The Fury of a Dying Race—Eldar Detachment!

After a couple years of threatening, I finally put together some Eldar!

Over the dust of a thousand worlds shall we ever chase the slaves of the foul ones.

Over the dust of a thousand worlds shall we ever chase the slaves of the foul ones.

I just finished the Autarch, but the two squads of Guardians and small pack of Windriders I’ve completed have actually already hit the tables a couple times. These are some beauty shots and notes on the process I’ve developed for them, which goes really fast but produces nice results.

Autarch

Playing around among my piles of unassembled plastic, I somehow got the base for a Wraithlord mixed up with that for the Autarch. I couldn’t fathom why a T3 infantry model had such a huge diameter but accepted it as GW proclaiming “Yo, space elves are the biggest and baddestest!” So then I started thinking about how to fill up all that space and came up with this little scene.

autarch-front-blue autarch-side-blue autarch-back-blue

This mini-diorama was quick to do, and though simple I like it a lot. It exemplifies much of the appeal of 40k for me, in that even this tiny vignette has a story. What just happened? Maybe they’ve been brawling and the Autarch just got the upper hand, knocking the Chaos Marine down and leaping into the air to strike down with the death blow. But how’s it going to play out? The 41st millenium is a dangerous place where anything can happen. Does the Autarch see the hastily wielded ritual blade coming at him? Is he shooting just in time with his fusion pistol? Who knows, but either way there’s a lot of backstory and possibilities just in this one little scene.

Fortunately I eventually realized that I’d switched the bases, but I was already committed to executing the scene. Everything is magnetized though such that the Autarch can be played on his standard smaller base. Unfortunately the magnetization scheme isn’t great. The size of magnets I used is not quite strong enough under a couple layers of paint to really lock the Autarch in place; you can’t hold the base at funny angles or he’ll fall off. However, the arrangement does let me break everything down for transport in a standard Chessex figure case, as well as swivel the Autarch around so that he can have a more level pose when not diving onto the poor traitor. If I had to do it again though I would use poles and tubes instead of magnets, carefully setting tubes in the two bases at the appropriate angles to enable the slightly different angles of attack.

magnetized autarch-smallbase-blue

This is actually the first Chaos Marine I’ve painted, so that was kind of fun as well. I have an older box of them for which the casting doesn’t seem super crisp, and I didn’t want to spend a ton of time detailing him either, so he’s fairly basic but fine as a simple display base. The only real work I did was a bunch of cutting and repositioning of the wrists and elbows to get this pose of being knocked down and thrusting backward with a blade held upside-down.

base-blue

Dude-Bros

Working on these guys I’ve focused on just getting them done. I’ve consciously not done a lot of detailing, and have a whole methodology to crank them out. The 20 Guardians and 3 Windriders I did from shrink wrap to finished in the course of just a couple evenings in order to have them ready for one of our club events.

squad-blue

The process is basically as follows.

Prep

  • Unsprue a set and scrape off the mold lines.
  • Cut the guns off the hands.
  • Assemble the bodies minus heads and guns, positioning the arms with a gun but not gluing it in place.
  • Put bodies, heads, and guns on bamboo skewers with alligator clips and shove each set of components into a foam block. Any chunk of leftover trash foam from packaging or such is ideal.
  • Spray prime those components white.

Painting

  • Airbrush each component the appropriate color; I used Vallejo Game Air:
    • Bodies are first coated in Imperial Blue, then another layer in Electric Blue.  The Imperial Blue gives a nice deep base color quickly, but if I’m feeling fancy I can do the Electric Blue from an elevated angle and give some depth gradient and shadowing to the models via the two shades and the natural airbrush blend between them.  This is fairly subtle though and only shows up if you look closely at those models.
    • Guns and heads are coated Stonewall Grey.
  • A few bits get picked out with quick brushwork, e.g., Leadbelcher metal for grenades and tubing.
  • Wash all the components:
    • Bodies in Drakenhoff Nightshade.
    • Guns and heads in Secret Weapon Soft Body Black.
  • Do the eyes on the helmets in Electric Blue. I just use the airbrush paint for this, I think the thinness of it works with the black wash to give it some shading and a slight glow effect.

Bases

  • Bases are covered in a mix of terrain gravel and crumbled leftover plaster.
  • They’re then spray primed black.
  • Dry brush the bases dark gray, light gray, then white in increasingly lighter strokes.
  • Then they’re washed in Secret Weapon Soft Body Black.

Finishing

  • The components all get carefully glued together. I pool out some plastic cement on scrap paper and then brush it in place with an old, dead brush in order to avoid risking glue running all over.
  • The finished models get sealed. The spray I’ve been using is labeled as a dull coat, but actually leaves a fair bit of sheen so it works well for the Eldar (less well for my Marines).

