24000 pts apocalypse - tips?

[Mike X]

- Give yourself fun time based objectives to give people a reason to not just give up and go to lunch each 30 mins. The Imperial Guard have a Thermal Detonation Device (tm) that'll blow up the planet, for example, which could be shown as a linked set of CSM Doomsday Devices. Give bonuses to sides for completing the objectives.
- Bring loads of assets. Seriously. Scheduled Bombardments can help to thin out the tide early on so that you or your opponent don't have to worry about the full 24k pts. :P

These are great advice too. I mean, really, if you're doing something as insane as 24,000 points, you might as well include some non-standard stuff to keep things interesting.

[eagleboy7259]

In a few weeks time we will be playing a major apocalypse game, 6 players, 4000 pts each,
tyranids/eldar versus IG/SM
The tyranids will be fielding a Hierophant and a barbed Hierodule,
the imperiums has at least 3 baneblades, a stormlord and a shadowsword.
I will be playing IG, especially the hierophant has me scared, and of course a lot of trygons, mawlocs and
beasties will be coming along...
Are there some people who can give me and my mates some pointers to deal with the bio-titan or some tactical advice?

Pray you get the first turn?

[wbravenboer]

Yes! That would be nice...
Also a time limit for every turn We will discuss some ideas and rules, pictures and videos will be made.
The idea is a kind of 'wave assault' battle mission, with 3 tablesides for the nids and the imperium in the center-area with one table edge. Perhaps a 'defender' first turn is a reasonable suggestion.

[eagleboy7259]

I've always wanted to try Apoc, is the system actually fun? Like is there a bit more to it than whoever has the nicest forgeworld piece wins? I don't wanna invest in something that I'll play once and drop $600 bucks on

[wbravenboer]

I don't think that it is necessary to use forgeworld monsters
We have played some smaller apoc games before, it is a great excuse to get to use all your models,
no restrictions and have fun!
But I do read about some things to think about, also what's said in the apoc book, the best way is to discuss some
rules and regulations, because otherwise a hierophant will destroy pretty much your whole army...
You can also play a 10000 pts game with only troops, 1500 gaunts against 1500 orc boyz?

[DarkAngelHopeful]

I've played a handful of 24,000 point games. In my experience, make sure you have time to finish the game. It was very disappointing to have to stop the game because someone had to make it home at night for work the next day.

If you have a lot of infantry, I suggest starting as close to the no man's land as possible. In one game, both teams decided to sit back and the game consisted of some shooting and lots of moving and running and not very much action.

Also, We played a game on a 12'x4' board, one on a 10'x4' board and decided that even with that many points it's too much space to facilitate action and speed of play. The last one we played was on a 4'x8' board and was 24,000 points. It sounds cramped at first, but it's really not. Especially when you are sinking so many points into titans, planes, baneblades, etc. And my group found that having a smaller board facilitated action better. Things got interesting from the first turn on because we were at each other's throats pretty much from the beginning.

One thing about balance that I learned was to make sure both sides have a close to even amount of D strength weapons. My team had a warhound titan, 3 bane blades, and 5 thunder bolt fighters. My friends on the other team had an eldar titan and an eldar cobra for super heavies. Both of the edlar vehicles had multiple D weapons and my team had none. On the first turn we had one structure point left on the titan and 2 baneblades were dead. The entire game we never really scratched the eldar vehicles. And that's not to say we didn't try either. I shot 20 missiles from my planes and all of their weapons on the first turn and all I did was destroy a weapon which he rolled and got back. I believe the game would have been more fun and balanced if my team would have taken some D weapons.

Bring snacks to munch on.

I think a time limit per turn would speed up the game play.

remember to have fun! =D

[Xas]

I've played a handful of 24,000 point games. In my experience, make sure you have time to finish the game. It was very disappointing to have to stop the game because someone had to make it home at night for work the next day.

If you have a lot of infantry, I suggest starting as close to the no man's land as possible. In one game, both teams decided to sit back and the game consisted of some shooting and lots of moving and running and not very much action.

