Catch a Tiger by the Tau—Post Game
Now that the brutality has ended, let's have a post-game cordial and chat like gentlemen, shall we?

Post-Game Analysis by Kenton Kilgore
For my first Apocalypse game, using an army list I took just for poops and grins, I think I did okay, despite the many mistakes I made. Having spent a great deal of time analyzing the game for the Apocalypse Wow! series, I thought I had a solid handle on how to play this battle. I was wrong. 

My first big mistake was that I completely underestimated the Warhound and wasted Marines and firepower trying to knock it out. On paper, it looked vulnerable. In reality, I never came close to hurting it. I should have ignored it (no easy feat, when it can kill two entire squads a turn without breaking a sweat) and gone after softer targets sooner. 

Even worse than underestimating the Warhound was that, at the outset, I failed to grasp the time constraints I was under. Oh, sure, I knew the game would end after five hours, but I didn’t realize how little time I actually had. I was used to regular 40K games, where you can spend a turn or two maneuvering. In Apocalypse, you don’t have that luxury: every move has to significant, every Shooting Phase and Assault Phase must inflict lots of damage. You don’t have any time to waste. 

Too many of my units did nothing. Librarian Chandramatie Bahl, Chaplain Daksha Ram, and Captain Patel and his Command Squad never got in the fight. The Black Ops took a few pot shots with their meltagun, but either whiffed or were out of range. Three of my Tactical Squads made sure that I held at least one objective, in Pat’s deployment zone, but the other three were way out of position. Mostly, my Tactical Marines sucked down Tau and Guard fire. 

My Devastator Squads did squat. I didn’t properly deploy the ones with missile launchers, and the only thing they ever had line of sight on was the Titan, which they didn’t hurt. Because almost all the fighting was at the other end of the table, the ones with heavy bolters didn’t do much besides sit on an objective—until the Warhound blasted them right off it. The Suppression Force was fun but not very effective, as the only infantry I had line of sight to was the Pathfinders. Big deal.

As I mentioned, I wasted an entire squad of Assault Marines trying to take down the Titan. I quickly learned from my mistake and sent the other squad after something that couldn’t fight back: the Baneblade. While I didn’t kill it, I knocked out most of its guns, including the Baneblade cannon, and severely limited the amount of hurt it could put on my guys.

My MVPs (Most Valuable Players) for the game are the Attack Bikes and Tornadoes. Without them, I would have been spooged. When Pat moved his tanks forward, I saw all that rear armor exposed and knew that with volume of fire, heavy bolters and assault cannons would do a lot of damage. My Shooting Phase in Turn 2 was just ugly for Pat, and it could have been worse if I hadn’t sent four Tornadoes on a fool’s errand to take down the Warhound. Even from behind, even without benefit of its void shields (my Tornadoes were within 12"), the Titan was NOT dropping. 

Over to Pat…. 

Post-Game Analysis by Patrick Eibel 
I started planning for this game about four months beforehand. Initially, my list was very different – I took out all the Tau and Guard I had at the time and wrote a list to reflect that. What I had was a very infantry-heavy list with few vehicles. While it might have been interesting to see how it fared, it certainly did not support the story line we had created. I got a chance to play in a previous Apocalypse game and knew that devastating firepower was essential to success. I knew what my army had to look like, I just had to go about getting the models I needed to field it.  In all, I purchased six Devilfish, two Hammerheads (I already had one), a Demolisher, and a Baneblade, and I converted a Titan for this battle. A lot of work, but I think it went to good effect.

Just like Kenton, I made several mistakes during the course of the game that almost certainly kept me from winning. The first was not changing my Strategic Asset. I had wanted to use Flank March to do to Kenton what he ended up doing to me – drop in on his side. Once I knew that was his plan, I should have taken either Vital Objective or Disruptor Beacon (that would have frosted his cereal). 

Even worse, I knew he had reserves that would come in on my side Turn 2, and yet I still moved forward, exposing the rear armor of my tanks. I was so mad at myself when I lost all those tanks in Turn 2 that I almost went straight to the “Throw-in-the-Towel” Phase. Fortunately, when you have a Warhound Titan on your side, you can compensate for a couple of mistakes. 

The other mistake I made? Not using the Strategic Redeployment of my Rapid Deployment Force to claim an objective. I basically lost track of time and didn’t realize that it had run out.

In the end, I guess a tie is a fitting result. No one has to feel too bad about blowing the game, and man, it was a lot of fun to play. If you ever get the chance to put up 5,000 points (or more) of an army, you will find that it’s just pretty damn cool. I am sure this will not be the last time Apocalypse is featured at the Jungle, but next time, the armies will change (now where did I put that Ork Codex?).
 

Posted March 2008
 

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