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Have you looked into "Beyond the Gates of Antares" Reportedly it's pretty much Bolt Action plus rules for sci-fi stuff. Might be up your alley.

 Swastakowey wrote:
When does it come out?
Because I think the current rules will work fine with a bit of work.

The beta rules are free right now. You just have to sign up at their forum. I signed up and had a look at the rules. They looked good, and nicely done, but just a smidge more crunchy than my preference. Not that it's over-complicated, -it looks much better than 40k- I just like uber-streamlined ruleset and can tell pretty quick when a ruleset isn't what I'm looking for.

It really looks like a good ruleset that fans of Bolt Action will really like.

Swastakowey wrote:How well do you think it could translate with 40k themed armies etc?
Or will we be doing something similar to the above regardless of the ruleset?

I think it will be pretty easy to find weapon equivalents and even some unit equivalents. You will still have to do some house ruling, but I think the beneift is that it's going to have alot more sci-fi elements spelled out so you'll be doing ALOT less homebrewing.

PM me if you need the rules...

AllSeeingSkink wrote:How about using 2nd edition rules with bolt action style activations and something else for close combat?

2nd edition 40k would probably be a step backwards from Bolt Action or Gates of Antares. If you have a familiarity or good memories of the rules, it could be fun to try, but it's a more complex system than Bolt Action or current edition 40k. If you stick with platoon size battles, and no magic or vehicles, it's pretty workable, but beyond that, complexity adds up FAST in 2nd edition 40k. (example: When your jump marines land, you roll scatter for each marine individually). I've got all the 2nd ed rulebooks and codicies, but when I went back and played the rules a couple years ago the rose colored nostalgia glasses fell away it quickly became clear why there was a 3rd edition for bigger battles.

If you do decide to try 2nd edition rules, I'd recommend getting the 3 starter books (Rulebook, Wargear, and Codex Imperialis) and army list booklet and trying those first before adding anything else. Maybe all this is in the battle bible.

marlowc wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
[quote=Swastakowey 619855 7294082 d282662e866c5650ad9d62acbd344f68.jpg
The beta rules are free right now. You just have to sign up at their forum. I signed up and had a look at the rules. They looked good, and nicely done, but just a smidge more crunchy than my preference. Not that it's over-complicated, -it looks much better than 40k- I just like uber-streamlined ruleset and can tell pretty quick when a ruleset isn't what I'm looking for.

Have you had a look at the 40K skirmish type game Cosmic Dust, off boardgamegeek : http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/106825/cosmic-dust-rules

It is very straightforward and streamlined, though being an alternating activation system doesn't have the feel of marshaling and commanding a big army in set-piece battle like the main 40K game.

I haven't. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

Right now I'm pretty happy with "In The Emperor's Name" 2nd edition ( http://thegamesshed.wordpress.com/2011/07/02/in-the-emperors-name/ ) as a really easy to play fan-made skirmish game set in the 40k universe.

For bigger games, I have Shockforce/Warengine for platoon level and Warpath 1.0 for really big games.

Necro is definitely a good game and now that I have a gang painted up, it's something I hope to play again soon.

ITEN is nice when you want to play other factions without much house-ruling in a casual game, especially if you're into inquisitor-like settings. The Retinues document has stats for virtually every 40k Faction from RT through today.

It's aimed at quick mini-campaigns by playing through the Campaigns book which links games into a story arc.