Thursday, May 17, 2012

Conclave Concerns

Posted by Ranillon on 18. February 2009 21:50

I really like Apocalypse.  I like the concept, I like playing with super-heavies and titans, and I just like the idea of seeing a large table covered with models.  However, given its scale there are going to be potential problems.  Heck, you can have an argument over a regular 40K game.  Something many times that size is bound have troubles.  Since 40kOrigins is running an Apocalypse game at Origins -- hopefully, the World's Largest Apocalypse Game -- avoiding problems is a prime concern of mine.

Well, here is one obvious and painful problem -- the Chaos Conclave.

At first glance the sheet looks powerful, but still reasonable (at least for Apocalypse).  However, a closer examination (especially if you are devious) reveals a nuclear bomb of rules cheese.  Every special character taken as part of the conclave counts as a Distruptor Beacon.  For those that don't know a Beacon causes any enemy reserves that enter within 48" to have a 50% chance of ending up wherever the Beacon owner wants them to enter the board.  That means, for instance, that instead of jumping into the shorts of the enemy general your expensive group of maxed-out assault terminators has a 50/50 chance of ending up across the board in some remote corner far away from anything of value. 

That's pretty darn powerful, yet still (barely) reasonable if there is only one Beacon.  But, here's the kicker -- the Chaos Conclave comes with as many as eight.  Worse, although the fluff (weakly) implies that the conclave is meant to operate as a single group the actual rules state no such restriction.  Therefore, for the devious minded you could split up all eight, start them spread out across the board, and effectively negate your enemy's ability to Deep Strike, Flank March, or some other entrance from reserves over the entire board!

That's huge.  Gigantic.  Monstrous.  And, not just because of your normal come-in-from-reserves troops, but also because many Apocalypse data sheets bestow special abilities that do the same thing.  Thus, when interpreted liberally the Chaos Conclave also negates many possible enemy formations.

Here is a rule I use when figuring out whether a particular squad or formation is "cheesy" -- would you be insane not to take it?  By that standard the Chaos Conclave is clearly broken.  Badly so, in fact.  Therefore, my instinct is to ban the formation from the Origins Apocalypse game.

However, maybe I am missing something that makes this more reasonable than it seems.  Anyone got a good counter argument to this?

Comments: 9

Filed Under: Editorials

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Comments (9) -

  • sovietspace

    sovietspace said,

    No, your not missing a thing. A good mate of mine took this in a relatively small Apoc. game where I believe he had 6 beacon characters.

    Now the game wasn't going that great for me from the start, but I was fine with that as long as I could try my hardest to come up with a suitable counter-attack.

    Thats when the beacons where sprung upon me.

    I've never had a game in my entire life where I was closer to simply packing up and walking away. And this is playing against good mates remember.

    Everything I tried naturally failed as they had the entire 12x4 board covered. My few plans to bring in reserves in the best places just led to them being scattered piecemeal and slaughter and by the end I was just rolling dice and placing models, then rolling dice and removing them. It wasn't really a game by then.

    Now I consider myself very easy going when it comes to 40k - its a game with toy soldiers after all. I'll let people at a GW bend the rules when it makes the game easier, or give players more than the benefit of the doubt if it avoids a tantrum. Be the Conclave really REALLY hacked me off. It wasn't balanced, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fun, and it sure as hell wasn't in the spirit of Apocalypse. Take my advice, save yourself a world of grief, and ban it.

    ...yeish, I had forgotten how worked up that day got me! I hope you found what I said helpful mate.


  • eriochrome

    eriochrome said,

    A single disruption beacon wrecked my drop pod battle company in the last Apoc game I played.  I would hate to see a game where someone had 8 especially since Apoc pretty much forces you to use reserves with the timed setup rules.

    The way the formation is written it seems like each guy needs to have a bodyguard unit so forcing all the characters in one unit would not make sense.  It would essentially convert the multiple beacons into one really hard to kill one which is somewhat larger than normal since 20 marines plus 8 characters could be strung out pretty long.


  • MegaDave

    MegaDave said,

    Why don't you just house rule it to make them deploy as a squad?  After that they can move freely, but it keeps them packed together to begin with, limiting the effects of the beacon.


  • Ranillon

    Ranillon said,

    Technically speaking even the squads don't need to start together or with any of the characters.  Essentuially, you end up with a "normal" chaos force (e.g. 8 characters and 8 units) that can all go wherever they like seperately and which half count as mobile Disruption Beacons!  That's an amazing advantage for just a single Apoc datasheet.


  • Lordboximus

    Lordboximus said,

    Well here is the number one issue i see with your statement.........Apoc isn't meant to be balanced or fair. They tell you that from the start. Apoc is meant to be players using things that would NEVER be able to or even consider in any other fashion. I have no issue with this as it is an overly expensive formation to take even at the minimum. Of course I'm one of the weird ones apparently who doesn't mind the cheese......gives me the opportunity to find a way around it.


  • Ranillon

    Ranillon said,

    Lordboximus:  I agree that Apoc won't be completely fair just by design and given it's scale.  However, I believe a sincere attempt has to be made to be "fair" nevertheless (while realizing of course that absolute fairness is impossible).  If nothing else people won't play if they think the other side will have such a gigantic advantage as the Conclave over them.  I've read/seen many players basically quit on a possible Apoc game over the presence of the Conclave.  It has a way of sucking the enthusiasm from people.  The other alternative is for both sides to have it, but that just means that no one will be able to Deep Strike, Flank March, and so forth.  That's more balanced, but also less fun.


  • Mexican

    Mexican said,

    Apoc is def about fun even if there is going to be cheesy units out there. So if there is a unit that basically prevents someone from playing the game which it sounds like this does then who wants to spend hours of planning and setting up just to put a unit down and immediately picking it back up.Disruption pods seem okay if they occasionally nullify some units but nullifying half the army is a waste of time.


  • Darksai

    Darksai said,

    Modify Conclave with a house rule. Make it so that for the Disruption to work the player has to roll an additional 6 sided die or something of the sort. I think dumbing it down a bit with house rules would be better than out right banning it.


  • Gamers World

    Gamers World said,

    Why don't you make a house rule called something like strong comms which is and upgrade for anything with deepstrike/infiltraye/etc and it nullifies the effect of beacons for a suitable points cost.


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