So with a game of Apocalypse coming up this weekend I'd like to talk about D-Weapons and their impact on the game. Any D-Weapon, particularly one that uses any sort of blast template can be so powerful that it has the potential to immediately change the game. For those of you unfamiliar with D-Weapons, when a vehicle is hit by one you roll on a table. A 1 is an automatic penetrating hit, a 2-5 is an automatic explosion on a regular vehicle and D3+1 Hull Points off a Super Heavy, and a 6 is a D6+6 Hull Points off a Super Heavy. Against infantry, a 1 is no wound, a 2-5 is D3+1 wounds, and a 6 is D6+6 wounds. All D-Weapons also ignore all saves, including invulnerable saves, as well as negating any Reanimation Protocols or Feel no Pain.
So obviously these weapons have the potential to be extremely powerful, and as such all possible effort really should be made to even out the distribution of D-Weapons between two armies or teams. For example, if I were to bring a list capable of firing 5 D-Weapon shots, the opposing force should probably have no more than about 6 or 7, and no less than 3 or 4. If you don't regulate this and you had one army with 5 D-Weapons against an army with no D-Weapons, the battle would likely be over before it really began, especially when you consider that the things carrying these guns are usually Super-Heavies, Titans, Gargantuan Creatures, or Apocalypse formations, which are generally pretty hard to bring down, especially en mass.
This brings us to building a list for an Apocalypse game. This can be tricky, as really the point of the game is for everyone to have fun, and I know that if I were to take a big scary Death Star (say the Lords of the Black Crusade formation) only to have it immediately blown off the table in one shot from a D-Weapon, I'd be a little discouraged, particularly if it was from something like an Eldar Lynx, where the formation it just one-hitted was easily double its points. Because of this I think its important to make sure that you have an alternate list or two. If you get to the game and realize that you're the only one who brought a whole bunch of Titans and Super-Heavies, it may be prudent to talk to the other players, especially your opponents, and as them if they're ok with facing such an intimidating force. If they're not, it might be best to have a backup list that you can pull out with fewer of these units, or even none at all to help even the playing field and make the game more fun for everyone.
The alternative is to warn everyone before hand that you are going to be spamming D-Weapons, and to bring as much of their own scary stuff as they can. People are less likely to feel like they just showed up only to pick up their models and go home if they had an opportunity to prepare against what they knew was going to be a tough fight, and it also helps to avoid having people who have invested their time and money into buying or building their own Titans/Super Heavies feel like "That Guy" for bringing their big scary models.
Its also important if you don't have any D-Weapons of your own to try and not get too upset when these things start causing you to remove entire units from the field at a time, often with no way to prevent it. This is Apocalypse, and the whole point is really to sit around with some friends, or maybe some strangers at your local store, talk smack, and enjoy this wonderful hobby of ours. My final advice to the people out there that don't have access to any formations, D-Weapons or Super-Heavies would be to set yourself a goal. Maybe try to get one of your characters into single combat with something, or aim to blow up that Baneblade before the end of the game. By giving yourself an objective, you can feel good about your army, even if most of it (or even all of it) gets wiped out by chasing around smaller goals and objectives.
No comments:
Post a Comment