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Hey,

I was wondering, what does Dakka think of people that make up their own units/character/weapons/abilities?
Is it fair, necessary or plain fun?
Will you allow it in tournemants or in friendly games or not at all?
If someone made an entire codex around his army, would that be better then just some random units?

Thanks,
Loner

It can be fun, so long as the unit is balanced and cool and unique.

Custom units are almost never allowed at tournaments however. Sometimes in friendly games against, well, friends.

Custom codices are quite common. Some are good, some are bad.

Go check out the Proposed Rules section.

Actually, it's because in my area several players want to change units in their codex because they think that some units are useless...
It's not for me, as a Guard player my codex is one of the best of this moment.

If it's done with a genuine eye to game balance then it can be fun. Too often they end up being way over powered.

My advice to anyone making a custom unit is:
1. Drop every special rule and ability that isn't absolutely essential to the concept. Too many special rules is a very common fault with custom units.
2. Come up with a points value you think is fair and then add 50% on. You can bring it down with playtesting but people will be much more receptive if it starts over-costed.

I don't care one bit for home made rules.

Once a set of rules show up that isn't made with the obvious goal of increasing a given armys "power level", be it plugging a hole, gaining another codexs units or simply being better, I might change my mind.

So far.....no luck.

I make rules up for fun or for models that I made entirely for fluff-ie a 4 man shotgun armed tank crew for one of my Heresy Era Russ varients, or refugees etc. A lot of the stuff I have I have to give my army character, and they rarely ever see life on a gaming table, but I like to have rules for them anyway in case I want to play a themed battle or the like. All the models that I represent with house rules however aren't overpowered or ridiculous at all; most of them are for just everyday people caught up in warzones, or the occasional locally made tank variant which I normally use as Russes. They can make games interesting, but unless your playing with a friend and they're also using an appropriate army, it can turn out badly. =P

Scott-S6 wrote:If it's done with a genuine eye to game balance then it can be fun. Too often they end up being way over powered.

My advice to anyone making a custom unit is:
1. Drop every special rule and ability that isn't absolutely essential to the concept. Too many special rules is a very common fault with custom units.
2. Come up with a points value you think is fair and then add 50% on. You can bring it down with playtesting but people will be much more receptive if it starts over-costed.

Damn right. I've only really seen any custom units when someone wants to portray how terrific and better-than-anyone-else their custom character is. I would only allow a custom unit to be played against me (once I knew the owner quite well) if it was simple in rules, obviously not overpowered, and was created for a decent set of non-competitive reasons (ie to portray a cool idea, not to make the owner's army better or fill a perceived weakness).

My actual advice to anybody making a custom unit, is to see whether an existing unit cannot play the role with some name changes.

I once talked to an Ork player who wanted to make a Pain Priest (the doctor equivalent to a Warboss or a Big Mek) to lead his army.
I thought this was an absolutely wonderful idea.

I suggested he simply use the Warboss unit and gave it and its equipment different names. Like "Power Klaw" to "Surgical Implement" and "Slugga" to "Wound Stapler", and so on. He could then go on to field a nicely converted model with rules that nobody could really complain about.

Of course, he would rather make his very own unit and it never took off as he could never agree with his opponents on point costs and the strange special rules he wrote up.

One word APOCOLYPSE