Saving 40k in 500 words or less, with improved balance, less tedium, and greater player agency. Goals: to improve balance between shooting and assault, remove tedious rules, and improve the player’s ability to effectively design and execute a game plan. I would appreciate constructive comments and criticism for these house rules.

Pre-game:
- warlord traits, players may freely select their warlord trait if using their codex's unique warlord traits. Codices without unique traits may freely select from the BRB warlord tactical or personal traits (not command nor strategic traits!).
- psychic powers are chosen when building the army list. All current restrictions apply (i.e. ML1 can only learn one power + primaris). Warp charge 1 powers cost 0 points, Warp charge 2 powers cost 10 points each, Warp charge 3 powers cost 20 points each.
- fielding a bound army list grants +1VP to the controlling player.

Movement:
- all model movement is now performed in the movement phase, including run (+3") and charge moves (+3"+d6"). If the charge fails, treat it as a run move directly towards the target unit. If the charge is successful, move all models the appropriate distance, into b2b contact if possible. In the shooting phase, the charging unit may fire assault and pistol weapons as normal (combat doesn't start until the assault phase), when using template and blast weapons ignore friendly models from the same unit caught under the template. In the shooting phase a charged unit may only be targeted by the unit(s) that charged it.
- any move entering, exiting, or crossing difficult terrain subtracts 3” from the model’s base movement, including bikes, cavalry, and vehicles. This affects run and charge moves. Units with the move through cover, beasts, and skimmer rules ignore this modifier.
- models may charge after disembarking from a non-assault vehicle (unless the vehicle began the turn in reserves), suffering -3" to their charge range. This is cumulative with any other penalties, e.g. charging through cover.
- any rules improving or re-rolling run moves (e.g. fleet, crusader, Move Move Move command) allow the model to run +6” instead of +3” (this doesn't apply to charges).

Psychic:
- remove the perils chart, perils of the warp inflicts 1 wound with no saves of any kind allowed (including invulnerable saves and feel no pain). The psyker's unit also suffers one S4 Ap2 hit for every "6" that was rolled on the psychic test.

Shooting:
- eliminate the look out sir rule.
- simplified vehicle damage table, 1-2 Shaken, 3-4 Stunned, 5-6 Immobilized, 7+ Explodes.
- +1 BS at targets within 12", -1 BS at targets beyond 36" (minimum BS 1 when shooting)
- all cover is treated the same, shots at models in cover or with cover modifiers (camo, stealth, jink, etc.) are fired at -1 BS (no more cover saves). Shots at models with both cover and a cover modifier are at -2 BS. Modifiers cannot reduce BS below 1. “Snap shots” always miss targets in cover. "Ignore cover" confers +1 BS when shooting at targets with cover. A unit is considered in cover if at least 50% of its models are out of sight or obscured from the closest shooting model with LOS.
- combat speed now counts as stationary for the purpose of firing. Cruising speed counts as combat speed for firing.
- remove all incidents of "randomly select a model" for wounds, instead the controlling player may choose who takes wounds in these instances.

Assault:
- (see above: Movement).
- in overwatch, template weapons and grenades (1 grenade per unit) inflict d3 automatic hits. Tau supporting fire is unaffected, the charged unit may not fire. Nothing else may fire overwatch.
- eliminate pile in moves. Everyone in a combat within 6" of an enemy model fights (close combat, short range fire, etc). In the movement phase, models in engaged units must move into base to base contact with an enemy model or as close as possible (moving 6").
- fix the WS chart. If the opposing WS is 2+ higher than your own, you hit on a 5+.
- eliminate the initiative+d6 roll when fleeing combat. If the unit flees and the enemy chooses a sweeping advance, then the fleeing unit is completely eliminated. A unit may not consolidate after a sweeping advance. If the winning side chooses to consolidate instead, consolidation moves are always up to 3".

Morale:
- when suffering 25% casualties from shooting, units take a pinning test instead of a morale test. Weapons with the "Pinning" special rule force the pinning test at -1 ld.
- if a unit is falling back and fails its test to regroup, the unit is instantly removed as a casualty, it is assumed that they were completely routed or cut down in a hail of fire.

Look out sir really shouldn't go away as all it does is give units a chance to protect their characters (versus characters taking wounds last like a few editions ago for example or the player choosing where the wounds go like in 5th). Instead I'd say that if a model with a special or heavy weapon is killed that on a 5+ a differently equipped model (likely someone who isn't upgrade, or at most has the same basic equipment as everyone (so if they have Chaos Marks or +CCW that's fine as) else but no special melee or ranged weapons) in the unit can be removed as a casualty instead (basically the model traded his wargear for his fallen comrade's).

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Look out sir really shouldn't go away as all it does is give units a chance to protect their characters (versus characters taking wounds last like a few editions ago for example or the player choosing where the wounds go like in 5th). Instead I'd say that if a model with a special or heavy weapon is killed that on a 5+ a differently equipped model (likely someone who isn't upgrade, or at most has the same basic equipment as everyone (so if they have Chaos Marks or +CCW that's fine as) else but no special melee or ranged weapons) in the unit can be removed as a casualty instead (basically the model traded his wargear for his fallen comrade's).

My problem with Look Out Sir, is that it is a horrendous waste of game time. Every game I run into multiple situations where my opponent is trying to protect his Sgt, but this turns even normal shooting into a dice-rolling fest which drags the game on and on. I also really hate the strategy of alternating Look Out Sir and tanking wounds on an IC with a 2++ save to protect the squad while passing off Ap2 wounds. Either the character takes hits like normal troopers or characters can't take wounds until everyone else is dead, I imagine people will prefer the second option. I'll update an alternate solution, wounds can only be allocated to characters once all targetable non-character have been removed as casualties.

That would completely remove the ability for characters to tank for units. Which I like in concept.

I would be in favor of removing Look Out Sir completely. If you want to tank for the squad go for it, but don't expect to cherry pick which hits go where.

Also if you're going to have a game where only a couple guys in the unit are actually worth keeping alive, just go to the Melta Gun/Lascannon guy die last system.

 Eldarain wrote:
That would completely remove the ability for characters to tank for units. Which I like in concept.

I would be in favor of removing Look Out Sir completely. If you want to tank for the squad go for it, but don't expect to cherry pick which hits go where.

Also if you're going to have a game where only a couple guys in the unit are actually worth keeping alive, just go to the Melta Gun/Lascannon guy die last system.

This is more of what I was thinking originally. Players can tank if they want, putting the character in the front, but you can't then pick and choose for the plasma blasts to somehow hit anyone else.

My go ..

Throw away the WHFB based rules.
Use Epic Armageddon based rules, add more detail using 474 remaining words to bring the scale in line with larger minatures.

There is so much wrong with WHFB in space v3.4, that 500 word would just scratch the surface.
it would be much easier to convert another rule set with 500 words IMO.

Please advocates of saving '40k 7th' ed rules .Can you explain what is exactly worth saving?
As I really can not see anything from a game mechanic or resolution method perspective in 40k ,that can not be simply replaced with objectively better alternatives.

All units should be able to attempt to break from melee combat at any time by the commander's (my) orders. give them a chance to take D3 wounds with saves or something.

Lanrak wrote:
My go ..

Throw away the WHFB based rules.
Use Epic Armageddon based rules, add more detail using 474 remaining words to bring the scale in line with larger minatures.

There is so much wrong with WHFB in space v3.4, that 500 word would just scratch the surface.
it would be much easier to convert another rule set with 500 words IMO.

Please advocates of saving '40k 7th' ed rules .Can you explain what is exactly worth saving?
As I really can not see anything from a game mechanic or resolution method perspective in 40k ,that can not be simply replaced with objectively better alternatives.

Mostly because it's simpler and easier to fix the current system into a fun edition rather than changing everything.

That said, I've heard good things about Epic and it seems more suited for the style of game that people are looking for in the 1500+ point range. The current 7th ed ruleset seems more built for games in the 750-1500 point range, with the focus on characters, plethora of special rules, complex interactions, charts, etc. I find 1000 point games way faster and fun than larger battles. The problem is that the game clearly isn't balanced for that size, it's almost impossible to build a decent TAC list under 1500 points, so a bad match up will wreck house at that scale.

So my solution is primarily to speed up gameplay and let players decide how to field their armies (warlord traits, psychic powers, etc). The challenge should be provided by your opponent, not by a series of unfortunate difficult terrain rolls.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pyeatt wrote:
All units should be able to attempt to break from melee combat at any time by the commander's (my) orders. give them a chance to take D3 wounds with saves or something.

I think this would hurt assault armies too much. Being able to disengage to open them up for shooting would be too powerful.

I was looking over the pancake edition from a couple of years ago to see what looked good on that, and I have also been looking at different ideas from other posters.

One aspect I think really adds a more dynamic edge, that doesn't necesarily have to change everything about the game, is switching players on a phase-by-phase basis. This means no more sitting around for half an hour watching the other guy move models and roll dice. While doing this, a few other tweaks would just neaten up the rules and make things more intuitive.

Movement is always in the movement phase as many have suggested before. The types of movement that can be performed:

1. move as normal.

2. Run: movement+d6. No weapons may be fired in the shooting phase.

3. Charge: Movement+d6 towards an enemy unit. Assault Weapons and Pistols may be fired at the charged target. Even once a Unit has made a successful charge, Units do not count as engaged until the I10 step of the Assault Phase

This means Overwatch can be streamlined into a bonus Shooting attack, directed from the target of a charge towards the charger. Shooting is still stronger when the guys are running right at you, but doesn't include a whole extra set of rules. This would also work for rules like Support Fire, where all units are able to gain the Overwatch bonus when targetting the charging unit.

What I'm trying to do with these modifications is simultaneously streamlline and make it feel as if things are happening at once, where a unit can be shot as it is charged, units move around the board in direct response to enemy units movement, a charge is basically a run, why should they be any different? etc etc.

I agree with dropping LOS altogether.

I would drop half of the USRs.

Cover needs to be stripped down to a simple mechanism.

I would lose warlord traits altogether.

No more crappy Psychic Phase (in fact I would rather just work straight from 6th ed.)!!

Altayre wrote:


One aspect I think really adds a more dynamic edge, that doesn't necesarily have to change everything about the game, is switching players on a phase-by-phase basis. This means no more sitting around for half an hour watching the other guy move models and roll dice. While doing this, a few other tweaks would just neaten up the rules and make things more intuitive.

Movement is always in the movement phase as many have suggested before. The types of movement that can be performed:

1. move as normal.

2. Run: movement+d6. No weapons may be fired in the shooting phase.

3. Charge: Movement+d6 towards an enemy unit. Assault Weapons and Pistols may be fired at the charged target. Even once a Unit has made a successful charge, Units do not count as engaged until the I10 step of the Assault Phase

This means Overwatch can be streamlined into a bonus Shooting attack, directed from the target of a charge towards the charger. Shooting is still stronger when the guys are running right at you, but doesn't include a whole extra set of rules. This would also work for rules like Support Fire, where all units are able to gain the Overwatch bonus when targetting the charging unit.

What I'm trying to do with these modifications is simultaneously streamlline and make it feel as if things are happening at once, where a unit can be shot as it is charged, units move around the board in direct response to enemy units movement, a charge is basically a run, why should they be any different? etc etc.

I agree with dropping LOS altogether.

I would drop half of the USRs.

Cover needs to be stripped down to a simple mechanism.

I would lose warlord traits altogether.

No more crappy Psychic Phase (in fact I would rather just work straight from 6th ed.)!!

Now we're getting somewhere! I incorporated some of your suggestions in the top post.

Charge would probably have to be move+2d6", not sure if that's what you meant. But doing all movement at once would help a great deal, it's so annoying when you have to move the same model three or four times in one turn (move, charge, pile in, consolidate). It's better if the shooting and assault phases are just rolling and removing models, not moving models again. In this case, difficult terrain should be -3" to any of the three movement options. I like this alternating phase system better than the unit-by-unit activation that some folks have suggested, and by moving all at once there isn't the option to deliberately move away from a charging unit.

Some USRs that need to go:
- blind or concussive (pick one, also if you're striking first, what's the point of making your enemy I1?)
- rampage (just give the unit +1A, I hate conditional rules that require counting every turn)
- hatred (just use preferred enemy!)
- jink (replace with hard to hit or cover = -1 to hit in shooting as described above)
- any rules about buildings: sentry defences, repel the enemy, etc...
- shred (just +1S to whatever weapons this is currently applied to)
- shrouded & stealth (just say +1 to cover)
- skilled rider (nothing takes you out of the narrative like 10 biker marines driving through a raging river, a bunker, and a forest to charge your infantry with no penalty)
- soul blaze (PITB looking up the rules for something so mediocre)
- zealot (it's literally hatred + fearless)

Personally I kinda like warlord traits, if you can pick them. I'd take the IG outflank with d3 units every time, because it's a great feel for the army, but it's impossible to build a game plan around something that you'll only get 30% of the time (with re-rolls). And nothing stinks like getting a useless warlord trait that you're not equipped for, "Hooray my Lord Commissar has relentless!"

The assault based armies would say marines firing overwatch at full BS with their pistols would hurt. One of my armies is marines and I can see where we shoot a LOT


Automatically Appended Next Post:
but hey I will say that I see where you are going at with that. It's a close ranged weapon. You can arguably say that they would've been trained for close combat (CQB, combat tuck, transitioning, improvised shooting positions).

 Josey4u wrote:
The assault based armies would say marines firing overwatch at full BS with their pistols would hurt. One of my armies is marines and I can see where we shoot a LOT


Automatically Appended Next Post:
but hey I will say that I see where you are going at with that. It's a close ranged weapon. You can arguably say that they would've been trained for close combat (CQB, combat tuck, transitioning, improvised shooting positions).

Yea, the fact that all marines have bolt pistols really complicates that change, but like you say that's a far more believable aspect of Marine training than some of the other benefits they get ::cough:: Chapter Tactics . On the other hand, it means heavy weapons and assault weapons can't overwatch. It's silly buying a plasma pistol for 15 points when all it will do 90% of the time is give you +1 attack, I wanted it to be a meaningful trade-off between pistol and rifle. And I liked the idea of balancing the loss in overwatch shooting by picking a handful of specialist defensive weapons like pistols, grenades, and flamers. This way it removes most overwatch, speeding up the process, but also gives you more options for configuring a defensive squad for holding objectives. I imagined sergeants picking off troopers coming over the trench line, troopers dropping grenades down the stairwell, a gout of flame torching the next room over, etc. These are general changes I'd like, of course they would necessitate points changes in the long run.

I'm not so sure how I feel about Full BS overwatch. As it is, rolling 6's is not that complicated. But, for most armies, shooting at full BS is a bit nuts. A full round of extra, no penalty shooting is not good even with fixed charges. You still run into the SAME issue of charges NOT being far enough. And even if you say 'they still make it if they started close enough', it's still a slap in the face because you just took out MORE Orks than before.

Overwatch as it is, I feel is fine. It simulates them in a panic, and not aiming proper, just spraying and praying.

I do like fixed charges. The only issue is, again, armies are not designed around these home brewed rules, so things still fall flat in the long haul. My Orks want to get in, and chop things up. While having the flat 3 inch run is nice, I'd rather take my chances with the D6 at that point. I'll also say that failed charges still moving is hugely useful and I'll take that any day.

Melevolence wrote:
I'm not so sure how I feel about Full BS overwatch. As it is, rolling 6's is not that complicated. But, for most armies, shooting at full BS is a bit nuts. A full round of extra, no penalty shooting is not good even with fixed charges. You still run into the SAME issue of charges NOT being far enough. And even if you say 'they still make it if they started close enough', it's still a slap in the face because you just took out MORE Orks than before.

Overwatch as it is, I feel is fine. It simulates them in a panic, and not aiming proper, just spraying and praying.

I do like fixed charges. The only issue is, again, armies are not designed around these home brewed rules, so things still fall flat in the long haul. My Orks want to get in, and chop things up. While having the flat 3 inch run is nice, I'd rather take my chances with the D6 at that point. I'll also say that failed charges still moving is hugely useful and I'll take that any day.

My problem with overwatch is that it requires a whole bunch of rolling with very little effect. As an example, when someone charges my 50 man conscript squad, I have to collect and roll 100 dice for lasgun snap shots. Against space marines that's a 2% chance of killing one, against tougher creatures the odds are even worse. Generally, overwatch is one of those situations where there's a lot of time spent counting models, checking rapid fire ranges, gathering dice, and rolling them all for very little effect. I'd rather limit overwatch to a select few weapons that are likely to actually cause damage. This change would dramatically weaken overwatch by the vast majority of units. Full BS only applies to pistols. It would strengthen overwatch by most pistol-armed assault units, who are likely to end up in a situation where they could be charged, and dramatically weaken overwatch by less well prepared troops.

