Micromanaging the Apocalypse

Or GM-ing a test game of Apoc to see what works

So today opportunity presented itself for a quick test game of Apoc. Far sooner than I anticipated, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. With the short notice nature of the game not many people could attend, and we ended up with just three players, playing roughly 7000 points per side. Classic Chaos versus Imperials match up.

Unnatural Disasters

We firstly eliminated some options from the table. We didn't have the spare daemons for a warp rift, nor did we want the LOS block it would bring. I do think we could do the Zombie Apocalypse game, as we have a load of Z-company zombies from when we ran the Get to the Choppa scenario. However I'm trying to keep things simple for now. And one of the gamers had played some apoc on Saturday and found that after he'd pissed off an inquisitor there wasn't much left on either team come turn 5...

That left three, and the random roll gave us the Seismic Table.

Now this was quite a fun little table. The first turn it created a line of dangerous terrain, but unluckily for the Imperial side the effected units had Move Through Cover so ignored it. In the second turn, it did far better, destroying two Bastions, knocking a point of armour off the third, and obliterating the skyshield landing pad (along with a dread, half a vanguard squad, and forced a plaguemarine squad to bail out fast) Turn three it took some more armour points off the last surviving Bastion. As we only ended up having time for a short game this was all it could do, so even if we'd allowed Exterminatus to be a possibility, it wouldn't have got out of hand. Course, if we'd managed to get through the turns a little quicker and get to the turn 5 I had envisaged, then the chances of anything surviving this far would have been unlikely in the extreme...

Finest Hour

These allowed for some fun little tricks, although the idea of making a warlord particularly epic for a short spell didn't really happen. Most of the finest hours were more strategic in nature. They do also make the calling warlord something of a target, and I will admit to falling at fault here in advising the Imperial side - my first thought had been to throw everything at the finest hour daemon prince, but in the end I suggested throwing a couple squads of Legion of the Damned at Abaddon. Get the Warmaster point and PREVENT him from calling his finest hour. Sadly it was not to be. His terminator bodyguard was wiped out, and the daemon prince was taken down to 2 wounds. Shows the my old guard way to be true, if you want something to die throw statistically twice as much as you need to kill at it - just to be sure.

Scoring

I thought the scoring system was good. It was fairly even at the end of session 1, though at the end of session 2 chaos were firmly in control and took the lead. Of course with the Imperials having the last turn they had the opportunity to sneak the win with objectives now being worth 3 points a pop. The imperial side got close, but with some tenacious plague marines holding out against everything that could be thrown at them, and one chaos held objective too far from ANYTHING that could get there, they couldn't capture the 5 they needed. The alternative route was killing Abaddon and the super heavy, but with Abaddon locked in combat the two squads that charged him were a forlorn hope... a forlorn hope that was made irrelevent by the epic fail of the match.

Epic Fail of the Match

Two vanguard veterans, both armed with power fists, having survived their timely intervention that destroyed one super heavy, took stock in the lee of a building. A crackle of communication came through from their leader... they were being ordered into an all out attack. Using every ounce of power their jetpacks could give them, they burned till their fuel cells ran dry. They soared across the battlefield, covering several times the normal safe jump distance. Despite a rough landing for one, they survived and found themselves sat on an objective, taking control of it from the enemy Baneblade. Seeing the Baneblade was already the worse for wear, they charged up to it and with an epic feat of strength, managed to TOSS the baneblade!!! Sadly as the two heroes were high fiving each other it got dark... funny, there wasn't meant to be an eclipse today...

As the chaos forces surveyed the wreckage of their super heavy that had once been guarding the objective, they wondered what had killed it... and why whoever killed it hadn't taken control of the objective as the battle reached it's zenith... and what the hell was that yellow foot doing sticking out beneath the wreckage of the baneblade?