Putting all that in writing seems like a ton of steps, but it’s actually a really fast process that produces consistent, tabletop worthy figures. In particular, having the components separated by color and on skewers on the blocks makes them really easy to work with and is much faster to prep than temporarily pinning or gluing to bottle tops as many do. With the sprays and airbrushing I can do a whole block at once pretty easy. Then picking out the details and so on I just slide a skewer out of the block, do some brushwork, and slide it back into the block. It’s a minor thing, but it makes working with the individual bits really quick and clean, no messing around trying to hold one part while brushing another, getting paint on my fingers, holding them to dry before putting them down on the table, and so on.

Bodies ready to be primed.

Bodies ready to be primed.

Bodies done.

Bodies done.

Heads done.

Heads done.

Bases being textured. Nearly all the gravel piled on will shake off and be scooped back into a cup to be used again later (use a clean sheet of scrap paper under them to help with this).

Bases being textured. Nearly all the gravel piled on will shake off and be scooped back into a cup to be used again later (use a clean sheet of scrap paper under them to help with this).

Bases drybrushed.

Bases drybrushed.

Of course there’s other steps in reality, like doing the sergeant’s head or brushing the sensor stalks grey for the second squad. But I’m pleased with both the process and how these aliens turned out. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised with how they’ve performed allied up with my Kingbreakers Space Marines, so I’m excited to continue fleshing out my Eldar army and getting them on the table.

sergeant-blue jetbike-blue troopers-blue

40k Battle Report: Enter the Eldar, Come Captain Nitrol!

kingbreakers-iconRecently I painted my first couple hundred points of Eldar after talking about starting an army for quite some time. Last night they made their first appearance, battling Jason’s Chaos Marines. He’s also got his own battle report.

Armies

I only have about 300 points of Eldar finished at the moment, so I figured I’d ally them with some Kingbreakers Space Marines to make up 1000 points. At the same time, I wanted to debut a captain and squad of Legion of the Damned that Alex painted for me in our club’s secret servitor this past holiday season. They even have their own little bit of fluff that Alex wrote to tie them into the chapter’s story:

Captain Nitrol is one of the oldest veterans of the Kingbreakers, a survivor of the fall of Forestway. On multiple occasions he has been all but mortally wounded in combat and thought lost, only to be rescued at the last moment by the timely appearance of the Legion of the Damned. What faith keeps him going? What power ensures his survival?

The overtones at the end are especially dark given the chapter’s surge in psykers after Forestway was lost to Chaos and exterminatus, as well as the ongoing plight of the captured and possessed Sergeant Titus. Rumors and theories abound of the Kingbreakers’ ultimate destiny!

Captain Nitrol and Sergeant Harbinger, in the thick of the battle.

Captain Nitrol and Sergeant Harbinger, in the thick of the battle.

In any event, I thought my army would wind up a bit of a random hodgepodge from being built on those two elements and only 1000 points. But it actually wound up kind of interesting, with some reasonable strategic rationale:

  • Kingbreakers (Salamanders)
    • Captain Nitrol (unnamed captain w/ artificer armour, plasma pistol, mastercrafted powerfist)
    • Legion of the Damned x5 w/ mastercrafted combi-grav, plasmagun, heavy bolter
    • Squad Harbinger (Tactical Marines x5 w/ veteran sergeant, mastercrafted boltgun, combi-melta, meltagun) w/ Razorback
    • Predators x3 w/ autocannons, heavy bolter sponsons
  • Eldar
    • Guardian Defenders x10 w/ scatter laser heavy weapons platform
    • Guardian Defenders x10 w/ scatter laser heavy weapons platform
    • Windriders x3 w/ scatter lasers

My thoughts in building from those two arbitrary cores were:

  • The Eldar bring cheap, mobile units to hold objectives. No Objective Secured because the list is completely unbound, but I still need warm bodies after all. The jet bikes are obviously super mobile. But the Guardians are no slouches either with their ability to run and shoot/shoot and run. So the Guardians are tasked with holding home objectives or nearby markers, while the Windriders hopefully swoop in at the end to claim or contest in the enemy’s zone.
  • The scatter lasers and Predators bring a bunch of mid-strength shooting that can really wreck a light vehicle or monstrous creature, both of which are common in our scene and probably in general at 1000 points. Note that the Predators have a special rule granting Monster Hunter and Tank Hunter while all three are alive, which just furthers this thought.
  • The Tactical Squad provides a unit for Nitrol to hide in while out in the open. Otherwise, he rides with them in the Razorback toward some contested midfield objective. Any actual close combat squad will wipe them out, but if it can be whittled down or the opposition is less combat oriented, they’re reasonably able to get stuck in and prevail. Meanwhile the Legion of the Damned hang out in the warp and eventually come down to help them out.

Jason on the other hand brought a cohesive, balanced Nurgle list, something like:

  • Nurgle Champion
  • Plaguemarines w/ meltas
  • Vulture Legion (Chaos Space Marines)
  • Fly Lord (some kind of Nurgle flying daemon prince)
  • Chaos Spawn (some kind of Nurgle blobby thing)
  • Plague Drone
  • Nurglings x3
  • Nurglings x3

After much back and forth about missions we eventually settled on 3 objectives and straight 12″ deployment zones on a fairly dense 4×4 board.

Fight!

