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Hi, I was looking at my daemons army one day. Noticed that they are all on round bases but magnetized onto movement trays for fantasy and it gave me an idea. What if we make a game that combines 40k and fantasy? I am not sure if this is possible or been attempted before and so was wondering what everyones thoughts on this is.
Here's what I thought:
Lore wise, it would be able to work since if the Daemons can crossover then maybe due to some warpstone powered portal (fantasy > 40K) or an army being sucked in and spat back out the warp (40K > fantasy) there could possibly be a battle that happens between two armies of different worlds. Also, since most of the armies from 40k are similar to a fantasy faction (blood angels to vampire counts, orks to orcs, ultramarines to empire, dark angels to britonnia) we can also say that they allied with their brothers from another world to bring down their common foes.
Gameplay wise though, is where I am worried as I know that some stuff won't be balanced (40Ks high strength and armour saves vs fantasy) but I figured that 40k stuff are stronger but have fewer models where as fantasy stuff are just hordes of troops marching into combat (it's like that article about a roman legion vs a platoon of Navy Seals). I think with some tweaks though, it should be doable? My biggest concern is which books rules do we base the game off of? Also, how should magic vs psychic powers work? Thirdly, what about rank n file vs all skirmishers. Fourthly, all 40K use large templates which would own fantasy stuff but fantasy stuff are all small templates. Then theres the problem of unbalanced points in the crossover. These are just some of the problems I thought of even though there are probably tons more out there. Please help point me in a direction and lets make this game together!!!

Could be interesting, here's another thought (and one I haven't put much time into actually thinking through).

What about if you played a fantasy army against a 40k one. Where, depending on who's turn it was you played from their rules set.

i.e. fantasy player's first turn, they move, magic, shoot and combat according to their rules (so modifiers to armour etc), then 40k players turn they use their rulebook

Triple_double_U wrote:
Could be interesting, here's another thought (and one I haven't put much time into actually thinking through).

What about if you played a fantasy army against a 40k one. Where, depending on who's turn it was you played from their rules set.

i.e. fantasy player's first turn, they move, magic, shoot and combat according to their rules (so modifiers to armour etc), then 40k players turn they use their rulebook

Hmm thats very interesting. It would all depend on how the different games interact with one another. But I feel that because that both games boils down to dice rolls that (as long as the points are make to be balanced) that it could very well work that way!

I feel fantasy would be at a disadvantage. 99% of all 40k units have ranged weapons that use a much better BS shooting mechanic. Not to mention most armies have better armour (3+ being the norm), unlike fantasy's 5+ armour save being the norm. The fantasy advantage would be CC, magic, marching and charge ranges

Triple_double_U wrote:
Could be interesting, here's another thought (and one I haven't put much time into actually thinking through).

What about if you played a fantasy army against a 40k one. Where, depending on who's turn it was you played from their rules set.

i.e. fantasy player's first turn, they move, magic, shoot and combat according to their rules (so modifiers to armour etc), then 40k players turn they use their rulebook

Seems interesting. It would be fun to find out the outcome

We used to do this a lot back in the '80s -- 1st edition 40k, and 3rd edition fantasy. Our rules were simple -- on the fantasy player's turn, fantasy rules apply. On the 40K player's turn, 40K rules apply.

Dwarves versus Imperial Guard artillery battles were great fun.

I can't imagine it would be much fun. Even if you straight use the fantasy rules (except for what USRs, etc. you'd need from 40k), everything in 40k would still cream everything in fantasy.

I mean, a space marine costs 13 points nowadays. You can't even buy two empire halberdiers for that, if I'm not mistaken. And that 13 point model gets a 3+ save, a 24" ranged weapon that's S4 (and, to represent Ap, let's say, armorbane), and 4's in the statline. And ATSKNF. And chapter tactics. And the option to take a flame template weapon, among a bunch of other options.

And that's just comparing basic infantry. I don't know how virtually anything in fantasy would handle a leman russ tank. I don't know how any fantasy army would anything but just straight lose against missileside tau.

The end result would be, well, what you'd expect to be for a highly technologically advanced society fighting against a bunch of spearmen - a massacre, even at very long odds.