Divine Intervention

In this game, the divine intervention was easy to keep track of - the requirements for both sides were the same. However, the Imperial side didn't reach the threshold to call on the Emperors assistance till the final turn. By then the fearless and Furious Charge were fairly meaningless. It does look like a fun mechanic, and as long as you keep track of things that die as they happen, and know in advance what the threshold is, there is no reason why this cannot work in a non-GM game.

Strength D

We didn't have that many strength D weapons around, so the OP nature of this weapon didn't really come into it. I'll have to leave that test for another time.

Super Heavies

Something I like about this, is the super heavies keep on ticking till they are dead. It makes things a lot easier not having to balance different coloured dice on different guns to represent different effects. Plus with the new damage results you won't get one lucky melta shot 666ing your arse to death in one hit, which is a bit of a relief.

Super Heavy Walkers

Now a query did come up with this one. SH Walkers are treated as walkers in all respects, which means they can pivot in the shooting phase. Not an issue with a walker, it pivots, shoots, job done. It assaults what it shot. However with a super heavy walker, if it pivots to shoot one target, can it then pivot around and shoot something else? I was dubious about this - I felt that as a Baneblade declared all it's shooting and then resolved them all technically simultaneously, then the super heavy walker should also resolve it's fire simultaneously - ie, while facing in the same direction. However the players made the case that the Super Heavy Walker in question, the new Khorne monstrosity, had an upper torso that looked quite a bit more mobile than it's belly gun. Not liking the idea of an abuse of rules where you could fire a big gun at one target then turn to shoot something else to protect (relatively) vulnerable rear armour, I ruled that while they could engage different targets in different directions, the vehicle facing would end up towards whatever the belly gun shot at. I'll look into this a little more to see if I can get anything clearer on it before the next game.

Orbital Strike

This was the biggest bone of contention in the game. One of the players was absolutely adamant I was wrong in this ruling and argued the point forcefully, to the point that the other two players accepted my ruling and carried on gaming while we continued to debate the point. As GM, I forced my way on this one. This solution won't be available in every game, so we will need to investigate it further.

Basically, it comes down to the strategic asset, orbital bombardment. It states that "a friendly warlord makes a shooting attack with the following profile" which is for an apocalyptic mega blast with infinite range and a juicy str D centre. The background is that he calls upon a ship in orbit to take a shot at a target he nominates.

Now there were a few points of contention here. First, LOS. Is it required? It doesn't say it's required. However if you can nominate any unit on the board, why bother mention a warlord making a shooting attack? Why give an unlimited range? Why not just say "pick a target unit on the board" if you can shoot anywhere? My rationale behind this is that the ship in orbit can't exactly tell what the biggest threat to the tactical situation is on the ground. They require the commander on the ground to give the order to blast the living shit out of the corner of grid 7 to prevent a flank being overrun.

However, once we had agreed to use a warlords LOS there was then the issue of scatter. I believed the warlord chose the target, but the firing was done by some lackey on a cruiser miles above the surface - why would they use his BS to modify the scatter? I used the older rules from the Space Marine Codex and the Guard codex to back me up here - the models that can call down bombardments don't get to modify the scatter by their BS. It isn't them shooting, they are just saying roughly where to shoot. And this is where we came to the disagreement. It doesn't say anywhere in the asset that it doesn't use the warlords BS for scatter - he is firing therefore he get's to modify. It's as if the gun is being fired by him. Now under read as written I think my friend has a point, but under read as intended I think it is ridiculous. To illustrate my point, a warlord using read as written can not only modify the scatter, he could potentially fire UNDER scenery - killing the enemy he can see hiding under a skyshield landing pad, while leaving the troops on top unscathed. Now please do tell me how in the hell a battleship in orbit is supposed to pull off that particular trick shot?

Anyway, we eagerly await an FAQ on that one, as I don't think either of us is going to convince the other on this one. Any thoughts anyone?

And Finally

Just scrolling through some apocalyptic pictures to break up this essay a little, I found this beautiful model...

