Using 10th as the basis for huge games?

[Valkyrion]

I'll caveat this by saying I've not played a single game of 10th, and with 11th around the corner I'm not likely to, but I have read the rules and understand them in theory if not necessarily in practice.

That said, if you just use the datasheets/datacards with their rules as printed and no other special rules - no stratagems, enhancements, army rules etc - how fast would the game play if you wanted to run something like 8000+ a side. Could that be done in a day?

 

 

[DemonGSides]

You could do 8k a side in a day even with all that stuff.

A 3k v 3k game I played a few months ago took about 6 hours (including lots of yap times, drink times, smoke times, and bathroom breaks).  Figure about an hour per round if you're just rolling for fun and not worrying too much.  Having more people can actually make this go faster as any downtime between any given few people is room for the others to do their stuff.

 

It's going to go slower since you've quite literally never played it, but 10th is a mostly intuitive edition without too much weirdness (It's a constant complaint from the detractors that it's boring so you're not going to be worrying about any esoteric rules).  The biggest hurdle is LOS and the way the edition handles terrain (It really benefits from having obvious and visibly indicated 'footprints' for any terrain that's not just scatter terrain); LOS can't go THROUGH any terrain out the other side, but can see INTO terrain in a normal LOS way.  It's a lil foible that sounds really weird but once you get some practice with it it makes a lot of sense and makes it so that gunline armies don't just win the game by default.

 

Have fun, roll dice, eat pretzels, drink beer, don't take it too seriously.  Sounds like a good time, to me!

Edited February 20 by DemonGSides

[HeadlessCross]

Find the last iteration of rules for Apocalypse during 8th/9th. It actually had a more solid core ruleset and fixed several issues in the main game. 

[Valkyrion]

20 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

You could do 8k a side in a day even with all that stuff.

A 3k v 3k game I played a few months ago took about 6 hours (including lots of yap times, drink times, smoke times, and bathroom breaks).  Figure about an hour per round if you're just rolling for fun and not worrying too much.  Having more people can actually make this go faster as any downtime between any given few people is room for the others to do their stuff.

 

It's going to go slower since you've quite literally never played it, but 10th is a mostly intuitive edition without too much weirdness (It's a constant complaint from the detractors that it's boring so you're not going to be worrying about any esoteric rules).  The biggest hurdle is LOS and the way the edition handles terrain (It really benefits from having obvious and visibly indicated 'footprints' for any terrain that's not just scatter terrain); LOS can't go THROUGH any terrain out the other side, but can see INTO terrain in a normal LOS way.  It's a lil foible that sounds really weird but once you get some practice with it it makes a lot of sense and makes it so that gunline armies don't just win the game by default.

 

Have fun, roll dice, eat pretzels, drink beer, don't take it too seriously.  Sounds like a good time, to me!

 

The trouble we had with 9th was keeping track of all the buffs and debuffs which were then compounded by dozens of stratagem options, and all the secondary's and actions etc.

Has all that gone? 

 

11 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

Find the last iteration of rules for Apocalypse during 8th/9th. It actually had a more solid core ruleset and fixed several issues in the main game. 

 

I enjoyed the last Apo rule set, but the issue now with it is that there was no sort of expansion to it. With 10th if we just use the core rules and datasheets, we can introduce all the extras like stratagems, enhancements, updated FAQ, updated points, rules from maelstrom or crusade or whatever. Once 11th hits, 10th will be complete and we can work our way through it as we like. 

[DemonGSides]

On 2/21/2026 at 11:44 AM, Valkyrion said:

The trouble we had with 9th was keeping track of all the buffs and debuffs which were then compounded by dozens of stratagem options, and all the secondary's and actions etc.

Has all that gone?

 

Gone in the sense that you no longer have to worry about looking at 85 strategems or options.  Each detatchment comes with a set of strategems to use, so you've gotta learn like 6 special options to use (Usually something like improve a save, add a keyword to a weapon type, get a little movement bonus type things), and then each detatchment also has your options for warlord gear/enhancements; warlord gear isn't really a thing, instead you can give non-named characters an item for a few points that will give them a buff.  Some are better than others, but that's normal.  Secondary points for scoring is done with a deck of cards so it's SUPER easy compared to 9th's pick and choose situation.  You can either just choose two secondaries and do them throughout the entire game, or choose to pick new secondaries at the top of every turn.  Or choose to forgo secondaries entirely to just get some shooting and stabbing done.

 

There isn't as much aura buffing in 10th compared to 8/9th due to leaders being attached to squads instead of being their own separate units all the time.  So now buffs are more "This squad is benefitting cuz this Character is with them."  There's a few things that buff in an area round them, but those are fewer and far between compared to previously.

 

10th was a rules reset, but it wasn't a big departure from 9th.  You'll be able to transition fine based on having played 9th.

[Tawnis]

A friend of mine and I ran a 20k game of 10th edition. I knew the rules mostly by heart, but he was less familiar and was often stopping to look up rules and stuff. All told, it took us about 16 hours. Round 2 when everything started getting stuck in took about 6 of those hours all on its own. 

Edited March 18 by Tawnis

[DemonGSides]

That's basically how non giant games work as well; first few turns eat up 70%ish of game time and the last two turns fly right by.