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It seems that many people are searching ways to make their game of 40K more balanced and friendlier to a more competitive mindset. While me and my gaming group never were great fans of the tournament scene or even of competitive gaming (we are more into narrative campaign and special homemade scenario), we did developped a system of simple house rule to make games a little bit more competitive for a change of air. Since I thought it was pretty simple to implement and rather successful, I thought I could share it with the rest of you in hope it could help some or that some of you could share your own thoughts on it so it can be improved. The system was designed for games of around 1500 points in mind. Here it goes.

Army selection requirements

1) No formation (or super formations like Eldar Warhost and Decurion formation) allowed, no unbound list, classic FOC and alternatives ones (like Orks, Dark Eldar and Blood Angels, etc.) accepted and their basic requirements must be met. It's forbidden to take more than one detachment if bellow 2500 pts.
2) Each army must have at least 30% of it's points on troop choices excluding any dedicated transport for them
3) Each army must have at least one HQ choices (unless the army has no HQ choices available like Skitarii or Harlequins)
4) Only HQ choices can have a Warlord trait (unless Harlequin or Skitarii)
5) For each elite, fast attack, heavy support, HQ choices selected, each army most have twice more troop choices (exemple: if you want to have two squads of Space Marine terminator, you need at least four squads of tactical or scout marine. Those four troop choices would basically allow you to take two choices of all the other types of unit)
6) Each army is limited to one piece of fortification that's worth no more than 10% of it's total points
7) No special characters in games of less than 1850 points
8) No superheavies or Gargantuan Monstruous Creatures in games of less than 2500 pts and limited to 1 if bellow 3000 pts
9) No allies allowed with the following exceptions: Tempestus Scions, Skitarii, Harlequins and Imperial Knights.
10) The Eldar Special addition: special weapons on jetbikes are limited to one for three jetbikes, scatter laser are 15 pts
11) Farsight Enclave supplement can only be used in games of 2000 pts or more

Rules modifications

1) Warlord traits are selected not roled (if a special character or an artefact confers more than one warlord trait, select one and role the rest)
2) Chaos Boons are selected and the Spawn and daemon Prince options are removed. Chaos Boons obtained before the battle start are still rolled randomly.
3) Maelstrom cards that are completly impossible (like casting a psychic power if your list has no psyker) are discarted and redrawn. In case of doubt (exemple: destroying a unit with shooting with an army of tyranid with no guns, or destroying a unit in close combat with a pure tau army) the card can be discarded and redrawn with the permission of the opponent (complete veto, AKA no means no).
4) Scenarios and deployement are rolled normaly
5) Challenges are removed. All Special rule affecting a character in challenge (Exemple: Lelith and Lucius duelist talent) now affect them for the first round of any combat. Chaos Space Marine characters win boons if their unit destroy an ennemy unit in close combat.
6) Charge range is 6 inches and 9 inches for unit with fleet or crusader (12 for hormagaunt, banshees, ruststalker and other units that run or charge an extra 3 inches).
7)The ere we go special rule is modified so that when the Waaagh! is called all model with that rule would charge as per the new house rule (so 9 inches considering they gain fleet if I am not wrong). Then need to make a roll of 10 or more on three dice (picking the two highest) to gain Hammer of Wrath.
7) Invisibility now makes all ennemy unit taking the invisible unit as target in close combat or shooting round WS and BS 1 against that single unit. Blast and template weapons can be used against invisible units.
8) Rerollable save of 2+ now work as a 2+/4+ armor save (exemple: unit with 2+ rerollable armor save roll two ones. Those ones are rerolled if they hit 4+ the save is succesfull)

Ideal terrain requirements

1) standard boards
2) heavy cover (more than 6 pieces of cover) and at least one line of sight bloking terrain (recommended 2)
3) at least one dangerous terrain

So now an Eldar player can choose the D3 Infiltrate Warlord Trait and Infiltrate 3-9 D Cannons within Range for first turn.


Basically, comp and army construction like this only causes other imbalances and is punitive to codices that do not have strong troops, etc. For instance, Eldar become stronger as they have phenomenal troops and great units in every FOC slot whereas armies like DA get hit even harder.

I think there are better ways to go about it, and I'm mulling over putting one up. Basically some blanken rules changes, ie downgrading battle brothers, eliminating 2+/2++ Rerollable, Summoning, Invisibility, setting limits for Flyers and FMCs, and use of GC/SH, and then doing codex specific errata. Just little bumps the the worst units, little nerfs to the too good units.

