"Big 40K Game!" Topic

A local game store is planning for a monster 40K game they are dubbing 'Armageddon'. There will be a really big table and each player can bring 3000 point armies and it will all be one big game lasting the whole day. Sounds cool but I've never played a game like that before, but I've heard about them being done by others. Do they still use the standard 40K rules or are there special rules for using mass armies like this?

Ask at the local game store?

It's likely standard rules since the current 8th Edition hasn't been adapted for Apocalypse (40K big battles) yet.

Make sure you bring your most powerful stuff because other people will… :)

3000 points will take nearly my entire Space Marine army, so I'll have to make do. The biggest thing I have is a Rogue Trader era land Raider.

So there was some special set of rules for big battles in the past? I vaguely remembered something like that. I will have to make some enquiries at the game store.

The Chapter Approved book has rules for Armageddon in 8th edition. I haven't read them yet. Hang in there against the superheavies, just try to get some damage on them. Their effectiveness degrades as they take damage. Also, if others on your team bring superheavies, the opponents' superheavies will most likely be targeting them.

From the ones I've seen I probably would have no interest in playing.

Cram as much stuff as you can in a 12" space going down a long table with superheavy tanks and aircraft and titans everywhere and then, with no room to maneuver, push across the table shooting. Sides sort of picked at random with no (or little) thought put into who is where

If it were done in a themed way, with fully painted models, it probably still wouldn't be that interesting. Just not why I play the game.

If they did a specific scenario, like Istvaan V, then it might be. With the right table set up and the appropriate armies.

We do the big games on a quarterly basis.

We put one member of our club in charge of creating the scenario for each big battle we do. We have usually done Imperial vs Chaos but have also done Imperial vs Eldar. We typically use 2500-3000 points per player, with 6-8 players (we don't have the entire club in 1 game). We only use painted models. We generally play for about 10 hours and try to keep people focused on completing their moves rapidly.

This works better than randomly putting a bunch of stuff down for the sake of it.

Big game! I have an about 7000 points Guards army – have only done one mega-game where you could bring 3000 points; I have a Baneblade and a Shadowsword that chewed up a lot of points but also chewed up a lot of the other side's tanks! Good fun

Centurio, that sounds like what this game will be like. I'm just going to concentrate on having fun. Although I do have this vision of swarms of my infantry climbing all over a titan and bringing it down. At least with the 8th edition rule anything can hurt anything else if you get the right die rolls. :)

I was going to mention the Chapter Approved section also, but… There are 3 scenarios and no additional "rules" like the previous versions of Apocalypse. I'm sure there will be an actual book later… :)

I do like the Planetstrike and Stronghold Assault sections a lot!