Yeah I know what you mean. 40k being predominantly high saves, high strength, high range etc. However, I feel that if you use fantasy rules during the fantasy turns then S5 stuff can start to cut down some of their armour saves so once they are in combat, I feel that fantasy has their supporting attacks, fighty lords and heroes that can maybe turn the tides? Also, magic from fantasy is a lot stronger than psychic phase in 40k and in 40k, you get what? deny the witch rolls? I think that if you count magic, S4+ armour pens, rank and file/combat res/overrun, supporting attacks, higher model count, certain armies could potentially put up a fight against some 40k lists. The only thing is FLYERS!!!!!

Weren't the 2nd Ed stats largely directly transferable to fantasy? I know the Chaos Cult rules would easily cover using fantasy troops in the old 40k.

@Ailaros, I think you're underestimating the way the game would play out, and the overall difference that 40k models would face in a fantasy setting. There are several areas, though, where there is a definite issue, as some mechanics are unique to one system.

The first obvious issue comes from vehicles. There is no AV mechanic in fantasy, and as such, there is no ruling ability on how to deal with vehicle armour. That isn't to say it can't be dealt with in theory, but a rule would need to be created. An elegant solution would be to take the highest armour value of the vehicle (typically the front), and half it (rounding up). This new value represents the vehicles toughness for fantasy. If the vehicle is a tank, add +1 to the value. It maintains an appropriate level of difficulty for fantasy to deal with (a landraider, for example, would be toughness 7 + 1 for being a tank, for a massive toughness of 8). Next, there would need to be a method for determining how to actually damage the vehicle. I'm of the opinion that a vehicle cannot be damaged by anything with a strength more than 2 less than its toughness. As an example, to actually damage the landraider (T8), an attack of S6 or more would be required. Just an idea, but you get where it's going. As for how to actually work out how the vehicle is damaged, that's another matter entirely.

Now for a 40k issue, there is no magic in 40k. There are psykers, true, but they are not wizards. They know nothing of the lores of magic, and as such have no ability to sway the winds of magic. This effectively renders 40k armies without wizards and magic, and by contrast, fantasy armies without psykers. I'd propose you treat it exactly like that. 40k players count as an army without wizards for channeling, casting, and dispel purposes. Fantasy players count as never having a psyker in any unit for the purpose of deny the witch rolls. This means 40k players will still get dispel dice (as that rule is present in the fantasy rulebook), and fantasy units may still deny the witch on a 6+ (as that is from the 40k rulebook).

Another interesting point of contention is going to come not from point values, but army deployment. Each system uses completely different methods for choosing sides, who deploys first, how you deploy, and who goes first (or attempts to go first). This would come down to personal preference I think, but a not so elegant and simple solution would be just to roll off, and the winning player can choose which system will be used. I'd add in that whoever has fewer total units receives a plus 1 to this roll.

As for the actual points values...well that is a bit tricky. However, I think history of the two games can help us with this issue. Simply put, I see it going one of two ways. Each rulebook lists a different value for an "escalation" of armies (not the supplement). For 40k, it comes at 2000 points with an altered force organization chart. For fantasy, it comes at 3000 points, also altering the limits on army unit selections and overall unit amounts. This would lead to the mathematical, and logical, assumption that for every 2 points spent on the 40k army, the fantasy army spends 3; i.e, the points ration for 40k/fantasy is 2/3, respectively.

The second method would come from selecting the most common and widely used points levels for the two gaming systems. This would, arguably, be 1850 for 40k, and 2400 for fantasy. As the ratio is more complicated, it is not my preferred choice, but that would leave a 40k/fantasy points ratio of 37/48 (which is VERY close to 3/4).

For damage dealing, 40k continues to use their ap value and other rules to determine what saves, if any, are permitted. Fantasy will use the strength and special rules of their weapons, thus applying armour penalties to whomever is wounded. A point of note is cover. As fantasy players do not get cover saves, and 40k players do not modify shooting rolls to hit, we have another issue. I would argue that both systems should be used, but inversely. Fantasy player units are alowed to take cover saves, 40k are not. Fantasy shooting units will have modifiers to hit with shooting attacks as normal (long range, moved, multiple shots, etc.). This provides a compromise, as it helps balance the two together. 40k shooting is, arguably, more powerful than fantasy. This allowed fantasy units to have a bit more resilience, while not making their attacks anymore powerful; overall a buff to fantasy without a major debuff to 40k (lots of things ignore cover anyway).

