7000 point apocalypse game advice

Well me and a friend of mine have an apocalypse game scheduled for october, at 7000 points it gives us time to gather our forces and plan well in advanced. So i'm after a bit of advice basically on what you would do, he will be using tyranids, with about 1500-2000 points of necrons, i will be using marines/guard super heavies. Anyway here is roughly my list

HQ
korsarro khan
chaplain
2 librarians
command squad
Chapter master

Troops
60 tactical marines
20 bikers

Elites
50 terminators
dreadnought

Fast Attack
4 landspeeders
10 scout bikers
10 assault marines

Heavy Support
4 vindicators
2 predators
2 land raiders
10 devastators

Apocalypse Formations
2 Baneblades
Damocles rhino
Masters of the chapter
Orbital assault force
Line breaker squadron


Now i'm almost certain i've left out about 1000 points somehow, but im on holiday at the moment and not at home so ive got the whole list at home. i will edit this post when i get home as i need to.

Anyway through just formations alone i have aqquired 3 orbital bombardments! So that will be highly beneficial for killing them hideous gribblies.

My opponent will have an endless swarm, about 7 fexes and the biggest thing he will have will be the trygon. he has already aqquired nearly 40 genestealers which are the main worry to me as i predict he will be using flank march to try and tear me up from behind as hes done in previous apocalypse games to other people. so have at it guys and let me know what you would do

My one main irritation with the Apocalypse Strategic Assets is that many of them can be entirely nulled by another. Being an Ork player, I have always dreamed of Flank Marching a Green Tide against someone, but the common use of Flank March in my circle and the ease in which any Imperial player can take a datasheet with Ambush lead me to never try it, as Ambush would cripple a Green Tide.

What I am saying is if you truly fear a flank march, take Ambush. If he doesn't take flank march, it is still marginally useful, but if he does it could completely save your butt. At 7000 points, the loss of one asset means nothing, but the effective use of certain assets can win the game for you.

While I am here, though, I would like to make a suggestion: minimalize your use of datasheets. When my group and I first started playing Apocalypse, we had great fun and found the datasheets to be a great addition to the game. We found, however, we started building Apocalypse armies in terms of datasheets and they soon became a giant mess where everyone had all kinds of tricks and no one ended up having as much fun as when we started playing. We soon realized that overuse of datasheets only complicates things (especially a lot of Imperial based ones) because they start handing out assets left and right. Like I mentioned, everyone and their brother would have at least one Ambush, if not three or four. We decided to scale back, and since then we have had great fun. It also drives us to play more, as we have specific things we want to put into an army, but we can only fit so much. We play one datasheet per 2000-3000 points (your 7000 point game would be a 3 datasheet game for us) but I suggest you play around and see what works for you. Maybe you don't want a limit. But discuss it with your group if you find frustration in a lot of games of Apocalypse, or if you feel you can't choose certain strategic assets anymore.

Hi foostoofoo, sound like you are going to have some fun!

Here's my diatribe about Apocalypse. You can't play Apocalypse competitively. The only way to have a good game (where both players have fun) is to work WITH your opponent to create your army lists and to select your strategic assets and datasheets.

Very open planning and very friendly playing is the best way to make it work.

Tell your opponent what you are thinking of bringing and get a list from him. Talk about how balanced the lists are with the mission in mind. If one list is too tough, then adjust both sides to balance it.

Don't stack datasheets to get combined effects (3 preliminary bombardments isn't going to be fun for your lightly armored opponent!) and don't play to win. Just play to have a good time and a good story to share.

-- MKerr