However, there's just something about that pose... I want to get one, and convert it so the hands are on the hips...

Then the pelvic thruuuuuust....

It's the Apocalypse. Again.

The question is though, have the problems that have developed over two editions of core rules advancing been fixed with this new release?

Firstly, let's recap the problems with apoc, both from conception and that had been introduced by sixth ed.

• Super Heavies get crew shaken out of the game too easily
• Strength D does everything, is an auto choice on titans, and dominates a game
• Sixth Ed mysterious objectives, when combined with Apoc only weapon effects, can cause stacking problems - for example, I remember a unit trying to charge a unit on an objective through difficult terrain that due to a weapon effect was one less dice for difficult terrain, and objective effect was half range. Meaning roll two, take the highest away, then halve the result and you get your assault distance.
• Flank March is an auto win - though this is less effective if you play the 6th ed rule that you can't assault when arriving from reserve
• The "late" game objective grab - you spend 2 turns blowing the shit out of each other then rush for objectives turn 3 and can sneak a win.
• Tank Lagaars - Apoc battlefields can become tank lagaars, where rows upon rows of rhinos and other transports stop EVERYTHING from getting anywhere, including titans and Baneblades 

So, has the new apoc corrected these problems? Let's see...

First up, the Super heavies taken a shaken result and being useless. Yes, they have most DEFINITELY fixed this one.

Super Heavy vehicles, whilst they will lose hull points for every penetrating or glancing hits they take, only really have to worry about explode results. Explode results will have them losing several hull points at once. All other damage results (weapon destroyed, immobilised, stunned and shaken) are IGNORED by super heavies. Yes, you read that right, ignored. You take the hull point off, but when they roll for penetration if they don't get an explode, you just shrug it off. Even if they do get an explode, unless it takes away your last hull point, your baneblade will be firing away at full effect until it's dead. This I like! It also eliminates an annoying situation that once cropped up. After much shooting I had finally gotten rid of one of the weapons on my opponents titan, only for a tech priest to walk up and fix it. At the time I remember saying "What'd he do, climb the titan and get his servitors to form a pyramid to pass the arm back up to him?!?" Now that situation was rules legal, so I had to let it go, but it always troubled me. Now it is a none issue - the arm won't come off in the first place, you're gonna have to kill the thing.

Next I'm going to answer the question on mysterious objectives, well they are officially in. The tank gun effect that caused problems is now out though. I guess the rules for that gun were not written with 6th ed in mind. It is now a simple dangerous terrain test and no lasting movement effect. In all honesty, leaving a marker with a number that was a range of effect for the difficult and dangerous terrain was always a bad idea in a game like apocalypse anyway. Far better to have visible effects or no effect at all in a game with so much going on, it got forgotten half the time anyway.

How about the auto win that was flank march? Well I'm not 100% on this one yet, the strategic asset card seems to be saying you use it with one formation - so not the whole army it was before. I'll have to check but if there is now a limit on it, I'd say this asset had now been balanced out.

Next we have the late game objective grab. I am pleased to say I think they have solved this one. For starters, objectives are scoring at all stages. They are more valuable late game, so holding them late game is still vital. However you can score points from them at the end of every session. You can also score points for killing enemy super heavies and accomplishing other bonus activities. On the flip side, you can spend your accrued points on those strategic assets. With the scores in constant flux, we should see some interesting games, as those that look like winning perhaps spend points to batter then enemy, then get outmanouvered and the game brought back to the wire... This all sounds like good fun to me.

Finally, on the upside, we have the issue with tank lagaars. Well, I think that should be less of a problem. As yet another new advantage of Super Heavies is the ability to literally kick the shit out of anything that get's in your way. If a Baneblade rams a smaller tank, it rolls a die. On a 1, it's a normal ram. On a 2-5, it adds D6 to the str of the ram. On a 6, it just bashes the enemy out of the way - it scatters and explodes. Combined with an improvement to Str D weapons that I shall soon be discussing, I am expecting to see far more tanks explode than merely be hull point chewed to bits. This should hopefully clear some much needed room in the apocalyptic battlefields in future.