Out on patrol, a small exploratory force of Eldar are startled by a bulbous daemon schlubbing its way nonchalantly across a clearing in an abandoned Imperial town.

IMG_20160131_195220~2 IMG_20160131_192306~2 IMG_20160131_192248~2

With no reinforcements of their own to call on and fearing a Nurgle infestation, the Eldar entreat a nearby force of Space Marines to come assist. Their hatred of the Plague Lord’s minions overcoming their aversion to the xenos themselves, the Kingbreakers accede to the request. Captain Nitrol and Squad Harbinger mount up with a small mechanized task force to go assess the situation. Once on site, the mission escalates immediately as a gigantic insectile horror crashes into their tank column, obliterating the Predator leading the way.

IMG_20160131_192259~2 IMG_20160131_192628~2

The Kingbreakers and Eldar rapidly focus their combined firepower on the beast, taking it down. It’s now clear however that the threat is severe. Guardians retreat to defensive positions, while Nitrol and the jet bikers move deeper into the town. Several transports of the traitor legions rapidly appear, but are also blown away by sheer volume of fire. Out of the flames though jump Plague Marines and a squad of the Vulture Legion. The Plague Marines come head on at Nitrol, while the Chaos Marines attempt to flank the Eldar. Their efforts are supported by torrents of pestilence vomited forth by a Plague Drone come to protect the mewling spawn.

IMG_20160131_195342~2

IMG_20160131_195629~2

With Nitrol’s rash position at the center of the battle already threatened on all sides by monsters and heavy infantry, the Kingbreakers are momentarily troubled by the wisps of eldritch flame arising forward of their location. Concern turns to relief, however, as the legendary Legion of the Damned emerge from the light, pouring heavy bolter and plasma fire into the Plague Marines. The traitors and their daemon kin are forced to concentrate on the new threat.

IMG_20160131_195239~2

IMG_20160131_195619~2

The ghostly warriors can only stand the combined assault for so long, but their intervention grants Squad Harbinger and the Windriders a critical moment to recover and provide long range fire support against the Vulture Legion encroaching on the Guardians’ rearward positions.

IMG_20160131_200451~2 IMG_20160131_195532~2 IMG_20160131_201954~2

With their primary flanking threats dispatched, the Eldar and Predators divide their attentions. Scatter lasers snipe the blubbering Chaos Spawn that prompted the battle, while shurikens and heavy bolter fire shred Nurglings arisen amid the death and gore of the small but heated conflict.

IMG_20160131_202102~2

The Plague Lord’s army all but cleansed from this corner of the materium, Captain Nitrol and Sergeant Harbinger are left chasing after Papa Nurgle’s champion that orchestrated the infiltration. His vast bulk crashing through the detritus of the town, the Emperor’s warriors finally run the traitor to ground atop a dump yard of broken supply containers, their contents spoiled and reeking. The heaving wreck barely recognizable as a once-human form, Nitrol pulps it back to the Warp with a momentous swing of his power fist.

IMG_20160131_204044~2 IMG_20160131_204707~2

Outcome

Three cowering Nurglings keep the Kingbreakers from a full table sweep, but the town is secured and the Eldar and Space Marines part the best of friends…

Thoughts

I didn’t know for sure I’d be fighting Jason on Sunday, but I have to confess I was thinking of his usual armies as I put together this list. The end result has a fair amount of S5–S7 shooting, with a good balance of strength versus quantity of shots to go against his Rhinos and monstrous creatures. In particular, the decision to take the third Predator for the Monster Hunter/Tank Hunter bonus was made in that light. That didn’t do all that much in the end as his Daemon Prince poofed one of them right away, but it helped shred the Plague Marines’ Rhino well away from my home objective. The scatter lasers also did a great job with those kinds of targets. All in all, at several critical points I was able to concentrate a lot of solid firepower to take out targets like those and the Plague Drone.

One big mistake I made was I got sloppy with the Windriders and let them get assaulted toward the end of the match. I thought the Legion of the Damned were going to keep the Plague Marines and Chaos Spawn tied up in combat for another turn, so I had moved the Windriders close in order to get shots down a firing lane across the table and onto the Vulture Legion, while also moving them toward Jason’s home objective. The Damned crumpled that turn though, and Jason was immediately able to consolidate and make an easy charge on the jet bikes in his turn. That left me without any real option to go after both the mid-table and enemy objectives, so I would have been in trouble if I’d lost either mine or the mid-table.

All in all it worked out though and this list seemed a lot more capable than I was initially thinking. Don’t forget to check out Jason’s battle report, while Captain Nitrol and his Eldar friends await further action!

The Eldar are ready for you!

The Eldar are ready for you!

