Warhammer 40k Apocalypse.
I gotta give a huge thumbs-up to GW on this one. A lot of people are saying that it's a blatant money grab and what not, but eh. I enjoy it. I enjoy it a lot. Even the casual gamer can play his entire collection - just get a few friends together. That's the fun of it - the rules about force organization charts are tossed out the window. So anyhow, we played a relatively large game of this a few weeks ago at the shop. 9000 points per side - that's a lot of models. Five players on one side, three on the other. And much fun was had by all. This game only ran four turns instead of the usual six, because it was nearly 2am by the time we finished turn 4.
We'd actually had some trouble getting the sides even! There were nearly 19,000 points worth of Imperial models, and only 6,000 worth of aliens/enemies. Yikes. That's a huge discrepancy. We ended up pawning off one of our Guard players on them to play Traitor Guard, and that evened it up a bit more. Hmm... some highlights, I think. Time for me to GEEK OUT. YES. We got to go first, bidding 8 minutes to set up. We didnt' make it in 8 minutes, but got really close. But since we bid lowest, we still got to start. The first turn is pretty important imo. Since they had two less players, they got two Strategems to assist them - they chose Shield Generator and Orbital Bombardment. The Shield Generator gives a 4+ cover save to any unit within 12" of it, and vehicles always get to roll for a hull down inside that range as well.
Turn 1, us:
Penitent Engines run forward an impressive 12" toward the enemy lines. Maximum movement. Always good. Everything that's going to edge forward does so, really. A lot of tanks move 12" to try to get LOS for next turn on the Chaos Titan that was being fielded. A bit of shooting goes on, but nothing much is destroyed yet. There's a -lot- of models on the table, a lot of which block LOS to each other. In the assault phase, Death Company jumps out from behind a building (the opponents had -forgotten about them-, which is a bad idea), assaults two squads of Necron Destroyers, and wipes them out completely. Consolidates into more squads, locking them into close combat.
Turn 1, them:
3 Necron Monoliths phase in. They're a Phalanx, one of the new rules for Apocalypse - they have this nifty field that reduces the strength of our weapons when shooting at the Monoliths and anything between them. Crap. Crap crap crap. Things suddenly look pretty bleak for our side. All of their stuff edges up. Lots of things disembark from transports, revealing a metric shit-ton of Thousand Sons - ouch. Ordnance takes out two Penitent Engines. Three Necron Lords use Veil of Darkness to teleport behind our lines and f*** up some tanks pretty good. Ouch again.
Turn 2, us:
Callidus Assassin comes in from Reserves. She's placed near one of the squads of Thousand Sons, and proceeds to use the Neural Shredder on them during the shooting phase, to not much effect. She assaults them later, her C'tan Phase Blade ignoring their shiny new invuln save! Yay! Landspeeders come in from reserves. The remaining Penitent Engine continues forward merrily, assaulting a squad of Necron Destroyers and neatly wiping it out, then consolidating into a second one. The Throne of Judgement is close enough at this point to take potshots at the enemy armor with its multi-melta, as well. One lucky little Predator Annihilator unloads its guns into a Monolith, and rolls a Destroyed result on a Glancing hit (3+ on a d6 to hit, 6 to glance, then 6 again to destroy - lucky!) Yay again! This leaves the Titan slightly more vulnerable, and things start unloading into it as well. It actually gets assaulted by a Dreadnought in the assault phase. Hahahahahahaha. Even funnier: the Dreadnought manages to not only damage its drive, but disable one of its weapons. Death Company is assaulted by several squads and wiped out, but at extremely high cost. Those Necrons in our backfield get shot to shit and back. One squad is assaulted by a Techmarine, and fights to a standstill. One squad is assaulted by a Librarian. One squad is wiped out.
Turn 2, them:
The Necrons hang tight in our backfield. I'm trying to remember what all happened in this turn. It's not very memorable. Umm... oh, yes. Those Landspeeders of ours get shot to shit and back. Many of the Necrons stand back up, despite being shot with lascannons and such - damned Resurrection Orbs. The Penitent Engine wiped out the second squad of Destroyers, and consolidated again, this time near the enemy armor - always a good thing. The Callidus Assassin, slippery little thing that she is, jumped out of close combat with the Thousand Sons. One of their psykers attempted to use a power, only to EPIC FAIL and injure himself in the process. Oops. There's lots and -lots- of carnage by this point - plenty of cover to be had from destroyed vehicles and whatnot. Oh, right. And orbital bombardment. OWWW. We got lucky though, and didn't lose anything.
