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Hello Folks, those of you who frequent the Bolter and Chainsword might recognize me, but I have come here because I need to talk xenos. About a year back, I started a codex rewrite project for Chaos, in part as an exercise, and in part because my play group was willing to let me play with it. This project has sort of spiraled in scale, so now I am working on some xenos codices too. I am hoping primarily for some input on those, particularly because I do not play them very often, and I am sure I am going to miss important things about what sorts of stuff people who play those codices actually like to do.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT, PARTICULARLY TO GW, IF YOU ARE WATCHING: I have done complete rewrites of this as best as I can, therefore it should be impossible to reverse engineer any of official GW product from these rules. Additionally, I have no intention of ever making any money of these, so I believe it should fall under fair use laws. Any IP of GWs is entirely their own.

So, here is the stuff I have been working on:
Chaos and related:
Here is what I have so far, still very much WIP:
Traitors and Heretics
Scholars and Madmen
Killers and Warriors
Ruiners and Defilers
Debauchees and Extremists
Warmachines and Auxiliaries
 
Renegade Legio
 
Miscellaneous Dataslates
Formations and Detachments
TOKENS
 
Also this project is designed to work alongside a modification to the Psychic disciplines, for better balance. Still WIP, but mostly usable I think.
Telepathy
Daemonology


So, most of that has seen some level of playtesting in my play group (and once outside that I know of) and some level of critique from both within and without my playgroup. All good stuff.

I just finished a first version of the Necron Codex. By the way, I don't feel that the necron codex as is, is necessarily unbalanced, I just don't think it is very fun to play with/against. So this was more of a reimagining to make it more interactive than it was a rebalancing, as Necrons already exists fully functionally in the 7.5 era.
The Necron codex is here. Battlescibe start here.

My primary concerns right now are:
Reanimation protocols: is this too strong, too weak? SHould it be split out so certain units recover different amounts? Maybe be given a -1 or -2 minimum of zero type debuff? Perhaps make models removed by instant death and attacks which allowed no saves of any kind not able to be returned?
Invasion beams: too flexible? or does the high point costs units in general make the flexibility necessary, particularly in a maelstrom environment.
Pariahs: Good? Bad? Just right?

I haven't had a chance at all to do any playtesting on the necron codex, but that will be coming soon.

Next in line is nids, although eventually I hope to go through everything, plus that will mean reevaluating current ones as I make later changes.

This is the start of nids.

Haven't gone over any of this yet but I can say I like your design goals quite a lot and will take a look as soon as I can.

Codex Rewrites, you say?

Good stuff. If you need any help with Orks, let me know.

Thanks to you both!

 Dr. Zoidbork wrote:
Codex Rewrites, you say?
Good stuff. If you need any help with Orks, let me know.

I'm sure I shall. I have some interesting ideas for Lootas and Looting Wagons, but I am not sure how that will best translate into rules just yet.

Brief thoughts on your Necrons:

Reanimation Protocols/WBB I'm not sure about. The advantage of the current pseudo-FNP system is that you have a lot less information to keep track of; you don't need to remember what started from where, and you don't need to figure out what happens to remains-in-play effects and Warlord Traits and the like when a model dies but not really. Adding in 'models removed by effects causing ID' adds just another layer of things to track, and more game slowdown.

Pariahs: I like the idea, but the game role overlap with Lychguard is making me hesitate. I'd rather they were differentiated a bit more.

Invasion Beams: I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to achieve here? I'm also not sure the price is enough to compensate for the flexibility as is.

So first impressions are good, the personality of the army seems well-preserved and I like a lot of the rules changes/additions. It seems like it could use some editing for length/ease of play, and I don't agree with some of the points costs, however.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Brief thoughts on your Necrons:

Reanimation Protocols/WBB I'm not sure about. The advantage of the current pseudo-FNP system is that you have a lot less information to keep track of; you don't need to remember what started from where, and you don't need to figure out what happens to remains-in-play effects and Warlord Traits and the like when a model dies but not really. Adding in 'models removed by effects causing ID' adds just another layer of things to track, and more game slowdown.

Pariahs: I like the idea, but the game role overlap with Lychguard is making me hesitate. I'd rather they were differentiated a bit more.

Invasion Beams: I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to achieve here? I'm also not sure the price is enough to compensate for the flexibility as is.

So first impressions are good, the personality of the army seems well-preserved and I like a lot of the rules changes/additions. It seems like it could use some editing for length/ease of play, and I don't agree with some of the points costs, however.

