Category Archives: campaigns

The Campaign for Solypsus 9

Posted on by tjkopena

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Our next Redcap’s/PAGE campaign is about to kick off, as monsters, traitors, and the Emperor’s finest all descend on Solypsus 9.

Who knows what dreams and dreamers lay waiting in the endless void?

There’ll be four events/sessions in the series:

Players are free to come and go for each campaign session without penalty to their alliance or disadvantage to themselves, so don’t hesitate to join in even if you can’t make the whole series.

Missions, a signup sheet, and other details for January are on the webpage. Campaign mechanics are based on the map-based scheme drafted here, with other elements thrown in as we proceed. These will no doubt be revised as we go, to make them work better as well as to be flexible with the group’s variable size and player composition per event, a tough challenge.

Feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated! Please comment below or email us. For those interested in playing this campaign elsewhere, we will be refining the details and putting up a PDF with all of the bits, maps, and rules afterward. Sign up for our announcements-only mailing list if you want to be notified of that release.

Background

Solypsus 9 is one of the countless far flung, forgettable outposts of the Imperium. A barren, lifeless planet of rock and mountains with minimal atmosphere and sunlight but punishing wind storms, only a single small settlement has ever been established. Nestled in a rare pocket of less forbidding terrain, the colony originally grew to serve an adamantium mine. Over time as the occasional more esoteric ores and minerals were found, a small laboratory was founded to study them. With the original mine petered out to barely sustainable levels the lab has seen little call for this role of late, but clearly it is still being put to some purpose. Meanwhile, life in the colony hab blocks grows daily more grim as the workers drive the mine ever desperately deeper in search of a new lode to restore some measure of prosperity. Unseen and unknown by all but the most elite, however, is the ebb and tide of a galaxy at war, but even they fail to see how machinations and conflict throughout the sector might someday come to fall on Solypsus 9…

map

(click for PDF map)

Objectives

At the start of a campaign session each player is grouped into an alliance: Discord, Spoilers, or Order. These should be roughly equal in size. Players can switch alliances for different sessions, i.e., to play a different faction or to balance out the teams by number or strength.

alliances

After establishing alliances, each team secretly chooses a particular strategic objective for that session from the most critical installations on the planet:

  • Hab Blocks: Though miniscule by the standards of a developed world, Solypsus 9 still has a population of millions living and dying in its hab blocks to be protected, enslaved, or consumed…
  • Laboratory: The laboratory has long since become an enclave unto itself amid an air of absolute secrecy. Something worthwhile must be happening there to warrant the resources dedicated to its unknown mission…
  • Mine: Though shipments from the world have curtailed greatly, surely stores of great value must still be accumulated in its stockpiles, with even more ready to be extracted by a properly motivated workforce…

At the end of the session, each alliance that controls its chosen strategic objective earns campaign points equal to double the current session number in the campaign (1, 2, 3, 4). Each additional installation of those three which it controls awards campaign points equal to the current session number. The other three installations—the Starport, Comms Tower, and Generator—are each worth 1 campaign point at the end of each session.

Throughout the campaign, teams are thus fighting on three levels:

  • Storyline: Working toward a narrative result among possibilities revealed and determined by the campaign’s progress.
  • Strategic Victory: Earning the most campaign points by controlling installations.
  • Tactical Victory: Accumulating the most victory points throughout the matches.

Setup

Each session, the alliances get a number of armies equal to the number of players in the smallest alliance, representing the active forces and major thrusts of that phase of the campaign. At the start of the campaign none of the dirtside territories on the map are controlled and all of the armies begin in the orbital positions. In later sessions the alliances start in control of those territories they held at the end of the previous session. By descending order of total accumulated victory points they alternate placing a single army on any territory they control or in orbit, until all are placed. Multiple armies may not be placed on a single territory, except for the orbital positions which can hold any amount.

The alliances also get a number of command token sets, equal to half the number of armies (rounding down, to a minimum of one). Each command set has tokens to indicate Attack, Support, and Defend.

commands

Finally, each alliance gets a set of round order bid chits, from 1 to the number of missions in the session, typically 3.

bids

A pool of control markers to indicate territory possession as well as extra armies not yet in play are also available for each alliance, played as if unlimited in quantity.

Play

The campaign sessions are made up of the following cycle, usually over 3 rounds:

  1. Place commands.
  2. Bid for round order.
  3. Assign matches to commands.
  4. Play out matches.
  5. Resolve the results.

Place Commands

At the start of each mission round the alliances simultaneously secretly place commands, face down on the map. Attack commands must be put on the alliance’s own armies and all of them must be placed. Support and Defend commands can be put on an alliance’s armies or on dirtside territories it merely controls. Only one command can be placed on an army or territory except for the orbital positions, which can take as many commands as there are armies on them but cannot otherwise receive commands.

Bid for Round Order

The alliances then simultaneously bid for round order using their remaining bid chits. The round order used in the various steps below is determined by the increasing numeric order of those bids. In event of a tie, the respective alliances in order by accumulated victory points get to choose their round order position relative to each other. Following each round the bid chits used are discarded, so alliances cannot make the same bid twice in a session.

Into the temple, quickly, whatever may come!

Into the temple, quickly, whatever may come!

