Playing Apocolypse for Charity

[SotonShades]

Not to tread on glyndwr1974's toes, but I have an idea I've been cooking up for a while, but have a few basic questions that I need answering. Chief amongst which; How much would you pay to play an Apocolypse game to raise money for charity?

OK, so here is the basic premise. I work in an ancient hotel (over 600 years old) who do an insane amount of charity fundraising. We have a function room and enough tables to make enough space (by the aprroximate guide in the Apoc book) for maybe 60k per side. Potentially more if I can convince a few locals to bring their own tables for the day as well. I've spoken to the deputy general manager (usually over a few beers) about the possibility of running an Apoc game in there. He has no problem with it, being a former 40k fan himself, and would even be willing to drop the cost of room hire, catering, etc by a significant amount as I'm a member of staff. However, being a 4* Hotel, dropping by a significant amount, still leaves a significant amount. Especially as, in all likelyhood, we would be playing over a weekend.

So, a weekend long charity game of 40k Apocolypse? Would an event like that interest you? How much would you be willing to pay? For those of you not aware, I am talking about in the UK, but prices in Dollars are fine. How far would you be willing to travel for an event like this? Would you be interested in staying in the cheaper rooms in the hotel over night (possibly reducing the costs of hiring the room/tables, but obviously increasing your own personnal costs)? Would you want lunch included both days? Again, bare in mind we would be trying to raise money for a good cause, although I'm not sure which one yet. Would the cause we were supporting affect you decision or how much you would be willing to pay?

The general idea would be to have as many people as possible turning up, all with a limit of maybe 5000 points, probably no more than 2 super heavies/gargantuan creatures, and possibly some terrain to help populate the sparse boards. From personnal experience, I know most people struggle to control much more than this in a timely manor, and limiting super heavies and Strength D weapons will massively help to balance the game (or help me balance who is playing on which side!) I think I'd also want people to submit lists in advance of the event (again a balancing issue).

Has anyone ever attended/run an event like this in the past? Any hint, tips, pitfalls would be helpful. In all likelyhood I'm aware I wouldn't be playing, though having plenty of points and superhevies of my own, I possibly would be able to balance up the sides if required. Would anyone have any particularly fun/different Apoc scenario's they've played that could be adapted? I'm not sure I'd want a straight 'stand up and shoot' game. Maybe individual, secret missions for each of the commanders?

Newho, before I start babbling too much, I'll sign off. Let me know what you guys think

Shades

[Denzark]

1. I would potentially travel quite far, as far south as you.

2. How much I would pay to enter would depend on the charity. However, if you are talking 60K points at 5k limit, that is only 12 players per side. Even a £20 entrance fee is only going to make £480 - not a huge amount for charity (but better than a kcik in the head.) I would do this for Help for heroes or a forces charity, but nowt else.

3. If the hotel's generosity is because it will recoup losses on rooms, this may put people off if you have to stay at the hotel. Even a large discount at 4* may still make the travelodge preferable.

4. If you have all the apocalypse rules (Main, reload, IA Apoc and IA Apoc 2) there are added gems about balance of games. I am not convinced limiting superheavies is the way forward. Super heavies and D weapons make the game quicker for sure. What if my opponent brings 2 scratch built warlords for 5k and I can only bring 2 warhounds - how is that balanced? The only balance I personally do in Apoc is rule out flank march - to stop titans with CCW getting first turn charges on immobile superheavies - auto hitting and penning on multi attacks is usually a passion killer. (I do think the 5K is reasonable, just not limiting super heavies per player.)

