Battleground REALLY REALLY wants the armies that are of the Imperium to play on the side of the Imperium. If you are playing an army of the Chaos side we want you to play on the Chaos side.
The reason for this seems really obvious to me, and I feel like the line has already been muddied (if not removed). The Imperium has the things on their side that let them be really cool and do their thing. The Chaos side has things that let them be really cool and do their thing. When one side has armies from the other side than the coolness of those things is destroyed.
I’m going to throw up some concerns. Some of them are the same concerns I raised last year, which were addressed to a goodly extent. Some of them fall out of last year’s fight. I’m aware that as a shooty player, I have a different perspectives than a lot of other folks out there. I seem to be in a minority in lots of ways. Others want to push the mega battle in other directions. Still, I’ll raise my concerns with reasonable faith that the organizers will manage to put on a good show.
I feel 40K is balanced for armies starting about 24 inches away from one another. Apocalypse scenarios achieve this in different ways than standard 40K. The no-man’s land is smaller in Apocalypse. The table is bigger. Depending on how the objectives are placed, the melee optimized forces might or might not have to cross kill zones controlled by opposition shooting.
I would beware placing all objectives in the center, within 6 inches of the deployment lines, then taking score every round. This would force anyone interested in accumulating victory points to play the close combat game. I’d recommend variety in objective placement.
Last year, we ended up taking score at the end of each Order phase. This was to the distinct advantage of Order. If the two sides were taking turns seizing a contested objective, the score taking took place at a time optimized for Order. This didn’t turn the game uneven. Many of the objectives were located near Disorder’s lines. Their close combat superiority and the first move made the game very close. Still, the game mechanic of giving one side or the other the advantage in collecting victory points makes me nervous. Things might plausibly get uneven.
Last year featured four ‘flank’ tables, where there was much more room for one side to deploy than the other. This resulted in some lopsided fighting. In moderation, giving one side or the other a deployment advantage might be neat. I wasn’t feeling particularly heroic, so I deployed in a location where there would be more friends than enemies. Others were feeling heroic (or perhaps didn’t foresee the consequences of the deployment scheme). More power to them. I think there is a place for uneven deployment, for giving one side or the other a local advantage. This might be done in moderation. In any given area of the battle, one might want to be careful about giving one side or the other more space to deploy.
Last year we allowed flank march on the flank tables, but did not allow flank marking into the opposition’s rear. This produced more of a feeling of having front lines than is often the case. I don’t know if this ought to be done again, or not.
There was some awkwardness with players having forces deep striking and flank marching all over the field. I don’t think we can come up with fixed hard rules saying one must keep one’s force together. Apocalypse is supposed to be wild and crazy. However, we might consider guidelines to keep flow of play up. Players might want to avoid having their forces spread out too much, and make an effort to resolve combats promptly.