When your orks charge an ill-prepared guard gun line they'd only take 1 laspistol shot, d3 frag grenade hits, and maybe d3 flamer hits. So instead of 15 BS1 lasgun shots there's just 1 BS3 laspistol and d3 S3 frag hits, both cases have the wall of death hits. The advantage is that my solution only requires 3 dice, not 16 to resolve.

1. Switch to d10s and design your mechanics around it.
2. Have a public Beta Test for all new Editions and Codices.
3. Hire a technical editor.
4. Hire a copy editor.

Here's some random brainstorming for the game, some of these might have been said already but here I go:

Overwatch:
1) No checking for range; most of the time only a few models in a squad will be farther than ~12 inches away when charged. Even with 6'' range, why not shoot your enemy as he gets closer?
2) I really like the idea of pistols being more effective at point blank range over rifles. How about, pistols get +1 bs for overwatch, so bs2?

General:
1) Some people might say, let you roll 60 dice as 12, then multiply by 5. 5 is a fast number to count up with, and it's not as chaotic as rolling in sets of 10+ dice. <<Speeds up the game for some armies.
2) If you aren't playing for keeps, let a friend or your opponent finish moving the last 60% or so of a squad you have moved up or around. ><<If you play "traditional" Orks... please consider.

Psychic Powers:
1) If you want to increase the cost of higher level powers, 20 charge for a level 3 is pretty ridiculous Imo. How about 1 for WC1. 3 for WC 2. And, 5 for WC 3. Then reduce perils' negative effects maybe?
Example for perils defense: A power cannot kill it's caster unless he has cast a spell with a WC above his ML or rolled a 1 on the perils chart.

I really dislike the idea of overwatch being pistols only, and at full BS. Like others have said, that would make marine armies suddenly much more effective at overwatch than just about every other codex, as there are several armies that don't have a single pistol in the book. If you don't want to roll dice for little effect, then something along the lines of trading the ability to fight in combat for a full BS overwatch might work better. That way you're forced to choose whether or not you want to shoot or fight that phase, which seems a bit more realistic anyway.

Deadawake1347 wrote:
I really dislike the idea of overwatch being pistols only, and at full BS. Like others have said, that would make marine armies suddenly much more effective at overwatch than just about every other codex, as there are several armies that don't have a single pistol in the book. If you don't want to roll dice for little effect, then something along the lines of trading the ability to fight in combat for a full BS overwatch might work better. That way you're forced to choose whether or not you want to shoot or fight that phase, which seems a bit more realistic anyway.

Tyranids are the only ones that I can think of that don't have pistols.

I would literally never choose to fight, full BS overwatch on everything is insanely better than fighting in the first round of combat. For a guardsman squad, that's 19 lasgun shots at effectively I10 rather than 12 S3 combat hits at I3. Trading first round of combat for full BS overwatch would make assault armies obsolete. What marine player would opt for 1 S4 Ap- hit in combat when they could fire 2 S4 Ap5 shots instead with each marine?

 TheSilo wrote:

Deadawake1347 wrote:
I really dislike the idea of overwatch being pistols only, and at full BS. Like others have said, that would make marine armies suddenly much more effective at overwatch than just about every other codex, as there are several armies that don't have a single pistol in the book. If you don't want to roll dice for little effect, then something along the lines of trading the ability to fight in combat for a full BS overwatch might work better. That way you're forced to choose whether or not you want to shoot or fight that phase, which seems a bit more realistic anyway.

Tyranids are the only ones that I can think of that don't have pistols.

I would literally never choose to fight, full BS overwatch on everything is insanely better than fighting in the first round of combat. For a guardsman squad, that's 19 lasgun shots at effectively I10 rather than 12 S3 combat hits at I3. Trading first round of combat for full BS overwatch would make assault armies obsolete. What marine player would opt for 1 S4 Ap- hit in combat when they could fire 2 S4 Ap5 shots instead with each marine?

GKs have no pistols at all, Tau have all of one model in the entire codex that has a pistol, and those are only the ones I know of offhand. But making it so that only one class of weapon can overwatch, a weapon that some factions have in abundance, and others completely lack, is rather unfair. I threw my idea out as a counter idea, not as something that I necessarily think should be put into practice.

Besides which, pistols already benefit you in close combat by giving you an extra attack, so you think they should benefit you twice, once by giving you an extra shot before combat, and again by giving you an extra attack once combat begins.

Deadawake1347 wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:

Deadawake1347 wrote:
I really dislike the idea of overwatch being pistols only, and at full BS. Like others have said, that would make marine armies suddenly much more effective at overwatch than just about every other codex, as there are several armies that don't have a single pistol in the book. If you don't want to roll dice for little effect, then something along the lines of trading the ability to fight in combat for a full BS overwatch might work better. That way you're forced to choose whether or not you want to shoot or fight that phase, which seems a bit more realistic anyway.

Tyranids are the only ones that I can think of that don't have pistols.

I would literally never choose to fight, full BS overwatch on everything is insanely better than fighting in the first round of combat. For a guardsman squad, that's 19 lasgun shots at effectively I10 rather than 12 S3 combat hits at I3. Trading first round of combat for full BS overwatch would make assault armies obsolete. What marine player would opt for 1 S4 Ap- hit in combat when they could fire 2 S4 Ap5 shots instead with each marine?

GKs have no pistols at all, Tau have all of one model in the entire codex that has a pistol, and those are only the ones I know of offhand. But making it so that only one class of weapon can overwatch, a weapon that some factions have in abundance, and others completely lack, is rather unfair. I threw my idea out as a counter idea, not as something that I necessarily think should be put into practice.

Besides which, pistols already benefit you in close combat by giving you an extra attack, so you think they should benefit you twice, once by giving you an extra shot before combat, and again by giving you an extra attack once combat begins.

The general idea was to nerf overwatch for most units, and only enhance it for specially equipped units. Tau would still have supporting fire, which would be mostly unchanged. They also have photon grenades, which could now blind assaulting units in addition to removing the +1A for charging. GK have psyk-out grenades. 'Nids I believe have flesh hooks, which would count as grenades. If the change means that GK and Tau have less effective overwatch, I'm alright with that. The primary purpose of that change was to buff assault-based armies, open up some defensive options for units, and reduce game time devoted to relatively ineffective overwatch.

The problems that can be most easily fixed in 40k without tearing down the core rules and rebuilding them from scratch are mostly in the Codexes. The continual escalation of more and better cheap low-AP high-Strength blasts/high rate-of-fire guns and the continual nerfing to assault units stuck with grandfathered-in 4e prices on their equipment and reduced durability in the face of the arms race is the problem, the rules alone aren't an issue.

It would be nice if GW would realize that the Forge World team is better at designing rules than their schizoid band of army-fanboys that don't talk to each other and put them in charge of the whole game, though.

@The Silo.
I have found it is much easier to convert a good rule set to use with the 40k scale /setting to get a fun game.
Than try to fix the holistic mess that GW sell.

I agree the intended game play of 40k should be fast and fun .But the rules it is saddled with prevent this from happening on every level .

You can write 500 word of changes you think will improve the game .But it just pushes the problems into another area you did not expect.

A team of professional game developers failed to improve 40k for the last 16 years by adding to it.They just made the rules more complicated and confusing.

It is much easier to start with a comparatively well defined intuitive rule set, and add a bit of 40k flavor.(Epic Armageddon or NET Epic version, Fast and Dirty, Stargrunt II,Bolt Action, Tomorrow War etc.)

Than fix the mess that is 40k 7th ed.

 TheSilo wrote:
Mostly because it's simpler and easier to fix the current system into a fun edition rather than changing everything.

Actually it's the exact opposite. Fixing superficial issues doesn't change the fact that the foundation is broken, it just makes a game that is broken in different ways. You still have the same bloated mess of rules, the same poorly-designed mechanics, etc. To properly fix the game you need to delete everything and start over with a foundation of core rules that are designed for a modern-era scifi game instead of a 1980s fantasy game.

I must have expressed myself badly, my full BS Overwatch pistols only thing got misinterpreted and has grown out of control!!

I will use an example of how I meant it, but first I was thinking about adding a tactical layer to the charge reactions with Overwatch or Brace (I believe WHFB already does something similar)

Overwatch: The unit shoots as it's attackers advance, hoping to cut them down before contact. When contact is made however, the defenders are still busy fumbling with their ranged weapons and not prepared for attack! During assault, a model that has Overwatched counts its I and WS value as 1
Brace: The unit draws swords, activates power weapons, or generally prepares for an attack. The Unit forgoes its shooting but the Assaulting Unit receives no bonus for Charging.

Ok, so I go first playing DE against my opponent SM Stan

Movement: I decide that my Incubi will charge a Unit of 5 basic SM guys. I roll 2d6 getting 6 in total, so may charge 12". This gets me in, so my charge is successful. My Incubi move up to within 1" of the SM Unit, but do not count as engaged yet. In Stan's movement, this unit may move, however the Incubi will always count as Engaging them in the Assault phase. They stay still.

Shooting: If my Incubi have Pistols or Assault Weapons, they are allowed to use them. They do not have anything, so never mind that, over to Stan's turn. Stan now has a decision to make. He may only shoot at the Charging Unit but gain the Overwatch +1 bonus, or Brace. He decides on Overwatch, hitting on 2's instead of 3's. After his Shooting Phase, 2 of my Incubi are dead.

Assault: My Incubi now count as engaged, and Stan's Unit are fighting at I and WS 1. Had he Braced, I would be charging with more guys, but with no bonus attacks or anything, so it's a tactical decision.

The idea behind it is that you are now streamlining rules, no moving during any of the three phases, no shooting during Shooting or Assault phase.
Also, while charges can be more harsh, the shooting army can also react to them as they happen. Being charged by that horrific combat deathstar? You can choose whether your whole army shoots it before it engages, hopefully ending the assault before it can happen, at the risk of ignoring every other unit.

I get what you're saying. I'm just concerned that overwatch would become even better and favor shooty armies even more. My thought process is: if you want a charge reaction, do it in your own turn. The defending squad had the opportunity to take action in their own turn, before they got charged, and could've fired everything (except flamers, pistols, and grenades which were probably out of range). And I always imagined that happening simultaneously with them getting charged. If the unit is fast enough or sneaky enough to charge a defenseless unit without taking a round of fire, then good on them and good on the tactical player. I'd like a system that does a better job to reward well timed and executed strikes, rather than giving defenders an out (and I play IG).

Lanrak wrote:
My go ..

Throw away the WHFB based rules.
Use Epic Armageddon based rules, add more detail using 474 remaining words to bring the scale in line with larger minatures.

There is so much wrong with WHFB in space v3.4, that 500 word would just scratch the surface.
it would be much easier to convert another rule set with 500 words IMO.

Please advocates of saving '40k 7th' ed rules .Can you explain what is exactly worth saving?
As I really can not see anything from a game mechanic or resolution method perspective in 40k ,that can not be simply replaced with objectively better alternatives.

Or to short-hand: Bolt Action.
Which is an extremely good ruleset, actually. The only downside is that as it's currently written there's not a lot of 'room' in the mechanics - since the 'scope' of infantry it caters for runs from conscripts to commandoes rather than from grots to terminators.

re the OP

I do like a lot of these things -we are playing with the 40k rules at the moment in our group and I will share them to see their views.

Specifics: Unless otherwise stated I think your ideas are very good

Movement: - Are you looking at charges being always 6" - I am against that and much prefer the current random system - I could live with 6+D6" but having the stale fixed charge distance is a step backwards so to speak) for me.

Are you adding that Assault or Pistol weapons can now fire after Running?

Psychic - agree re the Perils but would prefer to go back to 6th ed and remove the OP powers.

Look out sir - I always forget it so happy to see it gone

Assault
I don't see why pistols are more effective than Assault weapons in Overwatch? Logically future SMGs etc are by far the better weapon here?
The buff to high WS is not enough considering what high BS gets - if you are double their WS you should hit on 2's and be hit on 5's, if triple - re-rolls and 6's
I like the compare In roll - its atmospheric - this also makes Marines even better with ATSKNF

also on other posts:

I like 40k - I just don't like some elements of the current system and specific units.

 Mr Morden wrote:
re the OP

I do like a lot of these things -we are playing with the 40k rules at the moment in our group and I will share them to see their views.

Specifics: Unless otherwise stated I think your ideas are very good

Movement: - Are you looking at charges being always 6" - I am against that and much prefer the current random system - I could live with 6+D6" but having the stale fixed charge distance is a step backwards so to speak) for me.

Are you adding that Assault or Pistol weapons can now fire after Running?

Psychic - agree re the Perils but would prefer to go back to 6th ed and remove the OP powers.

Look out sir - I always forget it so happy to see it gone

Assault
I don't see why pistols are more effective than Assault weapons in Overwatch? Logically future SMGs etc are by far the better weapon here?
The buff to high WS is not enough considering what high BS gets - if you are double their WS you should hit on 2's and be hit on 5's, if triple - re-rolls and 6's
I like the compare In roll - its atmospheric - this also makes Marines even better with ATSKNF

also on other posts:

I like 40k - I just don't like some elements of the current system and specific units.

I changed assault to 3"+d6" so it's a run with an extra d6.

I left assault weapons out of overwatch primarily because I was worried about melta guns, shuriken catapults, splinter cannons, etc. breaking overwatch. The idea is that assault weapons do their damage in the shooting phase since in real terms both sides are moving, shooting, and assaulting at the same time. Though really it's a gameplay fix, not a narrative/realism change. Right now, pistols are mostly an awkward way to grant +1 attack to character models. I'd like for them to have a more defined and functional role.

I did add pistols and assault weapons to fire after running, mostly so that failed charges aren't a complete disaster, forcing you to forgo shooting. I think there's a good argument for why models could run and still use a pistol or shotgun effectively. This adds a lot of mobility to units like termagaunts, slugga boyz, and other assault units. I'm not married to the idea, but think it might encourage aggressive play. And from a narrative/consistency standpoint, it's weird that units right now can move 6"> fire> charge 12" but they can't move 6"> run 6"> fire. I recognize that the proposed changes to fleet and shooting after running make Eldar infantry even better, I'm open to suggestions.

I agree on the WS chart, making it the same as the wound chart, but that change might require getting rid of the initiative system. That makes more sense actually, everyone strikes simultaneously, but the better fighters are harder to hit. I'll put that change in.

I'm going to agree with TheSilo on overwatch. While Space Marines do benefit from pistols firing at full BS, 10 bolt pistol shots is still MUCH less effective than, say, 30 pulse rifles or 100 lasgun shots even if they are at BS1. In other armies, it does give the player a choice between taking pistols and/or grenades, rather than a straight freebie to shooting armies

A suggestion:
Characters:
Line of sight (and anything similar, such as when determining which facing of a vehicle you're shooting at or cover) is determined by the character of a unit. In a unit with more than one character, the controlling player may choose which one to use. If the unit has no character, the player must pick a singular model to act as the character for the rest of the game.

This would streamline some of the more annoying parts of shooting, I think

The problem with the line of sight setup is that a unit facing in the same direction is a very medieval idea of warfare; modern soldiers are supposed to be able to move independently and engage separate targets as needed. If we're really attached to this idea of restricted line of sight 40k couldn't function on the scale it likes to try to now, it'd have to be reimagined as a skirmish game.

That or we go hack on Necromunda and see what comes out.

I'm not sure why there seems to be people uncertain the effectiveness of pistols in CC. The way I always pictured it is, the pistol is actually being used in melee in addition to the people swinging. Firing off pot shots whenever they aren't being stung at in return. Hence the extra 'cc attack'. Also, Orks in particular, would use them as an extra club, to pistol whip anyone they can get their reach. Again, +1 extra CC attack.

Is this a flawless explanation? Nope. But it sure is cinematic!

Still, I think limiting Overwatch to just pistols kills certain armies. As much as I dislike Tau's ability to pump out fairly accurate and strong shots, you will eliminate one of their entire abilities. (Their combined over watch). And in doing so, you basically make the models able to use it...over priced now, since they lost an ability factored into model cost. You also eliminated their entire ability to overwatch as a WHOLE.

Changing Overwatch to the point that 'my army has it but yours can't because pistols' is bad design replacing an already iffy design from the beginning.