[SotonShades]

Thanks for the first burst of info Denzark. A few clarifications based on what you've said (and I assume what others may be thinking therefore);


The 5k limit wouldn't necessarily mean a max of 20 people. I know a lot of locals who regularly attend Apocolypse games near by, but aren't able to bring that many points of their own, so might be playing with far fewer to be part of the bigger whole.
You deffinitely would not be forced to stay at the hotel. Rooms are offered to delegates at conferences and guests at weddings/parties at a cheaper than usual rate as a standard practice. If enough rooms are booked far enough in advance, the cost of hiring the function room and/or other facilities offered by the hotel, such as catering, are often reduced by a certain amount. As we would probably all ready be getting the room at a fairly heftilly reduced rate, this may not be the case.
Yes I do have all the rules (some in PDF format, good for projecting for the whole group to see...) and my past experience suggests a balance of superheavies (either in numbers, or more fairly structure points) on each side makes for a more fun game. I had also thought of possibly suggesting the superheavy allowance was in addition to the other 5k points (although any datasheets would be included), but forgot to mention that in the previous post.
Flank march is the absolute bain of my Apoc career and yes I will be either banning it outright or heavilly tweaking it. Probably Disruptor beacons too, tho the two can possibly cancel each other out to some extent :P


Thanks for the comments though. If you are willing to travel this far, I'd deffinitely try to let you know when I get round to getting this beastie in proper motion!

Anyone else with ideas?

[Emerald Rose Widow]

I would have to say I would come quite far, even from the Western United States for something like this, had I the army or the money. The idea of playing Apoc for a charity would be just wonderful, though I agree there are certain charities that I would never ever support. Basically if I were to come to such a thing, I would not give money to any charity that supports hatred or bigotry towards the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community. Though stuff like Doctors without borders, and heifer international are good charities that help on a global scale, and do help a lot in this world.

just my two cents

as far as apoc rules go i cannot contribute as I have never played APOC so really couldnt do anything about it.

One option is also that your contribution to the game (lets say 20 or 30 pounds) can be given to the charity of your choice, that things things out a bit, but any help is good, and it keeps away charity favoritism, and would keep people from not coming because of disagreement with the charity chosen. Just food for thought.

[Emerald Rose Widow]

oh and of course anyone willing to give more for the charity would be awesome too

[Cow]

I think £20-30 isnt to bad for a weekend, as thats how much a tournament entrance can cost anyway.

If there are lots of people attending, i think it will need less of rules tweeking, (but agree on flank march and distrupter beacons) as both sides will have horrible lists. Just make sure people hand in army lists so can work out which sides to put people on

[SotonShades]

While rather bored at work I came up with a possible scenario for the game. Hopefully it makes good use of the fact that the hotel I plan on running the event at has a lot of round tables, as well as rectangular ones, so we can hev the maximum amount of gaming area to play with (and on!)

I've attached a rough idea for the table plan. The other symbles I will explain below;

Set-Up


2 Large Tables
6 Smaller 'Satellite' Tables

Each table has a numbered webway gate (as shown), with the two long tables having one at each end. Any unit can move/run/massacre/consolidate through these gates. As soon as they do, the controlling player rolls 2D6 and places the unit within 12" of the appropriately numbered gate. On a roll of 7, the unit is placed within 12" of the gate they entered. These rules still apply to flyers moving through the webway gates. Flyers may not move between tables in any other way.
Eldar and Dark Eldar players may re-roll one or both of the D6 used to determine before moving the models, however they must declare which/how many they are rerolling before they roll any (no re-rolling one and then the other, or both and wanting to keep one of the original numbers.)

The smaller Satellite tables also each have a bombardment cannon. This is a building (AV14) housing a weapon that can be fired using the following profile;
Range....................S....AP.....Type
Long Range*.........D.....1.......Ordnance 1, 10" Blast, Primary Weapon

*The Bombardment Cannon cannot be fired at a target on the same table as it's on, but my target ANY unit or building (including friendly units or thos in combat!) on ANY other table. The shot always scatters. If an arrow is rolled, move the template 4D6" in the direction shown. if a 'Hit' is rolled, move the template 2D6" in the direction indicated by the small arrow on the Hit symbol.

To fire the Bombardment Cannon, a non-vehicle unit must have spent ALL of the previous movement phase occupying the building (so may not have moved in to it in the previous movement phase or run in to the building. The unit may not fire any of it's own weapons in the turn it fire's the bombardment cannon and may not launch an assault after firing the cannon.

