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Hi all

A few months ago I found the 1990 Mighty Empires Rules on the GW website: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat1290025&categoryId=1100014§ion=&aId=5300012

I thought: what if these were adapted on a BIG scale for 40k?
I then thought: Planetary Empires...
But then I realised that there wasn't actually any expansion that allowed for proper campaigns, or ones where you conquer vast star systems and lay waste to your opponents entire planets. (planetary Empires is set on one planet, although GW Covent Garden has an awesome spherical planet with moon made entirely from Planetary Empires Tiles)

So, I started work on these rules, which are an adaption of the 1990 mighty empires ones. We are currently playing draft 1 of these rules at my FLGS, and so far they have worked superbly, with the only problem being where to find all the different sheets.

These are just the Gaming Rules, the Map Creation instructions and the rules for Space Battles mentioned on the first couple of pages will come later, if people think this is any good. This is currently DRAFT 2.

A full list of acknowledgements will go on the back in the final copy, but for now, here is the current list:

Lexicanum: For information about planets and general info,
My Gaming club, for basically being my guinea-pigs,

All on DakkaDakka, especially:
BeRzErKeR
Grey Templar
Killkrazy
:For advice on my Space battle rules thread.
More will be added as and when.

Please be aware I've put a lot of effort into this, so please don't flame it, and constructive critisism or Ideas would be fantastic. (Gwar! Do your stuff! )

Thanks in advance,
Dave

P.S Warning! This is 20 pages of PDF goodness, so if your browser is slow, watch out.

So, without further ado:

EDIT: Full Rulesets added

60 views and not a single reply? only 5 downloads? What do the people who've downloaded it think so far?

Proposed rules does not get too much traffic, might want to promote this elsewhere like in 40k general discussion to drive some more people to this thread as it looks like a good effort. I've not had a chance to read it all through so cant comment in detail. Maybe PM Gwar directly for his input too

I agree with Lego on this one.. except the part about input from Gwar!

**edit** downloaded and reading.

The General discussion thread can be found here

Downloaded it and am reading it, so far i like the rules!

As I stated in the GD thread, I like it too. A bit complex, but that's part of the charm

The only thing I noticed that would need changing is the bit at the start where it says to roll the D6 and re-roll ties. It would be better to just use the word "roll-off" as defined in the 40k BRB, for consistancy if nothing else.

And perhaps a little more expantion on each armies abilities, perhaps giving each army 2.

They were ok, but me and my friends use rules that a GM dictates (usually me) that affect the course of the game more. That along with being able to actually effect the area that you control at the time, and a few other things...

this seems rather empty compared to that.

It could be really good if you added a lot more rules to it, make the more than just a way to decide whether or not you're fighting in a death world.

@grayspark

Could you elaborate a bit more, and give examples? Any suggestions you could make would be very welcome.

What do you mean the rules are just a way to decide whether you are fighting on a death world? There are plenty of other rules in there. I'm also planning on adding a diplomacy phase event table, to add in stuff like planetary revolt etc.

ahhh, very many things. First of all we use the planetary empires tiles too make battlemaps, although I'm sure you've thought of that. We are allowed to customize a tile to do something with the GM's (Game Master) permission (the GM controls most of the game).

Each army is given a tactical rating, and this will aid them in how battles are fought and how they may fight across the map.

Using that tactical rating you may ask to GM (in your turn which is rolled for and then you add the tactical rating of your army to see who may make actions first in the map phase) to do a certain kind of action. This may range from digging in a location, calling for reinforcements (rarely), attempting a certain kind of attack on an enemy, moving an army, and so on.

Most of all whatever you do must be asked upon by the GM who will determine what will happen, for example

It is the Ork player's turn. He wishes to take one of his war hosts that is on a square next too an Imperial Guard player. The Ork player luckily has used an army that is in fact a KOMMANDO army. That means he will not suffer the normal -2 to tactical maneuvers attempts that an Ork army usually suffers (because of poor leadership/brainpower) because the Kommando army is experienced in making certain maneuvers as such.