So, the FNP thing I wanted to get rid of because it increases the feeling that when playing against Necrons, a. there is something tactically I can do to work against their advantage (i.e. make really good target priority decisions) and b. it makes playing against necrons more than just a series of throwing dice at them until they roll sufficient 1-3s in a row to lose a model. FNP across the board, although it reduces burden of knowledge, also reduces the ebb and flow interactive aspect of the game. The ID thing concerning you as well in the burden of knowledge aspect means I should almost certainly not include that then.

I agree about Pariahs, any advice on how to differentiate them?

Invasion beams: Since the way reanimation protocols interacts with army construction and points costs, I imagine that there will be even fewer units in lists from my codex than typical necron lists now. As such, I thought increasing their mobility in that way some would help. Plus fluff wise, I can't seem to find a reason that all of the invasion beam source portals couldn't be put in the same place... However, I really want to see how these play before really committing to anything with it. Definitely something to work on.

Also, points cost advice, go for it, and let me know your reasoning too.
My basic principle is to try to figure out basic points costs for any option or unit based on similar existing units and differences in point costs found elsewhere for specific rules. Then I look at the option (whether that is a unit, or an upgrade, or whatever) and ask the following:
1. Would I ever not take this for this price? If the answer is no, then it is either too cheap or should just be included in the unit.
2. Would I ever take this for this price? If the answer is no, then it is too expensive.
If those questions end up in weird results (such as a unit never being taken without an upgrade until the upgrade is too expensive to take and then the unit is never taken at all) then I take it as a sign that the rules in addition to the point cost needs work. That being said, I changed some pretty fundamental stuff about how necrons worked, and I didn't play necrons much to begin with, so my judgment calls here are almost certainly off.

Also, any suggestions for length/ease of play edits just let me know. Keep in mind I might reformat this at some point so there is an easily usable printable version as well, as this format relies heavily on the built in google docs hyperlinks to navigate it efficiently.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One thing I forgot to mention. An important difference between how old style we'll be back worked and reanimation protocols work in my dex, is that it doesn't matter how many turns ago the model died. That might help the burden of knowledge issue as well, as you can just look at your army roster to remember starting size.

@Teetengee:

I see your point on FNP. I'll go do some looking and see if I can come up with some kind of middle ground.

Pariahs and Lychguard are a difficult one; on one hand you'd expect the Lychguard to be the tougher/choppier character-bodyguard sort of unit and thus they should have the warscythes, on the other hand you'd expect Pariahs to be the deathstar-killing brute-force melee offense kind of unit and this they should have the warscythes. They sort of overlap inherently from the fundamental concepts. Maybe give the Pariahs more tricks/flexibility on the shooting side?

Invasion beams are still hilariously powerful for the cost you've given, especially after you've decreased prices over the current Necron book. They seem an overreaction to the goal; I'd rather see something that versatile put down as a piece of deployable character kit like a 3e WWP or used as the Monolith's front gate instead of an added bonus to an already efficiently-costed Flyer.

On costing I try to compare things to a variety of units in a variety of armies that have a similar game role and try to guess how much the differences cost in other contexts. Whenever I try and go over the costs you've written down I get the impression you're undervaluing Reanimation Protocols almost across the board; I'll go over it in more detail if you want but it'll take a bit to get the numbers together.

Yeah, your and my approach to costing don't seem that far off. I am also concerned about both things you have mentioned. (But wanted to leave them be until playtesting, to see just how strong they are in practice, they sound really good of course). Do you think preventing invasion beams from picking units back up would allay your concerns? (Definitely something I want to test the rule first though before using it). I could also play with the wording or implementation to make it more dangerous or harder to cheese (if you can't get back in the same ship without it moving first I could see that making it weaker, or if it worked as something similar to a shooting attack it could be more dangerous due to scatter).

Part of the reason I may be undervaluing reanimation protocols is that I am overestimating the ease of wiping a unit in one round, which of course, would completely negate reanimation protocols as written. Once again, I want to try playtesting first.

One thing I am considering with reanimation protocols is to have different units roll different dice: Warriors get the full D6 while perhaps units such as lychguard only get 1 or a D3 back.

I don't even like the current Invasion Beams, it seems to me that the Night Scythe in the current rules is way too risk-free by comparison to every other flying transport around. I'd rather see either a flyer written around the assumption that the unit is in the flyer (and can thus deploy a single unit period, and the unit takes hits when the flyer is shot down) or a single restricted and expensive WWP-style portal instead of a bunch of cheap ones that can be taken as Dedicated Transports. Either way I don't like making extra Reserves zones; a unit should be in Reserves or not, not in 'Deep Strike reserve' or 'Invasion Beam reserve' or whatnot.

