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Hey, I heard H.B.M.C. plays with his own rule set (I guess if anyone asks why they have to play his way he talks the way he posts, and that ends it and I was wondering if he's ever shared the full rules with the group. I looked through the articles and didn't see an article on it, but I would be interested in trying it out.

H.B.M.C., can you post them or put up an article or something please?

I've posted them a few times, mainly just a link to the forum where we store the files.

You can find the last versions we wrote here. Should have all the main ones (Rulebook, Marines, Eldar and hopefully Chaos and 'Nids) updated again by the end of the year.

Now I fully expect as many people to go "These are awesome!" as "OMGWTFBBQ CHEESE!" but really that doesn't mean much to me. If you like 'em, great. If you want to bitch endlessly about how 'powerful' X is or how 'stupid' we are for doing Y, then go ahead. If you have something useful to say or see a combination of units or rules that we missed, then great, let us know, always happy to take constructive criticism.

Truth of the matter is we started writing these rules back when 4th Ed came out and GW demonstrated that they haven't the ability to manage their own game system (a failing that has only become more pronounced in the past year). We have been using these rules since 4th Ed's release (the Eldar Codex for even longer), playtest them endlessly, and have gone through several large paradigm shifts in that time.

None of us claim that they are perfect (if that was the case we wouldn't be writing the next version right now), but we know that they are better then GW's for us, at least, because we have fun playing with them, and spend more time enjoying the game than fighitng against the ruleset. We get to use the models we want rather the ones GW have seen fit to swing the pendulum towards with the new Codex.

Most of all, we have fun with it, and that's what all this is about, isn't it?

BYE

Tried to look at it and couldn't said the file was corrupted.

Which file?

BYE

Did you guys take a look at Inquisition psychic powers. Other than your Teleporting Grey Knight squads. Space Marine and Chaos psychic powers seem to be pretty good, if not perfect but the Inquisition ones are pretty lacklustre.

Tacobake wrote:Did you guys take a look at Inquisition psychic powers.

Not for a while, no.

One of my bigger projects (besides writing a Guard Codex that works... I hate my current version, too many compromises) is writing the unified Inquisitorial Codex.

My aim is to treat it kinda like the Chaos Codex, in that there are 'Undivided' Inquisitors, and then specific ones to the three Ordos. With these will come Ordo-Specific Wargear and Psychic powers (which will get an overhaul similar to the Chaos and Marine ones). Alongside this will be Radical equipment and upgrades, just for fun!

BYE

Sweet, thanks. I'll have to give this a try...

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Tacobake wrote:Did you guys take a look at Inquisition psychic powers.

Not for a while, no.

One of my bigger projects (besides writing a Guard Codex that works... I hate my current version, too many compromises) is writing the unified Inquisitorial Codex.

My aim is to treat it kinda like the Chaos Codex, in that there are 'Undivided' Inquisitors, and then specific ones to the three Ordos. With these will come Ordo-Specific Wargear and Psychic powers (which will get an overhaul similar to the Chaos and Marine ones). Alongside this will be Radical equipment and upgrades, just for fun!

BYE

I was thinking, keeping the Librarian powers in mind, that what one could do is have "High" and "Low" Inquisitor powers. Simliar to some Fantasy armies. And then you could have one spell in each for each order. Inquisitor Lords would get one "High" and one "Low" spell. A Familiar would give +1 of either (provided they had access) and Special Characters or a cool piece of Wargear (which is the same thing) could have another spell.

And then say Grey Knight Grandmasters could have one Low spell, or maybe their own High spell. And there could of course be a piece of Wargear going towards the Wargear limit, say 15 points that lets you pick a High Spell instead of a Low Spell. Provided casting two High Spells per turn would not break the bank.

Not to derail the thread, but I think I will actually write something up for this tomorrow, not that it is complicated. Ordos Xenos powers could be in High a spell that makes a unit Relentless, and in Low they could take The Gate of Infinity. Or maybe the other way around. Gate of Infinity limited by HQ.

While we are on the subject, and speaking of which, "Radical," sounds like a cool fourth option. It could even have TWO new powers for each tier, making FOUR new powers.

What about all the incomplete ones that were on the yahoogroups? might as well post those...

