Apocalyptic 25th Anniversary

This past Saturday, February 25th, a bunch of us got together to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of 40k with a crazy fun Apocalypse game. And, I don't think "crazy fun" is even accurate enough, it was, like seriously, "insanely fun". A big thanks to the Suzanne and Chris for letting us do battle in their basement!

Before the game, I showed up with a camera and pad of paper, completely intent on trying to capture the magic in a play-by-play battle report. This worked out pretty good for the first turn, then was quickly abandoned in lieu of insane laughter, dice rolling, beer drinking, and whining about assets. So, I apologize that this epic story isn't relayed with complete accuracy. But hell, it is Apocalypse, how can anyone keep track of the sheer amount of explosions and slaughtered troops.

There were 8 of us, divided into two teams of 4 players:

Greg Ritchie, Chad Rutherford, Christian Augst, and Jeremy Lennon-Gibson made up the 10,000 point Imperial side. Bringing about 2500 points each, the team was highlighted by 3 Baneblades, an Emperor's Fist formation (10 Leman Russ tanks!!!), 10 Thunderhammer Terminators in a Ceastus Assault Ram, a Masters of the Chapter formation in a Land Raider Redeemer, Vulcan, and supported by some Space Marines, and countless Guardsmen with Chimeras, Basilisks, and more Leman Russ. Needless to say, there was so much Guard that they were forced to put most of the infantry in reserve because they couldn't fit the whole army in their deployment zone.

Chris Brown, Fabio "I work out" Fiorentino, Dustin Fricker, and myself made up the mish mash of "antagonist" forces. Bringining about 2500 points each, the team included a very balanced 2500 point Necron army with a little of everthing, a balanced 2500 point Tyranid army with a little of everything, 7 Deamon Princes, 11 Obliterators, 3 Vindicators, some assorted Chaos infantry, and a Thunderhawk Gunship. We didn't have any formations at all.

Each side was able to to pick 4 assets. We chose "Deamon Shelll (from Reload)", "Vital Objective", "Scheduled Bombardment", and "Flank March". The Deamon Shell was used prematurely and only killed a small handful of Guardsmen (yay, great use of a large Str D template....), Flank March was supposed to be great for the Nids, but was totally fucked by the "Disruptor Beacon" taken by the Imperials. And of course, Chad was using a die that had a "4" on all six sides, because every time Chris tried to sneak some bugs in the back door, Chad would roll his Beacon and move the bugs to a far, useless corner of the board. I would say Chris lost the usefulness of at least 3/4 his army, and hence, Flank March was a uselss pick as well. The Scheduled Bombardment was picked for some great locations, but was forgotten about at least once. The Vital Objective was really the only good pick, but we will get to that in a bit...

As mentioned, the Imperials took "Disruptor Beacon". As well, they took the "Null Field Generator", and my Thunderhawk's personal favorite: "Long Range Ack Ack". I forget the fourth one they picked... However, due to the amount of formations they took, they were granted a handfull of additional assets (mostly from the Masters of the Chapter). These extra assets proved to be huge in the game. "Surgical Raids" and "Ambush" both put massive dents in our army and made a big mess of Chris's bugs. Remember when I said that the Disruptor Beacon messed up the Tyranid reserves? Well, the ones that made it through were ripped up by sniper fire from the Ambush asset. Another one that made a mess was "Precision Strike" which was aimed at a Trygon. That Trygon lasted about 5 seconds... It was a very bad day to be a Tyranid.

The table was an 8' x 6' surface made up of 2 Realm of Battle boards (thanks Christian). It was probably one of the nicest tables I have ever played on.

The "antagonists" got first turn and pick of deployment. We of course took the large area to force the Imperials into a corner. Deployment basically looked like this:

Ya, "Imperails"... Shut up, you know what I mean.

We took the opportunity to set up a long line of Monstrous Creatures and keep the Imperials pushed back from turn 1. Every 8 inches or so, there was either a Daemon Prince, a Trygon, or a Swarmlord. It was pretty awesome, and it must have been a pretty intimidating sight from the other side of the board. But when the Imperials set up, the sheer amount of armour blew my mind. Every square inch of their deplyment zone was filled with a tank, and each tank had a huge gun aimed at our line of Monsters...

As mentioned before, my attempt to do a formal battle report failed. But in essence, this is what happened...

