Fluffy Side Up: Alpaca Lips Now

Despite the many and glaring failings of the Apocalypse expansion, I've always been a fan of it. It appeals to the hobbyist in me, the small part of my brain that likes narrative gaming, the gigantic hole in my sanity that all collectors share to some extent and my love of the spectacle.

This is an Alpaca

Unfortunately, a lot of people are turned off to the idea of an Apocalypse game because of shit like this:

Click on the pic for the full parking lot experience

All too often all of the potential of Apocalypse is reduced to its value as a spectacle or an exercise in commerce. If this is your idea of fun, I'm not going to sit blog here and tell you you're doing it wrong. The issue is, that the prevalence of this kind of Apocalypse game turns off many of the people like me, who still want to see some level of skill involved when they play a game. Doubly so for a game that might take 8 hours or more to finish. I don't want to spend a day playing a game only to loose because I was outspent or because I had the misfortune of going second.

And its a damn shame that Apocalypse has this reputation. It has too much potential for it to be wasted on things like Parking Lot Battle 2010 up there.

Look, I know that an Apocalypse game is never going to be a substitute for a close-run game of regular 40k (no matter how hard people try). But it can be fun and it can be rewarding. You just can't take the expansion rules at face value - you have to work at it.

More on this later.