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I am writing an extensive homebrew ruleset for 40k. My 40k group and myself have been working on this and testing it for over half a year now and I am almost done writing all the factions.

We've made an amalgamation of multiple editions, though it is largely based on 9th edition. They key differences are:

-reintroduction of the Initiative characteristic
-reintroduction of the Weapon Skill characteristic and Comparison Chart
-no CP
-Each faction has exactly 5 stratagems, these stratagems can only be used once per game.
-There are 6 general stratagems each faction can use, these can also only be used once per game (with the exception of Overwatch, which can be used once per turn).
-Warlord Traits and Relics cost points and each character has a points limit listed on their datasheet how much they can spend on wl-traits and relics (for example a marine captain can spend 100p on wl-traits and relics).
-Each character can only select one warlord trait, but can equip multiple relics.
-Mission rules are based primarily on Tempest of War.
-Determining who gets first turn is different: players roll off, the winner gets to choose Defender or Attacker. Attacker gets first turn, but has to set up all of their models first. Defender gets to choose which deployment zone they want and set up their units after all of the Attackers units have been set up.
-massively reduced re-roll Auras. Most characters select a friendly unit in the Command Phase and that unit gets some form of re-rolls (or other benefit) until your next Command Phase.


My question to you guys is regarding a specific faction: Custodes. In this ruleset Custodes models are a lot more expensive (one Custodian Guard costs 60p, a Terminator costs 80p). They have a faction rule that lets them re roll one failed hit roll and one failed wound roll per turn (if their unit has 5 models or more they can re-roll 2 failed hits and 2 failed wounds), which is pretty powerful. In turn Custodes characters do not have any rules to provide any re-rolls to other units.

My specific question is this: I want to give Custodes characters something to interact with other custodes units. An ability where they can select a friendly CORE unit and that unit gets something until your next command phase other than re-rolls. I just have trouble coming up with something interesting and useful. Custodes already have a great statline and the units provide some re-rolls to themselves, so it's difficult for me to find something thats not too powerful but useful.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Feel No Pain.
Advance and Shoot/Charge.
Fall Back and Shoot/Charge.
+1 to-hit or to-wound.
Ignore modifiers to-hit or to-wound.
Leadership shenanigans.
Bonus to Initiative.
Can't be hit/wounded on better than X+.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Feel No Pain.
Advance and Shoot/Charge.
Fall Back and Shoot/Charge.
+1 to-hit or to-wound.
Ignore modifiers to-hit or to-wound.
Leadership shenanigans.
Bonus to Initiative.
Can't be hit/wounded on better than X+.

Thanks, these are some cool suggestions, I'm just wondering whether some of these effects would be too strong on a custodes Stat line.

For example, due to the Weapon Skill comparison chart, most units do not hit on 2s anymore against targets that matter, which in turn makes a simple +1 to hit much more valuable to have, than it was in 9th for example.

I can’t answer that-I don’t have the system.

I feel like the fluff should be a starting point here. What are you trying to represent? If you're struggling to answer that question, then maybe step back and ask yourself if the buff you want to give them serves a purpose. If not, are you just adding rules for rules' sake?

JNAProductions wrote:I can’t answer that-I don’t have the system.

Yes, sorry. I should have been more specific and given a better outline of the faction.

Wyldhunt wrote:I feel like the fluff should be a starting point here. What are you trying to represent? If you're struggling to answer that question, then maybe step back and ask yourself if the buff you want to give them serves a purpose. If not, are you just adding rules for rules' sake?

Yes, that's a good point. The fluff representation in this case was that each custodes unit gives itself re-rolls which I think is fitting.
The rules for rules sake argument is this basically: I didn't want custodes to be the only faction where characters don't interact with their units. I didn't give characters the interaction in form of re-rolls because I think it would be too powerful given that each unit has innate re rolls.

Here's a rough outline of what Custodes as a faction can do and what their statline is in comparison:

Special rules:
-4+ invuln, 6+ feelnopaon against mortals
-each unit can re roll one hit and one wound per turn (two hits and two wounds if 5 or more models in the unit)
-fighting stances which are chosen at the beginning of the fight phase for each unit individually
-can do heroic interventions
-auric weapons (spears, axes) become Pistol2 instead of rapid fire 1 when in engagement range of enemy units.

