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73 Wargear options for characters and troop leaders
9 Veteran abilities
34 Chapter traits
7 Wargear options for vehicles
8 Psychic disciplines to pick from (3 original)
2 Prayer lists to pick from
56 Units including Assault Marines, Tacticals, Devastators, Dreadnoughts, Bikers, Sternguard, Vanguard and Land Speeders

The current state of Codex Space Marines has been translated into English and added to the first post.

Dark Eldar received a smaller update to their Armory as well, increasing character and squad leader wargear options to 52.

I've had all my 40k stuff stored away during a remodel but I'll soon have a game room again and will try to get a game of this in.

I do wish you had a proper name for your ruleset though. Why not Typical Hero Homebrew, Typical Hero Hammer, or something along those lines?

Edit: Your group never has a problem with cover simply adding to the armor save instead of having its own value? Eg. wooden walls offer 5+, stone walls offer 4+. That way cover is more valuable to a guardsman than a space marine.

Cool, let me know how it went afterwards!

If you can't find a specific unit or if something is unclear in the rules, I'm very happy to help you out.

We took a lot of inspiration from earlier editions, as that is what we think to be the golden era of 40k (3rd to 5th). Back then cover gave a static "cover save" and since we wanted to have units be able to take all the saves available to them without inflating dice rolls (armor save, invul save, cover save, FnP), cover got designed to grant a static +2 to your armor (capped at 1+) and a to hit penalty for your enemy, unless they are given the "Stand & Shoot" order. I totally understand your train of thought, though. If you want to make a distinction between harder and lighter cover, I would start by reducing the armor bonus to only +1. A Marine being hard to shift from cover (or benefitting more from it than a Guardsman) is designed as intented, as a typical Space Marine army got around 20 models (including some vehicles) for a standard sized game. A horde army like Orks are capable of bringing 100+ Boys with toys and some Deffdreads in comparison. The cool thing about it is, that it still felt balanced in our games.

Regarding the name: Truth be told, I didn't do everything by myself. Even though the majority of rules and codizes are done by me nowadays, in the beginning there were two colleagues from my local club that helped me getting started. We never talked about an official name, Custom40k was just how I named our Discord channel to talk about this project and we never changed it.

Right now I would say the name is quite fitting, given the focus on army and unit customisation that I am trying to achieve for all factions. But I like your ideas!

Adeptus Custodes have been added to the roster of playable armies. The first post has been updated accordingly.

They do feature a very powerful and unique special rule that allows them to contest an objective by simply being in the same table quarter as well as controling an objective from further away than other factions.

This is countered by their very low model count.
Three Vertus Praetors already cost 660 points out of the 2500 for a regular sized game.

I assume this rule will be subject to some change once I get in test games with them.

World Eaters have been added to the list of supported armies.

They have a very special way of playing as most of their units are unable to control mission objectives and tend to simply rush towards the enemy, if they get provoked enough.

Using the Blood Tithe mechanic, they are able to desecrate objectives along the way and still claim them for Khorne, among other smaller benefits like ressurecting fallen models or summoning a Bloodthirster to the party.

- The first version of the "Planetary Assault" campaign system has been added to the OP. It will be the base for this year's campaign in our club. It is untested so far and I expect some fine tuning here and there once we start playing.
- Assassins have been updated and translated into English.
- Veteran abilities for all relevant armies have been updated.
- Some flyers gained the ability to hover.

Added the link to the "Escalation" supplement, which includes rules for Gargantuan Creatures and Super-heavy Vehicles.

At the moment it houses a small number of models like Baneblades and will naturally grow over time, like all the other codizes.

These kind of units are _not_ supposed to be played in regular sized games (2500-3000 points) and it should be checked with your opponents before bringing such a unit. Their damage output or resilience is far higher and can leave an unprepared player struggling to fight against.

This is really interesting keep up the good work. One question are there plans to stats for named characters?

Thank you very much!

With named characters I follow a very specific approach, as Custom40k is all about "your dudes".

I won't add named characters to the game, but I will totally steal their wargear and abilities and add it to the armory.

So you won't find a Typhus in the rules, but you can take a Death Guard Plaguecaster, equip him with a Manreaper, Cataphracti armor, Battle honors to boost BS and WS and Nurgling infestation and you get your count-as Typhus.

And now the cool thing is: If you want your Typhus to have a Combi-melta as well, go for it. If you want to make his hand flamer especially deadly, add Poison(3+). Add a protective "Cloud of flies" to make him harder to hit in ranged combat. If a Manreaper is too boring, go ahead and create your own Demon weapon with my "Demon weapon points calculator".

I usually only leave out special equipment if it is just "a power weapon +1" or if the effect is not workable within the ruleset. Anything that has something to do with CP generation for example, as CP simply do not exist.