40k will still be limited to only armour OR invulnerable, and can use FnP as normal with the usual restrictions (don't even think about FnP'g that cannonball on your plague marines face). Fantasy will maintain their armour AND ward or regen save ability, with the normal restrictions. No regen from flamer templates and such.

There are still more issues to address, but I think that's a good amount to get the ball rolling beyond just an idea. Feel free to comment\modify what I've listed, and\or add in some thoughts of your own!

the above makes cannons even better at killing tanks then monsters. Causing D6 wounds is a big benefit of not just cannons, but anything that causes multiple wounds.
Having said that, the alternative (Instant Death) would be helpful for killing characters, but not so much with monsters

It's still not close, though. Yes, cannons do D6 wounds, but 40k has monstrous creatures with a rerollable 2++. Yes, S5 weapons would reduce a marine's armor save to 5+, but that marine gets an empire handgun that fires twice per turn and isn't bound by move or fire, and is BS4. And can take three flame thrower template weapons per unit. And that's marines.

What happens when you face against tau, and they ignore the penalty for shooting into cover, up their ballistic skill and fire 78 S7 missiles per turn into your army? What happens when you face against guard and instead of facing up against up to two empire mortars, you face off against up to three manticores firing up to 9 S10 large blast weapons per turn?

The problem is that close combat is useless and pointless in 40k because the game wants to pretend it doesn't exist by how powerful it makes shooting. Even with the ballistic skill penalties of fantasy, it would be tough for an army to even make it into close combat. Well, tougher, because things move more slowly and wear less armor.

Let's not kid ourselves, it would be...




Except the guardsman firing the twin-linked S5 20-shot weapon from the vulture gunship wouldn't be quite so teary-eyed.

The only way I could see this work is space-hulk style. Or by having a gross mismatch in points, like 5 terminators against 2000 points of fantasy stuff.

However we're not looking at this as the best possible lists from each system battling it out for supremacy.
Its just a lively debate about how the two systems would work against each other.
In saying as much would the shear numbers (and higher movement) in a fantasy army be able to pull down a 40k one once combat was reached?

The major issue would be 40k vehicles, who work far too differently to anything in the fantasy ruleset.
The closest to a vehicle fantasy gets is the steamtank and that's pretty much a chariot with fancy rules.

As a note about vehicles, monstrous creatures, etc - fantasy still does the "6s always wound" thing, while 40k doesnt. And 40k vehicles don't have armour saves (although perhaps they should all just have a 2+ save as a standard rule)

This could be done but house rules would have to be the order of the day.
Way back when, ('80s) there were rules for including Space Marines in WHFB.
The whole idea is not too far fetched, if you subscribe to the idea that the Warhammer World is actually a forgotten Knight World, (a planet seeded by a nearby forge world) which has a warp gate stuck somewhere near it's north pole. It possibly has another gate in the Ogre Kingdoms (Great Maw). The scenario of the planet being rediscovered after being inaccessable for millenia and probed by scouts from (insert favorite race here) could be fun.

I've only ever played 40k, but reas alot of fantasy reports.

I like the idea of it, there are tons of ways this could happen (fluffwise). I like the idea of magic not being influenced by psykers, as in, they are two different forces.

I think it would take some setting up rules wise, but if you play it with common sense, there's no reason why it couldn't work.

I don't think it would work fluffwise anymore. The universes used to pretty much connected to each other, but GW has since made the two universes very distinct from each other.
There are just too much unexplainable differences between the two universes to just say that WHFB is a planet in the 40k universe.

The only explanation I can see is that both universes are located in different dimensions and that someone has somehow discovered a portal between them. (perhaps created by the Old Ones?)

But you could certainly play the two game systems together.
I have done so a few times, and it can be lots of fun. The main problem as mentioned before are the vehicles. In my game, we included only infantry, so it was not a problem, but if you would want to include them, you would need to come up with a few good house rules to make them work.

