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My Wife and I had our first game of the system at 2k Points. Death Guard(me) vs Adepta Sororitas. Wife has only played 9e and 10e, but she said it was the most fun she has had playing Warhammer. We played with just straight alternating activation, but are going to play with tokens in our second game. We did Take and Hold and purely played based on the mission VP, but over the course of the game (and looking through some indexes), some questions did arise.

1) How is capturing, contesting, and holding objectives handled? I understand Standard/Troops all get Objective Secured unless a rule states otherwise (Poxwalkers for example), but I did not seem to find any specific rules involving objectives in the English Core rules nor the Mission supplement.

2) Charging - How we played it is the unit moved it's distance (Eg. 6"/12"), made any shooting attacks with applicable weapons, then made a 6" Pile-in move if they were in range to do so. Is this correct?
2a) If a unit charges a unit who has already activated ((eg. Move & Shoot), does the previously activated unit get to fight in melee? We played it as a previously activated unit could not fight back for the couple of times it happened.

3) In indexes there are some weapons that have STR: U while others have STR: T. I assume that the STR: T is a leftover from translation?
3a) Poxwalkers in the Death Guard codex have an untranslated weapon. Not a huge deal but I figured I would point it out.

4) World Eaters - A few units have the Berserker keyword, but I cannot find anywhere where Berserker is defined.

5) Any plans for the Daemon Primarchs or a template to make one in the Lord of War section?
5a) Any plans for a Telemon Dreadnought for Custodes?

Sorry for the barrage of questions, and if we missed something while going through the rules. I want to say as a older school player sitting down at the table and building a list with a calculator and a piece of paper brought me back to my highschool days. Everything about the game flowed very well, and it was nice not having to worry about 17 different auras and rerolls and command points etc. I really appreciate everything you have created here and I look forward to playing more with my wife and trying to bring back some old friends of mine to try it out as well.

I'm glad to hear that you and your wife both enjoyed the first game!

Onto your questions:
1) You are correct that this part is never explained explicitly anywhere (anymore). I guess we never noticed it, as how it works was always explained during the introduction games. I added a paragraph about it under the "Victory Points" section in the "Missions" document. Basically you have to be within 3" of the mission objective while no enemy is within the same distance to the objective you want to capture or hold. As soon as one enemy model is within 3" of the same objective, it counts as being contested. This is regardless of things like the enemy's unit size. Only if a rule states that a unit could not contest (f.e. Drop Pods) or the unit in question got two Battleshock tokens (=> counts as fleeing) would it not interfer with you holding the objective. If you move outside of that radius with any non Troops unit, the control is lost.

2) Yes, that is correct. Before you do your 6" pile-in, though, the chosen target for the charge is allowed to use a Defensive reaction (=> Defensive fire) if they have not been activated in this round, yet. The target of your charge does not have to be the same unit as the one that you shot at.

2a) If an activated unit has not fought in melee for this battle round yet, it may still do so if it gets charged after its own activation. It can only do this once, though. Note that the unit counts as having fought in melee regardless of how the melee was resolved. In some funny (albeit weird) situations a psyker with a higher initiative may roast his own brains before your lower initiative models could strike back, ending the melee prematurely. I added a FAQ at the end of the core rules section to cover this situation.

3) Yes, that is a mistake on my part. U = user, which translates to T = Träger in German. I corrected entries I could find for Death Guard.

3a) Corrected!

4) That is supposed to be "Berserk(5+)". I corrected all entries I could find for World Eaters.

5) At some point they will be added as "generic" entries, similar to the "Dynasty Phaeron" for Necrons. Though in all honesty I'm not sure when I will get around to do them, as LoW are not my highest priority. Currently I'm working to make psychic powers more interesting and balanced between each other.

5a) Just added it!


Thank you very much for all of your feedback! Let me know if anything else is unclear or if new things come up in your future games. I hope your friends will enjoy it as well!

The game continues to be finetuned and expanded, so here are the highlights since my last post:

- Re-work of all existing psychic powers. They are more in line with each other now across factions and generic psychic disciplines offer a more interesting alternative to army specific ones.
- Charging units may now select +1 Initiative instead of +1 Attack as their charge bonus; likewise charged units that are eligible to a "Defensive Reaction" may select to either use "Defensive Fire" or "Hold your ground" (to negate any potential charge bonus). This opens up the possibility for low(er) Initiative units to reach or beat the ever so important "4" in Initiative.
- Chaos Demons were finally championed (heh..) and taken for a few more invasions on the mortal realm. They turned out a bit too strong despite only bringing (demon)knives to a gunfight. Their special rule "Demonic instability" has been re-evaluated consequently, which led to smaller Demons going slightly up in points across the board.
- Tau are a very strong army in the hands of an experienced player. Some of their stronger Sept features and Commander/Crisis weapons have seen a slight toning down to accomodate.
- A few couple more wargear options for Dark Eldar, Inquisition, Necrons and Space Marines.