I say if you dislike Overwatch, just GET RID OF IT. Don't keep changing it to make it a continually worse mechanic.

Edit: also, making it so assault/pistols can fire after running is terrible. It again makes shooty armies more powerful by taking away the risk and strategy of forgoing shooting to get into a better/safer position. If you can just move, run, try to assault (Fail) but shoot anyway...what the hell is the point? There needs to be SOME sort of risk vs reward. And this just eliminates it altogether.

Melevolence wrote:
I'm not sure why there seems to be people uncertain the effectiveness of pistols in CC. The way I always pictured it is, the pistol is actually being used in melee in addition to the people swinging. Firing off pot shots whenever they aren't being stung at in return. Hence the extra 'cc attack'. Also, Orks in particular, would use them as an extra club, to pistol whip anyone they can get their reach. Again, +1 extra CC attack.

Is this a flawless explanation? Nope. But it sure is cinematic!

Still, I think limiting Overwatch to just pistols kills certain armies. As much as I dislike Tau's ability to pump out fairly accurate and strong shots, you will eliminate one of their entire abilities. (Their combined over watch). And in doing so, you basically make the models able to use it...over priced now, since they lost an ability factored into model cost. You also eliminated their entire ability to overwatch as a WHOLE.

Changing Overwatch to the point that 'my army has it but yours can't because pistols' is bad design replacing an already iffy design from the beginning.

I say if you dislike Overwatch, just GET RID OF IT. Don't keep changing it to make it a continually worse mechanic.

Edit: also, making it so assault/pistols can fire after running is terrible. It again makes shooty armies more powerful by taking away the risk and strategy of forgoing shooting to get into a better/safer position. If you can just move, run, try to assault (Fail) but shoot anyway...what the hell is the point? There needs to be SOME sort of risk vs reward. And this just eliminates it altogether.

The problem with that interpretation is that a holy master-crafted plasma pistol is just as effective in cc as a laspistol. Either way, I removed the pistol overwatch, I really didn't expect that to be such a controversial change. Also removed shooting after run moves.

My rewrite to the 40k rules as a whole (rough alpha currently under revision linked to under Aegis Project in my signature) included melee profiles for all 'small arms' (pistols, rifles, but not heavy weapons) intended to allow a given unit to be useful in broader scenarios.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with the line of sight setup is that a unit facing in the same direction is a very medieval idea of warfare; modern soldiers are supposed to be able to move independently and engage separate targets as needed. If we're really attached to this idea of restricted line of sight 40k couldn't function on the scale it likes to try to now, it'd have to be reimagined as a skirmish game.

That or we go hack on Necromunda and see what comes out.

I would be hard pressed to say that any of the armies bar tau follow a "modern" sense of warfare.

More importantly, it removes another need to check individual models, which puts more focus on the unit as a whole (which is the opposite of a skirmish game, I think) and the idea of restricted line of sight is important in any situation because it makes it possible to actually get across the the board without the other guy being able to hit you with everything.

@Luke_Prowler.
Modern warfare is an equal blend of mobility fire power and assault.Mobility to take objectives, fire power to control enemy movement, and assault to contest objectives.(This is how 40k should be IMO.)

NOT a static gun line , where you can shoot your enemy into submission at a tactical level!

Have you got small groups of skirmishing infantry mainly armed with ranged weapons ,supported by armoured vehicles, artillery, and air units?
That is modern warfare.

Have you got large block of troops fighting in close formation, mainly armed with close combat weapons ,where ranged weapons are used in a supporting role.
That is ancient warfare.

They are a different as golf and football in play style.And should have different rules to reflect this!

And no conversion of golf rules to cover the game of football is ever going to be as elegant or intuitive as rules written specifically for the game play of football.

Lanrak wrote:
@Luke_Prowler.
Modern warfare is an equal blend of mobility fire power and assault.Mobility to take objectives, fire power to control enemy movement, and assault to contest objectives.(This is how 40k should be IMO.)

NOT a static gun line , where you can shoot your enemy into submission at a tactical level!

Have you got small groups of skirmishing infantry mainly armed with ranged weapons ,supported by armoured vehicles, artillery, and air units?
That is modern warfare.

Have you got large block of troops fighting in close formation, mainly armed with close combat weapons ,where ranged weapons are used in a supporting role.
That is ancient warfare.

They are a different as golf and football in play style.And should have different rules to reflect this!

And no conversion of golf rules to cover the game of football is ever going to be as elegant or intuitive as rules written specifically for the game play of football.

In my opinion it is not supposed to be modern warfare. The whole point is that most races are relying on ancient tech that they don't have the resources/knowledge to replace or repair, and therefore the high technology is always given a kind of magical reverence. Tau are only worthy of mention in this context because they are the only young and dynamic race that would be capable of using modern technology efficiently, they are the exception that proves the rule.

Basically, every soldier picks his advanced plasma weapon off the rack, then proceeds to run towards the enemy to hit him with its skull shaped handle, because GRIMDARK

40K isn't about modern warfare- it's basically World War 2 in space for most of the factions.

In any case, my idea for fixing overwatch is to basically roll it into Go-to-Ground and then revamp the whole concept. So instead of what we have now, G2G would be:

Dig-in

In the shooting phase, a unit that has not fired any of its weapons may choose to Dig-in. A unit that has performed this action may only fire snap-shots for the duration of the shooting phase, and may not run or declare an assault in the assault phase. A unit that has dug-in has a 5+ cover-save when out in the open, or if already in cover improves their save by 1 (to a maximum of 2+). When an enemy unit declares a charge on a dug-in unit, overwatch is triggered. Overwatch is an out-of-sequence event in which the dug-in unit being charged may immediately make a shooting attack at full ballistic-skill at the charging unit. Overwatch is optional, but if used must be declared and performed by the controlling player after the charge is declared and before the charge roll is made.

The effects of dig-in automatically end at the start of the controlling player's movement phase.

I feel firing on overwatch should be your shooting phase. In other words if you're about to get charged, you decide to overwatch or not.

You claim overwatch, fire into the enemy charging. You kill half the squad and then are subsequently stuck in melee for X number of turns.

You claim overwatch, fire into the enemy charging. You kill the entire squad before they make it into assault. You spend your next shooting phase consolidating and reloading.

You claim overwatch, get assaulted, and finish them off in assault, you now spend your next turn consolidating and rearming etc.

Why call it overwatch then and not just...shooting at an enemy squad. lol

Since your opponent can only declare a charge on his turn, you have no way of knowing if he's going to charge your unit or not.

Altayre wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
@Luke_Prowler.
Modern warfare is an equal blend of mobility fire power and assault.Mobility to take objectives, fire power to control enemy movement, and assault to contest objectives.(This is how 40k should be IMO.)

NOT a static gun line , where you can shoot your enemy into submission at a tactical level!

Have you got small groups of skirmishing infantry mainly armed with ranged weapons ,supported by armoured vehicles, artillery, and air units?
That is modern warfare.

Have you got large block of troops fighting in close formation, mainly armed with close combat weapons ,where ranged weapons are used in a supporting role.
That is ancient warfare.

They are a different as golf and football in play style.And should have different rules to reflect this!

And no conversion of golf rules to cover the game of football is ever going to be as elegant or intuitive as rules written specifically for the game play of football.

In my opinion it is not supposed to be modern warfare. The whole point is that most races are relying on ancient tech that they don't have the resources/knowledge to replace or repair, and therefore the high technology is always given a kind of magical reverence. Tau are only worthy of mention in this context because they are the only young and dynamic race that would be capable of using modern technology efficiently, they are the exception that proves the rule.

Basically, every soldier picks his advanced plasma weapon off the rack, then proceeds to run towards the enemy to hit him with its skull shaped handle, because GRIMDARK

I think it's good to think about the most compelling aspects of modern asymmetric warfare and historical regimented warfare, and try to incorporate both of them. In a realistic wargame our forces would never get within a table's length of each other, tanks could fire miles, etc.

It's good having different armies focus on different things, but I dislike that certain armies, particularly Tau, are seemingly exempt from entire phases of the game. I was hoping to create changes that would punish one-trick play styles.

Of course there's much more internal-codex balancing that is needed, I really hate the feeling of wasted space that exists in most codices. The game shouldn't have throw away units or weapons, like chess every piece should have a function.

Hi folks.
The type of war fare the game is based on depends on the units taking part.
To use history as a basic indicator, everything up to the first world war, was 'ancient warfare'.

As ranged weapons were not that accurate or effective.

However, when range weapons became deadly , the way war was fought changed dramatically .

After the first world war , ALL warfare has followed the 'modern warfare ' approach .

The fact 40k uses WHFB ancient warfare rules, is the core of ALL of it game play issues.
Most prominently the imbalance between shooting and assault.

Lanrak wrote:
Hi folks.
The type of war fare the game is based on depends on the units taking part.
To use history as a basic indicator, everything up to the first world war, was 'ancient warfare'.

As ranged weapons were not that accurate or effective.

However, when range weapons became deadly , the way war was fought changed dramatically .

After the first world war , ALL warfare has followed the 'modern warfare ' approach .

The fact 40k uses WHFB ancient warfare rules, is the core of ALL of it game play issues.
Most prominently the imbalance between shooting and assault.

But it's also a core of the 40k gameplay and fluff, and a big reason why Dawn of War was so popular among RTS players. "Modern warfare" doesn't work in a table top game.

Lanrak wrote:
Hi folks.
The type of war fare the game is based on depends on the units taking part.
To use history as a basic indicator, everything up to the first world war, was 'ancient warfare'.

As ranged weapons were not that accurate or effective.

However, when range weapons became deadly , the way war was fought changed dramatically .

After the first world war , ALL warfare has followed the 'modern warfare ' approach .

The fact 40k uses WHFB ancient warfare rules, is the core of ALL of it game play issues.
Most prominently the imbalance between shooting and assault.

...I don't follow. Assault is too weak because 40k is based on a style of warfare where guns were useless?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Since folks seem to have gotten caught up in the semantics of 'modern' versus 'ancient' warfare with no agreement on definitions let me go back and rephrase:

A defined unit facing isn't going to work because the technology in 40k has passed the point where massed volume was the only way to get effectiveness out of ranged fire. Lasguns and bolters are sufficiently accurate that a unit that spreads its fire out between targets in different directions is not going to lose effectiveness in the same way a band of folks with muskets would lose their chances of hitting anything if they shot off one or two balls at a time.

Hi folks.
We if us use the rules from a game where the ranged weapons are ineffective and only used in a supporting role.(WHFB.)

Then put these same rules into a game where the ranged weapons are massively more effective without giving proper thought to the problem.(40k)

Guess what assault is not any where near as effective as shooting.

EG you have to take a hill from the enemy soldiers.if the enemy soldiers on the hill have a few bows and slings, you can just charge up the hill en mass and clobber them in assault.
However, if the enemy soldiers on the top of the hill are armed with heavy machine guns and mortars, and howitzers firing HE rounds.
Charging up the hill en mass is not a good idea anymore!

The way war is fought changed at the first world war.Before WWI war was fought in a similar way to ancient times.
After the attrition of WWI due to the introduction of massively more effective ranged weapons ,forced war to be fought in a 'modern style.'

And Dawn of War 1 and 2 both base the game play on modern warfare!(Suppression and LOS blocking/FOW effects are included.)

Using WHFB game mechanics and resolution methods for 40k, makes about as much sense as using the rules for golf, as a base for the rules for football!

Can any one please point out what is worth keeping from the current 7th ed rules .That can not be replaced with a more intuitive /effective alternative.

Players 'taking turns' and '3 stage damage resolution' are the core of the 40k game play and I would not change this.

But changing the player turns from a 'entire game turn' to a 'phase/action' , or 'unit activation' is a necessary change IMO.

And resolving damage in a more intuitive /simpler way would be another necessary change.

But after these two main features have been changed, the rest of the rules need to be re done to fit.(This is my experience from the last ten or so years of looking at fixing the 40k rules.)

It's rather crude, but how about giving all weapons pinning, but making non-pinning weapons have pinning come into effect before resolving damage, rather than after it.

 YourIntestines wrote:
It's rather crude, but how about giving all weapons pinning, but making non-pinning weapons have pinning come into effect before resolving damage, rather than after it.

I would support replacing the 25% morale check with a 25% pinning check for all weapons. Weapons with "Pinning" force the ld check at -1 ld. Losing the use of a unit for a turn is fine, but with the morale check a unit can pretty much get taken out of the entire game, that seems better suited to close combat than shooting.

Interesting concept as I believe that the 40k rule set does not need much to be fixed. I am curious though what is really wrong with the current rule set when I see people say that the entire thing needs to go. I know there are a lot of issues, but nothing so ground breaking it cannot be fixed.

The major concerns seem to be mostly things that were added recently. My list:

-IGO-UGO won't be going anywhere since it's been a staple of the game forever, but I think the problems it causes are more related to the shooting phase than anything else. My concern is that the shooting phase has become too important to the entire game. One shooting phase can determine the entire outcome of games. In a game with multiple phases that should all be just as important it feels like the majority of the armies can safely ignore all but the shooting phase because they have S6+ guns with 36"+ range firing multiple shots. 7th has tried to make the movement phase more important by introducing random objectives, but in the end it is still easier to shoot your opponent off the table. In my opinion 40k could use some help from fantasy. In fantasy the shooting phases isn't nearly as important mainly because no army can really bring enough BS based shooting and still maintain effective combat blocks. What it does do effectively well though is limit the amount of damage a single unit can do with the modifier system. It also cuts out many USR's and Cover saves. If cover, stealth, etc were just a straight modifier that fell into two categories it would simplify the system and reduce the amount of dice being rolled every shooting phase. It could be as simple as -1 to BS or -2 to BS bases on your cover / stealth USR. You wouldn't have to move all the Fantasy shooting rules, but the plain BS modiers would tremendously reduce the amount of damage some of the armies could do. Imagine a Wave Serpent, since its the favorite horse to kick, firing at -2 BS. It goes from from hitting on 3+ to hitting on a 5+.

-Over watch since its introduction has been annoying to me. Getting an extra shooting phase only reinforced the gun line strategy and having one of the stronger armies able to ignore the negatives all together made running an assault based army impossible. I would simply remove the entire rule or massively overhaul it so that it balances out with an assault. Someone earlier mentioned possibly making it something you preemptively do sounds good. Possibly give up or reduce your current shooting phase if you believe you will be assaulted in your opponents turn.

-Charges and failed charges : I do not like fixed charge range, but I also do not like completely random charge ranges. Movement + a dice roll seems more intuitive. Also not moving at all after a failed charge is terrible. How to work it though would be tough. Possibly you get half the distance you rolled ? So if I needed a 14" charge and I rolled a 12" (6" move + 1D6 or +2D6 which ever might be more fair) I would fail my charge but still get to move 6".

-the current WS chart : The system makes no sense. The might avatar has a WS of 10 and is hit half the time by pretty much everything in the galaxy. WS needs to be better represented in this game since it currently means gak for the majority of models. Most combats turn into who can roll the most 4+. Following the wound chart makes a lot more sense. A true master of combat is not going to get over run by WS2 minions. There is some narrative for you.

-minor rules problems that lead to larger problems : if you ever read the rules subforum often you quickly realize there are quite a few problems in the rules that could have been easily fixed if GW had hired an editor. Ever week the same discussions keep popping up and its quickly evident that most of the problems are very easily fixed if GW would take a serious look through their rules.

-to your OP : Don't have too many problems with much of it, but there are some issues I think people might have. I am pretty sure most people would take a D6 run over a 3" run. Just make it an ever 6" and be done with it. You would need to modify units that can run and shoot though. Simplifying the perils chart is a great idea, same as the vehicle damage table. That removes a lot of extra dice. Removing LOS is a great idea, that or change it to the entire phase. If you LOS you can't tank hits that phase at all. Random wounds is something I hate as it requires the player to have dice that are not available. Removing it is a good idea. My main problem is that you ask for a balanced shooting / assault but then reduce the assault phase to a slap fight. I do think the current assault phase can be very slow if you have a lot of different I steps, but you can easily solve that by just removing pile in moves as you did and just assume everyone is fighting, but removing I completely reduces the value of assault models compared to a shooting model. I might as well not even bring assault specialists since my gun toting guys get to fight at the same step.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheSilo wrote:

 YourIntestines wrote:
It's rather crude, but how about giving all weapons pinning, but making non-pinning weapons have pinning come into effect before resolving damage, rather than after it.