Custodian Guard statline:
M 6", WS 7, BS 2+, S5, T5, I6, W4, A4, Ld11, Sv 2+

Space Marine statline for comparison
M 6", WS 5, BS 3+, S4, T4, I5, W2, A2, Ld8, Sv 3+

Terminator statline for comparison:
M 5", WS 6, BS 3+, S4, T4, I4, W3, A3, Ld9, Sv 2+

Due to the WS comparison chart, this means that the custodian guard hits both the marine and the terminator on 3+. The marine hits the Custodes on 5+ and the terminator hits the Custodes on 4+.
This was done to make it easer to hit "up" and not be instantly punished if the target has one WS more, but you are also instantly rewarded if your target has one WS less than you, meaning you hit on 3+. It this chart is the change I am most proud of and it has honestly worked great so far. It has slowed down melee combat a bit, without gutting it.



In our system if a unit charges, it gets +D3 initiative until the end of the phase, which gives the attacker the advantage, but since fights are not over instantly anymore, Initiative always becomes important in the second round of melee.

Tiberias wrote:
The fluff representation in this case was that each custodes unit gives itself re-rolls which I think is fitting.
The rules for rules sake argument is this basically: I didn't want custodes to be the only faction where characters don't interact with their units. I didn't give characters the interaction in form of re-rolls because I think it would be too powerful given that each unit has innate re rolls.

That's not a fluff reason. A fluff reason would be "Beyond their martial might and incorruptible nobility, this energy manifests itself as an almost supernatural warding, as though the Custodians were protected by the hand of the Emperor." Why is it fitting that the units give themselves re-rolls? How and why do Captains provide commands to their units in the fluff?

 vict0988 wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
The fluff representation in this case was that each custodes unit gives itself re-rolls which I think is fitting.
The rules for rules sake argument is this basically: I didn't want custodes to be the only faction where characters don't interact with their units. I didn't give characters the interaction in form of re-rolls because I think it would be too powerful given that each unit has innate re rolls.

That's not a fluff reason. A fluff reason would be "Beyond their martial might and incorruptible nobility, this energy manifests itself as an almost supernatural warding, as though the Custodians were protected by the hand of the Emperor." Why is it fitting that the units give themselves re-rolls? How and why do Captains provide commands to their units in the fluff?

I don't quite get that objection. The fluff reason is that Custodes, more than any other army in the imperium, act as individual agents on the battlefield, though without hindering their comrades, which is quite well explained in the watchers of the throne books.

This is realized with re-rolls in this case, because as I understand it, re-roll auras in the game are usually represented as commanders guiding their units. Custodes don't really need that, so each unit gets their own small re-roll ability.

If you don't think that's fitting that's fine, but that also wasn't really part of the question either.

Edit: as for why it's fitting that custodes commanders interact with their troops? Maybe it isn't, but it's more of a gameplay reason, because like I already said, I don't necessarily want custodes to be the only faction where characters have no way of interacting with their units.

Tiberias wrote:

Edit: as for why it's fitting that custodes commanders interact with their troops? Maybe it isn't, but it's more of a gameplay reason, because like I already said, I don't necessarily want custodes to be the only faction where characters have no way of interacting with their units.

Let's examine that. Because you also just said:

The fluff reason is that Custodes, more than any other army in the imperium, act as individual agents on the battlefield

That seems like a compelling case for not having commanders directly buffing their allies by standing over their shoulders.

So with that in mind, why is it that you feel custodes characters not handing out buffs would be a bad thing? Do you think it's more fluffy than not for custodes commanders to hand out bonuses despite the noted self-sufficiency of their units? Is it just that most other factions lean on the characters-give-buffs mentality and you're hesitant to break from that norm? Does your system have other mechanics that break if an opponent's army doesn't have characters handing out buffs?

