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So, my friend and I were planning to write our own version of 40K, using more realistic rules. So far, there are some ideas we've pulled together, and I was hoping people would give us some feed-back. These rules use a mix of 5th ed, 2nd ed, and Warhammer Fantasy rules.

Note that all armies will have new, specific rules written, or at the very least, new stat-lines, and points-cost modifications.

Stat changes:
Movement: All units will be assigned a movement value. Eg, SM: 4", Eldar: 5", Genestealers: 6", etc.
Initiative: Will determine order of actions, so high-initiative models will move first.

Shooting:
Three ranges:
Short range: Up to 'Range' value of a weapon. Shoot with no penalties for range.
Mid Range/Accurate Range: Up to double range. Shoot with a -1 penalty to BS.
Long Range: Up to triple range. Shoot with a -3 penalty to BS.

Cover: If shooting at a unit in cover, the shooter suffers a penalty to hit depending on the type of cover.

Weapons:
Chainsword: -1 modifier for armour saves.
Power weapon: -3 modifier for armour saves.
Two-handed weapons: Add 1 to strength. May never claim twin-weapons attack bonus.
Krak Grenades: May be thrown in place of firing other weapons. Range: 6", Str:6, AM:1 Assault 1, -1 BS.
Frag Grenade: May be thrown is place of firing other weapons. Range: 6", Str:3, AM:0 Assault 1, Small blast, scatter d6" at BS 0.
Pistol: Grants one extra attack in close combat. This extra attack is as if the user fired one shot with the pistol, but uses a WS comparrison to determine if it hits, as opposed to BS. May not be used with twin-weapons, or two-handed weapons. Attacks at normal initiative, regardless of other weapons.
Assault Weapons: When assaulted, may fire one shot from the weapon at -1 BS at the assaulting squad. These shots may only be fired at one assaulting squad per turn, and may not be fired when a unit is already locked in combat.
Rapid Fire Weapons: As Assault Weapons, but may either fire one shot at -1 BS, or 2 shots at -2 BS when assaulted. When fired at range, if within 'Short' range, may fire two shots instead of one, but at -1 to hit.

Armour modifiers:
At range, the armour save is modified by the AM. So a model in 2+ armour hit by an AM 1 bolter takes the save on 3+ instead.

In combat, for every point of strength above 4, the armour is made worse by 1. So if a strength 5 model armed with a close-combat weapon attacks a model in 2+ armour, the model will take armour saves on 3+.

Note that many profiles of weapons and of models will will be altered. Eg, Bolter: Range: 12", Str: 4, AM: 1

As the rules advance, I will update this first post with the advancements and corrections.
Opinions?

Shouldn't high initiative models move last? To represent them being able to move fast enough to see what others are doing and still have time to react?

Don't quite understand the Initiative Movement, bit. Unless both players are going to be moving units at the same time, this really has no bearing on the way the game is played.

What I mean is, if both players are moving, shooting, assaulting simultaneously instead of turn based as it is now, you're not going to really need to move in Initiative order and should be best left to moving the units in the order you want.

Also, the ranges for weapons:
What range denotes short/medium/long?
Will all weapons have all three values?
Are all weapons given the same distances?

Basically, is a Bolter going to be able to fire the same distance with the same disadvantages as a Lascannon?

With the initiative, the idea is, suppose we have two teams,

Team one has three squads, A, B and C, with initiatives of 7, 5 and 3 respectively.

Team two also has three units, X, Y and Z, with initiatives 6, 5 and 4 respectively.

So the order of their turns is:
A, X, B & Y, C and Z.
So, first Squad A moves, shoots and assaults (if they wish) then X does the same. Squads B & Y then roll off for who goes first, and the winner chooses.

The exception is, that high-initiative models may lower their initiative for turn-order, but must state so at the start of the game-turn that they wish to do so, and to how low.

So at the start of the game turn, squad X may lower it's initiative to 4, and so conduct it's turn at the same time as C.

Close combats are resolved at the end of the game turn.

The point of this is mainly to make initiative a more important stat, rather than just a useful combat stat, that becomes almost useless if you have a power fist.

With regards to shooting, let us take two examples, first the humble bolter:

Range: 12" Str: 4 AM: 1 Rapid Fire
Now, first may I add in something I forgot to start, that ranged weapons come with an armour modifier now, in stead of AP. But more on that later.

Now, we have three space marines, firing their bolters at three imperial guardsmen. The first is standing 30" away from his target.

12"*2=24" so not in medium range
12"*3=36" so at long range

Therefore, the space marine suffers a -3 to hit, and thus hits on 6s. He may also only fire one shot.

The second shoots. He is 20" away, and thus at medium range. He therefore suffers a -1 to hit, and therefore hits on 4s.