Assign Matches to Commands

Following the round order bid, all of the commands are flipped over and revealed. In round order a match is assigned to each Attack:

  1. The current alliance picks one of its Attack commands and declares one of the territories adjacent to the command as its target. Attacks from orbit may take any dirtside territory as the target. Territories may be targeted by one or more attacks. Alliances may target their own territories, enabling them to maneuver armies or support embattled territories.
  2. The current alliance then also declares one of its unassigned players to be the attacker for the match associated with that command.
  3. One of the other alliances the responds with a defending player not already assigned a match for this round. If the attack is on a territory controlled by an opponent, then that alliance must respond if it has an unassigned player. Otherwise, if it is unoccupied or that alliance has no unmatched player, the alliance with the highest total accumulated score and an unassigned player must respond—their forces are spread far and wide and engaged in many battles across the conflict. A different alliance from that targeted must also respond in the same fashion if assigning a player from the targeted alliance would cause only players from one alliance to be left unassigned for the round.
  4. The defending player then chooses a table for the battle.

This process then repeats for the next alliance in round order until all of the Attack commands have matches. If there are more players remaining, i.e., there’s an uneven number of players, then matches are assigned to Defend and Support commands. In round order:

  1. An alliance with an unmatched player picks any Defend or Support command on the map, including their opponents’ as well as their own, and assigns a player to it. No target is necessary for these commands.
  2. If the chosen command belongs to another alliance and it has an unassigned player, then the targeted alliance responds with a defending player. Otherwise, the alliance with the highest total accumulated score and an unassigned player must respond.
  3. The defending player picks a table.

This repeats until all of the players are paired up and matches associated with commands. Note that there may be Support and Defend commands without associated matches, as well as those left unplayed, but all Attacks must have been placed and then associated with a match.

Play Out Matches

The players then battle for the outcome of the commands. These games might be determined randomly from the standard missions, chosen by the players, or in a campaign tournament are taken from the mission packet.

Follow your corpse god to the grave, fools!

Follow your corpse god to the grave, fools!

Resolve Results

Once all the matches complete, campaign results are resolved in the sequence of Support, Defend, and Attack commands, followed by tallying victory points.

Support. Matches assigned to Support commands are evaluated first. In round order the alliances choose a Support match they won and either remove the command or leave it on the map. Any Support commands that did not have a match assigned are left in place.

Defend. Next each Defend command is evaluated. In round order the alliances choose a Defend match they won and either remove the command or leave it on the map. Any Defend commands without an assigned match are left in place.

Attack. Evaluated last are the Attack commands. In round order the alliances choose any territory targeted by an Attack, including those they are not involved in if they wish. All of the Attacks toward that territory are then simultaneously evaluated as follows:

  • Each alliance that either made an attack or was controlling the territory scores points toward the outcome. If no alliance controls the territory then the defending points are scored by a virtual defender, reflecting interference from the other alliances or surprisingly staunch resistance from the native inhabitants. The same applies if the territory’s controller is the only alliance that has made an attack toward it, representing logistical or communication mishaps, friendly fire, or interception by opposing forces. Any alliance that made an attack must be scored separately, the points cannot be assigned to the defender. Alliances can only directly assist each other in that way through Support commands.
  • Scoring starts with the raw points earned in each associated match, excluding covert mission successes. If an alliance other than the defender was forced to respond to an attack, i.e., by uneven alliance sizes, then its points go toward the defender—the third alliance has either crashed into the attacker’s army while making its own abortive attack, with the territory’s defenders pitching the battle between the two, or they’ve come to the aid of the defenders to support their own agenda against the attacker.
  • If there is a Defend command on the territory, its alliance earns 10 additional points. Note that in the case in which no other alliance has targeted the territory, these points go to the alliance and not the virtual defender.
  • For each Support command adjacent to the territory, its alliance may add 5 points to any alliance involved in the match. Any alliance may support any alliance, or not. Armies in orbit with Support commands on them may Support a single Attack per round, but may do so anywhere on the map.

Whichever alliance scored the highest in this calculation maintains control of or immediately takes over the territory. If an attacker was victorious, a single one of its participating armies may move into the territory, leaving a control marker on its starting territory if it had none. Any other attacking armies stay in their original territories, which may result in them being affected by an attack resolved later. A victorious alliance that made an attack toward a territory it already controlled may only move an army onto the territory if it is unoccupied.

Any Support or Defend command on the territory is then removed, its forces have either been routed or are too busy defending themselves to assist in other battles. Any opposing control marker is also removed. If a defending army is present it must immediately retreat, moving to an adjacent territory its alliance controls that does not already have an army on it, or an uncontrolled territory if there are no such spaces. If neither option is possible, it retreats to its alliance’s orbital position.

At no time may a territory be occupied by more than one army, including multiple armies of a single alliance.

Overall Points. Once all commands have been evaluated they are removed from the board. The raw victory points earned from all matches and covert missions are then added to the alliances’ accumulated tallies. Defend and Support commands do not factor into this.

Drop zone in 3... 2... 1...

Drop zone in 3… 2… 1…

Special Effects and Covert Missions

Besides the overt strategic value of the Mine, Hab Blocks, and Laboratory, control of each will also determine how later aspects of the campaign progress. Heavy fighting in and around them may also have inadvertent, potentially catastrophic effects as infrastructure, equipment, and the planet itself are destroyed.