Other good news... well there's some fun stuff that your warlord can do, known as his finest hour. He takes his chance to shine and becomes a bit uber, but if he fluffs it the enemy get bonus points for his humiliation. I can foresee this being quite fun and characterful.

In these epic struggles we can seek divine intervention - again this looks fun and characterful. We also have the planet taking a part in the game - as the titanic struggles cause the planet to tear itself asunder or the dead to return to haunt the living, or some inquisitor to think "Frak it, let's just nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" there are now various tables that can put massively destructive forces into place. Some of the highlights are dead models coming back to life and attacking the living, an entire tile being destroyed and becoming impassible, to every model on the table taking a Str 10 hit... Again, I can see this game being far more destructive, and see less of the model snarl ups I have seen in the past. It does look like a lot of fun. Plus with the player currently picking the targets for these random events (randomly selected player) being known as the Master of Disaster, I would like to see ANYONE try to say that title without being like a boxing ringmaster introducing Apollo Creed...

 Which does of course bring me back to that point I have been putting off. Str D. It is still the best gun in the game, and in fact has been made better. Now you don't even get an invulnerable save. If shot at a vehicle, on a 1 it takes a penetrating hit, on a 2+ it's dead. The only ones who care from that point are super heavies, as a 6 would see them losing more hull points than a mere 2+ The gun has much the same effect on infantry. On a 1 it misses, on a 2+ it's taking quite a few wounds. On a 6 it's taking a lot of wounds. Characters may get lucky and survive a 2+, but the 6 will kill anything short of a bio-titan.

So, with Str D still the king of guns, have they given them a points costing on a titan? Sadly, no. The titan is a flat cost whichever weapons it takes. So, let's see, do I take the Str D 2 shot, the Str D 3 shot, or the Str 6 Heavy 15? Let's be honest here, that vulkan mega bolter is never seeing the light of day. Which is a shame as I like that gun, I think it looks awesome.

I'm also slightly disgruntled that the Reaver titan, despite having been made better (as all super heavies have) and having it's guns improved (well, the Str D ones, but I never see Reavers without them) is the same points cost as before, whilst my Stompa has jumped up to 770 points. The Fortress of Arrogance has jumped up to close to a 1000 points. I guess Games Workshop wants to thank those who have spent so much money in Forgeworld, but come on guys, I've spent enough to buy a Reaver on having MANY other super heavies, cut me some slack too eh?

All in all, I'd say the new apoc looks to be a good fix of the problems that have cropped up during the transition through from 4th ed to 6th ed. The power of strength D I am apprehensive about, but while I have had my own ideas in the past for how to temper these guns (irrelevant now and need to be completely rewritten) I will have a few test games first and see how things play out. It's possible that the very playing surface will be deadly enough that the titans can't keep up, plus it'd be funny to see one fall down a hole in the world. So all in all, looks good, and looking forward to getting some games in.

A Small matter of Honour 2013

I recently attended the Sad Muppets Society a Small matter of Honour tournament at triple helix wargames in Westbury. The tournament consisted of 4 games during the day two games at 1250 points with a raid force and a further 2 games at 1750 points. 

I had decided to take my Tyranids along for the day, the few games of sixth edition I have had with them so far proving to be the most successful army I have. Not to mention one of the best painted (even if they weren't completed). My 1250 point list consisted of the following:

• Flyrant 2x TL brainleech  devourers
• 2x 2x Hive guard
• 2x 12x Devilgaunts in Spore pods
• 2x Tervigons with catalyst toxin sacs and adrenal glands
• 11x termagants

It was only the night before the tournament that my colleague pointed out that I had taken 1 too many troops choices, so I had to drop the 11 termagants from the 1250 point list and add them back in at the 1750 point games. For the 1750 point games I added the following:

• Swarmlord with single tyrant guard
• Basic Tervigon

The idea of the single tyrant guard being that if the Swarmlord got Iron arm off then the entire units toughness would go up.

