Orcs vs Imperial Guard - March 26th at Adventurer's Guild Gaming, Riverside, CA.

The next big Apocalypse game will be March 26th at Adventures Guild Gaming in Riverside, CA.  Senobio Aguilera, the owner, has scheduled a big Orc vs. IG match that should be awesome.    Senobio has two Orc Gargants, and he has a customer bringing a 3rd. Tayla Wren will hopefully be making it there with her Orc Gargant, and her husband Liam's Titan Legion to protect the Imperium!

One of my favorite Gargants, though it won't be at the game sadly.  Courtesy Heresy Online.

We probably need more Orc players, but everyone is welcome!  For more info, sign onto the Apocalypse40K.com forum.

Alec

SoCal Apocalypse Battle Report

Yesterday was the first big SoCal Apocalypse game after The Big Game and it was a great success.  We had 100,000 points in this "small" game.  We also had 5 brand new players.  

We set four 8' tables up length-wise, but staggered, so you could always get to any model on the table.  These were all non-super heavy tables.  Then there were two super-heavy tables that were placed width-wise at one end.

Father-son team of Joe (on the right) and Cameron.  Joe is the painter, Cameron the gamer!

A Chaos Tower, which was built by Matt Plonski.  It was quite impressive and well engineered.  It fell on turn one though, so didn't see action.  It probably was more fearsome looking than deadly.  It scared the crap out of Andrew and I so we threw everything at it!

Two awesome Nurgle Vindicators!

Lessons learned:

1)  8' wide tables work well when staggered.  The depth makes for good mobility.

2)  Sign-up in advance is really important, because you can balance teams before the day of the event. 

3)  Big 40K is often a more fun version of Apocalypse.  You don't need super-heavies and Flyers to have a lot of fun.

Alec

Capricorn Pattern Chimera

I commissioned Tom McBride, "Machinator" on the Apocalypse 40K and other forums and the owner of Blood and Skulls Industry, to make a set-back Chimera, based on the works of others such as  The Back 40K Blog. You can find his excellent articles on converting Chimeras here and here.

I need about a dozen Chimeras for my IG army and am not going to convert that many!  Heck, I don't even paint my stuff!  And while I love converting, I don't have the time to convcert a dozen, and besides, there had to be an easier way!  SO I went to Tom.  He announced that the project was finished yesterday on the Apocalypse40K forum:

 

To celebrate his victory in the battle now known as "The Big Game", General Alec of the SoCalus 5th regiment, known as the WarHawks, commissioned his tech priests to build him a Chimera armored transport vehicle that was, in his own words: "Not so ***RESTRICTED*** ugly."

After weeks of delays, numerous motivations whippings, and threats of execution the Capricorn Pattern Chimera was born. The new pattern is easy distinguishable from it brethren by the set back turret and numerous hatches for easy egress. The rear compartment was fitted with a more bunker-like appearance to give the guardsmen inside a greater, but false, sense of security. Upon looking at his newly commissioned creation General Alec declared: "Awesome!”

A dozen of the new pattern were built and loaded into the command ship Thunderbird 01. After the customary order of "5 4 3 2 1 Thunderbird is Go!" General Alec and his men headed out into the stars...never to be seen again.

I swear that's how it happened....

Land Raider Promethus Conversion

I happen to be one of a minority who loves the old Mk I Land Raider.  And so when I got a couple of these kits I wanted to figure a way to work it into my Crimson Templar army.  So I decided to make one into a Land Raider Prometheus.  This would be the ancient HQ Land Raider of my army.  A Land Raider since the days of Heresy that has been leading the Crimson Templars through thousands of campaigns.

I converted the Mark I by basically stripping out the center of the model and keeping only the bottom.  The Forge World kit provides two  pieces for the center hull.  below these I put a Black Templar Land Raider door from the Black Templar conversion box set.  I had to set that on a piece of plasticard since it wouldn't fill the gap between the front FW piece and the bottom.