 

PAGE Apocalypse 2016: Rebuffed at Barnes 595

kingbreakers-iconWithout a home and newly without their major supply base, the Kingbreakers Space Marines drifted through the void for a time seeming interminable. Then they turned toward action and their sworn enemies: “They take one of ours, we take one of theirs…”

Another year, another PAGE Winter Apocalypse! Our club’s annual mega-Apocalypse is in the books. Seven players came out for the Recon Squad skirmish prologue last Saturday, and thirteen for the all-day mega-battle on Sunday. Each team fielded 26,000 points across an array of factions:

  • Legions of Discord: Daemons, Daemonkin, Chaos Marines, Renegades, Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Tyranids
    • Hierophant, Harridan, Hierodule, Scabeiathrax, Angrath, Samus, Baneblade-chassis, Corrupted Knight, Macro-Cannon Strongpoint
  • Forces of Order: Adeptus Mechanicus, Steel Legion, Death Korps of Krieg, Valhallans, Grey Knights, Dark Angels, Kingbreakers Space Marines
    • Warhound, eight Imperial Knights, Crassus Armored Transport, Marauder, two Baneblade-chassis, Vortex Missile Strongpoint, Plasma Obliterator
Daemonettes attack the Steel Legion's position.

Daemonettes attack the Steel Legion’s position.

Although both days in the end came out a couple players smaller than last year, it was a stellar weekend of gaming. Supported by some fantastic looking boards and armies, the Recon Squad matches were excellent. A new terrain theme for the Apocalypse brought a different look and revised tactics to that game, while double blind deployment significantly changed the startup phase. In the end it was a full day of great 40k with giant warmachines exploding, lone sergeants defending critical positions, and everything in between. Bonus points go to Alex and Dan for making the trip to Philly all the way from Cleveland and DC respectively!

Join the Fight!

Join us!

Join us!

The full story is below, and many more photos are in the Flickr gallery. If you are interested in events like this in & around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA), or the supporting campaigns, game variants, and other materials we post from time to time, we invite you to get involved or follow along in any of several ways:

The field of war.

The field of war.

Backstory

Years ago the Legions of Discord assaulted Kimball Prime, intent on taking or destroying the primary Imperial manufactorum in the sector. After many lives given in devotion to the Emperor, the invasion was successfully brought to a halt and then itself put on the defensive. Elsewhere in the sector though the Legions finally acquired the legendary Scythe of Unbound Light super-weapon after a years-long campaign across Caldor IV. Deploying it on Kimball Prime, the traitors crashed through the front gates of the manufactorum and won the planet.

With Kimball Prime fallen and its system lost, leaders of the in-sector armies of the Astra Militarum and Adeptus Astartes regrouped in secret. Drawn by the loss of a major manufactorum, the Adeptus Mechanicus joined their strategic auguries. Hungry for revenge, the Astartes proposed to conquer and cleanse the corrupted Chaos temple world of Barnes 595—an act of symbolism over pure strategy. Although initially hesitant to partake in this emotional response, the Mechanicus was swayed by the promise of archeotech believed lost in the planet’s swamps and dead forests, or buried in the collapsed sub-basements of its byzantine shrines.

Gazing into the strategios, the representatives of the Imperial Guard remained silent, then assented. They were also unconvinced by the Astartes’ constant vainglorious prioritization of honor and ideals over blood. However, the cogs of the Imperial war machine had already ratcheted toward the sector. Regiments and equipment must go toward some target, and it matters little which—there is no stopping the tide of war now, and it will wash over all the sector in time.

Recon Squad games underway.

Recon Squad games underway.

Commanders of the Legions of Discord plot their strategy.

Commanders of the Legions of Discord plot their strategy.

Recon Squads

Preparing for the onslaught to come, the Forces of Order sent small teams to reconnoiter and sabotage Chaos sites on Barnes 595. These were all played using our Kill Team-style Recon Squad rules combined with our Zone Mortalis-style Mortalis Solypsus boards and rules. The missions came from a set of eight worked out for last year’s larger Recon Squad campaign. Most are asymmetric and have specific thematic objectives, e.g., defending an installation, or assassinating a special character. In this year’s smaller form, each round the teams alternated putting forward a mission, role, and player. The other team responded with a player and a table. The third match contested the default Recon Squad skirmish mission.

Round 1

A band of Plaguemarines manages to intercept and ambush a Deathwatch team infiltrating a Chaos planetary missile complex. The fighting quickly concentrates in a hall junction and comes down to a single warrior from each side in hand-to-hand combat. At last the Imperial veteran gains an opening and jams his combat blade up to the hilt in the rotted traitor, another pyrrhic victory won for the Emperor.

Meanwhile, an Imperial commander met with a group of Tau to learn of mysterious energy signals they have detected buried within a collapsed underground extraction facility. They were beset however by a pack of ancient Bloodcrushers, and unable to prevent the assassination of the commander.

Deathwatch skulk through a complex.

Deathwatch skulk through the missile complex.

A Tau exploration team warily enters the collapsed mine.

A Tau exploration team warily enters the collapsed mine.

Round 2

Routed by Daemons, the Tau continue their desperate struggle within the collapsed mine. Quickly encircled, the xenos fight bravely but are caught in a pincer of Plaguemarine reinforcements.

Having regrouped and treated their wounded as best as possible, the Deathwatch also continue their own fight. With the missile complex’s defenders alerted by the battle with the Plaguemarines, they are attacked by Renegade infantry. Fortunately the Emperor’s light guides them into surrounding and neutralizing the heretics.

