Into the Storm: Scions in Apocalypse

[Master Antaeus]

Last Saturday, I had my first taste of a game in this area and it was an apocalypse game with roughly 16k per side.  There was the usual smattering of apocalypse-level shenanigans and poor planning (mostly on our side's part), but I wanted to report back to my fellow carapace-armored desperadoes how the Scions do apocalypse.  Please bear in mind that this is by no means comprehensive and individual experiences may vary.

 

Quick side-note: the Necrons codex has a lot of brutal apocalypse combos that don't even need the apocalypse book to function.

 

Deployment:

With an enemy Lord of Skulls, Stompa, a Taun'ar, gorkanaut and a couple of obelisks duking it out with a pair of Wraithknights, a pair of Imperial Knights, a Shadowsword and a Baneblade while Space Wolves, Grey Knights and White Scars bikers surged back and forth against wraiths and nobz, the entire battlefield looked decidedly unhealthy for my fragile Scions, so I opted to deep strike them all and roll their trucks onto the table.  This turned out to be the right thing to do.  I had some skitarii that I deployed, but with timed turns, they got lost in the sauce. 

 

Complication:  One player didn't show up; he was bringing 2 stormsurge suits and a smattering of other tauness.  I got an extra thousand points which I used to add Inquisitors and Scions.  I also changed my factions around and made my regular scion squads Astra Militarum and the command squads Militarum Tempestus.  Important because I also took Creed's supreme HQ so I could pass out 3 orders at infinite range and bombard everything ever.  This turned out to be fortuitous, though you have to pay the tax of having an officer of the fleet who is completely worthless in Apocalypse.  After a break, I took orbital bombardment (which sucks now, BTW) and increased the mayhem across the table--there was some drama that is not relevant to this post.

 

Notes: Scions all have native deep strike and allied locator beacons are both cheaper and more survivable than anything we can field, in this case, they were quite plentiful.  Deep strike is the way to get upfield in Apocalypse now that that stupid disruption beacon is gone forever.  You definitely don't want your regular humans footslogging through no-man's land where even terminators get blasted to flinders with appalling regularity.  This also gets you around having to negotiate the gauntlet of living or dead vehicles that typically jam up an apocalypse deployment zone.  In this case, out DZ was covered in mostly living vehicles as the opponents didn't have a whole lot of D they could throw at us.

 

Deep Striking:  Turn 1, there was almost no space on the table and most targets were either in DS reserve or still in transports.  I decided to let the situation develop a bit before casting my forces in..  Turn 2, some space had opened up, so I deep struck 2 units of scions in a position to kill some support tyranids and I sent my command squads after the lord of skulls.  Unfortunately, both command squads triggered Deathmarks' Hunters from Hyperspace, two squads of Deathmarks appeared, shredding one squad and scaring the crap out of the other one (cover).  Crappily, I didn't get to shoot the LoS because the objectives dictated that they had to be brought down by other superheavies, so I engaged monoliths instead.  Tyranids all died horribly and lost synapse for a turn until their player could dig zoanthropes out of reserves after the break.

 

Notes: Deathmarks are dirty, flexible defensive units.  The tabletop equivalent of a stop-hit; I don't think they're broken (they're actually fantastic, fluffy units), but they mitigated a key weakness I was trying to exploit in a very resource-efficient manner.  Worse, they have maximum flexibiity; any number of 'marks can come in off of one friendly deepstrike and if they mishap, they can key in on a different deep strike later in the game.  Deathmarks aside, the Scions were fantastic wreaking havoc in the back field, taking out synapse creatures, flaming gribblies and landing where they either couldn't be targeted or were pulling back enemy units from no-man's land.  It was one of the times where my army outsmarted me--where I saw certain death, they landed, killed a few key units and then.... nothing.  There were so many scary things on the table that no one paid attention to the tiny squads of guardsmen in their midst.

 

Turn 3: The rest of my Scions dropped and decapitated an army by killing its warlord with help from Knight Gerantius.  Another squad assaulted and sweeping advanced a maxed out squad of Pathfinders from the rear.  Most of the drones were in front and could 't get to the fight.  Flamer squads got right in front of Tyranid warriors and flambeed the rippers behind them while the riflemen killed a pair of warriors.

 

At that point, I had to leave since no Apoc game ever starts on time.  Sneaking around the table was like playing kill team in the middle of an apoc game.  It was the most fun I have ever had playing apocalypse.  I doubt it will happen again, but it was super gratifying to know that while space marines and eldar were sucking up large bullets, there was a group of highly trained desperadoes slitting throats and kicking in doors behind the scenes.

 

Final thoughts: the Skitarii were lackluster.  Without transports, you need hundreds of them or very specialized formations which I did not have.  With command squads carrying meltaguns, psychic Inquisitors really made the difference; I had two in trucks and my warlord in TDA deep struck with a squad.  Finally, I had Creed's supreme command issuing orders (ran Scion squads as AM and Scion command squads as MT for max orders management) which was absolutely clutch.  There was one turn in which the building was shaken, but that only silenced the MoO for a turn; Creed kept yelling into the mic.  I thought brining large squads would be a problem, but they actually made it easier to get the screaming torrent of prescience fire that roasted so many opponents.  The loss of the HP/CCW on stormtroopers was really keenly felt, but by the time they assaulted the Pathfinders, they had an Inquisitor with them.

 

What I'd do next time:  Concentrate on the scalpel aspect of the armies.  Apocalypse seems like no place for elite special forces teams, but with everything else going on, it becomes much easier to hide your activities.  This game style also gives you unprecedented control over your reserves.  Optimized squads are a must; apocalypse is unkind to generalists and deathstars, favoring decentralized units--perfect for MT.  In my opinion, it looks funny to put your Scion squads under Creed while your Command squads remain MT, but it works.  If you needed more orders on the ground, you could go with Valks to carry CCSs.

 

My initial plan was to deep strike enough guys near each other to create a kind of airborne beachead and I'm convinced the theory is sound.  You certainly aren't going to be sticking around to defend the place after the first few targets are dead; at that point, there should be enough room in the DZ to drive the trucks in and properly displace your Scions.  Alas, poor command squads, no one is going to leave a squad with 4 meltaguns in their backfield parking lot, but such is the nature of command squads.

 

Well that's a mouthful, anyone with specific questions, I'd be happy to answer here.  We didn't use all of the rules for apocalypse because no one had the book but me (on my phone) and Creed and his buddies were added right after deployment as it became clear our Tau player would not be showing.

[WarriorFish]

Sounds like you had some fun, I think Scions are a good Apoc unit for just the reasons you mentioned. They go in hitting hard in normal games, and they need to get the job done or its curtains - which is how Apoc is for everything :P Dropping in to sort the enemy out where he least expects and wants it is the job of Stormies, they're the special forces unit :)