First off, the venue, Triple helix games was a great venue to play at there was plenty of space, lots of tables quite a bit of varied terrain. the shop had quite a bit of variety of stock. There were also plenty of shelving in the gaming area where player resources were stocked, magazines, rulebooks and boxed games all seemed to be available for you to use. The only slightly disappointing thing was the price of a cup of tea (£1) when a can of coke is a quid, a cup of tea should cost far less. But as a complaint that's pretty minor. Overall a very good venue and I wish there was a similar one closer to me. 

Overall the tournament went really well, being as I hadn't played that many games of sixth I was quite nervous going into the tournament. However there was no need to be, every opponent I faced was a brilliant guy to play against and I would happily play any of them again.

At the end of the tournament I am happy to report that I finished in third place after 3 wins and a narrow draw on the last game. I'll post on some of the games over the next couple of days.

Tau codex: first impressions

After a few reads through the new Tau codex one of the things I have to say is... Wow.
Hats off to Jeremy Vetock for creating, what in my opinion, has got to be one off the most flexible, yet balanced codexes to date. Almost every entry in the army list is viable in one way or another with no obviously lacklustre units. Each entry would be marked on it's own merits within your preferred army list and tailored to your playstyle.
Upon first impressions it seems you could create a Tau army in the way you feel and still make it a fun yet competitive list to play, without sacrificing too much effectiveness on the field.
Nothing appears to be particularly broken either. A few nasty combos that could be effective though these will be limited in their application and in many respects not spammable.
Overall on really looking forward to using this codex and seeing how it performs on the field. The Tau are back!

Tau stuff arrives!

Well it's been a long long wait, but finally my Tau army has received reinforcements and a new codex. So to celebrate, I decided to go out and spend my savings on plastic crack (seemed like the only sensible option). The new models have grown on me and I think with a little bit of manipulation could get some interesting poses. Also be nice to see who models their riptides as short as possible in order to get a cover saver easier (the tying his shoelace pose).
The codex looks awesome as well. I can't wait to start seeing how the new army works on the table top.

Tau sold out

Just been having a look at the new flyers on white dwarf daily and it seems as though they under estimated the demand for Tau products. There is a footnote in the daily staying that they will be unable to fulfil preorders placed from this morning until after the general release date. Could this possibly make Tau one of the fastest selling armies that gw have released recently?

In other news sucks that on gonna be out the country on this date anyway. Ah well.

Tau advanced order

So much to the dismay of my wife, I have placed a preorder for some of the Tau stuff. Despite being slightly pessimistic about the look of some of the models from the leaked pictures. Much like the stormtalon I've actually grown quite fond of them. The preview video also helped a lot.
My preorder consists of the following:
Farsight
Crisis enforcer commander
Fireblade
2x riptide battleships
2x flyers
Broadside
Pathfinders

I do fear that the codex is not going to do these units justice though, having been written by Jeremy vetock who wrote the dark angels codex. Unfortunately some of the new units in that codex are overcosted, especially the flyers. Yet the rest of the codex is relatively well balanced.

Guess we will find out next week. 

Tau shopping list

So far rumours are pointing at a 6th of April Release for the Tau models. So far on the ohhh shiny. Shopping list is:
2x riptide
2x flyers
Codex
3x broadside
Pathfinders
Farsight
Divorce.

Looks like it's going to be an expensive month for me, although the unfortunate thing is that on meant to be in Ireland for a wedding that weekend. Do you think it would be ride to ask them to put the wedding back for a week or so?

Tau incoming

So it seems a long updated Tau codex is one the way with a few new goodies. I'm hugely excited that one of my armies is getting an update, with it being a few years since the Tyranid update (disaster). My Tau and templars were starting to feel a little left out in the cold.