Elsewhere, the Steel Legion arrive at Barnes 595. Small teams land and begin making their way through a Chaos temple serving as a gate to the missile complex. Although believed to be abandoned, the gate turns out to be infested with daemonic devotees of Khorne. The battle proceeds slowly among the site’s barricades and overgrowth, but eventually the soldiers break through.

Short on ammo, a plague brother resorts to simply bashing in heads.

Short on ammo, a Plaguemarine resorts to simply bashing in heads.

The Renegade Sergeant bellows out orders...

The Renegade Sergeant bellows out orders…

As Renegades hunt for the Deathwatch team loose in their complex.

As his men hunt for the Deathwatch team loose in their complex.

Steel Legion enter the closed-off base.

Steel Legion enter the closed-off base.

Round 3

Their position underground untenable, the Tau attempt to fight back to the surface. Moving into the overgrown upper levels of the collapsed mine they are caught by Renegade militia and wiped out in bitter skirmishing.

Too late to reinforce the Tau, Skitarii renew the exploration of the collapsed facility at the fore of a Mechanicus excavation mission. Although beset by Bloodcrushers at every junction, their arcane weaponry bears them through. Fighting ceases with Mars in control of whatever secrets lay beneath the choking dust.

Simultaneously, a Steel Legion special missions team follows the wake of the Deathwatch into the heart of the missile complex. Though harried by Plaguemarines, they succeed in destroying a critical cogitator bank.

Outcomes

Order won the Recon Squad matches handily, 46 to 29. Together the Imperium and allies had captured an important planetary-scale missile complex, greatly aiding their establishment of a beachhead on the planet. Early excavation efforts in the collapsed mine also unearthed a long forgotten Imperial Shrine.

Steel Legion move against a vital cogitator bank...

Steel Legion move against a vital cogitator bank…

Defended by Plaguemarines.

Defended by Plaguemarines.

Skitarii work their way underground...

Skitarii work their way underground…

While battling Bloodcrushers for control of the collapsed facility.

While battling Bloodcrushers for control of the collapsed facility.

APOCALYPSE

Finally the big day.

It’s worth noting that our Apocalypse games are not the cliche of just dumping out all the models you own, or whatever ridiculously overpowered Titans you happen to have spent a fortune on. A good amount of effort is put into balancing the teams. For example, all superheavies/gargantuans must be declared in advance, and models with more than 9 hull points/wounds are negotiated between the teams. Between switching players to balance for skill, asking that Reaver or Warlord Titans (!) or such sit out the game if the other side can’t match it, and so on, we usually wind up fairly closely matched. Scoring and other mechanisms further ensure that troops matter and tactics count, even as whole units are obliterated.

Although a few people bailed right beforehand, this was probably the smoothest we’ve launched one of these mega-battles. We made it clear than anybody who showed up late would go into reserve, and in the end that only almost applied to me as I scrambled to finish my army list during deployment… (I was planning to reserve the bulk anyway). Everybody came prepared to fill out up to ~1k in additional points or trim down a bit to balance for the no-shows. When the time came we ran through a roll call, did some quick math, adjusted a couple armies, and away we went.

A Knight Errant stalks its prey across the crowded battlefield.

A Knight Errant stalks its prey across the crowded battlefield.

Field of War

Having fought largely among Imperial ruins the past two years, we moved this year to a wasteland forest with many barbaric Chaos fortifications and shrines. The final table was exactly 6′ by 18′, cluttered up with just enough line-of-sight blockers and scatter terrain. As usual the deployment zones were marked off with tape to speed things up and improve adherence. Seven primary objectives were symmetrically placed, two in each deployment zone and three along the midline, each associated with some particularly notable piece of terrain.

After doing an ‘L’ shaped deployment last year, we switched it up even more by using Vanguard Strike deployment zones, diagonal table corners with a 2′ buffer zone. I was concerned about the reduced frontage of this configuration leading to armies just sitting around in the comparatively deep backfield. If the table had a narrower aspect ratio or our armies included less deep striking and other fast mobility that may have been the case. As it was however, there was plenty of action all over the board, with significant charges both across and down the board, as well as deep strikers and outflankers coming in from all sides.

Traitor melta-bikers race through a slave village toward a Knight Errant threatening their perimeter bastions.

Traitor melta-bikers race through a slave village toward a Knight Errant threatening their perimeter bastions.

Double Blind

In previous Apocalypse matches we’ve used a bidding mechanism for deployment and turn order: Both teams make a bid on deployment time, up to 30 minutes. The lower bid would deploy first and play first, but only got that long to set up. At first that worked great. In the 2014 Winter Apocalypse, Order spent a lot of time debating its need to deploy lots of static gunlines versus trying to scoop Discord for an Alpha strike, only to have Discord bid a ridiculous 3 minutes… In the couple Apoc and Apoc-styled games we’ve had since then though, both sides have taken to bidding 30 minutes, through a combination of having more players to coordinate, more models to start on the board, and most importantly wanting to play second.