The Ork players declares that he will instead of making a normal fight, declare a scenario mission. He may look through the appropriate books, (Cities of Death, Planetstrike, Apocalypse - only if the armies are both particularly huge - , Battle missions, or use one of the house rules missions that we have come up with, or attempt to persuade the GM to make one up on the fly.)

Let's say he is attacking a large Imperial Guard fortress, in order for him to have an advantage over the Imperials he will want to infiltrate the facility and clear out the defenders from the inside. Or perhaps he wants to have a night attack, a hit and run, flank march, any number of things.

As you can see my friends and I make most of it up on the fly, but as long as everybody agrees (GM makes final decisions on fairity - by the way we follow the saying "War isn't fair" - ) It may be done. And this affects everything in the campaign.

And even then the battles will be affected by what kind of armies/companies/battlehosts/mobs are fighting. Such as an armored regiments making a spearhead will treat all of its vehicles with certain rules, whether they will be faster, ignore certain damages because they will press on, or so on.

Everything revolves around making an interesting and evolving campaign that never gets old.

There are more rules that we follow, but we've never exactly written them down in any true form. Such as one rule that we do is that you must Buy your armies ahead of time. First using reinforcement points which will limit what kind of armies you will be getting. Infantry companies will cost less points than an armored company, or an airborne company, or an elite/special forces/Inquisition/ etc. army.


As you can really see it just goes on and on....

we're constantly getting new models so that we can continue these campaigns...

grayspark wrote:ahhh, very many things. First of all we use the planetary empires tiles too make battlemaps, although I'm sure you've thought of that. We are allowed to customize a tile to do something with the GM's (Game Master) permission (the GM controls most of the game).

Yes, I had, I'll probably release a Map Creation section with Edition 4 of the Rules. It isn't top priority just now however.

grayspark wrote:Each army is given a tactical rating, and this will aid them in how battles are fought and how they may fight across the map.

Using that tactical rating you may ask to GM (in your turn which is rolled for and then you add the tactical rating of your army to see who may make actions first in the map phase) to do a certain kind of action. This may range from digging in a location, calling for reinforcements (rarely), attempting a certain kind of attack on an enemy, moving an army, and so on.

Most of all whatever you do must be asked upon by the GM who will determine what will happen, for example

It is the Ork player's turn. He wishes to take one of his war hosts that is on a square next too an Imperial Guard player. The Ork player luckily has used an army that is in fact a KOMMANDO army. That means he will not suffer the normal -2 to tactical maneuvers attempts that an Ork army usually suffers (because of poor leadership/brainpower) because the Kommando army is experienced in making certain maneuvers as such.

The Ork players declares that he will instead of making a normal fight, declare a scenario mission. He may look through the appropriate books, (Cities of Death, Planetstrike, Apocalypse - only if the armies are both particularly huge - , Battle missions, or use one of the house rules missions that we have come up with, or attempt to persuade the GM to make one up on the fly.)

Let's say he is attacking a large Imperial Guard fortress, in order for him to have an advantage over the Imperials he will want to infiltrate the facility and clear out the defenders from the inside. Or perhaps he wants to have a night attack, a hit and run, flank march, any number of things.

Not sure about this. I think what I have already works fine, and this would constrict everyone to certain list builds (am I reading this right?) It might make it overcomplicated as well. Interesting Idea though.

That's a reason that only me and my friends do this. We've tried it with other people and they always have problems with everything. Me and all my friends also play multiple armies so we personally feel that each army should be limited with what they do, but are stronger in other areas.

I personally feel that your "Galactic Conquer" however is simple and that more rules could be added to it. Not even in the fact of adding ways to fight or changing how the different races get abilitys. It's just that all it seems to be is that you attack a planet, win, and get 50 points extra from taking it.

grayspark wrote:That's a reason that only me and my friends do this. We've tried it with other people and they always have problems with everything. Me and all my friends also play multiple armies so we personally feel that each army should be limited with what they do, but are stronger in other areas.