I see this as the only way to effectively balance 40k to any meaningful extant. No blanket changes are going to do it.

I'm not looking at codex rewrites, but altering unit costs, some wargear costs, and a few special rules or weapon profiles to balance things out.

40k has its biggest problems at the Codex level in terms of balance.

What about Skitarii or Harlequins? They don't have any HQ choices.

If you get to choose your warlord trait, what's to stop everybody from just picking Master of Ambush or another of the few really good warlord traits?

Same sort of deal with boons. Picking Chaos boons seems really powerful. Now they can spend 15 points and just get a big buff of their choice? They'll simply choose the most potent one every single time, there's no longer a need for a variety of selections.

Making charge range a flat six inches means you have to change a LOT of other rules. What about 'ere we go's reroll? Is that buff simply lost? Not to mention the tactical objective/other bonuses Orks can get for getting a 10" or better charge roll. And that's only a few off the top of my head; other armies have similar mechanics that need to be accounted for with this change.

If you can select scenario and deployment, why wouldn't you always pick the scenario and deployment that is best for your army?

Removing challenges means removing a lot of flavour from characters like Black Templars, and simultaneously making characters that are good duelists hilariously powerful when you can't tank them with another character. My nob with a power klaw is going to buzzsaw through units of guys instead of getting punked by the guy with the storm shield.

Scat bikes get a debuff, but no word on invisibility, or units with rerollable 2+ saves? Where do you draw the line for "balance"?

Small correction -Eldar cannot choose d3 warlord traits then infiltrate d3 units.

Only Asurmen gets D3 traits, and IIRC, those have to be on the Eldar table. The Infiltrate trait is in the BRB.

Bharring wrote:
Small correction -Eldar cannot choose d3 warlord traits then infiltrate d3 units.

Only Asurmen gets D3 traits, and IIRC, those have to be on the Eldar table. The Infiltrate trait is in the BRB.

No correction, I clearly said that the Eldar player chooses Master of Ambush as their Warlord Trait. No mention of a d3 traits at all.

Skitarii and Harlequin have access to their own FOC. We handle them by establishing that after filling all the mandatory slots, they would follow the new rules for unit selection. Their warlord must be selected from troops choices (Skitarii) and elite choices (harlequins).

Picking Chaos Boon seems very powerful on paper, but on the table, it's not that bad. Since you can't have twice the same boon, it reduce a bit the overall efficency of that boost. If you are bying mutation for a free role you still role (should have precised that).

For ere we go special rule we decided that when the Waaagh! is called all model with that rule would charge as per the new house rule (so 9 inches considering they gain fleet if I am not wrong). Then a roll of three dice of 10 or more (picking the two highest) would determine if the unit would also gain Hammer of Wrath.

Your opponent must agree on the scenario and deployment so unless he is a rookie or an idiot, he will recognise the advantage and propose anothr kind of scenario or deployement method. If you cannot come to a compromise quickly you can do two thing. One, you can decide not to play with that persons because you are obviously not in the mood to play. Two, you can still roll randomly.

Forgot invisibility and special character with d3 warlord traits. You can see the modification on the top of the page.

Oops. I may be a bit Asurmen-obsessed.

(Sorry!)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Epron,
For Harlequins, fluffwise, the Warlord is much more likely to be a Troops choice (Troop Master) than an Elite choice.

Also, wouldn't WS/BS1 make more sense for Invis? Its basically super-blind?
(And the Harlie power should get the same change)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for picking boons, how are people going to handle DPs of Tzeech picking +1 Armor save, for a 2+ rerollable?

Less troubling, but still problematic, is Asurmen picking Fates Messenger for a 2+ rerollable armor save?

If it's intended to be used in a competitive environment, then by necessity each player is going to pick the deployment and scenario best suited to their army. If it's going to degenerate to a dice off anyhow, why bother having the choice rule at all?

Same deal with the warlord traits and chaos boons. If it's going to be the same choice every time, why even have the tables at all? Make it a straight bonus and be done with it, or improve other options to offer a real choice, or don't change it.

@Zagman

For the scouting D-Canon, it's indeed a very powerful strategie, but there is ways to counter it rather easily and can be risky at some point. Don't forget that your ennemy can also choose his favorite warlord trait. Plus, it's not like that strategie wasn't already available to eldar players right now.

@Jambles

Which army as acces to reroll armor dave of 2+. I must admit I have never seen such an ability on the table before.

CSM DPs with Demon of Tzeech that roll the improve-armor-save-by-one boon. A player that moved away got it as a purchased boon in almost every game.