Then I built up the back.  Here I used a Mk II Land Raider engine section.  Between that and the rear FW piece in the back I put a piece of Plasticard on which I glued a two piece crew hatch and a radar dish.

Finally, Mk II Land Raider sponsons fit perfectly on the Mk I Land Raider.  So the Heavy Bolter sponson went on and then the whole beauty was sent to Aaron Lovejoy, Golden Daemon winning painter, who has painted every vehicle in my army.  

Alec

DaBigBomma's Orks - Part 2

More on Greg Teeuwen's Orks in his words...


With the release of Apoc, I liked the idea of the Skullhamma, so I built one.

As Apoc really took hold, I quickly found out that my old Speed Freaks thinking meant I had vehicles that were too lightly armored. So I started making battlewagons.

From 4th Edition, the Speed Freaks were allowed to have (odd) flyer strafings during the first turn. And when the first Imperial Armour came out, they actually had rules for an Ork flyer, so I wasted no time in building one.

As with Sheepshagga, this flyer/pilot got a name: “Crappy” Boyington, famed Ork ace and first pilot of my rapidly expanding Black Sheep Skwadron. In many a game, thanks to the first IA rule sets and scatter die, he became infamous for killing more Orks than he did the enemy models. His obvious answer, “A kill is a kill”. Yes, he’s chocked up quite a kill count, plenty of models on the ground and he even scored a number of air to air kills.

 

As Apoc became more and more popular, I saw the need for a bigger air force and so I started creating more flyers. Most impressive to me was the Blasta Bomma ruleset from IA8. I had taken a very long break from gaming and was eventually invited to a semi-large fight. I got the latest rules and found inspiration to start scratchbuilding again.

The Blasta Bomma was first. I could’ve done a lot more to make it look more looted or Orky, but I was rusty and was in a hurry in order to be ready for the big “return” game.

Then came a few more fighters. I actually have two of these.

DaBigBomma's Orks - Part 1

Greg Teeuwen, whose White Knights I featured previously, is a master of conversion.  His Ork army is amazing and featured here.

This is my Ork WAAGH!, led by the infamous Warboss Sheepshagga.

As boyz are a dime a dozen and overly common, an Ork Waagh gets its character from one or two key leaders, but primarily from its vehicles.

With that in mind, I scratchbuilt or kitbashed every single vehicle in my army, and the army revolves around its key (and very demented) Warboss Sheepshagga.

Sheepshagga (the character) actually began as a non-hero looter boy from the game Mordheim. I put my warband together with “looting” in mind, so I had some boyz carrying bags of stuff, and one in particular was running off with a sheep under his arm.

The figure was so funny and popular with the mordheim group that he was given the name “Sheepshagga” by my fellow gamers. The sheep he was carrying was given the name “Muffin” and a silly love story soon followed. However, laughter turned to terror when Sheepshagga had actually earned enough experience in the game to actually become a heroic figure and he was soon tearing foes apart. Pretty soon, it became a competition amongst my opponents to see if someone could actually kill Sheepshagga. Oddly enough, he never perished.

As I translated over to 40k and built up a Waagh, I kept the character, updating him as necessary. I’ve made several version of him, but with the release of Black Reach, I took advantage of the nice Warboss model and created a 5th edition version of Sheepshagga. Muffin actually counts as an attack squig (+1 attack). The tire he’s standing on is symbolic of his Speed Freaks beginnings.

With the key leader in place, I then wanted my army to stand out from all the other Ork armies by having my own vehicles, not simply buying ready-made kits. I started my Waagh during 4th Edition, using the Speed Freaks ruleset, with most vehicles fast and light. However, as 5th Edition and Apocalypse came out, I beefed out my army quite a bit.

Most of my Trukks are kitbashed from WWII models.

My first Stompa (long, LONG before Stompa kits were available). This is lovingly named, “Da Nutcracka” and was a terror to behold (before Apoc really took hold and now Stompas are everywhere). In fact, when I first built this, there was so little fluff about stompas that one had to imagine what it might look like or how big it would be. All told, this Stompa cost me about $12 to make. And with the release of newer and newer Apoc rules, I’ve actually modified it quite a bit, allowing me to swap out arms for different stompa weapons.

