Apocalypse in regular Warhammer 40k games: Home Rules

So apocalypse has now been released and I'm really enjoying it so far. But there is one thing that just bugs me. Gamesworkshop releases all these awesome super heavy vehicles but limits them to only apocalypse. Now i dont know about you but sometimes you just want to use that new shiny toy and not care. And apocalypse games take time and planning (at least the good ones do). So thats kind of a slap in the face personally. To counter this my awesome gaming group all sat down and discussed ways to include super heavies in our normal games. Yes that might be a little crazy but im really happy with what we got. So here is what we decided for our personal playing and maybe whoever reads this will take an idea or two or add a suggestion. So here we go.

1. You may take one sulerheavy vehicle in lieu of taking any allies. For games using double FOC you may still have only 1 super heavy but no allies still

2. A single superheavy vehicle can NEVER be more than 25% of your point value in your force unless...
3. In games of double FOC you may have a superheavy worth up to 35% of your overall points. This is not cumalitive. However ddepending on the actual game amount you can increase this as needed.
4. Destroyer weapons are not allowed.

5. Superheavies are subject to normal damge now like weapon destroyed or immobalizations. Glancing hits reduce 1 hull point. For penetration Hits you roll on the Vehicle Damage table as in the War hammer 40k rulebook. If you roll an Explodes! Remove d3+2 hull points.

6. Superheavies may never be scoring. They also can never claim first blood.

7. You cannot take two of the same weapon system on any Titan.

I think thats mostly it. I may not have gotten all of them but that's the basic idea. So what do you think?

The Transcendent Ctan: This ain't your ordinary shard...

So, if the Tesseract Vault is good and the obelisk is extremely average...what about this guy? Now a lot of people may not have realized it but the Transcendant Ctan is its entirely own seperate unit. And boy this thing is fucking awesome!

The Transcendent Ctan is actually a collection of shards so it is not a full Ctan. Nevertheless this thing is one hell of a beast. Lets look at it in closer detail:

First off you will notice that this thing costs a little over 400 points standard and it is a GARGANTUAN CREATURE. So you get a slew of extra rules like Feel No Pain and more. Now lets look at this statline that made my jaw drop.

WS:6 BS:6 S:9 T:9 W:6 I:5 A:8 LD:10 Sv 3+/4++

That right there isincredible. This thing can easily slug it out with greater Daemons or Tyranid monsters. But thats not the best part.

The Cyan MUST choose 2 from the 6 powers you can get from the Tesseract Vault but the point costs are still the same. However the Ctan also MUST pick 1 of 3 unique powers. The one you SHOULD ALWAYS take is the one I'm only going to be saying now.

Basically in the movement phase, the Cyan can move 18 inches in a straight line. Anything that the Ctan moves over ( friend or foe)takes an immediate DESTROYER hit! But it cannot assault in the turn it does this sadly. Wow that is brutal. Imagine the potential of this unit!
Move 18 inches inflicting D hits than firing your2 other powers. So fly over and get those D hits, then fire a 6d6 Strength 8 ap 3 shots or cast down meteors or use the other Destroyer weapon...there is just so much devastation you can cause with this its ridiculous.

Now a word of caution! Keep this away from anything with Destroyer weapons because the Ctan will get NO SAVES OF ANY KIND.  Also when this thing finally dies everything within 4d6 is going to die most likely so keep ypur precious units away from this!

But the Transcendent Ctan is easily the best unit for the Necrons in this book. However it willcost you over 700 points to do the tactics i mentioned. For any Necron players tht have extra Ctan like the Nightbringer or Deceiver, I see no reason why you can use them as these beasts. Really go nuts. These things are awesome.

Necron Obelisks: Rev up those flyers!

Continuing our in depth look at the Necron in Apocalypse games is the alternate build to the Tesseract  Vault, which is named the Obelisk.

Now i really wanted for this to be something special. Not just an alternate build. But sadly, this thing is plaugued by incredibly stupid rules. Now before you think thats a bold statement let me continue...

The Obelisk will cost you about 20 points more than a standard Vault. But here is where the stupidity starts. Its an av 12 12 12 with only 6 Hullpoints. Yeah. That is pretty bad. This thing is gonna get gunned down quickly in apocalypse. One destroyer shot from anything and this will go down.

The next stupid rule is when you deploy the Obelisk, you can elect to have start in "power down" mode. You cant shoot or move but you do get a 3+ invunerable save. The dumb part is once you want to move or shoot it can NOT return to powered down mode ever again. Yeah, thanks Kelly... totally no bias as an eldar player right?

The good tthings about the Obelisk is its Gravity pluse. In both your shooting and you lr opponents phases every flyer or skimmer takes a Strength 8 hit on side armour. That's great until you realize the 24 inch range. It also has 4 Tesla spheres which are 5 Tesla shots at strength 7 but sadly, to twin linked.

So what could have been an awesome unit is sadly mediocre. This thing should be allowed in normal 40k games because there is nothing ridiculous about it. The part that just ruins it is the armour. Why is it that a Tesseract Vault which is open is Av 14 but the closed Obeliskis only av 12? I really would like to know what went on in either Jervis JJohnson or Phil "Eldar" Kelly's head here.

