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With the seventh edition codicies being rolled out and the game rebalancing, I tend to see a lot of, "Oh No! They sucked all the flavor out of my army!" and for a while, I felt bad for them, but then a friend of mine said to just pull stuff out of my ass and make it as fun as I want. So, I've taken to doing just that.

For instance, my brother plays Raven Guard and loves lightning claws, so he runs this horribly expensive maxed out unit of Vanguard Veterans and has them all modeled with Lightning claws. One time, he accidentally painted one lightning claw gold instead of silver and blue, but he didn't change it because we both thought it was really cool. In our own games, we've decided to give the guy a bunch of USRs to make the gold lightning claw guy stand out a little more.

I also made a bunch of little objective markers and since I play Chaos, I made some small ruins, a couple of shrines to The Four and something else with spikes. When someone caps a chaos shrine, they get buffed on a 4+ and nerfed on a 3 or lower.

I am also in the middle of writing a bunch of custom scenarios and modifiers in the same vein as what the Dice Like Thunder mission packet did for 5th edition where there are like five charts for rolling on different variables, but I'm also a high school senior with a part time job, so I haven't had the time to work that out.

What I want to know is what other Dakkanaughts do for fun games.

I've been watching the Narrative Campaigns over at miniwargaming.com and they are an excellent way to add just a little to a game to make it SO much better. Thematic campaigns are great, but for smaller games keeping track of characters like you mentioned with the golden lightning claws is fantastic. It's all in the little details.

I think everyone does have that one unit that they've given a unique touch to, and I have convinced people to play a game against one of my "special" units, which we gave special rules. Aside from that, and a lot of fluff and roleplaying, we tend to make up whatever scenarios we feel like. I imagine a lot of them have been thought of by others before us, but they tend to be pretty unique experiences for us.

For example, we just played a "king of the hill" sort of game, with the "hill" being a ruin resembling an old aztec pyramid, serving as a shrine to khorne. The game was part 3 v 1, part free for all. Three of us, eldar, grey knights, and my dark angels, had to get to the top of the shrine and destroy it, first one to hold it for a turn wins. The fourth player, daemons of khorne, started with nothing on the board except for a soul grinder, atop the altar. As long as the it was alive it rolled d3 to bring in that many units of daemons, that could either appear at the base of the pyramid or deep strike. Let's just say the three of us were too busy killing each and we got extremely outnumbered.

Just an example, try to mix it up with something like that every few weeks.

Me and my son quit playing 40K. Trying to get back in so we are, (I should say I am since he just wants to play, so I do all the tinkering) and make 40K into a, Igo/Ugo format instead of my turn/your turn format.

Also changed how the scoring works with objectives. Objectives now score every turn. First 3 games we just played with 3 objectives. One in the middle. He places one, I place one. So of course we place the objectives in our own deployment zone.

Now here is the kicker. Objective I placed in my deployment zone is worth 1 point for me per turn, while it is 2 points for him. Same for objective in his deployment zone. 1 point for him, and 2 points for me. Objective in the neutral zone is 2 points for both of us.

Boy does that change the game. You basically ignore your objective in your zone so you can get the 2 per turn instead of the 1 per turn.

We have had a lot of fun but life kicked in and we stopped playing for a bit. Now I have to add to it and we will try again.

So I have made a few more rule changes. Just need to find time to play again. So hoping during the Christmas break or new year we will try them again.

My gaming group sometimes adds extra little rules for special games when we feel like it, one example recently when it was myself vs two Tyranid players, the new Nid player only had a small amount of models but he had painted them with a camo look, so i suggested we allow them to come in from reserve via the foliage areas on our table, it made them more effective and more a part of the game whilst he builds up his full army.

I really think 40k shines when played with a creative, open to special scenarios, house rules etc mindset, among like minded gamers/friends/family.

Im planning to write a bunch of custom missions in the new year, hopefully leading to a full narrative campaign for my local group.

For me, most of it comes from playing in character with the army as much as possible. I find that basically putting the narrative first and rules a distant second leads to the most fun games, so things like making suicide charges, holding the line when falling back would be a better option and challenging wherever possible do a lot of my work for me. Often, I'll add custom scenarios or unts/rules anyway as well.

Adopting an 'anything goes' approach to 40k is the best way forward, I think.

I cover everything in Barbeque sauce. Tons of flavour, though cleaning up is a bit of a bastard.

That's one of the reasons I use gloss sealer, though. Sticky, sugary messes wash off easier.

I don't worry about the competitive side of things. Don't get me wrong, I like winning and I not going to include a Haruspex anytime soon, but my Ultramarines are 3rd Company with the only support coming from the Tyrannic War Vets and Chaplain Cassius. No terminators, no Vanguard or Sternguard, twenty Fast Attack Marines in two squads max. It's a good time playing a Battle Company.

My Blood Angels will be primarily the 1st Company and the Formations that go with that. Exact opposite of my Ultramarines. All Terminators, Vanguard and Sternguard but depending on how I feel, I might pull in 7th and 8th Reserve elements too.