So this year we changed things up a lot: Double blind deployment. That’s a bold departure from standard 40k play, and risky for Apocalypse—we usually try to be a bit conservative with Apoc given the time commitment and how easy it is for things to go sideways with so many points and overpowered models in play.

Physically it would be really difficult to screen such a big table so the teams couldn’t see each others’ activities, let alone to not have the screen fall and crush models. Strategically we also really wanted players to have some idea what they were facing across the table before deploying. So instead we used a two step process. We drew a simple map of the table and gave each team a copy. The map showed all the primary objectives, deployment zones, and a grid of 2′ by 1.5′ sectors. The teams then huddled up and each player committed to deploying in up to two sectors by marking up the map, also making note of any superheavies, gargantuans, mighty bulwarks, or lords of war.

Those maps were then revealed to the opposing team, and the two sides simultaneously deployed. That worked well because at this scale of game players generally aren’t super concerned about the precise positioning of enemy units while they deploy, so there’s no gaming of trying to see what the other side is doing while deploying. There’s also only so much adjustment you can do within the 30 minute time limit. But you did have a rough idea of what’s likely coming after you and could take that into account while deploying. As a bonus, by deploying simultaneously, we shaved half an hour off the schedule. Choice of first or second turn was set as the prize for overall victory of the Recon Squad games.

Barnes 595.

Barnes 595.

Means of Victory

We also tweaked our scoring mechanism to be every turn rather than every other, the better to either end games earlier than expected or run an extra turn as time permits (the latter never happens…). The rules are:

  • All players designate a warlord as usual, one of which on each team is nominated to be the warmaster.
  • After deployment, each team alternates having each player place a secondary objective anywhere on the board, caveat the usual restrictions (at least 12″ from other objectives, 6″ from table edges).
    • Any player and either team can score any secondary objective, they’re just placed by a particular player to represent their personal goals.
  • Only troops may score objective markers until the final scoring, at which point all scoring units count.
  • Scoring happens at the end of each game turn:
    • Primary objectives are worth the current game turn number;
    • Secondary objectives are always worth 1 victory point;
    • The warmasters are worth 3 points;
    • Eliminating a superheavy, gargantuan, mighty bulwark, lord of war, or warlord is worth 1 point each.
A Harridan prepares to chow down on some Dark Angels.

A Harridan prepares to chow down on some Dark Angels.

The rule about troops is a huge deal. It does have the downside that it encourages players to bring a lot of individual infantry rather than sinking points into big models, which makes it hard to meet turn time constraints. However, it ensures that regular troopers are critical and armies have to include a good contingent of them to be viable, which consequently makes the match feel a lot like a regular game of 40k writ huge, rather than a whole different game of giant robot/monster battles.

The escalating value of primary objectives is another balancing mechanism. It’s difficult for teams to run away with the game by controlling objectives over the early turns since they’re worth so much more at the end. Conversely, by not scoring solely at the end, alpha striking and high-mobility armies are given a better chance than they otherwise would have against deathstar and brick armies.

The other points for killing supers, etc., are also of course a balancing mechanism. They and the secondary objectives become less important as the game goes on and the primaries scale up, which is how you want the focus to change heading toward the end of the game. However, those single points still add up over time and are critical to overall victory, as played out in this very game.

In practice this basic scoring scheme and the other balancing efforts have worked out very well, producing a number of close games over several years now.

Deployment

Following their successes in the Recon Squad campaign, the Forces of Order established their invasion base around the Missile Complex and Imperial Shrine and chose to play second. They turned their aim on the heavily defended Broken Altar and Warp Tower, important sites to all the disciples of Chaos. In between lay a disused Comms Tower that might be reclaimed for the invasion, a Side Gate barring the way to a complex of temples beyond, and of course the wreckage of Sergeant Titus’ Rhino, an important relic of the Kingbreakers claimed by Nurgle’s servants in the aftermath of the Apocalypse on Solypsus 9.

Deployment commitments.

Deployment commitments.

Fight!

The invasion begun, the mighty armies on both sides rumbled to war. A gang of monstrous Tyranids held captive on Barnes 595 was unleashed on the Death Korps, with many fatalities in the earliest phase of the combat as the flying ones raked their dagger-like talons across exposed infantry. Worse, a Crassus superheavy armored transport poised toward the enemy lines was obliterated before it could even move from the landing point, with the entire platoon inside lost to the Emperor’s grace. A desperate struggle between the Death Korps and the gargantuan Tyranids towering over them would last throughout the battle.

Meanwhile, in Order’s backfield, a coterie of Slaneesh’s followers lead by a formation of Daemonettes made a devastating surprise attack. Spawning directly onto the Steel Legion’s lines, many tanks were immediately destroyed. Only after prolonged fighting and the death of the Order warmaster was their charge finally blunted by the arrival of the Shadowsword Indominator. No longer imperiled, the Steel Legion supported the Valhallans moving on the Comms Tower, as well as the defense of the Imperial Shrine and Missile Complex.