I may be underestimating the ease of wiping a unit in one round, I've had entirely too many games against Necrons where I dumped most of an army's shooting into one unit and killed nothing (or sometimes one model).

Considering the design goals, ease of play, and lore I'm wondering if a WMH-style reanimator unit might work? If you need a Ghost Ark or Tomb Spyder nearby to enable reanimation in the field (as opposed to failsafe teleportation back into the tomb) you'd have a convenient container in the rules to keep records in, and the rules can be more concise and less random.

Actually the more I describe this the more I like it. The way Necrons work/have worked in 40k they make the endless phalanxes we see in the lore hard to implement, this could give an interesting amount of flexibility on the table and sort of mirrors one of my favourite bits of Dawn of War.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I don't even like the current Invasion Beams, it seems to me that the Night Scythe in the current rules is way too risk-free by comparison to every other flying transport around. I'd rather see either a flyer written around the assumption that the unit is in the flyer (and can thus deploy a single unit period, and the unit takes hits when the flyer is shot down) or a single restricted and expensive WWP-style portal instead of a bunch of cheap ones that can be taken as Dedicated Transports. Either way I don't like making extra Reserves zones; a unit should be in Reserves or not, not in 'Deep Strike reserve' or 'Invasion Beam reserve' or whatnot.

I may be underestimating the ease of wiping a unit in one round, I've had entirely too many games against Necrons where I dumped most of an army's shooting into one unit and killed nothing (or sometimes one model).

Considering the design goals, ease of play, and lore I'm wondering if a WMH-style reanimator unit might work? If you need a Ghost Ark or Tomb Spyder nearby to enable reanimation in the field (as opposed to failsafe teleportation back into the tomb) you'd have a convenient container in the rules to keep records in, and the rules can be more concise and less random.

Actually the more I describe this the more I like it. The way Necrons work/have worked in 40k they make the endless phalanxes we see in the lore hard to implement, this could give an interesting amount of flexibility on the table and sort of mirrors one of my favourite bits of Dawn of War.

I think fluffwise, it is important to keep the night scythe a low risk transport, as they definitely aren't in the vehicle. I am not trying to modify fluff too much in this project. (Whether or not it should be is mostly out of the scope of my goals here).

Remember for unit wiping: these necrons don't have fnp anymore they will die the first time much more easily.

Could you go into more detail about the WMH-style reanimator unit? It isn't something I am familiar with (or point me to it). Also, the endless phalanx/dawn of war bit, please elaborate, as I want the army to feel right for sure. An important note, I don't want necrons to end up looking like just another marine army rules wise.

If you're not going to have the units in the Night Scythe then it should have Hover Mode and have to stop to deploy models the way most Flyers do, or make deployed models scatter and risk rolling a Deep Strike mishap the way Grav-Chute Insertion works. Anything to make it not just show up and pop accurate/consequence-free large scary units down in the enemy's face.

WMH-style (sorry if the acronym is unfamiliar) is referring to how the Cyriss, Cryx, and Legion armies in Warmachine and Hordes handle resurrecting dead models. You'd have a model with a rule saying he collects tokens when models die within his collection radius, and on your turn he can spend these tokens to return models to play, sometimes with different costs depending on which models he's returning to play. The resurrection mechanic in Dawn of War has the Tomb Spyder collect corpses from the battlefield and then spend those corpses to produce new units in a similar fashion.

So roughly the 'Reanimator' keyword would read: 'Reanimator: When a model with Reanimation Protocols dies withinin 12" of this model this model gains a corpse token. During your Shooting phase this model can spend corpse tokens (instead of shooting) to add models to one unit with Reanimation Protocols within 12" at a cost of one token per Wound of the returned model. This cannot be used to take a unit above its normal maximum size. (Sidebar: Salvage: When a Reanimator model dies within 12" of another Reanimator roll a d6 for each corpse token on the destroyed model. On a 4+ add the token to the live Reanimator.)'

I'd have to go dig into the fiddly bits some to say more precisely but I think it'd work fairly well, in terms of the lore aspect, and in terms of trying to let people try to clean out a unit to prevent it from coming back.

References to 'endless phalanx' refers to the fact that Necrons in artwork and lore always seem to have a lot more troops in one place than I've ever seen on the table.

