Old Stuff Day - The Siege of Laporte

According to Warhammer 39,999, today is Old Stuff Day.I decided I wanted to get in on this before the greeting card companies commercialized it and ruined it's true meaning.  What follows (grammatical errors and all) is a semi-battle report from an Apoc. game I played with HoP co-founder Dethtron and his rowdy local gaming buddies back in 2009.  We may have only played two turns, but it was a blast and I have a lot of fond memories about the game and the people involved..  Maybe there is something to this whole 'casual' 40k thing...

The Siege of Laporte - an Apocalypse Report

While I was on vacation I had the opportunity to play an Apocalypse game with some really cool dudes - My buddy Colin and his extended gaming group.

First things first: Colin, Joe, Evan and Hoagy - thanks for the fun. You guys are a blast.

This was a real treat as I don't have a fully painted and assembled army of my own and have yet to find a play group where I live. I've played a whole two games of 5th edition and they were both Apoc games.

On the plus side, these big games are a good way to learn the rules due to the everything and the kitchen sink approach to army consturction. It's also a much more relaxed gaming experience for me as well.



Here is a direct link.

Here are some highlights not covered in the photos:

1) The night before the game, Colin and I spent a few hours turning an old siege tower I made 10 years ago into a plague tower. This thing was a bit terrifying on the table, but manageable. It would have been scarier if it hadn't absorbed almost every anti-tank shot we had for two turns. By the end, it was down to one weapon and was immobilized.

2) the Annihilatrix was also super cool looking but a series of the unluckiest roles in history ensured that we never actually got to see what it could do.

3) Joe and his accursed Fallen Angels killed one of my Vindicators, thus preventing me from getting to destroy terrain pieces. Curses!

4) Both sides had a land raider and wildly different experiences. Hoagy's LR absorbed scads (SCADS I tell you) of rocket and laser fire and kept going with not so much as a scratch on the paint. Joe's LR got one shotted by my Vindicator.

5) The Imperial super heavy's didn't have too much of an affect on the battle at the end to two turns. Lots of missing and piss-poor roles for any kind of damage.

6) We misplayed flank march a bit as we applied it to ALL reinforcements. But, it was kinda hard to tell which units were controlled by which player and, in any case, Team Chaos won because they had bothered to grab the only objective any body bothered to take.

7) The Green Tide was scary right about until the time it broke cover and ate a bunch of 10 inch templates. However, between all the fire this and the Plague Tower was absorbing, there were still a few Maelstrom of Gores lurking. I was not looking forward to that.

8) Early in the game, I ended up moving a dreadnaught (with no cc weapon) into combat with a chaos lord. We never did get to see who won. On the plus side, I did get a good lesson on using dreads to tie down enemy units in CC.

9) Due to a late start and some wife issues, we only got to play two turns. But it was fun as hell and in hindsight, I don't know if I had the fortitude to complete the game anyway. Apocalypse can be very draining... especially if you stayed up the night before to make a plague tower.

There you have it, a nice little report on the kinds of things I got up to in Chicago. I can't stress enough how much fun it is to play with buds and their buds (who are cool dudes).

And there you have it.  I was initially thinking about re-posting one of my more informative bits, but hen I stumbled across this and decided that the memories of the fun and camaraderie were way cooler than a bunch of bullshit about primer.  I hope you all enjoyed!

Fluffy Side Up: Yani - Live at the Apocalypse

My title for this post is not just a clever play on words. This post is all about the things that turn people off to Apocalypse games - things that make the game boring. Kinda like what Yanni does to music....

No, no, no... stop. That's just awful. Not only is Yanni an easy target, but he's also a dead horse. Is he even culturally relevant anymore? God, it's like a let JiveProfessor write my jokes for me.

"HAY! Look at me, I'm Jiveproffessor!! Dragonball Z reference useful info useful info star wars reference useful info internet meme snappy closing."

Haha! I kid, I kid. And I kid because I care.

Welp, I've thoroughly fucked up my intro now by writing down what was actually going through my brain.

You want to make sex with me, yes?

Right. So..... Apocalypse.

As I mentioned previously, for all the potential the Apocalypse expansion has, there are about a billion problems with it that make it extremely hard to have a 'game' if something isn't done to mitigate those issues.