This is what the list for Species bonuses at the back is for, I may or may not add to different species's bonuses as time goes on and I playtest it more.

grayspark wrote:I personally feel that your "Galactic Conquer" however is simple and that more rules could be added to it. Not even in the fact of adding ways to fight or changing how the different races get abilitys. It's just that all it seems to be is that you attack a planet, win, and get 50 points extra from taking it.

No, this isn't how the rules work. What about playing actual battles or the scouting and events charts? Also the different types of planet break things up a bit. The only races who can get extra points through beating a planet are Tyranids and Necrons. Theres also the diplomacy phase to consider. Have you actually read the rules through properly?

Afraid I don't know how to do the quote thingy, but to your first answer, those did not seem to change the game very much... Ours change how the entire game works, campaigns, missions, how you reinforce, and so on. Yours just changed a single thing.

And to your second answer, that is all it seemed to be as I read through it. Also it was not just the Necrons and Tyranids. By controlling a planet you were allowed to include more troops (points) in your army unless I misread it. The diplomacy phase is not something that I would have added into my campaign rules. Mine is more about a tactical battle on a planetary scale.

The only other thing that I can comment on is your "Space Phase".

Me and my friends use Battlefield Gothic for that, with a few house rules.

I quite like it, Dastardly Dave. It reminds me of the old General's Compendium in a good way. I'm definitely interested in testing something like this out with my gaming group (if I can convince them).

One thing that might be interesting is adding some individual 'research' (a la General's Compendium Campaign Phase Magic). Each campaign turn armies get a research point, which they could use to gain benefits. For example, a player who saves research points for a few turns could use them to automatically give d6 vehicles in each army Extra Armour. However, to avoid these things stacking up ridiculously much, they should expire after a length of time (other armies discover ways to counteract this). This way each player can get a bit more customization and some individual abilities. (Balancing this would be much more difficult than the main campaign)

Or it could simply be like the Campaign Magic roll, where each campaign turn you spend not doing anything with your researcher increases the odds of a favorable roll, (it could be digging for ancient tech) Could be a d100 table, with low numbers having things like Necron attacks or worlds becoming Barren, middle numbers being either nothing or minor decreases to wargear costs (we found a plasma pistol STC, they only cost 10 pts now). and really high rolls could include things like bonus commander wargear, USRs for certain units, a free exterminatus on an enemy planet, or a single unit available from another codex (for example one Land Raider dug up or an ancient eldar Falcon.)

@Grayspark: It's understandable that you're excited about this campaign you and your friends are doing, but try to keep your comments constructive and helpful to what DD is trying to do. If you have suggestions for adding more complexity to his campaign type (which is on a galactic, rather than planetary scale) then please do share.

@Orkestra ours is on both a 'galactic' although more of a solar system...

And I think your ideas are very interesting as well. I especially like the idea of finding Standard Template Construction information for things.

The research idea thing would be good although I believe it would be the same thing as the STC for space marines only for other groups like the Tau. Afterall the Imperium relys upon the STC's to advance technolgically (One of their shortcoming)

Although I think these things would have to matter more than simply getting an upgrade for a vehicle...

Orkestra wrote:I quite like it, Dastardly Dave. It reminds me of the old General's Compendium in a good way. I'm definitely interested in testing something like this out with my gaming group (if I can convince them).

Thats great! Although you won't be able to play it until I finish making the instructions for creating a campaign map and the Space battle rules.