That's a really cool idea, my only suggestion would be a primarch-ish statblock to represent them characters. Going through this has reignited my interest in 40k as a game so thanks. Just gotta convince some of the other local players to give it a go.

Thank you for the suggestion, I will make sure to consider it when it comes creating profiles for these individuals.

I'm glad to read that you like my stuff and want to try it out. For a first game I would suggest to play the "Standard mission" as described in the core rules and to bring two armies that don't skew too much into vehicles. If you are not familiar with older editions and the "Armor value" system, vehicles might seem a bit unfair if you don't bring weapons to counter them.

Good luck in finding a mate to play with and have fun when you do! Let me know how it went down or if any questions came up.

So I read your rules and got me and a gaming buddy interested in your ruleset as it seems to be exactly what we're searching for, an inbetween of OPR and 40K.
However, a list of Google docs doesn't look that convenient to me. How did you spread the stuff in your group? Do you have a list builder or are you just doing it in the old ways on paper?

Sorry, I do not have a list builder currently. When writing army lists, people either use paper or Excel.

However, directly from within Google Docs under "File -> Download" you can select different formats (xlsx, ODS, PDF, ...) to get something to be printed more easily. Some players print out the datasheets of the units they are bringing, some have the Google Docs sheet open on their mobile to reference units during the game.

Glad it sparked your interest. Let me know if any questions come up and how your first game was!

Somebody in the club bought their first GSC units and that means they finally got added in their first version, ready to ambush the battlefields of Custom40k. Link is added to the OP.

Additionally, Orks got an update to their roster in the form of lots and lots of buggies. (only in German for now, though).

Additionally additionally, Necrons had a revamp of their Reanimation protocols along with several profile glow ups for the more elite units.

Reanimation Protocols:

This is trying to better model how Reanimation Protocols are strong early on and become gradually weaker, as the battle goes on and the damage becomes more severe.

I'm posting slower than before as we are currently focussed mostly on our ongoing campaign, but that doesn't mean that the game isn't getting updates!

1. Introduction of "Archetypes"
- It was possible before already to cosplay as "White Scars" for example by selecting the trait "Swift like the wind" as a Space Marine, which enabled the player to take Bikes and Outriders as Troop selections.
- The system was barely restricted, which didn't lead to the desired outcome of seeing Bike armies, but rather seeing that one Bike squad the player wanted to take anyway to be selected as 1 out of the 2 mandatory Troop selections.
- Archetypes still allow shenanigans, but come with inbuilt drawbacks/restrictions.
- Apart from "cult" armies like DG, TS, WE and GK, all armies have received at least two (and often more!) Archetypes to start with.

Example 1: Swift like the wind (Space Marines)
- Bikers and Outriders can be taken as Troops.
- All units with less than 12" Movement must start the game as passengers inside a transport.
- Units that have no transport option and less than 12" Movement cannot be taken at all.

Example 2: Abaddon's Chosen (Chaos Space Marines)
- The army gets 4 HQ slots and must use them to field 4 Chaos Lieutenants. Each of them must have a Mark of Chaos and all Marks must be different.
- The "Animosity of the Gods" rule does not apply for the army. (-> the old rule where you couldn't take marked units depending on the Mark of Chaos for your HQ).

2. Refinement for "Small games"
- Making "small games" more or less a mandatory part of our campaign, I finally got enough data to finetune the restrictions.
- This game mode is meant to be played with low-tier / low-powered units across all armies to simulate skirmishes. With the new restrictions in place I feel this is in a good spot now.

3. Updates to the points calculator
- The underlying math for the points calculator has been improved and all armies have been updated accordingly.
- The improvement was aimed mainly at making heavy weapons worse in point efficiency against chaff and at the same time making lower end weapons a bit more affordable.
- The biggest change here is that I decided to take the real point value for every entry instead of rounding to the next multiple of 5. This makes calculating armies in your head a bit more difficult, but helps reflect the value of each unit better in the end.

4. Fleshing out mutliple armies
- Genestealer Cults, Grey Knights, Necrons, Orks and Thousand Sons have seen their armory and unit selections enhanced.

Orks have been translated into English and linked in the first post.

Next army will be Sisters.

Adeptus Sororitas have been translated and added to the original post.

That was sooner than I expected, but it is a small army, compared to others.

This leaves Imperial Guard and Mechanicus as the last books without a translation. Mechanicus itself is not yet finished as a codex, so it will probably be Guard as the next entry.

The Imperial Guard was added to the links in my OP.

Last codex for now is Adeptus Mechanicus.

Adeptus Mechanicus and a new "Missions" link has been added to the OP, which was updated as well.

Now all armies are officially supported by rules, which is a big day for me .

 a_typical_hero wrote:
Adeptus Mechanicus and a new "Missions" link has been added to the OP, which was updated as well.

Now all armies are officially supported by rules, which is a big day for me .