Deployment and Reserves

All forces deploy within 12" of their sides' straing board edge on the long tables (indicated by the red and yellow rectangles on the table plan). Any reserves also come on from these board edges.

All of an individual player's forces must be deployed on the same table and any reserves he my have must come on to the same table the player started on. Deep Striking units do no have to arrive on the same table as the player's staring force, but can only arrive on tables the player currently has models on.

Victory Conditions

Each commander will have his own mission, which he will keep secret until the end of the game. These will be handed out at random by the GM at the start of the first day. The side who's player achieve the most personnal objective is the winner (though if one side hase more players, the number achieved will be divided by the number of player on that side, to make it fairer, so you will geet the number of objectives achieved per capita as it were).

Ideas for personnal missions;

Kill X Kill points
Kill X more kill points than you have in your force
Fire a Bombardment Cannon
Kill X Independent Characters
Kill a Gargantuan Creature
Destroy a/X Super Heavy vehicles
Get all of your force killed or fleeing from the table unable to regroup
Get models on to all 6 of the satellite tables via webway gates. They do not have to be on all 6 tables at the same time.
Kill a friendly HQ character on your side (other than your own)
Reduce a/X Super Heavy vehicle(s) to 1 structure point, but do not destroy or wreck it
Occupy X buildings at the end of the game
Kill a MC?IC?GC?SH with a vortex grenade (haven't decided which this should be yet). This mission would also give the player a vortex grenade stratagem)
Occupy more buildings at the end of the game than any other player
Destroy or Wreck XX vehicles during the course of the game


The idea of these objectives is to get players to do things that may not seem normal, and try to get more interesting play than simply stand and shoot/assault until one side is victorious. Hopefully some of them will be contradictory (so players from the same side are acting against each other ;)), some will be fairly easy, others will be quite tricky. Some may be almost impossible if the wrong army gets them. Does any one have any ideas for any more or simply better ones? The X values would be replaced once I have a better idea of numbers and what lists people would be bringing. No point telling someone to kill 5 superheavies and then only have 4 show up.

Rather than having one strategic asset per player, a certain number of assets will be handed out to a supreme commander on each side (people helping me run the event but still playing the game) for them to hand out to their generals during the course of the game... just to spice things up. Players won't be allowed to buy assests by having 250 points less in their lists (hopefully i should be able to balance it, though one side may get more assets if needed) but can use any assets gained by buying datasheets. Any assets that effect friendly forces will only effect that players forces (so careful planning only lets that player bring on his reserves on turn one, not everyone on that side, for example). Similarly, assets that effect units arriving (such as ambush) can only be used on/against units entering from reserve on the same table as the player using them, and not on units entering via webway gates.

As always, comments, criticisms, ideas and answers to my previous questions are very welcome. Hopefully more people will be willing to turn up than me, Denzark, Widow and Cow. Speaking of whom, don't worry I would never choose from charities that supported bigotry of any kind, towards LGBT or anyone else. Maybe pandas... screw pandas. I'm kidding, pandas are awesome!

[DrLove42]

Its a nice Idea....but heres my comments

1) Fliers (but not Valks) should be able to sacrfice a turn to fly table to table. Space faring aircraft can do this afterall!

2) The long tables should be connected by foot. Some nice wide, strong bridges create focus points for battles. Infantry are so often overlooked in game of Apoc if they're not carrying a melta gun so places where they can fight is good. Even make some of the small "asteroids" vehicle in-accesable, like inpentrable walls around the portal, or just vehicle re-rolls so they can't land on that island. This would make armies who dn't have a lot of big things just as important in holding the islands

3) The bigass guns need structure points. And each army should start in with an equal share. If neither team starts with one, theres a chance that one team could land on all the islands, and one team on none of them in turn 1, giving one side a massive advantage

4) Get rid of the mission objective of kill a friendly IC. It just generates resentment if you start trying to kill your own team, and short of unlucky (or lucky) scatter it an't gonna happen

5) If this is a random group of people together ban the Jammers asset. Thats just a bit mean if its a team of people who don't know what they've got and have never met.

I'll think of more....