Also, We played a game on a 12'x4' board, one on a 10'x4' board and decided that even with that many points it's too much space to facilitate action and speed of play. The last one we played was on a 4'x8' board and was 24,000 points. It sounds cramped at first, but it's really not. Especially when you are sinking so many points into titans, planes, baneblades, etc. And my group found that having a smaller board facilitated action better. Things got interesting from the first turn on because we were at each other's throats pretty much from the beginning.

One thing about balance that I learned was to make sure both sides have a close to even amount of D strength weapons. My team had a warhound titan, 3 bane blades, and 5 thunder bolt fighters. My friends on the other team had an eldar titan and an eldar cobra for super heavies. Both of the edlar vehicles had multiple D weapons and my team had none. On the first turn we had one structure point left on the titan and 2 baneblades were dead. The entire game we never really scratched the eldar vehicles. And that's not to say we didn't try either. I shot 20 missiles from my planes and all of their weapons on the first turn and all I did was destroy a weapon which he rolled and got back. I believe the game would have been more fun and balanced if my team would have taken some D weapons.

Bring snacks to munch on.

I think a time limit per turn would speed up the game play.

remember to have fun! =D

generally the idea to blaance D weaponry is right.

but not a necessarity if the team with more D weapons is eldar. if you only manage one glance 5 or pen 3 with 20 ordnance (2d6 pick highest for armor pen) s8 missiles you pretty much fail hardcore at rolling.

I once destroyed an eldar titan with two heavy weapon teams with 3 autoannons each and a company commander to twinlink their weapons. eldar vehicles are AV12 and isntead of solid shields they only get a 4+ invul save you can negate with a single stunned result (they have to move to get the save). they also do not have the normal holofields that cause you to roll 2d6 and pick the lower for damage results so each pen (4+ with lascannons!) has a 1/3 chance of doing structural damage!


the dangerous thing about D weaponry is that it blasts trough cover!

[DarkAngelHopeful]

generally the idea to blaance D weaponry is right.

but not a necessarity if the team with more D weapons is eldar. if you only manage one glance 5 or pen 3 with 20 ordnance (2d6 pick highest for armor pen) s8 missiles you pretty much fail hardcore at rolling.

I once destroyed an eldar titan with two heavy weapon teams with 3 autoannons each and a company commander to twinlink their weapons. eldar vehicles are AV12 and isntead of solid shields they only get a 4+ invul save you can negate with a single stunned result (they have to move to get the save). they also do not have the normal holofields that cause you to roll 2d6 and pick the lower for damage results so each pen (4+ with lascannons!) has a 1/3 chance of doing structural damage!


the dangerous thing about D weaponry is that it blasts trough cover!

I do have pretty bad luck with dice rolls lol. The other thing is it seemed like there were 2 4+ saves I was going through on the Cobra.

[DrLove42]

You only ever get 1 save, so you've been done a bit there...

As for negating the eldar save, the eldar player is a stupid person if they don't pay a few points for spirit stones so it can move.

As for balencing Strength D its not necessary. I played a 24,000 a week ago, where we destroyed a Warlord titan (thats the 2500pt one) using Wraithguard, Meltabombs and a Priests Evisserator. I single handedly killed a baneblade with just fire dragons, and a macharious vulkan (ok this was with a single S shot) and as a result of them both going big explosion killed nearly 2000 points of the opposin army in just 6 shots.

For the points you pay for 1 Strength D you can afford more heavy weapons which can do more damage to one target, or split them on multiples. I don't own any of my own superheavies, but for the same points i have enough brightlances to do more damage to more targets. For the points a baneblade or equivilent costs you can get enough lascannons/brightlances/railcannons etc to do more damage

[DarkAngelHopeful]

You only ever get 1 save, so you've been done a bit there...

I completely agree.

I guess I should clarify. I don't have the Apoc book in front me as I'm in Afghanistan right now, but the Eldar fighter plane has this ability to negate hits on a 4+ if I remember correctly. Something like that. It was reasoned that since it happens before wounding, it's not a save. It simply negates hits. The Eldar Cobra has the same ability, along with a 4+ invulnerable. So, that's where the two 4+'s came from. One was negating hits, the other was an actual save. Since I don't have the Apoc book in front me, if someone does and wants to verify all this that would be cool.

On a side note, I do happen to have Apoc Reload, Battle Missions, and Planet Strike with me as they were sent in a package lol.