The other installations though also offer tactical choices:

  • Starport: After results are resolved for a round, the alliance controlling the Starport may move one of its armies anywhere on the map back to its orbital position, leaving a control marker in its place.
  • Comms Tower: After commands are revealed, the alliance controlling the Comms Tower may rearrange any three of its commands among themselves.
  • Generator: (to be determined)

Finally, players may be given the opportunity to directly affect their alliances’ tactical situation as well as the campaign itself by completing covert missions. In each round after the first, all the players in the alliance with fewest accumulated victory points will be given a covert mission, as will half the players in the middle-ranked alliance. Those alliances will be randomly given a mission from a list of possibilities, with all their players working toward the same goal. Every player that achieves their covert mission that round will gain the given boon for their alliance, regardless of the tactical outcome of their battle. Any victory points earned by a covert mission success are in addition to those earned as normal, but apply only to the overall campaign tallies and not the player’s individual score or resolving any associated command. Players should be sure to record at the stated time any secret selections their mission requires them to make.

Two sample covert missions.

Two sample covert missions.

Prepare to Drop!

We have some other ideas and fun stuff lined up for the later sessions, but these are the core basics needed to get our Solypsus 9 campaign off the ground. Again, any comments, suggestions, or questions are more than welcome; please comment below or email us. We also hope you can join us for any or all of the campaign!

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PAGE Apocalypse 2015: The Fall of Kimball Prime

Posted on by tjkopena

kingbreakers-iconThe Kingbreakers’ First Squad burst from their Drop Pod even before it hit the ground, running as one toward their objective. Flamers swept away a pack of zombie cultists without pause. Sergeant Scolirus’ powerfist dispatched an intercepting greater daemon on the fly, preserving momentum. The battle brothers each felt the tingling energy crackle as they breached the overlapping void shields but none had a moment to reflect on it. Their target in sight, Captain Angholan jumped in a single bound to the top of the shield generators, ran across the battlements, and leapt into space, hurling an ancient Vortex Grenade into the smoking maw of the corrupted Warhound directly in front of them. At this range the wildly unpredictable warp attack might prove as deadly to themselves as the traitor Titan itself. But none would ever be able to say they had not given everything for the Emperor that had saved them.

This past weekend the Philadelphia Area Gaming Enthusiasts (PAGE) crew held its roughly annual major Apocalypse match. The event was expanded this year to two days: One of Recon Squad skirmishes and a Cataclysm mini-mega battle, and another day of full-on Apocalypse battle royale. Sixteen players participated, with 24,000 points per side in the finale.

A largely successful push was made by the entire group this year to field painted armies and terrain, and tons of photos are up in the Flickr galleries:

A full report of the campaign follows below.

IMG_9619

We march to war!

The Long War

This was basically the finale of a series of events loosely connected by narrative and players over the past half decade:

Campaign map from the 2010 Combat Patrol League.

Campaign map from the 2010 Combat Patrol League.

For 2015’s climax of this story arc, the Legions of Discord brought The Scythe of Unbound Light to the gates of the Kimball Prime Manufactorum, bulwark of the Forces of Order on the planet and last bastion of the Imperium in this system. Meanwhile the instigator behind this entire campaign was also revealed…

Kimball Prime

The entire weekend was fought over a single board, representing the main gate to the major Manufacturom on Kimball Prime (the venue, my house, being on Kimball St and my painting log being the Kimball Prime Manufactorum Log). Though we’ve previously done well at building good Apocalypse boards, this year a bunch of people built even more terrain so we’d have a single unified look.

The table was just over 6′ by 17′ long, following our usual calculations on sizing multiplayer and mega-battle tables. Apocalypse deployment zones were L-shapes, with the teams taking one short edge and all but 4′ of their respective long edges, creating a 2′ strip of S-shaped no-man’s land. At one end was the parade ground and main gate fortress of the Kimball Prime Manufactorum, built for a display board at this year’s NOVA Team Trios Tournament. The other end was anchored by a series of giant skulls emplaced on Chaos temples, representing The Scythe of Unbound Light. Both were essentially played as Aquila Strongpoints with Macro-cannons, the fortress actually being two strongpoints but one cannon, and The Scythe having two annexes. These were blended into an urban core in the middle, with the ruins progressively more dense toward the center. Between and among all this both sides deployed defensive constructs, with Discord’s Iron Warriors in particular laying down extensive siege works.

The field of battle prepped and ready.

The field of battle prepped and ready.

Recon Squad + Cataclysm

The first part of the campaign used our Recon Squad rules for 200 pt skirmishes. These are very similar to the traditional GW Kill Team variant, but with tighter rules and better adaptations to 7th edition. Around these we used our Twilight on Caldor IV campaign mechanics, in which each player picks a legacy like Bodyguards, Sentinels, Headhunters, or Scouts from eight options, and tries to achieve that legacy through winning several specific scenarios from eight missions like Assassination, Installation, Excavation, or Breakthrough. The main table was divided up with twine into four 4×4 Recon Squad boards, with two more side boards assembled for fighting at the poles and in the swamps of Kimball Prime.

Legacy card for the Sentinels.