Asurmen has a reasonable chance (sub 50%) of getting reroll 1s, giving him a 2+ rerollable. He hits at S5 and is T4 W3, so he's not that big a deal.

Any other Phoenix Lord under the effects of Fortune, but again, T4 (probably majority 3) with W3, and some don't have an Invuln at all.

I'm sure there are others.

@Bharring

Good call for the invisiblity. It's more simple this way. Good call too for the Harlequin troop master.

For the cases of the 2+ armor save with reroll, the simplest way to solve it would be to simply not allow any reroll on a 2+ save (at least not on monstruous creatures). It would have to affect a lower save (exemple only the invulnerable save of Asurmen). I guess it would be resonnable if it comes from a psychic power since you need to actually have it cast each turn or if it was on a cover save since they can be ignored by several weapons.

On the other hand, it makes a 2+ worse than a 3+ if you simply can't reroll 2+'s. A reasonable solution that is widely used seems to reroll 2+s at a 4+. This makes it still better than a 3+ rerollable, but not the absurdity of a RAW 2+ rerollable.

Chaos Demons is the big offender - Screamers with Heralds packing Grimoire and such.

@Jambles

I must admit I have never played against Chaos Daemons no one play them in my area. Are Screamers troop choices?

@Bharring

Let's try your idea for the rerollable 2+ save. It does seems more reasonnable.

I've been advocating the 2+/4+ Reroll solution since Daemons first dropped and am thrilled that it eventually got adopted by many.

They're fast attack I think? They just synergise really well with tzeentchian units and equipment.

It's also worth mentioning that in this case it's a 2+ rerollable INVULNERABLE save.

 Zagman wrote:
I've been advocating the 2+/4+ Reroll solution since Daemons first dropped and am thrilled that it eventually got adopted by many.

Admittedly, there's nothing wrong what so ever with a re-rolled 2+ armour save, nor a 2+ re-rolled cover save, as every single army has counters to these. (namely, ap2 and 'ignores cover' weapons/abilities)
The only problem is the predominantly Tzeentch Daemon's ability to reliably gain a re-rolled 2+ [b]invulnerable[/I] save, as the only counter to it is pretty much, "roll a 6 to-wound with a Destroyer weapon!


As for these proposed 'comp' rules... As a Daemon player, I'd say 'screw this'. You just broke my codex with the 30% Troops 'tax', let alone the likes of requiring 4x Troops to access just 2 of copies the other slots.

@Experiment 626

I might not know anything about Chaos Daemons beside their basic units, but aren't their troop choices relatively good in comparision to most of the other ones? Shure these rules can be ruthless when it comes to min-max armies and deathstars. They are designed to limit or even completly destroy these types of armies. Yet I am pretty shure you can salvage a Chaos Daemon army with those rules. It's just going to be very different then what most players are used to see and play with or against. If you could present me one or two of your most often use list, maybe I could try to work a few exeptions for Daemons or something like that.

The new Blood Angels do have that kind of problem to since they rely a lot on their other slots, but our local player has adapted her game (the fact that in term of raw talent she is the best player of our group certainly help).

2+ armour save are also a little bit harder to deal with in that system since the «troop tax» and FOC limitation reduce the quantity of heavy and special weapons on the board and increase the number of models in each army (troops are usually very cheap). Thus heavy weapons with more shots are sometimes prefered in larger quantity.

epronovost wrote:
@Experiment 626

I might not know anything about Chaos Daemons beside their basic units, but aren't their troop choices relatively good in comparision to most of the other ones? Shure these rules can be ruthless when it comes to min-max armies and deathstars. They are designed to limit or even completly destroy these types of armies. Yet I am pretty shure you can salvage a Chaos Daemon army with those rules. It's just going to be very different then what most players are used to see and play with or against. If you could present me one or two of your most often use list, maybe I could try to work a few exeptions for Daemons or something like that.

The new Blood Angels do have that kind of problem to since they rely a lot on their other slots, but our local player has adapted her game (the fact that in term of raw talent she is the best player of our group certainly help).

2+ armour save are also a little bit harder to deal with in that system since the «troop tax» and FOC limitation reduce the quantity of heavy and special weapons on the board and increase the number of models in each army (troops are usually very cheap). Thus heavy weapons with more shots are sometimes prefered in larger quantity.

Troops is the weakest area of the Daemon codex. For the most part, a Daemon army relies heavily on it's HQ's and specialist units, as our Troops are very inflexible and very limited in their actual battlefield roles - typically being purely assault troops outside of Horrors.
They're also dirt cheap, hence, spending 30% of your total pts effectively forces every singe Daemon army to become a horde.