Matching that aggression, squad after squad of Kingbreakers, Grey Knights, and Dark Angels dropped directly into Discord’s backfield. Dark Angels claimed secondary objectives while Grey Knights fought Dark Eldar come to capture whatever they could in the heat of battle. Kingbreakers fought valiantly all around the Warp Tower and contested the site for some time, but were ultimately overwhelmed by the flood of Daemons and Daemonkin pouring into the area, guided and supported by the Renegades sworn to Discord warmaster Hellboy.

Major movements and drops throughout the game.

Major movements and drops throughout the game.

All across the land in between, daemons and traitors clashed with the Emperor’s finest. Dark Angels made an early play for Titus’ Rhino, but were eventually pushed off by the legions of Nurgle inexorably marching to reclaim the prize they had so carelessly left laying around. Valhallan air cavalry flew bravely into the daemons guarding the Comms Tower and successfully held it at several critical junctures. By their landing base, Commissar Yarrick almost singlehandedly defended the Missile Complex despite repeated wounds that would have been mortal for any lesser man. Nearly all the armies wound up engaged at some point in the fierce battle for the Side Gate as one unit after another claimed it, only to be blasted away and replaced by another in rapid succession.

Throughout all this, Adeptus Mechanicus light units guarded the Imperial Shrine while their heavy war machines were dispatched up and down the Order line wherever a heavy threat appeared. Surely the center would have caved but for a Warhound Titan come to lock in close combat with an enraged Hierophant. By the Side Gate, a Cerastus Lancer bravely launched into combat with Angrath, piercing the beast squarely to dispatch him back to the Warp and save that flank. On the opposite end, Knight Errants and Castigators blasted away at giant Tyranids and Daemons alike as they fought over the Missile Complex. Many irreplaceable war machines were lost throughout the battle, but no doubt their sacrifice prevented the total collapse of Order’s position.

In the end though that was all the might of Mars was able to ensure. The steadfast troops of the Legions of Discord stood firm against the combined attack on the planet. With their strike forces extinguished or hastily falling back, by the end the Forces of Order had been rebuffed, claiming little more than their initial beachhead. Although not repulsed entirely from the planet, the effort to cleanse the temple world had ground to a halt, its only trace yet more bones rotting among the dead forests and abandoned shrines of Barnes 595.

Monsters and war machines towering over the troops below go at each other's throats.

Monsters and war machines towering over the troops below go at each other’s throats.

A Death Korps Marauder swoops in to aerial combat with a Harridan menacing its Guard compatriots below.

A Death Korps Marauder swoops in to aerial combat with a Harridan menacing its Guard compatriots below.

A Soulgrinder prepares to crush a lesser walker.

A Soulgrinder prepares to crush a lesser walker.

A molten daemon lurks in the bushes.

A molten daemon lurks in the bushes.

Troops prepare to give their lives by the score.

Troops prepare to give their lives by the score.

Harbinger’s Charge

I wouldn’t want to play Apocalypse all the time, but with all our balancing mechanisms and other rules it’s actually a really good, strategic and tactical game.

As a small example, one of my own favorite stories from this game is that of the Kingbreakers’ Sergeant Harbinger. He and his Tacticals are part of the mass Drop Pod assault on the Warp Tower objective in Turn 1. His men blow up a Rhino, the rest of his squad gets obliterated, and he ducks back behind his Drop Pod while other units contest that primary objective.

Next, Captain Angholan splits from the Deathwatch team he dropped with, and I have a choice: Charge him at Samus now, or use him to wipe out Bloodletters standing between Harbinger and the objective. I go for the latter, and the Chaos players look at me like I’m silly for giving up the preemptive charge on Samus.

Turn 3, the Kingbreakers on the objective have all been wiped out. Samus has gone after Captain Angholan, who blocked him from doing anything else and stood there taunting the beast. But Sergeant Harbinger alone now has a clear path to run up onto the Warp Tower base and just barely contest the objective, shocking Discord and denying them 3 points. Didn’t win the game, but didn’t hurt either. And it wouldn’t have happened without just a bit of advance thinking on my part and forcing moves and mistakes on my opponents’ part to make sure I had that one Tactical left and a clear path for him. Meanwhile I’m also making larger decisions about where to commit reserves, use my stratagem, etc..

So even though it might look and even sometimes feel like a silly game of simply putting down units, shooting, and removing units, at least in the form we run Apocalypse there is actually both tactics and strategy.

Sergeant Harbinger contests the Warp Tower objective, against impossible odds.

Sergeant Harbinger contests the Warp Tower objective, against impossible odds.

Outcome

This was a very back-and-forth battle. Order opened the game in the lead, felt like it lost all momentum in the middle, then rallied to pull close but not enough to seize the day. In the final tally Discord won, 79 victory points to Order’s 70, a close result given the scoring structure. The last turn was a nail-biter right down until we’d gone over the final disposition of the objectives twice and tallied everything up.