I would support replacing the 25% morale check with a 25% pinning check for all weapons. Weapons with "Pinning" force the ld check at -1 ld. Losing the use of a unit for a turn is fine, but with the morale check a unit can pretty much get taken out of the entire game, that seems better suited to close combat than shooting.

Just saw this, this makes a lot of sense. I never understood why GW has tried to remove pinning in 7th. In the grim dark future I would imagine tucking your head between your legs and hiding in a whole would be the more immediate desire when half your squad gets blown off the field.

@Goldphish.
Have you played any other games other than 40k?
If you only know the rules for 40k 3rd to 7th edition, you have nothing to make objective comparisons to.

If the rule set for 40k is easily fixed, in less than 500 words , just do it .

And prove the team of game developers at GW towers did not do it in sixteen years because they were not interested in making the game better?

Just as a starter, because fixing 40k is so simple,can you define the game play of 40k for us?

I think your proposed movement rules are on the mark. The current running -being a random distance- is a bit silly unless the troops are undisciplined. The situation of a guardsman squad forfiting their shoooting phase to get to better cover, only to discover they can only stumble 1 inch forward is a bit incredulous. In the case of difficult terrain I find this rule fair enough. For charging, I'm undecided. Charge distance used to be fixed, but you weren't allowed to measure distances, and that seemed to work well. There should be some sort of factor that can potentially cause a charge to fail. Perhaps overwatch fire?

Pretty good suggestions for shooting too, I remember discussing this with you on my thread a while back. In the interests of keeping your games fun I'd suggest a bit more than a "blanket" cover bonus. A neck height rockcrete wall, or deep forest should afford twice the portection of ankle-height vegetation, or shallow craters. This will particularely become an issue for fortifications the player is paying points for.

A lot of what you're suggesting is down to what scale of battles you want to fight. If you're fighting 4000 point battles, then simplifications to the rules is desireable. I personally love skirmish level stuff so I like detailed rules, even if they do slow the game down.

 Goldphish wrote:
Interesting concept as I believe that the 40k rule set does not need much to be fixed. I am curious though what is really wrong with the current rule set when I see people say that the entire thing needs to go. I know there are a lot of issues, but nothing so ground breaking it cannot be fixed.

The major concerns seem to be mostly things that were added recently. My list:

-IGO-UGO won't be going anywhere since it's been a staple of the game forever, but I think the problems it causes are more related to the shooting phase than anything else. My concern is that the shooting phase has become too important to the entire game. One shooting phase can determine the entire outcome of games. In a game with multiple phases that should all be just as important it feels like the majority of the armies can safely ignore all but the shooting phase because they have S6+ guns with 36"+ range firing multiple shots. 7th has tried to make the movement phase more important by introducing random objectives, but in the end it is still easier to shoot your opponent off the table. In my opinion 40k could use some help from fantasy. In fantasy the shooting phases isn't nearly as important mainly because no army can really bring enough BS based shooting and still maintain effective combat blocks. What it does do effectively well though is limit the amount of damage a single unit can do with the modifier system. It also cuts out many USR's and Cover saves. If cover, stealth, etc were just a straight modifier that fell into two categories it would simplify the system and reduce the amount of dice being rolled every shooting phase. It could be as simple as -1 to BS or -2 to BS bases on your cover / stealth USR. You wouldn't have to move all the Fantasy shooting rules, but the plain BS modiers would tremendously reduce the amount of damage some of the armies could do. Imagine a Wave Serpent, since its the favorite horse to kick, firing at -2 BS. It goes from from hitting on 3+ to hitting on a 5+.

-Over watch since its introduction has been annoying to me. Getting an extra shooting phase only reinforced the gun line strategy and having one of the stronger armies able to ignore the negatives all together made running an assault based army impossible. I would simply remove the entire rule or massively overhaul it so that it balances out with an assault. Someone earlier mentioned possibly making it something you preemptively do sounds good. Possibly give up or reduce your current shooting phase if you believe you will be assaulted in your opponents turn.

-Charges and failed charges : I do not like fixed charge range, but I also do not like completely random charge ranges. Movement + a dice roll seems more intuitive. Also not moving at all after a failed charge is terrible. How to work it though would be tough. Possibly you get half the distance you rolled ? So if I needed a 14" charge and I rolled a 12" (6" move + 1D6 or +2D6 which ever might be more fair) I would fail my charge but still get to move 6".

-the current WS chart : The system makes no sense. The might avatar has a WS of 10 and is hit half the time by pretty much everything in the galaxy. WS needs to be better represented in this game since it currently means gak for the majority of models. Most combats turn into who can roll the most 4+. Following the wound chart makes a lot more sense. A true master of combat is not going to get over run by WS2 minions. There is some narrative for you.

-minor rules problems that lead to larger problems : if you ever read the rules subforum often you quickly realize there are quite a few problems in the rules that could have been easily fixed if GW had hired an editor. Ever week the same discussions keep popping up and its quickly evident that most of the problems are very easily fixed if GW would take a serious look through their rules.

-to your OP : Don't have too many problems with much of it, but there are some issues I think people might have. I am pretty sure most people would take a D6 run over a 3" run. Just make it an ever 6" and be done with it. You would need to modify units that can run and shoot though. Simplifying the perils chart is a great idea, same as the vehicle damage table. That removes a lot of extra dice. Removing LOS is a great idea, that or change it to the entire phase. If you LOS you can't tank hits that phase at all. Random wounds is something I hate as it requires the player to have dice that are not available. Removing it is a good idea. My main problem is that you ask for a balanced shooting / assault but then reduce the assault phase to a slap fight. I do think the current assault phase can be very slow if you have a lot of different I steps, but you can easily solve that by just removing pile in moves as you did and just assume everyone is fighting, but removing I completely reduces the value of assault models compared to a shooting model. I might as well not even bring assault specialists since my gun toting guys get to fight at the same step.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheSilo wrote:

 YourIntestines wrote:
It's rather crude, but how about giving all weapons pinning, but making non-pinning weapons have pinning come into effect before resolving damage, rather than after it.

I would support replacing the 25% morale check with a 25% pinning check for all weapons. Weapons with "Pinning" force the ld check at -1 ld. Losing the use of a unit for a turn is fine, but with the morale check a unit can pretty much get taken out of the entire game, that seems better suited to close combat than shooting.

Just saw this, this makes a lot of sense. I never understood why GW has tried to remove pinning in 7th. In the grim dark future I would imagine tucking your head between your legs and hiding in a whole would be the more immediate desire when half your squad gets blown off the field.

Yea, I'm not real sure how they think we're supposed to randomize a casualty in a squad of 13 guys. I don't have many d13 dice in my bag.

The 3" run move is slightly lower than the expected value of 3.5" with the d6 roll. It has to be slightly lower to make up for the increased reliability. It also has to be balanced against the other buffs in my proposed rules, particularly the better minimum charge range and reduced overwatch.

The shooting phase is a tougher nut to crack. I think the primary problem is that most weapons have a ridiculously long range. Most heavy weapons have a 48" range, which lets them cover the majority of the table from a single spot. So instead of using heavy weapons for area denial or tactical deployment, the entire battlefield turns into a gun range. This would annoy lots of people advocating for more realism, but on a 6'x4' table it's silly to have regular weapons that cover the entire table. Call it "effective range" or whatever, but most of the game's heavy weapons could have their range cut by 6"-12", with a corresponding decrease in points. This'd give armies more of a chance to outmaneuver the enemy and it'd increase the utility of troops armed with small-arms relative to heavy weapons. It'd also penalize the gun-line approach. But this kind of change would require editing all of the codices and balancing weapon points and ranges.

For charging, I wouldn't mind some randomness. A 6+d6 would be fine. It's the completely random "hurrr you failed a 4'' charge- FORGE THE NARRATIVE" that is soul-crushing.

Lanrak wrote:
@Goldphish.
Have you played any other games other than 40k?
If you only know the rules for 40k 3rd to 7th edition, you have nothing to make objective comparisons to.

If the rule set for 40k is easily fixed, in less than 500 words , just do it .

And prove the team of game developers at GW towers did not do it in sixteen years because they were not interested in making the game better?

Just as a starter, because fixing 40k is so simple,can you define the game play of 40k for us?

This is about as useless a response you can get in this kind of thread. Regardless of what other systems I have played in doesn't change the fact that the current rules are not so forgone that they cannot be saved. IMO GW simply doesn't have an interest in writing solid rules. The rules seem only to be made/modified to sell models.

This thread was made to attempt to fix it, and I added my thoughts.

Define the game? You build armies to fight other armies? I don't know why defining the game somehow helps the rules work better.

Honestly as much as I hate GW's lack of effort to promote their own product, I hate the players that are so condescending about the game for no reason other than to whine.

@Lanrak: The developers at GW haven't made a game we all universally agree is perfect because they're invested in their product and they're too risk-averse to change the underlying assumptions that make up their game with no compelling incentive to do so. I suggest you try to offer constructive feedback rather than showing up at other peoples' threads and tell them "LOL tl;dr you're wasting time".

On to actual useful material the biggest problem with 40k is that it's too much of a rock-paper-scissors game where too many things are good against one thing and utterly useless against everything else, so when GW tosses out a weapon that's effective against three or four different targets (defining the target groups roughly as light vehicles/MCs, heavy vehicles, light infantry, heavy infantry, and flyers; these aren't specifics and are immaterial to the argument) it's either bad (Grey Knight Strike Squads, this is specific and material to the argument) or too good (Riptides, this is specific and material to the argument). When things like Drop Pods and heavy weapons that hit the whole table are factored in the game rapidly becomes a game of rock-paper-scissors where victory is decided by the better army list build, not unlike Magic: The Gathering but with more required time and energy put into the elements of the army list.

The solutions to the underlying problem are twofold: take away the hit-the-entire-board meta, and complicate the weapon matchups. Take away accurate/safe Deep Strikes and make reaction fire more commonplace/effective, replace true line-of-sight with a system where you can define a space as blocking line-of-sight, and complicate the flat probability of hitting with long-ranged heavy weapons, and manoeuvre suddenly becomes vastly more important than the rock-paper-scissors game. As to weapon matchups right now the scale of durability/weapon effectiveness (barring weird cases like melta weapons and Poison) is fairly linear; if a weapon's good at killing something, it's good at killing lighter stuff too. Force more tradeoffs in weapon choice; if you want lots of fast attacks you won't get an AP value on a melee weapon, if you want AP2 and multiple shots you won't get blast on a gun.

There are definitely ways to make 40k better in 500 words or less (army composition rules, plenty of minor rules patches). You won't end up with a perfect game that everyone agrees is the greatest thing ever written that way, any more than any reboot is going to be; it's a matter of what flaws you accept and what you are trying to fix.

 TheSilo wrote:
The shooting phase is a tougher nut to crack. I think the primary problem is that most weapons have a ridiculously long range. Most heavy weapons have a 48" range, which lets them cover the majority of the table from a single spot. So instead of using heavy weapons for area denial or tactical deployment, the entire battlefield turns into a gun range. This would annoy lots of people advocating for more realism, but on a 6'x4' table it's silly to have regular weapons that cover the entire table. Call it "effective range" or whatever, but most of the game's heavy weapons could have their range cut by 6"-12", with a corresponding decrease in points. This'd give armies more of a chance to outmaneuver the enemy and it'd increase the utility of troops armed with small-arms relative to heavy weapons. It'd also penalize the gun-line approach. But this kind of change would require editing all of the codices and balancing weapon points and ranges.

Having a range penalty on weapons might help. Maybe -1 BS for the first 24" and an additional -1 for every 12" after?

I also really hate the strategy of alternating Look Out Sir and tanking wounds on an IC with a 2++ save to protect the squad while passing off Ap2 wounds. Either the character takes hits like normal troopers or characters can't take wounds until everyone else is dead

Neither of these options are logical at all.

Also, I read this as, "it should be like the old way I liked! The new way is dumb!"

@Goldphish.
I tried to ask questions that were important to define what 'fixing 40k' actually is meant to do.

Defining the intended game play, helps focus on refining the rules to arrive at the required game play.

Is the game supposed to be skirmish game focused on detailed model interaction, or a battle game based on detailed unit interaction?
Is it supposed to be a simple rules set with abstract resolution, or a simple simulation of a specific type of war fare with relevant tactical and strategic choices?

if you have experience of other war games, then these can be used as 'quick references' for concepts and ideas.

IF people can specify what game mechanics and resolution methods they want to keep , (because they believe they are the best fit.)

This gives everyone a frame work to work within.

Just stating general thoughts about 40k based on personal opinion without any form of objectivity , is not going to get anywhere is it?

Before heading off on the 'fix 40k in 500 words' project, don't you think defining what 40k is supposed to end up as first, is quite important?

 YourIntestines wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:
The shooting phase is a tougher nut to crack. I think the primary problem is that most weapons have a ridiculously long range. Most heavy weapons have a 48" range, which lets them cover the majority of the table from a single spot. So instead of using heavy weapons for area denial or tactical deployment, the entire battlefield turns into a gun range. This would annoy lots of people advocating for more realism, but on a 6'x4' table it's silly to have regular weapons that cover the entire table. Call it "effective range" or whatever, but most of the game's heavy weapons could have their range cut by 6"-12", with a corresponding decrease in points. This'd give armies more of a chance to outmaneuver the enemy and it'd increase the utility of troops armed with small-arms relative to heavy weapons. It'd also penalize the gun-line approach. But this kind of change would require editing all of the codices and balancing weapon points and ranges.

Having a range penalty on weapons might help. Maybe -1 BS for the first 24" and an additional -1 for every 12" after?

The flat to-hit roll is the issue here; it doesn't matter whether you're shooting a stationary Monolith or a jetbike that just moved thirty inches, a Space Marine Devastator always hits on 3+. I implemented a dodge stat that compares to BS to get the to-hit roll in my rewrite, after complaints on complexity I'm working on streamlining it but the differing to-hit values let me get rid of a lot of unnecessary and frustrating rules in 40k already (jink, cover, snap shots only against flyers, etc).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Lanrak: You can't grumble at people for not explaining themselves and then go off and spout gibberish that you don't define. Are you going to contribute to the conversation at some point?

Lanrak wrote:
@Goldphish.
I tried to ask questions that were important to define what 'fixing 40k' actually is meant to do.

Defining the intended game play, helps focus on refining the rules to arrive at the required game play.

Is the game supposed to be skirmish game focused on detailed model interaction, or a battle game based on detailed unit interaction?
Is it supposed to be a simple rules set with abstract resolution, or a simple simulation of a specific type of war fare with relevant tactical and strategic choices?

if you have experience of other war games, then these can be used as 'quick references' for concepts and ideas.

IF people can specify what game mechanics and resolution methods they want to keep , (because they believe they are the best fit.)

This gives everyone a frame work to work within.

Just stating general thoughts about 40k based on personal opinion without any form of objectivity , is not going to get anywhere is it?

Before heading off on the 'fix 40k in 500 words' project, don't you think defining what 40k is supposed to end up as first, is quite important?

That is a better post, but the fact of the matter is 40k doesn't exactly fit any of those since GW has made it apparent that they want a system that works at any level of play that also has individual model, unit, and army interactions. I think they have somewhat accomplished that. For the most part I can go into any shop and get a game of any size and play without many or any rules problems. I think what this thread is trying to arrive at is what can we do with minimal work fix the little problems that don't make any sense. From what I have read so far a lot of the problems are really all tied to the shooting phase and how dominant it is. Which game type do you think can help with that?

 YourIntestines wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:
The shooting phase is a tougher nut to crack. I think the primary problem is that most weapons have a ridiculously long range. Most heavy weapons have a 48" range, which lets them cover the majority of the table from a single spot. So instead of using heavy weapons for area denial or tactical deployment, the entire battlefield turns into a gun range. This would annoy lots of people advocating for more realism, but on a 6'x4' table it's silly to have regular weapons that cover the entire table. Call it "effective range" or whatever, but most of the game's heavy weapons could have their range cut by 6"-12", with a corresponding decrease in points. This'd give armies more of a chance to outmaneuver the enemy and it'd increase the utility of troops armed with small-arms relative to heavy weapons. It'd also penalize the gun-line approach. But this kind of change would require editing all of the codices and balancing weapon points and ranges.

Having a range penalty on weapons might help. Maybe -1 BS for the first 24" and an additional -1 for every 12" after?