Orkestra wrote:One thing that might be interesting is adding some individual 'research' (a la General's Compendium Campaign Phase Magic). Each campaign turn armies get a research point, which they could use to gain benefits. For example, a player who saves research points for a few turns could use them to automatically give d6 vehicles in each army Extra Armour. However, to avoid these things stacking up ridiculously much, they should expire after a length of time (other armies discover ways to counteract this). This way each player can get a bit more customization and some individual abilities. (Balancing this would be much more difficult than the main campaign)

Or it could simply be like the Campaign Magic roll, where each campaign turn you spend not doing anything with your researcher increases the odds of a favorable roll, (it could be digging for ancient tech) Could be a d100 table, with low numbers having things like Necron attacks or worlds becoming Barren, middle numbers being either nothing or minor decreases to wargear costs (we found a plasma pistol STC, they only cost 10 pts now). and really high rolls could include things like bonus commander wargear, USRs for certain units, a free exterminatus on an enemy planet, or a single unit available from another codex (for example one Land Raider dug up or an ancient eldar Falcon.)

I like this idea, although it may take some time to think of ideas and implement it. I'll probably finish off the space battle rules and the Map Creation instructions first, then add it to the rules at the end. It'll probably be like the Events table in the 1990 mighty empires rulebook. If anyone has any ideas for events or such like, please post them!

as soon as i get home will download and read it.

as a query how did i help appreciate the credit, whatever i did

You may or may not remember, but you made a few helpful suggestions in my 'Spaceship Combat Trial Rules, Suggestions needed' thread, which I found quite useful.

well thanks

UPDATE:

Spaceship Battle rules now available to download as a seperate file.

These rules are VERY VERY simplified, and probably incomplete, so any suggestions on balance, or on special rules is extremely welcome.

I will combine all the various files once I have finished everything to an acceptable standard. For now though, they are in seperate files for ease of access.

Very interesting... Just finished reading this.

Is there any intention of giving capital ships different to-hit rolls against fighters as opposed to other capital ships?

It's a nice and fairly simple system for resolving space battles. Any thought to adding in some sort of inter-system terrain? Even just scattering some asteroids 3d6" from the table centre would be a help.

Just from initial thoughts I'm quite interested in being a part of the playtesting efforts of this, especially with regards to the Orks. I think that having double the number of fighters of everyone else would be a big boon, and the general saturation of fast ships (second fastest, on average)

more to come in a moment as I take it all in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
More questions:

How many shots do capital ships get? It says fighters get 3, but no word on the number of shots capital ships get.

Also, what size would you suggest to show the ships? With the board size and weapon ranges, should we be using 40mm bases for capitals and regular round 25mms for fighters? What kind of ship size are we looking at with the 32x32 field?

Don't you hate it when I have all this free time?

Orkestra wrote:Very interesting... Just finished reading this.

Is there any intention of giving capital ships different to-hit rolls against fighters as opposed to other capital ships?

I thought about this, but I didn't put it in as I thought the tracking systems on the capitals would have about the same chance, also, it could be a different type of weapon or something. Looking back though, I think a -1 to hit against fighters would be perfect. What do you think?

Orkestra wrote:It's a nice and fairly simple system for resolving space battles. Any thought to adding in some sort of inter-system terrain? Even just scattering some asteroids 3d6" from the table centre would be a help.

Good Idea, but as these battles are going to be entirely fought within the void between systems, it wouldn't make sense.

Orkestra wrote:Just from initial thoughts I'm quite interested in being a part of the playtesting efforts of this, especially with regards to the Orks. I think that having double the number of fighters of everyone else would be a big boon, and the general saturation of fast ships (second fastest, on average)

Yes, but this is offset by having a relatively short range, which I think I'll change to 6.

Orkestra wrote:How many shots do capital ships get? It says fighters get 3, but no word on the number of shots capital ships get.

I think 1 as standard, although if they move less than half, it increases to two.

Orkestra wrote:Also, what size would you suggest to show the ships? With the board size and weapon ranges, should we be using 40mm bases for capitals and regular round 25mms for fighters? What kind of ship size are we looking at with the 32x32 field?