So far, it seems like handing out buffs might be a solution looking for a problem. That is, if your units function in an effective and fluffy way as-is without extra character buffs, then you've probably already designed some solid units. Adding buffs on top of that just for conformity's sake might threaten to throw off the decent balance you're already seeing. If your units are failing to be fluffy or effective in some way, then maybe character buffs can be a way to address those issues. (Though maybe other solutions would be better/fluffier, depending.)

The way you've described things so far, it doesn't seem like you feel your units are really missing anything. Rather, it feels like you're just looking to add character buffs because most characters hand out buffs. But maybe my interpretation of the situation is mistaken.

That's of course a fair point and your assessment is correct. The faction actually works quite well. The sample size is small, but we've been playing this system for over half a year and we haven't run into an obvious issue where custodes needed a major tweak.

Many of the group who played against them even said that they are even a tad too expensive because they struggle to hold objectives, which I think is not even a bad thing, because in my opinion custodes should have more of a struggle holding objectives in the sense that it's more difficult to optimally allocate your resources, because you usually don't have as much units on the field.

If Custodes characters don't get an extra buffing rule for other units, it renders them premium beatstick dudes you slap some traits and relics on. Which is not a bad thing necessarily, I just want to avoid making the faction boring. Not every faction has to be GSC or admech levels of complexity of course, but you get my point.

Tiberias wrote:
Many of the group who played against them even said that they are even a tad too expensive because they struggle to hold objectives, which I think is not even a bad thing, because in my opinion custodes should have more of a struggle holding objectives in the sense that it's more difficult to optimally allocate your resources, because you usually don't have as much units on the field.

If Custodes characters don't get an extra buffing rule for other units, it renders them premium beatstick dudes you slap some traits and relics on. Which is not a bad thing necessarily, I just want to avoid making the faction boring. Not every faction has to be GSC or admech levels of complexity of course, but you get my point.

That could be an answer right there, having characters give a chosen unit some sort of bonus to holding objectives may be a way to both allow Custodes characters to be more interactive while also providing a small buff that helps to mitigate a downside that could possibly be a tad too severe.

 ikeulhu wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
Many of the group who played against them even said that they are even a tad too expensive because they struggle to hold objectives, which I think is not even a bad thing, because in my opinion custodes should have more of a struggle holding objectives in the sense that it's more difficult to optimally allocate your resources, because you usually don't have as much units on the field.

If Custodes characters don't get an extra buffing rule for other units, it renders them premium beatstick dudes you slap some traits and relics on. Which is not a bad thing necessarily, I just want to avoid making the faction boring. Not every faction has to be GSC or admech levels of complexity of course, but you get my point.

That could be an answer right there, having characters give a chosen unit some sort of bonus to holding objectives may be a way to both allow Custodes characters to be more interactive while also providing a small buff that helps to mitigate a downside that could possibly be a tad too severe.

That is a freaking great suggestion. Thanks a lot, that will help me come up with an option I can try out.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
This leads me to another question:

I haven't been able to test in a game, because none of our group testing this homebrew ruleset plays Demons (yet), but Greater Demons are VERY powerful in this ruleset.
Which is not automatically a problem since we think that they should be and should feel very powerful (given the correct pricetag of course).

Here's the statline of the four Greater Demons for reference (there is more to them than their statline of course, but the potential problem I am going to adress can be initially assessed by looking at the statline first I think):

Bloodthirster
M12", WS10, BS 2+, S8, T8, I6, W20, A8, Ld 10, Sv 3+

Keeper of Secrets
M14", WS 9, Bs 2+, S7, T7, I6, W20, A7, LD 10, Sv 4+

Lord of Change
M12", WS7, BS 2+, S6, T7, I5, W20, A6, LD 10, Sv4+

Great Unclean One
M 8", WS 7, BS 2+, S7, T9, I3, W22, A7, LD10, Sv 3+

The potential problem is this: most elite units trimmed for combat in this system have a weapon skill ranging from 5-7. Now if we consult the comparison chart I've posted we can see that these units would hit a bloodthirster on a 5+ or 6+.

This means that a 5-man Terminator unit with thunder hammers (20 attacks with Shock Assault), would do about 3 unsaved wounds to the Bloodthirster before probably getting obliterated by it.