Legacy card for the Sentinels.

A pack of Screamers dominated their matches, helping the Legions of Discord to a healthy 116 to 83 victory in the vanguard battles of the imminent Apocalypse. In a key moment, however, a squad of The Fallen were run to ground in a ruined Imperial chapel, yielding the first hints of the greater forces at work behind the scenes.

kingbreakers-iconBrother Teleos stepped carefully among the rubble, futilely trying to avoid crunching in the loose debris. The shadowy figures had clearly retreated into these chapel ruins once the cultists they’d been using as meat shields had been pulped. At the distinctive boom of a bolter firing behind him, instinct spun Teleos around instantly even as another part of his mind registered that it was too late already. It took a moment then to process that he was still functioning, and then another to fully register the robed, power armored figure falling to the ground mere feet away, a long monoblade raised toward him. Framed in the archway beyond stood Ghost Sergeant Harmon. The black clad Kingbreaker gave Teleos the sign for eyes-up before silently stalking on deeper into the chapel.

Fallen and Kingbreakers have a standoff in a ruined Imperial chapel.

Fallen and Kingbreakers have a standoff in a ruined Imperial chapel.

In the next part the Recon Squads gained 300 points of reinforcements and piled into a single Cataclysm battle over half the main board. On the edges of the parade grounds a seesawing conflict was fought between Mechanicum automata and Chaos Cultists joined by summoned daemons. Across the battlefield, an isolated band of Imperial Fists were rolled off the flanks of the temple grounds by daemons and traitor Marines. Coming to reinforce the position, Clan Raukaan troops found themselves ambushed by Night Lords. Despite a steady armored push up the center of the battle, Major Zdarsky’s 59th Armageddon crashed onto the enemy objectives too late to swing the Imperials’ fortunes.

By the end both warmasters were slain but Discord continued its successes, holding the majority of the six primary objectives in scoring rounds after Turns 2, 4, and 6 to earn 20 points to Order’s 14, both having also assassinated several opposing warlords. Squads on both teams squads secured their legacies, with the daemons’ Penetrators claiming an Order objective and the Kingbreakers’ Bodyguards successfully executing a flying block for Major Zdarsky and his armored column.

Lizardmen fight against the Imperium that would scorn them.

Lizardmen fight against the Imperium that would scorn them.

Night Lords stalk the shadowed alleys and ruins.

Night Lords stalk the shadowed alleys and ruins.

The Cataclysm underway.

The Cataclysm underway.

Apocalypse

The next day the conflict at the Manufactorum gates expanded again. Companies of Space Marines, packs of Cultists and Daemons, Mechanicus war engines, and all manner of armies descended on the battlefield.

Setup

Six primary objectives were placed before deployment in a ring around the board:

  • The main gates of the Kimball Prime Manufacturom;
  • The base of The Scythe of Unbound Light;
  • The headquarters of Discord’s siege works;
  • Clerics’ dormitories at an Imperial Shrine;
  • An Imperial Aquila Strongpoint with Vortex Missiles;
  • A newly arisen Necron Citadel.

After all deployment was complete, each player additionally placed a secondary objective anywhere 12″ from table edges and other objectives.

apoc-board

Scoring was held after turns 2, 4, and 5 (game end). Primary objectives could only be scored by troops in the mid-game rounds. All troops had Objective Secured regardless of detachment structure. Primaries were each worth the current turn number. Secondaries were worth one point each. Warlords, superheavies, gargantuan creatures, and mighty bulwarks were additionally worth a point each, with an additional point for slaying the designated warmaster (chief warlord).

Having handily won the preceding day, Discord took the prerogative of choosing to deploy and play first or second and chose second. They also got a free Macro-Cannon on The Scythe for their successes throughout the campaigns. Each team took up to 30 minutes to deploy, with Seize the Initiative unavailable. Modified Apocalyptic Reserves were applied, with a schedule of earliest arrival based on maximum unit movement speed. Each turn the commander for each team could designate one unit to make an All Out Attack, advancing at triple its movement but foregoing shooting/running/moving flat out. Both commanders also selected eight Strategic Asset cards to be given to their warlords in need throughout the match.

The Sentinels of Terra and the 59th Armageddon await the onslaught.

The Sentinels of Terra and the 59th Armageddon await the onslaught.

Battle

The Forces of Order had a nearly decisive first turn, inflicting major losses. The Kingbreakers’ Librarius of Rorschach make a suicidal Drop Pod strike into the heart of the enemy deployment zone. Binding their psychic potential together, they cast a massive Warp Vortex directly on top of a corrupted Hellhammer, blasting it immediately into the Immaterium. Though the entirety of the Librarius gave their lives for the action, their angry spirits lived on in the vortex they’d spawned, sucking a number of Greater Daemons back into the Warp throughout the battle.

Nearby, punishing bombardment from the 59th Armageddon and a contingent of the Sentinels of Terra on the parapets of the main gate fortress obliterated a Void Shield Generator and a corrupted Baneblade on the leading edge of the Discord siege works. Covered by the withering hail of fire, the Knight Errant Greenheart simultaneously charged across the battlefield and plowed through the zombie cultists futilely blocking its way, stomping through their lines and crushing the other Void Shield Generator guarding the Discord siege headquarters.