Me and Dr Zoidbork have been bouncing some ideas around for a nids dex. The more eyes on the project the better I say if you want to get in on the discussion.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
If you're not going to have the units in the Night Scythe then it should have Hover Mode and have to stop to deploy models the way most Flyers do, or make deployed models scatter and risk rolling a Deep Strike mishap the way Grav-Chute Insertion works. Anything to make it not just show up and pop accurate/consequence-free large scary units down in the enemy's face.

WMH-style (sorry if the acronym is unfamiliar) is referring to how the Cyriss, Cryx, and Legion armies in Warmachine and Hordes handle resurrecting dead models. You'd have a model with a rule saying he collects tokens when models die within his collection radius, and on your turn he can spend these tokens to return models to play, sometimes with different costs depending on which models he's returning to play. The resurrection mechanic in Dawn of War has the Tomb Spyder collect corpses from the battlefield and then spend those corpses to produce new units in a similar fashion.

So roughly the 'Reanimator' keyword would read: 'Reanimator: When a model with Reanimation Protocols dies withinin 12" of this model this model gains a corpse token. During your Shooting phase this model can spend corpse tokens (instead of shooting) to add models to one unit with Reanimation Protocols within 12" at a cost of one token per Wound of the returned model. This cannot be used to take a unit above its normal maximum size. (Sidebar: Salvage: When a Reanimator model dies within 12" of another Reanimator roll a d6 for each corpse token on the destroyed model. On a 4+ add the token to the live Reanimator.)'

I'd have to go dig into the fiddly bits some to say more precisely but I think it'd work fairly well, in terms of the lore aspect, and in terms of trying to let people try to clean out a unit to prevent it from coming back.

References to 'endless phalanx' refers to the fact that Necrons in artwork and lore always seem to have a lot more troops in one place than I've ever seen on the table.

I was thinking of having the invasion beam be fired like a weapon (although at a point on the board and not an enemy) and be large blast. Everything scooped up or dropped out would have to fit in the blast legally, or would be lost. Would that work for you? (it would also make invasion beams susceptible to weapon destroyed results).

As for reanimator tokens, I am not sure if that would play better or worse, I do know it would create lynchpin models, which isn't necessarily something I think is appropriate.

In both cases, I should have a chance to playtest within a few weeks, so I should be able to see how they actually play and then make a decision based on that.

As for the endless phalanx, I don't know if we can really get that effect without making necrons really underwhelming. Dropping warrior saves to a 4+ in the newcron dex was an effort towards that, but with the modern rule set I am not sure what the chances of that happening really are. At the very least, Reanimation Protocols as I have written it encourages large units that aren't easily wiped in a single shooting phase, which might feel more endless phalanxy, I hope.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:
Me and Dr Zoidbork have been bouncing some ideas around for a nids dex. The more eyes on the project the better I say if you want to get in on the discussion.

Shoot! (Also, I've started work on mine, and want to see the basic principle behind that one through, so I may go a different route anyways. Might actually be good to have two different approaches that could be synthesized for a better one down the road.)

It'd take some testing, certainly, and it probably isn't appropriate for a game where D-strength attacks are commonplace, but I do tend to try to design back down from some of the spikes 40k has hit recently.

In any case I think it's going to be at least part of how I crack the 'what the hell do I do with Necrons?' problem that's made them hard to fit into my 40k-Mordheim project.

Yeah, I never played mordheim, but from my understanding, it is a vastly different game than 40k in the modern age. I would definitely not write rules the same way for the scale of mordheim as I understand it.

As for designing back down from spikes, it isn't one of the primary goals of this project (although i do want to tone down the worst excesses, I think Eldar D weapons will see a bit of a nerfing when I get there). I am definitely considering a different project that is more about boiling down things to a more basic level and also rewriting the main rules in their entirety that would have that as a goal, but I'm not there just yet. Right now I want to make things that still fit in well piecemeal to the official game, if people so choose to use them that way.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:
Me and Dr Zoidbork have been bouncing some ideas around for a nids dex. The more eyes on the project the better I say if you want to get in on the discussion.

Shoot! (Also, I've started work on mine, and want to see the basic principle behind that one through, so I may go a different route anyways. Might actually be good to have two different approaches that could be synthesized for a better one down the road.)

Nids "codex" link is up now. It's mainly a few half finished unit profiles and some special rules at this point though, so take that how you will.

Instinctive behavior is definitely going to get a double sided coin indicator for use in game.

I will get what I have into a google doc and send it your way.