Now, we're still playing around with points costs, but a Terminator is coing to be around 30-35 points and a Bloodthirster without any upgrades is going to be about 350.

Does this interaction seem somewhat plausible to you? A 5-man Terminator Squad with Thunder Hammers (about 200p) doing about 9 damage to a Bloodthirster (about 350p), while the Bloodthirster is on average going to kill 4 terminators in return?

The main gist of this question comes down to this: are the big things on the top end of the spectrum too powerful with the new Comparison Chart since it is harder to hit them in melee.

Well, it kind of depends on what you mean by "too powerful" and how lethal you want things to be.

Theoretically, trading 160 points of terminators for 9 wounds on a 350 point model is a pretty even trade (9/20 = 0.45, and 45% of 350 is 157.5). And you can always play around with points costs as needed.

The question, I think, is whether you *want* 5 termies charging a greater daemon to result in the termies getting wiped out in exchange for taking out a little under 50% of the daemon's hitpoints.

As a marine player, charging termies into pretty much anything only to have them wiped out feels weird. As a daemons player, greater daemons are supposed to be a big deal and shouldn't get wiped out by a single unit charging out of deepstrike.

Hot take:
Greater daemons don't necessarily have to have great WS. I mean, a blood thirster and keeper probably should, but I don't think of GUOs and Lords of Change as being especially nimble or good at swordplay. So arguably, it could be perfectly fluffy to lower their WS a bit if you wanted to.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Well, it kind of depends on what you mean by "too powerful" and how lethal you want things to be.

Theoretically, trading 160 points of terminators for 9 wounds on a 350 point model is a pretty even trade (9/20 = 0.45, and 45% of 350 is 157.5). And you can always play around with points costs as needed.

The question, I think, is whether you *want* 5 termies charging a greater daemon to result in the termies getting wiped out in exchange for taking out a little under 50% of the daemon's hitpoints.

As a marine player, charging termies into pretty much anything only to have them wiped out feels weird. As a daemons player, greater daemons are supposed to be a big deal and shouldn't get wiped out by a single unit charging out of deepstrike.

Hot take:
Greater daemons don't necessarily have to have great WS. I mean, a blood thirster and keeper probably should, but I don't think of GUOs and Lords of Change as being especially nimble or good at swordplay. So arguably, it could be perfectly fluffy to lower their WS a bit if you wanted to.

Those are some great points and I think that you effectively boiled down my conundrum very well.

The opinion in our group is generally that greater demons really should be a big deal like you said, and of those the Bloodthirster should just about be the most terrifying thing you can encounter in melee, which is why it is the only generic character/monster unit in the game with WS10.

To me personally it feels right that a 5 man terminator squad won't kill a Bloodthirster before being smushed, but that's just personal opinion and difficult to quantify as correct.

I agree on the other greater demons, but I think WS7 is a good spot for the lord of Change and the Great Unclean one, since that puts them at the same value as a space marine captain.

Out curiosity where do you place the avatar on that spectrum?

In 2nd ed 40k he and the bloodthirster would go toe to toe, and were both ws/bs10.

He represents the Eldar at war and their ability to obtain perfection in it...

The irony of the bloodthirster then was the sheer number of dice it rolled increased its chances of fumbling as much as criticaling.

And because the avatar's initiative was so high the thirster would have to get a better scorex while the avatar would just need to equal.

Ie if they both rolled 1 6 the avatar would win. The thirster would need 2 6s to win if the avatar rolled 1 6.

They also cost the same amount - 300 points each.

 Hellebore wrote:
Out curiosity where do you place the avatar on that spectrum?

In 2nd ed 40k he and the bloodthirster would go toe to toe, and were both ws/bs10.

He represents the Eldar at war and their ability to obtain perfection in it...

The irony of the bloodthirster then was the sheer number of dice it rolled increased its chances of fumbling as much as criticaling.

And because the avatar's initiative was so high the thirster would have to get a better scorex while the avatar would just need to equal.