Or it could be that they're connected through the warp, it's already a dimension of pure chaos who knows to where else it may connect to.
And all the same chaos powers seem to be present in both universes.

You can make a fluff reason for anything I guess. But there are one zillion threads in YMTC within just one game. I can't imagine trying to make 2 very different games work. It would be like suddenly adding the Pokemon Phase to the game. Might work better if you were really drunk.

I have been a little bit curious on one fact...where are these fights taking place? Did the 40k peeps slip through a wormhole to the past, or did the Fantasy peeps embark on a time machine to the future? Did 40k units stumble upon the fantasy world? Did both get sucked into a completely new realm seperate from both the 40k and fantasy world?

Even back when the two games where related they occurred simultaneously rather than being two points on the same timeline.
Way back then the WHFB world was a planet somewhere in the chaos realms.

Wow those are some great points. I think that cannons being able to kill tanks as well as monsters is fair because otherwise there would beno reliable way to take them off the board also, if a cannon can kill a blood thirster (great chaos god) in one or two shots then it should be able to kill a landraider. I think it would work fluff wise as well because the shots are maybe enchanted with magic or rune power? Like because 40K is more shooty than fantasy, they have no reason to advance other than to charge really. So therefore it puts more pressure on them to move up and e aggressive. I personally think Rsvenwing will do really will and will be OP because they can charge and then break off combat and charge the soft squishes behind the mainline. The fantasys unwieldiness will be their biggest downfall I reckon. As for flyers, I think that anything with the flying special rule should count as being a "flyer" in 40k terms.

I think more than half the armies can't take cannons. One of the cool things about WHFB over 40K is there is no required set of items. In 40K you MUST take AV or you will simply be unable to kill enemy vehicles whatsoever. Snotlings can kill a Bloodthirster. It would take a lot...but they can. You need to retain the concept of Everything Is Killable that is the cornerstone of WHFB. Which is why armor saves and toughness come in.

You could avg the (2)3 save values for the vehicle and turn it into armor. A LR is 14/14/14 as I recall. So if you peg that at 1+, then that's your starting point. Like 13/13/13 would be 2+ or 3+, whatever. Though 1+ is awful high for the commonality of vehicles. I would also link it to the point value of the vehicle.

Affter working through some preleminary numbers, I've come to the conclusion that it would be best to simply adapt one of the systems to fit into the other. As fantasy is still capable of maintaining some semblance of internal balance and sense when it comes to its basic rules (movement, combat, etc), I think it would work best to mold the 40k models into the fantasy ruleset, instead of the other way around.

The main reason for this comes from how and why the 40k universe is more lax on certain aspects, and fantasy is more strict. The game can be very quickly broken if 100 skaven slaves have to maintain 2" coherency; in one fell swoop, a 200 point unit has covered the entire board. Not to mention allowing fantasy units to charge in any direction at any time.

By contrast, forcing 40k units into the fantasy mindset for movement, charging, and shooting is quite manageable. To maintain their generally superior ranged ability, I'd look at increasing every 40k units BS by 1 (one) to accomodate the more common modifiers in fantasy without having an ill effect. So a space marine, by default, would fire a bolter with BS5. At half range, he would fire two shots and suffer a -1, at long ranges he would shoot 1 shot and suffer a -1, but he still hits the target on a 3+ for standard situations.

Weapon strength and rules would need little modification. Take a bolter for example. Its S4, AP5. Is that any different than a fantasy weapon which is S4 and armour piercing? Not really. The only difference is that 40k players will start to see their armour rolls get modified, something they aren't used to at all. I think that will be a welcome change.

Converting vehicle armour to toughness will, again, be a tricky bit of business. Using the landraider as the benchmark for "toughest shell to crack" is a great idea though. Something like 1+ armour is a good start. I'd go so far as to say it can reroll it, and would give the beasty at least 8 wounds. Something like a venom, by contrast, I would think has something like 4 wounds, has a 4+ armour save and a 5+ ward save, and is T5. One is super durable and can take a beating, the other is quick and agile, but frail and won't last long.