We started having some games via Tabletop Simulator on Steam as well. If anybody is interested to get an introduction game, feel free to PM me!

Hello, I came across your custom rules by chance. I lie the mix bewteen old rules with a bit of fresh air
Is there a discord to make it easier to give feedback?

Hey there!

Sorry for the late reply, I've been away from my PC for some time due to personal reasons.

You can find me on Discord under the handle "atypicalhero". If you want to I can invite you to our local server afterwards.

So far, I like this, it has many ideas I was thinking about for making my own "custom 40k" , some things are slightly different, but different people come up with different ideas, I'll keep studying the rules and missions and whatnot

Thank you!

Let me know your feedback after reading through everything. If you want to, we can have an introduction game via Tabletop Simulator as well.

Just because I'm not posting regularely here does not mean the game isn't getting updates.

The highlights since the last post:
- Tank Shock is now in the game.
- "Hold your ground" and "Take cover" were added as additional Defensive reactions (alongside "Overwatch")
- Space Marine Honor Guard and CSM Chosen are now able to pick a specialisation like Sanguine Guard.
- Emperor's Children have been added to the game.

^ After seeing the small amount of new kits as well as the preview for DG, TS and WE, I decided to roll the cult legions back into the regular CSM codex. It works similar to 3.5 edition and gives those players much more model options to play around with. EC are the first legion to come back into the fold, while others will soon follow.

I post all of the (smaller) adjustments on Discord if anybody is interested.

This is a good set of rules and I enjoyed reading them. The new vehicle chart is interesting, like a blend of classic and modern. I've felt that the classic method throughout the sets was too absolute on the damages so I like this more gradual damaging. The orders system seem also very interesting, not my style as I like instant activation, not preordained, but I think refined, can be a fun method of activation for Warhammer and other game systems. I could imagine the short-term strategic elements could make great guessing games as players speculate how their opponent will use their action. I've haven't went super deep but actions that reveal face down orders can be really neat.

Fyi, on the ally charts, LoV is yellow towards Eldar but Eldar is red towards LoV. Also I would use acronyms and short forms for the headers/army names, the full names don't warp properly with the table and I don't think you want to change the margins. If you are afraid that people won't know what the acronyms and short forms are, just have a legends on top of the table with the full name.

Thank you for your feedback!

The system would work well enough if you just activate a unit without locking it into a specific order first. You lose out a bit on the tactical gambling in some situations, but the overall balance and feel should stay about the same.

So if you don't like that specific aspect, just change it to your liking and give it a try!

Acronyms sound like a good idea for the chart, I'll update the table accordingly soonish.

 a_typical_hero wrote:
Thank you for your feedback!

The system would work well enough if you just activate a unit without locking it into a specific order first. You lose out a bit on the tactical gambling in some situations, but the overall balance and feel should stay about the same.

So if you don't like that specific aspect, just change it to your liking and give it a try!

Acronyms sound like a good idea for the chart, I'll update the table accordingly soonish.

Definitely will try to give it a try. I'm gonna read more over it and try some games.

Awesome System.
I have played this System for quite a while now and love the changes! Espacially the new Rules for vehicles feel very good and oldschool - I hate the fact , that you can destroy Tanks with everything in the current Edition.

I played mostly Sororitas and the "Act of Faith" System makes this Faction quite flexible and a blast to play.



Modern 40k was quite frustrating (Alpha Strike, strange Listbuilding, your Tanks getting destroyed by the emperors torchlight) and i switched completly to Custom40k.

Since my last post, a few people have reached out to me on Discord to talk about the game. A recurring topic has been how new players often start with smaller point sizes and focus mainly on simply defeating the opponent.

While it makes sense to leave out some of the "extra rules" when first learning a new system, it's important to note that the game isn’t well-balanced at lower point levels (1000–1500 points, i.e. Skirmish) if you're using the full army roster with all options. Similarly, perceptions of balance between factions can easily become distorted when playing without a mission—for example, when a melee-focused army runs into a gunline.

To address this, the Mission Supplement includes guidelines for smaller games and tailored missions for various point sizes. I strongly recommend using it—it’s a key component in maintaining balance within the game.

On the rules front, all Chaos Cult armies have now been fully integrated into the main Chaos Space Marines codex. Also, the international community Discord server is now live! Come join us to discuss the game with fellow enthusiasts from around the world.

EatYourVeggies wrote:
Awesome System.
I have played this System for quite a while now and love the changes! Espacially the new Rules for vehicles feel very good and oldschool - I hate the fact , that you can destroy Tanks with everything in the current Edition.

I played mostly Sororitas and the "Act of Faith" System makes this Faction quite flexible and a blast to play.

Modern 40k was quite frustrating (Alpha Strike, strange Listbuilding, your Tanks getting destroyed by the emperors torchlight) and i switched completly to Custom40k.

Thank you for your feedback! I'm glad to read that you are enjoying the game so much!