Shifting feelings about Apocalypse games

For the first several years of playing 40k I have belittled Apocalypse games. I thought they were a mess, unbalanced (with the addition of super heavies), and denied the players any ability to apply tactics to the game.

I have more recently changed my view. Partly due to a reconsideration of what's fun and partly due to having played in a very well organized game. n.b. this is written and photographed from the DE player's perspective so take with a grain of salt :)

While there were two superheavies on the board, a warhound titan and squiggoth, they didn't drastically alter the game and both were damaged with squiggoth actually being eliminated. Granted better looking models would be nice... However, my partner in the game that fielded the toy robot counts as titan is actually purchasing a titan so that will change.

The strategic assets also added a nice variation to the tactics of the game. On the Chaos/Xenos side the Dark Eldar chose the 36" psychic blocking one which ruined my crafty null zone libby plan for his flicker fields, the Chaos player threw up a wall of smoke in the first turn that allowed the Orks to march up the field in the first turn without being shot at, and the Ork player chose the vital objectives asset which made the pivotal battle at the end so important.

For the imperial players we also chose the vital objectives asset and even designated the same one as the other team. We also chose orbital bombardment which killed off the squad of three ravagers that would of finished off the titan and flank march which forced our opponents to split their forces and let me remove the orks from the vital objective which ended up winning us the game.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier the game was exceedingly well run. Action was fast and furious and play never got bogged down. I'm going to play again next week and will see about grabbing a camera and writing up a proper battle report.