 Aipoch wrote:
Affter working through some preleminary numbers, I've come to the conclusion that it would be best to simply adapt one of the systems to fit into the other. As fantasy is still capable of maintaining some semblance of internal balance and sense when it comes to its basic rules (movement, combat, etc), I think it would work best to mold the 40k models into the fantasy ruleset, instead of the other way around.

The main reason for this comes from how and why the 40k universe is more lax on certain aspects, and fantasy is more strict. The game can be very quickly broken if 100 skaven slaves have to maintain 2" coherency; in one fell swoop, a 200 point unit has covered the entire board. Not to mention allowing fantasy units to charge in any direction at any time.

By contrast, forcing 40k units into the fantasy mindset for movement, charging, and shooting is quite manageable. To maintain their generally superior ranged ability, I'd look at increasing every 40k units BS by 1 (one) to accomodate the more common modifiers in fantasy without having an ill effect. So a space marine, by default, would fire a bolter with BS5. At half range, he would fire two shots and suffer a -1, at long ranges he would shoot 1 shot and suffer a -1, but he still hits the target on a 3+ for standard situations.

Weapon strength and rules would need little modification. Take a bolter for example. Its S4, AP5. Is that any different than a fantasy weapon which is S4 and armour piercing? Not really. The only difference is that 40k players will start to see their armour rolls get modified, something they aren't used to at all. I think that will be a welcome change.

Converting vehicle armour to toughness will, again, be a tricky bit of business. Using the landraider as the benchmark for "toughest shell to crack" is a great idea though. Something like 1+ armour is a good start. I'd go so far as to say it can reroll it, and would give the beasty at least 8 wounds. Something like a venom, by contrast, I would think has something like 4 wounds, has a 4+ armour save and a 5+ ward save, and is T5. One is super durable and can take a beating, the other is quick and agile, but frail and won't last long.

I think you are VERY right on this. There is a lot of things that fantasy stuff can exploit if brought to 40K (especially 5th edition could you imagine WOUND ALLOCATIONS!?!?!) I am starting to make a basic transfer and doing some basic play testing between the armies that I have (DE, Vamps, WOC, Orcs, Orks, DA, Blood Angels) and so far, I found that if played so that the players use their games rules for their turns, RW+DW army has so far been unbeatable. They are far too gimmicky and their gimmickiness of (status grenades, concussive bombs of stat manipulations and their deep strike, ability to hit & run and such have proven too hard for the fantasy armies to handle). Even my multi-tournament winning Dark Elves cheese list lost badly to them! On the other hand, I feel that we need to somehow make it so flyers don't die to simple ballistic shooting of repeater crossbows because 30 Dark Elf repeater crossbowmen could reliably take out a flyer a turn! I think there needs to be more tweaks and when I find out more I will post here and hopefully come up with a set of rules that is fair but for now gotta do more testings!

VostroyanFirstClass wrote:
Lore wise, it would be able to work since if the Daemons can crossover then maybe due to some warpstone powered portal (fantasy > 40K) or an army being sucked in and spat back out the warp (40K > fantasy) there could possibly be a battle that happens between two armies of different worlds.

An old theory thrown around was that the WHF world exists in the 40k universe in some sort of Warp pocket dimension or something like that. I mean...Sigmar could be a lost primarch

I always pictured Fantasy as in the past and 40k as the future rather than fantasy as just a primitive planet in the same time. So daemons could be in both places cause time isn't relevant in the Warp.

Just my two cents. ^_^

 HoverBoy wrote:
Or it could be that they're connected through the warp, it's already a dimension of pure chaos who knows to where else it may connect to.
And all the same chaos powers seem to be present in both universes.

Jervis Johnson and Blanche have stated on several occasions that the two universes are separate.

(Now that I'm trying to find a quote I can't! )

 Coldhatred wrote:

 HoverBoy wrote:
Or it could be that they're connected through the warp, it's already a dimension of pure chaos who knows to where else it may connect to.
And all the same chaos powers seem to be present in both universes.

Jervis Johnson and Blanche have stated on several occasions that the two universes are separate.

(Now that I'm trying to find a quote I can't! )

They aren't now, but they used to be.
Besides the warp is chaotic, who knows if it doesn't to link to multiple universes.