Before the game started, we lost a bunch of wounds from Surgical Raids. Awesome... We made a push, but they set up very carefully as to stay out of a first turn assault from our flying Deamon Princes. On the Imperial first turn, the tanks opened fire. Holy shit, I have never seen so many scatter dice rolled in my life. Needless to say, the line of Monstrous Creatures started to fall, one at a time. Behind the Monstrous Creatures, a rather intimidating force of Necrons lurched forward. But the Imperials were smart not to disregard them, and large templates slowly started to take chunks out of them. But Dustin was having some pretty good luck with Reanimation Protocols, and a lot of them were able to get back up.

By turn two, we had made contact. But, our assault force had been significantly picked apart by that Imperial shooting phase and the stupid Imperial assets. The Thunderhawk was supposed to make it's appearance, but was forced back into reserve by Long Range Ack Ack. And as mentioned earlier, the Tryranid reserve wave was bum raped by Disruption. In conclusion, our second turn push back was severly interrupted by the Tyranid's disruption crisis. The Imperials brought in their first wave of reserves and loaded up the right flank with Chimeras and some troops. This area also had 3 objectives within close proximity (strategically placed away from the Baneblades), so it became evident to the Imperials that this area need to be reinforced. And reinforced is sure was... A mix of Leman Russ and Basilisk fire took more and more chunks out of our game plan to push that flank.

Turn three, the Thunderhawk entered play, but the long anticipated Tyranid wave was brutally mangled by more Disruption and an Ambush asset. The Imeperials were able to hold their fort and prevent the Tyranid assault. That was huge for them. It meant they only had to deal with the advancing battle line. And the advancing battle line started to show some progress. The Thunderhawk did what is does best and blew up a few Leman Russ tanks and got rid of the Null Field Generator. Ah ha, now we can start using our Wind of Chaos. The Swarmlord and a unit of Lychgaurd with an Overlord also managed to break the line and start causing havoc. A Necon Destroyer Lord also ripped apart a Baneblad with his Warscythe. Oh man, best thing I have ever seen. Auto hits beccause the Baneblade was stunned, rolled 3 pens, then rolled a 5, 5, and 6. Stucture point, structure point, BOOOM! Abosolutely amazing... Things were starting to look up, but then the Imperials brought in the rest of their army. Bascially, Jeremy just lined up the entire table edge with fucking army men. It was disgusting... Lots more shots, and the antagonist forces were again heavily outnumbered.

Turn four. The Necrons make one final push on the left flank where there was now a big hole where there used to be a Baneblade. A sneaky Space Marine Rhino is all of the sudden close to capturing an objective, supported by the fire of the two remaining Baneblades. The Necrons are really all that remains on the left flank, with a few Chaos Havocs carrying Autocannons. But how good are Autocannons at dealing with Baneblades? Do the math... The right flank is looking alright, but there are just soooo many damn Guardsmen now. We opened up a few Chimeras, and A Necron Overlord with Mindshackle Scarabs made Vulcan cry and run off the table. Fabio's Obliterators must have been drunk because they couldn't open a can of beans if they wanted to. The sheer number of Guardsmen answers back. And to make things worse, the right flank's Guardsmen force is being led by Yarrick, who just really doesn't like to die in close combat.

Turn five. We decided to end the game after this game turn. If you look at the time stamps on the pictures, you will see that it was a long day. So, we make one last effort to hold the right flank where 3 objectives are just critical for victory. However, we just don't have the numbers to hold the area. On the left flank, we make one last attempt to hold off the Space Marines. We were able to deal with the Tactical Squad with a nicely landed Vindicator shell, but the Caestus Assault Ram was able to swoop in for the objective. The Assault Ram was immobolized earlier in the game, but some asshole brought a Techmarine...

The Imperials were able to pull a few tanks into tactical positions at the end of turn five. This allowed them to scoop up 5 out of 6 objectives on the board. A few of those objectives were also held by us, but they had stronger units and were able to claim them on Victory Points. The 6th objective was held at the back of our deployment zone by us. It was our Vital Objective (the only asset that was any good for us). And surrounding that objective was about 1500 points of Tryanids that had been place there by the Disruptor Beacon. Oh my lord, I hate Disruptor Beacons.

Final Score, 5 to 2 for the Imperials. What an awesome game. I absolutely love Apocalypse.