Is there any intention of supporting Forge World units? I looked at the Space Marines and saw a ton of missing units. Same question for Chapter Specific Units, and Chapters as a whole. It seems like there is no difference between playing Iron Hands and Ultramarines.

Hey there!

All units will be supported at one point, though I'm focusing on those first that get requested and played by my local player group. If you let me know which ones you are missing, I will add them to their respective armies.

The same goes for chapter specific units to some extend.

Depending on the unit in question, you are supposed to build them via wargear. You can do a lot of units with the Space Marine Honour Guard, where every member got access to the armory. Units like Lone Wolfs, Sanguinary Guard, Vanguard, Thunderwolf Cavalry and so on can be build with it.

Different chapters can be represented via "FEATURES OF THE CHAPTER". As Iron Hands you might want to use "Hear the Wisdom of the Ancients", "Sons of Mars" and "Bionic Enhancement". This allows you to field Dreadnoughts with one additional Veteran ability, lead your army with a Master of the Forge, upgrade your squad leaders to mini Techmarines and enhance every model with a 6+ invulnerability save. Equipping your squad leaders with Terminator armor (as was the style during 4th edition) is always possible, if thats your thing.

At the end though, it is the same situation as with units. I'll add what gets requested. So just tell me what you are missing to feel properly represented as IH!

As per request:

GSC got Acolyte Iconward, Clamavus, Nexos, Reductus Saboteur, Achilles Ridgerunners and Goliath Truck added.

Space Marines got Heavy flamers for Tacticals, Devastators and Baal Predators + Ironclad Dreadnoughts, Conversion beamers, Nephilim Jetfighters, Stormhawk Interceptors and Stormtalon Gunships added.

May I ask what edition of 40K (if any) this has a skeleton based on? Or, to phrase it another way, what edition acted as the inspiration for this custom edition?

It originally started with 4th-5th edtion as the basis, but grew to incorporate elements from every edition that GW produced so far.

I recently found this system and played a few rounds over the weekend. A lot of the rules are familiar to anyone who played from 3rd to 7th Edition, but there are enough changes to make it interesting.

The alternating unit activation with the order System is especially nice, it's way more engaging to play with and against.

Also, the focus on customization and Equipment add way more List building options. As for other players and onboarding, a lot of them wished for an Army Builder/ Battlescribe ^^

I'm glad you liked it! Let me know if anything is unclear or if you have any feedback.

Out of curiosity, what armies did you play with and what missions? What are you using for your command tokens?

Legion2 wrote:
As for other players and onboarding, a lot of them wished for an Army Builder/ Battlescribe ^^

As cool as it would be, it is currently outside of my skillset to create such an app. If any of your friends need help with army/listbuilding, you can point them into my direction and I will go through it with them.

Space Marines vs Genestealer Cult and Imperial Guard vs Dark Eldar. And we used pieces of paper for command Tokens

As per request, the following units have been added:

Land Raider Ares, Razorback Rikarius, Fire Raptor, Fellblade.

In addition, a new table has been added to the core rules that specifies all possible actions for passengers that have not been activated before their transport option has been destroyed.

I have to say as someone a little disillusioned with how 40k has been lately, this system looks amazing! Especially as a 4e/5e vet. I do have some questions though:

1) You say that you can use a deck of cards for Orders as there's only 4 at a time, but yet I see in the Core rules there's 6 Orders? How exactly does that work?

2) Have you played without order tokens/cards and just picking at each individual activation, and how that affects game-play flow/balance?

Hello!

Speaking from experience, if you liked the older versions of Warhammer, you will most likely enjoy this homebrew as well. So I hope you get to give it a try soonish.

To your questions:
1) An unharmed, unengaged unit normally has 4 commands available to it:
- Advance
- Charge
- Move & Shoot
- Stand & Shoot

If you are engaged in melee, those get changed/reduced to:
- Fight
- Flee

So you will never need more than 4 different kind of tokens. We usually have Charge + Fight and Advance + Flee as the same cards, if we play via Tabletop Simulator.

2) For the most part it won't make a big difference, as it is very clear what a unit wants to do, given the circumstances. A Devastator squad sitting on an objective with their lascannons isn't going to advance off of it all of a sudden. It comes into play alot with reserves (Outflanking, Deep strike, Teleportation, ...), though. There is a real trade-off wether you give your melee unit a charge order in anticipation to incoming enemy units, or to simply give them an advance order so they get to move forward quicker. Another example I can think of is the planning ahead to charge (and by doing so -> block) an enemy unit to force their activation. It becomes less risky, as you are not left with a Charge command on your unit, if the enemy unit is able to move first and out of range. And as a third example, in those close situations where it is not clear wether you have to Advance on a nearby objective or not, depending on how lucky your enemy rolls with their units. Instead of having to commit to an action at the beginning of a turn, you can just do whats best after each single activation.

That being said, I'm not the homebrew police. If there are things you dislike about the rules, just change them to your liking.