The third is 10" away, and thus within short range. He does not suffer a penalty for range. However this is a rapid fire weapon, so he now makes a choice. He may fire one shot as normal, or two shots with a -1 modifier.

Our second example of a weapon, the Lascanon.

Range: 36" Str: 9 AM: 5 Heavy 1

Now, suppose our furthest marine has a lascanon, and fires it at the guardsman. He is well within the 36" range of the lascanon, and so suffers no penalty to hit.

With the armour modifier rules, the following applies:

At range, the armour save is modified by the AM. So a model in 2+ armour hit by an AM 1 bolter takes the save on 3+ instead.

In combat, for every point of strength above 4, the armour is made worse by 1. So if a strength 5 model armed with a close-combat weapon attacks a model in 2+ armour, the model will take armour saves on 3+.

I will put as many ammendments as possible into the OP as they come up. I hope I've answered your questions.

Advanced warhammer 40k that idea just makes me sick to my stomach it is already complicated enough

Hi all.
I have to agree with orkylooter.
The current game of 40k is VERY overcomplicated and abstract.

The only way to arrive at a more tacticaly rich version of 40k is with a complete re-write , using modern game mechanics and directly aplied stats.

A fully intergrated game turn allows players to determine the order of activation, and so initiative is a redundant factor.

Either alternating unit activation or alternating phases seem to be the most aprorpriate game turn mechanic .

Rather than adding extra modifiers to weapons damage why not simply deduct the armour value from the weapon damage value to arrive at the saving roll required?

EG Guardsman has a Amour value of 2.He is hit by a weapon with damage value of 7.
7-2 = 5.
He saves the hit on a 5+.

Ill attach my rough oultine for a new rule set.(Its still a WIP, so excuse typoes and copy-paste errors... )

See if there is anything you like ...

TTFN

orkylooter wrote:Advanced warhammer 40k that idea just makes me sick to my stomach it is already complicated enough

+1.

No other way to put it. This is just kind of a poor idea in the first place in my opinion.

Space Marines that move 4" a turn? No way.


What would be the point of close combat too if my Boltguns fired 72 inchs, Heavy Boltguns 108", and Missile Launchers 144.

A small game of 40k(1000-1500) takes about an hour. With this it would double the time. It's hard enough to finish apoc games as it is. Assualt armys get nerfed so bad, it's not even funny. Shorter movement, guns have a longer range, ect.

Sounds good for a kill team game but for a full blown 40k game it would make things very complicated and things would blatantly get forgotten

orkylooter wrote:Advanced warhammer 40k that idea just makes me sick to my stomach it is already complicated enough

+1

Eugh...The reason why i don't play WHFB.

I think you might be better off playing 2nd edition since thats kinda the direction your going anyway.

Lanrak wrote:Hi all.
I have to agree with orkylooter.
The current game of 40k is VERY overcomplicated and abstract.

The only way to arrive at a more tacticaly rich version of 40k is with a complete re-write , using modern game mechanics and directly aplied stats.

This. A thousand times this.

I was waiting for AT-43 to overtake 40k in popularity. In my opinion, the gameplay of AT-43 is far superior, flowing quicker, move fun, more involved, and more tactical than 40k. Its too bad that Rackham is, if it can be believed, even more incompetently managed than Games Workshop.

Nevertheless, I agree with the premise of making 40k a better game that plays faster and requires tactics more than, "charge into close combat and play Yahtzee."

What made 8th Edition Fantasy so great (well, one reason) is because is stream-lined gameplay. This just seems...to add a little more abstraction, and to me changing things that don't really cause problems is somewhat pointless.

Your rules do sound a fair bit like RT (the only other version I played).

As for Rakham, they've folded, haven't they? No new stuff from them.

Skinnereal wrote:As for Rakham, they've folded, haven't they? No new stuff from them.

Oh yeah, they're done. Like I said, they're even more incompetently managed than GW. My point was, though, that AT-43 was a better system than 40k.

You guys could save yourselves the trouble and go back to 2nd or 3rd ed. The rules are the way they are now because it took forever to account for everything that way. More abstraction in exchange for smoother gameplay.

Hi son of dorn.
40k has always had over complicated rules .
2nd ed was an over complicated detailed narrative driven skirmish game.(It had lots of character in the detail though.)
In 3rd ed 40k changed game type (skirmish to battle game ) , but STILL used the old WHFB game mechanics.
And as it still uses these inapropriate game mechanics, the need for ever more additional rules keeps on growing...(USRs , vehicle rules , codex special rules...)

Thats why the current game is so abstract, its using hatcheted and patched up Napoleonic game mechanics with modern unit types...

Rather like trying to use using the rules for golf in a game of football....

More modern rule sets achive far more gameplay with far les pages of rules.(Using the rules of football for a game of football!)

These have straightforward rules with complex game play.

40k is lumbered with complicated rules and simple gameplay.

TTFN