Not much gaming the last year, for the obvious reasons….. However, I do have a small group of friends that have been pretty much locked down for a year, so they will brave the occasional small get together. So the time came for me to clean up my basement and turn on the UV lights! Two of us decided to try to get together for a game of Epic Apocalypse and a couple more friends opted to jump in. So, we were off!
As it had been six months since the last time we tried the rules, I decided that we would do our army building when we got together. That way, we could help each other through it and learn along the way. That probably ended up being a mistake, as this took us a very long time (lots of joking along the way did not help!). Anyway, it was all good fun. Since it had been awhile, I picked the entry 300 points per side as the army side. One of my buddies brought his Dark Angels army and the other his Imperial Guard army. I decided we would use their armies, so they could get them on the table (It did not hurt that it was one less thing for me to have to pull out of coarse…).
The marines ended up taking a mixed force with various detachments. The detachments included one mech infantry, one mixed tank, a dreadnought group, a mixed bike, a deep strike jump pack and terminator group and a whirlwind battery.
The imperials went with two infantry groups, an Ogrin group, a large mixed artillery group, a Leman Russ company and two heavy tanks.
I set up the table using a Cigar Box Battle terrain mat, so our gaming board was about five by seven foot. I added a few hills underneath and then put some scatter terrain around. This included some woods, crater sections and various small building complexes.
We rolled up a scenario using the generic terrain generator in the rules. We ended up with a end to end game that had three objectives. We left out the ruses and random events, as the scenario was already balanced with each side having one objective and the last was in the center. Sides were choses and we started with setting up. The marines deployed forward with all their units (except their artillery) and kept their deep strike in reserve. The Imperials decided to deploy in depth, not wanting to give the deep strike marines an early stolen victory.
Turn one was rather straight forward, with both sides moving cautiously into the center, trying to hold off activating units until the other side had moved. This ended up working better for the imperials, do to their drop advantage. Both sides started their shooting and piled on some blast markers. The imperials got the better of the turn one exchange, but the marine armor came through, so the casualties were limited. The marines did have an objective security unit within six inches of the center objective, so took that one to start with a two to one advantage.
Turn two kicked off with the marines dropping their deep strike to attach the imperials artillery park and threaten their rear objective. There was much discussion, but they made the right choice! Both sides closed with their center forces, with the fire quite lively, with most units in fire range. The blast markers were piling up quick! The assault into the woods disputed some of the artillery firing (as they had to fall back) and got the marines and the Ogrins stuck in for the long hall. Once again, the imperials pilled the blast markers on the marines, but the marines armor saves came through. Once the roll offs ended, the marines armor advantage really showed, as they cleared off most of their markers and only lost a handful of bikes and transports. The tank detachment was rather reduced also. However, the imperials really took it on the chin. One infantry company was almost wiped out, along with almost all the Lemun Russ company. The Baneblade was also a smoking hulk. With their objective security, the marines took another two to one advantage on objectives!
With the bulk of their combat units destroyed or bogged down, it was clear the imperials would not be able to overcome the marines objective point advantage (four to two), so the imperials called it and let the field to the marines.
We had a chat after the game to talk about the rules and some lessons learned in army building. It is clear that the objective security rule is very important in the game. The only formation that can get the rule are infantry companies. As such, it is imperative that you base your builds on these formations. You also need to be careful not to overdue the support weapons (artillery and air), as these units are expensive can make your attack forces too weak. You also have to balance the size of your detachments versus the number of detachments. If your detachments are too big, you have a huge disadvantage in activations. However, if you have really small detachments, they do not do enough damage and can be wiped out too easily. In the end, it is all about balance!
- Manteuffel