Ie if they both rolled 1 6 the avatar would win. The thirster would need 2 6s to win if the avatar rolled 1 6.

They also cost the same amount - 300 points each.

Completely forgot about the Avatar, since none of my guys plays Eldar. We've written our homebrew version of Eldar, so the faction is finished and playable, but couldn't field test it yet.

Here's the Avatar's stats compared to a Bloodthirster:

Avatar of Khaine:
M 10", WS 10, BS 2+, S8, T7, I 6, W 16, A 8, Ld10, Sv 2+

Bloodthirster:
M12", WS 10, BS 2+, S8, T8, I 6, W 20, A8, Ld 10, Sv 3+

They are very similar, though the Bloodthirster is a bit tougher when you just compare the stats. In context, the Bloodthirster is probably going to be more powerful than the Avatar since the Bloodthirster can get wl-traits/relics and Exalted Greater Demon upgrades. Now, these all cost points as I pointed out previously, so you can make an immensly powerful Bloodthirster, but it's also putting all eggs in one basket.

The only other unit I can think of right now that also has WS 10 in our system is Lelith Hesperax, though I haven't written all the named special characters for all factions yet, since all generic units and faction special rule, strats etc. have been the priority.

I gotta ask for some advice again. Imperial Guard got a new rule in our system called Massed Firepower:

At the start of the shooting phase you may delegate any number of Imperial Guard units to concentrate their firepower towards a single enemy unit. All units delegated to do so have to allocate all their shooting attacks towards the designated enemy unit and have to be able to target the enemy unit. Whenever three or more Imperial Guard units allocate all their shooting attacks towards the same enemy unit by using this Massed Firepower effect, if any model in one of these Imperial Guard units makes an unmodified hit roll of 6, that attack wounds automatically and the AP characteristic of that attack is improved by 1 until the end of the phase.

So this rule has been controversially discussed in our group, since we generally wanted to move away from rules that give widespread access to an auto wound mechanic.
I personally think it's quite fitting and flavorful for guard. Additionally you have to allocate resources prematurely to get the effect, so you can "overkill" things, which means in my opinion the benefit has to be worth it.

The other opinions are that one: it's a feelbad rule for the Guard player since he has to overcommit units and two: autowounds bad.

What do you think?

As a general outline for guard: they stayed quite similar to 9th ed, they retained their orders and all that jazz, but don't have born soldiers anymore, massed firepower is supposed to replace that effect.

Well, personally I don't think the "overkill" thing is a real drawback. Outside of weapons with big performance swings like lascannons (low shots and highly variable damage), you can make pretty accurate predictions about the amount of damage a guard squad is likely to do on its own. The relatively large number of dice being rolled means that the bell curve for damage output is pretty significant. Additionally, the damage output of a single guard squad without auto-wounds is pretty meh.

So functionally, players who can crunch numbers in their head should be very good at knowing exactly how many squads they should commit to Massed Firepower to reliably kill their target. If you do overcommit by a squad or two, those squads would have been so much less efficient shooting on their own that it's a pretty minimal drawback. Plus, you can always shoot non-massed units at the MF target afterwards to clean up whatever's left; they'll just be less efficient at it.

I guess it could be more of a gamble with non-infantry squads, but you're generally still perfectly fine as long as you're pointing them at relatively tough targets. Like, maybe you don't use MF with your russes or other units that make a low number of high-quality attacks, but you're pretty safe committing a bunch of hydras or chimeras or whatever to the effort.

I do agree that autowounds are a pretty bad idea though. Especially when we're talking about low-cost-low-strength weapons like lasguns. High Toughness values theoretically cost significant points. Getting to ignore that points investment with a third of your army's attacks is kind of a balance nightmare, plus it just feels really crummy for the opponent.

"This 'nidzilla list has a fraction of the model count of my guard opponent's list. Thank goodness their small arms will be minimally effective, even their heavy weapons will have to roll well!"
* Opponent proceeds to ignore the above 1/3rd of the time*

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Well, personally I don't think the "overkill" thing is a real drawback. Outside of weapons with big performance swings like lascannons (low shots and highly variable damage), you can make pretty accurate predictions about the amount of damage a guard squad is likely to do on its own. The relatively large number of dice being rolled means that the bell curve for damage output is pretty significant. Additionally, the damage output of a single guard squad without auto-wounds is pretty meh.