I don't like the concept of turning walkers organic. That means that, like, a Dreadnought or Defiler can be turned into a bloody squig by Zogwort. I think that they work better as vehicles, but give them a different damage chart.

Two things:

1. We've been playing this way for over 5 years, believe me when I say our walkers are both more useful and more fun than GW's.
2. We don't care about GW's Codices, and, so far, Zogwart doesn't exist in our rules. In any case, things like that usually get exemptions.

BYE

H.B.M.C. wrote:You can find the last versions we wrote here. Should have all the main ones (Rulebook, Marines, Eldar and hopefully Chaos and 'Nids) updated again by the end of the year.

On my clock you have.. 34 hours, 40 minutes. Please pretty please?

H.B.M.C. wrote:Which file?

BYE

Warhammer 40,000 rulebook revisited version 3.0. I tried opening it from the site and saving it, perhaps I don't have the right program to open it. I tried microsoft works, is it in some other format? I'm not very computer literate.

It's just a normal Word Doc file...

Try the attachment. See if that works.

BYE

That didn't work either. It's probably something wrong with my computer. Machines hate me.

warpcrafter wrote:That didn't work either. It's probably something wrong with my computer. Machines hate me.

You must do a ritual of penance to the Omnissiah!

Am I like on H.B.M.C.'s ignore list or something?

just finished reading the revisted rulebook. My compliments HBMC, I like what youve done with rapid fire weapons. finally... theyre useful. these rules seem much more streamlined. Ill have to find some other people in my area willing to try them out with me.

Just read the Grey Knights revisited codex, and damn... they look HOT. I love what you've done with them. I guess it's time I read the rest.

Makes Grand Master Guildford happy to be a Grey Knight.

I really like the eldar dex, however, you are missing Eldrad Ulthran from the special characters.

Another thing, a personal requestioin, if you have time can you add the two dead/missing phoenix lords for the warp spiders and shinning spears?

Your Space marine rules seem great so far. I'm not sure about the sniper teams, although that is only the case because I'm used to the underpowered sniper rifles of current GW rules.

I really like the idea of having apothecary units.

One question though, about the wording of the technical servitors,

"You may take as many Technical Servitors as you wish up to the maximum number of Servitors. Technical Servitors will add +1 each to the Techmarine’s repair roll, to a maximum of 2+."

Does this mean that you may only have a maximum of a 3+ success rate if he has 2 tech servitors, and the servo harness?

warpcrafter wrote:That didn't work either.

Hmm... what version of Word are you running, assuming you're running Word? The member of our group who is responsible for keeping the main rulebook updated has been upgrading things recently and has, in a few cases, been sending out files that are unreadable to older versions of Word, so that could be the case.

BillTheManiac wrote:Am I like on H.B.M.C.'s ignore list or something?

Yes.




No. You aren't.

somecallmeJack wrote:just finished reading the revisted rulebook. My compliments HBMC, I like what youve done with rapid fire weapons. finally... theyre useful. these rules seem much more streamlined. Ill have to find some other people in my area willing to try them out with me.

Go for it! And report back any strange oddities or loopholes that you may find. Always open to suggestions.

Fafnir wrote:Just read the Grey Knights revisited codex, and damn... they look HOT. I love what you've done with them. I guess it's time I read the rest.

After watching them get so easily trounced over and over again, I knew we had to do something to make them a bit more competative. Truthfully not much has changed with - a point here, an attack there, an extra shot for the Psycannon. Terminators are the biggest change, with T4(5) and W2, but that's universal to all Terminators, Loyalist and Traitor. The Purification squad was added as another unit that could kill vehicles (the GK's biggest problem), and it does have some serious limitations (the fact that the squad must move the distance rolled, no more and no less has created some interesting situations). And now GK's are competative in our environment. I watched a 40 model GK army kill a 200 model Ork army to the man (or to the Ork, really) a few months back. And they've done pretty well for themselves since.

It also helps that the GK player in our group plays them fearlessly, charging into any situation without throught for the safety of his troops. Works most of the time.

