Apocalypse Primer - Hosting a Game

Chris Donohue, a regular on the Apocalypse40K forum, put together these thoughts for an aspiring Apocalypse gamer and so I thought them worthy of print.  I agree with most of this and Chris did a good job, so here you go....

THE APOCALYPSE PRIMER

1.  TIMING 

Schedule a time the game will start and tell all the players they absolutely have to be there by that time with their armies on hand or they will not play. Apocalypse games take several hours and just one late player can make the event no fun for everyone else. For example, state "The game begins at 10AM when we divide up players into sides, then you have half an hour to lay out your models and then deployment begins promptly at 10:30AM. Players who are not present at 10AM will not play."

2.  HOUSE RULES

Agree on what house rules are in force beforehand and let everyone know. 

House Rule Suggestions:

I. Flank March asset is outlawed or limited to only 1000 points (Flank March is extremely overwhelming).

II. If any formations or units are banned

III. Whether scoring units will be as per 4th edition (almost anything can hold an objective) or 5th edition (only Troops can hold the objectives). Apocalypse was originally written for 4th, so make it clear to all players which way the scoring will go.

IV. Points limit (or model count limit) per player. Most games work best when folks roughly equal points and no one individual is trying to field several hundred models or over 10,000 points. In the former case, if their is a large points discrepancy, folks with fewer points will get bored real fast. In the latter case, if someone is trying to run tons of stuff, the game turns will take forever. For most games outside special "go-bannanas and bring everthing you got" games (like The Big Game) it's good to keep things within limits.

3.  "D" WEAPONS

 

In general, "D" weapons are much more destructive than any other weapons. They have several advantages over "normal" weapons that you could choose as weapon options (see page 96 in Apocalypse rulebook under "Destroyer"):

1. Don't need to roll to get through armour. For example, hit a Land Raider and its an automatic Penetrating Hit. Important Note: No Glances - in particular as the glance exception (skimmers getting glanced only) is gone with 5th edition.
2. No cover saves against it. Smoke, Kustom Force Fields, lurking in ruins, etc, doesn't help against this.
3. Center hole in template doesn't need to be over vehicle to get full effect - anything touched by template is affected (even the edges).
4. +1 on the Damage Chart
5. Automatically wounds any non-vehicles it hits - no need to roll to wound. Important Point: the 1 in 6 chance of surviving due to a wound roll of 1 that you get with normal weapons doesn't exist with this weapon. No survivors when a group of infantry get hit, whereas a normal weapon will sometimes leave one or two standing when it fails to wound them.
6. Inflicts Instant Death irregardless of targets toughness (better than "doubling out" a target). So if a Wraithlord is hit (toughness 8), it will immediately die from just the one wound.
7. Points costs for D weapons typically are far underpriced compared to other weapon options, or D weapons and normal weapons are offered as equals when outfitting your vehicle.

As just one example, look at the Warlord Titan. Compare the Volcano Cannon and the Melta Cannon. Both are one shot 10" templates. The Melta Cannon looks real cool at first glance. Lots of dice to go through armour. But wait, the D weapon ignores the armour - no need to try to get through it. And it ignores the armour irregardless of whether the center hole of the template is over the target or not - everything the template touches gets hit hard. And it has 240" range vs 72" for the Melta Cannon. Infantry hit by the Melta Cannon would get cover saves, and would survive a wound if toughness 6 or better and had multiple wounds. A D weapon would instead nerf them entirely.

The downside of D weapons in Apocalypse is that suddenly everyone shows up with a max load-out of D weapons and no one plays the other weapons. Consider the cheesy-ness of a Warlord Titan with 2 Turbo Laser Destructors and 2 Laser Blasters. That's 10 5" D shots a turn!

Also, there are some equity issues in that some races have access to few or no D weapons - Tyranids, Dark Eldar, etc.

The most equitable solution seems to be to have a house rule that reduces the template used by one level. So a 5" template uses a 3" instead. A 10" uses a 7" instead. This also provides incentive for players to use the other weapons instead of the D ones, as their larger blast makes them better against infantry. Upping the points cost for D weapons has been discussed, but the conclusion many came to is that people would continue to favor D weapons even at a much higher points cost as in their listed form they are a wonder weapon that basically nukes everything ("It slices, it dices, it smashes tomatoes - the Ginsu D weapon"). 

4.  HAVE FUN!

Probably most important of all - inform all players that the game will be a fun game, not a competitive game. Apocalypse was not written as tightly as regular 40K; there's lots of gray zones and rule conflicts that will come up. Be prepared to do a lot of 4+ rolls to decide things. Make the players aware that their are idiosyncracies compared to regular 40K. Also, warn players that rules lawyers will not be tolerated.