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I made a fan codex for the Covenant from halo.

It is so big now, that I had to upload it as a torrent, here is the link if anyone wants to download it:

http://www.mininova.org/tor/1124231

It is not finished, mostly the fluff, but the army list is complete if unbalanced and untested.

THe army list has everything so far seen in halo for the covenant, plus a few thing I had to make up.

It includes the elites, the brutes, the hunters, the grunts, the jackals, and even the prophets, with all the vehicles so far seen for the covenant included, with list based on the 4th ed rules, once 5th ed comes out and I have some familiarity with them I will upgrade it and finish it.

Please give me some feed back

The list allows you to even do battles from the covenant civil war

I'd love to give you feedback (since I'm a huge halo fan too), but I don't have any torrent software.

Why can't you attach the file directly into this forum post?

How big is it? Why not condense it into a PDF?

Im downloading it now, and If its fine with the OP I will upload it onto the post. Its 23.8 megs, would it work?

EDIT: Ok, lets turn this into your average TPB post:


PLEASE SEEEED!!!!!!
omg ive been waiting 4 hours lol, someone seed i want my codecs

blinky wrote:Im downloading it now, and If its fine with the OP I will upload it onto the post. Its 23.8 megs, would it work?

EDIT: Ok, lets turn this into your average TPB post:


PLEASE SEEEED!!!!!!
omg ive been waiting 4 hours lol, someone seed i want my codecs

I have no idea what you're talking about!

And 23 megs, good lord! What the heck is in that document?

And we don't currently have a limit on attachment sizes, so even something as gargantuan as 23 megs should work.

My 90 page FAQ as a word doc (with imbedded pictures and hyperlinks) was still only 8 megs so I'm interested to see this thing.

Im converting it now, and I must say, as a Fellow Halo player, its fantastic. Many of the weapons have their own special rules, and although this may make things confusing in large battles, really adds to the character of the list. And as for the size, it is filled with images illustrating everything.

Edit: Here is a PDF version of it, unchanged from the torrent file, but now more people should be able to see it. Its only 5 megs after PDFitizing, so its fine.

@ Yakface: Seeding is Jargon for when a torrent user that has already downloaded the file is sending parts of the file to users trying to download it. This makes downloads with lots of users fast, however it makes obscure downloads very slow, if they download at all. Interestingly, this downloaded very quickly.

Looks great and really interesting! Definitley needs some playtesting and balancing. Just as an example, your jump pack Brutes are basically Assault Marines with a 4+ sv and a rending weapon for 18 points........ , that may need some tweaking. But it looks great! Can't wait to see a playtested version

The Special Characters are missing their points and rules when I look at it. Also, what models should be used? Custom minis or the HaloClix figs?

Platuan4th wrote:The Special Characters are missing their points and rules when I look at it. Also, what models should be used? Custom minis or the HaloClix figs?

As I said, I am still working on it, so it probably wont be finished until sometime after Halo Wars comes out.

The reason for that is that I want to know what else they are going to add to the Covenant, that I can integrate into the list.

As for minis, the Halo Actionclix ones are good enough, and they have the majority of the weapons that are in the armory. I don't know when they are going to get around to the vehicles and others, but for the most part it is complete and along the lines of this list

Hey you should do one of these for the humans to

browncoat_independent wrote:Hey you should do one of these for the humans to

NO. sorry

On principle I hate the UNSC, not because they are not cool and all (the MC is one of the best characters out there IMO), I hate them because of the way they where made.

Facts, at present we are working on lasers and rail weapons to be used on the battlefield.

How are you going to tell me that in 600 years we will still be using guns not that different from todays, if only slightly more advanced.

Furthermore, the only way I can trully envision the UNSC marines and the Spartans are as an IG army, and a Space Marine army respectivelly, because unlike the Covenant, who only need a small boost to their weapons (to make them 40k scale and power) the same cannot be done with the UNSC without not paying homage to the real power of the weapon, without major changes to the weapon itself.

A small comparison, a UNSC Battle Rifle fires 7.62 mm AP bullets. In Imperial Armor volume five, the siege of Vracks, rebel militia carry standard 8mm heavy slugthrowers. Yes you can argue that the Halo BR is better than the aforementioned gun for many reasons, but here is where it fails:

The 8mm slugthrower is considered an extreme reserve use weapon, outdated even by IOM weapon standards and only in use because so many of theme have been fabricated that even after thousands of years there is still plenty of ammo left, and factories can be easily made to supply these weapons.

From here on the UNSC fails at having the necessary equipment, not to mention that they don't have the numbers necessary, while the Covenant for all intents and purposes appears to be easily over a dozen times larger than the Tau empire, the UNSC itself was nearly eight times larger than the Tau Empire, but unlike the Tau the UNSC does not have the technology to make up for their small size, the Covenant do.

