convince the opposing players that the unlimited range is warranted in terms of the model's background.

?Multiple Blasts/Templates?- Here is a streamlined means of dealing with multiple-template barrages.
When a unit hits with mutiple templates or blasts simply place one blast/template of each given size and then multiply the number of hits & partials by the number of blasts/templates you hit with to determine the total number of hits & partials you have achieved. Repeat this for each differently-sized blast or template that hits the unit until all templates of all sizes have been dealt with.

Once you've determined your grand total number of hits (i.e. after multiplying and then rolling for all the partials) a negative modifier is applied based on the number of blasts/templates you hit with (to represent that if you were to individually resolve each blast/template one at a time you'd get less hits with each successive blast/template due to increasing casualties).

If you hit with 2 blasts or templates, total up you hits then subtract one from the total.

If you hit with 3 blasts or templates, total up your hits then subtract two from the total.

If you hit with 4 blasts or templates, total up your hits then subtract three from the total.

If you hit with 5 blasts or templates, total up you hits then subtract four from the total.

Etc, etc, etc.

With regular Barrage weapons, place only the first marker and roll for scatter. Once you've determined its landing location calculate the number of hits the battery has achieved exactly as you would for multiple blast weapons as described above. Barrage and Ordnance Barrages (and any weapons that use Apocalypse templates) are still resolved as normal.
[Rules by Yakface of Dakka Dakka, with minor edits.]


Close Combat Rules

?Kill Zones in Close Combat?- To simplify close combat, if a model is engaged at the beginning of combat, it is allowed it's attacks when it's initiative comes up, regardless of whether it is still in base-to-base contact with the enemy. This removes all the fiddly pulling of casualties at different Initiative steps in order to deny attacks to models in later steps. More importantly, it will speed up the game. Faster models will still be able to wipe out kill zones and deny return attacks, but it does give slower models some advantage. It also makes independent characters more powerful by avoiding sneaky casualty-pulling highjinks.


Army Choice and Force Selection

Special Characters- A single choice of each individual Special Character is allowed per player. There will be no armies of Eldrads or “Ghazkull Hordes.”

Deep Strike Armies- Deep Strike armies need special attention to remain competitive and balanced in Apocalypse. Here is a set of rules to compensate for this. Note that the deployment percentage rule differs from the 50% setup at beginning of game rule mentioned above, so discussion is necessary.
If either player will be keeping most of this army (~75% or more of his units) in strategic reserve with the intent of entering play via deep strike or drop pod assault, then the following rules apply:
1) that player will automatically gain first turn and first deployment
2) That player gains at no cost the Careful Planning asset, allowing reserves to enter play on turns 1&2. Only those units deepstriking/drop podding may use this asset.
3) That player must bring half of his deep striking/ drop podding reserves into play on turn 1.
4) Other strategic reserves may be deployed as the player sees fit.
5) If both players are using such armies, than these rules do not apply.
6) If the player?s forces are 1/3 or less of his sides total forces, these rules do not apply.
[Rules thanks to Polonius of Warseer]


Flyers

Immobilized with Special Gear- Flyers that have gear that would allow them to survive a result of Immobilized on the damage table (such as Eldar vectored engines on Falcons in a Cloudstrike formation) are still destroyed if they suffer an Immobilized result while flying.


Datasheets (General or Specific)

Datasheet Sources- Datasheets in the Apocalypse rulebook, posted on the Games Workshop Apocalypse website, included in Imperial Armor:Apocalypse, or included in the Bell of Lost Souls “Lords of Battle” release are all valid in the game with no need to seek opponents' consent. “Homebrew” datafaxes made by players or from other sources (the intorwebz!!11!!) must be shown to opponents, discussed and agreed upon well in advance of the game.

Cloudstrike Squadron- Falcons that leave the table (or are forced to leave the table) while acting as Flyers may disengage just like any other Flyer, and return to the table in later turns just like any other Flyer. They will have to return as Flyers rather than skimmers, meaning that they cannot fire their weapons that turn. Like any other Flyer that can switch to non-Flyer movement, they can choose to return to skimmer movement when they move on to the table, and can deploy troops transported, etc.

Masters of the Chapter, Seer Council of Ulthwe- These datasheets may only be taken once per player.

Two comments:

Savnock wrote:Deployment

?Deployment?- 50% of each player's units must start on the table.
[This would both help keep Flank March in check, and keep setup/first-turn bidding competitive.]

I agree completely with this. In our first game, our opponent bid 1 minute because they were keeping their entire army off the table to Flank March. It was pathetic.

From that point onwards we:

1. Required 50% of the army to start on the table.
2. Banned Flank March.

Savnock wrote:Game Time

?Time Limits on Turns?- Turns will be limited to 45 minutes per side? [plus 10 per player?] per turn at 4K per player and lower. [Add 20 minutes per 1500 above that?]. Models not yet moved/fired in this time will stand where they are at the end of that period. Close combats will be still be resolved.