 Sheepshagga’s old Speed Freaks ride- counted as a trukk.

Deff Koptas.

More of Alan's army tomorrow!

Quantum Gothic - A New Resin Accessory Provider

Quantum Gothic is an amazing new resin miniature wargame accessory provider and I have to say their stuff is awesome.  They have gotten nothing but rave reviews from everything I have read, and I am going to be ordering a ton of stuff from them soon.  Do check them out.

The Big Game - Final Numbers

Well, it took me a few weeks after the Big Game all the numbers compiled and verified.  I actually have an army list for every person who was at the L.A. Battle Bunker and confirmed their numbers, so the records are very accurate.  We set every record that we were after.  We kind of figured we would not beat the vehicle record, but I hear Siegeworld is after that this summer.  So here are the numbers:

Los Angeles Battle Bunker

Total number of painted points on one table 739,247

(The previous record for the Biggest Apocalypse Game was 382,000 by Siegeworld)

Total number of models on two tables 864,057

(The previous record for the Biggest Apocalypse Battle was 520,000 by GMI games)

Total number of miniatures 18,592

(The previous record for the most minis in a Single Battle was 6,500 by Siegeworld)

 Total number of vehicles 1,752  (Not a record)

World Wide

Total number of points at 22 locations in 5 countries  2,310,835 !!!

The Imperium was triumphant!

Final Score World Wide was 407 to 331.  The Emperor's light prevails!

At the L.A. Battle Bunker the score was 183 to 122 for the Imperium.

  Bunker regular Annibal Sanchez's Chaos horde faces the Smurfs and IG

 The San Pedro Games Workshop store clan came prepared for war!

Former Bunker manager Chris Cailor on one crowded table!

Former Bunker employee Dave Hummel (on left) managed both Crimson Fists and Blood Angels against Senobio Aguilera (on right) and his IG.

Reinforcements have arrived!

You got to love these bad boys.....

Yeah, I do everything in threes.

Alec

Random Thoughts, The Death Company......and a cool Pic

Well, played a small, 8,000 point per side Apoc game at the Broadside Bash Tournament yesterday the game ended at 1:30, and we learned a few things. It was 8,000 points of Necrons/IG vs. my Blood Angels and David's Angels of Absolution. (No Flyers or Superheavies in our side, he had a Baneblade)

Some thoughts:

1) Always look up rules if there is any question and don't feel like someone is questioning your integrity.  

When someone questions a rule, or something in my codex, I like to show them where it is, or have them show me where it is.  It just makes us all better players.  Look, I have zero problem admitting when I am wrong about a rule. Just show me! I think it is a good habit for us all to be able to refer to where a rule is. So many times we whip out the rulebook and look up a rule and we say "OH, OK", and we are both satisfied!

2) The new Objective Scoring rules are so much more fun.

We keep playing with this system, where you score objectives every player turn after Turn 1, and it keeps proving how much more fun it makes the game.  The intensity is up, and it prevents people from hanging back and loading everything into reserve. 

3) Mobility cannot be over-rated.

Players do not think about their Force Comp on a large table. We had an AWESOME table last night that was 10' x 6' and filled with Dave's terrain. Problem was, the other guy only had two units racing across the table to get 3 objectives. And he didn't even start moving them till Turn 2.

4) Playing with just Codex forces is just as fun. 

David and I both had nothing but standard stuff. No Super Heavies, Flyers, Titans, and it was a blast.  I had one formation, the Death Company, David had none.

5) Basic Sternguard are under-rated

Oh we all love Sternguard combi-melta spam, but Hellfire rounds took out BOTH C'Tan last night and in the last game I played, an Avatar. 

6) The Death Company Formation is INSANE

I fielded this 1,200 point formation last night.  30 Death Company, 20 with Jump Packs, Asorath and a Chaplain.  Two DC Dreads with Blood Talons.  Let's just say I don't fear the Green Tide.  This formation will cut through anything like butter.  The ability to reroll EVERYTHING and then get extra attacks, is just crazy-good.