On a final note, the UNSC's greatest fail is their apparent lack of military innovation over the course of six centuries, having only weapons that even today we consider as experimental and on the verge of becoming military issue, specifically speaking vehicle mounted railguns, lasers and coil mortars, as examples.

THese are the reasons as to why I will not do a UNSC codex, though depending on what we see on Halo Wars I may be inclined to rethink this decision

You seriously can't expect guns to become high-tech lasers and railguns in 500 years. Look how long it took to get us to get from lead ball-firing muskets and arquebus to modern-day armour-piercing rounds. Let's not forget they have the Spartan Laser, but it's still a working progress.

Cheese Elemental wrote:You seriously can't expect guns to become high-tech lasers and railguns in 500 years. Look how long it took to get us to get from lead ball-firing muskets and arquebus to modern-day armour-piercing rounds. Let's not forget they have the Spartan Laser, but it's still a working progress.

I am sorry to tell you this, but unless there is somekind of massive setback to current R&D threads, you are looking at anti-tank power lasers, mounted on a tank chassis at a bare minimum by the end of this century, That is just less than 100 years from now.

Halo begins in 2525, and ends 2557, that still leaves at least 425 years worth of technological development to reach at the absolut minimum prototype hand-held laser weapons by say mid 22nd century, that is 2150.

My point is that though the UNSC is very technologically advanced and all, they are clearly retards in regards to weapons R&D, a fact that is made all the more frustrating in my opinion by the fact that the UNSC has a freaking ass huge military R&D budget, and still produced literally no true results during the war, with the sole exception of both Spartan projects.

I will admit that hand-held plasma rifles may be way too much by even 2500 in our time, but just so you know the bare bones essentials of the technology are in use nowadays in the way of plasma cutters.

As for railguns, the US military has plans to deploy a tank with a railgun cannon by minimum 2040, as technology allows, and a prototype demonstration coil/gauss-mortar is already in the testing phase.

Ya know, after spending 5 years attached to "The Test Brigade" At Ft. Lewis, id Really really love for you to post some links backing these claims up about Us tech. Remember, not everything you see on future weapons is real.

I mean hell take the Stryker AT varient for example.... our most ultra modern vehicle and its armed with a retrofitted M60 105 cannon. Just something to think about.

http://www.defensetech.org/images/strykermgs1.jpg

Your idea of technoligical devlopment is quite iffy. Tech only gets devloped if its needed or percived to be needed, and if people have deep wallets.

America is only wasting money on arms becuase after the tragedy of 9/11 weapons devlopers have had blank checks.

In HALO there was not wars until the covenant came around so tech would of only go to the 22nd centuary. so why would there be weapon devlopment after that point. And if conventional weapons kill the baddies dead why have lasers?

crises precipitate change after all

Granted, you do have valid points in that respect, but I will simply say this:

We are talking of over 500 years of continous technological evolution, in which you have a militarily minded governing body.

As explained in the Halo back story, at the end of the unification wars on the solar system, before the development of the Shaww-Fujikawa a.k.a Slipstream drive, the UNSC was a wargeared military super-power with an over grown military that could not be disbanded.

This happened at the beginning of the 22nd century, a.k.a the year 2100+, and the UNSC had just finished fighting aprotracted multi-decade campaign.

By your own admition, this war should have pushed the military technological envelope far further than the current Halo timeline of 2525 would assume, if we take into account current technological developments.

I will admit that most of what I said is still in the prototype stage (mostly from Future Weapons, but the small multi-kilowat laser, was featured in the Strange Weapons Modern Marvels special on the History Channel) but they are in a prototype stage over 500 years in the past from the Halo POV.

Even if we assume that we do not create different types of weapons, we would still have tanks with railguns as standard on tanks by 2500, and a far greater variety of man-portable (not necessarily hand-held) laser weapons by the same century. Not to mention a far greater amount of power armored suit integration in the military, as we are working on power armored suits even as we speak.

The military, has admited that they have plans for the future deployment of power armored marines, as soon as the technology is made feasible and practical, plus protoypes for the powered exoslkeleton have existed since before the year 2000.

Call me a dreamer, but you have to take into acount 500 years of nearly uninterrupted technoligcal advancements in multiple areas, that would result in far more powerful weapons than those used by the UNSC as of 2525.

The only exceptions would be the Mjolnir armor (wihtout shields, as these are alien technology, and are at present only in purelly theoretical stage), the spartan laser, and the back mounted warthog coilgun.

But other than that the UNSC does not demonstrate the technology we should thrutfully have in 500 years in military terms

Keemperor, you are assuming 500 years of technical growth. Environmentalist and Leftist/Socialist groups are currently hindering weapons development. It is not unreasonable, given today's political climate that they could gain power in the US and cripple much of the technological advancement you anticipate. As the USA is the primary driver of technologically advanced weapons, any hindrance of its weapons development effectively curtails world wide weapons progress.

