Apocalypse19 as main game

[Doctor Perils]

So, with confusing rumours about w40k 10th coming out of the woodwork, I've been wondering whether I'm actually interested in moving to it once it comes out. I'm firmly in the Beer and Pretzels kind of gaming mindset, and I'm seeing some of the rumours that look interesting (like the removal of a toughness value for most units), but these same changes have much of the community up in arms. When reading through those threads, I see two rough groupings that emerge:

- the players who want to return to a tighter, crunchier ruleset like 3rd or 5th edition

- the players who wish to see more modern, streamlined elements of game design, like alternating activation, d10/12/16s, and/or a damage phase to keep units in play for at least one turn

 

Being in the second (rough) grouping, I just keep coming back to the fact that... Apocalypse19 has all of those elements! Perhaps all this group and I would just be happier running Apocalypse19 for narrative beer and pretzel games?!

 

Unfortunately, while I bought the box when it was still on sale, I've never actually had the chance to play, so I'm turning to this forum to answer thus basic questions: "can Apocalypse19 be run for standard 40k army sizes without breaking the whole system? Would Apocalypse19 be a feasible alternative to a crunchier 10th edition?"

[Master Ciaphas]

Well. For me, the 4th-7th editions, for all their flaws, were "the best". I gave up on 8th edition, with all the overlapping auras, command points, stratagems and "got cha!" moments, were I game after game just met the same top picks from the Imperium lists...which were are rough deal for mono-codex Death Guard in 8th. 

 

Give me a game of 7th edition (without the free formations BS and the Invisiblity psychic power) any day of the week!

 

:-)

[Karhedron]

3 minutes ago, Master Ciaphas said:

Give me a game of 7th edition (without the free formations BS and the Invisiblity psychic power) any day of the week!

 

The problem is that the Formations and broken psychic powers were a fundamental part of 7th (and a big reason why I took a break to play X-Wing until 8th arrived). Deathstars are not fun in any edition but I don't think 9th has gotten as bad as 7th was.

[Brother Tyler]

A problem with Apocalypse is that GW hasn't updated things to keep pace with the various units that have been introduced to the Warhammer 40,000 game in the meantime. This leaves players to either develop their own rules, proxy those units for something else, or leave them behind.

[Doctor Perils]

56 minutes ago, Master Ciaphas said:

Well. For me, the 4th-7th editions, for all their flaws, were "the best". I gave up on 8th edition, with all the overlapping auras, command points, stratagems and "got cha!" moments, were I game after game just met the same top picks from the Imperium lists...which were are rough deal for mono-codex Death Guard in 8th. 

 

Give me a game of 7th edition (without the free formations BS and the Invisiblity psychic power) any day of the week!

 

:-)

 

50 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

The problem is that the Formations and broken psychic powers were a fundamental part of 7th (and a big reason why I took a break to play X-Wing until 8th arrived). Deathstars are not fun in any edition but I don't think 9th has gotten as bad as 7th was.

 

Sorry if my OP wasn't clear. My question is not whether we should move back to something like 5th and co. but instead for those who specifically don't like those versions if they might be better served by moving to something like apocalypse

 

5 minutes ago, Brother Tyler said:

A problem with Apocalypse is that GW hasn't updated things to keep pace with the various units that have been introduced to the Warhammer 40,000 game in the meantime. This leaves players to either develop their own rules, proxy those units for something else, or leave them behind.

 

This is indeed a problem, but I've seen at least one example online of people cresting fan updates of the system: https://www.fundamalleus.com/fundapocalypse

With unit profiles being simpler than 40k from what I can tell, house rules and fan updates might be a viable option?

[Brother Tyler]

Thanks! I've added that link to the resource listing.

 

Personally, I'd also love to see members of our community developing rules for units in Apocalypse here at the B&C (other sites are fine and all, too).

[Jolemai]

Unfortunately I've yet to play the current version of Apocalypse, but I'm unsure how well it would lend itself to a lower point game. What are the suggestions in the book for minimal forces?

[Doctor Perils]

On 2/16/2023 at 6:54 PM, Jolemai said:

Unfortunately I've yet to play the current version of Apocalypse, but I'm unsure how well it would lend itself to a lower point game. What are the suggestions in the book for minimal forces?

Having finally dug out my book, the lowest suggested game point is 300 power points (for reference a unit of 5 chaos space marines is worth 4 power points)

However, the "basic" detachments are built from essentially the same number of units as the new ark of Omens detachments, so I'd he willing to try the ruleset at lower numbers of power levels. I imagine there'll be some more strategic choices for army construction: do I cram as much into a single detachment as possible to get more of my army going early in the turn, or do I separate them out more to get more activations?