And you Eldar players have been getting some love lately and are about to get more.  IA 11 should be a great book and will see the release of the Eldar Phantom Titan from Forgeworld.

Aaron Lovejoy's Eldar Cobra

Aaron Lovejoy is a multiple Golden Deamon winner who paints the armies of a bunch of us down here in SoCal.  His work is amazing and here is an Eldar Cobra he did for Shawn Green.

Forgeworld New releases

WOW!  It was only a week ago that Forgeworld released the Malcador Infernus, and today we get the Eldar Assault Walker and some Ultramarine decals.

Now you can have a War Walker Squadros with jump jets as a Troops choice.

I could get used to "Forgeworld Friday".

Eldar and Imperial Titans

The following is an article on Eldar Titans by Matt Plonski, who runs the Apoc-Eclipse Apocalypse gaming group in North Carolina.

There was a great deal of disappointment with the Eldar datasheets in the Bell of Lost Souls "Lords of Battle" supplement.  If you are playing against Imperial titans you need to do yourself a favor and use the datasheets that Apoc-Eclipse and Siegeworld made together.    You can download them at http://www.apoc-eclipse.com/datasheetEldarPhantomTitan.pdf"]Phantom and http://www.apoc-eclipse.com/datasheetEldarWarlockTitan.pdf"]Warlock.  If you use the BoLS ones you will be very disappointed.  The Imperial titans have such superior range, armor, and shields that they are not much fun to play against.
 

I don't want to beat a dead horse, as we talked about the differences between Imperial and Eldar titans exhaustively when designing the datasheets, so simply consider the Apocalypse Launcher.  The Apocalypse Launcher is great at downing shields from up to 360" away but once the shields are down it is useless against Imperial titans.  The Eldar don't have anything that can do those things.  Against an Eldar titan the Apocalypse Launcher and Vulcan Mega Bolter never lose their ability because they can always damage the 12 front armor.  While a Reaver or Warlord is usually safe in the first turn unless a lot of firepower is poured into them a Phantom can take damage from the first S6 or better gun shot at it.  If you fire an Apocalypse Launcher at a Phantom titan you can expect that you'll see a couple of Gun Crew Shaken results at least.  It is NEVER a bad idea to shoot at an Eldar titan since any shot has the potential to do harm.
 

So, what is my strategy?  Overwhelming power.  I have six super heavy tanks that move up in front of the titans (they have even worse ranges than the titans, so you have to move up) and some of the smaller class titans.  Turn 1, the Phantom and Warlock usually get shot at, as they are the most frightening.  Usually they don't do all that much damage to them.  Once the super heavy tanks start shooting, they then become the priority since no one realized that they almost exclusively shoot Destroyer templates.  The better to take out something that actually has a chance to be taken out then to waste your shots against a titan.  In turn 3, by this time the Towering Destroyer Knight has reached the enemy lines and lays into an enemy super heavy with its two close combat weapons.  Four or five Wraithlords will also help.

What do I support my Eldar titans with?  As I said above, they have such small range that I usually keep them with the bulk of my army.  Their priority targets are anything with high strength and multiple shots.

If you are talking about Imperial titans, it is a completely different story.  Deck them out either with long range guns or with short ranged ones.  Keep them at their optimal range and use them in concert with other units to destroy whatever target type they are the best at.  It is usually good to keep a Warhound around the feet of a Reaver or Warlord to use to keep the neighborhood clear.  If you are going to use infantry just make sure that they are able to react fast since any enemy will likely try to clear out a landing zone before coming in.

It is a viable tactic to put an isolated long range titan off in the corner of the battlefield to rain death down from afar (I like the combination of Apocalypse Launchers and Volcano Cannons) and just gamble that the opponent won't want to bother trying to take it out.  It might work once or twice but eventually a Valkyrie with a Demolitions Veteran Squad will swoop into range and you won't have anything to stop them.

Hope this helps!

Matt Plonski