At the far end of the battlefield, Clan Raukaan Centurions and Sternguard made a mass drop on the Necron Citadel and astoundingly earned a critical first turn kill of the emerging Transcendant C’Tan before it could wreak havoc.

A Great Unclean One exchanges mighty blows with a Terminator Sergeant.

A Great Unclean One exchanges mighty blows with a Terminator Sergeant.

Reeling from these blows, the Legions of Discord worked grimly to pull their battle plan back together. Four greater Daemons bound together in a Tetragon of Darkness shrouded the Chaos troops in protective wards from the enemies now running amok among their lines, while the nanites and scarabs of the Necron Citadel did the same for the automatons. A massive blind barrage shielded the advance of hordes of Lizardmen, Night Lords, and other traitors in the shadows of a many-legged Greater Brass Scorpion toward the Mechanicum’s Aquila Strongpoint. One of Ahriman’s Covens sacrificed itself en masse ahead of the group to spawn a bevy of warp rift vortexes that would plague the soldiers of Mars for the entire battle. Responding in kind, a Dark Angels Librarius began tearing at reality ahead of the oncoming army. Together the two bands of psykers turned that entire quadrant of the battlefield into a crazed, unpredictable nightmare where instant death might come at any moment, no matter how brave the warrior or thick the armor.

A Dark Angels Librarius recklessly tears rifts in reality all about the incoming Chaos Marines from their Aquila Strongpoint.

A Dark Angels Librarius recklessly tears rifts in reality all about the incoming Chaos Marines from their Aquila Strongpoint.

A band of Chaos Marines marches toward the Mechanicum's Strongpoint.

A band of Chaos Marines marches toward the Mechanicum’s Strongpoint.

With little left in reserve following the punishing first round strike, the Forces of Order were stretched thin to cope with seemingly endless Discord reinforcements and slowly the momentum shifted.

Deep in the Discord lines, isolated bands of Kingbreakers, Dark Angels, and Raukaan fought brave tactical battles to claim important ground, but were repeatedly swept away by outnumbering opponents: Once the Siege HQ was threatened by Order forces, Land Raiders full of Chaos troops appeared to fight them back. With the Necron Citadel about to be overrun by combined arms, a large band of Cultists arrived to hold it until the Maynarkh could regroup. Again and again the story repeated, snatching victory from the loyalists.

On the Imperial side, wave after wave of Necron flyers harrassed the Mechanicum position. Though many Tech Thralls and reinforcing Raukaan gave their lives to shore up the Strongpoint and the Greater Brass Scorpion was eventually brought down, the redoubt was inevitably overcome in a flood of Chaos Marines.

Deathwing drag down a daemon spawned on the parapets of the main gate fortress.

Deathwing drag down a daemon spawned on the parapets of the main gate fortress.

Most devastatingly, late in the battle several small squads of Chaos space marines outflanked onto the Imperials’ position around the shrine dormitories. Having already repelled a large attack of Soulgrinders, lesser daemons, and zombies, the position had been thought secure. Heavy shelling from the 59th Armageddon combined with sustained fire and assaults from the Kingbreakers and allies eventually cleared the position, but the damage had been done. Stretched thin across the multiple objectives in the area, there wasn’t enough time for Order forces to shore up the position before a final, desperate, high speed strafing run of an entire squadron of Necron Doom Scythes managed to wipe the defenders off the primary objective in the closing moments of the battle.

Inquisitor Hersch and Kingbreakers Tacticals investigate noises in the alleys around the shrine dormitory.

Inquisitor Hersch and Kingbreakers Tacticals investigate noises in the alleys around the shrine dormitory.

Maynarkh Doom Scythes make a high speed formation strafing run through the occupied city ruins.

Maynarkh Doom Scythes make a high speed formation strafing run through the occupied city ruins.

Midway through the battle, however, the last of Discord’s primary siege works had been finally cracked open. Exposed therein was the treacherous mastermind of the entire campaign: No less than Cypher himself! His position was immediately obliterated beyond all recognition by the Sentinels of Terra and the 59th Armageddon. Presumably nothing could have survived the severe overkill, but the Fallen’s fate is unconfirmed: Deathwing rushing to the site were intercepted en route and unable to gather evidence either way.

apoc-movement

Outcome

The Imperial bulwarks on Kimball Prime are lost before the might of The Scythe of Unbound Light and the Manufacturom lost to Chaos, but the instigator of this campaign throwing the sector into disarray is revealed!

Both teams claimed 5 superheavy/gargantuan/bulwark and 3 warlord kills, though Order also dispatched the Discord warmaster—Cypher cowardly hiding in a bunker! After Turn 2 Order had a small lead (19 to 15), but Discord gained a slight advantage by Turn 4 (40 to 37), and then Order’s long edge collapsed in Turn 5, yielding a final total score of 65 to 51 in favor of the traitors, heretics, and xenos.

A solitary sniper eyes up the battlefield.

A solitary sniper eyes up the battlefield.

Analysis

A few points on the game play itself as well as the design of the match.