But my Tyranids might have the biggest hurdle to keep my into it. I still try to use as many 3rd Edition styles as I can. Walking Tyrant with a Venom Cannon, Screamer Killer Carnifex, Genestealers have taken their leave for now but might come back in 2000pts. I include the old gameplay with the new and make it work.

Keeping an overall sense of consistency and fluff in with the game keeps me more entertained than say, just using two units again and again in a spam list. Trying to include as many Altar of War missions in friendly games also gives a sense of game to it instead of competition.

One of the things people in my area do is try to come up with a story reason of why we are fighting, incorporating some of the terrain and the armies involved.

To be honest, games of 40k dont NEED extra flavor added in because there is plenty there. Yes, we see people complaining about flavor being removed from their codices but they are wrong, they are just so used to having it spoon fed to them and lack the imagination or creativity to represent their army without the crutch.
However, many of us like to add our PERSONAL touch to our games. Over the years, I've had many different ways of doing this. Here are a few...
1. Personalizing terrain pieces to match my army. Banners and flags on buildings, dead bodies, on the new GW trenchline, the bodies along the trench are painted up as having been my guardsmen.
2. personalized objective markers.
3. A concrete lawn ornament gargoyle set up in the center of the table as a chaos temple (for my old chaos army) that was to remain there until someone won against it .
4. Personalized turn counters... A spinning pointer one for my old chaos where the dial was surrounded by rocks with the numbers 1-6 painted on in red "blood" and you spun the dial to point at the turn. A dozer blade from a russ for my guard with the numbers 1-6 painted onto the teeth (conviently, there are 6 "teeth") and a flamer backpach the slides over to be above the turn we are playing. Debating on making a "clocktower" for an army (not sure which) with only 6 or 7 hours on the face where you turn the hand on the clock to the correct turn.
7 My buddy makes up his own personal objectives to achieve before each game and plays towards them instead of the one the scenerio sets.
8. In my old chaos army, I made kill markings to match my normal opponent's armies by using decals from their boxes or shoulder pads and putting the ed circle with the red slash through/over it.
9. Personalize characters in my to match book characters or movie characters (for example, one of my guard sarges is the shoveler from mystery men).

I dump paprika all over the game board after army deployment. Delicious.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I dump paprika all over the game board after army deployment. Delicious.

I grew up with a lot of Italian cuisine, so it's gotta be garlic.

With most squads I name the squad leaders. For my Tau I'm looking at philosophers for their battle names. For example, My commander is Platotus shas'o, and my Crisis suit squad leader is Tzu.

I plan on naming my broadsides after famous warriors.

Just little stuff like making them stand out makes people go "Holy crap Platotus just took out my war boss in one go!" It makes it more interesting, at least for me

On topic and less LULZ please - thanks!

I do, but kinda internally since I know some people don't like fluff. I actually am starting up an all Catachan force. Since there aren't any Catachan rules anymore I'm giving everything camo netting/cloak and taking nothing but veterans who are decked out with heavy flamers and forward sentries.

I play Orks.

Mixing up the kits and coming up with unique looking models.

 Ugavine wrote:
I play Orks.

Mixing up the kits and coming up with unique looking models.

Can you talk to my buddy? He doesn't get into the Orkiness. I have to keep correcting his words because he's using the full pronunciation instead of the Orknunciation.

Narrative campaigns with a handful of my friends has been the most fun. We meet once a week. Two games are played each meeting, so you're guaranteed some table time, some painting time, etc. Keeps the atmosphere fresh and the games interesting.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I cover everything in Barbeque sauce. Tons of flavour, though cleaning up is a bit of a bastard.

That's one of the reasons I use gloss sealer, though. Sticky, sugary messes wash off easier.

I will have to try this one

 Gamerely wrote:

 Ugavine wrote:
I play Orks.

Mixing up the kits and coming up with unique looking models.

Can you talk to my buddy? He doesn't get into the Orkiness. I have to keep correcting his words because he's using the full pronunciation instead of the Orknunciation.

I once ran into an ork player that wouldn't even use the word dakka or waaaagh. His orks just shoot, and they have "war", and koptas were helicopters, the list goes on and it was just heartbreaking.

I drink a lot; also, I make most of my army lists/tourney lists whilst drinking and thinking "that would be fun". Its kinda like street racing in a Prius, fun; but I don't win much.

 kingbobbito wrote:

 Gamerely wrote:

 Ugavine wrote:
I play Orks.

Mixing up the kits and coming up with unique looking models.

Can you talk to my buddy? He doesn't get into the Orkiness. I have to keep correcting his words because he's using the full pronunciation instead of the Orknunciation.

I once ran into an ork player that wouldn't even use the word dakka or waaaagh. His orks just shoot, and they have "war", and koptas were helicopters, the list goes on and it was just heartbreaking.

GW and or the Black Library is really missing out on a golden opportunity to make an Ork dictionary.

We always try to tie in a narrative to our games... even if it's loosely strung together it does actually make the games that much more meaningful and fun.

Check out our Apoc game - the narratives (not written by me) are excellent: http://atticwars40k.blogspot.com/2014/11/apocalypse-on-ordel-v-final-assault.html