A simple fix, -1 BS against anything over 36" away, +1 BS against anything within 12". I kinda like this solution, combined with the cover changes, it means that well entrenched heavy weapons units will be tough to kill at range but they will have diminished effectiveness at range, making them more area denial and less "let's sit here and hit everything on the board." As a more general rule philosophy, I think that shooting should be devastating at short range, but unreliable at long range.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
There are definitely ways to make 40k better in 500 words or less (army composition rules, plenty of minor rules patches). You won't end up with a perfect game that everyone agrees is the greatest thing ever written that way, any more than any reboot is going to be; it's a matter of what flaws you accept and what you are trying to fix.

This was my thought process. Small fixes that can have a big positive impact on gameplay.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Fenris Frost wrote:

I also really hate the strategy of alternating Look Out Sir and tanking wounds on an IC with a 2++ save to protect the squad while passing off Ap2 wounds. Either the character takes hits like normal troopers or characters can't take wounds until everyone else is dead

Neither of these options are logical at all.

Also, I read this as, "it should be like the old way I liked! The new way is dumb!"

Frankly, Look Out Sir is a silly rule. In the midst of battle you can't pick all the lasgun shots to magically hit your Captain who is wearing terminator armor, while all the plasma guns somehow hit the mass of regular grunts. Characters should take wounds just like every other model, it's up to the player to appropriately protect them with squadmates, and it's up to the opponent to attack from the right angle to take the character out. LOS, much like overwatch, is a huge time sink as it basically adds a fourth stage to wound resolution, and it is just an out for careless play.

I'd honestly rather stick with the 4e system where the defender picks out the casualties, at least for non-characters. Unless I'm supposed to believe that all Marines can use bolters but only that guy knew how to use a plasma gun?

@Goldphish,
40k has not bothered with any clearly defined game play goals since 3rd ed.(Even then it was an eleventh hour conversion of a WWII rule set Rick Priestly was working on.That ended up as the finished Bolt Action rule set 14 years later.)

The devs have simply focused on writing the 40k rules primarily to inspire customers to buy new products.(The design brief the sales department has set them since 1998.)

As the 40k rules are too complicated (lots of pages of rules) to be suited to abstract resolution , where things happen 'just because ' it is fun.(
If the rules run under 5 pages total abstract resolution is fine!)

Then 40k should be a simple simulation of a particular type of warfare but what sort of warfare is the best fit?

Ancient /Napoleonic warfare like WHFB,or WWII/Modern warfare like Epic?

And then there is the issue of what size the game should be played at?
Skirmish level with detailed model interaction ,(Necromundia/Inquisitor) or battle game with detailed unit interaction.(Epic /Titan Legions)?

(Note detailed unit interaction , allows models to interact to define the net unit resolution, and unit interaction to define the net force/(army) level interaction.)

If the general feeling is shooting is over powered in 40k, then why not look deeper to see if this is a symptom of a core problem with the rule set.
Otherwise just adding random patches to try to fixed the perceived problem may just move the problem to another area.(Eg making Assault too powerful.)

Question 1 )Why is shooting too powerful?
Question 2)Why is shooting and assault much better balanced in other rules sets?
Question 3)What actually needs changing in the rules to fix the problem(s) ?

Even people wanting to save 40k will have different goals depending in what type of game play they prefer.

So if I said 'To save 40k for battle game with unit focused game play I would ....' At least this defines what game play goal the idea is relevant to.

As they would be completely different to 'To save 40k as a skirmish game with model focused game play I would ..'

AnomanderRake.
What exactly would you like me to define for you?

^Post is much better than prior posts, thank you for clarity. An answer or two would be nice, or an explanation as to why you need something to be either binary X or Y as opposed to anything else, but it's a start.

As to your questions:
1) Shooting is too powerful because it can usually hit the whole board at once, doesn't open you up for retaliation, hits much harder than melee, or some combination of the three. Toning these back by redefining terrain and neutering the overabundance of AP2 Ignores Cover AoE weapons would be a good start; still working on the lack of retaliation.

2) Depends on the ruleset. Shooting is weaker than assault in Warmachine because the ranges and typical POW are so much lower, plus the Rate of Fire limitations that don't exist on melee weapons; shooting was weaker than assault in 4e 40k because it was much easier to make it into combat due to less powerful shooting attacks and once you got into melee you could never be shot again due to consolidating into other units.

3) Several quick fixes: Restrict/prohibit consequence-free AP2/3 blasts/template weapons (one Riptide per 1000pts, say). Blasts hit one floor of a building. Assault after running and/or models may assault after disembarking from regular transports (Disordered Charge out of a normal transport, normal out of an open-topped or Assault Vehicle transport). Considering a quick fix for Drop Pods but I haven't come up with one I like yet (my best is that since people moving out of Drop Pods get their movement phase to disembark where nobody else does they don't get that Shooting phase). There are other patches that could be helpful but that's my list of most relevant material.

On the subject of your binary questions 40k is supposed to be sci-fi (so modern) platoon-scale to company-scale warfare, it's a level of scale between Necromunda and Epic where the game is primarily built around unit interaction but characters are floating around to add some complexity in model interaction to the game.

The overpowered nature of shooting comes mostly from the Codexes; over the past four editions guns have been getting progressively cheaper and better while melee weapons have stayed the same or gotten worse for the same cost and assault delivery hasn't kept pace with the guns.

I'm aiming both in short patches and in Aegis to preserve 40k as a platoon-scale wargame built primarily around units with an extra layer of character interaction, I'm not aiming to change the genre of the game.

I added BS bonuses for close range and penalties for long range to the OP (12" and 36" respectively).

I also added charges from non-assault vehicles, at -3" charge range (cumulative with cover).

I would have all codexes and the BRB written by Matt Ward and him alone.

 Pyeatt wrote:
I would have all codexes and the BRB written by Matt Ward and him alone.

One author wouldn't be a bad idea, though that one's not working for them anymore. At least make the design team talk to each other once in a while.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:
I would have all codexes and the BRB written by Matt Ward and him alone.

One author wouldn't be a bad idea, though that one's not working for them anymore. At least make the design team talk to each other once in a while.

I think play testing and editing is more the problem, rather than multiple authors.

I agree that play testing and editing is very important part of development, that should be done to an adequate standard before selling product to customers.
(GW management seem to think that this is an optional extra! )

However, at the very start of the development there should be a clear and concise design brief on what the game play the rules should be focused on.

As this focuses development on clear and concise rules, which make achieving the development goals a lot easier!(Like every game I have played other than 40k!)

When I was referring to balance between shooting and assault, it was in terms of both of these game features being useful in different ways so players do not feel compelled to favor one over the other .
Rather than both compete to deliver the same options in the same way.(Just by killing stuff!)

Not necessarily making shooting and assault equally effective in all situations.(Which is an impossible, and flawed premise.)

But both having clearly defined roles they are good at , but can be used to achieve any function , but not with equal efficiency.

Eg
If shooting is great at slowing enemies down, (suppression/disabling transports) and blocking enemy L.O.S (Smoke /blind).
But not so effective at actually destroying units .

This leaves assault as the go to way to destroy units , but can only slow down or block LOS by inefficient 'tar pitting ' of enemy units.

This gives each attack type clearly defined uses and benefits , with obvious draw backs.

This makes players think about tactical use of units , so they have more varied value beyond 'what can they kill' .This could let under used units have more value in the expanded game play perhaps?

I probably need to explain that better...

Lanrak wrote:
I agree that play testing and editing is very important part of development, that should be done to an adequate standard before selling product to customers.
(GW management seem to think that this is an optional extra! )

However, at the very start of the development there should be a clear and concise design brief on what the game play the rules should be focused on.

As this focuses development on clear and concise rules, which make achieving the development goals a lot easier!(Like every game I have played other than 40k!)

When I was referring to balance between shooting and assault, it was in terms of both of these game features being useful in different ways so players do not feel compelled to favor one over the other .
Rather than both compete to deliver the same options in the same way.(Just by killing stuff!)

Not necessarily making shooting and assault equally effective in all situations.(Which is an impossible, and flawed premise.)

But both having clearly defined roles they are good at , but can be used to achieve any function , but not with equal efficiency.

Eg
If shooting is great at slowing enemies down, (suppression/disabling transports) and blocking enemy L.O.S (Smoke /blind).
But not so effective at actually destroying units .

This leaves assault as the go to way to destroy units , but can only slow down or block LOS by inefficient 'tar pitting ' of enemy units.

This gives each attack type clearly defined uses and benefits , with obvious draw backs.

This makes players think about tactical use of units , so they have more varied value beyond 'what can they kill' .This could let under used units have more value in the expanded game play perhaps?

I probably need to explain that better...

Precisely.

I don't think I could do it in five hundred words or less truthfully but I do have a few ideas that might help with game speed, balance, and overall quality.

1 - I've noticed that 40k seems very discombobulated when it comes to making up it's mind on who's turn it is to do what. The notion that my enemy can move, shoot, and assault without any response from me is pretty silly when you think about it. When you have a UGOIGO sort of build, I find, things tend to run smoother and gameplay as a whole seems to be better as well.

2 - Do away with the ten thousand special rules. C'mon, there really isn't a need for every single special rule in the BRB or the various codexes. I know, I know, it adds diversity to army playstyles, but actually I think it hampers the understanding of the game as a whole in addition to causing various issues between opponents due to rules conflicts. I can't say what needs to be removed with any real certainty as I haven't thought that far ahead, but I'm certain the special rules section could be lightened by almost 1/3.

3 - Stop using Fantasy as a baseline for every rules change and to a lesser extent, understand that this system isn't Rogue Trader anymore, i.e. it's not a skirmish game. I liked what someone said about taking a look at the Epic rules and transforming them to work with larger models. This is where lessening the number of super-secret, codex only, super special, one-time rules helps a great deal. Not every single Sergeant, Veteran, or squad leader needs to be a special snowflake, i.e. make army-wide upgrades for these models that are consistent with their parent army.

4 - Find someone who's actually played a game involving high amounts of armor, because I can't stress enough how poorly this rules are written (I apologize for what I hope won't be a seven thousand word complaint coming up...). Glancing hits in almost any other system are defined exactly as the title implies: GLANCING. Not, the tank is damaged from scratched paint or perforated exhaust pipe or dented panels. I know that everyone hated the armor rules from fifth edition, but they made actual sense. Glancing hits could never take out a tank, they could only do what actual glancing hits can do, i.e. destroy tank treads/engines/hover things (immobilization), stun/shake the crew, and destroy weapons. After the weapons were gone the tank vehicle was effectively mission dead so, yeah, you could eventually take out a tank that way. Penetrating hits operated much the same way, suffering no negatives once penetrating armor, because well...melta shots inside a tank are bad mmmmmk? I think the current penetration rules are a step in the right direction; instead of needing 7's to blow gak up, just keep it on a d6 and add +1 for AP1 (because lets face it, that AP is meant for anti-armor) and make glancing hits back to the way they were in fifth. I can go on about cover saves, defensive fire when dealing with assaulting units, and various other things...but that's for a different thread. Note: I mean this change as a game-wide one, not just for my plucky Guard.

5 - I'm still out on the Psychic Phase, although I think it's an improvement on what used to be.

6 - Take random objectives and cram them in whatever ass(es) of those that designed them. THIS is why we can't have nice things, these sort of 'competitive' additions to 40k only succeed in adding yet one more thing players need to consider in an already daunting game. They skew gameplay in idiotic ways that make zero sense from both a game and a fluff stand point; I know, fluff doesn't matter when we're talking rules, but who honestly buy's 40k stuff for the rules? If you want to introduce objectives that are more fluid, change the current rules for objectives. Outside of the competitive circuit (and I'm using competitive very lightly here), tactical objectives offer nothing to the game.

7 - Stop using a d6 to decide every single situation, seriously. I understand that war is random and fate is fickle and all that, but seriously, there's hardly a moment goes by in any 40k game where someone isn't rolling a d6. Swarming bugs running through terrain - d6, running anything - d6, CHARGING - d6...I mean really? Certainly bugs would handle rough terrain than any bipedal humanoid (again, inserting a fluff related reason for my complaint, but it makes sense), also genetically bread super-soldiers hundreds of years old can't judge how far they can run and get leg cramps randomly. And finally...charging. Yes ladies and gent's, this horse turd of a change is the subject of much contention in the 40k community, because well, it's fething stupid. Not only do professional troops/space horrors/demons from another plane of existence NOT know whether or not they can reach their destination/target, but apparently if they suddenly realize that it's too far (failing the roll), they just stand there and get shot (overwatch). Need I say more?

Ok, that was longer than I thought (but not as long as some replies here).

@The Silo.
Do you agree in principal with what I posted, or I need to explain it better?

@Frankenberry.
I agree with all the issues you have with the 40k rule set.(As do many others.)

The thing is I believe the reason for the issues in 40k are embedded in the basic game mechanics and resolution methods, not being suitable for the game play 40k is currently trying to achieve.

And so although superficial changes may appear to make things better in some areas, they will cause confusion, and conflict with other rules and resolutions somewhere else in the game play.

Only when you change out the game mechanics and resolution methods for something more in synergy with the units, can you just remove clutter and make genuine improvements to game play.

EG Adding a movement stat back in to remove the plethora of special rules and totally random movement .

The thing is elements of the 40k rules would work well if the rest of the rules were changed to support them, to make them work together to deliver well defined game play.(EG using armour values OR armour saves for all units, to remove clutter and disparity between units.)

Lanrak wrote:
@The Silo.
Do you agree in principal with what I posted, or I need to explain it better?

@Frankenberry.
I agree with all the issues you have with the 40k rule set.(As do many others.)

The thing is I believe the reason for the issues in 40k are embedded in the basic game mechanics and resolution methods, not being suitable for the game play 40k is currently trying to achieve.

And so although superficial changes may appear to make things better in some areas, they will cause confusion, and conflict with other rules and resolutions somewhere else in the game play.

Only when you change out the game mechanics and resolution methods for something more in synergy with the units, can you just remove clutter and make genuine improvements to game play.

EG Adding a movement stat back in to remove the plethora of special rules and totally random movement .

The thing is elements of the 40k rules would work well if the rest of the rules were changed to support them, to make them work together to deliver well defined game play.(EG using rmour values OR armour saves for all units, to remove clutter and disparity between units.)

Exactly, while I meant to convey as a whole the 40k ruleset needs a revamp, this is actually far more succinct and very much on point.

Lanrak wrote:
I agree that play testing and editing is very important part of development, that should be done to an adequate standard before selling product to customers.
(GW management seem to think that this is an optional extra! )

However, at the very start of the development there should be a clear and concise design brief on what the game play the rules should be focused on.

As this focuses development on clear and concise rules, which make achieving the development goals a lot easier!(Like every game I have played other than 40k!)

When I was referring to balance between shooting and assault, it was in terms of both of these game features being useful in different ways so players do not feel compelled to favor one over the other .
Rather than both compete to deliver the same options in the same way.(Just by killing stuff!)

Not necessarily making shooting and assault equally effective in all situations.(Which is an impossible, and flawed premise.)

But both having clearly defined roles they are good at , but can be used to achieve any function , but not with equal efficiency.

Eg
If shooting is great at slowing enemies down, (suppression/disabling transports) and blocking enemy L.O.S (Smoke /blind).
But not so effective at actually destroying units.

This leaves assault as the go to way to destroy units , but can only slow down or block LOS by inefficient 'tar pitting ' of enemy units.

This gives each attack type clearly defined uses and benefits , with obvious draw backs.

This makes players think about tactical use of units , so they have more varied value beyond 'what can they kill' .This could let under used units have more value in the expanded game play perhaps?

I agree in principal with your post. Shooting and assault should have different tactical impacts.

In general, the gameplay and rules should have a clear focus. If a special rule is not absolutely essential to how a unit functions then that rule shouldn't exist. Buffing a model's profile should always be the preferred solution rather than a new special rule. Randomness should only affect unit interactions: charging, shooting, damage tables, etc. At this scale, randomness should not affect single unit actions: moving through cover, perils of the warp table, running, etc.

@The Silo.
If I may expand upon the points you made .

I would say that if a rule set has a clearly defined game play , and it uses the most appropriate 'stat line' to arrive at the objective of the rules.
Then special rules are only ever needed to cover the actually very few special abilities.

However, the way 40k hands out special rules for everything , makes me question the suitability of it using a stat line from a completely different game type.(WHFB)

The thing is 40k 7th ed is such an eclectic mix of all possible game types, to appeal to a wider range of potential customers.
That in trying to fix it, we need to define at the start what game play we want to arrive at.