I hadn't really thought about this, do you think it would be better to have different sizes? When I get round to finding images to represent them I'll probably do the same size base, but make the fighter picture lots of little ships.

Orkestra wrote:Don't you hate it when I have all this free time?

Not at all, it can only be helpful

- -1 to hit fighters sounds pretty good. Though maybe it makes them pretty powerful. It seems fluffy, and in line with the fighter's rules. Though I'd totally accept advanced tracking systems/weight of fire as a reason not to.

- Yeah, it's the void between space, but a totally empty board isn't the best. I'll get back to this point in a second

- True, the range is a big factor, as is the fact that Orks are more likely to lose troops, as they assign troops to ships before rolling, correct? This means that with more ships available to lose, and a likelihood that some ships will be very, very weak, means that Orks can expect to take more casualties than other races through loss of ships. Also, what do they do if they have a 2+ to cause damage ship with only one SP? They can protect it, but at the cost of that useful firepower.

- 1 or 2 shots sounds reasonable for capital ships. I think that 2 is better as a base, just because of the number of rolls required to cause damage (hit, wound, save) as to moving less to get more shots, it's reasonable, but then the armies with M2 (sorry, fleets) are never going to want to move, because moving one extra inch won't help them when other races are going 8" at a time. But I'll come back to that, too.

- Okay, that's good to know that I can use the same size for fighters and capital ships. Thanks! I look forwards to the images, but I'll try out some tests using regular bases/models (or maybe I could use some cavalry typr bases for the right general shape.)


Those things answered, here's the big part of this. I was thinking about this all along the way to work, and here's the question that was nagging at me.

"What can we do to make this more tactical?"

As it is, while there are solid core rules in place, it needs a bit more to give more power to the player. This is definitely fitting into the 'incomplete' part of the ruleset, so stop me if I'm straying from your intention.

Here is something I think the game would benefit from.

Facing rules.
- At the moment, with no rules in place to limit firing/motion of ships (though with ship printouts as you've hinted at, it will be easier), movement seems to be primarily used to get into range, at which point it doesn't matter. (especially given the extremely slow speed of some ships. One feature of naval games (which spaceship games are similar to, essentially), is using the concept that ships are big and have a lot of momentum. Therefore they can only turn so much in a set distance. For example being able to make one 45 degree turn per 3" moved, with two turns being the maximum. (this would require some change to the movement values for fairness)

This helps balance maneuvering skill against firepower (fast ships being able to avoid enemy guns by getting behind them for a time), and mitigates the lack of terrain. It adds depth to movement beyond "am I in firing range yet? No? I'll move closer".

Basic changes in order to implement this kind of situation include increase of all ships movement to 6 minimum. Maximum movement values could be increased by 4 for all races and for fighters. This makes the slowest races M6 (enough to make two turns) and the fastest race M12 (enough to make large turns to avoid enemy guns) Fighters could be given the ability to make an additional 45 degree turn per movement phase (up to three). Minimum of 2" moved before a ship can turn. More complicated? Yes, but I feel it's in a good way.

Fighter ships get 3 attacks in their frontal arc. Capital ships get 1 attack in the frontal arc and 2 attacks total in their side arcs (can be two shots to the left, OR two shots to the right, OR one shot left and one shot right).

I'll leave it at that for a second, but provide a link to the Battlefleet Gothic rules which can help out with the concepts of naval warfare. (warning, it can be odd since they measure everything in CM. 15cm = 6" roughly)

BFG rules

I hope that helps. Sorry if I'm overstepping the bounds of 'feedback' . I know it's a big change, but it seems necessary to do... something to make the ship game more tactically challenging if it's to be a big part of the campaign.

UPDATE: Map Creation Instructions added. Now you can start to play the game! If they are unclear, please tell me.