I realy liked your codex however, it has something that a lot of GW codex's dont charcter. Im a fan of HALO 3 as well.

i cant see the point in rail guns and lasers though as current tank guns destroy tank armour so why make more destructive ones. Tanks can also shell soldiers something both those weapons would suck at. What the UNSC need is ninja's, break dancing ninjas that totaly lick mechs

I kind of agree with keemperor, but not to same extreme. If you look at the level of damage a 7.62mm round or 40mm grenade will do to an unarmored human body, there's not much you can do to improve a basic infantryman's capability to eliminate enemy personnel. The level of pain capable of being dished out in the 26th century doesn't seem too far off it's mark.
What gets my goat is the ammunition capacities for these weapons. You'd think with the advent of caseless ammunition, the battle rifle and magnum would be able to carry larger magazines... The assault rifle though, (in Halo 1) does house an impressive 60 rounds 5.56mm and IIRC the SMG had a large magazine, but was somewhat useless beyond 5 feet. The shotgun also sported a rather dismal amount of ammunition, in addition to being pump-fed. Hell, we've got automatic shotguns with 20 round drums NOW.. why wouldn't they have something similar that far in the future? Sorry if this is erroneous, I haven't played but a few levels of my friend's copy of Halo 3.. but, you'd think the UNSC marines would have some sort of C.A.S. fighter instead of just wussy Pelicans.

Durandal wrote:Keemperor, you are assuming 500 years of technical growth. Environmentalist and Leftist/Socialist groups are currently hindering weapons development. It is not unreasonable, given today's political climate that they could gain power in the US and cripple much of the technological advancement you anticipate. As the USA is the primary driver of technologically advanced weapons, any hindrance of its weapons development effectively curtails world wide weapons progress.

As I have stated before, and I know I am going on a rant here, but I am just making a point of how far off Halo's UNSC weapons really are, specially considering their history and their type of military thinking.

As I said before, prior to discovering slipstream drive, the UNSC had emerged victorious from an intra-solar system war, with a hug war machine, that by some unknown force simply did not advance beyond currently available technologies, without taking into account current R&D projects and extrapolating.

As a friend of mine said, the idea behind the design of Halos weaponry for the UNSC is to make it more familiar to contemporary people, who are familiarized with the current look of modern military, and to only make it look a bit sci-fi-ish, without alienating people, and from a game perspective that is perfectly fine and reasonable, for it is in all truth a valid argument.

However, no matter how you look at it you are still talking about a huge super power, with humongous amounts of military bases (even in the low military need prior to the covenant war), not to mention god know how many R&D labs scattered over 800 worlds, most of which have been active and on the cutting edge of human innovation for several centuries by the beginning of the Covenant war.

And you are telling me that with that much money invested in weapons development (considering it is a relative state of peace), with so much time for wacky R&D, a militarily oriented government and taking into account current R&D threads (which the UNSC would have acces to) and you tell me that we still use the same type of weapons we use in the 21st century (for the most part, very few exceptions really come to mind)

I am sorry if you think I am ranting, but I simply do not buy it, and it really frustrates me, specially taking these weapon development factors that I have just described regarding the UNSC.

Grante you really don't need that much more than what we have today to kill people, but that didn't stop us from creating tanks, and it certainly isn't stopping us from developing ever more lethal and assorted means of destruction and warfare.

A perfect example are lasers. If you where to tell people 20 years ago that we would have practical lasers in development and that they really did work, they would laugh at you, and would consider you nuts for being too much into sci-fi.

Nowadays multiple levels of laser based weapons are in development, with varying degrees of power, and this are trully only first generation lasers.

Unless, as I stated before there is some kind of complete weapons technology development collapse, god knows what types of weapons we will be thinking of in 20 years, 40, god knows what in 500 years.

I said so before, perhaps I am a bit of a dreamer, but I am still taking into acount at the least 200 years of continous technological innovation by a military power in order to create weapons, and I am sorry to say this but the UNSC simply does not do justice to that way of thinking, regardless of how cool they are.

themandudeperson wrote:
What gets my goat is the ammunition capacities for these weapons. You'd think with the advent of caseless ammunition, the battle rifle and magnum would be able to carry larger magazines... The assault rifle though, (in Halo 1) does house an impressive 60 rounds 5.56mm and IIRC the SMG had a large magazine, but was somewhat useless beyond 5 feet. The shotgun also sported a rather dismal amount of ammunition, in addition to being pump-fed. Hell, we've got automatic shotguns with 20 round drums NOW.. why wouldn't they have something similar that far in the future? Sorry if this is erroneous, I haven't played but a few levels of my friend's copy of Halo 3.. but, you'd think the UNSC marines would have some sort of C.A.S. fighter instead of just wussy Pelicans.

