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Do you play with friends or at your club using alternate rules not sanctioned by GW or their major affiliates (So Forgeworld rules or major tournament FAQs don't count)?

If so, please feel free to leave a (brief!) description what and/or why (Or why not), and let us know what you thought of the experience!

And as always, please try to refrain from name-calling, mud-slinging, or questioning about parentage shoudl you wish to discuss your choices with someone else. Keep it classy, Dakka!

Note to Mods: This may be in the wrong section, so feel free to move it if so!

Have never so far, I do use FW rules from time to time though. There are certainly a few rules from SoM that I will severely edit if I ever play. I really hate the idea of summoning a bound mage or monster from ANY army book. The last thing I want to see is High elves and Lizardmen summoning greaat unclean ones or dark elf sorceresses.

Sometimes, we make up different scenarios to play with, after being bored with the 6 sets provided with the base game. Sometimes, we also refer to older, cool rules that make the game more fun. We once played a four-man teams game, and my partner was playing Space Wolves. As I was playing Dark Angels, we had a champion's duel to determine who set up first.

The main rule I use right now is that we play forests/jungles similar to to older editions:

Units can shoot in or out but LOS is blocked if trying to shoot completely through.

We don't do "x inches" in or out because it is quicker to just determine if you are shooting in or out.

We also have a house rule for determing scenario:

Roll 1d6:

1- Player/side A chooses any scenario
2-3- determine scenario as normal from rulebook
4-5- Roll random scenario from Battle Missions
6- Player/side B chooses any scenario

every now and then we will play with the whole board as 5+ cover save

Depends what you call an unofficial rule I guess.

Making up our own scenario & winning conditions occasionally.

And sometimes a ruling has to be made where we find no presidence or errata, like using a Valkyrie as an Ork Looted Wagon.

All the time.

We call it "Warhammer 40,000 Revisited".

We wrote it after 4th Ed came out, and never looked back (except to laugh).

Interesting. I personally haven't used any recently, but I have played in the past with a conversion to allow a battle of 3rd Edition WH40K SM against 2nd Ed WHFB Orks.
Turns out if you set up your bolt throwers in a semicircle like my brother did, you can peg the rear Av10 of a Dreadnought with a S5 bolt. We also had Chaos Warriors physically break open a Leman Russ as well. Dunno how well it would work in 5th/8th editions now...

As for those of you who voted Never!, please let us know why! Was it because you dislike fan rules, or think GW got it right, or something else?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ Solofalcon: Who won the duel?

@CT Gamer: Does that make it more or less difficult to play as if you get the scenario you want/hate?

@HBMC: So do you use 3rd ed rules for that then?

Cover for us is 5++ as its stupid at 4+ Nothng dies

@Phototoxin: Yeah, it is fairly ridiculous, and caters heavily towards certain armies. Do you guys still have better cover in fortifications or "light" cover?

darkPrince010 wrote:@HBMC: So do you use 3rd ed rules for that then?

It would be far too simplistic to say that we base everything around 3rd Ed rules because 4th and 5th are also, technically, based around 3rd Ed rules.

What we did was meet in the middle between 3rd Ed's fun yet clunky overwritten special rules extravaganza and 4th Ed's efficient yet clinical boredom and try to find a happy medium between the two. We then added back in some of the things we liked from 2nd Ed (like more detailed vehicle rules) and a bunch of logical things to remove problems we've always had with the rules (ie. one Bolter Marine in a Dev squad moves... now all the heavy weapons can't fire for some reason!).

We've taken nothing from 5th Ed as there's nothing worth having.

I'm afraid I have no experience with 4th, but I agree that there was something more fun about 3rd. I especially liked the special army options at the back of each abridged codex. I'd take IG ina heartbeat if they could still do Leman Russ Armored Companies (Can take a Leman Russ as an HQ or Troop as well as Heavy).
Good times...
...Until my brother discovered lascannons and meltabombs...

If there's a rule we don't like, we figure out a way to make it work for us. Wether it's grabbing a rule from an expansion and jsut use it in normal games, or 'fixing' it to our liking.

My friend and I didn't much like the forest rules in the core 3rd edition rulebook, so we used the rules from Codex Catachans in all normal games.

We don't like how the cover system works in 5th edition, since it basically hands out 4+ cover saves to any squad slightly in cover. We make it harder for squads to get cover saves, and the standard is not 4+.

This is how tabletop games should be played unless you're at a tournament or in a store playing with a stranger - the rules are there to use, but that doesn't mean you can't change something if your group doesn't like it. If a rule makes the game less fun, agree with your group to an alternative.

Custom Apoc rules every now and then.

I make Custom Apoc rules for some Models I made like the Enslaved Carnifex with the Wolf Lord on top. GW even let me convert some Squats for apoc.

I try to use as many rules that I like from the 2nd Ed. Some of it just made more sense! I love me a nice vortex grenade!

And the vehicle rules were so much better. We used to use the vehicle design rules too. Came up with some proper weird stuff, like Ork Attack Choppers......before the ones in AoBR that is....