Don't use a timer. Games of this size are stressful enough without having to worry about time limits. We've tried it, and gave up on it pretty quickly. The game has its own flow, and to interrupt that will cause problems for everyone else.

BYE

Alright, then- no timer, which was one of my big questions. Maybe we'll keep that "rule" n there as a guideline, no more. Thanks for the feedback.

Flank march is fine if your opponent is not a douche.

Remember, Apocalypse is about fun not WAAC so these proposed rules should be meaning less to friends.

After crapping up the thread- here is one house rule we adopted at a store I play at:

Reserves: Up to 50 percent of your reserves must come in the second turn. If there is a case of 5 total reserves, it is up to the player how he wants to balance it.

the_trooper wrote:
After crapping up the thread- here is one house rule we adopted at a store I play at:

Reserves: Up to 50 percent of your reserves must come in the second turn. If there is a case of 5 total reserves, it is up to the player how he wants to balance it.

I may be reading this wrong, but how is this different than the actual rule, ie. up to 50% turn 2, rest turn 3?

Right now up to 50% may arrive on turn 2, and then all the rest have to arrive on turn 3.

You've given the choice of things arriving on turn 2, whereas this change would see you having to bring things on during turn 2.


Another change we made was to Careful Planning. We just allow people to bring things on on turn 1, 2 and then anything that's left must come on turn 3. To often we found that Careful Planning was actually a bad thing, and when you had no choice but to take it (ie. you were bringing the Ulthwe Seer Council formation), it was a detriment to your forces.

BYE

How exactly did earlier reserve appearance due to Careful Planning act as a disadvantage, H.B.M.C.?

When there's no room for those forces to arrive.

Keep in mind, our group is nuts. You hear about 15,000-20,000 point games of Apoc split up between 2 people aside, so about 3,000-5,000 points per player.

Well... we play 15,000-20,000 point games of Apoc as well, but that's what each player brings, and we play (usually) four player games. In the last Apoc game we played my army was 13,000 points. Our of the three players on our side, I was the middle one. The smallest was 6000 points of Grey Knights. My other ally was 16,000 points worth of Eldar. We faced 35,000 points of Chaos and Renegade Marines on the opposite side.

So, to carry on from your question, with Careful Planning, when you've got 50% of 30,000+ points starting on the table, even on an 8X10 table, things can get a little cramped.

Even in the smaller games before hand, having to bring on certain units (like my 20-model Sentinel Company, or that squadron of 4 Hellhounds I like bringing) when I'm already cramped is quite a pain... and that's just my army - there's my allies as well. In one game we were kind've forced to move several Land Raiders and War Walkers up the back, where they did nothing all game because there was no room anywhere else for them.

Now imagine having to do that during your first turn, just after you've finished spending 6 hours setting up. Not fun.

Plus we figured Careful Planning should allow for... well... careful planning! I want these units to show up here, then here and then here. A better divide of your forces, allowing you to plan 3 waves, rather than just forcing you to move the 2 waves you already had one turn forward.

And this is just speaking from what I've viewed. It's my Eldar ally who's always having to use Careful Planning whenever he brings his Seer Council. Sometimes he doesn't want to bring everything on on turn 1, he wants to hold off like the rest of us until Turn 3. Careful Planning, despite being a supposed 'advantage', doesn't allow him to follow the basic rules as it replaces them completely.

BYE

Ooooooookay. Wow. Sounds like the kind of disadvantage that I dream about. I'm afraid that you get admiration but no sympathy here! Are all those models _painted_, H.B.M.C.?

Second question (hope you don't mind the quiz show routine): How long do games like that take to play? And what size surface are you playing on?

Painted? Of course not. I can't paint. A couple of people in our group can paint, so there are a lot of painted models, but not my Guard. Not by a long shot.

Usually it takes us a day to do 3-4 turns, by which stage the game is basically over. And the last one was a 6X10 table I believe.

BYE

I think for Flank March you might want to consider something along the lines of "normal reserves may enter using flank march rules, however, units may not enter within 12" of an opposing unit, and may not move or assault on the turn in which they arrive".

@H.B.M.C.: Only 6x10 for that many points? Damn, That's some dense combat. Ordnance must have a field day in that setup.
And you guys must play fast to get 3-4 turns done in a day with that many points- or play from sunup to sundown.

@Mithrax, thanks for the suggestion. I've seen that one elsewhere too. It does seem to neuter FM a bit too much, though. I'd like to make it powerful but limited in scope. Less stuff doing it, but still punchy.

We started at about 10am... finished at about 6pm.

And yeah it was crowded. There was very little room to move at our end of the table, but thankfully enough to let the two Revenant Titans we had onto the table.

Ordnance did have a field day. The firepower of 3 Baneblades plus my Stormblade was fantastic. But the real killers were my Arty Company. My Bombard accounted for more tanks than anything else I had.

BYE