On a note, remote controlled armed drone already exist, like the predator. There is talk of the global hawk being armed as well, and there is active self-controlling R&D happening right now, not to mention that there are talks of building remote controlled fighters, that could assit human pilots as if they where real pilots (not as good at the beginning, but its a start)

not to mention that there are talks of building remote controlled fighters...
Actually this isnt talk its reality.

Also if you think about it the tech isnt really that far off. Take the "wussy" Pelican for example. It can fly through a planets atmosphere carrying 10ish Armed marines, then fly around like a Jet aircraft, and has VTOL capibilitys. Nothing we have is even remotly close to this, and to say that we could build something like this is a joke. That kind of Tech is in reality still hundreds of years off. Sure we have the V-22, but its flawed and cant leave the Atmosphere.

The only thing that is Halo based that is remotly possible is the drop pods. Lets face it... A Apollo programs re-entry module is nothing more then a 3 man drop pod. In fact plans are in place to add modernized modules as emergency espace pods on the ISS eventually.

Plus something you need to consider, if a weapon works.. there will be No major push for it to be replaced with something new and shiny. Thats why for example the m16 family of weapons is still in use by our armed forces and is just now, after 40ish years getting replaced by something that shoots the same round. And the Ma Duce (.50 cal Mg) is still being used after nearly 80+ years of service.
Hell during basic at Ft. Knox My ma duce was dated 43!! I felt honored to not only clean but to shoot it.

Also rail guns wont be next on the front lines.... Two words...

METAL STORM!

I do agree that the ammo capacity was a joke in all 3 games. Considering 300 rounds is considered a min combat load for troops today.

jp400 wrote:
I do agree that the ammo capacity was a joke in all 3 games. Considering 300 rounds is considered a min combat load for troops today.

But we are talking about a game don't forget. If you only had 300 rounds, to last the entire battle, then MC would be stuffed before he could even get on board the life pod. By limiting the players ammunition, and forcing him/her to change weapons along the way in order to fire, as well as take advantages of the benefits of each weapon, forces more tactical thinking.

If Halo was like real life, you wouldnt have guns littering the battlefield, and you wouldnt have to swap over weapons. With this way, you have to take what you've got, and it makes the game more fun as a result. (I killed a hunter with a Plasma Pistol once)

jp400 wrote:Also rail guns wont be next on the front lines.... Two words...

METAL STORM!

I do agree that the ammo capacity was a joke in all 3 games. Considering 300 rounds is considered a min combat load for troops today.

I didn't say they where next on the frontlines, only that they existed today as prototypes, and there where plans for tank mounted weapons by 2030 at a bare minimum.

As for metal storm, my only question is how do you reload the weapon in a man-portable system? If you are planing of leaving it and never going back for it ok, but how do you reload it in a timely manner.

As for power armors, we already have working exoskeletons, and there is continous research to create true power armors based on these concepts in as little as 30 years.

As for anything like the Pelican, that is a granted, we have nothing that even resembles that except in pure concepts. The most probable of which will be scramjet vehicles, that could easily launch a vehicle up to space with its own power and a minimum fuel consumption, but again this is at least several decades into the future.

What I am saying is that the UNSC tech does not reflect the time and money that went into military R&D, espceially when you consider the 500+ year time difference and the militarily minded organization that is the UNSC

I'm going to actually try to get back OT and discuss your actual codex, if you don't mind (I don't particularly care if the UNSC's weapons are realistically appropriate).

I'm a big fan of both good home brew codices (having written one or two myself) and Halo in general so I've got quite a bit of constructive criticism for you if you'd like it.

I'll probably break my response into several replies as I find the time to write.


As for my overall impressions of your codex, I am impressed by the obvious amount of hard work you put into it. That said, I think you've fallen into the most basic trap of homebrew rules writing (I know because I've done it myself before) and that is to put waaaaaaaayyyyy too much detail and special rules into your weapons and units when it just isn't needed.

You should always strive to make homebrew rules as simple as possible and make the codex utilize as many existing generic or universal rules found within the basic game system as you can. *ONLY* when you absolutely cannot utilize an existing rule and still maintain the flavor of the weapon/unit should you consider making your own special rules and if you do, you have to make absolutely every effort to keep your new rules as simple and easy to follow as humanly possible.

The reason behind this mandate is simple: People who read a homebrew codex only have a limited attention span to pay attention and get sucked into your work. The more weird rules a codex has that people don't understand the more likely they will be to put the codex down and give up on it. Even if you do manage to convince someone to read and use your rules, when those people try to play a game against their friends if you have too many wacky units or weapons (that are more powerful than what other races have) their friends will tend to instantly shut down and refuse to play.

Therefore, I will go over your weapons (and perhaps eventually your units) and give you my suggestions of how things should be simplified to make them fit within the rules framework already provided by Warhammer 40,000. I'm not going to be talking about balance issues for the most part, but rather just how these weapon and unit rules should be written with simplicity in mind.