Turn 3, us:
Happy little Penitent Engine makes it into the enemy armor line and carves up a Leman Russ pretty good-fine. Throne of Judgement takes out a second one with its multi-melta. Immolator takes out a third one with its multi-melta. Lots and LOTS of things shoot at the Titan, managing to blow off both its void shields. Land Raider Crusader opens up with its hurricane bolters on a squad of Traitor Guard and does some heavy damage. Callidus Assassin neural shreds the Thousand Sons again, resulting in a few deaths, then assaults them, killing all but one. Many more Necrons in our backfield are shot. A second squad is wiped out. A squad of Terminators assaults the Nightbringer - the Necrons have gone and brought their gods with them, apparently! Yikes!
Turn 3, them:
Mostly close combat. We're too close at this point for them to use ordnance, and most of the units that don't use ordnance are either tied up in close combat or have their LOS cut off by close combat. Or they just miss. The Throne of Judgement absorbs a hell of a lot of firepower, but finally falls. The last remaining squad of Necrons teleports out through one of the remaining two Monoliths, getting to reroll all their failed rolls to stand up in the process. Doh! It then teleports behind our lines again, and immobilizes a Land Raider. Guh. The Callidus jumps out of close combat again, after she's charged by the Chaos Lord. Nightbringer dies in the assault phase.
Turn 4, us:
Again, at this point, all we're really shooting at in front of us is the Titan. We manage to remove a structure point from it. In our backfield, we pummel the remaining Necrons. After some counting, we realize that they phase out! SCORE! No more Monoliths! (when a Necron army is reduced to 25% of its starting numbers counting units with the special rule 'Necron', the entire army phases out) Assassin assaults again, wounding the Chaos Lord. His Daemon Weapon decides to have a psycho moment and attack him instead of the assassin-lady. Oops. Speaking of psycho moments, that merry little Penitent Engine wipes out a traitorious Inquisitor's retinue with its heavy flamer, then assaults the Inquisitor, killing him.
Turn 4, them:
The Titan breaks free of the close-combat with the Dreadnought (It doesn't take much, really) and assaults the Terminators that just offed the Nightbringer. The Assassin decides to stay in combat this time, and manages to finish off the Chaos Lord. Woot. By this time people were cleaning up models that didn't have a bearing on the game and what not, so yeah. :)
All in all, it was an incredible game, and didn't feel like it took eight hours. There was a dinner break in there where we went next door to Tijuana Flats, a local Mexican takeout place. Mwah. Awesome food. In any case, I'm done geeking out for now. Well, until tomorrow, that is. Tomorrow is 40k Friday! Yay! Maybe we can go out early and get another game of Apocalypse going. ;)
We'd actually had some trouble getting the sides even! There were nearly 19,000 points worth of Imperial models, and only 6,000 worth of aliens/enemies. Yikes. That's a huge discrepancy. We ended up pawning off one of our Guard players on them to play Traitor Guard, and that evened it up a bit more. Hmm... some highlights, I think. Time for me to GEEK OUT. YES. We got to go first, bidding 8 minutes to set up. We didnt' make it in 8 minutes, but got really close. But since we bid lowest, we still got to start. The first turn is pretty important imo. Since they had two less players, they got two Strategems to assist them - they chose Shield Generator and Orbital Bombardment. The Shield Generator gives a 4+ cover save to any unit within 12" of it, and vehicles always get to roll for a hull down inside that range as well.
Turn 1, us:
Penitent Engines run forward an impressive 12" toward the enemy lines. Maximum movement. Always good. Everything that's going to edge forward does so, really. A lot of tanks move 12" to try to get LOS for next turn on the Chaos Titan that was being fielded. A bit of shooting goes on, but nothing much is destroyed yet. There's a -lot- of models on the table, a lot of which block LOS to each other. In the assault phase, Death Company jumps out from behind a building (the opponents had -forgotten about them-, which is a bad idea), assaults two squads of Necron Destroyers, and wipes them out completely. Consolidates into more squads, locking them into close combat.
Turn 1, them:
3 Necron Monoliths phase in. They're a Phalanx, one of the new rules for Apocalypse - they have this nifty field that reduces the strength of our weapons when shooting at the Monoliths and anything between them. Crap. Crap crap crap. Things suddenly look pretty bleak for our side. All of their stuff edges up. Lots of things disembark from transports, revealing a metric shit-ton of Thousand Sons - ouch. Ordnance takes out two Penitent Engines. Three Necron Lords use Veil of Darkness to teleport behind our lines and f*** up some tanks pretty good. Ouch again.
