1st Look: Imperial Armour Apocalypse – Imperial Forces
Today I got my copy of Imperial Armour Apocalypse and rifling through the first section, the Imperial Forces, a few interesting things got my attention.
1) A Structure points equals 3 Hit Points – OK, we saw this in the Apocalypse rule book. But what it means is those 2 SP vehicles, are only SLIGHTLY better than a Land Raider. A Space Marine Typon or Cerebus, or an Imperial Guard Malcador or Macharius all had two structure points, half way between a Land Raider’s 1 SP and a Super Heavy’s 3 SP. But the new system gives anything with 2 Structure points under the old rules, 6 hit points under the new. Only 50% more than a Land Raider.
However, the good news is a Destroyer weapon can at worst take away 4 HP, unless your opponent rolls a 6 and then good bye!
2) A Spartan Assault Tank only gets 5 HP? Wait a second. It is the same chassis as the Typhon and Cerebus which have 6! UGH. And I own three of these. Well, again, it takes two “D” hits to destroy it, so I can’t complain too much.
3) Crassus Armoured Transports are even more fun now. I own one of these, and it is my favorite unit to run in Apocalypse games, as under the old rules, which made Super Heavies super-slow (they only moved 6″), the Crassus moved 12″. I would run it up and sit it on an objective and watch the enemy get frustrated at my 2 SP AV 14 mobile pillbox. And when I needed to, 35 screaming guardsman would jump out and mess you up (3 squads of vets and an HQ).
Well, now they move 12″ like all Super Heavies PLUS they have Overdrive and so move an extra 6″ in the shooting phase if they choose to move Flat Out. (I need 2 more of these).
4) Gorgons are STILL too expensive. 400 points for a transport? No way. I don’t care how many points you are playing, that is just too much for a transport. 9 HP and AV 14 front and side is nice, but I got better things to spend 400 points on.
5) Imperial Fortress got a lot worse. Well, you have to be rich to actually be able to afford this. But it looks awesome in a game. It went up 100 points, but gained some interesting rules. It is now AV 15. Which of course is MEANINGLESS to a “D” weapon, which destroys a section on a roll of 2+.
And just to mention, ALL fortifications now are basically rubble waiting to happen.
So what does that mean for Fortifications? House rules!
And for that, follow Apocalypse 40K tomorrow as we start a series on all of the House Rules you will be looking to implement.