But before I get to any of that, I thought I'd talk about your fluff a bit.

I think you've missed a golden opportunity to combine the covenant mythology with the 40K mythology which is a shame because they both share the same basic premise (secrets of advanced technology have been lost and are now worshipped as a religion) and can therefore easily be combined without much change.


The Halo story (now that most of it has been revealed in Halo 3 and the Contact Harvest novel) is pretty basic when you break it down to its core. An advanced race built a doomsday weapon to prevent a galactic tragedy and ended up having to use it on themselves. The Covenant found the relics of that technology and worshipped it as sacred and built their entire civilization around the mistaken notion that the doomsday weapon was actually the means to transcendence. When the Covenant encountered humanity (the chosen reclaimers of this ancient technology) those in control of the Covenant (the Prophets) realized that if this truth was fully revealed their faith, and therefore their civilization would crumble. Knowing that fact, the Prophets secretly decided to wage a war of genocide against humans to keep the secret of what humanity was in the dark.

But I'm sure you know all this.

My point is, the 40K history is pretty darn similar, so why not combine the two? Why not say the 'Forerunners' were a group of humans who left earth during the golden age of technology and set up an empire on the fringes of the galaxy. You could say that these humans developed truly amazing technology and through contact with other alien races they even discovered the true danger of Chaos and realized that as long as sentinent beings exist in this galaxy Chaos would continue to grow. As such, they built seven rings whose purpose was to kill off all sentinent life in the galaxy to rob Chaos of their lifeblood should the threat of Chaos ever grow too large.

When the Age of Strife descended on the galaxy (massive warp storms caused by the birthing of Slaanesh), much of the forerunner's worlds were cut off from each other. Chaos errupted amongst the populations of their planets and in some cases daemonic incursions were wiping out entire populaces. After nearly 10,000 years of this anarchy what was left of the forerunners decided the only way to stop the birth of Slaanesh and slow the rise of Chaos was to fire their rings, which they did.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view), the severity of the warp storms prevented the effects of the rings from reaching much of the galaxy. Ultimately it only really affected the forerunner's remaining empire and some nearby systems, and the death knell of these billions of souls actually helped fully awake Slaanesh, thus ending the Age of Strife and forever destroying the Eldar empire.

Soon after the Age of Strife ended many alien races that had survived the age began to explore and conquer the planets that used to make up the Forerunner empire and it is at that point the Prophet and Elite races both discovered their first forerunner artifacts and began to worship them as holy.


If you don't like the whole replacement of the flood with Chaos idea, you could always just include the flood in the story (instead of Chaos) that were wiped out by firing the rings, but keep the 'Age of Strife' warpstorm idea as the reason why the rings didn't kill everyone in the galaxy the first time they were fired.


But the point of keeping the idea of the forerunners in the picture and making them humans is simple:

You give the Covenant a reason to want to commit a holy genocide against the human race: to keep the fact that humans are the forerunners a secret so it won't destroy their faith and civilization. I know that in the Halo mythology humans don't seem to actually be the same species as forerunners, but they were clearly their designated descendants and for the purpose of your fluff it would work to create the same basic idea.

Within the framework of the history of 40K, you have ample time from the end of the Age of Strife (25th millenium) until the "present" day for the Covenant to find the remnants of the forerunners, build their own empire and then encounter humanity.

The space marines should most certainly be referred to as "demons" by the Covenant, but the way I've presented the story vibes so much more with the both mythologies than just having the Ultramarines randomly encounter the covenant and then mysteriously leave them.


Whadd'ya think?



Next up: Comments about your weapons.

yakface wrote:
I'm going to actually try to get back OT and discuss your actual codex, if you don't mind (I don't particularly care if the UNSC's weapons are realistically appropriate).

I'm a big fan of both good home brew codices (having written one or two myself) and Halo in general so I've got quite a bit of constructive criticism for you if you'd like it.

I'll probably break my response into several replies as I find the time to write.


As for my overall impressions of your codex, I am impressed by the obvious amount of hard work you put into it. That said, I think you've fallen into the most basic trap of homebrew rules writing (I know because I've done it myself before) and that is to put waaaaaaaayyyyy too much detail and special rules into your weapons and units when it just isn't needed.

You should always strive to make homebrew rules as simple as possible and make the codex utilize as many existing generic or universal rules found within the basic game system as you can. *ONLY* when you absolutely cannot utilize an existing rule and still maintain the flavor of the weapon/unit should you consider making your own special rules and if you do, you have to make absolutely every effort to keep your new rules as simple and easy to follow as humanly possible.