The only person who gave a shit about the last Apocalypse post hit the nail on the head:

GMort Sez:

We tend to prepare the lists a fair bit in advance and limit the quantity of certain units like Super-Heavies. The house-rule document we use is about 3 pages long now, lol. That said, we don't really play Apocalypse super-competitively It's more a chance for a load of us to get together and use those really cool Forgeworld models that we never get to use normally and show off units that don't always make it into a normal 1500-2000 point game. Good preparation is the key to an enjoyable game I find ;-)

I'm gonna grab a key phrase out of that last sentence to help make my point (such as it is): enjoyable game. That right there is the key thing that too many people miss when they set up their Apocalypse shenanigans. 40k is supposed to be a game. Good games operate under an assumption of fairness. Unfortunately, the Apocalypse system, as written, tends to get pushed to an extreme where it falls down.

Specifically, its really, really, really, really easy to simply spend your way to victory.

All those scary things like super heavy vehicles, fliers, str D weapons and 10 inch blasts don't typically come on the models you already have. For the most part, it's forgeworld stuff - very pricey forgeworld stuff. Now, in a game system where most gamers barely have enough money for a 2000 pt army, the only protection they have is the force org chart. What the fuck do they do against 3 titans if they can barely afford a couple of Land Raiders?

Remove unit limitations and the game can become a full on arms race. You spend more money, you gain an advantage. Lame. No amount of well meaning assumptions about sportsmanship and propriety will prevent that.

Which brings me to another thing GMort hit on: the best possible thing you can do to ensure a good Apocalypse game is prepare. A lot. Its not just a matter of lining up people's weekends, its taking into account the flaws in the Apocalypse rules and working toward a fair game even if its not competitive. Make those house rules, share super heavies, ban flank march - do what ya gotta do. Just make sure the eight hours you spend playing is fun for everyone, not just the guys with 4 baneblades. Whatever you do, don't half ass it.

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.

The Siege of Laporte - an Apocalypse Report

While I was on vacation I had the opportunity to play an Apocalypse game with some really cool dudes - My buddy Colin and his extended gaming group.

First things first: Colin, Joe, Evan and Hoagy - thanks for the fun. You guys are a blast.

This was a real treat as I don't have a fully painted and assembled army of my own and have yet to find a play group where I live. I've played a whole two games of 5th edition and they were both Apoc games.

On the plus side, these big games are a good way to learn the rules due to the everything and the kitchen sink approach to army consturction. It's also a much more relaxed gaming experience for me as well.




Here is a direct link.

Here are some highlights not covered in the photos:

1) The night before the game, Colin and I spent a few hours turning an old siege tower I made 10 years ago into a plague tower. This thing was a bit terrifying on the table, but manageable. It would have been scarier if it hadn't absorbed almost every anti-tank shot we had for two turns. By the end, it was down to one weapon and was immobilized.

2) the Annihilatrix was also super cool looking but a series of the unluckiest roles in history ensured that we never actually got to see what it could do.

3) Joe and his accursed Fallen Angels killed one of my Vindicators, thus preventing me from getting to destroy terrain pieces. Curses!

4) Both sides had a land raider and wildly different experiences. Hoagy's LR absorbed scads (SCADS I tell you) of rocket and laser fire and kept going with not so much as a scratch on the paint. Joe's LR got one shotted by my Vindicator.

5) The Imperial super heavy's didn't have too much of an affect on the battle at the end to two turns. Lots of missing and piss-poor roles for any kind of damage.

6) We misplayed flank march a bit as we applied it to ALL reinforcements. But, it was kinda hard to tell which units were controlled by which player and, in any case, Team Chaos won because they had bothered to grab the only objective any body bothered to take.

7) The Green Tide was scary right about until the time it broke cover and ate a bunch of 10 inch templates. However, between all the fire this and the Plague Tower was absorbing, there were still a few Maelstrom of Gores lurking. I was not looking forward to that.

8) Early in the game, I ended up moving a dreadnaught (with no cc weapon) into combat with a chaos lord. We never did get to see who won. On the plus side, I did get a good lesson on using dreads to tie down enemy units in CC.

9) Due to a late start and some wife issues, we only got to play two turns. But it was fun as hell and in hindsight, I don't know if I had the fortitude to complete the game anyway. Apocalypse can be very draining... especially if you stayed up the night before to make a plague tower.

There you have it, a nice little report on the kinds of things I got up to in Chicago. I can't stress enough how much fun it is to play with buds and their buds (who are cool dudes).