Finally caved in an got me a copy of Apocalypse - Reload. And eventhough it does contain a fair number of sheets GW used to have on their site for free, it makes for some very fun reading. The big battle report in the back is particulary fun. Also got my planetstrike copy, which will plunge me even deeper into this hobby madness.
I've only managed to skim through it tonight, but it's looking quite good. And yes, by that I do mean lotts of shiny pics and lovely background stories. There's even a 4 page spread of some 30+ glorious assaults, with a few of them getting picked out and receiving several pages of coverage a pop. The one thing that is a tad annoying thus far is how often I already saw the sentence 'but we can't possibly legislate......'.
The first time you read it this makes perfect sense; keep things open, leave gamers to use their own, already build stuff in a way that best suits the spirit of this expansion etc. But after 3-4 times it really starts to come across as 'we really couldn't be bother to come up with some better guidelines and direction for fighting with functional buildings'. And while this may not be true, the rules in fact seem quite fun and interesting, it leaves a bit of a weird vibe with me. Surely the test readers must have noticed that this small sentence keeps coming back?
Then a quick looks at the buildings and stuff, both bastions and fortresses make for very cool modeling projects and gaming focal points. I do wonder though how long any defence line will hold up against some railguns, deep striking stormtroopers or the ton of melta bombs which will undoubtably find their way unto the battlefield.
Bunkers, towers and fortresses are great of cours, but it's the other additions that really caught my eye. Take the interceptor gun for example (the big quad gun that comes with the defence line and only shoots at deep striking vehicles and squads), this beauty is a mini building and you get more of them as the number of objectives on the battlefield increases. Like the building-mounted weapons you get to choose between a las and autocannon variant. But here's the catch, you don't have to attach it to a building. I can be used individually, which gives the added advantage that it can be manually aimed by any model in contact, effectively negating the BS 2 you find on normal building weapons.
The skyshields is also an interesting addition, models need to limb through the legs (and roll to see if they don't fall back of) and it has two configurations. The first, shielded, gives a hefty bonus in the shape of an invul save while vehicles may still land and drop of troops. The second, unfurled, gives less protection but is easier to land on even at great speed. So a transport may disembark its troops regardless of how far it moved that turn! So perfect for the defender to get some heavy support in there, turn the shield on next turn and blast away. The defence line finally is just what you'd expect: decent cover save, going to ground bonus and a rule to negate any silly 'cc-base-contact'-issues.
I also got a defence shield set, no idea why really. Just an impulse buy and I have to say I rather like it. As everybody probably knows by now, the actual shields sections are textured making it much easier and enjoyable to paint. And though the two shapes of the defence shield are a tad basic and repetitive I'm certain that with some minor converting anybody can make some fantastic looking scenery from it. In fact two sets of these, some plasticard and a balsa base would make for a nice bunker in Apocalypse, Planetstrike, regular 40K and even Necromunda games. The interceptor gun is, to me at least, a wonderful addition to the kit. I just love the look of those four AA guns, I am particulary interested to see what non-Imperium or Chaos gamers will come up with to represent these. As well as all the other goodies of course. The gun ifself comes with a four-piece mini building, a slotted top, a centre core, two sets of autocannons, 4 muzzle bits, a comms device, optical sensor and gothic skull sensor thingy. The last three aren't mandatory and will make for very nice additions to all kind of guard and (chaos) marine vehicles. In fact I plan to add one of the two extra defence line sensor to a converted razorback:
Well that does it for this update, time for some weekend relaxtion....no wait, have to do university work of course. Ah well, I should at the very least have time to get the leather and metallics done on those scouts. I may even have a little something special to show by the sunday evening, but we'll see.
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