The reason behind this mandate is simple: People who read a homebrew codex only have a limited attention span to pay attention and get sucked into your work. The more weird rules a codex has that people don't understand the more likely they will be to put the codex down and give up on it. Even if you do manage to convince someone to read and use your rules, when those people try to play a game against their friends if you have too many wacky units or weapons (that are more powerful than what other races have) their friends will tend to instantly shut down and refuse to play.

Therefore, I will go over your weapons (and perhaps eventually your units) and give you my suggestions of how things should be simplified to make them fit within the rules framework already provided by Warhammer 40,000. I'm not going to be talking about balance issues for the most part, but rather just how these weapon and unit rules should be written with simplicity in mind.


But before I get to any of that, I thought I'd talk about your fluff a bit.

I think you've missed a golden opportunity to combine the covenant mythology with the 40K mythology which is a shame because they both share the same basic premise (secrets of advanced technology have been lost and are now worshipped as a religion) and can therefore easily be combined without much change.


The Halo story (now that most of it has been revealed in Halo 3 and the Contact Harvest novel) is pretty basic when you break it down to its core. An advanced race built a doomsday weapon to prevent a galactic tragedy and ended up having to use it on themselves. The Covenant found the relics of that technology and worshipped it as sacred and built their entire civilization around the mistaken notion that the doomsday weapon was actually the means to transcendence. When the Covenant encountered humanity (the chosen reclaimers of this ancient technology) those in control of the Covenant (the Prophets) realized that if this truth was fully revealed their faith, and therefore their civilization would crumble. Knowing that fact, the Prophets secretly decided to wage a war of genocide against humans to keep the secret of what humanity was in the dark.

But I'm sure you know all this.

My point is, the 40K history is pretty darn similar, so why not combine the two? Why not say the 'Forerunners' were a group of humans who left earth during the golden age of technology and set up an empire on the fringes of the galaxy. You could say that these humans developed truly amazing technology and through contact with other alien races they even discovered the true danger of Chaos and realized that as long as sentinent beings exist in this galaxy Chaos would continue to grow. As such, they built seven rings whose purpose was to kill off all sentinent life in the galaxy to rob Chaos of their lifeblood should the threat of Chaos ever grow too large.

When the Age of Strife descended on the galaxy (massive warp storms caused by the birthing of Slaanesh), much of the forerunner's worlds were cut off from each other. Chaos errupted amongst the populations of their planets and in some cases daemonic incursions were wiping out entire populaces. After nearly 10,000 years of this anarchy what was left of the forerunners decided the only way to stop the birth of Slaanesh and slow the rise of Chaos was to fire their rings, which they did.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view), the severity of the warp storms prevented the effects of the rings from reaching much of the galaxy. Ultimately it only really affected the forerunner's remaining empire and some nearby systems, and the death knell of these billions of souls actually helped fully awake Slaanesh, thus ending the Age of Strife and forever destroying the Eldar empire.

Soon after the Age of Strife ended many alien races that had survived the age began to explore and conquer the planets that used to make up the Forerunner empire and it is at that point the Prophet and Elite races both discovered their first forerunner artifacts and began to worship them as holy.


If you don't like the whole replacement of the flood with Chaos idea, you could always just include the flood in the story (instead of Chaos) that were wiped out by firing the rings, but keep the 'Age of Strife' warpstorm idea as the reason why the rings didn't kill everyone in the galaxy the first time they were fired.


But the point of keeping the idea of the forerunners in the picture and making them humans is simple:

You give the Covenant a reason to want to commit a holy genocide against the human race: to keep the fact that humans are the forerunners a secret so it won't destroy their faith and civilization. I know that in the Halo mythology humans don't seem to actually be the same species as forerunners, but they were clearly their designated descendants and for the purpose of your fluff it would work to create the same basic idea.

Within the framework of the history of 40K, you have ample time from the end of the Age of Strife (25th millenium) until the "present" day for the Covenant to find the remnants of the forerunners, build their own empire and then encounter humanity.

The space marines should most certainly be referred to as "demons" by the Covenant, but the way I've presented the story vibes so much more with the both mythologies than just having the Ultramarines randomly encounter the covenant and then mysteriously leave them.


Whadd'ya think?



Next up: Comments about your weapons.

I never really thought about it in that specific sense, but I did try and put the forerunners in, but decided that they would ultimatelly be the Old Ones (again in disguise as usual)

As for the Ultramarines leaving, it was just a matter of timing, I wanted it to feel as realistic as I could with the time it would take for the Covenant to fully develop, that being the case, the ultramarines that attack the Covenant in that near genocide are lead by their primarch, just before Guilliman has to return to the Emperor, so it isn't just random, just a matter of timing

But thank you, you are right. I am currently planning on finishing the book after Halowars comes out, and fifth edition comes out, to have it more up to date THX

Okay onto some constructive criticism about your weapons. This references back to keeping things simple and in-line with current (5th edition) rules as I mentioned at the start of my last reply.