Originally when 40k was a skirmish game, it was presented as 'Zooming in on the epic battle lines and focusing on the most important engagement.As the combatants close on each other over the last few hundred meters. (This sort of explained why so many 'named characters' were always involved I suppose! )

But back then getting more than 25 Space Marines and a vehicle in 2000pt army could be a struggle.
40k 7th ed Space Marine armies of 2000pts are getting very close to the size of armies we used for Epic (10mm) games in the 1990s!

This is another problem IMO. All other battle games at current 40k size tend to use 6mm to 15mm sized minatures. So players are happy using rules for unit interaction.

With 40k using 28mm heroic minatures players expect them to be a special as the price they had to pay for them! So pointing out the rank and file troopers are mainly just attack and wound markers for the infantry unit .Can make some people uneasy/unhappy .

As far as randomness goes, I am happy for the scenario the players engage in to be randomly generated.
Eg 6 attacker mission cards, 6 defender mission cards, with 3 to 6 set up options.
But the missions to be more generic and objective based, like to recover items , hold/capture specific objective markers etc.

So players focus on playing their mission, and not just' beating the other guy.'
This is proper narrative gaming IMO, not tons of random stuff, to detract from the lack of in game choices!

IMO, the dice roll to decide in game interaction (to hit, wound, save etc.) is enough randomness in game.

We could write 500 words to point out the things we would need to change to save 40k, for a specified game play type.
But actually saving the 7th ed 40k rules in 500 words, I think is impossible*.
(*If you want to arrive at a game that is on par with well developed games that are played because the rules are good.)

I have read most of this, and when we say we want to save 40k, are we meaning for ourselves? GW does not want to save it, they still have people buying and re-buying thier Crap. All in the hope that GW would fix the rules. The rules are where GW wants them, vague, inconsistant and wanting.

GW made this a competitive game, not a fun game on purpose. If they made it a fun game, with a solid rules set, people would find their nitch and that would be that. GW knows that we all don't have someone to game with, and uses that against us. If you have no one to play with you need to go to a club or gaming store to play. If it were a fun game with good rules you would just play your game. But, my designing 40K to be a competitive game, you go to the club, get destroyed and feel compiled to buy something new to get even. It is an endless wallet emptying struggle..... because it is a Competitive Game.

My Son and I gave up after they abandoned 5th edition for 6th. Everyone has their own thoughts on what or how a game plays out. We like infantry heavy games with other equipment like vehicles and what not on the rarer side.
We made our own rules and changes of 5th edition, and that is where we are! We are happy with what we have and that is all that matters to us.

SORRY GW, you have far to much of our money, you are not getting anymore.

@Tara.
We want 40k to have the quality of rules we think it deserves, eg equal to the other games we love to play.

GW plc did not make 40k a competitive game, they made it a sales promotion tool!

I have played lots of competitive games that are loads of fun.
(Competitive means players have opposed objectives in the game.Co-operative is the other game type where players work together to achieve a common objective.Only in 40k do you have to work so hard to make fun one of the objectives of the game !)

The real issue is with GW plc using PV and F.O.C.s to imply a level of balance suited to pick up games, that it simply does not have.

Just a thought in general , another reason for a complete overhaul.
If we as a group decide what game play 40k is supposed to have.And some how manage to hash out a rule set that is agreed to be much better than GW own efforts.
The other issue is if it becomes popular, GW plc will look at taking the legal hammer to it.

So using identical resolution methods and game mechanics to GW plc copyrite rule set 40k, even with changed names .Is going to get it C&D out of the public domain.

 Tara wrote:
I have read most of this, and when we say we want to save 40k, are we meaning for ourselves? GW does not want to save it, they still have people buying and re-buying thier Crap. All in the hope that GW would fix the rules. The rules are where GW wants them, vague, inconsistant and wanting.

GW made this a competitive game, not a fun game on purpose. If they made it a fun game, with a solid rules set, people would find their nitch and that would be that. GW knows that we all don't have someone to game with, and uses that against us. If you have no one to play with you need to go to a club or gaming store to play. If it were a fun game with good rules you would just play your game. But, my designing 40K to be a competitive game, you go to the club, get destroyed and feel compiled to buy something new to get even. It is an endless wallet emptying struggle..... because it is a Competitive Game.

My Son and I gave up after they abandoned 5th edition for 6th. Everyone has their own thoughts on what or how a game plays out. We like infantry heavy games with other equipment like vehicles and what not on the rarer side.
We made our own rules and changes of 5th edition, and that is where we are! We are happy with what we have and that is all that matters to us.

SORRY GW, you have far to much of our money, you are not getting anymore.

I got back into 40k in March after not playing since 3rd edition. It was easy since I had so much already assembled and painted, a lot of rules background, and I had unopened boxes from forever ago. So I went on a huge binge assembling and painting 40 WFB Dwarves, 20 Dark Eldar, 3 Reaver Jetbikes, 10 Space Marines, and multiple IG tanks. So I was in the groove. But then I ran out of stuff to assemble and realized I had zero interest in getting new models at the jacked up prices. I bought the previous ed Dark Eldar book, and was considering getting the SM book, but I've since soured on the idea, realizing it'll cost $100 just to get the rules for my second and third armies.

The rules, which were already clunky back in 3rd, have gotten completely unwieldy. And I'm sure that you could eliminate between 25-50% of the rules, speeding the game dramatically with no adverse effect on gameplay.

In 3rd, you effectively knew what you had going into a game. Psykers had set powers, there were no warlord traits, assault ranges were 6", etc. You built your army and your opponent brought the random element to the game. In 6th/7th, you're rolling warlord traits and psychic powers that can be as effective as a 40 point upgrade or can turn your warlord/psyker into a waste of points.

Overwatch and pile in moves add a lot of player actions without adding meaningful gameplay. Think of any great board games, Chess, Go, Risk, Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, Diplomacy, they're great because they boil down gameplay to core elements with no wasted player action. Every roll, move, and action is purposeful and impacts the game. Today the 40k randomness has made it impossible to build an army on a solid foundation and has bloated the ruleset with lots of extra rules and rolls that feel like junk thrown into what would otherwise be a fun experience.

@The Silo.
I agree that after the rushed 3rd edition battle game rules of 40k was forced onto the game devs and players.
All that has happened is the devs have tried to fix the rules, by adding more rules, rather than address the core issues.
(Which is the only action the GW managers allowed them to do.All attempts to correct basic game play flaws have been rejected by the GW managment.)

This has just made an over complicated and counter intuitive basic game, in to a more over complicated and counter intuitive game.

Yes you can re -set 40k to 3rd edition and keep the same basic stat lines and resolution methods.
Even the cleanest version of 40k , under its current set up of game mechanics resolution methods and stat lines, would be over complicated and counter intuitive,compared to any other game currently on the market.(With WHFB being the only possible exception. )

I prefer to look at rule sets that delivered much better game play at the 'battle game' level.And take inspiration from these, start with good rules for 6 to 15mm battle games, then scale up the detail to suit 28mm.
As this starts with a solid foundation that is proven to work well.Then any changes can be judged objectively .

With a half arsed conversion rushed through at the eleventh hour.
You do not have a solid foundation to build on, so no one can make objective decisions.And so actual game development suffers as a result.

It seems then that hoping for a complete overhaul is out of the picture. Rule changes however are still very easy to implement.

 TheSilo wrote:
It seems then that hoping for a complete overhaul is out of the picture. Rule changes however are still very easy to implement.

I'm trying, but I've got a chicken-and-egg problem of me having no idea whether I've succeeded because I can't get any feedback because nobody thinks my rules are any good.

he, alot of tthose rules remind me of the 3rd edition of 40k

here some thoughts

 TheSilo wrote:
Pre-game:
- psychic powers are chosen when building the army list. All current restrictions apply (i.e. ML1 can only learn one power + primaris). Warp charge 1 powers cost 0 points, Warp charge 2 powers cost 10 points each, Warp charge 3 powers cost 20 points each.

choosing would debalance some powers more then they already are... i.e. invisibility

Movement:

- models may charge after disembarking from a non-assault vehicle (unless the vehicle began the turn in reserves), suffering -3" to their charge range. This is cumulative with any other penalties, e.g. charging through cover.
+
Shooting:
- vehicles moving 6” or less may fire all their weapons at full BS, vehicles moving 12” or less may fire 1 weapon at full BS, unless otherwise debuffed (e.g. shaken) or otherwise noted (e.g. skimmers, fast).

then whats the point of fast/open topped vehicles? fast vehicles are already nerfed.
proposituion: unit can only assault if disembarked from a non-assault-vehicle before it has remained stationary.
keep above changes, but allow fast vehicles to shoot all weapons and disembarkation of units at 12"

Psychic:
- remove the perils chart, perils of the warp inflicts 1 wound with no saves of any kind allowed (including invulnerable saves and feel no pain).

its the only thing keeping psychers at bay... the current rules are ok.

Assault:
- (see above: Movement).
- in overwatch, template weapons and grenades (1 grenade per unit) inflict d3 automatic hits. Tau supporting fire is unaffected. Nothing else may fire overwatch.
- eliminate pile in moves. Everyone in a combat within 6" of an enemy model fights (close combat, short range fire, etc). In the movement phase, models in engaged units must move into base to base contact with an enemy model or as close as possible (moving 6").

doesnt that buff TAU waaaaayy to much? they would be the only army that can fire at assaulting units?
for the assaults... this would only work if you can remove models of your choosing. i.e. models from the back

Morale:

- if a unit is falling back and fails its test to regroup, the unit is instantly removed as a casualty, it is assumed that they were completely routed or cut down in a hail of fire.

unneccessary and hard nerf to non fearless, ATSKNF armies.

@The Silo.
Expecting GW plc to care enough about game play , to implement a rewrite, is not going to happen.

Everyone who plays 40k changes the rules in some way to arrive at a playable game they could enjoy.

The problem is there are so many different ways of changing the 40k 'big book of ideas' into a 'playable game,' no one can make changes to'improve' the game that every one wants.

Re-writing the rules for a particular type of game play , is much more straight forward and easier to do.

The reason 40k has such an identity crisis is the clash of game size , (company level,like F.O.W/Epic SM. ) and the minature size 28mm heroic which is mainly used for platoon level skirmish size.(2nd ed 40k reached this limit of this game size.)
Game size dictates detailed unit interaction , 'shiney model syndrome ' means players expect detailed model interaction.

The way the units are equipped and organized dictates modern warfare based game play.
The background setting and look of the game , WHFB in space' means players accept/expect ancient warfare based rules .

So the logical objective assessment of the game play, dictates one thing.But the look of the minatures is directly opposed to this.
Some times things need to work , not just 'look right'.

If you think that altering rules can achieve more than JUST adding bloat to an already bloated system.
Just do the following.

Stage 1.
List the current flaws with the 40k rule set.
Get everyone to agree what these flaws are.

Stage 2.
List the ways to fix these flaws , (not quick fixes that cause issues some where else !)
Then get everyone to agree on which corrective action to use.

Then see what you end up with, and if your P.O.V. changes.

@AnomanderRake,
PM me your latest WIP and Ill have a read through, and give you feed back if that is any help...

Lanrak wrote:

I prefer to look at rule sets that delivered much better game play at the 'battle game' level.And take inspiration from these, start with good rules for 6 to 15mm battle games, then scale up the detail to suit 28mm.

Any particular such rulesets you'd recommend Lanrak?

RedNoak wrote:
he, alot of tthose rules remind me of the 3rd edition of 40k

here some thoughts

 TheSilo wrote:
Pre-game:
- psychic powers are chosen when building the army list. All current restrictions apply (i.e. ML1 can only learn one power + primaris). Warp charge 1 powers cost 0 points, Warp charge 2 powers cost 10 points each, Warp charge 3 powers cost 20 points each.

choosing would debalance some powers more then they already are... i.e. invisibility

Movement:

- models may charge after disembarking from a non-assault vehicle (unless the vehicle began the turn in reserves), suffering -3" to their charge range. This is cumulative with any other penalties, e.g. charging through cover.
+
Shooting:
- vehicles moving 6” or less may fire all their weapons at full BS, vehicles moving 12” or less may fire 1 weapon at full BS, unless otherwise debuffed (e.g. shaken) or otherwise noted (e.g. skimmers, fast).

then whats the point of fast/open topped vehicles? fast vehicles are already nerfed.
proposituion: unit can only assault if disembarked from a non-assault-vehicle before it has remained stationary.
keep above changes, but allow fast vehicles to shoot all weapons and disembarkation of units at 12"

Psychic:
- remove the perils chart, perils of the warp inflicts 1 wound with no saves of any kind allowed (including invulnerable saves and feel no pain).

its the only thing keeping psychers at bay... the current rules are ok.

Assault:
- (see above: Movement).
- in overwatch, template weapons and grenades (1 grenade per unit) inflict d3 automatic hits. Tau supporting fire is unaffected. Nothing else may fire overwatch.
- eliminate pile in moves. Everyone in a combat within 6" of an enemy model fights (close combat, short range fire, etc). In the movement phase, models in engaged units must move into base to base contact with an enemy model or as close as possible (moving 6").

doesnt that buff TAU waaaaayy to much? they would be the only army that can fire at assaulting units?
for the assaults... this would only work if you can remove models of your choosing. i.e. models from the back

Morale:

- if a unit is falling back and fails its test to regroup, the unit is instantly removed as a casualty, it is assumed that they were completely routed or cut down in a hail of fire.

unneccessary and hard nerf to non fearless, ATSKNF armies.

On psychic powers, individual points costs for powers would be more desirable but I don't think I could come up with good values for the 50+ powers. I'd rather have people pay the points upfront rather than have their army be OP or UP based on their roll on the chart. Players who field psykers shouldn't be forced into a position where the validity of their gameplan hinges on a die roll before the game even begins.

I incorporated your suggestion on vehicle shooting, combat speed counts as stationary, cruising counts as combat speed. This will reduce gunline parking lots and reflect the fact that a machine gun on a tank is a pretty good firing platform if it's driving at walking speed.

Disembark is ok at 6", though I'd prefer to do away with access points altogether. The -3" charge out of non assault vehicles is a decent penalty to simulate the extra time and effort to get out, alternately it could just eliminate the d6" extra on the charge, i.e. the charge is 6"+3" from the access point. Charging out of vehicles used to be insanely powerful when players could move 12"-24" disembark and then charge, limiting transports to 6" before disembarkation fixed this problem. Eliminating charges out of vehicles tipped the scale too far.

The overwatch change isn't a buff to Tau, it is a nerf to every army's overwatch. Tau can only use supporting fire, the charged unit cannot overwatch with their weapons. This change is still generally a buff to assault units and armies.

With the current perils chart, a 5 or 6 is only detrimental if the psyker fails his ld test. My primary problem with the chart is that it's incredibly random and you have to look it up every time there's a perils of the warp, it's just a pain and it doesn't contribute to gameplay. I've gladly added an additional penalty, but the chart is a PITA at the moment.

I can count on one hand the number of times that a unit has had an impact on the game after failing a regroup test. Most of the time people in my area just pull the unit off the board at that point, it's not worth rolling every turn to see if those four dudes get their act together, especially since most of the time that unit is below 25% and has to roll double 1's anyway (which only happens on 3% of morale tests). This is already after they fled from close combat and failed another ld test, at that point they're gone. If it's an important unit, then you should be spending points on bonding knives, regimental standards, synapse, etc, etc.

As to psychic powers the quick answer is to rewrite the charts; Invisibility was a bad balance decision however you slice it, purchase or roll. Seven Disciplines of seven powers (49) plus Daemons (three of four, 12) plus other books with full disciplines (two Eldar, one Space Wolves, one Orks off the top of my head, 28) comes up with 89 powers lower bound, plus any that I'm missing; some of those are bound to be filler dropped in to pad out the disciplines to seven powers each or redundant between disciplines. I'm chopping it down to the five major common disciplines only in Aegis, giving some armies (for whom it makes sense; Eldar and Chaos, mostly) unique powers, and cutting the size down since I'm not assuming I need to roll for them.