 Lance845 wrote:
I will get what I have into a google doc and send it your way.

Thanks!
Also, I will be picking away at nids until I get a chance to playtest crons a bit.

 Teetengee wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
I will get what I have into a google doc and send it your way.

Thanks!
Also, I will be picking away at nids until I get a chance to playtest crons a bit.

My nid stuff so far minus my notes scrimbled about some numbers for units I haven't fleshed out yet.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10oHN14ZQgutOAQEI8_-kgxyWHpOD7hw8BZVUu5Kp_vM/edit?usp=sharing

I own necrons and nids. I would be happy to play test your crons with my friends if I can find the time. Life and work and all that allowing.

Haven't decided how I want Instinctive behavior to work yet. For now I am working off the codex version, but would love to see anything you come up with.

Thanks, I was going to switch Instinctive behavior to a thing that rewards players for staying in synapse range, rather than punishes them for not. Also, I am still moving stuff around slots wise, and appreciate your thoughts on it as you have listed in your codex work so far.

Necron news:
-Initial playtesting shows that they may be weak to tau. This is not terribly unexpected as a. I forgot to make it so Praetorians could actually deploy from night scythes, and b. because tau are quite proficient at target prioritzing. So far it seems that the current reanimation protocols might be balanced, but I am going to want significantly more playtesting to show that. Also, c'tans might be too fragile at 4 wounds.
-added a C'tan option to represent the burning one shards

Nids news:
The codex is now to the point it can begin to be playtested, although it is lacking
-a full relic list
-unique characters
-most fw stuff and any units I have missed (although I think I will end up not including Malanthropes (Venomthrope bolted to a Zoanthrope seems a bit too powerful given my rules for those two, and I am not sure how to make it have a different function/playstyle) and meiotic spores (no use case not covered by others))
-I'm still bouncing around adding stat mods ala 4th ed, more to come there perhaps
-some lord of war+fortification things
-detachments
-summaries


Additionally, in both codices I am still bouncing around the idea of Dynasties or Hive Fleets (basically, chapter tactics) but I haven't decided if or how I would want to implement those.

Did some more playtesting:
Necron reanimation protocols seem fine for warriors, Wee'll be back is fine it seems for lord, and Monoliths seem ok, but I did make it that gone to ground units couldn't be ported using the gate, as I thought that a bit silly.


Also, my friend used the Killers and Warriors dex and with some nonesense rolling took out a ghostkeel with a single bloodreaper that the ghostkeel +drones assaulted. (Made saves, did one wound, ghost keel fled, run down.)

Crons: Reduced the cost of the res orb type stuff, after seeing that reanimation protocols seem not to be as strong as I feared they might be.

Nids: Added Dimachaeron and LOW rules. Dimachaeron I modified quite a bit to make it more streamlined and to give it a different niche.

LOWs as always, are hard to cost appropriately. Let me know what you think.

Nids:

I have added the unique characters. Additionally, I made changes to Simultaneous Collision as 1 S: D shot is rarely better than 3D3 S9 shots. I increased it to D3 S: D shots.

Does anyone think the Hierophant should get access to some sort of Strength D hyperclaw type deal?

I could see the heirhant having like... a str d acidic maw bite attack. But the model doesnt have claws or talons and couldnt without loosing guns atm.

Ok, I added a rule for the S 10 gargs to take Hypercharged Adrenal Glands, which makes them S: D on the turn they charge (since it isn't like Furious charge was going to help them) I don't know if it is costed appropriately or not though.

Made some more wording changes throughout the nid dex (Swarmlord only grants Preferred enemy to one unit a turn, not one unit a turn for the rest of the game...)

Also, formations and detachments are up (as they are for now) in the nid dex.

Still need summaries and to finish up work on fortifications.
I'm having trouble sourcing rules for the spore chimney and capillary tower for inspiration though, so if someone could point me to what books those are in, that would be helpful.

I gave Genestealer's a BS value (1, 3 for broodlord) to a. avoid weird psychic power interactions where a broodlord can't fire, and b, so they could make some more use out of the flesh hook options I just gave them.

Question, should flesh hooks be an option for the whole unit, or a model per model upgrade that is taken instead of scything talons? I like the second from a "real options are only those you sometimes take" standpoint, but I don't think the first is unbalancing. Thoughts?

Tyranid codex is fully operational and ready for playtesting. Linkages, summary, and outline are included in that, so it should be fairly easy to navigate.
Playtesting should begin in a couple weeks.