July 20th was the Nerdpocalypse!

This past weekend held our long awaited Apocalypse game. For those of you who may not have been following my posts, here's the cole's notes:
Chaos invaded an Imperial planet to look for a relic called "The Seal". While they were looking a stupid band of Orks attacked them. The Orks were no match for Chaos Sorcerers who managed to trap the Ork Warphead in a crystal and thereby controlling the orks.
Que the Eldar: Eldar Didn't want Chaos to have this relic. Eldar knew they couldn't take on Chaos alone. They needed help. The Eldar somehow managed to get the Dark Angels and a bunch of other Imperials to help them fight Chaos. Eldar and Imperials head over to fight the good fight.

The Table

So, The Seal was an objective that the Imperials had to get, and Chaos had to protect. It was located on a smaller table hidden away in another room. The Imperials had to get to the teleporter located in the Chaos deployment zone, teleport into the vault, grab The Seal and get back to the main table. There were also four slave pens that the Imperials had to destroy. Again Chaos only had to protect these objectives. The Imperials got 2 VP for capturing The Seal, and Chaos would get 2 VP is they prevented that. The slave pens were also worth 2 VPs (basically 1/2 VP for each pen).

Deployment zones and objectives

To mix things up I also gave each player a secret objective. Many of these objectives were meant to screw your team mates and add some more spice to the game.

Apocalypse Secret Objectives

Eldar: You’re not stupid. You know damn well that if the Imperials manage to get The Seal they will try to use it against the Eldar. Your secret objective is to destroy the teleporter to The Vault thereby locking The Seal away from both the forces of Chaos AND the Imperials forever. To achieve this, ONE of your IC will be given a MAGMA CHARGE (can also be given to the Avatar). Simply be in base contact with the teleporter in either your shooting or assault phase. Declare that you have set the charge. Any units in the vault are lost there. Once the teleporter is destroyed the Eldar goal is achieved. For an additional VP all Eldar units may run away into the webway and leave the Imperials and forces of Chaos to destroy each other (remove all your models from play and sit back and watch and drink beer). Let them kill each other, it matters not to you.

Night Lords: Fuck Abbadon. You want The Seal for yourself…. But you don’t want to make it look like you want it for yourself…. To achieve your secret goal, you must allow The Seal be removed from The Vault by the Imperials. Destroy the unit holding The Seal, claim it for your own and hold it until the end of the game. For an additional VP, once you hold The Seal, you can retreat into the warp (remove all your models from play, sit back and watch and enjoy some beer). Fuck the rest of them, you have The Seal.

Thousand Sons: You’re secret objective is to keep the Imprisoned Ork Weirdboy safe. You know that if the crystal he is trapped in is destroyed, bad things will happen. If the Ork Weirdboy Crystal Tank is alive at the end of the game, you gain 1 VP

Dark Angels: You want The Seal for your chapter! Perhaps if we turned this relic over to the Inquisition they would back off us a bit (and stop snooping into our past). Perhaps the Imperium can benefit from this power. How fortuitous would it be if this relic was able to destroy not only Chaos, but the Eldar race that helped retrieve it?

If one of your units is the first to grab this objectives gain 1 VP for your team.

Grey Wolves: How dare Abbadon attack this Imperial planet. You will rip his throat out with your bare hands. Him and all his Lieutenants! If the Grey Wolves kill all 4 of the Chaos Warlords then you will gain 1VP.

Imperial Guard: You are the hammer. You are the anvil. But most importantly, you are the shield. It is your job to ensure that your Dark Angel Lords survive this battle. Gain 1 VP if the 2 Dark Angel Warlords are alive at the end of the game.

Orks: HNNNNNGH… You don’t know why, but you feel in your tiny brain that you need to protect Abbadon and the Thousand Sons Sorcerer at all costs. Uhhhgnnnnth.. your brain hurts! Why are we protecting these spikey humies instead of fighting them? You just want to kill them, but you cant! If Abbadon and the Thousand Sons Sorcerer HQ are alive at the end of the game, your team gains 1 VP

Black Legion: Paranoia has set in. Everybody is a traitor. All your most trusted Lieutenants want The Seal for themselves. It’s yours! You found it! You’d like to just kill everybody… But you can’t. The Imperials just arrived and you need these traitorous dogs to help defend The Seal. You can’t just kill your allies… but you don’t necessarily have to help them either. If at the end of the game you have more points on the board than the Night Lords and the Thousand Sons (Separately) then gain 1 VP. Gain 2 VP if you have more points than the Night Lords AND Thousand Sons combined. (Fuck the Orks)

Here's a few highlights from the game

Imperial turn 1. Beers at 11:30

The Warsenal containers could be targeted and removed AV10 and 1 or 2 HP

Setting up Thousand Sons while the Warhound watches

Warhound blasting away at the Imperial Guard

decisions decisions

Did I mention that if you failed your dangerous terrain test on the river, you got swept downstream 3d6 inches?

Sir, delete those orks please

Warhound vs Stormeagle... Jp vs words

The Salamanders told the Imperials NOT to assault the slaves. The Dark Angel Scouts didn't listen and some Salamander Terminators Deepstruck in and fucked their shit up.

Here too

Eldar try to take the shortcut across the rickety bridge

Nerd-Dog kept getting in the way

The Vault. Deathwing didn't know that Chaos was able to place 1 unit in the Vault and got a free overwatch on them.

Delayed Imperial supply crate. Just barely avoided the Thousand Sons Predator

Thunder...Thunder...Thunder-cats Hawk HO!

Outflanking ravenwing

$1000 worth of resin in this shot

 

So the game was awesome! Shit blew up everywhere. Both the Stompa and the Warhound came back due to rolling a six on the strategic Finest Hour table. I didnt get as many pictures as I had hoped. I was too busy running the game and drinking beer. A few notable things that happened: Wes achieved his secret objective by being the first Dark Angel to retrieve The Seal. Sean (Eldar) achieved his secret objective  by blowing up the teleporter to the Vault. His Solitaire had the Magma Bomb and made some fucking 46 inch run move to get in base to base. When he blew the portal, he trapped Abbadon, a Deathwing Sgt, Samael and 5 Vanguard Veterans in the Vault. They counted as being lost. Sean then removed all his Eldar from play to let Chaos and the Imperials kill each other. He laughed and laughed and laughed... and then promptly dropped his wraighnight on the floor and shattered it into a million pieces. Fucking karma.

A few other twists that I had planned was that if the Chaos controlled Ork-Crystal-Tank got destroyed, the Orks became their own team and every subsequent destroyed unit just went back into ongoing reserves. 

Also, on the rickety brown bridge, if there was ever too many vehicles on it, it would collapse and everything on it would be lost. However, the bridge never collapsed and the Orks never became became their own army until 20 minutes before the end of the game. 

So, nobody counted as having The Seal as it was lost in the Warp. Wes and Sean got 3 VP for the Imperials due to secret objectives. Imperials also got 1 VP for destroying 2 slave pens. Chaos had a strategic objective where they got 3 VP if they killed Belial.... and kill him they did. They got 1 VP for protecting 2 slave pens. 

 

A few things about the new edition: D weapons are not as gay as we thought they would be. I'm a bit sad about the new strategic assets and formations. Old formations are no longer valid (I have 3 redeemers as they used to be an formation, but no more!) and the strategic assets are mostly army specific. Only Space Marines can take the Vortex grenade. Boooo

The new 15 inch template SUCKS FUCKING ASS BALLS! Shame on you Games Workshop, Shame on you.