@ Orkestra:

I'm in two minds about your ideas (which I think are great btw). On the one hand, The whole reason I made the rules was so that people didn't have to resort to playing BFG, and adding your ideas would complicate things, especially with round bases. If you want to make the game more tacticall, then use a BFG list with the same point cost as the armies they carry, and use the ships gained in-campaign for the sieges. Then there's the issue of BFG proxies when I finish the ship counters.

On the other hand, I really like the ideas, and think they probably would improve the game. You've clearly thought about them and I appreciate that. They add a tactical element to the rules I've got, and make the game more realistic. (as far as a game set in the 41st Millenium can be said to be realistic )

However, unless we hit a great big brick wall of boredom when I try these out at my Gaming Club tommorow, I don't think I'll be adding them. Sorry.

Orkestra wrote:- 1 or 2 shots sounds reasonable for capital ships. I think that 2 is better as a base, just because of the number of rolls required to cause damage (hit, wound, save) as to moving less to get more shots, it's reasonable, but then the armies with M2 (sorry, fleets) are never going to want to move, because moving one extra inch won't help them when other races are going 8" at a time.

I think 1 shot would be best, as I want to increase survivability of ships.

Reading the map creation instructions now.

Ah, very cool. I never thought of using plasticard for these before.

Using plasticard and a bunch of green stuff I can make more tiles for planetary empires and not have to pay 50 bucks.


Are the hexes separated into different little spots to represent a solar system? By different little spots I mean the clusters of 6 or so.



I also read over the space rules.

They look very simple at this point but they definitely look interesting.

I like the fact that the points value of units is actually associated with a ship in the fleet.

The only suggestions I have for it is adding in more complex ships so that space combat isn't so simple. Maybe adding in battecruisers/escorts and things for every race that are unique

Perhaps having a chart symbolizing the damage that the ship takes would also be interesting.

Such as having an engine damaged, or blown off. Weapon arrays/batteries being struck. etc.

grayspark wrote:Reading the map creation instructions now.

Ah, very cool. I never thought of using plasticard for these before.

What plasticard?

Are the hexes separated into different little spots to represent a solar system? By different little spots I mean the clusters of 6 or so.

Yes.

I like the fact that the points value of units is actually associated with a ship in the fleet.

The only suggestions I have for it is adding in more complex ships so that space combat isn't so simple. Maybe adding in battecruisers/escorts and things for every race that are unique

There are already unique Capital Ships, adding more would be unnescassary due to the fact units would just be put on the tough ships and the other ships used as cannon fodder. The whole point is to make a system that allows players to blow each others armies up in space, not just each others ships.

Perhaps having a chart symbolizing the damage that the ship takes would also be interesting.

Such as having an engine damaged, or blown off. Weapon arrays/batteries being struck. etc.

Interesting, but it would have to only last for one battle. I might put it in.

Dastardly: You make very good points about keeping the space game simple. One thing that I often forget is that, really, space battles are going to be all about trying to protect parts of your army which are valuable, and destroying as many ships as possible.

I like the idea that with such simple rules, space battles are guaranteed to be bloody, and with the way the rules look, no force would be able to walk away unscathed (as even a couple ships + their complement of fighters could blast at least one enemy ship into smithereens)

It also does well to increase some of the strategic elements of army placement within the galaxy, as it would probably be worth it to have a 'border guard' force of a small number of troops with overwhelming ship support, to protect the entrances to important star systems.

TL;DR, I think you've definitely got a good thing going with the space rules, and that they don't need much added to them.

When I'm more conscious I'll take a look through the map creation rules.

You asked What plasticard?

That white stuff looked like plasticard... sorry then...


and what is the point of only having capital ships? That's the point I was trying to make, it's very simple... some people would rather have complex things and I guess you mean they should make up the rules for ships themselves....

Because you have to put units in them. The rules were intended to be simple, if people want a challanging, tactical space battle they should do as I suggest on the first page and play battlefleet gothic instead.

There are also fighter ships for fire support, but I won't be adding any more types of ship.