The Apocalypse is now: The Tesseract Vault Rules and Review

So I finally got my hands on the new apocalypse rulebook and i must say it is a very beautiful book. But thats not why i got it. No, I got this for the new Necron units in there. And for those of you who dont have your copy yet hopefully you find this satisfying. These are most of the Necron Tesseract Vaults rules here.
Now to start the Tesseract Vault is clocking in at 315 points and AV 14 all around. But a couple things that were not mentioned was a Ballistic Skill of 5! It also has a rule where if its destroy suffers a Titanic explosion. So try and keep this somewhat isolated.

Now for the real meat. As i stated in another post you MUST pick 2 of 6 powers. I have already discussed 3 of them previously but here are the other 3

Antimatter Meteor: Drops a huge apocalypse MEGABLAST on something. The range is 48“ and the damage is dealt in that funky style depending on what zone the blast template is on. For times sake ill tell you.

5 inch Center= Strength 10 ap 1

5-10 inch middle- Strength  8 ap 3

Last layer- Strength 6 ap 5

Next power is a Strength 9 AP 2 7 inch apocalypse blast. So nothing fancy, but still effective



The last power is the weakest but cheapest power which is a hellstorm that is causing strength 6 hits at an ap of 2.

So there you go. I personally really like this thing. My only complaint is a lack of a good range D weapon but there's a formation for that...If i had to pic two powers it would have tobe the Antimatter Meteor and seismac assault ( both of which are the mkst expensive powers though) or maybe i would drop the seismac assault for Sky of Falling Stars because who doesnt love meteors being dropped on them?

Necron Tesseract Vault and other Necron apocalypse rules.

First of all these are not mine. These rumors or rules came from a QnA over at Faeit212 which you should check out. Big thanks to I. For answering these questions

Tesseract Vault: Is av 14 all around with 9 hull points. It costs 315 points base (which is cheaper than I thought.) But the cost goes up as you must pick 2 from 6 powers available. The powers he described were:

-A  48in Strength 8 Ap3 Heavy 6d6 attack which is awesome. But apparently is the most expensive power.

-A hell storm template that is a Destroyer weapon with an ap of 1

- Sky of Falling Stars- Which is 48“ Strength 7 Ap 3 primary weapon 6, apocalypse barrage.

Other formations/info

The Obelisk who's job is to ward off flyers does so with a Gravity Pulse that auto hits flyers or skimmers within 24“ with a strength 8 hit on the side armour. That's pretty good.

The Baleful Necropolis which is the one with 9 monoliths + a vault. Monoliths within a certain distance of the vault get IWND and a 6+ Invul. They also give the vault an extra D weapon and increase its range.

Infinite Phalanx: Here is the fun one. First off the formation gives everyone fearless+relentless. However you can opt to take a unit of 100-150. The more warrior you add the better the bonuses:

100 Warriors= Fear

100+ Models= Renaimation protocols are on a 4+

150 Models= Reanimate on a 3+(!)



There you have it. It all looks really good. Hopefully we get more details but this will suffice. If you have any info you can contact me at ciaphis@gmail dot com. There is no dot its just .

A friendly reminder this 4th of July....

This isn't hobby related but I still feel obligated to mention it. If you didn't know I am a registered Doctor in southern California ( I'd love to meet you but let's hope we never do under those circumstances.) Anyways every year 4th of July comes around and that means fireworks. Which means idiots causing horrific injuries to others or themselves. You would not believe how much I've seen in  20+ years in medical. 1st degree burns. Even a few amputations. Face injuries. Its just horrific. So please....DO NOT USE ILLEGAL FIREWORKS and please BE CAREFUL anyways. Its not worth it.

-James

Canoptek Tomb Sentinel- Guardians of the Tomb

On the surface (or below it for that matter) the new Necron Canoptek Tomb Sentinel seems exactly like its cousin the Tomb Stalker. And while to two do remain many similarities there are a few big differences. The tomb sentinel itself is a very tough machine. Toughness 7, 4 Wounds, 3+ save and a Monstrous Creature is very impressive. It also has the War Construct rule which means that poison and fleshbane are only wounding you on 6's. Cry me a river Dark Eldar. 

Now here is where it begins to deviate from a a Tomb stalker. First it is a whopping 10 points cheaper. The next is that it occupies a fast attack slot unlike the sentinel which takes an elite ( really FW?) The fast attack is already a very tight space with wraiths, scarabs and the new Acanthrites. So this is already in some bad light. It also only has just 2 attacks but it is initiative 4!

The biggest difference and the main reason you would take this is because of the exile cannon. The exile cannon is a 12inch( again FW, really?) Small blast. Models that are under the template must take a Strength test or be removed with no saves allowed. Vehicles are automatically penetrated. 

While this seems good it really is not. Unless you know you are going to face Elder or Dark Eldar, then these things just won't be that effective against anything else. The gun is too short of range to really be a threat and since it has to get that close you are going to get shot with plasma or melts long before you are in an ideal position. Though it does have outflank, and Deep strike (lol) so if you don't give a damn and just want to throw caution to the wind go for it. 

In conclusion this is not a very efficient unit. The Necron codex thrives on its unparalleled efficiency from most of its units but this one just doesn't fit. I wouldn't take one in a competitive game but maybe in a casual game.  

Also the model is pretty nice. But it can also easily double as a tomb sentinel if you want. I doubt most opponents would even notice a difference between the two anyways.