As to minor changes the big problem with psychic powers is that it's nigh-impossible to Deny something that's not cast on your guys; Invis and Precog both fall under this (statistically twelve Deny dice to deny them cast with minimum successes). Deny on 5+ as standard, improved by one when targeting a unit containing an enemy psyker, improved by one for Adamantium Will would help armies that can't spam Mastery levels immeasurably when dealing with Blessings; as for armies without psykers some non-psychic counter (army-wide Adamantium Will for Tau (since they're hard to affect with Warp powers, having no Warp presence and all), wargear that grants denial dice/improves denial against powers cast in a certain bubble for Necrons (based on the anti-psychic obelisk tech that pops up in the lore now and again but is never mentioned in game), wargear that forces enemies casting powers nearby to Perils more often and more fatally for Dark Eldar (trapped angry souls out to murder psykers)) would be indicated.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
As to psychic powers the quick answer is to rewrite the charts; Invisibility was a bad balance decision however you slice it, purchase or roll. Seven Disciplines of seven powers (49) plus Daemons (three of four, 12) plus other books with full disciplines (two Eldar, one Space Wolves, one Orks off the top of my head, 28) comes up with 89 powers lower bound, plus any that I'm missing; some of those are bound to be filler dropped in to pad out the disciplines to seven powers each or redundant between disciplines. I'm chopping it down to the five major common disciplines only in Aegis, giving some armies (for whom it makes sense; Eldar and Chaos, mostly) unique powers, and cutting the size down since I'm not assuming I need to roll for them.

That's a good point. Pyromancy, as fluffy as it is, is a worthless tree. And if you're not rolling on a chart that is magically d6 compatible it'd be relatively easy to condense most of the trees to 4+primaris.

Saving 40k in 500 words or less:

1) Look at Necromunda rules for some inspiration.

2) Rather than ignore rules with "special" rules make them add +/- like power weapon +2 to hit armor (Termie 4+, marine 5+...). Try to carefully make use of the core mechanics.

3) I liked a squad's individual members not accounting for anything than the space they take-up, closest to closest for removal = no. Less fussing about being careful with individual models (similar to 5th edition).

4) Allies, where to begin... start off using the Org chart like normal (2HQ(1min), 3FA,3EL, 6T (2min), 3Hvy, 1LoW) but must make a valid list with it 1 HQ each, 2 troop each to start. Make a list based on the fluff Necrons partnering with marines still offends.

5) Hold tournaments, create hobby shop tournament packages, take ownership for centralized tournament rules, post rankings.

6) Host army painter programs, army colour scheme planning, army list programs, heavy metal guides for painting the various groups. One-stop scheme planning for armies.

7) Advertise, sell intro boxes of the game at Walmart / Target / Canadian bloody Tire.

8) Sell "special edition" pre-painted miniatures like X-wing models.

9) Find a good Kickstarter and get more modular terrain made.

10) Sell specially priced packages (-10%) of key army models for building armies.

11) Hold special online forum posting / interaction with key members of GW, being able to bend the ear of GW employees.

Take a good hard look at how beer companies advertise: it is not a product, it is a lifestyle!

@thegreatchimp.
Well here are some good battle game that we enjoy.
Epic Armageddon, (and old school NETEPIC.)
Drop Zone Commander.
Dirtside.

And of course Flames Of War.I know its WWII but its basic concepts and simple methods of covering lots of modern warfare functions make for a good reference IMO.

The original post was devoted to rules proposals in a quick and concise way, I'll give some details here about why I think these changes are each important.

 TheSilo wrote:
Saving 40k in 500 words or less, with improved balance, less tedium, and greater player agency. Goals: to improve balance between shooting and assault, remove tedious rules, and improve the player’s ability to effectively design and execute a game plan. I would appreciate constructive comments and criticism for these house rules.

Pre-game:
- warlord traits, players may freely select their warlord trait if using their codex's unique warlord traits. Codices without unique traits may freely select from the BRB warlord tactical or personal traits (not command nor strategic traits!).
- psychic powers are chosen when building the army list. All current restrictions apply (i.e. ML1 can only learn one power + primaris). Warp charge 1 powers cost 0 points, Warp charge 2 powers cost 10 points each, Warp charge 3 powers cost 20 points each.
- fielding a bound army list grants +1VP to the controlling player.

Why allow people to choose warlord traits? This is about player agency. I think of warlord traits as a flavor for your army. In most codices the warlord traits represent different aspects of the army's gameplay. If I had my way, I'd always take an Imperial Guard commander who can outflank D3 units. But as is, I'm often stuck with a command squad with the relentless special rule, or I get to ignore morale checks from shooting except my army is entirely mechanized (4/6 of the traits are useless if you take a mechanized company). It would add considerable variety to the game if players could build their armies with a key warlord trait in mind, and this is the same problem that I have with rolling for psychic powers, it dissuades players from building armies around traits or powers because the odds are usually 50+% that you won't get the power that you want.

On psychic powers, invisibility is clearly a concern and needs to be rebalanced. With that exception I think it is fine for players to pay points to freely select their powers. Again, this allows them to build an army around their tools rather than building an army and then finding out what tools happen to be available.

 TheSilo wrote:

Movement:
- all model movement is now performed in the movement phase, including run (+3") and charge moves (+3"+d6"). If the charge fails, treat it as a run move directly towards the target unit. If the charge is successful, move all models the appropriate distance, into b2b contact if possible. In the shooting phase, the charging unit may fire assault and pistol weapons as normal (combat doesn't start until the assault phase), when using template and blast weapons ignore friendly models from the same unit caught under the template. In the shooting phase a charged unit may only be targeted by the unit(s) that charged it.
- any move entering, exiting, or crossing difficult terrain subtracts 3” from the model’s base movement, including bikes, cavalry, and vehicles. This affects run and charge moves. Units with the move through cover, beasts, and skimmer rules ignore this modifier.
- models may charge after disembarking from a non-assault vehicle (unless the vehicle began the turn in reserves), suffering -3" to their charge range. This is cumulative with any other penalties, e.g. charging through cover.
- any rules improving or re-rolling run moves (e.g. fleet, crusader, Move Move Move command) allow the model to run +6” instead of +3” (this doesn't apply to charges).

This model movement change might be the most important. Currently, it is not unusual for you to have to move a single model four times over the course of one turn: movement, charge, pile in, and consolidate. This makes horde armies a huge pain to play with or against. Players always get lax with the measurements, because no one wants to carefully measure out the movement for 50 termagaunts. This change would mean that you'd move a model at most twice in a turn: charge and consolidate, so that there's more time spent playing and less frustration measuring out dozens of model moves over and over. Fixed run moves give the player a solid tactical option, you can opt to forgo shooting knowing how far you can run. Similarly, terrain has a fixed negative impact. I've played too many games where a blob of guardsmen just barely fails to get out of cover, and next turn I lose a whole movement phase by rolling 2" even though there's only 1" of terrain to get them out into the open. These changes also eliminate the excessive rolls for running and fleet re-rolling when playing Tyranids, and units like hormagaunts can actually truck across the field very fast with their improved run move. The narrowed charge range will prevent awful 2" or 3" charges and get rid of the ridiculous 10", 11", 12" charge ranges, while keeping some randomness.

 TheSilo wrote:

Psychic:
- remove the perils chart, perils of the warp inflicts 1 wound with no saves of any kind allowed (including invulnerable saves and feel no pain). The psyker's unit also suffers one S4 Ap2 hit for every "6" that was rolled on the psychic test.

The Perils of the Warp chart is an easy chart to throw out. It is highly random, makes no logical sense, and is hard to memorize. More to the point, getting rid of it will do nothing to hamper gameplay. Currently, when someone rolls a Perils, the whole game has to stop while someone digs out the rulebook to find the ridiculous perils table, roll for the result, take a ld test, then resolve the effects. I much prefer my solution since it doesn't allow high ld models to get out of trouble on rolls of 5 or 6, and because it penalizes really bad perils rolls (with multiple 6's).

 TheSilo wrote:

Shooting:
- eliminate the look out sir rule.
- simplified vehicle damage table, 1-2 Shaken, 3-4 Stunned, 5-6 Immobilized, 7+ Explodes.
- +1 BS at targets within 12", -1 BS at targets beyond 36" (minimum BS 1 when shooting)
- all cover is treated the same, shots at models in cover or with cover modifiers (camo, stealth, jink, etc.) are fired at -1 BS (no more cover saves). Shots at models with both cover and a cover modifier are at -2 BS. Modifiers cannot reduce BS below 1. “Snap shots” always miss targets in cover. "Ignore cover" confers +1 BS when shooting at targets with cover. A unit is considered in cover if at least 50% of its models are out of sight or obscured from the closest shooting model with LOS.
- combat speed now counts as stationary for the purpose of firing. Cruising speed counts as combat speed for firing.
- remove all incidents of "randomly select a model" for wounds, instead the controlling player may choose who takes wounds in these instances.

Look Out Sir! is a major rules offender. Any unit with a character essentially adds a shooting sub-phase for the absurd LOS rolls. It's also bad gameplay since it excuses bad positioning, fails to reward good positioning, and makes no narrative sense. Most players use this rule to selectively tank small arms fire on their superior character's armor, while allowing plasma blasts to hit the guys around him. It doesn't make sense and it really slows down the game. The vast majority of the time it's not going to matter if your Sgt lives or dies.

Vehicle table change is mostly to make it easy to memorize and easy to track damage. The weapon destroyed result is hard to keep track of if the weapon is not removable on the vehicle. I can never remember what weapon I shot off my opponents defiler.

Short range benefit, long range penalty, this is meant to reward mobility and penalize gunlines. For some reason rapid fire weapons are the only ones that improve at close range. I think heavy weapons should have a reasonable threat range at 36", beyond that they're going to be less reliable.

Cover BS modifier, the current cover system is bizarre, and well armored units often receive no benefit from being in cover, this despite the fact that cover is one of the most important aspects of any battlefield. A Space Marine standing in a trench should be much more well protected against small arms fire than a Space Marine standing on a road. This change will integrate cover's effect in the roll to hit, rather than granting a pseudo invulnerable save.

Vehicle shooting change, vehicles are more accurate on the move than infantry. Just the way they are, they're much better gun platforms. The current rules force vehicles into gunlines despite the fact that vehicles are specifically meant to improve mobility on the battlefield.

Randomly select a model is a garbage rule, and unless you have exactly 6 guys in a squad, it's often impossible to resolve fairly. When trying to randomly allocate wounds in a squad of 30 Ork boyz where only three are special characters or weapons troopers, this rule turns into a real pain.

 TheSilo wrote:

Assault:
- (see above: Movement).
- in overwatch, template weapons and grenades (1 grenade per unit) inflict d3 automatic hits. Tau supporting fire is unaffected, the charged unit may not fire. Nothing else may fire overwatch.
- eliminate pile in moves. Everyone in a combat within 6" of an enemy model fights (close combat, short range fire, etc). In the movement phase, models in engaged units must move into base to base contact with an enemy model or as close as possible (moving 6").
- fix the WS chart. If the opposing WS is 2+ higher than your own, you hit on a 5+.
- eliminate the initiative+d6 roll when fleeing combat. If the unit flees and the enemy chooses a sweeping advance, then the fleeing unit is completely eliminated. A unit may not consolidate after a sweeping advance. If the winning side chooses to consolidate instead, consolidation moves are always up to 3".

Overwatch is a waste of time. It's far less effective than regular shooting, but it takes just as much time to resolve. It provides a freebie defense for shooty armies and there's no way for assaulty armies to work around it. Flamers and grenades can function as defensive weapons, allowing players to kit their units to resist assault, while eliminating the dice spam from rapid fire units in overwatch. The game does not allow charges on turn 1 or charges from reserves, which means that if you're getting charged, you already had your change to shoot them in the shooting phase.

Pile in moves are superfluous player actions that aren't necessary or constructive to the game, just a waste of time. The game has an awful lot of this fiddling with models that is not necessary (e.g. disembarking models by putting them in BTB contact with the transport and then moving them)

The WS chart is too generous to low WS models. The to-hit rolls for a guardsmen and space marine striking a Chapter Master are the same on both sides of the die. Allow high WS models to reasonably defend themselves in combat.

The initiative roll off is often unnecessary, and it's rolling for the right to retreat and try to regroup. If you fail your morale test in close combat, your troops are routed and cut down. They had their chance in combat and with their ld test.

 TheSilo wrote:

Morale:
- when suffering 25% casualties from shooting, units take a pinning test instead of a morale test. Weapons with the "Pinning" special rule force the pinning test at -1 ld.
- if a unit is falling back and fails its test to regroup, the unit is instantly removed as a casualty, it is assumed that they were completely routed or cut down in a hail of fire.

Failing a morale test is often disastrous, units lose ground falling back, and then can only move 3" and fire snap shots. The much more rational response to overwhelming enemy fire is to hit the dirt, lose your shooting for a turn but hold your position. This makes it much harder to root out units through shooting alone, making assault much more of a necessity.

If a unit has failed one morale test, fallen back and failed its morale test to regroup, why should they get a third chance? The unit is usually decimated at this point and has fled most of the board length. And testing for insane heroism at below 25% is just a waste of time.

Conceptually Overwatch exists to make shooty armies not auto-loose if the other guy makes it to charge range. Implementation-wise it'd be better/faster to give small arms (rifles, pistols, grenades) a melee profile rather than increase the length of the Assault phase by 50% by giving the defender two phases of attacks.

Changing overwatch into some form of inverse hammer of wrath might work.
One hammer of wrath hit at the profile of the gun for every 5 shots that would normally be fired.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, 1 for every 6 would be easier for calculation.

Ok, so, I'm new here, but I really like your idea's, Silo. Some questions/comments.

1:Love what you've done with the cover and pinning, I approve.

2: SO, for melee, I'm thinking of using the Wound chart for WS, except capping it at a 5 or 6 plus to hit.....

Why, exactly, 500 words? a few hundred words in any direction seems like a trifling sin if general improvement of the game is what's at stake.

Explodes on 7+ Makes vehicles absolutley awful though.wait a second......GREEENTIDE FOR DA WAAAAAAAAAGH!

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Conceptually Overwatch exists to make shooty armies not auto-loose if the other guy makes it to charge range. Implementation-wise it'd be better/faster to give small arms (rifles, pistols, grenades) a melee profile rather than increase the length of the Assault phase by 50% by giving the defender two phases of attacks.

To give an idea of how much of a waste of time overwatch is, imagine a squad of ten guardsmen charging a squad of ten space marines.

Those highly trained, heavily armed marines fire on overwatch. Normally at BS4 they hit 2/3 of the time and wound the T3 guardsmen 2/3 of the time, killing 0.4 guardsmen per shot. So a full squad firing at full BS and rapid fire is going to kill eight of those guardsmen. On over watch though, they're only going to kill 2 guardsmen, but spend just as much time rolling up those dice. And that's about the most favorable conditions for overwatch. Guardsmen overwatching against charging MEQ will kill one model for every 54 shots. All you have to do is multiply the charging unit's armor save by 1/6 to see just how ridiculous overwatch is. Let's say you're overwatching with a S4 Ap- weapon, here are the odds of killing something in overwatch per shot fired:

- ~11% Wyches, Gaunts
- 7.5% Guardsman, Guardian, DE Warrior
- 6.9% Orks
- 5.5% Tau Firewarrior
- 4.2% Necron Warrior
- 2.7% Space Marine, CSM

I get that people don't want to let it go because they're losing something, but it's really just a garbage piece of gameplay. If 9/10 of your S4 shots isn't even going to kill an Imperial Guardsman, then that attack is a waste of everyone's time. It's not an issue of balance. It's an issue of excess rules and wasted time. Generally with snap shots, if players want to take a snap shot with a heavy weapon that's fine because if that hull mounted lascannon hits the target it'll do some damage, but with overwatch we're letting the weakest weapons in the game snap shot. It's a waste of time and it's overly complicated game design.

I dislike the idea of melee profiles for guns because it is just more rules bloat and clutter. It's far easier to just incorporate their standard issue weapon into the model's WS and attacks. At this scale of combat it doesn't make sense to draw up different rules and roll different dice for the pistol carrying Sgt, the rifle carrying grunts, the heavy weapons trooper, and the special weapons trooper, that's just another tedious process to add that won't have a major impact on the game. A good example of this at work is the old wyches carrying three different specialist close combat weapons in addition to the regular squad, it turned resolving combat into a weird and overly complicated process ("oh this model over here gets one less attack because of the shardnet, I'm pulling that model 2" with my razorflail, this guy has hydraknives so resolve his wounds from this direction..." It's much better to just count up everyone's attacks like we do it now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mael Radec wrote:
Ok, so, I'm new here, but I really like your idea's, Silo. Some questions/comments.

1:Love what you've done with the cover and pinning, I approve.

2: SO, for melee, I'm thinking of using the Wound chart for WS, except capping it at a 5 or 6 plus to hit.....

Why, exactly, 500 words? a few hundred words in any direction seems like a trifling sin if general improvement of the game is what's at stake.

Makes sense for melee.

500 words because this game generally has a problem with rules that are overly complicated and difficult to understand. I wanted to try and show that it'd be relatively easy to fix the problems.