I think April might see a wallet taking a considerable hammering.

Vinds ov Var 13

So, with Winds of War 2013 just over two weeks away and Ken now on holiday, it's down to me to make sure the late arriving army (Curse you Total Wargamer) is built and painted on time. My own force has just been completed, and Ken has done his Razorwing as a guide for me to work from.

Here's our list.

Army List 1 - Kenneth Morley

Razorwing w Flickerfield - 155
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 warriors - 45
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 warriors - 45
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65

Total - 500

Army List 2 - Ian Connolly
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65

Total - 500

The background for our army?

Vince had been looking forward to some pillaging and drunken high spirits, with possibly some sneaking around for good measure, however a minor technicality put paid to his plans. So he climbed into his jet, and summoned his flock - vengeance was on his mind!

I think this nicely reflects our feelings about having our pirates vs ninjas idea thwarted by a minor change to the rules since last year, while also covering the basics for what we're bringing.

And the team name?

Vazorwing Vince vith his venomously vainglorious vigilantes vindictively vaging a vendetta vith vicious vectors of vice and villainy.

If nothing else, I shall have my revenge against the TO by giving him a fit trying to pronounce our team name right :-P

Just call me V...

Speed painting win

With the upcoming winds of war combat patrol tournament, Ginge and I are taking a small dark eldar force. As neither of us actually play dark eldar, this has meant creating a new force. One that I haven't had time to paint. However given my somewhat hectic period coming up I've (well lying on a beach drinking) I am unable to paint my part of the army before the deadline. However in order to give Ginge an impression of how I want my 500 points painted I have done a single model as a sort of guide.
So I have completed a dark eldar razorwing fighter in under 2 hours (not including drying time) which for me is a personal best for practically any model, yes even gaunts. Considering this. It doesn't actually look half bad. Given a lot more time i could probably make it look better. However this will suffice for the purpose.

New FAQs are up

So the new faqs are up on the Gamesworkshop website. Only one change for us faithful Tyranid players and that's that units now deploy 6" from the pod as per standard transport deployment rules. This makes units like devilgaunts in pods even more worthwhile.

Grandfather Nurgle takes an interest...

In my baking it seems... how a dozen biscuits spaced evenly on a baking tray produce this is beyond me, but it amused me nonetheless...

Horus Heresy Betrayal Review

Betrayal is the first book in forgeworlds new line of Horus Heresy based army books. I use the term army book in the loosest sense in this regard because it makes up only about 1/3rd of the actual book. 

The first impressions of this book are quite frankly jaw dropping, it's a reassuringly weighty tome, with a textured leather cover, metallic corners stamped with imperial eagles and silvered page edges. Frankly it looks good before you have even opened the cover. 

When you do open the cover, you are treated to a full colour interior with detailed background on the events leading up to the heresy, composition of space marine legions and resources, not to mention the full colour pictures of models produced by forgeworld.

Although I haven't read the entire book yet, the sections that I have read do not seem to be plagued by the same startlingly obvious errors typically seen in a forge world book. So hopefully that means that quality control and proof reading haven't been overlooked in this book.

Within the book you can find rules for some of the characters featured in the early black library novels. As well as the rules for fielding Primarchs. More specifically rules for Horus, Angron, Mortarion and Fulgrim. 

So how do the primarchs stack up against regular warhammer models then?

From my impressions it seems as though forgeworld have managed to make the Primarchs actually playable in a game of 40K. While these guys cost as much as a death star unit, they are a death star in their own right. Able to go toe to toe with most things you could encounter in a game. Horus himself is a beast hitting like a railgun in close combat with plenty of other bonuses available to him. Each primarch is differentiated from the others in cost stats and wargear, also in the bonuses they bring to their warriors.

While £70 is a lot of money for a book I would consider this a worthwhile purchase to anyone who is a fan of the Horus Heresy or just the forgeworld books in general.