So functionally, players who can crunch numbers in their head should be very good at knowing exactly how many squads they should commit to Massed Firepower to reliably kill their target. If you do overcommit by a squad or two, those squads would have been so much less efficient shooting on their own that it's a pretty minimal drawback. Plus, you can always shoot non-massed units at the MF target afterwards to clean up whatever's left; they'll just be less efficient at it.

I guess it could be more of a gamble with non-infantry squads, but you're generally still perfectly fine as long as you're pointing them at relatively tough targets. Like, maybe you don't use MF with your russes or other units that make a low number of high-quality attacks, but you're pretty safe committing a bunch of hydras or chimeras or whatever to the effort.

I do agree that autowounds are a pretty bad idea though. Especially when we're talking about low-cost-low-strength weapons like lasguns. High Toughness values theoretically cost significant points. Getting to ignore that points investment with a third of your army's attacks is kind of a balance nightmare, plus it just feels really crummy for the opponent.

"This 'nidzilla list has a fraction of the model count of my guard opponent's list. Thank goodness their small arms will be minimally effective, even their heavy weapons will have to roll well!"
* Opponent proceeds to ignore the above 1/3rd of the time*

Good points. Do you think the ability has merit and the autowounds part of it should be altered?
Or do you think that, since you can somewhat predict how much you need to allocate, the concept itself is bad. I don't have a particular attachment to the idea, so I'm more than willing to throw it out, I just personally liked the concept.
We also feld tested this and in my opinion it worked exactly liked it should, it was powerful but there were multiple instances where the guard player had to overcommit. I'm just alone in that assessment currently.

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Astra_Militarum wrote:the Astra Militarum is often referred to as the "Hammer of the Emperor" -- the sheer amount of force that the Imperial Guard can bring to bear on the enemy is devastating, but is not as direct or as precise as their Space Marine allies in the Adeptus Astartes, who are described as the "Scalpel of the Emperor" and specialise in planetary assaults, special operations and decapitation strikes

It's not a fitting rule for the Astra Militarum. A more fitting rule would be one that stuns enemies, holding back the darkness, one flashlight at a time.

 vict0988 wrote:

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Astra_Militarum wrote:the Astra Militarum is often referred to as the "Hammer of the Emperor" -- the sheer amount of force that the Imperial Guard can bring to bear on the enemy is devastating, but is not as direct or as precise as their Space Marine allies in the Adeptus Astartes, who are described as the "Scalpel of the Emperor" and specialise in planetary assaults, special operations and decapitation strikes

It's not a fitting rule for the Astra Militarum. A more fitting rule would be one that stuns enemies, holding back the darkness, one flashlight at a time.

Ok...well, this is the flavor text I've written for Massed Firepower (I do that just for fun, not even my buddies really read those):

"Due to its sheer size, Soldiers of the Imperial Guard are mostly not equipped with the very finest wargear the Imperium has to offer, but there is hardly any force in the galaxy that can amass the same amount of withering concentrated firepower as the Imperial Guard is able to unleash until the enemy is reduced to nothing more than a smoldering crater in a devastated landscape. Many would-be heretic conquerors and have been layed low after underestimating the firepower a massed showing of the Imperial Guard can muster."

Isn't that in essence what you said? Individually that flashlight is not that impressive, but if there's a hundred thousand aimed at the same target it becomes a problem for almost anybody.

Anyway, how would you implement the concept of holding back the darkness, one flashlight at a time in practice? Because I agree that for sure is what the Guard is about.