Yes, on a regular basis. Nothing major, just enough so every game doesn't hinge on a random event like your prize unit being beaten to death by a bunch of angry trees.

All the time, GW rules are guidelines. We changed loads of stuff in Space Hulk.

H.B.M.C., you gotta download link for that? I haven't played in 2 years because I can't stomach 5th edition.


We currently play GONU, which is a major revision of Necromunda/Gorkamorka. Link in sig.

I use a Thunder Rhino from the Tempus Fugitives stuff in every game I play, and my Chaos army has access to anything in the Space Marine codex that isn't in the Chaos 'dex. So, for example, I can't take a Tactical squad, but a Drop pod or Land Raider Redeemer is fine. It just made sense, since my guys went rogue in M.36 or thereabouts.

Dragonlover

Flashman wrote:Nothing major, just enough so every game doesn't hinge on a random event like your prize unit being beaten to death by a bunch of angry trees.

Lol. I've heard a bunch of WHFB people angry about random Mysterious [Insert Terrain Here] and how it messes with legitimate tactical decisions

Just some changes of rules for Mordheim, to make it a little more balanced

- dual wielding weapons means a -1 to hit with both of them (to stop everyone in the campaign arming every person with mace and sword/axe)
- armour cost cut by 50%, -1 modifier at str 5 rather than str 4, to make armour actually worth purchasing.

It's amazing how much difference though two tiny changes make, spices up wargear no end and you see a lot of variety.

For the core games, not really a 'change' in the rules but it's amazing how many player's faces still blanche at the prospect of doing something other than setting up the armies 24" apart and fighting. I always try and use odd missions from the books (current or old, or fan made) and add some narrative. Partly that is from just getting bored of playing the standard game however!

I play by the book. Only in those rare instances where the book doesn't cover a strange interaction do I deviate.

H.B.M.C. wrote:All the time.

We call it "Warhammer 40,000 Revisited".

We wrote it after 4th Ed came out, and never looked back (except to laugh).

Seconded, do you have anywhere we could download that? I'm quite interested. I'm pretty sick of GW's insistence on revamping everything (to change up the metagame and force you to buy more models) rather than ever tweaking and balancing/correcting their current rules.

At this point I just play Rogue Trader and my thousands of dollars of 40k minis are collecting dust.

Mainly to clarify unclear rules, add some realism to overly simplified rules, and to define interesting objects.

So, we have the rule re: walls in 40K: If you can shoot through it, you can move/assault through it. We have ruled that the top of a fortress of redemption is a separate piece of area terrain, rather than making it count as open topped if occupied, and we invented our own rules for the landing pad (that turned out to be almost exactly the same as the later GW rules).

Yes, in Mordheim, Blood Bowl pretty much every game, as we have added new unit entries to mosts teams/warbands, and defined some rules. Plus happy to use unofficial teams/rules from the many fan sites.

In 40K, sometimes we've modified things because we disagree with what has occured in the latest codex. The Carnifex being upgraded to WS 4 and a 2+ save for example for no additional points cost.
Also I'm happily using Just Daves Chaos fandex at the moment as well.

Do any of you guys use (or have used in the past) a fan codex/army books, or a heavily modified version of one?

This one will be rather subjective:
Our local gaming league has a real creative organizer who often comes up with some wild scenarios (for instance: a chaos world where every turn the terrain itself will scatter 2d6...models in the terrain remain fixed in position on the board) and mission, but core rules remain the same.
When new codci are released he runs a league that allows every army to use specific rules from that codex (how cool is a leman russ or Ork BW with Fortitude). The good thing is everyone gets to play with and against the rule...so in the future you don't get surprised by new armies 'magic abilities.'

However we don't ignore standard book/codex rules or randomly make up new ones (we may do minor tweeks like allowing an objective to be placed within 6" of a board edge if we're playing low points of a 4x4 table...stuff like that).

FYI; our league runs in 6 week time periods, 1 game every week, with a 2 week break to play some mini RTs and time to repair/paint your army...then starts all over with a clean slate and new missions. Each week you face a different opponent based on W/L/points and you don't know who that opponent (army type) is until game day (keeps people honest where that can't custom build a list knowing specifically what army they will be facing). It breaks down that over a 2 month period (8 weeks) you can play anywhere from 11-14 games with points ranging from 750-2000.

Hmmm. I really like the idea of the Chaos terrain world. Does the terrain scatter every player turn, or after both players have had their turns?

It scattered at the start of each game turn. So all of a sudden your lootas that were hiding out in a ruin are now standing on open ground holding their puds while my outflankers have suddenly come in from reserve.
Uh Oh.

It also caused some unfortunate issues where a unit standing in open ground ready to assault suddenly finds themsleves standing in Difficult/Dangerous terrain.
Or your Vindicator no longer has LoS and needs to move over a foot (not shooting) to regain it...hoping the terrain dosn't move again to block LoS next turn too.