Apocalypse at Games Garage

Looks like a great time for me for Warhammer 40k. Patrick has set up a Apocalypse game for us at Games Garage and we managed to rope in 6 players. I have a ton of pictures so where possible I will let them do the talking for me. I brought a Tyranid list. Each of us were given 2500 points to create an army with. Bear in mind that due to the nature of the game, the batrep will not be very detailed. I will be able to share what I noticed from my perspective but I hope you enjoy it! 

My army had 2 Flyrants, 9 Hive Guard, Doom of Malantai, 3 Carnifexi (had to proxy one as it was missing), 8 Ymgarls, 2 Tervigons and 10 Termagants. I brought the 3 Fex Formation

My Axis of Evil had another Hive Mind and a Necron C'Tan Lord. We originally had 4v4 but 2 people had to drop out and one was our Primary Hive Mind. He was meant to bring the Command Tyrant hence we were left with fewer Synapse than necessary.

Hong brought a large horde and was meant to lean on Nick for Synapse but Nick could not make it. Hong also brought the Endless Swarm Formation

More views of the Horde! 

2 Flyers, one C'Tan and a few Barges

Not a very large army for Apoc but we had the Lightning God

On the Imperium side they brought some dirty Tau allies. First Heavy on the left, a Baneblade. Pat also brought Marneus Calgar

Another Super Heavy Walker! Warhound Titan spotted! 

And they come with a contingent of Grey Knights

Said Baneblade. Nicely painted too! 

Mmmm pretty

Smelly giant suit

Sons of Ultramar with another Heavy! That's 3 now which our Evil side have no idea how to deal with.

I like this model more than the Stormraven. If I played Marines, this would make an awesome Storm Raven

Massive tank! 

Armoured battalion?

Terrain  on the left end of the field. The trench is where I hid my Ymgarl

Midfield - pylons are the Evil Objectives but has not been deployed

Field on the right and where I was playing

We secretly bid for time - the lowest deploys first and gets first turn.

Imperium: 5 minutes
Evil: 7 minutes

So we deployed 2nd.

Deployed on my side of the field. I get to fight against the Titan. Woohoo -.-

Centre field was controlled by Hong

Left field was controlled by Glenn and his C'Tan

Pat took the trenches

And we deployed all our gribblies

Evil take our first turn

We used our first Strategic Asset card here to allow Evil to Infiltrate. We closed the distance asap.

Left field moving up to capture the objective

Strategic Objectives are very important in Apoc games. The longer you hold them the more points you accumulate. These points are then tabulated at the start of each Session after a Scheduled Break. These points can also be used to revive destroyed units.

As quickly as we could we moved up field. 

What the middle ground looked like

Crossing the large divide. Hong used Gargolye bodies which he had spare as his Gaunts. Good idea

The advance. Behind our lines you spot one of the objectives, a dead marine

Going against those guns, we are going to need some help

Moved my Tyrant behind the tower

While Hong moved up the rest of our units through the middle ground and taking cover where possible

Swarm them! 

The Master of Destruction put up a Dangerous Line right in front lines to discourage the Imperium from moving up

Slither slither

My Tyrant was giving middle ground synapse

Some Gants crossed the middle line and died to Dangerous Terrain Tests

Turn 1 Imperials

Generally the Imperials advanced but kept very tight to their deployment zone. 

Patrick used the trenches to advance to our left flank. Again, with so much ranged firepower, they had little motivation to move up to engage us

Trench warfare!

Our left flank advances to threaten the Tau allies

Overlooking the field, the Titan takes aim

BOOM

We used our next Strategic Asset which created a no line of sight line called Blind Barrage. However, the Imperials had the Orbital Bombardment. This is where they targeted the array

And the Imperial players cheer on as the template does not scatter. 

Just look at how large this template is.

After the Orbital Strike, the building was gone and so was my Tyrant. 

Damage on the right flank. The worse part was that I lost my other Tyrant (my Warlord) to Heavy Bolter fire from the Grey Knights hidden in the ruins. Ridiculous! 

Damage on the middle flank

In Evil Turn 2, my Ymgarl Genestealers came in together with the Doom of Malantai. I had to help our left flank and just weaken this Tau corner

Hopefully be able to suck a few souls

Slurppppp

Advanced as far as possible but didn't think we would be able to do much here. We used 1 Strategic Resource to bring my Warlord back as we had no Synapse on this side of the table. 

I spawned as many Gaunts as possible and moved them to secure the Objective at the back of our lines. 

With Endless Swarm we brought back a block of Gaunts. 

Hong moved midfield

Kept pushing up

Love this horde

My other Tervigon jammed but spawned 15 before it got stuck

Meanwhile our left flank was falling. Tau firepower is taking a toll on our units

I lost a few Ymgarls to Interceptor rounds

My Hive Guard makes a dent in their lines. Should have brought more!

Lightning wins games! 

This chap really called in quite a number of lightning shots and actually took out a few units for us. 