The real damage output of a Daemon army is also not found in our Troops slot, but across HQ's, Fast & Heavy slots. Taking lots of Troops actually reduces our overall damage output, as outside of Daemonettes, none of our Troops options are particularly scary due to being T3/5++. ('Bearers of course being T4 w/possible FnP, but then, they're also Slow & Purposeful, so they're not exactly going anywhere any time soon!)

Sure 30% Troops can be done, but you effectively shoehorn the army into always bringing large squads of Daemonettes, with perhaps a few MSU Horror squads.

It's simply a huge handi-cap that Daemons don't need... Really the only things Daemons need done to them right now would be;
1. Limit Fateweaver, Be'lakor and the Grimoire of True Names to 0-1 in total. Basically, you can have one of these killer options but no combining any of them in the same list.
Good-bye to the nastiest of our Deathstar builds.

2. Horrors only ever generate 1WC, but still cast/dispel as a Lv2 or Lv3 Psyker as per their 'Magic Made Manifest' rule, AND, Horrors may only generate their power from the Discipline of Change.
No more cheapo WC batteries, and also cuts down on Summoning shenanigans.

epronovost wrote:
Army selection requirements

IOW, "STOP HAVING FUN THE WRONG WAY". These changes are massive overkill and apply crippling restrictions to armies that are not overpowered. And if you're going to ban allies at least be consistent, don't give special snowflake exceptions for Imperial players.

@Experiment 626

I will have to consider a few things. A massive reduction of overall damage output is going to touch most armies besides bike heavy armies (these are still problematic). I guess I will have to buy their codex and see for myself how thing can be handled.

@Peregrine

These house rules aren't made to be fun, interesting, full of creativity and allow tons of options of play to players. They are made for people who compete and see in competition their biggest fun. Else why get rid of things like unbound and special scenarios? Of course they are very restrictive. The best and especially simple way to balance a game system with some much options like 40K is to simply reduce these options to a point where besides a few cosmetic changes a little bit of flexibility in specialised units options all armies are going to be roughly identical. This way you can get 30 persons in the same place to compete without falling into a lenghty game of rock-paper-scisors.

As for the few exceptions to allies, they were made because both the Millitarum Tempestus and Harlequin codex are still very limited and don't represent so much problem when combined with other armies. These Skitarii codex isn't very complete either, but could be removed in the following days if they have a second wave of models with those Kastalan robots. Time will tell.

epronovost wrote:
This way you can get 30 persons in the same place to compete without falling into a lenghty game of rock-paper-scisors.

Your proposed restrictions still allow some brutal combos like Decurion, Flyrant spam, Tau suit-spam and Eldar Aspect LELfest (seriously, f*ck Warp Spiders). So you effectively eviscerated 'paper' and nerfed 'scissor' into the ground, but left 'rock' mostly intact. That is... not what I would call balance.

Also, too much player-agreement for a tourney/comp ruleset. I don't play competitively to have a two-hours long dispute about deployment zones, if you know what I mean .

The Decurion is shut down per the no-formations in the above.

The Eldar aspect spam must still take 30% troops. And can't have more of one slot than half troops. With the included Windrider nerf, Eldar troops would be reasonably effective, but not broken. So, if you wanted 3 Warp Spider squads, for instance, you'd need 6 Troop options. That is quite a lot.

I'm not sure the changes listed will result in a balanced game, but both Eldar and Necrons seem to be substantially affected by it. First pass makes it look like most of the cheese from them is handled.

Bharring wrote:
The Decurion is shut down per the no-formations in the above.

It doesn't matter because the proposed rules allow alternate FOC. In the Decurion detachment, you take Core/Auxiliary/Command choices and not formations. Similarly, you don't take Troops choices either (bypassing all the Troops nonsense), only units with the Troops battlefield role (there is a difference).

@AtoMaki

No Decurion detachment isn't allowed neither is the Eldar Warhost detachment. These are actually closer to «super formations» AKA formations that stacks with other ones and share common bonuses. There is to be no exceptions at all for the 30% troop choices requirements and the requirement for twice more troop choice than any other choice (Chaos Daemons might become an exception, but as of now they must comply). It's also forbidden to take multiple FOC bellow 2500 pts. These house rules might become archaic pretty soon since in the comming years, the concept of a «classic» FOC will certainly dissapear in favour of the Eldar Warhost or Decurion detachment and other similar for other armies.