		In the Imperial Army, it takes more courage to retreat than to advance!
*Thought for the Day:*

Apocalypsizing the Army

The new Apocalypse rules set is pretty cool, it lets you fight out massive battles without worrying about force organization tables. Still, I am enough of a purist to insist on some sort of order for my forces. I now have sufficient figures on hand to model an entire battalion (including the battalion HQ and support elements). This is a force of about 7500 points or so. A sufficiently monster size Imperial Guard force.

I could even model the battalion band, hospital, most of the provost marshal's office and a good chunk of the battalion motor pool. (Yes, I am insane and I have no life).

I have no idea when I will actually field the entire battalion at once - there are no apocalypse events currently scheduled locally. But if the Emperor calls, I am ready.

Apocalypsizing your army is not as difficult as it seems. You would be surprised what you can come up with from your figure collection. You can either upgrade your existing army to 3000+ points or add allies. I am an Imperial Guard nutter so I can field a purely Guard force, but if I wanted to go further, I could add Deathwatch Marine allies by using the 10 marines that came with the Battle for Macragge set as troopers. I could add more grenadiers using my Starship Troopers Cap Troopers as the grenadiers.

Another approach is to combine two different armies as allied forces. Of course, not all armies are compatible allies and some forces form alliances more easily than others. Guard, for example, are pretty amicable in their approach to alliances. They can be allied to any Imperial force with no explanation needed. They can reasonably allied to Eldar or Tau - though the alliance will be a temporary one of convenience rather than a formal alliance. Loyalist Marines, on the other hand, are a little more picky, being able to ally only with other Imperial forces. Tyranids are pickier still, refusing to ally with any force save another Tyranid swarm or a Genestealer insurgency.

I have modified the official Apocalypse matrix of possible alliances. The revised matrix is presented below:

Army/Faction	Chaos⁴	Dark Eldar	Eldar	Imp. Guard	Inq.¹	Space Marines	Necrons	Orks	Tau²	Tyr.³	Gene-stealer
Chaos⁴	♥	♦	♣	♣	♣	♣	♠	♦	♣	♠	♦
Dark Eldar	♦	♦	♦	♣	♣	♣	♠	♦	♣	♠	♦
Eldar	♣	♦	♥	♦	♦	♣	♣	♣	♦	♣	♣
Imperial Guard	♣	♣	♦	♥	♥	♥	♣	♣	♦	♣	♣
Inquisitorial Forces¹	♣	♣	♦	♥	♥	♥	♣	♣	♦	♣	♣
Space Marines	♣	♣	♣	♥	♥	♥	♣	♣	♣	♣	♣
Necrons	♠	♠	♣	♣	♣	♣	♥	♦	♣	♣	♣
Orks	♦	♦	♣	♣	♣	♣	♠	♥	♣	♠	♦
Tau²	♣	♦	♦	♦	♦	♣	♣	♣	♥	♠	♣
Tyranids³	♠	♠	♣	♣	♣	♣	♣	♠	♣	♥	♥
Genestealers	♦	♦	♣	♣	♣	♣	♣	♦	♣	♥	♥

♥	These armies are trusted allies, there is no problem with them fighting together
♦	These armies distrust each other, they may be allied but the alliance is one of convenience, not love.
♠	These armies are not allies, though they may attack the same target at the same time
♣	These armies are hated enemies, they would not be allied under normal circumstances
	As a quick guide, red symbols can usually be allies while black symbols usually cannot be.

Inquisitorial forces include Daemon Hunters, Witch Hunters, Grey Knights, Sisters of Battle and any other force that may contain an inquisitor.
Tau include Kroot, Demiurge (Squat) and Vespin armies as well – all are members of the Tau Empire.
Tyranid forces don’t include Genestealer cults; genestealers are more open to alliances of convenience than full-blown Tyranid forces and thus have their own matrix row.
Chaos forces include Chaos Marines, Daemon, Lost and the Damned, Traitor Guard, and Chaos Cultist armies.

A full size, printable version of this chart is available for download. This is especially handy being the link to the official Games Workshop downloadable version doesn't work!

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Last updated: 11-Jul-2010.

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