Again, these are 3 Carnifexi with Bio Plasma and under the rules. they get S+X (X=number of Fexes). I managed to remove every Grey Knight in the ruins. AP2. 

Woooosh - wounds from the Fex vomit attack

Mid field

These suits can fight and I actually lost another to them. Yikes

Turn 2 Imperials send in their Outflanking units to try to contest our objective

Crowe being heroic

Looks like we going to get hit from the right

Not much damage from the Malantai powers. Also with 2 GK Dreads there I could not cast my Psyker power. Pat moved his unit into my Ymgarl and managed to kill them off. Booo

Lost 2 Fexes to Imperial shooting leaving my last Fex

Middle ground gone. Ouch

Starting to see that we have nothing left mid ground. Also the Skyshield Landing Pad was destroyed by the Master of Disaster in Turn 2. 

Doom and Ymgarl bought the Necrons on our left flank 1 turn

I saved a huge number of shots before Pat decided to melee Doom with the Terminators

Mid field.

After a round of shooting, I was not left with much on my flank

Imperials charged in our middle ground. Hong took the brunt of Hammer Time

This was going to be painful for the Evil players

Swarmy where art thou?

Turn 3 Evil side - spawned 15 models and did not jam. My Tervigon was really performing this game. I had to get rid of these pesky units in our back field. 

Sent my Tyrant to take out the Scouts while the Gants deal with the Kroot

Love this shot. This is what Apoc is about. Just amazing. 

Reaper of Souls! 

This is just a cool shot. We didn't even set this up. 

Hong's Tyrant was taken out so we had no other choice but to pour tons of Gants in just to hold the Terminators. 

Shoot Castellan Crowe! 

Out of Synapse range, these Gants were stuck twerking, I mean lurking

Damage control as much as possible. To be fair to Glenn, Tau firepower was overwhelming and I am surprised that he managed to hold on for 3 turns

Kroot fled after a round of shooting from the Gants. Scouts held so I had to charge in

"Where did my food go?"

Love Apoc games. Takes time yes but you don't get to see this every day. 

Hmmm, my side of the table seems a little barren. 

Ommm nommm noommm. Heroic last stand

Swarm those Terminators! 

Then throw in some Necrons to spice it up

The Termi conga to Necron ville

In Turn 3 Imperium we rolled a massive disaster. The 2x2 where the sponge borders (including the Titan) is deleted from the table. A cheer goes up on the Evil side. 

Now that the Evil right flank has eased up, I could assist Hong mid field. 

However the Imperium just would not relent sending their flyer down to deal with my productive Tervi taking one wound off

As long as this Tervi lives, my Gants remain! 

In a bid to prevent Evil from contesting this Pylon objective, the Imperials moved their Super Heavy to block it! I couldn't skirt around the edge where the sponge is as that was the table end. 

More traffic jam and there was nothing we could do about it. 

This time the firepower was hurting Glenn fast. He was losing vehicles and infantry fast. Evil was losing hope

Without Synapse it was getting harder for us to control our units. In Turn 4, Imperials used their Strategic Point to call their Titan back! Strategic Points = Evil: 6. Imperial: 5

Patrick finally put the Stormlord down.

Left field 

Mid field

Hmmm where did our swarm go?

In Turn 5 we slowly snuck our Gants behind the Terminators hoping to make a few pot shots

Man we were losing units fast

And then in Turn 5 of the Imperials, we lose the left section of our field i.e. the table board was taken away due to the Master of Disaster. The Terminators actually survive!

And earlier on in Turn 4, where the red dice is, that table quarter was also removed. Basically stranding my unit and strangely enough securing it for us. You could only move to that table quarter if you could fly and the Imperials currently only had the Stormtalon and it was too far away. My Tyrant could still move out to contest their objective. I told my guys to BELIEVE! 

However I can understand why Hong was depressed. His mid field was pretty much gone. 

And Glenn was doing his best to hold against the Imperium's finest. 

Patrick pushed mid field to capture the objective from Glenn. 

And then the unthinkable happened. In Turn 5 Imperium the Master of Disaster removed this last section. This was our last bastion of hope! And with that we lost not only my Tyrant but also the Objective. There was no way we could claw this back so Evil side conceeded the game. It was Turn 5 any way. 

We had a ton of fun and it was insane! The templates are crazy! Most importantly I think we all had fun and props to GW, this reminds me of the crazy times I had as a student at my place with my ABO guys in the early 2000's with Fantasy. We used to do 2v2's and it always ended up with silly antics!

The players and look at that template I am holding up! Glenn is holding on to the flamer template. Sheesh! 

Thanks to all who played. Round 2 beckons! 

I always like to have a quick note on things learnt. Primarily balance. You come into Apoc, you need to know that balance is kinda out of the window. Go in with the mindset that you are going to lose a lot of models fast.

However, that being said, I did wish that there was some balance mechanism that would help players without access to Titans or Super Heavies. Evil today had none and there was nothing we could do to even contest the Imperial heavy guns. Maybe Strategic Cards may help?

Again go in and play! It's awesome.