Game End

With 120 points up for grabs, the 65-51 Apocalypse outcome certainly wasn’t a blow out. With another turn before scoring the end several of the objectives would have been closely fought, potentially dramatically changing the outcome. The Kingbreakers in particular were setup for 6 turns, and didn’t have time to move back onto the Dormitory objective when the game ended early. By that point though most of the (merely mortal) warlords were ready to pack it in after a long, brutal campaign. We did a reasonable job of keeping things to our schedule, but this was a packed weekend of two long days of gaming. Regardless, in the future we’ll probably score every turn and commanders will have to be prepared for the game to end early in the event that the group starts to flag.

The Mechanicum's Strongpoint is overwhelmed in a combined tide of living and corrupted metal.

The Mechanicum’s Strongpoint is overwhelmed in a combined tide of living and corrupted metal.

Balance

Our group consciously works to make our Apocalypse battles more than just Titans point & clicking at each other from across the table. In this match basic troops, heroic warriors, and giant war machines all felt equally important and critical. To a very large extent the game came down to a couple combat squads of Tacticals slugging it out with some Chaos Marine stragglers over a primary objective in the last turn. Among the factors contributing to this are:

  • Major units, defined as anything with more than 9 hull points/wounds, are “negotiated” between the teams. For this match we agreed not to allow Reavers, though we have in the past, mostly because one in the group isn’t painted and very very few of our players are familiar enough to use them effectively. Otherwise everything was allowed and this rule basically just prevents surprises, and enables some shifting around of excess Baneblade-chassis to roughly balance the superheavies across the two teams.
  • Tons of line of sight blocking terrain as well as barricades, rubble, and other smaller terrain providing places for the little guys to hang out. In addition to the board pieces placed pre-game, we ignore the official Apoc rules and leave ruined vehicles in place (as destroyable wreckage) as well as amending the 7th edition core to still replace exploded vehicles with craters, so that infantry have places to hide, particularly after spilling out of a transport.
  • Permitting only Troops to hold the primary objectives in the mid-game scoring obviously makes them critical. Giving all Troops the Objective Secured rule regardless of detachment is also a nice and very relevant buff. A good number of points came down to having Elites vs Troops on the secondary objectives.
A full handful of plasmacannon Sentinels lurched about in Order's backfield waiting for deep striking traitor Terminators to squish.

A full handful of plasmacannon Sentinels lurched about in Order’s backfield waiting for deep striking traitor Terminators to squish.

Deployment Zones

The funky deployment zones used here definitely made things interesting. It’s certainly not uncommon in Apocalypse for a section of the board to get blown away early. This setup though makes the long ends of the L-shapes “obvious” focal points for massive bombardments and attack because they’re exposed on two sides.

Despite Discord’s significant siege works, most of their forces on that point were obliterated early on. Probably Order’s Sentinels and 59th Armageddon should have advanced en masse to roll down that flank a bit after it was opened up, but they were harassed enough by deep striking Oblits and Daemons to stay put. In turn, that gave space for the large number of reserves Discord had held back to roll on and just barely mantain that point.

On the opposite end, Discord didn’t manage to knockout Order’s Strongpoint at that leading edge for quite some time, but the writing was on the wall with an inexorable wave of enemies working toward it from multiple angles. Order placed a ridiculous amount of forces around the main gate objective for mostly psychological reasons, as well as not wanting to split up commanders’ forces, but we should have allocated some of them down at the opposite end.

So, both sides expected the brunt of the fighting to be at those points, but neither adequately realized how true that would be. Encouraging that kind of analysis is a good thing, so I think this deployment setup worked well without being more punishing on any particular player than Apocalypse can be anyway.

Grenadiers oversee the battlefield.

Grenadiers oversee the battlefield.

Strategy

To that end, this match was actually really strategic. Though definitely not a perfect game, 40k done well is by no means a beer and pretzels affair. That’s surprisingly also true of Apocalypse. With enough attention to terrain, scenario, schedules, and balanced teams, there’s a ton of strategy to be had.

For the most part, Apocalypse doesn’t have the same tactical game that standard 40k does. There’s just too much going on, and not enough time to micro-optimize play or avoid all mistakes. I almost certainly removed my warlord on a failed save he didn’t actually fail but was too harried to catch that the power weapon attacking him didn’t defeat his artificier armor. At the same time, I know his unit lived through a turn when they could have gotten crushed because an opposing player was moving too fast trying to get in all of his actions, and accidentally blocked the Discord Warhound from going after them. It was actually jarring going from Recon Squad, which is very tactical, to this monstrosity. My skirmish Saturday against Colin’s Fallen was extremely chess-like and tight (and awesome!), whereas Sunday’s chaos was all about the broad strokes, having a well designed list and making the appropriate large scale moves that sailed well above all the really fine grained stuff.

A Typhoon heads out on patrol.

A Typhoon heads out on patrol.

To a large extent, 40k is a game of resource management and area control rather than micro-maneuvering, and in my eyes is a better game for it. Apocalypse done right takes that to a different level even as it swings on pivotal dice rolls just like any other match. Discord won this game because they kept a large number of units in reserve and combined them well with strategic asset cards to bring them on in the most effective places at just the right times. Ultimately it came down to just a couple Chaos Marines posing a significant threat, combined with a few flyers in position to sweep away the counter-response.