Turn 2, us:
Callidus Assassin comes in from Reserves. She's placed near one of the squads of Thousand Sons, and proceeds to use the Neural Shredder on them during the shooting phase, to not much effect. She assaults them later, her C'tan Phase Blade ignoring their shiny new invuln save! Yay! Landspeeders come in from reserves. The remaining Penitent Engine continues forward merrily, assaulting a squad of Necron Destroyers and neatly wiping it out, then consolidating into a second one. The Throne of Judgement is close enough at this point to take potshots at the enemy armor with its multi-melta, as well. One lucky little Predator Annihilator unloads its guns into a Monolith, and rolls a Destroyed result on a Glancing hit (3+ on a d6 to hit, 6 to glance, then 6 again to destroy - lucky!) Yay again! This leaves the Titan slightly more vulnerable, and things start unloading into it as well. It actually gets assaulted by a Dreadnought in the assault phase. Hahahahahahaha. Even funnier: the Dreadnought manages to not only damage its drive, but disable one of its weapons. Death Company is assaulted by several squads and wiped out, but at extremely high cost. Those Necrons in our backfield get shot to shit and back. One squad is assaulted by a Techmarine, and fights to a standstill. One squad is assaulted by a Librarian. One squad is wiped out.
Turn 2, them:
The Necrons hang tight in our backfield. I'm trying to remember what all happened in this turn. It's not very memorable. Umm... oh, yes. Those Landspeeders of ours get shot to shit and back. Many of the Necrons stand back up, despite being shot with lascannons and such - damned Resurrection Orbs. The Penitent Engine wiped out the second squad of Destroyers, and consolidated again, this time near the enemy armor - always a good thing. The Callidus Assassin, slippery little thing that she is, jumped out of close combat with the Thousand Sons. One of their psykers attempted to use a power, only to EPIC FAIL and injure himself in the process. Oops. There's lots and -lots- of carnage by this point - plenty of cover to be had from destroyed vehicles and whatnot. Oh, right. And orbital bombardment. OWWW. We got lucky though, and didn't lose anything.
Turn 3, us:
Happy little Penitent Engine makes it into the enemy armor line and carves up a Leman Russ pretty good-fine. Throne of Judgement takes out a second one with its multi-melta. Immolator takes out a third one with its multi-melta. Lots and LOTS of things shoot at the Titan, managing to blow off both its void shields. Land Raider Crusader opens up with its hurricane bolters on a squad of Traitor Guard and does some heavy damage. Callidus Assassin neural shreds the Thousand Sons again, resulting in a few deaths, then assaults them, killing all but one. Many more Necrons in our backfield are shot. A second squad is wiped out. A squad of Terminators assaults the Nightbringer - the Necrons have gone and brought their gods with them, apparently! Yikes!
Turn 3, them:
Mostly close combat. We're too close at this point for them to use ordnance, and most of the units that don't use ordnance are either tied up in close combat or have their LOS cut off by close combat. Or they just miss. The Throne of Judgement absorbs a hell of a lot of firepower, but finally falls. The last remaining squad of Necrons teleports out through one of the remaining two Monoliths, getting to reroll all their failed rolls to stand up in the process. Doh! It then teleports behind our lines again, and immobilizes a Land Raider. Guh. The Callidus jumps out of close combat again, after she's charged by the Chaos Lord. Nightbringer dies in the assault phase.
Turn 4, us:
Again, at this point, all we're really shooting at in front of us is the Titan. We manage to remove a structure point from it. In our backfield, we pummel the remaining Necrons. After some counting, we realize that they phase out! SCORE! No more Monoliths! (when a Necron army is reduced to 25% of its starting numbers counting units with the special rule 'Necron', the entire army phases out) Assassin assaults again, wounding the Chaos Lord. His Daemon Weapon decides to have a psycho moment and attack him instead of the assassin-lady. Oops. Speaking of psycho moments, that merry little Penitent Engine wipes out a traitorious Inquisitor's retinue with its heavy flamer, then assaults the Inquisitor, killing him.
Turn 4, them:
The Titan breaks free of the close-combat with the Dreadnought (It doesn't take much, really) and assaults the Terminators that just offed the Nightbringer. The Assassin decides to stay in combat this time, and manages to finish off the Chaos Lord. Woot. By this time people were cleaning up models that didn't have a bearing on the game and what not, so yeah. :)
All in all, it was an incredible game, and didn't feel like it took eight hours. There was a dinner break in there where we went next door to Tijuana Flats, a local Mexican takeout place. Mwah. Awesome food. In any case, I'm done geeking out for now. Well, until tomorrow, that is. Tomorrow is 40k Friday! Yay! Maybe we can go out early and get another game of Apocalypse going. ;)