So, you have decided to step up your game and play Apocalypse. You read my last article and know there is a bunch more besides what you will find in your codex; Flyers, AA, Warmachines, etc. And for most of us, budget is the major issue. We don't have thousands of dollars to spend on 40K and so we need to build our army slowly and steadily.
TROOPS
So first thing to do is make sure you have enough Troops to take and hold objectives. As I have mentioned, we play a house rule that anything with a WS can hold objectives. So Terminators, Dreadnoughts, Killer Cans, monstrous creatures, they are all invaluable. BUY MORE. You want stuff to hold objectives.
And your troops should ALL have rides. We jokingly say that the first rule of Apocalypse is NO ONE WALKS. You are outside your ride or not in cover, you are dead. So make sure your infantry have rides or Deep Strike or Drop Pods, whatever.
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| Crimson Templar Troops |
AT
Take lots of AT weapons. Melta is the order of the day; Lance weapons, awesome; Railguns...nails! Yeah, you get the picture. Oh and Manticores are S10. "D" weapons...well, we will get to that in the Warmachine section, but auto-pen and +1 on the damage chart!
The thing is there will be so much armor that you want LOTS of AT. My tactical squads have Melta guns and Lascannons. Sgts. have combi-meltas.
OK, so far this is all pretty basic stuff. Build your codex army to hold objectives and destroy armor. Now, let's get into the Apoc stuff.
FLYERS AND AA
This is an area that players ignore. But you can't. Flyers can move anywhere on the board and so are your best way to get to an enemy's back lines or hard to hit units or vehicles.
With the advent of the Valkyrie as a Flyer, we see the democratization of Flyers. You don't need to buy a Forgeworld model to get Flyers. $ 50 and you get a flyer. And rumors say that there will be more and more flyers on the way for other races. We already have seen the Stormraven in the Blood Angels codex and the Razorwing and Voidraven in the Dark Eldar army. GW is supposedly releasing more flyers this summer. I fully expect to see rules for the above mentioned models, skimmers in 40K, to be used as flyers in Apocalypse. I would include the Caestus Assault Ram in this as well.
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| The Forgeworld Eldar Nightwing |
The game of Apocalypse is meant to be more of a grand battle. A big cinematic event. In war, air power is critical, and the game of Apocalypse is the same way. We are seeing an arms race here and you need to be part of that race. If you have an Imperial army, build an Imperial Navy force of Valkyries, Thunderbolts, Lightnings and Marauders. If you have a Xenos army, then either save up for some Forgeworld models, or scratchbuild your own. There are some amazing scratchbuilds on The Apocalypse40k.com forums.
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| Scratch built Thunderbolts under construction by Psypath |
And if you are going to face flyers, you need some AA. In Apocalypse, you need a "6" to hit a flyer, no matter your ballistic skill, unless you have an AA mount (or a pintel mount). So now Hydras have been given AA mounts. So for 75 points you can now have VERY effective AA.
So with cheap flyers and cheap AA for the Imperium (and thus traitor armies as well), I expect GW to be giving the same to every race by the end of the year. So you better put this in your list of things to add to your army. Not having it will mean you are going to be playing at a disadvantage.
Next article we will discuss Warmachines.
Alec
1 comments:
Troops, My thoughts keep everything mobile or don't plan to move it. As may of my infantry are in Trnasports as possible and if not in transports they deep strike and the few who are not, Imperial Guard heavy weapons teams, sit on and hold objectives. I have rarely seen anyone have any luck in ploding across the table with a Tactical Squad in Apocalypse. This also goes to Alec's point of survivability, in 5th edition transported troops are much more survivable barring a hit from a Destroyer weapon but then who can survive that.
AT, It is inherent in a Mechanized army to expect to fight Armour. They will be out front of everything and need to be able to take out what ever can kill them before it does. Meltas, Missile Launchers, Autocannons, Vanquisher Cannons and Lascannons are the tools of the trade.
Flyers, I have seen that use of flyers has lagged behind superheavies and other Apocalypse specific units like formations but that is over. If flyers are not the new Melta then you haven't played with enough. There simply is not enough AA to prevent these guys from ruling the skies and putting the hurt on your SIDE armour. Almost every race has some very effective flyers from the Lance weapons on the Eldar and Dark Eldar Flyers to the Destroyer weapons on Tau flyers to the racks of missiles and mountains of options on many of the Imperial flyers. Only the Necrons and the Tyrinids lack decent flyers. Hopefully that will change in the near future but I am not sure how they will make a Gargantuan Creature a flyer.
AA, With the surge in flyers comes the need for AA and there are far too few choices out there for you. Here are your options:
Necron Pylon, effective against flyers but far too valuable for shooting at suerheavies to bother with flyers.
Ork Flakk Guns, well with BS 2 you need all the help you can get and these are just not that much help unfortunately.
Space Marine Hyperios, Too expensive on a rhino at 115 points and questionable on the Land Raider. It just doesent stack up to the big dogs of anti air guns.
Tau Skyray, In their formation deadly to flyers and are second only to
Imperial Guard Hydra, Truely the only purpose built Anti Air platform in the game lots of shots and a high probability to hit what more can you ask for? Oh ya there is also the Forge World Manticore with it's Sky Eagle Rockets because Guard needed another AA asset.
I only hope with the rumors of this years flyer kits for 40k we also see more Anti Air assets for all races to counter the threat in the skys.
Warmachines, They are just about all I build any more, well them and flyers. They are half the reason I play Apocalypse. My goal is to have a small Titan legion by the time I am done. 1 Emperor,2 Warlords, 6 Warhounds and probably one Reaver, not a big Legion but it is probably bigger than yours. Not are these very hard to kill but they carry the things that kill very hard to kill things, strength D guns. The only down side is that they are very big targets, and take a lot of damage, which only allows the rest of your forces to do what they are there to do, Win.
Greg
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