Though the gambit looked very promising at the start, Order didn’t have enough oomph left after its initial alpha strike even though it was largely successful. Compounding that, we didn’t wipe out enough of the opposing defenders in the mid-game to prevent Discord from sneaking small groups of reserves into critical positions. Most importantly though, the alpha strike and serious buildup around the main gates left all our troops committed in the wrong places going into the end game, and we just weren’t as able to adapt as the opposing army bringing in new troops all around the board.

In sum: Two very different strategies, both almost worked out, one wound up with a solid win through intentful strategic play and a lot of pre-game thought. That’s exactly how it should work. And along the way there were ridiculous piles of armies and huge models being pushed all around the table…

The Apocalypse somewhere in the early turns.

The Apocalypse somewhere in the early turns.

Closing

It took a lot of advance work and was a looong weekend, but this was a stellar event encompassing a huge swathe of 40k gaming: Skirmishing, Apocalypse, campaigns, narrative, frantic late night painting, the whole shebang.

Again, lots of photos are up in the Flickr galleries:

g6587We’ll also be posting the PDFs driving all of this, and are also considering hosting a larger event around the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) area sometime in the future. If you are interested in either of those, please sign up for our very low-volume, announcements-only mailing list!

Next up is our regular tournament/event at Redcap’s Corner on Saturday, January 24th. Details will be posted to the store’s 40k mailing list and the PAGE Forums shortly, but armies are 1850 points and entry $10. Be there or be forever a traitor enslaved to laughing gods!

kingbreakers-iconCaptain Angholan subtly motioned for his men to wait as he stepped forward onto the dais. In the complete silence he could hear the soft boom and crunch of the colossal battle going on outside the courtyard. Here though the air was completely still and stale, dead. Ahead stood the motionless monarch, flanked by row after row of his automatons. Eyes locked on his opponent, Angholan swept his softly flaming Vorpal Blade languidly across the arc of the room, then pointed it straight at the Nemesor. Deep in its hollowed eye sockets he thought he could see a slight upbeat in the small lights set there. Then, wordlessly and as one, the ranks of automatons slowly moved forward, enclosing their leader safely behind. The licks of flames at the edge of Angholan’s blade burst to life as First Squad stepped up to join him. It could go down that way too.

The Kingbreakers' Captain Angholan and Squad Scolirus fight their way onto the Necron Citadel to challenge Nemesor Zahndrekh personally.

The Kingbreakers’ Captain Angholan and Squad Scolirus fight their way onto the Necron Citadel to challenge Nemesor Zahndrekh personally.

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The Cataclysm on Caldor IV

Posted on by tjkopena

With the idiot Magos Ferdinand safely locked away in temporary quarters where he couldn’t affect any important decisions, Adept Kain signaled the fleet that only expendable resources remained below. Immediately the giant cruisers could be seen through the viewscreen moving into position to begin bombarding the planet in extremis. Let Chaos take the world, for all it would be worth broken in half! But then, from behind the second moon and hurling by directly under the Imperial ships, a bevy of dark, rounded ships became silhouetted in Caldor IV’s reflected light. For a momentum Kain was terrified—Tyranid! But then he realized the bioships had not stopped to engage in battle, instead moving directly to perilously low orbits and were launching spore pods at the besieged planet, streaming down even alongside the torpedoes and plasma of the Imperial barrage.  Even better, he thought…

On Saturday PAGE wrapped up our November and December tournament/campaign series at Redcap’s Corner with The Cataclysm on Caldor IV. The day consisted of two parts: Four rounds of Recon Squad followed by a Cataclysm game. Our Recon Squad format is a 200 pt Kill Team-style skirmish variant in which each model acts independently. Cataclysm is our framework for multiplayer, Apocalypse style games, in this case a mini-Apocalypse with 500 pt armies.

We had eight players, organized into two alliances: The Legions of Discord, and the Spoilers. The Spoilers handily won the first act of Recon Squad games. Discord redeemed itself with a strong victory in the Cataclysm. Individual awards went to:

  • Overall Winner—Spoilers: Justin M, Tyranids (75/100 points)
  • Overall Winner—Discord: Colin K, Chaos Daemons (72/100 points)
  • The Artist: Jason W, Imperial Fists (10 votes)

Full details, including the mission pack, campaign mechanics, and other rules are up on the event webpage. Full results with breakdowns are in the final spreadsheet. More photos are up in the Flickr gallery.

The Spoilers arrive.

The Spoilers arrive.

Background

As developed in last month’s campaign, Caldor IV is a former Knight world ravaged by infighting and strife eons ago. Several decades ago the Mechanicum began resettling the planet as cover for an expedition searching for The Scythe of Unbound Light, a long lost relic weapon. All manner of xenos, heretics, and traitors eventually learned of the true motivation for this effort and recently descended on the planet. In the outcome of last month’s campaign, the Forces of Order located and evacuated Magos Ferdinand, head of the Mechanicum expedition. The Legions of Discord located The Scythe but did not manage to retrieve it.

