Oh, and Hellfury, has anyone taken up your offer to play against your lone character yet? I'll be trying that soon and hope the other guy doesn't get mad when he pulls out 3K points and I pull out a handful of models.

I completely agree.  I appreciate the flexibility (all Jump Packs...sure) and strategems.

This just seems completely freeing to allow you to play whatever you want, with fun as the goal.

I also agree with everything Migs said.  It makes the hobby much more open and fun.

And GW loves it, because it'll sell models.

Theres a ton more room for tactics, and the strategies shake things up even more. Flank charge scared hell out of me until I saw ambush. There are great strategems, and strategems that counter them.  So much fun to be had.

And yes, GK set up easy, although we totally screwed it up the first time. 3 GK players showed for the game, and 3 others, so sides were easily picked. We bid 3 minutes vs the others guys 5. Then just threw our stuff on the board, left the rest in reserve. But 3 minutes really didn't give us much time to talk about fire lines, or co-ordination, and our set up wasn't the best. In the end it didn't matter. Chaos came in on our flank on turn 1, killed our artillery and it turned into a huge scrum in our deployment zone.)

Forgot to add the $5 BB coupon inside. 

I think you're right, except that even in a "just for fun" situation, some of the options are substantially more appealing, for multiple reapons.  Every Eldar player will use the Cloudstrike squadron, because nearly every Eldar Player has two grav tanks, or will buy a third, and it's an amazing benefit.  The Emperors Talon, on the other hand, requires 10 sentinels, and provides a fairly minor benefit (though I"m warming to strategic redeployment as a last turn objective grabber).  There's simply less usage for the datasheet.

I think anybody who says that there will be no optimization for apocolypse is naive.  And anyways, there's not much to the review if I simply say: "every formation is wicked awesome!  it's so much fun!"  Among long term hobbyists, there are a lot of guys with more than enough to pick and choose their armies.

Finally, there's no real need for every gamer to own this book.  You really only need one per game, and if I can steer people who might not get a ton of benefit (I'm looking at you, sisters of battle players), then maybe I can save them some money.

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 10/21/2007 8:12 PM

Hopefully the next one will be different, but as it stands if you're playing an assaulty army, there's no reason not to take Flank March, bid 30 mins, keep everything off the table, and do nothing for the first three turns while your opponent flounders trying to block off entry points.

Totally agree.

Although its still pretty pisspoor ruleswriting if you have to rely on your players not actually using the rules you have written in order to have an unbroken game!

You were expecting something different from GW?

It looks like Apocalypse requires as much pre game organisation as a normal 3,000 point 40k game using the Forgeworld super-heavy tank rules. No great surprise (or loss) really. As a rulebook that tells you that you don’t need to follow the rules the book's a little bit of a non product anyway. Large battles should always be themed otherwise you’re missing out on an opportunity.

I'm a little disappointed by the lack of a proper 'make your own' Datasheet as I was planning to make a Squat one; I probably still will Photoshop is my friend.

I'm also disappointed with their take on Rapiers too (counts as twin multi laser) I'm in the process of re-crewing mine anyway; I'm not sure how to do it now.

Edit: Pariah: Your plan works fairly well with high points per model armies. What does IG do? 3000+ points is a ton even with tank heavy forces, and with more infantry it doesn't allow more than the 12-18" needed to ensure you do not get chain assaulted. With say Necrons, ok that might be alright, or Marines that are all Veterans and tweaked with max wargear. But even infantry heavy marines can get pretty cramped based on terrain and deployment zones. Which forces your opponant to either leave units in reserve to leave the needed space, or deploy nothing, take flank march, and do to you what he is afraid you intend to do to him.