How to plan for an Apocalypse battle? Warhammer 40K

Hi everyone,

We're planning to play an Apocalypse battle with our friends from the escalation league on April 26th!  We are really looking forward to it because we are excited to get to use lots of our models at the same time.  (We are interested to see what our friends might bring - but this is also a little bit scary because we realize they are probably thinking just like us -- how to put together a huge army list.)

We do realize that we've got some questions to figure out in advance....

1) Is there a single rule-book which helps with most Apocalyptic battles?  We aren't too sure about that.  We've seen the Forge World books -- and we wonder about those.

2) We are trying to figure out how to use both the Space Marines and the Orks.  One idea is to have two different lists -- and play both independently.  We'll need to see if that works with our friends.  We guess the other way would be to have them fight together -- and then we need to worry about them fighting each other because they are not very good battle brothers....

3) What do people find works well in an Apocalypse battle?  Go Large?  Or Lots and Lots of Troops?  We have some larger models ready to go (or at least close)....

Our Stompa is assembled - though we do need to paint it and add a few final touches....  (We are also thinking about how cool a Lifta-Droppa might be.  In case you have never read it, there is a great story called Engine of Mork about a Stompa which has one!)

Our Stompa, "Da Breath of Mork"

We have the Aquila Strongpoint ready to go....  We also have a Bastion (here you can see our assembly process)....  [Link to our prior experience with the Aquila Strongpoint]

Here is our Strongpoint....

Here is the base of our Bastion....

We are also thinking of building a gantry for our Grot Rokkit -- and using the Ork Pulsa Rokkit rules (our friends seem to be up for helping us to come up with a 7th edition version of the rules....)  [Link to our write-up about the Grot Rokkit launch!]

Here is our Grot Rokkit!

We do have quite a few Space Marine troops - though we probably need to finish up a few units to have complete squads.  And, we are pretty close to having enough Ork Boyz for a Green Tide....  [The Pink Orks' following has expanded.  Here's our story about the original Pink Ork Boyz....]

Here are some of our Ork Boyz - we have more Boyz (some Yellow, some not even Pink or Yellow who will join the call of Waaagh!!!)

And, we have the Dakka Chugga (converted Steam Locomotive) which we have run against Matt as a looted wagon....  [Here's a link to our write-up about the Dakka Chugga build....]

Here is our Dakka Chugga....  Not sure we can have more train cars ready in time - but we'll try....

4) Wondering just how it works to use multiple Lords of War.  We've heard of people doing it - and we're excited to use the Stompa and Ghazghkull at the same time!!  (We're also excited to be able to use our Warbosses at the same time as these....  We usually run out of points!)

5) Wondering how many formations people tend to use at the same time - or just one really, really big formation with more units added to each squad ??

6) Are there good strategies to remember things?  Maybe apps people use?  A little bit worried about forgetting to shoot or forgetting to move, etc....