Jolemai Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 Currently in the planning stage for our group's next Apocalypse game. For this, we're going ahead with the concept of satellite boards. By that I mean we have one 8x6 table with some of the larger gun emplacements (Primus Redoubt, Macro Cannons, etc) which begin the game as being inactive. Nearby are two 4x4 satellite boards. One is a Zone Mortalis board and there will be a Castellum Stronghold as the exits on the main and other satellite board. The ZM and other Satellite board will have objectives which need to be controlled in order to fire the main emplacement weapons. We will also allow flight between the two overland boards and the ZM board will run at double time. To those who have ran multiple boards before in Apocalypse; Does this sound feasible? Would a general be realistically able to coordinate forces on two or more boards? Should we allow further interaction between the boards? What are the general pitfalls for such a venture? Thanks in advance. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teetengee Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 Measuring distances can get tricky, work it all out ahead of time. Coordinating forces wasn't an issue for me, as it was still just two teams taking one turn at a time. People tend to forget about people, so try to find a way of marking occupancy on one board on the other boards that will actually be recognizable. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/#findComment-4093839 Share on other sites More sharing options...
CommodusXIII Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 There was a similar battle report in WD247/248, long before Apocalypse was a thing. One main board in a hive city, one satellite board in the mountains with an artillary emplacement and another satellite of a ship in orbit. That'd be a good one to research. Sounds like fun to me! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/#findComment-4095747 Share on other sites More sharing options...
archarsonist Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 I think it is a great idea. It allows some players who want to play zone mortalis vice apocalypse to play and have an affect on the bigger battle on the main board. I am not a big apocalypse player, so am not sure about the issues raised above. Let us know how it goes=D Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/#findComment-4096645 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dono1979 Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 Just keep in mind that the more people you get involved the slower the turns become as people have to wait for the others to finish their turns; some people will take longer in movement but have no shooting but will still have to wait for the person who didnt move (who waited for them) but has heaps of shooting, and then one guy throws four hundred infantry into Assault with another five hundred orks. The double time on the ZM board was a good step to stop the above from derailing that, nicely done. The next thing is how many points the General is controlling, if he is controlling 15,000 points himself than the co-ordination side of things can fall apart because he is busy trying to control his own army let alone the entire faction. We have normally done flight between boards by simply disengaging the Flyer and the following turn it immediately arrives onto the table of their choice. We also allowed long ranged artillery (anything 100+") to fire onto other tables IF they had Barrage (stops Titans from mowing things down). Psychic powers however cannot travel across boards and table wide effects are limited to their respective boards. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/#findComment-4097207 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giarc Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 I have done games like this too. Where there are poker chips that act as "teleporters" that can randomly bring you to a different board, kill you, or...... open to a hive world where thousands of Nids would pour out. lol. They had some of the same rules as above, where artillery can shoot across to a different board, and flyers can move between them. Also had a "Void" board, where wounds counted as rending (i think). It was pretty brutal, but really fun. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/#findComment-4139397 Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatEscape_13 Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 As Teetengee rightly said: think carefully about the standard of distance between boards. Players may (will?) try to bring things to meddle board-to-board, so have the rules for interaction between tables crystal clear. I'd avoid any splitting of players' forces across the boards. They become a bit more "mini game" that way, but it keeps things tidy. They can also play "ahead" a bit that way, and just let the overall GM know what happened (e.g. "Bottom of turn two, the destructo beam fired two shots at the main table, top of turn three the 10-strong terminator squad will arrive thru the portal" and so on). Make sure and post a report/pics to us about how you structure it and things turn out! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/#findComment-4157844 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolemai Posted November 27, 2015 Author Share Posted November 27, 2015 Small update folks, this is how we settled on the boards: So far, we're looking at 28k per side. Formations (Apoc and regular), SHVs and GMCs will start on the main board. Detachments will start on the overland subsidiary boards. Detachments can move onto the main board via a zonein from the ZM board, via flight from a subsidiary board or by starting in Reserve and arriving after a Scheduled break. All three satellite boards will have objectives to hold in order to fire the guns on the main board. (As well as the Primus Redoubt there are things like macro cannons, vortex missiles, plasma). Things like Basilisks can still fire across to the overland zones... The zm board will still be in double time but we may tweak the zm rules to fit the event. I do wonder though, would this be two movement phases, etc per player turn or would we both get to move, etc in each player turn? People obviously want to take everything from their collections that fits the criteria for the game; for example I'm taking 12k of Blood Angels and associated Imperial friends, but only ~ 9k or so of that comprises of Formations. The excess will start on one of the other boards and as there are a few onlookers, I/we'll just requisition one to roll dice on that board whilst we oversee it. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/#findComment-4236615 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolemai Posted February 16, 2016 Author Share Posted February 16, 2016 So it ended up being 42.5k per side... Whilst the armies were split 6 vs 4 (best points balance) after a couple of people pulled out at the last minute, resulting in players potentially needing to be on all boards. We ran the main board first (Imperium turn one, Chaos & Xenos turn one), and then I.T1a, C.T1a and I.T1b, C.T1b on the sub boards. For the first turn we ran all the sub boards simultaneously, but with this proving to be difficult to manage subsequent turns were played sequentially. If a unit left the main board via a zone in, they appeared on an overland sub board at the subsequent b turn. If a player left an overland sub board via a zone in, they could appear on the main board or in the ZM board at the player's Deployment zone. Flyers that left the board or disengaged could move where they wanted in the next turn. In the end we didn't permit the ability to fire between tables. We didn't use the additional ZM rules and we didn't allow SHVs, GMCs or Apocalypse Formations on them. A lot of points were chucked at the sub boards, with some deploying over 5k at a time. They ran very fast and at times, were complete carnage. We might further tweak things for next time but it worked very well :) Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/#findComment-4308800 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dono1979 Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 great follow up report, keen to see pics if you have any? Especially of the boards? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/#findComment-4316721 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolemai Posted March 16, 2016 Author Share Posted March 16, 2016 great follow up report, keen to see pics if you have any? Especially of the boards? Sorry for the late reply. Here are some pictures of the boards: 12 x 6 board, panoramic shot (done by moving left to right along the Imperial board edge), middle of turn three. Satellite board layout Overland board one, 4 x 4 Zone Mortalis board, 4 x 4, access only from both overland zones (or by teleportation) Overland board 2, 4 x 4 Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/309655-satellite-boards/#findComment-4337169 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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