The other serious change to GK's was the way they Deep Strike. In GW's rules, Deep Striking HTH units simply don't work. They land... do nothing... get shot up next turn. Only if your opponent is stupid (or you have Vanguard) will Deep Striking units make it into combat (Daemons don't count here) unless there are so many DS'ing units that losing a few doesn't matter. GK's can't afford the luxury of attrition warfare, therefore they have to be able to assault when they land. This is another universal Deep Strike rule, so whenever you roll a HIT, you land where you want and may assault that turn. GK's, as their main form of attack is via Teleportation, get to re-roll that scatter dice. Without it the army is just effective 1/3rd of the time, and for an army that replies of teleporting, that's not enough.

Squig_herder wrote:I really like the eldar dex, however, you are missing Eldrad Ulthran from the special characters.

We're missing most special characters. They're the kind've thing we'll be adding and refining at the end of this process. The special characters in the Marine and Daemonhunters/GK books haven't been touched in ages, and in light of some recent fluff developments (like the fact that the new SM Codex states that Ancient Helviticus is dead!) there will be some more changes.

Squig_herder wrote:Another thing, a personal requestioin, if you have time can you add the two dead/missing phoenix lords for the warp spiders and shinning spears?

Anything's possible, but it's probably best to ask the member of our group that looks after the Eldar Codex. He goes by the name of milesteg here at Dakka.

Shrike78 wrote:Your Space marine rules seem great so far. I'm not sure about the sniper teams, although that is only the case because I'm used to the underpowered sniper rifles of current GW rules.

The Marine Codex has been through so many revisions now. It's amazing to look back and where I started (there's an original version that will never see the light of day - it was terrible with Primarch based upgrades based upon Daemon Gifts, Terminators twice as scary as they are now and all sorts of other nonsense) and see where we are now.

I'm hoping the next version of the Marine Codex, with the added Chapter Relics, Heraldic Titles, and the 'Guard' Squads (Sternguard, Vanguard and Hearthguard) will be the final definitive revision. There will obviously be updated as playtesting continues, but I don't want to make any more sudden or large paradigm shifts as I have done in previous revisions. That said, we thought we were nearly done with the Eldar Codex when it hit V0.6 and then again with V0.8, so these things change quite a bit.

As far as Sniper Teams go, we often get questions on that. Most of them are along the lines of "OMGWTFBBQ! How can you make Sniper Rifles so powerful! Do you have any idea what a squad of Scouts with Sniper Rifles could do with that!" to which my responce has always been "Nothing, as squads of Scouts with Sniper Rifles don't exist in our rules". If we still had full 10-man squads with Sniper Rifles, or 10-man Ranger squads with Sniper Rifles, or 10-strong Ratling units with Sniper Rifles, then the Sniper Rifle rules that we have written would not exist as they would be too powerful.

As it happens, we've reduced Sniper Rifles into what they should be - weapons used for sniping. Sniper Rifles should have to come in batteries to be effective as they are 5th (or 4th or even 3rd). They should be one shot/one kill, and that is (hopefully) reflected in our rules. Of course, that necessitates a change in the availability of Sniper Rifles, and this is why you now have attached Snipers. Scout Squads allow for a Sniper Team to be bought, Rangers allow for a Ranger Sniper to be bought, Guard platoons have 0-1 Platoon Sniper each. In fact, the only unit with Sniper Rifles now are Ratlings, and I've made their squad size 5 at max.

Snipers make a huge amount of difference now, rather than only being truly effective against things T6 and above. They just don't work all that well at night, as I found out in a recent game...

Shrike78 wrote:I really like the idea of having apothecary units.

They're fun little things to have around. They do take up an Elite slot, so are competing with a lot of very good units like Dreads and Terminators, but they can bolster a gunline quite well. Sadly, as my notes at the end of the document state, they aren't all that useful when you're facing down a Land Raider full of angry Assault Terminators and all you've got are Plasma Cannons...

Shrike78 wrote:Does this mean that you may only have a maximum of a 3+ success rate if he has 2 tech servitors, and the servo harness?

Not really sure I understand the question. The limit for the repair roll is 2+. The presence (or lack thereof) of the Servo-Harness makes no difference to that. In any case, the Techmarine entry in the Marine Codex has been cleaned up and streamlined significantly in the latest versions, so any ambiguities should (hopefully!) dissapear.

BYE