Tiberias wrote:
there is hardly any force in the galaxy that can amass the same amount of withering concentrated firepower as the Imperial Guard

Except Space Marines with their superhuman accuracy and enhanced strength that lets them carry around a vehicle's worth of heavy weaponry, AdMech that hog all the weapons Imperial Guard wish they had and Custodes that are the most elite force in the universe. It could be worse, it could be full re-rolls to wound, but this ability does not make sense for Astra Militarum. This also shows the problem with having 20+ Stratagems, because one of the AM ones was a focus fire one that got used tonnes, focus on what makes Astra Militarum into Guard, it's not the ability to focus fire. It's something GW did as well so if you want to ignore me and can't see my point that's totally fair.

 vict0988 wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
there is hardly any force in the galaxy that can amass the same amount of withering concentrated firepower as the Imperial Guard

Except Space Marines with their superhuman accuracy and enhanced strength that lets them carry around a vehicle's worth of heavy weaponry, AdMech that hog all the weapons Imperial Guard wish they had and Custodes that are the most elite force in the universe. It could be worse, it could be full re-rolls to wound, but this ability does not make sense for Astra Militarum. This also shows the problem with having 20+ Stratagems, because one of the AM ones was a focus fire one that got used tonnes, focus on what makes Astra Militarum into Guard, it's not the ability to focus fire. It's something GW did as well so if you want to ignore me and can't see my point that's totally fair.

Sure I got it the first time, you don't like the idea. But I literally asked you in my previous post how you would implement the concept you mentioned in practice? How am I ignoring you?
I'm trying to collect ideas and improve on a concept, so far you just said you don't like it, that's fine, but not really helpful.


Edit: on the lore part we just have to agree to disagree because in my opinion, it is wholly inaccurate to say that Marines and Custodes can produce more concentrated, massed firepower than the guard. How could they? The Guard makes up the bulk of the Imperiums fighting force and they can outgun the other factions you mentioned by pure weight of numbers (with the exception of Admech perhaps).

I'm sorry if you felt I was attacking you or implied you were ignoring me, that was not my intention.

I'd try implementing a stun mechanic. Did you have a Guard player? Try to take the discussion up with them, when I wrote my Space Marines fandex it wasn't used in my group because my vision did not align with the Space Marine player's vision. If they are not interested in stunning enemy units with weight of fire and would rather annihilate an enemy unit with overwhelming firepower and you feel that is thematic then that's what you should go for, that's what I meant by you should feel free to ignore me, not that you are ignoring me now.

A stun mechanic could lower mobility or offense or remove objective secured or some combination of those. 3 Guard units focus their firepower on a unit = stun = no advance.

 vict0988 wrote:
I'm sorry if you felt I was attacking you or implied you were ignoring me, that was not my intention.

I'd try implementing a stun mechanic. Did you have a Guard player? Try to take the discussion up with them, when I wrote my Space Marines fandex it wasn't used in my group because my vision did not align with the Space Marine player's vision. If they are not interested in stunning enemy units with weight of fire and would rather annihilate an enemy unit with overwhelming firepower and you feel that is thematic then that's what you should go for, that's what I meant by you should feel free to ignore me, not that you are ignoring me now.

A stun mechanic could lower mobility or offense or remove objective secured or some combination of those. 3 Guard units focus their firepower on a unit = stun = no advance.

So correct me if I got something wrong: you would stick with the general mechanic of Massed Firepower, but change the benefit your get from it, is that correct?

So 3 Guard units are delegated to a target, if any unsaved wound is caused, the enemy unit can't advance, for example.

I'm very open to changing the effects, but no advance seems a tad weak to me at first glance.

I just worry that without any benefit to killing power, standard lasguns become pretty much useless. Don't get me wrong, a lasgun should be weak in comparison to most other guns in the game, I just think that the idea, that if you aim a lot of them in the same direction they can do a bit more (doesn't have to be autowounds) than slow the enemy down a little bit, has some merit. But maybe I'm underestimating the proposed slowing down effect on enemy units.

Preventing advancing is like re-rolling 1s to hit, not a big deal on its own. You could come up with a dozen variations and options yourself, in my opinion you should look for what is fun and fluffy to play with, balance doesn't really factor in so the space is quite big. But again, if your group finds something else fun and fluffy I don't really care. I'm mad at GW.

I could go into the math for autowounds on 6s but I don't know if that'd be interesting for you. I'd also wager you are underestimating the cost-effectiveness of Infantry Squads.