*Anti-Air Fuel Rod Cannons: Unless you have a really good reason to do otherwise, you should stick with weapon ranges already used in the game, just so it is a distance people are used to using. That means the range should either be 48" (standard long-ranged weapon in 40K) or 60" (such as the Fire Prism Cannon). The Apocalypse rules introduced a standardized denotation for anti-air weapons and I believe it is "AA Mount" (although I'm not positive since I don't have my APOC book on me right now). You need to change "Anti-Air" in your weapon description to whatever that standard descriptor is.


*Brute Shot: Having a rapid fire blast weapon will be a complete pain to resolve if you have a bunch of models with these weapons (as some of your squads allow). While in the game a brute shot technically has a blast, it is VERY limited and as such I would highly recommend that you consider just making this weapon have a higher strength and drop the 'blast' nature of it. If you really want to keep it as a blast weapon then you'll need to ensure that no squad can take more than a couple, otherwise resolving like 8 or more blast shots when a single unit fires will definitely drag the pace of a game to a grinding halt.

Also, Heavy Close Combat weapons are no longer part of the 40K universe in 5th edition so you should definitely drop that rule. In addition, giving all brute weapons +1 Strength is a pretty huge bonus compared with other races. For example, a dedicated close combat weapon (like an axe, club or sword) carried by an Ork or Space Marine still doesn't grant any Strength bonuses. Why should a blade on a Brute Shot or Spiker do so? It just doesn't fit. If you want to stick with a similar concept, look at the Kroot rifle. It has a bladed stalk and what it does is to always give the model the +1A bonus as if it was armed with two CC weapons.

If I were you I'd just give that rule to all Brute weapons (the model always gets the +1A bonus for being armed with two CC weapons if it has a Brute weapon). Then if you really want to give an advantage to carrying two single-handed Brute weapons (Spiker/Mauler) you could say that if a model has two of these weapons it gains an additional +1A bonus.


*Brute Spiker: Same comment as with the Brute Shot regarding its ridiculous close combat prowess. Also, rending? Really? There simply isn't any reaon that a Brute Spiker should have the rending ability. This just seems like a case (the first of many) where you're just trying to make your weapons better than those of a similar type in other codices. Adjust the range, strength, AP and points cost if you need, but don't just slap on a special rule for the sake of adding a special rule.


*Carbine: The Carbine's stats are simply ridiculous. 30" Range? S5? AP3? Pinning? Apparently this is the best weapon in the entire galaxy. This is the standard 'rifle' of the Covenant and as such should be a normal 24" range rapid fire weapon. It isn't any more powerful than a plasma rifle, so it should be S4. There is *NO* basis for it to be AP3 and doing so makes it an uber-weapon. And why does it pin? Only sniper weapons pin in 40K and you already have that weapon included in your arsenal so when you compare this weapon to a similar type of weapon in the 40K universe (pulse rifle, perhaps?) it makes absolutely no sense to make in a pinning weapon.

I understand that you want to make this a special weapon in your squads, but you've given it waaay too much juice. A 30" range, a Strength of 5 OR an AP3 would all be a fair attribute to give the weapon to make it special, but to give the weapon all three plus pinning is just crazy.


*Fire Bomb (and all your grenades): In 5th edition there are only three types of grenades: Offensive grenades (let an assaulting unit ignore the iniative lowering effect of charging through cover), Defensive grenade (stops charging units from getting the +1A bonus for charging) and anti-tank grenades (a single high strength attack when assaulting vehicles).

Offensive and Defensive grenades are always S4 when attacking vehicles and anti-tank grenades can be given any Strength or bonus penetration bonus you want (Krak is S6 and Melta is S8 plus a bonus penetration die). Since non-walker vehicles are always struck on their rear armor grenades don't really need to be as powerful as they used to be.

All of your grenades should be converted into this format. I'd suggest that Fire Bombs should just be offensive grenades while Plasma and Spiker Grenades could be your anti-vehicle grenade since they tend to stick to stuff.


*Hunter Fuel Rod Cannon: I have no problem with your Hunter Fuel Rod Cannon stat from a simplicity sake, but I would say that it seems a bit strange coming from Halo where the beam is persistent and can be swiped over an area. Perhaps you would want to make it into a template or blast weapon to represent this fact? If you do, you may want to drop the 'melta' rule from it for balance.


*Regular Fuel Rod Gun: Weapon with Duel firing modes should be avoided unless absolutely necessary for homebrew rules IMHO. Also, how it stands now seems backward with the "individual" shot firing two blasts while the "concentrated" mode fires only a single shot. . .it just doesn't make sense from the description you give.

The weapon just seems very clunky (rules-wise) for no good reason. Multi-blast weapons are a pain to resolve, why not just make it a single large blast? And why give the 'poison' ability to the concentrated shot? Why not just get the weapon stats to the point you want without using an uneeded special rule?