Still convinced The Scythe is a myth and unwilling to continue wasting resources defending the planet, Order has abandoned Caldor IV and declared it Exterminatus. With the relic actually located though, the uneasy Discord alliance has fractured in a bitter struggle to secure it before the end. Working quietly amidst the planet-wide conflict, one band of Chaos Daemons has pinpointed the remaining pieces of The Scythe on Apollon, the primary continent. Broken into several major pieces long ago, a shanty town has grown up around the mostly buried wreckage, no one aware of what lies just below. With the larger Discord alliance fallen apart, the Daemons have tricked and co-opted several groups of stragglers from the departing Imperial forces to help them strike for the ensorcelled relic and secure the components before it’s truly destroyed with the planet.

However, several more factions new to the battle have also arrived in force to capitalize on the disarray and gorge on bloodshed while disrupting their hated foes’ efforts. Most menacingly, a large group of Tyranids and Orks working together, possibly awful mutant hybrid products of the Octarius War, have come to stop them.

Orks ride into combat, going head-to-maw with the Daemons.

Orks ride into combat, going head-to-maw with the Daemons.

Mechanics

Starting the day, each player chose a legacy for their Recon Squad from eight options: Bodyguards, Excavators, Headhunters, Killers, Penetrators, Scouts, Sentinels, and Warriors. Legacies represent their squad’s path through the final fighting on Caldor IV, defined by three specific missions and roles they’re trying to fulfill from eight thematic scenarios in the Recon Squad rounds: Ambush, Assassination, Battlefield, Breakthrough, Encirclement, Excavation, Installation, and Skirmish. In the Cataclysm they then also received a personal objective based on their legacy. Achieving two of their three missions also granted a bonus in the Cataclysm. For example, the Sentinels were attempting to defend against a Breakthrough, survive an Encirclement, and protect an Installation. In the Cataclysm they were striving to have their units in place on each of their home objectives. The bonus for achieving two of their missions was bolstering a piece of terrain or fortification, and their non-vehicles and walkers gaining Stubborn.

Legacy card for the Sentinels.

Legacy card for the Sentinels.

In the Cataclysm, all the players came together for a joint mini-mega-battle. The battle was fought over six cumulatively scored objectives, two in each deployment zone and two more in no-man’s land. On top of this, each player was trying to achieve their legacy goal. With four players a side and 500 points each it wasn’t actually a particularly big game, but with everybody on one table it was suitably chaotic and bloody. Whole units were wiped out at a blow, armies lost ground as quickly as it had been claimed, and giant monsters did battle with brave warriors.

All of this was contested among heavier terrain than usual. Recon Squad games were on 4×4 boards. Several were Infinity setups that the store uses regularly. Others used a great deal of Warhammer Fantasy and 40k terrain. For the Cataclysm we simply took two of the similarly themed shanty town boards people had been fighting over all day and put them together for a heavily terrained 4×8 board.

Kingbreakers fight Genestealers and Broodlords among the corridors and laboratories of a now-abandoned research facility.

Kingbreakers fight Genestealers and Broodlords among the corridors and laboratories of a now-abandoned research facility.

Outcome

The Spoilers effectively disrupted Discord’s forces throughout the end of the battle, with their Recon Squads winning the first rounds  90 points to 71. Discord however repelled the attack in the Cataclysm, holding the majority of the objectives for a 20 to 15 victory. With a slight lead remaining at the end of the day, the Spoilers thus achieved their goal of general slaughter and carnage to disrupt the other armies, while Discord managed to persevere through that affliction and ultimately retrieve The Scythe before the Imperium cracked the planet into pieces.

Among the squad legacies:

  • Though tragically working for the dark side, a squad of the Sentinels of Terra lived up to their name, successfully defending an important communications facility, living through an encirclement, and successfully organizing the defenses around the Discord home objectives.
  • A small force of Imperial Guard fought desperate battles throughout the day against Tyranid monsters towering above them, but eventually had their due when they assassinated their foes’ Brood Lord warlord in the Cataclysm.
  • Horribly lead astray in the fog of war and Chaos trickery, Kingbreakers and Raukaan wound up at each other’s throats, with heroic but misguided sergeants oathing crusades against their own battle brothers and plunging forward in their transports toward mutual annihilation in the closing moments.
  • Despite the loss of their Brood Lord, the Tyranids managed to swarm the Imperial Fists leading the Discord defense and eat their Sergeant whole, consuming his biomass and assimilating his traits.

Over the course of the whole Caldor IV campaign then, each faction (Order, Spoilers, Discord) won one of the three acts. Order secured the Magos Ferdinand in The Debacle, the Spoilers had their fill of hand-to-hand combat and biomass consumption in The Twilight, and Discord retrieved The Scythe of Unbound Light in The Cataclysm. With that the story of Caldor IV and the planet itself ends, but there’s little doubt these elements will appear again.

Again, there are lots more photos are in the Flickr gallery!

Sentinels of Terra defend a research facility... at the orders of a pack of Daemons...

Sentinels of Terra defend a research facility… at the orders of a pack of Daemons…

Next Up

Our next Redcap’s event is set for January 24th. It will almost certainly be more conventional, 1500 or 1850 points with new missions but using the same basic mission format (primary/secondary/tertiary objectives, superheavy debuffs, etc.) we rolled out last month. In the Interim we’ll be tweaking the Caldor IV missions and campaign and then putting out a PDF for other groups to make use of. Come join us next time, it’s quite different from standard 40k and tournaments, and does a good job of combining tournament play with a narrative campaign!

The Cataclysm!

The Cataclysm!