The turn-by-turn breakdown lines up with how I felt things were going during the match. Order essentially lost on Turn 3. Taking ten less points that round was the biggest turn deficit of the game, and we never made it up. By the end of that Discord player turn I was actually telling Lovell that we were getting creamed and would be lucky to not fall tens of points behind and have zero hope for the remainder of the game. Fortunately Order managed to make some desperate moves that just barely tied us on primary objectives for the turn; I was shocked to sum everything and find us only seven points behind overall. But we got smoked on secondaries and tertiaries that round as Discord contested a bunch of our home base markers and destroyed a couple superheavies and warlords. With our alpha strike depleted that was just too much of a gap to cover by the end.

Turn-by-turn breakdown of the scoring.

Turn-by-turn breakdown of the scoring.

Analysis

Directly from that, I think Order’s big strategic issue continues to be that it puts itself in the position of half-committing to an alpha strike. One way to look at the loss is that we needed to scoop a couple more objectives early, and ideally keep Discord off them longer. Alternatively, maybe we needed to sit back and save more resources for the closing turns. I view the Discord team as largely following the latter. Brett frequently does some pretty aggressive alpha striking deep into enemy territory, and Justin did some as well this game. But everybody else tends to sit back a bit more and work their way across the table in a more traditional fashion. Their most aggressive flanking attacks usually come late in the game, after we’re spread thin and out of steam. So, Order should consider two paths:

  • Tone down the alpha strike. It can’t go away completely just given some of the armies and players. But it should be smaller, and be better concentrated on taking and holding specific objectives. Part of this is that the forces being dropped need to be modernized and hardier: More Centurions and Venerable Dreadnoughts, fewer ridiculously brave but foolish Tactical Marines.
  • Amp up the alpha strike! Just go for broke, and dump a lot more forces on the other side of the table early on. Sure, we’ll regret it horribly as the bad guys roll right onto our home base objectives. But so what, as long as we’ve taken theirs? Further, most of their stuff moving across the ground might be either blocked or more or less forced to turn back and reckon with the drop.
Elite Valhallans fly over the battlefield on their mission to take the Comms Tower.

Elite Valhallans fly over the battlefield on their mission to take the Comms Tower.

The big meta-point to make that happen is that we probably need to establish a commander not also entangled in organizing this and many of our other events. With the Winter Combat Patrol and NOVA taking up much more time than I had hoped, I wasn’t able to foster any team discussion leading up to the Apocalypse. What little strategizing did happen pre-game was actually instigated by Colin stepping in to help out. Which, you know, is awesome, because it basically amounts to the Discord warmaster saying “You puny Imperials are no match for our dark strategies! Come, come, please talk amongst yourselves such that you may offer at least some challenge to our warriors!” With Colin at the helm, Discord does just a bit more planning over army focii; use of reserves and their entry vectors; and stratagems. Although we generally manage to keep the games close, that extra bit of coordination shows in the closing turns and the slightly higher percentage of Discord wins across all our Apocalypse battles.

Revisions

Back to the organizational side, I have just a couple notes for next year.

One issue in this match was that the armies were too large. Discord in particular had a hard time completing all of its actions in the early turns. Next year we should cut the baseline back down to 3000 points, but allow people to field up to 4000 if at least a quarter of that is made up of superheavy, gargantuan, or mighty bulwark models. That way they should have a low enough model count to be a touch more comfortable in the turn time limits, yet still field lots of toys.

A Knight Castigator marches toward deadly combat with rotted Scabeiathrax.

A Knight Castigator marches toward deadly combat with rotted Scabeiathrax.

We should also perhaps try to find a way to limit how many different sections of the table in which a single person can have units. That’s tough, because sprawling interaction across a huge landscape is part of the appeal of Apocalypse, and important to some armies playing more of a supporting or counter-attacking role. You can’t limit people down to a single table or such, as then you may as well play separate games in a linked campaign. But that’s a major cause of slowdowns, when one person is getting shot at or is in assaults all over the place. Even with other people helping resolve them, it’s a bottleneck. One possible idea is to have players secretly record several reserve vectors and deep strike locations on the map, and only allow their reserves to enter from those sectors. Obviously many units could still move around the board quite a bit regardless, but that would prevent a great deal of the spreading out which occurs. Most people shouldn’t have armies literally all over the place because it hurts their focus and encourages mistakes, let alone generally weakening their forces. But lots of people do, and as a side benefit, a mechanism like this would cut down on that.

Finally, although this is just a free, semi-invitational event, next year we’ll probably require $20 deposits to sign-up. For those that show, the money will be put toward food for the day and the remainder returned, or maybe we just put it toward club expenses or new activities. It would not be returned for people that bail after some cut-off close to the event. That will likely eliminate the usual couple of people who sign-up but aren’t committed and simply don’t come through, as opposed to those that legitimately have something come up at the last minute.

Wrap-Up

more-photosAlthough not without its trying moments in preparation, this was another great event. Some old friends made the trip, some new friends joined up, and we had a bunch of excellent Recon Squad games and another epic, closely fought Apocalypse featuring some interesting new mechanisms. Again, there are tons more photos in the Flickr gallery. We’ll see you next year!

The Lord of Skulls cares not the victor, for he wins the loser regardless!

The Lord of Skulls cares not the victor, for he wins the loser regardless!

 

page-logo