*Gravity Cannon: I have no problem with this weapon (like the Hunter Fuel Rod Cannon) but again in Halo the beam is so slow and can 'swipe' an area it almost seems like it should be a blast weapon.


*Heavy Plasma Mortar: S9 & AP2 seems awfully powerful for a Guess weapon, especially considering how the weapon functions in Halo. Regardless of the strength and AP it should definitely have a minimum range (especially based on the game where it is hard to shoot stuff at close range) and again you've chosen a weird range for no apparent reason. You should stick with 120" (Earthshaker) if you want an extremely long ranged gun, but based on Halo the tank seems to fulfill a close-support mortar role much closer to a Whirlwind and as such should have a 48" range.

The Basilisk (120" range) represents a gun that normally provides artillery support from miles off the battlefield. In Halo, you don't ever see Wraiths performing that role, they are always on the battlefield giving close support just like a Griffon or Whirlwind (both 48").


*Needler: Probably your most insane weapon. You just went ape-crazy with the special rule. Why not just make in rending and get rid of that whole mess of rule? That would incorporate the idea of needles exploding (rending), but still make the weapon function like other weapons in the game.


*Particle Beam Rifle: In 5th edition, all sniper weapons also have the rending ability, although this is granted as part of the 'sniper' characteristic, so you don't really *need* to put it in the weapon special rules, but you could.


*Overheat!: A bunch of your weapons "overheat". I haven't found that special rule yet in your codex, but you really should just change it to 'gets hot!' as that is EXACTLY what that rule is in the game to represent. I know in Halo you don't get killed by an overheat, but it is close enough to the same thing that you have to be crazy to use a second special rule that has almost exactly the same concept as what 'gets hot!' represents.


*Plasma Cannon: Based on the new Eldar star cannon stats you might want to consider making this weapon 'Heavy 2' (instead of 3).


*Plasma Pistol: Your plasma pistol rules are BROKEN. Since pistols are usually only fired once before charging into combat allowing models to fire a S6 AP2 shot and then charge into combat is just INSANE. If you really want to include the charged shot, I would just make the basic weapon S4 and then have a second fire mode that is 'Heavy 1' but is 'Strength 5' (same AP) and 'gets hot!'

Although personally I'm pretty loathe to give any pistol that many special rules, so I would just ignore the charged shot function of Halo. The problem is, the plasma pistol in Halo is the basic sidearm of so many grunts you can't make it too good without screwing everything up.


*Plasma Rifle: Love it. Perfect.


*Plasma Torpedo: That's a pretty damn long range. You just seem to have some weapons that have super-long range that don't fit with similar weapons in other armies and this is a perfect example. I think 36" or 48" would be much more appropriate.


*Gravity Hammer: This weapon is *perfectly* suited to be a Thunderhammer based on what it does in Halo compared to the rules for a TH in 40K. There is ABSOLUTELY no reason it should give bonus attacks to the model wielding it. If you need your models to have more attacks then give it to them in their statline, but having a weapon hand out an extra +2Attacks for no reason just doesn't make any sense.


*Energy Garrotte: Was this ever used in Halo? I don't remember it, even in the novels (although I could have forgotten). It seems excessively wordy and way too powerful. Why not make it a power weapon that on a 'to wound' roll of '6' inflicts instant death regardless of the model's toughness? That would be much more in line with the way 40K's super CC weapons work. You don't need to mention that it ignores armor saves because that's already included in the power weapon rules.


*Energy Sword: Just like the Gravity Hammer there is no reason this should provide bonus attacks. It should just be a power weapon and if that isn't powerful enough for you it should be a 'lightning claw'.


*Honor Guard staff: same as the comments above. You need to be adjusting your model's statlines or points costs rather than giving them all these bonus attacks with their CC weapons. Again, you should stick with existing weapon archetypes and make the Honor Guard staff a Lightning claw (or even a pair of lightning claws so the model gets +1A for being armed with two CC weapons). You could even make it 'master-crafted' if you want to make it a super-weapon.

But whenever possible you should stick with the standard 'special close combat weapons' in the 5th edition rules: power weapon, lightning claws, force weapons, poisoned weapons, powerfists, Thunderhammers, Rending weapons, Witchblades. If you want to make one of these things more powerful you just give it the 'master-crafted' ability. But sticking to these templates means every player who reads your rules will instantly understand how the weapon works and knows how it fits within the power standings of the 40K universe.


*Hunter Shield: I think Hunters should be monstrous creatures (but that's a later discussion), but regardless their shields, at best should provide some sort of invulnerable save (especially since Heavy CC weapons are no longer around in 5th edition). A shield's use in CC should be represented in the model's basic statline as it is the hunter's primary CC weapon. I just think the shield should provide them with like a 4+ or 5+ invulnerable save (or something like that).



Next up: Comments about the armory!