 TheSilo wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Conceptually Overwatch exists to make shooty armies not auto-loose if the other guy makes it to charge range. Implementation-wise it'd be better/faster to give small arms (rifles, pistols, grenades) a melee profile rather than increase the length of the Assault phase by 50% by giving the defender two phases of attacks.

To give an idea of how much of a waste of time overwatch is, imagine a squad of ten guardsmen charging a squad of ten space marines.

Those highly trained, heavily armed marines fire on overwatch. Normally at BS4 they hit 2/3 of the time and wound the T3 guardsmen 2/3 of the time, killing 0.4 guardsmen per shot. So a full squad firing at full BS and rapid fire is going to kill eight of those guardsmen. On over watch though, they're only going to kill 2 guardsmen, but spend just as much time rolling up those dice. And that's about the most favorable conditions for overwatch. Guardsmen overwatching against charging MEQ will kill one model for every 54 shots. All you have to do is multiply the charging unit's armor save by 1/6 to see just how ridiculous overwatch is. Let's say you're overwatching with a S4 Ap- weapon, here are the odds of killing something in overwatch per shot fired:

- ~11% Wyches, Gaunts
- 7.5% Guardsman, Guardian, DE Warrior
- 6.9% Orks
- 5.5% Tau Firewarrior
- 4.2% Necron Warrior
- 2.7% Space Marine, CSM

I get that people don't want to let it go because they're losing something, but it's really just a garbage piece of gameplay. If 9/10 of your S4 shots isn't even going to kill an Imperial Guardsman, then that attack is a waste of everyone's time. It's not an issue of balance. It's an issue of excess rules and wasted time. Generally with snap shots, if players want to take a snap shot with a heavy weapon that's fine because if that hull mounted lascannon hits the target it'll do some damage, but with overwatch we're letting the weakest weapons in the game snap shot. It's a waste of time and it's overly complicated game design.

I dislike the idea of melee profiles for guns because it is just more rules bloat and clutter. It's far easier to just incorporate their standard issue weapon into the model's WS and attacks. At this scale of combat it doesn't make sense to draw up different rules and roll different dice for the pistol carrying Sgt, the rifle carrying grunts, the heavy weapons trooper, and the special weapons trooper, that's just another tedious process to add that won't have a major impact on the game. A good example of this at work is the old wyches carrying three different specialist close combat weapons in addition to the regular squad, it turned resolving combat into a weird and overly complicated process ("oh this model over here gets one less attack because of the shardnet, I'm pulling that model 2" with my razorflail, this guy has hydraknives so resolve his wounds from this direction..." It's much better to just count up everyone's attacks like we do it now.

I get the point on complications; the melee profiles for guns are intended to replace Overwatch, not add more bloat stacked on top of it. The point is to make dedicated shooty units more flexible and to justify giving guns to dedicated melee units by making the guns more flexible while cutting down on the length of the assault phase. The short answer to "then what's the point of dedicated melee weapons?" is to give everyone the power to choose between making their normal CC attacks or making one attack at their gun's S and AP, so a dedicated melee weapon doesn't get the gunfire part but gets to hit a lot more in melee.

The problem with Overwatch is that any given model could theoretically attack four times in a given game turn (own shooting, own assault, enemy assault (overwatch), enemy assault (fight)); I dodged the issue in Aegis by rewriting the turn structure so that everyone gets one attack per turn (two in rare cases), but deleting Overwatch and cutting it back to three is a quick-and-dirty pruning setup.

From reading suggestions on this thread and others, I've come to the conclusion that many of the suggested mechanics were in place in 2nd edition. 2nd edition was too messy and slow. It was streamlined into 3rd, and it wasn't a bad job. Problem is they also ditched so many of the mechanics that made the game great. I think the solution would be to identify the best aspects of 2nd ed and current edition, and make a completely fresh game by integrating them.

Superior aspects of 2nd ed:
-Specific movement distances on profiles
-Reliable / constant charge and run ranges
-Generally just more stable. Less" roll a D6, for crucial game changing moments"
-Not allowed to measure distances before moving or firing.
-Cover, jinking and distance being incorporated into hit roll modifiers, not as a saving throw.
-Overwatch system (units have to forfeit standard shooting in order to overwatch. Overwatch triggerd when enemies moved into sight of th unit, which then got to resolve its shooting at a small penalty to BS)


Superior aspects of current edition:
-Simplified weapon and vehicle profiles
-Simplified codex entries and wargear options
-Shooting and close combat is handled better
-Morale system is pretty good
-Special rules for units are better. Keyword abilities work well, instead of reams of text.
-Difficult and dangerous terrain rules
-AV system and vehicle damage is great, except for this Hull Points nonsense.
-The AP system is better than the old armour save modifiers, but there's too much readily available AP2, (and AP5 small arms for that matter).

Splicing mechanics from 2 different systems and coming out with something pretty is easier said than done, but I think it's passed time GW turned 4ok back into a wargame, instead of the swingy tabletop arcade game it's become.

Anyway that's just my 5 cents...

@The greatchimp.
2nd ed 40k was a passable skirmish rule set , based on WHFB rules.
Very over complicated, (due to using WHFB rules.) But had lot of 'detail and charm' , so many players sort of forgave its many 'issues.'
3rd ed to 7th ed 40k ,just got rid of all the 'detail and charm' , and replaced it with special rules bloat and pointless randomness.

3rd edition to 7th edition 40k rules do nothing special , compared to the other games that have been developed since 1998.
In fact these other game with clear focus on game play allow the development team to work with the player base to actually refine the game play.
So they have much more straightforward rule sets that deliver far more game play than 40k does.

So ALL of the editions of the 40k rules are just over complicated and counter intuitive, compared to the other rule set out there.

The only reason to keep using game mechanics and resolution methods from a 1970s Napoleonic rule set,(WHFB.)Is backward compatibility.

I would agree that 40k rules written for the current game play, using game mechanics and resolution methods from this century.
Would deliver the best rule set for 40k.

If you have a car that is based on a god awful 1976 design.it does not matter how many times you re spray it, or customize the interior.
Unless you modernize the mechanics, the performance and ride characteristics are going to be rubbish , compared to modern cars.

@Lanrak fair point. I'll be honest with you, I can't debate what you're saying as I haven't properly played any other true tabletop battlegame system other than 40k and WHFB. That being said I haven''t found 3rd-6th edition overly complicated so much as I find aspects of it illogical to the point of annoyance. if there's superior "engines" with which to re-build the game around then by all means I'd llike to check them out. Are you referring to the 15mm scale games you mentioned to me previously?

One mechanic I've encountered a lot in strategic board games like Game of Thrones is a simultaneous turn, wherein both players place face down order markers on units, "defend", "attack", "covering fire", "run", etc. and they are resolved one by one. I think this mechanic could work very well in 40k, in place of the current turn system.

Actually, for the kind of warfare that 40k represents, it actually has very little competition. The other options, like infinity and tomorrow's war, while good games, aren't really in the same ball park.

@thegreatchimp.
Well I would suggest you look at 'Bolt Action' the game Rick P, and Alessio wrote.
(It is the WWII game finally finished that Rick used as his quick conversion for 3rd ed 40k.)

For a quick to learn and fun to play skirmish game I would recommend 'Dead Zone'.(Jake Thornton has done a excellent job on this rule set IMO.)
It beats 2nd ed 40k into the ground on so many levels.(pun intended.)

Or of you want lots of quick tactical interaction , then 'X-wing the minatures game' does it better than any other game I know of when it comes to making the simplest of rules deliver the most amount of game play. Fantasy Flight do write some excellent rule sets IMO.

@Mael Radec,
What exactly is the type of warfare 40k represents?
Because the games of Epic we played back in the 1990s, (Epic Space Marine,) are of a very similar game size to current 7th ed 40k.
But the Epic Space Marine games were fast and fun and full of narrative and character.(If a little bit more clunky than Epic Armageddon though)

I agree that 'WHFB in space battle game using completely inadequate core rules and umpteen special rules that result in a holostic mess' , is quite unique!

And trying to establish what 40k actually is supposed to be is quite difficult.

If it is supposed to be 'Epic with 28mm minatures ',then there is a clear way to proceed.(Modern battle game.)

If it is supposed to be 'Necromundia out doors', then there is a clear way to proceed.(Modern Skirmish game.)

If it is supposed to be 'WHFB in space to sell space minatures instead of fantasy minatures', then there is massive room for improvement, by picking one of the above 2 options instead!

 thegreatchimp wrote:
@Lanrak fair point. I'll be honest with you, I can't debate what you're saying as I haven't properly played any other true tabletop battlegame system other than 40k and WHFB. That being said I haven''t found 3rd-6th edition overly complicated so much as I find aspects of it illogical to the point of annoyance. if there's superior "engines" with which to re-build the game around then by all means I'd llike to check them out. Are you referring to the 15mm scale games you mentioned to me previously?

One mechanic I've encountered a lot in strategic board games like Game of Thrones is a simultaneous turn, wherein both players place face down order markers on units, "defend", "attack", "covering fire", "run", etc. and they are resolved one by one. I think this mechanic could work very well in 40k, in place of the current turn system.

I am very skeptical about simultaneous turns and unit by unit activation systems, primarily through my experience with various video games (40k and Mordheim are the only table top games I've played.

Games like Breach & Clear and Frozen Synapse use simultaneous turn based move mechanics and even using a computer to auto resolve everything I find this to be a clunky mechanic. Most of the time the orders don't occur in a logical way and the game devolves into a process of units moving back and forth trying to shoot one another but not actually killing anything. Mostly it leads to hyper conservative gameplay, which is something that 40k doesn't need more of.

The Banner Saga uses a unit by unit activation mechanic, and I've found that this turns even small scale battles into really boring skirmishes and anything that isn't your death star unit falls by the wayside as a useless paper weight. This mechanism works in chess and checkers because they are simple games that don't use HP or randomness, so each action is an easily quantified and known cause/effect. In The Banner Saga this mechanic wreaks havoc with the gameplay.

XCOM uses the 40k turn system, and it is by far the most superior of these four video games. Each turn you plan and execute your gameplan. So there might be major changes of fate in each turn, but that's what makes it so engaging and high-stakes. A single turn can kill your whole campaign. This is really how I envision 40k should be, no wasted space, actions and chocices should be deliberate and substantive.

- overwatch is basically an extra shooting phase at 1/3rd or 1/4th effectiveness
- look out sir is an extra sub phase just to protect individual models
- pile in moves are extra actions that have no effect on how the combat unfolds
- the physic perils chart comes up with random distinctions with no real difference
- giving every heavy weapon 48"+ range basically removes any substance behind positioning and maneuvering

In my mind gameplay should always come before realism.

@The Silo

Just giving a 2nd playthrough of XCOM myself, its superb, but i think the flaw with it is that (un)lucky timing tended to win and lose me battles more so than actual intellegent tactics.

Perhaps the order tokens in the games you mentioned are too beneficial and risky, or just otherwise imbalanced and that's what promotes the conservative gameplay? In Game of Thrones, granted, the orders give pretty big advantages, and you could really screw yourself with them, but that doesn't stop players making sweeping or risky moves because they needed to capture strongholds and supply points to build up their army, as well as maneovre their forces to repel enemy attacks and trap and annihilate enemy armies. Basically to be overly cautious in that game is to stagnate, and lose. My logic is that the same would apply to any 40k game that involved capturable objectives, linebreaker, etc.

In any case I wouldn't propose drastically game changing order markers, just something to provide added benefit, perhaps with an accompanying restriction. One already exists in the case of "go to ground" option . 2nd ed overwatch rules worked pretty well too and they were effectively an order marker. Orders not being visible to an opponent until they are resolved would also add a new dimension of cunning to the game.

Agree with your points about overwatch and heavy weapons.

Yes the priority is playability, but I'm sure you'll agree that the realism could be improved upon without losing playability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ Lanrak Reading a teaser of the Deadzone rules now, seems good . Thanks for pointer.

If you look at the 'order/command counters ' used in other games, they seem to just give you the basic tactical game play options.

Here are some generic '2 action set' ones as an example.

Move then shoot,
Shoot then move,
Move then move,
Move then assault,
Ready then shoot,(Over watch )
Ready then move.(Go to ground.)

If you have not played a table top game with different game turn mechanics, alternating unit activation,alternating phase, or alternating actions.
With different structure types like fixed sequenced,variable bound, randomized activation.

It is hard to judge how they would fit into any particular game play type.

My only concern with alternating units activation in 40k, is the massive difference in unit power and size.
if this type of game turn is used, units would have to be standardized some what, and/or reaction mechanics would have to be used to help balance the interaction.

So I would favor alternating phases or actions for simplicity sake.

I n general all mayor gameplay flaws most people complain about are because of stepping AWAY from WHFB rules. In many respects the 2 ND edition was a fully working and in itself logical game system suitable for great balanced games between differentially layouted armysets. Mostly all gameplay tweaks since then ruined the logics of the games mechanics and its balance.

So To Produce A More Balanced And Satisfiing Experience For All Means Getting Back To The Root Which Is 2 Nd Edition Gameplay.

1st This means getting rid of all Formations, overpowered "newer" units gw threw on the market just to survive and make money, simply by nerfing or abandon EVERY single one of them.


GW was willfully sacrificing the balance of the game and hurting core gamers by instabilising their well thought about armies in favour of "Newcore" gamers who by my experience love those OP units and supplements and have no problems with destroying the old collectors,enthusiasts and painters in the battlefield just by unfairness of statlines not tactically kicking them out of the game almost entirely by what i ve read and herd over the years. Most of those "newcore gamers" i came across came in with 3rd, 4th, 5th edition never haerd about true 40 k mechanics of 2 ND edition.

TRUE WARHAMMER DOESN T NEED THAT!!

2nd you ve got to make yourself clear about WHAT you want to play. If you want to play a fast paced squad based action wargame for fun like you would play monopoly you aren t in the right place. The 28 mm scale will never be able to deliver such an experience rightfully. Go to 6 mm scale games like EPIC 40k they re made for it.
If you want a fast paced tournament game with less to no rolling of dice, go to Mantic games like Warpath or games of same sort.
Warhammer was intended and will never be a game for tournaments and quick skirmish games with big squads Witt playtimes unter/up to two hours.

It is indeed a game of REALISTIC battle simulations which can and will take a long time and eat up many yours to even days. Thats warhammer and it cannot change unless you are willing to accept broken game mechanics.

YES its NOT a family friendly board game everyone would be able and willing to play,it takes hours its a game for hardcore wargames fanatics in one word a game by and for GEEKS.

That's us and that's why we re here on this forum (hopefully)

3rd So we all agree about 40k beeing a middle sized STRATEGY game giving respect to long and short rangend squadrons, melee combat and individual character models. Cool.
So let it be about STRATEGICS and let the players MAKE DECISIONS. Do not rely on statlines only to make out who s winning a game do not let circumstances rule a game completely unless you play orks.

Get rid of all the USR's nobody ever uses. Fire the Crudd. Buff Nids and Orks. Lower the prices. Advertise.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Get rid of all the USR's nobody ever uses. Fire the Crudd. Buff Nids and Orks. Lower the prices. Advertise.

Reset back to 5th, with some changes saved. No double force org. Allies are fine. No 'decurion' formations. Some formations are fine, but tone them down. That would be a breath of fresh air.

I concur with the above.

Use the majority of Fifth Editions rules. Keep/ change

Psychic phase (But get rid of warp charges, have it go back to being off leadership, simplify perils chart to one wound, no saves )
Keep Warlord Traits but allow them to be picked not random
Wound system same as 7th but no look out sir. If the Big bad IC wants to tank, then he needs to stand up front and take the blows.

Dump Decurian detachments entirely. Go back to using alternative CADS like in the DE or Orks book. Formations are still allowed but you must have have atleast one CAD like detachment. Three formations per army period.

GMCs redone, lose most of their silly immunities to poison, ID, etc.

Keep Hull points but raise the amount for all vehicles by 2.


Not perfect but it would be a start.

I agree with going back to 5th edition to set the basic battle game size .(Flyers and super heavies should be in a separate Apoc type expansion.)

When 40k moved from 2nd ed large skirmish size game to 3rd ed battle size game.
The rules focus should have changed from detailed model interaction to detailed unit interaction.

But instead GW just replaced the model focused methods of generating proportional results with large amounts of all or nothing special rules that bloat the rules and deliver little in the way of tactical game play.

A complete re-write of the 40k rules focusing on the game play , rather than short term minature sales is the way to save 40k IMO.